Читать книгу Sixteen in Nome - Max Brand - Страница 4

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When I got outside of the lodging house, I found that a wind was blowing. It came off the tundra. That is to say, it was full of teeth and fingers of ice, and those fingers were poked between my ribs and into my vitals in a way that made me blink and bite my lip.

I dodged back into the doorway to catch my breath, but I knew that if I remained there for long, I would slink off to my bunk once more and lie in a stupor of misery all day long, as I had done most of the day before. So I got myself together, what there was of me, and turned the corner into the full stroke of the wind.

It was early in the day, there was little light, and what there was of it was smudged away to dusk by a thick sheeting of clouds that lay solidly across the sky. There were few people on that street and, when I turned down into the next one—hardly knowing where I went and hardly caring—I saw not a human soul, only half a dozen big huskies which were roaming to find any scraps of food or trouble that would come their way.

They had that big-shouldered, wolfish look which told me they were inside dogs, the kind that dog-punchers like to have in a team and, by the way they packed together, I could see that they were all from one team. It meant something, if six fine fellows like these were loose in a town where dogs were worth a good deal of money. I wondered how they had come adrift, but there were a good many possible explanations for that. A knife stroke or a bullet might have tipped their master on his face in the snow. Such things happened every day in Nome, at that happy time in its history.

There was a reward in the offing, no matter what had happened, if I could get hold of that half dozen and keep them until called for, which was sure to be before long. However, they were as wolfish in nature as in looks. They showed me their teeth as they went by, and hardly turned out of their tracks to give me room.

I saw that I was helpless, and groaned. More meals were walking away from me. I began to feel that bad luck was represented in everything that was around me, and that I had been led to Nome to enjoy a first installment of it.

Another dog, just then, climbed over a fence and jumped down into the snow. He was a beautiful fellow, very tall and with promising points, though he had not yet quite filled out. He was completely white except that the tip of his tail, his ears, and his muzzle had been rubbed with soot, as it were. He was dazzling bright, otherwise, but the odd markings gave him a rather queer look. Of course, I knew him at a glance. Everybody in Nome knew him. That was Alexander the Great, Massey's dog, on account of which Massey and Calmont, every one said, had dissolved their old partnership and now hated each other with a flaming and inextinguishable rage. That was one of the talking points in Nome, that season, and particularly how Doctor Borg had sworn the two men to a truce at the very time when Massey managed to get the dog for him.

The reason that my heart jumped so high was because I knew that that trick dog had been rated as high as five or even seven thousand dollars in value. He performed to a crowd every day in The Joint, like a high-grade vaudevillian, and men used to throw him money and cheer him and fight to get close and pat his clever head.

Well—if I could manage to get a hold of Alec the Great without having my hand bitten off, Massey would give me anything that I asked. Yes, or more than I had the nerve to ask! I looked up and down the street again, shuddering for fear any one else might be in sight to rob me of that golden opportunity, but I could see no one.

The next moment there was a terrific yowling and snarling.

I jumped around and, with a start I saw that I was very unlikely to get my hands on Alexander the Great. Neither was Massey, for that matter. And the crowd at The Joint would look for Alec the Great in vain, unless something strange happened.

For the six huskies of that errant dog team just then had come up with the dog and decided, apparently, that they were hungry, and that this was a good meal for them all. There was no hanging back among them. They got into a flying wedge faster than any football team, and then made for Alec in a single lump. They ran low. They ran hard. They were only worried about one thing, and that was how they were going to get all their teeth into him at once.

My blood stopped running and I forgot the cold as I saw Alec look back at that fence and decide that it was too high to be jumped.

What could he do?

He was fairly cornered, and he knew it, but he made a little jump to one side and then to the other. I saw that wave of dog flesh close on him—no, not quite! It was at the very last moment that he tried a most surprising thing. I don't suppose that anything but a man-educated trick dog would have dreamed of such a thing, but Alec thought of it. At the final instant, when the eyes of the huskies were probably blind with the foretaste of a good dinner, Alec left the snow like a bird and sailed high into the air.

He left the leaders so fast that they did not even lift their heads, but a couple of old stagers in the rear reached for him. He was too high and traveling too fast. His jump fairly carried him over the dogs.

His momentum was gone as he landed. He scratched to get footing, and found, that treacherous instant, that he was standing on smoothest ice! A partial thaw, there in the middle of the street, had turned the surface to glass, and Alec floundered like a fish out of water.

