"I didn't know that I had made any complaint," she said equably.
"You haven't, but the summer has told on you just the same. You are thin, and your eyes are too big. Look at that!" He held out a hand that shook visibly. "That's the Gila Valley for you."
"Sometimes it's the Gila Valley, and sometimes it's rum," said Landor. "It's rum with a good many."
"Why shouldn't it be? What the deuce has a fellow got to do but drink and gamble? You have to, to keep your mind off it."
[Pg 74]
The lieutenant himself did neither, but he argued that his mind was never off it.
Felipa thought it was not quite so bad as that, and she poured herself another cup of the Rio, strong as lye, with which she saturated8 her system, to keep off the fever.
"You might marry," Landor suggested. "You can always do that when all else fails."
"Who is there to marry hereabouts? And always supposing there were some one, I'd be sent off on a scout9 next day, and have to ship her back East for an indefinite time. It would be just my blamed luck."
The breakfast humor when the thermometer has been a hundred and fifteen in the shade for long months, is pessimistic. "Don't get married then, please," said Felipa, "not for a few days at any rate. I don't want Captain Landor to go off until he gets over these chills and things."
There was a knock at the door of the tent, and it opened. The adjutant came in. "I say, Landor—"
"I say, old man, shut that door! Look at the flies. Now go on," he added, as the door banged; and he rose to draw a chair to the table.
"Can't stay," said the adjutant, all breathless. "The line's down between here and the Agency; but a runner has just come in, and there's trouble. The bucks10 are restless. Want to join Victorio in New Mexico. You've both got to get right over there."
It was the always expected, the never ceasing. Landor looked at his wife and stroked his mustache with[Pg 75] a shaking hand. His face was yellow, and his hair had grown noticeably grayer.
"You are not fit to go," Felipa said resignedly, "but that doesn't matter, of course."
"No," he agreed, "it doesn't matter. And I shall do well enough." Then the three went out, and she finished her breakfast alone.
In less than an hour the troop was ready, the men flannel-shirted and gauntleted, their soft felt hats pulled over their eyes, standing12 reins13 in hand, foot in stirrup, beside the fine, big horses that Crook14 had substituted for the broncos of the plains cavalry15 of former years. Down by the corrals the pack-mules were ready, too, grunting16 under their aparejos and packs. A thick, hot wind, fraught17 with sand, was beginning, presaging18 one of the fearful dust storms of the southwest. The air dried the very blood in the veins19. The flies, sticky and insistent20, clung and buzzed about the horses' eyes and nostrils21. Bunches of tumbleweed and hay went whirling across the parade.
Landor came trotting22 over from his quarters, followed by his orderly, and the troops moved off across the flat, toward the river.
Felipa stood leaning listlessly against the post of the ramada, watching them. After a time she went into the adobe23 and came out with a pair of field-glasses, following the course of the command as it wound along among the foot-hills. The day dragged dully along. She was uneasy about her husband, her nerves were shaken with the coffee and quinine, and she was filled,[Pg 76] moreover, with a vague restlessness. She would have sent for her horse and gone out even in the clouds of dust and the wind like a hot oven, but Landor had forbidden her to leave the post. Death in the tip of a poisoned arrow, at the point of a yucca lance, or from a more merciful bullet of lead, might lurk24 behind any mesquite bush or gray rock.
She set about cleaning the little revolver, self-cocking, with the thumb-piece of the hammer filed away, that her husband had given her before they were married. To-night she wanted no dinner. She was given to eating irregularly; a good deal at a time, and again nothing for a long stretch. That, too, was in the blood. So she sent the soldier cook away, and he went over to the deserted26 barracks.
Then she tried to read, but the whisper of savagery27 was in the loneliness and the night. She sat with the book open in her lap, staring into a shadowy corner where there leaned an Indian lance, surmounted29 by a war bonnet30. Presently she stood up, and stretched her limbs slowly, as a beast of prey32 does when it shakes off the lethargy of the day and wakens for the darkness. Then she went out to the back of the tents.
The stars were bright chips of fire in a sky of polished blue. The wind of the day had died at dusk, and the silence was deep, but up among the bare graves the coyotes were barking weirdly33. As she looked off across the low hills, there was a quick, hissing34 rattle35 at her feet. She moved hastily, but without a start, and glanced down at a rattler not three feet away.
