Deep in this Land

there was no sky, no valley, no shadows—only the bitter emptiness of the land

He dismounted and went ahead to break trail through hip-deep drifts and so came out of the pines to the rim of the valley and paused there to rest himself and his hard-pressed horse. The great wind had quit, the flakes fell in thick, wavering laziness and the trees were brittle-still; the weather pall hung low and he had only a shadowy view of the rough bare land that ran away toward the plains of central Oregon, but directly below him in the valley, a figure stirred against the painful whiteness, walking away from a wagon half-buried in snow. He went rapidly down the slope, even then knowing he had come upon a bad thing.

The figure stopped and waited for him and when he got near, he saw it was a girl bundled inside a heavy overcoat, a shawl wrapped around her head and an ax in her hand. Her mouth was tight with misery and her eyes held a dead-beat look.

"You're walking straight toward nothing," Hill Beachey said.

She pulled the shawl from her ears. "I meant to get some wood for a fire."

"How long you been here?"

She did some counting, some remembering. "This is the third morning."

"Where's your man?"

"The sheep drifted. The first night—first night of the storm. They went out to head off the sheep."

"Who did?"

"My father—my brother."

He took the ax and turned her about and walked on to the wagon. She had searched for the men, for her tracks made widening rings around the wagon and struck off to the west and came back to the wagon. He knew this country, and now he knew this story. He said, "Wait," and followed her trail until, about 400 feet from the wagon, it ended at the rim of a canyon whose floor lay 50 feet below. That was the trap into which the sheep, pushed by the violent wind, had fallen; he couldn't see the sheep, but he saw the hummocks of snow scattered along the canyon and he knew the sheep were below the hummocks. Her men had tried to head off the band in the crazy, whooping blackness and they'd gone over the rim with the sheep. He looked along the canyon, he surveyed the canyon's farther rim. No, he thought. Two nights of it; they were dead.

He turned back. She was at the head of the wagon, waiting for him, her eyes watching him. He stopped at the tail gate and pushed aside the canvas to look at the gear and sacked stuff and household goods into which she had burrowed during the storm. He thought of her crouched there in a night as black as the bottom of a well, the storm screaming around her and her men dead or dying somewhere near at hand; maybe she'd even heard them calling.

He said, "It's five miles to my cabin. We'd better start before this weather fires up again."

She looked beyond him to the canyon. For a moment, there was the softness of hope on her face, but that left and the punished expression appeared once more.

"Want anything from the wagon?"

"Not now."

He led off with the horse to ramp the trail ahead of her. At the top of the ridge, he stopped and she rested herself against the horse and watched the valley. "You're sure?" she said.

"Well, they might have made it to timber and dug in." But he knew that was impossible, and he knew she knew it, too. "I'll come back tomorrow."

She continued to watch the valley and he knew there was nothing in her mind but those three days, the scream of wind, the blackness, the cold creeping deeper into her flesh and death and aloneness, and the fear that turned to terror and the terror that finally numbed her. It was in her eyes—frozen there. He went on through the trees, his front muscles aching as he pressed against the snow; from time to time, he looked back at the girl and when they came into a meadow and crossed it to the next ridge, he put her sideways on the saddle, knowing she wouldn't tell him of her exhaustion.

A light wind arose to whip the snow, a steel-cast twilight closed them in a narrow world. Beyond the second ridge, a valley opened with cattle clustered about fenced-in stacks of hay, and a creek made a ragged streak through the snow; an Indian lodge and a cabin with tacked-on sheds sat near the creek and as they passed the lodge, two old people—Indian man and woman—came from the lodge to stare at them. Beachey helped the girl from the saddle and stepped into the cabin with her. It was a windowless, dirt-floored bachelor's place with sacked supplies piled about and clothes and gear and bacon sides hanging from the pole rafters, but a flame on the fire hearth lighted and warmed it, and an Indian girl turned from the fire to look at the white girl with surprise wiping her face smooth. Beachey spoke to the Indian girl and left the cabin to catch up a pitchfork in the lean-to; and riding down the slope through the fast-falling darkness, he moved from stack to stack to throw down hay for the waiting stock.

