The Last of the Moving Shadow
McLagan was nursing his team. For once his driving speed was
moderated. But then he knew the call he had yet to make upon his
ponies. They had already made the journey from Beacon to the
coastal harbour, which, one day, in his dreams, he visualized as a
flourishing seaport, the rail base of a fresh route to the great
interior radiating about Beacon Glory. Miles away to the West
lay the port of Seward where the Government railroad, cutting in
to the heart of Alaska, began its hopelessly unprofitable career
towards Fairbanks. But no thought of such a failure attached to the
railroad in his mind. Oil and coal would preclude all possibility
of that. Furthermore the vast capital of his Corporation lay behind
him. And lack of capital was the thing which had so far made a
failure of the Alaskan peninsula which had at one time been known
as “Seward’s Folly.”
Now he was leaving the coast behind again, and beside him, on the
spring seat of his buckboard, was the bronzed creature he had come
in search of. The man’s baggage was enduring the violent joltings
of the trail on the rack behind them as the two men talked of the
thing which had at last brought them together again.
“It sort of seems like yesterday I was in Beacon,” Len Stern said
after awhile, gazing out over the broken hill country through
which they were driving. “Say, I mind the landmarks as if I’d never
quit. You know, for all it’s a tough proposition it’s my home
country in a way. I don’t mean I was born here. No! I’d hate to
think that. But--Gee! I was glad quitting Perth. Man, I’ve had heat
enough to make a feller need blankets in hell.”
There was a smile in the dark eyes of the man who had journeyed
thousands of miles to answer the call which the other had sent out
on the sound waves. Perhaps his answer had been the more ready for
the fact of those memories stirring now.
McLagan shook up his ponies.
“Well, we could do with some of it around this territory in winter,
Len. But it’s a queer sort of ‘come-back’ for you. Maybe it’s
tough. I don’t know how you’re fixed. We haven’t had a deal of time
to talk that sort of stuff. But I fetched you along, and I want
to say right here, if it makes things better for you, you’re my
guest all the way from Perth to here and back again, if you want
to go. I want to tell you I’ve hit a trail that’s likely going to
set your eyes wide, and make you guess you’re dreaming. But you
won’t be dreaming. No. You’ll be wide awake looking on some of the
worst dirt lying back of human nature. I’m taking you right out now
to get a look at the _Imperial_, the ship your poor dead partner
sailed for home in, and never reached. She blew in on this coast
without a soul on board, and with her name changed. And with----
But we’ll leave it that way till you’ve set your two eyes on to
her. And meanwhile you can hand me some stuff I’m yearning to hear
about. After we’re through with this trip there’ll be some more for
us to do. But that can wait. Then I’ll run you right into Beacon
where maybe you’ll be glad to hand the story of things to a lone
mother, and the sister who’s still mourning a dead brother.”
The dark face of the man from Australia was turned on his
companion. McLagan had always been a dominant personality to him
in the old days. It was the same still. His eyes were questioning,
but he remained silent. Now that he knew this old friend was at the
other end of the thing that had called him back to Alaska he was
content to await developments. And McLagan went on in that direct
fashion which was so characteristic of him.
“Before I get your yarn I fancy handing you mine. You see, the
obligation’s all on me. I’m marrying Jim’s sister this fall, and
maybe that’s partly where I come in on your play. But it isn’t
all. No. This thing had got me before I knew about that. Jim was
always a friend of mine, as you know, and when I learned his ship
had gone down, and he’d been drowned it hit me for myself as well
as for Claire and his mother. Then when this ship blew in, and I
located that it was the _Imperial_, and she hadn’t gone down in
mid-ocean, it took me guessing hard. Now the thing I want of you is
identification. It was you who chartered the vessel, I guess, and
you’ll know it again. And maybe you’ll know the skipper again--if
you were to see him. That’s what I want of you. I’m reckoning Jim
was aboard that ship with a big wad of dust. I’m reckoning the
skipper feller knew about the dust and yearned for it so that
murder looked good to him.”
Len Stern’s eyes were on the sturdy backs of the ponies. They were
hard, relentless, as they contemplated the sweating brown coats
where the trail dust lay caked upon them.
“He sailed with more that haf a million dollars of dust,” he
said quickly. “And the plan was he’d trade it where he could,
touching in at ports where best it could be done, without too many
questions. Julian Caspar was the shipmaster and owner, and he stood
on a swell commission. He surely knew of the stuff.”
