"I love him," she said.
I went right on, "I'll have to send you back to the Mission. They will keep you for three years yet; they'll watch you."
She smiled at that. "Jonathan, he go where he want."
"I want you to stay with me, Oh-Be-Joyful. And all I ask is that you promise me."
"No," she said.
I was afraid I was going to cry in front of her. I turned away and walked to the end of the porch.
"Ill help you pack. There are some things of mine I'd like you to have." Saying that made me realize I was sending her away. I felt awful.
"If you change your mind," I said and stopped, because I was choking over the words. Oh-Be-Joyful began to sob. I ran back and put my arms around her.
"Oh-Be-Joyful, don't cry!" But she cried harder.
"Do you really love him so much?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Oh, dear," I said, "I wish Mike was here."
It occurred to me that we would look pretty silly to anybody walking by, holding onto each other like that and crying. It was up to me to pull myself together. I did, and decided that as I couldn't do anything with Oh-Be-Joyful, Mike would have to handle Jonathan, scare him away from the place or something.
When I thought about it a while I was sure that Mike could manage it, and that Oh-Be-Joyful wouldn't have to go back after all. But of course I couldn't tell her that I intended to get rid of Jonathan. So after I had jumped up, feeling everything was solved, she continued to sit there staring down into the pile of furs.
I wanted to get her busy at something. "Help me tie up these pelts. We'll take them over to the Company store, and they'll give them to Jonathan next time he's in."
She gathered the furs in her arms. "They are mine," she said.
"Oh-Be-Joyful, the furs are Jonathan's. You can't accept a present worth several hundred dollars from him."
"When brave lay gift before door and woman take it in, it mean she have him as husband."
"Then you most certainly will not take it in."
"I take," she said.
"Oh-Be-Joyful, you give me those furs!"
Her grip tightened on them.
"You're a mean, ungrateful girl, and it will serve you right if you marry Jonathan Forquet. You'll have no one to thank but yourself."
There were tears in her eyes, but she said nothing.
I walked back into the house. I felt confused. I wasn't so sure that the Mother Superior had been right. And I wasn't at all sure that Oh-Be-Joyful was wrong. I'd once heard an Indian refer to me as the Sergeant's klooch. If having a baby and a little home made you a klooch, it wasn't such a bad thing to be. It seemed to me that it all came to this: what was that relentless, stubborn, determined boy, that maker of canoes, that storyteller and dancer on hilltops, really like?
I walked back out on the porch. Oh-Be-Joyful still sat there, her eyes big with misery. I put my hand on her head and stroked the thick black hair.
"What's he like?" I asked her.
She caught my hand and pressed it. "He tall and straight as young fir tree. He walk in the ways of our people. He hunt alone, no brother sit at his campfire. He is silent like the woods, and when he speaks it is with knowing. With much care he take bark from tree, that tree is not hurt. Yet great fierceness is in his soul, and around his neck hangs the teeth of Mish-e-muk-wa. I want much, but never he speak love to me. Now today he lay the furs before the door as my father lay furs before the tepee of my mother. Should I send them back to the lonely campfire?"
"Oh, dear," I said again. "I wish Mike was here."
But when I thought about it, I was glad he wasn't. What I needed was a chance to talk about it with him alone. So I packed up a lunch and took it to his office. There was a great deal of loud talk coming from the office, and as I passed the window I glanced in. A swarthy 'breed with a dirty yellow handkerchief knotted around his head was saying, "He try kill me every night."
"Now wait a minute," Mike said. "Let's get this straight."
I decided I'd better not interrupt them, so I sat on the step and waited for yellow handkerchief to go. But he was a long time about it, so I took out a sandwich and began to eat. Also I wondered who was trying to kill yellow handkerchief, and why, and if they would succeed. They must have moved nearer the window because their voices became suddenly audible.
Mike said, "Then you don't know why Jonathan wants to kill you?"
At the name Jonathan, I choked on my sandwich.
Yellow handkerchief's voice was surly. "I tell you, no. Him hate me very much. Him make up this lie."
