Home
She'd thrust the canyon out of her mind; she never thought of the whispering fall, the ferns, the hawk-haunted
Hills intense in the sun: no more than the child remembers uterine life: but after her mother
Died, and Phil Maybrick was holding her to the promised marriage; when time for some reason grew terrible:
" Why does it taste like ashes? Have children, begin it all over again, the anxious fable? Or have none,
Lie in his arms like stagnant water in the awful emptiness? " She was convinced that some insanity,
Obstruction in the mind, nothing in the nature of things, a wall of perverse thought that might be thrown down,
Threatened her away from normal happiness. " I've taught school three years and always hated it. I'll take
One month of perfect rest, away from the town, away from the people I know " — suddenly her mind
Was like a city built with towers, full of a vision
Of the heights that she was born under, hills like humped cattle herded to the ocean, south of Monterey —
" I shall come back and be myself, be human like the others. " She wrote it all in a letter to him,
Except the place; and promising love forever, her name, Rachel Devine. If he were too angry
It was not, perhaps, paradise ... would crumble.
She went to the place, and boarded at the farmer's below.
How long was it, nine years? These people had come since hers ... departed: her name wasn't remembered.
The hills were undiminished, as great and sun-beaten and solitary as ever of old,
Though she'd been but a child, but twelve years old, last seeing them. Three days she wandered on the great heights
Over the ocean. She wanted to enter the canyon; she was afraid; the fourth, she entered the canyon
With the shamed fear that a child feels
Who listens in the night to terrible sighs and whispers and the bed of her parents
Straining, the shame and fear: the paths were not much overgrown; though the dwelling she knew was ruinous
Men still drove cows through the deep canyon to the hills at the head. The creek sang the old music, the cresses
Were all in white flower. A mile up the deep cleft, in sight of the remembered roof, the path split.
One way led over the stream by the great blocks of stone to the clump of willows ... her father, when the world
Darkened about him: she remembered his body
Brought from the blood-stained willows. She never had seen the puddle of blood; her mind had seen it so dreadfully
On the dead earth under the willows:
The red glaze blackening in from the edges was clearer than memory. She never had seen the wound; for his face
Had not been torn outward, he held the muzzle in his mouth. " Dear God no wonder, " she thought " no wonder
With such wounds in my mind! Here is the place I should have fled from: I have come to this place. " She lingered
At the split way, tasting the sickness high in her throat. The choked path to the house less painful,
She followed that path: no ghost: herself was the ghost: she'd thought it might have stood grizzled and blood splotched:
But nothing came along the thick leaves. The gapped doorway and the glassless windows. " Well: if I go in:
Because I've caught something from the lean hawks on the hillside. But really I feel little, why almost
Nothing, feel nothing, that's wise. The coast's heavy with stone. " She entered the squalid rooms, the disgrace
And wreck of the house. Mice ran, and a linnet
Dodged out the far window. In the next room, one side of the cold hearth, the floor was all rotted,
Some tribe of burrowers had heaped earth there, through the brown hole, higher than the broken planks. She approaching
A rattle buzzed hard and she drew back from the planks. She thought of finding a stick, but turned in the doorway
Happy with her new thought: " This is my house and you're my watchdog. Meet strangers for me. "
All night
In the farmhouse in the strain of the sea's voice, in dreams and waking she was not unhappy, remotely consoled
By the utter ruin of what she had visited; most by the snake at the hearth. Returning after two days
She heard one in the grass by the door and saw another in the house, by the rotted planks. In the basket
The farmer's wife had given her, a little bottle of milk was packed with the food; she found a cracked saucer
Back of the house, filled it with milk and crumbs of bread, she set it on the floor, then heedfully pushed it.
With the fork of a long rod to the edge of the planks, the ridged brown opening. Had she read somewhere of pouring
Milk for the household spirit, the serpent? She seemed remembering ... that was no matter: if the act in itself
Gave pleasure: " I love their enemies. " Then she remembered gently, with distant loneliness, her city lover.
" I'm out of the net. Something from the hills
Comes in here, cold strength. " She was feebler than flesh and her heart knew it. At least not afraid of death she wandered
Outside the house, the dusty squalor within was too repulsive to suffer. Old oaks, the sweet leaves
Of alders, the polished fragrance the mountain laurels, and standing over a notch in the trees the tall dark
Mountain southward, an obelisk-shaped growth of deep redwoods heavy in the sun climbing the chief
Fold in the furrowed flank. She breathed with pleasure. " No humanity, no humanity at all.
Well done destruction. "
Rachel returned to the farmhouse.
A horseman at the gate of the yard talked with the farmer. He was not a cowboy; clean cloth, bright leather,
Ruling the restless horse. She felt his eyes touch her approaching, saw him speak, imagined the farmer
Answering, " Young schoolteacher from town. " She looked up frankly toward the rider as she entered the gate,
Question for question, she went on to the house feeling his eyes. Some troublesome spring of perplexed ...
Memory perhaps? ... had spoilt her confidence. A brutal face; sunburnt and strong, handsome you'd call it,
Older than she'd supposed, forty no doubt. How far from Philip's sensitive features, the charm
And the shy power. It came through her mind
That she was too coarse for Philip, a cattleman's daughter from the rough coast: Oh worse than that, or he'd not
Have gone down the red path. The farmer came in,
She asked who was that man on horseback? And pale, thinking " I should have known, remembered, I am calm
As the hills themselves, " heard the man's name: Charlie McCandless, the man who'd pressed her father to the pit,
Who'd brought the charge against him. " They'd think it was strength, "
She thought, " this quietness. It's not: I feel nothing. " Owned her father's house now, this man, the shameful
Wreck of a house, and the sweet canyon. His own was over the ridge southward; his hills, his ranges,
His prosperity. The one had killed himself and the other had prospered. He was almost her father's murderer:
He had brought the charge that had brought death.
She thought in the night it was soft folly to expect reason,
Justice or any human rightness in life. God, if there was one: the rattlesnakes God also.
The milk she poured them next day (she poured it again) was a libation. Did they drink? The saucer was empty
But a sour crust at the edges. Perhaps the little lives that serve them for food had lapped it, been caught,
Life for life, all's fair. " The thing is, to find one's meat. That's what they know. "
She went up stream, by the boulders
And the slip of shore. The cliff and the thick leaves enclosed the widened creek, clear-currented cauldron,
One stone on the edge, the sun gilded. In the heat; by the stream; chiefly in the clean deliverance from eyes:
She felt all thoughts dropping, all that disturbs quietness falling, peace coming up, clear water.
She was not tired enough for peace, through the dark surface
Like a shark's fin, like a tower of white stone: whom would she wish come up from the water, naked companion?
