The Call of the Wild and Selected Stories Page 11

  He moved never a muscle nor twitched a hair when for the first time Lecle‘re tottered out on the missionary’s arm and sank down slowly and with infinite caution on the three-legged stool.

  “Bon!” he said. “Bon! De good sun!” And he stretched out his wasted hands and washed them in the warmth.

  Then his gaze fell on the dog, and the old light blazed back in his eyes. He touched the missionary lightly on the arm. “Mon pe‘re, dat is one beeg devil, dat Diable. You will bring me one pistol, so dat Ah drink the sun in peace.”

  And thenceforth, for many days, he sat in the sun before the cabin door. He never dozed, and the pistol lay always across his knees. The dog had a way, the first thing each day, of looking for the weapon in its wonted place. At sight of it he would lift his lip faintly in token that he understood, and Lecle‘re would lift his own lip in an answering grin. One day the missionary took note of the trick. “Bless me!” he said. “I really believe the brute comprehends.”

  Lecle‘re laughed softly. “Look you, mon pe‘re. Dat w’at Ah now spik, to dat does he lissen.”

  As if in confirmation, Diable just perceptibly wriggled his lone ear up to catch the sound.

  “Ah say ‘keel—’ ”

  Diable growled deep down in his throat, the hair bristled along his neck, and every muscle went tense and expectant.

  “Ah lift de gun, so, like dat—” And suiting action to word, he sighted the pistol at the dog.

  Diable, with a single leap sidewise, landed around the corner of the cabin out of sight.

  “Bless me!” the missionary remarked. “Bless me!” he repeated at intervals, unconscious of his paucity of expression.

  Lecle‘re grinned proudly.

  “But why does he not run away?”

  The Frenchman’s shoulders went up in a racial shrug which means all things from total ignorance to infinite understanding.

  “Then why do you not kill him?”

  Again the shoulders went up.

  “Mon pe‘re,” he said, after a pause, “de taim is not yet. He is one beeg devil. Sometaim Ah break heem, so, an’ so, all to leetle bits. Heh? Sometaim. Bon!”

  A day came when Lecle‘re gathered his dogs together and floated down in a bateau to Forty Mile and on to the Porcupine, where he took a commission from the P. C. Company and went exploring for the better part of a year. After that he poled up the Koyukuk to deserted Arctic City, and later came drifting back, from camp to camp, along the Yukon. And during the long months Diable was well lessoned. He learned many tortures—the torture of hunger, the torture of thirst, the torture of fire, and, worst of all, the torture of music.

  Like the rest of his kind, he did not enjoy music. It gave him exquisite anguish, racking him nerve by nerve and ripping apart every fiber of his being. It made him howl, long and wolflike, as when the wolves bay the stars on frosty nights. He could not help howling. It was his one weakness in the contest with Lecle‘re, and it was his shame. Lecle‘re, on the other hand, passionately loved music—as passionately as he loved strong drink. And when his soul clamored for expression, it usually uttered itself in one or both of the two ways. And when he had drunk, not too much but just enough for the perfect poise of exaltation, his brain alilt with unsung song and the devil in him aroused and rampant, his soul found its supreme utterance in the bearding of Diable.

  “Now we will haf a leetle museek,” he would say. “Eh? W’at you t’ink, Diable?”

  It was only an old and battered harmonica, tenderly treasured and patiently repaired; but it was the best that money could buy, and out of its silver reeds he drew weird, vagrant airs which men had never heard before. Then the dog, dumb of throat, with teeth tight-clenched, would back away, inch by inch, to the farthest cabin corner. And Lecle‘re, playing, playing, a stout club tucked handily under his arm, followed the animal up, inch by inch, step by step, till there was no further retreat.

  At first Diable would crowd himself into the smallest possible space, groveling close to the floor; but as the music came nearer and nearer he was forced to uprear, his back jammed into the logs, his fore legs fanning the air as though to beat off the rippling waves of sound. He still kept his teeth together, but severe muscular contractions attacked his body, strange twitchings and jerk ings, till he was all aquiver and writhing in silent torment. As he lost control, his jaws spasmodically wrenched apart and deep, throaty vibrations issued forth, too low in the register of sound for human ear to catch. And then, as he stood reared with nostrils distended, eyes dilated, slaver dripping, hair bristling in helpless rage, arose the long wolf howl. It came with a slurring rush upward, swelling to a great heartbreaking burst of sound and dying away in sadly cadenced woe— then the next rush upward, octave upon octave; the bursting heart; and the infinite sorrow and misery, fainting, fading, failing, and dying slowly away.

