For a moment some terrible hand gripped at Roscoe"s heart and stopped its beating. He saw the woman take the fish and cut it into two equal parts with a knife, and one of these parts he saw her drop into a pot of boiling water which hung over the stone fireplace built under the vent in the wall.
The girl went up and stood beside the older woman, with her back turned to him. He opened his eyes wide, and stared. The girl was tall and slender, as lithely and as beautifully formed as one of the northern lilies that thrust their slender stems from between the mountain rocks. Her two heavy braids fell down her back almost to her knees. And this girl, the woman, the two men _were dividing with him their last fish_!
He made an effort and sat up. The younger man came to him, and put a bear skin at his back. He had picked up some of the patois of half-blood French and English.
"You seek," he said, "you hurt--you hungr". You have eat soon."
He motioned with his hand to the boiling pot. There was not a ficker of animation in his splendid face. There was something G.o.dlike in his immobility, something that was awesome in the way he moved and breathed.
His voice, too, it seemed to Roscoe, was filled with the old, old mystery of the beginning of things, of history that was long dead and lost for all time. And it came upon Roscoe now, like a flood of rare knowledge descending from a mysterious source, that he had at last discovered the key to new life, and that through the blindness of reason, through starvation and death, fate had led him to the Great Truth that was dying with the last sons of the First People. For the half of the last fish was brought to him, and he ate; and when the knowledge that he was eating life away from these people choked him, and he thrust a part of it back, the girl herself urged him to continue, and he finished, with her dark, glorious eyes fixed upon him and sending warm floods through his veins. And after that the men bolstered him up with the bear skin, and the two went out again into the storm. The woman sat hunched before the fire, and after a little the girl joined her and piled fresh f.a.gots on the blaze. Then she sat beside her, with her chin resting in the little brown palms of her hands, the fire lighting up a half profile of her face and painting rich colour in her deep-black hair.
For a long time there was silence, and Roscoe lay as if he were asleep. It was not an ordinary silence, the silence of a still room, or of emptiness--but a silence that throbbed and palpitated with an unheard life, a silence which was thrilling because it spoke a language which Roscoe was just beginning to understand. The fire grew redder, and the cone-shaped vacancy at the top of the tepee grew duskier, so Roscoe knew that night was falling outside. Far above he could hear the storm wailing over the top of the mountain. Redder and redder grew the birch flame that lighted up the profile of the girl"s face. Once she turned, so that he caught the l.u.s.trous darkness of her eyes upon him. He could not hear the breath of the two in front of the fire. He heard no sound outside except that of the wind and the trees, and all grew as dark as it was silent in the snow-covered tepee, except in front of the fire. And then, as he lay with wide-open eyes, it seemed to Roscoe as though the stillness was broken by a sob that was scarcely more than a sigh, and he saw the girl"s head droop a little lower in her hands, and fancied that a shuddering tremor ran through her slender shoulders. The fire burned low, and she reached out for more f.a.gots. Then she rose slowly, and turned toward him. She could not see his face in the gloom, but the deep breathing which he feigned drew her to him, and through his half-closed eyes he could see her face bending over him, until one of her heavy braids slipped over her shoulder and fell upon his breast. After a moment she sat down silently beside him, and he felt her fingers brush gently through his tangled hair. Something in their light, soft touch thrilled him, and he moved his hand in the darkness until it came in contact with the big, soft braid that still lay where it had fallen across him. He was on the point of speaking, but the fingers left his hair and stroked as gentle as velvet over his storm-beaten face. She believed that he was asleep, and a warm flood of shame swept through him at the thought of his hypocrisy. The birch flared up suddenly, and he saw the glisten of her hair, the glow of her eyes, and the startled change that came into them when she saw that his own eyes were wide open, and looking up at her.
