The Country Beyond: A Romance of the Wilderness

by James Oliver Curwood

  CHAPTER XIII

  McKay still had his mind on a certain stretch of timber that reached outinto the Barren Lands, hundreds of miles farther north. In this hidingplace, three years before, he had built himself a cabin, and had caughtfoxes during half the long winter. Not only the cabin, but the foxes,were drawing him. Necessity was close upon his heels. What little moneyhe possessed after leaving Cragg's Ridge was exhausted, his supplieswere gone, and his boots and clothes were patched with deer hide.

  In the Snowbird Lake country, a week after he left Cassidy in hisparadise at Wollaston, he fell in with good fortune. Two trappers hadcome in from Churchill. One of them was sick, and the other needed helpin the building of their winter cabin. McKay remained with them for tendays, and when he continued his journey northward his pack was stuffedwith supplies, and he wore new boots and more comfortable clothes.

  It was the middle of October when he found his old cabin, a thousandmiles from Cragg's Ridge. It was as he had left it three years ago. Noone had opened its door since then. The little box stove was waitingfor a fire. Behind it was a pile of wood. On the table were the old tindishes, and hanging from babiche cords fastened to the roof timbers,out of reach of mice and ermine, were blankets and clothing and otherpossessions he had left behind him in that winter break-up of whatseemed like ages ago to him. He raised a small section in the floor, andthere were his traps, thickly coated with caribou grease. For half anhour before he built a fire he sought eagerly for the things he hadconcealed here and there. He found oil, and a tin lamp, and candles,and as darkness of the first night gathered outside a roaring fire sentsparks up the chimney, and the little cabin's one window glowed withlight, and the battered old coffee pot bubbled and steamed again, as ifrejoicing at his return.

  With the breaking of another day he immediately began preparations forthe season's trapping. In two days' hunting he killed three caribou, hiswinter meat. Then he cut wood, and made his strychnine poison baits, andmarked out his trap-lines.

  The first of November brought the chill whisperings of an early winterthrough the Northland. Farther south autumn was dying, or dead. The lastof the red ash berries hung shriveled and frost-bitten on naked twigs,freezing nights were nipping the face of the earth, the voices of thewilderness were filled with a new note and the winds held warning forevery man and beast between Hudson's Bay and the Great Slave and fromthe Height of Land to the Arctic Sea. Seven years before there had comesuch a winter, and the land had not forgotten it--a winter sudden andswift, deadly in its unexpectedness, terrific in its cold, bringingwith it such famine and death as the Northland had not known for twogenerations.

  But this year there was premonition. Omen of it came with the firstwailing night winds that bore the smell of icebergs from over the blackforests north and west. The moon came up red, and it went down red, andthe sun came up red in the morning. The loon's call died a month aheadof its time. The wild geese drove steadily south when they should havebeen feeding from the Kogatuk to Baffin's Bay, and the beaver built hiswalls thick, and anchored his alders and his willows deep so that hewould not starve when the ice grew heavy. East, west, north and south,in forest and swamp, in the trapper's cabin and the wolf's hiding-place,was warning of it. Gray rabbits turned white. Moose and caribou began toherd. The foxes yipped shrilly in the night, and a new hunger and a newthrill sent the wolves hunting in packs, while the gray geese streakedsouthward under the red moon overhead.

  Through this November, and all of December, Jolly Roger and Peter werebusy from two hours before dawn of each day until late at night. Thefoxes were plentiful, and McKay was compelled to shorten his linesand put out fewer baits, and on the tenth of December he set out for afur-trading post ninety miles south with two hundred and forty skins. Hehad made a toboggan, and a harness for Peter, and pulling together theymade the trip in three days, and on the fourth started for the cabinagain with supplies and something over a thousand dollars in cash.

  Through the weeks of increasing storm and cold that followed, McKaycontinued to trap, and early in February he made another trip to the furpost.

