The Sagebrusher: A Story of the WestHough, Emerson
General
The Sagebrusher: A Story of the West
Hough, Emerson
Western stories
Sim Gage, but not the same. He now was in stiff, ill-fitting and
exclaimingly new clothing. A new dark hat oppressed his perspiring
brow, new and pointed shoes agonized his feet, a new white collar and a
tie tortured his neck. He had been owner of these things no longer
than overnight. He did not feel acquainted with himself.
He was to meet a woman! Her picture was in his pocket, in his brain,
in his blood. A vast shyness, coming to consternation, seized him. He
felt a sense of personal guilt; and yet a feeling of indignity and
injustice claimed him. But all this and all his sullen anger was wiped
out in this great shyness of a man not used to facing women. Sim Gage
was product of a womanless land. This was the closest his orbit ever
had come to that of the great mystery. And he had been alone so long.
A sudden surging longing came to his heart. Sim Gage was shy always,
and he was frightened now; but now he felt a longing--a longing to be
human.
Sim Gage never in all his life had seen a young woman looking back at
him over his shoulder. And now there came accession of all his ancient
dread, joined with this growing sense of guilt. A few passengers from
the resort hotel back in the town began to appear, lolling at the
ticket window or engaged at the baggage room. Sim Gage found a certain
comfort in the presence of other human beings. All the time he gazed
furtively down the railway tracks.
A long-drawn scream of the laboring engines told of the approaching
train at last. Horses and men pricked up their ears. The blood of Sim
Gage's heart seemed to go to his brain. He was seized with a panic,
but, fascinated by some agency he could not resist, he stood
uncertainly until the train came in. He began to tremble in the
unadulterated agony of a shy man about to meet the woman to whom he has
made love only in his heart.
Sim Gage's team of young and wild horses across the street began to
plunge now, and to entangle themselves dangerously, but he did not
cross the street to care for them. _She_ was coming! The woman from
the States was on this very train. In two minutes----
But the crowd thinned and dissipated at length, and Sim Gage had not
found her after all. He felt sudden relief that she had not come,
mingled with resentment that he had been made foolish. She was not
there--she had not come!
But his gaze, passing from one to another of the early tourists, rested
at last upon a solitary figure which stood close to the burly train
conductor near the station door. The conductor held the young woman's
arm reassuringly, as they both looked questioningly from side to side.
She was in dark clothing. A dark veil was across her face. As she
pushed it back he saw her eyes protected by heavy black lenses.
Sim Gage hesitated. The conductor spoke to him so loudly that he
jumped.
"Say, are you Mr. Gage?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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