  It was fit for hell. And Lecle‘re, with fiendish ken, seemed to divine each particular nerve and heartstring and, with long wails and tremblings and sobbing minors, to make it yield up its last least shred of grief. It was frightful, and for twenty-four hours after, the dog was nervous and unstrung, starting at common sounds, tripping over his own shadow, but withal, vicious and masterful with his teammates. Nor did he show signs of a breaking spirit. Rather did he grow more grim and taciturn, biding his time with an inscrutable patience which began to puzzle and weigh upon Lecle‘re. The dog would lie in the firelight, motionless, for hours, gazing straight before him at Lecle‘re and hating him with his bitter eyes.

  Often the man felt that he had bucked up against the very essence of life—the unconquerable essence that swept the hawk down out of the sky like a feathered thunderbolt, that drove the great gray goose across the zones, that hurled the spawning salmon through two thousand miles of boiling Yukon flood. At such times he felt impelled to express his own unconquerable essence; and with strong drink, wild music and Diable, he indulged in vast orgies, wherein he pitted his puny strength in the face of things and challenged all that was, and had been, and was yet to be. “Dere is somet’ing dere,” he affirmed, when the rhythmed vagaries of his mind touched the secret chords of the dog’s being and brought forth the long, lugubrious howl. “Ah pool eet out wid bot’ my han’s, so, an’ so. Ha! Ha! Eet is fonee! Eet is ver’ fonee! De mans swear, de leetle bird go peep-peep, Diable heem go yow-yow—an’ eet is all de ver’ same t’ing.”

  Father Gautier, a worthy priest, once reproved him with instances of concrete perdition. He never reproved him again.

  “Eet may be so, mon pe‘re,” he made answer. “An’ Ah t’ink Ah go troo hell a-snappin’, lak de hemlock troo de fire. Eh, mon pe‘re?”

  But all bad things come to an end as well as good, and so with Black Lecle‘re. On the summer low water, in a poling boat, he left Macdougall for Sunrise. He left Macdougall in company with Timothy Brown, and arrived at Sunrise by himself. Further, it was known that they had quarreled just previous to pulling out; for the Lizzie, a wheezy, ten-ton stern-wheeler, twenty-four hours behind, beat Lecle‘re in by three days. And when he did get in, it was with a clean-drilled bullet-hole through his shoulder muscle and a tale of ambush and murder.

  A strike had been made at Sunrise, and things had changed considerably. With the infusion of several hundred gold seekers, a deal of whisky, and half a dozen equipped gamblers, the missionary had seen the page of his years of labor with the Indians wiped clean. When the squaws became preoccupied with cooking beans and keeping the fire going for the wifeless miners, and the bucks with swapping their warm furs for black bottles and broken timepieces, he took to his bed, said, “Bless me!” several times, and departed to his final accounting in a roughhewn oblong box. Whereupon the gamblers moved their roulette and faro tables into the mission house, and the click of chips and clink of glasses went up from dawn till dark and to dawn again.

  Now Timothy Brown was well beloved among these adventurers of the North. The one thing against him was his quick temper and ready fist—a little thing, for
which his kind heart and forgiving hand more than atoned. On the other hand, there was nothing to atone for Black Lecle‘re. He was “black,” as more than one remembered deed bore witness, while he was as well hated as the other was beloved. So the men of Sunrise put a dressing on his shoulder and haled him before Judge Lynch.

  It was a simple affair. He had quarreled with Timothy Brown at Macdougall. With Timothy Brown he had left Macdougall. Without Timothy Brown he had arrived at Sunrise. Considered in the light of his evilness, the unanimous conclusion was that he had killed Timothy Brown. On the other hand, Lecle‘re acknowledged their facts, but challenged their conclusion and gave his own explanation. Twenty miles out of Sunrise he and Timothy Brown were poling the boat along the rocky shore. From that shore two rifle shots rang out. Timothy Brown pitched out of the boat and went down bubbling red, and that was the last of Timothy Brown. He, Lecle‘re, pitched into the bottom of the boat with a stinging shoulder. He lay very quietly, peeping at the shore. After a time two Indians stuck up their heads and came out to the water’s edge, carrying between them a birchbark canoe. As they launched it, Lecle‘re let fly. He potted one, who went over the side after the manner of Timothy Brown. The other dropped into the bottom of the canoe, and then canoe and poling boat went down the stream in a drifting battle. Only they hung up on a split current, and the canoe passed on one side of an island, the poling boat on the other. That was the last of the canoe, and he came on into Sunrise. Yes, from the way the Indian in the canoe jumped, he was sure he had potted him. That was all.

