In the Brooding Wild

by Ridgwell Cullum

“Aim-sa! Aim-sa! Wait, I come!”

The cry is more muffled. The dark canopy of forest deadens it, till the sound is like a voice crying out from the depths of the earth. For the man is travelling with the fierce directness of one who is lured on by the haunting vision of that which is his whole desire. The riven mountains have no meaning for him. He looks straight out, nor tree-trunk, nor bush, nor jutting rock bars his vision; there beyond, ever beyond, is that which alone he seeks. It moves as he moves; beckoning, calling, smiling. But always, like a will-o’-the-wisp, it eludes him, and draws forth the cry from his throat. The sweet, mocking face; the profound blue eyes, sparkling with laughter or brooding in perfect seriousness; the parted lips about the glistening teeth so luscious in their suggestion; the dark flowing hair, like a soft curtain of wondrous texture falling in delicate folds upon rounded shoulders–these things he sees. Always ahead the vision speeds, always beyond. The man’s efforts avail nothing.

The wolves upon his trail lope slowly over the forest bed of oozing vegetation; with careless stride, but with relentless intent, the creatures openly seek their prey. For blood is upon the air, and they come with the patter of thousands of feet, singing their dolorous chorus with all the deep meaning of the savage primordial beast. But the man heeds them not. He is deaf to their raucous song as he is blind to the mighty encompassing hills. What cares he if the earth links up with the blue heavens above him? What cares he for the everlasting silence of those heights, or the mute Spirits which repose upon the icy beds of the all-time glaciers? He is beyond the knowledge of Storm or Calm. He knows nought of the meaning of the awesome voice of Nature. The vision is all to him, and he gazes upon it with hungry, dreadful eyes. His heart is starving; his mind is empty of all but the pangs of his all-mastering desire. If need be he will pursue to the ends of the earth. He has been to the depths of hell for her; he has felt the withering blast of satanic fires. There is nought for him but possession; possession of the woman he seeks.

To his distraught fancy, his cries receive answer, and he stumbles blindly on. Meanwhile the wolves draw ever nearer and nearer, as their courage rises in response to the voice of their famished bellies. So the strange pursuit goes on, on; over hills and through valleys, now scaling barren, snow-clad rocks, now clambering drearily down jagged rifts of earth; over Nature’s untrodden trails, or along beaten paths made by the passage of forest beasts. Through clearing and brake, and over the rotting ice which fills the bed of the mountain torrent. On, on into Nature’s dim recesses, where only the forest creatures lord it, and the feet of man have never been set.

At length the forests disappear and the magnificent heights rear their snowy crests thousands of feet skywards. The valleys are left, and behind him and below the forests form but a dark shadow of little meaning. The greatness is about him; the magnitude of the higher mountain world. As he faces the unfathomed heights he again treads the snow, for the warm embrace of Spring has not yet enfolded the higher lands, and the gracious influence of the woods is no longer to be felt.

He pauses, breathing hard, and the expression of his wounded face is not pleasant. The flesh is blue, and the eyes are as fierce as the crouching puma’s. He looks about him as one in a daze. The baying of the wolves comes up from below. They still dog him, for the blood trail holds them fast. A ledge stretches away, winding upwards; a mass of tumbled rocks foot one towering, solitary pine, and beyond is blank snow.

For the moment he is lost, his vision has deserted him. It may be that weariness has overcome the power of his illusion, for he stares vacantly about. He looks back, and the breadth of what he sees conveys no meaning. The woods, with the sound of life coming up to him in deadly monotony of tone; the hills, beyond, rising till the sun, like a ball of deep red fire, seems to rest upon their now lurid glacial fields, but is powerless to break their icy bondage; these things he sees but heeds not. Beyond, far into the hazy distance, stretch hills in their hundreds; incalculable, remote, all bearing the ruddy tint of sunset; a ghostly array, chaotic, overwhelming to the brain of man. But the scene has no significance to him. His eyes are the eyes of a man dead to all but the illusion of a disordered brain. He sees as one partially blinded by the sun.

Suddenly he starts. A sound such as he craves has come to him again. He wheels to the right, whither the ledge winds round the crag. He peers out; again he sees, and with a cry he rushes on. A moving figure is upon the road; a smiling figure, a beckoning figure.

Up rises the way, a toilsome path and rugged; slippery and biting to the unshod feet. He feels no pain; there is the figure. He presses on; and the hungry legions move out from the forest below and follow boldly upon his trail.

He rounds the bend. The call trembles down the mountainside, and its music is strangely soothing and sweet to his ears. Quite abruptly a broad plateau spreads out before him. It is edged on one side by a sheer drop to unimaginable depths, on the other the uprising crags overhang in horrible menace. The plateau is strewn with bleaching bones, and from beneath the overhanging rocks comes a fetid stench. Now the figure is lost again, and the dreadful straining eyes search vainly for the fair face and beckoning hand. His heart labours and great pain is in his chest. For he is high up in the mountain air, and every breath is an effort.