A marble boy; minion not lover ... Antinous ... no one with personality, no one known to her;
Her own creature; she needed weakness to be strong with, coolness for fever, her own creature;
So shy that he'd need wooing, so young and soft that he'd need nursing, between the rose-crested hills,
Before some life of her own should filter into his arteries, the soft whiteness grow stronger, the child
Petted to life sharpen its softness to go home ... " Ah, shame, shame, "
She felt her cheeks blazing, " you that were nerved for all the unreason, the savage energy, the snakes' God,
Hide in a cave to dream? " She thought " If I could give away my virginity, that's what weakens me.
That caution once lost: there's not a man: to the stone hills. Fool, " she whispered to herself, and finding
A break in the cliff forced herself upward through the thicket, felt with sharp satisfaction the branches.
Breaking, the twigs like thorns; in the midst it was a nightmare of heat and pressure; she crept beyond it,
Lay panting on the open slope; her clothes were scarred, her hands bleeding. She'd never go back: it was this
Was needed: harsh touches, steep freedom, recklessness. Labored up hill in the steep heat, gained the first summit,
Felt the great hills ringing like gongs in the universal sunlight, the bronze reverberance, the beating
Hammers of light. Then having to make water she looked for shelter and she thought, " No, here and publicly. "
It gave her pleasure on the open height, she felt the shudder imagined of love, the consecration,
And dizzy with yearning toward no person wandered down westward; the ocean, taut blue, strung in the acute
V of the violent hills.
Phil Maybrick was at the farmhouse. " I knew you would go to this place, Rachel.
Oh I'm glad. I was afraid I'd not find you. I've waited hours here. " The thin young face lighted with confidence,
The luminous eyes: her own hardened, her blue ones. " I asked for a month. " " Dearest ... " " Take the apple green then.
But come away from the house. " His car was in the withering grass outside the gateway, they stood by it,
Then Rachel: " You've caught me honest, You came too soon Philip, you never needed to have known anything.
Dupes are happy. " " What do you mean, what do you mean? " " I meant to cheat you happy. Push in
While the fire's roaring? Be burnt then. Your fault.
I would have fooled you. " " You're not well, Rachel, you're pale, you've torn your clothes too, this insane talk
Has no meaning in the world. " " Well it's a wonderful relief for me too, I was going to marry you;
Live in a coop, we'd know the smell of each other and you'd take me to shows
Once a week. That's finished. " " I only know you're talking horribly, horrible things ... " " If you want
Everything told plainly: I've got a man here, one that I want really, I meet him back here
At a dead house. You thought I was ... white? He had me before I left here: I was twelve years old then: he had me.
So I came back for a month, Philip.
You'd kept away you might have had an eight-month baby next winter. People will take what they get.
I never talked shamelessly before: not till you came pushing in unwanted: now take it,
Shameless and all. "
" Why, " he said, " you're lying; that's all. You must come back with me. " She, trembling: " Bound to be cheated? I'll tell you more:
This was my father's enemy, the man that made him kill himself. That's something. Now he's got married, has children;
I'm the luxury. " Philip began to tremble, but silent, and Rachel: " Probably you won't believe me
Until I hide you in a closet in the dead house. When you see the skirt lift. " Mumbling, he answered
With dead lips, " I believe you. Well. No, " he shouted,
" I've got my mother to think of. You thought I'd let myself be tried for murder, for a whore's sake? " His dead-seeming
Lips mumbled so, she thought he was gathering slime behind them to spit in her face. He shuddered. " I'm not
The fool you think me. But, " he said, " everything's horrible.
You've that much triumph. This'll never be wiped, never be wiped, I'll never look at the stars
But see dirt. Are you diseased yet? When't blotches your face
I'll pay the doctor. " He frowned and coughed into his hand. " It's time to go back. Thanks for telling me.
I'd never have guessed, you know, Rachel. " He stepped into the car and started the engine; the tires
Dug the dead grass.
She stood by the gateway, watched it slide up the coast-road, under the tawny-carpeted
Slopes: " Carefully he drives. Me to be like him, driving carefully. Not as if it had been
Worth anything: worth anything. What's to come. I'll get over. Nothing hurts. " She thought " I'm not tired:
That's strange: I could begin the day again. " She thought, " My enemy
Passes this way when he goes north, it's the only road. " They had dinner at six, long daylight afterwards,
While Rachel wandered south on the road, she gathered sweet roses from a briar, the thorns were the best,
A rider came up the road but not McCandless, a Spanish cowboy. But about sunset McCandless
Came up the road as if he'd been sent. Rachel stepped into the road, he drew rein. " Mr. McCandless.
I wanted to ask you something. " She'd made herself look as beautiful as she could, and some of the briars
Pinned at her breast, he appeared pleased to look at her. " Whether I might ... You own the canyon back there "
It had been called by her father's name, her own, she'd not name it: " if I might camp up there for a week
In the ruined house. " " What, " he said, " all alone? " " Oh, I'd be careful of my fires. " " But what for?
You're staying at Carter's, I saw you yesterday. " " That's how I knew your name Mr. McCandless. You see, "
She said whitening, " I've spent most of my money, I can't stay there much longer. It's so beautiful here.
If I could stay a week longer. " " Long as you like. " He was so heavy, thick necked, powerful, she thought
" The stick of dynamite that can blast the hill open. " She trembled and looked down from his eyes.
The hooves were restless in the deep dust; she heard the horse mouthing its bit and the man saying
" Long as you like. I'll come up in a day or two, see how you get along. " She answered trembling
" Oh thank you, " and lifted her head by violence, and smiled.
In the morning Rachel went up the creek and not pausing
At the split pathway crossed the ford to the clump of willows. There couldn't be any stain on the ground
After nine years. " It was here perhaps. " " It was here perhaps, hid in this opening. " " Father I seem
Not to feel anything at all: Makes three of us, for God doesn't: suppose there's one, the spirit of the serpents
And the cold stones. I've stepped over the edge to you, you cold spirits. They fooled us in school but I see
Nothing makes any difference, not really.
You wouldn't expect me to go through the world tearing, with this in my body? " She was cutting willows,
She'd brought a big knife she'd always kept because it had been her father's; it kept some edge yet; by sheaves
Cutting the long shoots with the foliage on them she carried them over the ford to the dead house,
Framed them with larger branches below and formed and wove them into a couch, like the nest of an eagle,
But low on the floor, by the mouldering boards, by the silent hearth-stones. No rattle had sounded to-day, though the saucer
Was half emptied. She formed the couch, lengthened it, narrowed it; drew a clean blanket from the farmhouse bed
Over the mound, " the snakes are all asleep, " she was thinking,
" The cold bodies relaxed, " it sang in her mind like an old tune, " I do the housework and the darting
Bodies relaxed in the hidden darkness. " But when the room was cleaned, and the brown hole by the hearth
Stopped with sweet boughs that hid the wound, not closed it over: she dreaded quietness, she dared not linger,
Walked up and down the leafy canyon, down almost to the road, by the rustling water, and the sun
Stood south, she wandered back through the white patches, the flaming sunlight; she thought " I'll go up to the pool,
Bathe in the pool where I was yesterday. " She thought that she knew nothing, " I know nothing. What horror
Comes up the canyon? What's it like, dying? being eaten by a worm? " She came to the clear pool that the leaves
And cliffs cavern with shadow. The bitter water made her tremble to see it: go in there naked,
The unprotected white shivering body?
