THE IRONY OF FATE
The race against the season was being won. The race against that other—?
Yes, Bill Wilder was well enough satisfied. Not a day, not an hour had
been lost in his rush to the hills. He had spared no effort. And on the
return he had driven hard with the full weight of the stream speeding
him. There had been the one heavy snowstorm as he had passed out of the
mouth of the Valley of the Fire Hills. For a few hours it had blinded
him and forced him to shelter. For the rest the luck of the weather had
been with him, with only the increasing cold and the twenty hour nights
with which to do battle.
He was feeling good as he came to the familiar landing above the Grand
Falls, and prepared for his portage down to the canyon of the rapids.
It was all curious in its way, and there were moments on the journey
when he found himself half whimsically wondering at the thing he was
doing. For the man he was endeavouring to save from the hands of Usak he
had only utter loathing and detestation. There was no pity in him, not a
moment’s thought of it. For the little distracted woman it was
different. He knew he was risking everything in life out of pity for
this poor creature, who was nothing in the world to him except that she
was a woman, and not even white at that. He realised his utter folly. He
even reminded himself that the thing he was doing was not only unfair to
himself, but to those others who looked to him for succour, that other
whose life had become focussed in him.
He knew that an encounter with Usak would mean a battle to the death of
one or perhaps all of them. He knew that, embarrassed by these helpless
creatures, a sudden final onslaught of the Arctic winter night might
well mean the end of all things. But he had not hesitated. No. He had
calculated closely. His knowledge of the northern world had told him
that there was time—even time to spare. The daylight had not yet passed,
and, unless the season was one of unusual severity, the dreaded
freeze-up was not due for several weeks more. No. The cold was steadily
increasing. There would be more snow yet. But there would be relapses of
temperature, and the final sealing of the great river was still a long
way off. So he had refused to be turned aside from his purpose.
He had laboured on with a mind steadily poised and with nerves in
perfect tune. His greatest apprehension was the possible encountering of
the Indian, Usak. And even on this his resolve was clear and as
merciless as anything the savage, himself, might have contemplated. He
was armed and ready, and no interference would be tolerated even if his
necessity drove him to slaughter.
The daylight had been spent in disgorging the two canoes of their
freight. He and the little Japanese woman had spent the time preparing
his packs. They were not vast, but the whole portage would mean three
laborious trips over the rough territory of the great gorge down to the
landing below.
The first trip was to be his own canoe. The second was to be the camp
outfit of his passengers. The blind-man and the woman would accompany
him on that trip and help with the packs. Then, with these folk safely
encamped below the gorge, he would return alone to bring down their
canoe.
Yes. It was all clearly planned with a view to the simplest and best
advantage, and the preliminary work had gone on rapidly under his
energetic guidance. There was not one moment’s unnecessary delay, for he
understood, only too well, the value of every precious hour he could
steal on his human and elemental adversaries.
The last pack had been made up of the things that could be dispensed
with. His canoe was hauled up empty, ready to be shouldered. And now,
with the last flash of daylight shining in the south-west, he stood low
down on the foreshore gazing out over the water in the direction of the
misty falls. Mid-day was only two hours gone and the daylight was
already collapsing with the falling sun.
The peace of this far-off world was a little awesome, the silence was
something threatening. The dull roar of the Grand Falls alone robbed it
of utter, complete soundlessness. The snow was a soft virgin carpet in
every direction. The hardy, dark woods were weighted down with its
burden. For all there was shore ice against the river bank the whole
breadth of the waters of the river were silently, heavily flowing on to
the tremendous precipitation far beyond. But it was not of these things
that Wilder was thinking. In the emergency besetting he was concerned
only for the signs which, out of his experience, he was striving to
interpret.
They were very definite. The sun had fallen below the horizon,
accompanied by two pale sundogs that strove but failed to display an
angry glare. The horizon was clear of all cloud, a vault of wonderful
colour. Such breath of wind as was stirring was coming up out of the
south-east. It was good. It was all good. The sundogs suggested
possible, ultimate change, but not yet. The breeze was almost mild. But
above all there was not a single cloud to shut out the light of the moon
that would presently rise, and the brilliant starlight, and the
beneficent northern lights. No. It would be a perfect night.
