The Leithen Stories

by John Buchan

  To his surprise he saw a small schooner anchored at the edge of a sandbank, a startling thing in that empty place. Johnny had joined him, and they went down to inspect it. An Eskimo family was on board, merry, upstanding people from far-distant Gordans Land. The skipper was one Andersen, the son of a Danish whaling captain and an Eskimo mother, and he spoke good English. He had been to Herschell Island to lay in stores, and was now on his way home after a difficult passage through the ice of the Western Arctic. The schooner was as clean as a new pin, and the instruments as well kept as on a man-o’-war. It had come in for fresh water, and Job was able to get from it a few tins of gasolene, for it was a long hop to the next fuelling stage. The visit to the Andersens altered Leithen’s mood. Here was a snug life being lived in what had seemed a place of death. It switched his interest back to his task.

  Presently he found what he had come to seek. On the way to the tent they came on an Eskimo cemetery. Once there had been a settlement here which years ago had been abandoned. There were half a dozen Eskimo graves, with skulls and bones showing through chinks in the piles of stone, and in one there was a complete skeleton stretched as if on a pyre. There was something more. At a little distance in a sheltered hollow were two crosses of driftwood. One was bent and weathered, with the inscription, done with a hot iron, almost obliterated, but it was possible to read … TID. GAIL … D. There was a date too blurred to decipher. The other cross was new and it had not suffered the storms of more than a couple of winters. On it one could read clearly PAUL LOUIS GAILLARD and a date eighteen months back.

  To Leithen there was an intolerable pathos about the two crosses. They told so much, and yet they told nothing. How had Aristide died? Had Paul found him alive? How had Paul died? Who had put up the memorials? There was a grim drama here at which he could not even guess. But the one question that mattered to him was, had Francis seen these crosses?

  Johnny, who had been peering at the later monument, answered that question.

  ‘Brother Lew has been here,’ he said.

  He pointed to a little St Andrew’s cross freshly carved with a knife just below Paul’s name. Its ends were funnily splayed out.

  ‘That’s Lew’s mark,’ he said. ‘You might say it’s a family mark. Long ago, when Dad was working for the Bay, there was a breed of Indians along the Liard, some sort of Slaveys, that had got into their heads that they were kind of Scots, and every St Andrew’s Day they would bring Dad a present of a big St Andrew’s Cross, very nicely carved, which he stuck above the door like a horse-shoe. So we all got into the way of using that cross as our trade mark, especially Lew, who’s mighty particular. I’ve seen him carve it on a slab to stick above a dog’s grave, and when he writes a letter he puts it in somewhere. So whenever you see it you can reckon Lew’s ahead of you.’

  ‘They can’t be long gone,’ said Leithen.

  ‘I’ve been figuring that out, and I guess they might have gone a week ago – maybe ten days. Lew’s pretty handy with a canoe. What puzzles me is where they’ve gone and how. There’s no place hereaways to get supplies, and it’s a good month’s journey to the nearest post. Maybe they shot caribou and smoked ’em. I tell you what, if your pal’s got money to burn, what about him hiring a plane to meet ’em here and pick ’em up? If that’s their game it won’t be easy to hit their trail. There’s only one thing I’m pretty sure of, and that is they didn’t go home. If we fossick about we’ll maybe find out more.’

  Johnny’s forecast was right, for that afternoon they heard a shot a mile off, and, going out to inquire, found an Eskimo hunter. At the sight of them the man fled, and Johnny had some trouble rounding him up. When halted he stood like a sullen child, a true son of the Elder Ice, for he had a tattooed face and a bone stuck through his upper lip. Probably he had never seen a white man before. He had been hunting caribou before they migrated south from the shore, and had a pile of skins and high-smelling meat to show for his labours. He stubbornly refused to accompany them back to the tent, so Leithen left him with Johnny, who could make some shape at the speech of the central Arctic.

  When Johnny came back Andersen and the schooner had sailed, and Ghost River had returned to its ancient solitude.

