Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US
Page 751
Then I saw that her eyes were fixed on Massey’s face, and with such a deep attention that I knew, suddenly, that all during the dog fight she had been watching the master, not Alec. I stared at Massey in turn, to discover what had fascinated her; and it seemed to me that I saw nothing in his eyes and faintly smiling mouth but the remnants of what had been, a few seconds before, a brutal delight. If Marjorie had a pale look and failed to answer my remark, I did not wonder. It’s all very well to take pleasure in a good fight but, after all, there’s a certain point past which one should not go, and Massey had gone past that point.
It was the very morning following this that I said suddenly to him: “Massey, I don’t think that Calmont is going to show up after all.”
He turned sharply about on me, but I had not surprised him into making an answer. He simply smiled, but his eyes brightened and narrowed in the same brutal satisfaction which I had seen in his face during the dogfight of the evening before.
No matter how long delayed it might be, I knew now that he was confident that he would meet Calmont before Forty Mile.
XII. BAD LUCK ON THE JOB
WE TRAVELED OUT of the skirts of winter into the warmth of spring, for it was spring when we hit the Yukon, and a strange, wonderful sight it was to me, with its banks streaked and darkened by brush and little trees, and the frozen surface of a macadam road. What made this bulge I don’t know, unless it were the pressure of water rising in the bed of the stream. The sides of the ice sheet were frozen fast to the banks, and the big strong sheet of ice gave in the center a surprising lot without breaking. You would not think that there could be so much elasticity in such hard, brittle stuff. To increase the likeness to a road, there was water running down the shore on either side. This water was from the melting of the surface ice itself, and the thawing along the banks, and little rivulets unlocked by the sun long before the great main stream was free from the ice. The swift stream on each side of the ice sheet made this long, winding, shining white street like a part of a great municipality which floods the gutters for the sake of cleanliness. In what sort of a city would the great Yukon be a street!
Well, it seemed like a street to us, after the rough going we had had — the up-hill and down-dale struggling. We had dropped the third sled the day before, and with only two to pull, and with the team in very good fettle, we went fairly humming up the face of the ice. Massey said that the river might break up at almost any time, and that we had better make good time while we could, so we stretched out those days long and fast. Once again he gave me the impression not of a man who wanted to linger so that he might be overtaken, but of a fellow in desperate haste to meet someone ahead of him. But I was wrong.
At any rate, we went along at a smart clip, getting foot wise on the ice, with Alec spending most of his time in the lead traces. He was not very good at pulling — he was too intelligent to do much work when it was not a crying necessity — but he knew exactly where to find the best going; sometimes on the crest, and sometimes down the side of the easy curve of the river face, and sometimes weaving cunningly back and forth to avoid the roughnesses and the riffles in the surface ice. Other leaders were apt to put their heads down for pulling, but Alec kept his head high. He let the others do the hard slogging. He did the seeing and the thinking for the rest. And by this time they were taking much more kindly to him. It is my conviction that a dog team knows and respects the brains of its leader even more than his superiority in tooth work. Those eight big, strong, experienced huskies learned to look up to young Alec like children to a schoolmaster, and a very odd sight it was to see him wander about among them when we camped, lording it over them to the queen’s taste.
Of course, we went ashore to camp every halting stage. It was wet work getting to land across the deep, swift currents in the gutters; but we hardly minded that wetting because, once on shore, there was sure to be an ample supply of wood, and we could dry out in front of roaring fires, with the dogs lying about outside and the firelight reflecting copper green in their steady eyes.
One day, we began to feel a strange sense of life in the ice and, beyond the feeling, there were the oddest sounds that I ever heard. Massey said that it was a sign the ice would break at almost any time. There was no real danger, I suppose, because the roar of the breaking above or below us was reasonably sure to give us plenty of warning, yet I could not help a definite sense of fear, as though the great ice sheet over which we traveled might explode beneath our feet. We passed another dog team, that day, three dogs and two men, with two sleds. They were slogging along head down, so desperately bent on making mileage before the break-up of the ice that they paid little attention to us, and we went by them like something in a dream. I shall never forget, however, the strained, set expression in their faces. Ten miles out there on the ice could be covered without much more difficulty than one mile in the soft snow along the banks of the stream. They were trying to stretch out their easy mileage, and I didn’t blame them. We were doing the same thing, but we traveled like a flock of birds compared with the slogging of those poor freighters.
One or two mornings after that we sighted Calmont’s outfit behind us.
We had broken camp and repacked the sleds when I ran back to the top bank to hunt for a sheath knife which I had left behind. I got it on the tent site and came back through the brush to the verge of the bluff. Then I saw, far to the right and around a great arc of the curving river, an outfit of dogs and three men. There were eight dogs, just as we had in our regular outfit of workers, and there were three humans, just as in our string.
