Shepherds of the Wild/Chapter 19
Chapter XIX
Beyond all other joys and compensations for these three months in Smoky Land, there remained—a subject for humble thanks to the skies—the comradeship of Alice. Every day it made the struggle more worth while, his happiness more complete.
She made periodical trips to his camps, bringing food for himself and salt for his sheep, and assisting him as he moved the flock from range to range. He counted the days of her absence, and the nights that she sat beside his fire simply opened a new world to him. They had a thousand things to tell each other: Hugh's little victories over coyotes and cougars, the new tricks of Spot the flock leader, some little faithfulness on the part of Shep, the dog, and their exultation at the passing of the days. For if they passed the present month in safety, if Fargo and his gang did not rout them before October first, the victory was won.
She cooked his meals and mended some of the holes in his soiled clothing, and her laugh rang with the bells of fairyland over their silent camp. They had serious moments in which—with far-reaching intimacy—they told each other their own secret thoughts and philosophies of life—sober talk such as was never heard in the rooms of the Greenwood Club. For the first time in his life Hugh had really known self-expression. The inmost springs of his nature flowed forth. And he was constantly amazed and delighted by the girl's ideas and points of view. There was nothing particularly modern about them. In fact, Hugh thought that they had passed from the earth in his grandmother's time. Of course they were trite, perhaps they could have been proven ridiculous by the logic of a realist, and the only reason she had for them was the impulse of her own conscience; yet Hugh found himself staring at her as if she were a being from another planet. But Hugh's amazement was due to his own lack of knowledge of the heart of humanity. He would have been surprised to know that ninety out of every hundred girls, east and west and south and north, had the same illogical conscience, the same high heart, the same ideals. Although he would have tumbled over backward if any one had told him so, Hugh just hadn't been around. He had known but one little circle, and heretofore he hadn't been able to see outside it.
Alice was girlish, spontaneous, unaffected to the last degree. Sometimes they romped and raced like children about their camp fire. They exulted over their meals, they told high secrets, they tingled and thrilled in the mystery of the nights. She had a businesslike, matter-of-fact way in going about her tasks that delighted the man past words. She was as clean and sweet and unspoiled as the mountain flowers that grew about her,—but wholly able to take care of herself. As she camped beside the flocks her pistol was always in reach of her hand. And the very ideas that Hugh so loved in her simply filled his nights with horror.
Of course it was ridiculous,—but the thoughts of lovers often are. And he did love her, with all the earnestness of his wakened being, with a growing, breathless love that seemed natural as living. The point was passed, long ago, wherein he could doubt that fact. And now he didn't even have self-wonder that he should have come to these mountain realms and loved a mountain girl. It seemed simply his own inevitable destiny.
And he was humble and fearful as a callow boy about the whole thing. Nothing of his herdsman's life would have been so amusing to the members of the Greenwood Club as this. For Hugh had known women in plenty; he had been an eligible in a circle where eligibles were scarce, and these clubmen thought that his last delusion in regard to them was gone. He had been husband-hunted,—and the deer that has been stalked by a cougar no longer sees beauty in the lights of its eyes! But now his old arrogance and sophistication had fallen away from him. He searched frantically and in vain for qualities within himself by which he might hope to deserve this girl's love.
Had he not been a waster, a slacker from the works of men? Had he anything in general or particular because of which he might expect a girl to love him? The things on which he used to pride himself had been suddenly revealed as so much dust in his hands—inherited wealth, social distinction, an influential ancestry. Here, he rightly concluded, these three things were not worth the powder to blow them up. He did remember, with some pride, that he had a certain amount of physical strength. Already that had been of use to Alice, and the time might come wherein it would be of use again. He was a fairly able sheepman, and he had already earned over a hundred dollars. But he felt like a peasant, offering his heart to the queen of the realm. It got down to a serious matter that as yet he did not feel that he had justified his own existence, that he had established himself in the great world of men and toil, and that he had not yet been purged by the fires of trial and stress, and redeemed in battle.
He mourned her when she left to bring supplies, and welcomed her with the abandon of a child when she came back to him. In the early nights, in the fire's glow, dreams of her were ever with him, filling him with strange, happy glowings and warm little quivers of delight. But his love for her did not make him forget his sheep. The great test by which his metal was tried lay in his degree of success as herder of the flocks.
