KEVEN slept only after long hours that exhausted, and then specters visited his bedside. But daybreak at Solitude, the slow coloring of rose and blue, the gold creeping down, the changing, speaking river—these made the night with its horrors as if it had been naught.
That fought the demon of his unrest, gave him courage to undertake the one thing instinct told him was best. To move, to see, to feel, to smell, to hear, to eat—these faculties that had to do with his physical being, these senses that were opposed to thought and remembrance, to intellect and realism, to all that was not primitive, these pointed the only way. That morning Keven gasped for whisky. His mouth, his throat, his esophagus, his stomach, his intestines burned for the cooling draught that was an infernal lie.
Beryl never guessed it. She was blind and feminine enough to pivot before him in her riding jeans and to ask gayly: “Do you like me—this way?”
Keven had a gay compliment ready, but though he saw her lithe and supple, sturdy as a boy, though with feminine contours, he could not thrill at her beauty or feel her appeal.
“Sam isn’t a stubborn mule,” said Beryl, when she led Keven out to the barn, where Aard had saddled the mule and a white horse. “But he falls asleep on the trail. And when he does he stops. So just give him a dig.”
They mounted and rode out of the clearing into the trail, with Beryl leading. At once it struck Keven that with the silence and shadow she changed from the lighthearted girl who had greeted him that morning into one indefinitely different. She talked no more. She seldom looked back. She touched the leaves, the pine needles, the mossy trunks, the lichened rocks, the ferns, with slow lingering, loving hand that was careful not to destroy. Her dark head had the poise of a listening deer.
Keven was grateful for this, while he wondered at it. For he was having a bad time of it. He saw all that Beryl touched. He saw the shadow-barred trail and the gold-splashed glade, the thick amber moss that covered the trees, the ferny, cool dell down which a sparkling streamlet leaped. And when they emerged where the trail ran along the open shore he saw Solitude in all its sublimity. The dark green slopes, the darker green river, sliding, whirling, foaming around the shaded bend, the grand bronze and fern-festooned cliffs, the black rocks that were sections of a splintered mountain—these seemed alive under the purple mantle of the lifting mist, gleaming in that subdued and supernatural light like the strange glow of low clouds before a storm. He saw all this spell of Solitude, but without delight or gladness.
Some few miles down the trail Keven made a twofold discovery: first that he was perceptibly tiring, and secondly that it would be wise not to risk going on to any place where drink was procurable. This was confessing a grave possibility. He hoped he would not utterly fail to be a man, but he did not wholly trust himself. Why should he imperil the resolve he had made? If he fell on this occasion he would never be quite the same again. He had the spirit to do anything for Beryl Aard, but he was now concerned with the physical man’s abnormal demands. So he planned an innocent ruse to deceive Beryl, without betraying his susceptible state.
Coming to an open glade in the forest, he called to Beryl and then slipped out of his saddle, to sit down upon the ground. She cried out in alarm, and leaping from her horse, she flew back to kneel beside him.
“Kev! Kev!” she cried, putting her arms about him.
It was all he could do to meet those eyes, wonderful with sudden betraying fear and love.
“Beryl, I’d better not try to go farther,” he said, smiling.
“Oh, is there anything the matter? You said you had not ridden for years…. A stitch in your side, maybe? That is terrible, I know. Or have the stirrups twisted your feet under too far? They’re heavy, and I was afraid they’d tire you.”
“Yes, I guess I’ve the stitch, all right, and the paralyzed feet, also a knee or two, and one hip. But that’s not all,” he said jokingly.
She studied him with most earnest gaze, and spoke with red lips quivering.
“Kev, you wouldn’t deceive me?”
“How—how do you mean?” he queried.
“You haven’t any organic trouble? Heart disease—or anything like?”
“No, I’m not as bad off as that,” replied Keven, glad he could tell the truth.
Suddenly she drew his face close against her breast and held it there tight. He felt the swell of her bosom, the throb of her heart.
