Except for its chair and bed, the cabin was stripped almost bare. Amid
its emptiness of dismantled shelves and walls and floor, only the tiny
ancestress still hung in her place, last token of the home that had
been. This miniature, tacked against the despoiled boards, and its
descendant, the angry girl with her hand on an open box-lid, made a sort
of couple in the loneliness: she on the wall sweet and serene, she by
the box sweet and stormy. The picture was her final treasure waiting to
be packed for the journey. In whatever room she had called her own
since childhood, there it had also lived and looked at her, not quite
familiar, not quite smiling, but in its prim colonial hues delicate as
some pressed flower. Its pale oval, of color blue and rose and
flaxen, in a battered, pretty gold frame, unconquerably pervaded any
surroundings with a something like last year’s lavender. Till yesterday
a Crow Indian war-bonnet had hung next it, a sumptuous cascade of
feathers; on the other side a bow with arrows had dangled; opposite had
been the skin of a silver fox; over the door had spread the antlers of
a black-tail deer; a bearskin stretched beneath it. Thus had the whole
cosey log cabin been upholstered, lavish with trophies of the frontier;
and yet it was in front of the miniature that the visitors used to stop.
Shining quietly now in the cabin’s blackness this summer day, the
heirloom was presiding until the end. And as Molly Wood’s eyes fell upon
her ancestress of Bennington, 1777, there flashed a spark of steel in
them, alone here in the room that she was leaving forever. She was not
going to teach school any more on Bear Creek, Wyoming; she was going
home to Bennington, Vermont. When time came for school to open again,
there should be a new schoolmarm.
This was the momentous result of that visit which the Virginian had paid
her. He had told her that he was coming for his hour soon. From that
hour she had decided to escape. She was running away from her own heart.
She did not dare to trust herself face to face again with her potent,
indomitable lover. She longed for him, and therefore she would never see
him again. No great-aunt at Dunbarton, or anybody else that knew her and
her family, should ever say that she had married below her station, had
been an unworthy Stark! Accordingly, she had written to the Virginian,
bidding him good-by, and wishing him everything in the world. As she
happened to be aware that she was taking everything in the world away
from him, this letter was not the most easy of letters to write. But
she had made the language very kind. Yes; it was a thoroughly kind
communication. And all because of that momentary visit, when he had
brought back to her two novels, EMMA and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
“How do you like them?” she had then inquired; and he had smiled slowly
at her. “You haven’t read them!” she exclaimed.
“No.”
“Are you going to tell me there has been no time?”
“No.”
Then Molly had scolded her cow-puncher, and to this he had listened with
pleasure undisguised, as indeed he listened to every word that she said.
“Why, it has come too late,” he had told her when the scolding was over.
“If I was one of your little scholars hyeh in Bear Creek schoolhouse,
yu’ could learn me to like such frillery I reckon. But I’m a mighty
ignorant, growed-up man.”
“So much the worse for you!” said Molly.
“No. I am pretty glad I am a man. Else I could not have learned the
thing you have taught me.”
But she shut her lips and looked away. On the desk was a letter written
from Vermont. “If you don’t tell me at once when you decide,” had said
the arch writer, “never hope to speak to me again. Mary Wood, seriously,
I am suspicious. Why do you never mention him nowadays? How exciting
to have you bring a live cow-boy to Bennington! We should all come
to dinner. Though of course I understand now that many of them have
excellent manners. But would he wear his pistol at table?” So the letter
ran on. It recounted the latest home gossip and jokes. In answering it
Molly Wood had taken no notice of its childish tone here and there.
“Hyeh’s some of them cactus blossoms yu’ wanted,” said the Virginian.
His voice recalled the girl with almost a start. “I’ve brought a good
hawss I’ve gentled for yu’, and Taylor’ll keep him till I need him.”
“Thank you so much! but I wish--”
“I reckon yu’ can’t stop me lendin’ Taylor a hawss. And you cert’nly’ll
get sick schoolteachin’ if yu’ don’t keep outdoors some. Good-by--till
that next time.”
“Yes; there’s always a next time,” she answered, as lightly as she
could.
“There always will be. Don’t yu’ know that?”
She did not reply.
“I have discouraged spells,” he pursued, “but I down them. For I’ve told
yu’ you were going to love me. You are goin’ to learn back the thing you
have taught me. I’m not askin’ anything now; I don’t want you to speak a
word to me. But I’m never goin’ to quit till ‘next time’ is no more, and
it’s ‘all the time’ for you and me.”
With that he had ridden away, not even touching her hand. Long after
he had gone she was still in her chair, her eyes lingering upon his
flowers, those yellow cups of the prickly pear. At length she had
risen impatiently, caught up the flowers, gone with them to the open
window,--and then, after all, set them with pains in water.
But to-day Bear Creek was over. She was going home now. By the week’s
end she would be started. By the time the mail brought him her good-by
letter she would be gone. She had acted.
