Poor Man's Rock

by Bertrand W. Sinclair

  CHAPTER III

  The Flutter of Sable Wings

  A path took form on the mossy rock as Jack MacRae strode on. He followedthis over patches of grass, by lone firs and small thickets, until itbrought him out on the rim of the Cove. He stood a second on the cliffynorth wall to look down on the quiet harbor. It was bare of craft, savethat upon the beach two or three rowboats lay hauled out. On the fartherside a low, rambling house of logs showed behind a clump of firs. Smokelifted from its stone chimney.

  MacRae smiled reminiscently at this and moved on. His objective lay atthe Cove's head, on the little creek which came whispering down from thehigh land behind. He gained this in another two hundred yards, coming toa square house built, like its neighbor, of stout logs with ahigh-pitched roof, a patch of ragged grass in front, and a picket-fencedarea at the back in which stood apple trees and cherry and plum,gaunt-limbed trees all bare of leaf and fruit. Ivy wound up the cornersof the house. Sturdy rosebushes stood before it, and the dead vines ofsweet peas bleached on their trellises.

  It had the look of an old place--as age is reckoned in so new acountry--old and bearing the marks of many years' labor bestowed to makeit what it was. Even from a distance it bore a homelike air. MacRae'sface lightened at the sight. His step quickened. He had come a long wayto get home.

  Across the front of the house extended a wide porch which gave a look atthe Cove through a thin screen of maple and alder. From thegrass-bordered walk of beach gravel half a dozen steps lifted to thefloor level. As MacRae set foot on the lower step a girl came out on theporch.

  MacRae stopped. The girl did not see him. Her eyes were fixedquestioningly on the sea that stretched away beyond the narrow mouth ofthe Cove. As she looked she drew one hand wearily across her forehead,tucking back a vagrant strand of dusky hair. MacRae watched her amoment. The quick, pleased smile that leaped to his face faded tosoberness.

  "Hello, Dolly," he said softly.

  She started. Her dark eyes turned to him, and an inexpressible reliefglowed in them. She held up one hand in a gesture that warnedsilence,--and by that time MacRae had come up the steps to her side andseized both her hands in his. She looked at him speechlessly, a curiouspassivity in her attitude. He saw that her eyes were wet.

  "What's wrong, Dolly?" he asked. "Aren't you glad to see Johnny comemarching home? Where's dad?"

  "Glad?" she echoed. "I never was so glad to see any one in my life. Oh,Johnny MacRae, I wish you'd come sooner. Your father's a sick man. We'vedone our best, but I'm afraid it's not good enough."

  "He's in bed, I suppose," said MacRae. "Well, I'll go in and see him.Maybe it'll cheer the old boy up to see me back."

  "He won't know you," the girl murmured. "You mustn't disturb him justnow, anyway. He has fallen into a doze. When he comes out of that he'lllikely be delirious."

  "Good Lord," MacRae whispered, "as bad as that! What is it?"

  "The flu," Dolly said quietly. "Everybody has been having it. Old BillMunro died in his shack a week ago."

  "Has dad had a doctor?"

  The girl nodded.

  "Harper from Nanaimo came day before yesterday. He left medicine anddirections; he can't come again. He has more cases than he can handleover there."

  They went through the front door into a big, rudely furnished room witha very old and worn rug on the floor, a few pieces of heavy furniture,and bare, uncurtained windows. A heap of wood blazed in an opencobblestone fireplace.

  MacRae stopped short just within the threshold. Through a door slightlyajar came the sound of stertorous breathing, intermittent in its volume,now barely audible, again rising to a labored harshness. He listened, alook of dismayed concern gathering on his face. He had heard men in thelast stages of exhaustion from wounds and disease breathe in thathorribly distressed fashion.

  He stood a while uncertainly. Then he laid off his mackinaw, walkedsoftly to the bedroom door, looked in. After a minute of silent watchinghe drew back. The girl had seated herself in a chair. MacRae sat downfacing her.

  "I never saw dad so thin and old-looking," he muttered. "Why, his hairis nearly white. He's a wreck. How long has he been sick?"

  "Four days," Dolly answered. "But he hasn't grown old and thin in fourdays, Jack. He's been going downhill for months. Too much work. Too muchworry also, I think--out there around the Rock every morning atdaylight, every evening till dark. It hasn't been a good season for therowboats."

