Robert Alexander Wason

As soon as we had eaten breakfast next mornin’, the Friar sez: “You, bein’ one o’ the earth animals, have never had much chance to see a view. Yesterday your curiosity was itchin’ so ’at I doubt if you could have told a mountain peak from a Mexican hat; but now that you have temporarily suppressed your thirst for gossip, had a good sleep, and a better breakfast, drag yourself out to the front porch and take a bird’s-eye view of the world.”

Well, it was worth it, it certainly was worth it! What he called the front porch, was the ledge after it had flipped itself around the jutting; and when a feller stood on it, he felt plenty enough like a bird to make it interestin’. The Big Horns ran across the top o’ the picture about a hundred an’ forty miles to the north, and gettin’ all blended in with the clouds. On the other two sides were different members of the Shoshone family, most o’ which I knew by sight from any angle; and down below was miles an’ miles of country spread out like a map, but more highly colored.

“Friar,” I sez, “you’re a wealthy man.”

This tickled him a lot, ’cause he was as proud o’ that view as if he’d painted it. “I am, Happy,” he said, “and I have yielded to a wealthy man’s temptations. Any one who comes here will be welcome; but I own up, I have kept this place a secret to have it all to myself.”

“A man like you needs some quiet place to consider in,” sez I.

“Get thee behind me, Satan, get thee behind me,” cried the Friar. “I have been on far too friendly terms with that excuse for many a long month. But I do enjoy this place; so I am going to let you help me lay in my winter’s supply of wood, and then make you a joint member in full standing.”

We packed wood along that spider thread of a path all morning; and finally I got so it didn’t phaze me any more ’n it did him. He sang at his work most of the time, and I joined in with him whenever I felt so moved, though it did strike me ’at this was a funny way to keep a place secret; and my idee is that he sang to ease his conscience by showin’ it that he wasn’t sneakin’ about his treasure.

I remember him mighty plain as he walked before me on the ledge, totin’ a big log on his shoulder, and singin’ the one ’at begins, “Hark, my soul! It is the Lord!” This was one he fair used to raise himself in, and it seemed as if we two were climbin’ right up on the air, plumb into the sky. When he’d let himself out this way, he’d fill me so full of a holy kind of devilment, that it would ’a’ given me joy to have leaped off the cliff with him, and take chances on goin’ up or down.

We had about filled his wood place, and were goin’ back after the last load when just as he swung around a corner, I saw his hand go up as though warnin’ me to stop; and I froze in my tracks. He hadn’t been singin’ this trip, for a wonder; but the next moment I heard a sound which purt nigh jarred me off. It was a low, deep growl which I instantly recognized as belongin’ to Olaf the Swede. Olaf didn’t talk with much brogue, though when he got excited he had his own fashion for hitchin’ words together.

“Where is the girl?” he asked with quiet fierceness, and for a space I was sorry my parents hadn’t been eagles. There wasn’t room to fight out on that ledge, the Friar didn’t have a gun on, I couldn’t possibly shoot around him; and Olaf was seven parts demon when he laid back his ears and started to kick.

“Where she cannot be bothered,” sez the Friar, full as quiet but without any fierceness. The’ was a little bush about eight feet up, and I felt sure it would hide me, so I stuck my fingers in the side o’ the cliff and climbed up; but the’ was no way for me to get out to the bush, and I had to drop back to the ledge and stand there with the sweat tricklin’ down between my shoulders until I felt like yellin’.

“I intend to kill you,” said Olaf, as calm as though talkin’ about a sick sheep.

“It would be a foolish waste of time,” replied the Friar, as if he was advisin’ a ten-year-old boy not to fish when the Blue Bull was high and muddy. “It wouldn’t do any good, and I shall not allow it.”

“I intend to kill you,” said Olaf, as calm as though talkin’ about a sick sheep.

“It would be a foolish waste of time,” replied the Friar, as if he was advisin’ a ten-year-old boy not to fish when the Blue Bull was high and muddy. “It wouldn’t do any good, and I shall not allow it.”

I got out my gun, and made ready to do whatever the angels suggested; but for some time the’ was silence, and durin’ this time I was keyed up so tight my muscles began to ache. I knew they were lookin’ into each other’s eyes, and I’d have given a finger off each hand to see how the Friar’s steady gray eyes handled those queer blue ones of Olaf.

“Is she all right?” asked Olaf, and all the threat had left his voice, and it had just a glint o’ pleadin’ in it. I wouldn’t have been one bit more surprised to have seen a prairie-dog come flyin’ up the gorge, blowin’ a cornet with his nose.

