The Foreigner Part 34

Kalman remained still silent, his eyes on Mackenzie.

"It iss a bottle myself had," said Mackenzie.

"Ah, I understand. All right, Kalman, it's none of your business what Mackenzie drinks. Now, Mackenzie, get dinner, and no more of this nonsense."

Without a word of parley or remonstrance Mackenzie shuffled off toward the field to bring in the team. French turned to the boy and, taking the bottle in his hand, said, "This is dangerous stuff, my boy. A man like Mackenzie is not to be trusted with it, and of course it is not for boys."

Kalman made no reply. His mind was in a whirl of perplexed remembrances of the sickening scenes of the past three days.

"Go now," said French, "and help Mackenzie. He won't hurt you any more. He never keeps a grudge. That is the Christian in him."

During the early part of the afternoon Mackenzie drove the harrows while French moved about the ranch doing up odds and ends. But neither of the men was quite at ease. At length French disappeared into the house, and almost immediately afterwards Mackenzie left his team in Kalman's hands and followed his boss. Hour after hour pa.s.sed. The sun sank in the western sky, but neither master nor man appeared, while Kalman kept the team steadily on the move, till at length the field was finished. Weary and filled with foreboding, the boy drove the horses to the stable, pulled off the harness as best he could, gave the horses food and drink and went into the house. There a ghastly scene met his eye. On the floor hard by the table lay Mackenzie on his face, snoring heavily in a drunken sleep, and at the table, with three empty bottles beside him and a fourth in his hand, sat French, staring hard before him with eyes bloodshot and sunken, and face of a livid hue. He neither moved nor spoke when Kalman entered, but continued staring steadily before him.

The boy was faint with hunger. He was too heartsick to attempt to prepare food. He found a piece of bannock and, washing this down with a mug of water, he crept into his bunk, and there, utterly miserable, waited till his master should sink into sleep. Slowly the light faded from the room and the shadows crept longer and deeper over the floor till all was dark. But still the boy could see the outline of the silent man, who sat without sound or motion except for the filling and emptying of his gla.s.s from time to time.

At length the shadowy figure bowed slowly toward the table and there remained.

Sick with grief and fear, the boy sprang from his bunk and sought to rouse the man from his stupor, but without avail, till at last, wearied with his ineffectual attempts and sobbing in the bitterness of his grief, he threw a blanket over the bowed form and retreated to his bunk again. But sleep to him was impossible, for often throughout the night he was brought to his feet with horrid dreams, to be driven shivering again to his bunk with the more horrid realities of his surroundings.

At length as day began to dawn he fell into a dead, dreamless slumber, waking, when it was broad day, to find Mackenzie sitting at the table eating breakfast, and with a bottle beside him. French was not to be seen, but Kalman could hear his heavy breathing from the inner room. To Kalman it seemed as if he were still in the grip of some ghastly nightmare. He rubbed his eyes and looked again at Mackenzie in stupid amazement.

"What are you glowering at yonder, Callum, man?" said Mackenzie, pleasantly ignoring the events of the previous day. "Your breakfast iss ready for you. You will be hungry after your day's work. Oh, yes, I haf been seeing it, and it iss well done, Callum, mannie."

Somehow his smiling face and his kindly tone filled Kalman with rage. He sprang out of his bunk and ran out of the house. He hated the sight of the smiling, pleasant-voiced Mackenzie. But his boy's hunger drove him in to breakfast.

"Well, Callum, man," began Mackenzie in pleasant salutation.

"My name is Kalman," snapped the boy.

"Never mind, it iss a good name, whatefer. But I am saying we will be getting into the pitaties after breakfast. Can ye drop pitaties?"

"Show me how," said Kalman shortly.

"And that I will," said Mackenzie affably, helping himself to the bottle.

"How many bottles of that stuff are there left?" asked Kalman disgustedly.

"And why would you be wanting to know?" enquired Mackenzie cautiously. "You would not be taking any of the whiskey yourself?"

he added in grave reproof.

"Oh, go on! you old fool!" replied the boy angrily. "You will never be any good till it is all done, I know."

Kalman spoke out of full and varied experience of the ways of men with the l.u.s.t of drink in them.

"Well, well, maybe so. But the more there iss for me, the less there iss for him," said Mackenzie, jerking his head toward the inner door.

"Why not empty it out?" said Kalman in an eager undertone.

"Hoot! toot! man, and would you be guilty of sinful waste like yon?

No, no, never with Malcolm Mackenzie's consent. And you would not be doing such a deed yourself?" Mackenzie enquired somewhat anxiously.

Kalman shook his head.

"No," he said, "he might be angry. But," continued the boy, "those potatoes must be finished to-day. I heard him speaking about them yesterday."

"And that iss true enough. They are two weeks late now."

"Come on, then," cried Kalman, as Mackenzie reached for the bottle.

"Come and show me how."

"There iss no hurry," said the deliberate Mackenzie, drinking his gla.s.s with slow relish. "But first the pitaties are to be got over from Garneau's."

Again and again, and with increasing rage, Kalman sought to drag Mackenzie away from his bottle and to his work. By the time the bottle was done Mackenzie was once more helpless.

Three days later French came forth from his room, haggard and trembling, to find every bottle empty, Mackenzie making ineffective attempts to prepare a meal, and Kalman nowhere to be seen.

"Where is the boy?" he enquired of Mackenzie in an uncertain voice.

"I know not," said Mackenzie.

"Go and look for him, then, you idiot!"

In a short time French was summoned by Mackenzie's voice.

"Come here, will you?" he was crying. "Come here and see this thing."

With a dread of some nameless horror in his heart, French hurried toward the little knoll upon which Mackenzie stood. From this vantage ground could be seen far off in the potato field the figure of the boy with two or three women, all busy with the potatoes.

"What do you make that out to be?" enquired French.

"Who in the mischief are they? Go and see."

It was not long before Mackenzie stood before his master with Kalman by his side.

"As sure as death," said Mackenzie, "he has a tribe of Galician women yonder, and the pitaties iss all in."

"What do you say?" stammered French.

"It iss what I am telling you. The pitaties iss all in, and this lad iss bossing the job, and the Galician women working like naygurs."

"What does this mean?" said French, turning his eyes slowly upon Kalman. The boy looked older by years. He was worn and haggard.

"I saw a woman pa.s.sing, she was a Galician, she brought the others, and the potatoes are done. They have come here two days. But," said the boy slowly, "there is nothing to eat."

With a mighty oath French sprang to his feet.

"Do you tell me you are hungry, boy?" he roared.

"I could not find much," said Kalman, his lip trembling in spite of himself.