Children of the Frost

by Children Of The Frost (Pg) [Lit]

  by night, never resting, snarling on his heels, snapping at his nose, they would stay by

  him to the end. How Zing-ha and he felt the blood-lust quicken! The finish would be a

  sight to see!

  Eager-footed, they took the trail, and even he, Koskoosh, slow of sight and an unversed

  tracker, could have followed it blind, it was so wide. Hot were they on the heels of the

  chase, reading the grim tragedy, fresh-written, at every step. Now they came to where the

  moose had made a stand. Thrice the length of a grown man's body, in every direction, had

  the snow been stamped about and uptossed. In the midst were the deep impressions of the

  splay-hoofed game, and all about, everywhere, were the lighter footmarks of the wolves.

  Some, while their brothers harried the kill, had lain to one side and rested. The fullstretched

  impress of their bodies in the snow was as perfect as though made the moment

  before. One wolf had been caught in a wild lunge of the maddened victim and trampled

  to death. A few bones, well picked, bore witness.

  Again, they ceased the uplift of their snowshoes at a second stand. Here the great animal

  had fought desperately. Twice had he been dragged down, as the snow attested, and twice

  had he shaken his assailants clear and gained footing once more. He had done his task

  long since, but none the less was life dear to him. Zing-ha said it was a strange thing, a

  moose once down to get free again; but this one certainly had. The shaman would see

  signs and wonders in this when they told him.

  And yet again, they come to where the moose had made to mount the bank and gain the

  timber. But his foes had laid on from behind, till he reared and fell back upon them,

  crushing two deep into the snow. It was plain the kill was at hand, for their brothers had

  left them untouched. Two more stands were hurried past, brief in time-length and very

  close together. The trail was red now, and the clean stride of the great beast had grown

  short and slovenly. Then they heard the first sounds of the battle -- not the full-throated

  chorus of the chase, but the short, snappy bark which spoke of close quarters and teeth to

  flesh. Crawling up the wind, Zing-ha bellied it through the snow, and with him crept he,

  Koskoosh, who was to be chief of the tribesmen in the years to come. Together they

  shoved aside the under branches of a young spruce and peered forth. It was the end they

  saw.

  The picture, like all of youth's impressions, was still strong with him, and his dim eyes

  watched the end played out as vividly as in that far-off time. Koskoosh marvelled at this,

  for in the days which followed, when he was a leader of men and a head of councillors,

  he had done great deeds and made his name a curse in the mouths of the Pellys, to say

  naught of the strange white man he had killed, knife to knife, in open fight.

  For long he pondered on the days of his youth, till the fire died down and the frost bit

  deeper. He replenished it with two sticks this time, and gauged his grip on life by what

  remained. If Sit-cum-to-ha had only remembered her grandfather, and gathered a larger

  armful, his hours would have been longer. It would have been easy. But she was ever a

  careless child, and honored not her ancestors from the time the Beaver, son of the son of

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  Zing-ha, first cast eyes upon her. Well, what mattered it? Had he not done likewise in his

  own quick youth? For a while he listened to the silence. Perhaps the heart of his son

  might soften, and he would come back with the dogs to take his old father on with the

  tribe to where the caribou ran thick and the fat hung heavy upon them.

  He strained his ears, his restless brain for the moment stilled. Not a stir, nothing. He alone

  took breath in the midst of the great silence. It was very lonely. Hark! What was that? A

  chill passed over his body. The familiar, long-drawn howl broke the void, and it was

  close at hand. Then on his darkened eyes was projected the vision of the moose -- the old

  bull moose -- the torn flanks and bloody sides, the riddled mane, and the great branching

  horns, down low and tossing to the last. He saw the flashing forms of gray, the gleaming

  eyes, the lolling tongues, the slavered fangs. And he saw the inexorable circle close in till

  it became a dark point in the midst of the stamped snow.

  A cold muzzle thrust against his cheek, and at its touch his soul leaped back to the

  present. His hand shot into the fire and dragged out a burning faggot. Overcome for the

  nonce by his hereditary fear of man, the brute retreated, raising a prolonged call to his

  brothers; and greedily they answered, till a ring of crouching, jaw-slobbered gray was

  stretched round about. The old man listened to the drawing in of this circle. He waved his

  brand wildly, and sniffs turned to snarls; but the panting brutes refused to scatter. Now

  one wormed his chest forward, dragging his haunches after, now a second, now a third;

  but never a one drew back. Why should he cling to life? he asked, and dropped the

  blazing stick into the snow. It sizzled and went out. The circle grunted uneasily, but held

  its own. Again he saw the last stand of the old bull moose, and Koskoosh dropped his

  head wearily upon his knees. What did it matter after all? Was it not the law of life?

  NAM-BOK THE UNVERACIOUS

  (First published in Ainslee's Magazine, Aug, 1902)

  "A BIDARKA, is it not so? Look! a bidarka, and one man who drives

  clumsily with a paddle!"

  Old Bask-Wah-Wan rose to her knees, trembling with weakness and

  eagerness, and gazed out over the sea.

