The Way West Part 25

"I do' know," she answered and turned from him and walked and arrived at her family's wagon and heard Pa saying, "I swear, woman! Hurry up them victuals! This country makes a man all gut."

She waited in the dark. She made herself a shadow in the dark so that people, looking, would take her for a bush or for a cloud across a star. The stars were out, cold and distant before the moon that would come later. A breeze ran on the ground and touched her legs and went on, whispering the night's secrets, and she trembled to it, not from cold.

The sounds of a camp about to go to bed came to her -the late close of a lid over a cleaned kettle, the tired voice of Mrs. Byrd with her young, the rumble that was the quiet, man-towoman talk of men before they gave themselves to night. They mixed with other sounds, with the sh-h-h of the spring, with the thin sky-crying of coyotes far off, with the moo of a milch cow over a lately-born calf that the Gorhams had carried in their wagon.

She was alone with sound. She was nothing but the ear for sound, and sound wouldn't be except for her, or she be but for sound. She could lose herself, if the ear would close to it, and be nothing at all except a stray remembering in people's minds.

She pulled her coat around her neck and told herself to wait. Wait for the last look around. Wait for the last ch.o.r.e before people took themselves to bed.

Once she thought the stars were wishful. Once she asked the stars to watch, the close, warm, happy stars that drew off now to shame her. Music had sounded then, and feet skipped in a dance, and it had sounded tonight and other feet had skipped, making of the fiddle's wail the opposite of sorrow, and Hig had sung a song of love and death that smiling people said was mighty pretty.

Lost echo of music and sh-h-h of the spring and cold eyes of the stars. I declare, Mercy, you're off your feed and what upset you so and it was that fizz water likely. Cry of coyotes and the moo of the calved cow and the springs giving birth and sh-h-h. Tan and freckles and I'd do anything. Black lock against a wrinkled brow and say no, Mercy. Nothing but the sounds of night and nothing but the night around and fear and the lunge of fear. I'm scared I'm in a fambly way, Mr. Mack. Sh-h-h. And wait and wait.

A dog came up, unseen, and nosed her hand, and she started and calmed and felt him to be Rock and held him with her while she waited.

She knew him when he stepped out, knew him by the thin, clean shadow that he was against the shadowed night, and boldness died in her and her legs trembled to run; and then she thought he'd go about his business before he knew that she was there and she would have to hold still or creep off in the dark and so not shame him with her knowing. She said, "Mr. Mack," and heard her voice as no more than a whisper, drowned by the sh-h-h of the spring. "Mr. Mack."

"What's that? Who is it?" Then, lower-voiced, "Oh, h.e.l.lo."

"It's Mercy McBee."

"I see now. How are you?"

"Mr. Mack?"

He came up to her, not answering. In the cover of the night she let herself search his face, seeing the peaks of his cheeks and the pockets of his eyes in the starshine.

"Mr. Mack?"

"You're up late."

"Don't reckon I could sleep."

"Good night for sleeping."

"Mr. Mack?"

"Yes."

"Could we get away a piece, so's to talk?"

He took her arm without answering and led her out from camp, down toward the steamboat spring. "It has seemed best not to try to see you, Mercy."

"I wouldn't try to see you but-but-"

"What is it?"

"I'm afeard, Mr. Mack. I'm so afeard." His voice sharpened. "Afraid?"

She only could nod, feeling from his tone the blame lay all on her.

"Of what?"

"You know."

"For G.o.d's sake!" he said. Then, "It's probably just your imagination."

"I been tryin' to tell myself that."

"Well?"

"Tellin' don't make it so."

"I can't believe it, Mercy."

"What if worst is worst?"

"It won't be. I'm sure it won't be."

"But if it is?"

"If it is, it is."

"What kin I do? Must be you know somethin' I kin do."

"What do you think I can do?"

"Nothin', I reckon, except go back to camp."

"Don't you see I can't do anything?"

"I didn't aim to cause you trouble."

"Cause me trouble?"

"I didn't mean I was holdin' it over you."

Of a sudden his voice softened. "I'm sorry, Mercy. It's just that I don't know what to do. I just don't know."

