The Silent Battle
At the fire she spitted her fish, leaning back against the log, her hair drying in the sun and wind, the warm fire bringing a warm glow throughout her body. She ate and then stretched her arms toward the kindly trees. It was good to be strong and young, with life just ripening. At that moment it did not matter just what was to become of her. She was sure that she no longer felt any uneasiness as to the end of her adventure. Her guardian had gone to find a way out. He would come back to-night. In time she would go back to camp. She didn’t care when—the present seemed sufficient.
In all ways save one—she had no mirror. She combed her hair with her back comb and braided it carefully with fingers long accustomed. Instinct demanded that she look at her face; circumstance refused her the privilege, for of Vanity Boxes she had none. And, when, like Narcissus, she knelt at the brink of the pool and looked into its depths, the water was full of iridescent wrinkles and she only saw the mocking pebbles upon the bottom, having not only her labor, but a wetting for her pains. But she accepted the reproof calmly and finished her toilet secundum naturam.
The larder was full, but she fished again—up stream this time, for evening might bring another mouth to feed. The morning dragged wearily enough and she came back to her fire early, with but four fish to her credit account. She hung the creel in its accustomed place and resumed her seat by the fire, her look moving restlessly from one object to another. At last it fell upon his coat which she had left on the couch in the shelter. She got up, brought it forth into the light and brushed it carefully. Several objects fell from its pockets—a tobacco pouch nearly empty, a disreputable and badly charred briarwood pipe and some papers. She picked up the objects one by one and put them back. As she did so her eye caught the superscription of a letter. She drew it forth quickly and examined it again as though she had not been certain that she had read it correctly; then the other envelope, scanning them both eagerly. They were inscribed with the same name and address—all written with the same feminine scrawl, and the paper smelt of heliotrope. She held them in her fingers a moment, her lips compressed, her brow thoughtful and then abruptly thrust them into the pocket again and put the coat into the shelter.
She sat for a long while, her chin in her hand, looking into the ashes of the fire. A cloud moved slowly across the face of the sun, and its shadow darkened the glade. A hush fell upon the trees as though all living things had stopped to listen. The girl glanced at the sky and saw that the heavens were dark with the portent of a storm, when some new thought suddenly struck her, for she rose quickly, her look moving from the shack to the trees beside it, a pine and a maple tree, measuring the distance and the ground between them. Of one thing she was now certain, another shelter must be built at once.
Her crutch in her hand she made her way into the thicket, her small pearl handled knife clutched resolutely in her palm, attacking vigorously the first straight limb within reach. At the end of ten minutes she had cut only half way through it, and her tender hands were red and blistered. But she put her weight on the bough and snapped it, cutting at last through the tough fibers and dragging it into the open. Ten minutes more of cutting at the twigs and her roof joist was in position. Her next attempt was unfortunate; for she had hardly begun to cut a notch in the branch she had selected, when the knife-blade broke and the handle twisted in her hand, the jagged edge cutting a gash in her thumb. She cried out with pain, dropping the knife from trembling fingers. It was not a serious wound, but the few drops of blood made her think it so; and, pale and a little frightened, she made her way to the stream and dipped it into the cooling water, bathing and bandaging it with her handkerchief.
She had learned something. The woods were only friendly to those who knew how to cope with them. She did not know how to cope with them, and at this moment hated them blindly. There seemed to be nothing left but to sit by the fire and have a cry. This done, she felt better, but she made no further attempt to build the hut.
The sky darkened rapidly and a few drops of rain pattered noisily among the dry leaves. She had no means of learning the hour of the day. She guessed that it would soon be time to prepare supper, but for a long while she did not move. She was conquered by the inevitable facts of nature and her eyes plaintively regarded the beginnings of the house which might have been, but was not.
The fire, like her spirits of the morning, had sunk. But she rose now, her face set in hard little lines of determination, and laid on fresh logs. As the cheerful flames arose her spirits kindled, too, and she lifted the creels from the limb and sat down again in her accustomed place to prepare the scanty meal. Her eyes sought the up-country trail more frequently and more anxiously, but the shadows of the night had fallen thickly before she decided to cook her solitary meal. She was not hungry as she had been in the morning and even the odor of the cooking fish was not appetizing. She only cooked because cooking at this time seemed part of the established order of things and because cooking was something that belonged to the things that she could do.
