by John Buchan
Two dull brown eyes were staring at him, eyes in which there was only the faintest spark of intelligence. They moved over his person, lingering some time at his boots, and then fastened on his face. There was bewilderment in them, but also curiosity. Their owner seemed to struggle for words, and he passed his tongue over his dry lips several times before he spoke.
‘You are – what?’
He spoke in English, but his hold on the language seemed to slip away, for when Leithen replied in the same tongue the opaque eyes showed no comprehension.
‘I am a friend of your friends,’ he said. ‘We have come to help you. I have the brother of Lew Frizel with me.’
After a pause he repeated the last sentence in French. Some word in it caught Galliard’s attention. His face suddenly became twisted with anxiety, and he tried to raise himself on his bed. Words poured from him, words tumbling over each other, the French of Quebec. He seemed to be imploring someone to wait for him – to let him rest a little and then he would go on – an appeal couched in queer childish language, much of which Leithen could not understand. And always, like the keynote of a threnody, came the word Rivière – and Rivière again – and once Rivière du Coeur Malade.
The partner of Ravelstons had suffered a strange transformation. Leithen realised that it would be idle to try to link this man’s memory with his New York life. He had gone back into a very old world, the world of his childhood and his ancestors, and though it might terrify him, it was for the moment his only world.
The babbling continued. As Leithen listened to it the word that seemed to emerge from the confusion was Lew’s name. It was on Lew that Galliard’s world was now centred. If he was to be brought back to his normal self Lew must be the chief instrument … And Lew was mad himself, raving mad, far away in the mountains on a crazy hunt for a mystic river! A sudden sense of the lunatic inconsequence of the whole business came over Leithen and forced from him a bitter laugh. That laugh had an odd effect upon Galliard for it seemed to frighten him into silence. It was if he had got an answer to his appeals, an answer which slammed the door.
13
NEXT day the cold was again extreme, but the sun was out for six hours, and the shelf in the forest was not uncomfortable. Johnny, after sniffing the air, pronounced on the weather. The first snow had fallen; there would be three days of heavy frost; then for maybe ten days there would be a mild, bright spell; then a few weeks before Christmas would come the big snows and the fierce cold. The fine spell would enable him to finish the hut. A little drove of snow-buntings had passed yesterday; that meant, he said, since the birds were late in migrating, that winter would be late.
‘You call it the Indian Summer?’
‘The Hares call it the White Goose Summer. It ends when the last white goose has started south.’
That day Leithen made an experiment. Galliard was mending well, the wound in the leg was healing, he could eat better, only his mind was still sick. It was important to find out whether the time had come to link his memory up with his recent past, to get him on the first stage on the road back to the sphere to which he belonged.
He chose the afternoon, when his own fatigue compelled him to rest, and Galliard was likely to be wakeful after the bustle of the midday meal. He had reached certain conclusions. Galliard had lost all touch with his recent life. He had reverted to the traditions of his family, and now worshipped at ancestral shrines, and he had been mortally scared by the sight of the goddess. These fears did not impel him to mere flight, for he did not know where to flee to. It drove him to seek a refuge, and that refuge was Lew. He was as much under the spell of Lew as Lew was under the spell of his crazy river. Could this spell be lifted?
So far Galliard had been a mere automaton. He had spoken like a waxwork managed by a ventriloquist. It was hardly possible to recognise a personality in that vacant face, muffled in a shaggy beard, and unlit by the expressionless eyes. Yet the man was regaining his health, his wound was healing fast, his cheeks had lost their famished leanness. As Leithen looked at him he found it hard to refrain from bitterness. He was giving the poor remnants of his strength to the service of a healthy animal with years of vigour before him.
He crushed the thought down and set himself to draw Galliard out of his cave. But the man’s wits seemed to be still wandering. Leithen plied him with discreet questions but got an answer to neither French nor English. He refrained from speaking his wife’s name, and the names of his American friends, even of Ravelston’s itself, woke no response. He tried to link up with Chateau-Gaillard, and Clairefontaine – with Father Paradis – with Uncle Augustin – with the Gaillards, Aristide and Paul Louis, who had died on the Arctic shores. But he might have been shouting at a cenotaph, for the man never answered, nor did any gleam of recognition show in his face. It was only when Leithen spoke again of Lew that there was a flicker of interest; more than a flicker, indeed, for the name seemed to stir some secret fear; the pupils of the opaque eyes narrowed, the lean cheeks twitched, and Galliard whimpered like a lost dog.
