He had purposely set his
face away, but he could hear the furtive whisperings of the stirred
calico. He was full of the consciousness of her, and this sound, which
carried a picture of her drooped head and moving hands, came with a
stealing unquiet, urgently intrusive and persistent. He tried to hold
his mind on his work, but his movements slackened, grew intermittent,
his ear attentive for the low rustling that crept toward him at
intervals like the effervescent approach of waves. Each time he heard
it the waves washed deeper to his inner senses and stole something from
his restraining will. For days the desert had been stealing from it
too. He knew it and was guarded and fearful of it, but this morning he
forgot to watch, forgot to care. His reason was drugged by the sound,
the stifled, whispering sound that her hands made moving the material
from which she fashioned a covering for her body.
He sat with his back turned to her, his hands loose on the gun, his
eyes fixed in an unseeing stare. He did not know what he looked at or
that the shadow of the horse had slipped beyond him.
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