CHAPTER II
ALONE UPON THE TRAIL
They had started from their last camp early in the morning. It had beenmid-day when she fell and long after noon when he killed her and lapsedinto merciful oblivion. It was dusk in the canyon when he came to lifeagain. The sun was still some distance above the horizon, but thejutting walls of the great pass cut off the light, the butte top was inever deepening shadow.
I have often wondered what were the feelings of Lazarus when he wascalled back to life by the great cry of his Lord. "Hither--Out!" Couldthat transition from the newer way of death to the older habit of livinghave been accomplished without exquisite anguish and pain, brief,sudden, but too sacred, like his other experiences, to dwell upon inmortal hours?
What he of Bethany might perhaps have experienced this man felt longafter under other circumstances. The enormous exertions of the day, thecruel bruises and lacerations to which clothes and body gave evidence,the sick, giddy, uncertain, helpless, feeling that comes when onerecovers consciousness after such a collapse, would have been hardenough to bear; but he took absolutely no account of any of these thingsfor, as he lifted himself on his hands, almost animal-like for a moment,from the cold body of his wife, everything came across him with asudden, terrific, overwhelming, rush of recollection.
She was dead, and he had killed her. There were reasons, arguments,excuses, for his course; he forgot them confronted by that grim,terrific, tragic fact. The difference between that mysterious thing soincapable of human definition which we call life, and that othermysterious thing equally insusceptible of explanation which we calldeath, is so great that when the two confront each other the mostindifferent is awed by the contrast. Many a man and many a woman praysby the bedside of some agonized sufferer for a surcease of anguish onlyto be brought about by death, by a dissolution of soul and body,beseeching God of His mercy for the oblivion of the last, long, quiet,sleep; but when the prayer has been granted, and the living eyes lookinto the dead, the beating heart bends over the still one--it is a hardsoul indeed which has the strength not to wish again for a moment, onelittle moment of life, to whisper one word of abiding love, to hear oneword of fond farewell.
Since that is true, what could this man think whose hand had pointed theweapon and pulled the trigger and caused that great gaping hole throughwhat had once been a warm and loving heart? God had laid upon him atask, than which none had ever been heavier on the shoulders of man, andhe did not think as he stared at her wildly that God had given him atthe same time strength to bear his burden.
Later, it might be that cold reason would come to his aid and justifyhim for what he had done, but now, now, he only realized that she wasdead, and he had killed her. He forgot her suffering in his own anguishand reproach of himself. He found time to marvel at himself with astrange sort of wonder. How could he have done it.
Something broke the current of his thoughts, and it was good for himthat it was so. He heard a swish through the air and he looked away fromhis dead wife in the direction of the sound. A little distance off upona pinnacle of rock he saw a vulture, a hideous, horrible, unclean,carrion bird. While he watched, another and another settled softly down.He rose to his feet and far beneath him from the tree clad banks of theriver the long howl of a wolf smote upon his ear. Gluttony and rapinewere at hand. Further down the declivity the body of the dead mule wasthe object of the converging attack from earth and air. The threat ofthat attack stirred him to life.
There were things he had to do. The butte top was devoid of earth ormuch vegetation, yet here and there in hollows where water settled ordrained, soft green moss grew. He stooped over and lifted the body ofthe woman. She seemed to fall together loosely and almost break withinhis hands--it was evidence of what the fall had done for her,justification for his action, too, if he had been in a mood to reasonabout it, but his only thought then was of how she must have suffered.By a strange perversion he had to fight against the feeling that she wassuffering now. He laid her gently and tenderly down in a deep hollow inthe rock shaped almost to contain her. He straightened her poor twistedlimbs. He arranged with decent care the ragged dress, covering over thetorn breast and the frightful wound above her heart. With the last ofthe water in the canteen, he washed her face, he could not wash out thescar of course. With rude unskillful hands, yet with pitiabletenderness, he strove to arrange her blood-matted hair, he pillowed herhead upon his hat again.
Sometimes the last impression of life is stamped on the face of death,sometimes we see in the awful fixity of feature that attends upondissolution, the index of the agony in which life has passed, but moreoften, thank God, death lays upon pain and sorrow a smoothing, calminghand. It was so in this instance. There was a great peace, a greatrelief, in the face he looked upon; this poor woman had been torturednot only in body, that he knew, but she had suffered anguish of soul ofwhich he was unaware, and death, had it come in gentler form wouldperhaps not have been unwelcome. That showed in her face. There wasdignity, composure, surcease of care, repose--the rest that shall beforever!
The man had done all that he could for her. Stop, there was one thingmore; he knelt down by her side, he was not what we commonly call areligious man, the habit that he had learned at his mother's knee he hadlargely neglected in maturer years, but he had not altogether forgotten,and even the atheist--and he was far from that--might have prayed then.
"God, accept her," he murmured. "Christ receive her,"--that was all butit was enough.
