Anemones and violets of hell
Foreran the fatal summer.
Spurs bit deep.
Now down the hill where shadow-haunted sleep
Fell from the broken wind’s narcotic breath,
The ponies plunged. A sheltered draw, where death
Seemed brooding in the silence, heard them pass.
A hollow, deep with tangled jointed grass,
Snatched at the frantic hoofs. Now up a slope
They clambered, blowing, at a stumbling lope
And, reined upon the summit, wheeled to stare.
The stallion snorted, and the rearing mare
Screamed at the sight and bolted down the wind.
The writhing Terror, scarce a mile behind,
Appeared to gain; while far to left and right
Its flanks seemed bending in upon the night—
A ten-league python closing on its prey.
No guiding hand was needed for the way;
Blind speed was all. So little Nature heeds
The fate of men, these blew as tumbleweeds
Before that dwarfing, elemental rage.
A gray wolf bounded from a clump of sage;
A rabbit left its bunchgrass nest and ran
Beside its foe; and neither dreaded Man,
The deadliest of all earth’s preying things.
A passing knoll exploded into wings,
And prairie owls, befuddled by the light,
Went tumbling up like patches of the night
The burning tempest tattered.
Leaning low,
The gasping riders let the ponies go,
The little buckskin leading, while the roan
Strove hard a-flank, afraid to be alone
And nickering at whiles. And he who led,
By brief hypnotic lapses comforted,
Recalled the broad Ohio, heard the horns
The way they used to sing those summer morns
When he and Mike and—. There the dream went wrong
And through his head went running, like a song
That sings itself: “He tried so hard to come
And warn us; but the grave had made him dumb,
And ’twas to show he loved us that he smiled.”
And of the other terror made a child
Whom often, for a panic moment’s span,
Projections from the conscience of the man
Pursued with glaring eyes and claws of flame.
For this the dead arose, for this he came—
That grin upon his face!
A blinding gloom
Crushed down; then, followed by a rolling boom,
There broke a scarlet hurricane of light
That swept the farthest reaches of the night
Where unsuspected hills leaped up aghast.
Already through the hollow they had passed
So recently, the hounding Terror sped!
And now the wind grew hotter. Overhead
Inverted seas of color rolled and broke,
And from the combers of the litten smoke
A stinging spindrift showered.
On they went,
Unconscious of duration or extent,
Of everything but that from which they fled.
Now, sloping to an ancient river bed,
The prairie flattened. Plunging downward there,
The riders suddenly became aware
How surged, beneath, a mighty shadow-stream—
As though the dying Prairie dreamed a dream
Of yesterage when all her valleys flowed
With Amazons, and monster life abode
Upon her breast and quickened in her womb.
And from that rushing in the flame-smeared gloom
Unnumbered outcries blended in a roar.
The headlong ponies struck the sounding shore
And reared upon their haunches. Far and near,
The valley was a-flood with elk and deer
And buffalo and wolves and antelope
And whatsoever creature slough and slope
Along the path of terror had to give.
Torrential with the common will to live,
The river of unnumbered egos swept
The ponies with it. But the buckskin kept
The margin where the rabble frayed and thinned
And, breathing with the wheeze of broken wind,
The stallion clung to her.
It came to pass
The valley yawned upon a sea of grass
That seemed to heave, as waves of gloom and glare
Ran over it; and, rising here and there,
Tall buttes made islands in the living tide
That roared about them. Still with swinging stride
And rhythmic breath the little buckskin ran
Among the herd, that opened like a fan
And scattered. But the roan was losing ground.
His breathing gave a gurgling, hollow sound,
As though his life were gushing from his throat.
His whole frame quivered like a scuttled boat
That slowly sinks; nor did he seem to feel
Upon his flank the biting of the steel
That made him bleed. Fink cut the rifle-boot
And saddle-bags away, to give the brute
Less burden.
Now it happened, as they neared
A lofty butte whose summit glimmered weird
Beneath the lurid boiling of the sky,
Talbeau was startled by a frantic cry
Behind him; noted that he rode alone,
And, turning in the saddle, saw the roan
Go stumbling down and wither to a heap.
And momently, between a leap and leap,
The love of self was mighty in the man;
For now the Terror left the hills and ran
With giant strides along the grassy plains.
Dear Yesterdays fought wildly for the reins,
Tomorrows for the spur. And then the mare
Heeled to the sawing bit and pawed the air
And halted, prancing. Once again Talbeau
Looked back to where the sparks were blown as snow
Before that blizzard blast of scorching light,
And saw Fink running down the painted night
Like some lost spirit fleeing from the Wrath.
One horse—and who should ride it? All he hath
A man will give for life! But shall he give
For living that which makes it good to live—
The consciousness of fellowship and trust?
Let fools so prize a pinch of throbbing dust!
Now Fink should ride, and let the rest be hid.
He bounded from the mare; but, as he did,
The panic-stricken pony wheeled about,
Won freedom with a lunge, and joined the rout
Of fleeing shadows.
Well, ’twas over now—
Perhaps it didn’t matter anyhow—
They’d go together now and hunt for Bill!
And momently the world seemed very still
About Talbeau. Then Fink was at his side,
Blank horror in his face. “Come on!” he cried;
“The butte! We’ll climb the butte!” And once again
Talbeau knew fear.
Now, gripping hands, the men
Scuttled and dodged athwart the scattered flight
Of shapes that drifted in the flood of light,
A living flotsam; reached the bare butte’s base,
Went scrambling up its leaning leeward face
To where the slope grew sheer, and huddled there.
And hotter, hotter, hotter grew the air,
Until their temples sang a fever tune.
The April night became an August noon.
Then, near to swooning in a blast of heat,
They heard the burning breakers boom and beat
About their lofty island, as they lay,
Their gaping mouths pressed hard against the clay,
And fought for every breath. Nor could they tell
How long upon a blistered scarp in hell
They gasped and clung. But suddenly at last—
An age in passing, and a moment, passed—
The torture ended, and the cool air came;
And, looking out, they saw the long slant flame
Devour the night to leeward.