[Pg 77]
Landor's sabre stood just within the sitting room, and she went for it and held the glittering blade in front of the snake. Its fangs36 struck out viciously again and again, and a long fine stream of venom37 trickled38 along the steel. Then she raised the sabre and brought it down in one unerring sweep, severing39 the head from the body. In the morning she would cut off the rattle and add it to the string of close upon fifty that hung over her mirror. But now the night was calling to her, the wild blood was pricking40 in her veins. Running the sabre into the ground, she cleaned off the venom, and went back to the adobe to put it in its scabbard.
After she had done that she stood hesitating for just a moment before she threw off all restraint with a toss of her head, and strapped42 about her waist a leather belt from which there hung a bowie knife and her pistol in its holster. Then slipping on her moccasins, she glided43 into the darkness. She took the way in the rear of the quarters, skirting the post and making with swift, soundless tread for the river. Her eyes gleamed from under her straight, black brows as she peered about her in quick, darting44 glances.
Not a week before—and then the Agency had been officially at peace—a Mexican packer had been shot down by an arrow from some unseen bow, within a thousand yards of the post, in broad daylight. The Indians, caking their bodies with clay, and binding45 sage46 or grass upon their heads, could writhe47 unseen almost within arm's reach. But Felipa was not afraid. Straight for the river bottom she made, passing amid the [Pg 78]dump-heaps, where a fire of brush was still smouldering, filling the air with pungent48 smoke, where old cans and bottles shone in the starlight, and two polecats, pretty white and black little creatures, their bushy tails erect49, sniffed50 with their sharp noses as they walked stupidly along. Their bite meant hydrophobia, but though one came blindly toward her, she barely moved aside. Her skirt brushed it, and it made a low, whining51, mean sound.
Down by the river a coyote scudded52 across her path as she made her way through the willows53, and when he was well beyond, rose up on his hind25 legs and looked after her. At the water's edge she stopped and glanced across to the opposite bank. The restlessness was going, and she meant to return now, before she should be missed—if indeed she were not missed already, as was very probable. Yet still she waited, her hands clasped in front of her, looking down at the stream. Farther out, in the middle, a ripple54 flashed. But where she stood among the bushes, it was very dark. The water made no sound, there was not a breath of air, yet suddenly there was a murmur55, a rustle56.
Felipa's revolver was in her hand, and cocked and pointed57 straight between two eyes that shone out of the blackness. And so, for an appreciable58 time, she stood. Then a long arm came feeling out; but because she was looking along the sight into the face at the very end of the muzzle59, she failed to see it. When it closed fast about her waist, she gave a quick gasp60 and fired. But the bullet, instead of going straight through the forehead beneath the head[Pg 79] band, as she had meant it to do, ploughed down. The grasp on the body relaxed for an instant; the next it had tightened61, and a branch had struck the pistol from her hand.
And now it was a struggle of sheer force and agility62. She managed to whip out the knife from her belt and to strike time and time again through sinewy63 flesh, to the bone. The only noise was the dragging of their feet on the sand, the cracking of the willows and the swishing of the blade. It was savage28 against savage, two vicious, fearless beasts.
The Apache in Felipa was full awake now, awake in the bliss64 of killing65, the frenzy66 of fight, and awake too, in the instinct which told her how, with a deep-drawn breath, a contraction67, a sudden drop and writhing68, she would be free of the arms of steel. And she was free, but not to turn and run—to lunge forward, once and again, her breath hissing between her clenched69, bared teeth.
The buck11 fell back before her fury, but she followed him thrusting and slashing70. Yet it might not, even then, have ended well for her, had there not come from somewhere overhead the sound most dreaded71 as an omen41 of harm by all Apaches—the hoot72 of an owl31. The Indian gave a low cry of dismay and turned and darted73 in among the bushes.
She stood alone, with the sticky, wet knife in her hand, catching74 her breath, coming out of the madness. Then she stooped, and pushing the branches aside felt about for her pistol. It lay at the root of a tree, and[Pg 80] when she had picked it up and put it back in the holster, there occurred to her for the first time the thought that the shot in the dead stillness must have roused the camp. And now she was sincerely frightened. If she were found here, it would be more than disagreeable for Landor. They must not find her. She started at a swift, long-limbed run, making a wide detour75, to avoid the sentries76, bending low, and flying silently among the bushes and across the shadowy sands.
