Читать книгу The Bull Moose - Sidney Groves Burghard - Страница 6

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"Maybe there's no real call to tell you—to tell anybody. It's my life and hers. But, you see, you're my father, Jim. And you and Marthe have always been pretty good to me. Besides—I—I wanted to know you feel good about it. Shamus Hoogan's a great feller—her father. And Roskana's—"

"A Dogrib squaw!"

Jim McBarr's interruption came with all the contempt his cold, uncompromising temper could fling into it.

The youth stared. He was lying sprawled on the ground beside the noon campfire, with the chattels of the noon meal they had just eaten littered about him. There was a flush on his bronzed cheeks, a glint of hot resentment in the blue, frank-gazing eyes, as he searched his father's face. But his stirring of anger found no verbal expression. He just stared, breathing hard. And his big body propped itself on a massive elbow pressed deeply into the loose alluvial soil.

But Jim McBarr never for a moment deflected the stare of his far-gazing eyes. They remained peering into the remoteness of the gloomy gorge. He sat there on his upturned bucket looking many sizes too big for it, and blew smoke heavily from his well-charred pipe. There was something frigidly unemotional about him. Something utterly unyielding. His big face was without any softening, and his eyes were granite hard. But that was the man. It is doubtful if life could contain for him any thrill, any emotion, any alarm, that could disturb his outward seeming.

The bore of water was surging down the river. The spring freshet was in full spate. The swollen Alikine was streaming southward, heavily, irresistibly, gloomily. It was pouring between massive, rugged walls of gray granite whose dizzy heights had power to sadden even the happy smile of a cloudless spring day. It was an oily-flowing avalanche of water that was brown with silt. And a low, thunderous murmur echoed dully from wall to wall as it swirled on its way. The flood of it was a-litter with the washout of upper reaches. Whole trees were afloat. They came and passed in almost unbroken succession. And their up-reaching skeleton arms were lifted as though in prayerful appeal against the destruction for which they were riding.

Ten Mile Gorge was an expression of nature in her superlative grim. The vast containing walls, often overhanging by reason of ages of erosion, made for a sense of personal insignificance. The avalanche of its waters spurned the littleness of all animate life. It was without grace. But starkly magnificent.

And in the very heart of it lay the stretch of alluvial which was the gold claim Jim McBarr and his son, Sandy, were working. It was a wide spit of foreshore, some half mile in length, where the walls of the gorge recessed to admit the mouth of a lateral ravine. The latter was a great, broken drainway from the heights above, and the foreshore was the rich silt washed down through the ages.

Jim McBarr's workings were as crudely makeshift, as were all the gold washings up and down the Alikine, from Reliance to the Valley of the Moose. There was the inevitable trestle conduit, fed by the flow of the river; there was a vast dump of tailings, which indicated years of labor; there were implements and two stout wheeling trolleys. It was all very primitive. But it was all that was necessary where the soil was grossly rich and loosely surfaced. Later, when the surface had been all washed out it might be different. But Jim McBarr was not concerned for later. The surface was rich with a color that was beyond his dreams. It would be all sufficient.

Then there was a hut. It was no better than a rough log fronting to a small natural cavern. It had a doorway, and a smoke hole in its roof. It was just a shelter for sleep. Nothing more. For, in the uncertainties in the deeps of Ten Mile Gorge, there could be no telling. There were the devastating ravages of nature. And there were other things.

Jim McBarr, like all the rest of the gold fraternity on the Alikine, was a creature of fortune and opportunity. And his twenty-year-old son had been raised to the same life. Out on their claim they lived from day to day. They slept, and ate, and worked. And withal they watched. And such gold as remained in the riffles of their sluice was carefully harvested and safely cached.

Jim had the wisdom of forty odd years. He had the experience of years of buffeting in the northern wilderness. He had no trust in man or nature. But he had infinite, cold courage. Sandy had courage, too. But he also had youth in its fullest tide.

The physical likeness between father and son was almost too complete. Both were massively big. They were big of bone, big of muscle, and lean as herrings where superfluous flesh was concerned. The father's thick hair curled crisply close to a well-shaped head, and his thrusting chin was hidden by a short brown beard. The son's hair was of a similar brown and similar curl. The shape of his head was almost identical. And like his father's, his strong face was ungiven to unnecessary smiling. But whereas Jim's eyes were granite hard in their cold gray, Sandy's were blue, and eager, and shining with the unspoilt youth behind them.

At last the dangerous silence which had fallen looked to have reached its full limit. It was the father. It was a wordless negative movement of his bare head. A movement which admitted of no misapprehension. He removed the charred pipe from the grip of his strong jaws, and spoke with harsh finality.

