Читать книгу The Earthbreakers - Ernest Haycox - Страница 12

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THERE had been no call for a meeting, but the crowd grew until there were a hundred men and women in a loose circle, dark-lumped against the wet night, reddened and roughened by the glow of John Gay's winding fire. Most of them had been in town and had found information. Privately they had weighed the next move, and in little groups they had discussed it; now they moved toward a common center to make the problem common and to come to some kind of a common decision, for though they were people of great independence they were also political animals by practice, and the push of their natures was toward the group.

A wise way of listening, and an ability to state opinions without appearing to seek for authority, had made Gay one of the leaders of the train; he was straight shirt sleeves, seeming to want nothing. Had he tried to push himself forward he would have been resented by these men who believed themselves equally capable of leadership; since he did not, they gave him the respect he hadn't asked for. He wasn't entirely without guile; he was a man of very firm notions, believing in the decency of people yet aware of the hard core of prejudice, superstition and selfishness in them; and with this knowledge he fashioned his methods of persuasion, when the need arose, to the cause he thought sound. On a larger stage he would have been a statesman tempering his cause with the practical and possible; on this rough edge of life he was the very best type of mudsill leader.

So they gathered at his fire to create a kind of tribal legislature whose deliberations gathered force by the need for order which brought them here; for they well knew they could not build roads or cabins or schools alone, and could not starve alone; argue as they often did, and violently as they might dislike each other—and there were bitter hatreds among them—necessity made the compact.

There had been much talk concerning locations and a great deal of personal opinion passed. When at last there was nothing new to add John Gay, in his mild way, more or less recapitulated the pros and cons of each location and brought the issue square-on.

"You'll go where you please, naturally, but it would be a good thing if we could get a sizable group for one place; it would make settlement a lot easier for all of us. I don't relish saying good-by to people I've lived with these six months. It seems unnatural to part, and I wish we didn't have to do it. There's no question but what the winter's goin' to be severe for us. It would be comforting if we could go through it together."

"You don't like that country off the prairie?" said McIver.

"What's the use of my coming this far to sit on six hundred and forty acres of second-best when the best is to be had? But I recognize the objections to the other land—the winter mud...I also know I'd rather have neighbors. So if there's a strong group inclined to that country around Bear Creek, I'll put my first preference by, and go along."

"Where's that fellow Hawn?" asked Daniel Rinearson. "He knows most about it."

Lorenzo Buck said: "He's in the saloon with the Lockyears."

"Well, where's Burnett? He talked to Hawn."

"In the saloon, too," said Buck.

"They been there an hour."

"Just well started."

Gay smiled and shook his head. Edna Lattimore, at the outer edge of the ring, turned about and walked toward town at a rapid gait.

Collingwood and his wife stood not far from the fire. Collingwood had said a great deal during the meeting. When the argument had gone strongly toward one location, he had spoken favorably; when it had veered to another location he had found good in the second place. He strained hard to be in tune with the majority. With the evening talked out, he now again sought to reflect the temper of the crowd by speaking the impatience he sensed in it.

"Well," he said, "it's time to decide, ain't it? Why don't we see where we want to go? Let's have hands on this. Who's for Bear Creek?"

Men looked upon him from the shadowed circle and refused to be moved. He waited, fire deepening the color of his naturally ruddy face, and the waiting grew to be an embarrassment to him and presently he said with a tone half between irritation and pleading, "Well, boys, we got to go somewhere, ain't we? What's your pleasure?"

He drew no response; he was the target of unsympathetic eyes, of a lurking amusement. Having committed himself, he couldn't gracefully withdraw and he faced his audience with a fixed smile. Whitcomb noted Lucy Collingwood's glance suddenly drop to the ground.

It was John Gay who quietly said, "Perhaps it's about time we did decide. If there's a group for this Bear Creek, I'll join it."

Rinearson said, "I favor it," and in a little while the circle broke into pieces, the larger part of the crowd moving toward Rinearson.

"Who's for the prairie?" called John Strang.

Somebody else spoke. "Anybody want to cross the river and go down where that fellow Moss spoke of?"