"Nothin' at all?"

"Nothing but wait and see."

"I've done done that," she answered, and it seemed strange to her that her voice was steady. It came thin but steady, from some lean, raw, lonely strength that wouldn't bow to tears.

While she wondered at it, he asked, "Have you thought about marriage, Mercy?"

"To who?"

"Well -to anyone?"

"An' never let on?"

"I don't know."

The voice in her said, "Talk don't seem to be no use. Must be your wife's expectin' you."

He cried out then, cried fierce but soft so that she felt the misery in him. "Mercy! I'm sorry. All I can say is I'm sorry."

He left without patting her, without touching her, without the kiss that she had thought would give her comfort; and she knew, while the knowing tore her to the lonely strength beneath, that he had wanted her only for the time, only for what his body found in her, and never again would come to her even to get more of the same.

Sound came back, the river complaining along the sh.o.r.e, the steamboat hissing, the coyotes crying louder as the moon flushed up, and, listening, she asked herself if she could wrong a boy like Brownie.

Curtis Mack didn't go immediately to his tent. He walked away from Mercy, toward it, and thought Amanda wouldn't be asleep as yet, and turned and wandered down the valley, his mind aware but motionless before the fact.

Ahead of him the hills bulked huge, lined against the sky by the rising moon, and, nearer, the waters of the river ran troubled under the long moon-slant that took them from the dark.

There was nothing to do, nothing he could do, nothing but wait, nothing but return to his tent as the girl had said when anxiety had edged his words. "Nothin', I reckon, except go back to camp," she had answered with a bleak, offended courage that wrenched him more in recollection than event. She hadn't wept. She hadn't blamed him. She hadn't threatened. She had asked, humbly, and been answered in a way, and had dismissed him with her young, brave, hopeless dignity.

Thinking of her, he hated himself, hated his shabby answering to her need, hated the cheap suggestion that she marry. He could have given her of his strength. He could have tried to rea.s.sure her. He could, at least, have shown her tenderness. But to what end? To continue and compound a situation already made impossible? To give her false hope? Asking, he knew he argued late to justify himself. The reasons might be good enough, but at the time they hadn't been defined. What had moved him was a male's annoyed alarm, the wish to wiggle out, the half-aversion bred by disagreeable responsibility. It was a wonder he hadn't asked how she could be sure he was the one.

He stumbled and said, "G.o.ddam it!" and caught himself and went on. He was a fool and a villain, or a man made villainish by circ.u.mstance, by the crazy, contrary, mindless unorder of life. There was yeast in him, not willed there by himself, and yeast would out, in the murder of a Kaw or the ruin of a girl. Preachers could talk about morals, as if all men were born and situated similarly, but morals were particular to every man, dependent on his stuff and state.

And yet a man felt guilt. He couldn't master self and circ.u.mstance, but still the fool felt guilt. It was senseless, senseless as the self-reproach of an idiot for being born that way, but it existed, wrought by hymns and texts and fierce mouthings About rewards and punishments. Long after reason came, the feeling stayed. Forever after. A man could deny G.o.d, knowing if the afflictions that were a contradiction of Him, but still he felt accountable beyond the facts. Sinning sins that the Great Sinner forced upon him, he wanted to atone, to humble and flagellate himself, to promise to do better. That way he found comfort, as he, Curtis Mack, had found comfort in hard work and unaccustomed patience with Amanda after the killing of the Kaw.

It was in the nature of things, he thought, that now, with a better understanding reached between his wife and him, the consequences of misunderstanding should arise. Too late, if ever, one fell upon the answer to his plight.

It had been simple, so simple, if so wise, that he wondered at his blindness. Hot and swollen with his need there near the Southern Pa.s.s, he still had kept his voice in check, saying to Amanda while they lay in bed, "I wish you would. I wish you could, Amanda."

"I wish so, too."

"I understand the fear, but it isn't fear alone, not just of pregnancy."

"No," she said and waited for his words.

"Part must be resentment, and I understand that, too, I guess. No one likes to answer to demand."

"No."

"Do you know what it is?"

