when the sun dropped over the western ridge, the girl in the deep sunbonnet unhitched her horses from the plow. she looped her lines on the hames, rubbed each sweated bay head a moment, carefully cleaned her share with a small wooden paddle which she took from a pocket in her calico skirt, and tipped the implement over, share-face down.
then she untied the slatted bonnet and took it off, carrying it in her hand as she swung away with her team at her heels, and the change was marvelous. where had been a somewhat masculine figure, plodding at man’s work a few moments before, was now a young goddess striding the virgin earth.
the rose glow of coming twilight in the mountains bathed the stern slants with magic, fell on her bronze head like ethereal dust of gems. all in a moment she had become beautiful. the golden shade of her smooth skin was put a tint above that of her hair and brows and lashes, a blend to delight an artist, so rare was it—though her mother said they were “all off the same piece.” there was red in her makeup, too, faint, thinned, beneath the light tan of her cheeks, flaming forth brightly in the even line of her full lips.
out of this flare of noon-day color her blue eyes shone like calm waters under summer skies. some of the men of the country had seen john allison’s daughter, but not one of them would have told you she was handsome—for not one of them had seen her without the disfiguring shelter of the bonnet. she went with the weary horses to the edge of the river, flat here in the broad meadows, and stood between them as they drank.
she raised her head and looked across the swift water-stream to the high shoulder of the distant ridge, but there was no fear in the calm depths of her eyes. she stood so, quiet, tired, at ease, until the horses had drunk their fill and with windy breaths of satisfaction were ready to go on across the flat to the stable and corral.
here she left them in the hands of a boy of seventeen, very much after her own type, but who walked with a hopeless halt, and went on to the cabin.
“hello, mammy,” she said, smiling—and if she had been beautiful before she was exquisite when she smiled, for the red lips curled up at the corners and the blue eyes narrowed to drowsy slits of sweetness.
but there was no answering smile on the gaunt face of the big woman who met her at the door with work-hardened hands laid anxiously on her young shoulders.
“nance, girl,” she said straightly, “i heard a shot this afternoon—i reckon it whistled some out there in th’ field?”
“it did,” said nance honestly, “so close it made dan squat.”
in spite of her courage the woman paled a bit.
“my lord a’mighty!” she said distressedly, “i do wish your pappy had stayed in missouri! i make no doubt he’d been livin’ today—and i’d not be eating my heart out with longin’ for him, sorrow over bud, an’ fear for you every time you’re out of my sight. and th’ land ain’t worth it.”
but nance allison laid her hand over her mother’s and turned in the doorway to look once again at the red and purple veils of dusk-haze falling down the mountain’s face, to listen to the song of nameless river, hurrying down from the mysterious cañons of the deep heart hills, and a sort of adoring awe irradiated her features.
“worth it?” she repeated slowly. “no—not papp’s death—not bud’s lameness—but worth every lick of work i ever can do, worth every glorious hour i spend on it, worth every bluff i call, every sneak-thief enemy i defy—and some day it will be worth a mint of gold when the cattle grow to herds. and in the meantime it’s—why, mammy, it’s the anteroom of heaven, the fringes of paradise, right here in nameless valley.”
the mother sighed.
“you love it a lot, don’t you?” she asked plaintively.
“i think it’s more than love,” said the big girl slowly as she rolled her faded sleeves higher along her golden arms preparatory to washing at the well in the yard, “i think it’s principle—a proving of myself—i think it’s a front line in the battle of life—and i believe i’m a mighty fighter.”
“i know you are,” said the woman with conviction, faintly tinged with pride, “but—there’ll be few cattle left for herds if things go on the way they have gone. perhaps there’ll be neither herds nor herders——”
but her daughter interrupted.
“there’ll be a fight, at any rate,” she said as she plunged her face, man fashion, into the basin filled with water from the bucket which she had lifted, hand over hand—“there’ll be a fight to the finish when i start—and some day i’m afraid i’ll start.”
she looked at her mother with a shade of trouble on her frank face.
“for two years,” she added, “i’ve been turning the other cheek to my enemies. i haven’t passed that stage, yet. i’m still patient—but i feel stirrings.”
“god forbid!” said the older woman solemnly, “it sounds like feud!”
“will be,” returned the girl shortly, “though i pray against it night and day.”
the boy bud came up from the stable along the path, and nance stood watching him. there was but one thing in nameless valley that could harden her sweet mouth, could break up the habitual calm of her eyes. this was her brother, bud.
when she regarded him, as she did now, there was always a flash of flame in her face, a wimple of anguish passing on her features, an explosion, as it were, of some deep and surging passion, covered in; hidden, like molten lava in some half-dead crater, its dull surface cracking here and there with seams of awful light which drew together swiftly. now for the moment the little play went on in her face.
then she smiled, for he was near.
“hello, kid,” she said, “how’s all?”
the boy smiled back and he was like her as two peas are like each other—the same golden skin, the same mouth, the same blue eyes crinkling at the corners.
but there the likeness ended, for where nance was a delight to the eye in her physical perfection, the boy hung lopsided, his left shoulder drooping, his left leg grotesquely bandied.
but the joy of life was in him as it was in nance, despite his misfortune.
“whew!” he said, “it’s gettin’ warm a-ready. pretty near melted working in th’ garden today. got three beds ready. earth works up fine as sand.”
“so it does in the field,” said nance as she followed the mother into the cabin, “it’s like mould and ashes and all the good things of the land worked in together. it smells as fresh as they say the sea winds smell. each time i work it, it seems wilder and sweeter—old lady earth sending out her alluring promise.”
“land sakes, girl,” said mrs. allison, “where do you get such fancies!”
