What the storekeeper told Pete was true enough, but such a man as
that could know nothing of the deep inside of things, and the heart
of such a strange woman as Indian Mary was hidden from him and all
like him. It was hidden from herself, even when she knew she was
maimed and disfigured, for still in spite of her bitterness and grief
she yearned to go back to him who had hurt her and made her very
dreadful to see. She had given herself to him once for all, and her
heart was steadfast to the man he seemed to be when he took her to
his house. Even then she had known his history, and had not been
ignorant of his cruelty to a little dead woman who lay with an unborn
child in the cemetery at the back of Kamloops town. When they first
met he was grieving, as even such as Ned must, for the deed that made
him lonely, and he was doing his poor best to keep away from drink.
In those days he was a handsome man, taller and finer looking than
his brother, and he captured Mary's heart. She was taken, as women
can be taken, by seeing a strong man grieving, and she believed that
he was more unfortunate than evil. For ten years she had hoped
against hope, and now knowing that it was almost hopeless, was yet
faithful rather to the dead man within him than to the wretch that he
was.
"I must go back to him," she said. She could do no other.
And yet when he came to the hospital, and asked for her, she fell
into a deadly tremble of sickness and would not see him. He had made
her hideous, for though white linen hid her face, she could see
beneath it, and knew. The man would hate what he had done, and hate
her to whom he had done it. He went away mournfully, and for once
went out of Kamloops quite sober, carrying no liquor. But before he
went he was spoken to by the same sergeant of police whom Pete had
feared after he had destroyed the cattle, and Ned was sick of heart
to be so spoken to.
"It's lucky for you the gal didn't die, Quin," said the sergeant.
"We'd ha' hung you high for it. She allows you didn't do it, but we
know better. Run straight and keep sober, or we'll have you yet.
You're a disgrace to a civilized community, a disgrace to a civilized
country, Sir, that's what you are, you damned cayoot!"
Ned Quin had to take that and chew on it. And once, as he knew, he
had been a man. He cried as he rode back to his ranche. He met old
acquaintances who would not know him, and when he got back home to
find it lonelier than his worst imagination, he feared to face it.
Even the corrals were empty. The cattle that he had loved were dead:
the cañon stank with them. One solitary cow lowed near the shack:
Mary's horse was on the hill behind it with horses that belonged to
Missouri Simpson, one of those who that day had met him on the road
without the salutation that any stranger would get in a hospitable
and kindly land.
He "hung it out" for days without drinking. He worked all he could:
he rode over to the Nikola and rounded up a few head of steers that
hadn't been handy when Pete drove the rest to death. He mended the
broken fences of his corrals: he cleaned up the cold, neglected
house. He cleaned up Mary's blood, and shivered as he scraped the
earthen floor of the signs that were so nearly those of murder and of
death.
He suffered agonies at night-time and still struggled, perhaps in his
last fight against alcohol.
And when he had been alone a week Mary came back. She could not help
coming: her heart was a mother's, seeing that she had no children,
and the poor thing she loved was her child. She was lonely without
him. Perhaps he would be kind now, perhaps he would forgive her for
being so hideous. For one side of her face was still beautiful: both
her sorrowful eyes were lovely. She left the hospital, and never
entered a house in town. She went out at night lest they should see
her, and faced the hill-road, as it wound up the hills at the back of
the town, in a starry darkness. Her strength was not much, but she
had enduring Indian blood in her veins, that blood that helps poor
squaws to carry loads their lordly men will not touch: that blood
that helps them to suffer uncomplaining: that blood which, in their
male children, helps to endure, if need be, the dreadful torture of
the hostile fire and stake. She went swiftly through the night, and
long before dawn came over the last hill in the trail which led to
the desolate ranche where her steadfast heart lay. Under the stars
and a faint fine glow that was the dawn, she saw the little shack,
and then her heart and limbs failed her. She sat down and cried
softly for her sad life and her tortured love, and her lost beauty
under the shroud of white linen over her right cheek and jaw. Would
he be kind to her, or would he hide his eyes and drive her from him?
She knew nothing but that her sad heart needed him, even him, rather
than any kind and gentle man that lived. She rose up trembling but
set forward on the trail, and at last came to the house. A little
chill breeze blew down from the hills, and a cloud hid the faint rose
of dawn, so that it was full night as she crossed the threshold. For
Ned, sleeping uneasily and afraid of the very house, had set the door
open. She stayed and heard him move in the bed. She reached out her
empty arms, but not to any God. She reached them to her wretched
child, her man. And then Ned woke.
"What's that?" he cried aloud. He saw a dark figure against the
lucid night beyond the door.
"What's that?" he cried again. His voice shook.
"It's Mary," said the ghost he saw and feared.
"Oh, you----" he cried. She heard him shake. "Have you come back?"
She fell upon her knees by the bed.
"Yes, Ned."
He reached out a hand to her. It was cold as ice: for the blood had
gone to his heart and brain.
"You've come back--to me?"
He knew it was a miracle, and, brutish and besotted as he was, he
felt the awful benediction of her presence.
"To me!"
To him, to a man who had cursed her life at its springs, who had
given her no joy, who had cut her to pieces by their bed and warm
hearth! She had come back.
"If you want me," she murmured.
He shook and trembled. If he wanted her! He wanted nothing but her:
she was the world to him.
"If I want you!"
He clutched her hands and kissed them. She felt the hot tears run on
them. He wept for her, the poor man wept. She dragged herself close
to the bed and tried to speak, tried to tell him that she was so
altered. She spoke as if he had nothing to do with it: as if she had
been smitten by some strange accident, by some disease, by some
malignant and most unhappy fate. He heard her whisper.
"I'm, I'm not pretty now," she sobbed dryly. "Ned, I'm not toketie
any more!"
For once, perhaps, he suffered more than she did: for that time he
exceeded her grief, because this was his deed. He groaned.
"But if you want me!"
"I want you, Mary," he screamed suddenly, "no one else, dear Mary:
oh, what a wretch I am!"
The best of him, long hidden, long concealed, in a drought of tears,
came up at last. He hid his head in the pillow and cried like a
child. She sat upon the bed in an urgent desire of maternal help and
held his head between her hands.
"Poor Ned!"
She took him at last in her arms and murmured to him gently.
"Oh, oh, my man, my Ned!"
He felt the linen on her face and shivered, but spoke no more. She
lay down by him and, overcome by her strange pure passion and the
fatigue of the miles she had travelled to come to him, she at last
fell asleep.
Then the slow dawn grew up over the clouds, and came in colour across
the sunburnt hills and entered their home. Ned sat up in bed beside
her and saw her dear face covered by its shroud.
"Help me, oh, God!" said the man.
And perhaps help might come, not from any God, but from the deep
heart that prayed to the spirit of man which hides in all hearts and
only answers to prayer, if it answers at all to any pleading.