The Oakley herald. [volume] (Oakley, Idaho) 1908-1961, 1923-09-07
Book One: The Two-Bar
Brand
CHAPTER 4
Joan Reads by freight.

There Is no silence SO fearful, so
breathless, so searching as the night
silence of wild country buried five
feet deep In snow. For thirty miles
or so, north, south, east and west OF
the small, half-smothered speck of
gold in Pierre Lands cabin window.
there lay, on a certain December
night, this silence, bathed in moon
light. The cold was intense: below
the bench where Pierre's homestead
lay there rose from tine twisted, rapid
river a cloud of steam above which
the hoar-frosted tops of cottonwood
trees were perfectly distinct, trunk.
branch and twig, against a sky the
color of iris petals. The stars fiared
brilliantly, hardly dimmed by the full
moon, and over the vast surface Of the
snow minute crystals kept up steady
shining Of their own. The range of
sharp, wind-scraped mountains, up
lifted fourteen thousand feet, rode
west, dazzling In white armor, spears
up to the sky, sight, seen suddenly,
to take the breath, like the crashing
march of archangels militant.
In the center of this ring of silent
crystal Pierre Landis' logs shut in a
little square of warm and rudy hui
man darkness. Joan, his wife, made
the heart of this defiant space-Joan,
the one mind living in this ghostly
area of night She had put out the
lamp, for Pierre, starting downward
two days before, had warned her with
a certain threatening sharpness not |
TO waste oil, and she lay on the |
hearth, her rough head almost in the |
ashes, reading a book by the unsteady |
light of the flames. She followed the
printed lines with a strong dark fore
inger and her lips framed the words
With slow. whispering motions. 1t
vas a long, strong woman's body |
stretched there across the floor, heav-
ly II not sluggishly built, dressed
'udely In warm stuffs and clumsy
,oots, and 1t was a heavy face, too.
lnlit from within, but built on lines
4 perfect animal beauty. The head
md throat had the massive look of
marble fragment stained to one even
one and dug up from Attic earth. And
he was reading thus heavily and
lowly, by freight in the midst of
his tremendous northern night, Keats
ersion of Boccaccio's tale Of Isa-
ella and the Pot of Basil"
The story for some reason interest
d her. She felt that she could I'M
erstand the love of young Lorenzo
nd of Isabella, the hatred of those
wo brothers and Isabella's horrible
for that young murdered
wn life that she compared with
hese; in fact. at every phrase she
topped and, staring ahead, crudely
nd ignorantly visualized, after her
wn experience. what she had just
cad: and. In doing so. she pictured
er own life.
Her love and Pierre's-her life be-
IRE Pierre came--to put herself in
place. she felt back to the
avs before her love, when she had
we'd in desolation of bleak poverty,
p and away along Lone river in her
lther's shack. This log house of
ierre's was a castle by contrast.
)hn Carver and his daughter had
JARED one room between them; Joan's
I'd curtained of with gunny-sacking
a corner. She slept on hides and !
lied herself up In old dingy patch
ork quilts and worn blankets. On {
inter mornings she would wake COW q
ed with the snow that had sifted in I
tween the Unmatched logs There o
I'd been a stove. one leg gone and /
Instituted for by a huge cobble- n
one; there had been two chairs, a &
ng box, table, shelves-all rudely a
nde by John: there had been guns j
ID traps and snowshoes. hides, skins,
e wings of birds, couple of fishing n
ds-John made his living by legal "
ID Illegal trapping and killing. He
d looked like a trapped or hunted Il
eature himself. small. furtive, very Il
rk, with long fingers always work Il
( over his mouth, a great crooked u