“She has sprained her ankle; but aside from this has no physical ill,” sez the Friar. “You men have caused her a lot of worry, and her soul is sick; but her body is well.”

After another silence, Olaf said slowly: “Yes, yes; I can tell by the light that you speak true. What do you intend to do with her?”

“I intend to cure her,” sez the Friar. “I intend to help and strengthen her; and I want you to help her, too. Olaf, she has had a lot of trouble, and her wild gaiety is only a veil to hide the wounds in her heart. I want you to help her.”

“I know, I know she is honest,” said Olaf, and blamed if his voice didn’t sound like a new boy talkin’ to the boss; “but she made me love her. Yes, I do love her. I must marry her. Yes, this is so.”

“She cannot marry you, or any one else, now,” sez the Friar, kindly. “This is why she has gone from one man to another—to disgust them all and make them leave her alone.”

“That is a damn devil of a way,” cried Olaf in anger. “Why should she go to dances, and out ridin’, and so on, if she wants men to leave her alone?”

“She was foolish, she knows that now; but her father is not the right sort of a man, and her home was not pleasant,” said the Friar.

“I told him I kill him, if she marry any one but me,” said Olaf. “I know he is not honest; but he is afraid of me, and he will not bother her now. I go to see him again purty soon, and tell him some more. Won’t you tell me where she is?”

“I want to be your friend, Olaf,” said the Friar gently. “I tell you honest that she cannot marry now. When I see her again, I shall tell her of meetin’ you, and what you have said. I have no desire except to do the best for all of you, and if you love her truly, all you will want will be to do that which is best for her.”

The Friar paused, and I pulled my ear clear to the edge o’ the rock, so as not to miss a word. “Olaf,” he went on in a low, sorrowful voice, “the love of a man for a woman is a wonderful thing, a terrible thing, a soul-testing thing. Don’t let your love become common for men to talk over. In believing what men have told you of me you have insulted her, by admitting that such a thing is possible. Go back to your work, kill no man for what he says of her; but keep her pure in your own heart, and this will be the best way to keep her pure before the world. Silence the gossips by living above them; and if it becomes necessary for you to take your own love by the throat, then do it, and do it for love of her. I shall do all I can to make her worthy of you.”

You should have heard the Friar’s voice when he was sayin’ this. I stood on the little ledge, just breathin’ enough to keep my lungs ventilated, and lookin’ out across the landscape—mountains on all sides of me, and down below the broken ground and the benches, with the green strips along the cricks lookin’ like lazy snakes in the hot sunshine. I couldn’t see a livin’ creature, I felt like the last man on earth; and that deep, musical voice seemed comin’ to me from somewhere out beyond the limits of life. I didn’t have any more fear now: the’ wasn’t anything in the shape of a human who could have done violence to the Friar after hearin’ him say the words I’d just heard; so I put up my gun, and listened again.

“Can’t ya tell me why she can’t marry me?” asked Olaf, and the’ was a tremble in his voice, almost as though it flowed up from a sob.

“I think I can trust you to keep her secret,” sez the Friar. “She is married already. The man was a beast and deserted her; but he is still alive, and she cannot marry again.”

I heard Olaf make a queer, animal sound with his breath, and then he said: “Yes, you speak true—I can tell by the light; but she loves me—I can tell that also by the light. Will you tell me when she can marry?”

“I will,” sez the Friar, and his voice was a pledge. “There’s my hand on it.”

They brought their hands together with a smack I could hear, and then Olaf turned on the narrow ledge, with the Friar holdin’ him on, an’ started off. The Friar went along with him, and I sneaked after, keepin’ a turn between us. Olaf mounted his hoss and rode away without lookin’ back, which, as a matter o’ fact, was his way o’ doin’ things; and when he was out o’ sight, I joined the Friar.

The’ was still a look of sadness in the Friar’s face; but back of it, and shinin’ through it, was a quiet satisfaction. He was full o’ the scene he had just gone through; and presently he turned an’ said: “That was a glorious victory he gained over himself, Happy. That man has a good heart, and who knows but what he will yet be the means of bringin’ me an’ Tyrrel Jones together.”

“What do you reckon he meant by the light tellin’ him that you were an honest man?” I asked. This was the most curious part of the whole thing to me.

“How can I tell,” he sez. “Life is so crowded with wonders that I have quit wonderin’ about ’em; but I always feel a thrill when I see the stubborn spirit of a strong man melt and run into the mold the Master has prepared for it.”

