by Zane Grey
“Humph! How many?”
“Thirty-four,” replied Beryl nonchalantly.
“Thirty-four what?”
“Why, steelhead, you goose. And I let my little ones go.”
“How many did you catch out of that thirty-four?”
“Sorry to top you, Keven. I got twenty-one.”
Keven gazed up from his string of fish to Beryl. It was not yet so dark that he could not see fairly well. She seemed calm and demure, but he felt that she was bursting with glee. How she liked to beat him! A strong, sweet, almost overpowering passion stormed his heart. But for his wet fishy clothes he would at last have yielded to the hunger which consumed him and have snatched her to his breast.
“Beryl, I don’t love you any more,” he said gravely, and moved away toward his cabin.
He had gone a number of steps when a trill of laughter rent the silence. Keven felt that, too, in his very veins, and thought somberly that an hour of reckoning for him was at hand.
“You’re just in time to change for supper, Kev,” she called after him.
He did not hurry, nevertheless, and pondered more than usual. The day had been one long enchantment. He had come back to life, to realism, to love. When he presented himself in the bright cozy living room, sight of Beryl made his heart leap, while he set his lips grimly. Beryl had on that marvelous white dress. It might have been a simple inexpensive one, as she claimed, but when she had it on he could not take his eyes off her. In it she appeared to lose the ruggedness which attended her in heavy outdoor garb. She seemed slender, when in reality she was not slender. It gave her grace, yet not only did it not deny her bounteous contours, but enhanced them. Then it brought out in vivid relief her rich coloring, the brilliance of her dark eyes, the luster of her hair. She smiled at Keven a little wistfully, as if she hoped he might find her pretty.
“Wal, son, it sure was one of the Oregon days,” remarked Aard, taking his seat. “Set down, an’ don’t stare at Beryl as if she wouldn’t last in that dress. I don’t blame you much, though. She’s an eyeful…. Fishin’ does things to me. Tires me out an’ starves me half to death.”
“Yes. it was an Oregon day,” replied Keven, breathing deeply as he sat down, still with his gaze riveted upon Beryl.
Presently she observed that his long day on the river, and his wonderful luck, had not given him much of an appetite.
“Sure, I’m hungry, Beryl, but it’s getting harder all the time to eat without half enough teeth,” he replied. But though he spoke jokingly he seemed to have gotten into a current which was rushing him somewhere. Beryl evidently sensed his mood and it influenced hers.
“Kev, you better take my advice an’ not put off your trip to Portland till spring,” interposed Aard.
“It’s easier to take advice than money,” returned Keven seriously.
“Wal, sometimes, yes. But you’ve come to be like a son to me, an’ what’s mine is yours.”
“Aard, my feelings for you and—and Beryl—don’t square the deal,” said Keven stubbornly, though he was glad the subject had been broached.
Beryl’s downcast eyes were fixed upon her plate. The rosy gold had fled from her cheeks. Nevertheless Keven’s deliberate gaze drew her own. Curiosity and fear overcame her modesty. Suddenly she blushed scarlet. Perhaps there appeared more in Keven’s eyes than he realized.
“Kev, seems to me you worry a lot. Let well enough alone. You’ve got husky and strong. That was the main thing we wanted, wasn’t it? Solitude has done much for you.”
“More than I ever hoped for,” murmured Keven.
“Wal, it’ll give you peace someday. But not till you stop frettin’ an’ fightin’.”
Aard spoke to Keven, yet his kindly words seemed to embrace Beryl. They finished the meal in silence.
“Wal, one pipe will about do me tonight,” said Aard, as he stirred the smoldering fire and threw on some pine cones. “Kev, you miss a lot by not smokin’ a pipe. Sure, Beryl says tobacco is dirty an’ she wouldn’t kiss no man who used it. Reckon that accounts. But nothin’ soothes me like smokin’.”
Keven took the other chair, which happened to be the big old armchair, vastly more comfortable than presentable. Beryl, with her apron on, helped the Indian woman clear off the table. Every time she returned from the kitchen her dark eyes sought Keven’s, as if she were impelled against her will. And every time Keven sustained a thrill. He felt drawn on, desperate. The situation seemed intolerable to him. He would have it out with Beryl this very night.
