Читать книгу The Bull Moose - Sidney Groves Burghard - Страница 14

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Shamus Hoogan's claim in Ten Mile Gorge had passed from sunlight to deep shadow. The sun had been swallowed up by heavy night clouds. The air was chill. And there was no life apparent anywhere. The only sounds that awoke the echoes were the lumbering murmurs of the speeding waters, and the crash of tree-trunks as they fouled obstructions and hurtled on southwards to their destiny in the far-off ocean.

The headlong pursuit of the Bull Moose had been hopelessly abandoned. Long before the overhanging cliff had been reached the bizarre figure had vanished. And the only thing to tell of the reality of its presence there, to convince that it had not been just a figment of imagination, was the sound of a faint, far-off peal of mocking laughter as the pursuit reached the hill-top.

The men of Reliance had scattered in twos and threes, and set off in a frenzied search. They were fury-driven, and would kill on sight. There was no thought of Kaska ambush, there was no concern for any personal risk. Every soul among those who had heard the man's laughter was actuated by a single desire—to kill.

But after that second peal of laughter no sound or sight of the man was vouchsafed. He was gone, vanished into thin air. Nor was there a trace of the brown-skinned horde of savages he led.

So the pursuers returned to the ill-omened battle ground; an urgent, disappointed band seeking guidance for their next move.

Ike Clancy and Joe Makers were looked to as leaders. Both were men of force and personality. Both were leaders of Reliance by reason of their self-election in opposition to Marthe.

Ike did most of the talk, which was direct and pointed. And when the last of the pursuit had returned to the desolated claim he issued orders in tones that brooked no argument.

"Say folks," he began, "we got to act quick."

He pointed at the still figures with their faces turned up to the evening sky.

"There's not a deal we can do for them but tote 'em back to Reliance where they belong. Jim was a big boy, and we folks owe him plenty. And Shamus had us all on his side. So most of you'll need to make the trip back right away. Them that tote them and them that need to help pass them safely through the Skittle Race. See?"

He turned to Sandy beside him, who was standing with Wanita.

"You two kids," he went on, in his authoritative fashion. "Seems like you best make Reliance with—them."

Sandy raised his eyes from his dead father. He towered over Ike, who was many inches shorter. Wanita, too, looked up. And her dark eyes were without a sign of the grief that weighed so heavily upon her spirit.

"What'll the others do?" Sandy asked, in his blunt fashion.

Ike shrugged. "We got to pass warning all up the river, and out on the shores of Clare," he replied. "We owe that. And we owe it without any fool delay. There's folks out there don't stand the chance of a gopher in hell if that murdering bunch take the notion to get after them. Joe and me'll make out to the lake shore. We'll need to send two kyaks on up to the Valley of the Moose, right up to Faro Neale's washing. They can hand word to the others as they pass along up."

"I guess Wanita and me'll make up to Faro Neale's."

It came without a moment's hesitation. And it came with the same sort of decision that had always been the dead father's. Sandy was not asking. He was just stating his intention.

"Why?"

Joe Maker's eyes were questioning.

"You two are their kids," Ike warned, pointing at the dead.

Sandy hunched his shoulders. He glanced down at Jim's wide eyes. Then he felt the approving pressure of Wanita's hand upon his big forearm. He nodded in reply. And all those looking on saw the determined set of his jaws as he faced round on Joe Makers.

"There's no need asking fool questions, or telling us the thing we know by heart," he said sharply. "Shamus was Wanita's father. Jim was mine. If we'd took our way and stopped around maybe they wouldn't be lying there now. Jim went out to play a lone hand helping Shamus. Wanita and me are going to pass warning to the folks on the river. If Jim and Shamus were alive they'd be doing it. The folks can tote them home to Reliance. It wasn't the way of those two to have their families mulling at their funerals. We're pulling out right away."

There was a moment of complete silence. It was as though the boy's decision had something shocked. As though it were felt there was callousness in it. Then Ike nodded. And the eyes of Joe Makers were approving.

"I guess Jim would be glad to know that," Ike said quietly. "And Shamus."

"You got plenty gun ammunition?" asked the practical Joe.

"All we need, I guess," said Sandy. Then to the girl clinging to his arm: "Come on, kid. We'll make a break right now. We got to make Faro in time."

Sandy and Wanita lost not a moment in making their start. They left their dead. Why not? They knew. They needed no reassurance. They would be carried back to Reliance with rough sympathy and care. They knew, too, that the butchered remains of Roskana, despite her color and race, would be no less kindly dealt with.

So they went about their work under a mask of cold determination. Their loss was irreparable; their sense of desolation was something devastating. But, beyond the muteness in which they set about their preparations, there was nothing to tell of their tragedy.

It was an expression of the life they all lived. They were of the outworld where hardihood alone could serve. Death? Death was just an ugly episode to them all. It was there stalking beyond every blind bend in the trail of life. When escape became impossible it must be met, and faced, and endured. That was all. In death no living help could serve. Help was only for the living. It was the unwritten law of the wilderness.

