A man may look dead, and yet by no means be dead; a man may be very
close to the borderland of death, and yet, if he has not actually
crossed, may be dragged back by the strong hands of love. Bud
Childers’s bullet had not found Allston’s heart. The shot had gone high
and a little wild. Striking to the right of his head, it had cut a gash
across his temple--a gash which had been covered as he fell. But the
impact of the bullet against his skull had stunned him and dropped him
in his tracks. That was his good fortune, for otherwise a second shot,
better directed, would most certainly have followed.
Allston had fallen. The curtain had been rung down. For all he knew
it was final. And yet in the course of time the curtain began to rise
again. Light--the emblem of life--filtered through his eyes and made
itself a conscious fact in his half-paralyzed brain. That was all
he was aware of at first--just light; a pale, cold light like that
of dawn. It was quite meaningless and without warmth. It roused no
emotions in him; little interest. It just was; nothing more.
Yet because it was, it indicated life. It stood for continuation
instead of the end. It meant another day. It meant being. It meant--
Something more was trying to get through to that numbed brain of his.
Another sense was fluttering to life--sound. He heard a far-off noise.
Then, it seemed close to his ear. It was whispering a familiar name. It
was his name.
“Ned,” he heard. And then once more, “Ned.”
It roused him to effort. He tried to move his arm. Quickly following
this, he began to feel; something warm was resting on his forehead
smoothing back his hair. Something still warmer brushed his cold lips.
Then, like a film unfolding its secrets in a dark room, his mind began
to clear. Objects became more concrete. They stood for something. This
was a woman bending over him. Still somewhat hazy he tried to raise his
head. As he did so he heard a sharp cry. The ugly wound stood revealed.
“Ned,” came the trembling voice. “Lie still. I--I must get water.”
Then he knew. That was Wilmer Howe. That was Wilmer Howe. They were
in the cove where he had stopped to fish for trout. No, there was
something wrong about that. This was a clearing. He rose to one elbow.
His hair and cheek felt sticky, and he put up his hand. He brought it
back crimsoned. He saw the shack beyond and the whole story flashed
before him.
His head sank to the ground. He seemed to be weak. Bud had got him when
he started to run from the door. But how happened it that Wilmer had
taken the place of Roxie? This was strange--very strange. It was not
easy to think about anything very long at a time.
He heard footsteps running towards him. Again he tried to sit up, but
before he could do that Wilmer was by his side. She was holding a tin
dipper to his lips. He drank thirstily. It was very refreshing--this
clear, ice-cold spring water. She poured a little into the palm of her
hand and bathed his forehead and face. He struggled again to sit up
and, with her help, succeeded. He was facing the log shack. His hand
went back to his pocket.
“Where--where’s my gun?” he demanded.
Wilmer had thought of themselves as alone. Both Bud and Roxie had been
eliminated from her thoughts. Now she raised her eyes and glanced about.
Allston caught sight of his automatic on the ground a few feet away.
He tried to reach it and failed. Following his outstretched arm, she
saw it too, and, picking it up gingerly, handed it to him. The feel of
it in his fingers roused him to action in spite of his weakness. He
squinted towards the shack.
“Lord!” he said. “You shouldn’t be here, Wilmer. Childers may--may be
in there. He may be in the woods.”
He wanted to make his feet now. He tried and failed.
“What’s the matter with my darned legs?” he stammered petulantly.
“You’ve been hurt,” she explained gently. “Please--please to sit still.”
“But that devil--it isn’t safe for you here, I tell you.”
“You think he may be inside?”
“He might be. Where’s Roxie?”
“I--I haven’t seen any one but--but you.”
“Then--can’t you help me stand up?”
“It’s better for you not to move.”
“I’ve got to get in there and--find out.”
The girl’s face was very white and tense. She was kneeling by his side,
but she suddenly rose. Then she took the gun from his weak fingers.
“I’ll see!” she exclaimed.
Before he could catch her skirts she was moving across the few yards
of clear space to the door. He called after her. With every ounce of
strength left in him he tried to follow, but apparently he had lost a
good deal of blood. His legs were like limp straws. Helpless he saw her
disappear through the door. She was not gone long, but it seemed an
eternity before she came out again.
“The house is empty,” she said.
“Thank God. If it hadn’t been--”
“But it is. And if--can you get across there, leaning on me?”
