CHAPTER XXXVII
ALONE--
"Buck! Buck!"
Faint and small, the cry was lost in the wilderness of silence. Itdied out, a heart-broken moan of despair, fading to nothingness in thestill, desolate world.
Then came another sound. It was the crash of a falling tree. It waslouder, but it, too, could scarcely break the stillness, so silent wasthe world, so desolate was it in the absence of all life.
Day had broken. The sky was brilliant with swift-speeding clouds offleecy white. The great sun had lifted well above the horizon, andalready its warming rays were thirstily drinking from a sodden,rain-drenched earth.
The perfect calm of a summer morning reigned. Up above, high up, whereit was quite lost to the desolation below, a great wind was stillspeeding on the fleecy storm-clouds, brushing them from its path andreplacing them with the frothing scud of a glorious day. But the airhad not yet regained its wonted freshness. The reek of charred timberwas everywhere. It poisoned the air, and held memory whence it wouldwillingly escape.
"Oh, Buck, speak to me! Open your eyes! Oh, my love, my dear, dearlove!"
The cry had grown in pitch. It was the cry of a woman whose whole soulis yearning for the love which had been ruthlessly torn from herbosom.
Again it died away in a sob of anguish, and all was still again. Not asound broke the appalling quiet. Not a leaf rustled, for the worldseemed shorn of all foliage. Not a sound came from the insect world,for even the smallest, the most minute of such life seemed to havefled, or been destroyed. There was neither the flutter of a wing, northe voice of the prowling carnivora, for even the winged denizens ofthe mountains and the haunting scavengers had fled in terror from sucha wilderness of desolation.
"Buck, oh, my Buck! Speak, speak! He's dead! Oh, my God, he's dead!"
Louder the voice came, and now in its wail was a note of hysteria.Fear had made harsh the velvet woman's tones. Fear, and a risingresentment against the cruel sentence that had been passed upon her.
She crouched down, rocking herself amidst a low scrub upon which thedead leaves still hung where the fires had scorched them. But the firehad not actually passed over them. A wide spread of barren rockintervened between the now skeleton woods and where the girl sathuddled.
In front of her lay the figure of a man, disheveled and bleeding, andscarcely recognizable for the staunch youth who had yielded himself tothe buffets of life that the woman he loved might be spared.
But Joan only saw the radiant young face she loved, the slim, gracefulfigure so full of life and strength. He was hers. And--and death hadsnatched him from her. Death had claimed him, when all that she couldever long for seemed to be within her grasp. Death, ruthless, fierce,hateful death had crushed out that life in its cruellest, mostmerciless fashion.
She saw nothing of the ruin which lay about her. She had no thought ofanything else, she had no thought of those others. All she knew wasthat her Buck, her brave Buck, lay before her--dead.
The girl suddenly turned her despairing eyes to the white heavens,their deep blue depths turned to a wonderful violet of emotion. Herwealth of golden hair hung loose about her shoulders, trailing abouther on the sodden earth, where it had fallen in the midst of thedisaster that had come upon her. Her rounded young figure was bentlike the figure of an aged woman, and the drawn lines of anguish onher beautiful face gave her an age she did not possess.
"Oh, he is not dead!" she cried, in a vain appeal. "Tell me he is notdead!" she cried, to the limitless space beyond the clouds. "He is allI have, all I have in the world. Oh, God, have mercy upon me! Havemercy!"
Her only reply was the stillness. The stillness as of death. Sheraised her hands to her face. There were no tears. She was beyond thatpoor comfort. Dry, hard sobs racked her body, and drove the risingfever to her poor brain.
For long moments she remained thus.
Then, after a while, her sobs ceased and she became quite still. Shedropped her hands inertly from her face, and let them lie in her lap,nerveless, helpless, while she gazed upon the well-loved features, sopale under the grime and tanning of the skin.
She sat quite still for many minutes. It almost seemed as if the powerof reason had at last left her, so colorless was her look, sounchanging was her vacant expression. But at last she stirred. Andwith her movement a strange light grew in her eyes. It was a lookbordering upon the insane, yet it was full of resolve, a desperateresolve. Her lips were tightly compressed, and she breathed hard.
She made no sound. There were no further lamentations. Slowly shereached out one hand toward the beloved body. Nor was the movement acaress. It passed across the tattered garments, through which thepainfully contused flesh peered hideously out at her. It moved withdefinite purpose toward one of the gaping holsters upon the man'swaist-belt. Her hand came to a pause over the protruding butt of arevolver. Just for a moment there was hesitation. Then it dropped uponit and her fingers clasped the weapon firmly. She withdrew it, and ina moment it rested in her lap.
She gazed down upon it with straining, hopeless eyes. It was as if shewere struggling to nerve herself for that one last act of cowardicewhich the despairing find so hard to resist. Then, with a deep-drawnsigh, she raised the weapon with its muzzle ominously pointing at herbosom.
Again came a pause.
Then she closed her eyes, as though fearing to witness the passing ofthe daylight from her life, and her forefinger moved to embrace thetrigger. It reached its object, and its pressure tightened.
But as it tightened, and the trigger even moved, she felt the warmgrip of a hand close over hers, and the pistol was turned from itsdirection with a wrench.
Her startled eyes abruptly opened, and her grip upon the weaponrelaxed, while a cry broke from her ashen lips. She had left the gunin Buck's hand, and his dark eyes were gazing into hers from his bedamongst the crushed branches of the bush amidst which he was lying.
For long moments she stared at him almost without understanding. Then,slowly, the color returned to her cheeks and lips, and great tears ofjoy welled up into her loving eyes.
"Buck," she murmured, as the heavy tears slowly rolled down hercheeks, and her bosom heaved with unspeakable joy. "My--my Buck."
For answer the man's eyes smiled. Her heaven had opened at last.
The Golden Woman: A Story of the Montana Hills Page 37