The Country Beyond: A Romance of the Wilderness

by James Oliver Curwood

  CHAPTER IX

  It was the restlessness of Peter that roused Jolly Roger. Half awake,and before he opened his eyes, life seized upon him where sleep had cutit off for a time last night. His muscles ached. His neck was stiff. Heseemed weighted like a log to the hard earth. Swiftly the experienceof the preceding hours rushed upon him, and it was in the first of thiswakefulness that he felt the presence of Peter.

  He sat up and stared wide-eyed at the dog. The fact that Peter hadescaped from the cabin, and had followed him, was not altogetheramazing. It was quite the natural thing for a one-man dog to do. Butthe unexpectedness of it held McKay speechless, and at first a littledisappointed. It was as if Peter had deliberately betrayed a trust.During the storm and flight of the night McKay had thought of him as theone connecting link remaining between him and the girl he loved. Hehad left Peter to fill his place, to guard and watch and keep alivethe memory of the man who was gone. For him there had been something ofconsolation in this giving up of his comradeship to Nada. And Peter hadturned traitor.

  Even Peter seemed to sense the argument and condemnation that waspassing behind McKay's unsmiling eyes. He did not move, but lay squattedon his belly, with his nose straight out on the ground between hisforepaws. It was his attitude of self-immolation. His acknowledgment ofthe other's right to strike with lash or club. Yet in his eyes, brightand steady behind his mop of whiskers, Jolly Roger saw a prayer.

  Without a word he held out his arms. It was all Peter needed, and ina moment he was hugged up close against McKay. After all, there wasa mighty something that reached from heart to heart of these two, andJolly Roger said, with a sound that was half laugh and half sob in histhroat,

  "Pied-Bot, you devil--you little devil--"

  His fingers closed in the cloth about Peter's neck, and his heart jumpedwhen he saw what it was--a piece of Nada's dress. Peter, realizing thatat last the importance of his mission was understood, waited in eagerwatchfulness while his master untied the knot. And in another moment,out in the clean and glorious sun that had followed storm, McKay heldthe shining tress of Nada's hair.

  It was a real sob that broke in his throat now, and Peter saw him crushthe shining thing to his face, and hold it there, while strange quiversran through his strong shoulders, and a wetness that was not raingathered in his eyes.

  "God bless her!" he whispered. And then he said, "I wish I was a kid,Peter--a kid. Because--if I ever wanted to cry--IT'S NOW."

  In his face, even with the tears and the strange quivering of his lips,Peter saw a radiance that was joy. And McKay stood up, and looked south,back over the trail he had followed through the blackness and stormof night. He was visioning things. He saw Nada in Father John's cabin,urging Peter out into the wild tumult of thunder and lightning withthat precious part of her which she knew he would love forever. Herlast message to him. Her last promise of love and faith until the end oftime.

  He guessed only the beginning of the truth. And Peter, denied the powerof thought transmission because of an error in the creation of things,ran back a little way over the trail, trying to tell his master thatNada had come with him through the storm, and was back in the deepforest calling for him to return.

  But McKay's mind saw nothing beyond the dimly lighted room of theMissioner's cabin.

  He pressed his lips to the silken tress of Nada's hair, still damp withthe rain; and after that, with the care of a miser he smoothed it out,and tied the end of the tress tightly with a string, and put it away inthe soft buckskin wallet which he carried.

  There was a new singing in his heart as he gathered sticks with which tobuild a small fire, for after this he would not travel quite alone.

  That day they went on; and day followed day, until August came, andnorth--still farther north they went into the illimitable wildernesswhich reached out in the drowsing stillness of the Flying-up-Month--themonth when newly fledged things take to their wings, and the deepforests lie asleep.

  Days added themselves into weeks, until at last they were in the countryof the Reindeer waterways.

  To the east was Hudson's Bay; westward lay the black forestsand twisting waterways of Upper Saskatchewan; and north--alwaysnorth--beckoned the lonely plains and unmapped wildernesses of theAthabasca, the Slave and the Great Bear--toward which far country theirtrail was slowly but surely wending its way.

  The woodlands and swamps were now empty of man. Cabin and shack andIndian tepee were lifeless, and waited in the desolation of abandonment.No smoke rose in the tree-tops; no howl of dog came with the early dawnand the setting sun; trap lines were over-growing, and laughter and songand the ring of the trapper's axe were gone, leaving behind a broodingsilence that seemed to pulse and thrill like a great heart--the heart ofthe wild unchained for a space from its human bondage.

  It was the vacation time--the midsummer carnival weeks of the wildernesspeople. Wild things were breeding. Fur was not good. Flesh was unfit tokill. And so they had disappeared, man, woman and child, and their dogsas well, to foregather at the Hudson's Bay Company's posts scatteredhere and there in the fastnesses of the wilderness lands. A few weeksmore and they would return. Cabins would send up their smoke again.Brown-faced children would play about the tepee door. Ten thousanddwellers of the forests, white and half-breed and Indian born, wouldtrickle in twos and threes and family groups back into the age-old tradeof a domain that reached from Hudson's Bay to the western mountains andfrom the Height of Land to the Arctic Sea.

