The Heart of Unaga

by Ridgwell Cullum

  CHAPTER XII

  REINDEER

  It was the hospital hut at the police headquarters at Reindeer. Acheerless, primitive place of healing, severe but adequate, as weremost things which concerned the lives of the riders of the plains andthe trail.

  Steve was in occupation of the officer's ward, with its single bed, andits boarded floor bare of all covering and scrubbed to a chillywhiteness. For days he had contemplated its hygienic lack of comfort.For days his weary, ceaseless thought had battered itself againstkalsomined walls, while his body, made feverishly restless, had soughtdistraction between the hard Windsor chair at the only table, and theiron bed-cot which seemed to add to his mental sufferings.

  He had met his superior. He had supported the official half hour ofcongratulations upon work successfully accomplished and a fortunateescape from disaster without a sign. He had yielded to the post doctor'sministrations, and satisfied his curiosity with explanations which couldnever have been more matter-of-fact. He had been visited by two comradesof his own rank, who contrived, with the best will in the world, bydeliberate avoidance of anything of an intimate nature, to display tohim their perfect knowledge of his domestic disaster.

  All these things he had faced with a heart crying out for mercy, butwith an outward calm that left those whom he encountered guessing. Andsomething of the general opinion found expression in SuperintendentMcDowell's remarks to his subordinate, who filled the office ofacting-adjutant.

  "It seems to me, Syme, we needn't have worried a thing," he said."Allenwood isn't the feller to get up and shout any time. He's the sortof boy to take a punch and come up for more. There's no woman got gripenough on him to break him to small meat. I don't guess there's anythingcould fix him that way--and after the way he made this last trip. He'squite a feller when it comes to grit."

  "Yes, sir." Syme smiled into his superior's keen face. "Maybe he doesn'tcare. I've heard some fellers are that way after being married a fewyears."

  The cynicism of the younger man drew a responsive smile in reply. But italso drew a very definite and decided shake of the head.

  Whatever the general opinion, one man knew, one man had witnessed themomentary baring of a man's soul torn with agony, in the candle-lit tenton the banks of the Theton River. And now, had he been in Reindeer towitness, he would have understood the reality of suffering under thestern, almost forbidding front with which Steve confronted his littleworld.

  Not a sign did Steve give. His habitual, shadowy smile was ready when hefelt it to be due. He discussed everything that needed discussion withthe apparent interest of a mind wholly unabsorbed. He forced acheerfulness which carried conviction, and even drew forth such cynicalcomments as those of Inspector Syme. But under it all the agony of mindwas something bordering on the insupportable.

  The desolation of his outlook was appalling. And during his weary hoursof solitude the hopelessness of it stirred him to a bitterness that atmoments became almost insanely profane. Shadows, too, crept into hismind. Ugly shadows that gained power with the passing of days. Had notsuch shadows come he must have been more than human. But he was verysimply human, capable of the deepest passion subject to the human heart.Hate seized upon him with a force even greater perhaps than the passionsthat had hitherto swayed him, and hard on the heels of hate came a deep,burning desire for revenge.

  His desire was not against the woman who had wronged and deceived him. Asort of pitying contempt had replaced the wealth of passionate devotionhe had lavished. His whole desire was against the man. And, curiouslyenough, this fevered desire became a sort of palliative drug which lefthim with the necessary strength to withstand the pain of his heart.

  Slowly at first it took possession of him, but, with each passing day,it grew, until, at last, it occupied him to the exclusion of everything.Even the thought of his child, that tender atom of humanity who had beena living part of him, and whose soft lips and baby hands could neveragain become anything more than a memory, was powerless to rob him ofone particle of the cold delight, as, in a hundred ways, he discoveredthe broken, dead body of the man who had wronged him within the grasp ofhis merciless hands.

  But none of this was outwardly visible. It was concealed with the rest.And so the cynicism of Syme, and the general comfort of those who cameto cheer the sick room of a valued comrade.