To Bear Creek, the neighborly, the friendly, the not comprehending, this
move had come unlooked for, and had brought regret. Only one hard word
had been spoken to Molly, and that by her next-door neighbor and kindest
friend. In Mrs. Taylor’s house the girl had daily come and gone as
a daughter, and that lady reached the subject thus:-- “When I took
Taylor,” said she, sitting by as Robert Browning and Jane Austen were
going into their box, “I married for love.”
“Do you wish it had been money?” said Molly, stooping to her industries.
“You know both of us better than that, child.”
“I know I’ve seen people at home who couldn’t possibly have had any
other reason. They seemed satisfied, too.”
“Maybe the poor ignorant things were!”
“And so I have never been sure how I might choose.”
“Yes, you are sure, deary. Don’t you think I know you? And when it comes
over Taylor once in a while, and he tells me I’m the best thing in his
life, and I tell him he ain’t merely the best thing but the only thing
in mine,--him and the children,--why, we just agree we’d do it all over
the same way if we had the chance.”
Molly continued to be industrious.
“And that’s why,” said Mrs. Taylor, “I want every girl that’s anything
to me to know her luck when it comes. For I was that near telling Taylor
I wouldn’t!”
“If ever my luck comes,” said Molly, with her back to her friend, “I
shall say ‘I will’ at once.”
“Then you’ll say it at Bennington next week.”
Molly wheeled round.
“Why, you surely will. Do you expect he’s going to stay here, and you in
Bennington?” And the campaigner sat back in her chair.
“He? Goodness! Who is he?”
“Child, child, you’re talking cross to-day because you’re at outs with
yourself. You’ve been at outs ever since you took this idea of leaving
the school and us and everything this needless way. You have not treated
him right. And why, I can’t make out to save me. What have you found out
all of a sudden? If he was not good enough for you, I--But, oh, it’s a
prime one you’re losing, Molly. When a man like that stays faithful to a
girl ’spite all the chances he gets, her luck is come.”
“Oh, my luck! People have different notions of luck.”
“Notions!”
“He has been very kind.”
“Kind!” And now without further simmering, Mrs. Taylor’s wrath boiled
up and poured copiously over Molly Wood. “Kind! There’s a word you
shouldn’t use, my dear. No doubt you can spell it. But more than its
spelling I guess you don’t know. The children can learn what it means
from some of the rest of us folks that don’t spell so correct, maybe.”
“Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. Taylor--”
“I can’t wait, deary. Since the roughness looks bigger to you than the
diamond, you had better go back to Vermont. I expect you’ll find better
grammar there, deary.”
The good dame stalked out, and across to her own cabin, and left the
angry girl among her boxes. It was in vain she fell to work upon them.
Presently something had to be done over again, and when it was the box
held several chattels less than before the readjustment. She played a
sort of desperate dominos to fit these objects in the space, but here
were a paper-weight, a portfolio, with two wretched volumes that no
chink would harbor; and letting them fall all at once, she straightened
herself, still stormy with revolt, eyes and cheeks still hot from
the sting of long-parried truth. There, on her wall still, was the
miniature, the little silent ancestress; and upon this face the girl’s
glance rested. It was as if she appealed to Grandmother Stark for
support and comfort across the hundred years which lay between them. So
the flaxen girl on the wall and she among the boxes stood a moment face
to face in seeming communion, and then the descendant turned again to
her work. But after a desultory touch here and there she drew a long
breath and walked to the open door. What use was in finishing to-day,
when she had nearly a week? This first spurt of toil had swept the cabin
bare of all indwelling charm, and its look was chill. Across the lane
his horse, the one he had “gentled” for her, was grazing idly. She
walked there and caught him, and led him to her gate. Mrs. Taylor saw
her go in, and soon come out in riding-dress; and she watched the girl
throw the saddle on with quick ease--the ease he had taught her. Mrs.
Taylor also saw the sharp cut she gave the horse, and laughed grimly
to herself in her window as horse and rider galloped into the beautiful
sunny loneliness.
