The sound of crushed
twigs and straining wheels lessened, the stillness gathered between
these noises of laboring life and the two mounted figures. As it
settled each could hear the other's breathing and feel a mutual throb,
as though the same leaping artery fed them both. In the blue night
encircled by the waste, they were as still as vessels balanced to a
hair in which passion brimmed to the edge.
"Come on," she said huskily, and twitched her reins from his hold.
The horses started, walking slowly. A strip of mangled sage lay in
front, back of them the heavens hung, a star-strewn curtain. It seemed
to the man and woman that they were the only living things in the
world, its people, its sounds, its interests, were in some undescried
distance where life progressed with languid pulses. How long the
silence lasted neither knew. He broke it with a whisper:
"Why did you get David the water last night?"
Her answer came so low he had to bend to hear it.
"He wanted it. I had to."
"Why do you give him all he asks for? David is nothing to you."
This time no answer came, and he stretched his hand and clasped the
pommel of her saddle.
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