THE IRONY OF FATE
THE IRONY OF FATE
THE IRONY OF FATE
The race against the season was being won. The race against that other—?
Yes, Bill Wilder was well enough satisfied. Not a day, not an hour had been lost in his rush to the hills. He had spared no effort. And on the return he had driven hard with the full weight of the stream speeding him. There had been the one heavy snowstorm as he had passed out of the mouth of the Valley of the Fire Hills. For a few hours it had blinded him and forced him to shelter. For the rest the luck of the weather had been with him, with only the increasing cold and the twenty hour nights with which to do battle.
He was feeling good as he came to the familiar landing above the Grand Falls, and prepared for his portage down to the canyon of the rapids.
It was all curious in its way, and there were moments on the journey when he found himself half whimsically wondering at the thing he was doing. For the man he was endeavouring to save from the hands of Usak he had only utter loathing and detestation. There was no pity in him, not a moment’s thought of it. For the little distracted woman it was different. He knew he was risking everything in life out of pity for this poor creature, who was nothing in the world to him except that she was a woman, and not even white at that. He realised his utter folly. He even reminded himself that the thing he was doing was not only unfair to himself, but to those others who looked to him for succour, that other whose life had become focussed in him.
He knew that an encounter with Usak would mean a battle to the death of one or perhaps all of them. He knew that, embarrassed by these helpless creatures, a sudden final onslaught of the Arctic winter night might well mean the end of all things. But he had not hesitated. No. He had calculated closely. His knowledge of the northern world had told him that there was time—even time to spare. The daylight had not yet passed, and, unless the season was one of unusual severity, the dreaded freeze-up was not due for several weeks more. No. The cold was steadily increasing. There would be more snow yet. But there would be relapses of temperature, and the final sealing of the great river was still a long way off. So he had refused to be turned aside from his purpose.
He had laboured on with a mind steadily poised and with nerves in perfect tune. His greatest apprehension was the possible encountering of the Indian, Usak. And even on this his resolve was clear and as merciless as anything the savage, himself, might have contemplated. He was armed and ready, and no interference would be tolerated even if his necessity drove him to slaughter.
The daylight had been spent in disgorging the two canoes of their freight. He and the little Japanese woman had spent the time preparing his packs. They were not vast, but the whole portage would mean three laborious trips over the rough territory of the great gorge down to the landing below.
The first trip was to be his own canoe. The second was to be the camp outfit of his passengers. The blind-man and the woman would accompany him on that trip and help with the packs. Then, with these folk safely encamped below the gorge, he would return alone to bring down their canoe.
Yes. It was all clearly planned with a view to the simplest and best advantage, and the preliminary work had gone on rapidly under his energetic guidance. There was not one moment’s unnecessary delay, for he understood, only too well, the value of every precious hour he could steal on his human and elemental adversaries.
The last pack had been made up of the things that could be dispensed with. His canoe was hauled up empty, ready to be shouldered. And now, with the last flash of daylight shining in the south-west, he stood low down on the foreshore gazing out over the water in the direction of the misty falls. Mid-day was only two hours gone and the daylight was already collapsing with the falling sun.
The peace of this far-off world was a little awesome, the silence was something threatening. The dull roar of the Grand Falls alone robbed it of utter, complete soundlessness. The snow was a soft virgin carpet in every direction. The hardy, dark woods were weighted down with its burden. For all there was shore ice against the river bank the whole breadth of the waters of the river were silently, heavily flowing on to the tremendous precipitation far beyond. But it was not of these things that Wilder was thinking. In the emergency besetting he was concerned only for the signs which, out of his experience, he was striving to interpret.
They were very definite. The sun had fallen below the horizon, accompanied by two pale sundogs that strove but failed to display an angry glare. The horizon was clear of all cloud, a vault of wonderful colour. Such breath of wind as was stirring was coming up out of the south-east. It was good. It was all good. The sundogs suggested possible, ultimate change, but not yet. The breeze was almost mild. But above all there was not a single cloud to shut out the light of the moon that would presently rise, and the brilliant starlight, and the beneficent northern lights. No. It would be a perfect night.
