The Branding Iron

  CHAPTER X

  PROSPER COMES TO A DECISION

  Perhaps, in spite of his gruesome boast as to dead men, it was as muchto satisfy his own spirit as to comfort Joan's that Prosper actuallydid undertake a journey to the cabin that had belonged to Pierre. Itwas true that Prosper had never been able to stop thinking, not somuch of the tall, slim youth lying so still across the floor, all hisbeauty and strength turned to an ashen slackness, as of a brown handthat stirred. The motion of those fingers groping for life hadcontinually disturbed him. The man, to Prosper's mind, was aninsensate brute, deserving of death, even of torment, most deservingof Joan's desertion, nevertheless, it was not easy to harden hisnerves against the picture of a man left, wounded and helpless, to dieslowly alone. Prosper went back expecting to find a dead man, wentback as a murderer visits the scene of his crime. He dubbed himselfmore judge than murderer, but there was a restless misery of theimagination not to be quieted by names. He went back stealthily atdusk, choosing a dusk of wind-driven snow so that his tracks vanishedas soon as made. It was very desolate--the blank surface of the worldwith its flying scud, the blank yellow-gray sky, the range, all ironand white, the blue-black scars of leafless trees, the green-blacketchings of firs. The wind cut across like a scythe, sharp, but makingno stir above the drift. It was all dead and dark--an undergroundworld which, Prosper felt, never could have seen the sun, had nomemory of sun nor moon nor stars. The roof of Pierre's cabin made adark ridge above the snow, veiled in cloudy drift. He reached it witha cold heart and slid down to its window, cautiously bending his facenear to the pane. He expected an interior already dark from the snowpiled round the window, so he cupped his hands about his eyes. At oncehe let himself drop out of sight below the sill. There was a livingpresence in the house. Prosper had seen a bright fire, the smoke ofwhich had been hidden by the snow-spray, a cot was drawn up before thefire, and a big, fair young man in tweeds whose face, rosy, sensitive,and quiet, was bent over the figure on the cot. A pair of large, whitehands were carefully busy.

  Prosper, crouched below the window, considered what he had seen. Itwas a week now since he had left Landis for a dying man. This bigfellow in tweeds must have come soon after the shooting. Evidently hewas not caring for a dead man. The black head on the pillow had moved.Now there came the sound of speech, just a bass murmur. This time theblack head turned itself slightly and Prosper saw Pierre's face. Hehad seen it only twice before; once when it had looked up, fierce andcrazed, at his first entrance into the house, once again when it laywith lifted chin and pale lips on the floor. But even after so scarcea memory, Prosper was startled by the change. Before, it had been theface of a man beside himself with drink and the lust of animal powerand cruelty; now it was the wistful face of Pierre, drawn into atragic mask like Joan's when she came to herself; a miserably hauntedand harrowed face, hopeless as though it, too, like the outside world,had lost or had never had a memory of sun. Evidently he submitted tothe dressing of his wound, but with a shamed and pitiful look.Prosper's whole impression of the man was changed, and with the changethere began something like a struggle. He was afflicted by a crossingof purposes and a stumbling of intention.

  He did not care to risk a second look. He crept away and fled into thewindy dusk. He traveled with the wind like a blown rag, and, stoppingonly for a few hours' rest at the ranger station, made the journeyhome by morning of the second day. And on the journey he definitelymade up his mind concerning Joan.

  Prosper Gael was a man of deliberate, though passionate, imagination.He did not often act upon impulse, though his actions were often thoseattempted only by passion-driven or impulsive folk. Prosper couldnever plead thoughtlessness. He justified carefully his every actionto himself. Those were cold, dark hours of deliberation as he let thewind drive him across the desolate land. When the wind dropped and asplendid, still dawn swept up into the clean sky, he was at peace withhis own mind and climbed up the mountain trail with a half-smile onhis face.

