Chapter XIX

The beauty of the whole world in this hour should be remembered. Houses, trees, walls, shrubs, knolls--all were overlaid with the snow blanket inches deep. It had been faintly blue, this carpet of snow, in the first moments after the storm passed, and before the sun had broken through. When the sun illumined the hill about the farm the snow was dazzling white, blinding the eye with a thousand gleams, as though it were diamond dust spread all about them. Afterward, when John and Darrin and Ruth had passed to the front of the house to look across the valley and away, the sun descending lost its white glare; its rays took on a crimson hue. Where they struck the snow fairly it was rose pink; where shadows lay the blue was coming back again. The air was so clear that it seemed not to exist, yet did exist as a living, pulsing color which was all about--faint, hardly to be seen.

The three stood silent, watching all this. Ruth could not have spoken if she had wished to do so; she could scarce breathe. Darrin watched unseeingly, automatically, his thoughts busy elsewhere. John stood still, and his eyes were narrowed and his face was faintly flushed, either by the sun’s light or by the intoxication of beauty which was spread before him. And they were standing thus when there came to them through the still, liquid air the bellow of the bull.

John and Ruth reacted automatically to that sound. They were accustomed to the beast; they could to some extent distinguish between its outcries, guess at its moods from them. Its roaring was always frightful to an unaccustomed ear; but they were used to it, were disturbed only by some foreign note in the sound. They both knew now that the bull was murderously angry. They did not know, had no way of knowing what had roused it. It might be a dog, a cat; it might be that one of the cows had broken loose and was near its stall; it might be a pig; it might be a hen; it might be merely a rat running in awkward loping bounds across its pen. They did not stop to wonder; but John turned and ran toward the pen, and Ruth followed him, stumbling through the soft snow. Darrin, to whom the bull’s bellow had always been a frightful sound, was startled by it, would have asked a question. When he saw them run round the house he followed them.

John was in the lead, but Ruth was swift footed and was at his shoulder when he reached the gate of the pen. The walls of the inclosure and the gate itself were so high that they could not look over the top. But just beside the main gate there was a smaller one, like a door; too narrow and too low for the bull to pass, but large enough for a man. John fumbled with the latch of this gate; and his moment’s delay gave the others time to come up with him. When he opened the way and stepped into the pen Ruth and Darrin were at his shoulder. Thus that which was in the pen broke upon them all three at once--a picture never to be forgotten, indelibly imprinted on their minds.

The snow that had fallen in the inclosure was trampled here and there by the tracks of the bull and by the tracks of the man, and in one spot it was torn and tossed and crushed into mud, as though the two had come together there in some strange matching of strength. At this spot too there was a dark patch upon the snow; a patch that looked almost black. Yet Ruth knew what had made this patch, and clutched at her throat to stifle her scream; and John knew, and Darrin knew. And the two men were sick and shaken.

At the other side of the pen, perhaps a dozen long paces from where they stood, Evered and the bull faced each other. Neither had heard their coming, neither had seen them. They were, for the fraction of a second, motionless. The great bull’s head was lowered; its red neck was streaked with darker red where a long gash lay. From this gash dripped and dripped and spurted a little stream, a dark and ugly stream.

The man, Evered, stood erect and still, facing the bull. They saw that he bore the knife in his left hand; and they saw that his right arm was helpless, hanging in a curiously twisted way, bent backward below the elbow. The sleeve of his checked shirt was stained there, and his hand was red. His shoulder seemed somehow distorted. Yet he was erect and strong, and his face was steady and curiously peaceful, and he made no move to escape or to flee.

An eternity that was much less than a second passed while no man moved, while the bull stood still. Then its short legs seemed to bend under it; its great body hurtled forward. The vast bulk moved quick as light. It was upon the man.

They saw Evered strike, lightly, with his left hand; and there was no purpose behind the blow. It had not the strength to drive it home. At the same time the man leaped to one side, sliding his blade down the bull’s shoulder; leaped lightly and surely to one side. The bull swept almost past the man, the great head showed beyond him.

Then the head swung back and struck Evered in the side, and he fell, over and over, rolling like a rabbit taken in midleap by the gunner’s charge of shot. And the red bull turned as a hound might have turned, with a speed that was unbelievable. Its head, its forequarters rose; they saw its feet come down with a curious chopping stroke--apparently not so desperately hard--saw its feet come down once, and twice upon the prostrate man.

It must be remembered that all this had passed quickly. It was no more than a fifth of a second that John Evered stopped within the gate of the pen. Then he was leaping toward the bull, and Ruth followed him. Darrin crouched in the gate, and his face was white as death. He cried, “Come back, Ruth!” And even as she ran after John she had time to look back toward Darrin and see him cowering there.