He turned back to the couple hugging the tiny fire they had ventured to light in the shelter of an attenuated bluff of woods.
“Just get this clear,” he said thrusting his hands out to the warmth. “I’m setting out right away. It’ll take me six hours to make back here. Six hours good. I’d have been glad to cache your boat back there in the woods, an’ hide up our tracks right. But the snow on the ground beats us on that play. Any pair of eyes happening along could follow us anywhere. No. If Usak’s around I give him credit for being able to read our tracks anyway, and with the snow, why they’re just shriekin’ at him. We got to take a big chance. But ther’s one play we can make.”
He paused and rubbed his hands thoughtfully while the eyeless man gazed unerringly up into his face, and the woman beside him waited a prey to apprehension.
“You best beat it back into these woods,” he went on quickly. “Leave that fire—burning. Leave it so it looks like dying out. As if we were all out on portage. See? And you two make the woods, dodging the snow patches, an’ walking on the bare ground. Take your sleeping kit, and get what sleep you can—without a fire. That’s all. I’ll get right back just as quick as I know. Once we’re on the river below these Falls, why I guess Usak hasn’t a chance. But I got to leave you one end or the other while I make this first portage, an’ it seems horse sense leaving you above the Falls. We haven’t seen a sign of that murdering Indian above here the whole way.”
The blindman nodded.
“That’s sense,” he said in his harsh way.
The woman silently acquiesced. It was sufficient that the man had agreed. But her troubled eyes told of the haunting dread that obsessed her.
Wilder turned away and moved over to his canoe lying ready. He stooped down, and when he stood up again the little vessel was exactly poised upon his broad back.
The hush of the woods was profound. The dark aisles of the trees were visible in the moonlight, for the foliage above was thin, and meagre, and tattered under the fierce storms which roared down out of the heart of the hills. The promise of sun-down had been fulfilled. A full moon shone down upon a chill, silvery world, and the starlight was of that amazing brilliance which is the great redeeming of the Arctic night. There was no wind, not a breath. It was cold, intensely cold, and the northern heavens were lit by an amazing wealth of vivid, moving lights.
The blindman and his woman made no pretence of the sleep that Wilder had suggested. Sleep was impossible to them. They crouched together in their sleeping furs, striving for any measure of warmth for their chilled bodies. But they had otherwise obeyed. For the thing suggested had appealed. They were deep hidden amidst the tree trunks, waiting, waiting for that return which alone could yield them any sense of security.
They talked together spasmodically, and in low, hushed tones.
For the most part they talked in their own native tongue, but sometimes they used the language of the country of their adoption.
The blindman’s hearing was doubly acute for his affliction. And he crouched straining for any sound to warn them of lurking danger. But the hours passed, and only the droning roar of the distant Falls broke the soundlessness of the night.
Crysa could contain her fears no longer. A sigh escaped her and she stirred restlessly.
“He will come?” she said, and her tone was full of besetting doubt.
The man’s reply was slow in coming. It almost seemed as though the straining effort of listening completely pre-occupied him.
He nodded at last.
“He will come,” he rasped. Then he added, “He is a fool whiteman.”
The woman’s quick eyes lit as they glanced round on her husband.
“He is good,” she said.
“Good?”
The scorn in the yellow man’s tone was something bitter beyond words.
Nothing more was said, and the man returned to his listening.
A long low kyak glided up to the landing. It came without sound, for the stream was swift, and the shore ice had been broken up by those who had come before. The trailing paddle was lifted quickly from the water and the vessel’s occupant reached out and caught the side of the boat lying moored against the bank. Skilfully he guided the nose of his craft in between the moored vessel and the bank, and the whole thing was completed in absolute soundlessness.