To the punished animal this switching was new! and at its third
repetition he turned his head in surprise, but was no more heeded than
were the bluffs and flowers where he was taking his own undirected
choice of way. He carried her over ground she knew by heart--Corncliff
Mesa, Crowheart Butte, Westfall’s Crossing, Upper Canyon; open land and
woodland, pines and sage-brush, all silent and grave and lustrous in the
sunshine. Once and again a ranchman greeted her, and wondered if she
had forgotten who he was; once she passed some cow-punchers with a small
herd of steers, and they stared after her too. Bear Creek narrowed, its
mountain-sides drew near, its little falls began to rush white in midday
shadow, and the horse suddenly pricked his ears. Unguided, he was taking
this advantage to go home. Though he had made but little way--a mere
beginning yet--on this trail over to Sunk Creek, here was already a
Sunk Creek friend whinnying good day to him, so he whinnied back and
quickened his pace, and Molly started to life. What was Monte doing
here? She saw the black horse she knew also, saddled, with reins
dragging on the trail as the rider had dropped them to dismount. A cold
spring bubbled out beyond the next rock, and she knew her lover’s horse
was waiting for him while he drank. She pulled at the reins, but loosed
them, for to turn and escape now was ridiculous; and riding boldly round
the rock, she came upon him by the spring. One of his arms hung up to
its elbow in the pool, the other was crooked beside his head, but the
face was sunk downward against the shelving rock, so that she saw only
his black, tangled hair. As her horse snorted and tossed his head she
looked swiftly at Monte, as if to question him. Seeing now the sweat
matted on his coat, and noting the white rim of his eye, she sprang and
ran to the motionless figure. A patch of blood at his shoulder behind
stained the soft flannel shirt, spreading down beneath his belt, and the
man’s whole strong body lay slack and pitifully helpless.
She touched the hand beside his head, but it seemed neither warm nor
cold to her; she felt for the pulse, as nearly as she could remember the
doctors did, but could not tell whether she imagined or not that it was
still; twice with painful care her fingers sought and waited for the
beat, and her face seemed like one of listening. She leaned down and
lifted his other arm and hand from the water, and as their ice-coldness
reached her senses, clearly she saw the patch near the shoulder she
had moved grow wet with new blood, and at that sight she grasped at the
stones upon which she herself now sank. She held tight by two rocks,
sitting straight beside him, staring, and murmuring aloud, “I must
not faint; I will not faint;” and the standing horses looked at her,
pricking their ears.
In this cup-like spread of the ravine the sun shone warmly down, the
tall red cliff was warm, the pines were a warm film and filter of green;
outside the shade across Bear Creek rose the steep, soft, open yellow
hill, warm and high to the blue, and Bear Creek tumbled upon its
sunsparkling stones. The two horses on the margin trail still looked
at the spring and trees, where sat the neat flaxen girl so rigid by the
slack prone body in its flannel shirt and leathern chaps. Suddenly her
face livened. “But the blood ran!” she exclaimed, as if to the horses,
her companions in this. She moved to him, and put her hand in through
his shirt against his heart.
Next moment she had sprung up and was at his saddle, searching, then
swiftly went on to her own and got her small flask and was back beside
him. Here was the cold water he had sought, and she put it against his
forehead and drenched the wounded shoulder with it. Three times she
tried to move him, so he might lie more easy, but his dead weight was
too much, and desisting, she sat close and raised his head to let it
rest against her. Thus she saw the blood that was running from in front
of the shoulder also; but she said no more about fainting. She tore
strips from her dress and soaked them, keeping them cold and wet upon
both openings of his wound, and she drew her pocket-knife out and cut
his shirt away from the place. As she continually rinsed and cleaned
it, she watched his eyelashes, long and soft and thick, but they did not
stir. Again she tried the flask, but failed from being still too gentle,
and her searching eyes fell upon ashes near the pool. Still undispersed
by the weather lay the small charred ends of a fire he and she had made
once here together, to boil coffee and fry trout. She built another fire
now, and when the flames were going well, filled her flask-cup from the
spring and set it to heat. Meanwhile, she returned to nurse his head
and wound. Her cold water had stopped the bleeding. Then she poured
her brandy in the steaming cup, and, made rough by her desperate
helplessness, forced some between his lips and teeth.
Instantly, almost, she felt the tremble of life creeping back, and
as his deep eyes opened upon her she sat still and mute. But the gaze
seemed luminous with an unnoting calm, and she wondered if perhaps he
could not recognize her; she watched this internal clearness of his
vision, scarcely daring to breathe, until presently he began to speak,
with the same profound and clear impersonality sounding in his slowly
uttered words.
“I thought they had found me. I expected they were going to kill me.”
He stopped, and she gave him more of the hot drink, which he took, still
lying and looking at her as if the present did not reach his senses. “I
knew hands were touching me. I reckon I was not dead. I knew about them
soon as they began, only I could not interfere.” He waited again. “It is
mighty strange where I have been. No. Mighty natural.” Then he went back
into his revery, and lay with his eyes still full open upon her where
she sat motionless.
She began to feel a greater awe in this living presence than when it
had been his body with an ice-cold hand; and she quietly spoke his name,
venturing scarcely more than a whisper.
At this, some nearer thing wakened in his look. “But it was you all
along,” he resumed. “It is you now. You must not stay--” Weakness
overcame him, and his eyes closed. She sat ministering to him, and when
he roused again, he began anxiously at once: “You must not stay. They
would get you, too.”
She glanced at him with a sort of fierceness, then reached for his
pistol, in which was nothing but blackened empty cartridges. She threw
these out and drew six from his belt, loaded the weapon, and snapped
shut its hinge.
