Crack in the Sky by Terry C. Johnston

to the song. He took a drink to hide the flush of embarrassment.
    “Gimme drink,” Jack ordered.
    When Bass took the cup from Hatcher’s lips as the song sailed on, Jack asked, “What else ye know?”
    “Songs?”
    “Any other’ns?”
    “A few I might recall, if’n I heard the tune.”
    “How ’bout this’un?”
    And with that Hatcher immediately slipped into a new melody without lagging a note. After a few moments Bass realized he knew this one too. As he began to sing, Simms and Rowland came over with their cups; then others began to walk up, stopping to listen to Bass’s singing.
    I’m lonesome since I cross’d the hill
,
And o’er the moor and valley;

Such heavy thoughts my heart do fill
,
Since parting with my Sally
.
    How he had come to love this song in that first youthful blush of manhood—if not for the lament expressed by those melancholy words he had come to know by heart so many years ago, then he loved the song because of the delicate way the notes slid up and down the scale, all of them blended this night by the bow Jack Hatcher dragged across those taut gut strings.
    I
seek no more the fine and gay
,
For each does but remind me

How swift the hours did pass away
,
With the girl I’ve left behind me
.
    More company men came up now, falling quiet as they came to a stop in a loose ring around Hatcher and Bass, listening intently. From the looks on their hairy, tanned faces, the glistening in their eyes as the firelight danced across them all, it was plain to read that every last one of these men had someone special left far, far behind. Many miles, and perhaps many years, behind.
    Oh, ne’er shall I forget the night
,
The stars were bright above me
,
And gently lent their sil’vry light
,
When first she vow’d she loved me
.
    Hardened men, all—softened for only a moment as the wistful notes of the fiddle blended with the plaintivewords of one who has left behind a loved one oft remembered in quiet moments around a crackling fire here deep in the heart of the mountains, where only a bold breed dared live.
    But now I’m bound to Brighton camp
,
Kind Heav’n, may favor find me
,
And send me safely back again

To the girl I’ve left behind me
.
    For long moments the last note hung in the still, cool air of that summer eve at the south shore of Sweet Lake, men struck dumb by the sweetness of the song, by its mournful sentiment. Some of the trappers chose to put their cups to their lips, there behind the tins to blink their moist eyes clear; others chose to snort and hack, clearing throats clogged thick with sentiment.
    Nathan Porter pierced the ring formed by others to shove a cup at Hatcher. “Drink, friend!” When Jack took the tin, Porter turned to Bass. “That was fine, the way you singed.”
    Embarrassed, Titus sipped at his liquor.
    Porter asked Hatcher, “You only play the fiddle?”
    “I been knowed to strum my hands across nigh anything with strings.” He handed the empty cup back to Porter. “Why, ye got a song ye want me to play?”
    “No, not no song,” Porter replied. “But we got us this squeezebox belong’t to one of the boys—”
    “Squeezebox?” Hatcher interrupted.
    “That’s right,” Porter stated, biting a lip before he went on. “Fella name of Ryman, went under this past spring to some of Bug’s Boys.”
    Jack’s eyes lit with a merry fever. “He had him a squeezebox?”
    Nathan grinned hugely. “He did.”
    “Elbridge!” Jack bellowed over the heads of the others with a childish glee.
    In a moment Gray emerged through the cordon of trappers knotted around Hatcher. “What you hail me for?”
    “Porter here says he’s got him a squeezebox.”
    “That true?” Gray demanded, wheeling on Nathan.
    “Never thort to try it out,” Porter explained. “Cain’t none of us play it anyway.”
    Gray snagged one hand on Nathan’s collar, fairly screaming in glee, “Get it for me!”
    “Grimes! Get that squeezebox you been packing along!” Then Porter