by Grey, Zane
Lucy remained alone on the shady rim of the gorge for half an hour--surely a critical and portentous time in her realisation of change. Yet, what seemed incredible to her was the fact that she would not have changed anything in the present. Perhaps she had given too much thought to herself. Vanity! Mertie Denmeade was not alone in this peculiar feminine trait. Lucy arraigned herself, and tried to persuade herself that she possessed something of worldliness. All to little purpose! She was happier than she had ever been in her life and that was all there was to it.
Denmeade led back across the mesa by a shorter route, and down the slope by an old trail. Lucy trudged along in his tracks, vastly less curious than on the way up. It had been another full day. Her hands attested to the labour of it. And as to her mind, the shadows of the past seemed dim, fading away.
As they again approached level forest Lucy caught glimpses of the yellow clearing. She heard the discordant bray of a burro, then the shrill peal of childish laughter. She emerged on the edge of the timber in time to see the packed burros filing away through the corn, and on top of the last two sat Liz and Lize, triumphantly riding on sacks of beans. Edd strode beside them. Mrs. Denmeade and Allie were plodding on ahead. Far down the edge of the field Mertie and Bert appeared hand in hand, sauntering away toward the trail for home. Something about them, perhaps those linked hands, stirred Lucy to a divination of how little other people mattered to them. She had been right in her surmise. Propinquity was all that had been needed.
Denmeade cut across the cornfield, while Lucy wended her way back along the edge of the woods to the pine tree where she had left Clara. Perhaps Clara, too, had gone with the others.
The day was over. Sunset was gilding the Rim. Crickets had begun to chirp. The air had perceptibly cooled. Crows were sailing across the clearing. Faint and sweet came the shouts of the children.
Then Lucy espied her sister sitting with her back against the pine. Joe Denmeade stood near, gazing down upon her. If either were talking, Lucy could not hear what was said; but she inclined to the thought that on the instant there was no speech. They did not hear her footsteps on the soft earth.
Without apparent cause Lucy experienced a thrill that closely approached shock. How utterly she, too, was at the mercy of her imagination! Clara and Joe together, in perfectly simple pose--what was there in that to stop Lucy's heart? Verily she was growing like the Denmeades. On the other hand, there seemed profound significance in Joe's gazing down upon Clara, as she sat there, with the last touch of the sun making a golden blaze of her hair. Joe had been hopelessly lost, from that first sight of Clara. It had seemed of no great moment. Lucy in her passionate devotion had thought only of her sister. But Lucy had a flash of revelation. This wilderness environment was marvellously strong. Lucy caught just a vague hint of its elemental power--the earth, its rugged beauty and vitality, its secret to unite and procreate, since the dawn of human life ages before. What little people knew! They were but moving atoms dominated by nature.
"Oh, here you are!" called Lucy, to start the pensive couple out of their trance. "I had the dandiest walk. Climb, I should say...And what have you two been talking about all this time?"
"Joe came just this moment to tell me they were going home," replied Clara, looking up at Lucy.
"Teacher, I was aboot to say she was goin' to get well heah in the woods, an' that I'd heard her laugh to-day," he replied, in his slow speech.
"How strange!" murmured Clara, as if mocking a belief. She studied Joe with doubtful eyes, as if she refused to believe the truth manifested in him. Lucy wisely saw nothing, said nothing, though she was stirred to speak.
"It has been a lovely day," she said as she turned away. "Come, we must go."
"Wait, Lucy," complained Clara. "I may be getting well, but I can't run."
"Make her hurry, Joe. It's late," replied Lucy, and she crossed the devastated bean-field to enter the rustling rows of corn. She did not look back. It was twilight when she arrived at the tent, and wearied with exertion and emotion, throbbing and burning, she threw herself on the bed to rest a few moments.
Clara came just as darkness fell. "Are you there, Lucy?" she asked, stumbling into the tent.
"Shore I'm heah," drawled Lucy.
"Why did you leave me alone--to walk back with that boy?" queried Clara plaintively. "He's falling in love with me--the fool!"
"Oh, Clara he'd be a fool if he wasn't," retorted Lucy.
"But it'll only make him wretched. And you--you must stop believing I'm worthy of love."
