THE BEAUTY OF THE NIGHT
There was nothing phenomenal, fantastic, or sensational in the methods
of police work adopted by Sergeant Stanley Fyles.
He was one of those, who in moments of expansiveness, admitted that
police work in the world of the Northwest had little of the jig-saw
puzzle about it, but much of the bricklayer’s craft. He insisted on
the necessity of choosing the bricks of evidence with the utmost
discrimination and appreciation of values; the mortar of common sense,
he believed, required real skill in application; then the officer must
certainly have the nerve for feats of strenuous physical effort and a
deadly eye for alignment in emergency.
Given these things, and an imagination kept well under control, the
process of establishing a civilization, where only wilderness had
existed since the world began, became a natural corollary.
But with all his clear-sightedness, and the calm pose of his logical
mind, there was one necessity in Stanley Fyles’ calling that he quite
failed to appreciate. Being a man of very distinct personality himself,
he utterly failed to recognize how heavily that weighed in the balance
of his success. It never for a moment occurred to him that his own
individuality could be the asset which made the mention of his name a
matter to inspire the gravest apprehension even in the most hardened
among the outlaws of the hills and plains.
It was unquestionably so, however. And as the sergeant sat astride his
favorite trooper, a rawboned, mud-brown broncho mare, with the double
bobsleigh and team that was carrying his scanty outfit on its way to
Buffalo Coulee behind him, with his watchful eyes peering out over the
moonlit snow from between the folds of his storm collar, there could be
little question as to the personality he radiated.
There was something Napoleonic in the manner of the little procession.
Fyles rode clear ahead over the well-defined snow trail. He was a
sturdy, dark, muffled figure.
There was no sound of hoof beats on the snow, and there was no jangle
of sleigh bells to betray. It was a ghostly, significant procession.
Fyles intended to descend upon Buffalo Coulee without herald of any
sort. He had determined to reach the police quarters under cover of
night, and, with the empty sleigh already on its way back to Calford,
find himself an established fact in the life of the township by the
time the morrow’s sun rose.
As yet his bricks of evidence were few, and so far their quality had
not seriously impressed him. But he saw the advantage of his plan
very clearly and was satisfied with it. No word had leaked out of
his going, and so swift had been the reaction from Calford to the
information received that he felt reasonably confident that the
slumbers of Buffalo Coulee would remain undisturbed, and the town’s
ordinary peace of mind would endure until sunup.
But like all men of simple wisdom Fyles’ optimism was carefully
bounded. He knew only too well the value of leaving a wide margin
for the unexpected in his calculations. He saw a more than usually
interesting problem ahead of him, and he was approaching it with an
open mind.
The night was profoundly still. It was one of those clear, perfect
winter nights which should receive greater appreciation than is usually
the case. Stanley Fyles owed it no grudge. Although the depths below
zero were biting into the marrow of his bones, although at the moment
the roar of a blazing wood stove suggested the most comforting thing
in life to him, he could still appreciate the calm beauty of radiant
moonlight on the snow, and the pall of black velvet, studded with a
million gleaming jewels, which overhung the world to which his life was
dedicated.
It was all a little wonderful, that limitless white world. In only one
direction lay any variation. That was ahead of him. Far away on the
twilit skyline a sharp, dark line was drawn right across his path. How
far on it was, Fyles could only roughly estimate. Something less than
ten miles would bring him to the wood-lined banks of Buffalo Coulee.
Fyles’ mare required neither check nor urging, and certainly no
guidance. The deep snow trail was under her feet. And outside it
depths of snow in which she had no desire to flounder. So she would go
on at that easy gait of the prairie broncho that eats up distance so
voraciously.
The journey had been long and the man was drowsy from monotony and
hours spent in the crisp cold air. Furthermore the glare of snow, even
in the moonlight, afforded an overwhelming desire to close his tired
eyes. Again and again they closed. But each time they did so the nod of
his head startled him at once to wakefulness.
Fyles’ mare was breasting an easy incline to the crest of a higher wave
than usual in the roll of prairie undulations. The rise shut out the
dark line which was their goal. In place of it was the sharp cut where
the starry heavens came down to the earth. Fyles awoke as his head
jerked.
He was at the summit of the wave crest. The far distance was in more
pronounced view. For he was gazing down a long slope that was deeper
than usual.
But now he was wider awake than had been the case for more than an
hour. There was no longer any desire to close his eyes. The brain of
the man was keenly searching.
Sharply outlined against the general background of snow ahead, a
horseman was sitting motionless at the trail side. He was there without
shelter. He was there utterly alone in the white waste of winter. Why?
