The Country Beyond: A Romance of the Wilderness

by James Oliver Curwood

  CHAPTER III

  From the little old cabin of dead Indian Tom, built in a grassy gladeclose to the shore of Sucker Creek, came the sound of a man's laughter.In this late afternoon the last flooding gold of the sun filled theopen door of the poplar shack. The man's laughter, like the sun on themottled tapestry of the poplar-wood, was a heart-lightening thing thereon the edge of the great swamp that swept back for miles to the northand west. It was the sort of laughter one seldom hears from a man, notriotous of over-bold, but a big, clean laughter that came from the soulout. It was an infectious thing. It drove the gloom out of the blackestnight. It dispelled fear, and if ever there were devils lurking in theedge of old Indian Tom's swamp they slunk away at the sound of it. Andmore than once, as those who lived in tepee and cabin and far-away shackcould testify, that laugh had driven back death itself.

  In the shack, this last day of May afternoon, stood leaning over a roughtable the man of the laugh--Roger McKay, known as Jolly Roger, outlawextraordinary, and sought by the men of every Royal Northwest MountedPolice patrol north of the Height of Land.

  It was incongruous and inconceivable to think of him as an outlaw, as hestood there in the last glow of the sun--an outlaw with the weirdest andstrangest record in all the northland hung up against his name. He wasnot tall, and neither was he short, and he was as plump as an appleand as rosy as its ripest side. There was something cherubic in thesmoothness and the fullness of his face, the clear gray of his eyes,the fine-spun blond of his short-cropped hair, and the plumpness of hishands and half-bared arms. He was a priestly, well-fed looking man, wasthis Jolly Roger, rotund and convivial in all his proportions, and somein great error would have called him fat. But it was a strange kind offatness, as many a man on the trail could swear to. And as for sin, orone sign of outlawry, it could not be found in any mark upon him--unlessone closed his eyes to all else and guessed it by the belt and revolverholster which he wore about his rotund waist. In every other respectJolly Roger appeared to be not only a harmless creature, but oneespecially designed by the Creator of things to spread cheer andgood-will wherever he went. His age, if he had seen fit to disclose it,was thirty-four.

  There seemed, at first, to be nothing that even a contented man mightlaugh at in the cabin, and even less to bring merriment from one onwhose head a price was set--unless it was the delicious aroma of asupper just about ready to be served. On a little stove in the farthestcorner of the shack the breasts of two spruce partridges were turninggolden brown in a skittle, and from the broken neck of a coffee pot arich perfume was rising with the steam. Piping hot in the open oven halfa dozen baked potatoes were waiting in their crisp brown jackets.

  From the table Jolly Roger turned, rubbing his hands and chuckling as hewent for a third time to a low shelf built against the cabin wall. Therehe carefully raised a mass of old papers from a box, and at the movementthere came a protesting squeak, and a little brown mouse popped upto the edge of it and peered at him with a pair of bright littlequestioning eyes.

  "You little devil!" he exulted. "You nervy little devil!"

  He raised the papers higher, and again looked upon his discovery of halfan hour ago. In a soft nest lay four tiny mice, still naked and blind,and as he lowered the mass of papers the mother burrowed back to them,and he could hear her squeaking and chirruping to the little ones, as ifshe was trying to tell them not to be afraid of this man, for she knewhim very well, and it wasn't in his mind to hurt them. And Jolly Roger,as he returned to the setting of his table, laughed again--and the laughrolled out into the golden sunset, and from the top of a spruce at theedge of the creek a big blue-jay answered it in a riotous challenge.

  But at the bottom of that laugh, if one could have looked a bit deeper,was something more than the naked little mice in the nest of torn-uppaper. Today happiness had strangely come this gay-hearted freebooter'sway, and he might have reached out, and seized it, and have kept it forhis own. But in the hour of his opportunity he had refused it--becausehe was an outlaw--because strong within him was a peculiar code of honorall his own. There was nothing of man-made religion in the soul of RogerMcKay. Nature was his god; its manifestations, its life, and the air itgave him to breathe were the pages which made up the Book that guidedhim. And within the last hour, since the sun had begun to drop behindthe tips of the tallest trees, these things had told him that he wasa fool for turning away from the one great thing in all life--simplybecause his own humors of existence had made him an outcast and huntedby the laws of men. So the change had come, and for a space his soul wasfilled with the thrill of song and laughter.

