by Zane Grey
It was like the hug of a bear. Lucy’s arms were pinned to her sides and she was drawn so close she could scarcely catch her breath. A terrible weakness assailed her. Not of anger, not of resentment! It was something else, strangely akin to a mingling of amaze and relief. Caught at last in her own toils!
“Oh — Edd!” she whispered, meaning to beg to be let go, but she never completed the appeal. Her arms moved instinctively upward, until stopped by the giant clasp that held her. What had she meant to do? How her mind whirled! He did not speak, and the moment seemed an age.
She felt the ripple of his muscles and the rough flannel of his shirt against her cheek. The scent of pine and honeybees and the woodland clung to his clothes. Lucy quivered on the brink of a tumultuous unknown.
Suddenly his arms uncoiled. Lucy swayed a little, not sure of her equilibrium.
“Shore I had to,” he gasped huskily. “Words don’t come easy — for me...God bless you for savin’ Mertie.”
He plunged away into the blackness, his boots thumping, his spurs clinking. Lucy stood motionless, gazing into the gloom where he had vanished. Her heart seemed to take a great drop. Shivering, she went into the tent.
There she swiftly put a few knots of wood into the stove, set the damper, blew out the lamp, and hurriedly undressed for bed.
The darkness and the blankets were comforting A faint crackle of burning wood broke the silence, and tiny streaks of firelight played upon the tent walls.
“It was for Mertie he held me in his arms,” whispered Lucy.
And she had taken it for herself. His gratitude had betrayed her. Lucy realised now that if her arms had been free she would have lifted them round his neck. She had not known what she was doing. But now she knew she loved him. Edd Denmeade, backwoodsman, wild-bee hunter! She suffered no shame in that. Indeed there was a hidden voice deep within her ready to ring the truth. She had sought to save and she had lost herself.
Lucy lay wide-eyed long after Clara slept, nestled with an arm around her as in childish days. The night wind moaned through the forest, mournful, wild, lonely, as if voicing the inscrutable cry in Lucy’s soul.
She had no regrets. She had burned her bridges behind her. The visit to Felix had clarified in mind all the perplexing doubts and dreads about the past. She and Clara had not had the training, the love, and the home life necessary to equip girls to deal with life happily. All her childhood she had suffered under the ban of position; all her girlhood had been poisoned by longings she could not attain, ignominies she could not avoid. She had grown to young womanhood terribly sensitive to the class distinctions so ruthlessly adhered to in all cultivated communities. She was old enough now to realise that true worth always was its own reward and seldom failed of ultimate appreciation. But city life, multitudes of people, the social codes had all palled upon her. Never again could she live under their influence. Her victory over environment had come too late. The iron had entered Lucy’s soul.
It was good to find herself at last. Every hour since her return to the Denmeades had been fraught with stirrings and promptings and misgivings now wholly clear to her. The wild-bee hunter, in his brotherly love, had hugged away her vanity and blindness. Poor groping Edd! It was what he was that had made her love him. Not what she wanted to make him! Yet the cold sensation of shock round her heart seemed to warm at the consciousness of his growth. Before her coming to the wilderness home of the Denmeades had he, or any of the children, ever thought of God? Lucy realised that the higher aspect of her work was missionary. Always she had been marked for sacrifice. In this hour of humility she delved out her acceptance.
Her sister slept on, with that little hand clinging close even in slumber. Lucy listened to her gentle breathing and felt the soft undulations of her breast. The mystery of life was slowly dawning upon Lucy. She had no wish to change what was, and the prayer she mutely voiced eliminated herself.
Outside the night wind rose, from mournful sough to weird roar. A hound bayed off in the forest. A mouse or ground squirrel rustled in the brush under the floor of the tent. The flicker of the fire died out.
A frosty air blew in the window. These things were realities, strong in their importunity for peace and joy of living. It was only the ghosts of the past that haunted the black midnight hour.
Chapter XII
DENMEADE’S PREDICTION WAS verified. Before noon of the next day the younger members of the neighbouring families began to ride in, nonchalant, casual, as if no unusual event had added significance to their visit. Then, when another string headed in from the Cedar Ridge trail, Denmeade exploded.
“Wal, you’re goin’ to be stormed,” he said warningly to the bride and groom. “Shore it’ll be a Jasper, too.”
