by Zane Grey
“Whew!” he exclaimed, and wiped his face. “Your father has my poor old dad—what does Kathleen say?—skinned to a frazzle!”
“What did he say?” asked Lenore, anxiously.
“A lot—and just as if I didn’t know it all better than he knows,” replied Dorn, sadly. “The importance of wheat; his three ranches and nobody to run them; his growing years; my future and a great opportunity as one of the big wheat men of the Northwest; the present need of the government; his only son gone to war, which was enough for his family.… And then he spoke of you—heiress to ‘Many Waters’—what a splendid, noble girl you were—like your mother! What a shame to ruin your happiness—your future!… He said you’d make the sweetest of wives—the truest of mothers!… Oh, my God!”
Lenore turned away her face, shocked to her heart by his tragic passion. Dorn was silent for what seemed a long time.
“And—then he cussed me—hard—as no doubt I deserved,” added Dorn.
“But—what did you say?” she whispered.
“I said a lot, too,” replied Dorn, remorsefully.
“Did—did you—?” began Lenore, and broke off, unable to finish.
“I arrived—to where I am now—pretty dizzy,” he responded, with a smile that was both radiant and sorrowful. He took her hands and held them close. “Lenore!… if I come home from the war—still with my arms and legs—whole—will you marry me?”
“Only come home alive, and no matter what you lose, yes!—yes!” she whispered, brokenly.
“But it’s a conditional proposal, Lenore,” he insisted. “You must never marry half a man.”
“I will marry you!” she cried, passionately.
It seemed to her that she loved him all the more, every moment, even though he made it so hard for her. Then through blurred, dim eyes she saw him take something from his pocket and felt him put a ring on her finger.
“It fits! Isn’t that lucky,” he said, softly. “My mother’s ring, Lenore.…”
He kissed her hand.
Kathleen was standing near them, open-eyed and open-mouthed, in an ecstasy of realization.
“Kathleen, your sister has promised to marry me—when I come from the war,” said Dorn to the child.
She squealed with delight, and, manifestly surrendering to a long-considered temptation, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him close.
“It’s perfectly grand!” she cried. “But what a chump you are for going at all—when you could marry Lenorry!”
That was Kathleen’s point of view, and it must have coincided somewhat with Mr. Anderson’s.
“Kathleen, you wouldn’t have me be a slacker?” asked Dorn, gently.
“No. But we let Jim go,” was her argument.
Dorn kissed her, then turned to Lenore. “Let’s go out to the fields.”
* * * *
It was not a long walk to the alfalfa, but by the time she got there Lenore’s impending woe was as if it had never been. Dorn seemed strangely gay and unusually demonstrative; apparently he forgot the war-cloud in the joy of the hour. That they were walking in the open seemed not to matter to him.
“Kurt, someone will see you,” Lenore remonstrated.
“You’re more beautiful than ever today,” he said, by way of answer, and tried to block her way.
Lenore dodged and ran. She was fleet, and eluded him down the lane, across the cut field, to a huge square stack of baled alfalfa. But he caught her just as she got behind its welcome covert. Lenore was far less afraid of him than of laughing eyes. Breathless, she backed up against the stack.
“You’re—a—cannibal!” she panted. But she did not make much resistance.
“You’re—a goddess!” he replied.
“Me!… Of what?”
“Why, of ‘Many Waters’!… Goddess of wheat!… The sweet, waving wheat, rich and golden—the very spirit of life!”
“If anybody sees you—mauling me—this way—I’ll not seem a goddess to him.… My hair is down—my waist—Oh, Kurt!”
Yet it did not very much matter how she looked or what happened. Beyond all was the assurance of her dearness to him. Suddenly she darted away from him again. Her heart swelled, her spirit soared, her feet were buoyant and swift. She ran into the uncut alfalfa. It was thick and high, tangling round her feet. Here her progress was retarded. Dorn caught up with her. His strong hands on her shoulders felt masterful, and the sweet terror they inspired made her struggle to get away.
“You shall—not—hold me!” she cried.
“But I will. You must be taught—not to run,” he said, and wrapped her tightly in his arms.
