Free A Dove of the East by Mark Helprin Page B

The more ecstasy, the more stillness. That is why they started with much movement and the pine floor rocked, resinous, yellow, and dusty. At evenings end very little was left of motion, for everything was contained, and the wind whistling over the roof made the women shudder with love. But Josie was alone, for her husband had died in the army. She had considered other men even before the time of mourning had passed, because she had loved him so much, and chose to start when she wished since she would never allow herself to be a horse breaking at the bit, and her legitimate pride made her seek others as an exercise in grief.
    He had been in the First Cavalry. He was Spanish, from Truchas for many generations, mixed with the dying Indians. He had the same dark eyes, and he had killed many men before he himself was killed in a helicopter crash.
    She did love him, more so when he was dead, and she had loved him in that cold way which is the great love of one who is hurt. But then, there were wonderful clear moments, all lightness and gaiety, such as one time when they walked for miles down the road in the moonlight just laughing and relieved that they had nowhere to go and were completely alone.
    When he died she learned much and she became more protective of her children. She became then not a girl but a woman. There are ways in which a woman becomes a woman; they often take her by great surprise, and this was one. It seemed to her that she valued her own life a little less, and life itself much more. She became devoted to her children and would have made sacrifices for them of which a year or even a few months before she would not have dreamed. She felt old, but very strong, and when old people went by in the street she understood them more, and was proud of them.
    One Friday night in the summer there was mountain dancing. Josie was there. She and her children had been escorted by the man who guided hunters from the East, and spent much time alone in the mountains. People were somewhat afraid of him because he was so strong and was seldom in the village, but at the same time they were happy to have him because they guessed that he would fight hard for them if for any reason they had to fight. Josie was enlivened by his company because he was so much older. It seemed to her girlfriends, whom she had already outdistanced, that he was frightening and somehow beyond understanding. It was an important time for her. She was learning to change her sadness into a tenderness which made itself manifest on nights just like these. The pain had withered to a point of beauty, and she was receptive and full of love.
    When things began to go and she stared no longer at the black glass through which were tinted stars and shapes of peaks, when in fact she was eating a lemon ice and talking convivially with her friends and a young boy who had come up from Santa Fe to work for the summer on his cousins farm, two men came in, two strangers. They smiled occasionally but seemed not to have come for the dance.
    Josie began dancing with the hunter, who was a good dancer. A time passed while she danced and was very happy. Then, when the musicians rested, the two men went to the middle of the floor and asked for attention. In Truchas no one had to
ask
for attention. If he wanted to speak to the people all at once, he spoke. These young men were from California, their Spanish was not the same, and they said they were revolutionaries. One spoke, and then the other said that what he said was true. They talked of fighting, and guns, and violence. And they mentioned many times “the people.” They talked for half an hour, and when they finished there was silence in the room. The hunter was unimpressed, and smiled at them as if they were children who knew very little. What did they know of the mountains, of the peaks? They were from the flat land and not accustomed to the thin air. The other people were puzzled, and did not understand fully what they