CHAPTER ITEN YEARS OF PROSPERITY
PIDEAU ESTEVAN had spent a busy morning in his long, low, iron-roofed store at Buffalo Coulee, which for ten years had become the home of his partnership with the Wolf.
It was the time of year when the prairie winter was the most uncertain. Christmas and New Year’s had been left behind, but as yet there was little easing of conditions and no sign of coming spring. There was a momentary respite in the depths of cold, but that was all. The temperature had been relaxed by a softening wind and the threat of snow.
Pideau’s busy morning had nothing to do with custom. Buffalo Coulee was not buying. It was the time of year when local trade was practically stagnated to the purchase of the barest necessities of life. He had been distributing about his shelves a large shipment of new season’s goods.
He hated the work of his store. Ten years of weighing, and measuring, and endeavoring to retain his customers’ good will had inspired him with an utter detestation of the work which bored his ruthless temperament to extinction. He only submitted to it because it was his share in a carefully considered planwhich the Wolf and he had evolved in their pursuit of fortune.
Now he was standing warming his body at the central stove, gazing at the result of his work without a shadow of enthusiasm.
At last he moved away and passed down towards his open doorway, through which no customer had passed since it had first been unfastened that morning. His purpose was part of years of habit. He would lounge there lazing until the cold or an arriving customer drove him back to his counter.
There was nothing in the outlook to attract. Buffalo Coulee was a primitive prairie township that had grown up as a whim of a handful of settlers seeking some sort of companionship, and a community upon which to centre their lives. Just now it consisted of an open space buried under snow that was churned by sled-runners and the wheels of a few decayed automobiles, fringed about by a straggling of mean habitations heavily encrusted with snow. There were no trees in view. The woods lay somewhere behind the store where the solidly frozen river was wrapped in its winter slumber. There were, however, the tattered crests of the distant mountains beyond the houses. And over all the gray dour of a leaden sky.
Pideau concerned himself with none of these things as he approached his doorway. His gaze became focussed on the instant upon two figures standing atthe gateway in the lateral log fence surrounding the police quarters on the far side of the town. A man and a girl were there talking together.
For a moment Pideau remained in full view. Then he drew back and partially closed the door. For some reason he had become desirous of remaining unseen. The sight had stirred him to the profoundest anger. It was Annette, now grown to full womanhood, and Constable Ernest Sinclair of the Mounted Police.
In the ten years since Pideau had abandoned the mountains for the open life of the prairie the change in his fortunes was considerable. The man himself was incapable of change, except possibly in his outward appearance. In that he had done his best to disguise the hill tough and cattle thief, and not without a measure of success. But there were so many features that admitted of no disguise and would dog him to the end of his days.
His color—nothing could alter that, even though he had introduced himself to the luxury of a daily application of horse soap and water. Then his eyes—those beady, snapping eyes, which never really smiled, whatever his mood. They would remain a permanent indication of the man behind them.
Prosperity, however, had made some outward impression. It had forced on him a limited concern for at least some of the decencies of life. His lank hair was no longer a greasy mat. His beard wastrimmed close to his brutish face and looked clean. Then his greasy buckskin had given place to store tweeds. And a weekly, clean, variegated shirt produced a striking contrast against the dark skin where its rolled sleeves left his dusky forearms bare.
The man was consumed with greed for money. It had always been so. And it was his money hunger that had made him grudgingly yield to a show of uplift. He had forced himself, in the prosecution of his schemes, to avoid outraging the community in which he had pitched his camp. He had for ten years contrived to fling dust in the eyes of those with whom he contacted in Buffalo Coulee. And even the watchful eyes of the police, in the person of Constable Ernest Sinclair, had failed to discover the full depths of his iniquities.
A storm was raging behind the man’s eyes as he watched the two figures at the police quarters. Annette was a beautiful woman, and the only spark of humanity in Pideau made him glad of her. Those two were philandering. He knew. It had been going on for months. His girl was philandering with a red-coat! To Pideau the thought was simply maddening. Anyone else, no matter who, amongst his civilian neighbors, would have given him no concern whatever. But a red-coat!
But then Annette had developed as she had been bound to do. The beauty of her mother had come to her, just as she had inherited through those channelswhich had created Pideau, himself. The result was no easy blending. She was alive with headlong, passionate impulse; she possessed a spirit of unthinking recklessness; all the sex in her was a demonstration of her mixed blood. She knew no authority but her own will and dismissed the father, who had once purposed to destroy her, from her consideration. She went her own headlong way and only served the plans of her menfolk in so far as they did not clash with her own.
Suddenly Pideau spat and turned from the sight that infuriated him. And as he did so a man approached his door, and a cheerful voice greeted him.
