CHAPTER XXII
“MY DAMN PRETTY LI’L’ HIGH-STEPPIN’ SQUAW”
The man on the stool was Whaley.
One glance at the girl and one at West’s triumphant gargoyle grin was enough. He understood the situation better than words could tell it.
To Jessie, at this critical moment of her life, even Whaley seemed a God-send. She pushed across the room awkwardly, not waiting to free herself of the webs packed with snow. In the dusky eyes there was a cry for help.
“Save me from him!” she cried simply, as a child might have done. “You will, won’t you?”
The black eyebrows in the cold, white face drew to a line. The gambler’s gaze, expressionless as a blank wall, met hers steadily.
“Why don’t you send for your friend Morse?” he asked. “He’s in that business. I ain’t.”
It was as though he had struck her in the face. The eyes that clung to his we’re horror-filled. Did there really live men so heartless that they would not lift a hand to snatch a child from a ferocious wolf?
West’s laughter barked out, rapacious and savage. “She’s mine, jus’ like I said she’d be. My damn pretty li’l’ high-steppin’ squaw.”
His partner looked at him bleakly. “Oh, she’s yours, is she?”
“You bet yore boots. I’ll show her—make her eat outa my hand,” boasted the convict.
“Will you show McRae too—and all his friends, as well as the North-West Mounted? Will you make ’em all eat out of your hands?”
“Whadjamean?”
“Why, I had a notion you were loaded up with trouble and didn’t need to hunt more,” sneered the gambler. “I had a notion the red-coats were on your heels to take you across the plains to hang you.”
“I’ll learn ’em about that,” the huge fugitive bragged. “They say I’m a killer. Let it ride. I’ll sure enough let ’em see they’re good guessers.”
Whaley shrugged his shoulders and looked at him with cold contempt. “You’ve got a bare chance for a getaway if you travel light and fast. I’d want long odds to back it,” he said coolly.
“Tha’s a heluva thing to tell a friend,” West snarled.
“It’s the truth. Take it or leave it. But if you try to bull this through your own way and don’t let me run it, you’re done for.”
“How done for?”
The gambler did not answer. He turned to Jessie. “Unless you want your feet to freeze, you’d better get those duffles off.”
The girl took off her mits and tried to unfasten the leggings after she had kicked the snowshoes from her feet. But her stiff fingers could not loosen the knots.
The free trader stooped and did it for her while West watched him sulkily. Jessie unwound the cloth and removed moccasins and duffles. She sat barefooted before the fire, but not too close.
“If they’re frozen I’ll get snow,” Whaley offered.
“They’re not frozen, thank you,” she answered.
“Whadjamean done for?” repeated West.
His partner’s derisive, scornful eye rested on him. “Use your brains, man. The Mounted are after you hot and heavy. You know their record. They get the man they go after. Take this fellow Beresford, the one that jugged you.”
The big ruffian shook a furious fist in the air. “Curse him!” he shouted, and added a dozen crackling oaths.
“Curse him and welcome,” Whaley replied. “But don’t fool yourself about him. He’s a go-getter. Didn’t he go up Peace River after Pierre Poulette? Didn’t he drag him back with cuffs on ’most a year later? That’s what you’ve got against you, three hundred red-coats like him.”
“You tryin’ to scare me?” demanded West sullenly.
“I’m trying to hammer some common sense into your head. Your chance for a safe getaway rests on one thing. You’ve got to have friends in the Lone Lands who’ll hide you till you can slip out of the country. Can you do that if the trappers—friends of McRae, nearly all of ’em—carry the word of what you did to this girl?”
“I’m gonna take her with me.” West stuck doggedly to his idea. He knew what he wanted. His life was forfeit, anyhow. He might as well go through to a finish.
From where she sat before the great fire Jessie’s whisper reached Whaley. “Don’t let him, please.” It was an ineffective little wail straight from the heart.
Whaley went on, as though he had not heard. “It’s your deal, not mine. I’m just telling you. Take this girl along, and your life’s not worth a plugged nickel.”
