The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1937-10-14

Marion drew up her knees, and
hid her eyes against them. One of
her hands reached out to him I'M
certainly, and he took it. Her fin
gers were moist and cold, with a
tremor in them; he warmed them
between his hands, noticing how
huge his hands were made to look
by her slim fingers.
Presently she looked up, shook
her head sharply, and drew away
her hand. "I'm all right now. Did
you ever see such silliness?"
RAT easy. We've got lots of
time"
The dusk had closed more rapid
ly at the last, and little light was
left in the sky; but a moon was
rising behind a high point of rocks,
silhouetting crag that looked like
a horses head.
He noticed how huge it looked,
as moons do when they are low to
the earth. The horse-head crag
had a 4OO-foot profile, but it looked
little against the moon, which was
made to look bigger than noun
tain, bigger than range.
''You know" he said, cts funny
how badly things work out; never
the way you want them to be. Many
and many a night, lying out in the
hills, watching my fire-like this
I've thought about how it would
be, if you were there. How I'd get
you to like these hills, and the coy
otes talking, and the smell of smoke
in your hair-you know, foolish
stuff" ' .~,~-,
81 do love the hills" she said.
He shook his head. "This isn't
it. This isn't right. You ought to
be able to lie by your fire and smell
pine timber And that crick out
there ought to have water running
in it. You sit and listen to running
water, and pretty soon you get to
hear voices in it; sometimes you lie
awake for hours trying to get what
they say. But what's more to the
point, there ought to be nice pan
of trout frying, here on the fire."
"You fit with things like that, you
know. AS if you were made out of
them"
He said, "A half hours rest in
the rocks, with a long, long walk
ahead is about as close as
people get to the way they want
things, I suppose"
cts my fault, Billy. If I hadn't
been so stubborn you wouldn't have
lost your horse; you'd have gone
on through"
"Shucks, now!"
She was silent and they sat look
ing into the fire. The smell of au-
turnn was cool and clean in the air,
across the dry sage; and the red
gold moon fairly mellowed the chill
of darkness on the gaunt hills, so
that they sat here in unreality, as if
in a dream.
"Some Places" he said, "they call
that a harvest moon; the Indians
call it the hunting moon, and they
used to make smoke-medicines by
it."
"What do you call it,"
"Weu - sometimes we call it a
coyote moon. Because it puts a
kind of singing craze on the coy
otes. They gather around on hill
tops, seems like, and sing their
hearts out, as if it drove them wild
crazy, some way. Listen"
Far off, so faint a whisper that it
seemed half imagined, they could
hear now a queer high grooming,
full of an interviewer yapping and
trilling, like nothing else on earth.
'It sounds" Marian said, Gas if
there were 40 or so of them-sit-
ting somewhere on a mountain in a
ring"
"Two," he told her. 'They pair
off this time of year"
"Two," she repeated. "Then
that's why there's something more
than moon madness in that sing
ing"
He knew that they should be
starting the long return, but he
could not bring himself to say so.
The thing that had brought them
together again the disaster to
Horse Dunn and the 94-had nearr-
ly run its course. And he knew
that it was good thing for him
that it had. Already he had lived
under the same roof with Marian
too long for his own good. He no
longer had any hope that he could
forget her; she would always be in
the back of his mind some place
waiting to come real close to him in
his dreams.
He supposed he would have to