THE BURIAL OF BLACKBURN
Hector Blackburn’s own room revealed a beautiful austerity fitting to
the chamber of death. It was plastered and ceiled like the room of
Loseis, but the color was a cool stone gray. The few articles of
furniture that it contained had all been constructed in the old style,
carved and polished by the owner himself, who had a taste that way. The
lustrous pelts were more sparingly used here.
The narrow bedstead with its four slender columns had been dragged into
the center of the room. Upon it lay the body of Hector Blackburn clad in
decent black clothes; his big hands crossed on his breast. Beside the
bed knelt Loseis, her rapt gaze fixed on her father’s face. Six feet two
in height, and forty-eight inches around the chest, he made a splendid
figure of death. There was not a white thread to be seen in his
spreading black beard, nor in the plentiful wavy hair of his crown. To
be sure, the high red color was strangely gone out of his transparent
cheeks; and the passionate features were composed into a look of haughty
peace. For sheer manhood, truly a father to be proud of.
Loseis thought of the feats of strength and daring that had made his
name famous throughout the Northwest Territories; how he had strangled a
full grown black bear with his naked hands; how he had leaped from his
canoe at the very brink of the American Falls and had brought safely
ashore an Indian who was clinging to a rock. He had been even more
remarkable for his strength of will. The last of the great free traders,
he had defied the power of the mighty Company, and had prospered
exceedingly. He held his vast territory against all comers, by the power
of his personality alone. Thinking of these things Loseis’ mind was
confused. There lay his still body before her eyes, but what had become
of the wild energy which had lately animated it? Surely, surely that
could not be blown out like a candle flame.
Dragging herself to her feet, she went into the adjoining kitchen. She
had had no opportunity to change her dress, but in an impulse of grief
had torn off the gay embroidery; and now she was all in black like the
corpse. In the kitchen Mary-Lou sat huddled on the floor, with her arms
wrapped around her head. Jimmy Moosenose stood beside the open door,
looking out, a withered, bent little figure, but still capable of
activity. As Loseis entered he said in an expressionless voice:
“They have gone.”
“Who?” asked Loseis sharply.
“The people; all the people.”
She ran to the door. It was true; every tepee was gone from the meadow
below. Except for certain litter abandoned in their haste there was no
sign that a village had ever stood there. The Slavis had taken flight
and vanished like a cloud of insects.
“Where have they gone?” demanded Loseis in astonishment. Though she had
been born amongst them she did not understand this inscrutable, timid,
savage race. It was impossible for any white man to know what went on
inside their cramped skulls, Blackburn used to say. He had ruled them
without making any attempt at understanding.
“Gone up river,” muttered Jimmy.
“For why?”
“They moch scare’.”
“But they are familiar with death. Death comes to all alike.”
Jimmy Moosenose cast an uneasy look towards the room where the dead man
lay. He was near enough akin to the Slavis to share in their fears.
“They think ver’ powerful strong spirit live in Blackburn’s body,” he
muttered. “Now that spirit free they not know what it do to them.”
“Oh, what nonsense!” cried Loseis helplessly.
“What we do now?” asked Jimmy fearfully.
Loseis looked him over. “Are you man enough to ride all night?” she
asked brusquely. “The trail is good.”
“What trail?” asked Jimmy with a terrified face.
“To Fort Good Hope to fetch the parson,” said Loseis in surprise.
“It is ondred-feefty mile,” faltered Jimmy.
“What of it? Two days to go and two to come. You can drive three spare
horses before you. I don’t care if you kill them all.”
“I not man enough for that,” said Jimmy shaking his head.
“Well six days to go and come then. I’d go myself, but I know you two
wouldn’t stay here alone.”
Jimmy’s and Mary-Lou’s frightened faces testified eloquently to that.
Jimmy shook his head. “No good! No good!” he said. “It is summer time
now. He no keep six days.”
Loseis groaned aloud. In her desperate helplessness she looked like a
little girl. “How can I bury him without a parson!” she cried.
“You have the parson’s little book,” said Jimmy. “You can say the
prayers from that. It is just as good.”
Loseis turned her back on them, that they might not see her childish,
twisted face. “Very well,” she said in a strangled voice; “I will be the
parson.”
“What I do now?” asked Jimmy Moosenose.
“First you must make a coffin.”
“There is no planks.”
“Oh, tear down the counter in the store!” cried Loseis with a burst of
irritation. “Must I think of everything?”
“You tell me how big?” asked Jimmy, with another glance of sullen terror
towards the inner room.
“Yes, I will measure,” said Loseis. “And the coffin must be covered all
over with good black cloth from the store. Mary-Lou will put it on with
tacks. And lined with white cloth. While you are making it I will go
across the river, and dig the grave. We will bury him to-morrow.”
“That is well,” said Jimmy with a look of relief. “Then the people come
back.”
