Jack London 8 страница

Factor, who tossed restlessly for a while. Then he said aloud,

"Damn that raven," and Lit-lit laughed quietly under the blankets.

 

In the morning, bright and early, Snettishane put in an ominous

appearance and was set to breakfast in the kitchen with Wanidani.

He refused "squaw food," and a little later bearded his son-in-law

in the store where the trading was done. Having learned, he said,

that his daughter was such a jewel, he had come for more blankets,

more tobacco, and more guns--especially more guns. He had

certainly been cheated in her price, he held, and he had come for

justice. But the Factor had neither blankets nor justice to spare.

Whereupon he was informed that Snettishane had seen the missionary

at Three Forks, who had notified him that such marriages were not

made in heaven, and that it was his father`s duty to demand his

daughter back.

 

"I am good Christian man now," Snettishane concluded. "I want my

Lit-lit to go to heaven."

 

The Factor`s reply was short and to the point; for he directed his

father-in-law to go to the heavenly antipodes, and by the scruff of

the neck and the slack of the blanket propelled him on that trail

as far as the door.

 

But Snettishane sneaked around and in by the kitchen, cornering

Lit-lit in the great living-room of the Fort.

 

"Mayhap thou didst sleep over-sound last night when I called by the

river bank," he began, glowering darkly.

 

"Nay, I was awake and heard." Her heart was beating as though it

would choke her, but she went on steadily, "And the night before I

was awake and heard, and yet again the night before."

 

And thereat, out of her great happiness and out of the fear that it

might be taken from her, she launched into an original and glowing

address upon the status and rights of woman--the first new-woman

lecture delivered north of Fifty-three.

 

But it fell on unheeding ears. Snettishane was still in the dark

ages. As she paused for breath, he said threateningly, "To-night I

shall call again like the raven."

 

At this moment the Factor entered the room and again helped

Snettishane on his way to the heavenly antipodes.

 

That night the raven croaked more persistently than ever. Lit-lit,

who was a light sleeper, heard and smiled. John Fox tossed

restlessly. Then he awoke and tossed about with greater

restlessness. He grumbled and snorted, swore under his breath and

over his breath, and finally flung out of bed. He groped his way

to the great living-room, and from the rack took down a loaded

shot-gun--loaded with bird-shot, left therein by the careless

McTavish.

 

The Factor crept carefully out of the Fort and down to the river.

The croaking had ceased, but he stretched out in the long grass and

waited. The air seemed a chilly balm, and the earth, after the

heat of the day, now and again breathed soothingly against him.

The Factor, gathered into the rhythm of it all, dozed off, with his

head upon his arm, and slept.

 

Fifty yards away, head resting on knees, and with his back to John

Fox, Snettishane likewise slept, gently conquered by the quietude

of the night. An hour slipped by and then he awoke, and, without

lifting his head, set the night vibrating with the hoarse gutturals

of the raven call.

 

The Factor roused, not with the abrupt start of civilized man, but

with the swift and comprehensive glide from sleep to waking of the

savage. In the night-light he made out a dark object in the midst

of the grass and brought his gun to bear upon it. A second croak

began to rise, and he pulled the trigger. The crickets ceased from

their sing-song chant, the wildfowl from their squabbling, and the

raven croak broke midmost and died away in gasping silence.

 

John Fox ran to the spot and reached for the thing he had killed,

but his fingers closed on a coarse mop of hair and he turned

Snettishane`s face upward to the starlight. He knew how a shotgun

scattered at fifty yards, and he knew that he had peppered

Snettishane across the shoulders and in the small of the back. And

Snettishane knew that he knew, but neither referred to it

 

"What dost thou here?" the Factor demanded. "It were time old

bones should be in bed."

 

But Snettishane was stately in spite of the bird-shot burning under

his skin.

 

"Old bones will not sleep," he said solemnly. "I weep for my

daughter, for my daughter Lit-lit, who liveth and who yet is dead,

and who goeth without doubt to the white man`s hell."

 

"Weep henceforth on the far bank, beyond ear-shot of the Fort,"

said John Fox, turning on his heel, "for the noise of thy weeping

is exceeding great and will not let one sleep of nights."

 

"My heart is sore," Snettishane answered, "and my days and nights

be black with sorrow."

 

"As the raven is black," said John Fox.