With his vessel lying stationary he remained for a moment unmoving. His great body towered as he knelt up against his paddling strut. He was surveying the moored boat with eager, dark eyes and an acutely reading mind. Presently he turned from the contemplation of the thing that had set a wild fierce hope stirring in his savage heart. His gaze was flung upon the landing itself, and upon the surrounding slope of the river bank, and the adjacent bluff of woods. The brilliant night revealed all he sought with a clearness which left him without a shadow of doubt. Finally he discovered beyond, just within the shelter of the woods, the last dying smoulder of the camp fire. He reached towards the nose of his kyak, and seized the long rifle lying there. Then he stepped ashore.
The dark figure moved swiftly up the shore. It reached the edge of the woods and stood for a moment gazing down on the dying camp fire. The dark eyes had suddenly become fiercely urgent as he searched every sign that was there for his interpretation.
After a few moments the man moved about in the neighbourhood of the fire. His moccasined feet gave out no sound. He was searching diligently in the trodden snow. At last he came again to a halt. He threw up his head and stared about him. It was the attitude of a creature of the forest scenting its prey, and in his eyes was a look of fierce exulting as he gazed into the dark shelter of the woods. Then his whole attitude underwent a change. He seemed to crouch down. His long rifle was borne at the trail in his hand, and he moved forward stealthily, and became swallowed up by the shadowed depths.
The hush of the night left the falling of a pine cone a sound that was almost startling. The droning roar of the distant Falls was only part of the awesome quiet. The windlessness was a threat of greater and greater depths of cold, while the brilliant moon and cloudless sky only helped to impress more deeply the intense frigidity of the coming season. It was all perfect, in its exquisite peace, a vision of superlative splendour in the amazing twilight. It suggested a sublime creation unspoiled, unsullied by any inharmonious blemish, a broad indefinite sketch set out by the mighty brush and divine inspiration of a God-like artist who only requires to inset the subtle, finishing details. Such was the seeming of the moment.
A cry. A series of raucous human cries. They came from somewhere within the forest belt. They came full of terror, and maybe pain. They came full of ferocious unyielding and savage passion. They came again and again, with the shrill of a woman’s voice mingling. Then the last sound died out, swallowed up by the immense silence.
So the grandeur of the night scene, the sublimity of Nature’s profound calm, lost for a few brief moments by the invasion of an expression of surging human passions, returned again, all undefeated, to the rugged heart of the northern wilderness.
The moon was still high in the starlit heavens, shedding its cold benignity upon the flowing waters. The belt of the northern lights had extended. Their ghostly sheen had deepened, and the vivid arc of a burnished aurora had joined their legions. The world was lit anew. The twilight had glorified; the night was transformed. No longer was the moon the dominant light giver. The jewel-like sparkle of the stars had dimmed in contrast. For the aurora, the glory of the Arctic night, had ascended its triumphant throne.
The whiteman swung along, approaching the camping ground above the Falls, filled with satisfaction and hope at the beneficent change. For practical purposes the night light was all-sufficient. In fancy he saw the completion of his labours in far less time than he had anticipated, and something like ultimate security for those he sought to succour.
The further portage would be easy now. The first trip was over. Now there was the bearing of the packs in which he would have the assistance of those others. Then the last—the portage of their—
He had reached the low shore clearing of the landing. A great flood of silvery light illuminated the whole breadth of the river. There it lay a wide, swift tide, with the great hills far across its bosom rising a jagged snowcapped line, gleaming like burnished silver under the amazing heavenly lights.
But the scene as Nature had painted it made not an instant’s claim upon him. How should it? He had come to a sudden halt, his gaze riveted upon a vision that made him draw his breath sharply, and set his heart leaping. He became rooted to the spot. Two boats were out there on the broad bosom of the river. Two of them. And both were moving on down the stream towards—
A shout broke from him. It came with all the power of his well-nigh bursting lungs. It was the natural impulse which his surge of feeling inspired. He shouted again and again. Then of a sudden he charged down to the water’s edge, and stood staring helplessly, silently, a prey to unspeakable horror.
