Judith of the Plains

by Marie Manning

  The hunters, meanwhile, had not been altogether successful in the chase.The necessary wolf had been coy, and they, perforce, had to compromisewith his poor relation, the coyote--a poor relation, indeed, whose shabbycoat, thinned by the process of summer shedding, made it an unworthysouvenir to Miss Colebrooke. But it was not the lack of a wolf that robbedthe hunting-party of its zest for Kitty. She could not tell what it was,but something seemed to have gone wrong with the day from the beginning.She rode beside her cavalier in a habit the like of which the country hadnever before seen, and Peter, usually the most observant of men, had noword for its multitude of perfections. In the first realization ofdisappointment with the day, the hunt, the hardships of the long ride, herperturbed consciousness took up the problem of this missing element andtried to adjust itself to the irritating absence. Kitty wondered if itwere something she had forgotten. No, there were her two little cambricpocket-handkerchiefs, remotely suggestive of orris, and bearing hermonogram delicately wrought and characteristic. It was not her watch, theribbon fob of which fluttered now and then in the breeze. It was not veilnor scarf-pin nor any of the paraphernalia of the properly garbedhorsewoman. And yet there was something missing, something she should havehad with her, something the absence of which was taking the savor from theday's hunting.

  It must be the very bigness of this great, splendid world that gave herthe sense of being alone at sea. Intuitively she turned and looked atPeter riding beside her. There was something in his face that made herlook again before accepting the realization at first incredulously, thenwith frank amusement. Peter had scarcely spoken since they left the ranch.She had come down to breakfast so sure of her new riding-habit. TheWetmore girls had been moved to hyperboles about its cut and fit and thetrim shortness of the skirt--short riding-skirts were something of anovelty then. The fine gold hair, twisted tight at the back of the shapelyhead, was like a coiled mass of burnished metal, some safe-keeping deviceof mint or gold-worker till the season of coining or fashioning shouldcome round. The translucent flesh-tints, pearl-white flushing intopink--"Bouguereau realized at last," as Nannie Wetmore was in the habit ofsumming up her cousin's complexion--was as marvellous as ever. The delicatefirmness of profile gave to the face the artificial perfection of an oldminiature, rather than of a flesh-and-blood countenance, and all thesewere there as of yore, but the marvel of them failed of the customarytribute. Kitty, on scanty reflection, was at no loss to translate Peter'sreserve into a language at once flattering and retributive. In her schemeof life he was always to be her devoted cavalier, as indeed he had beenfrom the beginning. She loved her own small eminence too well to imperilher tenure of it by sharing its pretty view of men and things with anyone. In country house parties she loved the mild wonder that thesuccessful _litterateuse_ could fight and play and win her social triumphsso well. She loved the star part, and next to playing it she enjoyedwresting it from other women or eclipsing them completely in someconspicuously minor role, while, in the matter of dress, Miss Colebrookewent beyond the point decreed by the most exigent mandates of fashion.When hats were worn over the face, her admirers had to content themselveswith a glimpse of her charming mouth and chin. When they flared, hersfairly challenged the laws of equilibrium. She danced with the samefacility with which she rode, swam, and played tennis. In doing thesethings supremely well she felt that she vindicated the position of thewoman of letters. Why should one be a frump because one wrote?

  Her friendship with Peter was to endure to greenest old age, moreplatonic, perhaps, than that of Madame Recamier and Chateaubriand. It wasto be fruitful in letters that would compare favorably with the best ofthe seventeenth century series. Even now her own letters to Peter were nosprightly scrawl of passing events, but efforts whose seriousnesssuggested, at least in their carefully elaborated stages of structure, theletters of the ladies of Cranford.

  But in the course of these Western wanderings, undertaken not whollywithout consideration of Peter, there had appeared in the maplikeexactness of her plans an indefinite territory that threatenedundreamed-of proportions. It menaced the scheme of the letters, it shookthe foundations of the Chateaubriand-Recamier friendship. The unknownquantity was none other than the frequent and irritating mention of oneJudith Rodney, who, from all accounts, appeared a half-breed. Her name,her beauty, some intrinsic charm of personality made her an all toofrequent topic, except in the case of Peter. He had been singularly keenin scenting any interrogatory venue that led to the mysterious half-breed;when questioned he persistently refused to exhibit her as a type.