 

"As the raven is black," Snettishane said.

 

Never again was the voice of the raven heard by the river bank.

Lit-lit grows matronly day by day and is very happy. Also, there

are sisters to the sons of John Fox`s first wife who lies buried in

a tree. Old Snettishane is no longer a visitor at the Fort, and

spends long hours raising a thin, aged voice against the filial

ingratitude of children in general and of his daughter Lit-lit in

particular. His declining years are embittered by the knowledge

that he was cheated, and even John Fox has withdrawn the assertion

that the price for Lit-lit was too much by ten blankets and a gun.

 

BATARD

 

Batard was a devil. This was recognized throughout the Northland.

"Hell`s Spawn" he was called by many men, but his master, Black

Leclere, chose for him the shameful name "Batard." Now Black

Leclere was also a devil, and the twain were well matched. There

is a saying that when two devils come together, hell is to pay.

This is to be expected, and this certainly was to be expected when

Batard and Black Leclere came together. The first time they met,

Batard was a part-grown puppy, lean and hungry, with bitter eyes;

and they met with snap and snarl, and wicked looks, for Leclere`s

upper lip had a wolfish way of lifting and showing the white, cruel

teeth. And it lifted then, and his eyes glinted viciously, as he

reached for Batard and dragged him out from the squirming litter.

It was certain that they divined each other, for on the instant

Batard had buried his puppy fangs in Leclere`s hand, and Leclere,

thumb and finger, was coolly choking his young life out of him.

 

"SACREDAM," the Frenchman said softly, flirting the quick blood

from his bitten hand and gazing down on the little puppy choking

and gasping in the snow.

 

Leclere turned to John Hamlin, storekeeper of the Sixty Mile Post.

"Dat fo` w`at Ah lak heem. `Ow moch, eh, you, M`sieu`? `Ow moch?

Ah buy heem, now; Ah buy heem queek."

 

And because he hated him with an exceeding bitter hate, Leclere

bought Batard and gave him his shameful name. And for five years

the twain adventured across the Northland, from St. Michael`s and

the Yukon delta to the head-reaches of the Pelly and even so far as

the Peace River, Athabasca, and the Great Slave. And they acquired

a reputation for uncompromising wickedness, the like of which never

before attached itself to man and dog.

 

Batard did not know his father--hence his name--but, as John Hamlin

knew, his father was a great grey timber wolf. But the mother of

Batard, as he dimly remembered her, was snarling, bickering,

obscene, husky, full-fronted and heavy-chested, with a malign eye,

a cat-like grip on life, and a genius for trickery and evil. There

was neither faith nor trust in her. Her treachery alone could be

relied upon, and her wild-wood amours attested her general

depravity. Much of evil and much of strength were there in these,

Batard`s progenitors, and, bone and flesh of their bone and flesh,

he had inherited it all. And then came Black Leclere, to lay his

heavy hand on the bit of pulsating puppy life, to press and prod

and mould till it became a big bristling beast, acute in knavery,

overspilling with hate, sinister, malignant, diabolical. With a

proper master Batard might have made an ordinary, fairly efficient

sled-dog. He never got the chance: Leclere but confirmed him in

his congenital iniquity.

 

The history of Batard and Leclere is a history of war--of five

cruel, relentless years, of which their first meeting is fit

summary. To begin with, it was Leclere`s fault, for he hated with

understanding and intelligence, while the long-legged, ungainly

puppy hated only blindly, instinctively, without reason or method.

At first there were no refinements of cruelty (these were to come

later), but simple beatings and crude brutalities. In one of these

Batard had an ear injured. He never regained control of the riven

muscles, and ever after the ear drooped limply down to keep keen

the memory of his tormentor. And he never forgot.

 

His puppyhood was a period of foolish rebellion. He was always

worsted, but he fought back because it was his nature to fight

back. And he was unconquerable. Yelping shrilly from the pain of

lash and club, he none the less contrived always to throw in the

defiant snarl, the bitter vindictive menace of his soul which

fetched without fail more blows and beatings. But his was his

mother`s tenacious grip on life. Nothing could kill him. He

flourished under misfortune, grew fat with famine, and out of his

terrible struggle for life developed a preternatural intelligence.

His were the stealth and cunning of the husky, his mother, and the

fierceness and valour of the wolf, his father.

