When the birds fly south

by Stanton A. Coblentz

THE SECOND WINTER

It would be pointless to dwell at length upon my second winter in Sobul. In everything essential, it was a repetition of the winter before. There were the same long solitary months, the same monotonous loneliness by the evening firelight, the same trudging through the snow on companionless expeditions, the same arduous gathering of faggots and the same fear of predatory wild things, the same howling of wolves from across the valley and the same clamoring of storm-winds, the same bleak questionings and the same impotent wrath at the unkindliness of my fate.

But in one respect my lot this year was harder to bear. For now there were memories to torment, memories that arose like ghosts when in the long evenings I sat musing by the golden-yellow light of the log blaze. A year ago there had also been memories; a year ago I had also thought of Yasma with sadness; but then there had been no endearing intimacy to haunt every object she had brightened with her presence and every spot her feet had pressed. Now the very cabin she had occupied with me seemed desolate because she had been there; the very pans and kettles and earthen vessels her fingers had touched became sorrowful reminders, while a little spray of wildflowers, gathered by her hands months before and now hanging gray and withered from the log wall, was the perpetual source of longing and regret. How strange and ironic that every gay moment we had passed together should have its melancholy echoes, and that her very smiles and laughter and little winning ways and little loving kindnesses should all return to mock me now!

As I sat dreaming of Yasma, my thoughts would flicker fitfully as the flames writhing in the fireplace. One moment I would blame myself for bringing misfortune upon my beloved; the next moment anger would rise in my heart and I would feel aggrieved at her and at the world because I had been forsaken. And when I remembered that this second lonely winter might not be the last, that next winter and every winter I might be deserted, then a furious resolve blazed up within me; and with a strength born of my wretchedness I determined that never again should I live through the cold season alone. Let Yasma refuse to stay, and I would coax, cajole, entreat, and if need be force her to remain. Was she not my wife? Was it not unreasonable to be abandoned as she had abandoned me? No doubt she would plead that she had never promised to stay, had always insisted on the need for a migration—but might that need not be a mere superstition, born of blind obedience to some secret tribal tradition? And, whatever the necessity that moved her, how could it compare with my own necessity?

Another winter of solitary confinement, I feared, and I should go mad. Already I was tending toward the obsessions that beset one overlong in his own company—and should I do Yasma a favor by bequeathing her a lunatic for a husband? Plainly, she did not understand, could not understand, any more than I could understand her ways; but was it not my duty to protect us both by any means within my grasp? Thus I reasoned, repeating the arguments over and over to myself, until I knew them as the mathematician knows his axioms; and so, partly by logic and partly by sophistry and largely because of the frenzy of my love and despair, I decided upon that step which was to make all succeeding winters different, and was to mark the fateful climax of my life in Sobul.

Having made my resolve, I could face the world with fresh courage. All that winter, when the mountains were white specters beneath the blue sky or when the clouds blotted out the peaks and the snow was sifted down day after day, I kept hope alive not only at the thought of Yasma's return in the spring but by the determination that she should not leave in the autumn. I might be tormented by loneliness; I might read only sorrow in the denuded woods, and menace in the lowering skies; I might quiver at the wail of the wolf, and people the shadows of the night with evil shapes; I might find the peaks cruelly aloof, and Yulada as disdainful as ever on her rock-throne; yet at least I had something to clutch at, something to bring me consolation and make it seem worth while to live.

But there was another thought that lent the world interest. Yulada still drew me toward her with a mysterious fascination; I was as anxious as ever to climb to her feet. My previous failures did not discourage me; I told myself that I had been unlucky, and should succeed if I persisted. Had the upper altitudes not been coated with ice, I should have made the attempt immediately after Yasma's departure; but experience had taught me to wait; and I determined that early in the spring, before the first Ibandru had reappeared, I should again match my strength with the elusive slopes.

It was when March was still young that a benign mildness came into the air; that the snow began to melt, and the streams to run full to the brim. During most of the month the warmth endured; and shortly before the arrival of April the peaks were banded and mottled with wide gray patches, and I concluded that it was time for my new adventure.

I was not at fault in this judgment. Never before had the ascent seemed quite so easy; the way had been smoothed as though by invisible hands. No ice or snow impeded me along the lower slopes, or blockaded me on the upper; no impassable cliff intervened as I followed the windings of the trail through groves of deodar and pine, and along the verge of thousand-foot precipices. But the blue sky, the invigorating breezes and the new-washed glittering peaks all served to strengthen my determination. To climb to Yulada appeared almost a simple matter, and I could scarcely understand why I had not succeeded before.

Yet somehow I could not remain cheerful as the hours went by and I trudged along the stony ledges and over ridge after steep projecting ridge. Or was I being infected with the same superstition as the Ibandru felt? This much, at least, I know: the higher I mounted, the lower my spirits sank; I began to feel as one who sacrilegiously invades a shrine; had I not opposed my determination to my fears, I might not have come within miles of Yulada.