CHAPTER XII
KEEKO RETURNS HOME
Keeko had beaten the winter where Marcel had failed. But then Keeko'sjourney had been southward towards the sun, where the forest sheltered,and the river pursued a deep-cut course to the westward of the greathills supporting the wind-swept plateau of Unaga.
For all these easier conditions, however, the journey was a hard beat upagainst the sluggish flow of the river. It permitted no relaxation, andonly a minimum of rest. Then the portages up the rapids had beenrendered doubly laborious by reason of cargoes such as the girl and herIndians had never been called upon to deal with before.
It should have been a happy enough journey. Was it not in the nature ofa procession of great triumph? Had not Keeko's summer labours beencrowned far beyond her dreams? Surely this was so. The ardent littlefeminine scheme, worked out on a sick bed, and executed with greatstrength and courage had been brought to a complete and successfulissue. Oh, yes. The shadows which had threatened Keeko's future had beencompletely confounded. She knew beyond a doubt that she was independent,as her mother desired her to be. When the moment came she knew she wasin the privileged position of being free to cut the bonds which hadhitherto held her to the man whose brutality was surely enough drivingher suffering mother to the grave.
But depression weighed the girl down. Look forward as she might, hopewould not rise at her bidding. Marcel had been snatched out of her lifelike a shadowy dream, and the future offered her little enough comfort.Then there was her mother, and all that might have happened at the postin her long absence.
It was in such a mood that she emerged into the horseshoe loop of theriver and beheld the dark walls of the old Fort Duggan. Her pretty faceand serious eyes reflected her feelings as she piloted her boat towardsthe landing in the cold, crisp air of the brief daylight. Furthermore itwas with no easing of her mood that she beheld the figure of herstep-father on the landing awaiting her approach.
Just for a moment she wondered. Just for a moment she asked herself ifhe had had warning from some stray Shaunekuk of her coming. She realizeda spasm of fear that perhaps prying eyes had witnessed her caching ofthe great bulk of her furs, that part which represented her own personalfortune. But the fear passed. It could not be so. Her plans had beenlaid and executed far too carefully.
So she coldly awaited the man's greeting.
It came. And its tone was unusually modulated. It was almost gentle. Theman's eyes were a reflection of his tone as he gazed down at her. Theeffect was startling, and a light of wonder crept into Keeko's eyes asshe looked up into the bloated face with its beard and general air ofbrutishness.
"You've cut it fine, Keeko," he said, with a swift, calculating glanceat the sky. "I was getting well-nigh scared. We'll be snowed under rightaway." Then he drew a deep breath as of relief. "I'm glad you got tohome."
Keeko had her part to play and she never hesitated.
"I was held up, but--I've had a good catch," she said, withoutenthusiasm. She pointed at the bale of pelts in her canoe. "They'resilver fox. There's two more bales in the other boat. Guess LorsonHarris'll hand you a thousand dollars."
"Silver fox?" The man's eyes lit with cupidity. For a moment hisseriousness passed out of them. "Why, that's great! You haven't gotbeyond grey fox and beaver ever before. It was a new territory?"
Keeko nodded. She was yearning to ask one question. One question only.But she knew the value of her success with this creature whom she couldnot yet openly defy.
"Yes. It was that held me up. I made farther down the river. Right toits mouth. It's a great fox country. Next year----"
But Nicol was unable to restrain his impatience. He turned to Little OneMan.
"Haul 'em ashore an' open 'em out. We need to see the quality."
Little One Man looked at Keeko.
The girl nodded at once. Nicol saw the look and understood, and, for amoment, his eyes flashed with that ungovernable temper which was part ofhim. But the danger passed as swiftly as it came. Little One Man hadflung the bundle ashore as Keeko stepped from the boat, and, in anothermoment, Nicol's sheath knife was ripping the thongs of rawhide whichheld it.