The huskies had not stopped against the fence. They did not stop to shake their heads and call themselves fools, as men would have done. They simply hit that fence with all four feet and rebounded halfway across the street, and almost on top of Alec.

I thought that he would do some other clever trick, but it jumped smack into my mind then that there were no more tricks up his sleeve. He had nothing but his four legs under him to save him now, and he tried to use them; but the treacherous surface was much harder on him than it was on the dog team, practiced as they constantly were in going over even worse stuff than this.

I thought that he might get across the street and jump the board fence behind me. But no. That was too high for him, even higher than the opposite one!

As I looked at that fence, I saw that one of the boards was a little broken, and wrenched at it. The major portion of it did not give at all, but I pulled away a sizable club! That gave me an idea and a tenth part of a hope.

Alec seemed to know what was in my mind. He came straight in for me and got behind my legs, while I whirled up that club and gave the leader of the pack a good slam with it across the head. He was coming in so hard that his weight shot ahead after the blow, and he crashed me back against the fence. I thought I was going down. Prickles of ice shot all through me. Once down before a gang like these half-wolves, and they would have an easier throat than Alec's to cut.

However, the swing of that stick and the splintering sound of the blow split the charge in two sections that sheered off from me to either side, and Alec woke up the stunned leader at my feet with a slash that opened the whole side of his shoulder. No mustang ever jumped faster and further than that dog did under the spur of Alec's stroke.

I looked down and saw Alec grinning back to me, a red-stained smile. I swung the club, and shouted, but when the other dogs jumped away, the injured leader simply snarled and came in a slinking pace toward me.

There is a good deal of evil in most huskies. The wolf strain is strong in them and, though on the whole they are willing to admit that a man with a club or a whip in his hands is the master, still they're liable to play mean tricks. I did not know their language, either, or the proper way to curse them out with a choice sprinkling of Eskimo words, say.

That big warrior seemed to guess at once that I was not the sort of iron he had found in men before me. I think about the worst thing I ever saw in my life was the long, gliding step that he made at me as I swung that club and shouted.

The rest of the team needed no better hint than this. In one jump they were back on each flank of him, eyeing me, pressing in close to the fence. One of them was snarling softly. The rest of them were silent, however, and that hungry silence meant a good deal more than growls at me.

I forgot about reclaiming dogs, rewards, and all that sort of thing. I began to yell at the top of my lungs for help. Not far away—in the next street, perhaps, I heard a number of men begin to laugh. Suddenly I realized that people did not turn out of their way in Nome to pay attention to the first yelping they heard, whether it came from dogs or men. The social instincts of a pack of wolves were almost kind compared to the instincts of that crowd, taking it by and large.

A frightful feeling of helplessness came over me. I got faint, and my breath would not come. I waved the club and whirled it in the air again.

The big leader slid forward on his belly like a stalking cat, and curled his lips away from his teeth. I decided it would have to be then or never. The whole of that horrible semicircle had drawn suddenly in around me and I knew, that unless I made some move, it would most likely be the end of me. So I feinted. He dodged his head a little, and then I let him have it alongside the head.

The club broke off short in my hand. The crackling and the stroke itself made the younger dogs of the team wince away a trifle; but, as for that leader, it was as though I had hit him with a feather duster. He simply showed me his teeth and the darkness inside his throat as he came excitedly off the ground at me.

Now, as that big brute began to rise, I told myself that it was the end. The horror and the fear weakened my arms to nothing at all. I could not have dodged and I could not have struck a single worthwhile blow with the truncheon of the stick.

It was young Alec the Great who saved me. He went past my legs in a flash. The leader had been thinking only of the human enemy and, as a result, just as he came off the ground Alec's shoulder hit him and tumbled him head over heels with a rip down the side that spurted red.

There was a clear field for Alec, through that gap, and he could have bolted, but that did not seem to occur to him. Instead, he flashed back to my side instantly.

There was one bad moment when I thought that the team would rush me from either side but, like well-trained workers, they waited for orders from that ugly gray brute; and he had something new to think about.

The second blow, the second ripping stroke, apparently had brought him to his senses. Perhaps the battle had only started as a frolic. Perhaps he had gone blindly on from chasing a mere dog to attacking a man, and now he suddenly realized that he had been trying to pull down a human, and that man's medicine is usually strong. At any rate, he gave us one wicked side glance, and then went off down the street. The rest of his crew tailed along after him like privates after a corporal. I never was so glad to see dogs going the other way.