The Pagan's Progress by Gouverneur Morris - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXIII
 THE LONG TRAIL

Sunrise, carrying his bow and arrows, toiled over the plain heavy with moo the recent rain. The sun shone strongly and the sky was blue. Behind him the snow capped mountains glistened in the bright light, before him a barrier of lofty forest, fresh and green, marked the termination of the plain. He was bent low to the ground, and extreme exhaustion marked his going. His hands and forearms were dark and clotted with that which was drying on them.

“If she will only live till I come,” he said, “if she will only live till I come.”

The sun blazed; the feet of the man were springless; his eyes, deep sunken, burned like red coals.

“If she will only live till I come,” he said, “if she will only live till I come.”

He was following the back-trail by memory and instinct, for the rain had wiped all signs of the pursuit from the face of the earth. At times Sunrise thought of what he was leaving behind him; at times of the work that was still to do.

These two thoughts, so opposite that it was paradoxical for them to be contained in one skull, supported him thro the cruel toil of his going.

When he came to the forest it was wet and green and full of bird singing: for at this time the birds were mating and it seemed sweet to them.

That day he killed, ate greatly and drank deep. After which he slept; and there was no log in the forest which lay more still. It was as tho’ he had died.

In the night wolves came and sniffed at him and could hardly believe the noses which told them that he was alive and not for them. In the morning he came to life, and tho’ still aching in every bone, took up the back-trail at the trot.

The going was easier in the forest and more secure, for there the rain had not fallen so violently, and the tracks were still visible—his own tracks and the tracks of those feet which would not press into moss any more. He went on all that day, and the next night.

He came at length to the place where he had left Dawn, but she was not there. He knew that she would not be, and yet somehow his heart sank.

“She had no weapons,” he said. “Furthermore she was very weak and it may be that the meat was not sufficient.”

For an hour or more, running swiftly, he followed a winding and rambling trail.

“She was searching for food,” he said, “but at this season there are no berries, and she was without weapons.”

The trail finally turned abruptly downward into a gully filled with young trees, from whose midst could be heard the chattering of a brook.

Sunrise paused on the brink. His head sank on his chest; his muscles relaxed. He all but dropped his bow. As he stood thus the days of his youth went from him forever.

“I shall find her below,” he said presently, “but she will not speak to me. I have been too long in coming.”

He descended into the gully, slowly, like one in a dream.

She had died among the violets by the brook, and she was not yet cold. In her hand was a branch of birch half stripped of its leaves; for she had eaten them to stave off starvation.

He sat for a long time with her head on his knees. “I should have stayed with you, Dawn,” he said. “I should have let the man go.”

And later.

“There will never be any solace to me in thinking of what I have done. My cave will be always empty now. There will be no son to cling to my fingers with his little hands. There will be nothing for me now. For I shall always be finding you silent among the violets by the brook.”

For a long time the strong man was shaken with sobs, so that it seemed as if they would kill him. After that a kind of exaltation possessed him and he saw visions of her. Wherever he looked he saw her coming to him thro the young trees.

“She is not dead,” he cried, “she is not dead.”

But the corpse at his feet was now icy cold.

Then he seemed to see her going thro a strange forest alone, and she was without weapons or food. He called to her, but she only shook her head and fell to the ground.

“She is starving,” he cried.

But she staggered to her feet and went on. And now she was crossing an arid plain, but upon the other side were the fires of a strange tribe, and in the mouths of all the caves meat was hanging.

The people beckoned to her and called and she stretched out her arms to them, but it seemed impossible that she should reach them, so slowly she went and so wearily she dragged her feet.

But the vision went out, and the brook was loud in his ears.

“If she had had food,” he said, “she might have reached that friendly tribe and they would have given her a cave to rest in and cool water to drink.”

As he spoke a young deer stepped into the brook with a clinking of hooves upon stones. Sunrise loosed an arrow, and the deer pierced thro the heart, fell shapelessly in the shallow water.

“She shall not go on this journey without food,” said Sunrise.

He cleaned the kill and then toiling till his back was like to break, he made a great excavation in the side of the gully, and therein he laid Dawn and the young deer.

Then he looked lovingly upon his faithful bow and his good arrows.

“It may be,” he said at length, “that the journey is very long and the deer will not suffice.”

And he opened Dawn’s left hand and clasped it about the grip of the bow and in her right hand he laid the arrows.

“It may be,” he said, “that one day I shall follow on your trail again.”

Then he began to close the grave. But twice that he might look once more on Dawn he desisted and undid what he had done. When the work was finished, he turned slowly away.

“Now I will go back to my people,” he said.

The fires of the tribe were days distant, and, without food or weapons, he was naked as he had come into the world. But he set his valiant feet upon the long trail. And as he went he kept finding her silent among the violets.

THE END