The Honor of the Big Snows

by James Oliver Curwood

  CHAPTER XXVII

  JAN'S STORY

  Jan had aged five years during those two hours in the office of thesub-commissioner; he aged now as Thornton looked at him. There came thesame tired, hopeless glow into his eyes, the same tense lines in hisface. And yet, quickly, he changed as he had not changed on thatafternoon. Two livid spots began to burn in his cheeks as he sat downopposite Thornton. He turned the light low, and his eyes glowed moredarkly and with an animal-like luster in the half gloom. Something inhim now, a quivering, struggling passion that lay behind those eyes,held Thornton white and silent.

  "M'sieur," he began in the low voice which Thornton was beginning tounderstand, "I am going to tell you something which I have told to buttwo other human beings. It is the story of another man--a man fromcivilization, like you, who came up into this country of ours years andyears ago, and who met a woman, as you have met this girl at OxfordHouse, and who loved her as you love this one, and perhaps more. It issingular that the case should be so similar, m'sieur, and it is becauseof this that I believe Our Blessed Lady gives me courage to tell it toyou. For this man, like you, left a wife--and two children--when hecame into the North. M'sieur, I pray the Great God to forgive him, forhe left a third child--unborn."

  Jan leaned upon his hand so that it shaded his face.

  "It is not so much of THAT as of what followed that I am going to tellyou, m'sieur," he went on. "It was a beautiful love--on the woman'spart, and it would have been a beautiful love on the man's part if ithad been pure. For her he gave up everything, even his God--as youwould give up everything--and your God--for this girl at Oxford House.M'sieur, I will speak mostly of the woman now. She was beautiful. Shewas one of the three most beautiful things that God ever placed in ourworld, and she loved this man. She married him, believed in him, wasready to die for him, to follow him to the ends of the earth, as ourwomen will do for the men they love. God in Heaven, can you not guesswhat happened, m'sieur? A CHILD WAS BORN!"

  So fiercely did Jan cry out the words that Thornton jerked back asthough a blow had been struck at him from out of the gloom.

  "A child was born!" repeated Jan, and Thornton heard his nails diggingin the table. "That was the first curse of God--a child! LaCharogne--les betes de charogne--that is what we call them--beasts ofcarrion and carrion eaters, breeders of devils and sin! Mon Dieu, thatis what happened! A child was born, with the curse of God upon him!"

  Jan stopped, his nails digging deeper, his breath escaping from him asthough he had been running.

  "Down in YOUR world he would have grown up a MAN," he continued,speaking more calmly. "I have heard that--since. It is common downthere to be a two-legged carrion--a man or a woman born out of wedlock.I have been told so, and that it is a curse not without hope. But hereit is different. The curse never dies. It follows, day after day, yearafter year. And this child--more unfortunate than the wild things, wasborn one of them. Do you understand, m'sieur? If the winds hadwhispered the secret nothing would have come near him--the Indian womenwould sooner have touched the plague--he would have been an outcast,despised as he grew older, pointed at and taunted, called names whichare worse than those called to the lowest and meanest dogs. THAT iswhat it means to be born under that curse--up here."

  He waited for Thornton to speak, but the other sat silent and movelessacross the table.

  "The curse worked swiftly, m'sieur. It came first--in remorse--to theman. It gnawed at his soul, ate him alive, and drove him from place toplace with the woman and the child. The purity and love of the womanadded to his suffering, and at last he came to know that the hand ofGod had fallen upon his head. The woman saw his grief but did not knowthe reason for it. And so the curse first came to her. They wentnorth--far north, above the Barren Lands, and the curse followed there.It gnawed at his life until--he died. That was seven years after thechild was born."

  The oil lamp sputtered and began to smoke, and with a quick movementJan turned the wick down until they were left in darkness.

