CHAPTER X
THE FAREWELL
A burden of grey hung depressingly over the world. A bleak north windcame down the river gorge. The sun's power had weakened before theadvance of the Arctic night. Beaten, dismayed, it lived only just abovethe skyline.
The sightless sockets of the old moose stared wide-eyed down the river.They were fulfilling the task that had been set them. The howling of thegale, the polar cold, the blinding storm of snow; these things wouldhave no power to turn them from their vigil. The wide-antlered,bleaching skull was the guardian of the tryst, and its sole concern wasits watch and ward.
The chill and cheerlessness of it all was reaching at the hearts of theboy and girl who were at the moment of parting. Marcel was silentlywhittling a stout twig of tamarack, whose toughness threatened to dullthe keen edge of his sheath-knife. Keeko was standing a few feet fromhim, within a yard or so of the precipice which dropped sheer to thewaters below. Her eyes were following the direction of the gaze of theold moose, and the picture her mind was dwelling upon was far removedfrom what she beheld.
It was of the long, lonesome winter, with her mother dying by inches,while she, herself, spent her days in the avoidance of her step-fatherwhom she had learned to fear as well as to hate. Marcel had no suchbitterness to look out upon. But he was none the less weighted down thatthe farewell must be spoken.
The hot blood of youth was surging through his veins. Manhood's recklesspassion was beating in heart and brain. A desperate desire to yield tothe call of Nature was urging him mercilessly. Yet, through it all, heknew that the farewell must be said now, for both their sakes, for thesake of honour, of loyalty, for the sake of Love itself.
Oh, yes. He knew how easy it would be to sweep along on the tide ofpassion. But he loved Keeko. Loved her with all his simple heart andbody, and his love was bound up with an honour which he had no power tooutrage.
Time and again in the madness of the moment he thought to urge Keeko toabandon all and return with him to the home which he knew would holdnothing but welcome for her. He thought of all that happiness whichmight be hers in the kindly associations of Uncle Steve and An-ina. Hethought of all the wretchednesses of soul he would save her from, thedread of that step-father, whom she had declared to be a murderer atheart. Then he remembered the dying mother whose one care was the childof her heart, and he realized that his own desire must not be. Thefarewell must be taken now.
Once he thought to continue the journey with her to help her completeher final task of trading her pelts. But he remembered in time, andthrust temptation from him. There was An-ina demanding his protection inUncle Steve's absence during the winter. There was his pledge to thatman who never questioned his given word.
Looking up his ardent gaze rested on the figure poised so near the brinkof the gorge.
"Keeko!"
His voice was deep with feeling. Its tone was imperative, too.
"Yes--Marcel?"
Keeko's reply was low-voiced and almost humble. She felt his gaze evenbefore he spoke. Had she not intercepted it a hundred times in theirwork together? Oh, yes. She knew it. And that which she had seen, andread, had been the answer she most desired to all the yearnings of herwoman's heart. Now she knew that the moment she most dreaded had come atlast. And she wondered and feared as she had never feared in her lifebefore.
Marcel drove his knife deeply in a diagonal cut into the hard wood ofthe tamarack.
"You've a month to the freeze up," he said. "It's the limit you need.I've figgered it. I've talked it out with Little One Man."
"Yes. I can make home in a month."
Keeko drew a sharp breath. She could make home. Never in her life hadshe felt as she felt now. Home!
Marcel ripped his knife in an opposite diagonal on the reverse of thewood. The force he applied seemed almost vicious.
"Are--you glad?"
"I--s'pose so."
"You--s'pose so? Of course you are. There's your poor sick mother."
"Yes."
The girl's reply was almost inaudible. Marcel wrenched the wood in halfwith his powerful hands. It snapped, and he examined the pronged endscritically.
With an effort Keeko bestirred herself from her despondency.
"Yes," she cried desperately. "I must get home. I want to. I love mymother, Marcel. She's suffered. Oh, how she suffers. Yet through it allshe thinks only of me. She schemes and hopes only for me. Maybe I can'thope to save her life, but I can tell her the things that'll let her diealmost happy. It's the best I can do, and I--I'm glad to do it."
Marcel nodded over his two pieces of wood.