She ate mechanically, rose and washed her utensils without interest. The rain was falling steadily; but she did not seem to care, and only when she had finished her tasks did she seek the shelter of the hut. Even then she stood leaning against the young birch-tree looking out at the darkness and listening, her brows puckered in tiny wrinkles of worry. At last with a sigh, she sank on her balsam bed and closed her eyes.
The night was sombrous and the rain had been falling for an hour. The girl sat beneath the shelter of her projecting eave upon the ground, where she might look out up the stream, her chin on her knees, her hands clasped about her ankles, watching the rain drops fall glistening into the circle of firelight and hiss spitefully among the fretting flames. She had been crying again and her eyes were dark with apprehension. Her hair hung in moist wisps about her brow and temples and her lips were drawn in plaintive lines. She listened intently. A dead branch in the distance cracked and fell. She started up and peered out for the hundredth time in the direction from which she might expect his approach. Only the soft patter of the rain on the soaked foliage and the ominous blackness of before! She went out into the wet, heaping more logs upon the flames. The fire at least must be kept burning. He had asked that of her. That was her duty and she did it unquestioning like the solitary cliff-woman, awaiting in anxious expectation the return of her lord. She would not lie down upon her balsam bed; for that would mean that she denied the belief that he would return, and so she sat, her forehead now bent upon her knees, her eyes closed, only her ears acutely alive to the slightest distant sounds.
Suddenly she raised her head, her eyes alight. She heard sounds now, human sounds, the crunch of footfalls in the moist earth, the snapping of fallen twigs. She ran out into the rain and called joyously. A voice answered. She ran forward to meet him. He emerged into the light striding heavily, bent forward under the weight of something he was carrying.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” she cried, her voice trembling. “I had begun to fear—I don’t know what. I thought—you—you—weren’t coming back.”
He grinned wearily. “I believe I’d almost begun to think so myself. Phew! But the thing is heavy!”
He lowered it from his shoulders and threw it heavily near the fire.
“W—what is it?” she asked timidly.
“A deer. I shot it,” he said laconically.
He straightened slowly, getting the kinks out of his muscles with an effort; and she saw that his face was streaked with grime and sweat and that his body in the firelight was streaming with moisture. His eyes peered darkly from deep caverns.
“Oh! You’re so tired,” she cried. “Sit down by the fire at once, while I cook your supper.” And, as he made no move to obey her, she seized him by the arms and led him into the shelter of the hut and pushed him gently down upon the couch. “You’re not to bother about anything,” she went on in a businesslike way. “I’ll have you something hot in a jiffy. I’m so—so sorry for you.”
He sat in the bunk, with a drooping head, his long legs stretched toward the blaze.
“Oh, I’m all right,” he grunted. But he watched her flitting to and fro with dull eyes and took the cup of water she offered him without protest. She spitted the fish skillfully, crouching on the wet log as she broiled them, while he watched her, half asleep with the grateful sense of warmth and relaxation. He did not realize until now that he had been on the move with little rest for nearly eighteen hours, during four of which he had carried a double burden.
The cedar tea she brought him first. He made a wry face but emptied the saucepan.
“By George, that’s good! I never tasted anything better.” He ate hungrily—like an animal, grumbling at the fish bones, while she cooked more fish, smiling at him. There was some of the squirrel left and he ate that, too, not stopping to question why she had not eaten it herself. Another saucepan of the tea, and he gave a great sigh of satisfaction and moved as though to rise. But she pushed him gently down again, fumbling meanwhile in the pockets of his coat which lay beside the bed.
“Your pipe—and tobacco,” she said, handing them to him with a smile. “I insist, you deserve them,” she went to the fire and brought him a glowing pine twig, and blew it for him until the tobacco was ready. In a moment he was puffing mechanically.
She sank quickly upon the dry ground beside him and he looked at her in amazement.
“I forgot,” he muttered. “Your ankle!”
“It’s well,” she smiled. “I had forgotten it, too. I haven’t used the crutch since morning.”
“I’m glad of that, a day or two of rest and we’ll soon be out of here.”
