Isobel (16 page)

Billy sat up. Darkness and pain left him as swiftly as they had come.
He saw Couchée's trail ahead, and then he looked at the dogs. They had
swung at right angles to the sledge and had pulled the nose of it deep
into a drift. With a sharp cry of command he sent the lash of his whip
among them and went to the leader's head. The dogs slunk to their
bellies, snarling at him.

"What the devil—" he began, and stopped.

He stared at the snow. Straight out from Couchée's trail there ran
another— a snow-shoe trail. For a moment he thought that Couchée or
his wife had for some reason struck out a distance from their sledge.
A second glance assured him that in this supposition he was wrong.
Both the half-breed and his wife wore the long, narrow "bush"
snow-shoes, and this second trail was made by the big, basket-shaped
shoes worn by Indians and trappers on the Barrens. In addition to
this, the trail was well beaten. Whoever had traveled it recently had
gone over it many times before, and Billy gave utterance to his joy in
a low cry. He had struck a trap line. The trapper's cabin could not be
far away, and the trapper himself had passed that way not many minutes
since. He examined the two trails and found where the blunt, round
point of a snow-shoe had covered an imprint left by Couchée, and at
this discovery Billy made a megaphone of his mittened hands and gave
utterance to the long, wailing holloa of the forest man. It was a cry
that would carry a mile. Twice he shouted, and the second time there
came a reply. It was not far distant, and he responded with a third
and still louder shout. In a flash there came again the terrible pain
in his head, and he sank down on the sledge. This time he was roused
from his stupor by the barking and snarling of the dogs and the voice
of a man. When he lifted his head out of his arms he saw some one
close to the dogs. He made an effort to rise, and staggered half to
his feet. Then he fell back, and the darkness closed in about him more
thickly than before. When he opened his eyes again he was in a cabin.
He was conscious of warmth. The first sound that he heard was the
crackling of a fire and the closing of a stove door. And then he heard
some one say:

"S'help me God, if it ain't Billy MacVeigh!"

He stared up into the face that was looking down at him. It was a
white man's face, covered with a scrubby red beard. The beard was new,
but the eyes and the voice he would have recognized anywhere. For two
years he had messed with Rookie McTabb down at Norway and Nelson
House. McTabb had quit the Service because of a bad leg.

"Rookie!" he gasped.

He drew himself up, and McTabb's hands grasped his shoulders.

"S'help me, if it ain't Billy MacVeigh!" he exclaimed again, amazement
in his voice and face. "Joe brought you in five minutes ago, and I
ain't had a straight squint at you until now. Billy MacVeigh! Well,
I'm—" He stopped to stare at Billy's forehead, where there was a
stain of blood. "Hurt?" he demanded, sharply. "Was it that damned
half-breed?"

Billy was gripping his hands now. Over near the stove, still kneeling
before the closed door, he saw the dark face of an Indian turned
toward him.

"It was Couchée," he said. "He hit me with the butt of his whip, and
I've had funny spells ever since. Before I have another I want to tell
you what I'm up against, Rookie. My Gawd, it's a funny chance that ran
me up against you— just in time! Listen."

He told McTabb briefly of Scottie Deane's death, of Couchée's flight
from the cabin, and the present situation there.

"There isn't a minute to lose," he finished, tightening his hold on
McTabb's hand. "There's the kid and the mother, and I've got to get
back to them, Rookie. The rest is up to you. We've got to get a woman.
If we don't— soon—"

He rose to his feet and stood there looking at McTabb. The other
nodded.

"I understand," he said. "You're in a bad fix, Billy. It's two hundred
miles to the nearest white woman, away over near Du Brochet. You
couldn't get an Indian to go within half a mile of a cabin that's
struck by the plague, and I doubt if this white woman would come. The
only game I can see is to send to Fort Churchill or Nelson House and
have the force send up a nurse. It will take two weeks."

Billy gave a gesture of despair. Indian Joe had listened attentively,
and now rose quietly from his position in front of the stove.

"There's Indian camp over on Arrow Lake," he said, facing Billy. "I
know squaw there who not afraid of plague."

"Sure as fate!" cried McTabb, exultantly. "Joe's mother is over there,
and if there is anything on earth she won't do for Joe I can't guess
what it is. Early this winter she came a hundred and fifty miles—
alone— to pay him a visit. She'll come. Go after her, Joe. I'll go
Billy MacVeigh's bond to get the Service to pay her five dollars a day
from the hour she starts!" He turned to Billy. "How's your head?" he
asked.

