CHAPTER IITHE WOLF PACK
IT was a baby girl. And she was sprawling in a sort of wallow in the dust-dry ground at the man’s feet. She was on her back, and her tiny legs were vigorously kicking the air. Her small hands were aimlessly clawing the loose soil on either side of her, and the while her solemn eyes were gazing darkly up at the sunlit sky without blinking.
Her dirt was deplorable. Her garments were negligible rags. Her round chubby face was stuck up with the dirt which she had somehow contrived to moisten into the consistency of mud. It was in her mouth, her ears. It was caked in the soft down of her dark hair. Nor had her eyes escaped contamination. But she was crowing and gurgling with the sheer infantile joy of well-being, and the sight of her held fast the thoughtful stare of the man’s black eyes. He was unsmiling.
Pideau Estevan was a half-breed and tough. He was anything and everything which made him a prospective inmate of the penitentiary, or even worse. But then Pideau sprang from stock that never failed to breed his kind, and the hallmark of his vices was deeply stamped on his cold, dusky face, and in the snapping black eyes which peered alertly from beneath shaggy brows.
Humanly speaking he had nothing to recommend him but a nimble wit and monumental industry. There was nothing unintelligent about him, and none of theusual half-breed laziness. But he was thoroughly bad, and utterly callous. And, as he sat on his upturned box, gazing down on his motherless infant, his black-bearded face was coldly considering.
For once in his life the man was seriously troubled. He was also fiercely resentful. And, deep in his heart, he knew he was helpless.
Crisis had leaped at him almost without warning. He saw ahead a position that threatened to overwhelm him. And such was his nature that he gave way to vengeful anger and fierce impatience. Sitting there before his dugout home on the hillside, he surveyed, without any enthusiasm, the ridiculous antics of his offspring wallowing in the loamy dust.
The tragedy had come so swiftly that it was only now in the moment of its accomplishment that Pideau realized its full measure. Three weeks ago there had been no cloud to mar his doubtful horizon. Three weeks ago he had lived in what he considered a smiling world. Spring had been breaking and his activities, like those of the rest of the world about him, were breaking into renewed life. His woman was there to minister to his comfort. Down in the valley below him his herd of stolen cattle was fattening and breeding satisfactorily. Then his hidden store of crisp currency was growing to proportions which satisfied even his avaricious soul. It was then that the swing of the pendulum of Fate moved against him.
Mountain fever!
It was always the dread lying at the back of his busy mind. It came subtly. It killed quickly. And it had stolen upon the mother of his child, a youngwoman of his own heart, and mind, and breed, and had slain her in those three swiftly passing weeks.
Only that morning had he completed the labor of her burial down in the valley below. Less than an hour ago he had returned, having shovelled the last of the soil into the deep grave that was to keep the woman’s cold body safe from the hungry activities of the scavenging timber wolves. He had returned to his noon meal, and the little life his woman had left behind her.
He was not mourning his loss with any spiritual sense. It was not in him to regard his woman as anything but a chattel. It was the material consideration of his position that stirred him to an unreasoning resentment against the dead Annette whose going had brought it about.
Alone with his babe, what was he to do? What must he do?
The great heart of the Rocky Mountains afforded him a safe enough hiding from the ubiquitous red-coats, but it also involved him in prolonged journeys and long absences from his home, in the prosecution of his nefarious traffic as a cattle thief. How could he carry on with a miserable brat of a child to be kept alive in his absence? There was not a living soul within three days’ journey of him.
Pideau’s fiercest savagery was apparent. Without shrinking or hesitancy he considered the alternative that naturally leaped to his callous mind. The little Annette. Why should he permit himself the burden she imposed? She was only a year old. She was fat, and happy, and knew nothing. Why should he let hergrow to knowledge, and learn the harshnesses that life must ultimately show her?
It would be so easy. And she would never know. He could hold her to him and caress her. She would gurgle, and crow, and pull his whisker. And his hand could very gently feel her soft neck. And then—and then his grip could tighten swiftly. She would be dead, like her foolish mother, without a single cry. It would really be merciful to her. And to himself——?
That, in his position, he pointed out, was surely the sense of things. It certainly was the sense of things. He thrust up a yellow hand and pushed back the cloth-visored cap he was wearing.
The baby squirmed in the dust and rolled over on her little stomach. She gurgled out fresh sounds of delight. He eyed the rolls of healthy fat. He saw the scraping, dimpled hands picking at the dirt and conveying it to her moist baby lips. And the latter sight gave him a feeling of amusement in spite of his mood, while the inarticulate sounds that fell upon his ears were not unpleasing.
With the little life destroyed, and no tie holding him, Pideau considered further. He would be freer than ever before. He would be free to make his long journeys after cattle. He would not always have to hurry back. Then, too, he could go farther afield for his trade. Oh, yes. It would give him much wider scope and freedom. And then——
He glanced about him at the valley which had become his home.