  Until then nature was free, and in its freedom ran in riotous silenceover the land. These were days when the wolf lay with her young, but didnot howl; when the lynx yawned sleepily, and hunted but little--daysof breeding, nights of drowsy whisperings, and of big red moons, and ofstreams rippling softly at lowest ebb while they dreamed of rains andflood-time. And through it all--through the lazy drone of insects, therustling sighs of the tree-tops and the subdued notes of living thingsran a low and tremulous whispering, as if nature had found for itself anew language in this temporary absence of man.

  To Jolly Roger this was Life, It breathed for him out of the cool earth.He heard it over him, and under him, and on all sides of him where otherears would have found only a thing vast and oppressive and silent. Onwhat he called these "motherhood days of the earth" the passing yearshad built his faith and his creed.

  One evening he stopped for camp at the edge of the Burntwood. From hisfeet reached out the wide river, ankle deep in places, knee deep inothers, rippling and singing between sandbars and driftwood where in Mayand June it had roared with the fury of flood Peter, half asleep aftertheir day's travel through a hot forests watched his master. Since theirflight from the edge of civilization far south he had grown heavier andbroadened out. The hardship of adventuring and the craft of fighting forfood and life had whipped the last of his puppyhood behind him At sixmonths of age he was scarred, and lithe-muscled, and ready for instantaction at all times. Through the mop of Airedale whiskers that coveredhis face his bright eyes were ever alert, and always they watched theback-trail as he wondered why the slim, blue-eyed girl they both lovedand missed so much did not come. And vaguely he wondered why it was thathis master always went on and on, and never waited for her to catch upwith them.

  And Jolly Roger was changed. He was not the plump and rosy-facedwilderness freebooter who whistled and sang away down at Cragg's Ridgeeven when he knew the Law was at his heels. The steadiness of theirflight had thinned him, and a graver look had settled in his face. Butin his clear eyes was still the love of life--a thing even stronger thanthe grief which was eating at his heart as their trail reached steadilytoward the Barren Lands.

  In the sunset glow of this late afternoon Peter's watchful eyes saw hismaster draw forth their treasure.

  It was something he had come to look for, and expect--once, twice, andsometimes half a dozen times between the rising and the setting of thesun. And at night, when they paused in their flight for the day, JollyRoger never failed to do what he was doing now. Peter drew nearer towhere his
master was sitting with his back to the big rock, and his eyesglistened. Always he caught the sweet, illusive perfume of the girl whenJolly Roger drew out their preciously guarded package. He unwrapped itgently now, and in a moment held in his hands the tress of Nada's hair,the last of her they would ever possess or see. And Peter wondered againwhy they did not go back to where they had left the rest of the girl.Many times, seeing his restlessness and his yearning, Jolly Roger hadtried to make him understand. And Peter tried to comprehend. But alwaysin his dreams he was with the girl he loved, following her, playing withher, fighting for her, hearing her voice--feeling the touch of her hand.In his dog soul he wanted her, just as Jolly Roger wanted her with allthe yearning and heartbreak of the man. Yet always when he awoke fromhis dreams they went on again--not south--but north. To Peter this washopeless mystery, and he possessed no power of reason to solve it. Norcould he speak in words the message which he carried in his heart--thatlast crying agony of the girl when she had sent him out on the trail ofRoger McKay, entreating him to bring back the man she loved and wouldalways love in spite of all the broken and unbroken laws in the world.

  That night, as they lay beside the Burntwood, Peter heard his mastercrying out Nada's name in his sleep.

  And the next dawn they went on--still farther north.

  In these days and weeks, with the hot inundation of the wilderness abouthim, McKay fought doggedly against the forces which were strugglingto break down the first law of his creed. The law might catch him,and probably would, and when it caught him the law might hang him--andprobably would. But it would never KNOW him. There was something grimlyand tragically humorous in this. It would never know of the consumingpurity of his worship for little children, and old people--and women.It would laugh at the religion he had built up for himself, and itwould cackle tauntingly if he dared to say he was not wholly bad. For itbelieved he was bad, and it believed he had killed Jed Hawkins, and heknew that seven hundred men were anxious to get him, dead or alive.

  But was he bad?

  He took the matter up one evening, with Peter.

  "If I'm bad, mebby it isn't all my fault, Pied-Bot," he said. "Mebbyit's this--" and he swept his arms out to the gathering night. "I wasborn in the open, on a night just like this is going to be. My mother,before she died, told me many times how she watched the moon come upthat night, and how it seemed to look down on her, and talk to her, likea living thing. And I've loved the moon ever since, and the sun, andeverything that's outdoors--and if there's a God I don't believe He everintended man to make a law that wasn't right according to the plans Helaid out. That's where I've got in wrong, Pied-Bot, I haven't alwaysbelieved in man-made law, and I've settled a lot of things in my ownway. And I guess I've loved trees and flowers and sunshine and wind andstorm too much. I've just wandered. And I've done things along the way.The thrill of it got into me, Pied-Bot, and--the law wants me!"

  Peter heard the subdued humor of the man, a low laugh that held neitherfear nor regret.