"It's got to quit, son," he said, his eyes boring coldly. "It's got to quit here and now. Else you can pull up stakes, and beat your own trail without your family. Your mother's a Scot from Aberdeen. I'm from Glasgow. And that's wher' you were born. You're a Scot to your backbone, and—white. Your blood's—red. Wanita's isn't. She's the half of an Irishman, who's white all through. Maybe he hasn't the balance belonging to our folk, but he's a man I'm glad for. The other half of her's a—Dogrib squaw. Get that, and all it means. A Dogrib. That low-grade bunch that belongs to the world's throw-outs. If it was just philandering with a half-breed I wouldn't stand for it and call you 'son.' But if I know your fool honesty it's—marrying. And that's a hell-sight worse."

The gesture of spurning accompanying the final words was devastating. And there was the swiftest glance of the hard eyes as the boy stirred convulsively under the lash. Jim McBarr went on at once. It almost seemed as if he had no understanding of the goad he was inflicting, or was eager to drive it right home.

"If you marry Wanita you can forget Marthe and me ever bred you and raised you," he said, deliberately raising a restraining hand as Sandy jolted up sitting. "You've put it up to me. Now get this. You can't mix color in the human body without producing the sort of stuff that belongs to a red hot hell. It's against nature; it's against life. A bitch wolf and a dog father can't sport better than a cur malemute. And a cur malemute needs a club over him from the day he's pupped. I don't care a curse for any angel face and body. That's your kid's foolishness when your blood's hot. It's hell's mask to fool half-wits. It's your head, not your belly, you need to think with. Wanita! That kid's a picture. She's the kind of wench to set any boy dizzy. I know. I'd say she's pure, too. And, seein' she's Shamus Hoogan's kid I'd guess she don't know a thing to make her ashamed. But it's in her. Bred in her. The breed. And it's hell!"

The cold tones ceased and the hard eyes remained on the far distance. Then the man's great shoulders stirred as the silence remained unbroken.

"Well, it's right up to you," he went on. "You're a Scot's twenty, which is another boy's twenty-five. Your blood's rich and hot. And you've a share of our dust to make you forget. If you're wise you won't forget. There's a white world ahead of you. It's waiting. You can buy some of it. You don't need to breed malemutes."

Jim's pipe went back to the grip of his jaws with a gesture. It told of his finish. And Sandy's pent feeling broke out on the instant.

"It's not right, Jim!" He flung hotly. "It's not fair! It's darned lies! Ther' isn't a breath of hell in the whole of Wanita's body. She's as pure as snow—"

"But not as white."

Sandy leapt to his feet. It was the final straw. He was driven beyond all filial restraint.

"And what of it?" he shouted, his voice echoing down the gorge. "Did she do it? Is a kid to be blamed for the lusts of her parents? It's you folk that should get blamed. It's not a thing to me you're a Scot and Marthe's a Scot. I'd still have to be me if you were a black from Africa and Marthe was a yellow Chink. You're crazy talking white and color when it's you folk who do it. Black, red, yellow, or white, nature stands for it. And if nature stands for it who the hell are you to kick? Half-breed! What of your Scots and British. What of your Russians and your Yanks. Every mother's son of us are mixed breeds. You can't put that stuff over on me, Jim. A Scot's a half-breed if ever there was one."

"But he's white."

"Chri—! Tcha!"

Sandy passed a great hand back over his curling brown hair. He was beating back the impulse driving him. He was striving with all his big might to remember that the other was his father. He abruptly gestured, and his tone moderated.

"You've bred me and raised me, Jim," he said, almost gently. "You've had me taught, and I've learned good. You've—you've been pretty good to me. But a feller can't think those things all the time. I stand pat for Wanita if you talk half-breed from now to Eternity. And I'm not thinking with my belly. It's Wanita, if it costs me father, mother, or anything else in the world. That kid's got no hell in her. She's just good from her dark head to her toes. Courage! Truth! Love! I want her. I'll always want her. And it's not just for her body. When it comes to you and Marthe against Wanita there's nothing for me but Wanita. I'll beat my own trail with Wanita wherever it heads me. You've said it. And it goes."

The boy's restraint held. But the cost of it was evident in the eyes that gazed yearningly for a glimpse of any softening in the face that never turned in his direction.

The man on the bucket inclined his head.

"We'll clean up, and make a break back to Marthe," he said, in an even tone that betrayed no feeling. "We'll strike your share of our dust, and Marthe'll weigh it right and hand it over. And we'll do it right away before the Bull Moose and his bunch cuts in on us. You'll get a square deal. You've turned your trick." Jim McBarr drew a deep breath and blew smoke afresh. Then: "I'll stand for no low-grade neche blood in a Scot's grandchildren."

Sandy leapt. His six feet of body stood towering. It was a moment of wild exasperation that was beyond his control; his upraised fist was clenched; it looked about to strike.

But even so the man on the bucket gave not the smallest heed. Gazing afar up the gorge his pipe left his mouth. And it was held out pointing over the water.

