A FORETASTE OF HELL
Jessie's eyes flew to West and to Whaley. As yet neither of them had
seen the Blackfoot. She raised a hand and pretended to brush back a
lock of hair.
The Indian recognized it as a signal that she had seen him. His head
disappeared.
Thoughts in the girl's mind raced. If Winthrop Beresford or Tom Morse
had been outside instead of Onistah, she would not have attempted to
give directions. Either of them would have been more competent than
she to work out the problem. But the Blackfoot lacked initiative. He
would do faithfully whatever he was told to do, but any independent
action attempted by him was likely to be indecisive. She could not
conceive of Onistah holding his own against two such men as these
except by slaughtering them from the window before they knew he was
there. He had not in him sufficient dominating ego.
Whaley was an unknown quantity. It was impossible to foresee how he
would accept the intrusion of Onistah. Since he was playing his own
game, the chances are that he would resent it. In West's case there
could be no doubt. If it was necessary to his plans, he would not
hesitate an instant to kill the Indian.
Reluctantly, she made up her mind to send him back to Faraway for
help. He would travel fast. Within five hours at the outside he ought
to be back with her father or Beresford. Surely, with Whaley on her
side, she ought to be safe till then.
She caught sight of Onistah again, his eyes level with the
window-sill. He was waiting for instructions.
Jessie gave them to him straight and plain. She spoke to Whaley, but
for the Blackfoot's ear.
"Bring my father here. At once. I want him. Won't you, please?"
Whaley's blank poker stare focused on her. "The last word I had from
Angus McRae was to keep out of your affairs. I can take a hint without
waiting for a church to fall on me. Get some one else to take your
messages."
"If you're going back to town I thought--perhaps--you'd tell him how
much I need him," she pleaded. "Then he'd come--right away."
Onistah's head vanished. He knew what he had to do and no doubt was
already on the trail. Outside it was dark. She could hear the swirling
of the wind and the beat of sleet against the window-pane. A storm was
rising. She prayed it might not be a blizzard. Weather permitting, her
father should be here by eight or nine o'clock.
West, straddling past, snarled at her. "Get Angus McRae outa yore
head. Him an' you's come to the partin' o' the ways. You're travelin'
with me now. Un'erstand?"
His partner, sneering coldly, offered a suggestion. "If you expect
to travel far you'd better get your webs to hitting snow. This girl
wasn't out looking at the traps all by herself. Her trail leads
straight here. Her friends are probably headed this way right now."
"Tha's right." West stopped in his stride. His slow brain stalled.
"What d' you reckon I better do? If there's only one or two we
might--"
"No," vetoed Whaley. "Nothing like that. Your play is to get out. And
keep getting out when they crowd you. No killing."
"Goddlemighty, I'm a wolf, not a rabbit. If they crowd me, I'll sure
pump lead," the desperado growled. Then, "D' you mean light out
to-night?"
"To-night."
"Where'll I go?"
"Porcupine Creek, I'd say. There's an old cabin there Jacques Perritot
used to live in. The snow'll blot out our tracks."
"You goin' too?"
"I'll see you that far," Whaley answered briefly.
"Better bring down the dogs from the coulée, then."
The gambler looked at him with the cool insolence that characterized
him. "When did I hire out as your flunkey, West?"
The outlaw's head was thrust forward and down. He glared at his
partner, who met this manifestation of anger with hard eyes into which
no expression crept. West was not insane enough to alienate his last
ally. He drew back sullenly.
"All right. I'll go, since you're so particular." As his heavy body
swung round awkwardly, the man's eyes fell on Jessie. She had
lifted one small foot and was starting to pull on one of the duffle
stockings. He stood a moment, gloating over the beautifully shaped
ankle and lower limb, then slouched forward and snatched her up from
the stool into his arms.
His savage, desirous eyes had given her an instant's warning. She was
half up before his arms, massive as young trees, dragged her into his
embrace.
"But before I go I'll have a kiss from my squaw," he roared. "Just to
show her that Bully West has branded her and claims ownership."
She fought, fiercely, desperately, pushing against his rough bearded
face and big barrel chest with all the force in her lithe young body.
She was as a child to him. His triumphant laughter pealed as he
crushed her warm soft trunk against his own and buried her in his
opened coat. With an ungentle hand he forced round the averted head
till the fear-filled eyes met his.
"Kiss yore man," he ordered.
