Ladybird

  Fraley did not discover all these things at first. She was too weary and faint to look carefully, too overwrought with sorrow to identify everything. Also the light was not even yet strong enough to tell sugar from salt there in the woods. But she knew that her mother’s tender hand had been on everything, and her love had put them all in. Later she discovered that another pocket contained a small piece of candle and a few matches in a tiny box wrapped up in a bit of woolen cloth.

  But it was the sight of the old Bible sewed into its neat cotton cover that broke her down, so that for a few minutes she sat there and sobbed softly to herself.

  At last she roused herself. The tinkle of the water was so inviting. She took out the old tin cup and dipped herself a drink of water. Oh, how good it tasted! She drank deeply and then leaned down to the brook and washed her face and hands, using the bit of soap and setting up the broken mirror against a tree while she combed out her pretty hair and tried to make it tidy.

  She felt a little better, then, and ate a part of the corn bread she had brought. She must not eat it all, for it might be a long time before she could get more when this was gone, although there was the meal and the matches. When she got far enough away where it would be safe, she might make a little corn cake and bake it on a hot stone over a fire of twigs. But not now. She must hoard every crumb of the corn bread.

  She drank some more water and then lay down and shut her eyes. It felt so good to stretch out flat and relax. She must not go to sleep, but she would rest a little while, five minutes, perhaps.

  When she opened her eyes again she did not know where she was.

  Two slender fingers of warm sunshine were touching her cheek and shining on her golden hair, and a bird was singing over her head. She looked up to the trees and down to the brook and at the knapsack lying open beside her, and then she remembered.

  As long as she lived she would never forget that moment when she awoke and realized that she had been asleep—perhaps a long time—and had been cared for and was safe. The words that came to her lips with a kind of sweet amazement were: “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.” God had made good that promise to her in her terror and loneliness! There was almost triumph in her face as she looked over the things in her traveling bag and found them all there.

  Presently, realizing that the warm color of the two rays of sunshine that had penetrated the trees above showed that it was late in the day, perhaps even past midday, she gathered herself together to go on. She dashed more cold water from the brook on her face and felt refreshed and able to travel. She drank again of the brook and was glad of the sweet water. She dipped her feet in for a last wash before she started, and then she began to strap up her bag. But in stuffing the things back again, she found two hard objects that she had not noticed earlier in the morning in the dim light. They were wrapped carefully in the clean garments her mother had made and tied with bits of string. Curious, she unknotted the string and found first an empty bottle with a good tight cork. It seemed to be perfectly clean, and a bit of paper had been pasted around it that said FOR WATER, printed with pencil.

  Again quick tears came to her eyes at the thoughtfulness that had provided for all her little needs as well as it was possible. Now she would be able to carry a little water with her for a time of need, for it was not likely that brooks of clear water like this one would be frequent along the way.

  She filled the bottle from the clear deep spot where the water bubbled up in a little pool, corked it firmly, and set it upright in one of the pockets so there would be little danger of its upsetting. Then she investigated the other bundle and almost cried out with pleasure when she found that it contained the old binoculars, which had been her father’s and which, from her earliest memory, it had been the delight of her life to look through. She had not seen it since her father’s death and supposed, of course, some of the other men had appropriated it, as they had almost everything else that had belonged to him, in spite of all her mother could do. But it seemed she had been able to save this, hidden away perhaps under the old board beneath the bed, which had been their only treasure chest.

  Eagerly she unwrapped it and adjusted it, turning it toward the distance in each direction, delighted when she sighted a tiny bird in the branches, a squirrel sitting under a distant tree eating a nut it had just unearthed from last winter’s store. Now she would be able to sight the distance and see if an enemy was at hand. And her mother had known that. Oh, what a wonderful mother! It was almost as if her guiding hand were still there, to find all these things ready. A hungering came over her to unwrap the old Bible and see what had been written in it, but she knew that she must not take the time to do it now. Her first business was to get out of this region as fast as her two feet could carry her. Something over two thousand miles she had to go in all.

  How far had she come already? As much as ten? She could not tell. No journey in her past compared with this one. But the thought of it was appalling, as the figures loomed before her—ten into two thousand—even supposing she had already made ten! She knew that ten was nothing to the men on horseback. She knew they thought little of a journey of a hundred and fifty miles. They could easily come after her and catch her, although she had been doing her best for days, if they chose to think it worthwhile. The country was so wide and open and her knowledge of it so very limited. Oh, it was a terrible chance she was taking to expect to get away from seven determined men with seven good horses and unlimited friends to whom they might appeal for help all along the way. Yet she must go on and do her best.

