Читать книгу The Bull Moose - Sidney Groves Burghard - Страница 8

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Sandy was gone for the precious bottle of Scotch whisky which was his dour parent's remedy for every ailment of the human body. And as he went the youthful optimism in him stirred a feeling of gladness at the concern which his father had shown for Wanita.

His father's temper was strong in Sandy. The youth was headstrong, and no less intolerant of interference. But Jim, for all the hard words which had just passed between them, was his father, and had been good to him. And without any yielding, Sandy hated the thought of their quarrel. He went on his errand with a feeling that, perhaps after all, that quarrel was not all it seemed.

Then Wanita. They had been her instant thought in her trouble. The poor little kid was distraught, and she had come to them—him. And with that thought came a passionate yearning to succor her. In that moment Sandy felt he was ready to face every Kaska devil in the world for her. And the Bull Moose.

And the amazing thing Wanita had done. Her courage! The grit of it! The fierce endurance! He thrilled with marvel, and a lover's intemperate admiration. A great love surged with the fierce pity that filled his young and simple heart. Four miles! Four miles of that hellish gorge! A four mile race with death! And in a torrent whose speeding waters were little short of freezing in the flood of the spring freshet! He hurried laboriously in the ankle-deep loose alluvial of the foreshore.

The father waited while the sound of Sandy's progress came back to him. And the while he just gazed down at the slim beauty before him, clad in its poor garment of flaming wet cotton.

There was no softening in the grim set of his face. There was no approval in his cold eyes; no pity; no sympathy. If there was a single thought of admiration in him he gave no sign of it. He just looked and missed nothing. But the boring of his narrowed eyes suggested intense activity of mind.

He noted the slim young body with its bare, graceful arms; then the shapely legs and ankles; the beautifully molded neck and chest with its suggestion of the soft youthful bosom just below it. All were possessed of the silken beauty of the tainted white flesh of the half-breed, which was anathema to his dour puritanism.

The tint of it nauseated him. Yet he knew it was beautiful. To him it was the work of the devil. So, too, with the appeal of the girl's great dark eyes that were so full of despair as they gazed up into his. They were smoldering with the hated savagery of the Indian.

Then there was her glory of raven-black hair. It was streaming water as it fell far below her waist from a natural center parting. It framed the downy oval of slightly dusky cheeks, the broad, intelligent forehead with perfectly-penciled even black brows; and the ripe full lips, the perfect aquilinity of a sensitive nose, the strength of a well-molded chin. These things had but one appeal for him. They were the make-up of the mischievous whole that was to rob him of a son, who, for some twenty years, had been the whole of everything in his life. A half-breed!

As the sound of Sandy's footsteps died away Jim's voice rasped harshly.

"You quit Shamus!" he accused. "You quit him cold! You left him sixty to one. And with no better than an old Winchester to pull the game."

There was a staggered pause at the brutality of it while the blood flamed into Wanita's pale cheeks. The girl flushed almost to the hue of her cotton frock. And the Indian smolder of her eyes flared as she flung her denial, with her slim strong hands outheld and clenched.

"I didn't quit him!" she cried, something distractedly. "I didn't! I didn't! Quit him? He's my good father. I'd go through hell to save him one second of life."

"Yet you left him to face the Bull Moose—alone."

The goad of it was without mercy. Yet the man's intent was different. He was not seeking to hurt for hurt's sake. The girl's weary body was shaking with the cold of the river. She was swaying on the verge of physical collapse. He must keep her fighting till the story was told.

And he had his way. It was a face of a fury that shrilled back at him.

"I tell you I didn't quit," she cried. "I—I couldn't do but what I've done. We were up there at our home shack on the cliff. Roskana an' me. They rushed us. They dragged us out. They fired the shack. Then they killed Roskana where I could see. They knifed her. They hacked up her little, helpless, brown body till it wasn't human any longer. Oh, they murdered my little—little mother!"

The clenched hands relaxed and wrung, and the outheld arms dropped helplessly to the girl's sides. Her head drooped, and the tearless eyes half closed.

"Go on!"

The cold compulsion of it drove as it was intended it should. Wanita stiffened.

"Why? Why will I go on?" she flung back fiercely. "You don't believe. You guess I'm lying. That I quit, scared, an' made a getaway. Sandy won't believe that. And I came to Sandy. Not you. You hate me because I'm a half-breed. I know. I don't want help from you. Only Sandy. I want him to come right back, so—"

"Tcha!"

Jim McBarr's ejaculation broke with fierce impatience. But the girl's indictment had found its mark. His bronzed cheeks flushed a deeper hue. Then his eyes. They were lit with swift anger.

"Quit that stuff," he snarled. "Ther's not time. Keep talking of the other. Hand it me. All of it. It's four miles beat of hell's own stream to Shamus. And I need to make him quick."

