Isobel (18 page)

He shuddered, for with the night wind it seemed to him that there came
again the presence of Scottie Deane. He gripped his hands and stared
out into a pit of blackness. It was as if he had heard the Wild
Horsemen passing that way, panting and galloping through the spruce
tops on their mission of gathering the souls of the dead. Deane was
with him, as his spirit had been with him on that night he had
returned to Pelliter after putting the cross over Scottie's grave. And
in a moment or two the feeling of that presence seemed to lift the
smothering weight from his heart. He knew that Deane could understand,
and the presence comforted him. He went to the tent and looked in,
though there was nothing to see. And then he turned back to the cabin.
Thought of the grave with its sapling cross brought home to him his
duty to the woman. From the rubber pouch he brought forth his pad of
paper and a pencil.

For more than an hour after that he worked. steadily in the dull glow
of the lamp. He knew that Isobel would return to Deane. It might be
soon— or a long time from now. But she would go. And step by step he
mapped out for her the trail that led to the little cabin on the edge
of the Barren. And after that he wrote in his big, rough hand what was
overflowing from his heart.

"May God take care of you always. I would give my life to give you
back his. I won't let his grave be lost. I will go back some day and
plant blue flowers over it. I guess you will never know what I would
do to give him back to you and make you happy."

He knew that he had not promised what he would fail to do. He would
return to the lonely grave on the edge of the Barren. There was
something that called him to it now, something that he could not
understand, and which came of his own desolation. He folded the pages
of paper, wrapped them in a clean sheet, and wrote Isobel Deans's name
on the outside. Then he placed the packet with the letters on the
shelf over the table. He knew that she would find it with them.

What happened during the terrible week that followed that night no one
but MacVeigh would ever know. To him they were seven days of a fight
whose memory would remain with him until the end of time. Sleepless
nights and almost sleepless days. A bitter struggle, almost without
rest, with the horrible specter that ever hovered within the inner
room. A struggle that drew his cheeks in and put deep lines in his
face; a struggle during which Isobel's voice spoke tenderly and
pleadingly with him in one hour and bitterly in the next. He felt the
caress of her hands. More than once she drew him down to the soft
thrill of her feverish lips. And then, in more terrible moments, she
accused him of hunting to death the man who lay back under the sapling
cross. The three days of torment lengthened into four, and the four
into seven, To the bottom of his soul he suffered, for he understood
what it all meant for him. On the third and the fifth and the seventh
days he went over to McTabb's cabin, and Rookie came out and talked
with him at a distance through a birchbark megaphone. On the seventh
day there was still no news of Indian Joe and his mother. And on this
day Billy played his last part as Deane. He went into her room at noon
with broth and toast and a dish of water, and after she had eaten a
little he lifted her and made a prop of blankets at her back so that
he could brush out and braid her beautiful hair. It was light in the
room in spite of the curtain which he kept closely drawn. Outside the
sun was shining brightly, and the pale luster of it came through the
curtain and lit up the rich tresses he was brushing. When he was done
he lowered her gently to her pillow. She was looking at him strangely.
And then, with a shock that seemed to turn him cold to the depths of
his soul, he saw what was in her eyes. Sanity and reason. He saw
swiftly gathering in them the old terror, the old grief— recognition
of his true self! He waited to hear no word, but turned as he had done
a hundred times before and left the room.

In the outer room he stood for a few silent minutes, gathering
strength for the ordeal that was near. The end was at hand— for him.
He choked back his weakness, and after a time returned to the inner
door. But now he did not go in as he had entered before. He knocked.
It was the first time. And Isobel's voice bade him enter.

His heart was filled with a sudden throbbing pain when he saw that she
had turned so that she lay with her face turned away from him. He bent
over her and said, softly:

"You are better. The danger is past."

"I am better and— and— it is over? " he heard her whisper.

"Yes."

"The— the baby?"

"Is well— yes."

There was a moment's silence. The room seemed to tremble with it. Then
she said, faintly:

"You have been alone?"

"Yes— alone— for seven days."

