THE FACE IN THE WILLOWS
THAT evening, in her tent by the river-bed, Mrs. Parrish thought that
she heard a noise outside. She had been lying down, a wet cloth pressed
over her eyes which would twitch in spite of desperate effort. She had
sent Sam to Yuma for ammonia and headache powders, and for valerian;
the last for her nerves.
It was only the wind rustling the river willows, but it startled her
every time. She wished that she had not let him go. The headache, the
twitching, was easier to stand than loneliness. She kept her nerves
on edge listening for noises. That noise again! Some one was surely
prowling about the tent. She raised her head, straining her ears. There
was no sound without. She was unstrung. All that excitement about the
murder of Maldonado had made her scary. There, what was that?
She tore the wet rag from her eyes and jumped up. A face haggard and
wild was staring at her through the screen-wire door. The twilight was
lingering; the long warm dusk of the desert. She could see that it was
an Indian, and her blood froze; for a purple scar twisted his face.
She had seen the rurales nail a notice on the tool house down the
river that very morning. She had braved the fierce noon sun to read
it. The description was burned in red letters on her memory. “High
cheek-bones, long streaming hair. Faded cotton shirt, a scar from mouth
to ear!”
“Bread,” the voice grated on her. “_Dame el pan_, señora. Love of Gord,
bread, señora. _Pi_-why. _La-hum-pah._”
Her flesh chilling, she was backing cautiously toward the table. He
must not guess what she was seeking.
She found it difficult to enunciate. Her tongue was thick. “You
understand camp? Indian Camp?” He shook his head. She was still
backing, retreating toward her revolver. “Camp,” she insisted. “Indians
have bread, mucho. Go there. Get bread, mucho, there.”
“Bread,” he pleaded. “Bread, señora. _Hambreando!_”
Starving! She knew what that meant. Then he was dangerous. To save
herself, she would give him bread, but she was afraid to open the door.
Every Indian tragedy she had ever read shook her then with terror. She
was groping blindly, her hand behind her, over the crowded surface
of the table. She struck against the cold steel butt of the gun. Her
fingers curled around it.
“Go away,” she repeated. “Man come pretty soon.” He would know what
that meant. She lifted her revolver, and the face left the door.
She dared not now have a light. Her heart was bursting. If it would not
pound so! She must quiet it, so she could breathe, so she could shoot.
How could she be calm? She was thinking of the things the Indians do to
people, to people who have not harmed them; of scalping, of tortures.
Sam said these Indians were gentle; but he had said her tent would not
blow down. He would not deceive her. He did not know. This man had
killed two innocent people. Perhaps they had refused to give him bread.
How badly Sam would feel that he had left her; things always happened
when he was away. But she had urged him; she could not stand the pain
another night. The night! It stretched before her, a long torture of
fear.
She caught a sound at the rear of the tent. That light screen door,
held only by a thin hook! Any child could break that down. Why had she
let Sam go? He was scarcely on his way. Two hours to get there, if he
was lucky and his horse not too tired. An hour to rouse the drug clerk,
and get the drugs--two hours back. God! she would go mad!
She strained her ears to listen, the silence of the desert falling like
lead on her ear-drum. There was that stealthy step again, moving around
the tent! She would have to do something. She must give him bread if he
was starving. Hunger makes men desperate. He had been in hiding for two
days, she had heard the rurales tell Sam. Perhaps he had eaten nothing
since that time--she shivered at the picture she conjured of the dead
man and woman. She wondered why he had killed them? Just because he was
starving, because they refused to give him bread? She wondered if he
had tortured them, scalped them? When he came into her vision again,
well in front of the tent, she would hurl a loaf out the back door, and
hook it before he could get back there. Perhaps he would go away, if
she gave him something to eat.
The voice came whining through her door again.
“Bread, señora, bread, señora!”
Her gun in one hand, firmly clenched, she groped in a starch box with
her left for the bread. Then, swift as a shot, she opened the rear door
and threw the soggy loaf of her own making into the gathering shadows.
“There, bread!” she cried. She heard the sound of running steps. Then
fell a silence that pounded at her ears. She stood it as long as she
could. She had to see if he had gone; what was he doing? She peered
through the front screen door. On the ground, close by, sat the Indian,
tearing his loaf, gnawing it like a beast, looking the beast, his eyes
wild and menacing.
She shivered. “Go away,” she said, pointing to the river-growth with
her revolver. “Man come back; soon!”
He grabbed up his loaf to his cotton shirt, and ran toward the
river-bank, a dark clump of willows receiving him. Even then she was
afraid to leave the door. He might come back. She stood there, her eyes
fixed on that clump of willows which had swallowed him, as the desert
stars came pricking through the soft drop-curtain of the sky. Her eyes
had to strain through the uncertain light, pale starshine and vague
twilight. She could barely make out the outlines of the shrubs.
Once she thought he was returning; there was a movement in the willows
as a breeze waved the supple branches. Her finger sought the trigger.
Cold they were, and stiff. Suppose she could not press it? Perhaps she
could not shoot! Her legs, too, were numb from standing. She wanted a
chair, but her eyes must not leave for one second that dark spot of
bank. She remembered a pine box she used for a supplementary table.
