The Last Stetson | Page 3

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Prepared by David Reed [email protected] or [email protected]
The Last Stetson by John Fox Jr.
1
A MIDSUMMER freshet was running over old Gabe Bunch's
water-wheel into the Cumberland. Inside the mill Steve Marcum lay in
one dark corner with a slouched hat over his face. The boy Isom was
emptying a sack of corn into the hopper. Old Gabe was speaking his
mind.
Always the miller had been a man of peace; and there was one time
when he thought the old Stetson-Lewallen feud was done. That was
when Rome Stetson, the last but one of his name, and Jasper Lewallen,
the last but one of his, put their guns down and fought with bare fists on
a high ledge above old Gabe's mill one morning at daybreak. The man
who was beaten was to leave the mountains; the other was to stay at
home and have peace. Steve Marcum, a Stetson, heard the sworn terms
and saw the fight. Jasper was fairly whipped; and when Rome let him
up he proved treacherous and ran for his gun. Rome ran too, but
stumbled and fell. Jasper whirled with his Winchester and was about to
kill Rome where he lay, when a bullet came from somewhere and
dropped him back to the ledge again. Both Steve Marcum and Rome
Stetson said they had not fired the shot; neither would say who had.
Some thought one man was lying, some thought the other was, and
Jasper's death lay between the two. State troops came then, under the
Governor 's order, from the Blue Grass, and Rome had to drift down
the river one night in old Gabe's canoe and on Out of the mountains for
good. Martha Lewallen, who, though Jasper's sister, and the last of the
name, loved and believed Rome, went with him. Marcums and
Braytons who had taken sides in the fight hid in the bushes around
Hazlan, or climbed over into Virginia. A railroad started up the
Cumberland. "Furriners came in to buy wild lands and get out timber.
Civilization