  It was on their return that they were caught in the Black Storm. It willbe a long time before the northland will forget that storm. It was astorm in which the Sarcees died to a man, woman and child over on theDubawnt waterways, and when trees froze solid and split open with thesharp explosions of high-power guns. In it, all furred and featheredlife and all hoof and horn along the edge of the Barren Lands fromAberdeen Lake to the Coppermine was swallowed up. It was in this stormthat streams froze solid, and the man who was cautious fastened ababiche rope about his waist when he went forth from his cabin for woodor water, so that his wife might help to pull and guide him back throughthat blinding avalanche of wind and freezing fury that held a twistedand broken world in its grip.

  In the country west of Artillery Lake and south of the Theolon River,Jolly Roger and Peter were compelled to "dig in." They were in a countrywhere the biggest stick of wood that thrust itself up out of the snowwas no bigger than McKay's thumb; a country of green grass and succulentmoss on which the caribou fed in season, but a hell on earth when arcticstorm howled and screamed across it in winter.

  Piled up against a mass of rock Jolly Roger found a huge snow drift.This drift was as long as a church and half as high, with its outershell blistered and battered to the hardness of rock by wind and sleet.Through this shell he cut a small door with his knife, and after thatdug out the soft snow from within until he had a room half as big as hiscabin, and so snug and warm after a little with the body heat of himselfand Peter that he could throw off the thick coat which he wore.

  To Peter, in the first night of this storm, it seemed as though allthe people in the world were shrieking and wailing and sobbing in theblackness outside. Jolly Roger sat smoking his pipe at intervals in thegloom, though there was little pleasure in smoking a pipe in darkness.The storm did not oppress him, but filled him with an odd sense ofsecurity and comfort. The wind shrieked and lashed itself about hissnow-dune, but it could not get at him. Its mightiest efforts to destroyonly beat more snow upon him, and made him safer and warmer. In a way,there was something of humor as well as tragedy in its wild frenzy, andPeter heard him laugh softly in the darkness. More and more frequentlyhe had heard that laugh since those warm days of autumn when they hadlast met the red-headed man, Terence Cassidy, of the Royal NorthwestMounted Police, and his master had shot him on the white shore ofWollaston.

  "You see," said McKay, caressing Peter's hairy neck in the gloom."Everything is turning out right for us, and I'm beginning to believemore and more what Yellow Bird told us, and that in the end we're goingto be happy--somewhere--with Nada. What do you think, Pied-Bot? Shall wetake a chance, and go back to Cragg's Ridge in the spring?"

  Peter wriggled himself in answer, as a wild shriek of wind wailed overthe huge snow-dune.

  Jolly Roger's fingers tightened at Peter's neck.

  "Well, we're going," he said, as though he was telling Peter somethingnew. "I'm believing Yellow Bird, Pied-Bot. I'm believing her--now.What she told us was more than fortune-telling. It wasn't just Indiansorcery. When she shut herself up and starved for those three days andnights in her little conjurer's house, just for you and me--SOMETHINGHAPPENED. Didn't it? Wouldn't you say something happened?"

  Peter swallowed and his teeth clicked as he gave evidence ofunderstanding.

  "She told us a lot of truth," went on Jolly Roger, with deep faith inhis voice "And we must believe, Pied-Bot. She told us Cassidy was comingafter us, and he came. She said the spirits promised her the law wouldnever get us, and we thought it looked bad when Cassidy had us coveredwith his gun on the shore at Wollaston. But something more than luck waswith us, and we shot him. Then we brought him back to life and luggedhim to a cabin, and the little stranger girl took him, and nursed him,and Cassidy fell in love with her--and married her. So Yellow Bird wasright again, Pied-Bot. We've got to believe her. And she says everythingis coming out right for us, and that we
are going back to Nada, and behappy--"

  Jolly Roger's pipe-bowl glowed in the blackness.

  "I'm going to light the alcohol lamp," he said. "We can't sleep. And Iwant a good smoke. It isn't fun when you can't see the smoke. Too badGod forgot to make you so you could use a pipe, Peter. You don't knowwhat you are missing--in times like these."

  He fumbled in his pack and found the alcohol lamp, which was freshfilled and screwed tight. Peter heard him working for a moment in thedarkness. Then he struck a match, and the yellow flare of it lighted uphis face. In his joy Peter whined. It was good to see his master. Andthen, in another moment, the little lamp was filling their white-walledrefuge with a mellow glow. Jolly Roger's eyes, coming suddenly outof darkness, were wide and staring. His face was covered with a scrubbeard. But there was something of cheer about him even in this night ofterror outside, and when he had driven his snowshoe into the snow wall,and had placed the lamp on it, he grinned companionably at Peter.

