THE SUNSET TRAIL
Ewing had looked forward pleasantly to meeting Virginia Bartell again,
but it was a new Virginia who met him with a nod when he joined the
party on the evening of the start. She had eyes only for her sister, the
white, weak, phantom thing who smiled terribly as her brother half
carried her into the stateroom of their car. Through the days of the
journey he sought to cheer her, wistfully making jests about the flat
land and its people as they sped through the little wooden towns,
promising her a land that would be "busy every minute." But she would
only say, "I'll like your land when it makes sister well."
"It's bound to," he assured her. "Nobody dies there unless he gets
careless. Here, this is the way it happens. Here's Ben Crider's last
letter. You'll like Ben. Listen to this and see if it doesn't make you
hopeful." He opened the scrawled sheet and read:
"'Dear Kid, I thought it about time to write you a few lines. If you
seen the lake now you would want to of been here. Life and nature seems
very complete here. I heard Chet Lynch shot Elmer Watts. I been building
a haystacker for Pierce. Plenty deer sign around the lick. Lee Jennings
was killed by a bucker falling back on him. I can sell your saddle for
twenty-two dollars to Ben Lefferts. I put a new latigo on it. Let me
know. Say, Kid, I sent two dollars to the Mystic Novelty Company. The
address is Lock Box 1347. The ad. said they would send you a book how to
read past, present and future from the hand and a genuine ten-karat
Persian diamond pin set in solid gold, if you sent on one dollar in
stamps or P. O. order. Well, the diamond may be all right enough
Persian, but the solid gold setting has turned black. You go there and
ask for the head man and raise particular--'" He broke off the reading.
"You see, they only die by getting shot, or falling off a horse."
The girl shuddered and turned to him with a sudden helpless yielding.
"I can hardly bear it," she said, almost in a whisper. "You don't know
what she is to me, how I've loved her and loved her and loved her. And
yet I've accepted her as a matter of course, a thing that couldn't be
taken from me, like the world itself. How could I think she might be
like--like those others? Oh, I never dreamed I could lose my dearest--my
dearest!"
He waited a moment, and at last said gently, "You won't lose your
dearest--we won't lose her."
"Oh, but she's going, before our eyes."
"Listen to me, listen now! She's going to get well. She'll be strong
again--I know it. I say she can't die; but you must be sure of it--as
sure as I am--do you hear?--as sure as I am."
"Yes, yes--I will be sure." She tried to look at him through her
tear-wet lashes. He smiled at her confidently.
"If we're both sure, we can have your sister crying in a month because
Ben won't let her work in the garden."
"Oh, if you only--" She broke off to look at him in wondering gratitude.
"And I'll go in and tell her so now," he added, rising.
"Yes, yes, make her feel sure, too," she implored. She turned quickly to
the car window, where twilight was blurring the fields to a far, dreamy
horizon, level and vast. He stood a moment, tracing with mental point
the line of her profile under the boyish cap pinned to her yellow hair.
Mrs. Laithe lay on a narrow sofa in the stateroom. She had moved from
that only to the berth at night since their start, and had betrayed a
preference for being alone in the little compartment. Ewing had felt,
however, that she liked to talk with him as evening drew on. She had
sent for him at this hour the day before and they had sat together in
the dusk. He was reassured by the cheerfulness of her tone as she
greeted him now.
"We're flying so fast," she said joyously.
"To make you well the sooner. I've just been telling Virginia what we'll
do for you even in a month. You'll be riding and climbing, and you'll
cry because you can't fell trees or rive out shakes, or something."
"I'm not worrying about that. It will come right very soon."
"We'll make it come right. No one ever dies a natural death there, you
know. I was just reading your sister a letter from Ben. Lee Jennings
killed breaking a horse, Elmer Watts shot by Chester Lynch. Of course,
in a way, that was a natural death for Elmer. He was bound to go that
way sooner or later, but you're not going to ride a bucker, and you're
not a gunfighter. Oh, you'll thrive, with a little stall feeding."
"And there's so much room out there." She smiled. "So much room to--to
live. And life is so full. I like to hear it, through Virgie and through
you. You are shells that give me the roar of it."
