THE CLERGY OF YAVAPAI
Hours passed before Ann could sleep, and then her slumber was broken,
her rest harried by weird dreams, her half-waking periods crammed with
disturbing fantasies. When broad daylight came, she rose and drew down
the shades of her window and after she had listened to the birds, to the
sounds of the awakening town, to the passing of a train, rest came and
until nearly noon she slept heavily.
She came to herself possessed by a queer sense of unreality and it was
moments before she could determine its source. Then the events of the
evening and night swept back to her intelligence and she closed her
eyes, feeling sick and worn.
Restlessness came upon her finally and she arose, dressed, went
downstairs and forced herself to eat. Several others were in the dining
room and two men sat with her at table. She was conscious that the talk,
which had been loud, diminished when she entered and that those nearest
her were evidently uncomfortable, embarrassed, glad to be through and
gone.
When Nora, the waitress, took her order, Ann saw that the girl eyed her
curiously, possibly sympathetically, and, while that quality could not
help but rouse an appreciation in her, she shrank from the thought that
this whole strange little town was eying her, wondering about her,
dissecting her as she suffered in its midst and even through her loyalty
to her husband crept a hope that her true identity might remain secret.
She left the table and started for the stairway, when the boy who had
given her her room the night before came out of the office. He had not
expected to see her. He stopped and flushed and stammered.
"You ... last night ... you said you might ... that is, do you want th'
automobile, ma'am?"
"I shan't want to go out to-day," Ann answered him, forcing her voice to
steadiness. "I have changed my mind."
Then, she went swiftly up the stairs.
She knew that the youth knew at least a part of her reason for altering
her plans. She knew that within the hour all Yavapai would know that she
was not going to the Sunset mine because Ned Lytton was drunk and hurt,
and she felt like crying aloud to relieve the distress in her heart.
Her room was hot, its smallness was unbearable and, putting on her hat,
she went down the stairs, out of the hotel and, looking up and down the
main street, struck off to the left, for that direction seemed to offer
the quickest exit from the town.
Ann walked swiftly along the hard highway, head down until she had left
the last buildings behind. Then she lifted her chin and drew a deep
breath of the fine mountain air and for the first time realized the
immensity of the surrounding country. Sight of it brought a little gasp
of wonder from her and she halted and turned slowly to look about.
The town was set in the northern edge of a huge valley which appeared to
head in abruptly rising hills not so far to the westward. But to the
south and eastward it swept on and out, astonishing in its apparent
smoothness, its lavish colorings. Northward, its rise was more decided
and not far from the town clumps of brush and scant low timber dotted
the country, but out yonder there appeared to be no growth except the
grass which, where it grew in rank patches, bowed before the breeze and
flashed silver under the brilliant sun. The distances were blue and
inviting. She felt as though she would like to start walking and walk
and walk, alone under that high blue sky.
She strolled on after that and followed the wagon track an hour. Then,
bodily weariness asserted itself and she rested in the shade of a low
oak scrub, twining grass stalks with nervous fingers.
"I would have said that a country like this would have inspired
anybody," she said aloud after a time. "But he's the same. He's small,
he's small!"
Vindictiveness was about her and her tone was bitter.
"Still," she thought, "it may not be too late. That other man ... is as
big as this...."
When she had rested and risen and gone a half mile back toward Yavapai,
she repeated aloud:
"As big as this...."
A great contrast that had been! Bruce Bayard, big, strong, controlled,
clean and thinking largely and clearly; Ned Lytton, little, weak, victim
of his appetites, foul and selfish. She wondered rather vaguely about
Bayard. Was he of that country? Was he the lover of some mountain girl?
Was he, possibly, the husband? No, she recalled that he had said that he
lived alone.... Well, so did she, for that matter!
Scraps of Bayard's talk the night before came back to her and she
pondered over them, twisting their meanings, wondering if she had been
justified in the relief his assurances gave her. There, alone in the
daylight, they all seemed very incredible that she should have opened
her heart, given her dearest confidences to that man. As she thought
back through the hour, she became a trifle panicky, for she did not
realize then that to have remained silent, to have bottled her emotions
within herself longer would have been disastrous; she had reached
Yavapai and the breaking point at the same hour, and, had not Bayard
opportunely encountered her, she would have been forced to talk to the
wheezing hotel proprietor or Nora, the waitress, or the first human
being she met on the street ... someone, anyone! Then, abruptly changing
her course of thought, she reminded herself of the strangeness of the
truth that not once had it occurred to her to worry over the fact that
her husband, in an unconscious condition, had been taken away, she knew
not where, by this stranger. The faith she had felt in Bayard from the
first prevailed. She faced the future with forebodings; about the
present condition of Ned Lytton she did not dare think. A comforting
factor was the conviction that everything was being done for him that
she could do and more ... for she always had been helpless.
She breathed in nervous exasperation at the idea that everything she
saw, talked about, thought or experienced came back to impress her
further with the hopelessness of the situation, then told herself that
fretting would not help; that she must do her all to make matters over,
that she must make good her purpose in coming to this new place.
As she neared the town again, she saw the figure of a man approaching.
