Isobel (3 page)

"You sit here while I make a fire," he said.

He piled up dry needles over a precious bit of his birchbark and
struck a flame. In the glowing light he found other fuel, and added to
the fire until the crackling blaze leaped as high as his head. The
woman's face was hidden, and she looked as though she had fallen
asleep in the warmth of the fire. For half an hour Mac-Veigh dragged
in fuel until he had a great pile of it in readiness.

Then he forked out a deep bed of burning coals and soon the odor of
coffee and frying bacon aroused his companion. She raised her head and
threw back the blanket with which he had covered her shoulders. It was
warm where she sat, and she took off her hood while he smiled at her
companionably from over the fire. Her reddish-brown hair tumbled about
her shoulders, rippling and glistening in the fire glow, and for a few
moments she sat with it falling loosely about her, with her eyes upon
MacVeigh. Then she gathered it between her fingers, and MacVeigh
watched her while she divided it into shining strands and pleated it
into a big braid.

"Supper is ready," he said. "Will you eat it there?"

She nodded, and for the first time she smiled at him. He brought bacon
and bread and coffee and other things from his pack and placed them on
a folded blanket between them. He sat opposite her, cross-legged. For
the first time he noticed that her eyes were blue and that there was a
flush in her cheeks. The flush deepened as he looked at her, and she
smiled at him again.

The smile, the momentary drooping of her eyes, set his heart leaping,
and for a little while he was unconscious of taste in the food he
swallowed. He told her of his post away up at Point Fullerton, and of
Pelliter, who was dying of loneliness.

"It's been a long time since I've seen a woman like you," he confided.
"And it seems like heaven. You don't know how lonely I am!" His voice
trembled. "I wish that Pelliter could see you— just for a moment," he
added. "It would make him live again."

Something in the soft glow of her eyes urged other words to his lips.

"Mebbe you don't know what it means not to see a white woman in— in—
all this time," he went on. "You won't think that I've gone mad, will
you, or that I'm saying or doing anything that's wrong? I'm trying to
hold myself back, but I feel like shouting, I'm that glad. If Pelliter
could see you—" He reached suddenly in his pocket and drew out the
precious packet of letters. "He's got a girl down south— just like
you," he said. "These are from her. If I get 'em up in time they'll
bring him round. It's not medicine he wants. It's woman— just a sight
of her, and sound of her, and a touch of her hand."

She reached across and took the letters. In the firelight he saw that
her hand was trembling.

"Are they— married?" she asked, softly.

"No, but they're going to be," he cried, triumphantly. "She's the most
beautiful thing in the world, next to—"

He paused, and she finished for him.

"Next to one other girl— who is yours."

"No, I wasn't going to say that. You won't think I mean wrong, will
you, if I tell you? I was going to say next to— you. For you've come
out of the blizzard— like an angel to give me new hope. I was sort of
broke when you came. If you disappeared now and I never saw you again
I'd go back and fight the rest of my time out, an' dream of pleasant
things. Gawd! Do you know a man has to be put up here before he knows
that life isn't the sun an' the moon an' the stars an' the air we
breathe. It's woman— just woman."

He was returning the letters to his pocket. The woman's voice was
clear and gentle. To Billy it rose like sweetest music above the
crackling of the fire and the murmuring of the wind in the spruce
tops.

"Men like you— ought to have a woman to care for," she said. "He was
like that."

"You mean—" His eyes sought the long, dark box.

"Yes— he was like that."

"I know how you feel," he said; and for a moment he did not look at
her. "I've gone through— a lot of it. Father an' mother and a sister.
Mother was the last, and I wasn't much more than a kid— eighteen, I
guess— but it don't seem much more than yesterday. When you come up
here and you don't see the sun for months nor a white face for a year
or more it brings up all those things pretty much as though they
happened only a little while ago.'"

"All of them are— dead?" she asked.