“Please take it,” he said, more anxious and more himself. “I ain’t worth
tryin’ to keep. Look at me!”
“Are you giving up?” she inquired, trying to put scorn in her tone. Then
she seated herself.
“Where is the sense in both of us--”
“You had better save your strength,” she interrupted.
He tried to sit up.
“Lie down!” she ordered.
He sank obediently, and began to smile.
When she saw that, she smiled too, and unexpectedly took his hand.
“Listen, friend,” said she. “Nobody shall get you, and nobody shall get
me. Now take some more brandy.”
“It must be noon,” said the cow-puncher, when she had drawn her hand
away from him. “I remember it was dark when--when--when I can remember.
I reckon they were scared to follow me in so close to settlers. Else
they would have been here.”
“You must rest,” she observed.
She broke the soft ends of some evergreen, and putting them beneath his
head, went to the horses, loosened the cinches, took off the bridles,
led them to drink, and picketed them to feed. Further still, to leave
nothing undone which she could herself manage, she took the horses’
saddles off to refold the blankets when the time should come, and
meanwhile brought them for him. But he put them away from him. He was
sitting up against a rock, stronger evidently, and asking for cold
water. His head was fire-hot, and the paleness beneath his swarthy skin
had changed to a deepening flush.
“Only five miles!” she said to him, bathing his head.
“Yes. I must hold it steady,” he answered, waving his hand at the cliff.
She told him to try and keep it steady until they got home.
“Yes,” he repeated. “Only five miles. But it’s fightin’ to turn around.”
Half aware that he was becoming light-headed, he looked from the rock to
her and from her to the rock with dilating eyes.
“We can hold it together,” she said. “You must get on your horse.” She
took his handkerchief from round his neck, knotting it with her own, and
to make more bandage she ran to the roll of clothes behind his saddle
and tore in halves a clean shirt. A handkerchief fell from it, which
she seized also, and opening, saw her own initials by the hem. Then she
remembered: she saw again their first meeting, the swollen river, the
overset stage, the unknown horseman who carried her to the bank on his
saddle and went away unthanked--her whole first adventure on that
first day of her coming to this new country--and now she knew how her
long-forgotten handkerchief had gone that day. She refolded it gently
and put it back in his bundle, for there was enough bandage without it.
She said not a word to him, and he placed a wrong meaning upon the look
which she gave him as she returned to bind his shoulder.
“It don’t hurt so much,” he assured her (though extreme pain was
clearing his head for the moment, and he had been able to hold the cliff
from turning). “Yu’ must not squander your pity.”
“Do not squander your strength,” said she.
“Oh, I could put up a pretty good fight now!” But he tottered in showing
her how strong he was, and she told him that, after all, he was a child
still.
“Yes,” he slowly said, looking after her as she went to bring his horse,
“the same child that wanted to touch the moon, I guess.” And during the
slow climb down into the saddle from a rock to which she helped him he
said, “You have got to be the man all through this mess.”
She saw his teeth clinched and his drooping muscles compelled by will;
and as he rode and she walked to lend him support, leading her horse
by a backward-stretched left hand, she counted off the distance to him
continually--the increasing gain, the lessening road, the landmarks
nearing and dropping behind; here was the tree with the wasp-nest gone;
now the burned cabin was passed; now the cottonwoods at the ford were in
sight. He was silent, and held to the saddle-horn, leaning more and more
against his two hands clasped over it; and just after they had made the
crossing he fell, without a sound slipping to the grass, and his descent
broken by her. But it started the blood a little, and she dared not
leave him to seek help. She gave him the last of the flask and all the
water he craved.
Revived, he managed to smile. “Yu’ see, I ain’t worth keeping.”
“It’s only a mile,” said she. So she found a log, a fallen trunk, and he
crawled to that, and from there crawled to his saddle, and she marched
on with him, talking, bidding him note the steps accomplished. For the
next half-mile they went thus, the silent man clinched on the horse, and
by his side the girl walking and cheering him forward, when suddenly he
began to speak:-- “I will say good-by to you now, ma’am.”
She did not understand, at first, the significance of this.
“He is getting away,” pursued the Virginian. “I must ask you to excuse
me, ma’am.”
It was a long while since her lord had addressed her as “ma’am.” As she
looked at him in growing apprehension, he turned Monte and would have
ridden away, but she caught the bridle.
“You must take me home,” said she, with ready inspiration. “I am afraid
of the Indians.”
“Why, you--why, they’ve all gone. There he goes. Ma’am--that hawss--”
“No,” said she, holding firmly his rein and quickening her step. “A
gentleman does not invite a lady to go out riding and leave her.”