  Half an hour ago he believed that he had definitely made up his mind.He had forced himself into forgetfulness of laws he had broken, and thescarlet-coated men who were ever on the watch for his trail. They wouldnever seek him here, in the wilderness country close to the edge ofcivilization, and time, he had told himself in that moment of optimism,would blot out both his identity and his danger. Tomorrow he would goover to Cragg's Ridge again, and then--

  His mind was crowded with a vision of blue eyes, of brown curls glowingin the pale sun, of a wistful, wide-eyed little face turned up to him,and red lips that said falteringly, "I don't think it's wrong for you tokiss me--if you want to, Mister Jolly Roger!"

  Boldly he had talked about it to the bright-eyed little mother-mouse whopeered at him now and then over the edge of her box.

  "You're a little devil of iniquity yourself," he told her. "You're aregular Mrs. Captain Kidd, and you've eaten my cheese, and chawed mysnowshoe laces, and robbed me of a sock to make your nest. I oughtto catch you in a trap, or blow your head off. But I don't. I let youlive--and have a fam'ly. And it's you who have given me the Big Idea,Mrs. Captain Kidd. You sure have! You've told me I've got a right tohave a nest of my own, and I'm going to have it--an' in that nest isgoing to be the sweetest, prettiest little angel that God Almighty everforgot to make into a flower! Yessir. And if the law comes--"

  And then, suddenly, the vision clouded, and there came into JollyRoger's face the look of a man who knew--when he stood the truth outnaked--that he was facing a world with his back to the wall.

  And now, as the sun went down, and his supper waited--that cloud whichcame to blot out his picture grew deeper and more sinister, and thechill of it entered his heart. He turned from his table to the opendoor, and his fingers drew themselves slowly into clenched fists, and helooked out quietly and steadily into his world. The darkening depthsof the forest reached out before his eyes, mottled and painted in thefading glory of the sun. It was his world, his everything--father,mother, God. In it he was born, and in it he knew that some day he woulddie. He loved it, understood it, and night and day, in sunshine andstorm, its mighty spirit was the spirit that kept him company. But itheld no message for him now. And his ears scarcely heard the raucousscolding of the blue-jay in the fire-tipped crest of the tall blackspruce.

  And then that something which was bigger than desire came up within him,and forced itself in words between his grimly set lips.

  "She's only a--a kid," he said, a fierce, low note of defiance in hisvoice. "And I--I'm a damned pirate, and there's jails waiting for me,and they'll get me sooner or later, sure as God lets me live!"

  He turned from the sun to his shadowing cabin, and for a moment aghost of a smile played in his face as he heard the little mother-mouserustling among her papers.

  "We can't do it," he said. "We simply can't do it, Mrs. Captain Kidd.She's had hell enough without me taking her into another. And it'd bethat, sooner or later. It sure would, Mrs. Captain Kidd. But I'm glad,mighty glad, to think she'd let me kiss her--if I wanted to. Think ofthat, Mrs. Captain Kidd!--if I wanted to. Oh, Lord!"

  And the humor of it crept in alongside the tragedy in Jolly Roger'sheart, and he chuckled as he bent over his partridge breasts.

  "If I wanted to," he repeated. "Why, if I had a life to give, I'd giveit--to kiss her just once! But, as it happens, Mrs. Captain Kidd--"

  Jolly Roger's breath cut
itself suddenly short, and for an instant hegrew tense as he bent over the stove. His philosophy had taught him onething above all others, that he was a survival of the fittest--only solong as he survived. And he was always guarding against the end. Hisbrain was keen, his ears quick, and every fibre in him trained toits duty of watchfulness. And he knew, without turning his head, thatsomeone was standing in the doorway behind him. There had come a faintnoise, a shadowing of the fading sun-glow on the wall, the electricaldisturbance of another presence, gazing at him quietly, without motion,and without sound. After that first telegraphic shock of warning hestabbed his fork into a partridge breast, flopped it over, chuckledloudly--and then with a lightning movement was facing the door, hisforty-four Colt leveled waist-high at the intruder.

