Chapter 2
As Josiah laid awake in the early morning following that evening, he admitted to himself that he was in love with her. How it had happened he didn’t know, but in the few days of their isolation he had found his love. He didn’t flatter himself that she felt, or ever could feel, the same way. He realized that it would be prudent to prepare himself for the inevitable grief ahead; after the end of this sojourn in the wilderness he saw in the future only darkness.
In the nights that followed, talk ranged over every subject that came to either of them to talk about. Josiah was surprised at the freedom Mary showed in discussing subjects considered taboo for single women, but in the context of their discussions, it seemed that no subject was offensive to either of them. They talked far into the night while the fire burned lower, each reluctant to give up the intimacy that the night and their isolation provided, and neither aware of the other’s growing passion.
**********
Josiah put off bathing for some
days, washing in the limited water that was available in camp instead;
he was reluctant to embarrass Mary. But on one particularly
hot afternoon as they made their second water trip to the pool, he did
express his desire for a bath. But when he explained the cooperation
he must have from her, she reacted with the indignation that he had expected.
"I will not stay in here with you while you bathe. That’s final!"
"Guess I’ll have to do without a bath, then."
"Josiah, that’s not fair!"
"What’s fair got to do with it? Mary, be as sensible as I know you are. I need to know that you’re safe. I’ll be as quick as I can. Please?"
Josiah’s pleading face made her smile, then laugh. "Oh, for heaven’s sake..., oh, all right! But you’d better be quick; I’m going to stand right here and stare at this rock the whole time!"
"I’m afraid that’s not good enough. You’ll have to stand over here, and stare at this rock. Then I can stay between you and the entrance." Josiah was smiling now, his eyes dancing.
Mary dissolved in laughter. "All, right, all right, have it your way. This rock!"
While Josiah undressed, splashed in the pool, and dressed again, Mary kept up a steady stream of abuse, in which "Napoleon" and "Attila the Hun" were two of the more flattering descriptions. She was still laughing and talking steadily when Josiah’s hands came down on her shoulders from behind.
"You can stop..." His words were cut off in mid-sentence as she whirled around, startled. She clutched at him to retain her balance, and found herself pressed against him for her whole length, while his hands had moved from her shoulders to the middle of her back. They stared at each other, neither able to move for several long seconds, stunned to find themselves embraced. Then Josiah once more roughly pushed her away, his hands flying behind his back, as if to put them as far away from her as possible.
This time his apology was immediate. "Sorry" was all he said, as he turned to gather up the flannel towel and the water buckets, with his face still turned away from her. "Come on, let’s go!"
"Josiah?" She was dazed by what she had felt in that embrace, and she needed to look into his face again, to verify the emotion which had broken over them both in a wave of heat.
He spun back to her with a violent movement and snarled, "I said LET’S GO!" He disappeared through the entrance. By the time she got outside he was forty feet down the trail.
He didn’t speak again on the way back and he remained taciturn through supper, not angry but speaking only when necessary. Mary was almost glad that he was so silent. She had a great deal of confusion of her own to sort through. Her mind kept replaying those moments when she stood with his arms around her, looking up at that rugged face, whose usual kindness was eclipsed at that moment by raw passion.
He wanted her very much; his face had left her in no doubt of that. But what stunned her almost into a stupor, so unexpected was it, was that she wanted him just as much. Even the thought of kissing him made her knees weak. She wondered distractedly if her face had shown it as plainly as his had. The possibility made her blush rosily, and she was very glad of the red-gold firelight which camouflaged her face’s telltale stain.
In the dancing light of the flames, Josiah’s face might have been made of stone; there was nothing to be learned from its study. He smoked a cheroot slowly, presumably with pleasure, but with no hint of any emotion in his face or bearing. He broke his silence only once, to ask her when she planned to get ready for sleep. She took the hint, and he sat looking out at the night while she changed her clothes. Over her thin summer nightgown, she wrapped herself in a large shawl brought for the purpose and returned to the fire, tucking the ends of the shawl over her bare feet. He showed no consciousness at all that she was there. After a few minutes she got up and went silently to her bed. When the last of the cheroot was thrown on the fire, he moved to his bed as well, with a low, "Goodnight, Mary."
*******
Something woke her sometime after
she finally drifted off, and she knew immediately that sleep was not recoverable.
She got up as silently as she could, wrapped herself in her shawl, and
moved in her bare feet toward the cave entrance.