Black, blind night squeezed the land when he came back. The Indian girl had gone. The other girl had settled against a wall, still wearing the overcoat. She faced the fire and her hands lay idle before her, palms turned up; she was a big girl, firm body and wide hips, but there was no motion or interest in her, and her eyes—the color of thick, faded blue-velvet cloth—seemed to see nothing in the fire. He bent down and untied the scarf; he unbuttoned her overcoat and went at the business of making supper with the air of a man to whom such a chore was a necessity but a nuisance.

"How many cattle?" she said.

"Three hundred—if the wolves didn't drag some down last night."

"We had eight hundred sheep. We were driving over from the Willamette Valley, looking for new range. The storm caught us. My father's name is John Templeton. It's my brother's name, too. I'm Maria."

She ate a little food, drank a good deal of coffee and returned to her place by the fire. "Are they dead?"

He lighted his pipe and clenched it between his teeth. "Yes," he said.

"Can we go back in the morning?"

"First thing." He washed the dishes and stepped into the night to stand at the break of the valley, facing the flurry of heavier snow flung on by a quickening wind. There was no sky, no valley, no silhouette of hills, no shadows—only the uniform dead sea-bottom blackness, only this and the bitter emptiness of the land moving like a threat against him. From the valley's upper end came the wind-carried sound of wolves and although he couldn't see his cattle, he knew they were drifting from the sound, for the sound meant the same thing to them that it did to him. He stepped into the cabin and found the Indian girl again at the fire.

She was pure Umatilla strayed a long way from home, for her tribe lived a hundred miles from this lonely part of Oregon and she had no parents, only the old people—her grandparents in the lodge. Her face was light brown and smooth and round and her eyes had a liquid darkness that was the perfect breeding place for mystery. She wore a white woman's dress over doeskin leggings and her hair, parted in the center, moved back to a done-up braid unusual for an Indian girl. She was neat and quiet and pretty and an accumulative curiosity had brought her back to study the white one. Presently, she turned her attention to Beachey, and her glance dropped and she left the place.

He closed the door, found a wagon cover in a corner and hung it from the rafters to split the room into two separate cells. "You take the bunk," he said. After she had gone to her side of the canvas, he made himself a bed on the floor, piled wood on the fire and turned in. She made no sound beyond the partition; and because he had risen at four in the morning and had been on the move for 16 hours, he soon fell asleep.

•

She wore an old shirt and a pair of trousers inside the big coat, the shawl wrapped around her head; and she rode his horse while he went ahead with his two big team horses, through a steady falling snow and through the sullen grayness that was an omen of more weather to come. It was a two-hour trip to the snowed-in wagon. He found the harness of the strayed horses inside the wagon, threw it onto his team and hitched them and left her with them while he went on with the saddle horse to the canyon's rim, and skirted it until he found a break that led to the bottom. The hummocks lay about him, one large mound showing where the main body had cascaded down and smaller mounds made by those that had straggled and had fallen separately. He stepped to the large mound and scooped away the snow until he got down to the carcasses; and he straightened and looked about him, thinking of the hopelessness of this search, and then his eyes touched the darkness of what seemed to (continued on page 140)Deep in this Land(continued from page 112) be a coat sleeve on the far side of the canyon, and he went over there and found both men locked face to face together, one man bearded, one man young. They had survived the fall and they had tried to climb from the trap, but exhaustion had caught them. When he pulled the two apart, he knew why; the younger man's leg was broken.

He stood a moment to consider the weight and awkwardness of those bodies and of the hard climb to the rim's surface and it occurred to him that it would be easiest to use horse and rope to tow them out of this place, but he thought of the girl and changed his mind and set to work. The girl came over from the wagon when he brought her father's body to the top of the incline and settled on her knees and bent to brush the snow from her father's face. After he got the second man from the canyon, he drove the team and wagon around and lifted the bodies inside. "You drive the wagon," he said, and got on his horse and started ahead.

They had used up the morning. By the time they reached the ridge behind his cabin, middle afternoon was on them and the grayness came in again. On the out trip, he had noticed a windfall shaken down by the blizzard, and when they passed it again, he stopped the wagon and pointed into the pit created by the wrenched-out roots of the tree. It was a better grave than he could dig in the frozen earth.

"It will have to be here," he said, and waited for her approval.

She stared at the pit and her glance went around the bleak and dark and cold forest and the desolation of it stiffened her face and blackened the color of her eyes. She nodded without speaking.

