Pardners by Rex Beach (best books to read fiction txt) 📗

"'Orloff! What do ye want?' I says.

"Father Barnum speaks up—'he's known for a good man the length of the river. George,' says he, 'Father Orloff tells me you stole the girl Metla from her tribe. 'Tis a shameful thing for a white to take a red girl for his wife, but it's a crime to live as you do.'

"'What?' says I.

"'We can't sell you provisions nor allow you to stay in the village.'

"Orloff grins. 'You must go on,' he says, 'or give her up.'

"'No! I'll do neither.' And I shows the paper from the missionary at Nulato statin' that we were married. 'She's my wife,' says I, 'and too good for me. She's left her people and her gods, and I'll care for her.' I saw how it hurt Orloff, and I laid my hand on his shoulder close to the neck. 'I distrust ye, and sure as Fate ye'll die the shocking death if ever harm comes to the little one.'

"That was the winter of the famine, though every winter was the same then, and I went to Anvik for grub—took all the strong men and dogs in the village. I was afraid when I left, too, for 'twas the time I should have been with her, but there was no one else to go.

"'When you come back,' she said, 'there will be another—a little boy—and he will grow mighty and strong, like his father.' She hung her arms around me, Cap, and I left with her kisses warm on my lips.

"It was a terrible trip, the river wet with overflows and the cut-offs drifted deep, so I drove back into Holy Cross a week late with bleedin' dogs and frozen Indians strainin' at the sled ropes.

"I heard the wail of the old women before. I come to the cabin, and when Metla had sobbed the story out in her weakness, I went back into the dark and down to the Mission. I remember how the Northern Lights flared over the hills above, and the little spruces on the summit looked to me like headstones, black against the moon—and I laughed when I saw the snow red in the night glare, for it meant blood and death.

"It was as lusty a babe as ever crowed, but Orloff had come to the sick bed and sent her squaws away. Baptism and such things he said he'd do. The little fellow died that night.

"They say the Mission door was locked and barred, but I pushed through it like paper and came into Father Barnum's house, where they sat. Fifty below is bad for the naked flesh. I broke in, bare-headed, mittenless, and I'd froze some on the way down. He saw murder in my eyes and tried to run, but I got him as he went out of the room. He tore his throat loose from my stiffened fingers and went into the church, but I beat down the door with my naked fists, mocking at his prayers inside, and may I never be closer to death than Orloff was that night.

"Then a squaw tugged at my parka.

"'She is dying, Anguk,' she said, and I ran back up the hill with the cold bitin' at my heart.

"There was no death that night in Holy Cross, though God knows one naked soul was due to walk out onto the snow. At daylight, when I came back for him, he had fled down the river with the fastest dogs, and to this day I've never seen his face, though 'tis often I've felt his hate.

"He's grown into the strongest missionary on the coast, and he never lets a chance go by to harry me or the girl.

"D'ye mind the time 'Skagway' Bennet died? We was pardners up Norton Sound way when he was killed. They thought he suicided, but I know. I found a cariboo belt in the brush near camp—the kind they make on the Kuskokwim, Father Orion's country. His men took the wrong one, that's all.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell ye this, Cap, before we started, for now we're into the South Country, where he owns the natives. He knows we've come, as the blood-token of the guide showed. He wants my life, and there's great trouble comin' up. I'm hopin' ye'll soon get your sight, for by now there's a runner twenty miles into the hills with news that we're blind in the church at Togiak. Three days he'll be goin', and on the fifth ye'll hear the jangle of Russian dog-bells. He'll kill the fastest team in Nushagak in the comin', and God help us if we're here."

George scraped a bit of frost-lace from the lone window pane. Dark figures moved over the snow, circling the chapel, and he knew that each was armed. Only their reverence for the church held them from doing the task set by Orloff, and he sighed as he changed the bandages on his suffering mate.

They awoke the next morning to the moan of wind and the sift of snow clouds past their walls. Staring through his peep-hole, George distinguished only a seethe of whirling flakes that greyed the view, blotting even the neighbouring huts, and when the early evening brought a rising note in the storm the trouble lifted from his face.

"A three-day blizzard," he rejoiced, "and the strongest team on the coast can't wallow through it under a week. These on-shore gales is beauts."

For three days the wind tore from off the sea into the open bight at whose head lay Togiak, and its violence wrecked the armour of shore ice in the bay till it beat and roared against the spit, a threshing maelstrom of shattered bergs. The waters piled into the inlet driven by the lash of the storm till they overflowed the river ice behind the village, submerging and breaking it into ragged, dangerous confusion.

On the third day, with Arctic vagary, the wind gasped reluctantly and scurried over the range. In its wake the surging ocean churned loudly and the back-water behind the town, held by the dam of freezing slush-ice at the river mouth, was skimmed by a thin ice-paper, pierced here and there by the up-ended piles from beneath. This held the night's snow, so that morning showed the village girt on three sides by a stream soft-carpeted and safe to the eye, but failing beneath the feet of a child.

