She turned at sound of me, and the blood was in her cheeks as I
felt it in mine.
"Come," she cried with her motion.
I went and lay close beside her, peering, as she did, through the
trees. The world was all wind and red light and churning water. I
could feel her quick breathing.
"I can hear the spirit of the wilderness crying," she said to me. The
lightning played over her face and eyes, and they shone like flame.
I laid a hand on her wet blankets. "Has the rain soaked through?"
But she did not listen. The exultation in her look I have seen
sometimes in the face of a young priest; I have also seen it in a
savage dancer. It is all one. It is the leaping response of the soul
to the call of a great freedom. Storm was summoning storm. I found
the woman's hand, and lay with it in mine.
She remembered me again after a time. "Does it call to you?" she cried.
I could feel the blood racing in her palm. "As it does to you," I
answered, and I lay still, and let the storm riot in me, and around me,
with her hand held close.
We could not speak for some time. The thunder was constant, and the
play of the lightning was like the dazzle of a fencer's sword. Mingled
with the thunder came the slap of frothing water and the whine of
bending trees.
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