"That's how I feel about it," he said. "It seems to me we haven't anysort of right to set up the things that 'ud please us against thehappiness of those who've been good to us. I'd thought of beating downthis river with you, to see things through for you. Then I remembered asort of mother woman who looks to me for the help of a son. Then Ithought of asking you to cut the home with a step-father, who's amurderer at heart, and come along where you'd find only love andfriendship. Then I remembered your sick mother. I'm guessing the self ofthings is mighty big, but there's something bigger. Still--Say, come andsit right here!"
He was smiling. But his eyes were full of a deep tenderness.
Keeko obeyed. She had no desire to deny him. He seemed to have robbedher of all will of her own. His will had become wholly her desire. Shetook her seat on the tree-trunk, just removed from his side by a rift inthe great log which was hidden under a growth of lichen.
Marcel's eyes sought hers. But she had turned from him. She was gazingout at the moose head set up over the gorge.
"How am I to hear if you're needing my help?" he demanded. "I can't makehere till the first break of spring. There's just one hell of a longwinter before that."
Marcel was endeavouring to smother his feeling. Keeko shook her head.Had she not thought and thought over this very thing?
"I won't need help," she said. "Not now. You've helped me through myonly worry. If mother lives, things'll just go on the same. If--shedoesn't? She and I--we got it fixed. I hit right out for myself as we'veplanned it--that's all."
But the hot blood had mounted to Marcel's head. "It's not!" he criedwith startling force. "D'you think you're going out of my life that way?You?" Suddenly he broke into a laugh that echoed down the gorge. Hepointed out at the moose head. "Look at the old feller," he cried. "He'swinking his old eyes and flapping the comic ears he hasn't got. I swearif you could only hear it he's busting his sides laffing at the joke ofyou reckoning to cut yourself out of my life that way. No, sir! I'mcoming right along here at the first break of spring, and if I don'tfind you around, or a sign from you, I'm beating up this river to lookfor you, if I have to chase it sheer up to its source. Say, you can'thide yourself in a corner of this darnation territory I won't find youin. And I guess I'm just as obstinate as a she-wolf chasing a feed ofhuman meat. It can't be done, Keeko. Not now. I tell you it can't bedone."
The man's force was no less for all his smiling eyes. And Keeko made nopretence.
"But why?" she cried, with a gesture of her hands that made him desireto imprison them. "Why should you worry? You've helped me to the thingsthat'll leave me free of--everything. I haven't a right. I haven't anysort of right to take you from your folks, and from those things it'syour work to do for them. Besides, who said I figgered to cut myself outof your life?" She smiled up into his eyes with an almost child-likeconfidence. "I don't want to. I--I hadn't a thought that way. Say, if Ithought I'd never see you again I'd feel like nothing in the world evercould matter. The thing I'm guessing to make plain is when we quit hereyou don't need to worry a thing. I'll get through, and next spring I'llcome right along up and tell you how I'm fixed."
Marcel sat up, and, reaching out, caught and imprisoned the hands hedesired.
"You'll do that?" he cried, while he drew her round so that she facedhim. "Sure? Sure you mean that? You'll come right along up here with thebreak of winter, and we'll----"
/> "I certainly will."
Keeko's youth was no less than Marcel's. Her eyes were without anyshyness. She looked into his fearlessly, and read without shame all thatthey expressed. She was glad. Her heart was full of a delight of whicheven parting could not rob her. The memory of that which she beheld nowwould be hers during the long, drear months of winter, a sheet anchor ofhope, of joy, something to tell her always that, whatever might chance,life still held for her a priceless treasure of which it could neverwholly rob her.
Marcel released her hands lingeringly.
"Here," he cried holding up the pieces of tamarack he had cut. "Thesedarned bits of wood." Then he raised the lichen, which had beencarefully loosened, and revealed the gaping rift in the tree-trunkbeneath it. "Our cache," he added. "Say, maybe when spring breaksthere's things might make it so you can't get along up here. You see,it's a chance. You can't just say. Maybe I'm scared. Anyway, I got anotion you might need me in a hurry. I'm scared for you. That's it. I'mscared for you. Well? You've got your boys. Either of 'em could makethis place in the winter. Here, grab this little old stick. I'll keepthe other. It's just a token. I've set your name on it. Well, send italong up, and cache it in this cache, and when I come along and find ithere, instead of you, at the break of spring, I'll know you're held upand need me, and you can gamble your big white soul I'll beat the trailto your help like a cyclone in a hurry. Oh, I know. You'll guess nothingcan happen that way. But it's just my notion, and you're going to kindof humour me. Git that? When I find that token set in this cache I'llmake up the river just as hard as hell'll let me."