His eyes lost their purpose. “I’ll cert’nly take you home. That sorrel
has gone in there by the wallow, and Judge Henry will understand.” With
his eyes watching imaginary objects, he rode and rambled and it was now
the girl who was silent, except to keep his mind from its half-fixed
idea of the sorrel. As he grew more fluent she hastened still more,
listening to head off that notion of return, skilfully inventing
questions to engage him, so that when she brought him to her gate
she held him in a manner subjected, answering faithfully the shrewd
unrealities which she devised, whatever makeshifts she could summon to
her mind; and next she had got him inside her dwelling and set him down
docile, but now completely wandering; and then--no help was at hand,
even here. She had made sure of aid from next door, and there she
hastened, to find the Taylor’s cabin locked and silent; and this meant
that parents and children were gone to drive; nor might she be luckier
at her next nearest neighbors’, should she travel the intervening mile
to fetch them. With a mind jostled once more into uncertainty, she
returned to her room, and saw a change in him already. Illness had
stridden upon him; his face was not as she had left it, and the whole
body, the splendid supple horseman, showed sickness in every line
and limb, its spurs and pistol and bold leather chaps a mockery of
trappings. She looked at him, and decision came back to her, clear and
steady. She supported him over to her bed and laid him on it. His head
sank flat, and his loose, nerveless arms stayed as she left them. Then
among her packing-boxes and beneath the little miniature, blue and
flaxen and gold upon its lonely wall, she undressed him. He was cold,
and she covered him to the face, and arranged the pillow, and got from
its box her scarlet and black Navajo blanket and spread it over him.
There was no more that she could do, and she sat down by him to wait.
Among the many and many things that came into her mind was a word he
said to her lightly a long while ago. “Cow-punchers do not live long
enough to get old,” he had told her. And now she looked at the head upon
the pillow, grave and strong, but still the head of splendid, unworn
youth.
At the distant jingle of the wagon in the lane she was out, and had met
her returning neighbors midway. They heard her with amazement, and came
in haste to the bedside; then Taylor departed to spread news of the
Indians and bring the doctor, twenty-five miles away. The two women
friends stood alone again, as they had stood in the morning when anger
had been between them.
“Kiss me, deary,” said Mrs. Taylor. “Now I will look after him--and
you’ll need some looking after yourself.”
But on returning from her cabin with what store she possessed of lint
and stimulants, she encountered a rebel, independent as ever. Molly
would hear no talk about saving her strength, would not be in any room
but this one until the doctor should arrive; then perhaps it would be
time to think about resting. So together the dame and the girl rinsed
the man’s wound and wrapped him in clean things, and did all the little
that they knew--which was, in truth, the very thing needed. Then they
sat watching him toss and mutter. It was no longer upon Indians or
the sorrel horse that his talk seemed to run, or anything recent,
apparently, always excepting his work. This flowingly merged with
whatever scene he was inventing or living again, and he wandered
unendingly in that incompatible world we dream in. Through the medley of
events and names, often thickly spoken, but rising at times to grotesque
coherence, the listeners now and then could piece out the reference from
their own knowledge. “Monte,” for example, continually addressed, and
Molly heard her own name, but invariably as “Miss Wood”; nothing less
respectful came out, and frequently he answered some one as “ma’am.”
At these fragments of revelation Mrs. Taylor abstained from speech, but
eyed Molly Wood with caustic reproach. As the night wore on, short lulls
of silence intervened, and the watchers were deceived into hope that the
fever was abating. And when the Virginian sat quietly up in bed, essayed
to move his bandage, and looked steadily at Mrs. Taylor, she rose
quickly and went to him with a question as to how he was doing.
“Rise on your laigs, you polecat,” said he, “and tell them you’re a
liar.”
The good dame gasped, then bade him lie down, and he obeyed her with
that strange double understanding of the delirious; for even while
submitting, he muttered “liar,” “polecat,” and then “Trampas.”
At that name light flashed on Mrs. Taylor, and she turned to Molly; and
there was the girl struggling with a fit of mirth at his speech; but the
laughter was fast becoming a painful seizure. Mrs. Taylor walked Molly
up and down, speaking mmediately to arrest her attention.
“You might as well know it,” she said. “He would blame me for speaking
of it, but where’s the harm all this while after? And you would never
hear it from his mouth. Molly, child, they say Trampas would kill him if
he dared, and that’s on account of you.”
“I never saw Trampas,” said Molly, fixing her eyes upon the speaker.
“No, deary. But before a lot of men--Taylor has told me about
it--Trampas spoke disrespectfully of you, and before them all he made
Trampas say he was a liar. That is what he did when you were almost
a stranger among us, and he had not started seeing so much of you. I
expect Trampas is the only enemy he ever had in this country. But he
would never let you know about that.”
“No,” whispered Molly; “I did not know.”
“Steve!” the sick man now cried out, in poignant appeal. “Steve!” To the
women it was a name unknown,--unknown as was also this deep inward tide
of feeling which he could no longer conceal, being himself no longer.
“No, Steve,” he said next, and muttering followed. “It ain’t so!” he
shouted; and then cunningly in a lowered voice, “Steve, I have lied for
you.”
