by Gene Curry
“I don’t know,” DuSang said. “Smith didn’t tell me his reasons. He never does. Get the body was all he said. That’s why I’m here.”
“You’re here because you’re a stinking half-breed killer. Only you’ve done your last murder.”
DuSang said, “Let me go and I’ll give you all the money you want. What I don’t have I can raise. The man you want to kill is Smith, not me. I’ll give you more money than you’re getting now. You can’t be getting more than I can give you.”
“All you’re going to lose is your life,” I said. “It belongs to me now. You’re already dead, half-breed.” DuSang showed his teeth, half snarl, half smile. “Smith will get you anyway. You can run for a while, but he’ll catch up with you.”
“You won’t be there if he does.”
“You’ll be just as dead.”
His right hand twitched and I put a bullet through his wrist. A knife dropped out of his sleeve and lay beside him. I went close enough to kick it away. He turned his head to stare at his shattered wrist. There was no sign that he felt any pain.
“There’s nothing I can buy you with?” he said, grinding out the words through clenched teeth. “You’re crazy not to take the money.”
“All I want from you is information. What about Smith?”
I didn’t know whether he didn’t know or wouldn’t say. Then I thought, the hell with Smith’s reasons. If I got the body back to the States, Smith’s reasons wouldn’t matter.
“Turn over on your belly,” I ordered. “Try something and I’ll stop you. I’ll put a bullet in your spine. It’ll take you some time to die.”
I tied his wrists and ankles with rawhide and turned him over with his face looking up at the sky.
DuSang lay in the snow with his hands tied behind his back. At first he struggled, but that just made the rawhide cut deeper into his flesh. I knew the half-breed wasn’t afraid to die, but he sensed that what I had in mind for him was worse than anything he had ever imagined. Now, having tried to bargain for his life, he wanted to bargain for his death.
His glazed ham face looked strange in the sunlight. “You’re going to kill me, isn’t that enough? What else can you do to a man?”
“A lot,” I said. “You know what the trouble with you is? I’ll tell you. You think a life for a life makes it even. But you’re forgetting that your life isn’t worth a pile of shit. You kill a fine woman that never harmed anybody in her life. You think your stinking, thieving, murdering life makes up for that. A nice merciful bullet squares everything, is that what you think?”
DuSang squinted against the glare of the sun. “I’ll give you a lot of money to kill me quick.”
“I can take your money when you’re dead. I can take it any time.”
“No. A lot of money, Saddler. Everything I have. The trading post. Money in the Skagway bank. I have paper and pencil. I’ll write and sign it. You won’t have any trouble collecting. I’m worth fifty thousand dollars. A quick bullet for fifty thousand?”
“Not for a million,” I said, unwrapping the last of the fatty bacon. “Not for ten million. Not for the Denver Mint.”
“In the name of God, please kill me.” DuSang’s nerve was breaking. I was glad to see that. I wanted him to suffer.
“God’s gone fishing,” I said. “And won’t be back in time to help your case. You have to pay for what you did, DuSang. There’s no way around it.”
DuSang lay still. “You and that dirty Swede whore,” he said.
“A lady from Finland,” I said. “Nothing you can say will make me kill you quick.”
I kneaded the greasy bacon between my hands until there was grease all over them. DuSang tried to jerk his head to one side when I bent over him with the chunk of bacon. But I grabbed him by the hair and rubbed the pig fat all over his head, all over his face. I gave his face extra pork fat.
His body stiffened when, he heard the first wolf howl, and he knew then how he was going to die. The sun was going down—and he knew. I was glad he knew. There was daylight left and the wolves wouldn’t come for hours, but they’d come.
I smeared his parka with bacon grease, working it in deep; and then I started on his pants. Last to get a coating of bacon were his boots. By the time I got through there wasn’t much bacon left. What there was left—a scrap of meat—I shoved under his shirt. The wolves would have to dig for that. They would.
