A WHITEMAN’S WORD
The grey dawn yielded to the many hues of the sunrise. For the moment a
cloudless azure dome smiled down upon a world with a soft crystal-white
carpet outspread. For days the temperature had hovered about zero, and
ice had formed upon the waterways with that fierce rapidity which the
northern man knows so well. Its frigid grip was reaching in every
direction seeking to seal the world under iron bonds.
But the Valley of the Fire Hills was dripping and steaming. Everywhere
the snow was melting, and the dark waters of the little river flowed
smoothly on still free from the smallest trace of ice. The temperature
was well above freezing, for the terrestrial furnaces of the blackened
hills were banked and glowing.
The valley was dense with a fog of steam. It was a ghostly world without
shape or form. A blind world with only the river bank to guide the
adventurer through its heart. There was no sound of life for all the
coming of the pitiful light of the briefest day. The world was still,
remote, bewildering.
Yet life was there; staunch, indomitable life. It was there with
purpose, simple, unwavering, and no qualm or doubt marred the clarity of
its resolution. A boat, a small whiteman-built canoe, was moving up the
eastern bank of the stream, feeling groping, taking every chance so that
it made its final destination.
With the first lift of the sun above the horizon a current of air
stirred the fog, and a cold breath shot through the tepid air. It came
and passed. Then it came again with added force. It was low on the
ground and the fog lifted. Swift and keen it pursued its advantage, and
the blinding mist thinned, and a dull sheen of the risen sun replaced
the cold grey. The wind increased. It bit fiercely as it swept down the
heated valley. And in a moment, it seemed, out of the bewildering fog
there appeared the graceful outline of the nosing canoe.
Bill Wilder breathed a sigh of relief. At last the scales had fallen
from before his eyes, and his way lay open to him. Instantly his paddle
dipped, and his boat shot out into midstream. It leapt forward under the
mighty thrusts of his arms, and as it raced on a fervent prayer went up
that the wind might hold and increase in strength.
* * * * *
The canoe lay moored at the old log landing. There had been no
hesitation. No doubt had been entertained for its security. Wilder had
left it to such chances as might befall, his only means of return to the
outer world, while he made his way over the snow-slush to the shades of
the woodlands surrounding the secret habitation that was his goal.
* * * * *
Half way through the woods the thing Wilder looked for came to pass.
Eyes and ears were keenly alert. He had realised that his approach would
be observed. That seeing eyes, faithful to the service of the woman’s
blinded charge, would be unfailing in their watch. The terror he had
once witnessed in them had been sufficient to warn him that her life was
comparable to that of a vigilant watchdog, everlastingly searching for
the approach of the dark, avenging figure that hypnotized her with the
horror of its return.
The diminutive figure of the Japanese woman came hurriedly to meet him
from her hiding somewhere screened amidst the dull green foliage of
these northern woods. She stood before him, her slanting black eves
widely gazing, and her thin, lined face eagerly demanding in its
expression of scarcely suppressed agitation.
Crysa began at once. She had no fear of this white-man. But she realised
that his coming had to do with her safety and the safety of her charge.
His promise had been her comfort, her most treasured memory.
“You give him the paper?” she said, as though no space of time had
elapsed since their last meeting, and the memory of every word then
spoken was as fresh in her mind as though their meeting had occurred
only the day before. “You give him this thing? And now you come that I
may know it is so? And Usak is satisfied? Oh, yes. You come to say that
thing? There is no more fear? None? I sleep, I eat, I know peace. Usak
will not come?”
Wilder gripped himself before this poor creature’s heart-breaking
appeal. He knew he must dash her last hope, and hurl her again to that
despair which had beset her so long. It was useless to attempt to soften
the facts. His resolve was clear in his mind. He shook his head.
“Nothing will satisfy him,” he said sombrely, “but the life of your man.
He’s on his way now, I guess. But I got away first. I came right along
up to get you folks away to safety. I don’t reckon to know how you’re
fixed for a quick get-away. But you both got to make it right now, or
Usak’ll be along and kill you both up. Maybe I can get you right out of
the country back to your own folk. That’s how I figger. But if I’m to do
that you need to beat it down the river with me—now. I came because of
my promise. See? I’m here with a white-man’s word to do the best I know.
