The Collected Short Stories

  She sat in despair among the blankets, hugging tight her pale-blue cloak. Romero strode straight back to the cabin.

  "Now you stay here with me," he said.

  She was furious. Her blue eyes met his. They were like two demons watching one another. In his face, beyond a sort of unrelieved gloom, was a demonish desire for death.

  He saw her looking round the cabin, scheming. He saw her eyes on his rifle. He took the gun and went out with it. Returning, he pulled out her saddle, carried it to the tarn, and threw it in. Then he fetched his own saddle, and did the same.

  "Now will you go away?" he said, looking at her with a smile.

  She debated within herself whether to coax him and wheedle him. But she knew he was already beyond it. She sat among her blankets in a frozen sort of despair, hard as hard ice with anger.

  He did the chores, and disappeared with the gun. She got up in her blue pyjamas, huddled in her cloak, and stood in the doorway. The dark-green pool was motionless again, the stony slopes were pallid and frozen. Shadow still lay, like an after-death, deep in this valley. Always in the distance she saw the horses feeding. If she could catch one! The brilliant yellow sun was half-way down the mountain. It was nine o'clock.

  All day she was alone, and she was frightened. What she was frightened of she didn't know. Perhaps the crackling in the dark spruce wood. Perhaps just the savage, heartless wildness of the mountains. But all day she sat in the sun in the doorway of the cabin, watching, watching for hope. And all the time her bowels were cramped with fear.

  She saw a dark spot that probably was a bear, roving across the pale grassy slope in the far distance, in the sun.

  When, in the afternoon, she saw Romero approaching, with silent suddenness, carrying his gun and a dead deer, the cramp in her bowels relaxed, then became colder. She dreaded him with a cold dread.

  "There is deer-meat," he said, throwing the dead doe at her feet.

  "You don't want to go away from here," he said. "This is a nice place."

  She shrank into the cabin.

  "Come into the sun," he said, following her. She looked up at him with hostile, frightened eyes.

  "Come into the sun," he repeated, taking her gently by the arm, in a powerful grasp.

  She knew it was useless to rebel. Quietly he led her out, and seated himself in the doorway, holding her still by the arm.

  "In the sun it is warm," he said. "Look, this is a nice place. You are such a pretty white woman, why do you want to act mean to me? Isn't this a nice place? Come! Come here! It is sure warm here."

  He drew her to him, and in spite of her stony resistance, he took her cloak from her, holding her in her thin blue pyjamas.

  "You sure are a pretty little white woman, small and pretty," he said. "You sure won't act mean to me--you don't want to, I know you don't."

  She, stony and powerless, had to submit to him. The sun shone on her white, delicate skin.

  "I sure don't mind hell fire," he said. "After this."

  A queer, luxurious good humour seemed to possess him again. But though outwardly she was powerless, inwardly she resisted him, absolutely and stonily.

  When later he was leaving her again, she said to him suddenly:

  "You think you can conquer me this way. But you can't. You can never conquer me."

  He stood arrested, looking back at her, with many emotions conflicting in his face--wonder, surprise, a touch of horror, and an unconscious pain that crumpled his face till it was like a mask. Then he went out without saying a word, hung the dead deer on a bough, and started to flay it. While he was at this butcher's work, the sun sank and cold night came on again.

  "You see," he said to her as he crouched, cooking the supper, "I ain't going to let you go. I reckon you called to me in the night, and I've some right. If you want to fix it up right now with me, and say you want to be with me, we'll fix it up now and go down to the ranch to-morrow and get married or whatever you want. But you've got to say you want to be with me. Else I shall stay right here, till something happens."

  She waited a while before she answered:

  "I don't want to be with anybody against my will. I don't dislike you; at least, I didn't, till you tried to put your will over mine. I won't have anybody's will put over me. You can't succeed. Nobody could. You can never get me under your will. And you won't have long to try, because soon they will send someone to look for me."

  He pondered this last, and she regretted having said it. Then, sombre, he bent to the cooking again.