Before she could move he had caught her hand, and was holding it tighter to his face--against his lips. The birch bark died as suddenly as it had flared up; he heard her breathing quickly, he saw her great eyes melt away like l.u.s.trous stars into the returning gloom, and a wild, irresistible impulse moved him. He raised his free hand to the dark head, and drew it down to him, holding it against his feverish face while he whispered Rameses"s prayer of thankfulness in Cree:
"The spirits bless you forever, _Meeani_."
The nearness of her, the touch of her heavy hair, the caress of her breath stirred him still more deeply with the strange, new emotion that was born in him, and in the darkness he found and kissed a pair of lips, soft and warm.
The woman stirred before the fire. The girl drew back, her breath coming almost sobbingly. And then the thought of what he had done rushed in a flood of horror upon Roscoe. These wild people had saved his life; they had given him to eat of their last fish; they were nursing him back from the very threshold of death--and he had already repaid them by offering to the Cree maiden next to the greatest insult that could come to her people. He remembered what Rameses had told him--that the Cree girl"s first kiss was her betrothal kiss; that it was the white garment of her purity, the pledge of her fealty forever. He lifted himself upon his elbow, but the girl had run to the door. Voices came from outside, and the two men reentered the tepee. He understood enough of what was said to learn that the camp had been holding council, and that two men were about to make an effort to reach the nearest post. Each tepee was to furnish these two men a bit of food to keep them alive on their terrible hazard, and the woman brought forth the half of a fish. She cut it into quarters, and with one of the pieces the elder man went out again into the night. The younger man spoke to the girl. He called her Oachi, and to Roscoe"s astonishment spoke in French.
"If they do not come back, or if we do not find meat in seven days," he said, "we will die."
Roscoe made an effort to rise, and the effort sent a rush of fire into his head. He turned dizzy, and fell back with a groan. In an instant the girl was at his side--ahead of the man. Her hands were at his face, her eyes glowing again. He felt that he was falling into a deep sleep. But the eyes did not leave him. They were wonderful eyes, glorious eyes! He dreamed of them in the strange sleep that came to him, and they grew more and more beautiful, shining with a light which thrilled him even in his unconsciousness. After a time there came a black, more natural sort of night to him. He awoke from it refreshed. It was day. The tepee was filled with light, and for the first time he looked about him. He was alone. A fire burned low among the stones; over it simmered a pot. The earth floor of the tepee was covered with deer and caribou skins, and opposite him there was another bunk. He drew himself painfully to a sitting posture and found that it was his shoulder and hip that hurt him. He rose to his feet, and stood balancing himself feebly when the door to the tepee was drawn back and Oachi entered. At sight of him, standing up from his bed, she made a quick movement to draw back, but Roscoe reached out his hands with a low cry of pleasure.
"Oachi," he cried softly. "Come in!" He spoke in French, and Oachi"s face lighted up like sunlight. "I am better," he said. "I am well. I want to thank you--and the others." He made a step toward her, and the strength of his left leg gave way. He would have fallen if she had not darted to him so quickly that she made a prop for him, and her eyes looked up into his whitened face, big and frightened and filled with pain.
"Oo-ee-ee," she said in Cree, her red lips rounded as she saw him flinch, and that one word, a song in a word; came to him like a flute note.
"It hurts--a little," he said. He dropped back on his bunk, and Oachi sank upon the skins at his feet, looking up at him steadily with her wonderful, pure eyes, her mouth still rounded, little wrinkles of tense anxiety drawn in her forehead. Roscoe laughed.
For a few moments his soul was filled with a strange gladness. He reached out his hand and stroked it over her shining hair, and a radiance such as he had never seen leapt into her eyes. "You--talk--French?" he asked slowly.
She nodded.
"Then tell me this--you are hungry--starving?"
She nodded again, and made a cup of her two small hands. "No meat. This little--so much--flour--" Her throat trembled and her voice fluttered. But even as she measured out their starvation her face was looking at him joyously. And then she added, with the gladness of a child, "_Feesh_, for you," and pointed to the simmering pot.
