The Sagebrusher: A Story of the West

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The Sagebrusher: A Story of the West Page 12

by Emerson Hough


  CHAPTER XII

  LEFT ALONE

  Mary Warren, alone in the little cabin, found herself in a new worldwhose existence she had never dreamed--that subjective and subconsciousland which bridges the forgotten genesis of things to the usual andbusy world of the senses, in which we pass our daily lives. Indeed,never before had she known what human life really is, how far out ofperspective, how selfish, how distorted. Now, alone in the darkness,back in the chaos and the beginning, she saw for the first time howsmall a thing is life and how ill it is for the most part lived. A flybuzzed loudly on the window pane--a bold, bronzed, lustrous fly, nodoubt, she said to herself, pompous and full of himself--buzzed againand again, until the drone of his wings blurred, grew confused, ceased.She wondered if he had found a web.

  The darkness oppressed her like a velvet pall. She strained her eyes,trying in spite of all to pierce it, beat at it, picked at it, to getit from around her head; and only paused at length, her face beaded,because she knew that way madness lay.

  Time was a thing now quite out of her comprehension. Night and day,all the natural and accustomed divisions of time, were gone for her.She felt at the hands of her little watch, but found her mindconfused--she could not remember whether it was the stem or the hingewhich meant noon or midnight.

  A thousand new doubts and fears of her newly created world assailingher, she felt rather than saw the flood of the sunlight when shestepped to the door gropingly, and stood, stick in hand, looking out.Yes, that was the sun. But it was hard to reason which way was north,which way lay the east, which was her home.

  Home? She had no home! These years, she had known no home but thesingle room which she had occupied with Annie Squires. And now eventhat was gone. And even if it were not gone, she had no means of goingback to it--her money was almost exhausted. And this black world wasnot the earth, this new covering of her soul was not life. Oh, smallenough seemed Mary Warren to her own self now.

  She stumbled back to her seat behind the table, near the bunk, andtried to take up her knitting again. The silence seemed to her sotremendous that she listened intently for some sound, any sound. Cameonly the twitter of a little near-by bird, the metallic clank of ameadow lark far off across the meadows. They at least were friendly,these birds. She could have kissed them, held them close to her, thesenew friends.

  But why did he not come back--the man? What was going to happen if hedid come back? How long would all this last? Must it come to death,or to the acceptance of terror or of shame, as the price of life?

  She began to face her problem with a sort of stolid courage orresolution--she knew not what to call it. She was at bay--that was thetruth of it. There must be some course of action upon which presentlyshe must determine. What could it be? How could she take arms againsther new, vast sea of troubles, so far more great than falls to theaverage woman, no matter how ill, how afflicted, how unfit for thevast, grim conflict which ends at last at the web?

  One way out would be to end life itself. Her instinct, her religioustraining, her principles, her faith, rebelled against that thought.No--no! That was not right. Her life, even her faint, pulsing,crippled life, was a sacred trust to her. She must guard it, notselfishly, but because it was right to do so. She could feel thesunshine outside, could hear the birds singing. They said that lifestill existed, that she also must live on, even if there were no soundof singing in her own heart ever again.

  Then she must go back to the East, whence she had come?--Even ifgreat-hearted Annie would listen to that and take her back, where wasthe money for the return passage? How could she ask this man formoney, this man whom she had so bitterly deceived? No, her bridgeswere burned.

  What then was left? Only the man himself. And in what capacity?Husband; or what? And if not a husband, what?

  . . . No, she resolved. She would accept duty as the price of life,which also was a duty; but she would never relax what always to her hadmeant life, had been a part of her, the principles ingrained in herteachings and her practices, ever since she was a child. No, it washusband or nothing.

  And surely he had been all that he had said he would be. He _was_kindly, he _was_ chivalrous, he had proved that. She wondered how helooked. And what had she now to offer for perfection in a man? Wasshe not reduced to the bargain counter, in the very basement of life?If so, what must be her bargain here?

  And then she recalled the refusal of Sim Gage himself to think ofmarriage. He had said he was not good enough for her. How could shethen marry him, even if she so wished? Must she woo him and persuadehim, argue with him? All her own virginal soul, all the sanctity ofher life, rebelled against that thought also.

  Object, matrimony! What a cruel jest it all had been. What a terribledilemma, this into which it all had resolved itself. Object, matrimony!

  So if this man--so she reasoned again, wearily--if this man who hadbeen kind at least, even if uncouth, was willing to take her with allher stories told, and all shortcomings known and understood--if he waswilling to take chances and be content--was that indeed the only wayout for her, Mary Warren?

  What made it all most bitter, most difficult, most horrible for her wasthe strength of her own soul. Was it the _right_ thing to do--was itthe courageous and valiant thing to do? Those were the two questionswhich alone allowed her to face that way for an answer; and they werethe very two which drove her hardest. Could she not do much, if in theline of duty? Sacrifice was no new thing for women. . . . And thewar! . . . This was not a time for little thoughts.

