THE TEST
I awoke, I knew not how much later, into a world which at first had a
certain warm comfort and languid luxury about it. Then I felt a sharp
wrenching and a great pain in my neck, to which it seemed my departed
head had, after all, returned. Stimulated by this pain, I turned and
looked up into the face of Auberry. He stood frowning, holding in his
hand a feathered arrow shaft of willow, grooved along its sides to let
the blood run free, sinew-wrapped to hold its feathers tight--a typical
arrow of the buffalo tribes. But, as I joined Auberry's gaze, I saw the
arrow was headless! Dully I argued that, therefore, this head must be
somewhere in my neck. I also saw that the sun was bright. I realized
that there must have been a fight of some sort, but did not trouble to
know whence the arrow had come to me, for my mind could grasp nothing
more than simple things.
Thus I felt that my head was not uncomfortable, after all. I looked
again, and saw that it rested on Ellen Meriwether's knees. She sat on
the sand, gently stroking my forehead, pushing back the hair. She had
turned my head so that the wound would not be pressed. It seemed to me
that her voice sounded very far away and quiet.
"We are thinking," said she to me. I nodded as best I could. "Has
anything happened?" I asked.
"They have gone," said she. "We whipped them." Her hand again lightly
pressed my forehead.
I heard some one else say, behind me, "But we have nothing in the
world--not even opium."
"True," said another voice, which I recognized as that of Orme; "but
that's his one chance."
"What do you know about surgery?" asked the first voice, which I knew
now was Belknap's.
"More than most doctors," was the answer, with a laugh. Their voices
grew less distinguishable, but presently I heard Orme say, "Yes, I'm
game to do it, if the man says so." Then he came and stooped down beside
me.
"Mr. Cowles," said he, "you're rather badly off. That arrow head ought
to come out, but the risk of going after it is very great. I am willing
to do what you say. If you decide that you would like me to operate for
it, I will do so. It's only right for me to tell you that it lies very
close to the carotid artery, and that it will be an extraordinarily nice
operation to get it out without--well, you know--"
I looked up into his face, that strange face which I was now beginning
so well to know--the face of my enemy. I knew it was the face of a
murderer, a man who would have no compunction at taking a human life.
My mind then was strangely clear. I saw his glance at the girl. I saw,
as clearly as though he had told me, that this man was as deeply in love
with Ellen Meriwether as I myself; that he would win her if he could;
that his chance was as good as mine, even if we were both at our best. I
knew there was nothing at which he would hesitate, unless some strange
freak in his nature might influence him, such freaks as come to the
lightning, to the wild beast slaying, changes for no reason ever known.
Remorse, mercy, pity, I knew did not exist for him. But with a flash it
came to my mind that this was all the better, if he must now serve as my
surgeon.
He looked into my eye, and I returned his gaze, scorning to ask him not
to take advantage of me, now that I was fallen. His own eye changed. It
asked of me, as though he spoke: "Are you, then, game to the core? Shall
I admire you and give you another chance, or shall I kill you now?" I
say that I saw, felt, read all this in his mind. I looked up into his
face, and said:
"You cannot kill me. I am not going to die. Go on. Soon, then."
A sort of sigh broke from his lips, as though he felt content. I do not
think it was because he found his foe a worthy one. I do not think he
considered me either as his foe or his friend or his patient. He was
simply about to do something which would test his own nerve, his own
resources, something which, if successful, would allow him to approve
his own belief in himself. I say that this was merely sport for him. I
knew he would not turn his hand to save my life; but also I knew that he
would not cost it if that could be avoided, for that would mean
disappointment to himself. What he did he did well. I said then to
myself that I would pay him if he brought me through--pay him in some
way.
Presently I heard them on the sand again, and I saw him come again and
bend over me. All the instruments they could find had been a razor and a
keen penknife; and all they could secure to staunch the blood was some
water, nearly boiling. For forceps Orme had a pair of bullet molds, and
these he cleansed as best he could by dipping them into the hot water.