  He could not conquer her, however much he violated her. Because her spirit was hard and flawless as a diamond. But he could shatter her. This she knew. Much more, and she would be shattered.

  In a sombre, violent excess he tried to expend his desire for her. And she was racked with an agony, and felt each time she would die. Because, in some peculiar way, he had got hold of her, some unrealised part of her which she never wished to realise. Racked with a burning, tearing anguish, she felt that the thread of her being would break, and she would die. The burning heat that racked her inwardly.

  If only, only she could be alone again, cool and intact! If only she could recover herself again, cool and intact! Would she ever, ever, ever be able to bear herself again?

  Even now she did not hate him. It was beyond that. Like some racking, hot doom. Personally he hardly existed.

  The next day he would not let her have any fire, because of attracting attention with the smoke. It was a grey day, and she was cold. He stayed round, and heated soup on the petrol stove. She lay motionless in the blankets.

  And in the afternoon she pulled the clothes over her head and broke into tears. She had never really cried in her life. He dragged the blankets away and looked to see what was shaking her. She sobbed in helpless hysterics. He covered her over again and went outside, looking at the mountains, where clouds were dragging and leaving a little snow. It was a violent, windy, horrible day, the evil of winter rushing down.

  She cried for hours. And after this a great silence came between them. They were two people who had died. He did not touch her any more. In the night she lay and shivered like a dying dog. She felt that her very shivering would rupture something in her body, and she would die.

  At last she had to speak.

  "Could you make a fire? I am so cold," she said, with chattering teeth.

  "Want to come over here?" came his voice.

  "I would rather you made me a fire," she said, her teeth knocking together and chopping the words in two.

  He got up and kindled a fire. At last the warmth spread, and she could sleep.

  The next day was still chilly, with some wind. But the sun shone. He went about in silence, with a dead-looking face. It was now so dreary and so like death she wished he would do anything rather than continue in this negation. If now he asked her to go down with him to the world and marry him, she would do it. What did it matter? Nothing mattered any more.

  But he would not ask her. His desire was dead and heavy like ice within him. He kept watch around the house.

  On the fourth day as she sat huddled in the doorway in the sun, hugged in a blanket, she saw two horsemen come over the crest of the grassy slope--small figures. She gave a cry. He looked up quickly and saw the figures. The men had dismounted. They were looking for the trail.

  "They are looking for me," she said.

  "Muy bien," he answered in Spanish.

  He went and fetched his gun, and sat with it across his knees.

  "Oh!" she said. "Don't shoot!"

  He looked across at her.

  "Why?" he said. "You like staying with me?"

  "No," she said. "But don't shoot."

  "I ain't going to Pen," he said.

  "You won't have to go to Pen," she said. "Don't shoot!"

  "I'm going to shoot," he muttered.

  And straightaway he kneeled and took very careful aim. The Princess sat on in an agony of helplessness and hopelessness.

  The shot rang out
. In an instant she saw one of the horses on the pale grassy slope rear and go rolling down. The man had dropped in the grass, and was invisible. The second man clambered on his horse, and on that precipitous place went at a gallop in a long swerve towards the nearest spruce tree cover. Bang! Bang! went Romero's shots. But each time he missed, and the running horse leaped like a kangaroo towards cover.

  It was hidden. Romero now got behind a rock; tense silence, in the brilliant sunshine. The Princess sat on the bunk inside the cabin, crouching, paralysed. For hours, it seemed, Romero knelt behind this rock, in his black shirt, bare-headed, watching. He had a beautiful, alert figure. The Princess wondered why she did not feel sorry for him. But her spirit was hard and cold, her heart could not melt. Though now she would have called him to her, with love.

  But no, she did not love him. She would never love any man. Never! It was fixed and sealed in her, almost vindictively.

  Suddenly she was so startled she almost fell from the bunk. A shot rang out quite close from behind the cabin. Romero leaped straight into the air, his arms fell outstretched, turning as he leaped. And even while he was in the air, a second shot rang out, and he fell with a crash, squirming, his hands clutching the earth towards the cabin door.