He found ax and shovel in the wagon. He used the shovel to clear the snow from the pit and from the ground near the pit and he took two blankets from the wagon and laid them at the pit's bottom and placed the bodies on these. She dropped into the pit to bring the blankets around and over the two men, but she thought of something and drew the blanket from her father and took his watch and wallet from his pocket, and covered him again. Beachey gave her a hand out of the pit. "My mother's picture is on the back of the watch," she said. "And that's my mother's ring on the chain."

He stood by with the shovel, not anxious to fill in the grave before her eyes. He said, "You want to pray?"

She dropped to the bottom of the pit again and drew back the blankets to give her father a long study and to touch her brother's head. Then she covered them and came out. "No," she said, and walked around the wagon, beyond sight of this.

He chipped away at the half-solid rim, breaking the earth into the pit; when he had it half filled, he took the ax and dropped a pair of stunted pines and chopped them into ten-foot lengths and laid these as a solid covering over the grave, and went on with his digging until the logs were buried three feet beneath the dirt. He dropped another pine and cut it into sections to blanket the graves; he had to fall two more trees to make the job complete. The girl came from the wagon and stood by him. "I feel better about it," she said. "They're safe," and she looked directly at him and raised her hand to brush the sweat from his cheeks.

"When the snow's gone," he said, "I'll make a fence and put up a mark."

She looked at the scarred earth below her and her voice was soft. "They're safe," she repeated, and turned back to the wagon seat. He threw the tools into the wagon and led the way down the ridge into the cabin clearing. He set the wagon against the cabin's back side, took the gear from the horses and walked into the valley with his pitchfork. It was dark again when he returned to the cabin. She had cooked supper.

After they had eaten, he hauled in a log for the fire and filled his pipe and squatted straight before the flame, feeling her presence behind him. The food's nourishment was a quick thing in his blood, dissolving the dog-weariness of the day. He said, "What stock you have besides the sheep?"

"Six horses and two milk cows."

"The horses will be all right. They'll turn up. The cows might."

She finished the dishes and sank in the corner beside him, and firelight danced in her eyes and her hands fell idle, palms up before her; her body loosened to the heat, her will lost its grip on her thoughts and she dropped her head and was silent. He put his hands together, softly scrubbing his knuckles; he bit the pipe between his teeth and stared at the fire's heart, eyes half shut. There was nothing but lean meat on him and his bones showed—knuckles and wrists and hip corners and jaws. Sun and wind had stained his skin as walnut juice would stain it and he had that air of sharp listening that comes to a man long living alone. Health moved out of him as a current; restlessness played back and forth along his nerve tracks.

He said, "The nearest house is Burnt Ranch, sixty miles. The Dalles is a hundred and eighty miles. Canyon City is a hundred miles. We'd not make more than ten miles a day and I'd be gone from the cattle too long. I'm tied to the beasts. It'll be early spring before this snow melts from the passes. That's the soonest I can take you out."

Her head lifted to study him and in a moment he turned to meet her glance and saw the light ripple of interest cover her face, like water slowly working up through the frozen crusts of a creek. He said gently, "No doubt you'd like to leave sooner, and I wish I could do it for you, but it can't be."

"It will do," she said. She drew back against the wall, doubling her knees, and he watched her long fingers interlace and lie quietly together. Her mouth softened; she rested her head against the wall logs and rolled it and drew her lids down until they shuttered the blueness and the pointed brilliance of the firelight's shining. Behind him he heard the door open and the Indian girl's light feet move over the packed earth of the floor. He sat still and waited for her to come about him and stand motionless in the corner, looking down at him. She drew her arms across her breasts with a gesture that was like a stubborn decision. The white girl opened her eyes and watched.

Beachey said, in jargon, "It is not good for you to be here," and made a straight line across the air with one finger. He lowered his glance and waited for her to leave, and heard her feet make a soft treading behind him. A tin pan dropped from the table and he swung to see that she had made this commotion deliberately, for she had her eyes on him. The door slammed behind her.

The white girl said, "You want me to sleep in the wagon?"

"No."

"Then I'll sleep by the fire and you keep your bunk. It will be handier for me mornings when I make breakfast."

He knocked out his pipe and rose to draw the canvas down across the room, splitting it into its two halves. He removed his boots and rolled into bed and lay quiet, watching the firelight's leap on the raw roof shakes above him, hearing her leave the cabin and rummage the wagon, and return; and silence came and the long day struck him a blow across the forehead and he fell asleep as he listened to the wolves far down the valley.