  "M'sieur, it was then that the curse began to fall upon the woman andthe child. Do you not believe that about the sins of the fathersfalling upon others? Mon Dieu, it is so--it is so. It came in manysmall ways--and then--the curse--it came suddenly--LIKE THIS." Jan'svoice came in a hissing whisper now. Thornton could feel his hot breathas he leaned over the table, and in the darkness Jan's eyes shone liketwo coals of fire. "It came like THIS!" panted Jan. "There was a newmissioner at the post--a--a Christian from the South, and he was agreat friend to the woman, and preached God, and she BELIEVED him. Theboy was very young, and saw things, but did not understand at first. Heknew, afterward, that the missioner loved his mother's beauty, and thathe tried hard to win it--and failed, for the woman, until death, wouldlove only the one to whom she had given herself first. Great God, ithappened THEN--one night when every soul was about the big fires at thecaribou roast, and there was no one near the lonely little cabin wherethe boy and his mother lived. The boy was at the feast, but he ranhome--with a bit of dripping meat as a gift for his mother--and heheard her cries, and ran in to be struck down by the missioner. Ithappened THEN, and even the boy knew, and followed the man, shriekingthat he had killed his mother." There was a terrible calmness now inJan's voice. "M'sieur, it was true. She wasted away like a flower afterthat night. She died, and left the boy alone with the curse. And thatboy, m'sieur, was Jan Thoreau. The woman was his mother."

  There was silence now, a dead, pulseless quiet, broken after a momentby a movement. It was Thornton, groping across the table. Jan felt hishands touch his arm. They groped farther in the darkness, until JanThoreau's hands were clasped tightly in Thornton's.

  "And that--is all?" he questioned hoarsely.

  "No, it is but the beginning," said Jan softly. "The curse has followedme, m'sieur, until I am the unhappiest man in the world. To-day I havedone all that is to be done. When my father died he left papers whichmy mother was to give to me when I had attained manhood. When she diedthey came to me. She knew nothing of that which was in them, and I amglad. For they told the story that I have told to you, m'sieur, andfrom his grave my father prayed to me to make what restitution I could.When he came into the North for good he brought with him most of hisfortune--which was large, m'sieur--and placed it where no one wouldever find it--in the stock of the Great Company. A half of it, he said,should be mine. The other half he asked me to return to his children,and to his real wife, if she were living. I have done more than that,m'sieur. I have given up all--for none of it is mine. A half will go tothe two children whom he deserted. The other half will go to the childthat was unborn. The mother--is--dead."

  After a time Thornton said,

  "There is more, Jan."

  "Yes, there is more, m'sieur," said Jan. "So much more that if I wereto tell it to you it would not be hard for you to understand why JanThoreau is the unhappiest man in the world. I have told you that thisis but the beginning. I have not told you of how the curse has followedme and robbed me of all that is greatest in life--how it has haunted meday and night, m'sieur, like a black spirit, destroying my hopes,turning me at last into an outcast, without people, without friends,without--that--which you, too, will give up in this girl at OxfordHouse. M'sieur, am I right? You will not go back to her. You will gosouth, and some day the Great God will reward you."

  He heard Thornton rising in the dark.

  "Shall I strike a light, m'sieur?"

  "No," said Thornton close to him. In the gloom their hands met. Therewas a change in the other's voice now, something of pride, of triumph,of a glory just achieved. "Jan," he said softly, "I thank you forbringing me face to face with a God like yours. I have never met Himbefore. We send missionaries up to save you, we look upon you as wildand savage and with only half a soul--and we are blind. You have taughtme more than has ever been preached into me, and this great, gloriousworld of yours is sending me back a better man for having come into it.I am going--south. Some day I will return, and I will be one of thisworld, and one of your p
eople. I will come, and I will bring no curse.If I could send this word to HER, ask her forgiveness, tell her what Ihave almost been and that I still have hope--faith--I could go easierdown into that other world."