“Oh, if anything happened—to you!”
She let go of him then, still pale of cheek and dark of eye, unaware of the betrayal in action and word, or utterly disregarding them.
“You rest, then we’ll go back,” she said.
“Is it all right for you to go on alone?”
“Yes. I often ride to Illahe.”
“Well, then, I’ll stay here and rest. You go. I’ll be okay when you get back. Will you buy me the things I need? Here is my list.”
She scanned it carefully. Then: “Kev, there are no shoes here. Have you any but those awful things your feet are falling out of?” she asked, in most practical solicitude.
“Beryl, I told you I had only what I wore on my back,” he replied, trying not to be stiff.
She was too earnest, too honestly practical to catch any hint of pride in his voice. She was concerned only with his needs.
“You’ll need hunting boots, as well as moccasins. What size?”
“Number eights.”
“And size of hat?”
“Seven. You see I have a big foot and small head, instead of the other way round.”
“Likely they won’t have anything that’ll fit,” said Beryl. “I send to Portland for what I want. It comes parcel post. But that takes two weeks and more. We can’t wait…. You’ll need gloves, too. And, well, I’ll buy what I think you need.”
“Thanks. You’re very kind,” replied Keven meekly. “Only don’t make it so much I can’t pay back.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” she concluded dubiously, as she turned to mount her horse. “Sam will not stray far. I won’t be long.”
Then she went clattering down the trail to disappear in the green forest. Keven felt relieved, yet somehow resentful with himself.
“By thunder, have I come to this? A liar and a beggar! Yet a blind man could see she—she cares for me.”
His first impulse was to crawl into a pine thicket near by and hide. Not that there was anything or anyone to hide from, except himself! He composed himself finally and found a comfortable posture, with his head on a mossy mound. He then applied himself grimly to enduring his ordeal. It was there, the damnable desire, but he could stand it. He found that he could. As moments dragged on into an hour he became conscious that it grew no worse. He got used to enduring it, with stoicism, with defiance, and then it strangely seemed to diminish. Presently he fell asleep.
Something startled him back to consciousness. The lacy foliage of a fir tree filled his gaze.
“Kev! Kev! Wake up!” called Beryl gayly. “Oh, I’m so glad. You were sound asleep…. Behold me—packer for one Keven Bell!”
Keven stared at her, where she appeared to rise head and shoulders out of innumerable bundles. “What’d you do, child? Buy out that store?” he queried, aghast.
“’Most did. Come, Sleepy-eyes. Sam’s right there. Get on him. We’ve got to walk the horse home.”
“I think I’ll walk a little myself, and lead Sam. So go ahead, Bright-eyes.”
A mile or so was about all Keven cared to accomplish before mounting again. Beryl forged ahead. The mule, however, when he was no longer led, soon caught up with the horse. Early afternoon found them turning the bend into Solitude.
Beryl rode her horse up to Keven’s cabin and, dismounting, she began to untie the bundles and deposit them upon the porch. Keven got off to help her, not unaware of her blushes and giggles. She was a most bewildering girl.
“There, Kev. You carry the things in and unwrap them. I don’t want to be around,” she said, with a kind of repressed glee, and led the horse and mule toward the barn.
It took half a dozen trips for Kev to carry all the bundles inside, and not once did he go unburdened. “I’ll be jiggered!” he muttered. But it was impossible not to feel a curious pleasure. Slowly he began to open the parcels, to lay each article on the bed, and after that was covered, the rest on the floor. What an assortment! She had bought out the country store. Those particular things he had listed were only a small part of this purpose. She had not lived in the Rogue River wilderness for nothing. The embarrassing feature of this deluge, however, was the fact that she might have been the wife or nurse of a sick man, and mighty keen as to his needs. Nor had she neglected the things most useful and dear to the man of the open: a hand ax and a flashlight, a buckskin shirt embroidered in beads, a cap and a sombrero, and last, but indeed not least, a tin box full of native-tied steelhead flies. Then more necessary, perhaps, certainly more commonly practical, a wash basin and pitcher, towels and soap, clothesbrush and a small mirror.