  Almost in the same movement his gun-arm dropped limply to his side.

  "Well, I'll be--"

  He stared. And the face in the doorway stared back at him.

  "Nada!" he gasped. "Good Lord, I thought--I thought--" He swallowed ashe tried to lie. "I thought--it might be a bear!"

  He did not, at first, see that the slim, calico-dressed little figureof Jed Hawkins' foster-girl was almost dripping wet. Her blue eyes wereshining at him, wide and startled. Her cheeks were flushed. A strangelook had frozen on her parted red lips, and her hair was falling loosein a cloud of curling brown tresses about her shoulders. Jolly Roger,dreaming of her in his insane happiness of a few minutes ago, sensednothing beyond the beauty and the unexpectedness of her in this firstmoment. Then--swiftly--he saw the other thing. The last glow of the sunglistened in her wet hair, her dress was sodden and clinging, and littlepools of water were widening slowly about her ragged shoes. These thingshe might have expected, for she had to cross the creek. But it was thelook in her eyes that startled him, as she stood there with Peter, themongrel pup, clasped tightly in her arms.

  "Nada, what's happened?" he asked, laying his gun on the table. "Youfell in the creek--"

  "It--it's Peter," she cried, with a sobbing break in her voice. "We comeon Jed Hawkins when he was diggin' up some of his whiskey, and he wasmad, and pulled my hair, and Peter bit him--and then he picked up Peterand threw him against a rock--and he's terribly hurt! Oh, Mister JollyRoger--"

  She held out the pup to him, and Peter whimpered as Jolly Roger took hiswiry little face between his hands, and then lifted him gently. The girlwas sobbing, with passionate little catches in her breath, but therewere no tears in her eyes as they turned for an instant from Peter tothe gun on the table.

  "If I'd had that," she cried, "I'd hev killed him!"

  Jolly Roger's face was coldly gray as he knelt down on the floor andbent over Peter.

  "He--pulled your hair, you say?"

  "I--forgot," she whispered, close at his shoulder. "I wasn't goin' totell you that. But it didn't hurt. It was Peter--"

  He felt the damp caress of her curls upon his neck as she bent over him.

  "Please tell me, Mister Jolly Roger--is he hurt--bad?"

  With the tenderness of a woman Jolly Roger worked his fingers overPeter's scrawny little body. And Peter, whimpering softly, felt theinfinite consolation of their touch. He was no longer afraid of JedHawkins, or of pain, or of death. The soul of a dog is simple in itsmeasurement of blessings, and to Peter it was a great happiness to liehere, broken and in pain, with the face of his beloved mistress overhim and Jolly Roger's hands working to mend his hurt. He whimpered whenJolly Roger found the broken place, and he cried out like a little childwhen there came the sudden quick snapping of a bone--but even then heturned his head so that he could thrust out his hot tongue against theback of his man-friend's hand. And Jolly Roger, as he worked, was givinginstructions to the girl, who was quick as a bird to bring him clothwhich she tore into bandages, so that at the end of ten minutes Peter'sright hind leg was trussed up so tightly that it was as stiff and asuseless as a piece of wood.

  "His hip was dislocated and his leg-bone broken," said Jolly Roger whenhe had finished. "He is all right now, and inside of three weeks will beon his feet again."

  He lifted Peter gently, and made him a nest among the blankets in hisbunk. And then, still with that strange, gray look in his face, heturned to Nada.