“Hell’s hinges! In two days she’ll be crazy about me. Tha’s how I am with women.”
“In two days she’ll hate the ground you walk on, if she hasn’t killed herself or you by that time.”
Waves of acute pain were pricking into Jessie’s legs from the pink toes to the calves. She was massaging them to restore circulation and had to set her teeth to keep from crying.
But her subconscious mind was wholly on what passed between the men. She knew that Whaley was trying to reëstablish over the other the mental dominance he had always held. It was a frail enough tenure, no doubt, likely to be upset at any moment by vanity, suspicion, or heady gusts of passion. In it, such as it was, lay a hope. Watching the gambler’s cold, impassive face, the stony look in the poker eyes, she judged him tenacious and strong-willed. For reasons of his own he was fighting her battle. He had no intention of letting West take her with him.
Why? What was the motive in the back of his mind? She acquitted the man of benevolence. If his wishes chanced to march with hers, it was because of no altruism. He held a bitter grudge against Angus McRae and incidentally against her for the humiliation of his defeat at the hands of Morse. To satisfy this he had only to walk out of the house and leave her to an ugly fate. Why did he not do this? Was he playing a deep game of his own in which she was merely a pawn?
She turned the steaming duffles over on the mud hearth to dry the other side. She drew back the moccasins and the leggings that the heat might not scorch them. The sharp pain waves still beat into her feet and up her limbs. To change her position she drew up a stool and sat on it. This she had pushed back to a corner of the fireplace.
For Bully West was straddling up and down the room, a pent volcano ready to explode. He knew Whaley’s advice was good. It would be suicide to encumber himself with this girl in his flight. But he had never disciplined his desires. He wanted her. He meant to take her. Passion, the lust for revenge, the bully streak in him that gloated at the sight of some one young and fine trembling before him: all these were factors contributing to the same end. By gar, he would have what he had set his mind on, no matter what Whaley said.
Jessie knew the fellow was dangerous as a wounded buffalo bull in a corral. He would have his way if he had to smash and trample down any one that opposed him. Her eyes moved to Whaley’s black-browed, bloodless face. How far would the gambler go in opposition to the other?
As her glance shifted back to West, it was arrested at the window. The girl’s heart lost a beat, then sang a paean of joy. For the copper-colored face of Onistah was framed in the pane.
CHAPTER XXIII
A FORETASTE OF HELL
Jessie’s eyes flew to West and to Whaley. As yet neither of them had seen the Blackfoot. She raised a hand and pretended to brush back a lock of hair.
The Indian recognized it as a signal that she had seen him. His head disappeared.
Thoughts in the girl’s mind raced. If Winthrop Beresford or Tom Morse had been outside instead of Onistah, she would not have attempted to give directions. Either of them would have been more competent than she to work out the problem. But the Blackfoot lacked initiative. He would do faithfully whatever he was told to do, but any independent action attempted by him was likely to be indecisive. She could not conceive of Onistah holding his own against two such men as these except by slaughtering them from the window before they knew he was there. He had not in him sufficient dominating ego.
Whaley was an unknown quantity.
It was impossible to foresee how he would accept the intrusion of Onistah. Since he was playing his own game, the chances are that he would resent it. In West’s case there could be no doubt. If it was necessary to his plans, he would not hesitate an instant to kill the Indian.
Reluctantly, she made up her mind to send him back to Faraway for help. He would travel fast. Within five hours at the outside he ought to be back with her father or Beresford. Surely, with Whaley on her side, she ought to be safe till then.
She caught sight of Onistah again, his eyes level with the window-sill. He was waiting for instructions.
Jessie gave them to him straight and plain. She spoke to Whaley, but for the Blackfoot’s ear.
“Bring my father here. At once. I want him. Won’t you, please?”
Whaley’s blank poker stare focused on her. “The last word I had from Angus McRae was to keep out of your affairs. I can take a hint without waiting for a church to fall on me. Get some one else to take your messages.”