  This explanation was not deemed adequate. They gave him ten hours’ grace while the Lizzie steamed down to investigate. Ten hours later she came wheezing back to Sunrise. There had been nothing to investigate. No evidence had been found to back up his statements. They told him to make his will, for he possessed a fifty-thousand-dollar Sunrise claim and they were a law-abiding as well as a law-giving breed.

  Lecle‘re shrugged his shoulders. “Bot one t’ing,” he said; “a leetle, w’at you call, favor—a leetle favor, dat is eet. I gif my feefty t’ousan’ dollair to de church. I gif my husky dog, Diable, to de devil. De leetle favor? Firs’ you hang heem, an’ den you hang me. Eet is good, eh?”

  Good it was, they agreed, that Hell’s Spawn should break trail for his master across the last divide, and the court was adjourned down to the riverbank, where a big spruce tree stood by itself. Slackwater Charley put a hangman’s knot in the end of a hauling line, and the noose was slipped over Lecle‘re’s head and pulled tight around his neck. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was assisted to the top of a cracker box. Then the running end of the line was passed over an overhanging branch, drawn taut, and made fast. To kick the box out from under would leave him dancing on the air.

  “Now for the dog,” said Webster Shaw, sometime mining engineer. “You’ll have to rope him, Slackwater.”

  Lecle‘re grinned. Slackwater took a chew of tobacco, rove a running noose, and proceeded leisurely to coil a few turns in his hand. He paused once or twice to brush particularly offensive mosquitoes from off his face. Everybody was brushing mosquitoes, except Lecle‘re, about whose head a small cloud was distinctly visible. Even Diable, lying full-stretched on the ground, with his forepaws rubbed the pests away from eyes and mouth.

  But while Slackwater waited for Diable to lift his head, a faint call came down the quiet air and a man was seen waving his arms and running across the flat from Sunrise. It was the storekeeper.

  “C—call ’er off, boys,” he panted, as he came in among them. “Little Sandy and Bernadotte’s jes’ got in,” he explained with returning breath. “Landed down below an’ come up by the short cut. Got the Beaver with ’m. Picked ’m up in his canoe, stuck in a back channel, with a couple of bullet holes in ’m. Other buck was Klok-Kutz, the one that knocked spots out of his squaw and dusted.”

  “Eh? W’at Ah say? Eh?” Lecle‘re cried exultantly. “Dat de one fo’ sure! Ah know. Ah spik true.”

  “The thing to do is to teach these damned Siwashes a little manners,” spoke Webster Shaw. “They’re getting fat and sassy, and we’ll have to bring them down a peg. Round in all the bucks and string up the Beaver for an object lesson. That’s the program. Come on and let’s see what he’s got to say for himself.”

  “Heh, m’sieu’!” Lecle‘re called, as the crowd began to melt away through the twilight in the direction of Sunrise. “Ah lak ver’ moch to see de fon.”

  “Oh, we’ll turn you loose when we come back,” Webster Shaw shouted over his shoulder. “In the meantime, meditate on your sins and the ways of Providence. It will do you good, so be grateful.”

  As is the way with men who are accustomed to great hazards, whose nerves are healthy and trained to patience, so Lecle‘re settled himself down to the long wait—which is to say that he reconciled his mind to it. There was no settling for the body, for the taut rope forced him to stand rigidly erect. The least relaxation of the leg muscles pressed the rough-fibered noose into his neck, while the upright position caused him much pain in his wounded shoulder. He projected his under lip and expelled his breath upward along his face to blow the mosquitoes away from his eyes. But the situation had its compensation. To be snatched from the maw of death was well worth a little bodily suffering, only it was unfortunate that he should miss the hanging of the Beaver.

