The Forfeit of the Alien
All through the summer and early autumn Dave continued his fortnightly
visits to the cabin in the clearing, and always Miranda treated him with
the same cold, casual civility. She felt, or pretended to herself that
she felt, grateful now to the blunt-fingered, wan woman over at Gabe
White’s, who had rudely jostled her back to her senses when she was on
the very edge of giving up her freedom and her personality to a man—a
strong man, who would have absorbed her. She flung herself passionately
once more into the fellowship of the furtive folk, the secrecy and
wonder of the wood. As it was a human love which she was crushing out,
and as she felt the need of humanity cravingly, though not
understandingly, at her heart, she lavished upon Kirstie a
demonstrativeness of affection such as she had never shown before. It
pleased Kirstie, and she met it heartily in her calm, strong way; but
she saw through it, and smiled at the back of her brain, scarcely daring
to think her thought frankly, lest the girl’s intuition should discern
it. She made much of Dave, but never before Miranda; and she kept
encouraging the rather despondent man with the continual assertion:
“It’ll be all right, Dave. Don’t fret, but bide your time.” To which
Dave responded by biding his time with a quiet, unaggressive
persistence; and if he fretted, he took pains not to show it.
If Dave had an ally in Kirstie, he had consistent antagonists in all the
folk of the wood; for never before in all Miranda’s semi-occult
experience had the folk of the wood come so near to her. Kroof was her
almost ceaseless companion, more devoted, if possible, than ever, and
certainly more quick in comprehension of Miranda’s English. And Kroof’s
cub, a particularly fine and well-grown young animal, was well-nigh as
devoted as his mother. When these two were absent on some rare
expedition of their own, undertaken by Kroof for the hardening of the
cub’s muscles, then the very foxes took to following Miranda, close to
heel, like dogs; and one drowsy fall afternoon, when she had lain down
to sleep on a sloping patch of pine needles, the self-same big panther
from whom she had rescued Dave came lazily and lay down beside her. His
large purring at her ear awoke her. He purred still more loudly when she
gently scratched him under the throat. She was filled with a curious
exaltation as she marked how her influence over the wild things grew and
widened. Nothing, she vowed, should ever lure her away from these clear
shades, these silent folks whom she ruled by hand and eye, and this
mysterious life which she alone could know. When Old Dave, for whom she
cared warmly, made his now infrequent visits to the clearing, she had an
inclination to avoid him, lest he should attack her purpose; and the
thought of little Jimmy’s white face and baby mouth she put away
obstinately, as most dangerous of all. And so it came that when October
arrived, and all the forest everywhere was noiselessly astir with
falling leaves, and the light of the blue began to peer in upon the
places which had been closed to it all summer, by that time Miranda felt
quite secure in her resolve; and Dave’s fight now was to keep the
despair of his heart from writing itself large upon his face.
Toward the end of that October Dave’s hunting took him to the rocky open
ground where, in the previous June, he and Miranda had encountered the
lynxes. He was looking for fresh meat for Kirstie, and game, that day,
had kept aloof. Just as he recognized, with a kind of homesick ache of
remembrance, the spot where he and Miranda had seemed, for a brief
space, to be in perfect accord with each other,—how long ago and how
unbelievable it appeared to him now!—his hunter’s eye caught a sight
which brought the rifle to his shoulder. Just at the edge of the open a
young bear stood greedily stripping blueberries from the laden bushes,
and grunting with satisfaction at the sweet repast.
“A bit of bear steak,” thought Dave, “will be jest the thing for
Kirstie. She’s gittin’ a mite tired o’ deer’s meat!”
An unhurried aim, a sharp, slapping report, and the handsome cub sank
forward upon his snout, and rolled over, shot through the brain. Dave
strode up to him. He had died instantly—so instantly and painlessly that
his half-open mouth was still full of berries and small, dark green
leaves. Dave felt his soft and glossy dark coat.
“Ye’re a fine young critter,” he muttered half regretfully. “It was kind
o’ mean to cut ye off when ye was havin’ such a good time all to
yerself.”