  ‘Lew’s been here right enough,’ he said. ‘He and his boss and a couple of Indians came in two canoes eleven days back – at least I reckoned eleven days as well as I could from yon Eskimo’s talk. Two days later a plane arrived for them. The Eskimo has never seen a horse or an automobile, but he knows all about aeroplanes. They handed over the canoes and what was left of the stores to the Indians and shaped a course pretty well due west. They’ve gotten the start of us by a week or maybe more.’

  That night after supper Johnny spoke for the first time at some length.

  ‘I’ve been trying to figure this out,’ he said, ‘and here’s what I make of it. Mr Galliard comes here and sees the graves of his brother and uncle. So far so good. From what you tell me that’s not going to content him. He wants to do something of his own on the same line by way of squarin’ his conscience. What’s he likely to do? Now, let’s see just where brother Lew comes in. I must put you wise about Lew.’

  Johnny removed his pipe from his mouth.

  ‘He’s a wee bit mad,’ he said solemnly. ‘He’s a great man; the cutest hunter and trapper and guide between Alaska and Mexico, and the finest shot on this continent. But he’s also mad – batty – loony – anything you like that’s out of the usual. It’s a special kind of madness, for in most things you won’t find a sounder guy. Him and me was buck privates in the War until they made a sharpshooter of him, and you wouldn’t hit a better-behaved soldier than old Lew. I was a good deal in trouble, but Lew never was. He has just the one crazy spot in him, and it reminds me of them Gaillards you talk about. It’s a kind of craziness you’re apt to find in us Northerners. There’s a bit of country he wants to explore, and the thought of it comes between him and his sleep and his grub. Say, did you ever hear of the Sick Heart River?’

  Leithen shook his head.

  ‘You would if you’d been raised in the North. It’s a fancy place that old-timers dream about. Where is it? Well, that’s not easy to say. You’ve heard maybe of the South Nahanni that comes in the north bank of the Liard about a hundred miles west of Fort Simpson? Dad had a post up the Liard and I was born there, and when I was a kid there was a great talk about the South Nahanni. There’s a mighty big waterfall on it, so you can’t make it a canoe trip. Some said the valley was full of gold, and some said that it was as hot as hell owing to warm springs, and everybody acknowledged that there was more game there to the square mile than in the whole of America. It had a bad name, too, for at least a dozen folk went in and never came out. Some said that was because of bad Indians, but that was punk, for there ain’t no Indians in the valley. Our Indians said it was the home of devils, which sounds more reasonable.’

  Johnny stopped to relight his pipe, and for a few minutes smoked meditatively.

  ‘Do you get to the Sick Heart by the South Nahanni?’ Leithen asked.

  ‘No, you don’t. Lew’s been all over the South Nahanni, and barring the biggest grizzlies on earth and no end of sheep and goat and elk and caribou, he found nothing. Except the Sick Heart. He saw it from the top of a mountain, and it sort of laid a charm on him. He said that first of all you had snow mountains bigger than any he had ever seen, and then icefields like prairies, and then forests of tall trees, the same as you get on the coast. And then in the valley bottom, grass meadows and an elegant river. A Hare Indian that was with him gave him the name – the Sick Heart, called after an old-time chief that got homesick for the place and pined away. Lew had a try at getting into it and found it no good – there was precipices thousands of feet that end. But he come away with the Sick Heart firm in his mind, and he ain’t going to forget it.’

  ‘Which watershed is it on?’ Leithen asked.

  ‘That’s what no man knows. Not on the South Nahanni’s. And you can’t get into it fr
om the Yukon side, by the Pelly or the Peel or the Ross or Macmillan – Lew tried ’em all. So it looks as if it didn’t flow that way. The last time I heard him talk about it he was kind of thinking that the best route was up from the Mackenzie, the way the Hare Indians go for their mountain hunting. There’s a river there called the Big Hare. He thought that might be the road.’

  ‘Do you think he’s gone there now?’

  ‘I don’t think, but I suspicion. See here, mister. Lew’s a strong character and mighty set on what he wants. He’s also a bit mad, and mad folks have persuasive ways with them. He finds this Galliard man keen to get into the wilds, and the natural thing is that he persuades him to go to his particular wilds, which he hasn’t had out of his mind for ten years.’

