The Land of Frozen Suns: A Novel
Page 12
CHAPTER XII--THE FIRST MOVE
Montell himself, burdened with a troubled air, met us at the gate of thestockade.
"Well, you're back, eh?" he greeted Barreau. "I been wishin' you'd showup. At the same time I'd just as soon you'd stay away. Now, don't gethuffy, George. You ain't got any idee what I've had to contend with.Jessie's here."
Barreau looked at him with unchanging expression.
"Well," he observed presently, "what of it?"
"What of it?" Montell echoed. "Jehosophat! Ain't you got no imagination,George? That MacLeod deal has turned her against you somethin' terrible.She heard all that stuff about you, an' wouldn't rest till she made sure'twas really you. She'd raise old Ned if----"
"She found out that her highly respectable parent was associated inbusiness with a notorious character like Slowfoot George," Barreau cutin sneeringly. "You're rather transparent, Montell. You don't need tobeat about the bush with me. I know what you are driving at. I've lostcaste with her, which suits you exactly. You are her affectionatefather, an honorable, clean-handed man. Hence you will not touch pitchlest she deem you defiled. Very good. But you had better take a hintfrom me and bestir yourself to get her south of the Peace before winterbreaks. This is no place for a woman."
"Sure, sure," Montell seemed no whit taken aback, "that's what I beenaimin' to do. I don't know what the mischief got into her to come uphere, anyhow. She was supposed to turn back the next day after we leftMacLeod--I told you that the night you come to our camp, but you was tooblame busy abusin' me to listen, I guess. Then she stood me off anotherday or two. By that time I couldn't leave the outfit, and she wouldn'tgo back unless I did. Darn it, Jessie's gettin' to be too many for me.She's stubborn as a mule an' got a temper like--like--well, when shegets on the fight I got to stand from under, that's all. There'll be warif she finds out you're the big chief here. Say, George, can't you playlike you just happened in?"
"No," Barreau refused flatly. "I will not lie to her if both our necksdepended on it. For that matter, the explanation is simple. Why not tellher the truth yourself?"
Montell looked at him curiously. Of a sudden the set of his heavy,florid face seemed to become a trifle defiant, aggressive.
"There's no use standin' here arguin'," he said shortly. "Come on to thestore. Let's get an understandin' of this thing."
He led the way. Within, as well as without, the rebuilt storehouse wastransformed. A great clutter of goods in bales and sacks and small boxesfilled it nearly to overflowing. Shelves lined the walls. On each side arude counter ran the length of the building. Here and there a semblanceof orderly arrangement was beginning to show. A fire crackled on theopen hearth at one end. An upended box, littered with bills ofmerchandise and a ledger or two, stood against the wall. By this rudedesk Montell sat him down on a stool. He turned a look of inquiry on me,but Barreau forestalled his question.
"This is Bob Sumner," he made known perfunctorily. "The son of thatTexas cattleman who owned the Toreante place on Rose Hill. I believe youknew him slightly. Sumner will winter with us. You need not stutter overtalking before him."
"I don't stutter over talkin' before anybody, far as I'm concerned. It's_your_ funeral," Montell retorted. Then he turned to me.
"So you're John Sumner's boy, eh?" He sized me up with new interest. Idare say he was wondering how I came to be in Barreau's company on thevery night of his breaking jail. "Yes, sir, I did know your father. Didbusiness with him a time or two. Mighty fine man. Seems to me I heard hedied last spring. Left quite a large estate, didn't he?"
"Yes," I answered briefly to both questions. It was not a subject Icared to discuss just then.
"Too bad, too bad," he commiserated--but whether the sympathy he forcedinto his tone was for the death of my father, or for me, I did notknow--nor care very much. It sounded like one of those convenientplatitudes that become a habit with people. He focused his attention onBarreau, however, immediately after this.
"Now, George," he said, "suppose we have a word in private, eh?"
