Northern Lights Part 6

Not'ing but snow, not'ing. But dere is de sun; it s.h.i.+ne. It say to me, 'Wake up, Ba'tiste; it will be all right bime-bye.' But all time I t'ink I go mad, for I mus' get Askatoon before--_dat_."

She started. Had she not used the same word in thinking of Askatoon.

"_That_," she had said.

"Why do you want to go the 'quick' way to Askatoon?" she asked again, her face pale, her foot beating the floor impatiently.

"To save him before _dat_!" he answered, as though she knew of what he was speaking and thinking.

"What is _that_?" she asked. She knew now, surely, but she must ask it nevertheless.

"Dat hanging--of Haman," he answered. He nodded to himself. Then he took to gazing into the fire. His lips moved as though talking to himself, and the hand that held the pipe lay forgotten on his knee.

"What have you to do with Haman?" she asked, slowly, her eyes burning.

"I want safe him--I mus' give him free." He tapped his breast. "It is here to mak' him free." He still tapped his breast.

For a moment she stood frozen still, her face thin and drawn and white; then suddenly the blood rushed back into her face, and a red storm raged in her eyes.

She thought of the sister, younger than herself, whom Rube Haman had married and driven to her grave within a year--the sweet Lucy, with the name of her father's mother. Lucy had been all English in face and tongue, a flower of the west, driven to darkness by this horse-dealing brute, who, before he was arrested and tried for murder, was about to marry Kate Wimper. Kate Wimper had stolen him from Lucy before Lucy's first and only child was born, the child that could not survive the warm mother-life withdrawn, and so had gone down the valley whither the broken-hearted mother had fled. It was Kate Wimper, who, before that, had waylaid the one man for whom she herself had ever cared, and drawn him from her side by such attractions as she herself would keep for an honest wife, if such she ever chanced to be. An honest wife she would have been had Kate Wimper not crossed the straight path of her life. The man she had loved was gone to his end also, reckless and hopeless, after he had thrown away his chance of a lifetime with Loisette Alroyd. There had been left behind this girl, to whom tragedy had come too young, who drank humiliation with a heart as proud as ever straightly set its course through crooked ways.

It had hurt her, twisted her nature a little, given a fountain of bitterness to her soul, which welled up and flooded her life sometimes. It had given her face no sourness, but it put a shadow into her eyes.

She had been glad when Haman was condemned for murder, for she believed he had committed it, and ten times hanging could not compensate for that dear life gone from their sight--Lucy, the pride of her father's heart. She was glad when Haman was condemned, because of the woman who had stolen him from Lucy, because of that other man, her lover, gone out of her own life.

The new hardness in her rejoiced that now the woman, if she had any heart at all, must have it bowed down by this supreme humiliation and wrung by the ugly tragedy of the hempen rope.

And now this man before her, this man with a boy's face, with the dark, luminous eyes, whom she had saved from the frozen plains, he had that in his breast which would free Haman, so he had said. A fury had its birth in her at that moment. Something seemed to seize her brain and master it, something so big that it held all her faculties in perfect control, and she felt herself in an atmosphere where all life moved round her mechanically, she herself the only sentient thing, so much greater than all she saw, or all that she realized by her subconscious self. Everything in the world seemed small. How calm it was even with the fury within!

"Tell me," she said, quietly--"tell me how you are able to save Haman?"

"He not kill Wakely. It is my brudder Fadette dat kill and get away. Haman he is drunk, and everyt'ing seem to say Haman he did it, an' every one know Haman is not friend to Wakely. So the juree say he must be hanging.

But my brudder he go to die with hawful bad cold queeck, an' he send for the priest an' for me, an' tell all. I go to Governor with the priest, an'

Governor gif me dat writing here." He tapped his breast, then took out a wallet and showed the paper to her. "It is life of dat Haman, _voici_! And so I safe him for my brudder. Dat was a bad boy, Fadette. He was bad all time since he was a baby, an' I t'ink him pretty lucky to die on his bed, an' get absolve, and go to purgatore. If he not have luck like dat he go to h.e.l.l, an' stay there."

He sighed, and put the wallet back in his breast carefully, his eyes half shut with weariness, his handsome face drawn and thin, his limbs lax with fatigue.

"If I get Askatoon before de time for _dat_, I be happy in my heart, for dat brudder off mine he get out of purgatore bime-bye, I t'ink."

His eyes were almost shut, but he drew himself together with a great effort, and added desperately: "No sleep. If I sleep it is all smash. Man say me I can get Askatoon by dat time from here, if I go queeck way across lak'--it is all froze now, dat lak'--an' down dat Foxtail Hills. Is it so, ma'm'selle?"

"By the 'quick' way if you can make it in time," she said; "but it is no way for the stranger to go. There are always bad spots on the ice--it is not safe. You could not find your way."

