The Valley of Silent Men

by James Oliver Curwood

  CHAPTER XVI

  Kent stood still while Marette moved in that gloom, found matches, andlighted the lamp. He had not spoken a word after the kiss. He had nottaken advantage of it. The gentle pressure of her hands had restrainedhim from taking her in his arms. But the kiss itself fired him with awild and glorious thrill that was like a vibrant music to which everyatom of life in his body responded. If he claimed his reward at all, hehad expected her kiss to be perhaps indifferent, at least neutral. Butthe lips she had given him there in the darkness of the room were warm,living, breathing lips. They had not been snatched away from him tooquickly. Their sweetness, for an instant, had lingered.

  Then, in the lamp glow, he was looking into Marette Radisson's face. Heknew that his own was aflame. He had no desire to hide its confession,and he was eager to find what lay in her own eyes. And he wasastonished, and then startled. The kiss had not disturbed Marette. Itwas as if it had never happened.

  She was not embarrassed, and there was no hint of color in her face. Itwas her deathly whiteness that startled him, a pallor emphasized by thedark masses of her hair, and a strange glow in her eyes. It was not aglow brought there by the kiss. It was fear, fading slowly out of themas he looked, until at last it was gone, and her lips trembled with anapologetic smile.

  "He was very angry," she said. "How easily some men lose their tempers,don't they--Jeems?"

  The little break in her voice, her brave effort to control herself, andthe whimsical bit of smile that accompanied her words made him want todo what the gentle pressure of her hands had kept him from doing a fewmoments before--pick her up in his arms. What she was trying to hide hesaw plainly. She had been in danger, a danger greater than that whichshe had quietly and fearlessly faced at barracks. And she was stillafraid of that menace. It was the last thing which she wanted him toknow, and yet he knew it. A new force swept through him. It was theforce which comes of mastery, of possessorship, of fighting grimlyagainst odds. It rose in a mighty triumph. It told him this girlbelonged to him, that she was his to fight for. And he was going tofight. Marette saw the change that came into his face. For a momentafter she had spoken there was silence between them. Outside the stormbeat in a fiercer blast. A roll of thunder crashed over the bungalow.The windows rattled in a sweep of wind and rain. Kent, looking at her,his muscles hardening, his face growing grimmer, nodded toward thewindow at which Mooie's signal had come.

  "It is a splendid night--for us," he said. "And we must go."

  She did not answer.

  "In the eyes of the law I am a murderer," he went on. "You saved me.You shot a man. In those same eyes you are a criminal. It is folly toremain here. It is sheer suicide for both of us. If Kedsty--"

  "If Kedsty does not do what I told him to do to-night, I shall killhim!" she said.

  The quietness of her words, the steadiness of her eyes, held himspeechless. Again it seemed to him, as it had seemed to him in his roomat Cardigan's place, that it was a child who was looking at him andspeaking to him. If she had shown fear a few moments before, that fearwas not revealed in her face now. She was not excited. Her eyes weresoftly and quietly beautiful. She amazed him and discomfited him.Against that child-like sureness he felt himself helpless. Its potencywas greater than his strength and greater than his determination. Itplaced between them instantly a vast gulf, a gulf that might be bridgedby prayer and entreaty, but never by force. There was no hint ofexcitement in her threat against Kedsty, and yet in the very calmnessof it he felt its deadliness.

  A whimsical half-smile was trembling on her lips again, and a warmerglow came into her eyes. "Do you know," she said, "that according to anold and sacred code of the North you belong to me?"

  "I have heard of that code," he replied. "A hundred years ago I shouldhave been your slave. If it exists today, I am happy."

  "Yes, you see the point, Jeems, don't you? You were about to die,probably. I think they would have hanged you. And I saved your life.Therefore your life belongs to me, for I insist that the code stilllives. You are my property, and I am going to do with you as I please,until I turn you over to the Rivers. And you are not going tonight. Youshall wait here for Laselle and his brigade."

  "Laselle--Jean Laselle?"

  She nodded. "Yes, that is why you must wait. We have made a splendidarrangement. When Laselle and his brigade start north, you go withthem. And no one will ever know. You are safe here. No one will thinkof looking for you under the roof of the Inspector of Police."

  "But you, Marette!" He caught himself, remembering her injunction notto question her. Marette shrugged her slim shoulders the slightest bitand nodded for him to look upon what she knew he had already seen, herroom.