"What'll that be?" he asked coldly.

What might have happened in another moment of the boy's headlong rage it would be impossible to say. Sandy's furious impulse was at the border-line of sanity. He was as big and strong as the man who had goaded him. And he was years younger.

But that cold question, that deliberate pointing, that urgent leaning. They were irresistible to a mind haunted by the untold dangers, natural and human, with which it was encompassed. Sandy's fist fell to his side. Its passionate grip relaxed. The flame of his fury snuffed out, smothered by something which stirred all his sanity. It was the urge of that question. He, too, searched the distance.

It was away up where the gloomy walls carried the torrent round a bend to the westward. It was small, infinitely small, in the dim distance. Then it looked to be perilously mixed up in the litter of forest débris washing down on the bosom of the river. It was a goodly speck of vivid color; red and white. And it seemed to dodge in and out amongst the tree trunks and branches as though it were playing hide and seek and enjoying it. It was alive and moving of its own volition. That was evident. A great ruffle of water was preceding its down-stream rush, indicating the outstripping of the great speed of the river.

The two men watched that tortuous dodging amidst the deadly tangle of forest flotsam. And it was an interest that was almost breathless. What was it? Who? No waterfowl would risk that torrential stream when the spring bore was in full flood. Not even the river-loving, powerful loon. It was something human. It must be. But what human would be mad enough, reckless enough, to face almost certain death amongst those speeding, rolling trees. Accident. Yes, that must be the answer. And yet—

"Will it be Shamus?"

Jim McBarr's question came without much confidence. Shamus Hoogan's claim was four miles up river. And so far as he knew not another living soul had place in the whole extent of the gorge.

"Not Shamus, Jim," Sandy replied at once. "Not at that gait. Not at that stroke. That's a boy swimming all right. Shamus can't swim that way. See the stroke of it. Watch it. You see? They're trudging the water same as if hell was hard behind 'em. It's neche! Kaska! Do you guess it's one of the—Say!"

Sandy ran to the water's edge. He stood leaning and peering. And Jim McBarr watched his son's movements. There was something grim in the hard gray eyes. It might have been a smile in any other. The father's urgent interest in the mad swimmer was gone. He simply watched the son who had called his parental hand and defeated it.

Sandy had no thought for anything but that rapidly oncoming swimmer whose skill, or luck, seemed to defeat every danger with which it was threatened. Now the reaching arms were plainly visible, swinging like flails driven at speed. They were beating the water on either side of the raised bundle of color. And they were white arms!

The swimmer shot out of the heavy main stream. Sandy understood. Every chance had been taken for speed. The swirling main stream had assured that greater speed. So it had been adopted regardless of all consequences. The nerve of it. The madness. The urgency. Now the swimmer was heading shorewards. The hither shore. Precisely heading for where Sandy was standing. The boy's big voice came back, echoing down the gorge to the watching father.

"Wanita!" he shouted.

Jim McBarr stood up. Sandy flung a swift glance back at him.

"It's the kid! Wanita, Jim! In that!" he cried pointing. "And their camp's four miles up. Why?"

"Trouble, boy, I guess," was the instant retort. "The Bull Moose!"

She stood up in the shallows and ran up the shore. She was a little breathless but unshivering. A young creature of ravishing beauty, white and glistening with water streaming from a perfect body. She was stark with the nakedness of the day she was born.

The two men were standing together. And the only emotion was in the wide eyes of Sandy. He just stared. And mind and senses were a riot behind his eyes. Jim was staring, too. But without emotion.

There was just one moment of it while the vision of virgin loveliness rose from the silted waters. Slim, tall, straight, with the perfect smooth muscles of young womanhood, and the ravishing contours of feminine loveliness that set the pulses of youth hammering. Then, completely unconscious of the thing she had done, was doing, Wanita cried out the passionate woe driving her.

"It's the Bull Moose!" she wailed. "They murdered Roskana an' cut her to pieces! They looted our dust. And Shamus is way back there facing a bunch of sixty Kaskas at the door of our burnt-out shack!"

There were no tears in the big, dark eyes. But agony of mind looked out of them. Agony, and rage, and a great courage. And even as she spoke the girl's slim hands went up to the long strands of dark hair which secured the bundle of her colored clothing to her head. She deftly released them, and the wet strands fell far below her waist. The next moment, it seemed, the slim body was hidden beneath a single sleeveless scarlet cotton garment that reached just below her knees.

Then it happened. One of Jim McBarr's great hands fell on his son's arm and gripped.

"Don't stand around gawkin' at things that ain't fer a boy's eyesight! The hooch for the kid! Back there in the shack. She's needing a bunch to warm her vitals. Beat it!"

And he almost threw the other as he swung him back in the direction of the hut at the cliff-foot.