  Then, with a deep breath of satisfaction, he puffed out clouds of smokefrom his pipe, and stood up to look about their room.

  "Not so bad, is it?" he asked. "We could have a big house here ifwe wanted to dig out rooms--eh, Peter? Parlors, and bed-rooms, and alibrary--and not a policeman within a million miles of us. That's thenice part of it, PIED-BOT--none of the Royal Mounties to trouble us.They would never think of looking for us in the heart of a big snow-duneout in this God-forsaken barren, would they?"

  The thought was a pleasing one to Jolly Roger. He spread out hisblankets on the snow floor, and sat down on them, facing Peter.

  "We've got 'em beat," he said, a chuckling note of pride in his voice."The world is small when it comes to hiding, Pied-Bot, but all thepeople in it couldn't find us here--not in a million years. If we couldonly find a place as safe as this--where a girl could live--and had Nadawith us--"

  Many times during the past few weeks Peter had seen the light thatflamed up now in his master's eyes. That, and the strange thrillin Jolly Roger's voice, stirred him more than the words to which helistened, and tried to understand.

  "And we're GOING to," finished McKay, almost fiercely, his handsclenching as he leaned toward Peter. "We have made a big mistake,Pied-Bot, and it has taken us a long time to see it. It will be hard forus to leave our north country, but that is what we must do. Maybe YellowBird's good spirits meant that when they said we would find happinesswith Nada in a place called The Country Beyond. There are a lot of'Countries Beyond,' Peter, and as soon as the spring break-up comesand we can travel without leaving trails behind us we will go back toCragg's Ridge and get Nada, and hit for some place where the law won'texpect to find us. There's China, for instance. A lot of yellow people.But what do we care for color as long as we have her with us? I say--"

  Suddenly he stopped. And Peter's body grew tense. Both faced the roundhole, half filled with softly packed snow, which McKay had cut as a doorinto the heart of the big drift. They had grown accustomed to the tumultof the storm. Its strange wailings and the shrieking voices which attimes seemed borne in the moaning sweep of it no longer sent shiversof apprehension through Peter. But in that moment when both turned tolisten there came a sound which was not like the other sounds they hadheard. It was a voice--not one of the phantom voices of the screamingwind, but a voice so real and so near that for a beat or two even JollyRoger McKay's heart stood still. It was as if a man, standing justbeyond their snow barricade, had shouted a name. But there came nosecond call. The wind lulled, so that for a space there was stillnessoutside.

  Jolly Roger laughed a little uneasily.

  "Good thing we don't believe in ghosts, Peter, or we would swear it wasa Loup-Garou smelling us through the wall!" He thumbed the tobacco downin his pine, and nodded. "Then--there is South America," he said. "Theyhave everything down there--the biggest rivers in the world, the biggestmountains, and so much room that even a Loup-Garou couldn't hunt us out.She will love it, Pied-Bot. But if it happens she likes Africa better,or Australia, or the South Sea--Now, what the devil was that?"

  Peter had jumped as if stung, and for a moment Jolly Roger sat tenseas a carven Indian. Then he rose to his feet, a look of perplexity anddoubt in his eyes.

  "What was it, Peter? Can the wind shoot a gun--like THAT?"

  Peter was sniffing at the loosely blocked door of their snow-room.A whimper rose in his throat. He looked up at Jolly Roger, his eyesglowing fiercely through the mass of Airedale whiskers that coveredhis face. He wanted to dig. He wanted to plunge out into the howlingdarkness. Slowly McKay beat the ash out of his pipe and placed the pipein his pocket.

  "We'll take a look," he said, something repressive in his voice. "Butit isn't reasonable, Peter. It is the wind. There couldn't be a man outthere, and it wasn't a rifle we heard. It is the wind--with the devilhimself behind it!"