“If you’re going back to town I thought—perhaps—you’d tell him how much I need him,” she pleaded. “Then he’d come—right away.”
Onistah’s head vanished. He knew what he had to do and no doubt was already on the trail. Outside it was dark. She could hear the swirling of the wind and the beat of sleet against the window-pane. A storm was rising. She prayed it might not be a blizzard. Weather permitting, her father should be here by eight or nine o’clock.
West, straddling past, snarled at her. “Get Angus McRae outa yore head. Him an’ you’s come to the partin’ o’ the ways. You’re travelin’ with me now. Un’erstand?”
His partner, sneering coldly, offered a suggestion. “If you expect to travel far you’d better get your webs to hitting snow. This girl wasn’t out looking at the traps all by herself. Her trail leads straight here. Her friends are probably headed this way right now.”
“Tha’s right.” West stopped in his stride. His slow brain stalled. “What d’ you reckon I better do? If there’s only one or two we might—”
“No,” vetoed Whaley. “Nothing like that. Your play is to get out. And keep getting out when they crowd you. No killing.”
“Goddlemighty, I’m a wolf, not a rabbit. If they crowd me, I’ll sure pump lead,” the desperado growled. Then, “D’ you mean light out to-night?”
“To-night.”
“Where’ll I go?”
“Porcupine Creek, I’d say. There’s an old cabin there Jacques Perritot used to live in. The snow’ll blot out our tracks.”
“You goin’ too?”
“I’ll see you that far,” Whaley answered briefly.
“Better bring down the dogs from the coulée, then.”
The gambler looked at him with the cool insolence that characterized him. “When did I hire out as your flunkey, West?”
The outlaw’s head was thrust forward and down. He glared at his partner, who met this manifestation of anger with hard eyes into which no expression crept. West was not insane enough to alienate his last ally. He drew back sullenly.
“All right. I’ll go, since you’re so particular.” As his heavy body swung round awkwardly, the man’s eyes fell on Jessie. She had lifted one small foot and was starting to pull on one of the duffle stockings. He stood a moment, gloating over the beautifully shaped ankle and lower limb, then slouched forward and snatched her up from the stool into his arms.
His savage, desirous eyes had given her an instant’s warning. She was half up before his arms, massive as young trees, dragged her into his embrace.
“But before I go I’ll have a kiss from my squaw,” he roared. “Just to show her that Bully West has branded her and claims ownership.”
She fought, fiercely, desperately, pushing against his rough bearded face and big barrel chest with all the force in her lithe young body. She was as a child to him. His triumphant laughter pealed as he crushed her warm soft trunk against his own and buried her in his opened coat. With an ungentle hand he forced round the averted head till the fear-filled eyes met his.
“Kiss yore man,” he ordered.
The girl said nothing. She still struggled to escape, using every ounce of strength she possessed.
The fury of her resistance amused him. He laughed again, throwing back the heavy bristling jaw in a roar of mirth.
“Yore man—yore master,” he amended.
He smothered her with his foul kisses, ravished her lips, her eyes, the soft hot cheeks, the oval of the chin, and the lovely curve of the throat. She was physically nauseated when he flung her from him against the wall and strode from the room with another horrible whoop of exultation.
She clung to the wall, panting, eyes closed. A shocking sense of degradation flooded her soul. She felt as though she were drowning in it, fathoms deep. Her lids fluttered open and she saw the gambler. He was still sitting on the stool. A mocking, cynical smile was in the eyes that met Jessie’s.
“And Tom Morse—where, oh, where is he?” the man jeered.
A chill shook her. Dry sobs welled up in her throat. She was lost. For the first time she knew the cold clutch of despair at her heart. Whaley did not intend to lift a hand for her. He had sat there and let West work his will.
“Angus McRae gave me instructions aplenty,” he explained maliciously. “I was to keep my hands off you. I was to mind my own business. When you see him again—if you ever do—will you tell him I did exactly as he said?”
She did not answer. What was there to say? In the cabin was no sound except that of her dry, sobbing breath.