An unfamiliar sound wakened him and rolled him from the bunk. She was crying but trying to cover it and wind struggled in and out of her, rasping the quietness. He pushed the canvas aside and found her lying flat and tense, facing (continued on page 197)Deep in this Land(continued from page 140) the ceiling with both hands pressed over her mouth; light flashed on her tears and through that brightness he saw the blue bottomless depth of her sadness. He got down beside her and drew her head in and felt her arm cross him and touch his shoulder, and felt the great wave of misery rise and wash everything before it, and shake her body with its crowding. Her breath thickened, and then she was crying without restraint, her fingers digging into his shirt, the warm tears rolling along his arm. Her eyes were closed, her face stern, her mouth vibrating with actual pain. She closed her fingers on him until she hurt him unknowingly, she rolled her head into his chest and poured out the formless thing, the everything and the nothing, death and blizzard and being lost and bravery that could no longer be brave, and pieces of strength and chunks of hope, and endurance that had borne too much—it all came out faster and faster, in greater volume and harsher physical punishment; and when there was nothing left within her, she lay silent, every muscle loose. He waited until he was sure she was asleep and got his arms away from her, covered her with the blankets and returned to his bunk. He put a hand on the solid wetness of his sleeve and lay for an hour awake.

•

She had risen before him to light the fire and make breakfast—oatmeal in the pot, the coffee steaming, bacon spitting in the pan. She had changed into her dress and had done her hair. Her eyes were a light blue, the strain gone from them, and she moved about her work with the first show of certainty he'd seen in her. Coldness struck him when he stepped out to the yard—it was like walking straight into a board wall; the snow had stopped, but the first stain of daylight showed him the low-hanging pall in which more weather hung suspended, and all around him silence lay not soft but hard and unpeaceful. She had, he saw, knocked the ice from basin and bucket and she had gone to the creek to fill the bucket, her tracks breaking the deep carpet of snow.

He came into the room half angered. "I don't expect you to do any rough work." Then he saw the strike of the remark in her, the moment's blurring of her brightness, and he was sorry.

"I've done it all my life. If I'm to be here till spring, I can't be helpless."

"Well," he said, "do as you wish. I'll be gone most of the day. There's a rifle in the corner—Spencer. Know how to use it?"

"Yes. But what for?"

"Nothing, I expect." He sat across the table from her and fell to his meal. He shook his head. "Now that you ask, it occurs to me maybe I have got the habit of bracing myself against things that won't happen. That's from livin' alone. There's nothing around here but space. When you look at space a long time, you get the idea that something's ready to break out of the timber—and you're not sure it'll be anything good." He finished the meal and stood a short time at the fire with his pipe to soak in heat against the long day he would be abroad. "You look better."

"I slept. Have you got any meat besides bacon?"

"Piece of venison hanging in the shed."

He got into his coat, made sure he had matches and tobacco, took his Winchester and went out to saddle his horse. Riding back, he found her waiting at the doorway with a package wrapped in cloth, a pint whiskey bottle filled with coffee and a small tin bucket. "Bacon and bread. Light a fire and heat the coffee. You always ride without something to eat?"

"Never bother."

"Well, bother. It's twenty below this morning."

He rode the incline into the valley and turned to see her raise her hand to him from the doorway. He lifted his hat and gave out a quick call that shot through the stillness and set the morning-salted horse into a fit of bucking. He stiffened his back and jammed his legs full length in the saddle. Breakfast fed its lustiness into him; he felt good, he felt restless. Riding toward the valley's foot, he counted the cattle standing dumb around the haystacks and he read the ground for animal prints, and meanwhile tried to guess the weather. There was no motion anywhere, a steel-colored ceiling hung low, a dirty-wool twilight lay packed in the trees of the roundabout ridges. The earth had quit breathing, but when it let out that accumulated wind, it would come with a rush. At the foot of the valley, he turned and followed the far ridge back toward the pass where the valley began. From this distance, he had no view of the cabin.