  MacRae stirred uneasily in his chair. He didn't understand why hisfather should have to drudge in a trolling boat. They had always fishedsalmon, so far back as he could recall, but never of stark necessity. Henursed his chin in his hand and thought. Mostly he thought with aconstricted feeling in his throat of how frail and old his father hadgrown, the slow-smiling, slow-speaking man who had been father andmother and chum to him since he was an urchin in knee breeches. Herecalled him at their parting on a Vancouver railway platform,--tall andrugged, a lean, muscular, middle-aged man, bidding his son a restrainedfarewell with a longing look in his eyes. Now he was a wasted shadow.Jack MacRae shivered. He seemed to hear the sable angel's wing-beatsover the house.

  He looked up at the girl at last.

  "You're worn out, aren't you, Dolly?" he said. "Have you been caring forhim alone?"

  "Uncle Peter helped," she answered. "But I've stayed up and worried, andI am tired, of course. It isn't a very cheerful home-coming, is it,Jack? And he was so pleased when he got your cable from London. Poor oldman!"

  MacRae got up suddenly. But the clatter of his shoes on the floorrecalled him to himself. He sat down again.

  "I've got to do something," he asserted.

  "There's nothing you can do," Dolly Ferrara said wistfully. "He can'tbe moved. You can't get a doctor or a nurse. The country's full ofpeople down with the flu. There's only one chance and I've taken that. Iwrote a message to Doctor Laidlaw--you remember he used to come hereevery summer to fish--and Uncle Peter went across to Sechelt to wire it.I think he'll come if he can, or send some one, don't you? They weresuch good friends."

  "That was a good idea," MacRae nodded. "Laidlaw will certainly come ifit's possible."

  "And I can keep cool cloths on his head and feed him broth and give himthe stuff Doctor Harper left. He said it depended mostly on his ownresisting power. If he could throw it off he would. If not--"

  She turned her palms out expressively.

  "How did you come?" she asked presently.

  "Across from Qualicum in a fish carrier to Folly Bay. I borrowed a boatat the Bay and rowed up."

  "You must be hungry," she said. "I'll get you something to eat."

  "I don't feel much like eating,"--MacRae followed her into thekitchen--"but I can drink a cup of tea."

  He sat on a corner of the kitchen table while she busied herself withthe kettle and teapot, marveling that in four years everything shouldapparently remain the same and still suffer such grievous change. Therewas an air of forlornness about the house which hurt him. The place hadrun down, as the sands of his father's life were running down. Of thethings unchanged the girl he watched was one. Yet as he looked withkeener appraisal, he saw that Dolly Ferrara too had changed.

  Her dusky cloud of hair was as of old; her wide, dark eyes stillmirrored faithfully every shift of feeling, and her incomparable creamyskin was more beautiful than ever. Moving, she had lost none of herlithe grace. And though she had met him as if it had been only yesterdaythey parted, still there was a difference which somehow eluded him. Hecould feel it, but it was not to be defined. It struck him for the firsttime that many who had never seen a battlefield, never heard a screamingshell, nor shuddered at the agony of a dressing station, might stillhave suffered by and of and through the reactions of war.

  They drank their tea and ate a slice of toast in silence. MacRae'scomrades in France had called him "Silent" John, because of his lapsesinto concentrated thought, his habit of a close mouth when he was hurtor troubled or uncertain. One of the things for which he had liked DollyFerrara had be
en her possession of the same trait, uncommon in a girl.She could sit on the cliffs or lie with him in a rowboat lifting andfalling in the Gulf swell, staring at the sea and the sky and thewheeling gulls, dreaming and keeping her dreams shyly to herself,--as hedid. They did not always need words for understanding. And so they didnot talk now for the sake of talking, pour out words lest silence bringembarrassment. Dolly sat resting her chin in one hand, looking at himimpersonally, yet critically, he felt. He smoked a cigarette and heldhis peace until the labored breathing of the sick man changed todisjointed, muttering, incoherent fragments of speech.

  Dolly went to him at once. MacRae lingered to divest himself of thebrown overalls so that he stood forth in his uniform, the R.A.F. uniformwith the two black wings joined to a circle on his left breast and belowthat the multicolored ribbon of a decoration. Then he went in to hisfather.