“Ah, the people!” cried Loseis with a flash of angry scorn. “They are
well-named Slaves!”
At the end of May in the latitude of Blackburn’s Post it does not become
dark until nearly ten; and it was fully that hour before Loseis, having
completed her task, returned dog-weary, across the river. During the
balance of the night she sat wide-eyed and dry-eyed beside her dead, her
hands in her lap, planning in her childlike and passionate way how best
to conduct everything next day with dignity and honor.
At sun-up Jimmy Moosenose was despatched to the river shore to construct
a raft, the light bark canoes that they possessed not being sufficient
to ferry the coffin across. No flowers were available so early in the
season, and Mary-Lou was set to work to twist a handsome wreath of the
crisp green leaves of the high-bush cranberry. Neither Jimmy nor
Mary-Lou could be induced to enter Blackburn’s room, so Loseis herself
dragged the completed coffin in beside the bed; and she unaided, managed
somehow to lift the body into it. In life Hector Blackburn had weighed
more than two hundred pounds. It was Loseis, too, who nailed the lid on
the coffin with an aim no better than any other woman’s. Those crookedly
driven nails distressed her sorely.
When Jimmy came up from the river, they slipped short lengths of pole
under the coffin, and rolled it to the door. Outside the house, since
there was nothing in the nature of wheels at Blackburn’s Post, they
hitched an old horse directly to the coffin, and dragged it at a slow
pace over the grass down hill to the river. Jimmy led the horse, while
Loseis and Mary-Lou walked behind, steadying the coffin with ropes
affixed to each side. During this part of the journey Loseis was all
child. Every time the coffin [word missing in original] over an
unevenness her heart was in her mouth. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” she cried
involuntarily; and her agonized eyes seemed to add: “My darling! did
that hurt you?”
At the river edge they worked the coffin onto the raft with rollers and
short lengths of plank; and Loseis draped the Post flag upon it, and
placed the green wreath. Jimmy and Mary-Lou propelled the raft across
with long poles, while the slender, black-clad figure of Loseis stood
looking down at the coffin like a symbolical figure of Bereavement. In
her grief-drowned eyes there was a look of piteous pride, too; for the
black coffin with its flag and green wreath looked beautiful.
The smooth brown river moved down in silky eddies; the freshly budded
greens of poplar and willow made the shores lovely, backed by the grave,
unchanging tones of the evergreens. Behind them the low, solid buildings
of the Post crouched on the bench above the river with a sort of human
dignity; before them rose the steep grassy promontory with the waiting
grave on top. Over their heads smiled the Northern summer sky of an
enchanting tenderness of blue that is not revealed to lower latitudes.
Landing upon the further shore they caught another horse—there was no
lack of horses at Blackburn’s Post. In order to drag the coffin up the
rough, steep hill it was necessary to construct a travois of poles to
lift the front end clear of the ground. The horse was fastened between
the poles as between shafts. At the top of the hill Loseis had removed
the palings; and the new grave yawned beside the old one. She had dug
the shallow hole with sloping ends, that the horse might walk right
through, leaving his burden in its place.
The animal was then liberated; and Loseis stood on one side, prayer-book
in hand, with Jimmy Moosenose and Mary-Lou facing her on the other. It
was a meagerly attended burial for the great lord of that country.
Loseis read the noble prayers in a grave voice charged with emotion. The
sound of it caused the tears to run silently down the smooth cheeks of
Mary-Lou; but Jimmy merely looked uncomfortable. The feelings of white
people were strange to him. He had given his master a doglike devotion
while he lived; but he was dead now, and that was an end to it.
“Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of
misery,” read the brave young voice. “He cometh up and is cut down like
a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one
stay. In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for
succour but of Thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?”
When she came to the end of the service, Loseis dropped the book and
involuntarily broke into an extempore prayer, standing with straight
back and lifted face like an Indian, her arms at her sides. Her words
were hardly couched in the same humble strain as those of the book; but
the passionate sincerity of the speaker redeemed them from irreverence.
“O God, this is my father. He was a strong man, God, and you must make
allowances for him. You gave him a proud heart and a terrible anger when
he was crossed, and it would not be fair to judge him like common men.
He could have done anything he wanted here, because he was the master,
but he was always square. Every season he paid the Indians half as much
again for their fur as the Company would pay, and that is why the
Company traders spoke evil of him. He was hard and stern to the Indians,
but that was the only thing they could understand. How else could you
deal with a tribe of slaves? Be merciful to my father, O God! for he
would never ask mercy for himself; and let him see my mother again, for
that was all he wanted. Amen.”
Jimmy Moosenose picked up the spade with a businesslike air, and threw a
clod on the coffin. At the dreadful sound that it gave forth, a sharp
cry broke from Loseis. She wrapped her arms about her head and fled away
down the hill.