He found an old cow standing half-stalled near the timber and spent half an hour driving it into the flats and he went on with the weather in his mind, and the cattle in his mind—and the girl in his mind. He remembered the way he had seen her at the wagon after three days of being alone, her eyes like two holes bored deep in wood; and he remembered this morning, the lighter blue come back, the woman's look come back. He thought, I'll leave out Salt Meadow today and get home a couple hours earlier. What the hell I been going over there for, anyhow? He rose into the deeper snows of the pass and looked into the narrow corridor of another valley running east, only the foreground visible; and on this high spot, he got the shock of being alone, as sometimes he did. From this place, the land ran away in every direction to hidden valleys and pine-black ridges and clay-yellow canyons and sagebrush flats mixed in with lava-flow reefs; mile after mile of it, so empty that sometimes he felt his own queerness for having pushed this deep into it. Strange things were out yonder that nobody'd set eyes on, deep places in the earth, high places, places so old with timber that it couldn't be ridden through; thousands of years of emptiness pushing against him to make him feel he didn't belong here.

He scraped away a patch of snow at noon, lighted a fire to boil his coffee and went over a ridge into afternoon's grayness. He crossed a meadow and drifted west; he got down to buck through a breast-high patch of snow caught in the timber and came upon a small clearing in the middle of the trees—an old burn round as a saucer and not much more than 50 feet across. In the center of the clearing, a cow lay down and dying, bleeding at her back quarters, torn at the throat; and a gray shadow scurried across the corner of his vision at the same time he plucked his rifle from its boot and pumped a cartridge into the chamber. In the trees, at the very margin of the trees, he saw the shadow stop and harden into the shape of a wolf—a big one sitting on its haunches to watch with its sharp shoulders sticking up from the shaggy winter coat, stiff ears erect, lean face set in its solemn intelligence, eyes burning green even in this low light.

He threw the gun to his shoulder for a snap shot but held fire, for the wolf was at once gone; and he lowered the weapon and caught the evasive blur of other bodies moving in the timber around him, half a dozen shadows, a dozen shadows—a pack driven by hunger from the higher hills. He put a bullet into the dying cow and heard the shift and scutter of feet on the crusty snow in the trees; he got down, leading his nervous horse forward with a good grip on the reins, feeling the watchfulness of hidden eyes upon him. They had their meat and they'd not go away. He got his knife and slashed the cow in a dozen places and, still hanging to the reins—for he was careful in a situation like this—he got an envelope from his pocket and dosed the knife slashes with strychnine. Deeper in the trees, he saw a wolf broadside, one foot lifted and head turned, clever mind thinking about him and not much afraid of him. He eased the rifle across his saddle, let it lie idle a moment before the wolf's watchful eyes; then he drew it rapidly before him and fired. The wolf leaped high and fell and threshed briefly on the ground before it died, and other gray bodies, stirred by the shot, went flickering in and out of the trees, lightly running and stopping, and waiting, cautious but not afraid. He turned over the small clearing to retrace his way through the trees and found a big gray shape halted before him. He looked about, his thoughts running close and careful and quick, for now he knew he was in narrow quarters. If hunger and bravery hit them at the same moment, they'd rush in to hamstring his horse, and they might make a try at him. The big one still stood before him, head stretched forward, the crease of its mouth lean against the long snout; there was no wind, but its muzzle trembled as though it caught the blood smell, and it made a brief motion forward and froze, the greed-shining eyes round with thought. Beachey tipped the gun's muzzle for a snap shot and caught the beast in the hind quarters as it leaped aside. When he ran forward, he lost sight of the wolf in the darkness of the trees, but he saw the drip of blood and scurried snow lead away into the quickening gloom.

He moved back along the tracks he had previously made through the timber, sharp-watching to either side and to the rear; the horse pulled back and surged forward and tossed its head against the reins. Behind, he heard a swift snarling among the animals and a quick fading of the quarrel; then he noticed shadows flickering in and out of the trees to his right, ducking near, retreating—but flanking him with a calculated intention almost human in its insolence. He bucked through the drifts and was knocked down by the surge of the anxious horse against him; he sprang to his feet and saw the swift retreat of a gray body that, in that single moment, had rushed forward for attack. He threw a shot into the trees and went on over the ridge and came upon the valley. He walked a hundred feet into the valley before he stopped to rest, knowing the pack wouldn't follow him into the open. His mouth was dry and sweat dampened his hands and his legs shook; then he got onto the saddle and turned home.

It was late afternoon, the sooty shadows moving in, and as he rode along the valley, he discovered that the stock were feeding on hay pitched out from the stacks. Light trembled through the pall and towed him home. The girl waited at the doorway.