"About you stealing from his trap lines?" Mike asked.
I was so excited and upset that I opened another sandwich.
"Yes," yellow handkerchief's voice came again, "him tell that damn lie to my face."
"You're sure it's a lie?" Mike asked.
"You think I steal from trap line?" yellow handkerchief roared. "You think I thief? Then good-bye!"
I drew myself to one side so as not to be crushed as he stamped out. But he didn't stamp out, for Mike said quickly, "Now look here, Cardinal, let's not be so touchy. If your life's been threatened, I'm on your side; but I've got to know how matters stand before I can take any steps."
"How they stand?" Yellow handkerchief was beside himself. "I told you how they stand. That snake Jonathan Forquet come every night to my house and shoot at me with arrows."
"How many nights has he done this?"
"Three."
"And how close does he come?"
"Damn close. He pin my sleeve to table, him let fly arrow one-half inch from my head. Last night arrow she knock a spoon out of my hands."
"It sounds like he might just be trying to scare you," Mike said.
"He try kill me," yellow handkerchief said with conviction.
"Well, whether he is or not, he can't go around shooting at people."
"I tell you, him try kill me. Him come and say to me, 'I kill you, Cardinal, you dirty dog, you steal from my traps.' And it is a lie and he knows it, but he shoot anyway. Every night he try kill me."
"All right," Mike said. "I'll bring him in."
"What that mean, you bring him in?" yellow handkerchief asked suspiciously.
"It means, Cardinal, that I'll handle it my own way."
"You put him in jail, yes?"
"Now look, Cardinal. I want you to keep out of this. I'll talk to Jonathan and see what I can get out of him. But if he sees us together, he'll shut up like a clam."
"Okay, okay, so long you put him in jail."
"I'm not promising that."
The door opened so suddenly that it almost knocked me off the step. Yellow handkerchief's boots left gray prints on the thin layer of November snow.
Mike looked at me sternly. "Kathy, what's the idea, sitting out here in this rotten weather?"
"I had to talk to you about Jonathan."
Mike walked back in and sat down with a sigh. "Then you might as well have joined the party. That's all I've been doing, talking about Jonathan."
"Is he really a killer?" I asked.
Mike grinned.
"Well," I said, "I couldn't help but hear some of it, with yellow handkerchief yelling like that."
"Yellow handkerchief?" Mike laughed. "Oh, Cardinal."
"Listen, it's no laughing matter, because Oh-Be-Joyful loves Jonathan."
"Yes," Mike said, "you told me about it."
"But now it's worse. Today he dumped a whole bunch of skins on our porch."
At last Mike looked concerned. "He wants to take her off, huh?"
"Yes," I said. "That's what it means. And I couldn't get her to promise me not to go. You've simply got to do something about it, Mike. You've got to talk to him, tell him to keep away, and put the fear of God into him so he'll do it."
"Jonathan doesn't scare easy," Mike said.
"That's too bad for him. Then you'll have to put him in jail as M
r. Cardinal suggested."
"Good God, Kathy, I can't put a man in jail because he's in love!"
"But he's dangerous. Suppose he kills Mr. Cardinal, how would you feel? And how would I feel? Because by that time he would have run off with Oh-Be-Joyful too. Mike, it makes me just sick to think of it, a potential killer."
"Kathy, you're working yourself up over nothing. In the first place, I don't believe Jonathan is a potential killer. I think that Cardinal did rob his traps. And Jonathan took this way of scaring him off. Trap-stealing is the most serious crime in the Northwest. You can see why. It's a man's livelihood."
"Then why didn't he come to you?"
"He's Indian, that's why."
It seemed to me Mike was being unfair. "You're taking Jonathan's side against Mr. Cardinal's," I said.
Mike said very evenly, "I'm trying not to take any side until I know more about things."
"You don't like Mr. Cardinal."
"Of course I don't like him. He's got a reputation that smells like dead fish, a whole stinking trail of it, from here to Calgary."
"What's he done?"
