CALL FROM CANAAN “Trouble on Tularoosa Creek!” A warning to send cold fear along the spine of any man who was raised in that isolated back country, called Canaan, that lies between Tularoosa and Black River — to send him racing back to that swamp-bordered region, wherever the word might reach him. It was only a whisper from the withered lips of a shuffling black crone, who vanished among the throng before I could seize her; but it was enough. No need to seek confirmation; no need to inquire by what mysterious, black-folk way the word had come to her. No need to inquire what obscure forces worked to unseal those wrinkled lips to a Black River man. It was enough that the warning had been given — and understood. Understood? How could any Black River man fail to understand that warning? It could have but one meaning — old hates seething again in the jungle-deeps of the swamplands, dark shadows slipping through the cypress, and massacre stalking out of the black, mysterious village that broods on the moss-festooned shore of sullen Tularoosa.