"This suits me; I'm getting hardened to publicity," Barreau drawled."You want an understanding, you said. I'm agreeable. I remarked that itmight be well to try telling the truth if explanations are demanded."
An exasperated expression crossed Montell's face.
"Now, see here, be reasonable," he grunted. "That there guardhousebusiness settled you. If you'd kept shy of that, there'd be a chance.But there ain't. You could swear to things on a stack of Bibles--and shewouldn't believe a word. You know as well as I do that she's got allthem old-fashioned idees about a gentleman's honor that her mother'sfolks has. You know you _did_ kill them two fellers on High River, an'run off them Hudson's Bay work-bulls. You didn't have to do _that_. Youcan't explain _them_ things to _her_; nor bein' in jail. That there's ablack mark she can't overlook. You wasn't smooth enough, George."
"You are astonishingly frank, I must say." Barreau leaned forward,smiling sardonically, a sneering, unpleasant smile. "Why? Would you mindexplaining why you would refuse to vouch for the truth of my story if Itell her absolute facts? What have you up your sleeve?"
"Nothin'," Montell growled. "Only I ain't goin' to have you force myhand. I ain't goin' to get into no fuss with my own daughter. Besides,as I said, some of them things can't be explained to her--she couldn'tunderstand. Once she found out what a hell of a time's been goin' on inthis fur business, and that this winter's liable to breed more trouble,why she'd be sure to take a notion to stick here by me. An' I won'texpose _her_ to whatever might come up, for nobody's reputation."
"Wise old owl!" Barreau sneered. "What need for this sudden access ofcaution? Do you think I can't----"
He broke off short at the slam of a door on the farther side of thestorehouse. A feminine voice called, "Oh, papa!"
Montell sprang to his feet, muttering an expletive to himself, but hedid not at once reply. In the stillness the sound of light footfallsthreading the maze of piled goods echoed softly among the heavy beamsabove. It was dusk outside by then, and within that scantily windowedplace it was quite dark, beyond a red circle cast from the openfireplace. And as the girl stepped into the edge of its glow Montellstruck a match and touched it to a three-pronged candlestick on the boxby his seat. She stifled an exclamation at sight of us. Then, with ascornful twist to her dainty mouth, she bowed in mock courtesy.
"Gentlemen," she murmured, an ironic emphasis on the term, "yourpresence is unexpected. I cannot say I esteem it an honor."
Then she turned to her father.
"Papa," she observed interrogatively, "I have always known you were ahospitable soul, but I never dreamed a house of yours would ever proveshelter for an outlawed cutthroat. Upon my word, if I were a man Ishould be tempted to collect the bounty on this human wolf. There is abounty. See?"
She fumbled in a pocket of the short, fur-edged jacket she wore, andpresently drew forth a folded paper.
"Yes, surely there is a bounty," she went on maliciously, holding thepaper broadside to the sputtering candles. "Not a great one, to be sure,but more than he is worth. Five hundred dollars for the body, dead oralive, of George Brown, alias Slowfoot George. Height, weight, color ofeyes, certain marks and scars--to a dot. Also an appalling list ofcrimes. Have you no shred or atom of a decent impulse left"--sheaddressed Barreau directly, her tone level, stinginglycontemptuous--"that you persist in thrusting yourself upon people afterthey have seen the sheep's clothing stripped from your degenerateshoulders?"
Barreau met her gaze squarely and answered her in her own tone.
"I am here," he said, "because I choose to be here. Montell _pere_ cantell you why."
"Now, now Jessie," Montell cut in pacifically. "This ain't St. Louis. IfGeorge is in trouble, I don't know as any one has a better right to helphim than me. You don't want to be always ridin' that high hoss of yours.This country ain't peopled with little tin gods, as I've told you many atime. You'd better go back to the house. I'll be there pretty quick."