“There’s some whoopin’ big steelhead in the river now,” said Aard. “But we oughtn’t ketch any more till we’ve smoked what we got.”
“We’ll help…. Gosh, I hate to miss any of this run,” replied Keven.
“Wal, I reckon they’ll hang around a week or so. River’s low now…. Did you raise any wallopers today?”
“One. He was three feet long and a foot deep. I raised him a dozen times. But he was only playing with me. If I had hooked him I’d be somewhere on the way to Gold Beach right now.”
“I had hold of a couple of elephants. Couldn’t do a thing. The first one went downstream an’ cleaned me out. The second went upstream. Busted my rod. How Beryl did laugh! That girl gets an infernal joy out of my fishin’ misfortunes.”
“She sure does. I suppose it’s just the natural cussedness of the born angler.”
“Reckon so. She can afford to enjoy it. For she’s a wonder with a rod. Kev, she nailed an eleven-pounder today, right in the middle of Missouri, an’ she licked him without movin’ out of her tracks.”
“Eleven pounds! Lord, how does she do it, Aard?” ejaculated Keven, in mingled admiration and despair.
“Wal, she uses light stuff an’ she lets a fish run. We men can’t help horsin’ a fightin’ steelhead. It’s the nature of the male. Beryl has a trout gettin’ tired before he knows there’s anythin’ very wrong.”
“I can’t let them run. I want to stop them,” admitted Keven.
“Same here. I reckon we’ll just have to swallow Beryl’s gift an’ luck. Because it’s both. Don’t ever overlook luck. Some fishermen have it. Some haven’t. I’m an unlucky member of the family.”
“So am I.”
“This afternoon, whenever I happened to look at Beryl, she was playin’ a fish. Every time. An’ it ’peared I must have looked a hundred times. She must have let more go than she kept. I keep tellin’ Beryl the small steelhead are best for smokin’. But she keeps on lettin’ them go.”
When Beryl came in a little constraint fell upon the group. Aard smoked out his pipe in silence, then, rising, he knocked the ashes out and laid it on the mantel. Beryl stood at the open door, gazing out into the blackness. The river music floated up, mellow and sad. Aard threw some more cones on the fire, and then a couple of oak fagots.
“Shut the door, lass. Can’t you feel the cold creepin’ down from the hills?”
“Cold! … I thought it was so close indoors,” returned Beryl, as she complied with his wish. Still she kept well back from the lighted lamp.
“I know what you mean. I felt that too,” said Aard, with dry humor, and he winked at Keven. “Sort of sultry thunderous atmosphere around. Like lightnin’ was goin’ to strike soon.”
“Oh—not like that—at all,” exclaimed Beryl, in confusion.
“Kev, what do you think it’s like?” went on Aard. He was more than full of mischief.
“What’s like?”
“Wal, the atmosphere around.”
“Very cozy, comfortable, just wonderful—if only——”
He did not complete the sentence.
“Ahuh…. Wal, I’ll turn in an’ I bet it’d take a fifty-foot raise in the river to wake me. So don’t you young folks feel afraid to talk, fight, wrassle—anythin’, so long as you come out of it…. Good night.”
“Dad!” ejaculated Beryl hotly.
“What do you know about that?” added Keven, after Aard had gone to his room.
“I don�
�t know anything,” retorted Beryl.
“Come sit down. Why do you hang back there in the shadow? Lord knows you’re pretty enough to want to be seen.”
“It depends upon whom I’m with,” rejoined Beryl, slowly coming forward to take the chair on the other side of the table. The large white-globed lamp hid her face, not by accident, Keven felt assured. Quite unaccountably he was furious with her. He could see her shapely feet and ankles.
“I overheard you and Dad talking about me being a lucky fisherman,” began Beryl. “That’s just like two men. Because I beat you to a frazzle you put it down to luck. But neither of you——”
“Oh, Beryl, stop kidding me,” interrupted Keven, with more force than elegance. “Once for all you’ve got me trimmed as a fisherman. I’m not in your class. I’m only a dub—a hick-town fisherman…. Now does that satisfy you?”
“Satisfy me! No—it doesn’t,” replied Beryl, somewhat mystified and shocked. “What do you want to talk about, if it’s not fish?”
“I want to think,” he snapped.
