The Two-Bar Brand - Chapter 6 Pierre Takes Steps to Preserve his Property

"I'll get you supper. I'll light the lamp," Joan stammered.

Pierre's face was pale, his black hair lay in wet streaks on his
temples. He must have traveled at furious speed through the bitter
cold to be in such a sweat. There was a mysterious, controlled
disorder in his look and there arose from him the odor of strong
drink. But he was steady and sure in all his movements and his eyes
were deadly cool and reasonable--only it was the reasonableness of
insanity, reasonableness based on the wildest premises of unreason.

"I don't want no supper, nor no light," he said. "Firelight's enough
fer you to read parsons' books by, it's enough fer me to do what I
oughter done long afore to-night."

She stood in the middle of the small, log-walled room, arrested in the
act of lighting a match, and stared at him with troubled eyes. She was
no longer afraid. After all, strange as he looked, more strangely as
he talked, he was her Pierre, her man. The confidence of her heart had
not been seriously shaken by his coldness and his moods during this
winter. There had been times of fierce, possessive tenderness. She was
his own woman, his property; at this low counting did she rate
herself. A sane man does no injury to his own possessions. And Pierre,
of course, was sane. He was tired, angry, he had been drinking--her
ignorance, her inexperience led her to put little emphasis on the
effects of the poison sold at the town saloon. When he was warm and
fed and rested, he would be quite himself again. She went about
preparing a meal in spite of his words.