  "It is not uncomfortable," she said. "I have been here for a number ofweeks, and nothing has happened to me. I am quite safe. InspectorKedsty has not looked inside that door since the day your bigred-headed friend saw me down in the poplars. He has not put a foot onthe stair. That is the dead-line. And--I know--you are wondering. Youare asking yourself a great many questions--_a bon droit_, M'sieu Jeems.You are burning up with them. I can see it. And I--"

  There was something suddenly pathetic about her, as she sank into thebig-armed, upholstered chair which had been Kedsty's favorite readingchair. She was tired, and for a moment it seemed to Kent that she wasalmost ready to cry. Her ringers twisted nervously at the shining endof the braid in her lap, and more than ever he thought how slim andhelpless, she was, yet how gloriously unafraid, how unconquerable withthat something within her that burned like the fire of a dynamo. Theflame of that force had gone down now, as though the fire itself wasdying out; but when she raised her eyes to him, looking up at him fromout of the big chair, he knew that back of the yearning, child-likeglow that lay in them the heart of that fire was living andunquenchable. Again, for him, she had ceased to be a woman. It was thesoul of a child that lay in her wide-open, wonderfully blue eyes. Twicebefore he had seen that miracle, and it held him now, as it had heldhim that first time when she had stood with her back at Cardigan'sdoor. And as it had changed then, so it changed now, slowly, and shewas a woman again, with that great gulf of unapproachableness betweenthem. But the yearning was still there, revealing itself to him, andyet, like the sun, infinitely remote from him.

  "I wish that I might answer those questions for you," she said, in avoice that was low and tired. "I should like to have you know, becauseI--I have great faith in you, Jeems. But I cannot. It is impossible. Itis inconceivable. If I did--" She made a hopeless little gesture. "If Itold you everything, you would not like me any more. And I want you tolike me--until you go north with M'sieu Jean and his brigade."

  "And when I do that," cried Kent, almost savagely, "I shall find thisplace you call the Valley of Silent Men, if it takes me all my life."

  It was becoming a joy for him to see the sudden flashes of pleasurethat leaped into her eyes. She attempted no concealment. Whatever heremotions were they revealed themselves unaffectedly and with a simplefreedom from embarrassment that swept him with an almost reverentialworship. And what he had just said pleased her. Unreservedly herglowing eyes and her partly smiling lips told him that, and she said:"I am glad you feel that way, Jeems. And I think you would find it--intime. Because--"

  Her little trick of looking at him so steadily, as if there wassomething inside him which she was trying to see more clearly, made himfeel more helplessly than ever her slave. It was as if, in thosemoments, she forgot that he was of flesh and blood, and was lookinginto his heart to see what was there before she gave voice to things.

  And then she said, still twisting her braid between her slim fingers,"You would find it--perhaps--because you are one who would not give upeasily. Shall I tell you why I came to see you at Doctor Cardigan's? Itwas curiosity, at first--largely that. Just why or how I was interestedin the man you freed is one of the things I can not tell you. And I cannot tell you why I came to the Landing. Nor can I say a word aboutKedsty. It may be, some day, that you will know. And then you will notli
ke me. For nearly four years before I saw you that day I had been ina desolation. It was a terrible place. It ate my heart and soul outwith its ugliness, its loneliness, its emptiness. A little while longerand I would have died. Then the thing happened that brought me away.Can you guess where it was?"

  He shook his head, "No."

  "To all the others it was a beautiful place, Montreal."

  "You were at school there?" he guessed.

  "Yes, the Villa Maria. I wasn't quite sixteen then. They were kind. Ithink they liked me. But each night I prayed one prayer. You know whatthe Three Rivers are to us, to the people of the North. The Athabascais Grandmother, the Slave is Mother, the Mackenzie is Daughter, andover them watches always the goddess Niska, the Gray Goose. And myprayer was that I might go back to them. In Montreal there were people,people everywhere, thousands and tens of thousands of them, so manythat I was lonely and heartsick and wanted to get away. For the GrayGoose blood is in me, Jeems. I love the forests. And Niska's Goddoesn't live in Montreal. Her sun doesn't rise there. Her moon isn'tthe same there. The flowers are not hers. The winds tell differentstories. The air is another air. People, when they look at you, look inanother way. Away down the Three Rivers I had loved men. There I waslearning to hate them. Then, something happened. I came to AthabascaLanding. I went to see you because--"

