Читать книгу The Bull Moose - Sidney Groves Burghard - Страница 12

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The figure remained quite motionless. It was there at the farthest extremity of an overhang of gray rock which thrust out over the river below. The height was dizzy. And the scene below was dwarfed to something infinitely less than its reality. The river? It was no more than a speeding, drab ribbon. And those battling upon it, and about its western shore, were just human pigmies, and their kyaks children's toys.

It was a fantastic figure that was not without awe. It wore a headgear of low, drooping moose horns, with a broad thrust of webbed tines. Then there was the soft-hued, close fur in which it was so scrupulously clad from head to foot. Somehow it looked to belong to its wild setting. The granite hills, the forests, the shadowed valleys, and the mighty Alikine. Was it not the natural home of the moose? Surely. And here was the Bull Moose.

The face was close hidden under a flowing fur mask which reached down to a broad chest. And keenly peering eyes were searching the scene below through the narrow slits cut in the mask for that purpose.

Nothing escaped those searching eyes. Every gun-flash was noted, and its resulting toll. There was no movement in the battle going forward that was missed. The intensity of that gaze, the immobility it involved, suggested an interest not untouched by anxiety.

The Bull Moose was looking on at an orgy of human slaughter, cold-blooded, ruthless. It was as though those engaged in it had no concern but for the lust to kill. Personal disaster might have been a thing of no account judged by the display of utter recklessness. Death! The dealing of it! Those seeking to slay were surrounded on all sides by every natural hazard calculated to destroy. Was not the monstrous flood of the Alikine, alive, threatening, only awaiting its opportunity?

The western half of the river was deep in gray shadow. The rest was open to full sunlight. The westering sun was slanting down out of a clear, steely sky.

It lit a long narrow strip of foreshore, like to the shore that was Jim McBarr's claim some four miles to the southward. Its only difference was its lesser extent, and that it was rockstrewn where the washout of the lateral inlet came down from the highlands. Its soil was the same auriferous alluvial, whose reddish hue was enriched by the golden sunlight. It was Shamus Hoogan's river washing.

It was laid out to the usual pattern. There was the inevitable conduit for the water flush. Originally it had run the whole length of the shore. Now only half of it remained undespoiled. At the northern extremity it had been wrecked and piled to provide cover for those who were there to slay. There was Hoogan's hut. A husk. A charred husk close in at the cliff base. Then there was a miniature mountain of well-washed tailings, where stood the remains of a high-built, riffled sluice.

The despoilers were there in many; full half a hundred of them. Kaska Indians. Undersized, brown-skinned creatures whose upper bodies were bare. Sheltered about the wreckage of the conduit, protected by the mountain of tailings, stretched out in the shadow of granite bowlders, they were all there to be seen from above. They were prone or crouching, grasping store rifles with leveled sights. Others lay sprawled with their own lethal weapons fallen from nerveless hands.

Out on the river a dozen or more boats were darting hither and thither under skillful paddles. Playing on the edge of disaster amidst the tide of flotsam sweeping down the river, they looked to be jockeying for position to head an elusive white man in a hide-built kyak, whose merciless long-range automatic was playing havoc in their ranks.

It was a voiceless battle of wit and daring. And the only sound that came from it, imposing itself on the thunderous murmur of flowing waters, was the vicious spit of gunfire, and the echoes of the gorge.

It was upwards of an hour since Jim McBarr had reached Hoogan's claim on his mission of succor. He had made the trip against the Alikine's stream at a speed of which he alone was capable. And he had found things better than he had dared to hope.

He had found the river open, and Shamus still fighting under cover of his burnt-out shanty. He had found the horde of besieging Kaskas defenseless against his instant onslaught. There they were in their cover from the Irish sniper, but in full view for his flank attack from the river.

The glimpse of the lean Shamus, half-hidden, but fighting back out of his ruined hut had been all sufficient for Jim McBarr. He needed no other spur. The hopeless courage of it appealed to every fiber in his body. His whole mind and heart warmed to so senseless a courage. He could see no shadow of hope for the reckless creature without outside help. And yet he was fighting. He saw the long snout of the man's old-patterned rifle, and he could have wept for the pathos of it.

A surge of hot blood rushed to Jim's usually cool head. It transformed him into a machine for the whole purpose of slaughter. No savage Kaska in the mob besieging Shamus could have yearned to kill more surely.

Jim began the moment he came within range. He picked off the slim brown bodies just where and how he chose. He had no mercy. No pity. And his blood lust grew with every victim his gun claimed.

