Silvertip (1942) (21 page)

Juan Perez, who had recovered consciousness, was leaning over him, asking how he was. And then the girl slipped in between them and caught Silver in her arms, saying:

"Do you ask questions like a fool? He's shot through the body! He's dying! Call for help! If he's lost, there's no glory left in this day for the house of Monterey!"

Chapter
XXVI

Geese Across the Moo
n
IF SILVER did not die, it would be because, said the two doctors who worked over him by day and by night, he obstinately refused to give up life, even when all that remained to him was only a little handful of the immortal fire.

But he lived, and when he could sit up in the bed, he learned the great tidings of events that had happened while he lay senseless, near to death.

The Drummons were gone. Their long fight, for generations, to win and hold the Haverhill Valley for themselves, had failed. Their leader was dead. Their spirits were broken. And they had sold out their lands for a song and left the Haverhill in a great procession of horses and wagons, like a picture of emigration out of an earlier day. Farther west and farther north, they would try to find a new home for themselves.

In the meantime, old Arturo Monterey, at the end of his life, had swept in for little cost all the lands that he had fought for so long. As for the village, it was gone. On the morning of the day when the Drummons moved out, a fire had started mysteriously, and in a few hours it was uncontrollably sweeping the place. Now rains were beating and winds blowing the black ash heaps of the spot where the place had stood.

All of these things Silver heard. And he could have guessed them, he often thought, merely by the sounds of song and laughter which, all day long, flowed through the house of Monterey-now near at hand, now sweet with distance.

He began to recover rapidly. The day came when he could walk, and then he could ride out with Juan Perez. And the peons in the fields ran to the fences and shouted and cheered him like a hero.

It made Silver laugh with joy to hear them.

Every day he rode out, and every day, when he returned, he felt that he was being brought nearer and nearer to the crucial point of his life. Monterey had said nothing; the girl had said nothing; but he knew that their eyes were waiting for him to speak. And the question that he must answer was as to whether or not he chose to spend his life here in Haverhill, now that it was purged of its plague.

If he spoke, he knew without vanity that the girl would marry him, and that old Monterey would leave the whole estate to her. But neither of them spoke, and he, day by day, tried to face the question, and could not.

His thought was totally in solution, and something from the outside was needed to precipitate it in the form of action.

It was turning cool now in the evenings, but still they dined on the garden terrace and in the twilight of this day a big golden moon came up out of the east and climbed softly up the sky.

A streak of shadow moved across it. Silver stared, and could not understand, for no cloud could be at once so narrow and so dark a line, nor could the wind blow any
mist with such speed, he felt.

A breeze cut at them from the mountains. And Julia went into the house to get a heavier cloak. But old Monterey remained seated in his chair, his eyes rarely leaving
the face of Silver.

It was the night when some word must be spoken, Silver felt. There was a warm and happy flow of tempta-
t
ion when he thought of the quiet days of contentment which could stretch before him if he married the girl and settled to life in the Haverhill.

And yet something checked him, and he could not tell what.

More often, day by day, he thought of young Pedro Monterey, to whom this place should have gone in right succession. He could think without sharp pain of the dead man now, for the vow he had made silently in Cruces had been discharged. And still Pedro Monterey remained the shadow on his mind.

So on this night, as he sat with old Monterey in the garden, he heard a vague sound come out of the upper air, and looked up, startled.

He could see nothing.

It was a cry that he had heard before, he could not tell where. His inactive brain would not place the note that had reached his ears. But it stirred infinite echoes within him.

"What is it, my son?" said the gentle voice of Don Arturo.

"Nothing," said Silver briefly.

But his heart began to throb uneasily. A melancholy desire for he knew not what possessed him.

He stood up and began to walk the terrace with rapid steps, feeling the glance of Monterey swing back and forth with him.

Again the dark, triangular line swept across the face of the moon, and a moment later the cry came out of the sky again.

Wild geese! Wild geese flying south! Now he knew what it was that stirred in his blood. He, also, wanted to be on the wing to another land. And suddenly the mountains on either side of the Haverhill rose for him like prison walls.

Again that half melodious, half brazen call came tingling out of the upper air and ran through all his blood.

"I'm going inside," he said thickly. "I'll get-something to put on!"

That was how he left them.

It was not many minutes afterward that Julia Monterey came down and looked eagerly, anxiously, but saw that Silver was gone. Monterey answered her look.

"He has gone inside to get a heavier coat," said the ol
d
man. "He is very restless. He has been walking up and down the terrace. Tonight, my dear, he is surely going to speak. And after that we shall be happy together forever."

"Restless? He may be restless to leave us!" she exclaimed. "What did he say when he went in?"

"Only that he was going to get something to put on. The wild geese had flown across the moon; when they called | out of the sky, he looked up suddenly. And then I suppose that he felt the cold as he heard them, and he went inside."

"The wild geese?" she murmured.

And she in turn heard the distant chorus swept down
from the chilly regions about. Between her and the moon the unseen hosts were flying and sending their harsh music toward the earth.

"The wild geese-and he has gone! He has gone to follow them. He has gone to-"

She fled suddenly from the terrace. Arturo Monterey
stood up, startled and amazed. He cried after her.

But she, unheeding, ran on into the house, and hurried to the room of Silver. There was no answer to her knock. She threw the door open, and the darkness seemed to roll out just like a thick mist across her eyes.

She fled down to the patio.

"Senior Silver!" she cried to one of the house mozos. "Have you seen him?"

"Going toward the stable," said the servant.

"The stable!" moaned Julia Monterey, and ran on, breathless with fear.

It was near the stable that she met with Juan Perez, walking with his head thoughtfully bowed.

"Juan!" she cried. "Juan, have you seen Senior Silver? Has he been here?"

"Here and gone again," said Juan Perez. "There was trouble in his face. And he left this for you and the senior."

She snatched the letter and tore it open, to read:

MY DEAR FRIENDS: It came over me all at once, tonight, that I must go. I wanted to stay and say good-by to you, but I knew that you would be kind, and ask me why I should leave, and then I would be able to give no answer.

Forgive me for leaving like a thief in the night.

Some day I shall surely come to you again. From wherever I light, I shall write to you everything.

ADIOS, ADIOS.

She crushed the paper in her hand and ran across the patio to the great entrance arch, crying out his name. The sound of her voice passed down the road and echoed back to her emptily from the hillside.

It was dawn of the next day. High up in the center of the northern pass, Silvertip turned in the saddle and looked back on the blue of the river and the green, rolling lands that swept up from the stream. He could see the cattle as dull spots of color, and the distant house of Monterey was like a child's toy that one could have picked up between thumb and forefinger.

He looked at it until a certain mistiness came over his eyes. Then he turned and walked the horse little by little over the ridge.

He knew that he was leaving a glorious chance of happiness behind him; but he closed his eyes to it.

The chance was so great indeed that he felt it pulling at his heart with hands.

He would not surrender to it. The old unrest moved in him like new blood. The wind of the mountains vainly caused his new wounds to ache.

He set his teeth firmly and aimed his course toward the blue and crystal-white of distant mountains.