“For the land’s sake!” exclaimed his good wife. “They’ll eat us out of house an’ home. An’ us not ready!”
“Now, ma, I gave you a hunch yestiddy,” replied Denmeade. “Reckon you can have dinner late. Mrs. Claypool will help you an’ Allie.”
“But that young outfit will drive me wild,” protested Mrs. Denmeade.
“Never mind, ma. I’ll take care of them,” put in Edd. “Fact is I’ve a bee tree only half a mile from home. I’ve been savin’ it. I’ll rustle the whole caboodle up there an’ make them pack honey back.”
“Mertie will want to stay home, dressed all up,” averred his mother.
“Wal, she can’t. We’ll shore pack her along, dress or no dress.”
Early in the afternoon Edd presented himself before Lucy’s tent and announced:
“Girls, we’re packin’ that spoony couple away from home for a spell. The women folks got to have elbow room to fix up a big dinner. Whole country goin’ to storm Mert!”
Clara appeared at the door, eager and smiling. “Edd, this storm means a crowd coming to celebrate?”
“Shore. But a storm is an uninvited crowd. They raise hell. Between us, I’m tickled. I never thought Mertie would get a storm. She wasn’t any too well liked. But Bert’s the best boy in this country.”
“Maybe he is,” retorted Clara archly. “I know a couple of boys left...Edd, give us a hunch what to wear.”
“Old clothes,” he grinned. “An’ some kind of veil or net to keep from gettin’ stung. Wild bees don’t like a crowd. An’ Sam Johnson thinks he’s a bee tamer. This tree I’m goin’ to cut is a hummer. Full of sassy bees. An’ there’s goin’ to be some fun.”
Lucy and Clara joined the formidable group of young people waiting in the yard, all armed with buckets. Lucy sensed an amiable, happy spirit wholly devoid of the vexatious bantering common to most gatherings of these young people. Marriage was the consummation of their hopes, dreams, endeavours. Every backwoods youth looked forward to a homestead and a wife.
Mertie assuredly wore the bright silk dress, and ribbons on her hair, and white stockings, and low shoes not meant for the woods. Bert, however, had donned blue-jeans overalls.
The merry party set out with Edd in the lead, and the gay children, some dozen or more, bringing up the rear. Edd carried an axe over his shoulder and a huge assortment of different-sized buckets on his arm. He led out of the clearing, back of the cabin, into the pine woods so long a favourite haunt of Lucy’s, and up the gradual slope. The necessities of travel through the forest strung the party mostly into single file.
Lucy warmed to the occasion. It was happy. How good to be alive! The golden autumn sunlight, the flame of colour in the trees, the fragrant brown aisles of the forest, the flocks of birds congregating for their annual pilgrimage south — all these seemed new and sweet to Lucy. They roused emotion that the streets and houses of the city could not reach. Bert might have been aware of the company present, but he showed no sign of it. He saw nothing except Mertie. Half the time he carried her, lifting her over patches of dust, logs, and rough ground. Only where the mats of pine needles offered clean and easy travel did he let her down, and then he still kept his arm round her. Mertie was no burden for his sturdy strength. He swung her e
asily up and down, as occasion suited him. Lucy was struck by his naturalness.
Mertie, however, could not forget herself. She posed. She accepted. She bestowed. She was the beginning and the end of this great day. Yet despite exercise of the ineradicable trait of her nature, the romance of her marriage, the fact of her being possessed, had changed her. She had awakened. She saw Bert now as he actually was, and she seemed reaping the heritage of a true woman’s feelings.
Aside from these impressions Lucy received one that caused her to sigh. Clara reacted strangely to sight of Mertie and Bert. Lucy caught a glimpse of the mocking half-smile that Clara’s face used to wear. No doubt this bride and groom procession through the woods, the open love-making, oblivious at least on Bert’s part, brought back stinging memories to Clara.
Edd led the gay party out of the woods into a beautiful canyon, wide and uneven, green and gold with growths, dotted by huge grey rocks and trees. A dry stream bed wound by stony steps up the canyon. Edd followed this boulder-strewn road for a few hundred yards, then climbed to a wide bench. Maples and sycamores spread scattered patches of shade over this canyon glade. A riot of autumn colours almost stunned the eyesight. The thick grass was green, the heavy carpet of ferns brown.