“It’s thirst, Pideau. The thirst of a desert! I’m going right across to hew old Amos Smith. Give me support. The biggest, yellowest schooner of lager your capacious, if reprehensible cellar, can provide. Thank the good Lord we Canadians aren’t quite dry yet. Thank the good Lord for a disreputable Pideau.”
Doctor Alec Fraser was tall, and fair, and new to the prairie. He was not long from the hospitals and unmarried. He was more than welcome in Buffalo Coulee for other reasons than his medical skill. The township had never before had a doctor of its own, and Fraser came as something of a luxury.
With the collar of his fur coat flung back, and the heavy garment itself unfastened, Doctor Fraser was eyeing Pideau behind his counter, over the rim of the schooner pouring its cool amber liquid down his throat.
“That’s good stuff, Pideau,” he said with a sighof content, as he set his glass down on the counter. “It’s better than—‘homebrew,’” he added slyly.
Pideau shot a suspicious glance at his visitor who vaulted to a seat on the counter.
“Ther’s worse’n ‘homebrew’ under Prohibition,” he growled.
“Is there?”
Fraser laughed and shook his head.
“Never on your life!” he went on. “There’s nothing out of hell worse. ‘Homebrew’s’ sending half the States crazy.”
Pideau shrugged. He leaned back against his newly arranged shelves.
“That don’t need to worry us across here,” he retorted. “They’ll pay big money for all they can get of it. They lap it up same as if they was weaned on it. You can’t blame folks makin’ it to sell ’em. Blame the crazy guys who threw a hand fer Prohibition. I’d drink the salt of the sea if you made it I mustn’t. ’Tain’t our worry. I’d feed ’em prussic acid if they’d pay me fer it.”
The doctor’s eyes hardened.
“I believe you would.”
“Would? Sure! It’s their funeral.”
“Yes.”
Fraser glanced down the store. It was not really any matter of drink that had brought him there.
“I’m wondering about that bright police boy acrossthe way,” he said abruptly. “When’s he going to pull you and your Wolf partner?”
Pideau looked up. He shot a swift glance into the serious eyes watching him.
“Never,” he growled shortly.
“No? You’re wrong,” Fraser went on contemplatively. “He’ll pull your Wolf anyway. He’s hot on the work. He’s looking for quick promotion. And he sees it in your Wolf, and his ‘homebrew.’ That boy’s yearning.”
Fraser eyed the unlovely creature behind his counter. He had no liking for the half-breed. He understood him too well. But he was not thinking of Pideau. He was not even thinking of the Wolf. He was thinking of the girl he had seen talking out there in the cold, dallying with the man, Sinclair, over the fence. And she was the sole cause of his visit to the store.
“Let him yearn,” Pideau cried roughly. “I don’t care a curse.” He shook his ugly bullet head. “Here, doc,” he went on bestirring, “I know you. We ken talk like men. That boy’s welcome. He’ll never locate our cache. We folk, the Wolf Pack, as you around here call us, came to Buffalo Coulee ten years back fer jest one thing. We’re needin’ good American dollars, an’ we know how to get ’em. We ain’t crooks agin our law. We’re jest here to feed them crazy Prohibitioners all the booze they’re yearnin’ to pay for. Andthey’re payin’ good. We’re goin’ right on doin’ it. Ther’s no law yet agin it. Let him yearn.”
“But there’s ‘homebrew.’”
“You mean the makin’?”
“Yes. There’s a pretty severe penalty for making that dope, or any other poison, up in the hills—if they get you in the act. If you boys shipped in bonded liquor, the right stuff that didn’t do more than make a feller glad, and sold it at a swell profit down south, there’d be no kick beyond that the Prohibition officers could pass you. But a poison still, ’way up in the hills, is different. If they get you making ‘homebrew’ it’s right up against good Canadian law. And one day you’ll all be sitting around in penitentiary wishing you hadn’t. The police aren’t Prohibition officers. There’s no graft to them. They’re right out after their jobs, and there’s no human bunch I know can do it better. One day your play will end suddenly. And I think I’ll be sorry.”
“Why?” Pideau laughed unsmilingly.
Fraser gestured.
“Why ’ud you feel that way?” Pideau asked, a little eagerly, thinking of Annette and estimating this white doctor who was unmarried.
Fraser’s gaze turned on the far door of the store.
“Because I’ll be sorry when that girl of yours hasn’t her menfolk around to see she don’t skid.”
“You mean—Sinclair?”
“Certain, sure. That feller’s a good policeman but that’s all. He’s tough on dames. Doesn’t it worry you seeing a girl kid of yours standing over a fence, on a cold winter day, dallying with him? If I was a father, with a girl of mine falling for that boy, I’d get the best shotgun dollars could buy, and all the shells belonging to it. You’re taking a big chance. A hell of a chance. I just hate to see it. She’s a kid. She’s a babe—in a way.”