She could hear voices confusedly, men hurriedly calling and hallooing as she neared the back of the officers' line and crept into her tent. The door was barely closed when there came a knock, and the voice of the striker asking if she had heard the shot across the river.
"Yes," she said, "I heard it. But I was not frightened. What was it?" He did not know, he said, and she sent him back to the barracks.
Then she lit a lamp and took off her blood-stained gown. There was blood, too, on the knife and its case. She cleaned them as best she could and looked into the chamber77 of her revolver with a contemplative smile on the lips that less than half an hour before had been curled back from her sharp teeth like those of a fighting wolf. She wondered how badly the buck had been hurt.
And the next day she knew. When she came out in front of her quarters in the morning, rather later than usual, there was a new tent beside the hospital,[Pg 81] and when she asked the reason for it, they told her that a wounded Apache had been found down by the river soon after the shot had been fired the night before. He was badly hurt, with a ball in his shoulder, and he was half drunk with tizwin, as well as being cut in a dozen places.
She listened attentively78 to the account of the traces of a struggle among the willows, and asked who had fired the shot. It was not known, they said, and the sullen79 buck would probably never tell.
When she saw the post surgeon come out from his house and start over to the hospital, she called to him. "May I see your new patient?" she asked.
He told her that he was going to operate at once, to remove the ball and the shattered bone, but that she might come if she wished. His disapproval80 was marked, but she went with him, nevertheless, and sat watching while he picked and probed at the wound.
The Apache never quivered a muscle nor uttered a sound. It was fine stoicism, and appealed to Felipa until she really felt sorry for him.
But presently she stood up to go away, and her eyes caught the lowering, glazed81 ones of the Indian. Half involuntarily she made a motion of striking with a knife. Neither the doctor nor the steward82 caught it, but he did, and showed by a sudden start that he understood.
He watched her as she went out of the tent, and the surgeon and steward worked with the shining little instruments.
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收听单词发音
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1
anchovy
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| n.凤尾鱼 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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broiled
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| a.烤过的 | |
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quail
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| n.鹌鹑；vi.畏惧，颤抖 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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malaria
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| n.疟疾 | |
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saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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12
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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13
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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14
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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15
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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grunting
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| 咕哝的，呼噜的 | |
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fraught
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| adj.充满…的，伴有(危险等)的；忧虑的 | |
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presaging
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| v.预示，预兆( presage的现在分词 ) | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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20
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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trotting
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| 小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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adobe
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| n.泥砖，土坯，美国Adobe公司 | |
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lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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29
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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owl
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| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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weirdly
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| 古怪地 | |
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hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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fangs
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| n.（尤指狗和狼的）长而尖的牙( fang的名词复数 )；（蛇的）毒牙；罐座 | |
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venom
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| n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨 | |
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38
trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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39
severing
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的现在分词 )；断，裂 | |
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pricking
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| 刺，刺痕，刺痛感 | |
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41
omen
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| n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示 | |
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42
strapped
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| adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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43
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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44
darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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45
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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47
writhe
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| vt.挣扎，痛苦地扭曲；vi.扭曲，翻腾，受苦；n.翻腾，苦恼 | |
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48
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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49
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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50
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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51
whining
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| n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚 | |
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52
scudded
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| v.（尤指船、舰或云彩）笔直、高速而平稳地移动( scud的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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54
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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55
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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56
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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57
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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58
appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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59
muzzle
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| n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默 | |
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60
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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61
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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62
agility
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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63
sinewy
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| adj.多腱的，强壮有力的 | |
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64
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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65
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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66
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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67
contraction
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| n.缩略词，缩写式，害病 | |
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68
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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69
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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70
slashing
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| adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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71
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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72
hoot
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| n.鸟叫声，汽车的喇叭声； v.使汽车鸣喇叭 | |
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73
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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74
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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75
detour
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| n.绕行的路，迂回路；v.迂回，绕道 | |
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76
sentries
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| 哨兵，步兵( sentry的名词复数 ) | |
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77
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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78
attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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79
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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80
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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81
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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82
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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