If she could but reach that! Her unoccupied hand groped through the
darkness. Then she tried her foot. A sharp broken scream burst from
her. She shook,--with fear, but of course he could not have crept in!
She would have heard him break the door. Foolish, to be so nervous.
That was only the box she had felt, the box with a woolen cloth over
it, the green and yellow portière from Coulter’s, Chicago. Was it
Coulter’s? Where _was Coulter’s_? How her head pounded!
She must not let herself go like that. She must control herself. She
had a long night ahead of her.
For an instant, as she relaxed her stiffened muscles toward the pine
box, her sharp gaze wavered from the dark spot on the river-bank. She
pulled herself together sharply; she must not let him surprise her,
steal on her. She must be on guard. Her finger found the trigger again.
Why had she sent Sam? Oh, why had she ever let him leave her?
The stars were coming out in numbers now. Increasingly, their lamps
fell on the cleared space between the tent and the dark river-line. A
broad band of star-washed sand lay between her and the skulking figure
in the brush, the Indian who had murdered Maldonado. She would see him
the instant he stepped out on that belt of light. If she kept her eyes
fixed--they must not stray. Before he could reach her, she would shoot.
She would have no scruples. He had had none for that man and woman down
yonder. She wondered if they were young, if it was for bread he had
killed them.
Why was she alone? She couldn’t remember. It made her head hurt to
think. She was always alone in this desert. Why had she made Sam bring
her to such a place, when he wanted to stay home with the folks and
the doctor? Why had they come? Oh, yes, she remembered. Their tent had
blown down, their Nebraska tent. Funny to see it come down, the dishes
all smashing. What a noise they made. It made her laugh to think of
it. How it made her laugh! Ssh. She must not laugh. He would hear her
over there. He would come creeping back, to leer at her.
What was that smell? Rice, burning rice and scorched codfish. She
always let rice burn. She could never remember to control that blue
flame, no, it was a yellow flame, long fingers of yellow fire, like the
rays of the sun in the desert. Or was it Nebraska? What a smell that
was! And she could not leave the door, nor take her eyes from the clump
of willows because the company’s automobile would be coming upon her,
and she with her purple waist on.
What was she thinking of? Nothing was burning. That had happened long
ago, before the scorpion frightened her, before the tent blew down back
in Nebraska. She couldn’t think straight, she was getting sleepy. She
must shake it off. Until Sam came back from the levee with the bottles
of rice. She knew what those Indians did to people, hungry Indians.
They cut off your scalp. Her hairpins might save her, wire hairpins.
The Wistaria. What made her think of that? That was where the good
doctor lived who knew what was the matter with her. No--that was
Nebraska. But there were no tents in Nebraska. Her head hurt. She
wished he would come, or Sam.
There, a movement in the brush. She must be all ready to shoot. Suppose
she could not pull the trigger? Her fingers were like bits of steel.
Sam would come home and find her lying there, her scalp gone. How funny
she would look. Ssh, she must not laugh. The Indian did not like it. He
killed anybody who laughed. Sam had told her so. From his hiding-place,
she could see the Indian shake his finger at her. No, it was a willow
branch.--She must be calm!
Sam would be sorry that he had had a headache. It must have been a bad
headache, or he would not have left her. He had to get that codfish for
his head. No, it was rice; burning rice.
Her eyes burned. If the willows moved, could she see them? She wondered
if she should blink to rest those burning balls, would he see it and
rush at her, break down that door, barred with a wire hairpin?
She had been sitting there for years. Sam was never coming back. Her
gun lay on her knees; her finger touched the trigger. Oh, she could not
keep awake any longer. She was slipping, slipping off to--somewhere.
The Wistaria. She would bite her lip. That would pull her back. But she
could not find her lip. It was running away from her.
There was a stealthy creeping sound outside the tent. She could not see
anything. But her eyes pained so. Perhaps he was creeping. A shadow
fell between her and the stars. A cautious hand tried the latch.
She fell to low shaking laughter. Funny, he thought he could get in! He
didn’t know the door was barred--an Indian fooled by a wire hairpin! He
could never get in. He would hear her laughing. It would make him angry.
“Lizzie!”
The laughter stopped. He knew her name. He was trying to trick her, to
make his voice sound like Sam’s.
Her voice was thick with strangled laughter. “Can’t come in. Can’t get
in. Barred, hairpin.”
“Lizzie!”
“Say, ‘señora.’ Go away. Man come back.”
“Lizzie!” There was an impact of determined muscle against wood, the
door-jamb splintering. A stifled scream rose toward the desert stars.
The door fell in. A different sound split the air; another cry in
a deeper key, and a man’s body fell across her knees. Some bottles
crashed to the floor. There was a swift odor of spilled ammonia, of
valerian.
Something was burning again! Rice. Burning on her knees. She couldn’t
shake it off. Why didn’t some one come and take off this dead Indian?
He hadn’t got her scalp. It made her laugh--hush, she must call. She
fell to screaming; low terrible cries, thick and muffled, coming
through her twitching and twisted mouth.
She was sitting there the next morning when they found her, the body of
Sam Parrish shot to the heart, lying at her feet. Her empty gun lay on
her knees; her finger at the trigger. Her eyes stared into the willows.
They thought her dead until they touched her. Then she screamed!
They carried her out of the valley the next day, still screaming.