by Zane Grey
“Kev, it’ll be a—a honeymoon,” whispered Beryl rapturously.
“So it will be. I’ve never dared think of that.”
Then they became lost in dreams. Suddenly Keven roused out of his, to lift Beryl’s head.
“Is it a bargain?”
“Oh, joy!” cried Beryl. “Listen to him! It is my salvation.”
“You will never regret?”
“Never, darling.”
“Very well…. Beryl, did you hint that you were starved for kisses?”
“I didn’t hint. I said so.”
“Kiss me first. Then we’ll see.”
“I’ve already kissed you,” she said shyly.
“That was of your own accord. This is a deal between us.”
“Oh, I see.” Then she pecked at his ear with tight lips, and just brushed his cheek, then after a pause, tenderly and lovingly kissed that sunken line of his jaw.
“Kev, do you remember,” she began, feeling the injured place with fingers as tender as her lips, “do you remember that horrible time when—when I struck you?”
“Remember? Huh, I should smile I do!”
“Have you wholly forgiven me?”
“Of course, honey. I didn’t blame you for lambasting me one. I must have been damn exasperating.”
“You were. But I’ve never forgiven myself,” she murmured. “I——”
“See here, you’re falling down on the job already,” interrupted Keven.
“Wha-at job?” she asked, giggling.
“Why, the rest of your future. It will consist solely of kissing me morning, noon, and night…. My God, I love you, Beryl…. It’s changed my whole life. I’m young again. And if I were a whole man once more I’d be happy. Think of that! Happy! I’d ask no more than to be with you and work.”
“I’m happy now…. I can confess now that for a year or more be fore you came back I—I was afraid you’d forgotten—not me exactly, but that you loved me.”
Full confession on that score trembled on Keven’s lips, but reluctance to hurt Beryl kept him silent. What was the need to tell her now? He was not sure that he should not. He wavered and the moment passed.
“It seems to me what matters now is the absolute certainty that I love you. No girl ever before meant so much to a man. You have saved me. I was broken, wretched, ruined. My mind was clouded. And as sure as heaven, if I had got by Solitude I would have killed Atwell and then myself.”
“God would never have let you get by Solitude,” returned Beryl solemnly.
“You believe in God, then?”
“Of course. God is all around us here,” she replied simply.
“We’ll have lots to talk about when we come back home. Married! Man and wife! … Beryl, call me husband.”
“How can I—yet?”
“I want to hear how it sounds. All this is so darned incredible.”
“It’s very real to me,” murmured Beryl, whose heavy-lidded eyes were closed. “Husband! … How does it sound?”
“It’d be wonderful if you weren’t so awed. Beryl, after all, I’m only an ordinary mortal.”
“You!”
“Well, then, what have I been to you and what am I now?”
“You were my first and only boy friend. Then my sweetheart, my soldier-hero, my absent master, my returned lover—and soon—my husband.”
Keven saw that there was no help for the dream and the glory that dwelt in Beryl Aard’s mind. How could any man have deserved it? But it was there. It had dragged him out of the depths. Suddenly in a passion of realization, of gratitude and love, he fell to kissing her.
“Oh…. Kev! … There! … No more! … Mercy! …. Darl—ing—I—I didn’t mean … Oh, Kev, you’re strangling me. I——”
But he did not desist until he was exhausted and she lay white and spent back upon his shoulder. More than all else, that had been what he craved. The bliss of this indulgence, the all-satisfying surrender to it, and the supreme proof of his mastery quickly merged into a feeling of his responsibility, his opportunity.
“Beryl, I—I had to do that,” he exclaimed hoarsely, as he slowly recovered. “But I promise I’ll not have another brainstorm—anyway, not till after we’re married…. Now, open your eyes, precious…. Sit up. We’ve got to get down to brass tacks. We’re having a great old understanding. But there’s more.”
She was not so quick to respond.