  And so he mused, till his eyes chanced to fall upon Diable, head between forepaws and stretched on the ground asleep. And then Lecle‘re ceased to muse. He studied the animal closely, striving to sense if the sleep were real or feigned. The dog’s sides were heaving regularly, but Lecle‘re felt that the breath came and went a shade too quickly; also he felt there was a vigilance or an alertness to every hair which belied unshackling sleep. He would have given his Sunrise claim to be assured that the dog was not awake, and once, when one of his joints cracked, he looked quickly and guiltily at Diable to see if he roused.

  He did not rouse then, but a few minutes later he got up slowly and lazily, stretched, and looked carefully about him. “Sacrédam!” said Lecère under his breath.

  Assured that no one was in sight or hearing, Diable sat down, curled his upper lip almost into a smile, looked up at Lecle‘re, and licked his chops.

  “Ah see my feenish,” the man said, and laughed sardonically aloud.

  Diable came nearer, the useless ear wobbling, the good ear cocked forward with devilish comprehension. He thrust his head on one side, quizzically, and advanced with mincing, playful steps. He rubbed his body gently against the box till it shook and shook again. Lecle‘re teetered carefully to maintain his equilibrium.

  “Diable,” he said calmly, “look out, Ah keel you.”

  Diable snarled at the word and shook the box with greater force. Then he upreared and with his forepaws threw his weight against it higher up. Lecle‘re kicked out with one foot, but the rope bit into his neck and checked so abruptly as nearly to overbalance him.

  “Hi! Ya! Chook! Mush-on!” he screamed.

  Diable retreated for twenty feet or so, with a fiendish levity in his bearing which Lecle‘re could not mistake. He remembered the dog’s often breaking the scum of ice on the water hole by lifting up and throwing his weight upon it; and remembering, he understood what he now had in mind. Diable faced about and paused. He showed his white teeth in a grin, which Lecle‘re answered; and then hurled his body through the air straight for the box.

  Fifteen minutes later, Slackwater Charley and Webster Shaw, returning, caught a glimpse of a ghostly pendulum swinging back and forth in the dim light. As they hurriedly drew in closer, they made out the man’s inert body, and a live thing that clung to it, and shook and worried, and gave to it the swaying motion.

  “Hi! Ya! Chook! you Spawn of Hell!” yelled Webster Shaw.

  Diable glared at him, and snarled threateningly, without loosing his jaws.

  Slackwater Charley got out his revolver, but his hand was shaking as with a chill and he fumbled.

 
“Here, you take it,” he said, passing the weapon over.

  Webster Shaw laughed shortly, drew a sight between the gleaming eyes, and pressed the trigger. Diable’s body twitched with the shock, thrashed the ground spasmodically a moment, and went suddenly limp. But his teeth still held fast locked.

  An Odyssey of the North

  The Sleds were singing their eternal lament to the creaking of the harnesses and the tinkling bells of the leaders; but the men and dogs were tired and made no sound. The trail was heavy with new-fallen snow, and they had come far, and the runners, burdened with flintlike quarters of frozen moose, clung tenaciously to the unpacked surface and held back with a stubbornness almost human. Darkness was coming on, but there was no camp to pitch that night. The snow fell gently through the pulseless air, not in flakes, but in tiny frost crystals of delicate design. It was very warm—barely ten below zero—and the men did not mind. Meyers and Bettles had raised their ear flaps, while Malemute Kid had even taken off his mittens.

  The dogs had been fagged out early in the afternoon, but they now began to show new vigor. Among the more astute there was a certain restlessness—an impatience at the restraint of the traces, an indecisive quickness of movement, a sniffing of snouts and pricking of ears. These became incensed at their more phlegmatic brothers, urging them on with numerous sly nips on their hinder quarters. Those, thus chidden, also contracted and helped spread the contagion. At last the leader of the foremost sled uttered a sharp whine of satisfaction, crouching lower in the snow and throwing himself against the collar. The rest followed suit. There was an ingathering of backhands, a tightening of traces; the sleds leaped forward, and the men clung to the gee poles, violently accelerating the uplift of their feet that they might escape going under the runners. The weariness of the day fell from them, and they whooped encouragement to the dogs. The animals responded with joyous yelps. They were swinging through the gathering darkness at a rattling gallop.