She turned her eyes upon him fully. He could see the glow of them in
the faint light. It seemed to him that she was reading him to the
depths of his soul, and that in this moment she knew! She knew that he
had taken the part of David, and suddenly she turned her face away
from him again with a strange, choking sob. He could feel her
trembling. She seemed, struggling for breath and strength, and he
heard again the words "You— you— you—"

"Yes, yes— I know— I understand," he said, and his heart choked him.
"You must be quiet— now. I promised you that if you got well I would
go. And— I will. No one will ever know. I will go."

"And you will never come to me again?" Her voice was terribly quiet
and cold.

"Never," he said. "I swear that."

She had drawn away from him now until he could see nothing of her but
the shimmer of her thick braid where it lay in a ray of light. But he
could hear her sobbing breath. She scarcely knew when he left the
room, he went so quietly. He closed her door after him, and this time
he latched it. The outer door was open, and suddenly he heard that for
which he had been waiting and listening— the short, sharp yelping of
dogs, and a human voice.

In three leaps he was out in the open. Halfway across the narrow
clearing Indian Joe had halted with his team. One glance at the sledge
showed Billy that Joe's mother had not failed him. A thin, weazened
little old woman scrambled from a pile of bearskins as he ran toward
them. She had sunken eyes that watched his approach with a ratlike
glitter, and her naked hands were so emaciated that they looked like
claws; but in spite of her unprepossessing appearance Billy almost
hugged her in his delight at their coming. Maballa was her name,
Rookie had told him, and she understood and could talk English better
than her son. Billy told her of the condition in the cabin, and when
he had finished she took a small pack from the sledge, cackled a few
words to Indian Joe, and followed him without a moment's hesitation.
That she had no fear of the plague added to Billy's feeling of relief.
As soon as she had taken off her hood and heavy blanket she went
fearlessly into the inner room, and a moment later Billy heard her
talking to Isobel.

It took him but a few moments to gather up the few things he possessed
and put them in his pack. Then he went out and took down his tent.
Indian Joe had already gone, and he followed in his trail. An hour
later McTabb appeared at the door of his cabin, summoned by Billy's
shout. He circled about and came up with the wind, until he stood
within fifty paces of MacVeigh. Billy told him what he was going to
do. He was going to Churchill, and would leave Isobel and the baby in
his care. From Fort Churchill he would send back an escort to take the
woman and little Isobel down to civilization. He wanted fresh
clothes— anything he could wear. Those he had on he would be
compelled to burn. He suggested that he could get into one of Indian
Joe's outfits, if he had any spare garments, and McTabb went back to
the cabin, returning a few minutes later with an armful of clothes.

"Here's everything you'll need, except an undershirt an' drawers,"
said McTabb, placing them in a pile on the snow. "I'll wait a little
while you're changing. Better burn those quick. The wind might change,
and I don't want to be caught in a whiff of it."

He moved to a safe distance while Billy secured the clothes and went
into the timber. From a birch tree he pulled off a pile of bark, and
as he stripped he put his old clothes on it. McTabb could hear the
crackling and snapping of the fire when Billy reappeared arrayed in
Indian Joe's "second best"— buckskin trousers, a worn and tattered
fur coat, a fisher-skin cap, and moccasins a size too small for him.
For fifteen minutes the two men talked, McTabb still drawing the
dead-line at fifty paces. Then he went back and brought up Billy's
dogs and sledge.

"I'd like to shake hands with you, Billy," he apologized, "but I guess
it's best not to. I don't suppose— we'd dare— bring out the kid?"

"No," said Billy. "Good-by, Mac. I'll see you— sometime— later. Just
go back— an' bring her to the door, will you? I don't want her to
know I'm here, an' I'll take a look at her from the bush. She wouldn't
understand, you know, if she knew I was here an' wouldn't come up an'
see her."