The girl said nothing. She still struggled to escape, using every
ounce of strength she possessed.
The fury of her resistance amused him. He laughed again, throwing back
the heavy bristling jaw in a roar of mirth.
"Yore man--yore master," he amended.
He smothered her with his foul kisses, ravished her lips, her eyes,
the soft hot cheeks, the oval of the chin, and the lovely curve of
the throat. She was physically nauseated when he flung her from him
against the wall and strode from the room with another horrible whoop
of exultation.
She clung to the wall, panting, eyes closed. A shocking sense of
degradation flooded her soul. She felt as though she were drowning in
it, fathoms deep. Her lids fluttered open and she saw the gambler. He
was still sitting on the stool. A mocking, cynical smile was in the
eyes that met Jessie's.
"And Tom Morse--where, oh, where is he?" the man jeered.
A chill shook her. Dry sobs welled up in her throat. She was lost.
For the first time she knew the cold clutch of despair at her heart.
Whaley did not intend to lift a hand for her. He had sat there and let
West work his will.
"Angus McRae gave me instructions aplenty," he explained maliciously.
"I was to keep my hands off you. I was to mind my own business. When
you see him again--if you ever do--will you tell him I did exactly as
he said?"
She did not answer. What was there to say? In the cabin was no sound
except that of her dry, sobbing breath.
Whaley rose and came across the room. He had thrown aside the
gambler's mask of impassivity. His eyes were shining strangely.
"I'm going--now--out into the storm. What about you? If you're here
when West comes back, you know what it means. Make your choice. Will
you go with me or stay with him?"
"You're going home?"
"Yes." His smile was enigmatic. It carried neither warmth nor
conviction.
The man had played his cards well. He had let West give her a
foretaste of the hell in store for her. Anything rather than that, she
thought. And surely Whaley would take her home. He was no outlaw, but
a responsible citizen who must go back to Faraway to live. He had to
face her father and Winthrop Beresford of the Mounted--and Tom Morse.
He would not harm her. He dared not.
But she took one vain precaution. "You promise to take me to my
father. You'll not--be like him." A lift of the head indicated the man
who had just gone out.
"He's a fool. I'm not. That's the difference." He shrugged his
shoulders. "Make your own choice. If you'd rather stay here--"
But she had made it. She was getting hurriedly into her furs and was
putting on her mittens. Already she had adjusted the snowshoes.
"We'd better hurry," she urged. "He might come back."
"It'll be bad luck for him if he does," the gambler said coolly. "You
ready?"
She nodded that she was.
In another moment they were out of the warm room and into the storm.
The wind was coming in whistling gusts, carrying with it a fine sleet
that whipped the face and stung the eyeballs. Before she had been out
in the storm five minutes, Jessie had lost all sense of direction.
Whaley was an expert woodsman. He plunged into the forest, without
hesitation, so surely that she felt he must know where he was going.
The girl followed at his heels, head down against the blast.
Before this day she had not for months taken a long trip on webs. Leg
muscles, called into use without training, were sore and stiff. In the
darkness the soft snow piled up on the shoes. Each step became a drag.
The lacings and straps lacerated her tender flesh till she knew her
duffles were soaked with blood. More than once she dropped back so far
that she lost sight of Whaley. Each time he came back with words of
encouragement and good cheer.
"Not far now," he would promise. "Across a little bog and then camp.
Keep coming."
Once he found her sitting on the snow, her back to a tree.
"You'd better go on alone. I'm done," she told him drearily.
He was not angry at her. Nor did he bully or browbeat.
"Tough sledding," he said gently. "But we're 'most there. Got to keep
going. Can't quit now."
He helped Jessie to her feet and led the way down into a spongy
morass. The brush slapped her face. It caught in the meshes of her
shoes and flung her down. The miry earth, oozing over the edges of the
frames, clogged her feet and clung to them like pitch.
Whaley did his best to help, but when at last she crept up to the
higher ground beyond the bog every muscle ached with fatigue.
They were almost upon it before she saw a log cabin looming out of the
darkness.
She sank on the floor exhausted. Whaley disappeared into the storm
again. Sleepily she wondered where he was going. She must have dozed,
for when her eyes next reported to the brain, there was a brisk fire
of birch bark burning and her companion was dragging broken bits of
dead and down timber into the house.
"Looks like she's getting her back up for a blizzard. Better have
plenty of fuel in," he explained.