  So it came that one day, towards the end of Steve's convalescence, theSuperintendent found himself occupying the solitary chair, with Stevelounging smoking on the be-patterned coverlet of the bed, talking of theUnaga Indians and their habits of hibernation which sounded soincredible to the man who had never seen for himself.

  Steve had a bunch of mail lying on the bed beside him. He had beenreading when his superior had made his appearance. But his reading hadbeen discarded while he gave full attention to the man under whom he hadserved so long and for whom he possessed no small measure of regard.

  Steve had been talking in his deliberate, assured manner, and McDowell,alert, keen-eyed, half smiling had been listening to the story of amysterious weed of marvellous narcotic powers. Curiously enough Stevehad imparted only the briefest outline. He had told nothing of all thatwhich he had read and discovered in Marcel Brand's laboratory. He hadforgotten even to point the fact that he was a chemist first and only atrader through circumstances. There were many other things, too, thatSteve omitted. Nor was the reason for the omission clear. It may havebeen forgetfulness. It may have been lack of interest. Yet neither ofthese suggested the reality.

  "Well, it all sounds crazy enough, Allenwood, and I admit if Belton orSyme had told me the yarn I'd have sent 'em on leave to get a rest.But--anyway you've handed me a good report and it's gone on down to theDepartment without a word altered, and only my own comment added,which," he went on with smiling goodwill, "I don't guess I need to tellyou about. Meanwhile I'd not be surprised if you hear things. Yourseniority runs high. And this should hand you a jump--"

  Steve shook his head.

  "I'm not yearning, sir," he said. "But I need to thank you for yourcomments without seeing them. I can guess how they run--knowing you."

  The Superintendent's eyes had suddenly become seriously searching.

  "Not yearning? How--d'you mean?" he demanded.

  A slight smile lit Steve's eyes at the abrupt change in the other'stone.

  "You said just now if Belton or Syme had told you my yarn you'd havehanded them leave--for a rest. I'd be glad for you to include my namewith theirs."

  "You want leave?"

  Steve nodded.

  "I'd be glad to have six months' leave pending resignation."

  "But--resignation? You want to quit? You?"

  McDowell was startled completely out of all official attitude. Such athing as Allenwood's resignation from the force had never for a momententered his thoughts. It would have been simply unthinkable.

  "Yes." Steve was very deliberate. He picked up one of the letters at hisside and tapped it with a forefinger.

  "It's this, sir," he said. "You can read this, and--the others. I'd beglad for you to take them away with you and read them, and then attachthem to my papers asking for my discharge. These letters were waiting mehere, and there's quite a number. They're from my father's attorneys.You see, sir, he's dead, and I'm his heir. It's only a matter of somefifty thousand dollars and his farm in Ontario. But I'll have to getaround and fix things."

  "Oh, I'm sor--I see," McDowell had recovered from surprise, and promptlysaw his advantage. "But resignation, Steve," he cried, dropping into anunusual familiarity. "Where's the need? You can get twelve months'leave, if necessary, to straighten these things out. After that you'llget back to us a Superintendent, and with money to burn. If you quityou'll be pitching away years of big work. You'll be sacrificing more.With means like your father's left you you can get into politics, andthen, through your official associations you don't need to get off thepolitical ladder till you're tired. Man, it would be crazy. Think."

  Steve folded his letters with precise care whi
le McDowell pointed to theposition as he saw it. Then he laid them together in a small pile. Andall the while his eyes remained hidden from the other as though wilfullyavoiding him. Nor, as his superior ceased speaking, did he look up.

  "I have thought, sir," he said in level tones. "I've had days--weeks tothink in. Yes, and nights, too." He shook his head. "A year ago thethings you're handing me now would have sounded bully. A year ago I'dall sorts of notions, just like you're talking now. And I was crazy toget busy. That was a year ago. I'm still crazy to get busy, but--in adifferent way. I've got to get that leave, sir. I've got to make myresignation."

  McDowell had suddenly become aware of an unusual restraint in Steve'stone. He had also realized the avoidance of his eyes. A wave ofsuspicion startled him out of his comfortable equanimity.