  With a few sweeps of his hands and arms he scooped out the loose snowfrom the hole. The opening was on the sheltered side of the drift, andonly the whirling eddies of the storm swept about him as he thrust outhis head and shoulders. But over him it was rushing like an avalanche.He could hear nothing but the moaning advance of it. And he could seenothing. He held out his hand before his face, and blackness swallowedit.

  "We have been chased so much that we're what you might callsuper-sensitive," he said, pulling himself back and nodding at Peterin the gray light of the alcohol lamp. "Guess we'd better turn in, boy.This is a good place to sleep--plenty of fresh air, no mosquitoes orblack flies, and the police so far away that we will soon forget howthey look. If you say so we will have a nip of cold tea and a bite--"

  He did not finish. For a moment the wind had lessened in fury, as ifgathering a deeper breath. And what he heard drew a cry from him thistime, and a sharper whine from Peter. Out of the blackness of the nighthad come a woman's voice! In that first instant of shock and amazementhe would have staked his life that what he heard was not a mad outcry ofthe night or an illusion of his brain. It was clear--distinct--a woman'svoice coming from out on the Barren, rising above the storm in an agonyof appeal, and dying out quickly until it became a part of the moaningwind. And then, with equal force, came the absurdity of it to McKay. Awoman! He swallowed the lump that had risen in his throat, and tried tolaugh. A WOMAN--out in that storm--a thousand miles from nowhere! It wasinconceivable.

  The laugh which he forced from his lips was husky and unreal, and therewas a smothering grip of something at his heart. In the ghostly light ofthe alcohol lamp his eyes were wide open and staring.

  He looked at Peter. The dog stood stiff-legged before the hole. His bodywas trembling.

  "Peter!"

  With a responsive wag of his tail Peter turned his bristling face up tohis master. Many times Jolly Roger had seen that unfailing warning inhis comrade's eyes. THERE WAS SOME ONE OUTSIDE--or Peter's brain, likehis own, was twisted and fooled by the storm!

  Against his reasoning--in the face of the absurdity of it--Jolly Rogerwas urged into action. He changed the snowshoe and replaced the alcohollamp so that the glow of light could be seen more clearly from theBarren. Then he went to the hole and crawled through. Peter followedhim.

  As if infuriated by their audacity, the storm lashed itself over the topof the dune. They could hear the hissing whine of fine hard snow tearingabove their heads like volleys of shot, and the force of the windreached them even in their shelter, bringing with it the flinty stingof the snow-dust. Beyond them the black barren was filled with a dismalmoaning. Looking up, and yet seeing nothing in the darkness, Peterunderstood where the weird shriekings and ghostly cries came from. Itwas the wind whipping itself up the side and over the top of the dune.

  Jolly Roger listened, hearing only the convulsive sweep of that mightyforce over a thousand miles of barren. And then came again one of thosebrief intervals when the storm seemed to rest for a moment, and itsmoaning grew less and less, until it was like the sound of giant chariotwheels receding swiftly over the face of the earth. Then came thesilence--a few seconds of it--while in the no
rth gathered swiftly thewhispering rumble of a still greater force.

  And in this silence came once more a cry--a cry which Jolly Roger McKaycould no longer disbelieve, and close upon the cry the report of arifle. Again he could have sworn the voice was a woman's voice. Asnearly as he could judge it came from dead ahead, out of the chaos ofblackness, and in that direction he shouted an answer. Then he ran outinto the darkness, followed by Peter. Another avalanche of wind gatheredat their heels, driving them on like the crest of a flood. In the firstforce of it Jolly Roger stumbled and fell to his knees, and in thatmoment he saw very faintly the glow of his light at the opening in thesnow dune. A realization of his deadly peril if he lost sight of thelight flashed upon him. Again and again he called into the night. Afterthat, bowing his head in the fury of the storm, he plunged on deeperinto darkness.

  A sudden wild thought seized upon his soul and thrilled him intoforgetfulness of the light and the snow-dune and his own safety. In theheart of this mad world he had heard a voice. He no longer doubted it.And the voice was a woman's voice! Could it be Nada? Was it possible shehad followed him after his flight, determined to find him, and share hisfate? His heart pounded. Who else, of all the women in the world,could be following his trail across the Barrens--a thousand miles fromcivilization? He began to shout her name. "Nada--Nada--Nada!" And hiddenin the gloom at his side Peter barked.