Fraser paused, and thrust his cap back from his brow. He saw the fierce smoulder in Pideau’s eyes.
“Say,” he went on, “I said Sinclair was tough on dames. It’s not enough. There was Molly Gros. You remember. I had to bring her kid into the world for her. She was a half-breed and a goodlooker. But nothing to your swell girl. Poor little devil, she never opened her mouth. She quit without giving him away. I did my best to make her talk. I’d have had him up to Calford and seen he got his promotion in the neck. The swine! But she wouldn’t say. She was all for him. And now she’s traipsing the world with his kid, deserted, alone. Tcha! It sets me crazy thinking. If Annette belonged me I’d see he didn’t get within ten miles of her.”
Pideau leaned over his counter. His eyes were hot as they looked up into the doctor’s face.
“If she belonged you, doc, you’d jest have to stand around cursin’ the p’lice the same as me, an’leavin’ it there,” he snarled. “Without that shotgun a fool father don’t cut ice. Annette? When that kid’s on the jump ther’ ain’t the man born who could hold her.”
“Not even the Wolf, if he stopped around instead of making poison up in the hills?”
Pideau’s gaze broke away.
“The Wolf might keep her clear of Sinclair,” Fraser persisted.
“You think so?” Pideau shook his head decidedly. “I’d be glad for someone else to do it tho’.” Then his manner became eager. “You see, I ken fix her good—dollars.”
There was no mistaking his meaning. The doctor suddenly slid himself from the counter and hastily began to fasten his coat. Pideau watched him for a moment or two, and the eagerness died out of him. He turned to his shelves, and the back of his bullet head, with its coarse black hair growing low on the nape of his neck, came under the other’s consideration.
Then came a sound. It was the padding of moccasins down the store. Pideau turned an ear.
“The Wolf,” he said.
“From the hills?”
The doctor was smiling.
“I didn’t say,” snapped Pideau.
“No. Well, I guess I’ll get right over to Amos Smith.”
Pideau watched him go. And friendliness gave place to something else in his look as he gazed after him.
Pideau and the Wolf were standing with the counter between them.
“Wal?”
The half-breed’s question came in a tone that conveyed no welcome.
The Wolf looked up from the granulated tobacco he was rolling into a cigarette.
“Five hundred gallons,” he said.
He spoke quietly, and his eyes wore their unmeaning smile as he twisted the ends of his paper and set his cigarette between his lips.
Pideau breathed deeply. In a flash his whole expression had transformed. Greed, incredulity, even satisfaction, had replaced the look he had worn at Fraser’s going.
“Fi’ hundred gallons!” he echoed. Then came the inevitable. “You’re lyin’! You couldn’t make it in the time!”
The Wolf moved away. He stood himself over against the stove, and lit his cigarette.
The Wolf was good to look at. His hard, rough clothing and well-worn, fur-lined pea-jacket gave him an air. He looked capacity, energy, resolve, in every line of figure and feature.
He had fulfilled his early promise. In manhood he was superbly grown. He was big. He was large of bone and muscle, yet of a slim grace that suggested almost feline activity. His face was clean-cut without great beauty. His nose was too Indian in its sharp aquilinity. His cheek bones were a shade too prominent. But his expression more than compensated. His dark eyes contained the wonderful smile which Nature had fixed there when she moulded them.
He stood regarding his partner behind the counter. And Pideau returned his look with eyes that shone inscrutably. The Wolf’s announcement was incredible to him because of his desire that it should be true.
He searched the youth’s face while he waited. And strangely enough his profoundest dislike and distrust of his partner was uppermost in his mind. He should have been glad. He should have warmed to the man. He should have been grateful. For it was the genius of the Wolf that had brought him prosperity and poured the dollars he loved into his greedy hands.
But in ten years of association Pideau had known no peace of mind, no content. Unease was the keynote of his life with the Wolf. He had never been able to rid himself of his original suspicions. And now they had become an obsession. From the beginning the Wolf had been a threatening shadow brooding over his life. Now he gazed at him with the desperate feelingwith which a devastating storm about to break might have inspired him. He never looked at the Wolf without the memory that his partner held over him the power of life and death.
The half-breed’s weakness had grown with the years. Violent, inhuman, ready murderer as he was, cowardice had completely undermined such manhood as he had originally possessed. In years of association with the fearlessness and confidence of the Wolf it had fallen away like a hill mist before a rising sun. There was not a single day that had passed, since the Wolf had set his authority at defiance, that Pideau had not regretted his failure to defy the merciless gun which the boy had levelled at him while he claimed his right to bury the dead Luana.