The fire had burned down to a few softly glowing embers and the night was moonless. When she reached the entrance and looked up, she was struck by the stars. So many, so bright! Her childhood had been spent in a big city, where the stars were a dim shadow of the glory spread before her. She looked and looked, unwearied by the spectacle.
When his voice spoke low behind her, she wasn’t startled. It seemed to her then that she had been waiting for him. She didn’t turn, but kept gazing up at the stars.
"On a starred night Prince
Lucifer uprose.
Tired of his dark dominion
swung the fiend
Above the rolling ball in
cloud part screened,
Where sinners hugged their
spectre of repose."
He stopped.
"Go on." Her voice was a whisper of sound.
"Poor prey to his hot fit of
pride were those.
And now upon his western wing
he leaned,
Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's
sands careened,
Now the black planet shadowed
Arctic snows.
Soaring though wider zones
that pricked his scars
With memory of the old revolt
from Awe,
He reached a middle height,
and at the stars,
Which are the brain of heaven,
he looked, and sank.
Around the ancient track marched,
rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law."
She took a step back, almost without thinking about it. It seemed so natural, so right to lean against him. Still looking up at the stars, she laid her head against his shoulder. And with quiet sureness his arms came up around her, holding her to him with tender strength. She felt his warm breath on her ear and thought that nothing could ever have felt so good before. In a moment his head came down further to rest his cheek against hers. She felt the soft abrasion of his beard against her skin and moved her head a little, nestling closer to feel it pressing against her. His hard-muscled arms were firmly around her just below her breasts; she wondered if he could feel her heart racing. As she thought about it, his hand came up to press on her ribs, feeling the frantic beating of her heart. Then he turned his hand, and it was against her breast.
He sighed deeply. His hand moved on her, cradling her breast, his thumb rubbing softly over its nipple, but only for a moment. He dropped his hand and stepped slowly away from her, his hands on her shoulders now, steadying her while he moved his body’s support away.
"No---don’t leave me---no!" Mary turned and reached for him, reticence forgotten in the sudden intensity of her desire for him.
"I must." His hands came up to intercept hers. He caught her wrists before she touched him and held her hands firmly in his. "I must," he said again. "This can’t happen between us." He looked down at her with pain filled eyes.
Mary was stunned. Her mind, her body, her whole self cried out against what he had just said. "No! No..." She tried to free her wrists, but Josiah held her gently but firmly imprisoned. As she looked up at him, even in the darkness she could discern something immovable in his face and in his body’s tension. Her voice had an edge of shaken anxiety as she spoke. "What are you saying?" She paused, then continued, her voice softer, less frantic. "It already has happened, Josiah. We both know that." Her body relaxed slightly as the truth of what she had just said sank into her consciousness.
But Josiah’s grip on her wrists remained, holding her away from his body. "Mary..." His voice broke on her name; he paused for a moment, then, "Querida...." He paused again, waiting for the lump in his throat to let him continue. "I’m sorry, Mary. I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong enough...", another painful pause, "to spare you this. I never thought it could happen...I never believed we’d be...that this could..." He dropped her wrists and turned his back to her swiftly, his control over himself perilously close to breaking.
Mary stepped close to him and slid her arms around his waist, pulling herself tightly against him in a quick movement, willing him with all her strength to give up, to be unable to resist the feel of her pressed to him. But Josiah’s will was shaped over many years of self-denial, in many areas of life. He moved away from her again, freeing himself from her softly clinging hands with gentle strength. When she was no longer touching him he walked away, and kept walking, down the trail toward the little corral he had built. In a few moments she heard him speaking softly to his horse, then the sound of hoofbeats as he rode away. It occurred to her in one of those peripheral thoughts that sometimes come in times of great stress: Does he ride bareback? I guess he does! And a bubble of hysterical mirth escaped her, just before the tears came.
********
She returned to her bed, chilled
with the night air. Her tears stopped after a few minutes and were
replaced by a leaden feeling of hopelessness. She had heard him come
back; he hadn’t been gone long. His conscience wouldn’t let him
leave me alone , she thought. He will do whatever he believes is right…at
whatever cost…
Josiah’s flight was indeed short-lived; anxiety for her had turned him back almost at once. He returned just in time to see her figure, ghostly in the light of the late-rising moon, enter the cave. He didn’t follow her inside. She was safe there, and distance between them was what he needed now.