She thought " They all suffer it: if the enemy's loved it's easier: means bondage afterwards. " She looked at herself
With love and pity, shivering in the tent of dark leaves, the clear smooth arms and the long thighs,
Slight breasts, how could they endure the burden? Her mind was moving so much faster since yesterday, flooded
River streaming the strangest drift, the take of destruction, dead cattle rolling, dead father, in the yellow
Fall of the flayed hills: the gentle idyll of the widened brook,
The nuptial water: she hardly remembered
Entering, she lay in the pool and scoured herself with the clean sand and the water, and stood on the bank
Stroking the drops from the flushed skin. She dressed and hurried back to the house. No one was there.
He might have come and returned; he'd come on horseback; there were no hoof-marks.
He came when the coolness begins,
An hour sooner than sunset. The rushing flood of her mind stopped suddenly, froze dead. She went to meet him,
And at the stirrup: " I thought maybe you'd come. It's beautiful here. I'm glad to thank you. " He answered,
Moving his head on the thick neck, " See whether you needed anything. Everything's all right ... Miss ... Miss ... "
" Rachel, " she said pitiably shuddering,
Twisting her hands, " I'm on a holiday, last name's no matter. " He stared down at her face, and dismounting
Darted quick eyes toward the house. She imagined he suspected she was not alone, there was someone hidden,
She said " I've seen no one all day. I haven't been lonely. " " You'd rather I hadn't come then? " " My father's
Murderer, " she thought pressing her thighs together; " ought to be charm in that knowledge: means nothing to me:
Why's everything without meaning? " " Well, " he said sharply watching her, " I can go back. " But he drew the reins
Over the pricked gray ears and let them trail from the bit. She answered " No ... no ... " And he: " I was thinking
Maybe I could help fix the place up. Aren't used to camping, are you? " " Oh. It doesn't matter. Nothing
Makes any difference. I fixed myself a place to sleep on. " He undid the rope from the saddle-back. " I'll tie him,
Find some stones for the fire-place. " She stood frozen watching him gather the reins and loop the halter,
And lead the horse to a clear tree. He was always looking sidelong toward her, and she thought " I can't bear
The preparation ... " When the horse was tethered
She said and her mouth shuddering, " You needn't bother about a fire-place, I'll get breakfast at the farm,
Meals ... at Carter's. I thought maybe you came to collect rent for the camp-site ... " " Oh he'll understand me
Now, she thought, squeezing one hand in the other, arching her shoulders
As if to save the struck breasts. He turned a blank face of astonishment: " What are you talking about?
Rent? " So ridiculously astonished she couldn't help laughing, he peering under the eyebrows with lowered
Forehead saw twist like flame the slenderness under the earth-colored cloth, saw the eyes shining with terror,
The mouth with laughter, the arms straightened down at the sides and the face averted, flung upward, as of one defiant
Showing her desirableness, from throat to ankles, under green leaves: he said " What will you pay me? "
She felt her throat ache with stopped cries; she thought what she must answer, she was not able to, she murmured
" Nothing, " and swayed a step into the foliage, then in trapped fear beat with her hands and her breasts
On the heavy buckthorn, silently. He came behind her
And when she felt his hand she was quiet. It lay like heated iron on her flank and she heard him hoarsely
Against her ear, and as if through waters: " What's wrong? Nobody's going to hurt you. " The other hand grasped
The bent round of her shoulder, turned her to face him among the branches; the lines of her face confused him,
The under-lip held by the teeth, the half opened eyes and widened nostrils, a mask of wantonness
That changed his conception of why the body trembled so hard. He drew her in his arms against him; she twisted
Her face backward to avoid the kiss, and her neck
Under the ear felt the vile warmth and wetness. He lifted her out of the boughs and she felt her body
Jerking like a caught hare's, she labored so hard to quiet the muscles, she was not able to speak:
Though he carried her the wrong way, carried her up hill, she'd thought he'd take her to the house: struggling against him,
Striking his throat with the weak fists: she found his mouth, striking at random, felt the soft lip,
The hot breath on the teeth: when he groaned angrily and dropped her
She wrenched from his hand, ran down toward the dead house; he followed, not running; she avoided the clumps of deerweed
Thinking what spiral springs of poison might be hid in them, thinking the man, stiff leather to the knees,
Safe from the needles in the hard jaws: only his clutching hands and heavy-boned wrists were liable:
She entered the house, ran home, panting, home, home.
The flood of her mind
Ran faster than before he had come; the dead returned out of destruction, washed down from the mountain,
The beautiful chestnut horse her father had ridden, neck arched above the water and the withers floating,
The forehooves striking foam in the stream; the serpents in the swift water; the enormous cross of black cloud
She a child had seen over the canyon sunset: " Why it must be nearly sunset already, " she thought
Standing in the midst of the room, " he's coming. " She was her mother, frail and weary, and her father was coming;
The child's asleep: there's pleasure in being used to it, submitting willingly.
McCandless stood in the doorway
Darting quick eyes about the bare room, under drawn brows. He saw her in the midst of the square, standing
Erect, the dark hair turbulent, the wide blue eyes meek and submissive. She looked straight toward him, quiet eyes,
But the lips quivered. Her throat was flushed, the cloth was torn there, her cheeks were chalk white. She quietly and clearly:
" Where've you been? You were so long coming: I thought you'd got lost. " He astonished at her changes of mood:
" You wanted me to come ... Rachel ... why did you hit me? " " I had to go home. " That would be dark to him: she added
" I had to go home. " She crept backward he approaching, suddenly found herself trapped in the other corner,
No escape: " If I scream, " she whispered, " someone might come and save me. " He barred the corner with his arms, not touching her.
" Nobody'd hear you. You don't know what you want, little fool, is the trouble. " She turning her body to the wall,
Her face over the shoulder: " I know what I want. I'm afraid: be kind to me. It's the first time. My father, "
She said stammering with eagerness, " hid some bottles under the floor by the hearth: ten years, they're still there.
I looked when I came. Get me some whiskey for the honeymoon to make me happy. " He said, " Your father?
You used to live here, you're old Devine's girl? " " The thief's. That's why I'm shameless. I said I'll go for a holiday.
Get me the drink first. I broke up the boards by the hearth, they were all rotten, I dug for the bottles.
Push in your hand and get one: under the leaves there. " " Afterwards, " he said, " Oh " she said, " yes, yes, afterwards.
