CHAPTER VIITHE HEART OF THE WOLF
THE noon sun was right overhead, a molten globe of merciless fury. The heat of the valley was fierce. Flies and mosquitoes swarmed in the still air. The cattle were munching wearily, indifferent to the dogs harrying them, indifferent to the luxurious knee-deep grass through which they were ploughing their somnolent way.
The Wolf’s eyes were anxious. There was no smile in them now. The child in him was uppermost. His whole thought was for that home on the hillside which had just come into view, and the human associations it contained for him.
Annette was there. Annette, and his sick mother, Luana. It was of Luana he was thinking most. And his thought was pregnant with grave anxiety. Mountain fever. It was fierce, and deadly, and very swift. Would he find her better, or worse? Would he——?
He wished the smoke from the fire were showing. Surely it should be, with noon at hand. Had Annette forgotten? She might have forgotten. Then perhaps Luana had no need of food.
He glanced at the figure of Pideau, who had uttered no word since his earlier submission. The morose creature displayed no interest whatsoever in the home that was now so very near. He displayed no interest in anything. Not even in the cattle which would ultimatelymake him a handsome return for the trouble in which they had involved him. The man saw nothing but the visions of his busy brain.
The Wolf understood. And it turned him from his own natural anxieties to the big thing that had taken possession of his life. He knew where he stood with Pideau now. From now on, until full manhood came to his rescue, a chasm of disaster would always be gaping at his feet. He had nothing to save him from it but his own wit and courage. So he watched, for the time, the thing lying back of the half-breed’s eyes and revelled in the thought of the battle in which they had joined issue.
It was an amazing transformation that twenty-four hours had wrought in him. Outwardly he was just the same, lank, muscular, developed out of all proportion to his years. The simple directness which had always characterized him had undergone no change. The wilderness with its battle for survival was deep in his soul. He feared nothing. He feared no human creature. And least of all, he feared Pideau.
Spiritually his development had been in the nature of the miraculous. He had leaped from childhood to real manhood in one amazing stride. A few short hours ago he had talked to Annette of marriage, and of a primitive life lost in the hills he loved. Now he knew that all that had been the talk of a child’s mind.
Annette? Yes. Annette was still the centre of everything for him. But the setting in which she stood was changed. He had tasted of real life, human life, in the past few hours, and he wanted more. He wanted it all. He wanted to measure his strength in the worldof men, where every grain of success must be fought for and won over the fallen body of some human adversary. For the moment his adversary was the man riding beside him. That was all right. It was good to try his ’prentice hand on such easy material. Later would come the real thrill, the real battle.
At the foot of the slope, on which the dugout stood, Pideau drew rein. He indicated the cattle about which the dogs circled, a needless guard.
“You best set ’em in the corrals,” he grated harshly. “Feed ’em hay. Later we’ll fix the brands. When you’re through we ken eat.”
Pideau spoke with the confidence of authority. He spoke as though nothing had changed their relations, as though nothing could change them.
The Wolf never hesitated. There was no sign in him of any rebellion. There was nothing provocative in his manner. He turned his pinto towards the hillside and replied over his shoulder.
“I must go to Luana—first,” he cried, and breasted the hill.
Pideau gazed after him. His eyes were calculating, and one brown hand was gripping the small of his rifle, and his fingers felt the trigger.
He saw the slim body swaying to the eager gait of the pinto as it raced up the sharp incline. He saw the boy’s hand, which, like his own, was grasping his rifle. And for several furious moments he was yearning. Then he, too, began the ascent of the hill.
The Wolf was standing at the side of the rough bed in the inner room of the dugout. It was the samerawhide-strung bed built of spruce saplings from which years ago Pideau had carried his dead wife to her grave far down in the valley.
It was a poor enough room. It had one natural earth wall formed by the hill into which it was dug, and the rest of the walls were of laterally set green logs that were stripped of their bark in years of habitation. There was no light except that which was admitted through the doorway communicating with one of the two front rooms. But it was all sufficient to reveal the squalor in which those mountain folk lived. The floor was dust-dry earth, and the furnishings were the makeshift of barest necessity. It was sheer half-breed squalor of the poorest type, suffering under the indifference of those who lived in it.
The Wolf saw none of the poverty. He knew it. He had never known better. So it failed to offend. He had eyes only for the bed, with its worn, colored blankets, and the still ominous ridge that centred it. The blankets had been drawn up till that which lay beneath was completely hidden.
The silence was profound. It was a stillness different from any other the boy had ever known. And its effect on him was a sort of paralysis, from which he had neither power nor will to release himself.
He knew. There was no need for him to look. There was no need for him to raise even a corner of those blankets. The mountain fever had claimed its victim as he had been warned it would. The mother he had always known and loved, the one creature in all his young life who had never spoken a word of blame to him, whose whole thought had been always for hiswell-being and happiness, had gone. She was dead—dead. She had died alone. Utterly alone. And he would have given all the world to have been there to comfort her, and tell her of his boy’s love.