Buck and his new wife turned from the circle, moving back to her wagon. Buck said: "I'm disposed to throw in with Gay and go to Bear Creek. Have you got any notions?"

"It's yours to say."

"Don't care to take you somewhere you don't want to go."

"What would you've said to your first wife?"

"I'd have said, 'We go to Bear Creek.'"

"Then that's the way it had better be with us."

They came to the wagon and stopped. She turned and watched the shadow of his face in the rainy darkness. He said presently: "You want me to sleep in the other wagon for a few nights?"

She was silent for a long run of moments, at last placing her hand on his arm. "We can't start that way."

"It's a little quick for you."

"So it is," she said. "But you're my husband now. Come to bed."

Reaching the town's street, Edna stopped across from the saloon. When she grew tired of waiting she walked the street's full length, watched the ragged shimmer of the falls through the black, and returned to resume her station. It was a full hour before Burnett came from the place and swung toward the wagon camp. He didn't see her; he didn't seem to be drunk but he had his head down and appeared to be absorbed by his thinking. She called over, "That you, Rice?"

He crossed the mud and took her arm. He was cheerful, he had just enough liquor to make him reckless. "What are you doing around here?"

"Oh," she said, "I just wanted to walk."

"You ought to be tired."

"I never get tired. Nothing bothers me much." When they came to the entrance of the trail which led in a roundabout way toward camp—the one along which she had gone early in the day—she slackened her pace. "Let's not go right back," she said, and by a little pressure she swung him into a trail; they went past the town's houses and came to the lean-to shed. She put her head through the doorway into the darkness.

"What's here?" he asked.

"Just a shed. There's some hay I saw this afternoon. Rice—we don't get a chance to talk any more."

"All right." He followed her into the shed and heard her settle on the hay and he dropped beside her and bore her back full length and rolled her to him. Her arms came around him quick as a trap, very strong, very needy; she lifted herself and dropped over him, her mouth searching; he hung on until he grew rough and heard her wince, and then he relaxed and lay beside her, listening to the scarcely disturbed beat of her heart. The odor of her hair rose through the hay smell; her breath fluttered on his skin. "You like this?" she whispered.

"Yes. Did I hurt you?"

"Go ahead. I know you like me then."

"I could sink into you till I drowned."

"That's a good way to die." She pushed against him, sighing. "Now you're just yourself. We could have a lot of fine times. Go on, smother me."

"Fine times—misery. Like trying to drink a river dry."

"That's nice. Not true, but nice. I'm no river but I've got enough for you. Why do you keep away so much when you know you could have kissed me a long time ago?"

"No time, no place."

"People can fix things if they want to."

"Big woman—big soft woman."

"That's from sitting on a wagon doing nothing. But I'll never get fat. I don't like sloppy women. You like slim women best, like Katherine. Slim in places, anyhow. What do you think about when you look at her in that funny way-off way?"

"Don't know what."

"I know what. What it would be like to have her."

He said nothing. Her small laugh came to him. "If you kissed her you could probably have her, too. She'd be thinking about it—kissing, loving, sleeping. It goes right straight through. What do you think of me? You do think of me, don't you?"

He moved his fingers over her face, around her neck. "Not hard to think about when I'm tired, rolled up in my blankets."

"That's a good place. I think about you there too. What do you think?'

"You're like the earth."

She lay silent, pondering. Her hand patted his back steadily. "I don't know," she said. "I don't know what that's like."

"Nobody knows. Nothing to say about it. It just is. That's it. It just is."

"Ah," she said, pleased but skeptical. "There's nobody like that. You've made it up." Gently the pressure of her hands increased on his back. "If another man was lying here he wouldn't be still."

"If another man was lying here he'd catch you off guard."

"No man can catch me off guard unless I want him to." She was, from the tone of her voice, smiling in the dark. "You want to?"

"I want to—but I'm not going to," he said.

"Sometimes you're just a man, thinking the same thing they all think. Then you're not, and I don't know what bothers you. I think it's me—I mean, what I say."

"You come right out with it, that's for sure," he said.