"Maybe Joe is like me," said Lucy, and this reply silenced her sister.
Chapter X
September came, with the first touches of frost on the foliage, the smoky haze hovering over the hollows, the melancholy notes of robins and wild canaries, the smell of forest fire in the air.
Edd did not remind Lucy that he had promised to take her bee-hunting. This, like so many things in the past, piqued her; and the more she upbraided herself for that the less could she forget it. Finally she said to him one night at supper:
"Edd, I thought you were going to take me bee-hunting."
"Shore. Whenever you say," replied Edd. "Then I say to-morrow," returned Lucy.
A clamour from the children and an excited little cry from Clara attested to the eagerness of others to share Lucy's good fortune. She was curious to see if Mrs. Denmeade would approve of some one else accompanying them. Lucy had in mind that among the people with whom she had associated in Felix it would hardly have been the proper thing for her to go with Edd into the woods alone.
Edd laughed down the importunities of the children.
"Nope, kids; you wait till I'm ready to cut down a bee tree not far away," he said, to appease them. "I've got one located...An' as for you, Miss Clara, I reckon you'd better not risk a long climb till you're stronger."
"Will you take me with the children?" asked Clara wistfully.
"Shore. Reckon I'll be glad to have you all packin' buckets of honey," drawled Edd.
"Edd, I seen the other day that Miss Lucy's boots wasn't hobnailed," spoke up Denmeade. "Reckon you mustn't forget to put some nails in them for her. Else she might slip an' hurt herself."
"Wal, now you tax me, I'll just naturally have to hobnail her boots," returned Edd dryly. "But fact was I wanted to see her slide around some."
"Very sweet of you, Edd," interposed Lucy in the same tone. "Couldn't you wait till winter and find me some ice?"
"Say, slidin' down a slope of grass an' pine needles will take the tenderfoot out of you," he retorted.
"Oh, then you think I need that?" she queried.
"Wal, I reckon you don't need no more," he said quaintly.
"Is Edd complimenting me?" asked Lucy, appealing to Mrs. Denmeade. She nodded smilingly.
"Thanks. Very well, Edd. I shall fetch my boots for you to hobnail. And to-morrow you may have the pleasure of watching me slide."
After supper she watched him at work. He had an iron last, upside down, over which he slipped one of her boots. Then with a hammer he pounded small-headed hobnails into the soles. He was so deft at it that Lucy inquired if he were a shoemaker.
"Reckon so. I used to tan leather an' make my own shoes. But I only do half-solin' now."
Presently he removed the boot from the last, and felt inside to find if any nails had come through.
"That one's jake," he said.
Lucy examined the sole to find two rows of hobnails neatly and symmetrically driven round the edge. Inside these rows were the initials of her name.
"Well, you're also an artist," she said. "I suppose you want to make it easy for anyone to know my boot tracks."
"Wal, I can't say as I'd like anyone trailin' you," he replied, with a deep, grave look at her.
Lucy changed the subject. When she returned to her tent dusk had fallen and Clara was sitting in the doorway. Lucy threw the boots inside and sat down on the lower step to lean back against her sister. Often they had spent the gloaming hour
this way. The cool, melancholy night was settling down like a mantle over the forest land. Bells on the burros tinkled musically; a cow lowed in the distance; a night hawk whistled his strange, piercing note.
"Lucy, I like Edd Denmeade," said Clara presently.
"Goodness! Don't let him see it--or, poor fellow, he--"
"Please take me seriously," interrupted Clara. "I believed I'd always hate men. But to be honest with myself and you, I find I can't. I like Mr. Denmeade and Uncle Bill--and the boys. Edd is a wonderful fellow. He's deep. He's so cool, drawly, kind. At first his backwoodsness, so to call it, offended me. But I soon saw that is his great attraction for me. As you know, I've gone with a lot of city boys, without ever thinking about what they were...I wonder. City clothes and manners, nice smooth white hands, ought not be much in the make-up of a man. Edd's old jeans, his crude talk and ways, his big rough hands--they don't repel me any more. I don't quite understand, but I feel it. He's good for me, Lucy dear. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yes. And I'm glad. You've had a bitter blow. No wonder you think now what boys are...As for me, I don't really know whether Edd has been good--or bad for me."