  Kitty knew that she had treated her long-suffering cavalier with scantconsideration the day he had spurred across the desert to see her. True,she had written him on her arrival, but, with feminine perversity oflogic, thought it a trifle inconsiderate of him to come so soon after thattrying railroad journey. An ardent resumption of his suit--and Peter couldbe depended on for renewing it early and often--was farthest from herinclination at that particular time. She intended to salve her conscienceat the wolf-hunt for her casual reception of his impetuous visit. Butapparently Peter did not intend to be prodigal of opportunity.

  "How garrulous you people are this morning!" Nannie Wetmore challengedthem. Peter came out of his brown study with the look of one who has againreturned to earth.

  "You don't find it like the drop-curtain of a theatre, now that you'veseen it?" he questioned Kitty. For she had doubted her pleasure in themountains, in the conviction that they would be too dramatic for hersimple taste.

  Kitty closed her eyes and sighted the peaks as if she were getting thecolor scheme for an afternoon toilet.

  "Mass, bulk, rather than line--no, it's not like a drop-curtain, but it'sdistinctly 'hand-painted.' All it needs is a stag surveying the prospectfrom that great cliff. It's the kind of thing that would sound well in adescription. Oh, I assure you I intend to make lavish use of it, but itleaves nothing to one's poor imagination!"

  Peter had a distinct feeling of being annoyed. No, she could notappreciate the mountains any more than they could appreciate her. Theywere incongruous, antipathetic, antipodal. Kitty, in her pink and whiteand flaxen prettiness and her trim habit, was in harmony with thebridle-path of a city park; in this great, lonely country she was analien. He thought of Judith and the night they had climbed Horse-ThiefTrail, of her quiet endurance, her keen pleasure in the wild beauty of thenight, her quality of companionship, her loyalty, her silent bearing ofmany burdens. Yet until he had seen them both against the same relentlessbackground, he had never been conscious of comparing the two women.

  Nannie Wetmore had fallen behind. She was riding with a bronzed younglieutenant from Fort Washakie. The two ahead rode long without speaking.Then Peter broke the silence impatiently:

  "You did not really mean that, did you?" He was boyishly hurt at herflippant summing up of his beloved blue country. And Kitty, tired with thelong, hard ride, and missing that something in Peter that had always beenhers, turned on him a pair of blue eyes in which the tears were brimmingsuspiciously. They were well out of sight of the others, and had come tothe heavy fringes of a pine wood. Was it the psychological moment at last?Then suddenly their horses, that had been sniffing the air suspiciously,stopped. Kitty's horse, which was in advance of Peter's, rushed towardsthe thicker growth of pines as if all Bedlam were in pursuit. Peter'shorse, swerving from the cause of alarm, bolted back across the trail overwhich they had just made their way. A large brown bear, feeding with hercub, and hidden by the trees till they were directly in front of her, hadcaused the alarm.

  And presently the hush of the shadowy green world in which Judith lay wasbroken by a light, sobbing sound. It had been so still that, lying on herbed of pine-needles, she had likened it to great waves of silence, rollingup from the valley, breaking over her and sweeping back again, noiseless,green from the billowing ocean of pine branches, and sunlit. Judith bentover the rocky ledge and saw a girl making her way down the game trail,dishevelled and tearful. Her hat was gone, her pale-yellow ha
ir, that inshadow had the greenish tinge of corn-silk, blew about her shoulders, hertrim skirt was torn and dusty, and she looked about, bewildered, hardlyrealizing that through the unexpected course of things she had beenstranded in this great world of sunlit splendor and loneliness. She closedher eyes. The awful vastness and solitude oppressed her with a deepeningsense of calamity. Suppose they never found her? How could she find herway in this endless wilderness, afoot? She sank to the turf and began tocry hysterically.