Keeko stood looking on watching the man's hands as he ran his fingersthrough the silken mass. He caressed the steely blue fur with theappreciation of a real pelt hunter, and presently stood up with a lookin his eyes such as Keeko had never before beheld.
"How many?" he demanded.
"Sixty."
Nicol blew a faint whistle of astonished delight.
"You said a thousand dollars," he exclaimed. "Lorson Harris'll need topay more than sixteen dollars for those pelts. We'll need twenty. Say,gal, you've done well. You surely have."
Keeko desired none of his praise. One thought only was in her mind. Upto that moment she had been playing the game she knew to be necessary.Now she reckoned she could safely abandon tactics in favour of her owndesire.
"How's--mother?" she demanded.
Nicol stood up. His movement was a little precipitate. Nevertheless amoment passed before he withdrew his gaze from the treasure he coveted.When he finally did so it was not to look in the girl's direction. Hewas gazing out at the forest backing the fort.
Keeko became impatient. She was alarmed, too.
"How is she?" she cried urgently.
Nicol shook his head. He turned to the waiting Indians.
"We'll have them up at the store, and fix 'em ready for transport," heordered. Then he sought to take the girl's arm while his hard eyesassumed a regret that utterly ill-suited them. "Come along up to thefort while I tell you."
But Keeko avoided him. Panic had seized her.
"No," she cried, in a tone she rarely permitted herself. "Tell mehere--right now. Is--is she dead?"
She would take no denial. There was something in her clear, fearlesseyes finely compelling. The man nodded.
"Dead?"
The girl spoke in a low, heart-broken whisper. She had forgotten theman. Dead! Her mother was dead. That poor suffering creature who hadclung so long to life in her frantic desire to safeguard her child.Dead! And she would never know the success of the plans she had labouredso ardently to work out.
Stunning as was the blow Keeko promptly reacted.
"When did she die?" she demanded, in a tone that no longer neededdisguise.
"I'd say a month after you quit."
"And where--where's she buried?"
The man nodded in the direction of the woods at the back of the fort.
"Back there," he said. Then his manner became urgent. "Say, once we sawthe end was coming ther' wasn't a thing left undone to make her easy.Lu-cana'll tell you that. We sat with her the whole time, and did all weknew. And we buried her deep down wher' the wolves couldn't reach her,and I set up a cross I fixed myself, and cut her name deep on it soit'll take years to lose."
Keeko recognized a sort of defence in the man's words and in his manner.It seemed to be his paramount purpose. She saw in him not a sign of realsorrow, real regret. Contempt and bitterness rose and robbed her of alldiscretion.
"When you saw the end coming!" she replied scornfully.
But Nicol ignored the tone.
"Yes," he said deliberately. "She didn't go short of a thing we coulddo--Lu-cana and me. We did our best-I don't guess you could have done athing more. Will you come along up, an'--I'll show you."
"No!"
The reply was fierce. Keeko was at the extremity of restraint. She couldno longer endure the man's presence. She could no longer listen to him.
"There's the pelts," she cried, pointing. "See to them. That's yourwork." Then she looked him squarely in the eyes. "The other is forme--alone."
Nicol submitted. He had no alternative. And Keeko hurried away up to thefort.
* * * * *
There was unutterable grief in Keeko's attitude. At her feet lay thelow, long mound which marked her mother's grave. Beyond, at the head ofit, was a rough wooden cross, hewn from stout logs of spruce.
And deeplycut on the cross-bar was her mother's name prefixed by words ofendearment. Just behind the girl stood the heavily blanketed figure ofLu-cana, whose eyes were shadowed by a grief which her lips lacked thepower to express.
All about them reigned the living silence of the forest with its threatof hidden dangers. It was a silence where the breaking of a twig, therustle of the soft, rotting vegetation, inches deep upon the ground,might indicate the prowling approach of famished wolf or scavengingcoyote, the stealing of wildcat or even of the deadly puma.