  Such are some of the questions a woman must ask and answer, because sheis a woman. They are asked and answered every day of the world;perhaps not often so cruelly as here in this little cabin.

  She began, weakly, to try to resign herself to some frame of mind bywhich she could entertain the bare, brutal thought of this alternative.She had come more than a thousand miles to meet this man by plan, byarrangement. Oh, no (so she argued), it could not be true that therewas but one man for one woman, one woman for a man, in all the world.Annie must have been right. Propinquity did it--was that not why menand women nearly always married in their own village, their own socialcircle? Well, then, here was propinquity. Object, matrimony! Wouldpropinquity solve all this at last, as though this were a desertisland, they two alone remaining? God!

  Was it indeed true, asked Mary Warren, in her bitter darkness, that therude doctrine of material ideas alone must rule the world now in thisstrange, new, inchoate, revolutionary age? Was it indeed true thatsentiment, the emotions, the tenderer things of life, a woman'simmeasurable inheritance--must all these things go also into thediscards of the world's vast bloody bargain counter?

  She remembered Annie's rude but well-meant words, back there where theyonce crudely struggled with these great questions. "What's the use oftrying to change the world, Sis?" she had said. "Something's goingwrong every minute of the day and night--something's coming up all thetime that ought to be different. But we ain't got nothing to do withrunning the world--just running our own two lives is enough for us."

  Hours or moments later--she could not have told which--she raised herhead suddenly. What was it that she had heard? There was a cough, afootfall in the yard.

  Oh, then he was coming home! Why not have the whole thing out now,over once and for all? Why not speak plainly and have it done? He hadnot been so terrible. He was an ignorant man, but not unkind, notbrutal.

  She felt the light in the door darken, knew that some one was standingthere. But something, subconscious, out of her new, darkworld--something, she could not tell what--told her this was not SimGage.

  She reached out her hand instinctively. By mere chance it fell uponthe heavy revolver in its holster which Sim had hung upon the pole atthe head of her bed. She caught it out, drew back into the room,toward the head of the bed, and stumbling into her rude box chair, satthere, the revolver held loosely in her hand. She knew little of itsaction.

  She heard a h
eavy step on the floor, that did not sound familiar, aclearing of the throat which was yet more unfamiliar, a laugh which wasthe last thing needed. This man had no business there, else he wouldnot have laughed.

  "Who's there?" she called out, tremulously. "Who are you?" She turnedon him her sightless eyes, a vast terror in her soul.

  "Good morning," said a throaty voice. She could fairly hear him grin."How's everything this morning? Where's your man this morning?"

  "He's--just across in the meadows--he'll be back soon," said MaryWarren.

  "Is that so? I seen him ten miles down the road just a while back.Now, look here, woman----"

  He had come fully into the room, and now he saw in her lap the weapon.Half unconsciously she raised it.

  "Look out!" he called. "It may be loaded. Drop it!"

  "Come a step further, and I'll shoot!" said Mary Warren. And then,although he did not know that she was sightless, he saw on her facethat look which might well warn him. Any ruffian knows that a woman ismore apt to shoot than is a man.

  This ruffian paused now half way inside the door and looked about him.A grin spread across his wide, high-cheeked face. He reached downsilently to the stout spruce stick, charred at one end, that stoodbetween him and the stove. Grasping it he advanced on tiptoe, silentas a cat, toward the woman. He was convinced that her sight was poor,almost convinced that she did not see at all, because she made no movewhen he stopped, the stick drawn back. With a swift sweep he struckthe barrel of the revolver a blow so forceful that it was cast quiteacross the room. He sprang upon it at once.

  Mary Warren cried out, drew back as far as she could. The impact ofthe blow had crushed a finger of the hand that held the weapon. Shewrung her hands, held up the bloody finger. "Who are you--what do youwant?" she moaned.

  "That's what you get when you run against a real one," sneered thevoice of the man, who now stood fully within the little room. "Justkeep quiet now."

  "What do you mean? What are you going to do?" She felt about againfor some weapon, anything, but could find nothing.

  "That's a purty question to ask, ain't it now?" sneered her assailant.She could catch the reek of raw spirits around him as he stood near by.She shuddered.

  "Sim!" she called out aloud at last. "Sim! Sim!"

  The name caused a vast mirth in her captor. "Sim! Sim!" he mockedher. "Lot o' help Sim'd be if he was here, wouldn't he? As though Icared for that dirty loafer. He's going to git all that's comin' to_him_. Aw, Sim! He'll leave us Soviet sabcats alone. We're thinkers.We're free men. We run our own government, and we run our own selves,too."