"For _ME_!" Roscoe looked at the pot, and then back at her.
"Oachi," he said gently, "go tell your father that I am ready to talk with him. Ask him to come--now."
She looked at him for a moment as though she did not quite understand what he had said, and he repeated the words. Even as he was speaking he marvelled at the fairness of her skin, which shone with a pink flush, and at the softness and beauty of her hair. What he saw impelled him to ask, as she made to rise:
"Your father--your mother--is French. Is that so, Oachi?" The girl nodded again, with the soft little Cree throat note that meant yes. Then she slipped to her feet and ran out, and a little later there came into the tepee the man who had first loomed up in the dusky light like a G.o.d of the First People to Roscoe c.u.mmins. His splendid face was a little more gaunt than the night before, and Roscoe knew that famine came hand in hand with him. He had seen starvation before, and he knew that it reddened the eyes and gave the lips a grayish pallor. These things, and more, he saw in Oachi"s father. But Mukoki came in straight and erect, hiding his weakness under the pride of his race. Fighting down his pain Roscoe rose at sight of him and held out his hands.
"I want to thank you," he said, repeating the words he had spoken to Oachi.
"You have saved my life. But I have eyes, and I can see. You gave me of your last fish. You have no meat. You have no flour. You are starving.
What? I have asked you to come and tell me, so that I may know how it fares with your women and children. You will give me a council, and we will smoke." Roscoe dropped back on his bunk. He drew forth his pipe and filled it with tobacco. The Cree sat down mutely in the centre of the tepee. They smoked, pa.s.sing the pipe back and forth without speaking. Once Roscoe loaded the pipe, and once the chief; and when the last puff of the last pipeful was taken the Indian reached over his hand, and Roscoe gripped it hard.
And then, while the storm still moaned far up over their heads, Roscoe c.u.mmins listened to the old, old story of the First People--the story of starvation and of death. To him it was epic. It was terrible. But to the other it was the mere coming and going of a natural thing, of a thing that had existed for him and for his kind since life began, and he spoke of it quietly and without a gesture. There had been a camp of twenty-two, and there were now fifteen. Seven had died, four men, two women, and one child.
Each day during the great storm the men had gone out on their futile search for game, and every few days one of them had failed to return. Thus four had died. The dogs were eaten. Corn and fish were gone; there remained but a little flour, and this was for the women and the children. The men had eaten nothing but bark and roots for five days. And there seemed to be no hope. It was death to stray far from the camp. That morning the two men had set out for the post, but Mukoki said calmly that they would never return.
And then Roscoe spoke of Oachi, his daughter, and for the first time the iron lines of the chief"s bronze face seemed to soften, and his head bent over a little, and his shoulders drooped. Not until then did Roscoe learn the depths of sorrow hidden behind the splendid strength of the starving man. Oachi"s mother had been a French woman. Six months before she had died in this tepee, and Mukoki had buried his wife up on the face of the mountain, where the storm was moaning. After this Roscoe could not speak.
He was choking. He loaded his pipe again, and sat down close to the chief, so that their knees and their shoulders touched, and thus, as taught him by old Rameses, he smoked with Oachi"s father the pledge of eternal friendship, of brotherhood in life, of spirit communion in the Valley of Silent Men. After that Mukoki left him and he crawled back upon his bunk, weak and filled with pain, knowing that he was facing death with the others. He was not afraid, but was filled with a great thankfulness that, even at the price of starvation, fate had allowed him to touch at last the edge of the fabric of his dreams. All of that day he wrote, in the hours when he felt best. He filled page after page of the tablets which he carried in his pack, writing feverishly and with great haste, oppressed only by the fear that he would not be able to finish the message which he had for the people of that other world a thousand miles away. Three times during the morning Oachi came in and brought him the cooked fish and a biscuit which she had made for him out of flour and meal. And each time he said, "I am a man with the other men, Oachi. I would be a woman if I ate."