"I mus' get dere in time," he said, desperately.

"You can't do it--alone," she said. "Do you want to risk all and lose?"

He frowned in self-suppression. "Long way, I no can get dere in time?" he asked.

She thought a moment. "No; it can't be done by the long way. But there is another way--a third trail, the trail the Gover'ment men made a year ago when they came to survey. It is a good trail. It is blazed in the woods and staked on the plains. You cannot miss. But--but there is so little time." She looked at the clock on the wall. "You cannot leave here much before sunrise, and--"

"I will leef when de moon rise, at eleven," he interjected.

"You have had no sleep for two nights, and no food. You can't last it out," she said, calmly.

The deliberate look on his face deepened to stubbornness.

"It is my vow to my brudder--he is in purgatore. An' I mus' do it," he rejoined, with an emphasis there was no mistaking. "You can show me dat way?"

She went to a drawer and took out a piece of paper. Then, with a point of blackened stick, as he watched her and listened, she swiftly drew his route for him.

"Yes, I get it in my head," he said. "I go dat way, but I wish--I wish it was dat queeck way. I have no fear, not'ing. I go w'en dat moon rise--I go, _bien sur._"

"You must sleep, then, while I get some food for you." She pointed to a couch in a corner. "I will wake you when the moon rises."

For the first time he seemed to realize her, for a moment to leave the thing which consumed him, and put his mind upon her.

"You not happy--you not like me here?" he asked, simply; then added, quickly, "I am not bad man like me brudder--no."

Her eyes rested on him for a moment as though realizing him, while some thought was working in her mind behind.

"No, you are not a bad man," she said. "Men and women are equal on the plains. You have no fear--I have no fear."

He glanced at the rifles on the walls, then back at her. "My mudder, she was good woman. I am glad she did not lif to know what Fadette do." His eyes drank her in for a minute, then he said: "I go sleep now, t'ank you--till moontime."

In a moment his deep breathing filled the room, the only sound save for the fire within and the frost outside.

Time went on. The night deepened.

Loisette sat beside the fire, but her body was half-turned from it toward the man on the sofa. She was not agitated outwardly, but within there was that fire which burns up life and hope and all the things that come between us and great issues. It had burned up everything in her except one thought, one powerful motive. She had been deeply wronged, and justice had been about to give "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But the man lying there had come to sweep away the scaffolding of justice--he had come for that.

Perhaps he might arrive at Askatoon before the stroke of the hour, but still he would be too late, for in her pocket now was the Governor's reprieve. The man had slept soundly. His wallet was still in his breast; but the reprieve was with her.

If he left without discovering his loss, and got well on his way, and discovered it then, it would be too late. If he returned--she only saw one step before her, she would wait for that, and deal with it when it came.

She was thinking of Lucy, of her own lover ruined and gone. She was calm in her madness.

At the first light of the moon she roused him. She had put food into his fur-coat pocket, and after he had drunk a bowl of hot pea-soup, while she told him his course again, she opened the door, and he pa.s.sed out into the night. He started forward without a word, but came back again and caught her hand.

"_Pardon_," he said; "I go forget everyt'ing except _dat_. But I t'ink what you do for me, it is better than all my life. _Bien sur_, I will come again, when I get my mind to myself. Ah, but you are beautibul," he said, "an' you not happy. Well, I come again--yes, _a Dieu._"

He was gone into the night, with the moon silvering the sky, and the steely frost eating into the sentient life of this northern world. Inside the house, with the bearskin blind dropped at the window again, and the fire blazing high, Loisette sat with the Governor's reprieve in her hand.

Looking at it, she wondered why it had been given to Ba'tiste Caron and not to a police-officer. Ah yes, it was plain--Ba'tiste was a woodsman and plainsman, and could go far more safely than a constable, and faster.

Ba'tiste had reason for going fast, and he would travel night and day--he was travelling night and day indeed. And now Ba'tiste might get there, but the reprieve would not. He would not be able to stop the hanging of Haman--the hanging of Rube Haman.

A change came over her. Her eyes blazed, her breast heaved now. She had been so quiet, so cold and still. But life seemed moving in her once again. The woman, Kate Wimper, who had helped to send two people to their graves, would now drink the dregs of shame, if she was capable of shame--would be robbed of her happiness, if so be she loved Rube Haman.

She stood up, as though to put the paper in the fire, but paused suddenly at one thought--_Rube Haman was innocent of murder._

Even so, he was not innocent of Lucy's misery and death, or the death of the little one who only opened its eyes to the light for an instant, and then went into the dark again. But truly she was justified! When Haman was gone things would go on just the same--and she had been so bitter, her heart had been pierced as with a knife these past three years. Again she held out her hand to the fire, but suddenly she gave a little cry and put her hand to her head. There was Ba'tiste!