  The liquor had made the man loquacious. He must boast. She tried toguess what he might mean.

  But something in the muddled brain of the man retained recollection ofan earlier purpose. "Stay inside, you!" he said. "I got work to do.If you go outside I'll kill you. Do you hear me?"

  She heard his feet passing, heard them upon the scattered boards nearthe door, then muffled in the grass. She could not guess what he wasabout.

  He went to the edge of the standing grass beyond the dooryard, andbegan sowing, broadcast, spikes, nails, bits of iron, intended to ruinthe sickle blades of the mowers when they came to work. Even he thrusta spike or bolt here or there upright in the ground to catch a blade.

  Mary Warren where she sat knew none of this, but she heard a soundpresently which she could not mistake--the crackling of fire! Thescent of it came to her nostrils. The man had fired the meagerremnants of Sim Gage's hay stacks.

  She heard next a shot or two, but could not tell what they meant. Shecould not know that he was firing into the dumb, gaunt cattle whichhung about the ricks.

  Then later she heard something which caused her very soul to shiver,made her blood run ice--the shrieking scream of a horse in deathagony--the hoarser braying of a mule, both dying amid fire! She didnot understand it, could not have guessed it; but he had set fire alsoto the stables. Brutal to the last extreme, he left the animals pennedto die in the flames, and laughed at their agony.

  Again and again the awful sounds came to her. She was hysterical whenshe heard his footstep approach once more, shrieked aloud for mercy.He mocked her.

  "Stop it! Cut it out, I say. Come on now--do you want to stay hereand burn up in the house?"

  "I can't see--I'm blind," was all she could manage to say.

  "Blind, huh?" He laughed now uproariously. "Well, it's a good thingyou was blind, or else you might of seen Sim Gage! Did you ever seeSim? What made you come here? What did you come for?"

  "I'm his housekeeper. He employed me----"

  "Employed you? For what?--for housekeeping? It looks like it, don'tit? Where did you come from, gal?"

  "East--Ohio--Cleveland," she spoke almost unconsciously and truthfully.

  "Cleveland? Plenty of our people there too still in the iron works.Cleveland? And how come you out here?"

  "I'm ill--I'm a blind woman. Can't you leave me alone? Are you anyman at all?"

  He remained unmoved, phlegmatic. "So? Nice talk about you and SimGage! Was you two married? I know you ain't. You come out to marryhim, though, didn't you?"

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  "Next week--he's gone for the minister to-day." She said anything, thefirst thing.

  "That's a lie," said the coarse voice of the man she could not see. "Iseen him ten mile down toward the dam, I tell you, with Wid Gardner,and Nels Jensen's folks, below, said they was going for a doctor, not apreacher. He wouldn't marry no blind woman like you, no ways."

  She sank back, limp, her face in her bloody hands, as she lay againstthe edge of the bed.

  "Come now," said he. "We got no time to waste. We'll see what theother fellers think. Housekeeper--huh! You said you wasn't married tohim. You never will be, now."

  "You brute!" she cried, with the courage of the cornered thing, thecourage of the prisoner bound to the stake for torture. "You brute!"

  She could hear him chuckle throatily. "You don't know me--I'm BigAleck, general of the Soviet brothers in this county." He juggledphrases he never had understood.

  "You ought to hang!" she panted. "You will hang, some day."

  "You ought to hang!" said she.]

  "You better look a little out, gal, I tell you that. You come alongout to the camp, and I'll see how you like that!"

  She felt his iron grasp fall upon her wrist. He dragged her across thefloor as though she weighed nothing. She had been wholly helpless,even if in possession of all her faculties and all her senses. Heflung her from him upon the grass, laughing as she rose and tried torun, bringing up in the willows, which she could not see. She couldhear the flames crackling at the hay ricks on beyond. By this time thesounds from the burning barn mercifully had ceased, but she heard himnow at some further work. He was trying to light the battered edge ofthe door with a match, but it would not burn.

  "Where's the oil, gal?" he demanded.

  "We've got none," said she, guessing his purpose of firing the housenow.

  He made no answer but a grunt, and finding the ax at the wood pilenearby, began to hack at the jamb of the door, so that a series ofchips stood out from it, offering better food for flames. She heardhim again strike a match--caught the faint smell of burning pine.

  "Come on!" Again she felt his hand. He dragged her, her feetstumbling in the grass. She could hear horses snorting, so there wassome vehicle here, she supposed. He flung her up to the seat, jerkedloose the halters, and climbed in as the team plunged forward. Had anyone seen the careening wagon, seen the upflung arm of a woman swayingin the grasp of the man who sat beside her in the seat--had any oneheard the laugh of the man, the shrieks of the woman, struggling andcalling,--he must have thought that two drunken human beings instead ofone were endeavoring to show the astonished sky how bestial life may beeven here in America in an undone day.

 

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