Edison Marshall

“ Cry-in-the-night might kill him in a fair fight, but still he could not build a fire. The dreamer always felt a great wave of exultation.
One night he dreamed that the fire burned almost down, and the circle drew close. He wakened from his doze and shouted at them none too soon. And a strange, wild cry from his own lips wakened Hugh, in the sheep camp of the twentieth century, from his dream. He had cried out in his sleep,—a hoarse, wild, savage cry that left him curiously awed. And the coyote that had crept close to the flank of the flock slipped quickly back into the forest. ”

“ Fargo snarled, then started to turn.
And at that instant each of them forgot—for a little while—each other’s presence. They stood wholly silent, scarcely breathing,—listening as men listen when life itself is at stake. From far away in the still forest—in the direction that Alice had gone—both of them heard the faint, savage bay of the hounds.
No human being, at that distance, could mistake the cry. The pack was hunting. It was running its game. And from the wild excitement and exultation of the clamoring voices, it was plain that the trail was hot, that the hounds were almost upon their prey. ”

“ None of his old, soft delights had yielded one part of the pleasure that had been his as his strong strokes braved the current; no false flattery had ever been so satisfying as his victory over Broken Fang. It was service, it was conquest, it was manhood at last.
He had no sense of self-sacrifice as he made his decision to stay with the sheep. The joy of strong deeds does not lie in self-pity. Rather it was an inner knowledge that he had found happiness—at least the beginnings of it—and only a fool would throw it away. He had no wish to forego the first pleasure that life had ever given him. ”

“ It was as blind faith as that which will make a mother—a woman useful to the earth—give her life to save her crying infant—not through love, not through a sense of duty, but just from the inexorable command of the soul. Common sense and the voice of reason go unheard: and only instinct, blind and cruel, remains. No human being would blame Hugh for leaving his flock to the terror of the flame. Yet he was a man, one of the Breed, and he had no power to disobey the promptings of his own spirit. ”

“ And from there it was only one leap to the brittle brush of the shrubbery of the thicket.
José smiled then, a little, dim curling of his thin lips over his gleaming teeth. And he did not smile often. An event had to be very cruel and hurt some one very badly to waken mirth in him. And now there was no answering echo of simple pleasure in his dark eyes. Rather the fire that he had ignited had crept into them also: the pupils were oddly contracted and bright as points of steel. He seemed somewhat breathless, too, stirred to the depths with a madness unknown even to the wild creatures. ”

“ His long tail began to lash back and forth; his fangs caught the dim light of the encroaching dawn as he crept like a serpent through the thickets. The smell became even more plain, the fierce blood leaped even more wildly in his veins. There was nothing here to fear: no leaping camp fire to fill him with the age-old awe, no tall form of the herder on constant guard. He could kill, kill, kill—as much as he wanted—until the savagery in his heart was satiated. It was true that human beings had recently been on guard, but their smell was dim, and even now they were starting away, into the forest. ”

“ Perhaps it would be kinder to spare her the sight of Shep's death—yet his spirit lacked the strength.
"The dog first," the girl repeated. "And don't—wait—any more."
The dog's appealing eyes were upon them. Their own spirit—that of immortality itself which only men seem to possess—had pervaded him, and the dark eyes seemed unafraid. To the beasts, death is a darkness and a fear; but Shep knew that these two masters would have only mercy and kindness for him. Hugh's hand reached back for the revolver.
But the forest gods had not written that Shep should die so soon. ”

“ He liked the long still nights in which he knew the solace of the fire, and the whispering and the mystery that crept to him from the forest. He felt that he had lost all love of pretentious things. His standards were true at last, and the little, simple joys that came to him now meant more than all the luxury of his former life. His pipe—no longer tasting of varnish but cool and sweet—his simple meals, the little triumphs of his day's work, his refreshing rest after the day's fatigue gave him unmeasured joy. He had the lasting satisfaction of work well done, of time profitably spent. ”

“ Many men have lived years in the forest without ever hearing it at all. But once heard it is never forgotten. Hugh believed that he had heard it now.
And it had meant more to him than the mere night cry of an animal. It typified to him the very spirit of the wilderness. It was the voice not alone of a hungry creature, stalking in the shadows, but—in his thought—it expressed all the ancient terror of the darkness, the primeval forces that war with man.
Nothing had changed. Still the sheep slept in the meadow and a great beast of prey menaced them from the shadowed forest. ”

“ The wilderness stirred and whispered with life. The sheep slept. The moon that had looked upon many shepherds shone on his face.
This same moon meant good hunting to the wild creatures that ranged the forest about the little meadow. It was hard for them to work in the utter darkness. And one can only imagine—because no naturalist has ever yet been able to know in full the inner natures of animals—the thrill and the exultation that had passed from border to border through the wilderness world when the great white disk first rose above the mountains. ”

“ Hugh looked at him, considering just what he had meant. And perhaps his lips drew up in a faint smile. If there was one thing his experience with the sheep had taught him, it was to smile: smile at misfortune, smile at the little, everyday comedy of life,—and smile with real amusement at such storming, bullying men as this. But it was true that a moment before he had not been in the humor for mirth. He had known at once that the step in the darkness was not that of the coyote, or any of the hunters of the wild. ”

