VI. The Wind in the Cedars

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

　　PIUTE'S Indian sense of the advantage of position in attack stood Jack ingood stead; he led him up the ledge which overhung one end of the corral.In the pale starlight the sheep could be seen running in bands, massingtogether, crowding the fence; their cries made a deafening din.

　　The Indian shouted, but Jack could not understand him. A large blackobject was visible in the shade of the ledge. Piute fired his carbine.Before Jack could bring his rifle up the black thing moved intostartlingly rapid flight. Then spouts of red flame illumined the corral.As he shot, Jack got fleeting glimpses of the bear moving like a darkstreak against a blur of white. For all he could tell no bullet tookeffect.

　　When certain that the visitor had departed Jack descended into thecorral. He and Piute searched for dead sheep, but, much to theirsurprise, found none. If the grizzly had killed one he must have takenit with him; and estimating his strength from the gap he had broken inthe fence, he could easily have carried off a sheep. They repaired thebreak and returned to camp.

　　"He's gone, Mescal. Come down," called Jack into the cedar. "Let mehelp you--there! Wasn't it lucky? He wasn't so brave. Either theflashes from the guns or the dog scared him. I was amazed to see howfast he could run."

　　Piute found woolly brown fur hanging from Wolf's jaws.

　　"He nipped the brute, that's sure," said Jack. "Good dog! Maybe he keptthe bear from-- Why Mescal! you're white--you're shaking. There's nodanger. Piute and I'll take turns watching with Wolf."

　　Mescal went silently into her tent.

　　The sheep quieted down and made no further disturbance that night. Thedawn broke gray, with a cold north wind. Dun-colored clouds rolled up,hiding the tips of the crags on the upper range, and a flurry of snowwhitened the cedars. After breakfast Jack tried to get Wolf to take thetrack of the grizzly, but the scent had cooled.

　　Next day Mescal drove the sheep eastward toward the crags, and about themiddle of the afternoon reached the edge of the slope. Grass grewluxuriantly and it was easy to keep the sheep in. Moreover, that part ofthe forest had fewer trees, and scarcely any sage or thickets, so thatthe lambs were safer, barring danger which might lurk in the seamed andcracked cliffs overshadowing the open grassy plots. Piute's task at themoment was to drag dead coyotes to the rim, near at hand, and throw themover. Mescal rested on a stone, and Wolf reclined at her feet.

　　Jack presently found a fresh deer track, and trailed it into the cedars,then up the slope to where the huge rocks massed.

　　Suddenly a cry from Mescal halted him; another, a piercing scream ofmortal fright, sent him flying down the slope. He bounded out of thecedars into the open.

　　The white, well-bunched flock had spread, and streams of jumping sheepfled frantically from an enormous silver-backed bear.

　　As the bear struck right and left, a brute-engine of destruction, Jacksent a bullet into him at long range. Stung, the grizzly whirled, bit athis side, and then reared with a roar of fury.

　　But he did not see Jack. He dropped down and launched his huge bulk forMescal. The blood rushed back to Jack's heart, and his empty veinsseemed to freeze.

　　The grizzly hurdled the streams of sheep. Terror for Mescal dominatedJack; if he had possessed wings he could not have flown quickly enough tohead the bear. Checking himself with a suddenness that fetched him tohis knees, he levelled the rifle. It waved as if it were a stick ofwillow. The bead-sight described a blurred curve round the bear. Yet heshot--in vain--again--in vain.

　　Above the bleat of sheep and trample of many hoofs rang out Mescal's cry,despairing.

　　She had turned, her hands over her breast. Wolf spread his legs beforeher and crouched to spring, mane erect, jaws wide.

　　By some lightning flash of memory, August Naab's words steadied Jack'sshaken nerves. He aimed low and ahead of the running bear. Down thebeast went in a sliding sprawl with a muffled roar of rage. Up hesprang, dangling a useless leg, yet leaping swiftly forward. One blowsent the attacking dog aside. Jack fired again. The bear became awrestling, fiery demon, death-stricken, but full of savage fury. Jackaimed low and shot again.