  Donald MacRae was far gone. His son needed no M.D. to tell him that. Heburned with a high fever which had consumed his flesh and strength inits furnace. His eyes gleamed unnaturally, with no light of recognitionfor either his son or Dolly Ferrara. And there was a peculiar tinge tothe old man's lips that chilled young MacRae, the mark of the Spanishflu in its deadliest manifestation. It made him ache to see that grayhead shift from side to side, to listen to the incoherent babble, tomark the feeble shiftings of the nervous hands.

  For a terrible half hour he endured the sight of his father strugglingfor breath, being racked by spasms of coughing. Then the reaction cameand the sick man slept,--not a healthy, restful sleep; it was more likethe dying stupor of exhaustion. Young MacRae knew that.

  He knew with disturbing certainty that without skilledtreatment--perhaps even in spite of that--his father's life was a matterof hours. Again he and Dolly Ferrara tiptoed out to the room where thefire glowed on the hearth. MacRae sat thinking. Dusk was coming on, thelong twilight shortened by the overcast sky. MacRae glowered at thefire. The girl watched him expectantly.

  "I have an idea," he said at last. "It's worth trying."

  He opened his bag and, taking out the wedge-shaped cap of the birdmen,set it on his head and went out. He took the same path he had followedhome. On top of the cliff he stopped to look down on Squitty Cove. In acamp or two ashore the supper fires of the rowboat trollers wereburning. Through the narrow entrance the gasboats were chugging in toanchorage, one close upon the heels of another.

  MacRae considered the power trollers. He shook his head.

  "Too slow," he muttered. "Too small. No place to lay him only a doghousecabin and a fish hold."

  He strode away along the cliffs. It was dark now. But he had ranged allthat end of Squitty in daylight and dark, in sun and storm, for years,and the old instinctive sense of direction, of location, had notdeserted him. In a little while he came out abreast of Cradle Bay. TheGower house, all brightly gleaming windows, loomed near. He struck downthrough the dead fern, over the unfenced lawn.

  Halfway across that he stopped. A piano broke out loudly. Figuresflittered by the windows, gliding, turning. MacRae hesitated. He hadcome reluctantly, driven by his father's great need, uneasily consciousthat Donald MacRae, had he been cognizant, would have forbidden harshlythe request his son had come to make. Jack MacRae had the feeling thathis father would rather die than have him ask anything of Horace Gower.

  He did not know why. He had never been told why. All he knew was thathis father would have nothing to do with Gower, never mentioned the namevoluntarily, let his catch of salmon rot on the beach before he wouldsell to a Gower cannery boat,--and had enjoined upon his son the samealoofness from all things Gower. Once, in answer to young Jack's curiousquestion, his natural "why," Donald MacRae had said:

  "I knew the man long before you were born, Johnny. I don't like him. Idespise him. Neither I nor any of mine shall ever truck and traffic withhim and his. When you are a man and can understand, I shall tell youmore of this."

  But he had never told. It had never been a mooted point. Jack MacRaeknew Horace Gower only as a short, stout, elderly man of wealth andconsequence, a power in the salmon trade. He knew a little more of theGower clan now than he did before the war. MacRae had gone overseas withthe Seventh Battalion. His company commander had been Horace Gower'sson. Certain aspects of that young man had not heightened MacRae'sesteem for the Gower family. Moreover, he resented this elaborate summerhome of Gower's standing on land he had always known to be theirs, theMacRaes'. That puzzled him, as well as affronted his sense of ownership.

  But these things, he told himself, were for the moment beside the point.He felt his father's life trembling in the balance. He wanted to seeaffectionate, prideful recognition light up those gray-blue eyes again,even if briefly. He had come six thousand miles to cheer the old manwith a sight of his son, a son who had been a credit to him. And he waswilling to pocket pride, to call for help from the last source he wouldhave chosen, if that would avail.

  He crossed the lawn, waited a few seconds till the piano ceased itssyncopated frenzy and the dancers stopped.

  Betty Gower herself opened at his knock.

  "Is Mr. Gower here?" he asked.

  "Yes. Won't you come in?" she asked courteously.