  "You're entitled to your leave, you're entitled to resign yourcommission if you want to," he said with a quick return to his moreofficial attitude. Then, with a sudden unbending under the pressure ofcuriosity and even sympathy: "I'm sorry. I'm darn sorry. You're the oneman in my command I'd just hate to lose. Still--What do you figure todo?"

  "Do?"

  The sharp interrogation came with startling force. It came full of aworld of suppressed feeling. Irony, bitterness, harsh, inflexiblepurpose. These things and others, which were beyond McDowell'sestimation, rang in that sharp exclamation. Steve laughed, and even tothe Superintendent there was something utterly hateful in the sound thatbroke on his ears.

  "Just forget you're my superior officer, McDowell," Steve cried, raisinga pair of eyes which blazed with a frigid passion of hate. "Just figurewe're two plain men, no better and no worse than most. You've a wife andtwo kiddies, both growing as you'd have them. A schoolgirl and a boy,and round whom you've built up all your notions of life. I had a wifeand one kiddie, and round them I'd built up all my notions of life.Well, those notions of life are wrecked. They'd been building years.Years before I had a wife. To-day they're gone completely. I haven't awife, and, God help me, I haven't a kiddie. And this because of one man.I've got to find that man."

  The two men were gazing eye to eye, McDowell's darkly keen andquestioning, Steve's full of irrevocable decision and cold hate.

  "And when you--find him?"

  Steve made a movement of the hands. It was indescribable butsignificant. His lips parted to speak, and, in parting, his even teethwere unusually bared.

  "He's going to die!"

  The words were spoken without emotion, without colour. They were quiet,and carried a conviction that left the other without a shadow of doubt.

  "I'm telling you this, McDowell, so you shall know clearly what's on mymind." Steve went on after a pause. "Maybe you'll feel, as an officer ofpolice, it's up to you to do everything to prevent what I intend. But Itell you you can't prevent it. I demand the right of a man from a man, ahusband, and a father. I'm quitting. If you try to hold me it'll make nodifference. You can delay. It'll make no difference. I shallquit--eventually. And then I shall carry out my purpose. Get that. Thenwe'll understand each other."

  "We do, Steve." A flush lit the Superintendent's cheek. A deep fire wasalight in his dark eyes. "We understand each other better than youthink. You'll get your discharge just as quickly as I can put itthrough. You hadn't said much, and I thought--but I'm glad you've toldme as a man, and not as--an officer."

  He stood up from his chair with an abruptness which betrayed somethingof his feelings. Steve held out the packet of letters.

  "Will you take these, sir?" he said with a return to their officialrelations.

  McDowell nodded.

  "Yes. Say, about that boy and the squaw you brought down. You left themat Deadwater? It looks like some proposition. We'll need to hand themover to the Reserve missionary. It's hell these white men, when they getaway north, bringing these bastard half-breeds into the world. What'sthe mother? One of those Sleeper Indians?"

  For a moment Steve remained gazing out of the window at the view of theparade ground which the sunlight rendered almost picturesque. He wasthinking of the two reports which he had prepared. The first one thathad been the simple truth, and the second one which had been only partlythe true story, the rest changed in view of his own position. A tenderlight for a moment melted the cold hatred of his eyes. He was thinkingof the white boy which he had reported as the bastard of An-ina, with aview to obviate the official claim on him as a white child.

  "Yes," he said. "And I guess we'd need to hand them over to themissionary for a while. But Doc Ross and his wife were crazy to lookafter them. You see, they've a pretty swell place, and they're the bestfolks I know. I left them with them, and I'd say we can't do better,anyway for a while."

  "Yes," McDowell agreed. "It'll make things easy. I'll put that into aletter to the Commissioner and it'll save worrying with the folk of theIndian Department. Well, so long, Steve. Yes, I'll take these letters,and put the thing through for you. But when you quit, for God's sakedon't go and mess things. Don't queer one of the best lives it's everbeen my good fortune to have under my command."

  Steve's eyes were serious as he watched McDowell move towards the door.

  "Don't worry, sir. The queering's done already. Whatever I do willbe--well, just what I've fixed to do. No more and no less."