  Storm and darkness swallowed them. The last faint gleam of the alcohollamp died out. Jolly Roger did not look back. Blindly he stumbled ahead,counting his footsteps as he went, and shouting Nada's name. Twicehe thought he heard a reply, and each time the will-o'-the-wisp voiceseemed to be still farther ahead of him. Then, with a fiercer blast ofthe wind beating upon his back, he stumbled and fell forward upon hisface. His hand reached out and touched the thing that had tripped him.It was not snow. His naked fingers clutched in something soft and furry.It was a man's coat. He could feel buttons, a belt, and the suddenthrill of a bearded face.

  He stood up. The wind was wailing off over the Barren again, leaving aninstant of stillness about him. And he shouted:

  "Nada--Nada--Nada!"

  An answer came so quickly that it startled him, not one voice, buttwo--three--and one of them the shrill agonized cry of a woman. Theycame toward him as he continued to shout, until a few feet away he couldmake out a gray blur moving through the gloom. He went to it, staggeringunder the weight of the man he had found in the snow. The blur wasmade up of two men dragging a sledge, and behind the sledge was a thirdfigure, moaning in the darkness.

  "I found some one in the snow," Jolly Roger shouted. "Here he is--"

  He dropped his burden, and the last of his words were twisted by a freshblast of the storm. But the figure behind the sledge had heard, andJolly Roger saw her indistinctly at his feet, shielding the man he hadfound with her arms and body, and crying out a name which he could notunderstand in that howling of the wind. But a thing like cold steel sankinto his heart, and he knew it was not Nada he had found this night onthe Barren. He placed the unconscious man on the sledge, believing hewas dead. The girl was crying out something to him, unintelligible inthe storm, and one of the men shouted in a thick throaty voice which hecould not understand. Jolly Roger felt the weight of him as he staggeredin the wind, fighting to keep his feet, and he knew he was ready to dropdown in the snow and die.

  "It's only a step," he shouted. "Can you make it?"

  His words reached the ears of the others. The girl swayed through thedarkness and gripped his arm. The two men began to tug at the sledge,and Jolly Roger seized the rope between them, wondering why there wereno dogs, and faced the driving of the storm. It seemed an interminabletime before he saw the faint glow of the alcohol lamp. The last fiftyfeet was like struggling against an irresistible hail from machine-guns.Then came the shelter of the dune.

  One at a time McKay helped to drag them through the hole which he usedfor a door. For a space his vision was blurred, and he saw through thehazy film of storm-blindness the gray faces and heavily coated forms ofthose he had rescued. The man he had found in the snow he placed on hisblankets, and the girl fell down upon her knees beside him. It was thenJolly Roger began to see more clearly. And in that same instant came ashock as unexpected as the smash of dynamite under his feet.

  The girl had thrown back her parkee, and was sobbing over the man on theblankets, and calling him father. She was not like Nada. Her hair was inthick, dark coils, and she was older. She was not pretty--now. Her facewas twisted by the brutal beating of the storm, and her eyes were nearlyclosed. But it was the man Jolly Roger stared at, while his heart chokedinside him. He was grizzled and gray-bearded, with military mustachesand a bald head. He was not dead. His eyes were open, and his bluelips were struggling to speak to the girl whose blindness kept her fromseeing that he was alive. And the coat which he wore was the regulationservice garment of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police!

  Slowly McKay turned, wiping the film of snow-sweat from his eyes, andstared at the other two. One of them had sunk down with his back to thesnow wall. He was a much younger man, possibly not over thirty, andhis face was ghastly. The third lay where he had fallen from exhaustionafter crawling through the hole. Both wore service coats, with holstersat their sides.

  The man against the snow-wall was making an effort to rise. He saggedback, and grinned up apologetically at McKay.

  "Dam' fine of you, old man," he mumbled between blistered lips."I'm Porter--'N' Division--taking Superintendent Tavish to FortChurchill--Tavish and his daughter. Made a hell of a mess of it, haven'tI?"

  He struggled to his knees.

  "There's brandy in our kit. It might help--over there," and he noddedtoward the girl and the gray-bearded man on the blankets.