  "You can," said Jan. "I will take this word for you, m'sieur, and Iwill take more, for I will tell her what it has been the kind fate forJan Thoreau to find in the heart of M'sieur Thornton. She is one of mypeople, and she will forgive, and love you more for what you have done.For this, m'sieur, is what the Cree god has given to his people as thehonor of the great snows. She will still love you, and if there is tobe hope it will burn in HER breast, too. M'sieur--"

  Something like a sob broke through Thornton's lips as he moved backthrough the darkness.

  "And you--I will find you again?"

  "They will know where I go from Oxford House. I will leave word--withHER," said Jan.

  "Good-by," said Thornton huskily.

  Jan listened until his footsteps had died away, and for a long timeafter that he sat with his head buried in his arms upon the littletable. And Kazan, whining softly, seemed to know that in the darkenedroom had come to pass the thing which broke at last his master'soverburdened heart.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  THE MUSIC AGAIN

  That night Jan Thoreau passed for the last time back into the shelterof his forests; and all that night he traveled, and with each mile thathe left behind him something larger and bolder grew in his breast untilhe cracked his whip in the old way, and shouted to the dogs in the oldway, and the blood in him sang to the wild spirit of the wilderness.Once more he was home. To him the forest had always been home, filledwith the low voice of whispering winds and trees, and to-night it wasmore his home than ever. Lonely and sick at heart, with no other desirethan to bury himself deeper and deeper into it, he felt the life, andsympathy, and love of it creeping into his heart, grieving with him inhis grief, warming him with its hope, pledging him again the eternalfriendship of its trees, its mountains, and all of the wild that itheld therein.

  And from above him the stars looked down like a billion tiny fireskindled by loving hands to light his way--the stars that had given himmusic, peace, since he could remember, and that had taught him more ofthe silent power of God than the lips of man could ever tell. From thistime forth Jan Thoreau knew that these things would be his life, hisgod. A thousand times in fanciful play he had given life and form tothe star-shadows about him, to the shadows of the tall spruce, thetwisted shrub, the rocks and even the mountains. And now it was nolonger play. With each hour that passed this night, and with each dayand night that followed, they became more real to him, and his fires inthe black gloom painted him pictures as they had never painted thembefore, and the trees and the rocks and the twisted shrub comforted himmore and more in his loneliness, and gave to him the presence of lifein their movement, in the coming and going of their shadow-forms.Everywhere they were the same old friends, unvarying and changeless.The spruce-shadow of to-night, nodding to him in its silent way, wasthe same that had nodded to him last night--a hundred nights ago; thestars were the same, the winds whispering to him in the tree-tops werethe same, everything was as it was yesterday--years ago--unchanged,never leaving him, never growing cold in their devotion. He had lovedthe forest--NOW he worshipped it. In its vast silence he stillpossessed Melisse. It whispered to him still of her old love, of theirdays and years of happiness, and with his forest he lived these daysover and over again, and when he slept with his forest he dreamed ofthem.

  Nearly a month passed before he reached Oxford House and found thesweet-faced girl whom Thornton loved. He did as Thornton had asked, andwent on--into the north and east. He had no mission now, except to roamin his forests. He went down the Hayes, getting his few supplies atIndian camps, and stopped at last, with the beginning of spring, far upon the Cutaway. Here he built himself a camp and lived for a time,setting dead-falls for bear. Then he struck north again, and stilleast--keeping always away from Lac Bain. When the first chill winds ofthe bay brought warning of winter down to him he was filled for a timewith a longing to strike north--and WEST, to go once more back to hisBarren Lands. But, instead, he went south, and so it came to pass thata year after he had left Lac Bain he built himself a cabin deep in theforest of God's River, fifty miles from Oxford House, and trapped oncemore for the company. He had not forgotten his promise to Thornton, andat Oxford House left word where he could be found if the man fromcivilization should return.

  In late mid-winter Jan returned to Oxford House with his furs. It wason the night of the day that he came into the post that he heard aFrenchman who had come down from the north speak of Lac Bain. Nonenoticed the change in Jan's face as he hung back in the shadows of thecompany's store. A little later he followed the Frenchman outside, andstopped him where there were no others near to overhear.

