The Promise Part 28

The girl was pointing excitedly with a tapering white-brown finger to the fork of a great log where, caught on a sharp limb stub, was the striped sleeve of a mackinaw, from the end of which protruded a hand, while after the log, trailing sluggishly in the V of the fork, was the lifeless body of a man.

As she looked a light of exultation gleamed in the sharp old eyes. Here was vengeance! For the life of her son--the life of a white man.

She noted with satisfaction that the body was that of a large man. It was fitting so. For her Pierre had been tall, and broad, and strong--she would have been disappointed in the meaner price of a small man's life.

Suddenly she leaped to her feet and ran swiftly along the bluff seeking a place to descend.

Even among the men of the logs, who are bad, one man stands alone as the archfiend of them all.

And now--it is possible, for he is a big man--she, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the mother of Pierre and of Jeanne, maybe is permitted to stoop close and breathe upon the dead face of this man the weird curse of the barren lands--almost forgotten, now, even among her own people--the blighting curse of the "Yaga Tah!"

In the telling, the _Bois brule_ had mentioned the name of the drunken lumber-jack who had baited her Pierre to his death, and in the old woman's brain the name of Moncrossen was the symbol of all black deviltry.

After the death of Lacombie, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta had stolen Jeanne from the mission that she might forget the ways of the white man, and returned to her people.

Jeanne, whose soft skin, beneath the sun tan, was the white skin of Lacombie, and who was the most beautiful among all the women of the North, with her straight, lithe body, and dark, mysterious eyes--eyes which, in color, were the eyes of the wood folk, but in whose baffling, compelling depths slumbered the secrets of an alien race.

Jacques, she could understand, for in thought and deed and body he was Indian--a whelp of her own breed. But the girl, she did not understand, and her love for her was the idolatrous love with which she had loved Lacombie.

Through many lean years they lived among the tepees of the Indians, but, of late, they had come to the lodge of Jacques, who had become a trapper and guide.

His lodge, of necessity, must be pitched not too far from the lumber camps of the white men, whose laws make killing deer in winter a crime--and pay liberally for fresh venison.

Swiftly she descended a short slope of the bluff, uttering quick, low whines of antic.i.p.ation. For Jacques, Blood River Jack he was called by the white men, had told her that Moncrossen was boss of the camp at the head of the rapid.

All through the winter she had kept the girl continually within her sight, for she remembered the previous winter when this same Moncrossen had accidentally come upon their lodge on the south fork of Broken Knee, and the look in his eyes as he gazed upon the beauty of Jeanne.

She remembered the events that followed when Jacques was paid liberally by the boss to make a midwinter journey to the railroad, and the low sound in the night when she awakened to find the girl struggling in the bear-like grasp of the huge lumberjack, and how she fought him off in the darkness with a hatchet while Jeanne fled shrieking into the timber.

Now she stood upon the brink, and beside her stood the girl in whose dark eyes flashed a primitive tiger-hate--for she, too, remembered the terror of that night on the south fork of Broken Knee.

And, although she knew nothing of the wild death-curse of the Yaga Tah, she could at least stoop and spit upon the dead face of the one worst white man.

Almost touching their feet lapped the brown, bubble-dotted waters of the river, and close in, at a hand's reach from the bank, the logs pa.s.sed sluggishly in the slow swing of the sh.o.r.e eddy.

The eyes of the pair focused in intense eagerness upon the great forked log which poised uncertainly at the outer edge of the whirl.

For a breathless moment they watched while it seemed that the great log with its gruesome freight must be swept out into the main current of the stream. Sluggishly it revolved, as upon an axis, and then, in the grip of a random cross-current, swung heavily sh.o.r.eward.

The form of the old woman bent forward and, as the log drifted slowly past, a talon-like hand shot out and fastened upon the bit of striped cloth, and the next moment the two were tugging and hauling in their efforts to drag the limp body clear of the brown waters.

Seizing upon the heavy calked boots they worked the body inch by inch up the steep slope, and the dry lips of the old squaw curled in a snaggy grin as she noted the shattered leg and the toe of the boot twisted backward--a grin that deepened into a grimace of sardonic cruelty at the feel of the grating rasp of the shattered bone ends.

After frequent pauses they returned to their task, and at each jerk water gushed from the man's wide-sprung jaws.

At last, panting with exertion, they gained the top of the bank. With glittering eyes the old squaw stooped swiftly and turned the body upon its back. The unseeing eyes stared upward, water ceased to gush from the open mouth, and the lolling tongue settled flabbily between the mud-smeared lips.

A cry of savage disappointment escaped her, for the face into which she looked was not the face of Moncrossen!

The curse of the Yaga Tah died upon her lips, for this curse may be breathed but once in a lifetime, and if, as Father Magnus said, "G.o.d is good," she might yet live to gaze into the dead face of the one worst white man, and chant the curse of the Yaga Tah.

