He deliberately passed the house, putting on more speed as he did so.
“But … I thought you were going to take me home,” she said, putting a hand on his arm.
“I’m not,” he announced, without looking around. His hands and eyes were fully occupied with his driving, but a great suspense held his breath. The hand left his arm, and he heard her settle back in her seat with a sigh. A great warm wave of joy surged through him.
He took the mountain road, which was a short cut between Old Town and the mountains, seldom used except by wood wagons. Within ten minutes they were speeding across the mesa. The rain was over and the clouds running across the sky in tatters before a fresh west wind. Before them the rolling grey-green waste of the mesa, spotted and veined with silver waters, reached to the blue rim of the mountains—empty and free as an undiscovered world.
He slowed his car to ten miles an hour and leaned back, steering with one hand. The other fell upon hers, and closed over it. For a time they drove along in silence, conscious only of that [pg 133] electrical contact, and of the wind playing in their faces and the soft rhythmical hum of the great engine.
At the crest of a rise he stopped the car and stood up, looking all about at the vast quiet wilderness, filling his lungs with air. He liked that serene emptiness. He had always felt at peace with these still desolate lands that had been the background of most of his life. Now, with the consciousness of the woman beside him, they filled him with a sort of rapture, an ecstasy of reverence that had come down to him perhaps from savage forebears who had worshipped the Earth Mother with love and awe.
He dropped down beside her again and without hesitation gathered her into his arms. After a moment he held her a little away from him and looked into her eyes.
“Why wouldn’t you let me come to see you? Why did you treat me that way?” he plead.
She dropped her eyes.
“They made me.”