The wind rattled in the pines and the wolf howls sounded again and they seemed to be closer. DuSang knew this country, knew what wolves were like. Usually they didn’t attack humans. At first they would be afraid of him, but they would be drawn by the smell of bacon. The leader of the pack—the boldest—would make a run at him with snarling teeth. DuSang would yell or scream and that would drive them off for a moment. Then the wolves would see that he was helpless, for all his yelling. And then they would attack.
They’d go at his face first because his face was exposed. They would fight over him as they tore him to pieces. I didn’t want to be there when it happened, but nothing on earth would have changed my mind. It was the least I could do for Hella, and if I could have thought of something worse I would have done that, too.
I wiped my hands on DuSang and made sure the rawhide thongs were secure. As I got ready to move out DuSang began to curse me, calling down all the devils in hell on my head. At times he broke into French. He was a tough man all right; I’ll give him that.
His curses followed me until I couldn’t hear them anymore.
Now I was free of DuSang and his killers, but the mountains still had to be crossed and my strength was going fast. I didn’t even feel like eating, always a bad sign when a man is coming to the end of his rope. I had to do something about my sinking condition. I started talking to myself, another bad sign that didn’t seem so bad at the time, because when you’re starting to go crazy you aren’t aware of it. In the days—and nights—to come, I was to hold many conversations with myself. And there would come a time when I’d hold lengthy conversations with the judge.
But for now I just kept on going. And I did look after the dogs, resting them, feeding them. I knew the wolves would be after me when they finished with DuSang, with the others I had killed. A wolf stays hungry no matter how much he eats. Food for the dogs was starting to run low. I was feeding each dog about a pound less at the end of every day, and it was beginning to tell on them. If I didn’t shoot some meat soon I would have to kill one of the dogs and cut him up for the others. I didn’t want to do that, not because I’m sentimental about animals, but because it would slow me down even more. Besides, one dog wouldn’t go far among five.
It was getting on toward night—the day after I’d left DuSang—when I saw the she-deer. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, as they do at that time of day, but when I blinked away my fatigue, the deer was still there. It was a big one, and old, and it was a wonder it hadn’t fallen prey to the wolves. Maybe it was injured; it was moving very slow. With trembling hands I took DuSang’s bolt action rifle from its sheep lined scabbard. It was loaded and all I had to do was line up the sights and fire. But it was a big rifle and right then it seemed to weigh a ton. The deer, unused to humans, was moving away without much panic. I was a lot more panicky than the deer. In fact, as I tried to hold the rifle steady, I was close to frantic. I don’t know if I prayed for this one shot. I might have. You break down and pray at times like that. I steadied the rifle and squeezed the trigger.
The deer jerked to one side and began to run. Cursing, I bolted another cartridge and fired. The deer kept running. It disappeared behind a scatter of rocks. Alarmed by the shooting, the dogs threatened to overturn the sled in their wild scramble to get away from the noise. Shaky though my first shot was, I was sure I’d hit the deer. That didn’t mean it couldn’t travel miles before it died. I left the dogs and climbed up into the rocks and there was blood in the snow. Pasted against a rock was a scrap of flesh mixed with fragments of lead. The high-powered bullet had gone right
through the deer.
I followed the trail of blood and that took me down into a snow-choked draw. There I found the dying animal hopelessly bogged down. I raised the rifle and put a bullet through its head.
“Sorry, old girl,” I said.
Yes, I talked to deer, too.
Weak as I was, it took me a long time to drag the carcass back to where the dogs were. If I’d been thinking straight I would have butchered the deer where I killed it. The dogs barked wildly when they smelled the fresh blood, and they kept on barking and growling while I skinned the deer, doing it carefully so nothing would be wasted. I separated a haunch, cut it into chunks and gave the meat to the dogs, and the meat was still warm when they tore into it, the blood dripping from their muzzles.
And when they finished they wanted more. I gave it to them. I fed them deer meat until they were sluggish and sleepy, then I cooked two big deer steaks for myself. I let them cook for a long time because the meat was fresh-killed and therefore tough. There was nothing to go with it, no coffee, no beans—nothing. There were no plates either, but none of it mattered. When the meat was fit to eat I grabbed up a steak and ate it with my hands. I ate the meat like a savage. Why not? I was turning into one.