He had not spoken of their predicament before, nor had she. It seemed as though in the delight of having him (or some one) near her, she had forgotten the object of his pilgrimage. He had not forgotten. His mind and body ached too sorely for him to forget his failure. She saw the tangle at his brows and questioned timidly.
“You had—had no luck?”
“No, I hadn’t, and I went almost to the headwaters. I found no signs of travel anywhere, though I searched the right bank carefully. I thought I could remember—” he put his hand to his brow and drew his long fingers down his temple, “but I didn’t.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not frightened now. In a day or two when I’m quite sure of my foot, we’ll go out together. I think I really am—getting a little tired of fish,” she finished smiling.
“I don’t wonder. How would a venison steak strike you?”
“Ah, I forgot. Delicious! You must be a very good shot.”
“Pure luck. You see my eyes were pretty wide open to-day and the breeze was favoring. I got quite close to her and fired three times before she could start. After I shot she got away but I found some blood and followed. She didn’t get far.”
“Poor thing!” she said softly, her eyes seeking the dark shadow beyond the fire. “Poor little thing!”
He looked down at her, a new expression in his eyes; yesterday she had been a petulant, and self-willed child, creating a false position where none need have existed, diffident and pretentious by turns, self-conscious and over-natural. To-night she was all woman. Under his tired lids he could see that—tender, compassionate, gentle, but strong—always strong. There were lines in her face, too, that he had not seen before. She had been crying. One of her hands, too, was bound with a handkerchief.
“You’ve hurt yourself again?” he asked.
“No—only a scratch. My knife—I—I was cutting”—hesitating—“cutting sticks for the fish.”
If she had not hesitated, he might not have examined her so minutely. As it was she looked up at him irresolutely and then away. Over her head, beyond the edge of the shack, he saw the young pine-tree that she had placed for a roof support.
“Ah!” he muttered. But he understood. And knocking his pipe out against his heel, quietly rose. It was raining still, not gently and fitfully, as it had done earlier in the evening, but steadily, as though nature had determined to compensate with good measure for the weeks of clear skies that had been apportioned.
“I’ve got to get to work,” he said resolutely.
“At what?”
“The shack you began–”
“No.”
She answered so shortly that he glanced at her. Her head was turned away from him.
“I mean it,” she insisted, still looking into the darkness. “You can do no more to-night. You must sleep here.”
“You’re very kind,” he began slowly.
“No—I’m only just—” she went on firmly. “You’re so tired that you can hardly get up. I’m not going to let you build that shack. Besides, you couldn’t. Everything is soaking. Won’t you sit down again? I want to talk to you.”
Slowly he obeyed, dumb with fatigue, but inexpressibly grateful.
“I don’t want you to think I’m a little fool,” she said with petulant abruptness, as though denying an imputation. “I think I had a right to be timid yesterday and the day before. I was very much frightened and I felt very strangely. I don’t know very many—many men. I was brought up in a convent. I don’t think I quite knew what to—to expect of you. But I think I do now.” She turned her gaze very frankly to his, a gaze that did not waver or quibble with the issue any more than her words did. “You’ve been very thoughtful—very considerate of me and you’ve done all that strength could do to make things easier for me. I want you to know that I’m very—very thankful.”
He began to speak—but her gesture silenced him.
“It seems to me that the least I can do is to try and accept my position sensibly–”
“I’m sure you’re doing that–”
“I’m trying to. I don’t want you to think I’ve any nonsense left in my head—or false consciousness. I want you to treat me as you’d treat a man. I’ll do my share if you’ll show me how.”
“You’re more likely to show me how,” he said.
“No. I can show you nothing but appreciation. I do that, don’t I?”
“Yes—I hope I’ll deserve it.”
“I’m taking that risk,” she said, with a winning laugh. “I’d have to be pretty sure of you, or I wouldn’t be sitting here flattering you so.”
“I hope you’ll keep on,” drowsily. “I like it.”
“There! I knew it. I’ve spoiled you already. You’ll be making me haul the firewood to-morrow.”
“And cook breakfast,” he put in sleepily. “Of course, I’ll not stir out of here all day if you talk like this.”
“Then I won’t talk any more.”