He turned back to the couple hugging the tiny fire they had ventured to
light in the shelter of an attenuated bluff of woods.
“Just get this clear,” he said thrusting his hands out to the warmth.
“I’m setting out right away. It’ll take me six hours to make back here.
Six hours good. I’d have been glad to cache your boat back there in the
woods, an’ hide up our tracks right. But the snow on the ground beats us
on that play. Any pair of eyes happening along could follow us anywhere.
No. If Usak’s around I give him credit for being able to read our tracks
anyway, and with the snow, why they’re just shriekin’ at him. We got to
take a big chance. But ther’s one play we can make.”
He paused and rubbed his hands thoughtfully while the eyeless man gazed
unerringly up into his face, and the woman beside him waited a prey to
apprehension.
“You best beat it back into these woods,” he went on quickly. “Leave
that fire—burning. Leave it so it looks like dying out. As if we were
all out on portage. See? And you two make the woods, dodging the snow
patches, an’ walking on the bare ground. Take your sleeping kit, and get
what sleep you can—without a fire. That’s all. I’ll get right back just
as quick as I know. Once we’re on the river below these Falls, why I
guess Usak hasn’t a chance. But I got to leave you one end or the other
while I make this first portage, an’ it seems horse sense leaving you
above the Falls. We haven’t seen a sign of that murdering Indian above
here the whole way.”
The blindman nodded.
“That’s sense,” he said in his harsh way.
The woman silently acquiesced. It was sufficient that the man had
agreed. But her troubled eyes told of the haunting dread that obsessed
her.
Wilder turned away and moved over to his canoe lying ready. He stooped
down, and when he stood up again the little vessel was exactly poised
upon his broad back.
* * * * *
The hush of the woods was profound. The dark aisles of the trees were
visible in the moonlight, for the foliage above was thin, and meagre,
and tattered under the fierce storms which roared down out of the heart
of the hills. The promise of sun-down had been fulfilled. A full moon
shone down upon a chill, silvery world, and the starlight was of that
amazing brilliance which is the great redeeming of the Arctic night.
There was no wind, not a breath. It was cold, intensely cold, and the
northern heavens were lit by an amazing wealth of vivid, moving lights.
The blindman and his woman made no pretence of the sleep that Wilder had
suggested. Sleep was impossible to them. They crouched together in their
sleeping furs, striving for any measure of warmth for their chilled
bodies. But they had otherwise obeyed. For the thing suggested had
appealed. They were deep hidden amidst the tree trunks, waiting, waiting
for that return which alone could yield them any sense of security.
They talked together spasmodically, and in low, hushed tones.
For the most part they talked in their own native tongue, but sometimes
they used the language of the country of their adoption.
The blindman’s hearing was doubly acute for his affliction. And he
crouched straining for any sound to warn them of lurking danger. But the
hours passed, and only the droning roar of the distant Falls broke the
soundlessness of the night.
Crysa could contain her fears no longer. A sigh escaped her and she
stirred restlessly.
“He will come?” she said, and her tone was full of besetting doubt.
The man’s reply was slow in coming. It almost seemed as though the
straining effort of listening completely pre-occupied him.
He nodded at last.
“He will come,” he rasped. Then he added, “He is a fool whiteman.”
The woman’s quick eyes lit as they glanced round on her husband.
“He is good,” she said.
“Good?”
The scorn in the yellow man’s tone was something bitter beyond words.
Nothing more was said, and the man returned to his listening.
* * * * *
A long low kyak glided up to the landing. It came without sound, for the
stream was swift, and the shore ice had been broken up by those who had
come before. The trailing paddle was lifted quickly from the water and
the vessel’s occupant reached out and caught the side of the boat lying
moored against the bank. Skilfully he guided the nose of his craft in
between the moored vessel and the bank, and the whole thing was
completed in absolute soundlessness.