  She was standing partly facing the door, her eyes straight on him. AndJolly Roger saw in them that wonderful something which had given hisstorm-beaten soul a glimpse of paradise earlier that day. They wereblue, so blue that he had never seen violets like them--and he knew thatin her heart there was no guile behind which she could hide the secretthey were betraying. A yearning such as had never before come into hislife urged him to open his arms to her, and he knew that she would havecome into them; but a still mightier will held them tense and throbbingat his side. Her cheeks were aflame as she looked at him, and he toldhimself that God could not have made a lovelier thing, as she stoodthere in her worn dress and her ragged shoes, with that light of gloryin her face, and her damp hair waving and curling about her in the lastlight of the day.

  "I knew you'd fix him, Mister-Roger," she whispered, a great pride andfaith and worship in the low thrill of her voice. "I knew it!"

  Something choked Jolly Roger, and he turned to the stove and beganspearing the crisp brown potatoes on the end of a fork. And he said,with his back toward her,

  "You came just in time for supper, Nada. We'll eat--and then I'll gohome with you, as far as the Ridge."

  Peter watched them. His pain was gone, and it was nice and comfortablein Jolly Roger's blanket, and with his whiskered face on his fore-pawshis bright eyes followed every movement of these two who so completelymade up his world. He heard that sweet little laugh which came only nowand then from Nada's lips, when for a moment she was happy; he saw hershake out her hair in the glow of the lamp which Jolly Roger lighted,and he observed Jolly Roger standing at the stove--looking at her as shedid it--a worship in his face which changed the instant her eyes turnedtoward him. In Peter's active little brain this gave birth to nothingof definite understanding, except that in it all he sensed happiness,for--somehow--there was always that feeling when they were with JollyRoger, no matter whether the sun was shining or the day was dark andfilled with gloom. Many times in his short life he had seen grief andtears in Nada's face, and had seen her cringe and hide herself at thevile cursing and witch-like voice of the man and woman back in the othercabin. But there was nothing like that in Jolly Roger's company. Hehad two eyes, and he was not always cursing, and he did not pull Nada'shair--and Peter loved him from the bottom of his soul. And he knew thathis mistress loved him, for she had told him so, and there was alwaysa different look in her eyes when she was with Jolly Roger, and it wasonly then that she laughed in that glad little way--as she was laughingnow.

  Jolly Roger was seated at the table, and Nada stood behind him, her faceflushed joyously at the wonderful privilege of pouring his coffee. Andthen she sat down, and Jolly Roger gave her the nicest of the partridgebreasts, and tried hard to keep his eyes calm and quiet as he looked atthe adorable sweetness of her across the table from him. To Nada therewas nothing of shame in what lay behind the happiness in the violetradiance of her eyes. Jolly Roger had brought to her the only happinessthat had ever come into her life. Next to her God, which Jed Hawkinsand his witch-woman had not destroyed within her, she thought of thisstranger who for three months had been hiding in Indian Tom's cabin.And, like Peter, she loved him. The innocence of it lay naked in hereyes.

  "Nada," said Jolly Roger. "You're seventeen--"

  "Goin' on eighteen," she corrected quickly. "I was seventeen two weeksago!"

  The quick, undefined little note of eagerness in her voice made hisheart thump. He nodded, and smiled.

  "Yes, going on eighteen," he said. "And pretty soon some young fellowwill come along, and see you, and marry you--"

  "O-o-o-h-h-h!"

  It was a little, strange cry that came to her lips, and Jolly Roger sawa quick throbbing in her bare throat, and her eyes were so wide-openand startled as she looked at him that he felt, for
a moment, as if theresolution in his soul was giving way.

  "Where are you goin', Mister Roger?"

  "Me? Oh, I'm not going anywhere--not for a time, at least. Butyou--you'll surely be going away with some one--some day."

  "I won't," she denied hotly. "I hate men! I hate all but you, MisterJolly Roger. And if you go away--"

  "Yes, if I go away--

  "I'll kill Jed Hawkins!"

  Involuntarily she reached out a slim hand to the big gun on the cornerof the table.