  She buckled the old strap of the binoculars across one shoulder, fastened up her bag carefully, and sprang to her feet. She must get on. The slant of the sunbeams was decidedly low; it might even be late afternoon. She must get some idea of where she was before night fell again. She must not risk another attack of wild cattle.

  She decided to follow the brook a little way and before long came out to the edge of the larger stream again but, she judged, much farther down toward the east than she had been when she entered it, for she could see no trace of the fallen tree on which she had crossed. There was probably a curve in the stream that hid it, and the wood grew close, the trees leaning far over the water in some places.

  The sun was already far down to the western horizon. She must have slept even longer than she had thought. She gave one quick searching glance around, and finding no one near, she held up the binoculars and searched the valley.

  There were some cattle grazing quietly across the stream. She could even see the mark of their branding on one or two nearby, but she was safe here. They were too far away to notice her. She searched the valley behind her, the way she must have come last night, as far as she could see, but only cattle here and there dotted the peaceful scene. There were neither horses nor riders. She turned her binoculars up toward the heights across the valley and searched them step by step, back as far as her eye could reach. Was that her old pine that had given her refuge the night before? It stood out like a dark spike against the sky, with rock below and other trees around, but it was so tiny and so far away in the shimmer of the afternoon sunshine that she could not even be sure it was the same tree. Behind it and above it she could not see. If it was her tree, the cabin would probably be out of sight from the point where she stood. But, if it was her tree, how far had she come? Could one see ten miles even with binoculars? She did not know. She did know that a great mountain might be many miles away and still be visible, soft and purple against the sky, but one could not see detail on a great mountain, one could not tell one tree from another at a great distance.

  She searched the way again, on the ridge along the mountain up which the men had ridden after they had shot Larcha, but there was no sign of horse or rider, and with a breath of relief she turned and hurried along the edge of the stream.

  It was rough going here and took more time than she ought to spare, because for every yard she progressed, she
must travel three or four sometimes in getting around trees and climbing steep banks. But it was very peaceful and lovely here and gave her comfort and a sense of safety.

  As she hurried along she occasionally raised her binoculars and searched the horizon again in either direction and at last saw, through an opening in the woods, that the forest was past and she was approaching a place where the trees were thick only along the stream.

  That would mean that there were broad pasturelands perhaps, and she must be wary. It would also mean that she would be out in open where her moving form could be seen unless she stuck close to the fringe of trees along the stream. She remembered how often her mother had spoken about being able to see her coming a long way off because the sun shone on her gold hair as if it were bright metal. She must do something about that before she went out into the sunshine. Would there be something in her bag she could tie over her head? Then she remembered an old gray rag in the pocket of the old coat she wore. It was the remnant of a silk handkerchief her father had owned in his better days but long since worn beyond recognition as such. The edges were frayed and frowsy and there was more than one hole in it, but it was large enough to tie around her head.

  Gravely she took it out and adjusted it, spreading it over her whole head and covering the bright curls until not a thread of them showed, tying the ends in the back of her neck firmly. Then she buttoned the old coat to her throat, slung the bag around under her arm like a fishing basket, and marched on. If anyone sighted her, perhaps they would think she was a boy out fishing. If she had only thought to hunt out her father’s old hat, but she was not sure that it had not been taken by the other men. Nothing had been safe after he was gone.

  She hurried along as fast as she could, for she began to feel again the weight of her bag, and her feet and limbs ached with the continuous going.

  She had been used to running free in the open all her life, but a long, continuous plodding journey she had not known. For sixteen years she had lived in the cabin, her only excitement the wandering to the limits her mother had set for her, her only pleasure climbing trees and looking off at a world she did not know and might not explore. Well and strong she was, indeed, and able to stand much hardship, for she had never known even comfort in her life, but this long strain of going over rough, uncertain ground, her loss of sleep and lack of food, added to the sorrow she was bearing, were beginning to tell on even her splendid young constitution. She longed to drop down again and sleep, but she knew she must not. This was her best time for going. She must get to a good sleeping place before night.

  So she plodded on, keeping as near as possible, when she emerged from the woods, to the fringe of trees along the riverbank.

  But finally the fringe of trees grew thin and stopped entirely, and the river broadened into a sheet of silver. And now the land on either side was flat for long distances, with mountains far away on either hand, and she could see far and wide, even without the binoculars. The sun was distinctly behind her, and her own shadow went flat and small and black before her, so she knew she was traveling in the right direction.

  She trudged along several miles in this wide-open space, growing more and more secure as she went on. There seemed to be no cattle on either side as far as she could see, just wide, lonely landscape, and she was glad. But she was beginning to feel as if she could not drag her feet very much farther and kept looking ahead for a spot where she could rest securely.