"All but one. She wrote to me for a long time, and I thought she'd
keep her word. Pelly— that's Pelliter— thinks we've just had a
misunderstanding, and that she'll write again. I haven't told him that
she turned me down to marry another fellow. I didn't want to make him
think any unpleasant things about his own girl. You're apt to do that
when you're almost dying of loneliness."

The woman's eyes were shining. She leaned a little toward him.

"You should be glad," she said. "If she turned you down she wouldn't
have been worthy of you— afterward. She wasn't a true woman. If she
had been, her love wouldn't have grown cold because you were away. It
mustn't spoil your faith— because that is— beautiful."

He had put a hand into his pocket again, and drew out now a thin
package wrapped in buckskin. His face was like a boy's.

"I might have— if I hadn't met you," he said. "I'd like to let you
know— some way— what you've done for me. You and this."

He had unfolded the buckskin, and gave it to her. In it were the big
blue petals and dried, stem of a blue flower.

"A blue flower!" she said.

"Yes. You know what it means. The Indians call it i-o-waka, or
something like that, because they believe that it is the flower spirit
of the purest and most beautiful thing in the world. I have called it
woman."

He laughed, and there was a joyous sort of note in the laugh.

"You may think me a little mad," he said, "but do you care if I tell
you about that blue flower?"

The woman nodded. There was a little quiver at her throat which Billy
did not see.

"I was away up on the Great Bear," he said, "and for ten days and ten
nights I was in camp— alone— laid up with a sprained ankle. It was a
wild and gloomy place, shut in by barren ridge mountains, with stunted
black spruce all about, and those spruce were haunted by owls that
made my blood run cold nights. The second day I found company. It was
a blue flower. It grew close to my tent, as high as my knee, and
during the day I used to spread out my blanket close to it and lie
there and smoke. And the blue flower would wave on its slender stem,
an' bob at me, an' talk in sign language that I imagined I understood.
Sometimes it was so funny and vivacious that I laughed, and then it
seemed to be inviting me to a dance. And at other times it was just
beautiful and still, and seemed listening to what the forest was
saying— and once or twice, I thought, it might be praying. Loneliness
makes a fellow foolish, you know. With the going of the sun my blue
flower would always fold its petals and go to sleep, like a little
child tired out by the day's play, and after that I would feel
terribly lonely. But it was always awake again when I rolled out in
the morning. At last the time came when I was well enough to leave. On
the ninth night I watched my blue flower go to sleep for the last
time. Then I packed. The sun was up when I went away the next morning,
and from a little distance I turned and looked back. I suppose I was
foolish, and weak for a man, but I felt like crying. Blue flower had
taught me many things I had not known before. It had made me think.
And when I looked back it was in a pool of sunlight, and it was waving
at me! It seemed to me that it was calling— calling me back— and I
ran to it and picked it from the stem, and it has been with me ever
since that hour. It has been my Bible an' my comrade, an' I've known
it was the spirit of the purest and the most beautiful thing in the
world— woman. I—" His voice broke a little. "I— I may be foolish,
but I'd like to have you take it, an' keep it— always— for me."

He could see now the quiver of her lips as she looked across at him.

"Yes, I will take it," she said. "I will take it and keep it—
always."

"I've been keeping it for a woman— somewhere," he said. "Foolish
idea, wasn't it? And I've been telling you all this, when I want to
hear what happened back there, and what you are going to do when you
reach your people. Do you mind— telling me?"

"He died— that's all," she replied, fighting to speak calmly. "I
promised to take him back— to my people, And when I get there— I
don't know— what I shall— do—"

She caught her breath. A low sob broke from her lips.

"You don't know— what you will do—"

Billy's voice sounded strange even to himself. He rose to his feet and
looked down into her upturned face, his hands clenched, his body
trembling with the fight he was making. Words came to his lips and
were forced back again— words which almost won in their struggle to
tell her again that she had come to him from out of the Barren like an
angel, that within the short space since their meeting he had lived a
lifetime, and that he loved her as no man had ever loved a woman
before. Her blue eyes looked at him questioningly as he stood above
her.