There was no more deadly gunman on the river than Jim McBarr, and he used all the skill at his command. He was fighting for a friend's life, and he fought as if that life were his own. And so he made no pause in his onslaught till some twenty of the besiegers lay sprawled out of action. Then he coldly figured. And knew he was precisely twenty points nearer saving his best friend.

That was just the first flush of his success. But it induced no illusion. Jim was far too experienced an outworld fighter to let it upset his better judgment. It had been a surprise, and it had met splendid success. But he knew the Kaskas well enough to realize the swiftness with which they would react. Nevertheless, whatever was to follow, a big satisfaction was his. And the more so that the man in the charred hut, realizing the unexpected succor, had redoubled his own efforts. His gunning was not a whit less in its intensity than Jim's.

But Shamus had none of the Scotsman's canny temper. His impulse was beyond his control. And he gave way to it. In his surge of enthusiasm at unexpected help he forgot the caution of the sniper. He failed even to realize the thing he was doing. Abandoning all cover he stood in his open doorway so that he might the better search his hidden foes.

For one stark moment Jim, from across the water, beheld the man's mad act. He saw the lean, tall figure in its stained clothing fill up the doorway. And he cursed the utter folly of it. Then in the flash of a second he saw Shamus reel. He saw him recover. And then he saw him pitch headlong. The man pitched on his face pumped full of Indian lead. And he lay there without movement in his shattered body while a howl of savage triumph went up from the besiegers.

Jim's grief and disappointment were bitter, and his temper suffered. The thing he had so urgently desired had been snatched beyond his reach. And he silently blasphemed that his great liking should have fallen on so wild and reckless a creature as an Irishman. In those moments he had no thought for himself, no care. He was thinking of the dark troubled eyes of a girl child who had risked everything, all she was, all she hoped for, to save her hard-pressed father.

But the fight was on and Jim discovered the reaction he had looked for. It was a fleet of Indian craft. It came into view, sweeping round a bend of the gorge at the northward end of the gold shore. A horde of Kaskas were on the river descending upon him. And now he knew that the fight was his alone.

He cared nothing for the thing he was up against. The prospect almost gladdened his fighting spirit, and stirred him to a cold sort of joy. Why not? They were seeking the sort of trouble he yearned to deal out to them. Well, they should get it all—these miserable low-grade neches.

They came with a rush, yelling to overawe, confident in their numbers against a single ridiculous white man. Their contempt and assurance were displayed in the furious dash down the avalanche of the river. And they paid for the temerity of it on the instant.

Three of the leaders pitched forward into the wells of their hide craft. And a fourth sagged over sideways. In a moment the light kyaks were caught by the stream and swirled away southward with the rest of the litter from the upper reaches.

But their rush had been checked. And the while Jim jambed another clip into his long-range-automatic. Then he waited, holding against the stream. The war yells of the Indians had ceased and each boat was maneuvering out of range.

Jim's up-take was instant. That maneuvering needed no speculation. The movement was more than apparent in its intent. These river men intended to surround. They would cut his retreat and bar him to the northward; they would hold him there, prisoned, while the men ashore completed the work of his destruction at their leisure.

Jim's paddle dipped furiously. He drove head on for the kyaks. He plunged headlong into the wolf-pack while the shore men sprayed the granite wall behind him with their ill-flung lead.

Jim had no heed for the shore men. They were a mere chance in the game. A chance against which he could not defend himself. But these others were a concrete fact with which he could deal. And he dealt with them.

He faced them and rushed at them, while his gun ran hot. The minutes prolonged. And boat after boat lost its human control and swirled on helplessly down the river. Jim was killing to his best satisfaction. And he meant to keep on killing for just so long as fortune permitted. He was at bay. And he felt that, so far, at least, all was well. A few more. Just a little longer. Then with Shamus beyond his help he would run northward to pass warning to those in dire need of it.

Then it happened. It came from the despised snipers on the shore. Jim had received the last favor Fortune was prepared to show him. Now full payment was demanded.

Jim was driving up stream between two kyaks scurrying from his path to avoid him. He wanted those two. And he meant to get them. He pulled on the one nearest and saw the brown body pitch forward, and the paddle drift away down the stream. Then he turned on the other.

It was his last effort.

Something scorched the flesh of his great chest. There was a sense of burning. His gun spat, but his shot went wide. Then he staggered where he knelt up in his kyak and coughed violently.

It was the last he knew. His paddle drifted away from him. And his automatic splashed into the river. He drooped over forward. And finally he crumpled, as Shamus Hoogan had done. His boat, like those others, was caught in the stream and rushed southward. But even as it gathered speed it was caught and held by outreaching brown hands.