All this array delighted him, in spite of his silly pride. “Darn it, she’s a thoroughbred and a sport…. Who ever thought of me, like this, except my mother? … No use, I’m going to love her. I’ve got to.”
He made this speech with dimming eyes. He tried to deceive himself. But he had no illusions. His gratitude, his realization of the simple goodness of this woodland girl, were not love. Was his heart dead? He thought he had loved Rosamond Brandeth. But he had been only a boy just smitten with a pretty face. He realized that he had never loved her—that now he despised her. As a woman she was a candle to the sun, compared to Beryl Aard.
Keven then applied himself to the task of practical application. He shaved, he donned clean new clothes. One of the several flannel shirts was a gorgeous one, barred in black-and-white check, with dots of red, and this one he chose. The boots fitted fairly well, and would do when his blistered feet got well. He buckled on the gun belt. Thus arrayed, he went out to find Beryl, uncertain whether he would scold her or hug her. But she could not be found. Aard, however, was at work in the orchard, where Keven joined him, eager to work, if not strenuously capable.
When hours later Beryl called them to supper it was none too soon for Keven. He again felt ready to drop.
When he stepped into Aards’ living room, the sun, shining its last that day from the river gap, flooded through the window. Keven encountered Beryl, quite unprepared to see her in a white dress, which, simple and modest as it was, completely changed her. Keven stared in undisguised admiration.
Beryl clapped her hands at sight of him. “Dad, look at him. Kev Bell, you handsome backwoods riverman!”
“You—you’re not so bad yourself,” replied Keven confusedly.
Poor as were the words of his compliment they brought damask roses to Beryl’s cheeks and unmistakable delight to her dark eyes.
“This dress! You should see me in my good one,” she exclaimed. “But that must wait till Dad takes us to Portland…. Dad, when will that be?”
“Wal, if we have a good winter trappin’, why, I’d say next spring,” replied Aard.
“If it depends on that, Dad Aard, I don’t care to go,” retorted Beryl.
“All right, you stay home an’ keep house. Kev an’ I will have more fun, mebbe.”
She shot him and Keven a glance that gave manifestation of what a magnificent blaze her eyes might be capable of if she were really angered.
“Wal, son, did you buy out the store at Illahe?” went on Aard, as he seated himself at the table.
“No, I didn’t. Beryl did. I couldn’t ride all the way. She went on and did the purchasing…. Heaven help her when she gets a husband—unless he’s rich.”
“Heaven help her, indeed, if she ever gets him,” was Beryl’s startling rejoinder.
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared Aard.
Keven stared down at his steaming plate. He would have to be careful how he bandied wit with this girl. He felt at a loss just how to take that sally of hers. Silently then he waived reply and applied himself to the supper. After a time, however, he looked up at Beryl, to find her eyes downcast.
Emboldened by this, Keven glanced at her then, and from time to time afterward, but he could not catch her eye. There was a heightened color in her cheeks, almost a red spot. Twice when she rose to go into the kitchen his gaze followed her. In the white dress she looked slight, compared to the stalwart girl she appeared in rougher garb. Keven found himself becoming critical.
Later in the bright lamplight he had better opportunity to observe her unobtrusively. She was a little over the medium height for women, compactly, beautifully built, though not on delicate lines. She had a firm strong hand, brown, well shaped, and a rounded superb arm, upon which the muscles played. She stood erect as an Indian, lithe, almost pantherish in movement, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, giving singular impression of tremendous vitality. He had no fault to find with her feet and ankles, for they conformed to the rest of her splendid physical equipment. If Beryl Aard could not wade over the slippery stones of the swift Rogue and climb to the peaks of the mountains, he very much missed his guess. Once before he had compared her with the erotic Rosamond Brandeth; and when he did it again all the finality of that decision swung immeasurably to Beryl’s benefit.