Never did he get away from a haunting feeling that here—beside the white sheep—he was face to face with life at last. Here, not in his cities, were the realities, the essentials of life: the feeding flock, the shelter, the circle of firelight into which the powers of the wilderness dared not stalk. Fresh and fresh he felt the age-old appeal of the soil, the love of the throbbing earth, the inner warmth, an undying and wondrous communion with nature. He waged his war against the forces of the wild, and the sense of destiny fulfilled was ever with him. And why not,—for were men strangers to the sheep? Could their ancient acquaintance be forgotten in a few little centuries of exile in cities? Had they not been out—through the long course of the ages—under the same stars, felt the same winds, endured the same dangers? In the first dawn of civilization, dim and far away through the mists of the past, the herdsman cared for his sheep in the green pastures,—and it was in the blood.
Sometimes this old acquaintance, was recalled to Hugh in dreams. There was one dream in particular that came to him night after night. It never seemed to vary, and its spell always endured a few moments after wakening. So real it was, so vivid, it was almost as if it had been some actual experience in his own life, rather than a remembered vista from the immeasurable past. He always seemed to be sitting, half-dozing, before a fire,—a fire not greatly different from that which burned before him in reality. It was always so red, so cheering, that the love of it seemed to shiver his heart to pieces. The forest always stretched about him, silent, mysterious, sinister past all words. And there were always the sheep.
Always, in his dream, he guarded the sheep. It was a matter of life itself. And Death was always waiting for him the instant he relaxed his vigilance. It was not an easy passing, a swift crossing to a happy, bright, quiet land from which he might return and whisper in the night. It was always darkness and cold and pain, and most of all it was fear. The sheep were white in the same moon, the same stars were in the sky. But the tent was absent. Such a thing was without his bourn of thought. In the darkness he dared not leave the fire to seek shelter from the rain. And as he dozed he sat in a somewhat different position,—usually leaning forward, his hands locked behind his head. And in the summer nights the hair on his arms drained off the rain.
Shep was still beside him, and the communion between them was even more close than in life. They seemed almost like brothers, rather than master and servant. A peace that was almost rapture abided in their companionship. And it was necessary that Shep remain awake while he himself dozed. But the dog's outline was vaguely different. The ears were always pointed and erect, the tail was not so lifted, and sometimes when Hugh caught a sudden glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye, a swift wave of icy terror swept over him. The dog was like Cry-in-the-night,—that was it! He was gray and white-fanged just like the wolves themselves.
Even the wind—the air—was different. It was full of smells that stirred the flesh, and hushed little sounds to freeze the blood with dread. It was vibrant and shuddering and alive, and the world had not yet begun to grow old. And he always felt an overwhelming pride in his own strength. His arms—curiously long and quite black with hair—could crush the ribs of Cry-in-the-night like an eggshell. His chest was huge, his legs were knotted and gigantic, and when he saw his reflection in the water of the spring, the hairy growth was long and matted about his throat. And clearest of all the dream was the ring of deadly shadows that ever encroached upon the space of firelight, and the strange twin lights that ever glowed from their depths.
Two and two, everywhere he looked. They always glowed hungrily, and their watch was never done. Curious blue-green and yellow disks of fire, close together and glowing ever in the darkness. Sometimes he would open his lips and shout,—and for an instant they would draw back. They were afraid of that wild cry of his, but they were more afraid of the flint dagger that lay at his side. Ah, they died quickly—with a scream and a howl—when the Death Flint went into them. It was a good thing to see, but it also filled the heart with fear. He laughed and exulted when he remembered how it was even quicker in its stroke than the leap of a wolf.—But most of all the watchful circle feared the camp fire. They could not rub the wood and strike the flame: in this he was master, ruler and monarch of the earth! Cry-in-the-night might kill him in a fair fight, but still he could not build a fire. The dreamer always felt a great wave of exultation.
One night he dreamed that the fire burned almost down, and the circle drew close. He wakened from his doze and shouted at them none too soon. And a strange, wild cry from his own lips wakened Hugh, in the sheep camp of the twentieth century, from his dream. He had cried out in his sleep,—a hoarse, wild, savage cry that left him curiously awed. And the coyote that had crept close to the flank of the flock slipped quickly back into the forest.
Hugh got up, stood a moment in the gleam of the late September moon, then piled more wood upon the fire. The circle of twin lights was a reality to-night. The days of drought had brought ever more of the wild hunters about his flock, and almost anywhere he looked he saw their luminous eyes, two by two, as they waited in the darkness. He glanced down—but a rifle, not a dagger of flint, lay at his side. He looked out over the flock, instinctively counting up his markers. Most of the sheep were asleep, but one—the greatest of them all—stood erect, with lowered horns, as if on guard. It was Spot the yearling ram, and his horns looked oddly large in the soft light of the moon.
"Spot, old boy," the man said, "I believe you've got memories too. I believe you've been dreaming—just as I have."