His gaze took in the far woods across the valley. It shifted restlessly to the jagged uprising of snow-cladpeaks which cupped the valley in every direction. Down below him lay a parkland of new-born grass and budding trees lit by flashes of sunlight that found reflection in the shining surface of the waters of a swift-flowing mountain river.
He glanced away over the great lake to his right that was the source of the river, and which spread out far as the eye could see till its confines became lost in the haze of the southern distance. He turned in the opposite direction, where the river and valley lost themselves in a maze of forest-robed hills, beyond which, many leagues on, lay the open sea of prairie land that was his great hunting ground. And then his quick eyes came back to the child who was the pivot of his thought.
No. The freedom he had it in his power to achieve for himself was not the freedom he sought. He would be alone, and he did not want to be alone. Solitude was something he abhorred. With his woman alive he had had the sort of partner with whom he could deal satisfactorily. He had been glad of her. She had been very useful. Somehow he felt the babe she had left behind her would also be some sort of companion. She would be a grievous burden. But——
The sea of woods claimed him again. They were limitless. They were forbidding. The mountains ... they were desperately lonesome. The winter, which had only just given way before the warmth of the new season, was one long nightmare of struggle for comfort, to keep the cold from his marrow, even to save life itself.
Yes. That crazy babe made for companionship.Besides, he liked the sound of her ridiculous crowing.
Pideau had no real understanding of the thing that was happening. Absorbed in a cold review of his own desires, he was without understanding of the subtle power with which Nature endows the weakness, the appealing helplessness of childhood. He had no realization that that dirty, dusky little life, from the very moment of its beginning, had been burrowing its way into the only really human spot which his savage soul possessed.
The half-breed kicked a stone with impotent impatience. He delved into a pocket in his rough tweed coat for his pipe. But he left it there. Then of a sudden he leaned down and lifted little Annette to his lap.
He would not destroy that life. He would keep his motherless babe. And queerly he found satisfaction that he would no longer have to share her with another—even her mother. She would be his—just his. And he would raise her somehow. But, in God’s name, how?
The tiny fingers seized his thick beard and tugged at it ruthlessly. The infant chuckled and made happy, inarticulate sounds. And Pideau laughed. He laughed outright.
The noon meal was over. The camp fire had been allowed to die down to smouldering ashes. The litter of Pideau’s activities lay scattered about. A plate had been flung aside unwashed. So, too, with a tin pannikin, and the cooking pot with its contents, sufficient to provide another meal or two. Then, near by, was aniron boiler half filled with soapy water, and beside it a little pile of the rags which had been removed from Annette’s body.
Pideau had spent a busy noon. Under his new-born resolve he had discovered new duties, which he had tackled in his naturally energetic way. He had eaten. And, having ministered to the comfort of his own stomach, he had done his best for the babe. New milk; rich, fat, creamy milk from his herd of stolen beasts. His understanding considered that milk was indicated. So forthwith he poured Annette’s rapidly expanding body as full of the creamy liquid as was conveniently possible.
Then came a burst of real inspiration. He heated water, and sought out the soap he never used on himself. Then he washed the infant all over from the downy crown of her head to the soles of her pretty feet. After that he raided the child’s scant wardrobe, and arrayed her small body in those clean garments which the dead mother had so jealously hoarded.
It had not been easy. No. But somehow the work had afforded Pideau a measure of amusement, and Annette seemed to regard it as an entirely new game. So it was, with the babe smelling reminiscently of powerful soap, that the man returned to his doorway, and, with a deep sense of satisfaction, prepared to attack once more the problems confronting him.
Annette fell asleep on his lap, and Pideau filled and lit his pipe.
The half-breed was a creature who believed in a carefully planned and well considered future. There was nothing that was haphazard about him. Hisdesire for wealth knew no limits. And every dollar added to his store of currency was a further step on the road he designed to travel. It was money, money, money, all the time with him. He believed that money could satisfy every desire of his life. So every beast he could lay hands on, every beast he could sell safely across the southern border, was a step in the right direction. There was a bunch of ten Polled Angus cows he deeply desired to acquire. It would take some ten days to get them. How could——?
Pideau’s thought came to an abrupt termination. It broke off with a sharp sound like a sudden intake of breath whistling through the dense whisker obscuring his mouth. His eyes widened to their fullest extent. Then they narrowed. He leaned forward in his seat peering.
He remained unmoving, and the child slept on. He was peering down at a wide woodland bluff where it gave on to the open grass of the river bank. He had discovered movement at the edge of the bluff. And it was the movement of something or someone lurking, and, to his mind, spying. That at least was his inevitable conclusion.
For some moments there was no fresh development. Pideau’s searching eyes relaxed. He even thought of one of his own stray cows. Then, without warning, or thought for the slumbering Annette, he leaped to his feet, and the screaming infant lay kicking in the dust where she had fallen. A human figure had broken from the sheltering bluff. It was making its way uphill towards the dugout. Pideau had vanished into his hut.
When he reappeared it was with a Winchester sportingrifle, with telescope sights and a hair trigger. And he held it against his shoulder levelled at the intruder upon his hiding. His intent was plain. It was there in the fierce black eye that searched the sights, and in the lean, brown forefinger within a fraction of releasing the trigger. His purpose was death. And he had no intention of wasting a shot.