  ‘I think you’re probably right,’ said Leithen. ‘We will make a cast by way of the Sick Heart. What’s the jumping-off ground?’

  ‘Fort Bannerman on the Mackenzie,’ said Johnny. ‘Right, we’ll start tomorrow morning. We can send back the planes from there and collect an outfit. We’ll want canoes and a couple of Hares as guides.’

  And then he fell silent and stared into the fire. Now and then he took a covert glance at Leithen. At last he spoke a little shyly.

  ‘You’re a sick man, I reckon. I can’t help noticin’ it, though you don’t make much fuss about it. If Lew’s on the Sick Heart and we follow him there it’ll be a rough passage, and likely we’ll have to go into camp for the winter. I’m wondering can you stand it? There ain’t no medical comforts in the Mackenzie mountains.’

  Leithen smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter whether I stand it or not. You’re right. I’m a sick man. Indeed, I’m a dying man. The doctors in England did not give me more than a year to live, and that was weeks ago. But I want to find Galliard and send him home, and after that it doesn’t matter what happens to me.’

  ‘Is Galliard your best pal?’

  ‘I scarcely know him. But I have taken on the job to please a friend, and I must make a success of it. I want to die on my feet, if you see what I mean.’

  Johnny nodded.

  ‘I get you. I’m mighty sorry, but I get you … Once I had a retriever bitch, the best hunting dog I ever knew, and her and me had some great times on the hills. She could track a beast all day, and minded a blizzard no more than a spring shower. Well, she got something mortally wrong with her innards, and was dying all right. One morning I missed her from her bed beside the stove, and an Indian told me he’d seen her dragging herself up through the woods in the snow. I followed her trail and found her dead just above the tree line, the place she’d been happiest in when she was well. She wanted to die on her feet. I reckon that’s the best way for men and hounds.’

  15

  FOR three days Leithen was in abject misery. They had no receiver in their plane and therefore no means of getting weather reports, and when they took off the next morning the only change was an increased chill in the air. By midday they had run into fog, and, since in that area Job was uncertain of his compass, they went north again to the Arctic coast, and followed it to the Coppermine. Here it began to blow from the north, and in a series of rainstorms they passed the Dismal Lakes and came to the shore of the Great Bear Lake. Job had intended to pass the night at the Mines, but there was no going further that evening in the mist and drizzle.

  Next day they struggled to the Mines with just enough gasolene. Leithen looked so ill that the kindly manager would have put him to bed, but he insisted on restarting in the afternoon. They had a difficult take-off from the yeasty lake – Job insisted on their getting into their life-jackets, for he said that the betting was that in three minutes they would be in the water. The lake was safely crossed, but Job failed to hit off the outlet of the Great Bear River, and with the low ‘ceiling’ he feared to try a compass course to the Mackenzie because of the Franklin mountains. It was midnight before they struck the outlet and they had another wretched bivouac in the rain.

  After that things went better. The weather returned to bright sun, clear skies, and a gentle wind from the north-east. Presently they were above the Mackenzie and far in the west they saw the jumble of dark ridges which were the foothills of the Mackenzie mountains. In the afternoon the hills came closer to the river, and on the left bank appeared a cluster of little white shacks with the red flag of the Hudson’s Bay flying from a post.

  ‘Fort Bannerman,’ said Johnny, as they circled down. ‘That’s the Big Hare, and somewhere at the back of it is the Sick Heart. Mighty rough country.’

  The inhabitants of the fort were grouped at the mud bank where they went ashore – the Hudson’s Bay postmaster, two Oblate Brothers, a fur trader, a trapper in for supplies, and several Indians. The trapper waved a hand to Johnny—

  ‘Hullo, boy!’ he said. ‘How goes it? Lew’s been here. He lit out for the mountains ten days ago.’

  Part Two

  There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God.

  Psalm xlvi

  1

  IT took three days to get the proper equipment together. Johnny was leaving little to chance.

  ‘If we find Lew and his pal we may have to keep ’em company for months. It won’t be easy to get to the Sick Heart, but it’ll be a darn sight harder to get out. We’ve got to face the chance of a winter in the mountains. Lucky for us the Hares have a huntin’ camp fifty miles up-river. We can dump some of our stuff there and call it our base.’

