The covenant - James A. Michener [163]
'We have enough for three or four years. You don't use very much, you know. By that time traders will be coming through, won't they, Pappie?'
Pappie was an optimist: 'Smous . . . two, three years, there'll be a flow of such peddlers.'
One evening at supper, when they were rested and well prepared for the journey ahead, the father said, 'Tomorrow we move on,' and it was then that Johanna became aware that she did not wish to leave Hendrik. At the edge of the mysterious wilderness she had found a man, sturdy, gentle, and reasonably capable, and although he had said or done nothing to reveal his interest in her, for he would always be hesitant about his own capacities, she felt assured that if she could stay with him a little longer, she would find some way to encourage him.
She was not yet distraught about the passing yearssixteen years old and no husbandbut she did foresee that if her family moved far east, it might be some time before a marriageable man came along, so after everyone had gone to bed she crept close to her parents and whispered, 'I would like to remain here with Hendrik.'
The old people fell into a frenzy: 'Would you leave us alone? Who will help us?' They had a dozen reasons why their daughter must not desert them, and each was compelling, for they were an inadequate pair and knew it. Without Johanna they saw little chance of survival in the bleak years ahead, so they pleaded with her to come with them. Tearfully she said she would, for she knew that without her they could perish.
But when she was alone, staring at the empty years ahead, she could not bear the thought of the solitude that was being forced upon her, so she moved silently to Hendrik's litter and wakened him: 'Our last night. Let's walk in the moonlight.'
Trembling with excitement, he slipped into his trousers, and barefooted they left the hut. When they had gone where none could hear them but the ruminating cattle, she said, 'I don't want to leave.'
'You'd stay here? With me?'
'I would.' She could feel him shivering, and added, 'But they need me. They'll not be able to survive without me.'
'I need you!' he blurted out, and with that she dropped any maidenly reticence and embraced him. They fell on the ground, grappled hungrily with each other, and assuaged the loneliness and uncertainty that assailed them. Twice they made fumbling and inconclusive love, aware that they were not handling this matter well, but also aware that gentleness and love and passion were involved.
Finally she whispered, 'I want you to remember me.'
'I'll not let you go. I need you with me.'
She wanted to hear these reassuring words, to know on the eve of her departure for strange fields that she had been able to inspire such thoughts in a man. But now when Hendrik said in a loud voice, 'I'm going to speak with your father,' she grew afraid, lest a confrontation occur that could have no resolution.
'Don't, Hendrik! Perhaps later, when the farm . . .'
Too late. The stocky trekboer marched to the hut, roused the sleeping pair and told them bluntly, 'I'm going to keep your daughter.'
Perhaps they had anticipated such a denouement to their extended stay; at any rate, they knew how to deal with it. With tears, accusations of filial infidelity and pleadings they besought her to stay with them, and when morning came she had to comply.
After they left, Hendrik experienced the most difficult days of his life, because now, for the first time, he could imagine what it would be like to live with a woman; he would lie in his hut and stare at the rolling land she had traversed, picturing himself