“Do, please, it’s very soothing.”
“I actually believe you’re falling asleep.”
“No—just dreaming.”
“Of what?”
“Of the time a thousand years ago when you and I did all this before.”
She looked at him with startled eyes.
“What made you say that?”
“Because I dreamed it.”
“It’s nonsense.”
“I suppose it is. I’m—half—asleep.”
She was silent a moment—her wide gaze on the fire.
“It’s curious that you should say that.”
“Why is it? I only told what I was dreaming of.”
“You haven’t any business dreaming such things.”
“It all happened—all happened before,” he muttered again. His head was nodding. He slept as he sat. She got up noiselessly and taking him by the shoulders lowered him gently to the bed. His lips babbled protestingly, but he did not wake, and in a moment he was breathing heavily in the deep sleep of exhaustion.
She stood beside him for a moment, smiling, and then softly sank upon the ground by his side, still watching. The rain had stopped falling, but outside the glistening circle of the firelight the water from the heavy branches dripped heavily. The heavens lightened and a bleary cloud opened a single eye and, blinking a moment, at last let the moonlight through. From every tree pendants of diamonds, festoons of opals were hung and flashed their radiance in the rising breeze, falling in splendid profusion. Over her head the drops pattered noisily upon the roof. After awhile, she heard them singly and at last silence fell again upon the forest.
It was her night of vigil and the girl kept it long. She was not frightened now. Kee-way-din crooned a lullaby, and she knew that the trees which repeated it were her friends. It was a night of mystery, of dreams and of a melancholy so sweet that she was willing even then to die with the pain of it.
And in the distance a voice sang faintly:
Le jour bien souvent dans nos boisHélas! le cœur plein de souffrance,Je cherche ta si doux voixMais tout se tait, tout est silenceOh! loin de toi, de toi que j’aime,Dans les ennuis, ô mes amours,Dans les regrets, douleur extreme,Loin de toi je passe mes jours.The girl at last slept uneasily, her head pillowed upon the cedar twigs beside the body of the man, who lay as he had first fallen, prone, his arms and legs sprawling. Twice during the night she got up and rebuilt the fire, for it was cold. Once a wolf sat just outside the circle of firelight grinning at her, not even moving at her approach, but she threw a stick at him and he slunk away. After that, she pulled the carcass of the deer into the opening of the hut and mounted guard over it until she was sure the wolf would not return. Then she lay down again and listened to the breathing of the man.
VI
THE SHADOW
The third morning rose cold and clear. Kee-way-din had brushed the heavens clean, and the rising sun was burnishing them. Orange and rose color vied for precedence in the splendid procession across the zenith, putting to flight the shadows of violet and purple which retreated westward in rout before the gorgeous pageantry of the dawn.
The girl stirred and started up at once, smiling hopefully at the radiant sky. Each tree awoke; each leaf and bough sent forth its fragrant tribute. Nature had wept, was drying her tears; and all the woods were glad.
The man still slept. The girl listened again for the sounds of his breathing, and then rose slowly and walked out. She shivered with the cold and dampness, for her feet had been wet the night before and were not yet dry, but the fire still glowed warmly. The damp twigs sputtered in protest as she put them on and a shaft of white smoke slanted down the wind, but presently the grateful crackling was followed by a burst of flame.
The explosion of a pine-knot awoke the sleeper in the hut, who rolled over on his couch, looking around him with heavy eyes, unable to put his thoughts together. A ray of sunlight fell upon the girl’s face and rested there; and he saw that she was pale and that her hair had fallen in disorder about her shoulders. He understood then. He had slept upon her bed while she—for all he knew—had spent the night where he now saw her. He straightened, struggled stiffly to his feet and stumbled out, rubbing his eyes.
She greeted him with a wan smile.
“Good morning,” she said. “I awoke first, you see.”
“I c-can’t forgive myself.”
“Oh, yes, you can, since I do.”
“I don’t know what to say to you.”
“You might say ‘good morning.’”
“I’ve been asleep,” he went on with a slow shake of his head, “while you lay—on the ground. I didn’t know. I only remember sitting there. I meant to get up–”
She laughed deliciously.
“But you couldn’t have—unless you had walked in your sleep.”
