He must leave her.
Never could there be such a woman for him. Only the others. The painted, empty others, the strangers whose last names he would never know, selling themselves to him or any other, not caring.
Maybe it was only his loneliness, but that he did not believe.
The others had not changed the loneliness.
With this woman, unlike the others, he was no longer alone.
What a fool she would think him.
He cared for her.
“Please,” she was saying, and Chance said, “I’m sorry,” and withdrew his hand.
Lucia stepped back and shivered inside the blanket.
“It’s cold,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “it is.”
Touch me again, she thought, please touch me again.
“Good-bye,” said Lucia Turner.
“Good-bye,” said Chance.
His hands reached out, not really much of a gesture, and somehow her hands had seemed gently to meet his, and then his hands were on her shoulders and they had stepped toward one another and their lips touched and Lucia cried out and clutched Edward Chance to her and then she felt him taking her into his arms, felt his iron, tightening arms choking her body, and could not breathe so hard did his arms hold her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and when by an act of will he thrust her from him, she could see the heat still in his eyes, hear the heaviness, the deepness of his breathing, and she could feel the mark of his kiss on her mouth.
“I’m not the kind of girl you seem to think I am,” she was saying, and hating herself for it.
“Please forgive me,” he said.
Lucia pulled the blanket about her shoulders. “Good-bye, Mr. Chance,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly.”
“I quite understand,” she said, and turned to leave.
Joseph Running Horse said something that sounded like, “Huh!”
Lucia stopped.
“Take her with you,” said Running Horse to Chance.
Lucia, not facing them, could not believe her ears.
“Take her with you,” Joseph Running Horse was saying.
Lucia suddenly felt like running, but instead she turned abruptly about, reddening, to face them.
“What are you talking about, Joseph?” asked Lucia.
Running Horse looked at her. “Do not talk now,” he said. Then he faced Chance. “You can let her go at the end of the reservation.”
“I-I don’t understand,” stammered Lucia.
Running Horse looked at her. “You could gather wood and cook for him and keep him warm in the blanket.”
“Joseph!” said Lucia.
“It’s not done,” said Chance.
Lucia blushed furiously, a change of complexion that was evident even in the moonlight.
“You mind your manners, Joseph Running Horse,” said Lucia.
“Tie her to your horse,” said Running Horse to Chance.
“I won’t stay here and listen to this,” said Lucia. And then she said, “Oh!” as she suddenly felt a rawhide coil of a braided lariat dropped about her shoulders and drawn tight, pinning her arms to her sides. The other end Joseph Running Horse had already looped about the saddle horn of Chance’s horse.
“Joseph!” said Lucia, as primly as she could manage.
“You are only a white woman,” said Joseph Running Horse. “We are Hunkpapa.”
“I thought you liked me,” said Lucia accusingly.
“I do,” said Running Horse. “You will like my brother, and it will be good for you.”
“No!” said Lucia, growing frightened.
Chance, more bewildered than anything, had stood by this conversation.
“And he will like you,” said Running Horse, “for you are a good woman.”
Good woman, good rifle, good horse, thought Lucia. She squirmed in the rawhide loop. “Please explain to him, Mr. Smith,” she said, she begged.
“Yes, yes,” said Chance quickly. “No, Running Horse, it wouldn’t be right. She has been very kind. Has helped us.”
“It is for her own good,” said Running Horse.
“It is simply not done,” said Chance firmly.
“No,” said Lucia, even more firmly.
“All right,” said Running Horse. “I thought it was a good idea.”
Chance thought to himself, yes, it is an excellent idea, but it is just not done.
“I go watch,” said Running Horse. Before he left he turned to Chance and said, rather sadly, “Good-bye, my Brother,” and Chance knew that the young Indian did not expect to see him again, and Chance thought it was probably true, too, and said to him, “Yes, my Brother, Good-bye.”
“Farewell,” said Joseph Running Horse in Sioux.
“Farewell,” said Chance, in Sioux.
Running Horse disappeared, and Chance knew that he would not have to worry about Grawson or Totter for the time being. Running Horse would “watch” and he would have the start he needed, probably until morning.
“Please,” said Lucia.
Chance removed the lariat from her body. “I’m sorry,” he said, but he seemed to be smiling, and Lucia was not sure that he really meant it.
“I don’t know what got into Joseph Running Horse,” she said.
Chance thought to himself that Running Horse had been very practical in his Sioux fashion.
“He thinks differently,” said Chance. “He’s Sioux.” And Chance thought to himself it was not so much that he thought differently, as that he was willing, for one reason or another, to act as he thought. He had seen Chance had wanted this woman, and had understood, somehow, or thought he had, that she had wanted him, and so he had proposed that Chance see that it came about. But Running Horse, naturally, did not understand white women, nor, Chance told himself, did he himself.
“The very idea,” said Lucia, and Chance was pleased that she laughed.
She looked up at him. “It seems I am fortunate that you are a gentleman, Mr. Chance.”
Chance smiled. “I suppose so-Miss-Turner.”
Lucia looked in the direction Running Horse had disappeared. She shivered. “He seems to think a girl would enjoy being dragged across the prairie,” she paused, and looked at Chance, her eyes mischievous, “-on an out-law’s rope.”
“Not so much that part of it,” said Chance.
“Oh,” said Lucia, and looked down.
They stood together quietly for a time, neither of them speaking.
“You are very beautiful,” said Chance.
Lucia did not look up, but in that instant like a fire running through her body she understood fully and for the first time in her life how it is that a woman can give herself completely to a man-though she knew she could not and would not do so-understood how it is that a woman could be shameless, rawly and utterly female. Knowing this thing she stood trembling at his saddle, aching, wanting him to touch her, to claim her weakness by his strength. Bind me, she thought, I desire to be yours. I will follow your horse like a captive squaw. But I must be made to do so. Must I ask you to tie your rope on my throat, to be tethered and led away, a woman?
“Good-bye,” said Chance.
I don’t want him to go yet, she cried out to herself, he can’t go yet. He must not go yet.
She is a good woman, Chance said to himself, a gentle and tender and beautiful woman and there is no place in her life for an outlaw, a man who runs from the law, and though he be tempted to be cruel and love her he must not yield to this cruelty; if he cares for her, he must care enough to go; if he wants to love her, he must love her enough to say “Goodbye,” to leave her standing here alone, as he will always remember her.
“Good-bye,” said Chance.
“Running Horse called you his Brother,” said Lucia, quickly, desperately.
“It’s true,” said Chance, explaining nothing.
“I don’t understand,” said Lucia.
“You don’t even speak Sioux,” said Chance. He must leave. He must be hard with her.
“No,” said Lucia, hurt, “I don’t.”
He turned from her and, slowly, recoiled the rawhide lariat and tied it to the saddle.
“I’m sorry I don’t speak Sioux,” she said.
Chance turned to face her. “I’m glad,” he said.
“But I don’t want to stay here,” she said. “I’m going to leave.”
Chance hoisted himself into the saddle.
He looked down at her, the blanket wrapped about her shoulders, her face lifted to his.
“Do you know why Buckhorn, the little boy, kills snakes?”
“For sugar,” she said.
“No,” said Chance, “because someone whom he likes very much is afraid of them-he is afraid they will make her go away.”
Chance turned the horse, kicked it in the flanks, and rode from the white-boarded school, leaving behind him a young, blue-eyed woman who stared after him.
“Good-bye, Mr. Chance,” she whispered.