That's what I meant. " " The old fellow has a beautiful daughter. dear girl, dear sweetheart. " She unresisting
Felt his hands handle her, in the whirl of her mind
Praying to the secret serpents. She was on the couch, he was plucking anxiously about her clothing, her fingers
Remembered resistance, the rest of her body
Grown fatalist lay relaxed without imagination awaiting the event. The fingers grew tired.
She closed her eyes because his face became horrible. She watched the dead man walking through the dim house
Counting on his fingers ... the calves misbranded, the stolen horses? Ah never turn your back to me father,
For the gap under the gory gray hair ... the pain, tearing ... when the bullet entered surely it was quiet,
The pain gorging the entrance,
Working the wound, and the earth over the grave was less heavy. Suddenly her spirit
Like embers to flame, like a hawk flapping up,
Shot from the bitter seed of endurance: the orgy of martyrdom shook her mind like a flag, no pleasure,
But the pain forgotten in the ecstasy of martyrdom: the dove of clear fire
That visited the saints on racks and gibbets, the spiritual joy, the splendor of the dove.
In the rigid quietness
She lay wondering and burning. What had become of the gray old man? Earthed again? Dig up, dig it up,
We must wash out the earth from the wound, the dirt-plug with the blood from among the gray hair and the dirt
In the eye-lashes in the the eyes, the earth's bones
Relaxing, the mound of the grave softening and cracking make it easy to dig treasure, the earth relaxing,
Dig up the bottles ... but really there were no bottles ... he had lifted himself, she lay on the couch faintly
Moaning, but feeling extreme pleasure in the stone-quietness, the self-abandonment, the knees to the waist
Uncovered made it most clear, a new corpse is not careful. The man had taken her hand and was murmuring
Luke-warm love-words, his duty. Remembering a drunken girl in the night street in front of the theatre
She essayed laughter, lewd answers, then lifting
Her face like a spear: " Listen. Will you serve the drinks? I came here for a holiday, I have to teach school
At home. Under the green there. " Would the watch-dogs be faithful ...
Was too lucky to hope for. Therefore she took the knife she'd cut the willows with, it hid by the couch-side
Under the folded blanket-edge; the man knelt down by the gapped planks;
His coat was off it was easy to see the blade's home, on the flank over the belt, the fat flesh bulged there,
He stooping, between the ribs and the belt: no bone in the blade's way:
But Rachel could not move her body from the couch; it did not tremble, it had turned stone, and she crouched
Stone, with the knife. The man fumbled in the opening. He muttered some question,
His chest on the floor, his arm strained sidewise under it. The following moment
Was blinding bright in Rachel's mind and instantly forgotten. The shoulder humping and twisting upward
From the struck arm: she knew as clearly as if she had eyes under the floor how the flat triangular
Barbed head hung to the hand's edge, the thin-drawn neck straining behind, it had struck without warning, was faithful.
Beyond hope or reason: the victim's hoarse cough
Of pain sluiced fire through her flesh, he writhing to rise she felt the hard abundant fire of her body
Cross him like a wave, cover him. The imagination
Of her father's wound so bright in her mind she could not strike at the mark chosen but struck where the wound was,
Behind the neck, where the flesh was creased in the cropped hair. The point turned on the neck-bones, the edge
Gritted on the guiding bone, the big muscle part severed the head swung sidewise. The left arm yielding
The man rolled over on his left flank, the girl recovering the knife dipped it in the soft belly
Twice, each time grunting like a woman in labor. He wailed in a high childlike voice and she felt
With exultance for thought they had changed sexes; but he caught the knife-wrist, she could not move it, and at the one time
Got his knees under her body and shot her off backward. He appeared not to think of her again, he surged up
Like a mired bull, she crouching where fallen
Saw him rise and fill the room above her, his deformed bulk, red mists about him, and the high unmanlike
Chirping of his pain. It seemed impossible that so great and distorted an agony could pass the doorway,
He contracted himself toward it, ran outward, she following
Saw him trot under the trees, the head hung sidewise, both hands covering the belly. She felt the white fire
Licking about the roots of her hair, she ran and screamed behind him, he swerved to face her and she passed
Avoiding him; she reached the horse, cut the halter, pricked the rump with the knife-point.
Remained no means of remembering
Why it was when a running horse went by her
A man dropped on his knees to her and bowing forward
Showed the gashed neck; nor why she felt pain
In a protected place, and her clothing disordered. Apparently she'd served God with the empty body
And not the mind, not kept her mind on her prayers, but the wounded neck
Was moaning where the solemn red sundown lay among the trees, and when she approached it begged her get help,
It would soon die: " Oh yes you will die: you got the snake-bite for stealing horses, " the lips answered it,
But the mind was not touching the words, the mind was thinking
Her baby was all alone in the house. It was getting dark in the house, the child not wakened, she remembered
The baby's cot was in the living-room by the hearthside: they had been so cold: but the fire had gone out:
She gathered the blanket from the bed and folded it for a child in her arms and the child's face
Was the dark stain. Standing in the door
She understood the vague pain that troubled her: because the child had just been born, the pain was quite natural,
A girl-baby named Rachel, Rachel Devine is a sweet name, " Oh hush little Rachel, " she murmured
Swaying from the hips, folding her arms about the little delicate imagined body, and she watched
The rose-flowing sunset through the still trees. " Oh never run down to the ocean, Rachel. "
Behind her happiness
Lay like a flood of misery — so the banked flood hangs on the dyke over the meadows — the dim
Thought that she'd done and suffered so much violence in vain, she had sharpened herself to compass deliverance
From the net of the mind, here she was netted the deeper, among delusions, among images, now nothing
Real in the world: this misery her dream
Resolved to a threat of the darkening forest against the baby, the beasts under the trees were its enemies,
Wolves with lit eyes, and the young mother
Held a wide door against the hunger of the world.
She lay on the bed of boughs when the night darkened.
She brooded her more than life in her arms. She loosened the clothing from her throat and brought out the small breasts,
Greedily the tiny warm lips ...
In the night.
Wakening she knew there was no child, and that horrible things
Had been done easily. She had left him living, she must go and find him. The journey in the darkness
Was worse than any suffering before. He had crept perhaps a few feet and died in another place,
It needed many circuits among the trees by the path before she found him. The flesh was wet-cold.
She dipped her finger into the wound in the neck: no warmth was hidden there. After she had sat eternally
Came the gray light. After it was light
She saw that with his pocket-knife, with his left hand
He had slashed the blackening right one where the fangs had gone in: still reaching at life, living to the end:
This dead man cutting himself for life's sake. The other dead man
Died in her mind; her father had been the wastrel, the fugitive; her lover the brave one. She, sane and prepared,
Sat close by her chosen; she watched the dawn flower in the trees, the intolerable beauty and the desolation.