The mud-brown mare flung up her head with a faint whinny of glad
greeting. An answer came back and disposed of all possibility of
illusion.
The mare felt the check of the rein. She halted on the instant. Her
ears were sharply pricked, and her nose was flung up. Presently Fyles
was speaking to the teamster who had driven abreast.
“You’ll wait right here, Arnold,” he ordered. “Don’t move till I get
along back. There’s some boy waiting around for me down there ahead.
Guess he’d best find me.”
* * * * *
The horses were standing nose to nose. They were greeting each other in
silent, equine fashion. Their riders were no less interested in each
other.
The mud-brown mare was hands taller than the other. She dwarfed it
to the diminutive proportions of an Indian cayuse. The wiry little
creature, well-shaped and superbly muscled as it was, became almost
ghostly in contrast. It was piebald. And the great splashes of white,
which was its predominating color, somehow seemed to merge into its
surroundings of snow.
But Stanley Fyles, after one quick glance at the stranger’s general
outfit, had no great interest beyond the face of the rider. The
moonlight was streaming down upon it. It relentlessly searched it in
the recesses of a well-worn buffalo storm collar. And it showed him a
pair of big, coal-black, velvet-soft eyes that shone with a queerly
sullen expression. But it showed him more than that. He was gazing upon
the dusky beauty of a half-breed girl whose youth was unmistakable.
In the brief moments of meeting Fyles’ realization of the girl’s
personality was no swifter than his thought. He understood she was
waiting for him, the messenger from the police to whom she had written.
And he asked himself the meaning of the encounter. Its hour. Its place.
And then there was the sex of the stranger.
He wondered what extent of ugliness there could be back there in
Buffalo Coulee to drive a young and beautiful girl to brave the cold
of the night and a lonesome vigil. And all with a crazy hope of
intercepting him.
“You’re waiting for me?” he inquired. His manner was the brusque tone
of unquestioned authority. “The ‘red-coated gophers’ have a way of
answering quick. What’s back of the letter you wrote?”
Fyles found what he was looking for. He saw the start, the sudden
widening of the black eyes. And he knew his instinct had served him
well.
“Everything!” The girl’s tone was low. “I bin waitin’ for you.”
Fyles forgot the hour, the cold. Even he forgot his teamster.
“Who are you?” he asked shortly.
“Annette Estevan, Pideau’s daughter. Who are you?”
The girl’s retort had a tone in it. Fyles understood. He also noted her
exactness.
“Fyles. Sergeant Fyles from Calford. Why are you here--waiting?”
The final question rapped out.
There was a definite pause before Annette made reply. Her sullen eyes
had lowered. There was movement in her body, too, under its heavy fur
coat. When at last her answer came it was with a rush that intrigued
the officer.
“Because I ken hand you word who shot up Ernie Sinclair. I ken show you
wher’ his body’s lyin’--right now.”
Fyles lost nothing of the girl’s emotion. But her sullenness puzzled
him. What did it indicate? It almost seemed like reluctance. And yet----
The policeman remembered his teamster.
“Just stop right here till I get back,” he said. “I got to pass my
outfit right on to Buffalo Coulee. After that we can talk without folk
around.”
Fyles swung his mare about and loped back to the waiting team. When he
returned to the girl they sat there together beside the trail, and
watched the sleigh pass on its way to the township.
The night swallowed up the retreating vehicle and Annette found herself
alone with the man whose name had never failed to inspire her with
disfavor and even fear. She suddenly felt as though the earth had
opened at her feet and she was staggering at the brink of the chasm.
Her nerve had stood the test of her purpose. It had shown no sign
of weakening at the moment of encounter. The identity of this man,
however, had been curiously terrifying.
She remained silent for so long that initiative was forced upon the
policeman.
“You’d best talk,” he said, forced again to his well-tried challenge.
“How d’you know I wrote that letter?”
“I didn’t.”
“But you said, ‘that letter you wrote’?”
Annette’s eyes were peering a little anxiously in the moonlight.
“It was a woman’s letter. An’ you were waiting--here.”
The girl made no reply, and again Fyles was forced to break the silence.
“It’s too cold for the horses. We’ll ride on. Guess we can talk as well
that way.”
“No. I quit you right away here after we’re through. Ther’s folk in
Buffalo Coulee who don’t sleep a deal.”
Annette gazed out in the direction of the distant township. And as
she gazed the smoulder in her eyes flared up. Deep fires were burning
behind them and memory was feeding them fuel. Generations of savagery
were busy within her. A tangle of fierce emotion was driving. It was as
though all the wayward impishness of her youth had suddenly developed
into a surge of mad desire that was beyond her powers of control. And
yet there was something she neither recognized nor understood, delaying
a tongue that was usually ready.
