“I’m alone,” Jessie explained. “Father and Fergus have gone out to the traps. They’ll not be back till to-morrow. Mother’s with Mrs. Whaley.”
Tom knew that the trader’s wife was not well. She was expecting to be confined in a few weeks.
He was embarrassed at being alone with the girl inside the walls of a house. His relations with Angus McRae reached civility, but not cordiality. The stern old Scotchman had never invited him to drop in and call. He resented the fact that through the instrumentality of Morse he had been forced to horsewhip the lass he loved, and the trader knew he was not forgiven his share in the episode and probably never would be. Now Tom had come only because a matter of business had to be settled one way or the other at once.
“Blandoine is leavin’ for Whoop-Up in the mornin’. I came to see your father about those robes. If we buy, it’ll have to be now. I can send ’em down with Blandoine,” he explained.
She nodded, briskly. “Father said you could have them at your price if you’ll pay what he asked for those not split. They’re good hides—cows and young bulls.”5
“It’s a deal,” the fur-trader said promptly. “Glad to get ’em, though I’m payin’ all I can afford for the split ones.”
“I’ll get the key to the storehouse,” Jessie said.
She walked out of the room with the springy, feather-footed step that distinguished her among all the women that he knew. In a few moments she was back. Instead of giving him the key, she put it down on the table near his hand.
Beneath the tan the dark blood beat into his face. He knew she had done this in order not to run the risk of touching him.
For a long moment his gaze gripped and held her. Between them passed speech without words. His eyes asked if he were outside the pale completely, if he could never wipe out the memory of that first cruel meeting. Hers answered proudly that, half-breed though she was, he was to her only a wolfer, of less interest than Black, the leader of her father’s dog train.
He picked up the key and left, wild thoughts whirling through his mind. He loved her. Of what use was it trying longer to disguise it from himself. Of the inferior blood she might be, yet his whole being went out to her in deep desire. He wanted her for his mate. He craved her in every fiber of his clean, passionate manhood, as he had never before longed for a woman in his life. And she hated him—hated him with all the blazing scorn of a young proud soul whose fine body had endured degradation on his account. He was a leper, to be classed with Bully West.
Nor did he blame her. How could she feel otherwise and hold her self-respect. The irony of it brought a bitter smile to his lips. If she only knew it, the years would avenge her a hundredfold. For he had cut himself off from even the chance of the joy that might have been his.
In the sky an aurora flashed with scintillating splendor. The heavens were aglow with ever-changing bars and columns of colored fire.
Morse did not know it. Not till he had passed a dozen steps beyond a man in heavy furs did his mind register recognition of him as Whaley. He did not even wonder what business was taking the gambler toward Angus McRae’s house.
Business obtruded its claims. He arranged with Blandoine to take the robes out with him and walked back to the McRae storehouse. It adjoined the large log cabin where the Scotchman and his family lived.
Blandoine and he went over the robes carefully in order that there should be no mistake as to which ones the trainmaster took. This done, Morse locked the door and handed the key to his companion.
To him there was borne the sound of voices—one low and deep, the other swift and high. He caught no words, but he became aware that a queer excitement tingled through his veins. At the roots of his hair there was an odd, prickling sensation. He could give himself no reason, but some instinct of danger rang in him like a bell. The low bass and the light high treble—they reached him alternately, cutting into each other, overriding each other, clashing in agitated dissent.
Then—a shrill scream for help!
Morse could never afterward remember opening the door of the log house. It seemed to him that he burst through it like a battering-ram, took the kitchen in two strides, and hurled himself against the sturdy home-made door which led into the living-room.
This checked him, for some one had slid into its socket the bar used as a bolt. He looked around the kitchen and found in one swift glance what he wanted. It was a large back log for the fireplace.
With this held at full length under his arm he crashed forward. The wood splintered. He charged again, incited by a second call for succor. This time his attack dashed the bolt and socket from their place. Morse stumbled into the room like a drunken man.
CHAPTER XVII
A BOARD CREAKS
After Morse had closed the door, Jessie listened until the crisp crunch of his footsteps had died away. She subdued an impulse to call him back and put into words her quarrel against him.
From the table she picked up a gun-cover of moose leather she was making and moved to the fireplace. Automatically her fingers fitted into place a fringe of red cloth. (This had been cut from an old petticoat, but the source of the decoration would remain a secret, not on any account to be made known to him who was to receive the gift.) Usually her hands were busy ones, but now they fell away from the work listlessly.
The pine logs crackled, lighting one end of the room and filling the air with aromatic pungency. As she gazed into the red coals her mind was active.
She knew that her scorn of the fur-trader was a fraud. Into her hatred of him she threw an energy always primitive and sometimes savage. But he held her entire respect. It was not pleasant to admit this. Her mind clung to the shadowy excuse that he had been a wolfer, although the Indians looked on him now as a good friend and a trader who would not take advantage of them. Angus McRae himself had said there was no better citizen in the Northland.