He remained by her side some time looking at her; he would fain haveknelt there forever; he would have been happy at that moment if hecould have lain down by her and had someone do for them both the lastkindly office he was trying to do for her. But that was not to be, andthe growing darkness warned him to make haste. The wolf barks weresharper and nearer, he stooped over her, bent low and laid his faceagainst hers. Oh that cold awful touch of long farewell. He tore himselfaway from her, lifted from her neck a little object that had gleamed soprettily amid the red blood. It was a locket. He had never seen itbefore and had no knowledge of what it might contain. He kissed it,slipped it into the pocket of his shirt and rose to his feet.
The plateau was strewn with rock; working rapidly and skillfully hebuilt a burial mound of stone over her body. The depression in which shelay was deep enough to permit no rock to touch her person. The cairn, ifsuch it may be called, was soon completed. No beast of the earth or birdof the air could disturb what was left of his wife. It seemed so piteousto him to think of her so young, and so sweet and so fair, so soft andso tender, so brave and so true, lying alone in the vast of the canyon,weighted down by the great rocks that love's hands had heaped above her.But there was no help for it.
Gathering up the revolver and canteen he turned and fell rather thanclimbed to the level of the river. It was quite dark in the depths ofthe canyon, but he pressed rapidly on over the uneven and broken rocksuntil he reached the giant stairway. Up them he toiled painfully untilhe attained again the trail.
It was dark when he reached the wooded recess where they had slept thenight before. There were grass and trees, a bubbling spring, an oasisamid the desert of rocks; he found the ashes of their fire and gatheringwood heaped it upon the still living embers until the blaze rose androared. He realized at last that he was weary beyond measure, he hadgone through the unendurable since the morning. He threw himself downalone where they had lain together the night before and sought in vainfor sleep. In his ears he heard that sharp, sudden, breaking cry oncemore, and her voice begging him to kill her. He heard again the rasp ofher agonized breathing, the crashing detonation of the weapon. Hewrithed with the anguish of it all. Dry-eyed he arose at last andstretched out his hands to that heaven that had done so little for himhe thought.
Long after midnight he fell into a sort of uneasy, restless stupor. Themorning sun of the new and desolate day recalled him to action. He aroseto his feet and started mechanically down the trail alone--always andforever alone. Yet God was with him though he knew it
not.
Four days later a little party of men winding through the foothills cameupon a wavering, ghastly, terrifying figure. Into the mining town twodays before had wandered a solitary mule, scraps of harness danglingfrom it. They had recognized it as one of a pair the man had purchasedfor a proposed journey far into the unsurveyed and inaccessiblemountains--to hunt for the treasures hidden within their granitebreasts. It told too plainly a story of disaster. A relief party hadbeen hurriedly organized to search for the two, one of whom was muchbeloved in the rude frontier camp.
The man they met on the way was the man they had come to seek. His bootswere cut to pieces, his feet were raw and bleeding for he had taken nocare to order his going or to choose his way. His clothes were in rags,through rents and tatters his emaciated body showed its discoloredbruises. His hands were swollen and soiled with wounds and the stains ofthe way. The front of his shirt was sadly and strangely discolored. Hewas hatless, his hair was gray, his face was as white as the snow on thecrest of the peak, his lips were bloodless yet his eyes blazed withfever.
For four days without food and with but little water this man hadplodded down the mountain toward the camp. All his energies were mergedin one desire, to come in touch with humanity and tell his awful story;the keeping of it to himself, which he must do perforce because he wasalone in the world, added to the difficulty of endurance. The sun hadbeaten down upon him piteously during the day. The cold dew had drenchedhim in the night. Apparitions had met his vision alike in the darknessand in the light. Voices had whispered to him as he plodded on. Butsomething had sustained him in spite of the awful drain, physical andmental, which had wasted him away. Something had sustained him until hecame in touch with men, thereafter the duty would devolve upon hisbrethren not upon himself.
They caught him as he staggered into the group of them, these GoodSamaritans of the frontier; they undressed him and washed him, theybound up his wounds and ministered to him, they laid him gently downupon the ground, they bent over him tenderly and listened to him whilehe told in broken, disjointed words the awful story, of her plunge intothe canyon, of his search for her, of her last appeal to him. And then hestopped.
"What then?" asked one of the men bending over him as he hesitated.
"God forgive me--I shot her--through the heart."
There was appalling stillness in the little group of rough men, while hetold them where she lay and begged them to go and bring back what wasleft of her.
"You must bring her--back," he urged pitifully.
None of the men had ever been up the canyon, but they knew of itsexistence and the twin peaks of which he had told them could be seenfrom afar. He had given them sufficient information to identify theplace and to enable them to go and bring back the body for Christianburial. Now these rude men of the mining camp had loved that woman asmen love a bright and cheery personality which dwelt among them.
"Yes," answered the spokesman, "but what about you?"
"I shall be--a dead man," was the murmured answer, "and I don't care--Ishall be glad--"
He had no more speech and no more consciousness after that. It was asardonic comment on the situation that the last words that fell from hislips then should be those words of joy.
"Glad, glad!"
BOOK II
THE EAST AND THE WEST
The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of Colorado Page 6