Hills intense in the sun: no more than the child remembers uterine life: but after her mother
Died, and Phil Maybrick was holding her to the promised marriage; when time for some reason grew terrible:
" Why does it taste like ashes? Have children, begin it all over again, the anxious fable? Or have none,
Lie in his arms like stagnant water in the awful emptiness? " She was convinced that some insanity,
Obstruction in the mind, nothing in the nature of things, a wall of perverse thought that might be thrown down,
Threatened her away from normal happiness. " I've taught school three years and always hated it. I'll take
One month of perfect rest, away from the town, away from the people I know " — suddenly her mind
Was like a city built with towers, full of a vision
Of the heights that she was born under, hills like humped cattle herded to the ocean, south of Monterey —
" I shall come back and be myself, be human like the others. " She wrote it all in a letter to him,
Except the place; and promising love forever, her name, Rachel Devine. If he were too angry
It was not, perhaps, paradise ... would crumble.
She went to the place, and boarded at the farmer's below.
How long was it, nine years? These people had come since hers ... departed: her name wasn't remembered.
The hills were undiminished, as great and sun-beaten and solitary as ever of old,
Though she'd been but a child, but twelve years old, last seeing them. Three days she wandered on the great heights
Over the ocean. She wanted to enter the canyon; she was afraid; the fourth, she entered the canyon
With the shamed fear that a child feels
Who listens in the night to terrible sighs and whispers and the bed of her parents
Straining, the shame and fear: the paths were not much overgrown; though the dwelling she knew was ruinous
Men still drove cows through the deep canyon to the hills at the head. The creek sang the old music, the cresses
Were all in white flower. A mile up the deep cleft, in sight of the remembered roof, the path split.
One way led over the stream by the great blocks of stone to the clump of willows ... her father, when the world
Darkened about him: she remembered his body
Brought from the blood-stained willows. She never had seen the puddle of blood; her mind had seen it so dreadfully
On the dead earth under the willows:
The red glaze blackening in from the edges was clearer than memory. She never had seen the wound; for his face
Had not been torn outward, he held the muzzle in his mouth. " Dear God no wonder, " she thought " no wonder
With such wounds in my mind! Here is the place I should have fled from: I have come to this place. " She lingered
At the split way, tasting the sickness high in her throat. The choked path to the house less painful,
She followed that path: no ghost: herself was the ghost: she'd thought it might have stood grizzled and blood splotched:
But nothing came along the thick leaves. The gapped doorway and the glassless windows. " Well: if I go in:
Because I've caught something from the lean hawks on the hillside. But really I feel little, why almost
Nothing, feel nothing, that's wise. The coast's heavy with stone. " She entered the squalid rooms, the disgrace
And wreck of the house. Mice ran, and a linnet
Dodged out the far window. In the next room, one side of the cold hearth, the floor was all rotted,
Some tribe of burrowers had heaped earth there, through the brown hole, higher than the broken planks. She approaching
A rattle buzzed hard and she drew back from the planks. She thought of finding a stick, but turned in the doorway
Happy with her new thought: " This is my house and you're my watchdog. Meet strangers for me. "
All night
In the farmhouse in the strain of the sea's voice, in dreams and waking she was not unhappy, remotely consoled
By the utter ruin of what she had visited; most by the snake at the hearth. Returning after two days
She heard one in the grass by the door and saw another in the house, by the rotted planks. In the basket
The farmer's wife had given her, a little bottle of milk was packed with the food; she found a cracked saucer
Back of the house, filled it with milk and crumbs of bread, she set it on the floor, then heedfully pushed it.
With the fork of a long rod to the edge of the planks, the ridged brown opening. Had she read somewhere of pouring
Milk for the household spirit, the serpent? She seemed remembering ... that was no matter: if the act in itself
Gave pleasure: " I love their enemies. " Then she remembered gently, with distant loneliness, her city lover.
" I'm out of the net. Something from the hills
Comes in here, cold strength. " She was feebler than flesh and her heart knew it. At least not afraid of death she wandered
Outside the house, the dusty squalor within was too repulsive to suffer. Old oaks, the sweet leaves
Of alders, the polished fragrance the mountain laurels, and standing over a notch in the trees the tall dark
Mountain southward, an obelisk-shaped growth of deep redwoods heavy in the sun climbing the chief
Fold in the furrowed flank. She breathed with pleasure. " No humanity, no humanity at all.
Well done destruction. "
Rachel returned to the farmhouse.
A horseman at the gate of the yard talked with the farmer. He was not a cowboy; clean cloth, bright leather,
Ruling the restless horse. She felt his eyes touch her approaching, saw him speak, imagined the farmer
Answering, " Young schoolteacher from town. " She looked up frankly toward the rider as she entered the gate,
Question for question, she went on to the house feeling his eyes. Some troublesome spring of perplexed ...
Memory perhaps? ... had spoilt her confidence. A brutal face; sunburnt and strong, handsome you'd call it,
Older than she'd supposed, forty no doubt. How far from Philip's sensitive features, the charm
And the shy power. It came through her mind
That she was too coarse for Philip, a cattleman's daughter from the rough coast: Oh worse than that, or he'd not
Have gone down the red path. The farmer came in,
She asked who was that man on horseback? And pale, thinking " I should have known, remembered, I am calm
As the hills themselves, " heard the man's name: Charlie McCandless, the man who'd pressed her father to the pit,
Who'd brought the charge against him. " They'd think it was strength, "
She thought, " this quietness. It's not: I feel nothing. " Owned her father's house now, this man, the shameful
Wreck of a house, and the sweet canyon. His own was over the ridge southward; his hills, his ranges,
His prosperity. The one had killed himself and the other had prospered. He was almost her father's murderer:
He had brought the charge that had brought death.
She thought in the night it was soft folly to expect reason,
Justice or any human rightness in life. God, if there was one: the rattlesnakes God also.
The milk she poured them next day (she poured it again) was a libation. Did they drink? The saucer was empty
But a sour crust at the edges. Perhaps the little lives that serve them for food had lapped it, been caught,
Life for life, all's fair. " The thing is, to find one's meat. That's what they know. "
She went up stream, by the boulders
And the slip of shore. The cliff and the thick leaves enclosed the widened creek, clear-currented cauldron,
One stone on the edge, the sun gilded. In the heat; by the stream; chiefly in the clean deliverance from eyes:
She felt all thoughts dropping, all that disturbs quietness falling, peace coming up, clear water.
She was not tired enough for peace, through the dark surface
Like a shark's fin, like a tower of white stone: whom would she wish come up from the water, naked companion?