Whaley rose and came across the room. He had thrown aside the gambler’s mask of impassivity. His eyes were shining strangely.
“I’m going—now—out into the storm. What about you? If you’re here when West comes back, you know what it means. Make your choice. Will you go with me or stay with him?”
“You’re going home?”
“Yes.” His smile was enigmatic. It carried neither warmth nor conviction.
The man had played his cards well. He had let West give her a foretaste of the hell in store for her. Anything rather than that, she thought. And surely Whaley would take her home. He was no outlaw, but a responsible citizen who must go back to Faraway to live. He had to face her father and Winthrop Beresford of the Mounted—and Tom Morse. He would not harm her. He dared not.
But she took one vain precaution. “You promise to take me to my father. You’ll not—be like him.” A lift of the head indicated the man who had just gone out.
“He’s a fool. I’m not. That’s the difference.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Make your own choice. If you’d rather stay here—”
But she had made it. She was getting hurriedly into her furs and was putting on her mittens. Already she had adjusted the snowshoes.
“We’d better hurry,” she urged. “He might come back.”
“It’ll be bad luck for him if he does,” the gambler said coolly. “You ready?”
She nodded that she was.
In another moment they were out of the warm room and into the storm. The wind was coming in whistling gusts, carrying with it a fine sleet that whipped the face and stung the eyeballs. Before she had been out in the storm five minutes, Jessie had lost all sense of direction.
Whaley was an expert woodsman. He plunged into the forest, without hesitation, so surely that she felt he must know where he was going. The girl followed at his heels, head down against the blast.
Before this day she had not for months taken a long trip on webs. Leg muscles, called into use without training, were sore and stiff. In the darkness the soft snow piled up on the shoes. Each step became a drag. The lacings and straps lacerated her tender flesh till she knew her duffles were soaked with blood. More than once she dropped back so far that she lost sight of Whaley. Each time he came back with words of encouragement and good cheer.
“Not far now,” he would promise. “Across a little bog and then camp. Keep coming.”
Once he found her sitting on
the snow, her back to a tree.
“You’d better go on alone. I’m done,” she told him drearily.
He was not angry at her. Nor did he bully or browbeat.
“Tough sledding,” he said gently. “But we’re ’most there. Got to keep going. Can’t quit now.”
He helped Jessie to her feet and led the way down into a spongy morass. The brush slapped her face. It caught in the meshes of her shoes and flung her down. The miry earth, oozing over the edges of the frames, clogged her feet and clung to them like pitch.
Whaley did his best to help, but when at last she crept up to the higher ground beyond the bog every muscle ached with fatigue.
They were almost upon it before she saw a log cabin looming out of the darkness.
She sank on the floor exhausted. Whaley disappeared into the storm again. Sleepily she wondered where he was going. She must have dozed, for when her eyes next reported to the brain, there was a brisk fire of birch bark burning and her companion was dragging broken bits of dead and down timber into the house.
“Looks like she’s getting her back up for a blizzard. Better have plenty of fuel in,” he explained.
“Where are we?” she asked drowsily.
“Cabin on Bull Creek,” he answered. “Better get off your footwear.”
While she did this her mind woke to activity. Why had he brought her here? They had no food. How would they live if a blizzard blew up and snowed them in? And even if they had supplies, how could she live alone for days with this man in a cabin eight by ten?
As though he guessed what was in her mind, he answered plausibly enough one of the questions.
“No chance to reach Faraway. Too stormy. It was neck or nothing. Had to take what we could get.”
“What’ll we do if—if there’s a blizzard?” she asked timidly.
“Sit tight.”
“Without food?”
“If it lasts too long, I’ll have to wait for a lull and make a try for Faraway. No use worrying. We can’t help what’s coming. Got to face the music.”
Her eyes swept the empty cabin. No bed. No table. One home-made three-legged stool. A battered kettle. It was an uninviting prospect, even if she had not had to face possible starvation while she was caged with a stranger who might any minute develop wolfish hunger for her as he had done only forty-eight hours before.
The Second Western Megapack Page 168