The third time Oachi knelt close down at his side, and when he refused the food again there came a strange light into her eyes, and she said, "If you starve--I starve!"
It was the first revelation to him. He put up his hands. They touched her face. Some potent spirit in him carried him across all gulfs. In that moment, thrilling, strange, he was heart and soul of the First People. In an instant he had drifted back a thousand years, beyond the memory of cities, of clubs, of all that went with civilization. A wild, half savage longing filled him. One of his hands slipped to her shining hair, and suddenly their faces lay close to each other, and he knew that in that moment love had come to him from the fount of glory itself.
Days followed--black days filled with the endless terrors of the storm. And yet they were days of a strange contentment which Roscoe had never felt before. Oachi and her father were with him a great deal in the tepee which they had given up to him. On the third day Roscoe noticed that Oachi"s little hands were bruised and red and he found that the chief"s daughter had gone out to dig down through ice and snow with the other women after roots. The camp lived entirely on roots now--wild flag and moose roots ground up and cooked in a batter. On this same day, late in the afternoon, there came a low wailing grief from one of the tepees, a moaning sound that pitched itself to the key of the storm until it seemed to be a part of it.
A child had died, and the mother was mourning. That night another of the camp huntsmen failed to return at dusk.
The next day Roscoe was able to move about in his tepee without pain. Oachi and her father were with him when, for the first time, he got out his comb and military brushes and began grooming his touselled hair. Oachi watched him, and suddenly, seeing the wondering pleasure in her eyes, he held out the brushes to her. "You may have them, Oachi," he said, and the girl accepted them with a soft little cry of delight. To his amazement she began unbraiding her hair immediately, and then she stood up before him, hidden to her knees in her wonderful wealth of shining tresses, and Roscoe c.u.mmins thought in this moment that he had never seen a woman more beautiful than the half Cree girl. When they had gone he still saw her, and the vision troubled him. They came in again at night, when the fire was sending red and yellow lights up and down the tepee walls, and the more he watched Oachi the stronger there grew within him something that seemed to gnaw and gripe with a dull sort of pain. Oachi was beautiful. He had never seen hair like her hair. He had never before seen eyes more beautiful. He had never heard a voice so low and sweet and filled with bird-like ripples of music.
She was beautiful, and yet with her beauty there was a primitiveness, a gentle savagery, and an age-old story written in the fine lines of her face which made him uneasy with the thought of a thing that was almost tragedy.
Oachi loved him. He could see that love in her eyes, in her movement; he could feel it in her presence, and the sweet song of it trembled in her voice when she spoke to him. Ordinarily a white man would have accepted this love; he would have rejoiced in it, and would have played with it for a time, as they have done with the loves of the women of Oachi"s people since the beginning of white man"s time. But Roscoe c.u.mmins was of a different type. He was a man of ideals, and in Oachi"s love he saw his ideal of love set apart from him by illimitable voids. This night, in the firelit tepee, there came to him like a painful stab the truth of Ransom"s words. He had been born some thousands of years too late. He saw in Oachi love and life as they might have been for him; but beyond them he also saw, like a grim and threatening hand, a vision of cities, of toiling millions, of a great work just begun--a vision of life as it was intended that he should live it; and to shut it out from him he bowed his head in his two hands, overwhelmed by a new grief.
The chief sat with his face to the fire, smoking silently, and Oachi came to Roscoe"s side, and touched hands timidly, like a little child. She seemed to him wondrously like a child when he lifted his head and looked down into her face. She smiled at him, questioning him, and he smiled his answer back, yet neither broke the silence with words. He heard only the soft little note in Oachi"s throat that filled him with such an exquisite sensation, and he wondered what music would be if it could find expression through a voice like hers.
"Oachi," he asked softly, "why did you never sing?"
The girl looked at him in silence for a moment.
"We starve," she said. She swept her hand toward the door of the tepee. "We starve--die--there is no song."
He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to him, as he might have done with a little child.