He sat down on the ground cross-legged, his back straight, his eyes closed, his hands placed lightly on his knees, and began a systematic disciplining of his mind, a drill he had used many times over his adult years. Desires of many different kinds had been regulated and finally extinguished by discipline and the exercise of his unbending will.
********
Mary opened her eyes reluctantly.
They were gritty and uncomfortable from the night’s tears and from too
little sleep. Daylight streamed into the cave brightly; It must be
late, she thought. But apparently he hadn’t moved around much
yet either, he was just making coffee. She watched him sadly.
There was something---something wounded about his face this morning.
She called out softly to him, her usual morning request to face the front
of the cave, then dressed quickly and approached the fire.
"Good morning." He spoke without looking up. "Coffee?" He bent to pick up the pot, and filled a cup. She took it, careful not to touch his hand, and sat down.
"Josiah?"
He looked up then, gazing gravely at her, his eyes steady.
"Can we talk?"
The corners of his mouth turned up for just a moment. She was so forthright; it always surprised him. He sat down on the other side of the fire, looking into it for several minutes. Then he said slowly, "There’s nothing much to say. You’re a virtuous woman, and I don’t have any feelings of love for you. I have...desire for you, plenty of that. But that’s all, Mary. I wish I’d been...wiser last night, before I got into this." He looked up at her, his eyes steadfastly gazing into hers. "I’m not going to be serious about anything we start, so for your sake we can’t...won’t start." He continued to look steadily at her while a blush rose up her neck and covered her face.
"I see." She struggled to keep her voice firm. "Thank you, Josiah. You’ve been as kind as it was possible to be, and I appreciate your...frankness." She stood up and turned away from him, looking around her rather vaguely; there was no place for a decent retreat, for privacy. Tears were coming, and she had to get away from him before that happened, she had to! She turned again, looking around her rather wildly for a place, any place.
Josiah’s seat by the fire was empty. He had gone out while her back was turned. Mary hurried to the back of the cave and sank to the blankets of her bedroll, where she cried many bitter tears of humiliation and grief.
Josiah walked up the trail, moving easily until the trail turned, bringing him out of sight of the cave. He looked back to make sure he was hidden from her. When he had assured himself of that he stood perfectly still for a moment. Then, slowly, his shoulders sagged and his knees bent, and he slid bonelessly to the ground. On his knees, his body hunched over, his arms wrapped around his stomach, Josiah gave way to the crushing pain of what he had done.
*********
The supper hour was subdued, in
spite of brave attempts by both of them to act as if everything were the
same. Josiah teased her, and she laughed and retaliated in kind,
but there were pauses when the silence grew loud before one of them found
something to say. As they finished supper and came to the time when,
for the past few nights, they had sat back to drink coffee and delight
in each other’s company, silence settled over them in earnest.
Josiah spoke, finally. "It’ll get easier in a day or two," he said quietly into the stretched silence. "We gotta stay here together. Maybe the best thing to do is just not try to be the same as we were. Won’t that be easier?"
"Yes...yes, it will." Her smile was shaky. "But oh, Josiah…I loved the way we were!" In a second tears welled up and began to roll down her cheeks.
"Oh God, don’t. Don’t!" He was around the fire in an instant, and she collapsed on his shoulder, crying hard.
His arms were around her, his cheek pressed to that blonde head, and he crooned to her in his deepest voice, his love speaking to her in the sound of every word. "Mary, don’t cry, oh don’t, querida mia, my sweetest lo…" He stopped. When he spoke again his voice was still soft, but the throb of emotion was gone. "Come on, Mary, be a good girl now. Stop crying." His self-control was almost perfect; only for a moment, when he felt her in his arms, had he let the passion inside be heard.
But Mary had heard it. Josiah wiped her face and walked with her to her bedroll, teasing a little to lighten the mood, but as she lay in her bed much later, sleepless, she remembered the sound of love in his voice. She remembered his reaction to her kiss and the violent reaction he’d shown after their unexpected embrace. But most of all, she remembered the night full of stars---his arms around her, his cheek against hers, his fingers moving over her breast with tenderness; with love. And as she thought, slowly the realization dawned.
He’d lied to her.
What she had felt from him in the starry night was true, and what he had said this morning was a lie! But why? Why would he deny how he felt? Maybe he was married? But if he was married, why wouldn’t he just tell her? Why…? Suddenly she didn’t care why. The conviction was strong in her: he did care for her. What was stopping him from admitting it wasn’t important. That he cared, was.
