Under the Tonto Rim (1991) (8 page)

Lucy did not need to spend much more time looking around the cabins, inside or outside. The possessions of the Denmeades were so few that a glance had sufficed to enumerate them. Manifestly also their wants were few. But the comfort and health of a home did not depend upon how little was necessary. The children of pioneers should have some of the conveniences of civilisation. Lucy did not under-estimate the problem on her hands.

She found that Mrs. Denmeade had removed from the closet whatever had been there, leaving it for Lucy's use. This enabled Lucy to unpack most of her belongings. When that was done she took pencil and pad and went outdoors to find a place to sit down and think and plan.

One of the old black hounds, a dignified and solemn dog, looked at Lucy as if he realised she should have company, and he went with her. How amused Lucy was to see the hound walk along with her, manifesting no evidence of friendliness other than his accompanying her.

Lucy crossed the strip of woods to the edge of the field, and then walked along under the pines toward the slope. Through the green and black of the forest she could see the looming red wall. At the end of the field she halted. Deep dark woodland merged upon the edge of the clearing. She sat down under a huge pine, from which position she could see out across the open.

"Oh, I'll never be able to concentrate on anything here!" murmured Lucy, thrilled with the wildness and splendour of the forest. Birds and squirrels were boisterous, as if rejoicing at the spring. The wind moaned through the tree-tops, a new sound to Lucy, stirring her blood. Most striking of all was the fragrance of pine. Lucy revelled a few moments in this sweet wild solitude, then made a valiant effort to put her mind on her work. At the very outset she made notes on her pad. The fact that expenditure of funds for the betterment of living conditions up here had been trusted to her common sense and discretion made Lucy extremely conscientious. She would purchase only what was absolutely necessary, and superintend the making of many useful things for the Denmeades. To this end she applied herself to the task of choosing the articles she must buy and those she must make.

It turned out to be a fascinating task, made easy by the course of manual training she had taken at normal school. Prominent among the articles selected to buy were tools and a sewing-machine. Tools meant the constructing of chairs, tables, closets, shelves, and many other household articles; a sewing-machine meant the making of sheets, pillows, towels, curtains, table-covers, and wearing apparel.

Lucy pictured in her mind what the inside of that cabin would look like in a couple of months. It filled her with joy for them and pride for herself. The expense would be little; the labour great. She had already convinced Denmeade that this welfare work was not charity; in the long run it must be for the good of the state.

Between such dreams and calculations Lucy mapped out the letters and orders she would write that afternoon. Then she would have to wait so long until the things arrived. Still, she reflected, a number of necessities could be obtained at the store in Cedar Ridge. She would persuade Denmeade to go or send someone at once.

At length Lucy discovered that without thinking about it she had changed her position several times to get out of the shade into the sun. The air had grown chill. Then she became aware of the moan of wind in the pines. How loud, mournful, strange! Clouds were scudding up from the south-west. They were still broken, but much heavier and darker than they had been in the early morning. They made great dark shadows sail along the rolling green crest of the forest. Gazing upward, Lucy was amazed to see that the clouds obscured the Rim at the high points. From up there drifted down a low, steady roar. Wind in the pines! It was a different sound from the sough in the near-by tree-tops. Birds and squirrels had ceased song and chatter.

Once more Lucy applied herself diligently to her task, and for a while forgot herself. The wind increased to a gale, intermittent, but steadily growing less broken. She heard it and thrilled, yet went on with her figuring. Suddenly a heavy crash somewhere in the woods close at hand thoroughly frightened her. No doubt a dead tree had blown over. Nervously Lucy gazed about her to see if there were other dead trees. She espied several and many bleached gnarled branches shaking in the wind. A great primeval forest like this seemed to be a dangerous place.

"I always imagined it would be wonderful to live like an Indian--wild in the woods," soliloquised Lucy. "But I guess it might be fearful on occasions."