So she stifled the curse and contented herself with gloating over the battered body of the man of logs which the churning white-water of the Blood River rapid had tossed at her feet, even as the seething white-water of the Saw Tooth had tossed the body of her Pierre at the feet of the white men.

At her side the girl gazed curiously at the exanimate form. In her heart was no bitterness against the people of her father--no d.a.m.ning of the breed for the sins of the individual.

Lacombie, she knew, was good--the one good white man--old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta called him. And Moncrossen was bad.

Between these two extremes were the unnumbered millions of whom Lacombie used to tell her in the long Northern twilight, when, as a little girl, she would creep upon his knees as he sat before the door of the log trading-post, and his arms would steal about her, and a far-away look would creep into his blue eyes.

Often he spoke of beautiful women; of mighty tepees of stone; of bridges of iron, and of trains which rushed along the iron trails at the speed of the flight of a bird, and spat fire and smoke, and whose voice shrieked louder than the mate-call of the _loup-cervier_.

And she would listen, round-eyed, until the little head would droop slowly against the great chest, and the words would rumble softly and blend bewilderingly with the wheezing of the black pipe and the strong smell of rank tobacco.

Sometimes she would wake up with a start to hear more, and it would be morning, and she would be between the blankets in her own little bunk, and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta would come and laugh, and pinch her fat legs, and croon strange Indian songs in low minor keys.

There were stories, too; stories of Kas-ka-tan, the chief; of the Crazy Man of the Berry Moon; of Zuk, the lost hunter; of the Maiden of the Snows, whose heart was of ice, and whose voice was the splashing of tiny waters, and of the mighty Fire G.o.d, whose breath alone could move the heart of the Maiden of the Snows, so that in the springtime when he spoke to her of love, her laughter was heard in the tiny rills of the woodland.

But it was of Lacombie's tales she thought most. Only she could never stay awake to hear the end, and the next night there would be other tales of other wonders, and all without end.

So in her heart grew a strange unrest, a wild, irrepressible longing to see these things in the wonderful country of the white men, to whom, in time of sickness and death, came smiling, round-faced priests, with long black clothes and many b.u.t.tons; instead of hideous medicine-men, with painted faces and strings of teeth and shriveled claws.

As she gazed upon the form of the white man, a soft wistfulness stole into her eyes. Unconsciously, she drew closer, and the next instant threw herself upon the body, tearing frantically at the shirt-front.

Sounded the tiny popping of b.u.t.tons and the smooth rip of flannel, and a small, white-brown hand slipped beneath the tattered cloth and pressed tight against the white skin of the mighty chest.

For a long moment it rested there while the old woman looked on in wonder. Then the girl faced her, speaking rapidly, with shining eyes:

"He is not dead!" she gasped. "There is life in the heart that moves!

See! It is not the face of Moncrossen, but of the great _chechako_ of whom Jacques told us. The man who is hated of Moncrossen. Who killed Diablesse, the _loup-garou_, with a knife.

"The man whom Creed fears, and of whom he spoke the night he came whining to the tepee with his heart turned to water within him, and told Jacques of how this man lay helpless in the flames of the burning shack, and the next day walked unscorched into the store at Hilarity.

"He is The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die. Quick! Help me, and together we will bring him to life!"

The old squaw held aloof, scowling.

"Lacombie is dead," she muttered. "There is no good white man. The men of the logs are bad. Where is Pierre, thy brother? And where are the fathers of the light-skinned breeds of the rivers?

"Who bring sorrow and death among the women of my people? Whence comes the whisky that is the curse of the red men of the North? Would you warm the rattlesnake in your bosom, to die from its poisoned tooth? All men die! Lacombie, who was good, is dead. And this one who, being a man of logs, is bad, will die also. Come away while yet there is time!"

The girl sprang to her feet and, with uplifted hand, faced Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, and in her eyes was the compelling light of prophecy.

"Is it not enough, O Wa-ha-ta-na-ta," she cried, "that Moncrossen, the evil one, hates this man? He is M's'u Bill, The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die.

Neither by wolves nor fire nor water can he die, nor will he be killed in the fighting of men. But one day he will kill Moncrossen, that thou mayest lay upon the head of the evil one the black curse of the Yaga Tah! And then will the blood of Pierre, thy son, be avenged."

At the words, the smoldering black eyes of the old squaw wavered, they swept the limp form upon the ground, and returned a long, searching gaze into the blazing eyes of the girl. With a low guttural throat-sound, she dropped to her knees, and together they bent to their task. At the end of an hour the breath fluttered irregularly between the bearded lips and the gray eyes closed of their own accord.

As the two women rested, the sound of shouting voices was borne to their ears. The old woman started, listening.