The White Desert Part 4

Barry shook his head. Ba'tiste went on.

"You see M'sieu Thayer? _Oui_? You know heem?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Never saw him before."

"So?" Batiste grinned and wagged a finger, "Ba'teese he like the truth, yes, _oui_. Ba'teese he don't get the truth, he tickle M'sieu's feet."

"Now listen! Please--"

"No--no!" The giant waved a hand in dismissal of threat. "Old Ba'teese, he still joke. Ba'teese say he tell you something. Eet is this. You see those people? All right. _Bon_--good. You don' know one. You know the other. Yes? _Oui_? Ba'teese not know why you do it. Ba'teese not care. Ba'teese is right--in here." He patted his heart with a big hand. "But you--you not tell the truth. I know. I tickle your feet."

"You're crazy!"

"So, mebbe. Ba'teese have his trouble. Sometime Ba'teese wish he go crazy--like you say."

The face suddenly aged. The twinkling light left the eyes. The big hands knitted, and the man was silent for a long moment. Then, "But Ba'-teese he know--see?" He pointed to his head, then twisting, ran his finger down his spine. "When eet is the--what-you-say, amnesia--the nerve eet no work in the foot. I could tickle, tickle, tickle, and you would not know. But with you--blooey--right away, you feel. So, for some reason, you are, what-you-say?--shamming. But you are Ba'teese' gues'. You sleep in Ba'teese' bed. You eat Ba'teese'

food. So long as that, you are Ba'teese' friend. Ba'teese--" he looked with quiet, fatherly eyes toward the young man on the bed--"shall ask no question--and Ba'teese shall tell no tales!"

CHAPTER IV

The simple statement of the gigantic trapper swept the confidence from Houston and left him at a disadvantage. His decision had been a hasty one,--a thing to gain time, a scheme by which he had felt he could, at the proper time, take Thayer off his guard and cause him to come into the open with his plans, whatever they might be. Fate had played a strange game with Barry Houston. It had taken a care-free, happy-go-lucky youth and turned him into a suspicious, distrustful person with a constantly morbid strain which struggled everlastingly for supremacy over his usually cheery grin and his naturally optimistic outlook upon life. For Fate had allowed Houston to live the youth of his life in ease and brightness and lack of worry, only that it might descend upon him with the greatest cloud that man can know. And two years of memories, two years of bitterness, two years of ugly recollections had made its mark. In all his dealings with Thayer, conducted though they might have been at a distance, Barry Houston could not place his finger upon one tangible thing that would reveal his crookedness. But he had suspected; had come to investigate, and to learn, even before he was ready to receive the information, that his suspicions had been, in some wise at least, correct. To follow those suspicions to their stopping place Barry had feigned amnesia. And it had lasted just long enough for this grinning man who stood at the foot of the bed to tickle his feet!

And how should that grotesque giant with his blazing red s.h.i.+rt and queer little cap know of such things as amnesia and the tracing of a deadened nerve? How should he,--then Barry suddenly tensed. Had it been a ruse? Was this man a friend, a companion--even an accomplice of the thin-faced, frost-gnarled Thayer--and had his simple statement been an effort to take Barry off his guard? If so, it had not succeeded, for Barry had made no admissions. But it all affected him curiously; it nettled him and puzzled him. For a long time he was silent, merely staring at the grinning features of Ba'tiste. At last:

"I should think you would wait until you could consult a doctor before you'd say a thing like that."

"So? It has been done."

"And he told you--"

"Nothing. He does not need to even speak to Ba'teese." A great chuckle shook the big frame "Ba'teese know as soon as _l' M'sieu Doctaire_."

"On good terms, aren't you? When's he coming again?"

"_Parbleu_!" The big man snapped his fingers. "Peuff! Like that.

Ba'teese call heem, and he is here."

Houston blinked. Then, in spite of his aching head, and the pain of the swollen, splint-laced arm he sat up in bed.

"What kind of--"

"Old Ba'teese, he mus' joke," came quickly and seriously from the other man. "Ba'teese--he is heem."

"A doctor?"

Slowly the big man nodded. Barry went on "I--I--didn't know. I thought you were just a trapper. I wondered--"

"So! That is all--jus' a trapper."

