 | "The Alien" |  |
2. II
WHEN Antoine had exhausted his rage, he got up, gave the pony a farewell kick upon the nose, and started off at a dog-trot across the ice toward the bluffs beyond.
Ever and anon he stopped and whirled about with hand at ear. He heard only the sullen murmur of the silence, broken occasionally by the whine and pop of the ice and the plaintive, bitter wail of coyotes somewhere in the hills, like the heart-broken cry of the lonesome prairie yearning for the summer.
"Oh, I wouldn't howl if I was you!" muttered Antoine, apostrophizing the coyotes. "I wished I was a coyote or a gray wolf, knowin' what I do. I'd be a man-killer and a cattle-eater, I would. And then I'd have people of my own. Wouldn't be no cussed half-breed, a runnin' from his kind. Oh, I wouldn't howl if I was you!"
He proceeded at a swinging trot across the half-mile of ice and halted under the bluffs. He listened intently. A far sound had grown up in the hollow night, as if from the bottom of a deep well.
It was the clatter of hoofs far away, but clear in faintness, for the cold snap had made the frozen prairie a vast sounding-board.
A light snow had fallen the night before, and the moonlit trail of the refugee stood out upon it as clear as a wagon-track.
Antoine felt the pitiless pinch of the approaching lariat as he listened. Then his accustomed bitter weariness of life came upon him.
"What's the use in me runnin'? What am I runnin' to? Nothin' — only more of the same I'm runnin' from; lonesomeness and hunger and the like of that. Gettin' awake, stiff and cold and half-starved, and cussin' the daylight 'cause it's agin me like everything else, and gives me away. Sneakin' around till dark, eatin' when I can, like a dern gray wolf; then goin' to bed agin a snow-drift, like as not, hopin' it'll never get day. But it always does!
"It's all night somewheres, I reckon, spite of what the missionaries says. That's fer me — night always! No comin' day, no gettin' up; some place to hide in always."
He walked on with head dropped forward upon his breast, skirting the base of the bluffs, now seemingly oblivious of the sound of hoofs that grew momently more distinct.
As he walked he was dimly conscious of passing within a foot of the dark mouth of a hole running back into the clay of a bluff. He proceeded until he found himself again at the edge of the river, staring down into a broad black fissure in the ice, caused, doubtless, by the dash of the current crossing from the other side.
A terrible, dark, alluring thought seized him. Here was the place — the doorway to that place where it was always night!
Why not go in?
There would be no more running away, no more hiding, no more hatred of men, no more lonesomeness and hunger. Here was the place! He stepped forward, and stooped to gaze down into the door of night.
The rushing waters made a dismal, moaning sound. He stared, transfixed. Yes, he would go!
Suddenly a shudder ran through his whole body. He gave a quick exclamation of terror.
"No! No! Not there!"
He leaped back and raised his face to the skies. How kind and good to look upon was the sky! He gazed about — it was so fair a world! How good it was to breathe! He longed to throw his great brute arms about creation and clutch it to him, and hold it, hold it, hold it!
The hoofs!
The distant and muffled confusion of sound had grown into a series of sharp, distinct, staccato notes. The outlaw's pursuers were now no farther than a mile away. They would soon reach the river.
With the quick instinct of the hunted beast, Antoine grasped the means of safety. He remembered the hole in the bluff. His footprints led to the ice-fissure. He decided that none should lead away. He could not be pursued under ice.
Stooping, so that he could look between his legs, he began retracing his steps backward, placing his feet with infinite care where they had fallen before. Thus he came again to the hole in the clay bluff, and disappeared. A jutting point of sandstone had kept the quiet snow from falling at the mouth of the hole. The man left no trail as he entered on hands and knees.
When he had entered, he stopped and listened. He could now hear distinctly the sharp crack of hoofs upon the ice and the pop and thunder of the shaken surface.
"Here's some luck for me, anyhow," mused Antoine.
| "The Alien" | |