Leave Her to Heaven by Ben Ames Williams

Author:Ben Ames Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2012-06-29T04:00:00+00:00

– VII –

Toward the end of the second week they moved farther downstream, below the mouth of the Sedgwick, and camped on a high bank in a bend of the river, close against the forest. The spot was a pleasant one, a tumbling brook coming steeply down from the hills to sing in the night beside the tents; and while the guides made camp, Ruth and Ellen drew apart together, and Ruth said appreciatively:

‘This would be a beautiful place to set a house.’

Ellen looked at the hills which came steeply down behind them and shivered with distaste. ‘It’s too cramped,’ she said. ‘The hills try to push you into the water. I like space around me, level places.’

‘Was it level at Back of the Moon?’

‘No, but the hills were friendly, not too steep and high.’ There lay suddenly a tragic sorrow in her tones. ‘We were so darned happy there,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t suppose Richard will ever want to go back — but I want to, some day.’

Ruth wished they might go back together. Perhaps there or in some like retreat they could recapture what they had lost; and after the next day’s fishing — she and Sime had gone down river — she came back to camp in a fine excitement.

‘I’ve found a place where someone really ought to build a cabin,’ she told them at dinner. ‘Down where Sime and I fished today. It’s an old intervale, I suppose; a level tract shaped like a triangle, running way back from the river. But it’s high enough to be dry, and there are a lot of elms along the water, beautiful great trees; and the forest is so open it’s almost like a park.’ She proposed that they move camp down there. ‘It’s ever so much nicer than this,’ she said; and she called to Sime: ‘How far is it down to where we fished today?’

‘Four-five miles.’

Ellen listened indifferently, but Harland asked questions, and Ruth saw his interest was caught, and thought he might create another Back of the Moon where he and Ellen could be happy together as they once had been. She elaborated her description. ‘I didn’t explore it, of course, but even from the river we could see its possibilities. It could be made into a regular Garden of Eden.’

Harland smiled at her enthusiasm. ‘Only Adam and Eve need apply?’ he suggested; and he said: ‘We’ll look it over. Plenty of fishing for all of us, down there, Sime?’

‘Plenty of fishing,’ Sime assured him. ‘But I don’t know as there’s many fish. They wouldn’t do anything today, with this danged low water. What we need’s a good rain, to raise the river.’

‘Well then, we’ll pass up the fishing and go exploring,’ Harland declared; and Ruth, realizing that Ellen had asked no question, had taken no part in their conversation, said eagerly:

‘You’ll love it, Ellen.’

‘Oh, I’ll stay here,’ Ellen told her. ‘You two go. Leick and I will keep camp, maybe fish a while in the afternoon.

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