As soon as Jerry and Scovil had reached the foot of the hill towards which they had started walking, said the younger man bitterly, "You win, Scovil. You knew what bet you were taking and played a sure game. I have lost."
"For God's sake, Jerry!" pained Scovil, deeply concerned.
»Don't put more burden on my neck! Your work is progressing nicely.
Come to think of it, you've forced him to do that!"
»Kone could do everything he has done, and do it faster.»
»Also in poker?»
Aiken looked at him darkly and continued: »Yes, I will force him to work like an automaton does. But we brought him here to mold him into a human being, and I can't even make him angry. I would be happy if I was able to annoy him even once, but compared to him, even a fish is a warm-blooded animal.»
He stopped to dry his forehead and wipe the sweat from his anger.
»Don't give up, partner!» prayed Scovil »I understand that it is difficult, but there is still hope. If your business goes under, think what awaits me. It's already tiring to spend four and a half hours with Nani, but imagine a whole lifetime with her!
— If I get out of bed in the morning and have a big plan in mind for a business deal to be carried out on Wall Street, then when I sit at the breakfast table with him, I feel the whole idea start to evaporate into a fog. He is not only a burden, he is a contagious disease. I'll tell you, Aiken» — he lowered his voice solemnly — »I've brought home half a dozen fit young, lively knives, hoping that one of them would strike a spark from him, but the result has always been like a wet blanket spread over a fire. As soon as Nancy sets her expressionless eyes on the man, the latter's intelligence goes to waste. He begins to stutter; his speech is reduced to sighs. Jerry, if you leave me alone, I'm a gone man.”
"Scovil," replied Jerry, "I find it dangerous to be around him. If I'm with him for another quarter of an hour, I'm like wax in his hands or I'll twist his neck upside down. Yes, Scovil, I feel defeated. When I look into his expressionless eyes as I growl and scold him, I feel as if I am beating a dog, which, despite the whip, crawls at my feet. Ugh!"
He fell silent with a shudder, and sympathetically Scovil whispered, »Yes, I understand. When he was three years old, I disciplined him once, but since then I haven't had the courage to scold him.»
Jerry went on: »When he stood there, wiping the sand from that damned Florida bottle, I felt like I was curled up at his feet. Now I've got to get to some shack and get a thirty-day hangover. Scovil, tonight I am leaving your ranks.”
Another grunted.
»But don't you realize that it's useless to even try to get him excited?» explained Aiken. »I understand how you feel; you think the twinkle in his eyes now and then might turn into a real fire of life. In the same way, I sometimes feel that he is full of explosives and that a suitable blow would make him explode.
— But we never learn that trick. Scovil, he is helpless, hopeless. When a mustang refuses to eat crushed oats, you can be sure that it is a very sick horse. If a white man is afraid of a Chinese, it does not take a prophet to predict that he is a past man. When the girl doesn't move her hand to save her only box of skin cream, and when she submits to washing the dishes without a whimper, even though she's used to commanding a house full of servants — she's hopelessly lost. That's the way it is. If the horse doesn't feel good and doesn't care about it, you shouldn't take it to the racetrack. Would you like to please me?”
»No?»
»Go back to the camp and leave me here alone. I have to regain my self-control.»
The moneyman obeyed without uttering a word; he was too depressed to answer. And Jerry sat down on a nice rock to think, or rather to refrain from thinking. But despite his efforts, he found his teeth clenching and grinding.
How long he had been there, it was impossible for him to guess, when behind him he heard a subdued voice say: "You!"
He looked behind him and saw Nancy Scovil.
»Yes, I do,« he replied, standing up and taking his hat from his head.
"You're like a stage villain," the girl said carelessly. »You are polite when we are alone, but rough when we have listeners.»
»Sit down, do well. We should talk.»
»It should be,« admitted the girl. »I also have something to say to you.»
And he sat down on the rock that Aiken had gotten off of, carelessly putting one leg over the other. It was strange that she could be so naturally charming in every position. Jerry figured it was because he was so lacking in craftiness and cunning. He acted on his feelings, and that kind of action is usually charming.
