CHAPTER XXXVII.
_The Gentile Issues an Ultimatum_
June went; July came and went. It was a hot summer below, where thevalley widens to let in Amalon; but up in the little-sunned aisle of BoxCanon it was always cool. There the pines are straight and reach theirheads far into the sky, each a many-wired harp to the winds that comedown from the high divide. Their music is never still; now a low,ominous rush, soft but mighty, swelling as it nears, the rush of awinged host, rising swiftly to one fearsome crescendo until the listenercowers instinctively as if under the tread of many feet; then dying awayto mutter threats in the distance, and to come again more fiercely; or,it may be, to come with a gentler sweep, as if pacified, even yearning,for the moment. Or, again, the same wind will play quieter airs throughthe green boughs, a chamber-music of silken rustlings, of feathered fansjust stirring, of whisperings, and the sighs of a woman.
It is cool beneath these pines, and pleasant on the couches of brownneedles that have fallen through all the years. Here, in the softenedlight, amid the resinous pungence of the cones and the green boughs,where the wind above played an endless, solemn accompaniment to thecareless song of the stream below, the maiden Saint tried to save intothe Kingdom a youthful Gentile of whom she discovered almost daily somefresh reason why he should not be lost. The reasons had become so manythat they were now heavy upon her. And yet, while the youth submittedmeekly to her ministry, appearing even to crave it, he was undeniablyeither dense or stubborn--in either case of defective spirituality.
She was grieved by the number of times he fell asleep when she read fromthe Book of Mormon. The times were many because, though she knew it not,he had come to be, in effect, a night-nurse to the little bent manbelow, who was now living out his days in quiet desperation, and hisnights in a fear of something behind him. Some nights Follett would haveunbroken rest; but oftener he was awakened by the other's grip on hisarm. Then he would get up, put fresh logs on the fire or light a candleand talk with the haunted man until he became quiet again.
After a night like this it was not improbable that he would fall asleepin very sound of the trumpet of truth as blown, by the grace of God,through the seership of Joseph Smith. Still he had learned much in thecourse of the two months. She had taught him between naps that, forfourteen hundred years, to the time of Joseph Smith, there had been ageneral and awful apostasy from the true faith, so that the world hadbeen without an authorised priesthood. She had also taught him to be illat ease away from her,--to be content when with her, whether they talkedof religion or tried for the big, sulky three-pounder that had his lairat the foot of the upper Cascade.
Again she had taught him that other churches had wickedly done away withimmersion for the remission of sins and the laying on of hands for thegift of the Holy Ghost; also that there was a peculiar quality in thesatisfaction of being near her that he had never known before,--anastonishing truth that it was fine to think about when he lay where hecould look up at her pretty, serious face.
He fell asleep at night usually with a mind full of confusion,--infantbaptism--a slender figure in a pink dress or a blue--the Trinity--a firmlittle brown hand pointing the finger of admonition at him--theregeneration of man--hair, dark and lustrous, that fell often half awayfrom what he called its "lashings"--eternal punishment--earnesteyes--the Urim and Thummim,--and a pleading, earnest voice.
He knew a few things definitely: that Moroni, last of the Nephites, hadhidden up unto the Lord the golden plates in the hill of Cumorah; andthat the girl who taught him was in some mysterious way the embodimentof all the wonderful things he had ever thought he wanted, of all thestrange beauties he had crudely pictured in lonely days along thetrail. Here was something he had supposed could come true only in adifferent world, the kind of world there was in the first book he hadever read, where there had seemed to be no one but good fairies andchildren that were uncommonly deserving. Yet he had never been able toget clearly into his mind the nature and precise office of the HolyGhost; nor had he ever become certain how he could bring this wonderfulyoung woman in closer relationship with himself. He felt that to put outhis hand toward her--except at certain great moments when he could helpher over rough places and feel her golden weight upon his arm--would beto startle her, and then all at once he would awaken from a dream tofind her gone. He thought he would feel very badly then, for probably hewould never be able to get back into the same dream again. So he wascautious, resolving to make the thing last until it came true of itself.
Once when they followed the stream down, in the late afternoon, he hadmused himself so full of the wonder of her that he almost forgot hiscaution in an amiable impulse to let her share in his feelings.
"You know," he began, "you're like as if I had been trying to think of aword I wanted to say--some fine, big word, a fancy one--but I couldn'tthink of it. You know how you can't think of the one you want sometimes,only nothing else will do in place of it, and then all at once, when youquit trying to think, it flashes over you. You're like that. I nevercould think of you, but I just had to because I couldn't get alongwithout it, and then when I didn't expect it you just happenedalong--the word came along and said itself."
Without speaking she had run ahead to pick the white and blue columbinesand pink roses. And he, alarmed at his boldness, fearing she would nowbe afraid of him, went forward with the deep purpose of showing her alight, careless mood, to convince her that he had meant nothing much.
To this end he told her lively anecdotes, chaste classics of the rangecalculated to amuse, until they reached the very door of home:--Aboutthe British sailor who, having drifted up the Sacramento valley, waslured to mount a cow-pony known to be hysterical; of how he had declaredwhen they picked him up a moment later, "If I'd been aware of the galeI'd have lashed myself to the rigging." Then about the other trustingtenderfoot who was directed to insist at the stable in Santa Fe thatthey give him a "bucking broncho;" who was promptly accommodated andspeedily unseated with much flourish, to the wicked glee of those whohad deceived him; and who, when he asked what the horse had done and wastold that he had "bucked," had thereupon declared gratefully, "Did heonly buck? It's a God's mercy he didn't _broncho_ too, or he'd havekilled me!"