  "M'sieur, you spoke of Lac Bain," he said in French. "You have beenthere?"

  "Yes," replied the other, "I was there for a week waiting for the firstsledge snow."

  "It is my old home," said Jan, trying to keep his voice natural. "Ihave wondered--if there are changes. You saw--Cummins--the factor?"

  "Yes, he was there."

  "And--and Jean de Gravois, the chief man?"

  "He was away. Mon Dieu, listen to that! The dogs are fighting outthere!"

  "A moment, m'sieur," begged Jan, as the Frenchman made a movement as ifto run in the direction of the tumult. "The factor had adaughter--Melisse--"

  "She left Lac Bain a long time ago, m'sieur," interrupted the trapper,making a tremendous effort to be polite as he edged toward the sound ofbattle. "M'sieur Cummins told me that he had not seen her in a longtime--I believe it was almost a year. Sacre, listen to that! They aretearing one another to bits, and they are MY dogs, m'sieur, for I cantell their voices among a thousand!"

  He sprang through the darkness and Jan made a movement to follow. Thenhe stopped, and turned instead to the company's store. He took his packto the sledge and dogs in the edge of the spruce, and Kazan leaped togreet him at the end of his babiche. This night as Jan traveled throughthe forest he did not notice the stars or the friendly shadows.

  "A year," he repeated to himself, again and again, and once, when Kazanrubbed against his leg and looked up into his face, he said, "Ah,Kazan, our Melisse went away with the Englishman. May the Great Godgive them happiness!"

  The forest claimed him more than ever after this. He did not go back toOxford House in the spring but sold his furs to a passing half-breed,and wandered through all of that spring and summer in the country tothe west. It was January when he returned to his cabin, when the snowswere deepest, and three days later he set out to outfit at the Hudson'sBay post on God's Lake instead of at Oxford House. It was while theywere crossing a part of the lake that Kazan leaped aside for an instantin his traces and snapped at something in the snow.

  Jan saw the movement but gave no attention to it until a little later,when Kazan stopped and fell upon his belly, biting at the harness andwhining in pain. The thought of Kazan's sudden snap at the snow came tohim then like a knife-thrust, and with a low cry of horror and fear hefell upon his knees beside the dog. Kazan whimpered and his bushy tailswept the snow as Jan lifted his great wolfish head between his twohands. No other sound came from Jan's lips now, and slowly he drew thedog up to him until he held him in his arms as he might have held achild, Kazan stilled the whimpering sounds in his throat. His one eyerested on his master's face, faithful, watching for some sign--for somelanguage there, even as the burning fires of a strange torture gnawedat his life, and in that eye Jan saw the deepening reddish film whichhe had seen a hundred times before in the eyes of foxes and wolveskilled by poison bait.

  A moan of anguish burst from Jan's lips and he held his face close downagainst Kazan's head, and sobbed now like a child, while Kazan rubbedhis hot muzzle against his cheek and his muscles hardened in a lastdesire to give battle to whatever was giving his master grief. It was along time before Jan lifted his face from the shaggy head, and w
hen hedid he knew that the last of all love, of all companionship, of allthat bound him to flesh and blood in his lonely world, was gone. Kazanwas dead.

  From the sledge he took a blanket and wrapped Kazan in it, and carriedhim a hundred yards back from the trail. With bowed head he came behindhis four dogs into God's House. Half an hour later he turned back intothe wilderness with his supplies. It was dark when he returned to wherehe had left Kazan. He placed him upon the sledge and the four huskieswhined as they dragged on their burden, from which the smell of deathcame to them. They stopped in the deep forests beyond the lake and Janbuilt a fire.