"Where are we?" she asked drowsily.
"Cabin on Bull Creek," he answered. "Better get off your footwear."
While she did this her mind woke to activity. Why had he brought her
here? They had no food. How would they live if a blizzard blew up and
snowed them in? And even if they had supplies, how could she live
alone for days with this man in a cabin eight by ten?
As though he guessed what was in her mind, he answered plausibly
enough one of the questions.
"No chance to reach Faraway. Too stormy. It was neck or nothing. Had
to take what we could get."
"What'll we do if--if there's a blizzard?" she asked timidly.
"Sit tight."
"Without food?"
"If it lasts too long, I'll have to wait for a lull and make a try for
Faraway. No use worrying. We can't help what's coming. Got to face the
music."
Her eyes swept the empty cabin. No bed. No table. One home-made
three-legged stool. A battered kettle. It was an uninviting prospect,
even if she had not had to face possible starvation while she was
caged with a stranger who might any minute develop wolfish hunger for
her as he had done only forty-eight hours before.
He did not look at her steadily. His gaze was in the red glow of the
fire a good deal. She talked, and he answered in monosyllables. When
he looked at her, his eyes glowed with the hot red light reflected
from the fire, Live coals seemed to burn in them.
In spite of the heat a little shiver ran down her spine.
Silence became too significant. She was afraid of it. So she talked,
persistently, at times a little hysterically. Her memory was good. If
she liked a piece of poetry, she could learn it by reading it over
a few times. So, in her desperation, she "spoke pieces" to this man
whose face was a gray mask, just as the girls had done at her school
in Winnipeg.
Often, at night camps, she had recited for her father. If she had no
dramatic talent, at least she had a sweet, clear voice, an earnestness
that never ranted, and some native or acquired skill in handling
inflections.
"Do you like Shakespeare?" she asked. "My father's very fond of him.
I know parts of several of the plays. 'Henry V' now. That's good.
There's a bit where he's talking to his soldiers before they fight the
French. Would you like that?"
"Go on," he said gruffly, sultry eyes on the fire.
With a good deal of spirit she flung out the gallant lines. He began
to watch her, vivid, eager, so pathetically anxious to entertain him
with her small stock of wares.
"But, if it be a sin to covet honor,
I am the most offending soul alive."
There was about her a quality very fine and taking. He caught it first
in those two lines, and again when her full young voice swelled to
English Harry's prophecy.
"And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers:
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."
As he watched her, old memories stirred in him. He had come from a
good family in the Western Reserve, where he had rough-and-tumbled up
through the grades into High School. After a year here he had gone
to a Catholic School, Sacred Heart College, and had studied for the
priesthood. He recalled his mother, a gentle, white-haired old lady,
with fond pride in him; his father, who had been the soul of honor. By
some queer chance she had lit on the very lines that he had learned
from the old school reader and recited before an audience the last day
prior to vacation.
He woke from his reveries to discover that she was giving him
Tennyson, that fragment from "Guinevere" when Arthur tells her of the
dream her guilt has tarnished. And as she spoke there stirred in him
the long-forgotten aspirations of his youth.
"... for indeed I knew
Of no more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thought and amiable words
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man."
His eyes were no longer impassive. There was in them, for the moment
at least, a hunted, haggard look. He saw himself as he was, in a blaze
of light that burned down to his very soul.
And he saw her too transformed--not a half-breed, the fair prey of any
man's passion, but a clean, proud, high-spirited white girl who lived
in the spirit as well as the flesh.
"You're tired. Better lie down and sleep," he told her, very gently.
Jessie looked at him, and she knew she was safe. She might sleep
without fear. This man would not harm her any more than Beresford
or Morse would have done. Some chemical change had occurred in his
thoughts that protected her. She did not know what it was, but her
paean of prayer went up to heaven in a little rush of thanksgiving.
She did not voice her gratitude to him. But the look she gave him was
more expressive than words.
Out of the storm a voice raucous and profane came to them faintly.
"Ah, crapaud Wulf, pren' garde. Yeu-oh! (To the right!) Git down to
it, Fox. Sacre demon! Cha! Cha! (To the left!)"
Then the crack of a whip and a volley of oaths.
The two in the cabin looked at each other. One was white to the lips.
The other smiled grimly. It was the gambler that spoke their common
thought.
"Bully West, by all that's holy!"