  She clasped her two hands tightly in her lap. "Because, after thosefour terrible years, you were the first man I found who was playing agreat, big, square game to the end. Don't ask me how I found it out.Please don't ask me anything. I am telling you all you can know, allyou _shall_ know. But I did find it out. And then I learned that you werenot going to die. Kedsty told me that. And when I had talked with you Iknew that you would play any game square, and I made up my mind to helpyou. That is why I am telling you all this--just to let you know that Ihave faith in you, and that you must not break that faith. You must notinsist on knowing more about me. You must still play the game. I amplaying mine, and you must play yours. And to play yours clean, youmust go with Laselle's brigade and leave me with Kedsty. You mustforget what has happened. You must forget what MAY happen. You can nothelp me. You can only harm me. And if--some day, a long time fromnow--you should happen to find the Valley of Silent Men--"

  He waited, his heart pounding like a fist.

  "I may--be there," she finished, in a voice so low that it was scarcelyabove a whisper.

  It seemed to him that she was looking a long way off, and it was not inhis direction. And then she smiled, not at him, but in a half-hopelesslittle way.

  "I think I shall be disappointed if you don't find it," she said then,and her eyes were pure as the blue flowers from which they had stolentheir color, as she looked at him. "You know the great Sulphur Countrybeyond Fort Simpson, westward between the Two Nahannis?"

  "Yes. That is where Kilbane and his patrol were lost. The Indians callit the Devil Country. Is that it?"

  She nodded. "They say no living thing has ever been through the SulphurCountry," she said. "But that is not true. I have been through it. Itis beyond the Sulphur Country you must go to find the Valley of SilentMen, straight through that gap between the North and the South Nahanni.That is the way _you_ must go if you should ever find it, Jeems, forotherwise you would have to come down from Dawson or up from Skagway,and the country is so great that you would never come upon it in athousand years. The police will not find you there. You will always besafe. Perhaps I shall tell you more before the Brigade comes. But thatis all tonight. I may never tell you anything more. And you must notquestion me."

  Speechless he had stood, all the life of his soul burning like a firein his eyes as he looked at her and listened to her, and now, quietlyand unexcitedly, he said:

  "Marette, I am going to play this game as you want me to play it,because I love you. It is only honest for me to tell you in words whatyou must already know. And I am going to fight for you as long as thereis a drop of blood in my body. If I go with Jean Laselle's brigade,will you promise me--"

  His voice trembled. He was repressing a mighty emotion. But not by thequiver of one of her long lashes did Marette Radisson give evidencethat she had even heard his confession of love. She interrupted himbefore he had finished.

  "I can promise you nothing, no matter what you do. Jeems, Jeems, youare not like those other men I learned to hate? You will not INSIST? Ifyou do--if you are like them--yes, you may go away from here tonightand not wait for Jean Laselle. Listen! The storm will not break forhours. If you are going to demand a price for playing the game as Iwant you to play it, you may go. You have my permission."

  She was very white. She rose from the big chair and stood before him.There was no anger in her voice or gesture, but her eyes glowed likeluminous stars. There was something in them which he had not seenbefore, and suddenly a thought struck his heart cold as ice.

  With a low cry he stretched out his hands, "My God, Marette, I am not amurderer! I did not kill John Barkley!"

  She did not answer him.

  "You don't believe me," he cried. "You believe that I killed Barkley,and that now--a murderer--I dare to tell you that I love you!"

  She was trembling. It was like a little shiver running through her. Foronly a flash it seemed to him that he had caught a glimpse of somethingterrible, a thing she was hiding, a thing she was fighting as she stoodthere with her two little clenched hands. For in her face, in her eyes,in the beating throb of her white throat he saw, in that moment, thealmost hidden agony of a hurt thing. And then it was gone, even as heentreated again, pleading for her faith.

  "I did not kill John Barkley!"

  "I am not thinking of that, Jeems," she said. "It is of something--"

  They had forgotten the storm. It was howling and beating at the windowsoutside. But suddenly there came a sound that rose above the monotonoustumult of it, and Marette started as if it had sent an electric shockthrough her. Kent, too, turned toward the window.

  It was the metallic tap, tap, tapping which once before had warned themof approaching danger. And this time it was insistent. It was as if avoice was crying out to them from beyond the window. It was more thanpremonition--it was the alarm of a near and impending menace. And inthat moment Kent saw Marette Radisson's hands go swiftly to her throatand her eyes leap with sudden fire, and she gave a little cry as shelistened to the sound.