"I wish you would sing, Oachi," he said.
For a moment the girl"s dark eyes glowed up at him. Then she drew back softly, and seated herself before the fire, with her back turned toward him, close beside her father. A strange quiet filled the tepee. Over their heads the wailing storm seemed to die for a moment; and then something rose in its place, so low and gentle at first that it seemed like a whisper, but growing in sweetness and volume until Roscoe c.u.mmins sat erect, his eyes flashing, his hands clenched, looking at Oachi. The storm rose, and with it the song--a song that reached down into his soul, stirring him now with its gladness, now with a half savage pain; but always with a sweetness that engulfed for him all other things, until he was listening only to the voice. And then silence came again within the tepee. Over the mountain the wind burst more fiercely. The chief sat motionless. In Oachi"s hair the firelight glistened with a dull radiance. There was quiet, and yet Roscoe still heard the voice. He knew that he would always hear it, that it would never die.
Not until long afterward did he know that Oachi had sung to him the great love song of the Crees.
That night and the next day, and the terrible night and day that followed, Roscoe fought with himself. He won--when alone--and lost when Oachi was with him. In some ways she knew intuitively that he loved to see her with her splendid hair down, and she would sit at his feet and brush it, while he tried to hide his admiration and smother the pa.s.sion which sprang up in his breast when she was near. He knew, in these moments, that it was too late to kill the thing that was born in him--the craving of his heart and his soul for this girl of the First People who had laid her life at his feet and who was removed from him by barriers which he could never pa.s.s. On the afternoon of his seventh day in camp an Indian hunter ran in from the forest nearly crazed with joy. He had ventured farther away than the others, and had found a moose-yard. He had killed two of the animals. The days of famine were over. Oachi brought the first news to Roscoe. Her face was radiant with joy, her eyes burned like stars, and in her excitement she stretched out her arms to him as she cried out the wonderful news. Roscoe took her two hands.
"Is it true, Oachi?" he asked. "They have surely killed meat?"
"Yes--yes--yes," she cried. "They have killed meat--much meat--"
She stopped at the strange, hard look in Roscoe"s eyes. He was looking overhead. If he had looked down, into the glory and love of her eyes, he would have swept her close in his arms, and the last fight would have been over then and there. Oachi went out, wondering at the coldness with which he had received the word of their deliverance, and little guessing that in that moment he had fought the greatest battle of his life. Each day after this called him back to the fight. His two broken ribs healed slowly. The storm pa.s.sed. The sun followed it, and the March winds began bringing up warmth from the south. Days grew into weeks, and the snow was growing soft underfoot before he dared venture forth short distances from the camp alone. He tried often to make Oachi understand, but he always stopped short of what he meant to say; his hand would steal to her beautiful hair, and in Oachi"s throat would sound the inimitable little note of happiness. Each day he was more and more handicapped. For in the joy of her great love Oachi became more beautiful and her voice still sweeter. By the time the snows began running down from the mountains and the poplar buds began to swell she was telling him the most sacred of all sacred things, and one day she told him of the wonderful world far to the west, painted by the glow of the setting sun, wherein lay the Valley of Silent Men.
"And that is Heaven--your Heaven," breathed Roscoe. He was almost well now, but he was sitting on the edge of his bunk, and Oachi knelt in the old place upon the deer skin at his feet. As he spoke he stroked her hair.
"Tell me," he said, "what sort of a place it is, Oachi."
"It is beautiful," spoke Oachi softly.
"Long, long ago the Great G.o.d came down among us and lived for a time; and He came at a time like that which has just pa.s.sed, and He saw suffering, and hunger, and death. And when He saw what life was He made for us another world, and told us that it should be called the Valley of Silent Men; and that when we died we would go to this place, and that at last--when all of our race were gone--He would cause the earth to roll three times, and in the Valley of Silent Men all would awaken into life which would never know death, or sorrow, or pain again. And He says that those who love will awaken there--hand in hand."