THE CALL OF SUN ROCK
In the golden glow of the autumn sun there came up the stream overlooked
by the Sun Rock one day a man, a woman and a child in a canoe.
Civilization had done for lovely Joan what it had done for many another
wild flower transplanted from the depths of the wilderness. Her cheeks
were thin. Her blue eyes had lost their luster. She coughed, and when
she coughed the man looked at her with love and fear in his eyes. But
now, slowly, the man had begun to see the transformation, and on the day
their canoe pointed up the stream and into the wonderful valley that had
been their home before the call of the distant city came to them, he
noted the flush gathering once more in her cheeks, the fuller redness of
her lips, and the gathering glow of happiness and content in her eyes.
He laughed softly as he saw these things, and he blessed the forests. In
the canoe she had leaned back, with her head almost against his
shoulder, and he stopped paddling to draw her to him, and run his
fingers through the soft golden masses of her hair.
"You are happy again, Joan," he laughed joyously. "The doctors were
right. You are a part of the forests."
"Yes, I am happy," she whispered, and suddenly there came a little
thrill into her voice, and she pointed to a white finger of sand running
out into the stream. "Do you remember--years and years ago, it
seems--that Kazan left us here? _She_ was on the sand over there,
calling to him. Do you remember?" There was a little tremble about her
mouth, and she added, "I wonder--where they--have gone."
The cabin was as they had left it. Only the crimson _bakneesh_ had grown
up about it, and shrubs and tall grass had sprung up near its walls.
Once more it took on life, and day by day the color came deeper into
Joan's cheeks, and her voice was filled with its old wild sweetness of
song. Joan's husband cleared the trails over his old trap-lines, and
Joan and the little Joan, who romped and talked now, transformed the
cabin into _home_. One night the man returned to the cabin late, and
when he came in there was a glow of excitement in Joan's blue eyes, and
a tremble in her voice when she greeted him.
"Did you hear it?" she asked. "Did you hear--_the call_?"
He nodded, stroking her soft hair.
"I was a mile back in the creek swamp," he said. "I heard it!"
Joan's hands clutched his arms.
"It wasn't Kazan," she said. "I would recognize _his_ voice. But it
seemed to me it was like the other--the call that came that morning from
the sand-bar, his _mate_?"
The man was thinking. Joan's fingers tightened. She was breathing a
little quickly.
"Will you promise me this?" she asked, "Will you promise me that you
will never hunt or trap for wolves?"
"I had thought of that," he replied. "I thought of it--after I heard the
call. Yes, I will promise."
Joan's arms stole up about his neck.
"We loved Kazan," she whispered. "And you might kill him--or _her_"
Suddenly she stopped. Both listened. The door was a little ajar, and to
them there came again the wailing mate-call of the wolf. Joan ran to the
door. Her husband followed. Together they stood silent, and with tense
breath Joan pointed over the starlit plain.
"Listen! Listen!" she commanded. "It's her cry, _and it came from the
Sun Rock_!"
She ran out into the night, forgetting that the man was close behind her
now, forgetting that little Joan was alone in her bed. And to them, from
miles and miles across the plain, there came a wailing cry in answer--a
cry that seemed a part of the wind, and that thrilled Joan until her
breath broke in a strange sob.
Farther out on the plain she went and then stopped, with the golden glow
of the autumn moon and the stars shimmering in her hair and eyes. It was
many minutes before the cry came again, and then it was so near that
Joan put her hands to her mouth, and her cry rang out over the plain as
in the days of old.
"_Kazan! Kazan! Kazan_!"
At the top of the Sun Rock, Gray Wolf--gaunt and thinned by
starvation--heard the woman's cry, and the call that was in her throat
died away in a whine. And to the north a swiftly moving shadow stopped
for a moment, and stood like a thing of rock under the starlight. It was
Kazan. A strange fire leaped through his body. Every fiber of his brute
understanding was afire with the knowledge that here was _home_. It was
here, long ago, that he had lived, and loved, and fought--and all at
once the dreams that had grown faded and indistinct in his memory came
back to him as real living things. For, coming to him faintly over the
plain, _he heard Joan's voice!_
In the starlight Joan stood, tense and white, when from out of the pale
mists of the moon-glow he came to her, cringing on his belly, panting
and wind-run, and with a strange whining note in his throat. And as Joan
went to him, her arms reaching out, her lips sobbing his name over and
over again, the man stood and looked down upon them with the wonder of a
new and greater understanding in his face. He had no fear of the
wolf-dog now. And as Joan's arms hugged Kazan's great shaggy head up to
her he heard the whining gasping joy of the beast and the sobbing
whispering voice of the girl, and with tensely gripped hands he faced
the Sun Rock.
"My Gawd," he breathed. "I believe--it's so--"
As if in response to the thought in his mind, there came once more
across the plain Gray Wolf's mate-seeking cry of grief and of
loneliness. Swiftly as though struck by a lash Kazan was on his
feet--oblivious of Joan's touch, of her voice, of the presence of the
man. In another instant he was gone, and Joan flung herself against her
husband's breast, and almost fiercely took his face between her two
hands.
"_Now_ do you believe?" she cried pantingly. "_Now_ do you believe in
the God of my world--the God I have lived with, the God that gives souls
to the wild things, the God that--that has brought--us,
all--together--once more--_home_!"
His arms closed gently about her.
"I believe, my Joan," he whispered.
"And you understand--now--what it means, 'Thou shalt not kill'?"
"Except that it brings us life--yes, I understand," he replied.
Her warm soft hands stroked his face. Her blue eyes, filled with the
glory of the stars, looked up into his.
"Kazan and _she_--you and I--and the baby! Are you sorry--that we came
back?" she asked.
So close he drew her against his breast that she did not hear the words
he whispered in the soft warmth of her hair. And after that, for many
hours, they sat in the starlight in front of the cabin door. But they
did not hear again that lonely cry from the Sun Rock. Joan and her
husband understood.
"He'll visit us again to-morrow," the man said at last. "Come, Joan, let
us go to bed."
Together they entered the cabin.
And that night, side by side, Kazan and Gray Wolf hunted again in the
moonlit plain.