No, she could not hold Tom Morse in contempt as she would have liked. But she could cherish her animosity and feed it on memories that scorched her as the whiplash had her smooth and tender flesh. She would never forgive him—never. Not if he humbled himself in the dust.
Toward Angus McRae she held no grudge whatever. He had done only his duty as he saw it. The circumstances had forced his hand, for her word had pledged him to punishment. But this man who had walked into her life so roughly, mastered her by physical force, dragged her to the ignominy of the whip, and afterward had dared to do her a service—when she woke at night and thought of him she still burned with shame and anger. He had been both author and witness of her humiliation.
The girl’s reverie stirred reflection of other men, for already she had suitors in plenty. Upon one of them her musing lingered. He had brought to her gifts of the friendly smile, of comradeship, of youth’s debonair give-and-take. She did not try to analyze her feeling for Winthrop Beresford. It was enough to know that he had brought into her existence the sparkle of joy.
For life had stalked before her with an altogether too tragic mien. In this somber land men did not laugh much. Their smiles held a background of gravity. Icy winter reigned two thirds of the year and summer was a brief hot blaze following no spring. Nature demanded of those who lived here that they struggle to find subsistence. In that conflict human beings forgot that they had been brought into the world to enjoy it with careless rapture.
Somewhere in the house a board, creaked. Jessie heard it inattentively, for in the bitter cold woodwork was always snapping and cracking.
Beresford had offered her a new philosophy of life. She did not quite accept it, yet it fascinated. He believed that the duty of happiness was laid on people as certainly as the duty of honesty. She remembered that once he had said….
There had come to her no sound, but Jessie knew that some one had opened the door and was standing on the threshold watching her. She turned her head. Her self-invited guest was Whaley.
Jessie rose. “What do you want?”
She was startled at the man’s si
lent entry, ready to be alarmed if necessary, but not yet afraid. It was as though her thoughts waited for the cue he would presently give. Some instinct for safety made her cautious. She did not tell the free trader that her father and Fergus were from home.
He looked at her, appraisingly, from head to foot, in such a way that she felt his gaze had stripped her.
“You know what I want. You know what I’m going to get … some day,” he purred in his slow, feline way.
She pushed from her mind a growing apprehension.
“Father and Fergus—if you want them—”
“Have I said I wanted them?” he asked. “They’re out in the woods trappin’. I’m not lookin’ for them. The two of us’ll be company for each other.”
“Go,” she said, anger flaring at his insolence. “Go. You’ve no business here.”
“I’m not here for business, but for pleasure, my dear.”
The cold, fishy eyes in his white face gloated. Suddenly she wanted to scream and pushed back the desire scornfully. If she did, nobody would hear her. This had to be fought out one to one.
“Why didn’t you knock?” she demanded.
“We’ll say I did and that you didn’t hear me,” he answered suavely. “What’s it matter among friends anyhow?”
“What do you want?” By sheer will power she kept her voice low.
“Your mother’s over at the house. I dropped in to say she’ll probably stay all night.”
“Is your wife worse?”
He lifted the black brows that contrasted so sharply with the pallor of the face. “Really you get ahead of me, my dear. I don’t recall ever getting married.”
“That’s a hateful thing to say,” she flamed, and bit her lower lip with small white teeth to keep from telling the squaw-man what she thought of him. The Cree girl he had taken to wife was going down into the Valley of the Shadow to bear him a child while he callously repudiated her.
He opened his fur coat and came to the fireplace. “I can say nicer things—to the right girl,” he said, and looked meaningly at her.
“I’ll have to go get Susie Lemoine to stay with me,” Jessie said hurriedly. “I didn’t know Mother wasn’t coming home.”
She made a move toward a fur lying across the back of a chair.
He laid a hand upon her arm. “What’s your rush? What are you dodgin’ for, girl? I’m good as Susie to keep the goblins from gettin you.”
“Don’t touch me.” Her eyes sparked fire.
“You’re mighty high-heeled for a nitchie. I reckon you forget you’re Sleeping Dawn, daughter of a Blackfoot squaw.”
“I’m Jessie McRae, daughter of Angus, and if you insult me, you’ll have to settle with him.”
He gave a short snort of laughter. “Wake up, girl. What’s the use of foolin’ yourself? You’re a breed. McRae’s tried to forget it and so have you. But all the time you know damn well you’re half Injun.”
Jessie looked at him with angry contempt, then wheeled for the door.
Whaley had anticipated that and was there before her. His narrowed, covetous eyes held her while one hand behind his back slid the bolt into place.
“Let me out!” she cried.
“Be reasonable. I’m not aimin’ to hurt you.”
“Stand aside and let me through.”
He managed another insinuating laugh. “Have some sense. Quit ridin’ that high horse and listen while I talk to you.”
But she was frightened by this time as much as she was incensed. A drum of dread was beating in her panicky heart. She saw in his eyes what she had never before seen on a face that looked into hers—though she was to note it often in the dreadful days that followed—the ruthless appetite of a wild beast crouching for its kill.”