The minute I saw it, a sense of danger jumped up in my throat and half choked me. That was not exactly strange. We were making a good, early start, and something special must have been in the minds of those three travelers back there on the ice. Of course, it might be that they were simply trying to make good mileage before the break-up came. I said to myself that that must be it, but I called down to Massey what I had spotted.
He had a small pair of field glasses, an extra weight which I always wondered at his carrying. Now he pulled these glasses out and tossed them up to me. Imagine such a thing! He would risk throwing them about in this way after he had carried them so many hundreds of miles. Suppose they had fallen and the lens had been broken; he simply would have shrugged his shoulders, I know. He was that way. He had a strange belief that fate was directly concerned in everything that happened to a man.
Well, I got those glasses to my eyes and focused them on the outfit. I could not make out faces, at that great distance, but I thought I could tell that, compared with the size of the sleds, the dogs and men were big.
“What’s the leader like?” asked Massey.
Just then I got the glasses to a perfect focus, and into the round, steady field walked the dog team in the distance. I could make them out with extraordinary clarity.
“A black dog with white on him — a white vest,” I said.
I lowered the glasses, blinking from the eye strain, and I saw on the face of Massey a look of wild joy. I did not need to ask questions, and neither did the girl. She took one look at that frightful, leering smile and knew that it meant murder.
Yes, actual murder in the eyes of the law. If Calmont had come up with us, and had brought men along to help, we could be sure that one of them would be wearing a deputy’s badge. Massey would be resisting arrest. On what charge? Hardly on that of abducting a woman who had been bought like a horse or a dog by another man. No, not on that charge would they have their warrant made out, but on any one of a hundred little minor charges. I thought that I could see the story and the end of it in a blinding flash and roar of guns — and if Calmont and both his men went down, then Massey would be a hunted, hounded manslayer the rest of his days.
What did Massey care for that? His hatred of Calmont was such a perfect and compelling thing, that death itself was not too high a price to pay, if only he could send Calmont to eternity before him. He paid no attention to us. He simpl
y pulled out his rifle and set about loading it. Marjorie, at this, ran up to him and grabbed the gun by the stock and the barrel. She had no words to say, but the desperation and the horror got up to such a high pressure that she cried out in a stifled little screech. She looked as a dumb person might. I never saw such a dreadful expression as she wore, standing there before Massey and realizing that nothing she could say would have the least effect in altering that brute of a man.
She did not persist. She did not try to argue but, realizing at once that she was helpless, she loosed her grip on the gun and turned to run down the face of the river ice. I could see her idea, of course. She was desperate enough to go back and throw herself into the hands of Calmont if, in that manner, she could stop the fight between the two men.
She got hardly six steps away when Massey overtook her, and picked her up like a baby in his strong arms. At that, she gave up. He sat her down on the rear sled and she took her head between her hands and began to sob in the same awful way that I had overheard that morning so long ago in Nome.
In the meantime, Massey looked up to the bank and was, I suppose, planning the way in which he would begin this action. He kept nursing the rifle in his hands in an odd way. I remember that it was very bright sunshine, that morning, with hardly any mist in the air, and the reflection from the ice threw a bright glow on the under part of his face. He was still smiling, and horribly at ease, and even more horribly sure of himself. This, as I write it down, does not seem very exciting, but to stand elbow to elbow with murder is a frightful thing.
However, there was no doubt in my mind as to what I should do in this business. Massey was my partner, and I had to stand by him no matter what crime he was committing. At least, that was my reasoning at the age of sixteen. Besides the rifle, we had a good new Colt revolver. I got this out, loaded it and, when Massey started down the river edge, I went along with him.
He jerked his head over his shoulder and told me to go back. I felt as though there were no breath left in my lungs, and my knees were weak as old springs, but I kept along after him. He stopped, turned a little, and gave me a long, hard, calculating look. Then he showed me his back without another word and marched on.
A rabbit jumped in the brush above us, and he whirled to shoot. We were so close to the bank, and the bluff itself was so high, that there was no danger of the report echoing across the ice and down the river to Calmont and his men. So Massey decided to give himself a little practice, I suppose, and tried a snapshot at that rabbit. It made the old snowshoe jump as high as a man’s head. As it landed, Massey had thrown out the old shell and was ready to fire again. He pulled the trigger. There was not the true rifle report — like a hammer face clanging against a wall of steel — but a puffing, dull sound. I saw fire and black smoke leap from the breech of the rifle into Massey’s face and, dropping the gun into the running water of the gutter, he staggered back, his hands pressed against his face.
I followed him. There was such an overmastering horror in my mind that I lost my fear of this man and, catching him by the wrists, I jerked his arms down so that I could see what had happened.
There was a black smudge straight across his eyes, almost like a mask. This meant apparent ruin to us all, but I could not think of Marjorie and myself, just then. All I could do was to stare at the downfall of my friend, and the only words that came out of my mouth were a groaning: “Oh, Massey, Massey!” two or three times over.