A marble boy; minion not lover ... Antinous ... no one with personality, no one known to her;
Her own creature; she needed weakness to be strong with, coolness for fever, her own creature;
So shy that he'd need wooing, so young and soft that he'd need nursing, between the rose-crested hills,
Before some life of her own should filter into his arteries, the soft whiteness grow stronger, the child
Petted to life sharpen its softness to go home ... " Ah, shame, shame, "
She felt her cheeks blazing, " you that were nerved for all the unreason, the savage energy, the snakes' God,
Hide in a cave to dream? " She thought " If I could give away my virginity, that's what weakens me.
That caution once lost: there's not a man: to the stone hills. Fool, " she whispered to herself, and finding
A break in the cliff forced herself upward through the thicket, felt with sharp satisfaction the branches.
Breaking, the twigs like thorns; in the midst it was a nightmare of heat and pressure; she crept beyond it,
Lay panting on the open slope; her clothes were scarred, her hands bleeding. She'd never go back: it was this
Was needed: harsh touches, steep freedom, recklessness. Labored up hill in the steep heat, gained the first summit,
Felt the great hills ringing like gongs in the universal sunlight, the bronze reverberance, the beating
Hammers of light. Then having to make water she looked for shelter and she thought, " No, here and publicly. "
It gave her pleasure on the open height, she felt the shudder imagined of love, the consecration,
And dizzy with yearning toward no person wandered down westward; the ocean, taut blue, strung in the acute
V of the violent hills.
Phil Maybrick was at the farmhouse. " I knew you would go to this place, Rachel.
Oh I'm glad. I was afraid I'd not find you. I've waited hours here. " The thin young face lighted with confidence,
The luminous eyes: her own hardened, her blue ones. " I asked for a month. " " Dearest ... " " Take the apple green then.
But come away from the house. " His car was in the withering grass outside the gateway, they stood by it,
Then Rachel: " You've caught me honest, You came too soon Philip, you never needed to have known anything.
Dupes are happy. " " What do you mean, what do you mean? " " I meant to cheat you happy. Push in
While the fire's roaring? Be burnt then. Your fault.
I would have fooled you. " " You're not well, Rachel, you're pale, you've torn your clothes too, this insane talk
Has no meaning in the world. " " Well it's a wonderful relief for me too, I was going to marry you;
Live in a coop, we'd know the smell of each other and you'd take me to shows
Once a week. That's finished. " " I only know you're talking horribly, horrible things ... " " If you want
Everything told plainly: I've got a man here, one that I want really, I meet him back here
At a dead house. You thought I was ... white? He had me before I left here: I was twelve years old then: he had me.
So I came back for a month, Philip.
You'd kept away you might have had an eight-month baby next winter. People will take what they get.
I never talked shamelessly before: not till you came pushing in unwanted: now take it,
Shameless and all. "
" Why, " he said, " you're lying; that's all. You must come back with me. " She, trembling: " Bound to be cheated? I'll tell you more:
This was my father's enemy, the man that made him kill himself. That's something. Now he's got married, has children;
I'm the luxury. " Philip began to tremble, but silent, and Rachel: " Probably you won't believe me
Until I hide you in a closet in the dead house. When you see the skirt lift. " Mumbling, he answered
With dead lips, " I believe you. Well. No, " he shouted,
" I've got my mother to think of. You thought I'd let myself be tried for murder, for a whore's sake? " His dead-seeming
Lips mumbled so, she thought he was gathering slime behind them to spit in her face. He shuddered. " I'm not
The fool you think me. But, " he said, " everything's horrible.
You've that much triumph. This'll never be wiped, never be wiped, I'll never look at the stars
But see dirt. Are you diseased yet? When't blotches your face
I'll pay the doctor. " He frowned and coughed into his hand. " It's time to go back. Thanks for telling me.
I'd never have guessed, you know, Rachel. " He stepped into the car and started the engine; the tires
Dug the dead grass.
She stood by the gateway, watched it slide up the coast-road, under the tawny-carpeted
Slopes: " Carefully he drives. Me to be like him, driving carefully. Not as if it had been
Worth anything: worth anything. What's to come. I'll get over. Nothing hurts. " She thought " I'm not tired:
That's strange: I could begin the day again. " She thought, " My enemy
Passes this way when he goes north, it's the only road. " They had dinner at six, long daylight afterwards,
While Rachel wandered south on the road, she gathered sweet roses from a briar, the thorns were the best,
A rider came up the road but not McCandless, a Spanish cowboy. But about sunset McCandless
Came up the road as if he'd been sent. Rachel stepped into the road, he drew rein. " Mr. McCandless.
I wanted to ask you something. " She'd made herself look as beautiful as she could, and some of the briars
Pinned at her breast, he appeared pleased to look at her. " Whether I might ... You own the canyon back there "
It had been called by her father's name, her own, she'd not name it: " if I might camp up there for a week
In the ruined house. " " What, " he said, " all alone? " " Oh, I'd be careful of my fires. " " But what for?
You're staying at Carter's, I saw you yesterday. " " That's how I knew your name Mr. McCandless. You see, "
She said whitening, " I've spent most of my money, I can't stay there much longer. It's so beautiful here.
If I could stay a week longer. " " Long as you like. " He was so heavy, thick necked, powerful, she thought
" The stick of dynamite that can blast the hill open. " She trembled and looked down from his eyes.
The hooves were restless in the deep dust; she heard the horse mouthing its bit and the man saying
" Long as you like. I'll come up in a day or two, see how you get along. " She answered trembling
" Oh thank you, " and lifted her head by violence, and smiled.
In the morning Rachel went up the creek and not pausing
At the split pathway crossed the ford to the clump of willows. There couldn't be any stain on the ground
After nine years. " It was here perhaps. " " It was here perhaps, hid in this opening. " " Father I seem
Not to feel anything at all: Makes three of us, for God doesn't: suppose there's one, the spirit of the serpents
And the cold stones. I've stepped over the edge to you, you cold spirits. They fooled us in school but I see
Nothing makes any difference, not really.
You wouldn't expect me to go through the world tearing, with this in my body? " She was cutting willows,
She'd brought a big knife she'd always kept because it had been her father's; it kept some edge yet; by sheaves
Cutting the long shoots with the foliage on them she carried them over the ford to the dead house,
Framed them with larger branches below and formed and wove them into a couch, like the nest of an eagle,
But low on the floor, by the mouldering boards, by the silent hearth-stones. No rattle had sounded to-day, though the saucer
Was half emptied. She formed the couch, lengthened it, narrowed it; drew a clean blanket from the farmhouse bed
Over the mound, " the snakes are all asleep, " she was thinking,
" The cold bodies relaxed, " it sang in her mind like an old tune, " I do the housework and the darting
Bodies relaxed in the hidden darkness. " But when the room was cleaned, and the brown hole by the hearth
Stopped with sweet boughs that hid the wound, not closed it over: she dreaded quietness, she dared not linger,
Walked up and down the leafy canyon, down almost to the road, by the rustling water, and the sun
Stood south, she wandered back through the white patches, the flaming sunlight; she thought " I'll go up to the pool,
Bathe in the pool where I was yesterday. " She thought that she knew nothing, " I know nothing. What horror
Comes up the canyon? What's it like, dying? being eaten by a worm? " She came to the clear pool that the leaves
And cliffs cavern with shadow. The bitter water made her tremble to see it: go in there naked,
The unprotected white shivering body?
