It was the other prisoner that I heard them next address. “You don’t eat any breakfast, Ed.”
“Brace up, Ed. Look at Steve, how hardy he eats!”
But Ed, it seemed, wanted no breakfast. And the tin dishes rattled as they were gathered and taken to be packed.
“Drink this coffee, anyway,” another urged; “you’ll feel warmer.”
These words almost made it seem like my own execution. My whole body turned cold in company with the prisoner’s, and as if with a clank the situation tightened throughout my senses.
“I reckon if everyone’s ready we’ll start.” It was the Virginian’s voice once more, and different from the rest. I heard them rise at his bidding, and I put the blanket over my head. I felt their tread as they walked out, passing my stall. The straw that was half under me and half out in the stable was stirred as by something heavy dragged or half lifted along over it. “Look out, you’re hurting Ed’s arm,” one said to another, as the steps with tangled sounds passed slowly out. I heard another among those who followed say, “Poor Ed couldn’t swallow his coffee.” Outside they began getting on their horses; and next their hoofs grew distant, until all was silence round the stable except the dull, even falling of the rain.
XXXI
The Cottonwoods
I do not know how long I stayed there alone. It was the Virginian who came back, and as he stood at the foot of my blankets his eye, after meeting mine full for a moment, turned aside. I had never seen him look as he did now, not even in Pitchstone Canyon when we came upon the bodies of Hank and his wife. Until this moment we had found no chance of speaking together, except in the presence of others.
“Seems to be raining still,” I began after a little.
“Yes. It’s a wet spell.”
He stared out of the door, smoothing his mustache.
It was again I that spoke. “What time is it?”
He brooded over his watch. “Twelve minutes to seven.”
I rose and stood drawing on my clothes.
“The fire’s out,” said he; and he assembled some new sticks over the ashes. Presently he looked round with a cup.
“Never mind that for me,” I said.
“We’ve a long ride,” he suggested.
“I know. I’ve crackers in my pocket.”
My boots being pulled on, I walked to the door and watched the clouds. “They seem as if they might lift,” I said. And I took out my watch.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“A quarter of—it’s run down.”
While I wound it he seemed to be consulting his own.
“Well?” I inquired.
“Ten minutes past seven.”
As I was setting my watch he slowly said:
“Steve wound his all regular. I had to night-guard him till two.” His speech was like that of one in a trance: so, at least, it sounds in my memory today.
Again I looked at the weather and the rainy immensity of the plain. The foothills eastward where we were going were a soft yellow. Over the gray-green sagebrush moved shapeless places of light—not yet the uncovered sunlight, but spots where the storm was wearing thin; and wandering streams of warmth passed by slowly in the surrounding air. As I watched the clouds and the earth, my eyes chanced to fall on the distant clump of cottonwoods. Vapors from the enfeebled storm floated round them, and they were indeed far away; but I came inside and began rolling up my blankets.
“You will not change your mind?” said the Virginian by the fire. “It is thirty-five miles.”
I shook my head, feeling a certain shame that he should see how unnerved I was.
He swallowed a hot cupful, and after it sat thinking; and presently he passed his hand across his brow, shutting his eyes. Again he poured out a cup, and emptying this, rose abruptly to his feet as if shaking himself free from something.
“Let’s pack and quit here,” he said.
Our horses were in the corral and our belongings in the shelter of what had been once the cabin at this forlorn place. He collected them in silence while I saddled my own animal, and in silence we packed the two packhorses, and threw the diamond hitch, and hauled tight the slack, damp ropes. Soon we had mounted, and as we turned into the trail I gave a look back at my last night’s lodging.
The Virginian noticed me. “Goodbye forever!” he interpreted.
“By God, I hope so!”
“Same here,” he confessed. And these were our first natural words this morning.
“This will go well,” said I, holding my flask out to him; and both of us took some, and felt easier for it and the natural words.
For an hour we had been shirking real talk, holding fast to the weather, or anything, and all the while that silent thing we were keeping off spoke plainly in the air around us and in every syllable that we uttered. But now we were going to get away from it; leave it behind in the stable, and set ourselves free from it by talking it out. Already relief had begun to stir in my spirits.
“You never did this before,” I said.
“No. I never had it to do.” He was riding beside me, looking down at his saddle-horn.
“I do not think I should ever be able,” I pursued.
Defiance sounded in his answer. “I would do it again this morning.”
“Oh, I don’t mean that. It’s all right here. There’s no other way.”
“I would do it all over again the same this morning. Just the same.”
“Why, so should I—if I could do it at all.” I still thought he was justifying their justice to me.
He made no answer as he rode along, looking all the while