But Dave was not one to nurse an idle sentimentality. Without delay he
skinned the carcase, and _cached_ the pelt carefully under a pile of
heavy stones, intending to return for it the first day possible. He was
going to the clearing now, and could not take a raw pelt with him, to
damn him finally in Miranda’s eyes; but the skin was too fine a one to
be left to the foxes and wolverines. When it was safely bestowed, he cut
off the choicest portions of the carcase, wrapped them in leaves and
tied them up in birch bark, slung the package over his shoulder, and set
out in haste for the clearing. He was anxious that Kirstie should have
bear steaks for supper that night.
He had been but a little while gone from the rocky open, where the red
carcase lay hideously affronting the sunlight, when another bear emerged
in leisurely fashion from the shadows. It was an animal of huge size and
with rusty fur that was greying about the snout. She paused to look
around her. On the instant her body stiffened, and then she went
crashing through the blueberry bushes to where that dreadful thing lay
bleeding. She walked around it twice, with her nose in the air, and
again with her nose to the ground. Then she backed away from it slowly
down the slope, her stare fixed upon it as if she expected it might rise
and follow. At the edge of the wood she wheeled quickly, and went at a
savage gallop along the trail which Dave had taken.
It was old Kroof; and Dave had killed her cub.
She rushed on madly, a terrible avenger of blood; but so fast was Dave
journeying that it was not much short of an hour before her instinct or
some keen sense told her that he was close at hand. She was not blinded
by her fury. Rather was she coolly and deliberately set upon a sufficing
vengeance. She moderated her pace, and went softly; and soon she caught
sight of her quarry some way ahead, striding swiftly down the
brown-shadowed vistas.
There was no other bear in all the forests so shrewd as Kroof; and she
knew that for the hunter armed all her tremendous strength and fury were
no match. She waited to catch him at a disadvantage. Her huge bulk kept
the trail as noiselessly as a weasel or a mink. Young Dave, with all his
woodcraft, all his alertness of sense, all his intuition, had no guess
of the dark Nemesis which was so inexorably dogging his stride. He was
in such haste that in spite of the autumn chill his hair clung moistly
to his forehead. When he reached the rivulet flowing away from the cabin
spring, he felt that he must have a wash-up before presenting himself.
Under a big hemlock he dropped his bundle, threw off his cap, his belt,
his shirt, and laid down his loaded rifle. Then, bare to the waist, he
went on some twenty paces to a spot where the stream made a convenient
pool, and knelt down to give himself a thorough freshening.
Kroof’s little eyes gleamed redly. Here was her opportunity.
She crept forward, keeping the trunk of the hemlock between herself and
her foe, till she reached the things which Dave had thrown down under
the tree. She sniffed at the rolled-up package and turned it over with
her paw. Then, with one short, grunting cough of rage and pain, she
launched herself upon the murderer of her cub.
That savage cry was Dave’s first hint of danger. He looked up quickly,
his head and shoulders dripping. He recognized Kroof. There was no time
for choice. The huge animal was just upon him; but in that instant he
understood the whole tragedy. His heart sickened. There was a great
beech tree just across the pool, almost within arm’s length. With one
bound he reached it. With the next he caught a branch and swung himself
up, just eluding the vengeful sweep of Kroof’s paw.
Nimbly he mounted, seeking a branch which would lead him to another tree
and so back to the ground and his rifle; and Kroof, after a moment’s
pause, climbed after him. But Dave could not find what he sought. Few
were the trees in the ancient wood whose topmost branches did not twine
closely with their neighbour trees. But with a man’s natural aversion to
bathing in water that is not enlivened and inspirited by the direct
sunlight, Dave had chosen a spot where the trees were scattered and the
blue of the sky looked in. He climbed to a height of some forty or fifty
feet from the ground before he found a branch that seemed to offer any
hope at all. Out upon this he stepped, steadying himself by a slenderer
branch above his head. Following it as far as the branch would support
him, he saw that his position was all but hopeless. He could not, even
by the most accurate and fortunate swing, catch the nearest branch of
the nearest tree. He turned back, but Kroof was already at the fork. Her
claws were already fixed upon the branch; she was crawling out to him
slowly, inexorably; she had him in a trap.
Dave stood tense and moveless, awaiting her. His face was white, his
mouth set. He knew that in all human probability his hour was come; yet
what might be done, he would do. Far below, between him and the mingling
of rock and moss which formed the ground (he looked down upon it,
chequered with the late sunlight), was a stout hemlock branch. At the
last moment he would drop; and the branch—he would clutch at it—might
perhaps break his fall, at least in part. It was a meagre chance, but
his only one. He was not shaken by fear, but he felt aggrieved and
disappointed at such a termination of his hopes; and the deadly irony of
his fate stung him. The branch bent lower and lower as Kroof’s vast
weight drew near. The branch above, too frail to endure his weight
alone, still served to steady him. He kept his head erect, challenging
death.
