"Ride hooly, ride hooly, now, gentlemen,
Ride hooly now wi' me,"
came into my mind; and no man ever kept beside a "wearier burd," on a
sadder journey.
At dusk we came to Belgian Flat, and here Maverick, dismounting, mixed a
little whisky in his flask with water which he dipped from the pool. She
must have recalled who dug the well, and with whom she had drunk in the
morning. He held it to her lips. She rejected it with a strong shudder
of disgust.
"Drink it!" he commanded. "You'll kill yourself, carryin' on like this."
He pressed it on her, but she turned away her face like a sick and
rebellious child.
"Maybe she'll drink it for you," said Maverick, with bitter patience,
handing me the cup.
"Will you?" I asked her gently. She shook her head, but at the same time
she let me take her hand, and put it down from her face, and I held the
cup to her lips. She drank it, every drop. It made her deathly sick,
and I took her off her horse, and made a pillow of my coat, so that she
could lie down. In ten minutes she was asleep. Maverick covered her with
his coat after she was no longer conscious.
We built a fire on the edge of the lava, for we were both chilled and
both miserable, each for his own part in that day's work.
The flat is a little cup-shaped valley formed by high hills, like dark
walls, shutting it in. The lava creeps up to it in front.
We hovered over the fire, and Maverick fed it, savagely, in silence. He
did not recognize my presence by a word--not so much as if I had been a
strange dog. I relieved him of it after a while, and went out a little
way on the lava. At first all was blackness after the strong glare of
the fire; but gradually the desolation took shape, and I stumbled about
in it, with my shadow mocking me in derisive beckonings, or crouching
close at my heels, as the red flames towered or fell. I stayed out there
till I was chilled to the bone, and then went back defiantly. Maverick
sat as if he had not moved, his elbows on his knees, his face in his
hands. I wondered if he were thinking of that other sleeper under the
birches of Deadman's Gulch, victim of an unhappy girl's revolt. Had she
loved him? Had she deceived him as well as herself? It seemed to me they
were all like children who had lost their way home.
By midnight the moon had risen high enough to look at us coldly over the
tops of the great hills. Their shadows crept forth upon the lava. The
fire had died down. Maverick rose, and scattered the winking brands with
his boot-heel.
"We must pull out," he said. "I'll saddle up, if you will"--The
hoarseness in his voice choked him, and he nodded toward the sleeper.
I dreaded to waken the poor Rose. She was very meek and quiet after the
brief respite sleep had given her. She sat quite still, and watched me
while I shook the sand from my coat, put it on, and buttoned it to the
chin, and drew my hat down more firmly. There was a kind of magnetism in
her gaze; I felt it creep over me like the touch of a soft hand.
When her horse was ready, Maverick brought it, and left it standing
near, and went back to his own, without looking toward us.
"Come, you poor, tired little girl," I said, holding out my hand. She
could not find her way at first in the uncertain light, and she seemed
half asleep still, so I kept her hand in mine, and guided her to her
horse. "Now, once more up," I encouraged her; and suddenly she was
clinging to me, and whispering passionately:
"Can't you take me somewhere? Where are those women that you know?" she
cried, shaking from head to foot.
"Dear little soul, all the women I know are two thousand miles away," I
answered.
"But can't you take me _somewhere_? There must be some place. I know you
would be good to me; and you could go away afterward, and I wouldn't
trouble you any more."
"My child, there is not a place under the heavens where I could take
you. You must go on like a brave girl, and trust to your friends. Keep
up your heart, and the way will open. God will not forget you," I said,
and may He forgive me for talking cant to that poor soul in her bitter
extremity.
She stood perfectly still one moment while I held her by the hands. I
think she could have heard my heart beat; but there was nothing I could
do. Even now I wake in the night, and wonder if there was any other
way--but one; the way that for one wild moment I was half tempted to
take.
"Yes; the way will open," she said very low. She cast off my hands, and
in a second she was in the saddle, and off up the road, riding for her
life. And we two men knew no better than to follow her.
I knew better, or I think, now, that I did. I told Maverick we had
pushed her far enough. I begged him to hold up and at least not to let
her see us on her track. He never answered a word, but kept straight on,
as if possessed. I don't think he knew what he was doing. At least there
was only one thing _he_ was capable of doing--following that girl till
he dropped.
Two miles beyond the Flat there is another turn, where the shoulder of a
hill comes down and crowds the road, which passes out of sight. She saw
us hard upon her, as she reached this bend. Maverick was ahead. Her
horse was doing all he could, but it was plain he could not do much
more. She looked back, and flung out her hand in the man's sleeve that
half covered it. She gave a little whimpering cry, the most dreadful
sound I ever heard from any hunted thing.
We made the turn after her; and there lay the road white in the
moonlight, and as bare as my hand. She had escaped us.
We pulled up the horses, and listened. Not a sound came from the hills
or the dark gulches, where the wind was stirring the quaking asps; the
lonesome hush-sh made the silence deeper. But we heard a horse's step go
clink, clinking--a loose, uncertain step wandering away in the lava.
"Look! look there! My God!" groaned Maverick.
There was her horse limping along one of the hollow ridges, but the
saddle was empty.
"She has taken to the lava!"
I had no need to be told what that meant; but if I had needed, I learned
what it meant before the night was through. I think that if I were a
poet, I could add another "dolorous circle" to the wailing-place for
lost souls.
But she had found a way. Somewhere in that stony-hearted wilderness she
is at rest. We shall see her again when the sea--the stupid, cruel sea
that crawls upon the land--gives up its dead.