Judith of the Plains

  XV

  The Wolf-hunt

  Judith awakened with all the starry infinitude of sky for a canopy. In thedistance loomed the foot-hills, watchful sentinels of her slumbers; and,sloping gently away from them, rolled the plain, like some smooth, darksea flowing deep and silently. Judith, a solitary figure adrift in thatstill ocean of space, sat up and watched the stars fade and saw the youngday peer timorously at the world that lay before it. Her mind, refreshedby long hours of dreamless sleep, turned to the problem of impendingthings, serenely contemplative. The passing of many mornings and manypeoples had the mountains seen as the wreathed mists came and went abouttheir brows, and to all who knew the value of the gift they gave theirgreat company, and to such as could hear, they told their great secrets.Judith's prayer was an outflowing of soul to the great forces about her, awish to be in harmony with them, to remember her kinship, to keep somemeasure of their serenity in the press of burdens. The way of the Indianwas ever her way when circumstance raised no barriers; the four walls of ahouse were a prison to her after the days lengthened and the summer nightsgrew warm. To the infinite disapproval of that custodian of propriety,Mrs. Dax, she would make her bed beneath the stars, night after night, andbathe in the cold, clear waters of the stream that purled from thewhite-capped crest of the mountains.

  "Nasty Injun ways!" scoffed Leander's masterful lady, consciously superiorfrom the intrenchment of her stuffy bedroom, that boasted crochet-work onthe backs of the chairs and a scant lace curtain at its solitary window.

  Judith, going to her favorite pool to bathe, saw that it had shrunk tillit seemed but a fairy well hid among the willows. A quarter of a mileabove was another pool, hidden like a jewel in its case of green,broidered with scarlet roseberries and white clematis; and towards thisshe bent her steps, as time was a-plenty that morning. She kept to thestones of the creek for a pathway, jumping lightly from those that weremoss-grown to those that hid their nakedness in the dark, velvet shadowsof early morning, her white feet touching the shallow stream like palegulls that dipped and skimmed. "Diana's Pool," as she called it, wasalways clear. It lay half hid beneath a shelving rock, a fount for thetiny, white fall that crooned and sang as it fell. And here she bathed, asthe east flamed where the mountains blackened against it. Gold halostipped the clouds, that melted presently into fiery waves, then burst intoone great aureole through which the sun rode triumphant, and it was day.

  She had kept post-office the day before, and it would not be till dayafter to-morrow that the squires of the lariat would come again to offertheir hearts, their worldly goods, their complete reformation, if shewould only change her mind. It was all such an old story that she hadgrown to regard them with a tenderness almost maternal. But to-day was allher own, and the spirit of adventure swelled high in her bosom as shethought of what she had planned. It was warm and close and still in theDax house as Judith made her way softly to her own room and began herpreparations for the long journey she was to take afoot. To walk in theabominations devised by the white man for the purpose of cramping his feetwould have been a serious handicap to Judith. The twenty miles that shewould walk before nightfall was no very great undertaking to her, but itwas part of her primitive directness to accomplish it with as littleexpenditure of fatigue and comfort as possible. Moreover, who could stealthrough the forest in those heeled things without announcing his comingand frightening the forest folk, and sending them skurrying? And Judithloved to surprise them and see them busy with their affairs--to creep alongin her soft, elk-hide moccasins and catch their watchful eyes and see thethings that were not for the heavy-booted white man.

  She might have inspired Kitty Colebrooke to a sonnet as she stepped outinto the glad morning light, in short skirt and jacket, green-clad as thepines that girdled the mountains, with a knapsack with rations of breadand meat and the wherewithal to build a fire should she wander belated.She softly closed the door, not to awaken Leander and his slumbering lady,and broke into the running gait that the Indians use on their all-dayjourneys, the elk-hide moccasins falling soft as snow-flakes on the trail.Dolly she missed chiefly for her companionship, for Judith had not thewhite man's utter helplessness without a horse in this country of highaltitudes. When she walked she breathed, carried herself, covered groundlike her mother's people, and loved the inspiration of it.

  The eerie shadows of the desert drew back and hid themselves in themountains. The day began with splendid promise--the day of the wolf-hunt,of which no word had been spoken to her by Peter. She, too, was goinghunting, but silently and unbidden she would steal through the forest andsee this mysterious woman who played fast and loose with Peter, who lovedher apparently all the better for the game she played. What manner ofwoman could do these things? What manner of woman could be indifferent toPeter? Judith was consumingly curious to see. And, apart from this nakedand unashamed curiosity, there was the possibility that at sight of MissColebrooke there might come a relaxation of Peter's tyrannous hold uponher thoughts, her life, her very heart's blood. Would her loyalty bear thetest of seeing Peter made a fool of by a woman she could dismiss with ashrug--a softly speaking shrew, perhaps, who played a waiting game with herfinger on the pulse of Peter's prospects? For there was talk of apartnership with the Wetmores. Or a fool, perhaps, for all her sonneting,for there are men who relish a weak headpiece as the chiefest ornament ofwomen, especially when its indeterminate vagaries boast an escape-valveremotely connected with the fine arts. Or a devil-woman, perhaps--anupright wanton who could think no wrong from very poverty of temperament,yet kept him dangling. The possibility of Kitty's honesty, Judith in herjealousy would not admit. Had she gone to the devil for him, stood andfaced the drift of opinion for his sake, that Judith could haveunderstood. But what was the spinning of verses to a woman's portion ofloving and being loved? Even Alida, through all her distracting anxieties,had in her heart the thrice-blessed leaven, reasoned the woman of theplains, who might, according to modern standards, be reckoned a trifleprimitive in her psychological deductions. And, withal, Judith was forcedto admit that there was something simple and true about a man who wouldlet a woman make a fool of him, whoever the woman was.