It chanced that Miranda, not far off, had heard the roar with which
Kroof had rushed to the attack. The fury of it had brought her in haste
to the spot, surprised and apprehensive. She recognized Dave’s rifle and
hunting-shirt under the hemlock tree, and her heart melted in a horrible
fear. Then she saw Dave high up in the beech tree, his bare shoulders
gleaming through the russet leaves. She saw Kroof, now not three feet
from her prey. She saw the hate in the beast’s eyes and open jaws.
“Kroof!” she cried, in a tone of fierce command; and Kroof heeded her no
more than if she had been the wind whispering. “Kroof! Kroof!” she cried
again, in anguished appeal, in piercing terror, as the savage animal
crept on. Dave did not turn his head, but he called down in a quiet
voice: “Ye can’t do it this time, Mirandy. I guess it’s good-by now, for
good!”
But Miranda’s face had suddenly set itself to stone. She snatched up the
rifle. “Hold on!” she cried, and taking a careful, untrembling aim she
pulled first one trigger, then the other, in such quick succession that
the two reports came almost as one. Then she dropped the weapon, and
stood staring wildly.
The bear’s body heaved convulsively for a moment, then seemed to fall
together on the branch, clutching at it. A second later and it rolled
off, with a leisurely motion, and came plunging downward, soft, massive,
enormous. It struck the ground with a sobbing thud. Miranda gave a low
cry at the sound, turned away, and leaned against the trunk of the
hemlock. Her face was toward the tree, and hidden in the bend of her
arm.
Dave knew now that all he had hoped for was his. Yet, after the first
overwhelming, choking throb of exultation, his heart swelled with pity
for the girl, with pity and immeasurable tenderness. He descended from
his refuge, put on his hunting-shirt and belt, looked curiously at the
empty rifle where it lay on the moss, and kicked the corded package of
meat into a thicket. Then he went and stood close beside Miranda.
After a moment or two he laid an arm about her shoulders and touched her
with his large hand, lightly firm. “Ye wonderful Mirandy,” he said,
“you’ve give me life over agin! I ain’t a-goin’ to thank ye, though,
till I know what ye’re goin’ to do with me. My life’s been jest all
yours since first I seen ye a woman grown. What’ll ye do with the life
ye’ve saved, Mirandy?”
He pressed her shoulder close against his heart, and leaned over, not
quite daring to kiss the bronze-dark hair on which he breathed. The girl
turned suddenly, with a sob, and caught hold of him, and hid her face in
his breast. “Oh, Dave!” she cried, in a piteous voice, “take mother and
me away from this place; I don’t want to live at the clearing any more.
You’ve killed the old life I loved.” And she broke into a storm of
tears.
Dave waited till she was quieter. Then he said: “If I’ve changed your
life, Mirandy, ye’ve changed mine a sight, too. I’ll hunt and trap no
more, dear, an’ the beasts’ll hev no more trouble ’long o’ me. We’ll
sell the clearin’, an’ go ’way down onto the Meramichi, where I can git
a good job surveyin’ lumber. I’m right smart at that. An’ I reckon—oh, I
love ye, an’ I need ye, an’ I reckon I can make ye happy, ye wonderful
Mirandy.”
The girl heard him through, then gently released herself from his arms.
“You go an’ tell mother what I’ve done, Dave,” she said, in a steady
voice, “and leave me here a little while with Kroof.”
That evening, after Miranda had returned to the cabin, Kirstie and Dave
came with spades and a lantern to the beech tree by the pool. Where they
could find room in the rocky soil, they dug a grave; and there they
buried old Kroof deeply, that neither might the claws of the wolverine
disturb her, nor any lure of spring suns waken her from her sleep.
PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, PRINTERS
Footnotes
[1]A species of large, grey lake trout.
Transcriber’s Notes
--Silently corrected a few palpable typos.
--Retained copyright notice from the printed edition (which is
public-domain in the country of publication.)
--In the text version, delimited italicized text with _underscores_ (the
HTML version displays the modified font.)