Quietly, slowly, the big man turned away from the bed and stood looking out the window, the wolf-dog edging close to him as though in companions.h.i.+p and some strange form of sympathy. There was silence for a long time, then the voice of Ba'tiste came again, but now it was soft and low, addressed, it seemed, not to the man on the bed, but to vacancy.

"So! Ba'teese, he is only a trapper now. Ba'teese, he had swear he never again stand beside a sick bed. But you--" and he turned swiftly, a broken smile playing about his lips--"you, _mon ami_, you, when I foun' you this morning, with your head twisted under your arm, with the blood on your face, and the dust and dirt upon you--then you--you look like my Pierre! And I pick you up--so!" He fas.h.i.+oned his arms as though he were holding a baby, "and I look at you and I say--'Pierre!

Pierre!' But you do not answer--just like he did not answer. Then I start back with you, and the way was rough. I take you under one arm--so. It was steep. I must have one arm free. Then I meet Medaine, and she laugh at me for the way I carry you. And I was glad.

Eet made Ba'teese forget."

"What?" Barry said it with the curiosity of a boy. The older man stared hard at the crazy design of the covers.

"My Pierre," came at last. "And my Julienne. Ba'teese, he is all alone now. Are you all alone?" The question came quickly. Barry answered before he thought.

"Yes."

"Then you know--you know how eet feel. You know how Ba'teese think when he look out the window. See?" He pointed, and Barry raised himself slightly that he might follow the direction of the gesture.

Faintly, through the gla.s.s, he could see something white, rearing itself in the shadows of the heavy pines which fringed the cabin,--a cross. And it stood as the guardian of a mound of earth where pine boughs had been placed in smooth precision, while a small vase, half implanted in the earth, told of flowers in the summer season. Ba'tiste stared at his palms. "Julienne," came at last. "My wife." Then, with a sudden impulse, he swerved about the bed and sat down beside the sick man. "Ba'teese--" he smiled plaintively--"like to talk about Pierre--and Julienne. Even though eet hurt."

Barry could think only in terms of triteness.

"Have they been gone long?"

The big man counted on his fingers.

"One--two--t'ree year. Before that--_bon_!" He kissed his fingers airily. "Old Ba'teese, he break the way--long time ago. He come down from Montreal, with his Julienne and his Pierre--in his arm, so. He like to feel big and strong--to help other people. So, down here where there were few he came, and built his cabin, with his Pierre and his Julienne. And, so happy! Then, by'm'by, Jacques Robinette come too, with his pet.i.te Medaine--"

"That's the girl who was here?"

"Ah, _oui_. I am _l' M'sieu Doctaire_. I look after the sick for ten--twenty--thirty mile. Jacques he have more head. He buy land." A great sweep of the arm seemed to indicate all outdoors. "Ev'where--the pine and spruce, it was Jacques! By'm'by, he go on and leave Medaine alone. Then she go 'way to school, but ev' summer she come back and live in the big house. And Ba'teese glad--because he believe some day she love Pierre and Pierre love her and--"

Another silence. At last:

"And then war came. My Pierre, he is but eighteen. But he go.

Ba'teese want him to go. Julienne, she say nothing--she cry at night.

But she want him to go too. Medaine, she tell funny stories about her age and she go too. It was lonely. Ba'teese was big. Ba'teese was strong. And Julienne say to him, 'You too--you go. You may save a life.' And Ba'teese went."

"To France?"

Ba'tiste bowed his head.

"Long time Ba'teese look for his Pierre. Long time he look for Medaine. But no. Then--" his face suddenly contorted "--one night--in the cathedral at St. Menehould, I find heem. But Pierre not know his _pere_. He not answer Ba'teese when he call 'Pierre! Pierre!' Here, and here, and here--" the big man pointed to his breast and face and arms--"was the shrapnel. He sigh in my arms--then he is gone.

Ba'teese ask that night for duty on the line. He swear never again to be _l' M'sieu Doctaire_. All his life he help--help--help--but when the time come, he cannot help his own. And by'm'by, Ba'teese come home--and find that."

He pointed out into the shadows beneath the pines.