“What’re you—going to do? Finish me at one—fell swoop?” Her tone was plaintive and she was smiling. But her wide eyes gave Keven a glimpse into the depth and mystery of a woman’s soul, before which he trembled.
“You would tantalize me…. Now, Beryl, come out of your trance. Let’s finish each other for good. We’ll leave for Portland tomorrow, and we’ve planned as far as Grant’s Pass. We’ll have our fling there. Buy all the stuff we’ve got money left to buy. New tackle for you to fuss over this winter—books to study and read—oh, everything.”
“And a rifle for you, Kev. Do you know you’re making me so, so happy I—I——”
She could not find any adequate words to express what she felt.
“Am I? Good, but I haven’t started yet…. We’ll be away about two weeks. Let’s see.”
“That’s just fine. It’ll be Indian summer then. No one who ever spent an Indian summer in Oregon would miss another.”
“Indian summer is all right. But I’ve got to work. I’ll have a wife, you beautiful dreaming creature. You’ll be moving over into my cabin then. It’ll have to be fixed up comfortably.”
“Indeed it will. We must get no end of things,” she said with keen enthusiasm.
“But, honey, we must not go in debt,” declared Keven earnestly.
“Debt? Did I say anything about that? I suppose you think I’ll make a wildly extravagant wife?”
“Lord, I hope not. You’ll sure make an adorable one. But, Beryl, stop making me think of you only as that. Let’s start right. We’ll be poor. And we must live on my labor. Can’t you understand?”
“I’m trying hard, you dear old goose.”
“Well then, no going in debt. Promise?”
“Yes,” she replied, with dark eloquent eyes studying him.
“That trip will cost us all the five hundred dollars you have—which you’ll lend me…. Gosh, we’ll have to stretch it. But those Portland doctors will be easy on me.”
“Kev, I’m afraid five hundred won’t be enough.”
“It’ll have to be.”
“Dad would lend you a little.”
“Now, Beryl! … No!”
“Well, then, he might give us a little wedding present.”
“Ahuh…. Beryl, you may belong to Solitude, but you have plenty of eternal feminine…. When we come home I’ll go to work in earnest. At whatever Aard gives me to do. Trapping first——”
“No, Keven, darling, you won’t take up trapping,” she interrupted calmly.
“But, Beryl, your father’s a trapper,” expostulated Keven.
“Is he? Well, you’re not going to be one.”
“What have you against trapping?”
“It’s horribly cruel.”
“Yes, I suppose it is. But beggars can’t be choosers…. I’m sorry, but I fear I’ll have to do it without your consent.”
“No, you won’t.”
“See here, woman, who says I won’t?”
“I do…. There, I see battle in your eyes. Let’s put that question off till we come home. Sufficient unto the day.”
“A good idea. But don’t be too sure…. The thing is I’ll go to work. Beryl, we have very sweet and beautiful prospects. Only perhaps you have not thought so far ahead as I have.”
“I’ve thought pretty far, Mister.”
“Oh, you have. Well, how far?”
Here, however, she averted a blushing face.
“Beryl, honey, listen,” he went on, most earnestly, drawing her face around. “Solitude will be home. And I know I will love it more and more. Our w
ants are few, when you come to think of them. Thank God, you are a girl of simple tastes. But you will not be marrying a market fisherman, or a wood chopper, or a trapper, even if the facts contradict that for a while. I will develop a fruit farm here. Many men have been successful up the river. Why not here? The point is that I shall not want to keep you stuck in the woods all the time. When we can afford it, I will take you out. You’d like to see Frisco, wouldn’t you, and Southern California?”
“Yes, but I’d not care a rap if I never did.”
“The winters are long here.”
“Surely. And they’re lovely. Just you wait.”
“Could you be happy if we never left Solitude?”
“You bet I could—if you could.”
“Beryl, it’s no question of what I could do. I want only you. But there’s another angle to it. You’re an educated girl. You mustn’t make me let you stagnate.”