John took off his coat as he ran, took it off with a quick whipping motion. He swung it back behind him, round his head. And then as the bull’s body rose for another deadly downward hoofstroke John struck it in the flank with all his weight. He caught the beast faintly off balance, so that the bull pivoted on its hind feet, away from the fallen man; and before the great creature could turn John whipped his coat into its face, lashing it again and again. The bull shook its great head, turning away from the blinding blows; and John caught the coat about its head and held it there, his arms fairly round the bull’s neck. He was shouting, shouting into its very ear. Ruth even in that moment heard him. And she marked that his tone was gentle, quieting, kind. There was no harshness in it.

She needed no telling what to do. John had swung the bull away from Evered; he had the creature blinded. She bent beside the prostrate man and tried to drag him to his feet, but Evered bent weakly in the middle. He was conscious, he looked up at her, his face quite calm and happy; and he shook his head. He said, “Go.”

The girl caught him beneath the shoulders and tried to drag him backward through the soft snow across the pen. It was hard work. John still blinding the bull, still calling out to the beast, was working it away from her.

She could not call on him for help; she turned and cried to Darrin, “Help me--carry him.”

Darrin came cautiously into the pen and approached her and took her arm. “Come away,” he said.

Her eyes blazed at him; and she cried again, “Carry him out.”

He said huskily, “Leave him. Leave him here. Come away.”

She had never released Evered’s shoulders, never ceased to tug at him. But Darrin took her arm now as though to pull her away; and she swung toward him so fiercely that he fell back from her. The girl began abruptly to cry; half with anger at Darrin, half with pity for the broken man in her arms. And she tugged and tugged, sliding the limp body inch by inch toward safety.

Then she saw John beside her. He had guided the bull, half forcing, half persuading, to the entrance into the stall; he had worked the creature in, prodding it, urging; and shut and made secure the door. Now he was at her side. He knelt with her.

“He’s terribly hurt,” she said through her tears.

John nodded. “I’ll take him,” he told her.

So he gathered Evered into his arms, gathered him up so tenderly, and held the man against his breast, and Ruth supported Evered’s drooping head as she walked beside John. They came to the gate and it was too narrow for them to pass through. So Ruth went through alone, to open the wider gate from the outside.

She found Darrin there, standing uncertainly. She looked at him as she might have looked at a stranger. She was hardly conscious that he was there at all. When he saw what she meant to do he would have helped her. She turned to him then, and she seemed to bring her thoughts back from a great distance; she looked at him for a moment and then she said, “Go away!”

He cried, “Ruth! Please----”

She repeated, “I want you to go away. Oh,” she cried, “go away! Don’t ever come here again!”

Darrin moved back a step, and she swung the gate open so that John could come through, and closed it behind him, and walked with him to the kitchen door, supporting Evered’s head. Darrin hesitated, then followed them uncertainly.

When they came to the door Ruth opened it, and John--moving sidewise so that his burden should not brush against the door frame--went into the kitchen, and across. Ruth passed round him to open the door into Evered’s own room; and John went through.

When he reached the bedside and turned to lay Evered there he missed Ruth. He looked toward the kitchen; and he saw her standing in the outer doorway. Darrin was on the steps before her. John heard Darrin say something pleadingly. Ruth stood still for a moment. Then John saw her slowly shut the door, shutting out the other man. And he saw her turn the key and shoot the bolt.

She came toward him, running; and her eyes were full of tears.

They laid Evered on his own bed, the bed he and Mary Evered had shared. Ruth put the pillow under his head; and because it was cold in the room she would have drawn a blanket across him. John shook his head. He was loosening the other’s garments, making swift examination of his father’s hurts, pressing and probing firmly here and there.

Evered had drifted out of consciousness on the way to the house; but his eyes opened now and there was sweat on his forehead. He looked up at them steadily and soberly enough.

“You hurt me, John,” he said.

Ruth whispered, “I’ll telephone the doctor.”

Evered turned his head a little on the pillow, and looked toward her. “No,” he said, “no need.”

“Oh, there must be!” she cried. “There must be! He can----”

Evered interrupted her. “Don’t go, Ruthie. I want to talk to you.”

She was crying; she came slowly back to the bedside. The sun was ready to dip behind the hills. Its last rays coming through the window fell across her face. She was somehow glorified. She put her hand on Evered’s head, and he--the native strength still alive within him--reached up and caught it in his and held it firmly thereafter for a space.

“You’re crying,” he said.

“I can’t help it,” she told him.

“Why are you crying?” he asked.

“Because I’m so sorry for you.”

A slow wave of happiness crept into his eyes. “You’re a good girl, Ruthie. You mustn’t cry for me.”

She brushed her sleeve across her eyes. “Why did you do it?” she asked almost fiercely. “Why did you let him get at you?”

“You’ve been hating me, Ruthie,” he told her gently. “Why do you cry for me?”

“Oh,” she told him, “I don’t hate you now. I don’t hate you now.”

