THE SLAVES WITHOUT A MASTER
When the three mourners landed again on their own side of the river,
Jimmy and Mary-Lou looked at Loseis at a loss. What to do next?
Rousing herself, Loseis said wearily: “Jimmy, you must fix up the
counter in the store. Fix it with split poles until we can make some
plank. Mary-Lou, fetch a hatchet and come with me.”
On the river shore some hundred yards downstream, hidden by a clump of
willows in case Jimmy Moosenose should be inclined to spy on what they
were doing, Mary-Lou under Loseis’ instructions built a tiny raft out of
dead branches. To the raft Loseis fixed a little pole to the top of
which she tied a streamer of black. She launched the raft on the
current, and with big, childish eyes watched it float around the bend.
“I am not sending for Conacher to come to me,” she said haughtily to
Mary-Lou. “But when a white man dies it is customary to let men
know. . . . To-night I will push off another one. One or the other he
will see.”
Within an hour the Slavis returned as mysteriously as they had departed.
They must have had an outlook posted to report upon the burial of
Blackburn. To Loseis their actions seemed perfectly senseless; for Jimmy
had said it was the spirit of Blackburn that they dreaded, yet as soon
as his body was hidden underground their fears departed. They set up the
tepees in their former places, and went about their usual occupations as
if nothing had happened. Loseis’ breast burned with anger; and she
wanted to go down and give them a piece of her mind. However, Jimmy
dissuaded her.
“No good! No good!” he said. “It is over now. They not understand white
man’s ways.”
There was a sharp ring of anxiety in his voice that caused Loseis to
stare in haughty surprise. She thoroughly despised the Slavis. However,
she said nothing. She and Mary-Lou went off to their house to sleep.
Down on the flat it was the women who were erecting the tepee poles, and
drawing the covers over them. They no longer used skins for this
purpose, Blackburn having persuaded them of the superior advantages of
the canvas that he sold. In the same way the whole tribe had learned to
wear white men’s clothes out of the store. While the women worked, the
men sat in groups smoking and talking in that queer clicking tongue that
few white men have ever mastered. Their talk was light and punctuated
with laughter; but it was clear from their uneasy glances towards the
white man’s buildings that they were not speaking their hearts. As a
matter of fact the Indians are quite as adept in insincere small talk as
their white brethren.
From time immemorial the Slavis have been known as a small, weak people;
and this particular branch, cut off from their fellows on the distant
shores of Blackburn’s River had further degenerated as a result of too
close inter-marriage. They were a weedy lot, and like all weak peoples,
shifty-eyed. As is always the case, the men showed up worse; hollow
chests and spindle shanks were the rule; the whole tribe could not
produce one stalwart, handsome youth. But they were not
poverty-stricken. They all wore good clothes, and lived in new,
weather-proof tepees. They hunted the best fur country in all the North,
and for twenty years Blackburn had jealously guarded it for them.
From where they sat Jimmy Moosenose could be seen splitting poles in
front of the store, and carrying them in. Without appearing to, the men
were all watching him. The groups of talkers fell silent. They could not
meet each other’s eyes. A curious look of dread flickered in their
faces; that which had directed the whole course of their lives for so
many years had been suddenly removed, and they were all at a stand.
By twos and threes they began to drift up the grassy rise, their vacant
eyes drifting this way and that. There was something peculiarly ominous
about their purposelessness, their lack of direction. They squatted down
on their hunkers, making a rough semi-circle about Jimmy. They no longer
spoke among themselves, nor did any volunteer to help Jimmy; they simply
squatted and stared at him with their unwinking animal-like eyes. Jimmy
affected to take no notice of them; but his forehead became moist with a
sudden fear. He was reminded that he was of alien blood to these people,
and that they were thirty to his one. And there were five times that
number more in their summer camp at Blackburn’s Lake.
At length the silence, the unwinking stares became more than Jimmy could
bear. “Where is Etzooah?” he asked, affecting indifference.
Etzooah was one whom Jimmy suspected of being a trouble maker. He was a
bigger man than the others; and was said to have Cree blood. More than
once in the past his sharpness had displeased Blackburn, who, however,
tolerated him because he was the best hunter in the tribe.