  "Nam-Bok was ever clumsy at the paddle," she maundered reminiscently,

  shading the sun from her eyes and staring across the silverspilled water.

  "Nam-Bok was ever clumsy. I remember . . ."

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  But the women and children laughed loudly, and there was a gentle

  mockery in their laughter, and her voice dwindled till her lips moved

  without sound.

  Koogah lifted his grizzled head from his bone-carving and followed the

  path of her eyes. Except when wide yaws took it off its course, a bidarka

  was heading in for the beach. Its occupant was paddling with more

  strength than dexterity, and made his approach along the zigzag line of

  most resistance. Koogah's head dropped to his work again, and on the

  ivory tusk between his knees he scratched the dorsal fin of a fish the like

  of which never swam in the sea.

  "It is doubtless the man from the next village," he said finally, "come to

  consult with me about the marking of things on bone. And the man is a

  clumsy man. He will never know how."

  "It is Nam-Bok," old Bask-Wah-Wan repeated. "Should I not know my

  son?" she demanded shrilly. "I say, and I say again, it is Nam-Bok."

  "And so thou hast said these many summers," one of the women chided

  softly. "Ever when the ice passed out of the sea hast thou sat and watched

  through the long day, saying at each chance canoe, 'This is Nam-Bok.'

  Nam-Bok is dead, O Bask-Wah-Wan, and the dead do not come back. It

  cannot be that the dead come back." "Nam-Bok!" the old woman cried, so

&n
bsp; loud and clear that the whole village was startled and looked at her.

  She struggled to her feet and tottered down the sand. She stumbled over a

  baby lying in the sun, and the mother hushed its crying and hurled harsh

  words after the old woman, who took no notice. The children ran down the

  beach in advance of her, and as the man in the bidarka drew closer, nearly

  capsizing with one of his ill- directed strokes, the women followed.

  Koogah dropped his walrus tusk and went also, leaning heavily upon his

  staff, and after him loitered the men in twos and threes.

  The bidarka turned broadside and the ripple of surf threatened to swamp it,

  only a naked boy ran into the water and pulled the bow high up on the

  sand. The man stood up and sent a questing glance along the line of

  villagers. A rainbow sweater, dirty and the worse for wear, clung loosely

  to his broad shoulders, and a red cotton handkerchief was knotted in sailor

  fashion about his throat. A fisherman's tam-o'-shanter on his close-clipped

  head, and dungaree trousers and heavy brogans, completed his outfit.

  But he was none the less a striking personage to these simple fisherfolk of

  the great Yukon Delta, who, all their lives, had stared out on Bering Sea

  and in that time seen but two white men,—the census enumerator and a

  lost Jesuit priest. They were a poor people, with neither gold in the ground

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  25

  nor valuable furs in hand, so the whites had passed them afar. Also, the

  Yukon, through the thousands of years, had shoaled that portion of the sea

  with the detritus of Alaska till vessels grounded out of sight of land. So the

  sodden coast, with its long inside reaches and huge mud-land

  archipelagoes, was avoided by the ships of men, and the fisherfolk knew

  not that such things were.

  Koogah, the Bone-Scratcher, retreated backward in sudden haste, tripping

  over his staff and falling to the ground. "Nam-Bok!" he cried, as he

  scrambled wildly for footing. "Nam-Bok, who was blown off to sea, come

  back!"

  The men and women shrank away, and the children scuttled off between

  their legs. Only Opee-Kwan was brave, as befitted the head man of the

  village. He strode forward and gazed long and earnestly at the new-comer.

  "It is Nam-Bok," he said at last, and at the conviction in his voice the

  women wailed apprehensively and drew farther away.

  The lips of the stranger moved indecisively, and his brown throat writhed

  and wrestled with unspoken words.

  "La, la, it is Nam-Bok," Bask-Wah-Wan croaked, peering up into his face.

  "Ever did I say Nam-Bok would come back."

  "Ay, it is Nam-Bok come back." This time it was Nam-Bok himself who

  spoke, putting a leg over the side of the bidarka and standing with one foot

  afloat and one ashore. Again his throat writhed and wrestled as he

  grappled after forgotten words. And when the words came forth they were

  strange of sound and a spluttering of the lips accompanied the gutturals.

  "Greeting, O brothers," he said, "brothers of old time before I went away

  with the off-shore wind."

  He stepped out with both feet on the sand, and Opee-Kwan waved him

  back.

  "Thou art dead, Nam-Bok," he said.

  Nam-Bok laughed. "I am fat."

  "Dead men are not fat," Opee-Kwan confessed. "Thou hast fared well, but

  it is strange. No man may mate with the off-shore wind and come back on

  the heels of the years."

  "I have come back," Nam-Bok answered simply.

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  26

  "Mayhap thou art a shadow, then, a passing shadow of the Nam- Bok that

  was. Shadows come back."

  "I am hungry. Shadows do not eat."