She thought " They all suffer it: if the enemy's loved it's easier: means bondage afterwards. " She looked at herself
With love and pity, shivering in the tent of dark leaves, the clear smooth arms and the long thighs,
Slight breasts, how could they endure the burden? Her mind was moving so much faster since yesterday, flooded
River streaming the strangest drift, the take of destruction, dead cattle rolling, dead father, in the yellow
Fall of the flayed hills: the gentle idyll of the widened brook,
The nuptial water: she hardly remembered
Entering, she lay in the pool and scoured herself with the clean sand and the water, and stood on the bank
Stroking the drops from the flushed skin. She dressed and hurried back to the house. No one was there.
He might have come and returned; he'd come on horseback; there were no hoof-marks.
He came when the coolness begins,
An hour sooner than sunset. The rushing flood of her mind stopped suddenly, froze dead. She went to meet him,
And at the stirrup: " I thought maybe you'd come. It's beautiful here. I'm glad to thank you. " He answered,
Moving his head on the thick neck, " See whether you needed anything. Everything's all right ... Miss ... Miss ... "
" Rachel, " she said pitiably shuddering,
Twisting her hands, " I'm on a holiday, last name's no matter. " He stared down at her face, and dismounting
Darted quick eyes toward the house. She imagined he suspected she was not alone, there was someone hidden,
She said " I've seen no one all day. I haven't been lonely. " " You'd rather I hadn't come then? " " My father's
Murderer, " she thought pressing her thighs together; " ought to be charm in that knowledge: means nothing to me:
Why's everything without meaning? " " Well, " he said sharply watching her, " I can go back. " But he drew the reins
Over the pricked gray ears and let them trail from the bit. She answered " No ... no ... " And he: " I was thinking
Maybe I could help fix the place up. Aren't used to camping, are you? " " Oh. It doesn't matter. Nothing
Makes any difference. I fixed myself a place to sleep on. " He undid the rope from the saddle-back. " I'll tie him,
Find some stones for the fire-place. " She stood frozen watching him gather the reins and loop the halter,
And lead the horse to a clear tree. He was always looking sidelong toward her, and she thought " I can't bear
The preparation ... " When the horse was tethered
She said and her mouth shuddering, " You needn't bother about a fire-place, I'll get breakfast at the farm,
Meals ... at Carter's. I thought maybe you came to collect rent for the camp-site ... " " Oh he'll understand me
Now, she thought, squeezing one hand in the other, arching her shoulders
As if to save the struck breasts. He turned a blank face of astonishment: " What are you talking about?
Rent? " So ridiculously astonished she couldn't help laughing, he peering under the eyebrows with lowered
Forehead saw twist like flame the slenderness under the earth-colored cloth, saw the eyes shining with terror,
The mouth with laughter, the arms straightened down at the sides and the face averted, flung upward, as of one defiant
Showing her desirableness, from throat to ankles, under green leaves: he said " What will you pay me? "
She felt her throat ache with stopped cries; she thought what she must answer, she was not able to, she murmured
" Nothing, " and swayed a step into the foliage, then in trapped fear beat with her hands and her breasts
On the heavy buckthorn, silently. He came behind her
And when she felt his hand she was quiet. It lay like heated iron on her flank and she heard him hoarsely
Against her ear, and as if through waters: " What's wrong? Nobody's going to hurt you. " The other hand grasped
The bent round of her shoulder, turned her to face him among the branches; the lines of her face confused him,
The under-lip held by the teeth, the half opened eyes and widened nostrils, a mask of wantonness
That changed his conception of why the body trembled so hard. He drew her in his arms against him; she twisted
Her face backward to avoid the kiss, and her neck
Under the ear felt the vile warmth and wetness. He lifted her out of the boughs and she felt her body
Jerking like a caught hare's, she labored so hard to quiet the muscles, she was not able to speak:
Though he carried her the wrong way, carried her up hill, she'd thought he'd take her to the house: struggling against him,
Striking his throat with the weak fists: she found his mouth, striking at random, felt the soft lip,
The hot breath on the teeth: when he groaned angrily and dropped her
She wrenched from his hand, ran down toward the dead house; he followed, not running; she avoided the clumps of deerweed
Thinking what spiral springs of poison might be hid in them, thinking the man, stiff leather to the knees,
Safe from the needles in the hard jaws: only his clutching hands and heavy-boned wrists were liable:
She entered the house, ran home, panting, home, home.
The flood of her mind
Ran faster than before he had come; the dead returned out of destruction, washed down from the mountain,
The beautiful chestnut horse her father had ridden, neck arched above the water and the withers floating,
The forehooves striking foam in the stream; the serpents in the swift water; the enormous cross of black cloud
She a child had seen over the canyon sunset: " Why it must be nearly sunset already, " she thought
Standing in the midst of the room, " he's coming. " She was her mother, frail and weary, and her father was coming;
The child's asleep: there's pleasure in being used to it, submitting willingly.
McCandless stood in the doorway
Darting quick eyes about the bare room, under drawn brows. He saw her in the midst of the square, standing
Erect, the dark hair turbulent, the wide blue eyes meek and submissive. She looked straight toward him, quiet eyes,
But the lips quivered. Her throat was flushed, the cloth was torn there, her cheeks were chalk white. She quietly and clearly:
" Where've you been? You were so long coming: I thought you'd got lost. " He astonished at her changes of mood:
" You wanted me to come ... Rachel ... why did you hit me? " " I had to go home. " That would be dark to him: she added
" I had to go home. " She crept backward he approaching, suddenly found herself trapped in the other corner,
No escape: " If I scream, " she whispered, " someone might come and save me. " He barred the corner with his arms, not touching her.
" Nobody'd hear you. You don't know what you want, little fool, is the trouble. " She turning her body to the wall,
Her face over the shoulder: " I know what I want. I'm afraid: be kind to me. It's the first time. My father, "
She said stammering with eagerness, " hid some bottles under the floor by the hearth: ten years, they're still there.
I looked when I came. Get me some whiskey for the honeymoon to make me happy. " He said, " Your father?
You used to live here, you're old Devine's girl? " " The thief's. That's why I'm shameless. I said I'll go for a holiday.
Get me the drink first. I broke up the boards by the hearth, they were all rotten, I dug for the bottles.
Push in your hand and get one: under the leaves there. " " Afterwards, " he said, " Oh " she said, " yes, yes, afterwards.