Fyles refrained from urging. He was watching, watching.
Of a sudden the girl gestured. To the man it was as if she were
thrusting something from her with two passionately impelled hands.
“It’s the Wolf, I tell you!” she cried, with sudden fierceness. “He
shot Ernie Sinclair to death. He’d threatened. And--I know.”
“The Wolf? That’s your brother?”
There was something almost of horror in the policeman’s tone.
“He’s not my brother. He’s no relation to me. None. He’s white like
you. He’s just Pideau’s partner in the liquor.”
“And you--know?”
The girl flashed around at him. Her pony stirred eager for movement to
escape the cold. She checked him savagely.
“Yes, I tell you,” she cried, her eyes flaming in the moonlight. “The
Wolf did it. It’s out ther’.” She pointed with an arm outflung to the
westward. “Right on Spruce Coulee wher’ the hills quit. He brews the
liquor in a cave. It’s all hid up. Sinclair’s ther’. He’s stone dead
an’ froze solid. The Wolf tricked him ther’, an’ shot him to death. An’
he’ll stop right ther’ till the spring thaw. Then the Wolf’ll bury him.
He’ll fix it so ther’ ain’t any tracks. He’s ther’ I tell you--dead. I
know. An’ I ken show you.”
Fyles nodded.
“Sure.”
“Right away--it’ll have to be right away. To-morrow night.”
“Yes--to-morrow night.”
Fyles peered out at the woods where Buffalo Coulee lay. A queer sense
of unreality was taking possession of him.
“Where’s the Wolf now?” he asked.
“Back to home.”
“Can you make a getaway without----?”
A harsh sound which was almost a laugh broke from the girl.
“I said I could show you to-morrow night.”
Fyles knew the half-breeds. No one knew them better. But hardened as he
was to the ways of these people he experienced something of a shock.
And feeling added harshness to his manner.
“The Wolf shot Sinclair,” he said. “You know that. You saw. Tell me;
and don’t lie. Why did you write that letter? Why are you on the trail
waiting for me with the thermometer twenty-five below zero? Sinclair?
Why are you worried a policeman’s been shot up? You--a half-breed. You
got to tell me right now.”
Annette flung out her mitted hands. This time there was no doubt about
the meaning of her gesture. Ungoverned fury was driving her like a
tornado.
“I tell you the Wolf’s no brother to me,” she cried passionately. “He’s
shot up my man, Ernie Sinclair, an’ left his unborn kid without a
father. Now d’you want to know. Now d’you guess I’m lyin’? I know. Oh,
I know you p’lice. You’re mean as hell when you got the pull on folk.
I’m a kid, a woman. I’m a hafbreed. A dirty hafbreed. You want to know
all there is. You want to see it all. See it clear to the bone. Well,
you got it. I’m to have a kid. It’s Sinclair’s kid. One of you p’lice.
An’ I tell you the Wolf’s shot him because that’s so. Is the hafbreed
dirt--lyin’?”
“We’ll know to-morrow night.”
Again came that sound that was almost a laugh.
“Yes. You’ll know to-morrow night.”
“What hour can you make it?”
“After father an’ the Wolf are abed.”
“Right.” Fyles inclined his head. Then he spoke without harshness. But
his eyes were hard and cold. “You need to be smart, Annette. I guess
that won’t worry you. But I don’t want you to take a chance. If the
Wolf shot up Sinclair he’s going to--hang.”
The man’s gaze was on the moonlit distance. He was not looking at the
girl. But even so he was aware of the effect of his announcement. The
little start under the heavy buffalo coat. The sudden widening of those
beautiful black eyes. He saw these things out of the tail of his eye,
and he noted the awe in the whisper that replied to him.
“Hang?”
“Sure. The Wolf’s going to hang--if he shot up Sinclair. That’s what
I’m here for.”
The pinto cayuse bestirred. It threw up its head. Perhaps it was in
reply to the snatch of the girl’s reins.
“I’ll be right along to-morrow night.” Annette’s voice was hard and
cold. “An’ I’ll take no chance.”
The next moment the policeman was alone, gazing after the pinto pony
which quickly lost itself against the snow.
For some thoughtful moments Fyles remained where the girl had left him.
He sat there quite still gazing, gazing at the point where horse and
rider had passed out of view. Then at last he lifted his reins, and the
mud-brown mare eagerly responded. He shook his head.
“It’s too easy. It’s too darned easy.”