Moments passed, however, and the shot was withheld. Then of a sudden Pideau raised his head and lowered his weapon. The intruder was a woman. She was heavily burdened. And she was breasting the ascent to the dugout at a gait that told of the last stages of exhaustion.
Pideau Estevan was unimaginative. Romance, the miraculous, were things without a shadow of appeal for him. Yet the thing that had happened had stirred him to a queer, incredulous amazement.
While he set his cooking pot back on his fire, and laid fresh fuel under it, he flung backward glances at the figure of his sister, Luana, sitting wearily huddled in his doorway. Then from her he gazed at the two children squatting on the ground confronting each other with a calm stare of voiceless, infantile interest.
Pideau felt the whole thing was as crazily remarkable as it well could be. Only that morning had he buried his wife. Only a brief half-hour ago had he been planning the difficulties resulting from his loss. And now—now Luana had appeared from nowhere. And every difficulty seemed to have melted into thin air.
It was amazing.
Exhausted as she was, Luana had told him in briefoutline the story of the disaster that had befallen on the Sisselu Northern Railroad.
She had told of the death of the missionary and his wife, for whom she had been working. She had told him how she and the boy-child she had brought with her were the only survivors of the disaster. And she had told him of the thing she had determined, and now, at last, had finally accomplished.
Pideau hurried again to the tired woman when the leaping flame assured him that her food would soon be ready for her.
“An’ so you steal him?” he said, gazing down at the weary figure of the girl as she leaned against the door-casing.
Pideau was thinking hard. And his manner had in it a sort of playful cunning.
Luana stirred into full mental activity. Her dark eyes lit with sudden passion. Her whole body seemed to thrill with emotion.
“Oh, it is the miracle, Pideau,” she cried. “Mine the eyes he look into first. Mine the arms that first hold him. His mother no. His father—tcha! They nothing. He knows me. He loves me. Always I make him love me. They both are dead. So I steal him. Yes. Why not?”
“This missionary. His folks? The police?”
Pideau was deeply considering. Luana laughed voicelessly in spite of her weariness.
“There are folks way east,” she said. “They hear of the death of them, an’ they think my boy-man killed, too. The police know nothing. How should they know? They find me. They say, ‘this womanan’ her child.’ When I wake they ask me. I tell ’em quick. I am a breed woman who goes on a visit to folk at Lake Mataba. Oh, yes. My boy. He’s dark like the half-breed mother. I say my man way south, at Calford. I ask ’em quick send me to Calford. They say ‘yes.’”
Luana shrugged her drooping shoulders contemptuously, and her gaze turned to the magnet that always held her. The children were stirring. Annette was reaching out towards the little bare feet of the boy. It was a gesture of infantile friendliness.
“An’ they bring you to Calford? They ask no more?”
Pideau wanted to be very sure. He must know it all before taking his final decision.
“I go before the inspector. He ask much,” Luana went on easily. “But I all ready. I think my story good. I tell him I go to High Creek, where is my man. I think they ask on the telephone. So I say quick he works on a farm ’way out on the foothills. The inspector, the fat inspector, says he send me in police wagon. I say, ‘Yes—you are so good to poor woman. When?’ He say, ‘to-morrow.’ I say, ‘yes.’ I go. I think hard. I buy food in the stores. I set it in a sack across my shoulders. Then I make the sling for my back, so boy-man ride easy. An’ I go quick. I walk. I walk far. One hundred—two hundred mile. I don’t know. Twice I nearly die in the muskeg in the hills. I’m scared of the timber wolves. I light plenty fires. I follow quick on the trail I know. And I say, ‘Pideau in the hills.’ I come to him. So I keep my boy-man.”
Luana drew a deep breath, and closed her tired eyes. Pideau watched her. Suddenly he looked away down into the valley below.
“I bury Annette this morning,” he said.
Luana’s eyes were wide open, and she sat up.
“Annette—dead?” Then she gazed at the child Annette. “I think she maybe at work somewhere. Dead?”
Pideau shook his head without a sign of emotion.
“The mountain fever kill her,” was all he said. “She go, an’ leave me with little—Annette.”
Both were gazing at the two children. And the silence between them prolonged.
At last the woman’s gaze was withdrawn, and she sought the man’s dark face with a question.
“It good,” she said at last. “Then I raise your Annette with my boy-man. Yes?”
Pideau eyed the two infants who had now approached each other more nearly. They were mixed up in the aimless way of babyhood. There were sounds coming from them. Gurgles from Annette. And leaping words from the boy. Pideau’s face had no smile, but he suddenly laughed with his voice.
“Yes,” he said. “You stop here while I mak good trade. You cook. An’ I teach you the work of the cattle. I go now. I get ten cows. It’s a farm ’way out on the prairie. Then I come back with them. You raise Annette with your boy-man. I am glad. The wolf pack grows!”
He moved off to the fire where Luana’s food was cooking. And as he went he laughed at his own humor.