American fiction -- 20th century; Gold mines and mining -- Fiction; Western stories
There was no more sleep through what was left of the night, and
scarcely more of talk. Standing piled his fire high, and, unmindful
of his discarded rifle, went out for more wood; Lynette dropped down
on the blanket in her corner and named herself a silly fool. He came
back, carefully relocking his door; kept his fire blazing, and made
his coffee and smoked his pipe. And then, in that great golden voice
of his, he began singing. And, through its wild rhythm, she knew the
song for the same as that which she had heard for the first time when
he had hurled himself both into Big Pine and into her life. His voice
rose and swelled and filled the poor cabin to overflowing, and must
have filtered through chinks and cracks and spilled out through the
forest land, and for great distances through the quiet solitudes. And,
at the end, in a sudden upgathering into all that tremendous resounding
volume of sound of which his magnificent voice was capable, came that
unforgettable wolf cry. If she required any reminding, here she had
it, that she was housed in the same cabin with Timber-Wolf! A fierce
outcry, to go resounding and echoing across miles and miles of forest
lands, meant, as she was quick to realize, to carry both defiance and
challenge to his enemies.
"You have had your choice, girl!" he shouted at her. "You could have
gone free! I gave you your freedom. But you would not go. And that was
because it was in the cards, in the fates, in the stars, if you like,
that you and I are not to part yet! The door is locked; I stand between
you and it. So, you stay here with me!"
For the first time she was truly and deeply afraid of him. But he went
back to his place by the fire, and sat on the old stump seat, and
filled his pipe again with hard, nervous fingers and glared at the
fire. For a little he seemed to have forgotten that she was there.
And then at last, when she saw that he was going to speak again, she
forestalled him, saying swiftly:
"I am tired and sleepy. I am going to sleep."
He checked his speech, saving whatever he had to say to her. She lay
back on her blankets, and, though she had had no such intention, soon
drifted off to sleep. And he, with pipe grown cold, sat and glowered
over his fire, and put to himself many a question, growing fierce over
his inability to answer any one of them. But, at least, in his groping
he forgot the pain of his wounds.
"You are not asleep," he said after a very long time. "I know that; I
can tell. You are pretending. And you are thinking, thinking hard and
fast! And so am I thinking! As I never did before now. You might as
well save yourself the labor of struggling with your problems, since I
am doing the planning for both of us right now; since everything is in
my hands and I mean to keep it there."
She heard but gave no sign of hearing; she kept her face averted from
him so that he could not see whether her eyes were open or shut. Open
they were, and the man appeared to know it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account