"I'm the same as all of them only I don't bother to hide things. You'd like it if I was a little bit mysterious. That's what makes men so funny. They all would, up to a point. Just mysterious for a little while, then they don't want them to be mysterious any more." She moved in, adjusting her body to him. "You'd like to have me nights. You'd like it a lot. You'd like it right now. But you've got some other notion—I don't know, and then you don't like me so much. You ought to know me. I'm a woman. You know about women. I'll get married, I'll work, I'll have babies. It's the same for everybody. That's all it is. I can do every one of those things, and I'll do 'em fine."

"I know."

"No you don't. You think there's something else. Tell me and I'll try to be that way. If it's not foolish. If it's foolish, I can't do it, Rice. Look at everybody. I mean husbands and wives. You know how they are when they're running after each other. They make a lot out of it. Then they get married and they use each other till it's not new any more. Then they settle down—work and babies. Tell me what else there is."

"I'd like to use you up."

She was silent a moment; then she murmured, "Well, go ahead. I'd like it too."

"You want me to rape you?"

"Ah, the way you carry on, it's more like me raping you. You know what I think sometimes? I think you're afraid."

"Throwin' rocks at me now," he said.

She pushed her fingers unexpectedly into his ribs and made him jump. He rolled her away but she came back at him. He pinned her below him, wrestling for her arms and feeling laughter bubble within her and suddenly he settled himself and kissed her. Her playfulness stopped. She lay motionless, sensuously absorbing him; and in this blackness and stillness he was loosened by tender feeling and he whispered, "Edna—Edna."

Her breathing quickened, her arms pulled him; she grew dissatisfied and was all in motion beneath him, and she capsized him and was above him, rougher with him than he had been with her. He flung her around and pinned her below.

"Rice."

"No."

"Rice! Oh, damn you—please! Rice!"

She stirred and ran her fingers over his face, and whispering sounds came from her—the light, sighing groan of her pleasure; he felt ripples of laughter go through her. The pressure left; she lay content. "Well, you've done it. You happy?"

"Yes."

"I'm all rags, I'm loose feathers, I'm broken to pieces, I've got no strength. I feel like cream inside, like silk all over me. Oh, Rice." She rolled her warm, loose mouth around his face. Her breathing settled. "You're not sorry?"

"No."

"You see—what's to be sorry for? What'd we lose, what'd we do wrong? It cleaned me out, cleaned you out, just like fire burning soot out of a chimney. That's good, isn't it?"

"That's good."

"I told you I could take care of you. I watch you, I see you get nervous. You walk around, you want to fight something or break something. I know what it is. It's gone now, isn't it?"

"All gone," he said.

"Well, that's it." She lay half over him, heavy and peaceful. Her voice was sleepy. "It could be like this all the time," she said and dropped her head to his arm and seemed to rest.

She had shown him how well she could take care of him in the same unembarrassed way she might have lifted her hands to show him the strength of her fingers. She had no doubt of her ability to take the sting from him, to keep him contented; she had no doubt that this was his only need—all other needs only being the colored fancies rising from this one, like the mirages of cities and rivers rising from the violent heat of a desert. Where had she gotten that belief—from herself or from men? She waited for him, confident that her body would bring him in. For a little while he regretted having her, for he knew he'd want her again, that he'd never quit wanting her. The recklessness of the saloon's whisky had begun to wear off and, with need temporarily gone out of him, he realized he couldn't rise and walk away from her with clear conscience. For if she had been honest with him, this was not a casual act but the first act of marriage. If she meant it that way, he had to think of it that way.

She said, "You're thinking about something."

"Half asleep," he said.

"No," she said, "you're thinking. I can tell." She sat up. Her tone had changed and he knew she was disappointed in him. "I suppose there's hay all over me."

He rose. "I'll brush you."

"Oh," she said indifferently, "it's dark—it doesn't matter." She took his arm and came up and rested against him a moment, and once more he caught the waiting in her, the strong warm hope. Then she drew back. "All right," she said and left the shed with him. They followed the path through the trees into the camp clearing, passing people moving away from Gay's fire. Short of the fire she stopped. "I won't go there with all this hay on me. She'd see it."

"Who?"

"Katherine. Now you'll go there and look at her and think you see something wonderful. Just you remember she's made like me." She moved away, her manner lighter. "Think of me," she said and walked rapidly toward her father's wagon.