"I heard shots."

"Big pack of wolves. They had a cow down."

"Hungry beasts."

He said, "Who pitched the hay? That Indian won't work."

"I had time on my hands," she said.

Short anger stirred him again and the shadow of it came to his face.

She said, "I can't be idle—I have got to keep busy."

He shook his head and put away the horse and brought his gear into the cabin and found his washed clothes hanging on lines across the rafters. The fragrance of fresh-baked bread was sweet in the room, the big kettle bubbled with supper; she had spread a canvas wagon cover over the dirt floor. He washed, he sat up to a venison roast, browned onions and potatoes, dumplings, a dried-apple pie; and he rose from the table with a wonderful contentment and stood at the fire with his pipe. He watched her move about the dishes; he watched the quick turns of her body, the changing curves of her body as she worked, the flash of light in her eyes, the broad white hands lightly moving.

"Long time," he said. "Long time alone."

"How long?"

"Came in here summer before last. In a year and a half, I have seen four white faces—till you came." He found a dish towel to wipe the dishes, but she shook her head, almost sharp with him.

"This is my business. Where was your home?"

"At The Dalles. My people had a farm and twelve children. The country was filled up and no room to spread, but I had to spread. Had to make my try. So I worked till I got a herd together and drifted south across central Oregon, just kept going. What I wanted was grass that wouldn't die and water that wouldn't stop—and no neighbors close enough to keep me from spreading. I have got ten lean years waiting for the beef to multiply and cover the range. But when that's over, I'll look down from Bald Peak and see my range run out yonder till she drops off."

She put away the dishes, she swept the floor and moved about the narrow space to take down the dried clothes; she stacked them and said half to herself, "I will iron tomorrow." She was through with her work, but she stood idle at the doorway and looked through it into the darkness with a closed-down expression, so that he knew she was thinking of her men buried on the hill. She came to the fire and spread her hands together before it; she was idle, but even in idleness, energy moved out of her and whirled around him until it was as though he stood braced against water fast-running. Firelight ran gloss-bright tracks across her hair. Her lips lay soft-rolled together, motionless but impatient for motion. She looked at him and the violet blue was a sudden opening of a bottomless place; then she looked away and her lips stirred and came to their broad, soft rest.

Beyond the cabin, toward the lodge, feet broke the snow's surface with squealing sounds and the old Indian's voice lifted, and a woman's voice—the girl's voice—answered, and the footsteps ceased.

The white girl said, "How do Indians get married?"

"Man makes a present to the old man. Indian girl moves in. That's all."

She nodded. Presently, he knocked out his pipe, lowered the canvas from the rafter and went to bed.

•

There was no snowfall; into the gloom of first daylight a yellow cast appeared, and the silence around them had a strained and trembling quality to it. From the saddle, Beachey listened into it and swung his glance from valley to hills. She handed him his sandwich and flask of coffee and little tin bucket. "Take care, this will get worse." The old man and old woman were at the flap of the lodge, watching, and as soon as Beachey rode down the incline, they drew back into the lodge; a moment later, the old man appeared again and walked toward the ridge, soon disappearing in the trees.

Maria crossed the yard and stepped into the lodge. The girl and the old woman were squatted at a little fire, half talking and half whispering. They quit, they raised their eyes to her and she saw that they hated her; the old woman's eyes gleamed with it, the girl's eyes were flat-colored by it. She looked about her for some white man's object that would tell her that Beachey had bought the girl for his wife, but she saw nothing that wasn't Indian except a long butcher knife in the old woman's lap. No, she thought, that's not a thing a white man would trade for a woman, and turned back to the cabin. The man didn't value this girl enough to buy her; the girl wasn't in his heart.

She stood a short time in the center of the cabin room, hands folded, slowly turning to look at everything about her, and restlessness disturbed her hands and a determined expression came over her face and she set to work. She dragged everything to one end of the cabin and swept it, ceiling, walls and floor; she transferred the things to the clean end and swept the other end. In the lean-to, she found some pine poles and chopped them to proper length and made a kind of half attic over part of the room and stored part of Beachey's possessions there; she got a big canvas tarpaulin from her wagon and spread it on the floor and arranged the food stores and the gear and the clothes around the room to please her sense of order. At noon, she drank coffee, ironed the clothes and filled the fireplace; then she stood by it to listen into the strangled stillness of the day and she thought of her people, and she thought of Beachey, and of the Indian girl, and of herself. Fire's light danced against the indigo shade of her eyes; and she turned to Beachey's bunk and watched it with her round mouth rounded into its calm; her shoulders rose and settled. It was a gesture, but it was the outward ripple of her mind's decision. She turned out to the lean-to and brought in a wooden tub, and set forth with the bucket to fetch water from the creek.