  This night, as on all nights in his lonely life, Jan drew Kazan closeto him, and he shivered as the other dogs slunk back from himsuspiciously and the fire and the spruce tops broke the stillness ofthe forest. He looked at the crackling flames, at the fitful shadowswhich they set dancing and grimacing about him, and it seemed to himnow that they were no longer friends, but were taunting him--gloatingin Kazan's death, and telling him that he was alone, alone, alone. Helet the fire die down, stirring it into life only when the coldstiffened him, and when at last he fell into an unquiet slumber it wasstill to hear the spruce tops whispering to him that Kazan was dead,and that in dying he had broken the last fragile link between JanThoreau and Melisse.

  He went on at dawn, with Kazan wrapped in his blanket on the sledge. Heplanned to reach the cabin that night, and the next day he would buryhis old comrade. It was dark when he came to the narrow plain that laybetween him and the river. The sky was brilliant with stars when heslowly climbed the big, barren ridge at the foot of which was his home.At the summit he stopped and seated himself on the edge of a rock, withnothing but a thousand miles of space between him and the pale glow ofthe northern lights. At his feet lay the forest, black and silent, andhe looked down to where he knew his cabin was waiting for him, blackand silent, too.

  For the first time it came upon him that THIS was home--that theforest, and the silence, and the little cabin hidden under the sprucetops below held a deeper meaning for him than a few hours before, whenKazan was a leaping, living comrade at his side. Kazan was dead. Downthere he would bury him. And he had loved Kazan;--he knew, now, as heclutched his hands to his aching breast, that he would have fought forKazan--given up his life for him--as he would have done for a brother.Down there, under the silent spruce, he would bury the last that hadremained to him of the old life, and there swelled up in his heart alonging, almost a prayer, that Melisse might know that he, Jan Thoreau,would have nothing left to him to-morrow but a grave, and that in thatgrave was their old chum, their old playmate--Kazan. Hot tears blindedJan's eyes and he covered his face with his hands, and sobbed as he hadsobbed years before, when in the southern wilderness word came to himthat Melisse was dying.

  "Melisse--Melisse--" He moaned her name aloud, and stared through thehot film in his eyes away into the north, sobbing to her, calling toher in his grief, and looking through that thousand miles of starlitspace as though from out of it her sweet face would come to him oncemore. And as he called there seemed to come to him from out of thatspace a sound, so sweet, and low, and tender that his heart stood stilland he stood up straight and stretched his arms up to Heaven, for JanThoreau knew that it was the sound of a violin that came to him fromout of the north--that Melisse, an infinity away, had heard his call,his prayer, and was playing for him and Kazan!

  And suddenly, as he listened, his arms fell to his sides, and thereshot into his eyes all of the concentrated light of the stars, for themusic came nearer and nearer, and still nearer to him, until he caughtKazan in his arms and ran with him down the side of the mountain. Itdied now in the forest--then rose again, softer and more distant itseemed to him, luring him on into the forest gloom. For a few momentsconsciousness of all else but that sound remained with him only in adazed, half real way, and as John Cummins had called upon the angels atLac Bain many years ago when he, too, had gone out into the night tomeet this wonderful music, so Jan Thoreau's soul cried to them now ashe clutched Kazan to him, and stumbled on. Then, suddenly, he came uponthe cabin, and in the cabin there was a light!

  Gently he laid Kazan down upon the snow, and for a full minute he stoodand listened, and heard, lower and sweeter still, the gentle music, ofthe violin. Some one was in his cabin--living hands were playing! Afterall it was not the spirit of Melisse that had come to him in the hourof his deepest grief, and a sob rose in his throat. He went on, step bystep, and at the door he stopped again, wondering if he was mad, if thespirits of the forest were taunting him still, if--if--