  Perhaps with this hunting would end the long reign of Peter as a divinity.Judith was tired, not in her vigorous young body, because that was strongand healthful as the hill wind, but tired in heart and mind and life. Herdestiny had not been beautiful or happy before he invaded it, but it hadbeen calm, and now serenity seemed the worthiest gift of the gods. It wasnot that she loved him less, but that she had so long reflected upon himthat her imagination was numb; her thoughts, arid, unfruitful as thedesert, turned from him to the problems that beset her, and from them backto him again, in dull, subconscious yearning. She could no longer projectan anguished consciousness to those scenes wherein he walked and talkedwith Kitty. Her Indian fatalism had intervened. "Life was life," to belived or left. And yet she felt herself a poor creature, one who had livedlong on illusion, who had bent her neck to the yoke of arid unrealities.The pale-haired woman who kept him with her miserliness of self, whointruded no sombre tragedy of loving, was well worth a trip across thefoot-hills to see. And yet, Judith reflected, it was the portion of hermother's daughter to make of loving the whole business of life, even ifshe rebelled and fought against it as an accursed destiny. It was in herinheritance to know and live for the wild thrill of ecstasy in her pulses,to feel trembling joy and despair and frantic hope, that exacted itstribute hardly less poignant; as it was, also, to feel a shiveringsensitiveness in regard to the loneliness and bitterness of her life, tohave the same measureless capacity for sorrow that she had for loving, tohave a soul attuned to the tragedy of things, to love the mighty forcesabout her, to feel the reflection of all their moods in her heart, and,lastly, it was her destiny to be the daughter of a half-Sioux and a borderadventurer, and to feel the counter influences of the two races makeforever of her heart a battleground.

  Her light feet scarcely touched the ground a
s she sped swiftly through allthe network of the hills; and more than once her woman's heart asked thequestion, "And, prithee, Judith, if from henceforth you are only to holdfellowship with the stars and have no part in the ways of men, why do youwalk a day's journey to catch a glimpse of a pale-haired woman?"

  She knew the probable course of the wolf-hunt. She had been on scores ofthem, galloped with Peter after the fleeing gray thing that swept alongthe ground like the nucleus of a whirling dust-devil. At least she wassure of the place of their nooning--a limpid stream that ran close to manyyoung pine-trees. Here was a pause in the rugged ascent, a level space ofopen green, thick with buffalo grass. Many times had she been here withPeter, sometimes with many other people on the chase--sometimes, and theseoccasions were enshrined in her memory, each with its own particular halo,with Peter alone; and they had fished for trout and cooked their supper onthe grassy levels. It was in Judith's planning to arrive before thehunting-party, to hide among the thickets of scrub pine that grew alongthe steep cliffs and overlooked the grassy level, to take her fill oflooking at the pale-haired girl and the hunters at their merrymaking, and,when she had seen, to steal back across the trail to the Daxes'. Theywould not penetrate the thickets where she meant to hide, and, shouldthey, she was prepared for that contingency, too. She had brought with hera bright-colored shawl that she would throw over her head, and with thestart of them she could outrun them all, even Peter. Had she notoutdistanced him easily, many times, in fun? Through the tangle oftree-trunks that grew not far from the thicket, they would think she wasbut a poor Shoshone squaw lying in wait for the broken meat of therevellers.

  By crossing and recrossing the tiny creeks that trickled slow andobstructed through the gaunt levels of plain and foot-hill, she had comeby a direct route to the fringes of the pine country. And here she found aworld dim, green, and mysterious. It was wellnigh inconceivable that theland of sage-brush and silence could, within walking distance ofdesolation, show such wealth of young timber, such shade and beauty. Hernoiseless footfalls scarce startled a sage-hen that, realizing too lateher presence, froze to the dead stump--a ruffled gray excrescence withglittering bead eyes that stared at her furtively, the one live thing inthe tense body.

  The sun wanted an hour of noon when Judith rested by the stream, bathedher face and hands, flushed from the long walk, ate the bread and meat,then lay on the bed of pine-needles, brown and soft from the weathering ofmany suns and snows. She had been all day in the company she lovedbest--the earth, the sky, the sun and wind--and in her heart at last was adeep tranquillity. Thus she could face life and ask nothing but to watchthe cloud fleeces as they are spun and heaped high in the long days ofsummer; in soberer moods to watch the thoughts of the Great Mystery as Hereveals them in the shifting cloud shapes; to penetrate further andfurther into the councils of the great forces. Thus did she dream themoments away till the sun was high in the blue and threw long, yellowsplashes of light on her still body, on the soft pine-needles, beneath theboughs. But there was no time for further day-dreams if she intended toforestall the hunters at the place of nooning. She followed a game trailthat lay along the stream, ascending through the dense growths till shereached the top of the jutting rocks. Her hair was loosened, her skirtawry, and the pine-needles stood out from it as from a cushion. Much ofthe way she gained by creeping beneath the low branches on her hands andknees. No white woman would be likely to follow her reasoned the daughterof the plains. It would be a little too hard on her appearance. And here,by lying flat and hanging over the jutting knob of rock, with a pinebranch in her hand, she could see this mysterious woman and Peter and thehunters.

  She broke a branch to shade her face, she looked down on the grassy level.She waited, but there was no sound of hoofs falling muffled on the softground. The shadows of the pines contended with the splashes of sunlightfor the little world beneath the trees. They trembled in mimic battle,then the shadows stole the sunlight, bit by bit, till all was pale-greentwilight, and there was no sound of the hunters.