He walked slowly, with head down, and his face was wholly shaded by the
broad brim of his felt hat. His hands were behind his back and the
aimlessness of his carriage gave evidence of deep thought.
When the woman was about to pass him, he turned back toward town without
looking up and it was the scuffing of her shoe that attracted him. He
faced about quickly at the sound and stared hard at Ann. The stare was
not offensive. She saw first his eyes, black and large and wonderfully
kind; his hair was white; his shaven lips gentle. Then she observed
that he wore the clothing of a clergyman.
His hand went to his hat band, after his first gaze at her, and he
smiled.
"How-do-you-do?" he said, with friendly confidence.
Ann murmured a greeting.
"I didn't know anyone was on the road. I was thinking rather fiercely, I
guess."
He started to walk beside her and Ann was glad, for he was of that type
whose first appearance attracts by its promise of friendship.
"I've been thinking, too," she answered. "Thinking, among other things
what a wonderful country this is. I'm from the East, I suppose it is not
necessary to say, and this is my first look at your valley."
"Manzanita is a great old sweep of country!" he exclaimed, looking out
over it. "That valley is a good thing to look at when we think that
human anxieties are mighty matters."
He smiled, and Ann looked into his face with a new interest and said:
"I should think that such an influence as this is would tend to lessen
those anxieties; that it would tend to make the people who live near it
big, as it is big."
He looked away and shook his head slowly.
"I hold that theory, too, sometimes ... in my most optimistic hours. But
the more I see of the places in which men live, the closer I watch the
way we humans react to our physical environments, the less faith I have
in it. Some of the biggest, rarest souls I know have developed in the
meanest localities and, on the other hand, some of the worst culls of
the species I've ever seen have been products of countries so big that
they would inspire most men. Perhaps, though, the big men of the small
places would have been bigger in a country like this; possibly, those
who are found wanting out here would fall even shorter of what we expect
of them if they were in less wonderful surroundings."
He paused a moment and then continued: "It may be a myth, this tradition
of the bigness of mountain men; or the impression may thrive because,
out here, we are so few and so widely scattered that we are the only
people who get a proper perspective on one another. That would be a
comfortable thing to believe, wouldn't it? It would mean, possibly, that
if we could only remove ourselves far enough from any community we would
appreciate its virtues and be able to overlook its vices. I'd like to
believe without qualification that a magnificent creation like this
valley would lift us all to a higher level; but I can't. Some of your
enthusiastic young men who come out from the East and write books about
the West would have it that these specimens of humanity which thrive in
the mountains and deserts are all supermen, with only enough rascals
sprinkled about to serve the purposes of their plots. That, of course,
is a fallacy and it may be due to the surprising point of view which we
find ourselves able to adopt when we are removed far enough by distance
or tradition from other people. We have some splendid men here, but the
average man in the mountains won't measure up to where he will
overshadow the average man of any other region ... I believe. We haven't
so many opportunities, perhaps, to show our qualities of goodness and
badness ... although some of us can be downright nasty on occasion!"
He ended with an inflection which caused Ann to believe that he was
thinking of some specific case of misconduct; she felt herself flush
quickly and became suddenly fearful that he might refer directly to Ned.
Last night she had poured her misery into a stranger's ears; to-day she
could not bear the thought of further discussing her husband's life or
condition; she shrank, even, from the idea of being associated with him
in the minds of other people and in desperation she veered the subject
by asking,
"Is it populated much, the valley, I mean?"
"Not yet. Cattle and horse and some sheep ranches are scattered about.
One outfit will use up a lot of that country for grazing purposes, you
know. Someday there'll be water and more people ... and less bigness!"
He told her more of the valley, stopping now and then to indicate
directions.
"I came from over there yesterday," he said, facing about and pointing
into the westward. "Had a funeral beyond those hills. Stopped for
dinner with a young friend of mine whose ranch is just beyond that swell
yonder.... Fine boy; Bayard, Bruce Bayard."
Ann wanted to ask him more about the rancher, but somehow she could not
trust herself; she felt that her voice would be uncertain, for one
thing. Some unnamed shyness, too, held her from questioning him now.
They stopped before the hotel and the man said:
"My name is Weyl. I am the clergy of Yavapai. If you are to be here
long, I'm sure Mrs. Weyl would like to see you. She is in Prescott for a
week or two now."
He put out his hand, and, as she clasped it, Ann said, scarcely
thinking:
"I am Ann Lytton. I arrived last night and may be here some time."
She saw a quick look of pain come into his readable eyes and felt his
finger tighten on hers.
"Oh, yes!" he said, in a manner that made her catch her breath. "I
know.... Your brother, isn't it, the young miner?"
At that the woman started and merely to escape further painful
discussion, unthinkingly clouding her own identity, replied,
"Ned, you mean ... yes...."
"Well, if you're to be here long we will see you, surely. And if there's
anything I can do for you, please ask it."
"You're very kind," she said, as she turned from him.
In her room she stood silent a moment, palms against her cheeks.
Bayard's words came back to her:
"I didn't think you was married ... especially to a thing like that...."
And now this other man concluded that she could not be Ned's wife!
"I must be his wife ... his _good_ wife!" she said, with a stamp of her
foot. "If he ever needed one ... it's now...."