The Heart of Unaga Part 55

Keeko was aware of it. There were weeks of melting to pa.s.s yet. But soon----

Inside, the vault-like store was warm enough. But it was dark, and squalid, and it reeked with the taint which only the centuries can impart. These things impressed themselves never so much upon Keeko as now, while she sat over the warming stove.

She had just returned from Seal Bay. She had pa.s.sed most of the winter on the trail with her Indians. She preferred their company in desperate circ.u.mstances to the a.s.sociations of Fort Duggan. During those long months she had planned the future for herself, a future which had nothing to do with Nicol, but which took him into her calculations. She possessed a wonderful faculty for clear thinking. And her decision had been irrevocably taken.

Nicol was leaning on the heavy oaken bench that served him for a counter, and about him, and behind him, were the piled stocks of his trade. He was preoccupied. Keeko was glad enough. She had returned only in the execution of her plans, and to prepare for the moment when she intended to steal her freedom, and shut this man's companionship for ever out of her life.

Just now her thoughts were far away as she basked in the warmth of the stove. They were upon the coming spring, the opening river, upon the old moose head set up to watch for her coming, and--upon Marcel.

Once she turned her head, and into her pretty eyes there crept a look which was almost of disquiet. The man's dark head and bearded face were bent over the sheet of paper upon which he was scratching with a stub of pencil. There was a small heap of paper money beside him. There was also a largish gla.s.s of raw rye whisky, from which he frequently drank. It was the sight of this latter that caused the girl's look of disquiet. It was the second drink in less than half an hour. She turned away with an added feeling of repugnance, and she reckoned again the number of weeks that must pa.s.s before her freedom came.

It was at the moment of her turning back to the stove that the scratching of the pencil ceased. The man looked up, and his bold smiling eyes were turned upon the girl. He drained his gla.s.s noisily while his eyes remained upon the pretty buckskin-clad figure that so lewdly attracted him. There was nothing pleasant in the smile. And the glazing of his eyes was that of excessive alcoholism, and primitive, animal pa.s.sion. He was un.o.bserved, and he knew there was no need to disguise his feelings.

After a while he crushed the pile of paper money into a hip pocket, and helped himself liberally to more of the spirit.

"It's pretty darn good," he said abruptly, with an appreciative smack of the lips under his curtain of whiskers.

"You mean--?" Keeko did not look round.

"Why, the price." Nicol laughed harshly.

Keeko heard him drink. She heard him gasp with the scorch of the liquor pa.s.sing down his throat. She waited.

The man moved round and came across to the stove. His gait was unsteady and Keeko was aware of it. She hated, and well-nigh feared the proximity of a man who drugged himself with alcohol on every pretext and at every opportunity.

"Say, you've done well, kid," Nicol exclaimed, with coa.r.s.e familiarity, and with the intention of conciliation. "Sixteen hundred dollars for those pelts? Gee! You surely must have set Lorson hating you bad."

Keeko was torn by emotions she was powerless to check as she desired.

She knew this man for all he was. She knew that he was little better than a savage animal, and, at moments, when alcohol had completed its work, was something even more to be feared.

Of the sober savage in him she had no fear. She had the means to deal with that always to her hand. But influenced by drink it was a different matter. That was his condition now. It was a condition to disturb any young, lonely woman.

She knew she had a difficult part to play. But her mind was made up. She would play it so long as it would serve. After that----

She shook her head.

"No," she said coldly, without looking up. "Guess he didn't know his dollars were going to Fort Duggan. If he had, maybe it would have been different. He doesn't figger to pay big money to the folks he--owns. I'm just a free trader to him. He doesn't even know my name. Maybe he hates free traders. But he's ready to pay if the pelts are fine quality. He didn't worry a thing."

The man's amiability beamed.

"You're a smart kid," he said, with his bold eyes on the pretty figure which the girl's mannish buckskin had no power to conceal.

Again she shook her head.

"The North teaches a mighty tough lesson. If you don't learn it good you're beat right away." Keeko suddenly looked up, and her eyes were gazing directly into the man's. "I've learned a heap. I'm not yearning to learn more. Still--Say, there's times I feel I'd like to get back to the sheltered days when the school-ma'm sat around over a girl till she hated herself. If I'm smart I'm no smarter than I need to be."

"No."

Nicol's eyes were almost devouring as Keeko turned back to the stove.

"We've all got to be smart if we're going to lay hold of the things held out to us," he said. He laughed cynically. "That's how I always figger.

Guess I haven't a notion to miss a thing now. The days of foolishness are over."

Keeko was well enough aware of the thoughts which lay at the back of her own words. Now she strove to penetrate his.

"Yes," she said with a quiet confidence which she by no means felt.

Ease, confidence could never be hers in this man's presence, for all she had been brought up to look on him as a step-father. The thoughts of the weeks lying ahead were in her mind. They were always there now. Time.

She was playing for time. So she adopted the tone and att.i.tude best suited to help her.

After a moment's silence the man suddenly flung out his hands. It was a movement expressive of his volcanic temper. That which had for its inspiration cynical disregard for anything and everything which interfered with the fulfilment of his own selfish desire.

"h.e.l.l!" he cried. "What's the use talking? We got to fix things right here and now. It's for you, as it's for me. We've got to play the game together. There's no other way. Say, I got to make a trip when the ice breaks. It's a h.e.l.l of a trip. It's going to hand us one of the things held out to us." He laughed harshly. "I've got to grab it for both of us. I need you to stop around while I'm away. You can run this layout just as you fancy to. It don't matter a curse to me, so you stop around."

"What's the trip?" There was a sharpness in the girl's question which had not been in her tone before. "What's the thing held out that's for--both of us?"

"Money. Big money."

"Big money?"

In a moment the girl's every faculty became alert.

Nicol realized the change. His temper resented it. But his cunning robbed him of the retort that leapt to his lips. And all the while the girl's cold, pretty eyes provoked those pa.s.sions in him which the dead mother had dreaded. Keeko could have no understanding of the unbridled licence rampant in his besotted body.

He nodded.

"It's so big I just can't get all it means--yet. You and me--we're going to be partners in it."

"Partners?"

"Sure."

"What's needed from me?"

Keeko's suspicions were stirring When Nicol talked of "big money" and s.n.a.t.c.hing that held out to him, it was not easy to believe in the honesty of it all.

"Just stop around till I get back."

The girl withdrew her gaze and sat with hands spread out to the warmth of the stove.

"You best tell me," she said quietly but firmly.

She looked for an explosion and she was not disappointed. The hot blood rushed to the man's bloated cheeks. His eyes lit furiously. He had looked for prompt acquiescence. It had been his habit to browbeat the woman who had followed him throughout a long career of crime, and it drove him half crazy to find opposition in her daughter. There could be no doubt of Keeko's determination. She was tacitly demanding her place in the proposed partnership.

"I'm telling nothing--not a darn thing. It's up to me, and no concern of anyone else. Get that. We're either partners or crosswise. And I guess it's not healthy getting crosswise with me. You'll share in the result.

Ain't that good enough? All I need from you is to sit around till I get back."

Keeko choked back the angry retort she longed to hurl at him. Those nightmare weeks that lay ahead were uppermost in her mind. They must be bridged at any cost. So she smiled in a fashion that stirred the man's pulses and melted his swift wrath instantly.