  The Princess sat absolutely motionless, transfixed, staring at the prostrate figure. In a few moments the figure of a man in the Forest Service appeared close to the house; a young man in a broad-brimmed Stetson hat, dark flannel shirt, and riding-boots, carrying a gun. He strode over to the prostrate figure.

  "Got you, Romero!" he said aloud. And he turned the dead man over. There was already a little pool of blood where Romero's breast had been.

  "H'm!" said the Forest Service man. "Guess I got you nearer than I thought."

  And he squatted there, staring at the dead man.

  The distant calling of his comrade aroused him. He stood up.

  "Hullo, Bill!" he shouted. "Yep! Got him! Yep! Done him in, apparently."

  The second man rode out of the forest on a grey horse. He had a ruddy, kind face, and round brown eyes, dilated with dismay.

  "He's not passed out?" he asked anxiously.

  "Looks like it," said the first young man coolly.

  The second dismounted and bent over the body. Then he stood up again, and nodded.

  "Yea-a!" he said. "He's done in all right. It's him all right, boy! It's Domingo Romero."

  "Yep! I know it!" replied the other.

  Then in perplexity he turned and looked into the cabin, where the Princess squatted, staring with big owl eyes from her red blanket.

  "Hello!" he said, coming towards the hut. And he took his hat off. Oh, the sense of ridicule she felt! Though he did not mean any.

  But she could not speak, no matter what she felt.

  "What'd this man start firing for?" he asked.

  She fumbled for words, with numb lips.

  "He had gone out of his mind!" she said, with solemn, stammering conviction.

  "Good Lord! You mean to say he'd gone out of his mind? Whew! That's pretty awful! That explains it then. H'm!"

  He accepted the explanation without more ado.

  With some difficulty they succeeded in getting the Princess down to the ranch. But she, too, was not a little mad.

  "I'm not quite sure where I am," she said to Mrs. Wilkieson, as she lay in bed. "Do you mind explaining?"

  Mrs. Wilkieson explained tactfully.

  "Oh yes!" said the Princess. "I remember. And I had an accident in the mountains, didn't I? Didn't we meet a man who'd gone mad, and who shot my horse from under me?"

  "Yes, you met a man who had gone out of his mind."

  The real affair was hushed up. The Princess departed east in a fortnight's time, in Miss Cummins's care. Apparently she had recovered herself entirely. She was the Princess, and a virgin intact.

  But her bobbed hair was grey at the temples, and her eyes were a little mad. She was slightly crazy.

  "Since my accident in the mountains, when a man went mad and shot my horse from under me, and my guide had to shoot him dead, I have never felt quite myself."

  So she put it.

  Later, she married an elderly man, and seemed pleased.

  NEW EVE AND OLD ADAM

  I

  "After all," she said, with a little laugh, "I can't see it was so wonderful of you to hurry home to me, if you are so cross when you do come."

  "You would rather I stayed away?" he asked.

  "I wouldn't mind."

  "You would rather I had stayed a day or two in Paris--or a night or two."

  She burst into a jeering "pouf!" of laughter.

  "You!" she cried. "You and Parisian Nights' Entertainment! What a fool you would look."

  "Still," he said, "I could try."

  "You would!" she mocked. "You would go dribbling up to a woman. 'Please take me--my wife is so unkind to me!'"

  He drank his tea in silence. They had been married a year. They had married quickly, for love. And during the last three months there had gone on almost continuously that battle between them which so many married people fight, without knowing why. Now it had begun again. He felt the physical sickness rising in him. Somewhere down in his belly the big, feverish pulse began to beat, where was the inflamed place caused by the conflict between them.