The girl stared. Then in a rush she poured out her story. There was no longer antagonism in her; only lament. Even in her extremity she had glimpsed beneath the man's dour exterior.

"Oh, they've murdered her," she cried. "My little mother, who never lived to hurt a soul. Her poor brown body. They ripped her, and slashed her so her warm blood flooded the ground around my feet. Four of them held me, so I must see it all. Four of them. And I fought them with all I had. Just fool bare hands and teeth. I meant to make them kill me, too. I tried. Oh, God, why didn't they? I'll see it all to the day I die? Why didn't they kill me, too? Why? Why?"

Just for an instant two hands went up to the beautiful face, and the girl's eyes were hidden. Then they flung away and she went on.

"But they didn't," she rushed on. "And now I know they never meant to. I saw her drop in a bloody heap of mangled flesh. Then he came. The Bull Moose. He came right through the belching smoke of our burning shack like a devil stepping out of the heart of a blazing hell. He stood there while I bit and tore at the men holding me. And there wasn't a moment my eyes left him. He was moosehide from head to foot. And his great moose horns drooped either side of his completely masked head, same as if they grew out of it. He didn't speak; he didn't move. An' I could see his eyes gleaming through holes in his moose mask. He was big. Big as you an' Sandy. And even his hands were mitted so you couldn't see the color of his flesh.

"Then he lifted a hand," she went on, spurring herself to her task. "It was a sign. An order. And he made it just as the sound of shots came up from the river where Shamus was working. Maybe he'd waited for that. I don't know. Maybe he'd just meant torture. Well, he'd made it. God! He'd made it. It sounded like hundreds of shots. And I guessed Shamus was dead, too, riddled by his murdering Kaskas. But he wasn't. I heard other shots. Single shots. I knew 'em right away. I knew their zip! It was his Winchester. And I knew Shamus was fighting back.

"Oh, it gave me heart to fight some more," she went on. "But there wasn't need. The Bull Moose signed again. His hand moved and I was free. Why?" Her head moved slowly from side to side. "I don't know. And I didn't want a thing. I ran for the cliff, and no one stopped me. But as I ran the Bull Moose laffed. It was that laff they all tell about. The same as if he was calling you a crazy, helpless darn fool who don't matter anyway. But I didn't stop. I made the cliff, and looked down for Shamus. Oh, I saw him. He was there right inside our work shack. And it was afire. He was at the window fighting behind a barricade with his old Winchester pulling like doom on a great bunch of Kaskas scattered under any cover they could find. He was fighting every inch of the way, and I know he'd have thousands of rounds before he was through. And the smoke was helping him. Then I knew what I had to do. I stripped. I fixed my clothes with my hair. And I dived for the river where they couldn't get me."

It was the last of the girl's resources. With her final words her remains of strength gave out. She drooped a moment with her arms trailing at the sides of her shaking body; then her knees refused. There was just an instant while her glorious eyes closed; then her body began to crumple. In a moment she was caught, and held, and borne in a pair of arms that held her like some babe.

Sandy had just reappeared in the shack doorway with the whisky bottle and pannikin as his father reached it with his unconscious burden.

"She's dead!"

It came with hoarse intensity. Sandy stared up at his father accusingly.

"Not on your life!" Jim retorted roughly. "Here, take her, curse you! She's yours, I guess. Pump a dram of that hooch into her. And see she gets it good."

Sandy took the precious burden. And he hugged the lovely body to him as if he would impart some of his own strong life to it. He stared up at the other's unsmiling face for further guidance.

"Don't be easy with that stuff," his father went on harshly. "See she gets it if you have to open her jaws and pour it into her darn throat. That's your job, I guess. You can set her in my bunk an' wrap her in my blankets. I'll go fix the double kyak for you, and set our cache of dust into it. An' I'll bring it along and make it fast here, so you can get the kid to it easy. You got to get her down home to Marthe just as quick as you can beat it if you figure to keep her living. If you want her the way you say. It's pneumony, I guess. Pretty dead sure. That darn river would pump pneumony into a tin image. If you get her to Marthe she can fix her. Marthe knows about things. And she'll weigh up your share of dust. You'll need to get the bunch right out on the river after this Bull Moose, quick. See? An' when you've done that, and you've got your half-breed fixed right, why, you can hit that trail we guessed about to—hell!"

The two men stood eye to eye across the inanimate body in the boy's arms. There was not a sign of relenting in either. The granite hard eyes of the father told only of implacable resolve. And the boy's were frowning with the passionate resentment of hot youth.

And then they seemed to move by common impulse. Jim turned away without a word. And, passing down the foreshore, headed down river where their boats were hauled up clear of the water. Sandy turned back into the hut with his burden.

