Horses -- Fiction; Religion -- Fiction; Western stories
The fragrance had left the wild flowers, and the great golden blossoms
at the window hung thin and limp, the bell lips hanging close together,
the color faded to a dim yellow. The green things must be taken away
before they molded. He raised his hand to tear down the transplanted
vine, but his fingers fell away from it. To remove it was to destroy the
last trace of her. She had seen these flowers; on account of them she
had smiled at him with tears of happiness in her eyes. The skin of the
mountain lion on the floor was still rumpled where her foot had fallen,
and he could see the indistinct outline where the heel of her shoe had
pressed.
He avoided that place when he stepped back, and turning, he saw her bed.
The dappled deerskin lay crumpled back where her hand had tossed it as
she rose that morning, and in the blankets was the distinct outline of
her body. He knew where her body had pressed, and there was the hollow
made by her head in the pillow.
Something snapped in the heart of David. The sustaining pride which had
kept his head high all day slipped from him like the strength of the
runner when he crosses the mark. David fell upon his knees and buried
his face where her head had lain, and his arms curved as though around
her body. Connor had been right. He had made himself his god, and this
was the punishment. The mildness of a new humility came to him in the
agony of his grief. He found that he could pray, not the proud prayers
of the old days when David talked as an equal to the voice, but that
most ancient prayer of sinners:
"O Lord, I believe. Help Thou mine unbelief!"
And the moment the whisper had passed his lips there was a blessed
relief from pain. There was a sound at the window, and turning to it, he
saw the head and the arched neck of Glani against the red of the
sunset--Glani looking at him with pricked ears. He went to the stallion,
incredulous, with steps as short as a child which is afraid, and at his
coming Glani whinnied softly. At that the last of David's pride fell
from him. He cast his arms around the neck of the stallion and wept with
deep sobs that tore his throat, and under the grip of his arms he felt
the stallion trembling. He was calmer, at length, and he climbed through
the window and stood beside Glani under the brilliant sunset sky.
"And the others, O Glani," he said. "Have they returned likewise? Timeh
shall live. I, who have judged others so often, have been myself judged
and found wanting. Timeh shall live. What am I that I should speak of
the life or the death of so much as the last bird in the trees? But have
they all returned, all my horses?"
He whistled that call which every gray knew as a rallying sound, a call
that would bring them at a dead gallop with answering neighs. But when
the thin sound of the whistle died out there was no reply. Only Glani
had moved away and was looking back to David as if he bid the master
follow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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