“Stagnate! Here on my beautiful singing river? … Kev Bell, you don’t realize. You don’t know me.”
“Doggone you, anyway,” returned Keven good-humoredly. “I’ll have to get down to the brass tacks I mentioned.”
“Ahuh.” She imitated him dryly.
“You want babies, don’t you?” he launched at her abruptly.
This query sent her back to her hiding place on his shoulder.
“Beryl!” He repeated the query.
“Yes, of course I—I do,” she whispered.
“How much do you want them?”
“Oh—very—very much.”
“Very soon?”
“Not—so—very.”
“How many?”
“Oh, Kev, I think you’re dreadful. Such things to ask a girl!”
“It’s tough, I know, darling. But you see, you’re not making a very good matrimonial venture. I want to know—right before we start. Please don’t mind. Surely we can talk about anything. It’ll be a help to me, Beryl.”
“Well, you funny dear, it seems wild conjecture. But if you want my real deep dream … I’d like to have two children at least, a boy and a girl, before I’m thirty. And then, perhaps another afterward.”
“Good. I’m absolutely in accord with you there. Well, the reason for all this embarrassing quiz of mine hinges on possible children. What’s your idea of school for our little Beryl and Kev to come—and possibly George Washington Aard Bell?”
She laughed merrily.
“Keven, there’s a country school at Agness. Surely in a few years there’ll be schools at Illahe and Marial.”
“Did you go to Agness?”
“No. My mother taught me. And as I told you I had four years of school at Roseburg.”
“That last is okay. And surely you could teach young kiddies. But after they grew up, say to six or seven, I’d want them to have the advantages of good schools.”
“I agree, Keven.”
“Then in case we have such marvelous fortune—say a couple of youngsters—would you be willing to live in Roseburg or Grant’s Pass, while they went to school? I mean only a few months—or at most a part of each year.”
“Yes indeed, I would, provided you lived with us.”
“Well, I guess. If I couldn’t, I fear our little Bells would grow up Rogue River Indians…. Beryl, you’re the most satisfactory sweetheart I ever had.”
“Kev Bell, how dare you! You swore you never had a sweetheart at all before me.”
“When did I swear that?”
“It was one afternoon, nearly five years ago. We were down by the river. We’d had an awful row. Well, we made up, and it was then——”
“Beryl, pray spare me any further details,” he interrupted ruefully.
Beryl laughed.
“Beryl, to be serious again, you’ve changed my whole world this night,” said Keven gratefully. “I shall have no more black spells. I shall have no more worries. You’re as good, as sensible, as clever as you are loving and beautiful. And that is saying a mighty lot. My God, the sheer luck of it! After all the agony of those two years in a hospital—and my failing and sinking afterward—the sin and degradation that I actually faced—to meet you again, to find in you such a faithful sweetheart as no man, much less me, could deserve—to be checked, softened, saved—what else can I call it?”
“Kev, darling, don’t praise me so,” she replied, and she pressed his head to her breast, then released him and rose to her feet. “I am only human. Lately I’ve had my doubts, my fears. But since you do love me and you do share my feeling for Solitude all is well. I could not be happier…. Look, it is late. Where have the hours flown? Let us go out and listen to the river—then say good night. Tomorrow I must be up early to pack for our adventure…. Ah, Kev, it is almost too good to be true.”
They went outdoors. The night was dark. The great black slopes sheered up to the strip of blue sky, studded with white stars. There were no rustlings of wind in the leaves, no chirpings of insects. The air was cold. Keven drew Beryl into his arms.
“Now I can hear only your heartbeat,” she whispered, from his breast.
“Listen to that. It’s all for you. I’ll listen to the river for us both.”