She became prey then to conflicting impulses--one to run back to the cabin, the other to stay out in this roaring forest. For a moment the latter dominated her. She stepped out from under the pine into a glade and threw back her head. How the wind whipped her hair! The odour of pine was now so strong that it was not far from suffocating. Yet its sweetness seemed intoxicating. The cold air was exhilarating, in spite of its increasing chill. Against the background of blue sky and grey cloud the pine crests waved wildly and thin streams of brown pine needles flew before the gale.

Lucy's daring did not extend beyond a moment or so. Then the old black dog appeared, to eye her solemnly and trot off. She followed as fast as she could walk, sometimes breaking into a little run. Soon she was breathless and light-headed. Such little exertion to tire her! Lucy recollected that high altitudes affected some persons thus. Her heart pounded in her breast. It became absolutely imperative that she go slower, or give out completely. Even then, when she reached the cabin porch she was glad to sink upon it with a gasp.

The golden sunshine was gone. A grey mantle appeared to be creeping over the forest world. The roar of the wind now seemed behind and above the cabin. Presently Mrs. Denmeade, coming out for a pail of water, espied Lucy sitting there.

"Storm comin'," she said. "It'll blow for a while, then rain."

"Oh--I'm--so--out of--breath!" panted Lucy. "It was--wonderful, but--scared me...The children! Will they stay at school?"

"Not much. They'll come home, rain or shine. Edd is goin' to catch it good. Dave Claypool just rode by an' stopped to tell me he met Edd up on the mountain."

"Met E--your son! When?"

"This mornin'. Dave was ridin' through. He lets his hosses range up there. Said he'd run across Edd about fifteen miles back down the Winbrook trail. Shore now Edd can drive a pack-train of burros. But they're loaded heavy, an' Edd will spare the burros before himself. I reckon he'll hit the Rim just about dark. An' if the storm breaks before then he'll have somethin' tough. Rain down here will be snow up there. But he'll come in to-night shore."

Her matter-of-factness over what seemed exceedingly serious and her confidence in the return of her son through gale and darkness awakened in Lucy a first appreciation of the elemental strength of these backwoods people. Lucy respected strength to endure above all virtues. How infinitely she herself had been found wanting! She hurried to her room, conscious that again this Edd Denmeade had been forced upon her attention.

Lucy got out her writing materials and set herself to the important task of the letters she had planned. At intervals she found her mind wandering, a thing not habitual with her. Yet the circumstances here were extenuating. And all the time she was aware of the gale. It swooped down the chimney with hollow roar. She was able to think and write consistently through the hours. The Denmeades ate whenever some of them came in hungry, a bad and labour-consuming habit, Lucy thought, which she would endeavour to break. She was glad, however, that there was no midday meal except Sundays. She grew cramped and cold from sitting so long on the uncomfortable chair, writing on her lap. But she accomplished the task of a dozen letters, and an enlarging and copying of her notes.

This accomplishment afforded her great satisfaction. Putting on a heavy coat, she went outside to walk off the chill in her blood. She found Mrs. Denmeade and Allie carrying the day's wash up from the brook down in the gully. Lucy promptly lent her assistance, and when she had made four trips, carrying a heavy burden, she was both out of breath and hot from the effort.

The grey mantle overhead had darkened. Only occasional rifts showed a glimpse of blue sky. The air was perceptibly damper. And the roar of wind now had no break.

Lucy rested a little, trying the while to win Liz and Lize to talk to her. They did not sidle away from her any longer, but had not yet reached the communicative stage.

Lucy was conscious of worry, of dread, and not until she saw Mary and Dan, with Mertie behind them, coming up the lane, did she realise the significance of her feelings. They were safe. And by the time they reached the gate the tall form of Dick came stalking into sight.

Manifestly for them the journey home through the forest, under the threshing boughs of the trees, was merely an incident of school days. However, when Mertie heard from her mother that Edd had been seen back up on the Rim and would surely be caught in the storm, she gave vent to an excited concern. Not for her brother's safety and comfort, but for her birthday present of the new dress! Mrs. Denmeade petted and soothed her. "Don't worry, Mertie," she concluded. "Reckon you ought to know Edd. There's sacks of flour on them pack-burros. It ain't likely he'll see that flour spoiled, let alone your new dress."