The color was returning to his cheeks; the light to his eyes.
“Leaning on you,” he repeated slowly, “I--I think I could get anywhere.”
“Then--”
She bent down and placed an arm beneath his shoulder. As he moved she
lifted and so got him, tottering, to his feet. He stood so for a moment
with his arm over her frail shoulder. He did not seem to wish to move
farther.
“I can build a fire,” she ran on. “It’s cold out here. You can walk a
little?”
Then he said, as though to himself:
“You oughtn’t to be here.”
He tried to keep his weight from her as much as possible, but actually
he did lean heavily. Even so her shoulders did not sag. Frail they
looked--fit only for the burden of lace shawls--but they did not
sag. His left arm was over them and her right arm around his waist
supporting him. He felt the tight, steady grip of it. Even when he
paused, this did not relax.
So he came back over that threshold which so brief a time ago he had
crossed in the other direction; so he came back into that room where
he had waited through the night. There was the corner where he had sat
with Roxie. The tumbled blankets still lay on the floor. They cried out
to him. They brought her name to his lips.
“Where’s Roxie?”
“Steady,” Wilmer answered. “Steady until we get to the chair.”
She led him to a chair before the dead hearth. He slumped down wearily.
“She’s gone,” he said. “Bud must have got her.”
“She was here, then?”
“Here with Bud Childers.”
“But why--”
“Because the brute bullied her into coming. He threatened to get me--if
she didn’t come.”
“Oh!” she cried. “And then?”
“I got _him_. I had him fair--tied hand and foot. But the beggar
squirmed loose.”
“And then?”
“Roxie wouldn’t leave for fear of him.”
“Then?”
“I took a chance--this morning. He was waiting behind the spring-house.”
She shuddered at that.
“But she--she may have escaped.”
“Yes. Only--women are queer,” he answered in a voice scarcely audible.
Wilmer turned her head and smiled a little--to herself. Roxie was gone
and Bud was gone. But she was here and Ned Allston was here. And he
was helpless--helpless enough to be dependent on her. Much of her fear
had vanished. It was evident now that his wound, however painful, was
not serious. The thing to do was to make him warm and comfortable until
help arrived. That gave her an hour--perhaps two hours.
She started towards the door. His eyes were upon her.
“Where you going?” he demanded.
“I must kindle a fire.”
He staggered to his feet.
“That’s my job,” he said.
She hurried to his chair.
“You’d help most if you’d sit still,” she answered. “You only
interrupt.”
She waited until he reseated himself.
“I don’t seem to have much strength,” he muttered.
“And I have more than I ever had,” she answered. “So you see it _ought_
to be my job.”
Women are queer, Allston had said. That is a very loose and very
general statement, but there may be something in it. At any rate, it
served as an explanation, as good as any, perhaps, of why Wilmer
found the unfamiliar tasks she now went about not only congenial, but
distinctly exhilarating--even mentally stimulating. If she had ever
kindled a fire, it was so long ago she had forgotten about it. And she
would have been inclined to argue that it was so humbly simple an act
that it was not worth remembering, anyway. It made no heavy call upon
the intellect. In and of itself it was a trivial duty.
And yet, as she went to look for wood, she felt a pride in her mission
out of all proportion to the effort. She was to build a fire--for him.
She must make him warm. She must heat water and bathe his wound. If she
could find provisions in the shack, she must prepare something for him
to eat--if only a cup of tea or coffee. She must build up his strength.
_His_ strength--the strength of the man she loved. She must give him
some of her own strength and in this indirect way alone was that at
the moment possible. It was too indirect to satisfy her--too simple.
Could she have opened her veins into his veins, that would have seemed
too simple. Perhaps this new need could never be satisfied by any one
act--only by a succession of acts extending without limit through his
life. It was as big as that.
But at any rate here was something--something definite and tangible
calling for effort if only the picking up of chips. The very simplicity
of the task hallowed it. The disciples grasped eagerly at the
opportunity to express their great love through the anointing of His
feet.
In the rear of the shack Wilmer found a woodpile and a dulled and
rusty axe. Picking up this, she battered away at some of the driest
pine until she had broken it into splinters. She was surprised at the
power in her arms and back. She had never handled anything as heavy
as this axe in her life, and yet she raised it easily and brought it
down upon the stubborn dried limbs with sufficient force to accomplish
her object. They broke in spite of their resistance. There is always
satisfaction in victory even in so primitive a conflict as this. But
back of this there was more; she was doing this for her man, even as
Roxie might have done. She was using her muscles and hands for him. She
was catering to his well-being and comfort.