As night closed down the banking clouds lightened. They thinned out to a haze. Then they finally dispersed. Immediately the gorge was lit by a big, full moon and myriads of stars that transformed the night, and showed the way.

Hardly a word passed between Sandy and Wanita till the gorge began to widen and the sheer walls lost something of their dizzy height. Then came a backward sloping, and the night light increased. Further on the cliffs reduced themselves to steep, clean-cut, wooded banks, and a wealth of ceaselessly moving northern lights changed visibility to something approaching daylight.

They were rounding a sharp bend, hugging its inner shore, when Wanita, forward, shipped her paddle and pointed ahead at a spot of light on a low shore.

"That's Scut Barber's camp," she flung back over her shoulder. "There's a silt bar ahead. We'll need to make round it. Then we'll pull in."

"How far out?" Sandy's question came sharply.

"Mid-stream mostly. Lay her across to the far shore till I say."

Sandy made no reply, but the craft swung out. They felt the full force of the stream which took them abeam. They flogged the water to hold headway. Then came Wanita's word.

"Ahead!" she cried. "Then swing in. We'll lose the stream in awhile."

The maneuver was carried out without question. Sandy had no doubts. Wanita had all the skill of her Indian forbears. The river could show her nothing she did not know from Reliance to the Valley of the Moose.

A few minutes later they were standing over Scut Barber's campfire. And the rugged face of the old prospector, who had once been a surgeon of no mean repute, was turned up to the dark eyes of the girl as she told of the tragedy that had befallen. She told it without emotion; she told it simply; it was almost as though she were telling of a horror that had befallen other than herself. Sandy remained silent; he just stood there beside Wanita.

Scut Barber reached towards a pile of driftwood and fed the fire. Then, as the girl's words ceased, he wagged his graying head.

"I bin wonderin' just when," he said. "I'll make a clean-up and beat it for Reliance come daylight."

"Make it right away, Scut. You can't guess when."

Scut stood up from his blankets. He was a heavy creature, all shoulder and back, with arms muscled like ropes.

"The stream's full of washout," he demurred. "I'll take a chance with daylight. Wher' you kids makin' next?"

"Sid Grover," Wanita replied. "He's next. Then the Peters, George and Alec. After that Kid Pierce, if we don't pick him up on the river going down for a drink. Then Baxter. He's got his woman and two kids. Then Mike Wilson. And last, Faro, right up at the Valley mouth. Ike Clancy and Joe Makers are passing word to the folks on Clare."

The prospector eyed the slim figure of the girl clad in the old garments that had once been Sandy's. His narrowed eyes studied the eyes that seemed bigger and darker, and more unfathomable in the brilliant night light. Then he looked quickly at the youth beside her.

"You're bully kids," he nodded. "I'll make a getaway. Don't worry. Got all you need? I got plenty eats if you're needin'. No?"

Sandy shook his head.

"We're well fixed, Scut," he said, without verbal thanks. Then: "So long."

Scut watched them go. The swift, purposeful movements as they passed down the shore to where their kyak had been hauled clear of the water. He was thinking, wondering, feeling. Two bereft kids who should have been sick with grief. Instead they were out to pass help to those who needed it.

The man's heart warmed to them. He had spoken no word of sympathy. He had offered no verbal thanks. Yet both were in him in full measure. And his thoughts flung back to the days when his mission had been the helping of others in their need.

He heard the kyak splash into the river. He saw the figures man it. Then he saw the craft dart out into the stream and beat up against it.

As it passed out of view he turned to the brilliant night scene. He searched the dim horizon this way and that. Then he sprawled himself on his blankets and drew them up about his heavy shoulders. In a few moments he was again sleeping. Nor was his sleep disturbed by any threat of the Bull Moose.

It was a long night of urgent, wearisome labor, and the dangers were many. Despite the full moon and stars, and the fantastic play of the brilliant northern lights, it took all the watchfulness of which Sandy and Wanita were capable to defeat the threat of the swollen river with its burden of washout.

Yet no disaster befell. And each and every camp received its due warning right up to the great falls which marked the entrance to the hill country of the Valley of the Moose.

The first of the morning light saw Sandy and Wanita landed for the portage. They had made camp. It was the first since they had set out. They needed food and rest. A brief hour over a wisp of campfire to counter the bitter morning chill.

Now their food was eaten and their camp kettle stood beside the fire. Sandy was sipping tea that was scalding hot. And Wanita, close beside him, was gazing out up river listening to the thunder of the great falls which was the portage they had yet to make.

The girl's eyes were somber in the gray light of morning. Tragedy and the long night had left their mark on the sweet oval of her pretty face. There were troubled lines that were full of omen drawing her smooth brow into a pucker. Her pretty lips were hard set and drooping dejectedly. There were tears in every line which her trouble had drawn. But none were shed. Nor would they be shed. Her grief for the murdered ones she loved drove her back on the nature of her savage forbears.

The squatting Sandy drained the last of his tea and set his pannikin on the ground beside him. He drew a pipe from a pocket, filled it and lit it. And he, too, gazed in the far direction whence sounded the thunder of the falls.