"Lucy!"
"Listen. I'll tell you something," went on Lucy, and she related the story of Edd's taking her to the dance.
"How funny! How--" exclaimed Clara, laughing--"how I don't know what!...Lucy, I just believe it tickles me. If he had been rude--you know, fresh, I mean--I'd have despised him. But the way you told it. Oh, I think it's rich! I believe I would have liked him better."
Lucy might have confessed that deep in her heart she had done this very thing herself, but the fact was not acceptable to her.
"Joe is the best of the Denmeades, and quite the nicest boy I ever knew," she said earnestly. "What do you think of him, Clara?"
"It's dreadful of me, but I like to be with him," whispered Clara. "He's so--so sweet. That's the only word. But it does not fit him, either. He has the same strong qualities as Edd...Lucy, that boy rests me. He soothes me. He makes me ashamed...Tell me all about him."
"Well, Joe's ears will burn," laughed Lucy and then she began her estimate of Joe Denmeade. She was generous. But in concluding with the facts about him that had come under her observation and been told by his people, Lucy held rigidly to truth.
"All that!" murmured Clara thoughtfully. "And I'm the only girl he ever looked at?...Poor Joe!"
Next morning there was a white frost. Lucy felt it and smelled it before she got up to peep out behind the curtain of the tent door. The sun had just tipped the great promontory, a pale blaze that made the frost on grass and logs shine like an encrustment of diamonds.
"Ooooo, but it's cold!" exclaimed Lucy as she threw on her dressing-gown. "Now I know why Edd insisted on installing this stove. Any old 'morning now I'd wake up frozen!"
"Come back to bed," advised Clara sleepily.
"I'll start the fire, then slip back for a little. Oh, I wonder--will we have to give up living out here when winter comes?"
The stove was a wood-burning one, oval in shape, and flat on top, with a sheet-iron pipe running up through the roof of the tent. Lucy had thought it sort of a toy affair, despite Edd's assertion as to its utility. He had laid the pine needles, and splinters and billets of wood, so that all Lucy had to do was to strike a match. She was not an adept at building fares, and expected this to go out. Instead it flared up, blazed, crackled, and roared. Fortunately Lucy recollected Edd's warning to have a care to turn the damper in the stove-pipe.
"This stove is going to be a success. How good it feels!"
Then she noticed the neat pile of chips and billets of red-wood stacked behind the stove, and a small box full of pine needles. Edd Denmeade was thoughtful. Lucy put a pan of water on the stove to heat, and slipped back into bed. Her hands and feet were like ice, matters that Clara was not too sleepy to note. Soon the tent-room was cosy and warm. Lucy felt encouraged to think it might be possible for her and Clara to occupy this lodging all winter. Edd had averred the little stove would make them as snug as birds in a nest. To make sure, however, that they could live outdoors, he had suggested boarding the tent wall half-way up and shingling the roof.
"Sleepy-head!" called Lucy, shaking her sister.
"Ah-h!...I just never can wake up," replied Clara. "It's so good to sleep here...I didn't sleep much down there in the desert."
"My dear, you've slept three-fourths of the time you've been here, day as well as night. It's this mountain air. I was almost as bad. Well, good sleep is better than wasted waking hours. Now I'm going to be heroic."
By nine o'clock all trace of frost had vanished from grass and logs. Edd presented himself at the tent.
"Wal, I'm a-rarin' to go."
"Yes, you are!" called Lucy banteringly. "Here I've been ready these last two hours."
"City girl! You can't line bees till the sun gets warm."
"Backwoods boy! Why not?"
"Bees don't work so early. You see, it's gettin' along towards fall."
"I'll be right out...Let's see--my gloves and knapsack...Well, sister mine, why do you stare at me?"
Clara was sitting at the little table, with speculative gaze fastened upon Lucy. It made Lucy a little sensitive to her attire. This consisted of a slouch felt hat, a red scarf round the neck of her brown blouse, corduroy riding trousers, and high boots. On the moment Lucy was slipping on her gauntlets.
"Clara, it'll be a long, hard tramp, up and down," declared Lucy, as if in self-defence.