  The first question was that of transport. Water was the easiest until the river became a mountain torrent. The common Indian craft was of moose hides tanned like vellum and stretched on poplar ribs; but Johnny managed to hire from a free-trader a solid oak thirty-foot boat with an outboard motor; and, as subsidiaries, a couple of canoes brought years ago from the south, whose seams had been sewn up with strips of tamarack root and caulked with resin. Two Indians were engaged, little men compared with the big Plains folk, but stalwart for the small-boned Hares. They had the slanting Mongol eyes of the Mackenzie River tribes, and had picked up some English at the Catholic mission school. Something at the back of Leithen’s brain christened them Big Klaus and Little Klaus, but Johnny, who spoke their tongue, had other names for them.

  Then the Hudson’s Bay store laid open its resources, and Johnny was no niggardly outfitter. Leithen gave him a free hand, for they had brought nothing with them. There were clothes to be bought for the winter – parkas and fur-lined jerkins, and leather breeches, and lined boots; gloves and flapped caps, blankets and duffel bags. There were dog packs, each meant to carry twenty-five pounds. There was a light tent – only one, for the Hares would fend for themselves at the up-river camp, and Lew and Galliard were no doubt already well provided. There were a couple of shot-guns and a couple of rifles and ammunition, and there was a folding tin stove. Last came the provender: bacon and beans and flour, salt and sugar, tea and coffee, and a fancy assortment of tinned stuffs.

  ‘Looks like we was goin’ to start a store,’ said Johnny, ‘but we may need every ounce of it and a deal more. If it’s a winter-long job we’ll sure have to get busy with our guns. Don’t look so scared, mister. We’ve not got to back-pack that junk. The boat’ll carry it easy to the Hares’ camp, and after that we’ll cache the feck of it.’

  Leithen’s quarters during these days were in the spare room of the Bay postmaster. Fort Bannerman was a small metropolis, for besides the Bay store it had a Mounted Police post, a hospital run by the Grey Nuns, and an Indian school in charge of the Oblate Brothers. With one of the latter he made friends, finding that he had served in a French battalion which had been on the right of the Guards at Loos. Father Duplessis was from Picardy. Leithen had once been billeted in the shabby flat-chested château near Montreuil where his family had dwelt since the days of Henri Quatre. The Fathers had had a medical training and could at need perform straightforward operations, such as that on an appendix, or the amputation of a maimed limb. Leithen sat in his little room at the hospital, which smelt of ethe
r and carbolic, and they talked like two old soldiers.

  Once they walked together to where the Big Hare strained to the Mackenzie through an archipelago of sandy islets.

  ‘I have been here seven years,’ Father Duplessis told him. ‘Before that I was three years in the eastern Arctic. That, if you like, was isolation, for there was one ship a year, but here we are in a thoroughfare. All through the winter the planes from the northern mines call weekly, and in summer we have many planes as well as the Hudson’s Bay boats.’

  Leithen looked round the wide circle of landscape – the huge drab Mackenzie two miles broad, to the east and south interminable wastes of scrub spruce, to the west a chain of tawny mountains, stained red in parts with iron, and fantastically sculptured.

  ‘Do you never feel crushed by this vastness?’ he asked. ‘This country is out-size.’

  ‘No,’ was the answer, ‘for I live in a little world. I am always busy among little things. I skin a moose, or build a boat, or hammer a house together, or treat a patient, or cobble my boots or patch my coat – all little things. And then I have the offices of the Church, in a blessedly small space, for our chapel is a midget.’

  ‘But outside all that?’ said Leithen, ‘you have an empty world and an empty sky.’

  ‘Not empty,’ said Father Duplessis, smiling, ‘for it is filled with God. I cannot say, like Pascal, “le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraie.” There is no silence here, for when I straighten my back and go out of doors the world is full of voices. When I was in my Picardy country there were little fields like a parterre, and crowded roads. There, indeed, I knew loneliness – but not here, where man is nothing and God is all.’