That's what I meant. " " The old fellow has a beautiful daughter. dear girl, dear sweetheart. " She unresisting
Felt his hands handle her, in the whirl of her mind
Praying to the secret serpents. She was on the couch, he was plucking anxiously about her clothing, her fingers
Remembered resistance, the rest of her body
Grown fatalist lay relaxed without imagination awaiting the event. The fingers grew tired.
She closed her eyes because his face became horrible. She watched the dead man walking through the dim house
Counting on his fingers ... the calves misbranded, the stolen horses? Ah never turn your back to me father,
For the gap under the gory gray hair ... the pain, tearing ... when the bullet entered surely it was quiet,
The pain gorging the entrance,
Working the wound, and the earth over the grave was less heavy. Suddenly her spirit
Like embers to flame, like a hawk flapping up,
Shot from the bitter seed of endurance: the orgy of martyrdom shook her mind like a flag, no pleasure,
But the pain forgotten in the ecstasy of martyrdom: the dove of clear fire
That visited the saints on racks and gibbets, the spiritual joy, the splendor of the dove.
In the rigid quietness
She lay wondering and burning. What had become of the gray old man? Earthed again? Dig up, dig it up,
We must wash out the earth from the wound, the dirt-plug with the blood from among the gray hair and the dirt
In the eye-lashes in the the eyes, the earth's bones
Relaxing, the mound of the grave softening and cracking make it easy to dig treasure, the earth relaxing,
Dig up the bottles ... but really there were no bottles ... he had lifted himself, she lay on the couch faintly
Moaning, but feeling extreme pleasure in the stone-quietness, the self-abandonment, the knees to the waist
Uncovered made it most clear, a new corpse is not careful. The man had taken her hand and was murmuring
Luke-warm love-words, his duty. Remembering a drunken girl in the night street in front of the theatre
She essayed laughter, lewd answers, then lifting
Her face like a spear: " Listen. Will you serve the drinks? I came here for a holiday, I have to teach school
At home. Under the green there. " Would the watch-dogs be faithful ...
Was too lucky to hope for. Therefore she took the knife she'd cut the willows with, it hid by the couch-side
Under the folded blanket-edge; the man knelt down by the gapped planks;
His coat was off it was easy to see the blade's home, on the flank over the belt, the fat flesh bulged there,
He stooping, between the ribs and the belt: no bone in the blade's way:
But Rachel could not move her body from the couch; it did not tremble, it had turned stone, and she crouched
Stone, with the knife. The man fumbled in the opening. He muttered some question,
His chest on the floor, his arm strained sidewise under it. The following moment
Was blinding bright in Rachel's mind and instantly forgotten. The shoulder humping and twisting upward
From the struck arm: she knew as clearly as if she had eyes under the floor how the flat triangular
Barbed head hung to the hand's edge, the thin-drawn neck straining behind, it had struck without warning, was faithful.
Beyond hope or reason: the victim's hoarse cough
Of pain sluiced fire through her flesh, he writhing to rise she felt the hard abundant fire of her body
Cross him like a wave, cover him. The imagination
Of her father's wound so bright in her mind she could not strike at the mark chosen but struck where the wound was,
Behind the neck, where the flesh was creased in the cropped hair. The point turned on the neck-bones, the edge
Gritted on the guiding bone, the big muscle part severed the head swung sidewise. The left arm yielding
The man rolled over on his left flank, the girl recovering the knife dipped it in the soft belly
Twice, each time grunting like a woman in labor. He wailed in a high childlike voice and she felt
With exultance for thought they had changed sexes; but he caught the knife-wrist, she could not move it, and at the one time
Got his knees under her body and shot her off backward. He appeared not to think of her again, he surged up
Like a mired bull, she crouching where fallen
Saw him rise and fill the room above her, his deformed bulk, red mists about him, and the high unmanlike
Chirping of his pain. It seemed impossible that so great and distorted an agony could pass the doorway,
He contracted himself toward it, ran outward, she following
Saw him trot under the trees, the head hung sidewise, both hands covering the belly. She felt the white fire
Licking about the roots of her hair, she ran and screamed behind him, he swerved to face her and she passed
Avoiding him; she reached the horse, cut the halter, pricked the rump with the knife-point.
Remained no means of remembering
Why it was when a running horse went by her
A man dropped on his knees to her and bowing forward
Showed the gashed neck; nor why she felt pain
In a protected place, and her clothing disordered. Apparently she'd served God with the empty body
And not the mind, not kept her mind on her prayers, but the wounded neck
Was moaning where the solemn red sundown lay among the trees, and when she approached it begged her get help,
It would soon die: " Oh yes you will die: you got the snake-bite for stealing horses, " the lips answered it,
But the mind was not touching the words, the mind was thinking
Her baby was all alone in the house. It was getting dark in the house, the child not wakened, she remembered
The baby's cot was in the living-room by the hearthside: they had been so cold: but the fire had gone out:
She gathered the blanket from the bed and folded it for a child in her arms and the child's face
Was the dark stain. Standing in the door
She understood the vague pain that troubled her: because the child had just been born, the pain was quite natural,
A girl-baby named Rachel, Rachel Devine is a sweet name, " Oh hush little Rachel, " she murmured
Swaying from the hips, folding her arms about the little delicate imagined body, and she watched
The rose-flowing sunset through the still trees. " Oh never run down to the ocean, Rachel. "
Behind her happiness
Lay like a flood of misery — so the banked flood hangs on the dyke over the meadows — the dim
Thought that she'd done and suffered so much violence in vain, she had sharpened herself to compass deliverance
From the net of the mind, here she was netted the deeper, among delusions, among images, now nothing
Real in the world: this misery her dream
Resolved to a threat of the darkening forest against the baby, the beasts under the trees were its enemies,
Wolves with lit eyes, and the young mother
Held a wide door against the hunger of the world.
She lay on the bed of boughs when the night darkened.
She brooded her more than life in her arms. She loosened the clothing from her throat and brought out the small breasts,
Greedily the tiny warm lips ...
In the night.
Wakening she knew there was no child, and that horrible things
Had been done easily. She had left him living, she must go and find him. The journey in the darkness
Was worse than any suffering before. He had crept perhaps a few feet and died in another place,
It needed many circuits among the trees by the path before she found him. The flesh was wet-cold.
She dipped her finger into the wound in the neck: no warmth was hidden there. After she had sat eternally
Came the gray light. After it was light
She saw that with his pocket-knife, with his left hand
He had slashed the blackening right one where the fangs had gone in: still reaching at life, living to the end:
This dead man cutting himself for life's sake. The other dead man
Died in her mind; her father had been the wastrel, the fugitive; her lover the brave one. She, sane and prepared,
Sat close by her chosen; she watched the dawn flower in the trees, the intolerable beauty and the desolation.
Translation:
Language:
Reviews
No reviews yet.