The watcher on the cliff bestirred. There was a deep breath which was a sigh of relief and satisfaction. Then the antlered head lifted. There was a moment of silence. Then the gorge echoed with the deep-throated bellow of a bull moose.

Ike Clancy and Joe Makers were standing on the inclined shore of Shamus Hoogan's claim. They were near by to the great mound of tailings where the stoutly built sluice stood up. They had been the first of the river party from Reliance to land, and they had found what they sought almost on the instant. With them was the son of Jim McBarr, and the now man-clad figure of Wanita. The rest of the men of Reliance were running to join them as they landed. It was a goodly army. There were some twenty of them. And all well armed.

They were gazing down at two bodies laid on the alluvial of the claim. They were stark dead and laid out as though prepared for burial. Beyond his icy pallor Jim McBarr looked little different in death from the cold immobility which had always been his in life. There was nothing collapsed about his body. He looked as though one breath of his deep lungs and he would stand up from the ground ready to carry on the life that had been his. Shamus Hoogan had far less of life in his appearance. Shamus was ripped with a dozen wounds. And his every garment was bloodsoaked.

The onlookers were profoundly silent, a prey to feelings of awe. This was not new to any of them. They had seen just such as this before, and all too frequently. It told them an old and always painful story. For there was not one amongst them but wondered who would be the next victim. It was the trail of death that always marked the wake of a thwarted Bull Moose.

It was Ike Clancy who broke up the silence. He looked up and gazed at the lowering faces of those about him. He glanced round, up and down, the despoiled gear of the reckless creature who had been always so popular. Then he glanced up at the cliffs as though seeking the authors of the killing that had been wrought. He turned to Sandy and Wanita.

"Say, kids, I guess we'll never know just how the finish came. He got 'em. Oh, he surely got 'em. Ther's a bunch of Kaskas dead. Say, they must have pulled one hell of a scrap. Those two boys. With all those dead what sort of a bunch were they up against? Hundreds? And—the Bull Moose. Look at that shack. Burnt out. See that Irish boy's conduit and sluice. Man, but it's sheer murder."

Sandy looked into the other's emotion-lit face.

"I'd hate to figure it's just murder," he said, in the cold, hard tones which were so like to his dead father's. "If Jim could tell us I guess he'd hand a big story." He shook his head. "It's not his way to find murder. No, sir. There isn't a Bull Moose or any other tough out of hell could murder Jim. He was the livest gunman that ever pulled. They got him by weight of numbers. It was a fight. Gun-play to the finish. And if I know Jim I'd say he loved every moment of it. Hell! I ought to feel sick to death they got my father—Jim. But I don't feel that way knowing him. If Jim had to pass out I'd say he'd want to go fighting. And I'd say he pulled his gun to the last second of his great big life. I'm glad of my father, folks. And I'm glad he died just the way he'd want to. He was good to me."

Wanita's tragic face lifted to those about her.

"My Shamus," she cried, with a catch breaking her voice. "I don't guess he ever saw the thing they did to my little mother. I'm glad. So glad. It left him with heart for his fight. And I think I know just the way he fought. You folks'll know, too. I'm glad they were together, Sandy. They died together. Maybe they're somewhere sitting around together, now."

Joe Makers hunched his heavy shoulders.

"That's all right, kids," he said roughly. "They belonged you two. An' you've got a big grit with them lyin' there. But I don't work out what comes next. There's a killer around, and he's got hundreds of killers at his call. And he'll go right on with his killing while there's a poke of dust comes out of the Alikine. The police are coming, but they ain't around yet. It's up to us to get after him. I'm for just that, right—"

The sound that interrupted him came from the cliff top, and echoed down the gorge till it sounded like the harsh, deep-throated laugh of a dozen men. It was a queer laugh that had no mirth in it, but a world of contempt. It was that maddening laugh which Wanita had described so graphically. It told the speaker he was a fool, that he, and his ideas and opinions were not of the least consequence. It told the whole of that little human cluster gathered about the dead that it mattered less than a bunch of gophers running aimlessly around their burrow. And it died out as abruptly as it came.

Every face turned upwards. Every eye was turned in the one direction. It was at a great overhanging of rock just to the southward of where they stood. And every eye was widened and staring.

There it stood like a figure about to dive into the river below. At the very edge of the cliff. Tall and burly in its low-reaching moosehide parka; there with its great antlers crowning its head. The Bull Moose!

A howl of execration broke. And in a moment the shore was alive with a racing mob surging towards the broken mouth of the inlet which was the way to the hills above. And Sandy and Wanita ran ahead of all the rest.