  Judith knew in a flash of instant cognition that this was Miss Colebrooke.Amazement seemed to have dulled her powers of action--amazement that she,who had stolen to this place and crouched close to earth that she mightsee the triumph of this preferred woman, and, having seen and paid hergrievous dole, steal away and take up the thread of endless little thingsthat spun for her the web of life, was forced instead to be an unwillingwitness of the other's distress. Judith had risen with her first impulse,which had been to go to Kitty, but half-way through the thicket shehesitated and reconsidered. Undoubtedly Peter would come soon, and Peter'sconsolation would be more potent than any she could offer. She shrank inshuddering self-consciousness at the thought of her presence at theirmeeting, the uninvited guest, the outgrown friend and confidante,blundering in at such a time, pitifully full of good intentions. Sherecoiled from the picture as from a precipice that all unwittingly she hadescaped. What madness had induced her to come on this expedition? A suddenpanic at the possibility of discovery possessed her; suppose Peter shouldfind her skulking like a beggar, waiting for broken meats? She looked atthe image of herself that she carried in her heart. It was that of a proudwoman who made no moan at the scourge of the inevitable. Many burdens hadshe carried in her proud, lonely heart, but of them her lips gave no sign.In her contemplative stoicism she felt with pride that she was no unworthydaughter of her mother's people, and catching a glimpse through the treesof the abjectly waiting woman who, though safe and sound, could but wait,wretched and dispirited, for some one to come and adjust her to thesituation, Judith felt for her a wondering pity at her helplessness. Shewaited, expectant, for the sound of Peter's horse. Surely he must come atany moment, overcome with apologies, and she--Judith hid her face in herhands at the thought--she would steal away through the thicket at the firstsound of hoofs. But as the minutes slipped by and still no sign of Peter,a sickening anxiety began to gnaw at her heart. Had something happened tohim?

  She did not wait to ask herself the question twice. She crawled the lengthof the thicket with incredible rapidity, gained the pine forest, and madeher way beneath the low-hanging boughs; without stopping to protectherself from them she gained the open space and ran quickly to Kitty.

  "Are you hurt? What has happened?"

  Kitty looked up, startled at the voice. She had not heard the sound of themoccasined feet. Her wandering, forlorn thoughts crystallized at sight ofthe woman before her. A new lightning leaped into her eyes as sherecognized Judith. There was between them a thrilling consciousness thatgave to their mutual perception a something sharp and fine, that graspedthe drama of the moment with the precision and fidelity of a camera. Andthrough all the wonder of the meeting there was in the heart of each anoutflowing that met and mingled and understood the potential tragedyelement of the situation.

  "You are Miss Rodney, I believe?"

  Kitty was conscious of something strange in her voice as she looked intothe dark eyes, wide with questioning fear. Ah, but she had amazing beauty,and a something that seemed of the very essence of deep-souledwomanliness! The two women presented a fine bit of antithesis, Kitty,flower-like, small, delicately wrought, the finished product of the town,exotic as some rare transplanted orchid growth. And in Judith there was agemlike quality: it was in the bloom of her skin, the iridescent radianceof her hair, that was bluish, like a plum in sunlight; it was in the warm,red life in her lips, in the pulsing vitality of the slim, brown throat;in every line was sensuous force restrained by spiritual passion.

  Kitty told of the accident in which her horse had thrown her anddisappeared in the pine fringes, leaving her stunned for a moment or two;and how she had finally pulled herself together and followed what appearedto be a trail, in the hope of finding some one. She dwelt long on thedetails of the accident.

  "Yes, but Peter, what has happened him?" Judith chose her wordsimpatiently. She was racked with anxiety at his long delay, and now shehung over Kitty, waiting for her answer, without the semblance of a cloakfor her alarm.

  There was reproof in Kitty's amendment. "I don't know which way Mr.Hamilton's horse went. It started back over the trail, I think."

  Judith clasped her hands. "Let us go and look for him. Why do we wastetime?" But Kitty hung back. She was shaken from her fall, and upset by theevents of the morning. Besides, her faith in Peter's ability to cope withall the exigencies of this country was supreme. And chiefest reason of allfor her not going was a something within her that winced at the thought ofthis fellowship that had for its object the quest of Peter.

  "Oh, don't you see," pleaded Judith, "that if something had not happenedto him he would have been here long ago?"

  Judith's anxiety awoke in Kitty a new consciousness. What was she to him,that at the possibility of harm, a fear not shared by Kitty, she shouldthrow off a reserve that every line of her face pronounced habitual? Inher very energy of attitude, an energy that all unconsciously communicateditself to Kitty, there was the power that belongs to all elemental humanemotion--the power that compels. Kitty rose to follow Judith, thenhesitated.