“Now surrender your kisses meekly!”
“I—surrender!… But, Kurt, someone will see… Dear, we’ll go back—or—somewhere—”
“Who can see us here but the birds?” he said, and the strong hands held her fast. “You will kiss me—enough—right now—even if the whole world—looked on!” he said, ringingly. “Lenore, my soul!… Lenore, I love you!”
He would not be denied. And if she had any desire to deny him it was lost in the moment. She clasped his neck and gave him kiss for kiss.
But her surrender made him think of her. She felt his effort to let her go.
Lenore’s heart felt too big for her breast. It hurt. She clung to his hand and they walked on across the field and across a brook, up the slope to one of Lenore’s favorite seats. And there she wanted to rest. She smoothed her hair and brushed her dress, aware of how he watched her, with his heart in his eyes.
Had there ever in all the years of the life of the earth been so perfect a day? How dazzling the sun! What heavenly blue the sky! And all beneath so gold, so green! A lark caroled over Lenore’s head and a quail whistled in the brush below. The brook babbled and gurgled and murmured along, happy under the open sky. And a soft breeze brought the low roar of the harvest fields and the scent of wheat and dust and straw.
Life seemed so stingingly full, so poignant, so immeasurably worth living, so blessed with beauty and richness and fruitfulness.
“Lenore, your eyes are windows—and I can see into your soul. I can read—and first I’m uplifted and then I’m sad.”
It was he who talked and she who listened. This glorious day would be her strength when the—Ah! but she would not complete a single bitter thought.
She led him away, up the slope, across the barley-field, now cut and harvested, to the great, swelling golden spaces of wheat. Far below, the engines and harvesters were humming. Here the wheat waved and rustled in the wind. It was as high as Lenore’s head.
“It’s fine wheat,” observed Dorn. “But the wheat of my desert hills was richer, more golden, and higher than this.”
“No regrets today!” murmured Lenore, leaning to him.
There was magic in those words—the same enchantment that made the hours fly. She led him, at will, here and there along the rustling-bordered lanes. From afar they watched the busy harvest scene, with eyes that lingered long on a great, glittering combine with its thirty-two horses plodding along.
“I can drive them. Thirty-two horses!” she asserted, proudly.
“No!”
“Yes. Will you come? I will show you.”
“It is a temptation,” he said, with a sigh. “But there are eyes there. They would break the spell.”
“Who’s talking about eyes now?” she cried.
They spent the remainder of that day on the windy wheat-slope, high up, alone, with the beauty and richness of “Many Waters” beneath them. And when the sun sent its last ruddy and gold rays over the western hills, and the weary harvesters plodded homeward, Lenore still lingered, loath to break the spell. For on the way home, she divined, he would tell her he was soon to leave.
Sunset and evening star! Their beauty and serenity pervaded Lenore’s soul. Surely there was a life somewhere else, beyond in that infinite space. And the defeat of earthly dreams was endurable.
They walked back down the wheat lanes hand i
n hand, as dusk shadowed the valley; and when they reached the house he told her gently that he must go.
“But—you will stay tonight?” she whispered.
“No. It’s all arranged,” he replied, thickly. “They’re to drive me over—my train’s due at eight.… I’ve kept it—till the last few minutes.”
They went in together.
“We’re too late for dinner,” said Lenore, but she was not thinking of that, and she paused with head bent. “I—I want to say good-by to you—here.” She pointed to the dim, curtained entrance of the living-room.
“I’d like that, too,” he replied. “I’ll go up and get my bag. Wait.”
Lenore slowly stepped to that shadowed spot beyond the curtains where she had told her love to Dorn; and there she stood, praying and fighting for strength to let him go, for power to conceal her pain. The one great thing she could do was to show him that she would not stand in the way of his duty to himself. She realized then that if he had told her sooner, if he were going to remain one more hour at “Many Waters,” she would break down and beseech him not to leave her.
She saw him come downstairs with his small hand-bag, which he set down. His face was white. His eyes burned. But her woman’s love made her divine that this was not a shock to his soul, as it was to hers, but stimulation—a man’s strange spiritual accounting to his fellow-men.