Whereupon silence ensued. Keven gazed piercingly into the opal heart of the fire, as if that would set his mind working. It seemed to be whirling with thoughts, none of which were coherent, or at least what he wanted. But he did not know what he wanted; and that was why it was imperatively necessary for him to think, so that he could find out. It had to do with Beryl, though, and himself, and this insupportable situation. He cudgeled his poor brain.
Presently Beryl’s voice came as from a distance.
“Pardon. What did you say?” he replied.
“I said you’d been thinking a whole half hour and must be having a very good time.”
“I was. Ha! Ha!” returned Keven hollowly.
“Well, I’m not. Perhaps you’d enjoy yourself still more if I make myself scarce.”
“Perhaps. Oh, I don’t know, I’m in a funny state. I want to think, but I can’t.”
“Kev Bell, I’m having some thoughts, if you’re not.”
“Indeed?” queried Keven flippantly. He was at his wit’s end.
“Yes indeed. And they’re not flattering to you…. Kev Bell, I—I don’t understand you. If you’re just miffed again with me because I beat you fishing——”
“Cut that out,” cried Keven, stung. “I never thought of fishing. Not once. I’m sick of fishing. I hate the river. I’ll never—never go again.”
He heard her gasp.
“You hate—you hate my river—my beautiful, singing river?” she asked in a low shocked voice.
“Yes, I do,” he replied harshly. But his conscience tortured him. He spoke so only because he was sore, uncertain, distraught.
“Oh, Kev!” she cried, mortally hurt, and she rose to her feet, white as her dress. “So that’s it! I knew something was wrong…. You’re tired of Solitude—of me! … You’re going away?”
“Ha! Ha!” laughed Keven wildly. But this was getting somewhere. If he could only get his hands on her!
“You—you add insult to injury,” she flashed. “Good night.”
As she stepped to pass Keven he snatched at her too late, but he stuck out a foot to trip her. His move only checked her. Then violently he pulled her off her balance. Staggering, with angry cry, she fell full length into his arms. Only her feet rested upon the floor.
“How—dare you!” she cried, in furious amaze, and she struggled. “Let me up.”
Keven wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to him, so that for the moment she was helpless. She strained to free her arms. She was as strong and supple as a panther. A giant could not have held her long. But this precious moment was enough for Keven.
“Beryl! I love you so terribly—it’s killing me,” he exclaimed huskily.
All that fierce, hard muscular contraction of her body relaxed as if by magic. She sagged limp and heavy upon him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“LIE still—maybe now I can think,” commanded Keven, as Beryl made weak and ineffectual efforts to move.
“Let—me—breathe,” she replied, in panting whisper.
Then Keven loosened the coil of his arms, though not enough to let her get up, which evidently she was trying to do.
“Beryl, I love you so terribly—it’s killing me,” he repeated, passionately.
“But—that’s no reason—to hold me—so—so disgracefully,” she panted.
“Yes, it is…. What do I care how I hold you?”
“Please, Keven,” she implored, and slipped off his lap to her knees. This brought her head down to his neck, where she buried her face.
“Now I can think!” he ejaculated.
“Kev, let me up, I beg you. This is undignified—not to say shameless.”
“Dignity—shame—and all the rest can go hang…. I love you!”
“But—you’re hurting me,” she went on, almost weeping. “I can’t stand it—long. You’ll break something.”
“Promise me you won’t run off,” he asserted sternly.
“I—promise,” she whispered.
Then he released her.
“Bear!” she exclaimed, and leaned back on her knees to get her balance. Her bosom was heaving, her face dusky red. Then she got up, smoothed down her disordered dress, and sat down on the arm of his chair. Slipping her right arm round his neck she leaned to him.
“Kev, say that again—then you can think all night long and I won’t move,” she whispered.
“Say what again? I’m out of my head.”
“You are at last—thank heaven…. I mean that about—what was killing you.”
“Beryl, I love you so terribly—it’s killing me,” he complied, even more passionately than before.
She appeared to wilt against him. Then a slight quivering ran all over her. It wore away and came again. She moved and he no longer felt her warm moist cheek. In its place soft lips pressed.
“Don’t kiss me, Beryl. Not yet! If you do that I—I’ll eat you up. I want a million kisses.”