“Etzooah gone to the lake to see a girl,” said one.
From the way the others grinned it was clear this was a lie. Jimmy was
much troubled that they grinned openly in his face. Had Blackburn been
in the store behind him they would never have done that. Jimmy glanced
desirously in the direction of the Women’s House, and his watchers
marked that glance.
One said, affecting the stupid look of a crafty schoolboy: “Are you the
trader now?”
“No,” said Jimmy, “Loseis is the mistress here.”
The ugly little men bared their blackened teeth; and a squall of
laughter rocked them on their heels. There was no true merriment in the
sound. It ended as suddenly as it began. It struck an icy fear into
Jimmy’s breast. He was all alone; all alone.
“Go back to your lodges!” he said, drawing himself up, and imitating the
voice of Blackburn.
They neither moved nor spoke; but squatted there staring at him.
He dared not repeat the order. Shouldering his poles, he started into
the store. Of one accord the Slavis rose, and came pushing through the
door after him. Flinging down his poles, Jimmy spread out his arms to
bar their way.
“Get out!” he cried. “There is no trading to-day.”
Keeping their eyes fixed on his, they continued to push in. They walked
right into Jimmy, forcing him back. What was he to do? His instinct told
him that the moment he showed fight it would be all up with him. He
picked up one of his poles and started to nail it into place, grumbling
to himself, and making believe to ignore them.
They stood about the store watching him with affected sleepiness through
half-closed eyes. One of them, keeping his eyes fixed on Jimmy, thrust a
hand into an opened box and pulled it out full of dried apricots. All
the instincts of thirty years of trading were outraged by this act, and
Jimmy forgot his fears.
“Put it back!” he cried, brandishing the hammer. “Get out, you thieves!
You half-men, you dirty slaves!”
None moved, nor changed a muscle of his face. The man with the apricots
held them in his hand, waiting to see what Jimmy would _do_. What he
said was nothing to them. He might as well have been storming at the
wind. Finally, half beside himself with rage, Jimmy ran to the back of
the store where the guns were kept.
Instantly the little men sprang into noiseless activity. One picked up a
short length of pole, and darting after Jimmy on soft pads like a lynx,
hit him over the head with it, before he could turn. In a flash they
were all about him, their dark faces fixed in hideous grins, each trying
to strike. They used tinned goods for weapons; one secured the hammer;
one snatched up a heavy steel trap which he held poised aloft waiting
for Jimmy’s head to appear. The whole mass swayed from this side to
that, toppling over the goods on either side. Jimmy went down, and they
had to bend over to hit him. They were as voiceless as squirming
insects. There was no sound but the sickening blows that fell.
When they finally drew back a shapeless huddle was revealed, lying in
blood. Panic overtook the feather-headed Slavis, and they ran out of the
store to look anxiously in the direction of the Women’s House. Nothing
stirred there. They returned inside the store. They did not consult
together, but appeared to act as instinctively as animals. There was a
window at the back of the store. They pried it out frame and all, and
hastily shoved the broken body through the hole, careless of where it
fell. The instant it was out of sight they forgot about it, nor did they
trouble to put the window back.
Alone in the store, the Slavis betrayed a curious timidity. It seemed as
if the ghost of Hector Blackburn restrained them still. They overran the
place like ants, peering into everything, stroking the objects that they
desired, but forbearing as yet to pick them up. At intervals panic
seized them, and they swept in a cloud to the door to look over towards
the Women’s House. Some of the Slavi women and children had been
attracted from the tepees. These never ventured through the doors, but
hung about outside, expressing no concern one way or the other; merely
waiting to see how it all turned out.
At length one man ventured to eat of the dried apricots; another split
the top of a can of peaches with a hatchet; and instantly looting became
general. Boxes were smashed, and bags ripped open, pouring their
precious contents on the floor. Food in the North is not to be lightly
wasted. Articles of clothing were the chief prizes; the only way to
secure them was to put them on, one on top of another. Sometimes two
pulled at the same garment, snarling at each other. But they never
fought singly. They were dangerous only in the mass.