He said weakly, “You’ve reason to hate me.”

“No, no!” she said. “Don’t be unhappy. You never meant--you loved Mary.”

“Aye,” he agreed, “I loved Mary. I loved Mary, and John loves you.”

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, John standing beside her; but she did not look up at him. Her eyes were all for Evered.

“Please,” she said. “Rest. Let me get the doctor.”

His head moved slowly in negation. “Something to tell you, Ruth, first--before the doctor comes.”

She looked toward John then, for decision or for reassurance. His eyes answered her; they bade her listen; they told her there was no work for the doctor here. So she turned back to Evered again. He was speaking slowly; she caught his words bending above him.

It was thus that the man told the story at last, without heat or passion, neither sparing himself nor condemning himself, but as though he spoke of another man. And he spoke of little things that he had not been conscious of noticing at the time--how when he took down his revolver to go after the bull the cats were frightened and ran from him; how as he passed through the barnyard the horse whinnied from its stall; how he was near stumbling over a ground sparrow’s nest in the open land above the woodlot; how a red squirrel mocked at him from a hemlock as he went on his way. It was as though he lived the day over while they listened. He told how he had come out above the spring; how he saw Mary and Dane Semler there.

“I believed she loved him,” he said.

And Ruth cried, “Oh, she never loved anyone but you.” She was not condemning, she was reassuring him; and he understood, his hand tightening on hers.

“I know,” he said. “And my unbelief was my great wrong to Mary; worse than the other.”

He went on steadily enough. “There was time,” he told her. “I could have turned him, stopped him, shot him. But I hated her; I let the bull come on.”

The girl scarce heard him. His words meant little to her; her sympathy for him was so profound that her only concern was to ease the man and make him happier.

She cried, “Don’t, don’t torment yourself! Please, I understand.”

“I killed her,” he said.

And as one would soothe a child, while the tears ran down her cheeks she bade him never mind.

“There, there. Never mind,” she pleaded.

“I killed her, but I loved her,” he went on implacably.

And he told them something of his sorrow afterward, and told them how he had stifled his remorse by telling himself that Mary was false; how he had kept his soul alive with that poor unction. He was weakening fast; the terrific battering which he had endured was having its effect upon even his great strength; but his voice went steadily on.

He came to Darrin, came to that scene with Darrin the night before, by the spring; and so told how Darrin had proved to him that Mary was--Mary. And at last, as though they must understand, he added, “So then I knew.”

They did not ask what he knew; these two did understand. They knew the man as no others would ever know him--knew his heart, knew his unhappiness. There was no need of his telling them how he had passed the night, and then the day. He did not try.

Ruth was comforting him; and he watched her with a strange and wistful light in his eyes.

“You’ve hated me, Ruthie,” he reminded her. “Do you hate me now?”

There was no hate in her, nothing but a flooding sympathy and sorrow for the broken man. She cried, “No, no!”

“You’re forgiving----”

“Yes. Please--please know.”

“Then Mary will,” he murmured half to himself.

Ruth nodded, and told him, “Yes, yes; she will. Please, never fear.”

For a little while he was silent, while she spoke to him hungrily and tenderly, as a mother might have spoken; and her arms round him seemed to feel the man slipping away. She was weeping terribly; and he put up one hand and brushed her eyes.

“Don’t cry,” he bade her. “It’s all right, don’t cry.”

“I can’t help it. I don’t want to help it. Oh, if there was only anything I could do.”

He smiled faintly; and his words were so husky she could scarcely hear.

“Go to John,” he said.

She held him closer. “Please----”

“Please go to John,” he urged again.

She still held him, but her arms relaxed a little. She looked up at John, and saw the young man standing there beside her. And a picture came back to her--the picture of John throwing himself against the red bull’s flank, blinding it, urging it away. His voice had been so gentle, and sure, and strong. She herself in that moment had burned with hate of the bull. Yet there had been no hate in John, nothing but gentleness and strength.

She had coupled him with Evered in her thoughts for so long that there was a strange illumination in her memories now; she saw John as though she had never seen him before; and almost without knowing it she rose and stood before him.

John made no move to take her; but she put her arms round his neck and drew his head down. Only then did his arms go about her and hold her close. There was infinite comfort in them. He bent and kissed her. And strangely she thought of Darrin. There had been something hard and cruel in his embrace, there had been loneliness in his arms. There was only gentleness in John’s; and she was not lonely here. She looked up, smiling through her tears.

“Oh, John, John!” she whispered.

As they kissed so closely, the warm light from the west came through the window and enfolded them. And Evered, upon the bed, wearily turned his head till he could see them, watch them. While he watched, his eyes lighted with a slow contentment. And after a little a smile crept across his face, such a smile as comes only with supreme happiness and peace. A kindly, loving smile.

He was still smiling when they turned toward him again; but they understood at once that Evered himself had gone away.

THE END.