THE STARVING MOON
March, the Crees' "Moon of the Crust on the Snow," was old. Camped on a
chain of lakes in the Salmon country Marcel had been following the few
traps for which he had bait and at the same time hunting widely for
food. Soon, the sun, mounting higher and higher each day at noon, would
begin to soften the surface of the snow which the freezing nights would
harden into crust. Then he could travel far and fast. With much
searching he had found another beaver lodge, postponing for a space the
days when man and dog would have not even half rations to stay their
hunger. The Frenchman's drawn face and loose capote evidenced the weeks
of under-nourishment; but, though Fleur's great bones and the ropes of
muscle, banding her back and shoulders, thrust through her shaggy coat
with undue prominence, still she had as yet suffered little from the
famine. So long as Jean Marcel had had fish or meat, his growing puppy
had received the greater share, for she had already attained in that
winter on the Ghost a height and bulk of bone equal to that of her
slate-gray mother now far on the north coast.
For days Jean had been praying for the coming of the crust. With it he
planned to make a wide circle back into the high barrens in search of
returning caribou. Once the crust had set hard, travelling with the sled
into new country would be easy. Food he must accumulate to take them
through the April thaws, or perish miserably, with no one to carry the
news of their fate to Whale River. Since the heart-breaking days when
the white wolves drove the caribou south and the rabbits disappeared, he
had, in moments of depression, sat by the fire at night, wondering, when
June again came to Whale River and one by one the canoes of the Crees
appeared, if, by chance, a pair of dark eyes would ever turn to the
broad surface of the river for the missing craft of Jean Marcel--whether
in the joy of her love for another the heart of the girl would sadden
for one whose bones whitened in far Ungava hills.
At last the crust came. With eyes shielded by snow goggles made by
cutting slits in flat pieces of spruce, for the glare of the sun on the
barrens was intense, Jean started with his dog. All the food he had was
on his sled. He had burned his bridges, for if he failed in his hunt,
they would starve, but as well starve in the barrens, he thought, as
back at camp.
They were passing through the thick spruce of a sheltered valley,
travelling up-wind, when Fleur, sniffing hard, grew excited. There was
something ahead, probably fur, so he did not tie his dog. Shortly Fleur
started to bolt with the sled and Jean turned her loose. Following his
yelping husky, who broke through the new crust at every leap, Marcel
entered a patch of cedar scrub. There Fleur distanced him.
Shortly, a scream, followed by a din of snarls and squalls filled the
forest. Close ahead a bitter struggle of creatures milling to the death
was on. "Tiens!" exclaimed Jean, fearing for the eyes of his raw puppy,
battling for the first time with the great cat of the north. He broke
through the scrub to see the lynx spring backward from the rush of the
dog and leap for the limbs of a low cedar. But the cat was too slow, for
at the same instant, Fleur's jaws snapped on his loins, and with a
wrench of her powerful neck, the husky threw the animal to the snow with
a broken back. In a flash she changed her grip, the long fangs crunching
through the neck of the helpless beast, and with a quiver, the lynx was
dead.
Hot with the lust of battle, Fleur worried the body of her enemy.
Reaching her, Jean proudly patted his dog's back.
"My Fleur! She make de _loup-cervier_ run!" he cried, delighted with
the courage and power of his puppy.
Then he anxiously examined the slashes of rapier claws on Fleur's muzzle
and shoulders.
"Bon!" he said, relieved. "De lynx he very weak or he cut you deeper dan
dese scratch."
As Jean hastily skinned the dead cat he marvelled at its emaciation.
"Ah! He also miss de rabbit. Lucky he starve or you get de beeg scratch,
Fleur."
For answer the hot tongue of the dog sought his hands as she raised her
brown eyes to his. With arms around her shaggy shoulders her proud
master muttered into the ears of the delighted husky love words that
would have been strange indeed to any but Fleur, who found them sweet
beyond measure.
"My Fleur, she grow to be de dog, de most _sauvage_!" he cried. "Some
day she keel de wolf, eh?"
Owing to the weakened condition of the lynx, Fleur's were but surface
scratches. So furious had been the husky's assault on the starved cat
that she had left no opening to the knife-like claws of the powerful
hind legs.
