A Cumberland Vendetta

A Cumberland Vendetta' is a Western-themed novel written by John Fox Jr. The story unfolds as we follow two boys who stood on a massive shoulder of the mountain, the river girding it far below, and the afternoon shadows at their feet. Both carried guns--the tall mountaineer, a Winchester; the boy, a squirrel rifle longer than himself. Climbing about the rocky spur, they kept the same level over log and bowlder and through a bushy ravine to the north. In half an hour, they ran into a path that led up home from the river, and they stopped to rest on a cliff that sank into a solid black wall straight under them. The sharp edge of a steep cornfield ran near, and, stripped of blade and tassel, the stalks and hooded ears looked in the coming dusk a little like monks at prayer. In the sunlight across the river, the corn stood thin and frail. Over there a drought was on it; and when drifting thistle plumes marked the noontide of the year, each yellow stalk had withered blades and an empty sheath. Everywhere a look of vague trouble lay upon the face of the mountains, and when the wind blew, the silver of the leaves showed ashenly. Autumn was at hand. There was no physical sign of kinship between the two, half-brothers though they were. The tall one was dark; the boy, a foundling, had flaxen hair and was stunted and slender. He was a dreamy-looking little fellow, and one may easily find his like throughout the Cumberland-paler than his fellows, from staying much indoors, with half-haunted face, and eyes that are deeply pathetic when not cunning; ignorantly credited with idiocy and uncanny powers; treated with much forbearance, some awe, and a little contempt; and suffered to do his pleasure-nothing or much that is a strange-without comment.