In the middle of this scene suddenly appeared Loseis, her black eyes
blazing. A terrified Mary-Lou cringed at her heels. Every Indian in the
store, dropping what he was about, instantly became as immobile and
watchful as a surprised animal. Loseis glared about her speechless. She
was as much aghast as she was angry, for such a scene was beyond
anything she had ever conceived of. But she was not afraid. She turned
to the door.
“Jimmy! Jimmy!” she called peremptorily.
She waited in vain for an answer.
“Where is Jimmy?” she demanded haughtily.
None answered her.
She dispatched Mary-Lou in search of him.
The situation was beyond words. Loseis’ eyes darted silent lightnings at
one man after another. The scattered Slavis slyly edged together. No
single pair of eyes could meet hers, but she could not cow more than one
man at a time; and the bright, inhuman eyes of the others remained fixed
on her face.
Finally with a magnificent gesture Loseis pointed to the door. “Get
out!” she said.
No man moved.
That was a terrible moment for the high-spirited girl. A look of
astonishment appeared in her eyes. Suddenly her face crimsoned with
rage; she flew at the nearest man, and started pommeling him with her
little fists. The man ducked under her blows, and sought to evade her.
He pulled another man in front of him; whereupon Loseis transferred her
blows to this one. All the others looked on with faces like masks. And
so it went. The mysterious prestige of the white blood sanctified her,
and they dared not strike back; they resisted her with that senseless
animal obstinacy that drives masters mad with rage. They were satisfied
to let her pommel them, knowing that she must tire of it in the end. And
what then? It was like fighting a cloud of flies. They would not be
driven out of the store. When one was driven out, as soon as Loseis went
for another, he returned.
She drew off at last. In that moment she knew the unspeakable agony of
an imperious will that finds itself balked. She nearly died of her rage.
But she faced it out. She admitted to herself that she was balked. The
last two days had matured her. Fortunately for her, under all the
passion and wilfulness of her nature there was a solid substratum of
commonsense. Commonsense warned her that it would be fatal to make the
least move in the direction of the guns at the back of the store. She
could not force the senseless savages to obey her; well, commonsense
suggested that she use guile. Loseis had an inspiration.
Just inside the door of the store, behind a rough screen of wood,
Blackburn had a little desk with a cover that lifted up. Loseis went to
it, and took out a sizable book stoutly bound in gray linen and red
leather. Every Slavi knew that book. It was Blackburn’s ledger. Loseis
appeared around the screen carrying the ledger; and up-ending a box
beside the door, sat herself upon it with the book spread on her knees.
“You wish to trade?” she said to the men at large. “It is good. Take
what you want. I will put it down in the book.”
The eyes of the Slavis bolted; and they moved uneasily. The spell of
their strangeness was broken. To their simple minds there was magic in
those scratches by which white men’s thoughts might be conveyed to any
distance that they chose; or stored up in a book to be brought out years
afterwards unchanged. In particular, Blackburn’s ledger had always been
held in superstitious awe as the source of his “strong medicine.”
Loseis looked at the man nearest her, and thumbed the pages of the book.
“Mahtsonza,” she said; “a Stetson hat; two skins. A Mackinaw coat; five
skins. Wah! you have two coats? Ten skins!”
Mahtsonza began to slide out of his stolen clothing.
Loseis turned to the next. “Ahchoogah; a bag of rice; one skin. The bag
is spoiled, and you must pay for all. You can carry it away.”
There was a sudden rush for the door; but Loseis, springing up, barred
the way. “I have all your names,” she cried. “Whatever is taken or
spoiled will be written down, and all must pay a share!”
Then she stood aside and let them slink by, a ridiculously crestfallen
crowd of little bravoes.
For the moment Loseis had won—but at no small cost. The instant they
were out, the reaction set in. All the strength seemed to run out of her
limbs; she sank down on the box covering her face with her hands. The
fact of her appalling solitariness was made clear to her. She dared not
look into the future.
Presently Mary-Lou came back. “No can find Jimmy,” she said. “Nobody see
him.”
Proceeding to the rear of the store to survey the damage, the two girls
came upon the wet, dark stain spreading over the floor. The instant she
saw it, Loseis knew what had happened and went very still; but Mary-Lou
cried out: “Look, the window is out!” and must needs stick her head
through the hole to look.
A piercing shriek broke from the red girl; she fell back half witless
with terror into Loseis’s arms.