He went first into the dining-room, and Lenore heard her mother’s and sisters’ voices in reply to his. Presently he came out to enter her father’s study. Lenore listened, but heard no sound there. Outside, a motor-car creaked and hummed by the window, to stop by the side porch. Then the door of her father’s study opened and closed, and Dorn came to where she was standing.
Lenore did precisely as she had done a few nights before, when she had changed the world for him. But, following her kiss, there was a terrible instant when, with her arms around his neck, she went blind at the realization of loss. She held to him with a savage intensity of possession. It was like giving up life. She knew then, as never before, that she had the power to keep him at her side. But a thought saved her from exerting it—the thought that she could not make him less than other men—and so she conquered.
“Lenore, I want you to think always—how you loved me,” he said.
“Loved you? Oh, my boy! It seems your lot has been hard. You’ve toiled—you’ve lost all—and now…”
“Listen,” he interrupted, and she had never heard his voice like that. “The thousands of boys who go to fight regard it a duty. For our country!… I had that, but more.… My father was German… and he was a traitor. The horror for me is that I hate what is German in me.… I will have to kill that. But you’ve helped me.… I know I’m American. I’ll do my duty, whatever it is. I would have gone to war only a beast with my soul killed before I ever got there.… With no hope—no possibility of return!… But you love me!… Can’t you see—how great the difference?”
Lenore understood and felt it in his happiness. “Yes, Kurt, I know.… Thank God, I’ve helped you.… I want you to go. I’ll pray always. I believe you will come back to me.… Life could not be so utterly cruel…” She broke off.
“Life can’t rob me now—nor death,” he cried, in exaltation. “I have your love. Your face will always be with me—as now—lovely and brave!… Not a tear!… And only that sweet smile like an angel’s!… Oh, Lenore, what a girl you are!”
“Say good-by—and go,” she faltered. Another moment would see her weaken.
“Yes, I must hurry.” His voice was a whisper—almost gone. He drew a deep breath. “Lenore—my promised wife—my star for all the black nights—God bless you—keep you!… Good-by!”
She spent all her strength in her embrace, all her soul in the passion of her farewell kiss. Then she stood alone, tottering, sinking. The swift steps, now heavy and uneven, passed out of the hall—the door closed—the motor-car creaked and rolled away—the droning hum ceased.
For a moment of despairing shock, before the storm broke, Lenore blindly wavered there, unable to move from the spot that had seen the beginning and the end of her brief hour of love. Then she summoned strength to drag herself to her room, to lock her door.
Alone! In the merciful darkness and silence and loneliness!… She need not lie nor play false nor fool herself here. She had let him go! Inconceivable and monstrous truth! For what?… It was not now with her, that deceiving spirit which had made her brave. But she was a woman. She fell upon her knees beside her bed, shuddering.
That moment was the beginning of her sacrifice, the sacrifice she shared in common now with thousands of other women. Before she had pitied; now she suffered. And all that was sweet, loving, noble, and motherly—all that was womanly—rose to meet the stretch of gray future, with its endless suspense and torturing fear, its face of courage for the light of day, its despair for the lonely night, and its vague faith in the lessons of life, its possible and sustaining and eternal hope of God.
THE DESERT OF WHEAT [Part 3]
CHAPTER XXIV
Camp—, October—.
Dear Sister Lenore,—
It’s been long since I wrote you. I’m sorry, dear. But I haven’t just been in shape to write. Have been transferred to a training-camp not far from New York. I don’t like it. The air is raw, penetrating, different from our high mountain air in the West. So many gray, gloomy days! And wet—why you never saw a rain in Washington! Fine bunch of boys, though. We get up in the morning at 4:30. Sweep the streets of the camp! I’m glad to get up and sweep, for I’m near frozen long before daylight. Yesterday I peeled potatoes till my hands were cramped. Nine million spuds, I guess! I’m wearing citizen’s clothes—too thin, by gosh!—and sleeping in a tent, on a canvas cot, with one blanket. Wouldn’t care a—(scoose me, sis)—I wouldn’t mind if I had a real gun, and some real fighting to look forward to. Some life, I don’t think! But I meant to tell you why I’m here.