Leithen felt wretchedly ill all that day, but after supper, according to the strange fashion of his disease, he had a sudden access of strength. He found that he could think clearly ahead and take stock of the position. Johnny, who was labouring hard all day, should have tumbled into bed after supper and slept the sleep of the just. But it was plain that there was too much on his mind for easy slumber. He sucked at his pipe, kept his eyes on the fire outside the open door, and spoke scarcely a word.
‘How is he getting on?’ Leithen asked
‘Him? The feller? Fine, I guess. He’s a mighty tough body, for he ha’n’t taken no scaith, barrin’ the loss of weight. He’ll be a’ right.’
‘But his mind is gone. He remembers nothing but what happened in the last weeks. A shutter has come down between him and his past life. He’s a child again.’
‘Aye. I’ve known it happen. You see he was scared out of his skin by something – it may have been Lew, or it may have been jest loneliness. He’s got no sense in him and it’s goin’ to take quite a time to get it back. That’s why I’m fixin’ this hut. He wants nursin’ and quiet, and a sort of feel that he’s safe, and for that you need four walls, even though they’re only raw lumber. If you was to take him out in the woods you’d have him plumb ravin’ and maybe he’d never get better. I’ve seen the like before. It don’t do to play tricks with them wild places.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Leithen. ‘Lew goes mad and terrifies Galliard and lets him lag behind so that he nearly perishes. Galliard has the horror of the wilds on him, but no horror of Lew. He seems to be crying for him like a child for his nurse.’
‘That’s so. That’s the way it works. The feller don’t know that his troubles was all Lew’s doin’. He’s gotten scared of loneliness in this darned great wild country, and he claws on to anything human. The only human thing near at hand is brother Lew. But that ain’t all. If it was all you and me might take Lew’s place, for I guess we’re human enough. But, as I figure it, Lew has let him in on his Sick Heart daftness, and kind of enthused him about it, and, the feller bein’ sick anyhow, it has got possession of his mind. You told me back in Quebec that he’d a notion, which runs in his family, of pushing north, and we seen the two graves at Ghost River.’
‘Still I don’t understand,’ said Leithen. ‘He’s frightened of the wilds and yet he hankers to get deeper into them, right to a place where nobody’s ever been.’
Johnny shook out his pipe.
‘He’s not thinkin’ of the Sick Heart as part of the woods. He’s thinkin’ of it the same as Lew, as a sort of Noo Jerusalem – the kind of place where everything’ll be a’ right. He and Lew ain’t thinkin’ of it with sane minds, and if Lew’s there now he won’t be lookin’ at it with sane eyes. Sick Heart is a mighty good name for it.’
‘What sort of place do you think it is?’
‘An ordinary creek, I guess. It’s hard to get near, and that’s maybe why Lew’s
crazy about it. My father used to have a sayin’ that he got out of Scotland, “Far-away hills is always shiny.”’
‘Then how is Galliard to be cured of this madness?’
‘We’ve got to get Lew back to him – and Lew in his right mind. At least, that’s how I figure it. I mind once I was huntin’ with the Caribou-Eaters in the Thelon, east of Great Slave Lake. There was an Indian boy – Two-sticks, his name was – and he come under the spell of my Chipewyan hunter, him they called White Partridge. Well, the trip came to an end and we all went home, but next year I heard that Two-sticks had been queer all winter. He wasn’t cured until they fetched old White Partridge to him. And that meant a three-hundred-mile trip from Nelson Forks to the Snowdrift River.’
‘How can we get Lew back?’
‘Godamighty knows! If I was here on my own I’d be on his trail like a timber wolf. Maybe he’s sick in body as well as mind. Anyhow, he’s alone, and it ain’t good to be alone down North, and he’s all that’s left to me in the family line. But I can’t leave here. I took on a job with you and I’ve got to go through with it. There’s the feller, too, to nurse, and he’ll want a tidy bit o’ nursin’. And there’s you, mister. You’re a pretty sick man.’