"You're eyes are comin' along mighty slow," worried George. "I'm hopin' his reverence is up to his gills in drifts back yonder. "We must leave him a sled trail for a souvenir."

"How can we, with the place guarded?"

"Hitch the dogs and run for it by night, He'll burn us out when he comes. Fine targets we'd make on the snow by the light of a burning shack. If ye can see to shoot we'll go tonight. Hello! What's that?"

Outside came the howl of malamoots and the cry of men. Leaping to the window, George rubbed it free and stared into the sunshine.

"Too late! Too late!" he said. "Here he comes! It's time I killed him." He spoke gratingly, with the dull anger of years.

On the bright surface of the opposite hillside a sled bearing a muffled figure appeared silhouetted against the glisten of the crust. Its team, maddened by the village scent, poured down the incline toward the river bank and the guide swung onto the runners behind, while the voice of the people rose to their priest. In a whirl of soft snow they drove down onto the treachery of the ice. The screams of the natives frenzied the pack and they rioted out onto the bending sheet, while the long sledge, borne by its momentum, shot forward till the splitting cry of the ice sounded over the lamentations. It slackened, sagged and disappeared in a surge of congealing waters. The wheel dogs were dragged into the opening and their mates ahead jerked backward onto them. In a fighting tangle, all settled into the swirl.

Orloff leaped from the sinking sled, but hindered by his fur swaddling, crashed through and lunged heavily in his struggles to mount the edge of the film. As he floundered onto the caving surface it let him back and the waters covered him time and again. He pitched oddly about, and for the first time they saw his eyes were bound tightly with bandages, which he strove to loosen.

"My God! He's snow-blind!" cried George, and in a moment he appeared among the frantic mob fringing the shore.

The guide broke his way toward a hummock of old ice forming an islet near by, and the priest half swam, half scrambled behind, till they crawled out upon this solid footing. Here the wintry wind searched them and their dripping clothes stiffened quickly. Orloff dragged the strips from his face, and as the sun glitter pierced his eyes he writhed as though seared by the naked touch of hot steel.

He shouted affrightedly in his blindness, but the mocking voice of Big George answered him and he cowered at the malevolence in the words.

"Here I am, Orloff. It's help ye want, is it? I'll shoot the man that tries to reach ye. Ha, ha! You're freezin' eh? Georgie will talk to keep ye awake. A dirty trick of the river to cheat me so. I've fattened for years on the hope of stampin' your life out and now it's robbed me. But I'll stick till ye're safe in Hell."

The man cried piteously, turning his bleared eyes toward the sound.

"Shoot, why don't you, and end it? Can't you see we're freezing?"
He stood up in his carapace of stiffened clothes, shivering palsiedly.

"The truest thing ye ever said," cried George, and he swung his colts into view. "It'll favour you and I'll keep my vow." He raised the gun. The splashing of the distant dogs broke the silence. A native knelt stiffly.

"George! George!" Captain had stumbled down among them and plucked at his arm, peering dimly into his distorted face. "Great God, are you a murderer? They'll be dead before we can save them."

"Save 'em ?" said George, while reason fought with his mania. "Whose goin' to save 'em? He needs killin'. I'm hungry for his life."

"He's a man, George. They're both human, and they're dying in sight of us. Give him a chance. Fight like a man."

As he spoke the fury fell away from the whaler and he became the alert, strong man of the frontier, knowing the quick danger and meeting it.

He bellowed at the natives and they fled backward before his voice, storming the cache where lay the big skin canoes. They slid one down and seizing paddles crushed the ice around it till it floated, then supported by the prow, George stamped the ice into fragments ahead, and they forced their way slowly along the channel he made. Soaked to the armpits he smashed a trail through which they reached the hummock where the others lay, too listless for action.

At the shore they bore the priest to their shelter while the guide was snatched into a near-by hut. They hacked off his brittle clothes and supported him to the bed. As he walked his feet clattered on the board floor like the sound of wooden shoes. They were white and solid, as were his hands.

"He's badly frozen," whispered Captain, "can we save him?" They rubbed and thawed for hours, but the sluggish blood refused to flow into the extremities and Captain felt that this man would die for lack of amputation.

Through all the Russian was silent, gazing strangely at George.

"'Tis no use," finally said the big man, despairingly, "I've seen too many of 'em; we've done our best."

He disappeared, and there sounded the jingle of harness as the dogs were hitched. As he entered for the camp outfit Orloff spoke:

"George Brace, I've harmed you bitterly these many years, and you're a good man to help me so. It's no use. We have both fought the Cold Death, and know when to quit.