The stun of it held him helpless. He could only gaze. He could only eye that grim outline under the blanket and wonder like a child.
The sound of voices penetrated the silence. What they said the Wolf cared not. His ears were dead to all but a confusion of sound. But they had an effect of which he was wholly unaware. He moved. He reached out in an uncertain gesture. His fingers closed on the blanket cover near the head of the bed. And as they did so, thought bestirred. Some one must have drawn that blanket so. Who? Annette? Yes, it was Annette. And a new warmth crept into his heart.
The Wolf drew the blanket hesitatingly. His hand was shaking. He saw the black of the dead Luana’s hair. It was still shining as it had shone in life. Then came the waxen features without a blemishing line or wrinkle. Yes, they were like carved marble, a sort of soft-tinted marble that was very beautiful in his eyes. The whole of the dead face lay revealed. And the shaking hand steadied and held the blanket still.
The sound of the voices beyond went on. He gave them no heed. The boy’s whole soul was held by that upon which he was gazing—Luana—his mother. And she was dead—dead. Suddenly he took a step nearer to the bed. He leaned over it. He lowered his head and gently pressed his young lips against the marble-cold forehead. It was his farewell.
The blanket was back in its place as Annette hadset it. The Wolf breathed a deep sigh. Then he turned away and moved out to join those, the sound of whose voices had reached him.
The Wolf appeared in the doorway of the dugout.
The fire was lit, and smoke was rising sheer on the still air. Pideau was at the fire, crouching down feeding it, and making ready for the noon food. The Wolf’s pinto was precisely where he had left it, its rawhide picket rope trailing but unsecured.
Annette was there. She was standing apart, and her bold, beautiful eyes were fixed on the youth the moment he appeared. There was no disguise; no pretense. Woman’s curiosity dominated her expression and hid any sign of feeling that may have been lurking.
The Wolf looked her way at once. His look told nothing. It told nothing of the shock he had endured. It told nothing of the passionate grief ravaging his boy’s soul. It was full of a calmness that must have disappointed the impish spirit of the girl.
“You covered her up, Annette,” he said, without a tremor of that which he felt. “You sure did that for—me?”
The girl stirred uneasily. Her gaze averted to Pideau at the fire, who had not looked up.
“She was dead,” she said in a low voice.
“You covered her up for—me?” the Wolf persisted.
“No!”
Pideau looked up from the fire at the sound of Annette’s fierce denial.
The Wolf smiled. Even in his grief Annette was still the little fiend he loved.
“You did it for me, though,” he said, with that maddening assurance which drove the girl.
“She died last night,” Annette cried. Then her eyes lit fiercely. “I did it so the flies ’ud keep from her.”
Pideau grinned. The Wolf saw the grin. He understood the malice of it. He ignored the man and his grin. He turned to the girl for whom his love had never been greater than at that moment. His eyes were smiling.
“I’m kind o’ glad you kept the flies off’n her,” he said. “I can’t ferget you did it, Annette. You see, you didn’t love her, and she didn’t love you. I’ll need to bury her.”
Pideau stood up from his fire abruptly. For one unsmiling moment he looked from the girl to the boy. Then he moved from his cooking pot and came across to them. The Wolf watched him while he seemed only to be looking at the girl.
Annette saw Pideau’s movement but continued to eye the boy. Then came the half-breed’s harsh voice.
“You ken fix them beasts down along in the corrals,” he said in his domineering way. “I’ll bury her when we’re through eatin’.”
The quiet of the boy’s eyes became suddenly disturbed. They lit with passion.
“No,” he said in a tone of finality. “I bury her. She’s my mother.”
A little sound broke from the girl. The boy’s eyes flashed in her direction. But for once Annette’seyes contained no taunt. For once there was something in them that told of feeling other than of her habitual antagonism.
Pideau’s voice came again. Its tone further maddened the Wolf.
“Mother? She’s no mother o’ yours,” the man sneered. “She never was an’ couldn’t be. She never had a man. She stole you. She stole you from your folks. You’re a white spawn. An’ you’ll never know your folks now she’s dead.”
The Wolf remained in the doorway. He stood without a movement. His long rifle was still in his hand beside him. And in that moment his longing was almost beyond restraint.
The girl watched him. She missed nothing. She read the frantic passion to which her father had goaded the boy. And suddenly she forgot her own love of tormenting. Suddenly all desire to hurt him left her. The woman in her found its natural expression. Her prerogative had been usurped. He had been smote by another. Her father.
She moved. She came to the doorway where the Wolf was standing wild-eyed, gazing on the man who had so brutally hurt him. She laid a slim brown hand on his arm. And a half-tamed softness was in the beautiful boldness of her eyes as she looked up into his face.
“We’ll bury her, Wolf—you an’ me,” she said, in a low voice that was full of something the boy had never heard in it before. “She loved you. She beat me. It don’t matter. She was a mother to you, whatever he says. And you got the right. I—I just wantto help you. Father ken see to the beasts himself. They’re his, anyway. Luana belonged to you. An’ I guess you belong to—me.”
