They left the cabin, to stand for a moment in the bracing night air, before starting down the trail.
“You’re not locking the door?” she asked.
“No need to lock the barn door after the horse has been stolen.”
“Somehow I wish you would. You might — have a visitor.”
“I think I’d be glad to see him,” he said, swinging the rifle slightly so that it glinted in the moonlight.
“Do you want me to lead the way with the flashlight or to come behind?”
“I’ll go ahead,” he said, “and please don’t use the flashlight.”
“But we’ll need it.”
“No we won’t. There’s a moon that will give us plenty of light for more than an hour. It’s better to adjust your eyes to the darkness, rather than continually flashing a light on and off.”
He started off down the trail, walking with his long, easy stride.
The moon, not yet quite half full, was in the west, close to Venus, which shone as a shining beacon. It was calm and still, and the night noises seemed magnified. The purling of the stream became the sound of a rushing cascade.
The day had been warm, but now in the silence of the night the air had taken on the chill that comes from the high places, a windless, penetrating chill which makes for appreciation of the soft warmth of down-filled sleeping bags. The moon-cast shadows of the silhouetted pine trees lay across the trail like tangible barriers, and the silent, brooding strangeness of the mountains dwarfed Roberta Coe’s consciousness until her personality seemed to her disturbed mind to be as puny as her light footfalls on the everlasting granite.
There was a solemn strangeness about the occasion which she wished to perpetuate, something that she knew she would want to remember as long as she lived; so when they were a few hundred yards from camp, she said, “Frank, I’m tired. Can’t we rest a little while? You don’t realize what a space-devouring stride you have.”
“Your camp’s only around that spur,” he said. “They’ll be worrying about you and—”
“Oh, bother!” she said. “Let them worry. I want to rest.”
There was the trunk of a fallen pine by the side of the trail, and she seated herself on it. He came back to stand uncomfortably at her side, then, propping the gun against the log, seated himself beside her.
The moon was sliding down toward the mountains now, and the stars were beginning to come out in unwinking splendor. She knew that she would be cold as soon as the warmth of the exercise left her blood, but knew also that Frank Ames was under a tension, experiencing a struggle with himself.
She moved slightly, her shoulder brushed against his, her hair touched his cheek, and the contact set off an emotional explosion. His arms were about her, his mouth strained to hers. She knew this was what she had been wanting for what had seemed ages.
She relaxed in the strength of his sinewy arms, her head tilting back so he could find her lips. Sudden pulses pounded in her temples. Then suddenly he had pushed her away, was saying contritely, “I’m sorry.”
She waited for breath and returning self-assurance. Glancing at him from under her eyelashes, she decided on the casual approach. She laughed and said, “Why be sorry? It’s a perfect night, and, after all, we’re human.” She hoped he wouldn’t notice the catch in her voice, a very unsophisticated catch which belied the casual manner she was trying to assume.
“You’re out of my set,” he said. “You’re... you’re as far above me as that star.”
“I wasn’t very far above you just then. I seemed to be — quite close.”
“You know what I mean. I’m a hillbilly, a piece of human flotsam cast up on the beach by the tides of war. Damn it, I don’t mean to be poetic about it and I’m not going to be apologetic. I’m—”
“You’re sweet,” she interrupted.
“You have everything; all the surroundings of wealth. You’re camped up here in the mountains with wranglers to wait on you. I’m a mountain man.”
“Well, good Lord,” she laughed, a catch in her throat, “you don’t need to plan marriage just because you kissed me.”
And in the constricted silence which followed, she knew that was exactly what he had been planning.
Suddenly, she turned and put her hand over his. “Frank,” she said, “I want to tell you something... something I want you to keep in confidence. Will you?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded strained.
She laughed. “I just finished promising the sheriff I’d never tell this to anyone.” And then, without further preliminaries, she told him about her marriage, about the scandal, the annulment of her marriage.
When she had finished, there was a long silence. Abruptly she felt a nervous reaction. The cold, still air of the mountains seemed unfriendly. She felt terribly alien, a hopelessly vulnerable morsel of humanity in a cold, granite world which gave no quarter to vulnerability.
“I’m glad you told me,” Frank Ames said simply, then jackknifed himself up from the log. “You’ll catch cold sitting here. Let’s move on.”
Angry and hurt, she fought back the tears until the lighted tents of her camp were visible.
“I’m all right now,” she said hastily. “Good-by — thanks for the dinner.”
She saw that he wanted to say something, but she was angry both at him and at herself, thoroughly resentful that she had confided in this man. She wanted to rush headlong into the haven of her lighted camp, escaping the glow of the campfire, but she knew he was watching, so she tried to walk with dignity, leaving him standing there, vaguely aware that there was something symbolic in the fact that she had left him just outside the circle of firelight.
She would have liked to reach her tent undiscovered, but she knew that the others were wondering about her. She heard Dick Nottingham’s voice saying, “Someone’s coming,” then Sylvia Jessup calling, “Is that you, Roberta?”
“In person,” she said, trying to make her voice sound gay.
“Well, you certainly took long enough. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow,” she said. “I’m headed for my sleeping bag. I’m chilled.”
Eleanor Dowling said, “I’ll bring you a hot toddy when you get in bed, honey.”
She knew they wanted to pump her, knew they wanted to ask questions about the sheriff, about her supposed conference. And she knew that she couldn’t face them — not then.
“Please don’t,” she said. “I’m all in. I have a beastly headache and I took two aspirin tablets coming down the trail. Let me sleep.”
She entered the tent, conscious as she did so of Frank Ames’ words about how she was waited on hand and foot. They had kept a fire going in the little sheet-metal stove. The tent was warm as toast. A lantern was furnishing mellow light. The down interior of her sleeping bag was inviting. Not only did she have an air mattress, but there was a cot as well.
“Oh, what a fool I was!” she said. “Why did I have to go baring my soul. The big ignoramus! He’s out of my world. He... he thinks I’m second-hand merchandise!”
Roberta Coe’s throat choked up with emotion. She sat on the edge of the cot there in her little tent, her head on her hands. Hot tears trickled between her fingers.
She realized with a pang how much that moment had meant to her, how much it had meant when Frank Ames’ arms were around her, straining, eager and strong.
Sylvia Jessup’s voice sounded startlingly close. “What’s the matter, darling?” she asked. “Has something happened—”
Roberta looked up quickly, realizing now that the damage had been done, that the lantern was in such a position that her shadow was being thrown on the end of the tent. Sylvia, sitting by the campfire, had been able to see silhouetted dejection, to see the shadow of Roberta seated on the cot, elbows on her knees, face in her hands.