  "I'm sure nothing has happened him. No, I'm really too unstrung by my fallto walk." She sank again to the bowlder on which she had been sitting.

  To the woman of the world, Judith's ingenuous display of feeling had inits very sincerity a something pitiable. How could she strip from her soulevery fold of reserve and stand unloved and unashamed, sanctified, as itwere, by the very hopelessness of her passion? How could women make oftheir whole existence a thing to be rejected, reflected Kitty, who, givingnothing, could not understand. She looked again at the bronzed face besideher, so bold in outline, so expressive in detail. Yes, she was beautiful,and yet, what had her beauty availed her? The thought that she herself wasthe preferred woman throbbed through her for a moment with a sense ofexaltation. The next moment a haunting doubt laid hold of her heart, heldup mockingly the little that she and Peter had lived through together, thelofty plane of friendship along which she had tried to lead his unwillingfeet sedately, his protests, his frank amusement at her seriouspretensions to a career. How much fuller might not have been theintercourse between him and this woman, who, in all probability, had beenhis comrade for years? And she had been idealizing him, and his love forher, and his loneliness! Kitty stood with eyes cast down, while imagescrowded upon her, leaving her cold and smiling.

  "But think," pleaded Judith; "if you don't come it will take me longer tosearch the trail-marks. You could show me just where the horses ran--"

  Kitty's eyes were still on the ground. She did not lift them, and Judith,realizing that further appeal was but a waste of time, turned and ranswiftly down the trail.

  "He is her lover," said Kitty; and all the wilderness before her was nolonelier than her heart.

  Swift, intent, Judith traced Kitty's footprints. They followed the gametrail, the one she herself had taken earlier in the day. She traced themback through the pine wood about a hundred rods, and then the trail-marksgrew confused. This was unquestionably the place where the horses hadtaken fright, circled, reared, then dashed in different directions. Shetraced the other horse, whose tracks led under low-hanging boughs. Itwould have been a difficult matter for a horse with a rider to clear; andnow the impression of the horse's shoes grew fainter, from the lighterfootfalls of a horse at full gallop.

  "Ah!" A cry broke from her as she saw the marks had become almosteliminated by something that had dragged, something heavy. Thoselong-drawn lines were finger-prints, where a hand had dragged in its vainendeavor to grasp at something. A si
ckening image came persistently beforeher eyes--Peter's upturned face, blood-smeared and disfigured.

  "Sh-sh-sh!" She put her hand to her breast to still the beating of herheart. She could hear the sound of hoofs falling muffled on the softground, and a man's voice speaking in a soothing sing-song. She listened.It was Peter's voice, reassuring the horse, asking him what kind of a bagof nerves he was for a cow pony, to get frightened at a bear? Judith stoodtall and straight among the pines. Surely he could not blindly pass herby. He must feel the joy in her heart that all was well with him. Thehoofs came nearer, the man's voice sounded but intermittently, as he gothis horse under better control. She felt as if he must come to her, as ifsome overpowering consciousness of her presence would speak from her heartto his; but his eyes scanned the distant trail for a glimpse of Kitty orKitty's horse. Judith saw that his head was bound in something white andthat it bore a red stain, but he held himself well in the saddle. He wasnot the man to heed a tumble. He urged the horse forward, never lookingtowards the tree-trunks, his face white and strained with anxiety as hescoured the trail for evidences of Kitty. The horse, with a keener sensethan his master, shied slightly as he passed the group of pines whereJudith stood; but Peter's glance was for the open trail, and as she heardhim canter by, so close that she could have touched his stirrup with herhand, it seemed as if he must hear the beating of her heart.

  "Oh, blind eyes, and ears that will not hear, and heart that has forgottenhow to beat! Yes, go to that pale, cold girl! You speak one language, andlife for you is the way of little things!"

  She waited till the last sound of the horse's hoofs had died away and allwas still in the tremulous green of the forest. Judith's mind was busywith the image of their meeting, the man bringing the joy of his youth tothe calm divinity who could feel no thrill of fear in his absence. Shebroke into the running gait and hurried through the forest to the Daxes'.