The old Indian, returning from the ridge, watched her. He called into the lodge, bringing out both women. The three stood with bent heads, glances slanted on her, thinking about her and angered by her; and the old woman stepped into the lodge and came back with the butcher knife and, issuing a shrill cry, rushed forward.

Halfway to the cabin with a filled bucket, Maria turned in time to dash the water into the old woman's face. The woman checked herself, the old man growled at her, the Indian girl stood back intent with her watching. The old woman made a gouging motion toward Maria with the knife, pointed at the cabin and pointed into the valley, her fingers making a signal of walking away. She waited until she saw that the threat was no good and crouched and crept forward, old knuckles white against the knife's handle. Maria stepped sideways, circling as the squaw came on; and she raised the bucket and swung it toward the squaw. The old woman jumped and ran straight in, slashing the knife downward. Maria brought the bucket across the woman's arm and knocked the knife to the ground; and as the old one dropped in the snow to recover her weapon, Maria ran into the cabin, seized the rifle and came out. In the day's strained silence, the bolt made a hungry sound when it drove a shell into the gun's breech. Squaw and man and girl were all at once shouting at her with their rage, and the shouting went on until the squaw rose to her feet; then the three stopped their crying and stared.

Maria aimed her finger at the lodge. She made a turning, dropping motion with her hand, she pointed to the ridge. Old man and old woman shouted at her again, but the Indian girl spoke to the old people and went into the lodge. Maria retreated to the cabin's doorway and watched the old man go into the valley to catch up his ponies; there was furious motion inside the lodge, both women talking, the skin walls trembling, and as soon as the old man got back, the women knocked down the lodge in a dozen quick motions, lashed it to its poles and hitched the poles to one of the ponies. They didn't look at her; old man and travois moved away toward the ridge, the two women riding behind, and in a little while, they were gone and there was nothing in the yard to mark them save the round circle where the lodge had been.

Maria drew back the gun's bolt, lifted out the shell in the chamber and laid the gun aside. She watched the valley a moment and took her bath and combed her hair. Twilight came in and somewhere not far off there was the rumor of great motion in the sky, and the motion reached forward until the trees began to tremble and first wind sighed on the cabin. She had supper half done when Beachey called through the quickening fall of snow. From the doorway, she saw him break through the dense gray wall of weather, bent forward on the horse, eyes black as coal against the beaten redness of his face. He noticed the lodge's absence and his glance went along the churned tracks in the snow. "They gone?"

"Yes."

"Trouble?"

"I had the gun."

"I'll feed the stock," he said, and faded into the blind night.

Wind shook the cabin and its beginning cry was at the eaves. She put on the supper when she heard him drive the horse back to the lean-to. She waited at the fire, listening to the door of the cabin open and close. She waited for him to speak of the change in the room.

"Looks good," he said, and sat down to his supper, ate it and dropped before the fireplace with his pipe.

"Floor wouldn't hurt this place," he said.

"Be cleaner," she said, and went at the dishes.

"I'll make it soon as the storm lifts."

She did her chores and came to the fire, standing beside him and above him. Her hands lay quietly together. Wind struck its steady hammer blows on the cabin; the night was a void—and the void was a cold and bitter and unbearable thing; and there was no world save this lone bright cell. He sat up and raised his glance.

"There's no way of getting out of here until spring. You understand? No way until the passes clear."

She kept her eyes on the fire. "People have to live," she said.

He bent to catch some thin torn echo wavering in the flood of other sounds rushing by. She listened with him, thinking she heard the sound of wolves. She looked down upon the top of his head and her mouth stirred and made a new line. He saw that, he had been watching for it, and his eyes drove his thought into her. Her hands began to stir with their restlessness and she sank slowly to her knees and her body began to turn inward as he rose to meet her.

"He stood by with the shovel, not anxious to fill in the grave before her eyes. 'You want to pray?' "