“where do you suppose?” said nance, “out of the earth herself. she tells me a-many things here on nameless—such as the value of patience, an’ how to be strong in adversity. i’ve never had the schools, not since those long-back days in missouri, but i’ve got my bible and i’ve got the land. and i’ve got the sky and the hills and the river, too. if a body can’t learn from them he’s poor stuff inside. mighty poor.”
she tidied her hair before the tiny mirror that hung on the kitchen wall, a small matter of passing her hands over the shining mass, for the braids were smooth, almost as they had been when she pinned them there before sun-up, and rolling down her sleeves, sat down to the table where a simple meal was steaming. she bowed her head and mrs. allison, her lean face gaunt with shadows of fear and apprehension, folded her hard hands and asked the customary blessing of that humble house.
humble it was in every particular—of its scant furnishings, of its bare cleanliness which was its only adornment, of the plain food on the scoured, clothless table.
these folk who lived in it were humble, too, if one judged only by their toil-scarred hands, their weary faces.
but under the plain exterior there was something which set them apart, which defied the stamp of commonplace, which bid for the extraordinary.
this was the dominant presence of purpose in the two younger faces, the spirit of patient courage which shone naked from the two pairs of blue eyes.
the mother had less of it.
she was like a war-mother of old—waiting always with a set mouth and eyes scanning the distances for tragedy.
that living spirit of stubborn courage had come out of the heart and soul of john allison, latter day pioneer, who for two years had slept in a low, neat bed at the mountain’s foot beyond the cabin, his end one of the mysteries of the wild land he had loved. his wife had never ceased to fret for its unravelling, to know the how and wherefore of his fall down rainbow cliff—he, the mountaineer, the sure, the unchancing. his daughter and son had accepted it, laid it aside for the future to deal with, and taken up the work which he had dropped—the plow, the rope and the cattle brand.
it was heavy work for young hands, young brains.
the great meadow on the other side of nameless was rich in wild grass, a priceless possession. for five years it had produced abundant stacks to feed the cattle over, and the cutting and stacking was work that taxed the two to the very limit of endurance. and the corn-land at the west—that, too, took labor fit for man’s muscles. but there were the hogs that ran wild and made such quick fattening on the golden grain in the early fall. it was the hogs that paid most of the year’s debt at the trading store, providing the bare necessities of life, and nance could not give up that revenue, work or no work. heaven knew, she needed them this year more than ever—since the fire which had flared in a night the previous harvest and taken all three of the stacks in the big meadow. that had been disaster, indeed, for it had forced her to sell every head of her stock that she could, at lowest prices, leaving barely enough to get another start. mckane had bought, but he had driven a hard bargain.
this was another spring and hope stirred in her, as it is ever prone to do in the heart of youth.
tired as she was, the girl brought forth from the ancient bureau in her own room beyond, a worn old bible, and placing it beneath the lamp, sat herself down beside the table to the study of that great book which was her classic and her school. mrs. allison had retired into the depths of the cabin, from the small room adjoining, nance could hear the regular breathing of bud, weary from his labors. for a long time she sat still, her hands lying cupped around the book, her face pensive with weariness, her eyes fixed unwinking on the yellow flame. then she turned the thin pages with a reverent hand and at the honeysweet rhythms of the psalms, stopped and began to read.
with david she wandered afar into fields of divine asphodel, was soon lost in a sea of spiritual praise and song.
her young head, haloed with a golden spray in the light of the lamp, was bent above the bible, her lashes lay like golden circles, sparkling on her cheeks, her lips were sweetly moulded to the words she unconsciously formed as she read.
for a long time she pored over the ancient treasure of the scriptures, and in all truth she was innocent enough, lovely enough to have stirred a heart of stone. it was warm with the breath of spring outside. window and door stood open and no breeze stirred the cheap white curtain at the sill.
peace was there in the lone homestead by the river, the security that comes with knowledge that all is looked to faithfully. nance knew that the two huge padlocks on the stout log barn that housed the horses and the two milk cows, were duly fastened, for their keys hung on the wall beside the towel-roller. she knew that the well-board was down, that the box was filled with wood for the early breakfast fire.
“‘in thee, oh, lord, do i put my trust,’” she read in silence. “‘let me never be ashamed, deliver me in thy righteousness——’”
she laid her temples in her palms, her elbows on the table, and her blue eyes followed the printed lines with a rapt delight.
suddenly she sat upright, alert, her face lifted like that of a startled creature of the wild. she had heard no sound. there had been no tremor of the earth to betray a step outside, and yet she felt a presence.
she did not look toward the openings, but stared at the wall before her with its rows of shelves behind their screened doors where her mother kept her scoured pans.
and then, suddenly, there came a thin, keen whine, a little clear whistle, and a knife stood quivering between her dropped hands, its point imbedded deep in the leaves of the old bible.
for a moment she sat so, while a flush of anger poured up along her throat to flare to the roots of her banded hair.
with no uncertain hand she jerked the blade from the profound pages, leapt to her feet, snatched a stub of pencil from a broken mug on a shelf, tore a fly-leaf from the precious book, and, bending in the light, wrote something on it. she folded the bit of paper, thrust the knife point through it and, turning swiftly, flung them viciously through the window where the thin curtain had been parted.
she stood so, facing the window defiantly, scorning to blow out the light.
then she dropped her eyes to the desecrated word and they were flaming—and this is what she had written on the fly-leaf:
“the lord is the strength of my life—of whom shall i be afraid? though a host shall encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.”
very deliberately she closed the door and window, turned locks on both, picked up her lamp and bible and went into her own room beyond. serene in the abiding faith of those divine words she soon forgot the world and all it held of work and care, of veiled threat and menace.
at daybreak she opened the window and scanned the ground outside. there was no thin-bladed knife in sight, no folded bit of paper with its holy defiance. the whole thing might have been a dream.