Sandy laid the unconscious girl on his father's bunk. And he set to his task as though every thought of the man who had just departed had been thrust out of his mind. He was young enough, headstrong enough to follow the sex instinct in him to the ends of the earth. Wanita, in those moments, was his whole world. His father? Marthe? Even his promised share of their gold dust? They meant nothing comparable with the dark beauty of the girl who had dared all to reach him.

It was the work of moments only to remove the girl's wet frock, and wrap her naked, helpless body in the rich furs that served them for blankets. Then he knelt at her side, and, with purposeful hands, poured out the treasured whisky into the pannikin. He held it to the unresisting lips that had sagged apart, and poured it into her mouth. Only the tiniest drops at a time lest it should choke her. And he watched with frantic concern for reaction.

There was none. He repeated the operation and still there was none. Then he sat back on his heavily booted heels, and turned to glance at the sunlit doorway where his father had stood. It was a moment of weakness. And he knew it. He was mechanically looking for the help which for twenty years had never failed him. And the realization of it angered him.

He turned again to the beautiful face that now looked so like death. He continued his watch for the smallest sign that life was returning. There was none. At least none that he could recognize. So again he resorted to the potent spirit.

After that he just waited. He could think of nothing else to do. The poor unconscious body was swathed to the neck in a wealth of furs. What else was there he could do? Then it came to him, and he reached his big arms out. He thrust them about that still figure, and laid his head upon the soft bosom in a passion of love and anguish. He hugged her to him for helpless, almost tearful moments.

Then he lifted his head; he leant over her and kissed the lips which were still moist with the raw spirit. And it was contact with their coldness that stirred him to vital activity. He leapt to his feet and passed to the doorway.

He was looking for Jim. But Jim was nowhere in view. He knew well enough Jim was down at the cache preparing his boat. But, nevertheless, disappointment weighed heavily. He knew now he wanted Jim. He wanted the man who spurned Wanita for a "half-breed." Yes, he wanted his hard sense, and the encouragement of his presence. Jim had said Wanita was alive. But was she?

He passed a hand back over his bare head, running his work-worn fingers through his curling brown hair. His fears were paralyzing. Jim! He must get Jim! He remembered that for all his hatred of the half-breed Jim had been concerned that Wanita should be given his beloved spirit to help her. He had given her the use of his own bunk and furs. It was he who had borne her in his arms to their shelter that she might be cared for. Yes. He wanted Jim now.

And at that instant Jim appeared. He was driving the big kyak up against the torrent of the river at a speed that made little enough trouble of the water-race. He nosed the craft on shore opposite the hut door, leapt out of it and moored it fast. Sandy went down to him on the instant.

"She hasn't waked, Jim," he cried. "You guess you're sure she isn't—dead?"

Jim looked into the wide troubled eyes.

"You doped her good with spirit?"

"She's had a big dope."

"You got it—down?"

"Yes. Oh, yes."

Jim nodded. And there was something comforting in the confidence of his movement.

"She's alive," he said, in his hard, matter-of-fact way. "Maybe she hasn't waked. She will. Get right back and dope her more. Scotch'll beat the chill in her. An' then pack her right down into this craft, and beat it the best you know. That's all. So long."

"But you're making home, too?"

The dour face turned from the urgent question of the boy. The granite hard eyes searched the far gloom of the gorge away northward where a lone man had been left fighting for his life against overwhelming odds. Jim shook his stubborn head.

"No," he said. "That's for you and your Breed kid. Go to it. I'm making north. Maybe there's nothing of Shamus left by now. But there's other folks. I'm just passing 'em warning."

Sandy moved swiftly and purposefully. He passed several times between the moored kyak and the hut. The hard practice of the river was his daily life, and he needed no instruction.

He prepared the boat ready to receive its precious burden. He took food and the whisky. And when everything was ready a thick couch of heavy furs was spread out ready to receive Wanita's body. It was a soft, luxurious couch which would impart warmth as well as ease.

And each time he passed between boat and hut he looked for the other who had left him severely alone. But he saw nothing of Jim till his last trip down to the water's edge. He had finally strapped his guns about him and was carrying Wanita, still unconscious, in his arms. And as he came to the craft where it rocked to the wash of the torrent, the other kyak, the small single kyak which had been his own since his boyhood's days, pressed up stream, darting forward under the mighty strokes of Jim's paddle.

Sandy stood with the girl still in his arms. He watched the bare-headed figure as it flogged the torrent with its heavy paddle. He saw the muzzle of a magazine rifle thrusting over the long tail of the boat. He saw the heavy automatics strapped about his father's middle. And he knew. If Shamus was still alive Jim was for his succor. And Sandy well enough knew that his father would play the game without limit.

In that moment the "So long," he called across the water nearly choked him. And he was almost happy for the voiceless nod that came back to him.