“I’ll own it was about the weirdest thing I ever saw,” sez I; “but I’m willin’ to bet that whatever else Olaf’s spirit has molded itself into, it’s not a doormat with ‘welcome’ wrote on it; as the first feller ’at fools with that girl is likely to find out.”

“Never doubt the power of the Lord, Happy,” sez he. “The hand that piled up these hills can easy shape even so stubborn a thing as the human will.”

“Yes,” I agreed; “but it generally takes just about the same length of time to do it, and a man don’t usually last that long.”

“Time!” sez he; “what do you know about time? It may have taken ages to form these hills; and then again, it may have been done in the twinklin’ of an eye. From the way the streaks tilt up, I’m inclined to think it was done sudden.”

I looked at the lines along the faces o’ the hills, and I was inclined to believe it, too; so I dropped that subject, and we sat down close together and looked off down the trail where Olaf had vanished.

We sat in silence a long time, me thinkin’ o’ what sort of a light Olaf had seen to make him know ’at the Friar was honest; and of the way the Friar’s voice had gone through me when he had talked of love.

This was a new idee to me, and one o’ the biggest I had ever tried to grapple with. Before this, my notion o’ love was, for a man to get the girl any way he could; and it took me some time to see the grandness of a man takin’ his own love by the throat for love of a woman. I knew ’at the Friar had done this himself; but it never was clear to me until I heard the heartache moanin’ through his voice as he laid out this law for Olaf, and Olaf bowed his stiff neck and accepted it.

I’m purty sure that if I’d ’a’ known that day, that a few years later I would have to take my own love by the throat for the sake of little Barbie, I wouldn’t ’a’ had the nerve to go on playin’ the game—but this is life. We pick up a stone here, and another there, and build them into our wall until the flood comes; and then if the wall isn’t high enough to turn back the flood, all the sting and bitterness comes from knowin’ that we haven’t made use of all the stones which came rollin’ down to our feet.

That night we had an uncommon fine fire in the cave. I used to enjoy these evenin’ fires with the Friar, as much as a dog likes to have his ears pulled by the hand he loves best. He would tell me tales of all the ages ’at man has lived on the face of the whole earth, and I’d sit and smoke my pipe, and make up what I’d ’a’ done, myself, if I’d been one o’ these big fellers. These chummy little fire-talks used to broaden me out and make me feel related to the whole human race, and it was then ’at I came to know the Friar best—though the’ ain’t no way to put this into a story.

Along about nine o’clock the Friar began to lecture me again’ the use o’ violence, pointin’ out that war nor gunfightin’ nor any other sort o’ violence had ever done any good; and endin’ up with the way he had handled Olaf as illustratin’ how much better effects spiritual methods had.

“Humph,” sez I, “so you’re tryin’ to put that over as an ordinary case, are ya? Did you ever before see such eyes in a man’s head as what Olaf has?”

“Now that you mention it,” sez he, “I did notice they were peculiar.”

“I ruhly believe you’re right,” sez I, sarcastic. “When he said he saw light he wasn’t speakin’ in parables. He can see things ’at you nor I can’t see—though I doubt if he understands ’em himself.”

“Still, violence would have spoiled everything,” persisted the Friar, who was as human as a raw bronco when you tried to make him back up.

“Now, don’t forget anything,” sez I. “It wasn’t my face ’at lit up when I said ’at he did his killin’ with bare hands; nor it wasn’t me who gloated over this as furnishin’ an excuse to use my bare hands in defendin’ myself.”

“Oh, Happy, Happy,” sez he, with one o’ the bursts ’at made ya willin’ to go through fire and water for him. “I’m the entire human race: there isn’t a single sin or weakness which hasn’t betrayed me at one time or another, and yet the wicked pride of me persists in stickin’ up its head an’ crowin’ every time I take my eyes off it.”

“Well, I like your pride full as well as any other part o’ ya,” sez I; “and before you wrangle it into its corral again, I want to say ’at no other man in the world could ’a’ told Olaf what you told him this mornin’, and lived to talk it over around this fire to-night—unless, he had used the best and the quickest brand o’ violence the’ is, in the meantime.”

“Now, that you have succeeded in flatterin’ both of us, we’ll go to sleep,” sez the Friar, and the’ was a deep twinkle in his eyes which allus rejoiced me to call up.

Next night soon after dark, we started out with Kit Murray. She rode like a man and could tick out her fifty or sixty a day right along, without worryin’ her pony. As soon as she was safe located in Billings, I turned back to the Dot, while the Friar rounded up some stray sheep he had near the border, and as far as I can recall we didn’t meet again all that summer.