She got out of her bedroll and stood up silently. He was turned away from her, lying on his side, facing the fire. She took the two steps that separated them and sank to her knees beside him.
"Josiah?"
He turned even before she spoke, aware of her behind him. "What’s the matter?"
She said nothing, only looked at him.
Her hair was loose, streaming down over her shoulders nearly to her breasts, which were barely hidden in her light hot-weather nightgown. Its low square neck and wide straps revealed the soft curves that continued down under the cloth, to where he saw with instant tingling arousal that her nipples were erect, making sharp shadows in the firelight against the fabric of her gown.
He sat up, the light blanket falling
to his waist. He was wearing no shirt. In the light of the
fire his body was gilded, the muscles of his powerful torso strongly delineated,
his chest covered thickly with graying hair. "What is it, Mary?" 
She was entranced by the sight of his bare body; she reached out to those enticing gray curls. As her hand touched him he looked down at it for a second, immobilized by conflicting emotions; then he grasped her wrist, pulling her fingers away from his skin. "Oh God, don’t!" he groaned. He tipped his head far back and took a deep shuddering breath. "What the hell d’you think you’re doing?" He held her wrist tightly enough to hurt her.
"You lied, Josiah. You lied to me."
Surprised, he searched her face and saw conviction there. She knew he had lied. Her other hand came up, and he imprisoned both wrists as he growled, "Go back to bed, Mary. Go now!"
She didn’t move. He dropped her hands. "Go!" Roughly, with anger.
She sat still, staring at him. He looked at her sitting motionless before him, beautiful in the firelight, so bewitching, so desirable. How could he not love her? The anger drained from his face, his shoulders slumped, and he gave up the effort of deception. Wearily, he nodded his head. "Yes. Yes, I lied to you. It seemed...the best thing to do."
He reached for his shirt. "I guess we’re not going to sleep, are we?"
"I don’t think so. Shall I make coffee?"
"Yes, please."
She reached behind her for her shawl, draped it around her shoulders, and moved to the little table he had built for her. When she turned back to the fire with the coffee pot ready to hang on the tripod, he was sitting in his accustomed place, staring fixedly into the flames. He didn’t look up or speak. As he remained silent, she began to be angry.
"Busy trying to think up new reasons why you can’t make love to me?" There was asperity in her voice.
Sighing heavily, Josiah finally looked up. "I don’t have to make up reasons, Mary. There are so many! Here’s one: I’m old enough to be your father."
"How old is that?"
"I’ll be fifty in November."
"Which makes you fourteen years older than I. I suppose you could have fathered a child at fourteen, but it’s not likely."
Another long silence. While she waited for him to speak the coffee began to boil, and she took it off the fire. Then, "I have no means of making a living except my gun, and gunfighters don’t marry. No life expectancy."
She handed him a cup of coffee. "Care to become a newspaper editor? You’re certainly educated enough and articulate enough to fill the position."
He looked once more into the fire. After a moment he began again. "I have no..."
She interrupted, impatient with what seemed to her to be trivial objections. "Stop this, Josiah! Tell me the real reason. Why is loving me so...impossible?"
He shook his head, and his hand came up to run through his graying curls. There was a silence: then he spoke without looking up, slowly, his voice deep, husky, his passion for her in every word. "It’s not loving you that’s impossible; ...it’s not loving you that’s impossible." When he lifted his eyes to hers they were blue fire, alight with his love and his desire.
A moment’s freedom was all he allowed himself. The veil came down over his eyes again, and he spoke with his former serious, quiet manner. "But you’re not for me." There was finality in his voice; it hurt her to hear it. His eyes dropped to his hands, and after a moment he spoke again. "Long ago, when I should have loved enough to take care of someone, someone who needed me desperately, I...didn’t, and it hasn’t been forgotten. That act was not pardonable; I am not forgiven." He shook his head very slightly, still looking at his hands holding his cup. "I’m not worthy of you, Mary. I’m...discarded, cast out. Find a better man, a younger man, one who has hope for the future."
"Josiah, I know what I want. I want you. Not young, not hopeful, not…undamaged, but you’re what I want. So much…" Her voice shook a little as her green eyes filled with tears, and the next words were a husky whisper. "Please, Josiah."
He was sitting with his elbows on
his knees, leaning forward over his cup held in both hands. He flinched
at her plea, shook his head hard and dropped it down farther. His
voice was harsh when he spoke. "No! I’m not what you want!"