  "It was the Treaty Money first," he went on, leaning very seriouslytoward Peter, as if he expected an argument. "You see, Yellow Bird wasin that particular tribe, Pied-Bot. I remember her as she looked to mewhen a boy, with her two long, shining black braids and her face thatwas almost as beautiful to me as my mother's. My mother loved her, andshe loved my mother, and I loved Yellow Bird, just as a child loves afairy. And always Yellow Bird has been my fairy, Peter. I guess childworship is the one thing that lasts through life, always remainingideal, and never forgotten. Years after my mother's death, when I was ayoung man, and had been down to Montreal and Ottawa and Quebec, I wentback to Yellow Bird's tribe. And it was starving, Pied-Bot. Starving todeath!"

  Reminiscent tenderness and humor were gone from McKay's voice. It washard and flinty.

  "It was winter," he continued, "the dead of winter. And cold. So coldthat even the wolves and foxes had buried themselves in. No fish thatautumn, no game in the deep snows, and the Indians were starving.Pied-Bot, my heart went dead when I saw Yellow Bird. There didn't seemto be anything left of her but her eyes and her hair--those two great,shining braids, and eyes that were big and deep and dark, like beautifulpools. Boy, you never saw an Indian--an Indian like Yellow Bird--cry.They don't cry very much. But when that childhood fairy of mine firstsaw me she just stood there, swaying in her weakness, and the tearsfilled those big, wide-open eyes and ran down her thin cheeks. Shehad married Slim Buck. Two of their three children had died within afortnight. Slim Buck was dying of hunger and exhaustion. And YellowBird's heart was broken, and her soul was crying out for God to let herlie down beside Slim Buck and die with him--when I happened along.

  "Peter--" Jolly Roger leaned over in the thickening dusk, and his eyesgleamed. "Peter, if there's a God, an' He thinks I did wrong then, letHim strike me dead right here! I'm willin'. I found out what the troublewas. There was a new Indian Agent, a cur. And near the tribe was a FreeTrader, another cur. The two got together. The Agent sent up the TreatyMoney, and along with it--underground, mind you--he sent a lot ofwhiskey to the Free Trader. Inside of five days the whiskey got theTreaty Money from the Indians. Then came winter. Everything went bad,When I came--and found out what had happened--eighteen out of sixtyhad died, and inside of another two weeks half the others would follow.Pied-Bot, away back--somewhere--there must have been a pirate beforeme--mebby a great-grandfather of mine. I set out, I came back in threedays, and I had a sledge-load of grub, and warm things to wear--plentyof them. My God, how those starving things did eat! I went again, andreturned in another week, with a still bigger sledge-load. And YellowBird was getting beautiful again, and Slim Buck was on his feet, growingstrong, and there was happiness--and I think God A'mighty was glad. Ikept it up for two months. Then the back-bone of the winter broke. Gamecame into the country I left them well supplied--and skipped. That waswhat made me an outlaw, Pied-Bot. That!"

  He chuckled, and Peter heard the rubbing of his hands in the gloom.

  "Want to know why?" he asked. "Well, you see, I went over to the FreeTrader's, and this God the law don't take into account went with me, andwe found the skunk alone. First I licked him until he was almost dead.Then, sticking a knife into him about half an inch, I made him writea note saying he was called south suddenly, and authorizing me to takecharge in his absence. Then I chained him in a dugout in a placewhere nobody would find him. And I took charge. Pied-Bot, I sure did!Everybody was on the trap-lines, and I wasn't bothered much by callers.And I fed and clothed my tribe for eight straight weeks, fed 'em untilthey grew fat, Boy--and Yellow Bird's eyes were bright as stars again.Then I brought Roach--that was his name--back to his empty post, and Ilectured him, an' gave him another licking--and left."

  McKay rose to his feet. The first stars were peeping out of thevelvety darkness of the sky, and Peter heard his master draw in a deepbreath--the breath of a man whose lungs rejoice in the glory of life.

  After a moment he said,

  "And the Royal Mounted have been after me ever since that winter, Peter.And the harder they've chased me the more I've given them reason tochase me. I half killed Beaudin, the Government mail-runner, becausehe insulted another man's wife when that man--my friend--was away. ThenBeaudin, seeing his chance, robbed the mail himself, and the crime waslaid to me. Well, I got even, and stuck up a mail-sledge myself--but Iguess there was a good reason for it. I've done a lot of things sincethen, but I've done it all with my naked fists, and I've never puta bullet or a knife into a man except Roach the Free Trader. And thefunniest thing of the whole business, Pied-Bot, is this--I didn't killJed Hawkins. Some day mebby I'll tell you about what happened on thetrail, the thing which you and Nada didn't see. But now--"

  For a moment he stood very still, and Peter sensed the sudden thrillthat was going through the man as he stood there in darkness. And then,suddenly, Jolly Roger bent over him.

  "Peter, there's three women we'll love as long as we live," hewhispered. "There's my mother, and she is dead. There's Nada back there,and we'll n
ever see her again--" His voice choked for an instant. "Andthen--there's Yellow Bird--" he added. "It's five years since I fed thetribe. Mebby they've had more kids! Boy, let's go and see!"