He was sensitive to some pathos of aloofness which her whole being
expressed for him, and he strove to meet this with pictures of herself
returning, a well woman; but she turned her face from him at length, and
did not speak for so long that he thought she might be sleeping. He went
carefully out, with a last enveloping look.
When he had gone the woman laughed in a helpless, shuddering way, then
raised herself far enough toward the window to see the fields rushing by
outside. There was timidity in her look until she had seen a mile of
that relentless earth rush back and away from her. She seemed to need
this assurance that she was going away from the trouble in the crude,
literal sense of earthly distance--going off where there was room "to
live," she had told Ewing; "to die," she had amended the phrase to
herself. For death was now a solace she faced. She who had been so hot
for the fight, so avid of life, had been cheated of a combatant's
privileges. She could not tell Ewing the truth, and she could not live
while he believed the lie. It was well, she thought, to know that she
had only to let herself float down that placid current of the white
death. She was amazed at her own calmness and tested it in all subtle
ways, making sure of its foundations. She could find no weak spot. She
craved only a moderate speed in the descent. Too long a wait would be
wearisome, and the wise man had assured her against that. Yet she felt
that she had the right to be a little glad when her brother told her the
next day of a change in the plan.
"It will be better for you and Virgie to go to Ewing's place, Nell.
It's always quiet there, and my place is pretty busy and noisy. I'll
manage to stay over there with you a good deal, and we'll get a woman to
come and do for you--I know one that will be glad to come. It will only
be for a little while, you know."
She smiled at that well-worn fiction, but applauded the plan.
"I shall like it, dear, and Virgie will, too, I'm sure, if you think it
best, and if Mr. Ewing----"
"Ewing suggested it, and he didn't waste any words telling what a good
plan he thought it was. We'll have some extra things brought up from
Pagosa to make you comfortable, and you can have a bully long rest
there."
"A long rest, yes--and let us have a piano. I'd like to hear some music
while I'm resting."
"Sure! we'll have one up from Durango. You might need to stay there
until--well--into the winter, you know."
"I think so, Clarence." She was tempted sometimes to confide to him the
truth about her sickness, but refrained.
"Well, it won't be very long. All you want is a rest."
Her mind echoed it when he had gone. Yes, a rest. She looked up at
Virginia, who had entered softly. Her face still shone with the thought
of rest and release, and she smiled up at the girl, who had laid a cool
hand on her flushing cheek, and now regarded her with devouring eyes.
She stood so a moment, then knelt to peer at the wasted face. She looked
a long time without speaking, looked shrewdly and, at last, accusingly.
"What is it, dearest? I saw it in your face yesterday. What is it I see?
Something has frightened you--beaten you."
The other smiled protestingly, chidingly, with a raised finger; but the
girl was not to be appeased.
"You won't tell me, Nell; I know you; you'll keep it in. But, oh,
dearest!" She suddenly gathered the sick woman into her strong young
arms, raising her head from the pillow, holding the fevered face to her
breast, pressing her own cool cheek to the hot brow.
"Dearest dear, let me in. Trust me. Tell me where it hurts. Let me
mother you."
"There, there, dear! Everything is all right. Lay me down again and be
easy in that mind of yours."
But once more on the pillow she had to endure again the girl's accusing
eyes.
"Nell, someone hasn't loved you enough. That's what I feel. Who is it?"
"Nonsense! You're only worried because I'm a little run down. Everyone
loves me enough--all I deserve. There, dear, I think I can rest." The
girl kissed her shut eyes, and went out, after a long, doubting look.
The sick woman raised her arms once, like a child who would be taken,
but they fell back, and she painfully laughed the old low laugh of
secrecy.
She mused on her brother's words. "A little rest." Yes, a rest. "Yet a
little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep."
She remembered now that it would come to her in the shelter of those
hills, perhaps in that room to which her thoughts had flown so many
times, where she had seen the awakening man in the sleeping boy, and
caught misty shadowings of the portent he bore for her. Her eyes might
fall before his now, but they need not fall before the eyes of his
mother.