In time Mrs. Taylor spoke some advice.
“You had better go to bed, child. You look about ready for the doctor
yourself.”
“Then I will wait for him,” said Molly.
So the two nurses continued to sit until darkness at the windows
weakened into gray, and the lamp was no more needed. Their patient was
rambling again. Yet, into whatever scenes he went, there in some guise
did the throb of his pain evidently follow him, and he lay hitching his
great shoulder as if to rid it of the cumbrance. They waited for the
doctor, not daring much more than to turn pillows and give what other
ease they could; and then, instead of the doctor, came a messenger,
about noon, to say he was gone on a visit some thirty miles beyond,
where Taylor had followed to bring him here as soon as might be. At this
Molly consented to rest and to watch, turn about; and once she was over
in her friend’s house lying down, they tried to keep her there. But the
revolutionist could not be put down, and when, as a last pretext, Mrs.
Taylor urged the proprieties and conventions, the pale girl from Vermont
laughed sweetly in her face and returned to sit by the sick man. With
the approach of the second night his fever seemed to rise and master
him more completely than they had yet seen it, and presently it so raged
that the women called in stronger arms to hold him down. There were
times when he broke out in the language of the round-up, and Mrs. Taylor
renewed her protests. “Why,” said Molly, “don’t you suppose I knew they
could swear?” So the dame, in deepening astonishment and affection, gave
up these shifts at decorum. Nor did the delirium run into the intimate,
coarse matters that she dreaded. The cow-puncher had lived like his
kind, but his natural daily thoughts were clean, and came from the
untamed but unstained mind of a man. And toward morning, as Mrs. Taylor
sat taking her turn, suddenly he asked had he been sick long, and looked
at her with a quieted eye. The wandering seemed to drop from him at a
stroke, leaving him altogether himself. He lay very feeble, and inquired
once or twice of his state and how he came here; nor was anything left
in his memory of even coming to the spring where he had been found.
When the doctor arrived, he pronounced that it would be long--or very
short. He praised their clean water treatment; the wound was fortunately
well up on the shoulder, and gave so far no bad signs; there were not
any bad signs; and the blood and strength of the patient had been as
few men’s were; each hour was now an hour nearer certainty, and
meanwhile--meanwhile the doctor would remain as long as he could. He had
many inquiries to satisfy. Dusty fellows would ride up, listen to him,
and reply, as they rode away, “Don’t yu’ let him die, Doc.” And Judge
Henry sent over from Sunk Creek to answer for any attendance or medicine
that might help his foreman. The country was moved with concern and
interest; and in Molly’s ears its words of good feeling seemed to unite
and sum up a burden, “Don’t yu’ let him die, Doc.” The Indians who had
done this were now in military custody. They had come unpermitted from
a southern reservation, hunting, next thieving, and as the slumbering
spirit roused in one or two of the young and ambitious, they had
ventured this in the secret mountains, and perhaps had killed a trapper
found there. Editors immediately reared a tall war out of it; but from
five Indians in a guard-house waiting punishment not even an editor
can supply spar for more than two editions, and if the recent alarm
was still a matter of talk anywhere, it was not here in the sick-room.
Whichever way the case should turn, it was through Molly alone (the
doctor told her) that the wounded man had got this chance--this good
chance, he related.
And he told her she had not done a woman’s part, but a man’s part, and
now had no more to do; no more till the patient got well, and could
thank her in his own way, said the doctor, smiling, and supposing things
that were not so--misled perhaps by Mrs. Taylor.
“I’m afraid I’ll be gone by the time he is well,” said Molly, coldly;
and the discreet physician said ah, and that she would find Bennington
quite a change from Bear Creek.
But Mrs. Taylor spoke otherwise, and at that the girl said: “I shall
stay as long as I am needed. I will nurse him. I want to nurse him. I
will do everything for him that I can!” she exclaimed, with force.
“And that won’t be anything, deary,” said Mrs. Taylor, harshly. “A year
of nursing don’t equal a day of sweetheart.”
The girl took a walk,--she was of no more service in the room at
present,--but she turned without going far, and Mrs. Taylor spied her
come to lean over the pasture fence and watch the two horses--that one
the Virginian had “gentled” for her, and his own Monte. During this
suspense came a new call for the doctor, neighbors profiting by his
visit to Bear Creek; and in his going away to them, even under promise
of quick return, Mrs. Taylor suspected a favorable sign. He kept his
word as punctually as had been possible, arriving after some six hours
with a confident face, and spending now upon the patient a care not
needed, save to reassure the bystanders. He spoke his opinion that all
was even better than he could have hoped it would be, so soon. Here was
now the beginning of the fifth day; the wound’s look was wholesome, no
further delirium had come, and the fever had abated a degree while he
was absent. He believed the serious danger-line lay behind, and (short
of the unforeseen) the man’s deep untainted strength would reassert
its control. He had much blood to make, and must be cared for during
weeks--three, four, five--there was no saying how long yet. These next
few days it must be utter quiet for him; he must not talk nor hear
anything likely to disturb him; and then the time for cheerfulness and
gradual company would come--sooner than later, the doctor hoped. So
he departed, and sent next day some bottles, with further cautions
regarding the wound and dirt, and to say he should be calling the day
after to-morrow.
