"I asked her," he said, solemnly, "if she had ever seen a purple
rhododendron."
I almost laughed, picturing the scene--the girl bewildered by his
absurd question--Grayson calm, superbly courteous. It was a mental
peculiarity of his--this irrelevancy--and it was like him to end a
matter of life and death in just that way.
"I told her I should send her one. I am waiting for them to come out,"
he added; and he lay back with his head against a stone and sighted the
telescope on a dizzy point, about which buzzards were circling.
"There is just one bush of rhododendron up there," he went on. "I saw
it looking down from the Point last spring. I imagine it must blossom
earlier than that across there on Bee Rock, being always in the sun.
No, it's not budding yet," he added, with his eye to the glass.
"You see that ledge just to the left? I dropped a big rock from the
Point square on a rattler who was sunning himself there last spring. I
can see a foothold all the way up the cliff. It can be done," he
concluded, in a tone that made me turn sharply upon him.
"Do you really mean to climb up there?" I asked, harshly.
"If it blossoms first up there--I'll get it where it blooms first." In
a moment I was angry and half sick with suspicion, for I knew his
obstinacy; and then began what I am half ashamed to tell.
Every day thereafter Grayson took that glass with him, and I went along
to humor him. I watched Bee Rock, and he that one bush at the throat
of the peak--neither of us talking over the matter again. It was
uncanny, that rivalry--sun and wind in one spot, sun and wind in
another--Nature herself casting the fate of a half-crazed fool with a
flower. It was utterly absurd, but I got nervous over
it--apprehensive, dismal.
A week later it rained for two days, and the water was high. The next
day the sun shone, and that afternoon Grayson smiled, looking through
the glass, and handed it to me. I knew what I should see. One purple
cluster, full blown, was shaking in the wind. Grayson was leaning back
in a dream when I let the glass down. A cool breath from the woods
behind us brought the odor of roots and of black earth; up in the
leaves and sunlight somewhere a wood-thrush was singing, and I saw in
Grayson's face what I had not seen for a long time, and that was
peace--the peace of stubborn purpose. He did not come for me the next
day, nor the next; but the next he did, earlier than usual.
"I am going to get that rhododendron," he said. "I have been half-way
up--it can be reached." So had I been half-way up. With nerve and
agility the flower could be got, and both these Grayson had. If he had
wanted to climb up there and drop, he could have done it alone, and he
would have known that I should have found him. Grayson was testing
himself again, and, angry with him for the absurdity of the thing and
with myself for humoring it, but still not sure of him, I picked up my
hat and went. I swore to myself silently that it was the last time I
should pay any heed to his whims. I believed this would be the last.
The affair with the girl was over. The flower sent, I knew Grayson
would never mention her name again.
Nature was radiant that afternoon. The mountains had the leafy
luxuriance of June, and a rich, sunlit haze drowsed on them between the
shadows starting out over the valley and the clouds so white that the
blue of the sky looked dark. Two eagles shot across the mouth of the
Gap as we neared it, and high beyond buzzards were sailing over
Grayson's rhododendron.
I went up the ravine with him and I climbed up behind him--Grayson
going very deliberately and whistling softly. He called down to me
when he reached the shelf that looked half-way.
"You mustn't come any farther than this," he said. "Get out on that
rock and I'll drop them down to you."
Then he jumped from the ledge and caught the body of a small tree close
to the roots, and my heart sank at such recklessness and all my fears
rose again. I scrambled hastily to the ledge, but I could get no
farther. I might possibly make the jump he had made--but how should I
ever get back? How would he? I called angrily after him now, and he
wouldn't answer me. I called him a fool, a coward; I stamped the ledge
like a child--but Grayson kept on, foot after hand, with stealthy
caution, and the purple cluster nodding down at him made my head whirl.
I had to lie down to keep from tumbling from the ledge; and there on my
side, gripping a pine bush, I lay looking up at him. He was close to
the flowers now, and just before he took the last upward step he turned
and looked down that awful height with as calm a face as though he
could have dropped and floated unhurt to the ravine beneath.
Then with his left hand he caught the ledge to the left, strained up,
and, holding thus, reached out with his right. The hand closed about
the cluster, and the twig was broken. Grayson gave a great shout then.
He turned his head as though to drop them, and, that far away, I heard
the sibilant whir of rattles. I saw a snake's crest within a yard of
his face, and, my God! I saw Grayson loose his left hand to guard it!
The snake struck at his arm, and Grayson reeled and caught back once at
the ledge with his left hand. He caught once, I say, to do him full
justice; then, without a word, he dropped--and I swear there was a
smile on his face when he shot down past me into the trees.
I found him down there in the ravine with nearly every bone in his body
crushed. His left arm was under him, and outstretched in his right
hand was the shattered cluster, with every blossom gone but one. One
white half of his face was unmarked, and on it was still the shadow of
a smile. I think it meant more than that Grayson believed that he was
near peace at last. It meant that Fate had done the deed for him and
that he was glad. Whether he would have done it himself, I do not
know; and that is why I say that though Grayson brought the flower
down--smiling from peak to ravine--I do not know that he was not, after
all, a coward.
That night I wrote to the woman in Kentucky. I told her that Grayson
had fallen from a cliff while climbing for flowers; and that he was
dead. Along with these words, I sent a purple rhododendron.