“Wal, there she is,” said Edd, pointing to a gnarled white-barked tree perhaps a hundred paces distant. “First sycamore I ever found bees in. It’s hollow at the trunk where she goes in. I reckon she’s a hummer. Now you-all hang back a ways while I look her over.”
Edd strode off toward the sycamore, and his followers approached, mindful of his admonition. They got close enough, however, to see a swarm of bees passing to and fro from the dark hollow of the tree trunk. Edd’s perfect sang-froid probably deceived the less experienced boys. He circled the sycamore, gazed up into the hollow, and made what appeared to be a thorough examination. Sam Johnson showed that he was holding back only through courtesy. The remarks of the boys behind him were not calculated to make him conservative. Sadie Purdue and Amy Claypool expressed diverse entreaties, the former asking him to cut down the bee tree and the latter begging him to keep away from it. Lucy had an idea that Amy knew something about bees.
Presently Edd returned from his survey and drew the “honey-bucket outfit,” as he called them, back into the shade of a maple. Mertie draped herself and beautiful dress over a clean rock, as if she, instead of the bees, was the attraction. Lucy sensed one of the interesting undercurrents of backwoods life working in those young men. Edd’s position was an enviable one as far as bees were concerned. This was a bee day. Sam Johnson could not possibly have kept himself out of the foreground. There were several boys from Cedar Ridge, including Bert, who ran a close second to Sam. On the other hand, the boys who inhabited this high country, especially Gerd Claypool, appeared unusually prone to let the others have the stage. Joe Denmeade wore an inscrutable expression and had nothing to say. Edd was master of ceremonies, and as he stood before the boys, his axe over his shoulder, Lucy conceived a strong suspicion that he was too bland, too drawling, too kind to be absolutely honest. Edd was up to a trick. Lucy whispered her suspicions to Clara, and that worthy whispered back: “I’m wise. Why, a child could see through that hombre! But isn’t he immense?”
“Sam, I reckon you ought to be the one to chop her down,” Edd was saying, after a rather elaborate preamble. “Course it ought to fall to Bert, seem’ he’s the reason for this here storm party. But I reckon you know more about wild bees, an’ you should be boss. Shore it’d be good if you an’ Bert tackled the tree together.”
“I’ll allow myself about three minutes’ choppin’ to fetch that sycamore,” replied Sam. “But Bert can help if he likes.”
“Somebody gimme an axe,” said Bert, prowling around. Dick Denmeade had the second axe, which he gladly turned over to Bert.
“Bert, I don’t want you gettin’ all stung up,” protested Mertie.
“No bees would sting me to-day,” replied Bert grandly. “Don’t you fool yourself,” she retorted.
“Aw, she’s tame as home bees,” interposed Edd. “Besides, there’s been some heavy frosts. Bees get loggy along late in the fall. Reckon nobody’ll get stung. If she wakes up we can run.”
“I’m a-rarin’ for that honey,” declared Sam, jerking the axe from Edd. “Come on, Bert. Start your honeymoon by bein’ boss.”
That remark made a lion out of the bridegroom, while eliciting howls and giggles from his admirers. Sam strode toward the sycamore and Bert followed.
“Reckon we all better scatter a little,” said the wily Edd, and he punched Gerd Claypool in the ribs. Gerd, it appeared, was doubled up in noiseless contortions.
“Serve Sam just right,” declared Sadie, “for bein’ so darn smart. He never chopped down a bee tree in his life.”
“Well, if I know anythin’ he’ll never try another,” added Amy. “Oh, Edd Denmeade, you’re an awful liar. Sayin’ wild bees won’t sting!”
“Shore Sam wanted to cut her down. He asked me back home,” declared Edd.
Some of the party stood their ground, notably Mertie, who rather liked the clean, dry rock. Edd gravitated toward Lucy and Clara, presently leading them unobtrusively back toward some brush.
“Dog-gone!” he whispered chokingly when he was out of earshot of the others. “Chance of my life!...Sam’s cut a few bee trees in winter, when the bees were froze...But, gee! these wild bees are mad as hornets. I got stung on the ear, just walkin’ round. She’s been worried by yellow-jackets...Now there’s goin’ to be some fun. She’ll be a hummer...Girls, put on whatever you fetched along an’ be ready to duck into this brush.”
“Edd, you’re as bad as a cowboy,” said Clara, producing a veil.