Upon that occasion he found two patients. Molly Wood lay in bed at Mrs.
Taylor’s, filled with apology and indignation. With little to do, and
deprived of the strong stimulant of anxiety and action, her strength
had quite suddenly left her, so that she had spoken only in a sort of
whisper. But upon waking from a long sleep, after Mrs. Taylor had taken
her firmly, almost severely, in hand, her natural voice had returned,
and now the chief treatment the doctor gave her was a sort of scolding,
which it pleased Mrs. Taylor to hear. The doctor even dropped a phrase
concerning the arrogance of strong nerves in slender bodies, and of
undertaking several people’s work when several people were at hand to do
it for themselves, and this pleased Mrs. Taylor remarkably. As for the
wounded man, he was behaving himself properly. Perhaps in another week
he could be moved to a more cheerful room. Just now, with cleanliness
and pure air, any barn would do.
“We are real lucky to have such a sensible doctor in the country,” Mrs.
Taylor observed, after the physician had gone.
“No doubt,” said Molly. “He said my room was a barn.”
“That’s what you’ve made it, deary. But sick men don’t notice much.”
Nevertheless, one may believe, without going widely astray, that
illness, so far from veiling, more often quickens the perceptions--at
any rate those of the naturally keen. On a later day--and the interval
was brief--while Molly was on her second drive to take the air with Mrs.
Taylor, that lady informed her that the sick man had noticed. “And I
could not tell him things liable to disturb him,” said she, “and so
I--well, I expect I just didn’t exactly tell him the facts. I said yes,
you were packing up for a little visit to your folks. They had not seen
you for quite a while, I said. And he looked at those boxes kind of
silent like.”
“There’s no need to move him,” said Molly. ‘“It is simpler to move
them--the boxes. I could take out some of my things, you know, just
while he has to be kept there. I mean--you see, if the doctor says the
room should be cheerful--”
“Yes, deary.”
“I will ask the doctor next time,” said Molly, “if he believes I
am--competent to spread a rug upon a floor.” Molly’s references to
the doctor were usually acid these days. And this he totally failed to
observe, telling her when he came, why, to be sure! the very thing!
And if she could play cards or read aloud, or afford any other light
distractions, provided they did not lead the patient to talk and tire
himself, that she would be most useful. Accordingly she took over the
cribbage board, and came with unexpected hesitation face to face again
with the swarthy man she had saved and tended. He was not so swarthy
now, but neat, with chin clean, and hair and mustache trimmed and
smooth, and he sat propped among pillows watching for her.
“You are better,” she said, speaking first, and with uncertain voice.
“Yes. They have given me awdehs not to talk,” said the Southerner,
smiling.
“Oh, yes. Please do not talk--not to-day.”
“No. Only this”--he looked at her, and saw her seem to shrink--“thank
you for what you have done,” he said simply.
She took tenderly the hand he stretched to her; and upon these terms
they set to work at cribbage. She won, and won again, and the third time
laid down her cards and reproached him with playing in order to lose.
“No,” he said, and his eye wandered to the boxes. “But my thoughts get
away from me. I’ll be strong enough to hold them on the cyards next
time, I reckon.”
Many tones in his voice she had heard, but never the tone of sadness
until to-day.
Then they played a little more, and she put away the board for this
first time.
“You are going now?” he asked.
“When I have made this room look a little less forlorn. They haven’t
wanted to meddle with my things, I suppose.” And Molly stooped once
again among the chattels destined for Vermont. Out they came; again the
bearskin was spread on the floor, various possessions and ornaments went
back into their ancient niches, the shelves grew comfortable with books,
and, last, some flowers were stood on the table.
“More like old times,” said the Virginian, but sadly.
“It’s too bad,” said Molly, “you had to be brought into such a looking
place.”
“And your folks waiting for you,” said he.
“Oh, I’ll pay my visit later,” said Molly, putting the rug a trifle
straighter.
“May I ask one thing?” pleaded the Virginian, and at the gentleness of
his voice her face grew rosy, and she fixed her eyes on him with a sort
of dread.
“Anything that I can answer,” said she.
“Oh, yes. Did I tell yu’ to quit me, and did yu’ load up my gun and
stay? Was that a real business? I have been mixed up in my haid.”
“That was real,” said Molly. “What else was there to do?”