  But Opee-Kwan doubted, and brushed his hand across his brow in sore

  puzzlement. Nam-Bok was likewise puzzled, and as he looked up and

  down the line found no welcome in the eyes of the fisherfolk. The men

  and women whispered together. The children stole timidly back among

  their elders, and bristling dogs fawned up to him and sniffed suspiciously.

  "I bore thee, Nam-Bok, and I gave thee suck when thou west little," Bask-

  Wah-Wan whimpered, drawing closer; "and shadow though thou be, or no

  shadow, I will give thee to eat now."

  Nam-Bok made to come to her, but a growl of fear and menace warned

  him back. He said something in a strange tongue which sounded like

  "Goddam," and added, "No shadow am I, but a man."

  "Who may know concerning the things of mystery?" Opee-Kwan

  demanded, half of himself and half of his tribespeople. "We are, and in a

  breath we are not. If the man may become shadow, may not the shadow

  become man? Nam-Bok was, but is not. This we know, but we do not

  know if this be Nam-Bok or the shadow of Nam-Bok."

  Nam-Bok cleared his throat and made answer. "In the old time long ago,

  thy father's father, Opee-Kwan, went away and came back on the heels of

  the years. Nor was a place by the fire denied him. It is said . . ." He paused

  significantly, and they hung on his utterance. "It is said," he repeated,

  driving his point home with deliberation, "that Sipsip, his klooch, bore

  him two sons after he came back."

  "But he had no doings with the off-shore wind," Opee-Kwan retorted. "He

  went away into the heart of the land, and it is in the nature of things that a

  man may go on and on into the land."

  "And likewise the sea. But that is neither here nor there. It is said . that thy

  father's father told strange tales of the things he saw."

  "Ay, strange tales he told."

  "I, too, have strange tales to tell," Nam-Bok stated insidiously. And, as

  they wavered, "And presents likewise."

  He pulled from the bidarka a shawl, marvellous of texture and color, and

  flung it about his mother's shoulders. The women voiced a collective sigh

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  of admiration, and old Bask-Wah-Wan ruffled the gay material and patted

  it and crooned in childish joy.

  "He has tales to tell," Koogah muttered. "And presents," a woman

  seconded.

  And Opee-Kwan knew that his people were eager, and further, he was

  aware himself of an itching curiosity concerning those untold tales. "The

  fishing has been good," he said judiciously, ''and we have oil in plenty. So

  come, Nam-Bok, let us feast."

  Two of the men hoisted the bidarka on their shoulders and carried it up to

  the fire. Nam-Bok walked by the side of Opee-Kwan, and the villagers

  followed after, save those of the women who lingered a moment to lay

  caressing fingers on the shawl.

  There was little talk while the feast went on, though many and curious

  were the glances stolen at the son of Bask-Wah-Wan. This embarrassed

  him—not because he was modest of spirit, however, but for the fact that

  the stench of the seal-oil had robbed him of his appetite, and that he

  keenly desired to conceal his feelings on the subject.

  "Eat; thou art hungry," Opee-Kwan commanded, and Nam-Bok shut both

  his eyes a
nd shoved his fist into the big pot of putrid fish.

  "La la, be not ashamed. The seal were many this year, and strong men are

  ever hungry." And Bask-Wah-Wan sopped a particularly offensive chunk

  of salmon into the oil and passed it fondly and dripping to her son.

  In despair, when premonitory symptoms warned him that his stomach was

  not so strong as of old, he filled his pipe and struck up a smoke. The

  people fed on noisily and watched. Few of them could boast of intimate

  acquaintance with the precious weed, though now and again small

  quantities and abominable qualities were obtained in trade from the

  Eskimos to the northward. Koogah, sitting next to him indicated that he

  was not averse to taking a draw, and between two mouthfuls, with the oil

  thick on his lips, sucked away at the amber stem. And thereupon Nam-Bok

  held his stomach with a shaky hand and declined the proffered return.

  Koogah could keep the pipe, he said, for he had intended so to honor him

  from the first. And the people licked their fingers and approved of his

  liberality.

  Opee-Kwan rose to his feet. "And now, O Nam-Bok, the feast is ended,

  and we would listen concerning the strange things you have seen. "

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  The fisherfolk applauded with their hands, and gathering about them their

  work, prepared to listen. The men were busy fashioning spears and

  carving on ivory, while the women scraped the fat from the hides of the

  hair seal and made them pliable or sewed muclucs with threads of sinew.

  Nam-Bok's eyes roved over the scene, but there was not the charm about it

  that his recollection had warranted him to expect. During the years of his

  wandering he had looked forward to just this scene, and now that it had

  come he was disappointed. It was a bare and meagre life, he deemed, and

  not to be compared to the one to which he had become used. Still, he

  would open their eyes a bit, and his own eyes sparkled at the thought.

  "Brother," he began, with the smug complacency of a man about to relate

  the big things he has done, `'it was late summer of many summers back,

  with much such weather as this promises to be, when I went away. You all

  remember the day, when the gulls flew low, and the wind blew strong

  from the land, and I could not hold my bidarka against it. I tied the