Читать книгу Never Fire First - James French Dorrance - Страница 4

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Grim, indeed, had been Sergeant Seymour's sledded return to his detachment. For more than two hundred miles across the frozen tundra he had driven his ghastly load—the murdered woman wrapped in deer skins after the native custom, sewed up in a tarp and lashed to a komatik, the Labrador sled that gives such excellent service on cross-country runs. All this, that the inquest which the Dominion requires, regardless of isolation, might be held in form and the case against the uxoricide assured.

And out ahead, unarmed, and under "open" arrest, had mushed the murderer himself, breaking trail toward his own doom. Often in the whirling snow, Olespe had been beyond his captor's sight. But never had he wavered from the most feasible course to Armistice; always had he been busily making camp when the dogs and their official driver caught up at the appointed night-stop. No white man could have been entrusted with such "fatigue duty" under like circumstances. Three weeks of such opportunity for remorse must have been too much.

But Seymour was not thinking now of this recent ordeal.

The case of Olespe, except for the formalities of coroner's inquest, commitment and trial was settled. The plight of his unhappy constable held the pity of the sergeant, always considerate.

"I'm not blaming you, Charley," he assured. "Until you've been up here a few years, all Eskimos look right much alike."

"Can't I start after the real Avic at once," pleaded the constable. "I'll make no second mistake."

La Marr was as eager as a hound held in leash after its nose has rubbed the scent. But he could not, just then, bring himself to confess his over-sleeping.

Seymour did not answer at once, but set about taking off his heavy trail clothes and getting into the uniform of command. He was a large built man, but lean of the last ounce of superfluous flesh owing to the long patrols that he never shirked.

The scarlet tunic became him. Across the breast of it showed lines of vari-colored ribbons, for his service in France had been as valorous as vigorous. He had gone into the war from his Yukon post and, almost directly after the armistice, back into the Northwest Territories to establish one of the new stations of the Mounted in the Eskimo country.

The green constable chafed under the silence, but he did not make the mistake of thinking it due to slow thinking. With Seymour many had erred in that direction to their sorrow. The sergeant certainly was slow in speech, but when he spoke he said something. He might seem tardy in action, but once started he was as active as a polar bear after a seal.

"No hurry about taking after this Avic," he said at last. "Likely he'll not travel far this double-thermometer weather." The reference was to a jocular fable of the region that to get the temperature one had to hitch two thermometers together. "At worst he can't get clear away—no one ever does, except when old man Death catches him first. We'll hold our inquest, then I'll issue a warrant."

"And detail me to serve it?" La Marr's question had that breathless interrogation point of secret self-accusation.

To Seymour's thin lips came that whimsical smile which transformed his whole expression, despite its blanket of beard. To a student of expression, this would have shown the tenderness of a woman to be concealed beneath the life-hardened mask. His grimness melted like snow beneath the caress of a Chinook wind; yet warning remained that this gentleness was not open to imposition.

"Right-o, Charlie," he promised. "I've made mistakes in my day and been thankful for the chance to rectify them. You're nominated to bring in whoever is named in the warrant after the inquest. Let's go."

He put on a pea-jacket, on the sleeves of which the stripes of his rank stood out in deep yellow. On a thatch of towsled, brownish hair he settled the fur cap proscribed in the regulations for winter wear.

Outside they first attended the disposal of the sled. Without telling the post's native hostler the grim nature of their load, they saw it placed in a shed which had the temperature of a morgue.

Adjoining the police buildings on the south was the establishment of the Arctic Trading Company, Ltd. This was a low but substantially built structure of timber and stone, also facing the frozen river. The "Mounties" entered the storm door which gave upon the factor's quarters, with the intention of divorcing Harry Karmack from his book and pipe long enough to accompany them to the scene of the local crime.

"Dear eyes, but it's glad to see you home again, Serg.," was the trader's greeting, as he arose from his chair beside an "airtight burner" and extended his hand for a hearty grip. "Things have come to a pretty pass in the territories when the 'Skims get to biting the hands that are feeding them."

Seymour met this comment with a grave nod. Like others of the Force on Arctic detail, he was surprised at what approached an epidemic of murderous violence among their Eskimo charges, in general a kindly and docile people.

A prepossessing individual was Harry Karmack, not at all the typical trader. He was dark, from a strain of French blood in his Canadian make-up, with laughing eyes and a handsome mouth. As he seldom took the winter trail, he shaved daily "so as not to let the howling North get the better of me," as he liked to put it. His smooth cheeks contrasted sharply with the bearded ones of the officers, their growth cultivated for protection on the snow patrols. Generally Karmack wore tweeds over his powerful frame and a bright tie beneath the collar of his flannel shirt. At that, he was a seasoned sour-dough and a sharp trader, respected and feared by the natives.

"What do you think's got into the blood of the breed all of a sudden?" he asked.

"We've handed them too many rifles, for one thing," offered Seymour slowly. "But don't you worry, the Mounted will get the deluded creatures in hand. Will you come with us for a look at the O'Malley scene?"

Karmack reached for his furs.

"If you don't," he remarked, a severe note in his voice, "you scarlet soldiers won't be any safer than us traders. When I think of young O'Malley, one of the finest chaps I ever knew, struck down here at a police post——"

A catch in his voice stopped him. Taking a battery lantern from a cupboard beside the doorway, he signified he was ready for the said inspection.

La Marr led the way to the scene of the crime—a stone hut half buried in the snow. At the door he broke the R.C.M.P. seal which he placed there before setting out on his futile pursuit of the suspect.

"Nothing was disturbed, sir," said the constable in a hushed voice. "Everything is as Karmack and I found it when we came to investigate why O'Malley did not return to the store."

They stepped out of the gathering dusk into a windowless room. The roof was so low as to cause the shortest of them to stoop. The trader pushed the button on his lantern and raised it.

Across the cave-like room, which was bare of furniture after the Eskimo fashion, Seymour stared. There, in a sitting posture on a sleeping bench, was all that was mortal of the assistant factor.

In life, O'Malley had been a handsome youth of pronounced Irish type. Sudden death had wrought so few changes that the sergeant had difficulty in believing that he looked on other than a sleeping fellow human. A dankness, as of a tomb, served to convince him.

The victim's head rested against the back wall of the hut; his crossed feet upon a deerskin floor covering. Clutched in one hand was a black fox pelt. Upon the sleeping bench beside him lay one of silver. Both looked to be unusually fine skins. Presumably, some dispute over the price of the prizes was the motive of the crime.

Karmack stepped closer with the light; indicated by gesture a knotted line of seal skin around the victim's throat, the end dangling down over his parkee.

"The Eskimo way!" muttered the trader brokenly.

The shudder that passed through Seymour's wiry frame was not observed by the companions of the inspection. No more was it caused by the untimely fate of Oliver O'Malley.