Continuing east, four days later Marcel camped in a valley on the flank
of a great barren. In the morning, tying Fleur with a rawhide thong
which she could have chewed through with ease but had been taught to
respect, he followed the scrub along the edge of the barren searching
for caribou signs. Often he stopped to gaze out across the white waste
reaching away east to the horizon, seeking for blue-gray objects whose
movements in scraping away the snow to the moss beneath, would alone
mark them as caribou. In places the great winds had swept the plateau
almost bare, beating down the snow to a depth of less than a foot. All
day he skirted the barren but at last turned back to his camp sick at
heart and spent with the long day on the crust, following his meagre
breakfast. Deep in the shelter of the thick timber of the valley, he had
dug away the snow for his fire and sleeping place, lashing above his bed
of spruce boughs a strip of canvas which acted both as windbreak and
heat reflector. When they had eaten their slim supper, he freshened the
fire with birch logs, and sat down with Fleur's head between his knees.
The "Starving Moon" of the Montagnais hung over Jean Marcel.
"Fleur, you know we got onlee two day meat left? W'en dat go, Jean
Marcel go too--een few day, a week maybe; and Fleur, w'at she do?"
The husky's slant eyes shone with her dog love into the set face of her
master. She whined, wrinkling her gray nose, then her jaw dropped,
which was her manner of laughing, while her hot breath steamed in the
freezing air. Vainly she waited for the smile that had never failed to
light Marcel's face in the old days at such advances.
Dropping his mittens Jean held the massive head between his naked hands.
"Jean Marcel feel ver' bad to leave Fleur alone. Wid no game she starve
too, w'en he go," he said.
Fleur's deep throat rumbled in ecstasy as the hands of the master rubbed
her ears.
"Back on de Ghost, Fleur, ees some feesh and meat Joe and Antoine left;
not much, but eet tak' us to Whale Riviere, maybe."
The lips of Fleur lifted from her white teeth at the names of Jean's
partners.
"You remember Joe Piquet, Fleur? Joe Piquet!"
The husky growled. She knew only too well the name, Joe Piquet.
"Eet ees four--five sleep to de Ghost, Fleur, shall we go? W'at you
t'ink?"
The strained face in the fur-lined hood approached the dog's, whose eyes
shifted uneasily from the fixed look of her master.
"We go back to de Ghost, Fleur, or mak' one beeg hunt for de deer?"
The perplexed husky, unable to meet Marcel's piercing eyes, sprang to
her feet with a yelp.
"Bon!" he cried. "We mak' de beeg hunt!" He had had his answer and on
the yelp of his dog had staked their fate. To-morrow he would push on
into the barrens and find the caribou drifting north again, or flicker
out with his dog as men for centuries had perished, beaten by the long
snows.
In the morning he divided his remaining food into four parts; a
breakfast and a supper for himself and Fleur, for two days. After
that--strips of caribou hide and moss, boiled in snow water, to ease the
throbbing ache of their stomachs.
Eating his thin stew, he shortened his belt still another hole over his
lean waist, and harnessing Fleur, turned resolutely east into country no
white man had ever seen, on his bold gamble for food or an endless sleep
in the blue Ungava hills.
In his weakened state, black spots and pin-points of light danced before
his eyes. Distant objects were often magnified out of all proportion. So
intense was the glare of the high March sun on the crust that his wooden
goggles alone saved him from snow-blindness. He travelled a few miles
until dizziness forced him to rest. Later he continued on, to rest
again, while the black nose of Fleur, who was still comparatively
strong, sought his face, as she wondered at the reason for the master's
strange actions.
By noon he had crossed no trail except that of a wolverine seeking food
like himself, and finally went down into the timbered valley of a brook
where he left Fleur and the sled. Then he started again on his hopeless
search. As the streams flowed northeast, he was certain that he had
crossed the Height of Land to the Ungava Bay watershed, and was now in
the headwater country of the fabled River of Leaves, the Koksoak of the
Esquimos, into which no hunter from Whale River had ever penetrated.
Marcel was snow-shoeing through the scrub at the edge of the plateau
when far out on the barren he saw two spots. Shortly he was convinced
that the objects moved.
"By Gar, deer! At last they travel nord!" he gasped, gazing with
bounding pulses at the distant spots almost indistinguishable against
the snow. Meat out there on the barren awaited him--food and life, if
only he could get within range.
Cutting back into the scrub, that he might begin his stalk of the
caribou from the nearest cover with the wind in his face, he moved
behind a rise in the ground slowly out into the barren. With a caution
he had never before exercised, lest the precious food now almost within
reach should escape him, the starving man advanced.
