Pull the robe over thy shoulders."
"Maria."
"I cannot speak."
"Oh, Maria. Maria. Maria."
Then afterwards, close, with the night cold outside, in the long warmth of the robe, her head touching his cheek, she lay quiet and happy against him and then said softly,
"And thou?"
"_Como tu_," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"But it was not as this afternoon."
"No."
"But I loved it more.
One does not need to die."
"_Ojala no_," he said.
"I hope not."
"I did not mean that."
"I know.
I know what thou meanest.
We mean the same."
"Then why did you say that instead of what I meant?"
"With a man there is a difference."
"Then I am glad that we are different."
"And so am I," he said.
"But I understood about the dying.
I only spoke thus, as a man, from habit.
I feel the same as thee."
"However thou art and however thou speakest is how I would have thee be."
"And I love thee and I love thy name, Maria."
"It is a common name."
"No," he said.
"It is not common."
"Now should we sleep?" she said.
"I could sleep easily."
"Let us sleep," he said, and he felt the long light body, warm against him, comforting against him, abolishing loneliness against him, magically, by a simple touching of flanks, of shoulders and of feet, making an alliance against death with him, and he said, "Sleep well, little long rabbit."
She said,
"I am asleep already."
"I am going to sleep," he said.
"Sleep well, beloved."
Then he was asleep and happy as he slept.
But in the night he woke and held her tight as though she were all of life and it was being taken from him.
He held her feeling she was all of life there was and it was true.
But she was sleeping well and soundly and she did not wake.
So he rolled away onto his side and pulled the robe over her head and kissed her once on her neck under the robe and then pulled the pistol lanyard up and put the pistol by his side where he could reach it handily and then he lay there in the night thinking.
21
A warm wind came with daylight and he could hear the snow melting in the trees and the heavy sound of its falling.
It was a late spring morning.
He knew with the first breath he drew that the snow had been only a freak storm in the mountains and it would be gone by noon.
Then he heard a horse coming, the hoofs balled with the wet snow thumping dully as the horseman trotted.
He heard the noise of a carbine scabbard slapping loosely and the creak of leather.
"Maria," he said, and shook the girl's shoulder to waken her.
"Keep thyself under the robe," and he buttoned his shirt with one hand and held the automatic pistol in the othet loosening the safety catch with his thumb.