You remember how I always took to cowboys. Well, I got chummy with a big cow puncher from Montana. His name was Andersen. Isn’t that queer? His name same as mine except for the last e where I have o. He’s a Swede or Norwegian. True-blue American? Well, I should smile. Like all cowboys! He’s six feet four, broad as a door, with a flat head of an Indian, and a huge, bulging chin. Not real handsome, but say! he’s one of the finest fellows that ever lived. We call him Montana.
There were a lot of rough-necks in our outfit, and right away I got in bad. You know I never was much on holding my temper. Anyway, I got licked powerful fine, as dad would say, and I’d been all beaten up but for Montana. That made us two fast friends, and sure some enemies, you bet.
We had the tough luck to run into six of the rough-necks, just outside of the little town, where they’d been drinking. I never heard the name of one of that outfit. We weren’t acquainted at all. Strange how they changed my soldier career, right at the start! This day, when we met them, they got fresh, and of course I had to start something. I soaked that rough-neck, sis, and don’t you forget it. Well, it was a fight, sure. I got laid out—not knocked out, for I could see—but I wasn’t any help to pard Montana. It looked as if he didn’t need any. The rough-necks jumped him. Then, one after another, he piled them up in the road. Just a swing—and down went each one—cold. But the fellow I hit came to and, grabbing up a pick-handle, with all his might he soaked Montana over the head. What an awful crack! Montana went down, and there was blood everywhere.
They took Montana to the hospital, sewed up his head. It wasn’t long before he seemed all right again, but he told me sometimes he felt queer. Then they put us on a troop-train, with boys from California and all over, and we came East. I haven’t seen any of those other Western boys, though, since we got here.
One day, without any warning, Montana keeled over, down and out. Paralysis! They took him to a hospital in New York. No hope, the doctors said, and he was getting worse all the time. But some New York surgeon advised operation, anyway. So they opened that healed-over
place in his head, where the pick-handle hit—and what do you think they found? A splinter off that pick-handle, stuck two inches under his skull, in his brain! They took it out. Every day they expected Montana to die. But he didn’t. But he will die. I went over to see him. He’s unconscious part of the time—crazy the rest. No part of his right side moves! It broke me all up. Why couldn’t that soak he got have been on the Kaiser’s head?
I tell you, Lenore, a fellow has his eye teeth cut in this getting ready to go to war. It makes me sick. I enlisted to fight, not to be chased into a climate that doesn’t agree with me—not to sweep roads and juggle a wooden gun. There are a lot of things, but say! I’ve got to cut out that kind of talk.
I feel almost as far away from you all as if I were in China. But I’m nearer France! I hope you’re well and standing pat, Lenore. Remember, you’re dad’s white hope. I was the black sheep, you know. Tell him I don’t regard my transfer as a disgrace. The officers didn’t and he needn’t. Give my love to mother and the girls. Tell them not to worry. Maybe the war will be over before—I’ll write you often now, so cheer up.
Your loving brother,
Jim.
* * * *
Camp—, October—.
My Dearest Lenore,—
If my writing is not very legible it is because my hand shakes when I begin this sweet and sacred privilege of writing to my promised wife. My other letter was short, and this is the second in the weeks since I left you. What an endless time! You must understand and forgive me for not writing oftener and for not giving you definite address.
I did not want to be in the Western regiment, for reasons hard to understand. I enlisted in New York and am trying hard to get into the Rainbow Division, with some hope of success. There is nothing to me in being a member of a crack regiment, but it seems that this one will see action first of all American units. I don’t want to be an officer, either.
How will it be possible for me to write you as I want to—letters that will be free of the plague of myself—letters that you can treasure if I never come back? Sleeping and waking, I never forget the wonderful truth of your love for me. It did not seem real when I was with you, but, now that we are separated, I know that it is real. Mostly my mind contains only two things—this constant memory of you, and that other terrible thing of which I will not speak. All else that I think or do seems to be mechanical.