“Begin,” she retorted, with all the sweet witchery of a woman.
“No!”
“Yes. I want two million…. Kev, darling, I’ve waited so long.”
“Good God! Don’t reproach me. Don’t say such things…. That you love me at all!”
“At all? … I love you with every last drop of my heart’s blood…. I will love you so with its last beat.”
“But I—I must think,” cried Keven, almost yielding to transport.
“What about? If it’s me—all right.”
“Of course it’s you. Everything is you.”
“Very well then,” she whispered softly.
With Beryl surrendering to his arms, sweet as he had dreamed she would be, Keven felt an exultation that had no need of thought. But he could not give in to it. He had to find himself. Instinct had guided him truly. Love of Beryl had driven him, and in its betrayal there was illumination. His shame, his bitterness could not long abide in its white light. But he longed so passionately to think out a solution to his problem. And he could not think as he had striven to. There was no longer any problem. Beryl lay in his arms, not only a willing prisoner, but a responsive one. Her cheek was again on his and now he felt her tears.
The oak wood burned like golden pearls on fire with life and love. Keven could peer into it penetratingly, only to see the shimmering glow.
It inspired no flaming thoughts.
“Oh, Beryl, I can’t think. Nothing comes,” he burst out.
“Don’t try, then. Talk to me—and if you can’t do that—love me.”
“But I must talk!”
“Go ahead, darling. Maybe I can help to ease your mind. Dad had it right. You worry. Tell me your trouble, Keven.”
“It’s—I—I can’t stand this—this situation here any longer,” declared Keven.
“Neither can I,” she laughed, with a deep note in her voice, as she rubbed her cheek against his. “But what do you mean, Mister Contrary?”
“I want things
settled between you and me.”
“They appear to be settling very well,” she rejoined demurely. “Here I am on your lap—at last…. But I feared I’d never get there.”
“Don’t be funny, you little Indian devil. This is horribly serious.”
“Kev, nothing can bother me now,” she whispered, with sublime assurance.
Whereupon Keven plunged: “You love me?”
“I worship you,” she said steadfastly.
“You must have me?”
“I’ll die if I don’t.”
“Poor crippled beggar that I am!”
“Hush!” She put a soft hand over his lips. “No more such talk! You have grown well and strong. You are incredibly improved. Soon those—those injuries will be repaired—perhaps wholly cured. You are my handsome, wonderful man…. And indeed you are not a poor beggar.”
He felt the lift of his heart. This girl of Solitude would yet make him what she believed him. Such love, such faith, such hope! They quite overpowered the morbid giants which so long had rent him.
“Beryl, will you—will you marry me?” he asked hoarsely.
“Yes.”
“When? How soon?”
“Tomorrow.”
The word was spoken with cool sweet nonchalance. She had arisen to the occasion of his needs. She had intuitively divined what would encourage and uplift him. Keven longed to let all restraint fly to the winds and give up to the joy she was creating in him. But he only held her tighter. He longed to call her every tender and passionate name known to lovers.
“Beryl, I thought this would be hard, if I dared think it at all. But it’s easy…. Will you lend me the—the money for the Portland trip? For both of us! You will have to go.”
He felt the jerk of released blood as it surged through her.
“Oh, Kev—yes—yes.”
“Will you swear you’ll let me pay that money back, if only a dollar at a time?” he asked, in terrible earnestness.
“I swear.”
He held her then in an eloquent silence. After all, how simple she had made it for him! Why had he not had courage before? Presently he resumed. “We’ll go to Portland. We must figure our expenses very carefully. I want to put aside enough to buy you the finest outfit you ever saw. This will be to knock ’em stiff in Grant’s Pass. Oh, you will knock ’em, Beryl Aard…. What a surprise for Dad! No doubt he believes me dead. I’ve never written him. I just didn’t know what to tell him. But now we’ll go home, as soon as the doctors fix me up. I’ll have to buy a new suit. I must not disgrace my beautiful wife…. Oh, it’ll be great to go—I never guessed what it’d mean, till now. To see Dad—to see my friend Minton. To show you off to Rosamond Brandeth and Gus Atwell! Maybe that won’t be grand? It’ll be revenge enough…. If my old pard Garry was only alive! What would he say at sight of you?”