“Let me go! Let me go!” Her voice was shrilly out of control. “Unbar the door, I tell you!”
“I’m a big man in this country. Before I’m through. I’ll be head chief among the trappers for hundreds of miles. I’m offerin’ you the chance of a lifetime. Throw in with me and you’ll ride in your coach at Winnipeg some day.” Voice and words were soft and smooth, but back of them Jessie felt the panther couched for its spring.
She could only repeat her demand, in a cry that reached its ictus in a sob.
“If you’re dreamin’ about that red-coat spy—hopin’ he’ll marry you after he’s played fast and loose with you—why, forget such foolishness. I know his kind. When he’s had his fling, he’ll go back to his own people and settle down. He’s lookin’ for a woman, not a wife.”
“That’s a lie!” she flung out, rage for the moment in ascendent. “Open that door or I’ll—”
Swiftly his hand shot forward and caught her wrist. “What’ll you do?” he asked, and triumph rode in his eyes.
She screamed. One of his hands clamped down over her mouth, the other went round her waist and drew the slim body to him. She fought, straining from him, throwing back her head in another lifted shriek for help.
As well she might have matched her strength with a buffalo bull. He was still under forty, heavy-set, bones packed with heavy muscles. It seemed to her that all the power of her vital youth vanished and left only limp and flaccid weakness. He snatched her close and kissed the dusky eyes, the soft cheeks, the colorful lips….
She became aware that he was holding her from him, listening. There was a crash of wood.
Again her call for help rang out.
Whaley flung her from him. He crouched, every nerve and muscle tense, lips drawn back in a snarl. She saw that in his hand there was a revolver.
Against the door a heavy weight was hurled. The wood burst into splinters as the bolt shot from the socket. Drunkenly a man plunged across the threshold, staggering from the impact of the shock.
CHAPTER XVIII
A GUN ROARS
The two men glared at each other, silently, their faces distorted to gargoyles in the leaping and uncertain light. Wary, vigilant, tense, they faced each other as might jungle tigers waiting for the best moment to attack.
There was a chance for the situation to adjust itself without bloodshed. Whaley could not afford to kill and Morse had no desire to force his hand.
Jessie’s fear outran her judgment. She saw the menace of the revolver trained on her rescuer and thought the gambler was about to fire. She leaped for the weapon, and so precipitated what she dreaded.
The gun roared. A bullet flew past Morse and buried itself in a log. Next instant, clinging with both hands to Whaley’s wrist, Jessie found herself being tossed to and fro as the man struggled to free his arm. Flung at a tangent against the wall, she fell at the foot of the couch where Fergus slept.
Again the blaze and roar of the revolver filled the room. Morse plunged head down at his enemy, still carrying the log he had used as a battering-ram. It caught the gambler at that point of the stomach known as the solar plexus. Whaley went down and out of consciousness like an ox that has been pole-axed.
Tom picked up the revolver and dropped it into the pocket of his fur coat. He stooped to make sure that his foe was beyond the power of doing damage. Then he lifted Jessie from the corner where she lay huddled.
“Hurt?” he asked.
The girl shuddered. “No. Is he—is he killed?”
“Wind knocked out of him. Nothing more.”
“He didn’t hit you?”
There was the ghost of a smile in his eyes. “No, I hit him.”
“He was horrid. I—I—” Again a little shiver ran through her body. She felt very weak at the knees and caught for a moment at the lapel of his coat to steady herself. Neither of them was conscious of the fact that she was in his arms, clinging to him while she won back self-control.
“It’s all right now. Don’t worry. Lucky I came back to show Blandoine which furs to take.”
“If you hadn’t—” She drew a ragged breath that was half a sob.
Morse loved her the more for the strain of feminine hysteria that made her for the moment a soft
and tender child to be comforted. He had known her competent, savage, disdainful, one in whom vital and passionate life flowed quick. He had never before seen the weakness in her reaching out to strength. That by sheer luck it was his power to which she clung filled him with deep delight.
He began to discount his joy lest she do it instead. His arm fell away from her waist.
“I ’most wrecked the house,” he said with a humorous glance at the door. “I don’t always bring one o’ the walls with me when I come into a room.”
“He bolted the door,” she explained rather needlessly. “He wouldn’t let me out.”
“I heard you call,” he answered, without much more point.
She glanced at the man lying on the floor. “You don’t think he might be—” She stopped, unwilling to use the word.
Tom knelt beside him and felt his heart.
“It’s beating,” he said. And added quickly, “His eyes are open.”
It was true. The cold, fishy eyes had flickered open and were taking stock of the situation. The gambler instantly chose his line of defense. He spoke, presently.
“What in the devil was bitin’ you, Morse? Just because I was jokin’ the girl, you come rampagin’ in and knock me galley west with a big club. I’ll not stand for that. Soon as I’m fit to handle myself, you and I’ll have a settlement.”
“Get up and get out,” ordered the younger man.
“When I get good and ready. Don’t try to run on me, young fellow. Some other fools have found that dangerous.”
The Second Western Megapack Page 165