With his vessel lying stationary he remained for a moment unmoving. His
great body towered as he knelt up against his paddling strut. He was
surveying the moored boat with eager, dark eyes and an acutely reading
mind. Presently he turned from the contemplation of the thing that had
set a wild fierce hope stirring in his savage heart. His gaze was flung
upon the landing itself, and upon the surrounding slope of the river
bank, and the adjacent bluff of woods. The brilliant night revealed all
he sought with a clearness which left him without a shadow of doubt.
Finally he discovered beyond, just within the shelter of the woods, the
last dying smoulder of the camp fire. He reached towards the nose of his
kyak, and seized the long rifle lying there. Then he stepped ashore.
The dark figure moved swiftly up the shore. It reached the edge of the
woods and stood for a moment gazing down on the dying camp fire. The
dark eyes had suddenly become fiercely urgent as he searched every sign
that was there for his interpretation.
After a few moments the man moved about in the neighbourhood of the
fire. His moccasined feet gave out no sound. He was searching diligently
in the trodden snow. At last he came again to a halt. He threw up his
head and stared about him. It was the attitude of a creature of the
forest scenting its prey, and in his eyes was a look of fierce exulting
as he gazed into the dark shelter of the woods. Then his whole attitude
underwent a change. He seemed to crouch down. His long rifle was borne
at the trail in his hand, and he moved forward stealthily, and became
swallowed up by the shadowed depths.
* * * * *
The hush of the night left the falling of a pine cone a sound that was
almost startling. The droning roar of the distant Falls was only part of
the awesome quiet. The windlessness was a threat of greater and greater
depths of cold, while the brilliant moon and cloudless sky only helped
to impress more deeply the intense frigidity of the coming season. It
was all perfect, in its exquisite peace, a vision of superlative
splendour in the amazing twilight. It suggested a sublime creation
unspoiled, unsullied by any inharmonious blemish, a broad indefinite
sketch set out by the mighty brush and divine inspiration of a God-like
artist who only requires to inset the subtle, finishing details. Such
was the seeming of the moment.
A cry. A series of raucous human cries. They came from somewhere within
the forest belt. They came full of terror, and maybe pain. They came
full of ferocious unyielding and savage passion. They came again and
again, with the shrill of a woman’s voice mingling. Then the last sound
died out, swallowed up by the immense silence.
So the grandeur of the night scene, the sublimity of Nature’s profound
calm, lost for a few brief moments by the invasion of an expression of
surging human passions, returned again, all undefeated, to the rugged
heart of the northern wilderness.
* * * * *
The moon was still high in the starlit heavens, shedding its cold
benignity upon the flowing waters. The belt of the northern lights had
extended. Their ghostly sheen had deepened, and the vivid arc of a
burnished aurora had joined their legions. The world was lit anew. The
twilight had glorified; the night was transformed. No longer was the
moon the dominant light giver. The jewel-like sparkle of the stars had
dimmed in contrast. For the aurora, the glory of the Arctic night, had
ascended its triumphant throne.
The whiteman swung along, approaching the camping ground above the
Falls, filled with satisfaction and hope at the beneficent change. For
practical purposes the night light was all-sufficient. In fancy he saw
the completion of his labours in far less time than he had anticipated,
and something like ultimate security for those he sought to succour.
The further portage would be easy now. The first trip was over. Now
there was the bearing of the packs in which he would have the assistance
of those others. Then the last—the portage of their—
He had reached the low shore clearing of the landing. A great flood of
silvery light illuminated the whole breadth of the river. There it lay a
wide, swift tide, with the great hills far across its bosom rising a
jagged snowcapped line, gleaming like burnished silver under the amazing
heavenly lights.
But the scene as Nature had painted it made not an instant’s claim upon
him. How should it? He had come to a sudden halt, his gaze riveted upon
a vision that made him draw his breath sharply, and set his heart
leaping. He became rooted to the spot. Two boats were out there on the
broad bosom of the river. Two of them. And both were moving on down the
stream towards—
A shout broke from him. It came with all the power of his well-nigh
bursting lungs. It was the natural impulse which his surge of feeling
inspired. He shouted again and again. Then of a sudden he charged down
to the water’s edge, and stood staring helplessly, silently, a prey to
unspeakable horror.