  One step more--

  The Great God, he heard it now--the low, sweet music of the old Creelove song, played in the old, old way, with all of its old sadness, itswhispering joy, its weeping song of life, of death, of love! With agreat cry he flung open the door and leaped in, with his arms reachingout, his eyes blinded for a moment by the sudden light--and with a cryas piercing as his own, something ran through that light to meethim--Melisse, the old, glorious Melisse, crushing her arms about hisneck, sobbing his name, pleading with him in her old, sweet voice tokiss her, kiss her, kiss her--while Jan Thoreau for the first time inhis life felt sweeping over him a resistless weakness, and in thisvision he knew that Jean de Gravois came to him, too, and held him inhis arms, and that as the light faded away from about him he stillheard Melisse calling to him, felt her arms about him, her face crushedto his own. And as the deep gloom enveloped him more densely, and hefelt himself slipping down through it, he whispered to the faces whichhe could no longer see,

  "Kazan--died--to-night--"

  For a long time Jan fought to throw off the darkness, and when hesucceeded, and opened his eyes again, he knew that it was Melisse whowas sitting beside him, and that it was Melisse who flung her armsabout him when he awoke from his strange sleep, and held his wild headpressed against her bosom--Melisse, with her glorious hair flowingabout her as he had loved it in their old days, and with the old loveshining in her eyes, only more glorious now, as he heard her voice.

  "Jan--Jan--we have been hunting for you--so long," she cried softly."We have been searching--ever since you left Lac Bain. Jan, dear Jan, Iloved you so--and you almost broke my heart. Dear, dear Jan," shesobbed, stroking his face now, "I know why you ran away--I know, and Ilove you so that--that I will die if--you go away again."

  "You know!" breathed Jan. He was in his cot, and raised himself,clasping her beautiful face between his two hands, staring at her withthe old horror in his eyes. "You know--and you come--to me!"

  "I love you," said Melisse. She slipped up to him and laid her faceupon his breast, and with her fingers clutched in his long hair sheleaned over to him and kissed him. "I love you!"

  Jan's arms closed about her, and he bowed his face so that it wassmothered in her hair and he felt against it the joyous tremble of herbosom.

  "I love you," she whispered again, and under her cloud of hair theirlips met, and she whispered again, with her sweet breath still upon hislips, "I love you."

  Outside Jean de Gravois was dancing up and down in the starlit edge ofthe forest, and Iowaka was looking at him.

  "And NOW what do you think of your Jean de Gravois?" cried Jean for thehundredth time at least. "NOW what do you think of him, my beautifulone?" and he caught Iowaka's head in his arms, for the hundredth time,too, and kissed her until she pushed him away. "Was it not right for meto break my oath to the Blessed Virgin and tell Melisse why Jan Thoreauhad gone mad? Was it not right, I say? And did not Melisse do as I toldthat fool of a Jan that she WOULD do? And didn't she HATE theEnglishman all of the time? Eh? Can you not speak, my raven-hairedangel?"

  He hugged Iowaka again in his arms, and this time he did not let hergo, but turned her face so that the starlight fell upon it.

  "And NOW what if Jan Thoreau still feels that the curse is upon him?"he asked softly. "Ho, ho, we have fixed that--you, my sweet Iowaka, andyour husband, Jean de Gravois. I have it--here--in my pocket--theletter signed by the sub-commissioner at P
rince Albert, to whom I toldJan's story when I followed his trail down there--the letter which saysthat the other woman died BEFORE the man who was to be Jan Thoreau'sfather married the woman who was to be his mother. And NOW do youunderstand why I did not tell Melisse of this letter, ma cherie? It wasto prove to that fool of a Jan Thoreau that she loved him--WHATEVER HEWAS. NOW what do you think of Jean de Gravois, you daughter of aprincess, you--you--"

  "Wife of the greatest man in the world," laughed Iowaka softly. "Come,my foolish Jean, we can not stand out for ever. I am growing cold. Andbesides, do you not suppose that Jan would like to see ME?"

  "Foolish--foolish--foolish--" murmured Jean as they walked hand in handthrough the starlight. "She, my Iowaka, my beloved, says that I amfoolish--AND AFTER THIS! Mon Dieu, what can a man do to make himselfgreat in the eyes of his wife?"

  THE END