The Branding Iron

  CHAPTER XIV

  JOAN RUNS AWAY

  It was a January night when Joan, her rough head almost in the ashes,had read "Isabella and the Pot of Basil" by the light of flames. Itwas in March, a gray, still afternoon, when, looking through Prosper'sbookcase, she came upon the tale again.

  Prosper was outdoors cutting a tunnel, freshly blocked with snow, andJoan, having finished the "Life of Cellini," a writer she loathed, butwhose gorgeous fabrications her master had forced her to read, nowhurried to the book-shelves in search of something more to her taste.She had the gay air of a holiday-seeker, returned "Cellini" with asmart push, and kneeling, ran her finger along the volumes, pausing ona binding of bright blue-and-gold. It was the color that had pleasedher and the fat, square shape, also the look of fair and well-spacedtype. She took the book and squatted on the rug happy as a child witha new toy of his own choosing.

  And then she opened her volume in its middle and her eye looked uponfamiliar lines--

  "So the two brothers and their murdered man--" Joan's heart fell like aleaden weight and the color dropped from her face. In an instant she wasback in Pierre's room and the white night circled her in great silenceand she was going over the story of her love and Pierre's--their love,their beautiful, grave, simple love that had so filled her life. And nowwhere was she? In the house of the man who had killed her husband! Shehad been waiting for Holliwell, but for a long while now she hadforgotten that. Why was she still here? A strange, guilty terror camewith the question. She looked down at the soft, yellow crepe of thedress she had just made and she looked at her hands lying white and fineand useless, and she felt for the high comb Prosper had put into herhair. Then she stared around the gorgeous little room, snug from theworld, so secret in its winter canyon. She heard Wen Ho's incessantpattering in the kitchen, the crunch and thud of Prosper's shovelingoutside. It was suddenly a horrible nightmare, or less a nightmare thana dream, pleasant in the dreaming, but hideous to an awakened mind. Shewas awake. Isabella's story had thrown her mind, so abruptly dislocated,back to a time before the change, back to her old normal condition of ayoung wife. That little homestead of Pierre's! Such a hunger opened inher soul that she bent her head and moaned. She could think of nothingnow but those two familiar, bare, clean rooms--Pierre's gun, Pierre'srod, her own coat there by the door, the snowshoes. There was no placein her mind for the later tragedy. She had gone back of it. She wouldrather be alone in her own home, desolate though it was, than anywhereelse in all the homeless world.

  And what could prevent her from going? She laughed aloud,--a short,defiant laugh,--rippled to her feet, and, in her room, took offProsper's "pretty things" and got into her own old clothes; the coarseunderwear, the heavy stockings and boots, the rough skirt, the man'sshirt. How loosely they all hung! How thin she was! Now into her coat,her woolen cap down over her ears, her gloves--she was ready, herheart laboring like an exhausted stag's, her knees trembling, herwrists mysteriously absent. She went into the hall, found hersnowshoes, bent to tie them on, and, straightening up, met Prosper whohad come in out of the snow.

  He was glowing from exercise, but at sight of her and her paleexcitement, the glow left him and his face went bleak and grim. He putout his hand and caught her by the arm and she backed from him againstthe wall--this before either of them spoke.

  "Where are you going, Joan?"

  "I'm a-goin' home."

  He let go of her arm. "You were going like this, without a word tome?"

  "Mr. Gael," she panted, "I had a feelin' like you wouldn't 'a' let mego."

  He turned, threw open the door, and stepped aside. She confronted hiswhite anger.

  "Mr. Gael, I left Pierre dead. I've been a-waitin' for Mr. Holliwellto come. I'm strong now. I must be a-goin' home." Suddenly, she blazedout: "You killed my man. What hev I to do with you?"

  He bowed. Her breast labored and all the distress of her soul,troubled by an instinctive, inarticulate consciousness of evil,wavered in her eyes. Her reason already accused her of ingratitude andtreachery, but every fiber of her had suddenly revolted. She was allfor liberty, she must have it.

  He was wise, made no attempt to hold her, let her go; but, as she fledunder the firs, her webs sinking deep into the heavy, uncrusted snow,he stood and watched her keenly. He had not failed to notice thetrembling of her body, the quick lift and fall of her breast, therapid flushing and paling of her face. He let her go.

  And Joan ran, drawing recklessly on the depleted store of what hadalways been her inexhaustible strength. The snow was deep and soft,heavy with moisture, the March air was moist, too, not keen with frost,and the green firs were softly dark against an even, stone-colored skyof cloud. To Joan's eyes, so long imprisoned, it was all astonishinglybeautiful, clean and grave, part of the old life back to which she wasrunning. Down the canyon trail she floundered, her short skirtgathering a weight of snow, her webs lifting a mass of it at everytugging step. Her speed perforce slackened, but she plodded on, out ofbreath and in a sweat. She was surprised at the weakness; put it downto excitement. "I was afeered he'd make me stay," she said, and, "I'vegot to go. I've got to go." This went with her like a beating rhythm.She came to the opening in the firs, the foot of the steep trail, andout there stretched the valley, blank snow, blank sky, here and there awooded ridge, then a range of lower hills, blue, snow-mottled; not aroof, not a thread of smoke, not a sound.

