Read Online Following the Grass by Harry Sinclair Drago - Free Book Online Page A

to catch her as he saw her lean against the cabin door for support.
    A startled, “Oh!” was Margarida’s only answer, her weary brain refusing to grasp the full significance of what she had heard.
    â€œHe won’t be able to take possession until the first of the year,” Kincaid went on. “But the snow will be here then. I suppose he won’t ask you to go before spring. Even so, you and the boy had better come down to my place for the winter. I had this in mind when I spoke a while back about your coming.”
    Margarida shook her head determinedly:
    â€œYou are very kind. Please do not think we fail to appreciate what you have done. But my place is here. I promised my husband that he would find me waiting for him. Why, I can not say, but he has seemed near me these last days. When he comes, he will find me. My father has left nothing undone to break my heart; let it remain for him to drive me away.”
    And although Kincaid was persistent, urging her health as a reason for accompanying him, he went back to the valley alone. Somehow her saying her husband seemed near lingered in his mind even after he had reached his ranch. He did not doubt that her spirit was wandering already into the limitless void, straightening its wings for the great flight to those sublime heights from which it could commune with the missing loved one.
    Joseph found his mother in tears on the evening of Kincaid’s visit. She told him what had occurred. The effort exhausted her. Enriquez and he carried her to her bed.
    Margarida’s magnificent will had always sustained her; that it had failed· her at last, filled her with fear. Her body had long been weary, but she had willed it on; and now her will was weary. With the knowledge came hopelessness, for the props on which she had leaned had been built on her will; over night they came tumbling down like a house of cards.
    The following day she had her bed moved so that she could look across the mountain. She knew that the end was near. Out there, somewhere, was the man she loved. She wondered if he was waiting for her, or had her spirit called to him in the flesh and turned his feet in her direction?
    Sometime, somewhere, they must meet again! It could not be otherwise. With the thought, a great peace came to her. Resignation robbed her eyes of their wistfulness, painting in them a light of happiness, of coming glory.
    For hours at a time Joseph sat beside her, his eyes ever on her face. He knew nothing of death, save as he had seen it in the wild; but he knew something tremendous was about to happen, something bigger than anything he had known. It kept his throat tight and stabbed at his heart.
    â€œDaddy ought to be here, mother,” he said to her. “He’d know what to do. I’m only a boy, and I don’t know how to get you well. You’re always smiling when you look at me, but I know there’s something inside of you that hurts. Maybe I’d better make Enriquez go for Tabor Kincaid. If anybody could get a doctor, he could.”
    â€œMother doesn’t need a doctor, dear,” Margarida whispered to him.
    â€œEnriquez says we ought to get a priest,” Joseph went on. His mother drew his face close to hers:
    â€œNo—no, Joseph! Enriquez is mistaken. But maybe you’d better send for Mr. Kincaid. Tell Enriquez to take the horse and go.”
    Margarida seldom closed her eyes. Whenever she did, Joseph pulled off his boots and crept about the cabin in his stocking feet. Sometimes, through half closed eyelids, his mother watched him as he moved about doing what he could for her. Once, when he thought her asleep, she heard him “talking to God,” as he called it.
    After that, she often “talked to God;” but it was of Joseph, and not of herself, that she spoke. What was to become of him? Dared she hope that her father would care for him? Reason said no; but if she sent Joseph to him now, could he refuse