  She was a beautiful woman of about thirty, fair, luxuriant, with proud shoulders and a face borne up by a fierce, native vitality. Her green eyes had a curiously puzzled contraction just now. She sat leaning on the table against the tea-tray, absorbed. It was as if she battled with herself in him. Her green dress reflected in the silver, against the red of the firelight. Leaning abstractedly forward, she pulled some primroses from the bowl, and threaded them at intervals in the plait which bound round her head in the peasant fashion. So, with her little starred fillet of flowers, there was something of the Gretchen about her. But her eyes retained the curious half-smile.

  Suddenly her face lowered gloomily. She sank her beautiful arms, laying them on the table. Then she sat almost sullenly, as if she would not give in. He was looking away out of the window. With a quick movement she glanced down at her hands. She took off her wedding-ring, reached to the bowl for a long flower-stalk, and shook the ring glittering round and round upon it, regarding the spinning gold, and spinning it as if she would spurn it. Yet there was something about her of a fretful, naughty child as she did so.

  The man sat by the fire, tired, but tense. His body seemed so utterly still because of the tension in which it was held. His limbs, thin and vigorous, lay braced like a listening thing, always vivid for action, yet held perfectly still. His face was set and expressionless. The wife was all the time, in spite of herself, conscious of him, as if the cheek that was turned towards him had a sense which perceived him. They were both rendered elemental, like impersonal forces, by the battle and the suffering.

  She rose and went to the window. Their flat was the fourth, the top storey of a large house. Above the high-ridged, handsome red roof opposite was an assembly of telegraph wires, a square, squat framework, towards which hosts of wires sped from four directions, arriving in darkly-stretched lines out of the white sky. High up, at a great height, a seagull sailed. There was a noise of traffic from the town beyond.

  Then, from behind the ridge of the house-roof opposite a man climbed up into the tower of wires, belted himself amid the netted sky, and began to work, absorbedly. Another man, half-hidden by the roof-ridge, stretched up to him with a wire. The man in the sky reached down to receive it. The other, having delivered, sank out of sight. The solitary man worked absorbedly. Then he seemed drawn away from his task. He looked round almost furtively, from his lonely height, the space pressing on him. His eyes met those of the beautiful woman who stood in her afternoon-gown, with flowers in her hair, at the window.

  "I like you," she said, in her normal voice.

  Her husband, in the room with her, looked round slowly and asked:

  "Whom do you like?"
br />   Receiving no answer, he resumed his tense stillness.

  She remained watching at the window, above the small, quiet street of large houses. The man, suspended there in the sky, looked across at her and she at him. The city was far below. Her eyes and his met across the lofty space. Then, crouching together again into his forgetfulness, he hid himself in his work. He would not look again. Presently he climbed down, and the tower of wires was empty against the sky.

  The woman glanced at the little park at the end of the clear, grey street. The diminished, dark-blue form of a soldier was seen passing between the green stretches of grass, his spurs giving the faintest glitter to his walk.

  Then she turned hesitating from the window, as if drawn by her husband. He was sitting still motionless, and detached from her, hard; held absolutely away from her by his will. She wavered, then went and crouched on the hearth-rug at his feet, laying her head on his knee.

  "Don't be horrid with me!" she pleaded, in a caressing, languid, impersonal voice. He shut his teeth hard, and his lips parted slightly with pain.

  "You know you love me," she continued, in the same heavy, sing-song way. He breathed hard, but kept still.

  "Don't you?" she said, slowly, and she put her arms round his waist, under his coat, drawing him to her. It was as if flames of fire were running under his skin.

  "I have never denied it," he said woodenly.

  "Yes," she pleaded, in the same heavy, toneless voice. "Yes. You are always trying to deny it." She was rubbing her cheek against his knee, softly. Then she gave a little laugh, and shook her head. "But it's no good." She looked up at him. There was a curious light in his eyes, of subtle victory. "It's no good, my love, is it?"

  His heart ran hot. He knew it was no good trying to deny he loved her. But he saw her eyes, and his will remained set and hard. She looked away into the fire.

  "You hate it that you have to love me," she said, in a pensive voice through which the triumph flickered faintly. "You hate it that you love me--and it is petty and mean of you. You hate it that you had to hurry back to me from Paris."