"Better. It was the run that fixed me, I guess."

"Then we'll go over to Couchée's cabin and I'll bring back the kid."

They left Joe preparing for his three-day trip into the south and
east, and outside the cabin McTabb insisted on Billy riding behind the
dogs. They struck back for Couchée's trail, and when they came to it
McTabb laughed.

"I'll bet they're running like rabbits," he said. "What in thunder did
you expect to do if you caught 'em, Billy? Drag the woman back by the
hair of 'er 'ead? I'm glad you tumbled where you did. You've got to
beat a lynx to beat Couchée. He'd have perforated you from behind a
snow-drift sure as your name's Billy MacVeigh."

Billy felt that an immense load had been lifted from him, and he was
partly inclined to tell his companion more about Isobel and himself.
This, however, he did not do. As McTabb strode ahead and urged on the
dogs he figured on the chances of Joe and his mother returning within
a week. During that time he would be alone with Isobel, and in spite
of the horrible fear that never for a moment left his heart it was
impossible for him not to feel a thrill of pleasure at the thought.
Those would be days of agony for himself as well as for her, and yet
he would be near, always near, the woman he loved. And little Isobel
would be safe in Rookie's cabin. If anything happened—

His hands gripped the edges of the sledge at the thought that leaped
into his brain. It was Pelliter's thought. If anything happened to
Isobel the little girl would be his own, forever and forever. He
thrust the thought from him as if it were the plague itself. Isobel
would live. He would make her live, If she died—

McTabb heard the low cry that broke from his lips. He could not keep
it back. Good God, if she went, how empty the world would be! He might
never see her again after these days of terror that were ahead of him;
but if she lived, and he knew that the sun was shining in her bright
hair, and that her blue eyes still looked up at the stars, and that in
her sweet prayers she sometimes thought of him— along with Deane—
life could not be quite so lonely for him.

McTabb had dropped back to his side.

"Head hurt?" he asked.

"A little," lied Billy. "There's a level stretch ahead, Rookie. Hustle
up the dogs!"

Half an hour later the sledge drew up in front of Couchée's cabin.
Billy pointed to the tent.

"The little one is in there," he said. "Go over an' get acquainted,
Rookie. I'm going to take a look inside to see if everything is all
right."

He entered the cabin quietly and closed the door softly behind him.
The inner door was as he had left it, partly open, and he looked in,
with a wildly beating heart. He could no longer hesitate. He stepped
in and spoke her name.

"Isobel!"

There was a movement on the bed, and he was startled by the suddenness
with which Isobel sprang to her feet. She drew aside the heavy curtain
from the window and stood in the light. For a moment Billy saw her
blue eyes filled with a strange fire as she stared at him. There was a
wild flush in her cheeks, and he could hear her dry breath as it came
from between her parted lips. Her hair was still undone and covered
her in a shimmering veil.

"I've found a trapper's cabin, Isobel, and we're taking the baby
there," he went on. "She will be safe. And we're sending for help—
for a woman—"

He stopped, horror striking him dumb. He saw more plainly the feverish
madness in Isobel's eyes. She dropped the curtain, and they were in
gloom. The whispered words he heard were more terrible than the
madness in her eyes.

"You won't kill her?" she pleaded. "You won't kill my baby? You won't
kill her—"

She staggered, back toward the bed, whispering the words over and over
again. Not until she had dropped upon it did Billy move. The blood in
his body seemed to have turned cold. Be dropped upon his knees at her
side. His hand buried itself in the soft smother of her hair, but he
no longer felt the touch of it. He tried to speak, but words would not
come. And then, suddenly, she thrust him back, and he could see the
glow of her eyes in the half darkness. For a moment she seemed to have
fought herself out of her delirium.

"It was you— you— who helped to kill him!" she panted. "It was the
Law— and you are the Law. It kills— kills— kills— and it never
gives back when it makes a mistake. He was innocent, but you and the
Law hounded him until he died. You are the murderers. You killed him.
You have killed me. And you will never be punished— never— never—
because you are the Law— and because the Law can kill— kill—
kill—"

She dropped back, moaning, and MacVeigh crouched at her side, his
fingers buried in her hair, with no words to say. In a moment she
breathed easier. He felt her tense body relax. He forced himself to
his feet and dragged himself into the outer room, closing the door
after him. Even in her delirium Isobel had spoken the truth. Forever
she had digged for him a black abyss between them. The Law had killed
Scottie Deane. And he was the Law. And for the Law there was no
punishment, even though it took the life of an innocent man.

