O Pioneers!

by Willa Cather

  VII

  When Frank Shabata got home that night, he found Emil's mare inhis stable. Such an impertinence amazed him. Like everybody else,Frank had had an exciting day. Since noon he had been drinking toomuch, and he was in a bad temper. He talked bitterly to himselfwhile he put his own horse away, and as he went up the path andsaw that the house was dark he felt an added sense of injury. Heapproached quietly and listened on the doorstep. Hearing nothing,he opened the kitchen door and went softly from one room to another.Then he went through the house again, upstairs and down, with nobetter result. He sat down on the bottom step of the box stairwayand tried to get his wits together. In that unnatural quiet therewas no sound but his own heavy breathing. Suddenly an owl beganto hoot out in the fields. Frank lifted his head. An idea flashedinto his mind, and his sense of injury and outrage grew. He wentinto his bedroom and took his murderous 405 Winchester from thecloset.

  When Frank took up his gun and walked out of the house, he had notthe faintest purpose of doing anything with it. He did not believethat he had any real grievance. But it gratified him to feel likea desperate man. He had got into the habit of seeing himself alwaysin desperate straits. His unhappy temperament was like a cage; hecould never get out of it; and he felt that other people, his wifein particular, must have put him there. It had never more thandimly occurred to Frank that he made his own unhappiness. Thoughhe took up his gun with dark projects in his mind, he would havebeen paralyzed with fright had he known that there was the slightestprobability of his ever carrying any of them out.

  Frank went slowly down to the orchard gate, stopped and stood fora moment lost in thought. He retraced his steps and looked throughthe barn and the hayloft. Then he went out to the road, where hetook the foot-path along the outside of the orchard hedge. Thehedge was twice as tall as Frank himself, and so dense that onecould see through it only by peering closely between the leaves.He could see the empty path a long way in the moonlight. His mindtraveled ahead to the stile, which he always thought of as hauntedby Emil Bergson. But why had he left his horse?

  At the wheatfield corner, where the orchard hedge ended and thepath led across the pasture to the Bergsons', Frank stopped. Inthe warm, breathless night air he heard a murmuring sound, perfectlyinarticulate, as low as the sound of water coming from a spring,where there is no fall, and where there are no stones to fret it.Frank strained his ears. It ceased. He held his breath and beganto tremble. Resting the butt of his gun on the ground, he partedthe mulberry leaves softly with his fingers and peered throughthe hedge at the dark figures on the grass, in the shadow of themulberry tree. It seemed to him that they must feel his eyes,that they must hear him breathing. But they did not. Frank, whohad always wanted to see things blacker than they were, for oncewanted to believe less than he saw. The woman lying in the shadowmight so easily be one of the Bergsons' farm-girls.... Againthe murmur, like water welling out of the ground. This time heheard it more distinctly, and his blood was quicker than his brain.He began to act, just as a man who falls into the fire begins toact. The gun sprang to his shoulder, he sighted mechanically andfired three times without stopping, stopped without knowing why.Either he shut his eyes or he had vertigo. He did not see anythingwhile he was firing. He thought he heard a cry simultaneous withthe second report, but he was not sure. He peered again throughthe hedge, at the two dark figures under the tree. They had fallena little apart from each other, and were perfectly still--No,not quite; in a white patch of light, where the moon shone throughthe branches, a man's hand was plucking spasmodically at the grass.

  Suddenly the woman stirred and uttered a cry, then another, andanother. She was living! She was dragging herself toward thehedge! Frank dropped his gun and ran back along the path, shaking,stumbling, gasping. He had never imagined such horror. Thecries followed him. They grew fainter and thicker, as if she werechoking. He dropped on his knees beside the hedge and crouchedlike a rabbit, listening; fainter, fainter; a sound like a whine;again--a moan--another--silence. Frank scrambled to his feet andran on, groaning and praying. From habit he went toward the house,where he was used to being soothed when he had worked himself intoa frenzy, but at the sight of the black, open door, he started back.He knew that he had murdered somebody, that a woman was bleedingand moaning in the orchard, but he had not realized before thatit was his wife. The gate stared him in the face. He threw hishands over his head. Which way to turn? He lifted his tormentedface and looked at the sky. "Holy Mother of God, not to suffer!She was a good girl--not to suffer!"

  Frank had been wont to see himself in dramatic situations; butnow, when he stood by the windmill, in the bright space between thebarn and the house, facing his own black doorway, he did not seehimself at all. He stood like the hare when the dogs are approachingfrom all sides. And he ran like a hare, back and forth about thatmoonlit space, before he could make up his mind to go into thedark stable for a horse. The thought of going into a doorway wasterrible to him. He caught Emil's horse by the bit and led it out.He could not have buckled a bridle on his own. After two or threeattempts, he lifted himself into the saddle and started for Hanover.If he could catch the one o'clock train, he had money enough toget as far as Omaha.

  While he was thinking dully of this in some less sensitized partof his brain, his acuter faculties were going over and over thecries he had heard in the orchard. Terror was the only thing thatkept him from going back to her, terror that she might still beshe, that she might still be suffering. A woman, mutilated andbleeding in his orchard--it was because it was a woman that hewas so afraid. It was inconceivable that he should have hurt awoman. He would rather be eaten by wild beasts than see her moveon the ground as she had moved in the orchard. Why had she beenso careless? She knew he was like a crazy man when he was angry.She had more than once taken that gun away from him and held it,when he was angry with other people. Once it had gone off whilethey were struggling over it. She was never afraid. But, whenshe knew him, why hadn't she been more careful? Didn't she haveall summer before her to love Emil Bergson in, without taking suchchances? Probably she had met the Smirka boy, too, down there inthe orchard. He didn't care. She could have met all the men on theDivide there, and welcome, if only she hadn't brought this horroron him.

  There was a wrench in Frank's mind. He did not honestly believe thatof her. He knew that he was doing her wrong. He stopped his horseto admit this to himself the more directly, to think it out the moreclearly. He knew that he was to blame. For three years he had beentrying to break her spirit. She had a way of making the best ofthings that seemed to him a sentimental affectation. He wanted hiswife to resent that he was wasting his best years among these stupidand unappreciative people; but she had seemed to find the peoplequite good enough. If he ever got rich he meant to buy her prettyclothes and take her to California in a Pullman car, and treat herlike a lady; but in the mean time he wanted her to feel that life wasas ugly and as unjust as he felt it. He had tried to make her lifeugly. He had refused to share any of the little pleasures she was soplucky about making for herself. She could be gay about the leastthing in the world; but she must be gay! When she first came to him,her faith in him, her adoration--Frank struck the mare with his fist.Why had Marie made him do this thing; why had she brought this uponhim? He was overwhelmed by sickening misfortune. All at once heheard her cries again--he had forgotten for a moment. "Maria," hesobbed aloud, "Maria!"

  When Frank was halfway to Hanover, the motion of his horse broughton a violent attack of nausea. After it had passed, he rode onagain, but he could think of nothing except his physical weaknessand his desire to be comforted by his wife. He wanted to get intohis own bed. Had his wife been at home, he would have turned andgone back to her meekly enough.