　　Slowly now the grizzly reared, his frosted coat blood-flecked, his greathead swaying. Another shot. There was one wide sweep of the huge paw,and then the bear sank forward, drooping slowly, and stretched all hislength as if to rest.

　　Mescal, recalled to life, staggered backward. Between her and theoutstretched paw was the distance of one short stride.

　　Jack, bounding up, made sure the bear was dead before he looked atMescal. She was faint. Wolf whined about her. Piute came running fromthe cedars. Her eyes were still fixed in a look of fear.

　　"I couldn't run--I couldn't move," she said, shuddering. A blush drovethe white from her cheeks as she raised her face to Jack. "He'd soonhave reached me."

　　Piute added his encomium: "Damn--heap big bear-- Jack kill um--bigchief!"

　　Hare laughed away his own fear and turned their attention to thestampeded sheep. It was dark before they got the flock together again,and they never knew whether they had found them all. Supper-time wasunusually quiet that night. Piute was jovial, but no one appearedwilling to talk save the peon, and he could only grimace. The reactionof feeling following Mescal's escape had robbed Jack of strength ofvoice; he could scarcely whisper. Mescal spoke no word; her black lasheshid her eyes; she was silent, but there was that in her silence which waseloquent. Wolf, always indifferent save to Mescal, reacted to the subtlechange, and as if to make amends laid his head on Jack's knees. Thequiet hour round the camp-fire passed, and sleep claimed them. Anotherday dawned, awakening them fresh, faithful to their duties, regardless ofwhat had gone before.

　　So the days slipped by. June came, with more leisure for the shepherds,better grazing for the sheep, heavier dews, lighter frosts, snow-squallshalf rain, and bursting blossoms on the prickly thorns, wild-primrosepatches in every shady spot, and bluebells lifting wan azure faces to thesun.

　　The last snow-storm of June threatened all one morning; hung menacingover the yellow crags, in dull lead clouds waiting for the wind. Thenlike ships heaving anchor to a single command they sailed down off theheights; and the cedar forest became the centre of a blinding, eddyingstorm. The flakes were as large as feathers, moist, almost warm. Thelow cedars changed to mounds of white; the sheep became drooping curvesof snow; the little lambs were lost in the color of their own purefleece. Though the storm had been long in coming it was brief inpassing. Wind-driven toward the desert, it moaned its last in thecedars, and swept away, a sheeted pall. Out over the Canyon it floated,trailing long veils of white that thinned out, darkened, and failed farabove the golden desert. The winding columns of snow merged intostraight lines of leaden rain; the rain flowed into vapory mist, and themist cleared in the gold-red glare of endless level and slope. Nomoisture reached the parched desert.

　　Jack marched into camp with a snowy burden over his shoulder. He flungit down, disclosing a small deer; then he shook the white mantle from hiscoat, and whistling, kicked the fire-logs, and looked abroad at thesilver cedars, now dripping under the sun, at the rainbows in thesettling mists, at the rapidly melting snow on the ground.

　　"Got lost in that squall. Fine! Fine!" he exclaimed, and threw wide hisarms.

　　"Jack!" said Mescal. "Jack!" Memory had revived some forgotten thing.The dark olive of her skin crimsoned; her eyes dilated and shadowed witha rare change of emotion.

　　"Jack," she repeated.

　　"Well?" he replied, in surprise.

　　"To look at youI'd forgotten--"

　　"What's the matter with me?" demanded Jack.

　　Wonderingly, her mind on the past, she replied: "You were dying when wefound you at White Sage."

　　He drew himself up with a sharp catch in his breath, and stared at her asif he saw a ghost.

　　"Oh--Jack! You're going to get well!"

　　Her lips curved in a smile.