Two boats! The leading vessel was a long low kyak. There was no
mistaking its build. Just as there was no mistaking, to his mind, the
burly figure propelling it. The second boat he recognised on the
instant. It was the canoe he had expected to portage on his third trip.
In it were two figures sitting up. They were motionless. They were
paddleless. They were sitting, inert, like bundles set there, and quite
incapable of any movement, incapable of any resistance. And between the
two boats stretched a taut line.
It needed no second thought for Wilder to realise the thing that was
being enacted. The inhuman vengeance of the crazy Indian had descended
upon those benighted helpless folk and no power on earth could save
them.
Usak’s purpose was as clear as the brilliant light of the night. The
ruthless savage was towing them out into mid-stream. Presently he would,
doubtless, release their vessel when it had reached the limit of safety
for himself. Then he would leave them to the hideous destruction
awaiting them at the great waterfall flinging back its thunderous roar
out of the heart of the mists enshrouding it.
There was no succour that he could offer. He was without any means of
reaching them with his own canoe already below the Falls. And his
automatic pistol was useless. No. He could only stand there helplessly
watching the terrible tragedy of it all.
Now he knew the thing that must have happened. He vividly pictured the
coming of Usak, whom they must have passed higher up the river on their
way down. The stillness of the figures in the boat was terribly
significant.
The man must have come upon them in their hiding, perhaps asleep. He
must have overpowered them. Probably he had bound them hand and foot
when he set them in the boat, so that the blindman, no less than the
other, should contemplate, even if it was only through his hearing, the
dreadful death he was preparing for them.
He caught his breath. Then in a moment he hurled the full force of his
impotent loathing in a furious shout across the water.
“You swine! God Almighty!”
The exclamation came as he saw the man cease paddling and reach out to
the rope behind him. In a moment it was severed, and the trailing boat
began instantly to turn broadside on to the current.
The watching man gave a gasp. Then the broadside boat was forgotten, and
his whole attention was given to the other, the boat containing the
demented creature perpetrating his long-pondered crime.
Usak’s paddle was beating the water furiously. He was striving with all
his enormous strength and skill to swing his light vessel out of the
stream. He was labouring in a fashion that instantly warned the
on-looker of the peril besetting him. And the sight of the struggle
thrilled him with an excitement which had no relation to any desire for
the man’s escape.
Usak was a superb river man. Perhaps he had no equal upon the northern
waters. But he was an Indian with the lust to kill, and without the
sober judgment of the whiteman watching him from the shore. Wilder
understood. It was there for him to see. The Indian had gone too far in
his desire. He had passed the limits of safety before he severed the
rope to hurl his victims to the fate he had designed for them. He was
caught in the same overwhelming rush of silent water. His paddle was no
better than a toy thing to stay the rush. His kyak was caught and flung
broadside. And abreast of the other it was drifting, drifting down upon
the roaring cataract ahead.
Wilder drew a deep breath.
Usak had ceased paddling. There was a moment in which he remained
utterly unmoving like those others. To the on-looker it seemed that he
was contemplating the full horror in which his mistake had involved him.
Then, of a sudden, he saw the dark figure rear itself up in the boat,
which, even at that distance, seemed to rock perilously. The man stood
erect. Then an arm was raised and the paddle was flung into the racing
waters. After that it seemed that the doomed creature’s arms were folded
across his broad bosom, and, like a statue, unmoved by any emotion of
fear, he stood boldly contemplating the terrible doom towards which he
and his victims were inevitably being borne.
Wilder turned away. It was all too painful. It was all too horrible in
its human wantonness. He passed up the shore and sat down, pondering the
irony of the fate that had descended upon the demented man out there on
the water.
And after awhile, when the cold of the night drove him, and he bestirred
himself, and again moved down to the water’s edge, it was to witness the
placid unruffled bosom of the great river flowing heavily on as it had
done throughout the ages. The trifling human tragedy it had witnessed
was far too infinitely small to leave its impress upon a scene so
tremendous in its expression of overwhelming Nature.