“ The first law of the forest is that it is better to run away than to die; but now they were out of striking range he opened fire upon them with his rifle, and with amazing, deadly accuracy. The air was full of their dying screams. No longer would the pack chase the black bear through the ridges. Their strength was broken and Fargo’s plan had failed.
But the moment meant more than this. To Alice it was deliverance in the last instant of despair. Now she lay fainting among the fallen, but Hugh, bleeding and triumphant, saw that she was uninjured. ”

“ As the moments had passed, one by one with a dreadful slowness that only men in the peril of death may know, the chances for his escape seemed ever less. The fire steadily encroached upon him, the heat increased, the red glow over the wilderness brightened until the world no longer seemed that into which he was born. And now the sheep had begun to "balk," refusing to be driven. It was a development that a more experienced herder might have expected and dreaded, and it always means that the spirit of the flock is broken. ”

“ He lay as if fallen in battle against the flocks,—a token of man’s dominance of the wild.
Hugh turned from him to find a strange stir and excitement among the sheep. It seemed to him that in those invisible ways no man may trace, a knowledge and a message was being passed from one to another; and a new hope and spirit was sweeping the flock. There was no concerted movement as yet. Still the sheep stood motionless, but their heads were raised. The only moving forms were those of Spot and his ewes, running along the flank of the flock. ”

“ It was such a picture that might never be effaced from the memory: the suddenly awakened sheep, the approaching forest fire, the motionless figures, the snarling, creeping feline, and the red glow as of the abyss over all. The creature paused—scarcely ten feet distant—and gathered himself for a final spring. Hugh fired his last bullet.
There was one strange instant more in which the bunched muscles relaxed and the great body wilted in the pine needles. The dog leaped upon it, but it was already impotent. A strength such as but rarely comes to man had held Hugh's hand steady ”

“ No deer, quietly grazing toward the thicket where the puma lay crouched, no blind gopher, venturing forth from his burrow in the icy gaze of a rattler stretched still and lifeless in the moonlight, ever sped so straight and unsuspecting into an ambush as Alice, riding toward the shadowed mouth of the canyon. A little gleam of hope had returned to her, for she saw that the fire advanced but slowly from the ridge above the canyon, and that she could not only ride to safety but that there was some hope, at least, of Hugh driving his flocks through in time. ”

“ All his life, it had seemed to him, he had carried in the deepest realms of his spirit a vision that had now come true: just the feeding flocks in the deep shade of the forest. He had the strange feelings of one who—exiled in babyhood—catches the far gleam of his homeland at last.
It seemed wholly natural that he should be walking here—behind the flocks—in silent vigil as the sun climbed up over the far, white peaks. He had a sense of having returned, after long and futile wanderings, to his own home. Always there had been blind, little-understood gropings in his own soul, a reaching outward ”

“ No human being could have seen those dreadful blue disks and ignored them: their terror went too deep for that. Man knows the terror of lightning, the dread (as well as the love) of fire, the fear of flooding waters, but he knows those two twin circles best of all. They carry him back to the first great Terror; they waken memories from the depths of the germ plasm; they recall the sight of other such fiery spheres, gleaming in the darkness at the mouth of the cave. Hugh's heart seemed to pump an icy stream through his veins. ”

“ It was better, he thought, that this man remain unconscious until he returned. He didn't forget that he was still shepherd of the flocks and that Fargo was an enemy. Some great test lay before him, and the fewer his foes the better. He leaped down—like a cougar springing from his ambush—and struck once with each fist into the soggy, brutal face.
They were terrific blows, but expedience, rather than cruelty, was the motive behind them. Hugh did not even wonder at himself. He swung lightly on to the horse and lashed it to a gallop. ”

“ It was not a thing to forget: that wilderness scene in mid-stream in which Broken Fang and this man of cities came face to face for the first time. It made a grim and moving picture: the magnificent outline of the great cat in silhouette against the slowly brightening eastern sky; the lamb, struggling in the little patch of driftwood; the watching forest, the dark river with its ivory foam; and the gray half-light of dawn casting dimness over all. Yet there was no such folly as mistaking its reality. The form on the log was not just a shadow, an image, a drunken fancy. ”

“ Did they know a vague bewilderment, blind gropings in their fishy souls, an unfamiliarity with the gray wastes and the incessant waves that was not to end until they could know again the shallows and cataracts and waterfalls of their native river? Did peace come to them then? It was repatriation,—and Hugh felt that he had repatriated too. Only the exile had not been confined to his own little life. Instead of four years it was—more likely—four generations, even four centuries. He had been an alien in those far, tumultuous cities, but he had come home to the open places at last. ”

“ The wind whispered and stirred in the wilderness just the same, the white sheep slept. Watching the flocks,—the phrase was as old as the mountains themselves.
Yet for a moment he found it hard to believe in the dangers of which the guide had spoken: dangers that would soon exterminate the flock except for the protection of herders and dogs. No scene could be more peaceful: the dark forest so lightly stirred by the wind, the river singing past, the soft firelight, the stars in the sky. ”

“ There were no human spectators to praise him for the deed or condemn him for its omission. He knew that even if he were put on trial no sensible man on the broad earth would hold it against him if he left the lamb to its fate.
Yet in that moment of inner trial a great and a serene knowledge came to him. He knew—in one instant of vision—that it did not lay with the shepherd to consider abstract issues of life and death. It was not for him to try to balance the value of a lamb's life with his own. His business was to watch the flock. His work was to guard the sheep. ”