  "I'm awful far away," Joan whispered to herself, and, for the firsttime in her life, she doubted her strength. "I don't rightly knowwhere I am." She looked back. There stood a high, familiar peak, butso were the outlines of these mountains jumbled and changed that shecould not tell if Prosper's canyon lay north or south of Pierre'shomestead. The former was high up on the foothills, and Pierre's waswell down, above the river. From where she stood, there was noriver-bed in sight. She tried to remember the journey, but nothingcame to her except a confused impression of following, following,following. Had they gone toward the river first and then turned northor had they traveled close to the base of the giant range? Theranger's cabin where they had spent the night, surely that ought to bevisible. If she went farther out, say beyond the wooded spur whichshut the mountain country from her sight, perhaps she would findit.... She braced her quivering muscles and went on. The end of thejutting foothills seemed to crawl forward with her. She plunged intodrifts, struggled up; sometimes the snow-plane seemed to stand up likea wall in front of her, the far hills lolling like a dragon along itstop. She could not keep the breath in her lungs. Often she sank downand rested; when things grew steady she got up and worked on. Eachtime she rested, she crouched longer; each time made slower progress;and always the goal she had set herself, the end of that jutting hill,thrust itself out, nosed forward, sliding down to the plain. It beganto darken, but Joan thought that her sight was failing. The enormousefforts she was making took every atom of her will. At last hermuscles refused obedience, her laboring heart stopped. She stood amoment, swayed, fell, and this time she made no effort to rise. Shehad become a dark spot on the snow, a lifeless part of the lonelinessand silence.

  Above her, where the sharp peaks touched the clouds, there came awidening rift showing a cold, turquoise clarity. The sun was justsetting and, as the cloud-banks lifted, strong shadows, intenselyblue, pointed across the plain of snow. A small, black, energeticfigure came out from among the firs and ran forward where the longestshadow pointed. It looked absurdly tiny and anxious; futile, in itspigmy haste, across the exquisite stillness. Joan, lying so still, wasacquiescent; this little striving thing rebelled. It came forwardsteadily, following Joan's uneven tracks, stamping them down firmly tomake a solid path, and, as the sun dropped, leaving an immensegleaming depth of sky, he came down and bent over the black speck thatwas Joan....

  Prosper took her by the shoulder and turned her over a little in thesnow. Joan opened her eyes and looked at him. It was the dumb look ofa beaten dog.

  "Get up, child," he said, "and come home with me."

  She struggle
d to her feet, he helping her; and silently, just as asavage woman, no matter what her pain, will follow her man, so Joanfollowed the track he had made by pressing the snow down triply overher former steps. "Can you do it?" he asked once, and she nodded. Shewas pale, her eyes heavy, but she was glad to be found, glad to besaved. He saw that, and he saw a dawning confusion in her eyes. At theend he drew her arm into his, and, when they came into the house, heknelt and took the snowshoes from her feet, she drooping against thewall. He put a hand on each of her shoulders and looked reproach.

  "You wanted to leave me, Joan? You wanted to leave me, as much asthat?"

  She shook her head from side to side, then, drawing away, she stumbledpast him into the room, dropped to the bearskin rug, and held out herhands to the flames. "It's awful good to be back," she said, and fellto sobbing. "I didn't think you'd be carin'--I was thinkin' only ofold things. I was homesick--me that has no home."

  Her shaken voice was so wonderful a music that he stood listening withsudden tears in his eyes.

  "An' I can't ferget Pierre nor the old life, Mr. Gael, an' when Ithink 't was you that killed him, why, it breaks my heart. Oh, I knowyou hed to do it. I saw. An' I know I couldn't 'a' stayed with him nomore. What he did, it made me hate him--but you can't be thinkin' howit was with Pierre an' me before that night. We--we was happy. I ustto live with my father, Mr. Gael, an' he was an awful man, an' therewas no lovin' between us, but when I first seen Pierre lookin' up atme, I first knowed what lovin' might be like. I just came away withhim because he asked me. He put his hand on my arm an' said, 'Will yoube comin' home with me, Joan Carver?' That was the way of it.Somethin' inside of me said, 'Yes,' fer all I was too scairt to doanything but look at him an' shake my head. An' the next mornin' hewas there with his horses. Oh, Mr. Gael, I can't ferget him, even forhatin'. That brand on my shoulder, it's all healed, but my heart's sohurted, it's so hurted. An' when I come to thinkin' of how kind an'comfortin' you are an' what you've been a-doin' fer me, why, then, atthe same time, I can't help but thinkin' that you killed my Pierre.You killed him. Fergive me, please; I would love you if I could, butsomethin' makes me shake away from you--because Pierre's dead."

  Again she wept, exhausted, broken-hearted weeping it was. AndProsper's face was drawn by pity of her. That story of her life andlove, it was a sort of saga, something as moving as an old ballad mostbeautifully sung. He half-guessed then that she had genius; at least,he admitted that it was something more than just her beauty and hersorrow that so greatly stirred him. To speak such sentences in such avoice--that was a gift. She had no more need of words than had asymphony. The varied and vibrant cadences of her voice gave everydelicate shading of feeling, of thought. She was utterly expressive.All night, after he had seen her eat and sent her to her bed, thephrases of her music kept repeating themselves in his ears. "An' so Ifirst knowed what lovin' might be like"; and, "I would love you, onlysomethin' makes me shake away from you--because Pierre's dead." Thiswas a Joan he had not yet realized, and he knew that after all hisenchanted leopardess was a woman and that his wooing of her had hardlyyet begun. So did she baffle him by the utter directness of her heart.There was so little of a barrier against him and yet--there was somuch. For the first time, he doubted his wizardry, and, at that, hisdesire for the wild girl's love stood up like a giant and gripped hissoul.

  Joan slept deeply without dreams; she had confessed herself. ButProsper was as restless and troubled as a youth. She had not made herescape; she had followed him home with humility, with confusion in hereyes. She had been glad to hold out her hands again to the fire on hishearth. And yet--he was now her prisoner.