The minutes passed as the two women stood voicelessly at the grave side.That which was passing in their minds was their own. Both, in theirdifferent fashions, had loved the woman laid so deep in the ground attheir feet. And both knew, and perfectly understood, the life she hadendured at the hands of the man who had set up the monument to hermemory.
After a long time Keeko stirred. She drew a deep breath. It was the signof passing from thought to activity. She turned to the woman behind her.
"How did she die, Lu-cana?" she asked, in a low voice.
Lu-cana drew near. She spoke in a tone as if in fear of beingoverheard. And as she spoke she looked this way and that.
"She weep--weep all time when you go," she said brokenly. "She big withmuch fear. Oh, yes. She scare all to death. So. Days come--she live. Shenot eat. Oh, no. Days come many. An' all time she weep inside. She notspeak. No. Her eye--it all time look around. Oh, much fear. Then one dayshe not wake. She die all up."
"And he?"
"Oh, him come all time. Him sit and mak' talk to her. I not know. Onlyhim talk. Him go--she weep. Him go--she watch all scare. So it come shedie all up."
Keeko pointed at the cross at the head of the grave.
"He set that up? Yes?"
"Him mak' him totem."
Keeko stood staring at the cross for some moments. Then she moved overto it and grasped it. It stirred in its setting. Then she left it, andreturned to Lu-cana.
"He dared to set that up," she cried bitterly. "'In loving memory.'" Sheread the words before the name of her mother. "He dared to setup--that?"
Her eyes shone with a fierce light as she turned and looked into thesquaw's face.
"Yes. Him set 'em up."
Lu-cana failed to understand that which lay at the back of Keeko's eyes.She could not read the words on the totem. She did not know theirmeaning when she heard them. All she knew was that the white man haddone this thing.
Keeko pointed at it.
"Guess I'll make a new--totem," she said, in a tone that was only coldand hard. "And we'll set it up. You and me, Lu-cana. And that one--thatone," she repeated with bitter emphasis, "we'll break it, we'll smashit, and we'll burn it in the cook stove till there's nothing left."
* * * * *
Keeko remained for two months at the fort. And the length of her staywas the result of careful calculation, and the necessity which her finalbreak from association with her step-father demanded. Then, too, therewas the season to consider. Before she set out on her journey to SealBay the fierce winter of Unaga must have completely closed down. Nostorm or cold had terror for her. All she required was thecase-hardening of the world, which would leave an iron surface uponwhich the dog trains could travel.
During those two months the force of Keeko's character developed withgiant strides. She was alone, utterly alone. Her whole life dependedupon her own powers to carry out the plans which had seemed almostsimple while her mother was still alive. Now everything had suddenlychanged. Inevitably, had there been a shadow of weakness in the girl itmust have found her out, and tripped her into some pitfall, floundering.But there was no such weakness.
From the first moment the enormous change wrought by her mother's deathleft her keenly understanding. Until the final break, her step-fathermust be humoured, conciliated. The thought was humiliating, butnecessity urged. And she accepted the inevitable with simple courage.
Well enough was she aware of the danger in which she stood, and furtherthe danger in which her required course placed her.
Had she known all that lay in the man's ruthless heart, had she beenpresent at her mother's bedside, and listened to those talks whichLu-cana had told her of, had she had less youth and courage and adeeper understanding of the realities of life, it is likely that panicwould have sent her fleeing headlong from a presence that filled herwith nothing but loathing. But she had been spared all this knowledge,and Nicol saw to it that nothing should startle her, nothing shouldexcite her distrust until, in the fulness of time, his purposes hadfully ripened.
As it was he accepted the position which Keeko had created. He playedhis part as she played hers. And right up to the very last moment beforethe girl's departure for Seal Bay nothing was permitted to disturb theharmony between them.
The man gave her farewell and received the girl's calm response. Hewatched her Indians break out the two sleds on the bitterly frostedtrail. He heard her sharp tones echoing through the still air as shegave the order to "mush." And all the while he stood smiling, while hiseyes followed every movement of the girl's graceful, fur-clad body withthe insensate lust of an animal.