"Laudanum," Mike said.
"What's that?"
"It's a drug. They use it for anaesthetics; it puts you out. Cardinal served a year in Calgary for peddling it. I've just checked with the Calgary authorities because someone's been bringing Laudanum into my territory."
"Oh, Mike, how do you know?"
"You remember the day Jerry West was killed by the grizzly outside that old shack?"
"Yes."
"You remember I went down there to investigate? Well, on the way I met Cardinal. He was carrying a box of fishing tackle, but no pole and no fish." Mike's voice sunk lower. He was talking to himself by now.
"I'd give anything if I had opened that box of tackle. But I didn't suspect then. It was only as I walked toward the shack that I noticed it was where Cardinal's footprints had come from.
"Now, the way I figured it, Cardinal must have heard what had happened with the bear, and while I was taken up with Tim he went to the cabin and probably took something away in that box of tackle. So I had a look around, and I noticed a peculiarthing. The window by the door was knocked out, and there were pieces of glass lying on the ground. It made me wonder why Jerry West pounded at the door until the grizzly got him. Why didn't he jump through the open window? The only reason I could think of is that the windowpane wasn't knocked out then. I began to suspect it was Cardinal who had knocked it out. But why?
"Then I noticed an interesting thing: a few pieces of the window had shattered and fallen inside the room. I bent down to examine them and found that they were not window glass at all. They were tinted a light green. I became conscious then of a sweet sickish smell. I felt around, and the floor beside the green glass was damp.
"Then of course the whole thing came to me. I was sure the smell was laudanum."
"What I think happened was this: Cardinal had hidden his supply in the shack. The shack was used as a distillery in the old days, but since that was broken up, no one's been near it. A perfect place to hide the stuff. Of course, when he heard about the grizzly killing, he knew I'd be down to investigate, so he had to beat me to it. He did. He packed up the vials of laudanum in his tin box, and in his hurry one of the bottles broke. He kicked the glass into the corner where no one would be apt to notice it. And if they did, so what? The place used to be a distillery. But the smell was noticeable in the shack, so Cardinal knocked out the window, and it was dissipated in the fresh air." Mike looked at me and grinned.
"Why don't you arrest him?" I asked.
"It's all supposition," he said. "I haven't got a fact in the world to back it up with. But it makes a nice story."
"And you make a nice detective." But after I'd thought about it a while, there was one thing I didn't understand. "What do people in this country want with laudanum?"
"On first thought you can't see it. Mountaineers and trappers don't seem the type to take to narcotics. But there are plenty of snowbirds up here, and plenty who aren't, who like to have a
supply of the stuff on hand. The reason for it is a pretty grim one."
"What is the reason?" I asked.
"Well," said Mike, "a lot of miners pass through here on the way to the Yukon, and miners travel alone and work alone. Anyone who thinks he's onto a rich vein doesn't want a partner around to cut his throat. Then there are plenty of trappers who work alone, too.
"Now, there are many things can happen to a man alone on the trail. And the man who falls and breaks his neck is a lucky man. But suppose you don't break your neck, suppose you just break your leg? The vulture starts circling, and the wolves stand in a circle, and every time you look they're closer. You can keep them off for a while until your ammunition's gone or until you fall asleep. Well, that's when the little three-ounce phial you wear around your neck's going to stand you in good stead. Because it's going to put you to sleep, painlessly and soundly asleep. You won't feel it when the hungry circle closes in. You won't feel the first crunching bite. You won't feel the others rending and tearing and fighting each other for your still-living flesh."
"Oh, Mike, it's horrible!"
"Not with laudanum," he said.
We sat in silence for a moment, then Mike reached for the lunch basket.
"How can you eat?" I asked him. "I feel absolutely sick."
Mike opened the basket and looked in. "Sure you do," he said. "You've eaten all the sandwiches."
I couldn't believe it. Not even when I saw the empty lunch basket. "It's a nervous habit," I said with dignity. "I always eat when I'm upset."