Through the incredible stillness the low murmur of the river seemed to have a supernatural significance. That voice could not come only from gliding waters. It was a gentle and singing sound, full of mystery, like the pale-gleaming, starlight-reflecting water from whence it came. There was something else out there. Keven felt it, and the thing that had been vague became clear. Spirit! All was not merely physical—rocks and trees and waters. The same spirit which dreamed and murmured under the watching stars actuated this throbbing, quivering girl. The last shadow of materialism faded out of Keven Bell forever. The evil that had been done him passed like a black specter into the gloom of the forest. He absorbed the meaning and the strength of Solitude. He accepted the love of this girl as something as infinite as the Nature which had created her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
NEXT morning, early as Keven arose, it was not early enough to be ahead of Beryl. He heard her gay voice rousing Aard and the Indian housekeeper. Keven packed his one good suit, and when he got that far he scratched his head in rueful perplexity.
“Doggone!” he soliloquized. “No white shirts or anything. No civilized hat. Down here at Solitude I never cared how I looked. But to get on a train—to be in a crowded city with a handsome girl—to see every Tom, Dick, and Harry rubbering at the backwoods guy with her—gosh!”
But there was no help for it. At Illahe or Agness perhaps he could remedy in some degree the lamentable deficiency.
As he went out Beryl hailed him gaily from the porch of the other cabin.
“Laggard! Late on your wedding day!”
She was radiant. Keven was not prepared for the wonder of her this morning.
“I’d been here sooner if I’d known you were going to look like this,” he replied.
“Like what?”
“So lovely.”
“Kev, things have gone to my head badly enough…. I’m ’most packed. Oh, Kev—it’s won—der—ful.”
“Beryl, did you tell your father?” asked Keven, in eager anxiety.
“Not me. That’s your job. But I’ll back you up,” she said, with an excited little laugh.
“Where is he now?”
“I hear him now—in the living room.”
Beryl kissed Keven and then fled precipitously.
“Hold on! Is that backing me up?”
Just then Aard appeared on the porch, catching sight of Keven and the fleeing Beryl.
“Hey, son, what’s all this rarin’ around so early?” he queried.
Keven abruptly took the buck by the horns.
“Beryl and I are going away to be married,” he blurted out. Then when the fearful truth had been imparted he grew suddenly weak and frightened. This stalwart, piercing-eyed trapper might take exception to the idea.
“Thank the Lord!” ejaculated Aard heartily. “It’s about time. You pale-f
aced sighin’ an’ quarrelin’ doves have bothered me a heap lately.”
“Aw—I—we—it’s sure sudden, Aard,” stammered Keven, in the throes of changing emotion. “Last night it all came out. I’d spoken to you first, sir, if—if I’d had any idea. But it was just—just like a dam bursting.”
“You found out you care a heap for my lass?” queried Aard, with straight dark glance intent on Keven.
“I’ve known for long. I fought against it,” replied Keven frankly. “I—I felt I wasn’t much of a match for Beryl. But it was too strong…. Aard, I love that girl so—so terribly it was killing me.”
“Wal, son, I reckon you won’t die if it’s Beryl you want,” said Aard, with a smile. “She’s like her mother—a one-man woman. An’ she’s loved you for years, since you came to Solitude as a boy fishin’. As I see it she’s all the better for that, since now you’ve declared yourself…. I’m downright glad, Kev.”
“You’re awful—good,” rejoined Keven huskily, with, a knot in his throat. “I hope I can repay you and Beryl—for your faith in me. I——”
“Chuck all that, son,” said Aard. “It’s no one-sided deal…. Let’s go in to breakfast. I see Beryl ran off to let you brace the old man alone.”
As they entered the living room, Beryl appeared from the kitchen. She was a very agitated young woman.
“Oh—Daddy—Kev … is everything all right?” she panted, her color coming and going. And then suddenly when the roses did not come back to her cheeks, Keven turned to look at Aard. He seemed a very stern and forbidding parent.
“Daughter, I’ve had a shock,” he said gravely, and he indicated Keven.
“Shock! Why, Daddy—it—it oughtn’t have been.”