You’ve got to take me to Ukisama, and both of you need to make up your
minds right away. Money don’t need to worry you. Only outfit for the
journey along down to Placer. Well?”
While he was speaking the woman’s face was a study in emotions. With his
first words the urgent hope fell from her in one tragic flash. There
were no tears. But panic closed down upon her in a staggering contrast
to her hope of the moment before. The dreadful fear she was enduring
left her lips moving. She followed the man’s words, as though she was
repeating them the more surely to impress them upon her staggered
faculties. But a measure of comfort seemed to come to her as he
propounded his purpose for their safety. And a desperate sort of calm
helped her as he made his final demand.
“You come with me,” she cried at once. “I take you to Hela. You say all
this thing. I, too, say much. Maybe he go. I not know. Come.”
And she turned, and led the way without waiting for any reply.
* * * * *
Wilder experienced a curious sensation of repugnance as he entered the
presence of the blinded man. He was not usually troubled by such
sensitiveness. But somehow he now realised more surely than ever contact
with something inexpressively evil. The yellow face of the man was
almost grey. But whether it was the result of any emotion of fear that
had produced the noisome hue he could not tell. The man’s eyeless
sockets seemed even more repulsive than when first he had looked upon
them. Then there were his restlessly moving hands, which, in his blind
helplessness, never for a moment seemed to remain quite still.
They were in the central hall of the house, that Eastern apartment so
full of vivid memories for the whiteman. It was unchanged from that
which he knew of it, even to the dust, and the sense of neglect and
disuse that pervaded it. Wilder remembered acutely. His eyes passed over
every familiar detail of the place and brought back to him a picture of
the happenings of that night, when, unbidden, unwelcome, he had been a
guest in the house.
The blinded man confronted him on his seat upon the cushioned divan
beside the carved screen. And he spoke at once as Bill entered and moved
over to the chair which was set before the bureau. Crysa went at once to
her husband and took her place on the seat beside him.
“You come again?” he said in his low, harsh tones.
And the challenge warned Wilder of the amazing watchfulness which fear
had inspired in these two. Crysa had said no word as she entered, yet
this sightless man knew him and understood.
“Sure.”
Wilder spoke quietly.
“I’m here to help you,” he went on. “If you reckon to save the life
remaining to you you’ll need to take my talk at its face value and make
a quick get-away right off. I’ve just handed your wife, as quick as I
could, the trouble beating up the river for you. Usak’s behind me with
his gun. He’s crazy for your blood. An’ I’m crazy he shan’t get you. I
took an almighty chance pushing up from the Caribou here because I
handed your wife a promise I’d do the best I knew to save the murder
that crazy Indian looks for. With winter closing right down no one can
figger the chances of getting through back. Still, I handed my word, and
it goes with me. The thing I can do is to get you down to Caribou if the
winter don’t queer us. I can get you right on to your own country,
which, seeing you are who and what you are, is the only thing. Maybe
I’ll be going beyond the right I have in doing this, but I’ll do it
because you’re blind and helpless, and because your wife seems to have
suffered enough for being your wife. There’s going to be no argument as
far as I’m concerned. That I’m a police officer cuts no ice. In this
thing I’m just a plain whiteman who’s given his word, and it goes. Now,
here’s the proposition so far as I’m concerned. I’m going right back to
the landing, and I’ll wait around there till, the daylight goes. If you
come along in that time with the truck you need for the journey—you
needn’t worry with the food, I’ve got all we need—you have my promise
I’ll get you safe through, if its humanly possible, to your own country.
If I fail my life will pay just as surely as yours. You got my promise,
a whiteman’s promise, and you’ve got to be satisfied with it if you
fancy making a get-away. The moment night closes in I pull out, whether
you come with with me or not. That’s all.”
The repulsion inspired by the blind man’s presence had a deeper effect
on Wilder than he knew. He had planned his method, but his planning had
not provided for the cold fashion in which he delivered his proposition.
His tone was even more frigid than he realised. He rose from his seat to
depart. And instantly the Count’s harsh voice stayed him.
“And how do I know Usak is on the river? How I know this is not a police
trap?”
Wilder searched the ghastly features. A surge of anger leapt, and his
cheeks flushed till his broad brow was suffused to the edge of his thick
fur cap.