A heavy mattock and a digging fork lay on the ground near by, and the child picked the former up and stood with it across her shoulder. Again she laid a brown hand on the boy’s arm.
“We don’t need food till we’re through with—her. Let’s go get her an’ carry her down.”
The Wolf bestirred. He took possession of the appealing hand and crushed it fiercely in his while his glance held the man who had goaded him. Quite suddenly he spoke. He spoke coldly in spite of his passion.
“She wasn’t my mother, Pideau?” he said, and somehow his teeth seemed to clip over each word he spoke. “Then I don’t owe you no blood duty. Ther’ ain’t blood of yours in my body, an’ I’m glad. I won’t say the thing I might, with Annette right here. She’s your kid. You’re her father. But I’ll say this—she’s right; dead right. We’re goin’ to bury Luana, who was a good woman who served you a sight better than you’d a right to. An’ your hands ain’t goin’ to touch her. They ain’t fit. An’ my gun here says that’s so. Them beasts you stole down there are yours to see to. You can go to it. There’s bad blood in you for me when you only need to hand me thanks. An’ while that’s so you ken play your own dirty game. I ain’t scared a thing, Pideau. You want to kill me. You’ve wanted that way ever since last night. Just get it good, if there’s to be a killin’ ther’s two of us in the game.”
Pideau moved as though to rush in on the lank figure whose reckless fury had flung so desperate achallenge. But as he did so the boy’s gun leaped to his shoulder, and his eye fell to the sights.
Pideau made no further movement. Only his narrowed eyes looked yearningly on his own rifle propped against the dugout wall close beside the Wolf.
Then it was that Annette took a great decision. Her untamed spirit flared up. She remembered the Wolf’s boast down on the river bank. Here she was witness to its truth and reality. In that moment the Wolf had grown to the proportions of the hero of her woman’s worship.
“Lay a hand on him, father, an’ I will help him beat you,” she cried, with all the violence she was accustomed to fling at the boy. “You’re just my father. But he’s my—Wolf.”
The Wolf’s gun had held the man. But the girl had achieved something more. Her violence had no part in it. It was something deeper, something of which she was all unaware.
Whatever Pideau’s crimes, whatever his evil, Annette was the child of his body and blood. She was the child whose appeal had saved him from his greatest crime years before. And now the nature between them went for nothing. She had flung herself into the arms of the boy against him.
Pideau was alone; outcast; and he felt that the world of mankind was now completely arrayed against him.
The overwhelmingness of it was too much for his hardihood. He could not face it. His bluff failed him. Without a word he turned away. He moved off. And passing down the hillside on his way to the cattle asound came back to the two who stood watching him. It was the sound of a bitter, jarring laugh.
They were inside the outer room of the dugout. The Wolf had possessed himself of the old six-chambered revolver which Pideau kept hanging on the wall. He had just finished loading its chambers from the cartridge belt hanging beside it. The spare cartridges he had already stuffed into his hip pocket. His rifle was laid aside with its breech-block removed.
“He won’t do a thing, Wolf.”
Annette’s tone was almost one of humility as she addressed the boy who had suddenly become her hero.
“I’m takin’ no chances.”
The Wolf spoke roughly. There was only the outline of his smile left.
“That why you slipped the pin from his rifle?”
“Sure.”
The girl sighed. Her eyes were gazing at the inner room of death.
“Then we ken carry her down?” she suggested.
“I’ll carry her, kid,” the Wolf said gently. “You don’t need. You haul that mattock an’ fork. She was good to me, an’ I loved her. She didn’t act so good to you. You’ll jest help—me—that’s all.”
Annette nodded. Her big eyes were shining. She wanted to help the Wolf now. That was all.
The Wolf took both her hands in his. They were small and smooth for all their strength.
“Say, kid, you do want to help me?”
Suddenly Annette snatched her hands free and flung her arms about the Wolf’s neck. She clung to him.
“Yes, yes,” she cried. “Anythin’ for you, Wolf. Anythin’—anythin’ at all.”
The boy stooped and kissed the face so near to his. Then as the girl still clung to him he released himself from her embrace.
“We got to be quick, kid,” he said without urgency. “It ain’t Pideau worryin’. It’s the police. They’ll get along. Pideau’s played a fool game, an’ we can’t stop around here. We got to beat it farther into the hills. An’ we aren’t going to get more cattle. We’ll need to hustle for pelts in the future, till—till—— Say——?”
He turned sharply to the inner room.
Annette followed him through the open doorway.
Minutes later Pideau at work amongst his cattle saw the queer little procession. The tall youth was staggering under the burden of death. And behind him came Annette carrying the necessary tools for a burial.
He watched them till they reached the river bank. He saw the Wolf gently set his burden down. Then he turned back to his cattle and morosely continued his work of feeding.