Robbed of all suspicion Keeko went forth with a heart high with hope.Away out lay her cache of priceless furs to be picked up within the nextfew hours. All the great plan which she and her mother had so carefullyprepared looked to be reaching fulfilment. She had only to sell her fursand return and pay over her step-father's due. It would be springtimethen.
All her mind and heart turned to Marcel. Yes. He would be there. Faraway up the river where the old grey skull of the moose was watching forher coming. And then--and then--But imagination carried her no further.She was left longing only for that moment to come.
Nicol remained only long enough to see the runners of the hindmost sledvanish in a flurry of powdered snow round the limits of a woodlandbluff. Then he turned back to the dark old fort, and the mask underwhich he had so carefully concealed himself fell away. Straightway hereturned to his store to flood his senses with the raw spirit whichalone made his degenerate life tolerable.
* * * * *
Winter was howling about the old fort. Drifts were piled feet deepagainst every obstruction that stood in the way of the driving snow. Thefort was closed up. Every habitation was made fast against the onslaughtof the elements Life was unstirring.
Far out in the woods bayed the fierce, famished timber wolf. The lighterbut more doleful howl of coyote seemed to reply from every point of thecompass. And amidst the rack of savage chorus came the harsh human voicethat had little the better of the animal world in the pleasing qualityof its note.
A train of three dogs hauling a light sled broke from the shadows of theforest. A single human figure on snow-shoes laboured along beside it. Itwas a figure entirely unrecognizable, except that it was human.
There was no pause, no uncertainty. The train came on and halted at aword of command at the doorway of the fort. In a moment the human figurewas beating with its fur-mitted fists upon the door that had weatheredthe ages of storm.
The door was flung wide from within, and the blear eyes of Nicol peeredout into the night-light. In a moment an exclamation of recognitionbroke from him.
"Alroy!" he cried. "'Tough' Alroy!" Then something of gladness at theprospect of companionship lit his eyes with a happier light. "Say, comeright in," he invited, almost boisterously. "I'll send along some nechesto see to your darn train."
Tough needed no second invitation. He smelt warmth, rest, and there wasthe promise in his mind of a good "souse." For the time he had hadenough of Unaga. He had had enough of his employer, Lorson Harris. Hehad had enough of snow and ice, and the merciless cold of the twilittrail. God! but he was glad to leave it all behind him for the warmth ofNicol's store, and the raw spirit he knew was to be found there ingenerous quantities.
Half an hour later, divested of his furs, clad only in rough buckskinand pea-jacket, with feet encased in thick reindeer m
occasins, Tough satover the trader's stove with a pannikin of evil smelling rye whisky inhis hand.
"Guess I've driven through hell an' damnation to git your darn report,"he said, his wicked eyes beaming across the stove at his host on the farside of it.
"Lorson's blasted orders?"
"You mean blasted Lorson's orders!"
"Amen--or any other old chorus--to that," returned Nicol, with a gleamof brooding hate in his dark eyes. "Say, that swine has got all usfellers by the back o' the neck, and he twists us this way and that ashe darn pleases, till we're well-nigh crazy. I'd give half a life to cutit--to make a break that would quit me of it all. But----"
"You're scared," Tough laughed, as he gulped at his spirit. "Guess weall are." Then he added as an after-thought: "I wonder. I don't know Iwould if--I dared. He's tough. He'd beat a dead man to pieces if he feltthat way. He's plumb to the neck in work that 'ud shame a black, but hepays good for the doin' of it. And he reckons to pay you mighty well, ifyou put this thing through right. Best hand me your news. He don't wantit wrote out."
Nicol leant back in his chair, and thrust his feet on the rail of thestove.
"No, he don't fancy a thing wrote out," he said. "And anyway I'm writin'out nothing for Lorson Harris. He's got one piece of my paper, and Iguess that's mostly why I'm here."