‘Go after Lew and fetch him back and I’ll stay here.’
Johnny shook his head.
‘Nothin’ doin’. You can’t finish this hut. The Hares are willin’ enough, but they’ve got to be told what to do. And soon there’ll be need of huntin’ for fresh supplies, for so far we’ve been livin’ mostly on what we back-packed in. And we’ve got to send out to the Hares’ camp for some things. Besides, you ain’t used to the woods, and what’s easy for me would be one big trouble for you. But most of all you’re sick – god-awful sick – a whole lot sicker than the feller. So I say Nothin’ doin’, though I’m sure obliged to you. We’ve got to carry on with our job and trust to God to keep an eye on brother Lew.’
Leithen did not reply. There was a stubborn sagacious dutifulness in that bullet head, that kindly Scots face, and those steadfast blue eyes which was beyond argument.
14
HE spent a restless night, for he felt that the situation was slipping out of his control. He had come here to expend the last remnants of his bodily strength in a task on which his mind could dwell, and so escape the morbidity of passively awaiting death. He had fulfilled part of that task, but he was as yet a long way from success. Galliard’s mind had still to be restored to its normal groove. This could only be done – at least so Johnny said – by fetching and restoring to sanity the man who was the key to its vagaries. Johnny could not be spared, so why should he not go himself on Lew’s trial, with one of the Hares to help him? It was misery to hang about this camp, feeling his strength ebbing and getting no further on with his job. That would be dying like a rat in a hole. If it had to be, far better to have found a hole among the comforts of home. If he followed Lew, he would at any rate die in his boots, and whether he succeeded or failed, the end would come while he was fighting.
He told Johnny of his decision and at first was derided. He would not last two days; a Hare might be a good enough tracker, but he wanted a white man to guide him, one who was no novice. The road to the Sick Heart was admittedly difficult and could only be traversed, if at all, by a fit man; there might be storms and mountains made impassable. Moreover, what would he say to Lew, to whom he was a stranger? If Lew was found he would for certain resent any intrusion in his lair. This was the point to which Johnny always returned.
‘You’ve heard of mad trappers and the trouble they give the Mounties. If Lew’s mad he’ll shoot, and he don’t miss.’
‘I know all that,’ said Leithen, ‘and I’ve made my book for it. You must understand that anyhow I am going to die pretty soon. If I hurry on my death a little in an honest way, I won’t be the loser. That’s how I look at it. If I never get to Lew, and perish on the road, why, that’s that. If I find Lew and his gun finds me, well, that’s that. There is just the odd chance that I may persuade him to be reasonable and bring him back here, and that is a chance I’m bound to take. Don’t you worry about me, for I tell you I’m taking the easiest way. Since I’ve got to die, I want to die standing.’
Johnny held out his hand. ‘You got me beat, mister. Lew and myself ain’t reckoned timid folk, but for real sand there’s not your like on this darned continent.’
15
LEITHEN found the ascent of the first ridge from the valley bottom a stern business, for Lew had not zigzagged for ease, but had cut his blazes in the straight line of a crow’s flight. But once at the top the road led westerly along a crest, the trees thinned out, and he had a prospect over an immense shining world.
The taller of the Hares, the one he called Big Klaus, was his companion. He himself travelled light, carrying little except a blanket and extra clothing, but the Indian had a monstrous pack which seemed in no way to incommode him. He had the light tent (the hut being now far enough advanced to move Galliard into it), a rifle and shot-gun, axes, billy-can, kamiks to replace moccasins, and two pairs of snow-shoes. The last were of a type new to Leithen – not the round ‘bear-paws’ of eastern Canada made for the deep snow of the woods, but long, narrow things, very light, constructed of two separate rods joined by a toe-piece, and raised in front at a sharp angle. The centres were of coarse babiche with a large mesh, so as to pick up the least amount of snow, and since the meshing entered the frame by holes and was not whipped round it, the wooden surface was as smooth as skis. On such shoes, Johnny said, an active man could travel forty miles in a day.
