Gradually the desire changed until she wanted only the trees. They called down to her from their ridge, called for her to come in among the trunks, out of the sun, and to know the peace that lay in a pine forest. She could see herself, and even feel herself lying on a pine needle bed, looking up at the sky between the boughs, and she could hear how the wind would swish softly in the tops of the trees, and go flying away, laden with the pine scent.
Elizabeth stood up from the steps and walked slowly toward the barn. Someone was in there, for she could see forkfuls of manure come bursting through the windows. She walked into the dark sweet barn and approached Thomas. “I want to go for a little ride,” she said. “Would you mind hitching up a buggy for me?”
He leaned on the manure-fork. “Will you wait half an hour? When I finish this I will drive you.”
She was angry at his interference. “I want to drive myself, I want to be alone,” she said shortly.
He regarded her quietly. “I don’t know whether Joseph would like you to go out alone.”
“But Joseph isn’t here. I want to go.”
He leaned his fork against the wall then. “All right, I’ll hitch up old Moonlight. She’s gentle. Don’t go off the road, though, you might get stuck in the mud. It’s still pretty deep in some of the hollows.”
He helped her into the buggy and stood apprehensively watching her as she drove away.
Instinctively Elizabeth knew he didn’t want her to go to the pines. She drove a good distance from the house before she turned the old white mare’s head up the hill and went bumping over the uneven ground. The sun was very hot and the valley windless. She had driven a long way up the hill before a deep water-cut stopped her progress. In both directions the crevass extended, too far to go around, and the pines were only a short distance away. Elizabeth climbed from the buggy, snapped the tie-strap around a root and unhooked the check rein. Then she clambered down into the cut and up the other side, and walked slowly toward the pine grove. In a moment she came upon a little twinkling stream that ran from the forest and flowed quietly because there were no stones to bar its way. She stooped and pulled a sprig of cress out of the water and nibbled it as she sauntered upward beside the stream.
All of her irritation was gone now; she went happily forward and entered the forest. The deep needle beds muffled her footsteps and the forest swallowed every other sound except the whispering of the needles in the treetops. For a few moments she walked on, unimpeded, and then the screen of vines and brambles barred her way. She turned her shoulder to them and forced a passage through, and sometimes she crawled through an opening on her hands and knees. There was a demand upon her that she penetrate deep into the forest.
Her hands were scratched and her hair pulled down when she came at last through the bramble wall and straightened up. Her eyes grew wide with wonder at the circle of trees and the clear flat place. And then her eyes swept to the huge, misshapen green rock.
She whispered to herself, “I think I knew it was here. Something in my breast told me it was here, this dear good thing.” There was no sound at all in the place except the high whispering of the trees, and it was shut out, which only made the silence deeper, more impenetrable. The green moss covering of the rock was as thick as fur, and the long ferns hung down over the little cavern in its side like a green curtain. Elizabeth seated herself beside the tiny stream, slipping secretly away across the glade, and disappearing into the underbrush. Her eyes centered upon the rock and her mind wrestled with its suggestive shape. “Some place I’ve seen this thing,” she thought. “I must have known it was here, else why did I come straight to it?” Her eyes widened as she watched the rock, and her mind lost all sharp thought and became thronged with slowly turning memories, untroubled, meaningless and vague. She saw herself starting out for Sunday School in Monterey, and then she saw a slow procession of white-dressed Portuguese children marching in honor of the Holy Ghost, with a crowned queen leading them. Vaguely she saw the waves driving in from seven different directions to meet and to convulse at Point Joe near Monterey. And then as she gazed at the rock she saw her own child curled head-downward in her womb, and she saw it stir slightly, and felt its movement at the same time.
Always the whispering went on over her head and she could see out of the corners of her eyes how the black trees crowded in and in on her. It came upon her as she sat there that she was alone in all the world; every other person had gone away and left her and she didn’t care. And then it came upon her that she could have anything she wished, and in the train of this thought there came the fear that she most wished for death, and after that, for a knowledge of her husband.
Her hand moved slowly from her lap and fell into the cold water of the spring, and instantly the trees rushed back and the low sky flew upward. The sun had leaped forward as she sat there. There was a rustling in the forest now, not soft but sharp and malicious. She looked quickly at the rock and saw that its shape was as evil as a crouched animal and as gross as a shaggy goat. A stealthy cold had crept into the glade. Elizabeth sprang to her feet in panic, and her hands rose up and held her breasts. A vibration of horror was sweeping through the glade. The black trees cut off escape. There was the great rock crouching to spring. She backed away, fearing to take her eyes from it. When she had reached the entrance of the broad trail, she thought she saw a shaggy creature stir within the cave. The whole glade was alive with fear. She turned and ran down the trail, too frightened to scream, and she came, after a great time, to the open, where the warm sun shone.
The forest closed behind her and left her free.
She sat down, exhausted, by the little stream; her heart throbbed painfully and her breath came in gasps. She saw how the stream gently moved the cress that grew in its water, and she saw the mica specks glittering in the sand at the bottom. Then, turning for protection, she looked down on the clustered farm buildings where they were drenched with sun, and on the yellowing grass that bowed in long, flat silver waves before the afternoon wind. These were safe things; she was grateful for having seen them.
Before her fear was gone, she scrambled up to her knees to pray. She tried to think what had happened in the glade, but the memory of it was fading. “It was an old thing, so old that I have nearly forgotten it.” She recollected her posture. “It was an unlawful thing.” And she prayed, “Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name—” And she prayed, “Lord Jesus protect me from these forbidden things, and keep me in the way of light and tenderness. Do not let this thing pass through me into my child, Lord Jesus. Guard me against the ancient things in my blood.” She remembered how her father said his ancestors a thousand years ago followed the Druidic way.
When the prayer was done, she felt better. A clear light entered her mind again and drove out the fear, and with it a memory of the fear. “It’s my condition,” she said. “I should have known. Nothing was in that place except my imagination. Rama has told me often enough what kind of things to expect.”
She stood up then, reassured and comforted. And as she strolled down the hill she picked an armful of the late flowers to decorate the house against Joseph’s return.
18
THE summer heat was very great. Every day the sun beat down on the valley, sucking the moisture from the earth, drying the grass and causing every living thing to seek the deep shade of the sage thickets on the hills. All day the horses and cattle lay there, waiting for the night so they might come out for their feeding. The ranch dogs sprawled on the ground, with their quivering dripping tongues falling out of the sides of their mouths and their chests pumping like bellows. Even the noisy insects let the middle of the day be silent. At the meridian there was only a faint whine of rocks and earth, too fiercely scorched. The river receded until it was only a little stream, and when August came, even that disappeared.