Two boats! The leading vessel was a long low kyak. There was no mistaking its build. Just as there was no mistaking, to his mind, the burly figure propelling it. The second boat he recognised on the instant. It was the canoe he had expected to portage on his third trip. In it were two figures sitting up. They were motionless. They were paddleless. They were sitting, inert, like bundles set there, and quite incapable of any movement, incapable of any resistance. And between the two boats stretched a taut line.
It needed no second thought for Wilder to realise the thing that was being enacted. The inhuman vengeance of the crazy Indian had descended upon those benighted helpless folk and no power on earth could save them.
Usak’s purpose was as clear as the brilliant light of the night. The ruthless savage was towing them out into mid-stream. Presently he would, doubtless, release their vessel when it had reached the limit of safety for himself. Then he would leave them to the hideous destruction awaiting them at the great waterfall flinging back its thunderous roar out of the heart of the mists enshrouding it.
There was no succour that he could offer. He was without any means of reaching them with his own canoe already below the Falls. And his automatic pistol was useless. No. He could only stand there helplessly watching the terrible tragedy of it all.
Now he knew the thing that must have happened. He vividly pictured the coming of Usak, whom they must have passed higher up the river on their way down. The stillness of the figures in the boat was terribly significant.
The man must have come upon them in their hiding, perhaps asleep. He must have overpowered them. Probably he had bound them hand and foot when he set them in the boat, so that the blindman, no less than the other, should contemplate, even if it was only through his hearing, the dreadful death he was preparing for them.
He caught his breath. Then in a moment he hurled the full force of his impotent loathing in a furious shout across the water.
“You swine! God Almighty!”
The exclamation came as he saw the man cease paddling and reach out to the rope behind him. In a moment it was severed, and the trailing boat began instantly to turn broadside on to the current.
The watching man gave a gasp. Then the broadside boat was forgotten, and his whole attention was given to the other, the boat containing the demented creature perpetrating his long-pondered crime.
Usak’s paddle was beating the water furiously. He was striving with all his enormous strength and skill to swing his light vessel out of the stream. He was labouring in a fashion that instantly warned the on-looker of the peril besetting him. And the sight of the struggle thrilled him with an excitement which had no relation to any desire for the man’s escape.
Usak was a superb river man. Perhaps he had no equal upon the northern waters. But he was an Indian with the lust to kill, and without the sober judgment of the whiteman watching him from the shore. Wilder understood. It was there for him to see. The Indian had gone too far in his desire. He had passed the limits of safety before he severed the rope to hurl his victims to the fate he had designed for them. He was caught in the same overwhelming rush of silent water. His paddle was no better than a toy thing to stay the rush. His kyak was caught and flung broadside. And abreast of the other it was drifting, drifting down upon the roaring cataract ahead.
Wilder drew a deep breath.
Usak had ceased paddling. There was a moment in which he remained utterly unmoving like those others. To the on-looker it seemed that he was contemplating the full horror in which his mistake had involved him. Then, of a sudden, he saw the dark figure rear itself up in the boat, which, even at that distance, seemed to rock perilously. The man stood erect. Then an arm was raised and the paddle was flung into the racing waters. After that it seemed that the doomed creature’s arms were folded across his broad bosom, and, like a statue, unmoved by any emotion of fear, he stood boldly contemplating the terrible doom towards which he and his victims were inevitably being borne.
Wilder turned away. It was all too painful. It was all too horrible in its human wantonness. He passed up the shore and sat down, pondering the irony of the fate that had descended upon the demented man out there on the water.
And after awhile, when the cold of the night drove him, and he bestirred himself, and again moved down to the water’s edge, it was to witness the placid unruffled bosom of the great river flowing heavily on as it had done throughout the ages. The trifling human tragedy it had witnessed was far too infinitely small to leave its impress upon a scene so tremendous in its expression of overwhelming Nature.