»Indeed, you want to start», remarked Aiken, »by talking about my off-stage courtesy and stage prowess? Naturally, that surprises you?”
But to his astonishment, the girl answered: »Naturally, it doesn't surprise me. I know other men who have equally strange thoughts. They are embarrassed to act like a gentleman when others are present. They socialize in the company of others. It's fun pretending to be brutes, cavemen, primitive creatures.»
Nancy said this slowly, without enthusiasm. He looked at Aiken almost smiling in his own fuzzy way. Jerry had a strong urge to bring her down on his knee and discipline her.
»So do you think I'll play the part, caveman?» of course he did.
»Yes, and quite badly. As bad as the little boy imitating the brutality of the Indian chief acts. Well, you do it as well as one might expect.»
»But not very naturally?»
»Approximately as natural as the villain of a dime novel, I think.»
Aiken was scrutinizing her like a blackboard. He was very attractive; a bandanna was loosely tied around his neck, and the shadow of a wide-brimmed sombrero fell on his face. And her eyes looked at him, at Aiken, unflinchingly, unfeelingly, with critical understanding. His gaze was very hard to bear. He had placed himself in the hollow of a large boulder and rested his head on its edge, sitting completely carefree. And his calm quite naturally aroused in the other the desire to break down his protective wall by sheer force.
»Listen to me, girl!» he urged suddenly. »We are not swinging coffee cups on a tray in a social hall. We are on a trip in the mountains.»
"Well; if we're on a trip, why does everything have to be done reluctantly?» asked the girl lazily. »You've got me a horse that moves like a broken rocking chair — nothing but prancing and prancing. It almost rattles with every step.»
»I know it's not the best horses in the world,« admitted Jerry. »But herders' horses are usually not excellent. Not even close. I got you the best I got.»
He eyed Nancy intently. He would have been pleased if the girl had looked irritated, but Nancy spoke as calmly as if they had been discussing the air. Then a thought popped into Jerry's head. Had he not been unconscious, it doubtless would not have occurred to him, but in his despair he blessed it, considering it a happy whim. In short, if once he could not arouse the girl by teasing, he decided to openly, without concealment, confess his love to her. And he didn't let that idea get old.
"Listening to you, one might believe", said the girl, "that the whole trip is planned for my comfort".
Aiken immediately replied: »And you'd laugh if I claimed that that's exactly what it was designed for.»
»At least maybe I'd smile,« admitted the girl weakly, looking at him like a distant landmark. »For example, poor food preparation is bad, but your cooking and frying is a joke.»
Jerry swallowed hard.
"Given that it's bad and that I'm the worst cook in the world—"
»I admit it even without reasons,« assured another. "So what?"
It was a skillful blow even for the fiery Jerry, but he steeled himself to push forward. And now that he had given himself up to try a new experiment, it was not entirely repulsive. He eyed the features of Nancy's neck. It was quite slender, nicely rounded and reflected very white and soft against the scarlet bandanna. The outer features of the jaw curved with gentle precision, reflecting a highly developed finesse. Just then the brim of the sombrero hid the other parts of the face, and Jerry craned his neck to peer at them. His thoughts were flying fast and he had to resort to almost physical effort to force himself back to his topic of argument.
»If the horse is bad, if the cooking is bad, I can't do anything about it. The fact is that I will do my best for you.»
»By breaking my things, breaking my boxes and so on?
You have a rare way of trying.»
»Do you think I'm a stubborn curmudgeon?» said Jerry fiercely.
»You haven't, then? Is that exactly your stage part?"
"Girl!" exclaimed the man suddenly. »I'm tired of this incessant chatter. Now I want to talk to you directly — and you have to listen!»
He couldn't see the girl's hat-shadowed eyes. It was good for Nancy that she didn't see them. For their eyelids suddenly opened, and a light flashed in them. Nancy had to make a conscious effort to force them back down limply. He looked at Jerry's face and carefully covered a yawn.
