Part 38 (1/2)
He bent to loosen a girth.
”Are you afraid he's lost?” he said, his face against the horse.
”No. But if he was?”
”Well! And if he was?”
The girth was uncinched and he swept saddle and blanket to the ground.
”We'd have to go back for him, and you say we must lose no time.”
He kicked the things aside and made no answer. Then as he groped for the picket pins he was conscious that she turned again with the nervous movement of worry and swept the plain.
”He was sick. We oughtn't to have gone on,” she repeated, and the note of blame was stronger. ”Oh, I wish he'd come!”
Their conversation had been carried on in a low key. Suddenly Courant, wheeling round on her, spoke in the raised tone of anger.
”And am I to stop the train because that fool don't know enough or care enough to picket his horses? Is it always to be him? Excuses made and things done for him as if he was a sick girl or a baby. Let him be lost, and stay lost, and be d.a.m.ned to him.”
Daddy John looked up from the sheaf of newly gathered sage with the alertness of a scared monkey. Susan stepped back, feeling suddenly breathless. Courant made a movement as if to follow her, then stopped, his face rived with lines and red with rage. He was shaken by what to her was entirely inexplicable anger, and in her amazement she stared vacantly at him.
”What's that, what's that?” chirped Daddy John, scrambling to his feet and coming toward them with chin thrust belligerently forward and blinking eyes full of fight.
Neither spoke to him and he added sharply:
”Didn't I hear swearing? Who's swearing now?” as if he had his doubts that it might be Susan.
Courant with a stifled phrase turned from them, picked up his hammer and began driving in the stakes.
”What was it?” whispered the old man. ”What's the matter with him? Is he mad at David?”
She shook her head, putting a finger on her lip in sign of silence, and moving away to the other side of the fire. She felt the strain in the men and knew it was her place to try and keep the peace. But a sense of forlorn helplessness amid these warring spirits lay heavily on her and she beckoned to the old servant, wanting him near her as one who, no matter how dire the circ.u.mstances, would never fail her.
”Yes, he's angry,” she said when they were out of earshot. ”I suppose it's about David. But what can we do? We can't make David over into another man, and we can't leave him behind just because he's not as strong as the rest of us. I feel as if we were getting to be savages.”
The old man gave a grunt that had a note of cynical acquiescence, then held up his hand in a signal for quiet. The thud of a horse's hoofs came from the outside night. With a quick word to get the supper ready, she ran forward and stood in the farthest rim of the light waiting for her betrothed.
David was a pitiable spectacle. The dust lay thick on his face, save round his eyes, whence he had rubbed it, leaving the sockets looking unnaturally sunken and black. His collar was open and his neck rose bare and roped with sinews. There was but one horse at the end of the trail rope. As he slid out of the saddle, he dropped the rope on the ground, saying that the other animal was sick, he had left it dying he thought. He had found them miles off, miles and miles--with a weak wave of his hand toward the south--near an alkaline spring where he supposed they had been drinking. The other couldn't move, this one he had dragged along with him. The men turned their attention to the horse, which, with swollen body and drooping head, looked as if it might soon follow its mate. They touched it, and spoke together, brows knit over the trouble, not paying any attention to David, who, back in the flesh, was sufficiently accounted for.
Susan was horrified by his appearance. She had never seen him look so much a haggard stranger to himself. He was prostrate with fatigue, and throughout the day he had nursed a sense of bitter injury. Now back among them, seeing the outspread signs of their rest, and with the good smell of their food in his nostrils, this rose to the pitch of hysterical rage, ready to vent itself at the first excuse. The sight of the girl, fresh-skinned from a wash in the river, instead of soothing, further inflamed him. Her glowing well-being seemed bought at his expense. Her words of concern spoke to his sick ear with a note of smug, unfeeling complacence.
”David, you're half dead. Every thing'll be ready in a minute. Sit down and rest. Here, take my blanket.”
She spread her blanket for him, but he stood still, not answering, staring at her with dull, accusing eyes. Then, with a dazed movement, he pushed his hand over the crown of his head throwing off his hat.
The hand was unsteady, and it fell, the hooked forefinger catching in the opening of his s.h.i.+rt, dragging it down and showing his bony breast.
If he had been nothing to her she would have pitied him. Sense of wrongs done him made the pity pa.s.sionate. She went to him, the consoling woman in her eyes, and laid her hand on the one that rested on his chest.
”David, sit down and rest. Don't move again. I'll get you everything.
I never saw you look as you do to-night.”
With an angry movement he threw her hand off.
”You don't care,” he said. ”What does it matter to you when you've been comfortable all day? So long as you and the others are all right I don't matter.”