"Cowles," he said, in a matter-of-fact voice, "I'm going after it. But
now I tell you one thing frankly, it's life or death, and if you move
your head it may mean death at once. That iron's lying against the big
carotid artery. If it hasn't broken the artery wall, there's a ghost of
a chance we can get it out safely, in which case you would probably pull
through. I've got to open the neck and reach in. I'll do it as fast as I
can. Now, I'm not going to think of you, and, gad!--if you can help
it--please don't think of me."
Ellen Meriwether had not spoken. She still held my head in her lap.
"Are you game--can you do this, Miss Meriwether?" I heard Orme ask. She
made no answer that I could hear, but must have nodded. I felt her hands
press my head more tightly. I turned my face down and kissed her hand.
"I will not move," I said.
I saw Orme's slender, naked wrist pass to my face and gently turn me
into the position desired, with my face down and a little at one side,
resting in her lap above her knees. Her skirt was already wet with the
blood of the wound, and where my head lay it was damp with blood.
Belknap took my hands and pulled them above my head, squatting beyond
me. Between Orme's legs as he stooped I could see the dead body of a
mule, I remember, and back of that the blue sky I and the sand dunes.
Unknown to her, I kissed the hem of her garment; and then I said a short
appeal to the Mystery.
I felt the entrance of the knife or razor blade, felt keenly the pain
when the edge lifted and stretched the skin tight before the tough hide
of my neck parted smoothly in a long line. Then I felt something warm
settle under my cheek as I lay, and I felt a low shiver, whether of my
body or that of the girl who held me I could not tell; but her hands
were steady. I felt about me an infinite kindness and carefulness and
pitying--oh, then I learned that life, after all, is not wholly
war--that there is such a thing as fellow-suffering and loving kindness
and a wish to aid others to survive in this hard fight of living; I knew
that very well. But I did not gain it from the touch of my surgeon's
hands.
The immediate pain of this long cutting which laid open my neck for some
inches through the side muscles was less after the point of the blade
went through and ceased to push forward. Deeper down I did not feel so
much, until finally a gentle searching movement produced a jar strangely
large, something which grated, and nearly sent all the world black
again. I knew then that the knife was on the base of the arrow head;
then I could feel it move softly and gently along the side of the arrow
head--I could almost see it creep along in this delicate part of the
work.
Then, all at once, I felt one hand removed from my neck. Orme, half
rising from his stooping posture, but with the fingers of his left hand
still at the wound, said: "Belknap, let go one of his hands. Just put
your hand on this knife-blade, and feel that artery throb! Isn't it
curious?"
I heard some muttered answer, but the grasp at my wrists did not relax.
"Oh, it's all right now," calmly went on Orme, again stooping. "I
thought you might be interested. It's all over now but pulling out the
head."
I felt again a shiver run through the limbs of the girl. Perhaps she
turned away her head, I do not know. I felt Orme's fingers spreading
widely the sides of the wound along the neck, and the boring of the big
headed bullet molds as they went down after a grip, their impact
softened by the finger extended along the blade knife.
The throbbing artery whose location this man knew so well was protected.
Gently feeling down, the tips of the mold got their grip at last, and an
instant later I felt release from a certain stiff pressure which I had
experienced in my neck. Relief came, then a dizziness and much pain. A
hand patted me twice on the back of the neck.
"All right, my man," said Orme. "All over; and jolly well done, too, if
I do say it myself!"
Belknap put his arm about me and helped me to sit up. I saw Orme holding
out the stained arrow head, long and thin, in his fingers.
"Would you like it?" he said.
"Yes," said I, grinning. And I confess I have it now somewhere about my
house. I doubt if few souvenirs exist to remind one of a scene exactly
similar.
The girl now kept cloths wrung from the hot water on my neck. I thanked
them all as best I could. "I say, you men," remarked Mandy McGovern,
coming up with a cob-stoppered flask in her hand, half filled with a
pale yellow-white fluid, "ain't it about time for some of that thar
anarthestic I heerd you all talking about a while ago?"
"I shouldn't wonder," said Orme. "The stitching hurts about as much as
anything. Auberry, can't you find me a bit of sinew somewhere, and
perhaps a needle of some sort?"