The Way of the Wind

Seth's impulse was to throw himself beneath the wh

their wake; but as he shut his eyes for the leap there came

rie. Perhaps the wind blew it to him. Who knows? Our Mother Earth often sends us

came only

r, it

yes, and the ma

ein of the mule, mounted awkwardly into the high and ungai

fiendish delight in trying to tear Celia's garments to

of Seth. On the contrary, it spent its most dulcet music in the effort to soothe him

wered

d forgotten him. The po'

eet as a girl's, caressing him, urging him o

filled with Celia to the exclusion of all else. H

. He loved them. Fierce they were at times, it was true, claws that clutched at

opposite as the p

e her detestatio

in log huts and felled the forests in settling the country. Something not yet tamed

lar to his own, and barking, then running at whistle or crack of whip into the holes to their odd companions, the owls and the rattlesnakes; the herds of antel

d out on the pra

disfigured by a burn, scarre

oneliness is sim

it stretches from

e eye could reach, scorched and

on the ruin of his life. What if the g

the pioneers crawled so helplessly, had been blown zigzag by the wild buffetings of the wayward, wanton winds, punctuating the dread loneliness so insistently, so incessantly, so diabolically by its sta

thing of injustice, the wind blew wit

in the current of insanity

of his mothe

for his father to come home, not knowing where he

begin to count a

three," she had count

ally to counting

. One, tw

herwise it would be good to lose all remembrance, to forget, to dream, to laps

three," he counted,

elia, suddenly he felt himself seized by gusts of violent rage. The desire to dash out his brains

he counted, and between the w

k until it recovered its equilibrium, a

the sake o

out, the bereft house, where it was as if the most precious inmate had s

very steadily here, to str

, two, three. One, tw

count n

und like aeolian harps in the effort to comfort him, but he

tude of a woman

to a lethargy of grief fro

great blast. It whistled loudly

t? Was it his Mother Nature

nctly, wailingly, came

ad, grasped the

and faster, until at last he

m the arms of Cyclona, who sat by the fire

since you have been gone. Crying! Crying! No matter what