The Wolf and the Man by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2020-10-24T22:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER 22

SO much was implied in this speech, that Reagan looked into the face of the other, and then past him at the immeasurably deep, thin line of the horizon.

He stared back at Walking Thunder.

“I’m trying to understand,” said Dave Reagan, his eyes rather blank.

It was the same thing that he had used to say in school, while his irate teachers came closer to fury and despair: “I’m trying to understand!”

The Indian, however, had a great store of patience. One would have said that he had spent all his days among children, teaching.

“You know,” he said, “everyone has to lead a life like other people. He’s never excused, unless there’s a reason. You think that you want to live alone in the mountains. But you’re too young for that. I suppose that there’s a girl behind it, eh?”

Reagan started.

“Girl?” he said. He shook his head. Then he repeated: “A girl? It’s not because of her. I’ve never got on with people. That’s the reason I want to be alone.”

The Indian nodded.

“Nobody knows what he wants until he’s tasted everything,” said he. “May I ask why you can’t get on with people?”

“I’m too slow in the mind,” said Dave. He found it amazingly easy to talk to Walking Thunder. “Some people,” he added calmly, “think that I’m only half-witted.”

The Indian offered no polite and sympathetic denial. Neither did he frown with disgust. He merely said:

“That gives you a motive for leaving the world—but no right to do so.”

“Why not?” asked Dave. “Everybody’s free, in this country, I suppose.”

“Not at all,” said the other. “Freedom is only a term. It doesn’t mean a great deal. Free to do what? To live if you work for your food—or steal it. To be happy—if you can beg or borrow the means to it. Free to pay taxes, free to die. But not free to do as you please. No man is. Now that you’ve run off into the mountains, you’re not free, either. You might enjoy it for a time, but you haven’t earned the right to be alone. You’ll be pulled back into the world, before very long.”

This was all spoken so simply that Dave Reagan followed it perfectly, and what made it exciting was the truth which he felt in his own experience.

“You’re a wise man; you know a great deal,” said Dave.

“No, I don’t know a great deal,” said the Indian. “But I’ve done a little thinking about the things that have happened to me. That’s all. I’m not wise, though. But I could guess that you’d be happier among men than you would be among the mountains.”

“What makes you guess that?” asked Dave.

“Well,” said Walking Thunder, “people have called you slow-witted. What they felt about you has driven you out, not what you felt about them.”

“That may be true. I begin to think that may be true,” said Dave. “I never thought of it that way before. No, if they had liked me, if people had—”

He paused.

“If they’d

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