  The landscape, however, offered no refuge at this point, and the horizon stretched ahead bright and golden in the low afternoon sun. It seemed to her as she looked through her binoculars with a faint despair at her heart, that she could see almost to New York, and there was nothing between. Would she ever be able to make it?

  At last she sank down in the grass and opened her bag. She must have something to eat. There was a sudden weakness upon her. So she took out her stores and ate another portion of corn bread and a few small bites of the salt meat. To her starved appetite, it tasted like the most savory meal. Then she drank a cup of water, corked the bottle carefully, tied up her kit, and stood up.

  The river was off at her left now, a few yards away, for the ground where she was seemed to be an easier path for her feet than close by the riverbank. The sun had turned the river into a broad band of gold, and the west was bright with its horizontal rays, blending sky and earth at the horizon into a golden haze as if an eternal city were just beyond that point. With her binoculars, Fraley swept the land behind her and to either side and came at last to the view straight ahead, catching her breath at the beauty of the day that was departing, the exquisite tinting of the foliage and sky and clouds, rejoicing that there was not even a sign of cattle anywhere around, save a few scattered ones miles away behind her.

  Then suddenly, as she looked, fear crept into her body like a great hand that gripped her as in a vise, for, out from the golden distance, along the ridge that led from as far as she could see, back along the line of the opposite mountain and on toward the cabin she had left, there moved a little black dot!

  At first she thought it must be a speck on the glass, and she carefully breathed upon it and polished it with her sleeve. But, no, when she looked again the dot, growing rapidly larger, was moving on toward her. As she watched it, scarcely daring to breathe, it gradually became three moving dots, one lighter than the rest and still coming on over that ridge of the opposite mountain.

  She tried to tell herself that she was nervous, excited, seeing things that this was some sort of mirage. Her mother had told her of mirages on the desert. But this was not the desert.

  Larger and larger the dots grew, nearer and nearer they came, racing along the ridge. They were so near now that through the binoculars she could distinctly see that they were horses bearing riders. A conviction grew upon her that it was some of the men from the cabin out on a search party after her, and her knees grew so weak they shook. She dropped to the earth suddenly as if she had been shot, as this fear grew to a certainty, and keeping a sharp lookout with lowered head, she crept on hands and knees toward a clump of bushes down by the riverbank. Oh, if she had stayed over there instead of daring to take the more open ground! Perhaps they had already sighted her. Yet, unless they were carrying binoculars, too, they might not have seen her. Brand had binoculars, she knew. But was it Brand or some of the others? Or was it only some passing cowboys who knew nothing at all about her?

  When she reached the screen of the bushes she crept close, and thus in ambush trained her binoculars once more on the riders.

  They were almost opposite her range now, and she could see them plainly, although they must be a long distance away. The air was clear and still, and she could hear them shout to one another, though she could not hear what they said, and once she thought she heard a curse flung into the golden evening. But as they came opposite, she saw distinctly that two horses were dark and one was white, and the white one was lame in his left hind foot.

  Like little silhouettes they moved across the opposite ridge of mountain. Now she was sure, though she could not see the men’s faces, that the one on the forward dark horse was Pete; the other dark one would be Shorty, they always went together; and the white horse was Pierce Boyden’s, the man she hated and dreaded most of all except Brand Carter.

  As she watched them through the screen of the bushes, they suddenly drew rein and stood together, pointing off in her direction, as if consulting about their route. Then they turned their course and came down from the ridge of the mountain, winding like tiny puppets into the dark pathways of the mountainside. There was a patch of trees that hindered the sunlight and hid them now from view, and Fraley lay in her covert trembling. Oh, had they seen her, and were they coming to trap her here as she hid?

  Perhaps Brand had called out Shorty’s vicious hounds, and they were even now coming upon her from the other direction. Perhaps that pointing on the mountain ridge had been signaling to the others. They might all be upon her in a few minutes, and what could she
do? There was positively no place to which she could flee in the wide-open landscape, and there was no possibility that these sparse bushes would cover her if a search party came near. Oh, if there were only a hole in the ground!

  Then it came to her that she might cover herself with grass. Perhaps they would not get here before the sun was much lower, and they might not notice, though the hounds would surely search her out if they were along. But it seemed the only thing she could do, so she fell to pulling the grass and piling it into a great heap beside her.

  She crouched as close to the bushes as she could get, burrowing her body into the loose soil until the old coat was almost on a level with the surrounding ground and the precious bag containing her treasures was beneath her. Then she set to work as well as she could to cover herself with the grass she had pulled, satisfied at last that she would not be noticeable unless someone came quite near. She put her face down on her arms and lay still under her camouflage, and before long there came a sound of voices and of hoofbeats ringing across the water.