“Looks like great fun for us, but how about the bees?” rejoined Lucy.
“There you go, sister. Always thinking about the under dog!...Edd, do you know, I can’t see how anyone could help loving Lucy,” retorted Clara mischievously.
“Shore. I reckon nobody does,” drawled Edd. “Wal, Sam’s begun to larrup it into my sycamore. Now watch!”
Sam had sturdily attacked the tree, while the more cautious Bert had cut several boughs, evidently to thresh off bees. Scarcely had he reached the objective spot when Sam jerked up spasmodically as if kicked from behind.
“Beat ’em off!” he yelled.
Then, as the valiant Bert dropped his axe and began to thresh with the boughs, Sam redoubled his energies at the chopping. He might not have possessed much knowledge about wild bees, but he could certainly handle an axe. Quick and hard rang his blows. The sycamore was indeed rotten, for it sounded hollow and crackling, and long dusty strips fell aside.
Lucy stole a glance at Edd. He was manifestly in the grip of a frenzied glee. Never before had Lucy seen him so. He was shaking all over; his face presented a wonderful study of features in convulsions; his big hands opened and shut. All at once he burst out in stentorian yell: “Wow There she comes!”
Lucy flashed her glance back toward the axe-man, just in time to see a small black cloud, like smoke, puff out of the hollow of the tree and disintegrate into thin air. Sam let out a frantic yell, and dropping the axe he plunged directly toward his admiring comrades.
“You darn fool!” roared Edd. “Run the other way!”
But Sam, as if pursued by the furies, sprang, leaped, wrestled, hopped, flew, flapping his hands like wings and yelling hoarsely. Bert suddenly became as if possessed of a thousand devils, and he raced like a streak, waving his two green boughs over his head, till he plunged over a bank into the brush.
Some of the Cedar Ridge boys had approached a point within a hundred feet of the sycamore. Suddenly their howls of mirth changed to excited shouts, and they broke into a run. Unfortunately, they were not on the moment chivalrously mindful of the girls.
“Run for your lives!” screamed Amy Claypool.
Lucy found herself being rushed into the bushes by Edd, who had also dragged Clara. He was laughing so hard he could not speak. He fel
l down and rolled over. Clara had an attack of laughter that seemed half hysterical. “Look! Look!” she cried.
Lucy was more frightened than amused, but from the shelter of the bushes she peered forth, drawing aside her veil so she could see better. She was in time to see the bright silk dress that encased Mertie soaring across the ground like a spread-winged bird. Mertie was noted for her fleetness of foot. Sadie Purdue, owing to a rather short stout figure, could not run very well. Sam, by accident or design, had fled in her direction. It did not take a keen eye to see the whirling dotted circle of bees he brought with him. Some of them sped like bullets ahead of him to attack Sadie. Shrieking, she ran away from Sam as though he were a pestilence. She was the last to flee out of sight.
Presently Edd sat up, wet-faced and spent from the energy of his emotions.
“Reckon I’ve played hob — but dog-gone! — it was fun,” he said. “Shore Sam’s a bee hunter! I’ll bet he’ll look like he had measles...Did you see Sadie gettin’ stung? She was that smart. Haw! Haw! Haw!”
Joe came crawling to them through the bushes. For once his face was not quiet, intent. He showed his relationship to Edd.
“Say, Sam will be hoppin’ mad,” he said.
“He shore was hoppin’ when last I seen him,” replied Edd. “Wal, I reckon I’ll have to finish the job. You girls stay right here, for a while, anyhow.”
Whereupon Edd pulled a rude hood from his pocket and drew it over his head and tight under his chin. It was made of burlap and had two rounded pieces of window screen sewed in to serve as eyeholes. Then putting his gloves on he got up and tramped out toward the sycamore. Lucy left Clara with Bert, and slipped along under the bushes until she reached the end nearest the tree. Here she crouched to watch. She could see the bees swarm round Edd, apparently without disturbing him in the least. He picked up the axe, and with swift, powerful strokes he soon chopped through on one side of the hollow place, so that the other side broke, letting the tree down with a splitting crash. After the dust cleared away Lucy saw him knocking the trunk apart. The swarm of bees spread higher and wider over his head. Lucy could hear the angry buzz. She felt sorry for them. How ruthless men were! The hive had been destroyed; the winter’s food of the bees would be stolen.