  In the dawn, awake on her pillows, Joan was listening for him, and atthe sound of his webs she sat up, pale to her lips. She did not knowwhat she feared, but she was filled with dread. The restful stuporthat had followed her storm of grief had spent itself and she wassuffering again--waves of longing for Pierre, of hatred for him,alternately submerged her. All these bleak, gray hours of wind duringwhich Wen Ho had pattered in and out with meals, with wood for herstove, with little questions as to her comfort, she had suffered aspeople suffer in a dream; a restless misery like the misery of thepine branches that leaped up and down before her window. The stillnessof the dawn, with its sound of nearing steps, gave her a sickness ofheart and brain, so that when Prosper came softly in at her door shesaw him through a mist. He moved quickly to her side, knelt by her,took her hands. His touch at all times had a tingling charge ofvitality and will.

  "He has been cared for, Joan," said Prosper. "Some friend of his cameand did all that was left to be done."

  "Some friend?" In the pale, delicately expanding light Joan's facegleamed between its black coils of hair with eyes like enchantedtarns. In fact they had been haunted during his absence by images toshake her soul. Prosper could see in them reflections of those terrorsthat had been tormenting her. His touch pressed reassurance upon her,his eyes, his voice.

  "My poor child! My dear! I'm glad I am back to take care of you! Cry.Let me comfort you. He has been cared for. He is not lying therealone. He is dead. Let's forgive him, Joan." He shook her hands alittle, urgently, and a most painful memory of Pierre's beseechinggrasp came upon Joan.

  She wrenched away and fell back, quivering, but she did not cry, onlyasked in her most moving voice, "Who took care of Pierre--after I wentaway and left him dead?"

  Prosper got to his feet and stood with his arms folded, lookingwearily down at her. His mouth had fallen into rather cynical linesand there were puckers at the corners of his eyes. "Oh, a big, fairyoung man--a rosy boy-face, serious-looking, blue eyes."

  Joan was startled and turned round. "It was Mr. Holliwell," she said,in a wondering tone. "Did you talk with him? Did you tell him--?"

  "No. Hardly." Prosper shook his head. "I found out what he had donefor your Pierre without asking unnecessary questions. I saw him, buthe did not see me."

  "He'll be comin' to get me," said Joan. It was an entirely unemotionalstatement of certainty.

  Prosper pressed his lips into a line and narrowed his eyes upon her.

  "Oh, he will?"

  "Yes. He'll be takin' after me. He must 'a' ben scairt by somethin'Pierre said in the town durin' their quarrel an' have come up afterhim to look out what Pierre would be doin' to me.... I wisht he'd 'a'come in time.... What must he be thinkin' of me now, to find Pierrea-lyin' there dead, an' me gone! He'll be takin' after me to bring mehome."

  Prosper would almost have questioned her then, his sharp face wascertainly at that moment the face of an inquisitor, a set of keen anddelicate instruments ready for probing, but so weary and childlike didshe look, so weary and childlike was her speech, that he forbore. Whatdid it matter, after all, what there was in her past? She had donewhat she had done, been what she had been. If the fellow had brandedher for sin, why, she had suffered overmuch. Prosper admitted, that,unbranded as to skin, he was scarcely fit to put his dirty civilizedsoul under her clean and savage foot. Was the big, rosy chap herlover? She had spoken of a quarrel between him and Pierre? But hermanner of speaking of him was scarcely in keeping with the thought,rather it was the manner of a child-soul relying on the Shepherd whowould be "takin' after" some small, lost one. Well, he would have tobe a superman to find her here with no trails to follow and no fingersto point. Pierre by now would have told his story--and Prosper knewinstinctively that he would tell it straight; whatever madness theyoung savage might perpetrate under the influence of drink andjealousy, he would hardly, with that harrowed face, be apt atfabrications--they would be looking for Joan to come back, to go tothe town, to some neighboring ranch. They would make a search, butwinter would be a
gainst them with its teeth bared, a blizzard was onits way. By the time they found her, thought Prosper,--and he quotedone of Joan's quaint phrases to himself, smiling with radiance as hedid so,--"she won't be carin' to leave me." In his gay, little,firelit room, he sat, stretched out, lank and long, in the low, deep,red-lacquered chair, dozing through the long day, sipping strongcoffee, smoking, reading. He was singularly quiet and content. Thedevil of disappointment and of thwarted desire that had wived him inthis carefully appointed hiding-place stood away a little from him andthat wizard imagination of his began to weave. By dusk, he was writingfuriously and there was a glow of rapture on his face.