McLagan nodded, and drew his team down to a walk as they mounted a
sharp incline towards a wide, windswept plateau.
“So, feeling that way, murder might well look good to him?” he said.
“Yes. Feeling that way. And Jim not guessing.”
“What like was this boy, Caspar?”
“All sorts of a hard seaman.”
Len sniffed at the fresh fall breeze which seemed so good to him,
as the buckboard cleared the incline on to the plateau. An immense
view opened out. It was a broad, treeless expanse with a wide front
of purple hills in the distance.
“Say,” he went on after a moment, “I made the deal with him. I
collected him in Perth. And I’d say he was a boy to fix himself
right on to a man’s memory. He was quite a chunk of a man, broad,
and strong and medium in height. He was clean-shaven and rough. But
the thing standing out in my mind was his eyes----”
“Ah!”
Len looked round sharply.
“Have you seen ’em?” he asked.
“Maybe.” McLagan nodded. “Blue. Pale, queer blue, like the eyes of
some sort of dead fish.”
“That’s the boy. Ther’ ain’t two pairs of eyes like his in the
world. You surely have seen ’em.”
“Yep. I guess I must have seen ’em.”
McLagan whipped up his ponies and set out across the plateau at a
steady gait.
“Now, Len,” he went on, “we got twenty good miles to make before we
reach my shanty. And we can do a heap of talk between this and that
lay out. It don’t seem to me that we can do better than hand each
other our two yarns. Maybe you’ll be glad to hand me all you can of
the things that happened after you quit here with Jim, till you got
along now. Then I’ll hand you the whole story I know. But before
you begin I want to say one thing. It’s this. That half a million
of dust, or the bulk of it, is coming right back to you as the one
partner left. It’s lying now where no harm’s likely to come to it.
Jim’s gone. There’s no guess to that. So the stuff’s yours. And
that’s just between you and me. You understand? Claire don’t need
any. Nor Jim’s mother. Those folks are my care. Now you can start
right in with your talk.”
* * * * *
The two men climbed out of the lazaret. They had explored the wreck
from end to end. Now they passed out of the alleyway under the
break of the vessel’s poop, and came to the main hatch. McLagan
seated himself upon it and beckoned his companion to a seat beside
him. Curiously enough the seat he invited Len Stern to was the
exact spot where once Sasa Mannik had seated himself, and from
which he had ultimately fled in terror.
Len sprawled himself upon the hatch which was lying over at the
sharp angle of the vessel’s perilous list. And his attitude left
him in full view of the litter of the deck which had resulted from
the half-breed’s raids upon the vessel’s gear.
There was a tremendous change for the worse in the wreck. More
than two months of every condition of weather had made desperate
inroads. The vessel’s whole position had been detrimentally
shifted. The seas, playing on the broken hull at high tide, had
wrought havoc, and she looked to be only hanging together awaiting
the final belabourings which would ultimately complete the work
of her destruction. Every removable article of her gear that had
appealed to the predatory instincts of Sasa Mannik had been carried
away. And she looked now just what she was, a poor tattered thing
awaiting her dismal end.
McLagan was scarcely concerned for the change in her. There was
no sentiment about him in the matter of this ugly relic of a bad
story. He would be glad enough to see the last of her--now. She had
lasted sufficiently long for him to complete the work he had set
his hand to. No. The oil man was concerned for other things. And
now, as he sat beside his companion on the hatch, his searching
gaze was turned skywards.
At the moment no sun was visible. But then the sky was full of
loose cloud that came and passed under a high top wind. Just now a
heavy cloud had obscured the sun. It would pass. It was passing.
And then--
“It’s all like yesterday to me,” Len Stern said, as he gazed out
over the litter. “You see, Mac,” he went on, with a comprehensive
movement of the arm, “I lived with all this days coming up the
coast from Perth. This is Caspar’s ship all right, all right. It
was more than half crewed by Chinks. I wonder what’s become of ’em.
There were two officers, and a third that was a promoted seaman.
I doubt any of ’em having officers’ tickets. I’m surely wondering
about them. Say, in that cabin there was only a meal for one.”
His dark face frowned in concentrated thought. After a moment he
went on again.