Then of a sudden he reached with an unoccupied hand and took possession of one of the girl's. He did not look in her direction; he did not speak; he just sat there, his big, rough hand telling the girl of the love that filled his soul.

So they sat for long minutes over their fire while the dawn changed to daylight, and the yellowing sky changed to gold as the sun approached the horizon. Two lonely wayfarers in the broad wilderness of life. Each with no other thought or purpose than to fulfill the destiny marked out for them; to journey on to the end whithersoever it must lead them. Death had plundered, ravaged them. But it had left them together, burning with youthful life.

It was Wanita who broke the silence. And she did so as the flaming arc of the rising sun blazed out on the horizon. It lit a world of hill and forest; of snowy crests that dazzled; of woodland deeps that held the secrets of the ages. It lit a broadened river flowing between low-cut banks. A river which, over two miles or more below the great falls, was ruffled and churning with the driving force of the great cataract beyond. She turned to the boy at her side without a smile.

"Why?" she asked plaintively. And waited.

Sandy shook his head.

"Seems like it was meant—in a way," he said, his tone sober and a little hopeless.

Wanita released her hand. She drew up her knees, clad in a pair of Sandy's boyhood's breeches, and clasped them tightly.

"But why Roskana, who never hurt a soul?" she cried. "Your Jim, who was white all through? And Shamus who just laughed and cursed his reckless way through a life that'd mostly kill anyone who wasn't Irish to the bone?"

"I don't know. But it seems like."

Sandy edged himself closer to the girl so that their bodies touched.

"Jim hated you because of Roskana," he went on. "Guessed white an' color was against nature. Said I could up-stakes an' quit him and Marthe because of you. And I told him 'yes.' It was when you came down the river Jim was good to me. But I wouldn't stand for him or Marthe that way. Guess you're more to me than them. Roskana? Shamus? I don't know. Jim said it was against nature. Against life." He shook his head and blew smoke. "They gave me you. So I'm glad for Roskana. Glad for Shamus. Jim's reckoning don't signify—now. Yes. It looks like it was all meant."

Sandy's hazy explanation was all-sufficient. The hands about Wanita's knees unclasped. One moved across and possessed itself of the hand she had released a moment before. And for awhile, while the great sun lifted in a cloudless sky, and the flies and mosquitoes awoke under its warming influence, they sat gazing out over the river and saw only their own thoughts.

"Maybe Jim was right though," Wanita said after profound consideration. "I loved Shamus. But I loved Roskana for her little brown body and the queer wild life she told me. I learned her tongue first, and didn't want any other. I only learned the other when I grew, and Shamus had me taught. It's queer. There was always worry in my mind. I grew up white. And I—I know I'm Indian. And I'm glad being Indian. Yes. Jim was right. It's—it's against nature."

Sandy stirred. He snatched the old pipe from his mouth. And something of the dead Jim was in the harshness of his denial.

"Right or wrong I don't care a curse," he cried. "Shamus and Roskana gave you to me. And there's no devil in hell can take you from me while I've a breath left in my fool body."

The girl turned. Her eyes were melting with the first smile they had known since tragedy had leapt upon her.

"And then they shan't take me from you, Sandy," she cried passionately. "When there isn't a breath left in you there won't be in me either. I'm white because Shamus made me. When it comes to that I'm—Indian. Boy, boy, nothing matters to us now but just you and me. Why should it? Look around. The world's just full of crazy hills, and forests, and valleys, and wonderful, wonderful rivers and things. There's no sort of beginning or end to it. Just as there's no sort of beginning or end to it when folks love. And after this life there's that other that little Roskana always told. That golden hunting ground filled with every joy the heart can dream. The one we don't know; the one we can't even guess. And we'll be there together, boy, just like we are now. And we'll hunt, and fish, and love, just like Roskana always said. You and me. Oh, boy! Nothing'll part us. Nothing. Oh, Sandy, it's so big and beautiful. I feel half crazy thinking. Nothing, nothing can part us ever. Not even—death."

The passion of it was primitive. It was savage in the fury of love sweeping through the girl's young body. The big eyes were alight and swimming. Deep fires were burning somewhere behind them.

A mass of muscle reached about her shoulders as Sandy flung a protecting arm about them. He hugged her yielding body to him.

"That goes, kid!" he cried thickly. "It surely does! And poor Jim figured to make me quit! God!"

There was nothing more. A big intoxication held them beyond mere words. And they sat there in silence, dreaming and gazing, drugged with the passion of their youth. They sat there while the sun lifted higher in a radiant, smiling sky. They had no heed for the swarms of avid mosquitoes, and maddening flies. Nothing mattered.

It was when the fire fell apart, mere white charred ashes, that their dream faded and reality took its place. Sandy's arm gave a crushing squeeze and released the snuggling shoulders. He stood up and passed a hand back over his close brown hair.

"We're forgetting," he barked. "We got to make the valley. There's Faro Neale yet."