"Indeed, I imag
ine I could hardly be in worse company," she declared."So I will quit it, forthwith. It was not of my seeking. Better keep aneye on your goods, papa."
With that she was gone, leaving the three of us staring at each other,Montell a bit apprehensive, it seemed to me. Barreau was first to findhis voice.
"I would advise you to get your trail outfit in readiness to-night," hetold Montell bluntly, "and start south in the morning. Otherwise I willgive no guarantee of peace and good will in this camp. I can't standmuch of that sort of thing."
Montell seemed to consider this. If he felt any uneasiness over theimplied threat he maintained an undisturbed front. Hunched on the stoollike a great toad, one fat hand on each knee, his puffy eyelids blinkingwith automatic regularity, he regarded Barreau in thoughtful silence.
"I guess that's the proper card," he uttered at last. "I can make itback, all right, if it does come bad weather. I got to get her home,that's sure. You can kinda keep out of sight till we get started, can'tyou, George?"
"That's as it happens," Barreau returned indifferently. "Meantime, haveyou grub-staked any of these hunters? Are the Indians beginning to comein?"
Montell nodded. "Quite a few. Two or three camps up the river, the boyssay. Some of 'em wouldn't make no deal till you showed up. Don't you letnone of 'em have too big a debt, George."
Barreau shrugged his shoulders at this last caution. He sat staring intothe fire, his lean, dark face touched with its red glow. Then abruptlyhe got up and opened the door.
"It's dark, Bob," he said to me. "Let us go to the cabin." And withoutanother word to Montell he left the store, I following.
It was just dark enough so that we could distinguish the outline of thepost buildings, and the black, surrounding wall of the stockade. Theburned stable had been rebuilt during our absence. Within it horsessneezed and coughed over their fodder. On the flat beyond the post Icould hear the night-herder whistle as he rode around the grazing mules.From this window and that, lights shone mistily through thescraped-and-dried deer-skin that served for glass. And at the far end ofthe stockade a group of men chattered noisily about a roaring fire. Yetthe lights and sounds, the buildings of men and the men themselvesseemed inconsequential, insignificant, proportioned to theirsurroundings like the cheeping of a small frog at the bottom of a deepwell. The close-wrapping wilderness, with its atmosphere of inexorablesolitude, enfolded us with silence infinitely more disturbing than anyclamor. It may have been my mood, that night, but it seemed a drear andlonely land; the bigness of the North, its power, the implacable,elemental forces, had never taken definite form before. Now, all atonce, I saw them, and I did not like the sight.
We did not make our way straight to the cabin. Barreau had no mind to gohungry. He stopped at the mess-house and bade the cook send our supperto us, when it was ready. Then we went to the cabin, flung our leanpacks in a corner, built a fire, and sat by it smoking till a volubleFrenchman brought the warm food.
Again Barreau had fallen into wordless brooding. For the hour or morethat passed after we had eaten he lay on his bed staring at thepole-and-dirt roof. He was still stretched thus, an unlighted cigarettebetween his lips, when I took off my clothes and laid me down to sleep.And when at daybreak I wakened and sat up sleepily, Barreau's beddingwas neatly smoothed out on the bunk. His smoking material, which hadlain on the table, was gone; likewise his rifle, cartridge-belt, and thepack-rigging he had cast aside the evening before. It seemed that Mr.Barreau must have gone a-journeying.
I opened the door and looked about me. Here and there men busiedthemselves at sundry occupations. The sun had but cleared the tree-tops,and on flat and hillsides deep black shadows still nestled. My rovingeyes finally settled on one of these blots of shade, and presently I sawfour figures, mounted, two of them leading extra horses, ascending thesouth bank. Looking more closely I observed that one was a woman. Mr.Montell, I decided, was taking time by the forelock. I stood with handsjammed in my trousers pockets, wishing that I, too, were homeward bound,wondering if Bolton had got either of my letters, and if he had made anyattempt to trace me--and a lot of other footless speculation.