He stopped for a moment. Then, without raising his head to look at
her, he continued in a gentler voice. "I believe that this...feeling
you have for me isn’t real." 
He
shook his head again. "I don’t know what made this happen between
us, why it’s so—intense, but when we’re off this mountain, back in the
world that’s real, you won’t feel the same about me. I know it."
He raised his head to look at her, and the corners of his mouth turned
up in a small smile. "I’m the only man in Texas who reads poetry.
That’s the basis of this...infatuation of yours."
She replied soberly. "That’s not the way it is, Josiah." She thought for a minute, then she came at the subject sideways, hoping to throw him off balance. "When we’re back in this…‘real world’ of yours, will you feel the same about me? Will you...love me, still?"
His head was down again; she couldn’t see his face. His voice was low, almost a whisper, when he replied. "Yes. Always."
"When this…this time of ours is over, you believe you’ll lose me. When it’s over, would you rather you had made love to me before you lost me? Is it better to have loved and lost, Josiah?"
A pause. "Yes." He saw what was coming, but however painful this became, he wasn’t going to lie again.
"Is that true for me also? If I change my mind later, and decide I don’t love you after all, is it better that I had this...wonderful feeling once in my life, even if I lose it?"
He still stared stubbornly down at his hands. "You’ll...love again. You’ll marry and be happy."
"No. I’ll probably never marry again. My marriage wasn’t...good." There was a silence, then she looked up at him. Her voice changed with her next words, became softer, more hesitant. "Josiah, may I tell you something...something I’ve never told anyone?"
Now his head came up at last and he looked at her, alert to the importance of what she said. He was aware that there was a difference here; the subject had changed. "Yes, of course. Anything."
She sat down across from him, wrapping the ends of her shawl around her bare feet; it was a small action that always touched his heart in some indefinable way. She reached out to pick up the end of a twig that had fallen out of the fire, and stirred the red embers with it. "I think this might be something you don’t want to hear, Josiah. It’s something I never thought I could tell anyone." She looked down at what she was doing and he saw with surprise that the stick in her hands was shaking. She was trembling.
She pulled the shawl closer around her shoulders, staring into the fire. "I was nineteen when I was married. Henry was older, past thirty. He was a serious, quiet person, intelligent and nice to look at. I was in love with him when we were married."
Josiah could see tension rising in her. "We stopped in Philipsburg on our wedding night; we were on our way to Texas. I..." She stopped, and was silent for many seconds, staring into the fire. Finally she let out her breath with a little soft sound of distress. "Maybe I can’t do this after all!" She shook her head helplessly.
Josiah got up and came around the fire to sit beside her. He put his arm around her and raised his hand to pull her head down onto his shoulder. "Tell me. Don’t look at me or think about me. Just talk." His voice was quiet but he spoke firmly.
Both of her arms reached around him; she held on tight and began once more. "I only wanted to love him. I didn’t know anything at all about it…I just did what..." Her voice broke. She waited a moment, then went on, "He...he said, ‘Lie still! Good women don’t pretend to feelings they don’t have, and their husbands don’t expect them to!’" As she repeated words obviously engraved on her memory, her voice took on the harsh embarrassed tones that she had heard so many years before. Josiah could hear a cold-hearted, narrow-minded man speaking through her vivid memory of the cruel incident.
Mary swallowed hard and doggedly continued, as if bound to get it all out. "I l-laid still after that. I did whatever I was told to do, and I hope I was a dutiful wife, whatever that is, but...I didn’t love him any more. Then…when Billy came, Henry was a good father to him, and...it got easier." When she lifted her head, tears were running down her face. "I’m sorry. I’m being silly. It was a long time ago, nothing to cry about now."
As she looked up at him with her tear-stained face, Josiah’s heart was torn for her. Torn for a young girl’s pain, and for the gallantry that swallowed that pain and went on, making the best of a bad bargain. In that instant of time, as he felt her pain and loved her courage, his defenses crumbled.
All of his scruples about his worthiness
paled in the face of her vulnerability. She would marry someday,
loneliness and insecurity would wear her down. He wouldn’t, couldn’t
relinquish her to some unknown man who might be unwilling or too unskilled
to show her how rapturous lovemaking could be. The tenderness and
passion that she deserved were right here, right now, in him, and
he couldn’t fight his desire and her need any longer. The decision
was made almost instantly; unworthy as he knew himself to be, she was his
to love.