»There is no way I can avoid it. I should listen!”
»You cannot avoid it in any way. You must listen».
»Well then, I'll listen.»
With a gesture, Nancy motioned for Aiken to continue, and the latter looked at the hands that flashed in the sunlight and then went still. They were very narrow; the round fingers tapered gracefully into pink and white mottled nails. In comparison, he then eyed his own muscles — hard, lean, brown, sinewy. A single squeeze of them would be enough to turn the girl's hands shapeless. But he remembered how easily Nancy had nevertheless swung the heavy ax, and how gracefully and tirelessly she had ridden. There was vigor in the girl's body. Jerry shivered. Now that vigor was not all in action.
»Forget what I have done! You haven't understood that. Now I'm talking to you directly. The first time I saw you, I decided to get you out of your old life and into a new life — my life. Do you understand? You have been an indoor plant. I moved you into the open air. Look around you. Everything is powerful. Look at that bush. Not even the hottest sun can wither it. Look at that mountain — look how it rises into the air. Doesn't that make you want to lift your head and run?"
Nancy gave him a look of secret hatred.
»I can control myself,« he answered, but did not dare to show his eyes to the other.
»That's what you can do now,» invited Jerry to prolong, »but it will all be absorbed into you, whether you know it or not.»
He began to walk back and forth, speeding up more and more, and with his back to Nancy, the girl eyed him in silent wonder.
»You start to crave freedom and activity. You have to get them. It is impossible for you to prevent this air you breathe from changing the quality of your blood.»
"Really?" said Nancy, stretching.
And his heart was pounding.
»I don't care what you say or what you think, if you think at all. I think for you. That's exactly why you're here.»
»It is solid.»
»It's important to you before I let you go.»
Now Jerry was behind the girl and leaning towards her. Nancy felt his closeness as if she had eyes in the back of her head. And his heart began to beat faster, so strangely. He steeled himself against what he saw, but he felt the change. It was like the pulse of a new, awakened life.
»You fight it in your own sleepy way. But you can't do anything about it. Do you suppose I would have gone to all this trouble if I had not been sure of the result? Do you think I would have been willing to waste my time for nothing? Girl, this magnificent region, these mountains, this air, these huge, starry nights, they all work for me.»
His voice took on a different tone. »They shape you up.»
Nancy felt like exasperatingly shouting, "What for?" but exerting himself more and more strenuously, he: kept himself strictly under control. He sat quite still; hands clasped together.
»They shape you ready for me! Some women can't stand it. They wither like flowers of warmth. But you can do it. You have real metal in you. And I'm going to forge it and make your whole soul ring."
As he spoke, Jerry became more and more confident—perhaps because he was behind Nancy. He leaned closer, his breathing quickened, and then he was seized with the feeling of a girl, all vague, sweet, alluring femininity.
»You may rail against it, but everything works for me. The wind speaks for me, the stars challenge for me; they study you like eyes. They tell me what you are like. It's like a river. It draws you in. It transports you to its places. It speeds you up on mountains and plains. Take you towards the ocean. Do you understand? It will take you to love. It opens your heart, and you realize love like a person when the ocean rushes into his eyes.»
Silently, the girl prayed that the pounding of her heart would not make her whole body tremble.
»Tell me», asked Jerry, »do you think you can hold out against me. No; you don't have to answer. I miss you; and I will have you as my own — even if all the powers of the horn are against me! Look here, girl!”
And then Nancy guessed Jerry was leaning to look into her face and felt she didn't dare show Jerry her eyes. With a mighty effort, he closed his eyes, parted his lips in a natural-looking manner, and began to breathe deeply, regularly.
And as Aiken looked at her, she seemed to be in a deep, sound sleep.
Aiken jumped up, and at the same time Nancy opened her eyes, sat up straight, and carefully rubbed the traces of sleep from her eyes.
"You really speak very well," he praised.
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