“Just nothing--for such as you!” he exclaimed. “My haid has been mighty
crazy; and that little grandmother of yours yondeh, she--but I can’t
just quite catch a-hold of these things”--he passed a hand over
his forehead--“so many--or else one right along--well, it’s all
foolishness!” he concluded, with something almost savage in his tone.
And after she had gone from the cabin he lay very still, looking at the
miniature on the wall.
He was in another sort of mood the next time, cribbage not interesting
him in the least. “Your folks will be wondering about you,” said he.
“I don’t think they will mind which month I go to them,” said Molly.
“Especially when they know the reason.”
“Don’t let me keep you, ma’am,” said he. Molly stared at him; but he
pursued, with the same edge lurking in his slow words: “Though I’ll
never forget. How could I forget any of all you have done--and been? If
there had been none of this, why, I had enough to remember! But please
don’t stay, ma’am. We’ll say I had a claim when yu’ found me pretty well
dead, but I’m gettin’ well, yu’ see--right smart, too!”
“I can’t understand, indeed I can’t,” said Molly, “why you’re talking
so!”
He seemed to have certain moods when he would address her as “ma’am,”
and this she did not like, but could not prevent.
“Oh, a sick man is funny. And yu’ know I’m grateful to you.”
“Please say no more about that, or I shall go this afternoon. I don’t
want to go. I am not ready. I think I had better read something now.”
“Why, yes. That’s cert’nly a good notion. Why, this is the best show
you’ll ever get to give me education. Won’t yu’ please try that EMMA
book now, ma’am? Listening to you will be different.” This was said with
softness and humility.
Uncertain--as his gravity often left her--precisely what he meant by
what he said, Molly proceeded with EMMA, slackly at first, but soon with
the enthusiasm that Miss Austen invariably gave her. She held the volume
and read away at it, commenting briefly, and then, finishing a chapter
of the sprightly classic, found her pupil slumbering peacefully. There
was no uncertainty about that.
“You couldn’t be doing a healthier thing for him, deary,” said Mrs.
Taylor. “If it gets to make him wakeful, try something harder.” This was
the lady’s scarcely sympathetic view.
But it turned out to be not obscurity in which Miss Austen sinned.
When Molly next appeared at the Virginian’s threshold, he said
plaintively, “I reckon I am a dunce.” And he sued for pardon. “When I
waked up,” he said, “I was ashamed of myself for a plumb half-hour.” Nor
could she doubt this day that he meant what he said. His mood was again
serene and gentle, and without referring to his singular words that had
distressed her, he made her feel his contrition, even in his silence.
“I am right glad you have come,” he said. And as he saw her going to the
bookshelf, he continued, with diffidence: “As regyards that EMMA book,
yu’ see--yu’ see, the doin’s and sayin’s of folks like them are above
me. But I think” (he spoke most diffidently), “if yu’ could read me
something that was ABOUT something, I--I’d be liable to keep awake.” And
he smiled with a certain shyness.
“Something ABOUT something?” queried Molly, at a loss.
“Why, yes. Shakespeare. HENRY THE FOURTH. The British king is fighting,
and there is his son the prince. He cert’nly must have been a jim-dandy
boy if that is all true. Only he would go around town with a mighty
triflin’ gang. They sported and they held up citizens. And his father
hated his travelling with trash like them. It was right natural--the boy
and the old man! But the boy showed himself a man too. He killed a big
fighter on the other side who was another jim-dandy--and he was sorry
for having it to do.” The Virginian warmed to his recital. “I understand
most all of that. There was a fat man kept everybody laughing. He was
awful natural too; except yu’ don’t commonly meet ’em so fat. But the
prince--that play is bed-rock, ma’am! Have you got something like that?”
“Yes, I think so,” she replied. “I believe I see what you would
appreciate.”
She took her Browning, her idol, her imagined affinity. For the pale
decadence of New England had somewhat watered her good old Revolutionary
blood too, and she was inclined to think under glass and to live
underdone--when there were no Indians to shoot! She would have joyed to
venture “Paracelsus” on him, and some lengthy rhymed discourses; and she
fondly turned leaves and leaves of her pet doggerel analytics. “Pippa
Passes” and others she had to skip, from discreet motives--pages which
he would have doubtless stayed awake at; but she chose a poem at length.
This was better than Emma, he pronounced. And short. The horse was a
good horse. He thought a man whose horse must not play out on him would
watch the ground he was galloping over for holes, and not be likely to
see what color the rims of his animal’s eye-sockets were. You could not
see them if you sat as you ought to for such a hard ride. Of the next
piece that she read him he thought still better. “And it is short,” said
he. “But the last part drops.”
Molly instantly exacted particulars.
“The soldier should not have told the general he was killed,” stated the
cow-puncher.
“What should he have told him, I’d like to know?” said Molly.
“Why, just nothing. If the soldier could ride out of the battle all shot
up, and tell his general about their takin’ the town--that was being
gritty, yu’ see. But that truck at the finish--will yu’ please say it
again?”