“It don’t matter a thing to me what you know, or what you don’t know,”
he said sharply. “Usak’s on the river, making right here with his gun.
Ther’s a getaway there at the landing till the daylight goes. You can
take it or not. It’s right up to you. It’s there because murder’s going
to happen around, and it’s my notion to prevent it. You’re blind, and
your woman helpless. It don’t seem to me you matter a hoot in hell. But
I’m glad to help a woman—any woman. You’ll think it over. An’ don’t
forget there isn’t more than two hours before the daylight goes. That’s
all I’ve to say.”
He turned and passed out the way he had come, and as he went he avoided
the dark stains on the floor, those stains so grimly significant, which
even he could not bring himself to pass over.
* * * * *
Half an hour before the last of the daylight a canoe crept down to the
landing.
Wilder was ready to cast off. He had spent the interim in preparing room
in his vessel for the added burden of his passengers. He knew they would
come.
There had been no doubt in his mind whatsoever. And curiously enough, he
was the more sure since the man was blind. In his philosophy the more
surely the man was afflicted the more surely he would cling to life, and
dread the final slaughtering of his body by an unseen enemy. Then in
addition there was the urgent appealing of the little woman, who was
surely something more than a ministering angel to this helpless demon.
Oh, yes, he had known they would come, but he had not suspected the
manner of their coming. They came in their own canoe, the blind man
paddling in the bow, and the woman, infinite in her despairing devotion,
serving her man to the last at the steering paddle.
It was a display of devotion that thrilled the whiteman for all the
worthlessness of the object of it. And he accepted the position readily.
It might add to his care, but it would lessen his labours. Their escape
from the avenging Usak was all he desired. But he was by no means
blinded to the reason that they came in their own boat. It was the man’s
distrust. He had no desire to yield himself a possible prisoner in the
whiteman’s craft.
Wilder nodded approval as they drew alongside, and he realised the
considerable outfit, including food, that had been provided.
“You prefer it that way,” he said quietly. “That’s all right. Keep right
on my tail,” he went on, reaching up and casting his mooring adrift.
“It’s mighty dark along the river, an’ maybe we’ll be thankful it is
that way. If it beats you you can make fast to me. If you’ve sense
you’ll act that way. I got two eyes an’ I know all ther’ is to this darn
trail.”
He thrust out into the stream, and the second vessel followed him like a
ghostly shadow in the twilight.
* * * * *
A man sat gazing out from his rocky shelter. His dark eyes were brooding
as he contemplated the falling snow. Below him, rendered invisible by
the storm, lay the still bosom of the mountain lake with shore ice
supporting its white burden. The bulk of the water still resisted the
grip of winter, but with every passing day, every hour, the spread of
shore ice was encroaching.
The grey curtain of falling snow was impenetrable even to the accustomed
eyes of Usak. The world about him was silent, and windless, and alive
with that desolate threat which drives man to despair. He had reached
the mouth of the Valley of the Fire Hills, and, blinded by the sudden
snow-storm, had sought what shelter he could find.
His shelter was half cavern and half overhung in the towering headland
at the mouth of the valley. Yet it served. His kyak was hauled from the
icy water and lay on the foreshore. And the man sat over a smoulder of
fire made of the driftwood he had collected on his way, and the
profusion of lichen he had gathered from the snow-free shelter in which
he sat.
Usak crouched huddled and smoking, over the inadequate fire. Its warmth
was negligible, but it afforded that without which no human being in
such desolation could endure, a mental comfort and companionship. He was
content to wait. For all the winter was advancing apace, for all he knew
that soon, desperately soon, the great lake, out upon which he was
gazing, would be one broad sheet of ice many feet in thickness, and
impossible for the light craft which was his vehicle, he was content
enough. The Valley of the Fire Hills would remain unfrozen, and the
great river below him would remain open long enough for his navigation.
For the rest there was always portage. Oh, yes. Time was with him. The
real freeze-up was not yet. The snow would cease later, and meanwhile he
could contemplate the thing he had looked forward to for so many years.
So there was no impatience that the world was blinded by snowflakes half
the size of his brown palm. With the passing of the silent storm, so
still, so windless, doubtless the cold would increase, but also,
doubtless, the sky could clear, and the Arctic twilight would again
light the world with its ghostly rays.