In spite of her confidence Keeko accepted the stick the boy passed toher and sat gazing at it. It was then that she discovered the letteringthat had been cut on it. There were just two words in letters crudelyformed: "LITTLE KEEKO."
For a while her eyes dwelt upon them absorbing all the tenderness theyconveyed. Then, in a moment, all the truth in her, the woman, rousedinto active purpose. She handed it back to him.
"You've given me the wrong token," she said, with a laugh. "I need onewith your name on it."
She held out her hand and Marcel passed her the other half of the stick.It was inscribed with the single word: "MARCEL." Instantly the girl rosefrom her seat and moved away.
"We best get back to camp," she said.
It was her woman's defence. Another few moments and Keeko knew she wouldhave been powerless before her own passionate emotion.
She led the way to the head of the path which went down to the littlecamp on the foreshore below.
* * * * *
Marcel was standing beside the tree which had become the centre of allthings for him. The grey night sky had remained. It had only deepenedits threat with the dawn. But the reality of the moment was nothing tothe desolate winter that had settled upon his heart.
The farewell lay behind him. He was alone, desperately alone, in a worldwhere he had never realized loneliness before. And there, far out downon the broad bosom of the river, were the canoes carrying with them hisevery hope, his every desire.
The bitterness, the depression robbed him of all the buoyant manhoodthat was his. Keeko had gone. Keeko. Keeko with her wonderful eyes, andthe grace and symmetry of a youthful goddess. Yes, she had gone, andbetween them now lay that long winter night with all its manifoldchances of disaster. With the break of spring he might look for hercoming again. Yes, he might look for it. But would she come? Hewondered. And again and again he cursed himself that he had listened toother than the promptings of his desire.
The canoes reached the bend of the river driven by paddles in hands thatwere wonderfully skilled. They were about to pass out of view behind thegrey wall of stone which lined the waterway. The figure of the girl inthe prow of the hindmost boat was blurred and indistinct. Marcel hadeyes for nothing else. He raised his fur cap and waved it slowly to andfro. And as he waved he thought he detected a similar movement in theboat. He could not be sure at the distance. But he believed. He hoped itwas so. He wanted it to be.
He turned away. The boats had passed the grey barrier. There was nothingleft but to set out to rejoin his outfit, and return----
His wandering gaze had fallen on the tree-trunk which held such happymemories for him. He was gazing upon the lichen covering their cache.The lichen was sadly, recklessly disturbed. He knew he had not left itin that condition. He was far too experienced, too old in the craft ofthe trail to leave a cache in such a state. He stepped over to ithurriedly, and raised the covering Nature had set. He peered down intothe deep pocket beneath it.
The next moment a sharp exclamation broke from him. He plunged a handinto the pocket and drew out the token he had handed to Keekoover-night.
He stared at it. It was her demand for his help. She had placed itthere--when? It must have been during the night. Why? What did she mean?Did she desire him to follow--now?
He turned it about in his big fingers, and in a moment discovered freshcharacters cut roughly into the wood. It was a word prefixing the namewhich he had set there: "MY MARCEL."
"My Marcel!"
He was not dreaming. No--no! The little added word was there cut in by ahopelessly unskilled hand. But it was there, as plain as intent couldmake it. "My Marcel." It told him all--all that a man desires to knowwhen a woman bares her heart to him. It was Keeko's farewell messagethat he was not intended to discover till the break of winter. It washer summons to him, not for mere help, but a summons to him telling himthat her love was his.
He ran to the edge of the cliff. He searched the grey headland where theshadows had swallowed up the canoes. There remained nothing--nothing butthe dull, cold prospect of the coming of winter--the relentless Arcticwinter.
He stood there without sign or sound. He made no movement. But the heartof the man was shining in his eyes.
A shot rang out in the woods behind him. It was distant, but it split upthe silence with a meaning that could not be denied.
Marcel turned. The light in his eyes had changed. They were shadowed asnot even the parting had shadowed them. Oh, yes, he knew. It was asignal to him. His own men were searching for him. It warned him thatwinter was fast approaching, that merciless winter of Unaga, and thesemen, these Sleepers, were eager to return to the warm comfort of theirquarters and their winter's sleep.
The Heart of Unaga Page 25