Once the ridge had been gained, Leithen found that his breath came a little more easily. He seemed to have entered a world where the purity of the air was a positive thing, not the mere absence of impure matter, but the quintessence of all that was vital in Nature. The Indian Summer forecast by Johnny had begun. There was a shuddering undercurrent of cold, but the sun shone, and though it gave light rather than warmth, it took much of the bleakness out of the landscape. Also there was no wind. The huge amphitheatre, from the icy summit of the central peak to the gullies deep-cut in the black volcanic rock, was as quiet as a summer millpond. Yet there was nothing kindly in this peace; it seemed unnatural, as if the place were destined for strife. On the scarps the little spruces were bent and ragged with the winds, and the many bald patches were bleached by storms. This cold, raw hill-top world was not made for peace; its temporary gentleness was a trap to lure the unwary into its toils.
It was not difficult to follow Lew’s blazes, and in a little swamp they found his tracks. He must be a bigger man than Johnny, Leithen thought, or else heavily laden, for the foot-prints went deep.
The Hare plodded steadily on with his queer in-toed stride. He could talk some English, and would answer questions, but he never opened a conversation. He was a merciful man, and kept turning in his tracks to look at Leithen, and when he thought he seemed weary, promptly dropped his pack and squatted on the ground. His methods of cooking and camping were not Johnny’s, but in their way they were efficient. At the midday and evening meals he had a fire going at miraculous speed with his flint and steel and punk-box, and he could make a good bed even of comfortless spruce boughs. His weapon was a cheap breech-loader obtained from some trader, and with it he managed to shoot an occasional partridge or ptarmigan, so that Leithen had his bowl of soup. The second night out he made a kind of Dutch oven and roasted a porcupine, after parboiling it, and he cooked ash-cakes which were nearly as palatable as the pease-meal bannocks which Leithen had eaten in his youth.
That second night he talked. It had been a melancholy summer, for it had been foretold that many of the Hare people would presently die, and the whole tribe had fasted and prepared for their end. The manner of death had not been predicted – it might be famine, or disaster, or a stupendous storm. They had been scolded for this notion by Father Duplessis at Fort Bannerman and by Father Wentzel at the mountain camp, and before the end of the summer the spirits o
f the tribe had risen, and most believed that the danger had passed. But not all; some wise men thought that bad trouble was coming in the winter.
‘It is not good to wait too long on death,’ said Big Klaus. ‘Better that it should come suddenly when it is not expected.’ He looked reflectively at Leithen as if he knew that here was one who was in the same case as the Hares.
For three days they followed the network of ridges according to Lew’s blazing. They seemed rarely to lose elevation, for they passed gullies and glens by the scarps at their head waters. But nevertheless they had been steadily descending, for the great rift where the Sick Heart was believed to flow was no longer in the prospect, and the hanging glaciers, the ice couloirs and 94 Sick Heart River arêtes, and the poised avalanches of the central peak now overhung and dominated the landscape.
It was a strange world through which Leithen stumbled, conserving his strength greedily and doling it out like a miser. There was sun, light, no great cold, no wind; but with all these things there was no kindness. Something had gone out of the air and that something was hope. Night was closing down, a long night from which there would be a slow awakening. Scarcely a bird could be seen, and there were no small innocent frightened beasts to scurry into hiding. Everything that could move had gone to sanctuary against the coming wrath. The tattered pines, the bald, blanched pastures, were no more a home for life than the pinnacles of intense ice that glittered in mid-heaven. Dawn came punctually, and noon, and nightfall, and yet the feeling was of a perpetual twilight.
In these last weeks Leithen’s memory seemed to have become a closed book. He never thought of his past, and no pictures from it came to cheer or torture him. He might have been like the Hare, knowing no other world than this of laborious days and leaden nights. A new discomfort scarcely added to his misery, and food and fine weather did not lighten it. Every hour he was looking at marvels of natural beauty and magnificence, but they did not affect him. Life now awoke no response in him, and he remembered that some wise man had thus defined death. The thought gave him a queer comfort. He was already dead; there only remained the simple snapping of the physical cord.