And then he saw the thing which for a moment he had forgotten— the
long, rough box at the woman's back. His fingers dug deeper into his
palms, and with a gasping breath he turned away. A hundred paces back
in the spruce he had found a bare rock with a red bakneesh vine
growing over it. With his knife he cut off an armful, and when he
returned with it into the light of the fire the bakneesh glowed like a
mass of crimson flowers. The woman had risen to her feet, and looked
at him speechlessly as he scattered the vine over the box. He turned
to her and said, softly:

"In honor of the dead!"

The color had faded from her face, but her eyes shone like stars.
Billy advanced toward her with his hands reaching out. But suddenly he
stopped and stood listening. After a moment he turned and asked again:

"What was that?"

"I heard the dogs— and the wind," she replied.

"It's something cracking in my head, I guess," said MacVeigh. "It
sounded like—" He passed a hand over his forehead and looked at the
dogs huddled in deep sleep beside the sledge. The woman did not see
the shiver that passed through him. He laughed cheerfully, and seized
his ax.

"Now for the camp," he announced. "We're going to get the storm within
an hour."

On the box the woman carried a small tent, and he pitched it close to
the fire, filling the interior two feet deep with cedar and balsam
boughs. His own silk service tent he put back in the deeper shadows of
the spruce. When he had finished he looked questioningly at the woman
and then at the box.

"If there is room— I would like it in there— with me," she said, and
while she stood with her face to the fire he dragged the box into the
tent. Then he piled fresh fuel upon the fire and came to bid her good
night. Her face was pale and haggard now, but she smiled at him, and
to MacVeigh she was the most beautiful thing in the world. Within
himself he felt that he had known her for years and years, and he took
her hands and looked down into her blue eyes and said, almost in a
whisper:

"Will you forgive me if I'm doing wrong? You don't know how lonesome
I've been, and how lonesome I am, and what it means to me to look once
more into a woman's face. I don't want to hurt you, and I'd— I'd"—
his voice broke a little—"I'd give him back life if I could, just
because I've seen you and know you and— and love you."

She started and drew a quick, sharp breath that came almost in a low
cry.

"Forgive me, little girl," he went on. "I may be a little mad. I guess
I am. But I'd die for you, and I'm going to see you safely down to
your people— and— and— I wonder— I wonder— if you'd kiss me good
night—"

Her eyes never left his face. They were dazzlingly blue in the
firelight. Slowly she drew her hands away from him, still looking
straight into his eyes, and then she placed them against each of his
arms and slowly lifted her face to him. Reverently he bent and kissed
her.

"God bless you!" he whispered.

For hours after that he sat beside the fire. The wind came up stronger
across the Barren; the storm broke fresh from the north, the spruce
and the balsam wailed over his head, and he could hear the moaning
sweep of the blizzard out in the open spaces. But the sounds came to
him now like a new kind of music, and his heart throbbed and his soul
was warm with joy as he looked at the little tent wherein there lay
sleeping the woman whom he loved.

He still felt the warmth of her lips, he saw again and again the blue
softness that had come for an instant into her eyes, and he thanked
God for the wonderful happiness that had come to him. For the
sweetness of the woman's lips and the greater sweetness of her blue
eyes told him what life held for him now. A day's journey to the south
was an Indian camp. He would take her there, and would hire runners to
carry up Pelliter's medicines and his letters. Then he would go on—
with the woman— and he laughed softly and joyously at the glorious
news which he would take back to Pelliter a little later. For the kiss
burned on his lips, the blue eyes smiled at him still from out of the
firelit gloom, and he knew nothing but hope.

It was late, almost midnight, when he went to bed. With the storm
wailing and twisting more fiercely about him, he fell asleep. And it
was late when he awoke. The forest was filled with a moaning sound.
The fire was low. Beyond it the flap of the woman's tent was still
down, and he put on fresh fuel quietly, so that he would not awaken
her. He looked at his watch and found that he had been sleeping for
nearly seven hours. Then he returned to his tent to get the things for
breakfast. Half a dozen paces from the door flap he stopped in sudden
astonishment.