Mike set out the next morning to find Jonathan and bring him in. I don't know how Oh-Be-Joyful knew it, but she did. We were silent and avoided looking at each other. When I fed the baby, there was no calling back and forth about the new tooth, or any laughing over the way she talked to herself. Oh-Be-Joyful used to pretend Mary Aroon was speaking Cree, and she would answer everything the baby said. It was very funny, but there was no fun in anything today, and no happiness. While I was peeling the potatoes for dinner, I came across one that looked just like a little fat man with big ears. I held it up.
"Look, Oh-Be-Joyful, at my little man."
I thought that would make her laugh, but she burst into tears and ran from the room.
It had been such a long day, and now it was past suppertime and no Mike. So many things can happen to a man on the trail. Especially if he's out to bring someone in who, maybe, doesn't want to be brought in.
Pictures crowded into my mind. Mr. Neilson, a strong man but stubborn, his boot sticking up out of the snow and the girl with the delicate wedding ring pulling at it. Burnt bodies lying by a well. A beaver with its eyes gone, swinging from a pole. Timmy sitting in the little church, his face wet with tears. I lighted a candle and set it in the window. It would be a welcome to Mike. It would make things more cheerful.
Oh-Be-Joyful came silently into the room and sat in the corner most filled with shadows.
"I wonder what's keeping Sergeant Mike," I said. And just then I heard him clumping with his snowshoes on the porch. I opened the door, and a gust of snow swirled in my face.
"Mike," I called. He grabbed me to him in a rough snowy kiss. Not until he bent to unstrap his snowshoes did I realize there was someone with him, standing silent in the dark.
"Come in," I said. The Indian boy followed closely behind Mike. I slammed the door shut against the wind and turned to them.
"Kathy," said Mike, "this is Jonathan Forquet."
Jonathan nodded courteously, but there was no smile on his lips. I noticed this because I noticed his mouth in particular. It was full, with a clean sweeping outline. He held himself well, proudly or perhaps defiantly. His long dark eyes swept over the room. They came to rest on Oh-Be-Joyful who stood in the farthest corner, hardly breathing. Jonathan's face did not soften. He gave her no sign, but he looked for a long minute.
"Mike Flannigan, what on earth are you thinking of, bringing that boy here? Didn't you see the way he looked at Oh-Be-Joyful? Oh, you're crazy, just crazy!" The tears that had been close to the surface all day spilled over, and I wiped them away furiously with my apron.
"Kathy, I brought him here because I didn't know what else to do with him. And I think," he added slowly, "that that's what you would have wanted me to do."
"Oh, Mike, if they hear about this at the Mission, they'll take Oh-Be-Joyful back. They'll think you're deliberately encouraging it. And you are."
He took me by the arm, but I shook him off. Then he grabbed me tight by each shoulder, so tight I couldn't have shaken his hands off or pried them off either. He swung me around to him.
"You're going to listen to me, you little minx. I brought Jonathan here so you could put a meal into him. The boy is starving. He fainted on the trail coming in."
"Is he really starving, Mike?"
"When I found him, he was peeling the bark from a jack pine and sucking at the sap. You've got to be pretty hungry to do that."
I couldn't believe it. "But if he could shoot at Mr. Cardinal, why didn't he shoot food for himself?"
"He's sick," Mike said. "That's why it took me so long to bring him in. He's too weak to travel, really. But he's a plucky kid. Jumped away from that jack pine like a shot when he heard me coming. Afraid I'd guess what he was doing. And on the trail, not a word out of him. I didn't realize there was much wrong, he walked along with me quietly enough, and then all at once just crumpled up on the snow. He lay there as if he were dead. I built a fire and erected a kind of lean-to to shelter him from the wind, and all that time he didn't move. I started chafing him then and loosening his clothing. I noticed that his skin was discolored around his waist. I opened his shirt and found that his whole body was terribly bruised. For a while I thought that one of the ribs was broken. He must have been kicked fifty times in the side. That's the only thing that could account for it. I began to see why he was shooting at Cardinal."
Mrs. Mike Page 19