At last he crawled up behind a low knoll, and stretched out on the snow.
Cocking and thrusting his rifle before him, he wormed his way to the
top of the rise and looked.
There a hundred yards off, playing on the crust, were two arctic foxes.
Distorting their size, the barren ground mirage had cruelly deceived
him.
With a groan the spent hunter dropped his head on his arms. "All dees
for fox!" he murmured. Then, because foxes were meat, he took careful
aim and shot one, wounding the other, which he killed with the second
bullet. Hanging the carcasses in a spruce, Marcel continued to skirt the
barren toward the east.
As dusk fell he returned to Fleur and made camp. Cutting up and boiling
one of the foxes, he and the dog ate ravenously of the rank flesh, but
hope was low in the breast of Jean Marcel. A day or two more of half
rations and he was done. The spring migration of the caribou was not yet
on. And when the deer did come, it would be too late. Jean Marcel would
be past aid and Fleur--what would become of her? True, she could live on
the flanks of the caribou herds like the wolves, but the wolves would
find and destroy her.
Tortured by such thoughts, he sat by his fire, the husky's great head on
his knee, her eyes searching his, mutely demanding the reason for his
strange silence.
Another day of fruitless wandering in which he had pushed as far east
as his fading strength would take him, and Jean shared the last of the
food with his dog. He had fought hard to find the deer, had already
travelled one hundred miles into the barrens, but he felt that it was no
use; he was beaten. The spirit of the coureurs whose blood coursed his
veins would drive him on and on, but without food the days of his
hunting would be few. Henceforth it would be caribou hide boiled with
moss from the barrens to ease the pinch of his hunger, but his strength
would swiftly go. Then, when hope died, rather than leave his dog to the
wolves, he would shoot Fleur and lying down beside her in his blanket,
place the muzzle of his rifle against his own head.
Two days, in which Marcel and Fleur drank the liquor from stewed caribou
hide and moss while he continued to hunt, followed. As he staggered into
camp at the end of the second day the man was so weak that he scarcely
found strength to gather wood for his fire. Fleur now showed signs of
slow starvation in her protruding ribs and shoulders. Her heavy coat no
longer shone with gloss but lay flat and lusterless. Vainly she
whimpered for the food that her heart-sick master could not give her.
With the dog beside him, Marcel lay by the fire numbed into indifference
to his fate. The torment of hunger had vanished leaving only great
weakness and a dazed brain. He thought of the three wooden crosses at
Whale River; how restful it would be to lie beside them behind the
Mission, instead of sleeping far in the barrens where the great winds
beat ceaselessly by over the treeless snows. There Julie Breton might
have planted forest flowers on the mound that marked the grave of Jean
Marcel. But no, he had forgotten; Julie Breton would not be at Whale
River. Julie would live at East Main and some day at her feet would play
the children of Wallace. Julie would be married in the spring at Whale
River, while the wolves and ravens were scattering the whitened bones of
Jean Marcel over the valley, and there would be no rest--no rest.
What hopes he had had of a little house of their own at Whale River when
he entered the service of the Company and drove the mail packet down the
coast, with the team that Fleur would give him. How often he had
pictured that home where Julie and the children would wait his return
from summer voyage and winter trail; Julie Breton, whom he had loved
from boyhood and whom, he had once prided himself, should love him, some
day, when he had proved his manhood among the swart men of the East
Coast.
All a dream--a dream. Julie was happy. She would soon marry the great
man at East Main, while in a few days Jean Marcel was going to snuff
out--smoulder a while, as a fire from lack of wood, dying by inches--by
inches; and then two shots.
Poor Fleur! It had all come to pass because he had dared to follow and
bring her home--had had no time to cache fish and game in the fall. She
would have been better off with the half-breeds on the Rupert, where the
caribou had gone. They would have kicked her, but fed her too. Yes, she
would have been better there. Now he would take her with him, his own
dog, when the time came. No more starvation for her, and a death in the
barrens when she met the white wolves. Yes, he would take her with him.
So rambled the thoughts of Jean Marcel, as he lay with his dog facing
the creeping death his rifle would cheat, until kindly sleep brought him
surcease--sleep, followed by dreams of the wide barrens trampled by
herds of the returning caribou, of juicy steaks sizzling over the fire,
while Fleur gnawed contentedly at huge thigh bones.