　　For an instant Jack Hare spent his soul in searching her face for truth.While waiting for death he had utterly forgotten it; he remembered now,when life gleamed in the girl's dark eyes. Passionate joy flooded hisheart.

　　"Mescal--Mescal!" he cried, brokenly. The eyes were true that shed thissudden light on him; glad and sweet were the lips that bade him hope andlive again. Blindly, instinctively he kissed them--a kiss unutterablygrateful; then he fled into the forest, running without aim.

　　That flight ended in sheer exhaustion on the far rim of the plateau. Thespreading cedars seemed to have eyes; and he shunned eyes in this hour."God! to think I cared so much," he whispered. "What has happened?" Withtime relief came to limbs, to labored breast and lungs, but not to mind.In doubt that would not die, he looked at himself. The leanness of arms,the flat chest, the hollows were gone. He did not recognize his ownbody. He breathed to the depths of his lungs. No pain--only ex-hilaration! He pounded his chest--no pain! He dug his trembling fingersinto the firm flesh over the apex of his right lung--the place of historture--no pain!

　　"I wanted to live!" he cried. He buried his face in the fragrantjuniper; he rolled on the soft brown mat of earth and hugged it close; hecooled his hot cheeks in the primrose clusters. He opened his eyes tonew bright green of cedar, to sky of a richer blue, to a desert, strange,beckoning, enthralling as life itself. He counted backward a month, twomonths, and marvelled at the swiftness of time. He counted time forward,he looked into the future, and all was beautiful--long days, long hunts,long rides, service to his friend, freedom on the wild steppes,blue-white dawns upon the eastern crags, red-gold sunsets over the lilacmountains of the desert. He saw himself in triumphant health andstrength, earning day by day the spirit of this wilderness, coming tofight for it, to live for it, and in far-off time, when he had won hisvictory, to die for it.

　　Suddenly his mind was illumined. The lofty plateau with its healingbreath of sage and juniper had given back strength to him; the silenceand solitude and strife of his surroundings had called to something deepwithin him; but it was Mescal who made this wild life sweet andsignificant. It was Mescal, the embodiment of the desert spirit. Like aman facing a great light Hare divined his love. Through all the days onthe plateau, living with her the natural free life of Indians, close tothe earth, his unconscious love had ripened. He understood now her charmfor him; he knew now the lure of her wonderful eyes, flashing fire,desert-trained, like the falcon eyes of her Indian grandfather. Theknowledge of what she had become to him dawned with a mounting desirethat thrilled all his blood.

　　Twilight had enfolded the plateau when Hare traced his way back to camp.Mescal was not there. His supper awaited him; Piute hummed a song; thepeon sat grimacing at the fire. Hare told them to eat, and moved awaytoward the rim.

　　Mescal was at her favorite seat, with the white dog beside her; and shewatched the desert where the last glow of sunset gilded the mesas. Howcold and calm was her face! How strange to him in this new character!

　　"Mescal, I didn't know I loved you--then--but I know it now."

　　Her face dropped quickly from its level poise, hiding the brooding eyes;her hand trembled on Wolf's head.

　　"You spoke the truth. I'll get well. I'd rather have had it from yourlips than from any in the world. I mean to live my life here where thesewonderful things have come to me. The friendship of the good man whosaved me, this wild, free desert, the glory of new hope, strength, life--and love."

　　He took her hand in his and whispered, "For I love you. Do you care forme? Mescal! It must be complete. Do you care--a little?"

　　The wind blew her dusky hair; he could not see her face; he tried gentlyto turn her to him. The hand he had taken lay warm and trembling in his,but it was not withdrawn. As he waited, in fear, in hope, it becamestill. Her slender form, rigid within his arm, gradually relaxed, andyielded to him; her face sank on his breast, and her dark hair loosenedfrom its band, covered her, and blew across his lips. That was hisanswer.

　　The wind sang in the cedars. No longer a sigh, sad as thoughts of a pastforever flown, but a song of what had come to him, of hope, of life, ofMescal's love, of the things to be!