He concealed himself among the spruce as McTabb went into the cabin. A
moment later he reappeared. Isobel was in his arms, and Billy gulped
back a sob. For an instant she turned her face his way, and he could
see that she was pointing in his direction as Rookie talked to her,
and then for another instant the sun lit up the child's hair with a
golden fire, as he had first seen it on that wonderful day at
Fullerton. He wanted to cry out one word to her— at least one— but
what came was only the sob he had fought to keep back. He turned his
face into the forest. And this time he knew that the parting was
final.

The fourth night after he had left the plague-stricken cabin Billy was
camped on Lame Otter Creek, one hundred and eighty miles from Fort
Churchill, over on Hudson's Bay. He had eaten his supper, and was
smoking his pipe. It was a clear and glorious night, with the sky
afire with stars and a full moon. Several times Billy had stared at
the moon. It was what the Indians called "the bleeding moon"— red as
blood, with an uneven, dripping edge. It was the Indian superstition
that it meant misfortune to those who did not keep it at their backs.
For seven consecutive nights it had made a red trail through the skies
in that terrible year of plague nineteen years before, when a quarter
of the forest population of the north had died. Since then it had been
known as the "plague moon." Billy had seen it only twice before. He
was not superstitious, but to-night he was filled with a strange
sensation of uneasiness. He laughed an unpleasant laugh as he stared
into the crackling birch flames and wondered what new misfortune could
come to him.

And then, slowly, something seemed to come to him from out of the
wonderful night like a quieting hand to still the pain in his broken
heart. At last, once more, he was home. For the wind-swept Barrens and
the forest had been his home, and more than once he had told himself
that life away from them would be impossible for him. More deeply than
ever this thought came to him to-night. He had become a part of them
and they a part of him. And as he looked up again at the red moon the
sight of it no longer brought him uneasiness, but a strange sort of
joy. For an hour he sat there, and the fire died down. About him the
rustle and whisper of the wild closed in nearer. It was his world, and
he breathed more deeply and listened. Lonely and sick at heart, he
felt the life and sympathy and love of it creeping into him, grieving
with him in his grief, warming him with its hope, pledging him again
the eternal friendship of its trees, its mountains, and all of the
wild that it held therein. A hundred times, in that strange man-play
that comes of loneliness in the far north, he had given life and form
to the star shadows about him, to the shadows of the tall spruce, the
twisted shrub, the rocks, and even the mountains. And now it was no
longer play. With each hour that passed this night, and with each day
and night that followed, they became more real to MacVeigh; and the
fires he built in the black gloom painted him pictures as they had
never painted them before; and the trees and the rocks and the twisted
shrub comforted him more and more in his loneliness, and gave to him
the presence of life in their movement, in the coming and going of
their shadow forms. Everywhere they were the same old friends,
unvarying and changeless. The spruce shadow of to-night, nodding to
him in its silent way, was the same that nodded to him last night— a
hundred nights ago; the stars were the same, the winds whispering to
him in the tree-tops were the same, everything was as it was
yesterday— years ago. He knew that in these things, and in these
things alone, he would always possess Isobel. She would return to
civilization, and the shifting scenes of life down there would soon
make her forget him— almost. But in his world there was no change.
Ten years from now he might go over their old trail and still find the
charred remains of the campfire he had built for her that night beside
the Barren. The wilderness would bear memory of her so long as he was
a part of it; and now, as he came nearer to Churchill, he knew that he
would always be a part of it.

Three weeks after he had left Couchée's cabin he came into Fort
Churchill. A month had changed him so that the factor did not
recognize him at first. The inspector in charge stared at him twice,
and then cried, "My God, is it you, MacVeigh?" To Pelliter alone, who
was waiting for him, did Billy tell all that had happened down on the
Little Beaver. There were several letters waiting for him at
Churchill, and one of these told him that a silver property in which
he was interested over at Cobalt had turned out well and that his
share in the sale was something over ten thousand dollars. He used
this unexpected piece of good-fortune as an excuse to the inspector
when he refused to re-enlist. A week after his arrival at Churchill
Bucky Smith was dishonorably discharged from the Service. There were
several near them when Bucky came up to him with a smile on his face
and offered to shake hands.