  "I'll kill 'im, if you go away," she threatened again, "He's broken hiswife, and crippled her, and if it wasn't for her I'd have gone long ago.But I've promised, and I'm goin' to stay--until something happens. Andif you go--now--"

  At the choking throb in her throat and the sudden quiver that came toher lips, Jolly Roger jumped up for the coffee pot, though his cup wasstill half full.

  "I won't go, Nada," he cried, trying to laugh. "I promise--cross myheart and hope to die! I won't go--until you tell me I can."

  And then, feeling that something had almost gone wrong for a moment,Peter yipped from his nest in the bunk, and the gladness in Nada's eyesthanked Jolly Roger for his promise when he came back with the coffeepot. Standing behind her, he made pretense of refilling her cup, thoughshe had scarcely touched it, and all the time his eyes were looking ather beautiful head, and he saw again the dampness in her hair.

  "What happened in the creek, Nada?" he asked.

  She told him, and at the mention of his name Peter drew his bristlinglittle head erect, and waited expectantly. He could see Jolly Roger'sface, now staring and a bit shocked, and then with a quick smileflashing over it; and when Nada had finished, Jolly Roger leaned alittle toward her in the lampglow, and said,

  "You've got to promise me something, Nada. If Jed Hawkins ever hits youagain, or pulls your hair, or even threatens to do it--will you tellme?" Nada hesitated.

  "If you don't--I'll take back my promise, and won't stay," he added.

  "Then--I'll promise," she said. "If he does it, I'll tell you. But Iain't--I mean I am not afraid, except for Peter. Jed Hawkins will surekill him if I take him back, Mister Roger. Will you keep him here?And--o-o-o-h!--if I could only stay, too--"

  The words came from her in a frightened breath, and in an instant aflood of color rushed like fire into her cheeks. But Jolly Roger turnedagain to the stove, and made as if he had not seen the blush or heardher last words, so that the shame of her embarrassment was gone asquickly as it had come.

  "Yes, I'll keep Peter," he said over his shoulder. And in his heartanother voice which she could not hear, was crying, "And I'd give mylife if I could keep you!"

  Devouring his bits of partridge breast, Peter watched Jolly Roger andNada out of the corner of his eye as they left the cabin half an hourlater. It was dark when they went, and Jolly Roger closed only themosquito-screen, leaving the door wide open, and Peter could hear theirfootsteps disappearing slowly into the deep gloom of the forest. Itwas a little before moonrise, and under the spruce and cedar and thickbalsam the world was like a black pit. It was very still, and except forthe soft tread of their own feet and the musical ripple of water in thecreek there was scarcely a sound in this first hour of the night. InJolly Roger there rose something of exultation, for Nada's warm littlehand lay in his as he guided her through the darkness, and her fingershad clasped themselves tightly round his thumb. She was very close tohim when he paused to make sure of the unseen trail, so close that hercheek rested against his arm, and--bending a little--his lips touchedthe soft ripples of her hair. But he could not see her in the gloom, andhis heart pounded fiercely all the way to the ford.

  Then he laughed a strange little laugh that was not at all like JollyRoger.

  "I'll try and not let you get wet again, Nada," he said.

  Her fingers still held to his thumb, as if she was afraid of losing himthere in the blackness that lay about them like a great ink-blotch. Andshe crept closer to him, saying nothing, and all the power in his soulfought in Jolly Roger to keep him from putting his arms about her slimlittle body and crying out the worship that was in him.

  "I ain't--I mean I'm not afraid of gettin' wet," he heard her whisperthen. "You're so big and strong, Mister Roger--"

  Gently he freed his thumb from her fingers, and picked her up, and heldher high, so that she was against his breast and above the deepest ofthe water. Lightly at first Nada's arms lay about his shoulders, butas the flood began to rush higher and she felt him straining againstit,--her arms tightened, until the clasp of them was warm and thrillinground Jolly Roger's neck. She gave a big gasp of relief when he stoodher safely down upon her feet on the other side. And then again shereached out, and found his hand, and twined her fingers about his bigthumb--and Jolly Roger went on with her over the plain toward Cragg'sRidge, dripping wet, just as the rim of the moon began to rise over theedge of the eastern forests.