Even now, as the man calmly smoked beside the wood stove, with every sign of their prosperity surrounding him, Pideau remembered more poignantly than ever that the Wolf knew!
But never was a spectre more surely a figment of distorted imagination. The Wolf had neither desire nor intent to take advantage of his knowledge of Pideau’s early crimes. Pideau to him was just a necessary evil in his life. He was an unlovely cross which he must bear. He was Annette’s father. Then, of lesser importance, the Wolf could never forget that shelter had been afforded him, however hatefully, in thedays when he could not help himself. It was Pideau who had made possible his early childhood.
The Wolf spread his hands to the warmth.
“I shut her down at that,” he said. “It’s ther’, kegged. The liquor. It’s ready fer the teams right away. An’ we need to act quick.”
He sucked his cigarette and inhaled. Then a faint cloud of smoke escaped his nostrils.
“Teams?”
Pideau’s question was sharp. The Wolf nodded.
“It’ll mean two trips else,” he said. “The folks down ther’ are shoutin’ fer it. Their dollars are good. You got to make the trade this time—alone.”
“Alone? What’s the play?”
“Ther’s no play.” The Wolf shook his head.
Pideau licked his lips. The other’s cool manner of authority maddened him.
“Quick, ain’t you?” he growled. “Why not you, too, same as we always fix it? Five hundred ain’t a one-man play. Are you startin’—another five hundred?”
“No, I’m not.”
The Wolf turned. With a fierce gesture he flung his cigarette away and trod it underfoot. Then he came to the counter, and Pideau saw the transformation. The eyes he was looking into were the eyes that had once faced him over the sights of a rifle.
“You’ll run those cargoes,” the Wolf said, butwithout any change of tone. “I stop right here in town.”
“Why?”
Pideau leaned over the counter, his folded arms supporting him. The Wolf’s control came back to him and he sought his tobacco.
“She’s there with Sinclair,” he said frigidly. “I’ve just seen her. She’s still with him. I’m goin’ to stop it.”
“How?”
The Wolf shrugged. But his movement carried no conviction.
“That’s for me,” he said. “It’s enough to say it’s goin’ to stop. You’re her father. You know Sinclair. Yet you just stand around. Well, I know Sinclair, too. Maybe I’ll stop around. But I’ll fix things—the way you haven’t.”
Pideau’s eyes blazed.
“An’ what ken you do?” he snarled. “Ken you jump in? Ken you set a man an’ a gal actin’ diff’rent when life looks good to ’em? Who’re you to do it, anyway? Hev you right? Is Annette your woman? Is she the sort to set around an’ say ‘Yes’? Not on your fool life.” Pideau held up a clenching hand. “She’s got you right there, an’ she’ll squeeze till you gasp for your man’s crazy life. Get busy. See an’ try to stop her. She’ll beat you like a kid, an’ set you with your face to the wall.”
The man’s harsh scorn was withering. But the Wolf smiled maddeningly into his face.
“You’re forgettin’ Sinclair,” he said soberly.
Pideau’s eyes bored.
“He’s a p’liceman,” he snapped.
“It don’t matter the way he’s dressed.”
Pideau sucked in a whistling breath.
“You daresn’t!”
The half-breed’s challenge came in a hoarse whisper. The thing in his mind seemed to him to be too good to be true—the Wolf—Sinclair—Annette. Fierce glee had replaced every other emotion. If the Wolf took a hand——
He breathed deeply and waited.
“You don’t get it, Pideau,” the Wolf said quietly. “I’m your pardner, and you’ve to play your hand right now. You’ve got to run those cargoes while I stop around here. I’m goin’ to marry Annette. Get that firm in your mind. She belongs me. She’s always belonged me, right from the days we scratched dirt together ’way back in the hills. Do you think that scum Sinclair’s goin’ to take her from me? Do you? I’d think you knew better. Just make your mind up, Annette’s fer me. Annette’s my little play-girl, an’ she’s goin’ to be my wife. Ther’s nothin’ out o’ hell to stop it.”
The Wolf refastened his coat, stuck his cigarette into the corner of his mouth, and lit it. Then his smilebecame a laugh, and he turned and moved off swiftly in the direction of the door of the store.
Pideau watched him go. His mood was jubilant. But before the other had reached the door his joy had departed.
His suspicious mind was at work again. Suddenly he beheld everything in a different light. The Wolf’s threat. It was not only against the man, Sinclair. What did his last words mean? It was plain, quite plain. They could only have one meaning. The youth had delivered an ultimatum. It was an ultimatum to him, Annette’s father. He had demanded that Annette should be his wife. And he, Pideau, must do his share in achieving that end.