"Only that something gets in the way. Only that I feel I can't."

"Always?"

"Not always. You know that."

"Don't you feel desire? Ever?"

She didn't answer, and he thought he felt her stiffen in the bed and knew the line of inquiry was wrong. The old, hot words came to his mouth, and he shut them off, making himself think about the Kaw and himself and the chastening regrets, about Amanda and the strangeness that she couldn't alter. It was no less inviolable because it tortured him. He said, "We can wait. Maybe, if we just wait-" and turned over in bed.

"I wish I could, Curt."

"I've been wrong," he said, knowing suddenly it was true. "I've fixed the idea of demand in your head. If I had it to do over again, it would be different."

"How, Curt?"

"Maybe, if we had another try, I could make you see I need you, not your spirit alone or your body alone but all of you. And I wouldn't demand. I would try just to let you know that I stood in need of your help and that you could help me, and that I couldn't help it that I needed help. I guess that's what I mean. Good night, Amanda."

For a long time she lay still, and then her arm slipped around him, almost shyly, and her hand found his and asked him to turn over.

He wasn't fool enough, he reminded himself now, to think their troubles entirely at an end. The difference in their appet.i.tes was too great to allow of miracles. But they had made a start, and more than just a start. They were coming to adjustment, each trying to keep in mind the other. And he felt fulfilled and knew he loved his wife beyond all women.

So it would have to be in this, G.o.d's world, he thought, that an accident should come between. It wasn't in the scheme of things for happiness to last.

He stopped and faced about and started back. Too long an absence might call for explanations if Amanda kept herself awake for him. It was fear, he knew, that underlay his other feelings. Not fear of the lash. To h.e.l.l with it and the shame of it! And not fear of Amanda, quite, but of the loss of her, and not of the loss of her, for he felt she wouldn't leave him, but of the loss of love which was the loss of her. He hadn't known till recently, till now, how much it meant to him.

And so, he thought, walking heavy-footed under the big Moon, his worries were for self and not for Mercy. She was a girl-child and pregnant and alone, and he worried for himself. That was the scheme of things, too-self-preservation -but it was ugly just the same. And repentance and remorse and pleadings for forgiveness, what were they if not concern for self? Would he regret his act but for the consequences?

He tried to see the question honestly and didn't know the answer. Then he thought no, he wouldn't regret, if no harm at all had come to Mercy, no harm beyond the act if that was harm, no pregnancy, no disclosure, no shame, no heartache, no making of a trollop of her. He wouldn't have regretted even his own faithlessness, for there were reasons for it then.

There was the hitch, there was the kernel, existing whether there was G.o.d or not -had a man been right with man? He saw the girl again, standing small, standing brave, standing with that piteous dignity in her ruins, and he knew what his reply must be.

He said, "0 Christ!" and shook himself and quickened his step, as if a man could outpace thought, and came to his tent and went in.

Amanda's voice said in the darkness, "I almost went to sleep, Curt."

"It's such a grand night out." He sat down and started taking off his shoes.

It was also in the nature of things, he thought as he crawled into bed, that she should be waiting for him tonight. Far off, the wry manipulators of affairs must be grinning to themselves.

Long after Amanda was asleep, he lay sleepless, hearing the murmur of the river and the singing of coyotes. He wondered if Mercy McBee, age fifteen or sixteen, also lay awake, kept from her young girl's dreams by the beat of fear. He wondered if the Kaw he'd killed was happy in the happy hunting grounds.

One thing he knew. Whatever happened, wherever he was, as long as he lived, he would bear the wound-stripe of his guilt.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

"YOU'LL HAVE YOURSELVES a spree, I'm thinkin'," the old mountaineer said. "This n.i.g.g.e.r's been that way, and it's some, that's what it is."

He was, Lije Evans thought, about the age of a hill -allow a hundred years one way or the other- and he sat on the ground with the solid ease of a hill, as if he never needed a chair or backrest for his carca.s.s. Greenwood, his name was, Caleb Greenwood, and he was green like an old, gray tree that still put out leaves.

"Ain't I right, Cap'n?"