With cheeks grown crimson by the effort, she stopped and gathered an
armful of the splinters, hugging them close to her bosom, careless
of what they did to her gown. Clothes had become unimportant--as
unimportant as the appearance of her hands and hair. She was not
concerned with how she looked, but wholly with what she had to do. If
her long, tense walk up here had tired her, she did not feel it. She
came back through the door proudly, smiling over her load.
“Lordy!” exclaimed Allston. “But you shouldn’t be doing that. You make
me feel like a limp cad.”
She lowered her burden to the side of the hearth. Then dropping to her
knees she picked out the smaller pieces and piled them criss-cross in
the ashes, adding larger pieces on top.
Allston watched her, fascinated, in spite of his discomfort. She may
have looked at odd times more beautiful than now, but never since he
had known her. For all her beauty was of herself. Her hair, brown and
silken, was unaided by deft fingers. It was so loosely fastened that
it seemed as though at any moment it might fall over her shoulders. He
hoped and prayed that it might. He wished to see it so--all of it in
its full glory. Had he been a little nearer he would have been tempted
to touch it with his fingers.
Her fine features were quite unrestrained. They were subject to no
conscious control. And so they appeared softened to the point of
tenderness. Her face was half turned from him, but he saw an expression
about her mouth of gladness, of eager, childlike interest. Innocent as
it was, it bred wild thoughts in him. He wanted those lips nearer. He
wanted them within reach of his own lips. And yet, before he would have
leaned forward one inch towards them, he would have stopped himself
with his own automatic. The wonder of her; but the sacredness of her!
She turned with outstretched hand.
“You have a match?” she asked.
That was the most he could give her--a match. He fumbled in his pocket,
found one, and extended his own hand towards her. It was not as steady
as it should have been. It was still less steady as in taking it the
tips of her fingers touched him. There were kisses in them. He held his
breath. If only that match went out so that he could hand her another.
But she was very careful. She nursed the tiny flame until it burned
steadily and then applied it to the smaller twigs. They caught fire and
licked up to the larger twigs; sprang from those to the dry splinters
until no shadow of hope was left him. The hearth came to life like a
roused sleeper. He felt the heat at once. It was welcome.
And she held out her hands towards the dancing golden flames. She had
taken the first step towards making this room habitable; the first step
towards making it a home. She had brought into it heat and light.
With glowing face she turned towards Allston.
“A fire is such a friendly thing,” she exclaimed.
“That fire represents more than friendship,” he answered.
She did not take up the argument. She was not interested in words. She
had still a great many things to do.
She went out into Bud’s kitchen to forage. She did not discover much,
but she did find a little coffee in the bottom of a can, and sugar and
half a loaf of dry bread. That was enough. It was food and hot drink.
There was no coffee-pot, for Bud had carried that off with him, but
she found a couple of tins that were whole and clean. She brought her
treasures back and laid them at his feet.
“Here’s a bit of luck,” she said.
Every time she spoke, her words seemed curiously inadequate to Allston.
This was not a bit of luck, but stupendous good fortune. To drink
coffee of her brewing and eat bread of her finding promised a meal to
be remembered. It was an event worth all it had cost. It was going to
keep her busy near him for the next half-hour.
She made another journey to the spring-house and filled her pails.
She brought them back and placed them close to the flames near the
dog-irons. She piled on more wood and bade him see that the water did
not boil over.
“I must find some clean linen if there is any. That cut--”
He had almost forgotten about the cut. It had ceased bleeding, but it
was a matted ugly blotch on his head.
“It can wait, can’t it, until I get to the doctor?”
“No,” she replied.
Where she secured the clean white strips of cotton with which she
returned, Allston never knew. The torn hem of a ruffled petticoat left
behind in the bedroom might have told him had he ever seen it. But he
never did. He began to question her, but some instinct warned him that
this evidently was none of his business.
He did not seem to have much business of any sort here now. He found
himself a good deal under orders--gentle orders, to be sure, but
none the less to be regarded seriously. And, as he remembered, this
was one of the things he had looked forward to escaping just as soon
as he left the army. He had chafed under them;--not openly, because
he respected the necessity of them, but inwardly, because they went
against the grain. As a free-born American citizen of Southern ancestry
and independent means he had, until the war, come pretty near to doing
just about as he liked without dictation of any sort. Once he was out
of kilts no one had interfered to any extent with the management of his
everyday life.