“I remember nothing.” He ran his blackened fingers through his hair. “Oh, yes, the trail—the deer—and—you cooking fish—and then—after that—we talked, didn’t we?”
He was awake now, and blundered forward eagerly to take the branch which she had lifted from the wood-pile. But she yielded grudgingly.
“I’m to do my share—that we agreed–”
“No—you’re a woman. You shall do nothing—go into the hut and rest.”
“I’m not tired.”
Her appearance belied her words. He looked down at her tenderly and laid his hand gently on her shoulder.
“You have not slept?”
“Oh, yes, I slept,” looking away.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“It wasn’t necessary.”
She smiled, but did not meet his gaze, which she felt was bent eagerly in search of her own.
“Where did you sleep?” he asked again.
“In the shelter—beside you.”
“And I did not know! Do you think you can forgive me?”
She put her hand to her shoulder and gently removed his fingers. But his own seized hers firmly and would not let them go.
“Listen, please,” he pleaded, “won’t you? I want you to understand—many things. I want you to know that I wouldn’t willingly have slept there for anything in the world. It’s a matter of pride with me to make you comfortable. I’m under a moral obligation to myself—it goes deeper than you can ever guess—to bring you safely out of this, and give you to your people. You don’t know how I’ve blessed the chance that threw you in my way—here—since I’ve been in the woods—that it happened to be my opportunity instead of some one else’s who didn’t need it as I did. I did need it. I can’t tell you how or why, but I did. It doesn’t matter who I am, but I want you to appreciate this much, at least, that I never knew anything of the joy of living until I found it here, the delight of the struggle to satisfy the mere pangs of healthy hunger—yours and mine, the wonderful ache of muscles stretched to the snapping point.” He stopped, with a sharp sigh.
“Oh, I know you can’t understand all this. I don’t think I want you to—or why it hurts me to know that for one night at least you have suffered–”
“I do understand, I think,” she murmured slowly. She had not looked at him, and her gaze sought the distant trees. “I did not suffer, though,” she added.
“You had been crying—they hurt me, too, those anxious eyes of yours.”
“I was afraid you might not come back, that was all,” she said frankly. “I’m rather useless, you see.”
He took her other hand and made her look at him.
“You felt the need of me?” he queried.
“Yes, of course,” she said simply. “What would I have done without you?”
He laughed happily, “What wouldn’t you have done—if you hadn’t cut your finger?”
She colored and her eyes, in some confusion, sought the two trees which still bore the evidence of her ill-fated building operation.
“Yesterday, when I was away you started to build a shack for me,” he went on. “It was your right, of course–”
“No, no,” she protested, lowering her head. “I thought you’d like it so, I–”
“I understand,” gently. “But it seems–”
“It was a selfish motive after all,” she broke in again. “Your strength is more important than mine–”
He smiled and shook his head.
“You can’t mislead me. Last night I learned something of what you are—gentle, courageous, motherly, self-effacing. I’ll remember you so—always.”
She disengaged her hands abruptly and took up the saucepan.
“Meanwhile, the breakfast is to be cooked—” she said coolly. There was no reproof in her tone, only good fellowship, a deliberate confirmation of her promises of the night before.
With a smile he took the saucepan from her hand and went about his work. It seemed that his failure yesterday to find a way out meant more to him this morning than it did to her. His limbs were heavy, too, and his body ached from top to toe; but he went to the brook and washed, then searched the woods for the blueberries that she liked and silently cooked the meal.
As he did not eat she asked him, “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Not very.”
He took up a fish and turned it over in his fingers. “I think I’ll wait for the venison pasty.”
“Don’t you feel well?”
“Just a little loggy,” that’s all. “I think I slept too long.”
She looked up at him suddenly, and then with friendly solicitude, laid her fingers lightly along his brow. The gesture was natural, gentle, so exquisitely feminine, that he closed his eyes delightedly, conscious of the agreeable softness of her fingers and the coolness of their touch.
“Your brow is hot,” she said quickly.
“Is it?” he asked. “That’s queer, I feel chilly.”
“You’ve caught a bad cold, I’m afraid,” she said, removing her fingers. “It’s very—very imprudent of you.”