He thrust out a moccasined foot and kicked the embers of his fire
together. He removed the pipe from his strong jaws, and held its stem to
the warmth. The saliva in it had frozen, and it had gone out.
Presently he reached down and picked up a live coal. He tossed it into
the pipe bowl and sucked heavily at the stem, belching clouds of reeking
smoke. His enjoyment was profound.
After awhile the pipe was neglected. His enjoyment of it was merged into
something more absorbing. His savage mind was lost in the thing that had
brought him to the heart of the great Alaskan hills, and he was gazing
on a vision of savage delight. As his hands gripped each other about his
knees there was movement in them, nervous, twitching movement. For, in
fancy, they were slowly crushing out the life he was determined should
know the hideous meaning of prolonged death agony.
His delight was in his darkly brooding eyes as they looked into the
flicker of the fire. His mind was teeming with the thing he would say
while that life was conscious and could know the terror and agony of
those last moments. Oh, yes. It was worth all the waiting and he was
glad, glad that now, at last, the moment of his final vengeance was
approaching. Sheer insanity was driving, but it was that calm insanity
where the border line is passed coldly and calmly with hate the
dominating influence. Suddenly he started and leant forward.
His hands parted from about his knees, and, in a moment, he was on his
feet crouching and gazing out into the impenetrable snowfall. He moved
aside from his fire and crept forward. Then he stood up tall and
straight, and his head was turned with an ear to the outer world.
A sound had reached ears trained to the pitch of any forest creature. It
had been faint, so faint, yet to Usak it was quite unmistakable. It had
come from out there on the water beyond the ground ice, and he knew that
some living thing was passing, hidden by the grey of the snowfall.
He stood for a long time listening, his dark eyes no less alert than his
ears. Then with something like reluctance he came back to the fire and
spread his hands out over it. After awhile he returned to his seat.
There was no doubt in his mind. The sound he had heard was the ruffling
of the water stirred by the dip of a paddle.
But his shoulders moved in a shrug, and he dismissed the matter. Why
not? There were folk in the Valley of the Fire Hills, other folk than
those—Yes, far up, there were many of the folk he hated but did not
fear—the Euralians.
* * * * *
Usak was standing on the landing almost lost in the billows of smoke
surging down upon him. They belched out of the heart of the wood which
concealed the clearing, wherein had stood the secret habitation of the
man whom he had designed should know his final vengeance.
The whole of the dripping valley seemed to be afire. Behind him the roar
and crackle of the burning forest grew louder, and the suffocating smoke
grew denser and denser while the heat was blistering.
He stepped quickly into his waiting kyak and pushed out into the stream,
vanishing in the twilight of the night. He paddled rapidly till he had
cleared the woodland belt and approached the unlovely barrens of the
Fire Hills. Then he sought the shelter of the bank and shipped his
paddle.
He knelt up in the little vessel gazing back at the ruthless work of his
hands. It was there plain enough for him to see. The billows of drifting
smoke were darkly outlined against the moonlit, star-decked heavens. And
farther inland was the glowing heart of the fire, with leaping splashes
of flame lightening up the world around it, hungrily devouring the
splendid dwelling that had once been the home of his most hated enemy.
But there was none of the joy in his mood that might have been looked
for. No. A light of fury was burning in his merciless eyes. He had been
thwarted in his long contemplated vengeance, and he had been driven to
the impotent devastation which his savage heart had prompted. He had
reached the place only to find it utterly deserted. The house he found
devoid of all life, and his search had only yielded him further
confirmation that his intended victims had escaped him. So, in his
insane savagery, he had done the thing that alone would satisfy. He had
fired the house, and seen to it that even the woods about it should not
escape destruction.
He remained for awhile contemplating the mischief of his handiwork and
drawing such comfort from it as his mood would allow. Then, at last,
feasted, satiated, he dipped his paddle again into the sluggish waters.
He knew. He understood. The chance had been his far back there at the
mouth of the creek. He had heard the sound of a paddle, and should have
guessed. But his wits had failed him, and the snow had blinded him. But
even now he did not wholly despair. There was the winter. The man was
blind. And the woman—Psha! He drove his paddle with all the fury of his
desire.