Massey was as calm as a drill sergeant on parade. The burning of the powder, which must have been an exquisite agony, made the tears run down his cheeks; but his voice was perfectly steady when he said to me: “Aye, sonny. Bad luck is on the job today. I thought we might catch it off its beat. Give me the revolver, will you?”
I stretched it out. He reached, fumbling in the darkness of his sight, and this glimpse of his helplessness choked me with pity. It did not occur to me to question what use he could make of a revolver, now that his vision was lost, and I was about to put it into his wandering hands when Marjorie came up like a tiger and tore the gun away from me.
She had understood!
XIII. BLIND LEADERS
IF THE GIRL and I were confounded and upset, that was only natural. The strange thing was to see the way Alec carried on. You would have said that he knew what had happened. He ran whining to his master and stood up with his big paws against the breast of Massey and his head almost as high as the man’s.
Massey took the big pup in a hug, then made him drop down.
“Take Alec, Joe,” he commanded me, as steady as ever. “He’ll obey you. You’re the one person that he gives a rap about, outside of me. You saved his hide for him once, and the day’ll come when he’ll do as much for you. Treat him as if he were your child. Reason with him. But always be firm. Make a game out of him and he’ll repay you with an ocean of fun. Now, take Alec and tie him behind the rear sled. He may cut up for a time, but he’ll soon follow along. Tie him with that length of chain. And send the sled straight up the river. Keep the dogs working. They’ll stay ahead of Calmont’s gang, I think. Besides, I may decide to check them here for a time.”
“How will you check them?” asked Marjorie.
“By getting up the bank here after they’re in sight. They ought to be in view now.”
They were. It was not a bad idea, if he wished to throw himself away. If they saw a man climb from the river to the bank and go into the brush, of course they would know that it was Massey, for they would be able to identify our outfit by the appearance of white-bodied Alec. And they would not dare to pass the place where Massey was hidden without scouting with painful care for him. That would give us hours of a vital advantage. I could see the value of this plan, but I could not make up my mind to throwing Massey away. I looked at the girl, and she at Massey.
“We’re not leaving you, Hugh,” she said.
“What!” he roared out, as if he were furious. “You’re crazy! What could you do with a blind bat like me? Get on up the river. Alec, come here and say goodbye to me—”
“If you’re staying here, I’m staying,” said the girl. “If you stay, I’ll be here and stop the murder!”
“If you go to Calmont, you’re not worth the saving!” he cried.
But he turned a little from side to side, apparently pretty much disturbed by this threat.
“Get her away from here!” he said to me. “Joe, take the girl and tie her on the rear sled, if you can’t do it any other way—”
“I’m staying here with her, too,” I said, “if you’re waiting, Hugh. They’re coming up pretty fast, and it’ll soon be over for us. It’ll be a good day for Calmont when he gets Marjorie and Alec, and takes your life. It’ll be about the best day in his life!”
When Massey heard all those things piled up on his attention, he threw his arms over his head with a groan, and the look of him was like some one strangling in flames.
“All right,” he said. ‘Til go on with you if I can. You’re throwing yourselves away for my sake. Danged little I care for that, except that you’d fall to Calmont after me!”
We hardly cared what reasons influenced him. All that mattered was that we finally had him up there with the sleds, and his hand leaning on the gee pole. Then we strung out the dogs and started up the face of the ice.
But this time, the Calmont outfit or what we took to be his gang, had come up to within about a half mile of us, and immediately after we ran into a land mist that blotted out everything within two or three hundred yards, so that we could not tell whether we were gaining or losing.
Perhaps I should have called that a river mist, because I suppose that it was raised from the thawing ice and the melting of the frozen banks. At any rate, it was as white as smoke, with the sun path as a streak of blinding yellow across the frozen face of the river. This is the sort of traveling — as one strains the sight through the fog — that gives snow blindness. Both Marjorie and I were shaking our heads and rubbing our eyes, from time to time.
From the first, it looked a perfectly helpless job that we had undertaken. Even supposing that Marjorie and I had an excellent string of dogs — as good as cleverness and money could collect — still it would have been practically impossible for us to get away from the expert and hardened dog-punchers who were following up that river trail. But burdened with the practically helpless bulk of Massey, the little hope that we might have had was taken away from us.
Eventually, Marjorie had a good idea, and we acted on it. We tied a lead to Alec’s harness, and gave the end of the strap to Massey. After that, he went along much more comfortably. Alec pulled like a Trojan, until his master made him slack up. Then they went along very easily, because the dog, going over rough or smooth, or turning from one side to the other to avoid rough patches, was sure to give some signal of the change in direction to his master at the end of the lead line. Besides, Massey was an old-timer on ice, and knew almost instinctively how to handle himself. He had eyes in his feet, and he grew rapidly better and better at the marching game.
With occasional pauses, we slogged on through that day until the late afternoon, when the fog lifted by magic and we could see for miles up and down the bare face of the river.