"You look great," rejoined Clara, with one of her sweet, rare smiles. "I'm not so sure about your welfare work, in that get-up. I think it's plain murder?"
Clara made an expressive gesture, to indicate Edd outside. Lucy was not quite equal to a laugh. Sometimes this realistic sister of hers forced home a significance that escaped her idealistic mind.
"If you only could go!" sighed Lucy. "I--I think I need you as much as you need me...Don't forget your welfare work. Good-bye."
Edd carried a gun, a small black tin bucket, and a package which he gave to Lucy to put in her knapsack.
"Ma reckoned you'd like somethin' to eat," he explained.
So they set off across the lane, through the strip of woods, and out into the sorghum-field. Lucy experienced an unaccountable embarrassment. She felt like a callow girl taking her first walk with a boy. She did not feel at all at her ease in this riding garb, though the freedom of it had never been so manifest. She was guilty of peering round to see if any of the Denmeades were in sight, watching them cross the field. She could not see anyone, which fact helped a little. Then she did not discover her usual fluency of speech. Finding herself alone with this stalwart bee hunter, facing a long day in the wilderness, had turned out to be something more than thrilling. Lucy essayed to throw off the handicap.
"What's in your little black bucket?" she inquired. "Honey. I burn it to make a sweet, strong smell in the woods. That shore fetches the bees."
"What's the gun for?"
"Wal, sometimes a bear smells the honey an' comes along. Bears love sweet stuff, most of all honey."
"Bears! In broad daylight?" ejaculated Lucy.
"Shore. One day not long ago I had four bears come for my honey. Didn't have no gun with me, so I slipped back an' hid. You should have seen the fun they had stickin' their noses an' paws in my bucket of honey. They stole it, too, an' took it off with them."
"You won't leave me alone?" queried Lucy fearfully.
"Wal, if I have to I'll boost you up into a tree," drawled Edd.
"I wonder if this is going to be fun," pondered Lucy. Suddenly she remembered the proclivity for playing tricks natural to these backwoods boys. "Edd, promise me you will not try to scare me. No tricks! Promise me solemnly."
"Aw, I'm shore not mean, Lucy," he expostulated. "Fun is fun an' I ain't above little tricks. But honest, you can trust me."
"I beg your pardon. That about bears--and boosting me up into a tree--somehow flustered me a little."
Lucy had never been on this trail, which she knew to be the one that led over the Rim. She thrilled at the thought of climbing to the lofty summit of that black-fringed mountain mesa, but she was sure Edd would not put her to that ascent without a horse. The low hum which filled her ears grew into the roar of a brawling brook.
"Bear track," said her guide, halting to point at a rounded depression in the dust of the trail. Lucy saw the imprint of huge toes. Her flesh contracted to a cold, creeping sensation. "That old Jasper went along here last night. Reckon he's the bear that's been killin' our little pigs. Pa shore will be rarin' to chase him with the hounds."
"Edd! Is there any danger of our meeting this old Jasper, as you called him?" inquired Lucy.
"Reckon not much. Shore we might, though. I often run into bears. They're pretty tame. Hope we do meet him. I'd shore have some fun."
"Oh, would you? I don't believe it'd be very funny for me," declared Lucy.
"Wal, in case we do, you just mind what I say," concluded Edd.
Somehow his drawling confidence reassured her, and she reverted again to the pleasurable sensations of the walk. The trail led down into a deep gorge, dense with trees large and small, and along a wildly boulder-strewn stream bed, where the water roared unseen through its channel. Here towered the lofty silver spruces, so delicate of hue and graceful in outline. The sunlight filtered through the foliage. Everywhere Lucy gazed were evidences of the wildness of this forest, in timber and rock and windfalls, in the huge masses of driftwood, in the precipitous banks of the stream, showing how the flood torrents tore and dug at their confines.
Lucy did not see a bird or squirrel, nor hear one. But as to the latter the roar of rushing water would have drowned any ordinary sound. Gradually the trail left the vicinity of the stream and began a slight ascent, winding among beds of giant boulders covered with trailing vines. Lucy was particularly struck by the almost overpowering scent of the woodland. It appeared dominated by the fragrance of pine, but there was other beside that spicy tang. Through the woods ahead she caught glimpses of light and open sky. Then Edd halted her.