Nothing in my life tasted better than the meat from that old she-deer. I ate so much that I began to feel sleepy like the dogs, but this wasn’t the time or the place for sleep. Instead, I roused myself and set about cutting up the rest of the meat. I saved everything but the guts and the head. The rest froze as soon as it was cut, and I packed it on the sled behind the coffin, and then I moved on again, climbing higher into the pass. Now the dogs had to work harder than the previous days. I kept wanting to sleep, and I had to fight hard to keep from just lying down in the snow. I knew if I did that I might never get up again. I cursed myself for having left the coffee pot behind. Like they say, I wanted hot coffee so much I could almost taste it.
The pass dug deeper into the mountains and in places it was narrow and all but choked with rocks. There was one point, worse than any of the others, where I had to unload the coffin and take it across on my back. Then I had to unhitch the dogs and drag the sled to the other side. My muscles were trembling by the time I got finished and I had to sit on the coffin before I was able to go on.
As I toiled upward the wind grew stronger and the pass became a giant chimney that sucked all the wind down from the peaks. It remained clear but the temperature was far below zero because of the howling wind. My face burned with frostbite and it continued to burn even when I rubbed it with snow and wrapped my scarf tightly around it. The glare of sun on snow hurt my eyes and there were times when I could hardly see at all. I was close to the timberline now and I made the last big fire I was going to have. Dusk was still an hour away when I made camp in the shelter of an overhanging rock. It didn’t give that much protection from the wind, but it was better than camping in the open. I fed the dogs again and made a roaring fire that was better than food, better than anything. Here most of the trees were dead; as dead as I felt. I cooked deer meat on a bed of coals raked to the side. It was black and burned, but I tore at it like a husky.
After I heaped the fire high with wood I crawled into the sleeping bag and slept between the fire and the rock wall. The rock reflected the heat, and it was the first time I’d been warm in days. It was dark when wolf howls woke me up and at first, still drugged with sleep, I didn’t know where I was. I fired a shot and the howling stopped and I went back to sleep. I don’t know what time it was when the wolves started howling again. By now the fire had burned low and the wolves were closer than they had been before. Now that they had eaten DuSang they were getting over their fear of humans.
With my head still groggy from fatigue, I built up the fire and prepared to stay awake until morning. That was when I began to talk to the judge for the first time. I started by talking to myself, going over my thoughts in my head, then talking out loud.
“Saddler,” I said to myself. “Of all the damn fools ever born you are the worst.”
Then I added, “Isn’t that right, Judge? It’s all right if you don’t answer, your honor. I know how it is.”
Of course I knew the judge was dead—I wasn’t that crazy; still, I kept on talking to the corpse as if we were the best of pals. I’m not sure what else I said, but it must have sounded pretty reasonable at the time. I think I must have talked about politics, a subject in which I haven’t the slightest interest. Come to think of it, that’s probably why I talked about politics. When your mind starts to wander, usually it ends up in strange places. Mine did, that night.
I must have been dozing when the leader of the wolf pack made a run at the dogs. The barking of the dogs rose to a screaming frenzy and I fired at the lean gray shape that darted into the firelight. The wolf went down in a snarling fury and I fired again and killed him and he was hardly dead when the dogs tore him to pieces. I didn’t try to stop them—the wolf was meat.
I was never so glad to see dawn as I was that morning. During the night the rest of the wolf pack had kept their distance, howling in their mournful way, as if trying to bring back their leader. But there was nothing left but a few patches of gray fur; even the blood in the snow had been licked up by the dogs.
The team was in fine shape when I started out after a breakfast of burned deer meat. I rubbed grease on the frostbite patches and they didn’t burn so much after that. What was left of the deer meat would have to see me over the pass. I knew there were scattered trading posts and way stations on the other side where I could buy food for the dogs, food for myself.