He went outside. McTabb was in the tent. The gloom of evening was
closing in on a desolate world. Overhead the sky was thick, and
suddenly, with a great cry, Billy flung his arms straight up over his
head and cursed that Law which could not be punished, the Law that had
killed Scottie Deane. For he was that Law, and Isobel had called him a
murderer.

It was not the face of MacVeigh— the old MacVeigh— that Rookie
McTabb, the ex-constable, looked into a few moments later. Days of
sickness could have laid no heavier hand upon him than had those few
minutes in the darkened room of the cabin. His face was white and
drawn. There were tense lines at the corners of his mouth and
something strange and disquieting in his eyes. McTabb did not see the
change until he came out into what remained of the day with little
Isobel in his arms. Then he stared.

"That blow got you bad," he said. "You look sick. Mebbe I'd better
stay with you here to-night."

"No, you hadn't," replied Billy, trying to throw off what he knew the
other saw. "Take the kid over to the cabin. A night's sleep and I'll
be as lively as a cat. I'm going to vaccinate her before you go."

He went into the tent and dug out from his pack the small rubber pouch
in which he carried a few medicines and a roll of medicated cotton. In
a small bottle there were three vaccine points. He returned with these
and the cotton.

"Watch her close," he said, as he rolled back the child's sleeve. "I'm
going to give you an extra point, and if this doesn't work by the
seventh or eighth day you must do the job over again."

With the point of his knife he began to work gently on baby Isobel's
tender pink skin. He had expected that she would cry. But she was not
frightened, and her big blue eyes followed his movements wonderingly.
At last it began to hurt, and her lips quivered. But she made no
sound, and as tears welled into her eyes Billy dropped his knife and
caught her up close to his breast.

"God bless your dear little heart," he cried, smothering his face in
her silken curls. "You've been hurt so much, an' you've froze, an'
you've starved, an' you ain't never said a word about it since that
day up at Fullerton! Little sweetheart—"

McTabb heard him whispering things, and little Isobel's arms crept
tightly about his neck. After a little Billy held her out to him
again, and a part of what Rookie had seen in his face was gone.

"It won't hurt any more," he said, as he rubbed the vaccine point over
the red spot on her arm. "You don't want to be sick, do you? And that
'll keep you from being sick. There—"

He wound a strip of the cotton about her arm, tied it, and gave part
of what remained to McTabb. Then he took her in his arms again and
kissed her warm face and her soft curls, and after that bundled her in
furs and put her on the sledge. Rookie was straightening out the dogs
when, like a thief, he clipped off one of the curls with his knife.
Isobel laughed gleefully when she saw the curl between his fingers.
Before McTabb had turned it was in his pocket.

"I won't see her again— soon," MacVeigh said; and he tried to keep a
thickness out of his voice. "That is, I— I won't see her to— to
handle her. I'll come over now and then an' look at her from the edge
of the woods. You bring 'er out, Rookie, an' don't you dare to let her
know I'm out there. She wouldn't know what it meant if I didn't come
to her."

He watched them as they disappeared into the gloom of night, and when
they had gone a groan of anguish broke from his lips. For he knew that
little Isobel was going from him forever. He would see her again—
from the edge of the forest; but he would never hold her in his arms,
nor feel again her tender arms about his neck or the soft smother of
her hair against his face. Long before the dread menace of the plague
was lifted from the cabin and from himself he would be gone. For that
was what Isobel, the mother, had demanded, and he would keep his
promise to her. She would never know what happened in these days of
her delirium. She would not have to face him afterward. He knew
already how he would go. When help came he would slip away quietly
some night, and the big wilderness would swallow him up. His plans
seemed to come without thought on his own part. He would go to Fort
Churchill and testify against Bucky Smith. And then he would quit the
Service. His term of enlistment expired in a month, and he would not
re-enlist. "It was the Law that killed him— and you are the Law. It
kills— kills— kills— and it never gives back when it makes a
mistake." Under the dark sky those words seemed never to end in his
ears, and each moment they added to his hatred of the thing of which
he had been a part for years. He seemed to hear Isobel's accusing
voice in the low soughing of the night wind in the spruce tops; and in
the stillness of the world that hung heavy and close about him the
words chased each other through his brain until they seemed to leave
behind them a path of fire.