"But, ma!" protested Mertie, miserably, "Edd's only human! An' you know how terrible storms are up there."

"Wal, it was your fault Edd packed to Winbrook," retorted her mother. "He could of got the flour at Cedar Ridge, only one day's pack. But you had to have a city dress."

Mertie subsided into sullen restless silence, and took no part in the preparations for supper. The children gravitated to Lucy, who essayed to play with them on the windy porch. The afternoon darkened. Presently the men returned from their labours, loud-voiced and cheery, smelling of horses and newly ploughed earth. At the wash-bench they made much splashing.

"Wal, ma, we got the field ploughed, an' now let her rain," announced Denmeade.

"Let her rain!" cried Mertie shrilly, as if driven. "That's all anybody cares. Storm--rain--snow! For Edd to be caught out!"

"Aw, so thet's what ails you," returned her father. "Wal, don't you worry none about him."

During supper Denmeade again silenced his unhappy daughter, and though he drawled the reprimand in cool, easy words, there was a note in them that gave Lucy an idea of the iron nature of these backwoodsmen. This was the only instance so far in which the slightest discord or evidence of authority had appeared in the Denmeade family. To Lucy they seemed so tranquil, so set in their rugged simplicity.

After supper the grey twilight deepened and a misty rain blew in Lucy's face as she stood on the porch. Above the sound of the wind she heard a patter of rain on the roof.

"Reckon she'll bust directly," said Denmeade, as he passed Lucy, his arms full of wood. "I'm buildin' a fire fer you. It's shore goin' to storm."

By turning her ear to the north and attending keenly Lucy was able to distinguish between the two main sounds of the storm--the rush and gusty violence of the wind around the cabin, and the deep mighty roar of the gale up on the Rim. She shivered with more than cold. At dark the fury of the storm burst. Torrents of rain fell, drowning all other sounds. Lucy was forced back against the wall, but the rain, driving under the porch roof in sheets, sent her indoors.

A bright log fire blazed and cracked in the open fire-place of the room she occupied. The children were sitting on the floor, talking, and such was the roar on the roof and the bellow down the chimney that Lucy could not hear a word they said. Evidently, however, something in the fire attracted them. Mary was looking at it, too, thoughtfully, even dreamily, her thin face and large eyes expressive of a childish hunger for something.

The hour seemed a restless, uncertain one for Lucy. How the storm raged and lashed! She had an almost irresistible desire to run out into it, a sensation at once overcome by abject fear. Even the porch, with its two open doors of lighted rooms, was as black as pitch. Lucy knew she could not have gone a rod from the cabin without being lost. The gale outside would howl and shriek accompaniments to the roar on the roof; now and then a gust of wind sent a volley of raindrops, thick as a stream, against the windowpanes. The red fire hissed with the water that dripped down the chimney. Lucy walked from window to window, from the fire-place to the door; she sat down to gaze with the children at the opalescent embers settling on the hearth; and she rose to pace the floor. Her thoughts were wholly dominated by the sensations of the storm. At last Lucy put on her long heavy coat and braved the porch. But this time she went to the back, where in the lee of the cabin she was out of the fury of wind and rain. There she stood against the wall, peering out into the blackness, feeling the whip of wind, the cold wet sting of flying hail.

It had grown colder. The rain was lessening in volume and some of it was freezing to sleet. While she cowered there the roar on the roof subsided, and gradually the strife of the elements around the cabin slowed and softened. Presently Lucy became aware of the terrific roar of the storm up on the Rim. It shook her heart. It seemed a continuous thunder and it roused in her unaccustomed feelings. How strange to realise that she both feared and loved the black wild roaring void out there.

She seemed thousands of miles from her home, from the desert where she had lived always, the hot glaring little city, with its sun-baked streets winter and summer, its throng of people, intent upon money-making, marrying, living. What a contrast they presented to these few hardy families of the mountains! Lucy wondered if a race of people in their gregarious instincts, their despoliation and destruction of the wilderness, could not lose something great and beautiful. She felt it vaguely. How had men lived in the long ages before there were cities or settlements?