The wolves followed along until I reached the top of the pass. Then one night they were gone, retreating to their own territory, as all wild animals do. There was deep, soft snow on the way to the summit and I had to rig up the shoulder harness to help the dogs. I was so busy hauling the sled that I didn’t know I had reached the top. I straightened up to take a rest and found myself looking down the other side of the mountain. Nothing stirred in all that expanse of snow and ice. I was too far away to see the sea, yet I thought I could smell salt in the air. The dogs barked when I let out a whoop. The deer meat was gone and they were hungry and that made them vicious, especially the big dark husky called Siwash. The brute kept snapping at the others, and I decided he’d be the one to get a bullet, if it came to feeding the others. More than once I had to lay into him with the dog whip, though I hadn’t used the whip since the start of the journey.
The dogs were dragging their feet and so was I. All my movements slowed down and every little chore was torture. Cold gets to you fast when there’s no food in your belly, and looking at that goddamned Siwash, I began to wonder how dog meat tasted.
Now we were coming down from the top of the pass, and hungry or not the dogs were pulling their weight. On toward sunset of that day I shot a big snow rabbit and gave it to the dogs. It disappeared in about a minute, head, tail, fur, everything. If anything, the small meal made the dogs crankier than they had been. Siwash kept trying to get free of the harness and when I hit the bastard with the butt end of the whip he lunged at me with snapping teeth. I was so weak that he knocked me over and I fell hard and skidded away on a patch of ice. The harness and the weight of the other dogs kept Siwash from getting at me, and I grabbed up my rifle in a rage and shot him through the head. I expected the other dogs to turn on the dead husky; all they did was lie down in the snow and howl. But the howling turned to expectant barking when I freed the carcass and began to cut it up. I portioned it out as best I could, keeping only a piece of the haunch for myself. I roasted the meat on a stick and ate it with the grim determination of a starving man ready to eat anything.
Having eaten their brother, the dogs lost some of their crankiness, and we moved on down the mountain. It was an easy descent, but I still had no idea how far I was from Valdez. I guessed about a hundred miles. It could have been twice that distance. I just didn’t know.
It took another day to get down from the mountain. The dogs
were hungry again and I was weak in the legs, hanging on to the sled as much as guiding it, and I was still on high ground when I thought I saw a light in the distance. With the dry snow blowing it was hard to tell at first, but as I moved on into the dusk I knew I’d really seen it. Every time the snow blew hard the light disappeared; it came back when there was a break in the wind. I yelled at the dogs and my excitement got to them, and right then I loved those dumb brutes.
The light grew steadier as I pushed on through the wind-whipped snow. “We’re all right now,” I told the judge. “We’ll have food and we can sleep, the two of us. No wolves, no DuSang, just food and sleep. I told you I’d bring you home, Judge.”
I yelled for the joy of seeing that light. Now there was only a few hundred yards to go, and I was still yelling when a door opened and light from the cabin flooded out onto the snow. The man in the doorway had a rifle—with a round in the chamber, I guess—and he stepped out of the light when I got close. I was so happy to see him, he might have been the older brother I hadn’t seen for twenty years. I didn’t blame him for holding that rifle at his hip. I was so glad to see him, I didn’t even think about it.
He lowered the rifle when he saw what I looked like. I staggered toward him and he kept me from falling. “Sweet Jesus Christ,” he said. “Who are you and where did you come from? Am I going crazy or is that a coffin on the sled?”
“The judge,” I babbled. “Judge Slocum. I’m taking him back to San Francisco. How far is Valdez? I have to get the judge to Valdez.”
He was a big man with the gentle manners you often find in men who don’t have to prove how tough they are.
“Easy does it, pilgrim,” he said. “You look all in. Never mind about getting to Frisco just now. Come on in and get some good hot rabbit stew in your belly. Hot stew, hot coffee, then you can tell me the rest of it. While you’re eating I’ll see to your dogs.”
McWilliams was his name and he gave me enough rabbit stew for five people, and after he fed the dogs he came in and sat across the table from me. I was so busy eating I hardly noticed him.