"And your summer trip?"
Tough recalled his host to the business in hand. He did it amiably,almost pleasantly, but such things were entirely upon the surface. ToughAlroy was Lorson's most trusted agent.
Nicol shook his head.
"Guess I didn't do all I figured to," he said. "You see, my fool womantook on and died. It cut the season short. But I located ther's a fortway out more than three hundred miles north-east of this lousy hole.Yes, it's more than three hundred miles north-east. Might be even fourhundred. And there are folks running it. White folks. Three of myShaunekuk boys got it dead pat. They ran into an outfit of queer sort ofEskimo pelt hunters. They were hunting the territory away north, upalong this darn river. And they came from that post to the north-east.They said they were part of an outfit run by a feller named Brand. Hewas one of the white men running that post. They said these folk tradedwith Seal Bay. It was a big piece of luck. You see, the Shaunekuk nevergo into Unaga proper. They're scared to death of it. They make theforests along this river, that's all. Well, this outfit of queer Eskimohaven't ever been seen along this territory before. So you see I mighthave saved myself one hell of a rush trip that only took me to a placewhere I got a sight of a mighty tough looking hill, all smoke and fire.The three neches were out on their own and had their yarn waiting on mewhen I got back. That's my yarn, and all there is to it. Guess it's whatLorson Harris needs--until we make that fort, itself, for him."
Tough nodded. His wicked black eyes were serious, and, in theirseriousness, were never more wicked.
"It'll do," he said. "Sure, it'll do. Guess it's a rough map of thetrail we're chasing. But it's only the beginning. See, and listen close.Lorson Harris don't care a curse for the trade you make here with thesefool neches. You ain't here for that, whatever you happen to think.You're here to make that trail. You're here to make that fort. And whenyou've made it, it's up to you to get possession of it. See? LorsonHarris means to bring that post right into his grip. There's a reason. Ahell of a reason. It's so big he's ready to dope out a hundred thousanddollars to the man who can blot out the fellers trading there, and grabtheir trade. He reckons you're the man to do it. Well?"
Tough was leaning forward. His manner was deadly earnest and intended toimpress. His keen black eyes stared hard into the bloated features ofthe man beyond the stove. He waited, watchful, alert.
"A hundred thousand dollars!"
Nicol's astonishment was without feigning. Suddenly he bestirredhimself. He felt there must be some trick in it all.
"Would I need to--remain buried alive there?" he demanded.
Tough shook his head.
"Get possession of that place, that trade. Out those folks running thetrade, and Lorson'll hand you one hundred thousand dollars in cash, andyou'll be quit of the North if it suits you that way. You'll be quit ofLorson Harris, too. Well?"
"Gee!" Nicol passed a moist palm across his forehead.
"It's a swell proposition!"
"It's a hell of a proposition!"
"Well? You need to say right now. I don't need to remind you of LorsonHarris."
"God curse Lorson Harris!"
"Just so."
Tough was unrelenting in his pressure upon his victim. Lorson Harrischose his agents well.
Suddenly Nicol flung out his hands in a furious gesture.
"God's hell light on him! Yes," he cried, with eyes aflame, and hisungovernable temper surging. "I'll put his filthy work through. But whenI've done it he'll need to hand me that hundred thousand dollars in cashright here before he learns a darn thing of the place he's yearning tograb. Get me? He reckons that he's got the drop on me. Well, maybe hehas. But he don't get my tongue wagging till I get the cash pappy. Saveethat, and savee it good!"
"But you'll do it?"
"That's what I've been shouting at you."
"Good. Now listen, and I'll pass you the rest of Lorson's message."
Tough emptied his pannikin to the dregs, and, leaning back in his chair,beamed across at the man he knew to be at the mercy of Lorson Harris.There was no feeling, no sympathy in him. He cared not one jot foranyone in the world but himself, and his standing with the man who paidfor his services.