“Those two empty chests in the lazaret are the chests our bags
of dust were stowed in. Jim and I, and Caspar stowed ’em there
ourselves. Ther’ wasn’t a soul else wise to them. No. That was our
play. We couldn’t afford to take chances with a crew of Chinks. I
wonder. But the motor launches are gone. Both of ’em. They cost me
a pile in Perth. They were sea-going craft for Jim and Caspar to
use in making their trade. You see, they could be run without any
of the crew. We meant leaving those darn toughs without a guess.”
“I see.” McLagan’s eyes were full of thought as they watched the
slowly passing cloud. “You had two launches? I’d wondered. You see
the lifeboats had been left intact. I didn’t guess there was a
second.”
“You located one?”
Len’s question came alertly.
“Yes. Where were they stowed?”
“On the poop-deck. They were kept aft for convenience and safety.”
“I see.”
Len stirred and sat up.
“Tell me, Mac. You reckon sure Caspar murdered Jim?”
“Sure.”
“What about the--crew?”
McLagan shrugged.
“We’re going to get that--later. I’d say anything might have
happened them. Maybe they were reckoned in his murder schedule.
Maybe they were glad to get away easy in the second launch. But
we’ll locate all that--later.”
There was a curious grimness in McLagan’s emphasis on his final
word. And he glanced quickly up at the sadly drooping yards as they
creaked under a puff of stirring wind. The cloud bank had nearly
passed, and the prevailing gloom was steadily lightening.
“I don’t just get how you located he’d murdered Jim,” Len went on
curiously. “Was it sort of circumstances? He knew of the gold.
You’ve seen Caspar and know the sort of tough he is. You’ve located
the gold. Maybe there’s more back of your mind than you’ve told.”
McLagan shook his head. Then he flung out a hand pointing down
the deck. The sun had broken out, and the wreck was bathed in its
generous light.
“No, boy,” he said. “Look right down the deck there. You’re asking
the way I know Jim was murdered by Caspar. It’s there for you to
see, and I was waiting on it. Am I crazy? Are we all crazy? Is that
real or imagination? What is it, anyway? There’s Jim, right there.
That queer fool shadow that’s trying its best to walk along towards
us and don’t ever get nearer. That’s Jim. I’ve seen him before,
and I wanted you to see him only I wasn’t sure the sun would shine
right. You see that poor darn thing only haunts this deck when the
sun shines. See, boy. You can see it? Eh? It’s a queer shadow.
It’s the outline of a big man as plain as the eye can see. And it
throws another shadow right on the deck. Am I wrong? No. I’m not
wrong. Could you mistake that big, tall body and gait, you, who’ve
worked alongside Jim Carver? No. Jim was done right up on that
spot. Maybe folks ’ud guess it’s a crazy notion. But it’s so. I’m
dead sure. And now you’ve seen it you’ll be dead sure, too. Say,
get a good look and we’ll get back up to my shanty and eat. And
tomorrow we’re beating it right up into the hills where--Come on,
boy.”
But Len Stern was in no hurry to quit. His dark eyes were held
fascinated by the queer shadow. Could he see it? Of course he
could; it was there plain enough for anybody to see. There was no
question in his mind. The thing was what McLagan had said it was.
There could be no mistaking it. He was without any superstitious
qualm. There was wonder, amazement in his eyes, but none of the
panic which the vision had inspired in others. So he sat there
fascinated. That was all. And McLagan was forced to urge him again.
* * * * *
It was a little backwater hidden in a rift in the granite hills.
Its mouth opening on to the waters of the Lias River was a ten
foot split in the sheer face of bald rock. But inside it was quite
different. Within a few yards of the absurd opening it widened
abruptly, with sloping, funnel-like sides that were graciously
clad by a wealth of spruce growing up the hillsides, and staunchly
protected from the devastating winds above. It was a remote, stuffy
spot, humid and dank, and a tangle of undergrowth profusely crowded
the water’s edge.
How far the widening stream ran back would have been difficult to
determine. Maybe it was one of the many little hill streams which
went to feed the great river at the time when the Spring warmth
transformed the winter snows. Again it might easily have been one
of those tiny recesses which have no other meaning than the impulse
of Nature in the remote years of the world’s birth. Almost on the
instant of entry upon the widening water the ultimate was obscured
by the jutting of a hill slope. The course of the water swung away
round a sharp bend, lost amidst the flourishing vegetation that
looked to make its navigation impossible.