Now this young woman, approaching him with a pail of lukewarm water,
tucked a towel around his neck and commanded him to lean his head back.
He did so when he would much have preferred not. Then she proceeded to
sop a wet rag against the wound left by Bud Childers’s bullet. It was
distinctly an unpleasant process. It hurt more or less, and the water
trickled down his neck. Besides, he felt that this was a distasteful
duty which did not come within her province, but that of a surgeon. He
offered that argument, but she kept on.
“I’m afraid I’m not much of a nurse, but I’m sure this ought to be
done,” she said.
“You’re a wonderful nurse,” he assured her.
“I’m trying not to hurt.”
“It hurts you more than it does me. It’s such a messy thing to bother
with.”
“If he had come an eighth of an inch nearer,” she trembled.
“I’m surprised he didn’t. I thought he was a better shot.”
“Oh, it was wicked of him!”
“It was more or less human. You see, he didn’t understand.”
“He’s more like a savage than a man.”
“And yet it’s so easy for any of us to misunderstand,” he said.
She was still sopping, rinsing frequently the carmine from the rag. It
was coloring the water in the pail like red pigment.
“He wanted Roxie as a beast wants his prey. But Roxie--”
“Was worth fighting for,” he broke in.
“Why did she go with him? She could have roused the house.”
“Yes,” he answered slowly. “She could have done that--and she didn’t.
Women _are_ queer.”
He had thought for a moment that he could tell this woman beside him
the whole story, but he found his lips sealed. After all this was not
his story; it was Roxie’s. It was of too sacred a nature for him to
reveal. He felt as though he had overheard something not intended for
his ears; the holy revelations a woman makes only to herself. The part
of a gentleman was to forget them; to treat them as though they had
never been. In these last few minutes he had forgotten even the girl
herself. He realized it with a start.
“Where is she?” he demanded. “If Childers took her off--”
“Even he couldn’t do that against her will,” said Wilmer. “Please to be
quiet.”
“You think that?”
“You don’t know those girls.”
“I--I guess you’re right,” he admitted.
“It’s probable she escaped into the woods. If she didn’t--”
“The woods,” he nodded. “She had the other door. She had a fair chance
if she kept her head.”
“And she knew the man through and through.”
“The devil! He gnawed through those ropes like a rat.”
The woman by his side grew pale.
“It’s a miracle you’re alive,” she said.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
The old familiar phrase steadied her in one way and unsteadied her in
another. It sent her thoughts back for a moment to the evening before.
He did not know--any more than he knew then. But she--how much she had
come to know in these last few hours! And yet not by the slightest
token must she let him know that she knew. She must maintain a stricter
guard over herself than ever before. She must be careful of her eyes,
her speech, her hands--especially her hands. Lightly they caressed
the cut over his temple, but only in the course of her duty. And his
tousled hair was so near her now.
A moment later, in the course of duty, she found a better opportunity.
She wound strips of white bandage around and around his head, her
fingers brushing his head--ever so gently, ever so lovingly, in the
course of duty.
And he, sitting very quiet, his eyes closed, felt them like
kisses--ashamed at the thought. He did not know. Lord! he did not know
even then--and might never know.
The coffee began to boil. She left his side and poured some of the hot
brew into a tin dipper and ordered him to drink it. After the first sip
it is doubtful if he would have drunk it except under orders. She had
sweetened it liberally but it was a muddy concoction.
She gave him bits of the stale bread and ordered him to eat them. He
obeyed--as smartly as though it were an order of the day.
Quite without resentment, too.
“Aren’t you going to join me?” he asked.
She tried a little of the coffee and made up a wry face.
“It isn’t very nice,” she admitted.
He was about to agree with that when she added quickly:
“But it’s good for you.”
So he took his medicine--to the last drop.
Up to this time she had been very busy. Now, after going out and
getting another armful of wood, there seemed to be nothing to do but
wait. He was too weak to walk and she did not dare to leave him even
long enough to go back for help to one of those neighboring houses she
had passed below.
She had to wait--facing him. That is a difficult task--when one has
a secret trembling in the eyes, on the lips, and on the tips of the
fingers.