  The door opened direct into a great living room, from the oak floor ofwhich the rugs had been rolled aside for dancing. As MacRae came in outof the murk along the cliffs, his one good eye was dazzled at first.Presently he made out a dozen or more persons in the room,--young peoplenearly all. They were standing and sitting about. One or two were inkhaki--officers. There seemed to be an abrupt cessation of chatter andlaughing at his entrance. It did not occur to him at once that thesepeople might be avidly curious about a strange young man in the uniformof the Flying Corps. He apprehended that curiosity, though, politelyveiled as it was. In the same glance he became aware of a middle-agedwoman sitting on a couch by the fire. Her hair was pure white,elaborately arranged, her eyes were a pale blue, her skin very delicateand clear. Her face somehow reminded Jack MacRae of a faded rose leaf.

  In a deep armchair near her sat Horace Gower. A young man, a very youngman, in evening clothes, holding a long cigarette daintily in hisfingers, stood by Gower.

  MacRae followed Betty Gower across the room to her father. She turned.Her quick eyes had picked out the insignia of rank on MacRae's uniform.

  "Papa," she said. "Captain--" she hesitated.

  "MacRae," he supplied.

  "Captain MacRae wishes to see you."

  MacRae wished no conventionalities. He did not want to be introduced, tobe shaken by the hand, to have Gower play host. He forestalled all this,if indeed it threatened.

  "I have just arrived home on leave," he said briefly. "I find my fatherdesperately ill in our house at the Cove. You have a very fast and ablecruiser. Would you care to put her at my disposal so that I may take myfather to Vancouver? I think that is his only chance."

  Gower had risen. He was not an imposing man. At his first glimpse ofMacRae's face, the pink-patched eye, the uniform, he flushedslightly,--recalling that afternoon.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "You'd be welcome to the _Arrow_ if she were here.But I sent her to Nanaimo an hour after she landed us. Are you DonaldMacRae's boy?"

  "Yes," MacRae said. "Thank you. That's all."

  He had said his say and got his answer. He turned to go. Betty Gower puta detaining hand on his arm.

  "Listen," she put in eagerly. "Is there anything any of us could do tohelp? Nursing or--or anything?"

  MacRae shook his head.

  "There is a girl with him," he answered. "Nothing but skilled medicalaid would help him at this stage. He has the flu, and the fever isburning his life out."

  "The flu, did you say?" The young man with the long cigarette lost hisbored air. "Hang it, it isn't very sporting, is it, to expose us--theseladies--to the infection? I'll say it isn't."

  Jack MacRae fixed the young man--and he was not, after all, much youngerthan MacRae--with a steady stare in which a smoldering fire glowed. Hebestowed a scrutiny while one might cou
nt five, under which the other'sgaze began to shift uneasily. A constrained silence fell in the room.

  "I would suggest that you learn how to put on a gas mask," MacRae saidcoldly, at last.

  Then he walked out. Betty Gower followed him to the door, but he hadasked his question and there was nothing to wait for. He did not evenlook back until he reached the cliff. He did not care if they thoughthim rude, ill-bred. Then, as he reached the cliff, the joyous jazz brokeout again and shadows of dancing couples flitted by the windows. MacRaelooked once and went on, moody because chance had decreed that he shouldfail.

  * * * * *

  When a ruddy dawn broke through the gray cloud battalions Jack MacRaesat on a chair before the fireplace in the front room, his elbows on hisknees, his chin in his cupped palms. He had been sitting like that fortwo hours. The fir logs had wasted away to a pile of white ash spottedwith dying coals. MacRae sat heedless that the room was growing cold.

  He did not even lift his head at the sound of heavy footsteps on theporch. He did not move until a voice at the door spoke his name inaccents of surprise.

  "Is that you, yourself, Johnny MacRae?"

  The voice was deep and husky and kind, and it was not native to SquittyCove. MacRae lifted his head to see his father's friend and his own,Doctor Laidlaw, physician and fisherman, bulking large. And beyond thedoctor he saw a big white launch at anchor inside the Cove.

  "Yes," MacRae said.

  "How's your father?" Laidlaw asked. "That wire worried me. I made thebest time I could."

  "He's dead," MacRae answered evenly. "He died at midnight."