From this he drifted into the anecdote of old Chief Chew-feather, whobecame drunk one day and made a nuisance of himself in the streets ofAtchison; how he had been driven out of town by Marshal Ed Lanigan,who, mounting his pony, chased him a mile or so, meantime emptying bothhis six-shooters at the fleeing brave by way of making the exactsituation clear even to a clouded mind; and how the alarmed and soberedchief had ridden his own pony to a shadow, never drawing rein until hereached the encampment of his tribe at dusk, to report that "the whiteshad broken out at Atchison."
He noticed, however, that she was affected to even greater constraint ofmanner by these sallies, though he laughed heartily himself at eachclimax as he made it, determined to show her that he had meantabsolutely nothing the moment before. He succeeded so little, that heresolved never again to be reckless, if she would only be her old selfon the morrow. He would not even tell her, as he had meant to, thatlooking into her eyes was like looking off under the spruces, where itwas dark and yet light.
The little bent man at the house would look at them with a sort ofhelplessness when they came in, sometimes even forgetting the smile hewas wont to wear to hide his hurts. He was impressed anew each time hesaw them with the punishing power of such vengeance as was left to theLord. He could see more than either of the pair before him. The littlewhite-haired boy who had fought him with tooth and nail so long ago, tobe not taken from Prudence, had now come back with the might of a man,even the might of a lover, to take her from him when she had become allof his life. He could think of no sharper revenge upon himself or hispeople. For this cowboy was the spirit incarnate of the oncoming East,thorned on by the Lord to avenge his Church's crime.
Day after day he would lie consuming the little substance left withinhim in an effort to save himself; to
keep by him the child who hadbecome his miser's gold; to keep her respect above all, to have herthink him a good man. Yet never a way would open. Here was the boy withthe man's might, and they were already lovers, for he knew too well themeaning of all those signs which they themselves but half understood.And he became more miserable day by day, for he saw clearly it was onlyhis selfishness that made him suffer. He had met so many tests, and nowhe must fail at the last great sacrifice.
Then in the night would come the terrors of the dark, the curses andgroans of that always-dying thing behind him. And always now he wouldsee the hand with the silver bracelet at the wrist, flaunting in hisface the shivering strands of gold with the crimson patch at the end.Yet even this, because he could see it, was less fearful than the thinghe could not see, the thing that crawled or lurched relentlessly behindhim, with the snoring sound in its throat, the smell of warm blood andthe horrible dripping of it, whose breath he could feel on his neck andwhose nerveless hands sometimes fumbled weakly at his shoulder, as itstrove to come in front of him.
He sat sleepless in his chair with candles burning for three nights whenFollett, late in August, went off to meet a messenger from one of hisfather's wagon-trains which, he said, was on its way north. Fearful aswas the meaning of his presence, he was inexpressibly glad when theGentile returned to save him from the terrors of the night.
And there was now a new goad of remorse. The evening before Follett'sreturn he had found Prudence in tears after a visit to the village. Witha sudden great outrush of pity he had taken her in his arms to comforther, feeling the selfishness strangely washed from his love, as the sobsconvulsed her.
"Come, come, child--tell your father what it is," he had urged her, andwhen she became a little quiet she had told him.
"Oh, Daddy dear--I've just heard such an awful thing, what they talk ofme in Amalon, and of you and my mother--shameful!"
He knew then what was coming; he had wondered indeed, that this talkshould be so long in reaching her; but he waited silently, soothing her.
"They say, whoever my mother was, you couldn't have married her--thatChristina is your first wife, and the temple records show it. And oh,Daddy, they say it means that I am a child of sin--and shame--and itmade me want to kill myself."
Another passion of tears and sobs had overwhelmed her and all but brokendown the little man. Yet he controlled himself and soothed her again toquietness.
"It is all wrong, child, all wrong. You are not a child of sin, but achild of love, as rightly born as any in Amalon. Believe me, and pay noheed to that talk."
"They have been saying it for years, and I never knew."
"They say what is not true."
"You were married to my mother, then?"
He waited too long. She divined, clear though his answer was, that hehad evaded, or was quibbling in some way.
"You are the daughter of a truly married husband and wife, as trulymarried as were ever any pair."
And though she knew he had turned her question, she saw that he musthave done it for some great reason of his own, and, even in her grief,she would not pain him by asking another. She could feel that hesuffered as she did, and he seemed, moreover, to be pitifully andstrangely frightened.
When Follett came riding back that evening he saw that Prudence had beentroubled. The candle-light showed sadness in her dark eyes and in theweighted corners of her mouth. He was moved to take her in his arms andsoothe her as he had seen mothers do with sorry little children. Butinstead of this he questioned her father sharply when their corn-huskmattresses had been put before either side of the fireplace for thenight. The little man told him frankly the cause of her grief. There wassomething compelling in the other's way of asking questions. When thething had been made plain, Follett looked at him indignantly.
"Do you mean to say you let her go on thinking that about herself?"
"I told her that her father and mother had been rightly married."
"Didn't she think you were fooling her in some way?"
"I--I can't be sure--"
"She _must_ have, or she wouldn't be so down in the mouth now. Whydidn't you tell her the truth?"
"If only--if only she could go on thinking I am her father--only alittle while--"
Follett spoke with the ring of a sudden resolution in his voice.
"Now I'll tell you one thing, Mister man, something has got to be doneby _some one_. I can't do it because I'm tied by a promise, and so Ireckon you ought to!"
"Just a little time! Oh, if you only knew how the knives cut me on everyside and the fires burn all through me!"
"Well, think of the knives cutting that girl,--making her believe shehas to be ashamed of her mother. You go to sleep now, and try to liequiet; there ain't anything here to hurt you. But I'll tell you onething,--you've got to toe the mark."