Cy Liskard was standing on the bank at the water’s edge. It was at
a place where the undergrowth had been laboriously cleared. The
ground was a-litter with fresh stumps where the cut had been made,
and young shoots of new growth were already seeking to repair the
human damage inflicted.
His boat was lying in the water at his feet. It was moored fast to
a tree stump. It was laden with his outfit for a prolonged journey.
But the man was gazing about him with a queer look in his pale
blue eyes. It was a look of puzzlement, of incredulous and angry
surprise. It was the look of a man whose mind has become well-nigh
paralysed by the realisation of a disaster of appalling nature.
He gazed out over the water searching stupidly in the depths of
the crowding vegetation. His gaze wandered to the outline of the
jutting hill which hid the beyond. It turned back to the opening on
to the river in the same hopeless fashion. Then it came again to
the narrow landing upon which he was standing.
At last he bestirred himself. He moved back to higher ground and
sat down on a boulder. And his eyes were turned upon the soft soil
in which his own feet had made such deep impressions. He followed
his own footprints to where he had first stepped ashore from his
boat, and quickly realised that there were other footprints. Many
others. A perfect maze of them.
He drew a deep breath. It was the first sign he had given beyond
the curious expression of his usually expressionless eyes. He was
staring at a deeply driven stake within a yard of the water’s
edge. A hemp rope was lashed about it. It was securely knotted in
a fashion he knew by heart. But the rope had been severed, and its
end lay close by on the ground. The thing that it had held had
gone. Vanished. And he knew now that others had found this remote
spot, others had ventured up that narrow rift in the rocks. Others
had located the hiding place which had served him for so long.
Who? Who were those others? And the mind behind his queer eyes was
searching the possibilities of the thing that had happened.
He remained seated for minutes that were rapidly prolonged. It was
more than half an hour before he again bestirred himself. And in
that half hour he had searched every avenue of explanation that
presented itself to him.
He came down to the water’s edge again. He deliberately cast off
the moorings of his canoe and took his place at the paddle. Then he
headed the sturdy vessel inland and vanished round the bend.
* * * * *
The day was well advanced when Cy Liskard reappeared on the highway
of the Lias, and turned the nose of his vessel towards the sea.
For an hour he paddled feverishly at a speed that flung even the
ebbing tide high against the bows of his little craft.
His destination was definite in his mind. It was a picture that
now loomed full of foreboding since the thing he had discovered in
his long concealed hiding place. He came to the rockbound landing
he knew by heart. He swung his boat out. Then with all the power
of his body he struggled with the tide race. Slowly, foot by foot,
he gained way. The sturdy vessel nosed into the stream making
tremendous leeway. But finally his efforts were rewarded. He drove
up to the landing and leapt ashore.
* * * * *
The man had vanished within the narrow entrance to the cavern that
lay back in the granite wall of the cliffs. His boat was moored
fore and aft to the familiar boulders. The tide race held the
moorings taut and wearing upon the harsh surface of the stones. But
the little vessel was secure. Soon the last of the ebb would have
spent itself, and the period of dead water would relieve the strain.
It was a silent world which the presence of the boat made no
impression upon. The air was alive with circling sea-fowl
whose mournful note only served to increase the sense of utter
loneliness. Grey and bleak the wide expanse of the river mouth
looked to be the very gate of Desolation.
An hour had passed since Cy Liskard’s landing. And in that time
the sky had changed its aspect from the brilliant light of early
fall to the grey overcast which the coming flood was bringing up
with it. A ruffle of wind stirred. It came chill and keen off the
far ocean, and a few driven raindrops splashed on the bosom of the
waters. It was a passing phase. It was that queer atmospheric
effort which so much suggests that in every changing of her mood
Nature knows the pangs of labour.
Of a sudden the man re-appeared. He came hastily. He came almost as
though he were reeling under a physical shock. His soulless eyes
were strangely alight. They were frigidly ablaze with a light that
transformed them into a furious expression of the mind behind them.
His weather-stained face was almost ghastly in its sickly hue. The
lines about his mouth were grimly drawn. He was breathing hard,
and the great hands that swung at his sides were clenched with the
force of a man about to strike.
At the cavern entrance he paused with an abruptness that was almost
a lurch. He turned and gazed into the shadowed vault behind him.
Then, of a sudden, he raised this clenched fists above his head
in a terrible gesture of impotent threat. Then they came slowly,
slowly to his sides again. And in a moment he started towards his
boat.