 

Possibly it was because of his father that he never wailed. His

puppy yelps passed with his lanky legs, so that he became grim and

taciturn, quick to strike, slow to warn. He answered curse with

snarl, and blow with snap, grinning the while his implacable

hatred; but never again, under the extremest agony, did Leclere

bring from him the cry of fear nor of pain. This unconquerableness

but fanned Leclere`s wrath and stirred him to greater deviltries.

 

Did Leclere give Batard half a fish and to his mates whole ones,

Batard went forth to rob other dogs of their fish. Also he robbed

caches and expressed himself in a thousand rogueries, till he

became a terror to all dogs and masters of dogs. Did Leclere beat

Batard and fondle Babette--Babette who was not half the worker he

was--why, Batard threw her down in the snow and broke her hind leg

in his heavy jaws, so that Leclere was forced to shoot her.

Likewise, in bloody battles, Batard mastered all his team-mates,

set them the law of trail and forage, and made them live to the law

he set.

 

In five years he heard but one kind word, received but one soft

stroke of a hand, and then he did not know what manner of things

they were. He leaped like the untamed thing he was, and his jaws

were together in a flash. It was the missionary at Sunrise, a

newcomer in the country, who spoke the kind word and gave the soft

stroke of the hand. And for six months after, he wrote no letters

home to the States, and the surgeon at McQuestion travelled two

hundred miles on the ice to save him from blood-poisoning.

 

Men and dogs looked askance at Batard when he drifted into their

camps and posts. The men greeted him with feet threateningly

lifted for the kick, the dogs with bristling manes and bared fangs.

Once a man did kick Batard, and Batard, with quick wolf snap,

closed his jaws like a steel trap on the man`s calf and crunched

down to the bone. Whereat the man was determined to have his life,

only Black Leclere, with ominous eyes and naked hunting-knife,

stepped in between. The killing of Batard--ah, SACREDAM, THAT was

a pleasure Leclere reserved for himself. Some day it would happen,

or else--bah! who was to know? Anyway, the problem would be

solved.

 

For they had become problems to each other. The very breath each

drew was a challenge and a menace to the other. Their hate bound

them together as love could never bind. Leclere was bent on the

coming of the day when Batard should wilt in spirit and cringe and

whimper at his feet. And Batard--Leclere knew what was in Batard`s

mind, and more than once had read it in Batard`s eyes. And so

clearly had he read, that when Batard was at his back, he made it a

point to glance often over his shoulder.

 

Men marvelled when Leclere refused large money for the dog. "Some

day you`ll kill him and be out his price," said John Hamlin once,

when Batard lay panting in the snow where Leclere had kicked him,

and no one knew whether his ribs were broken, and no one dared look

to see.

 

"Dat," said Leclere, dryly, "dat is my biz`ness, M`sieu`."

 

And the men marvelled that Batard did not run away. They did not

understand. But Leclere understood. He was a man who lived much

in the open, beyond the sound of human tongue, and he had learned

the voices of wind and storm, the sigh of night, the whisper of

dawn, the clash of day. In a dim way he could hear the green

things growing, the running of the sap, the bursting of the bud.

And he knew the subtle speech of the things that moved, of the

rabbit in the snare, the moody raven beating the air with hollow

wing, the baldface shuffling under the moon, the wolf like a grey

shadow gliding betwixt the twilight and the dark. And to him

Batard spoke clear and direct. Full well he understood why Batard

did not run away, and he looked more often over his shoulder.

 

When in anger, Batard was not nice to look upon, and more than once

had he leapt for Leclere`s throat, to be stretched quivering and

senseless in the snow, by the butt of the ever ready dogwhip. And

so Batard learned to bide his time. When he reached his full

strength and prime of youth, he thought the time had come. He was

broad-chested, powerfully muscled, of far more than ordinary size,

and his neck from head to shoulders was a mass of bristling hair--

to all appearances a full-blooded wolf. Leclere was lying asleep

in his furs when Batard deemed the time to be ripe. He crept upon

him stealthily, head low to earth and lone ear laid back, with a

feline softness of tread. Batard breathed gently, very gently, and

not till he was close at hand did he raise his head. He paused for

a moment and looked at the bronzed bull throat, naked and knotty,

and swelling to a deep steady pulse. The slaver dripped down his

fangs and slid off his tongue at the sight, and in that moment he

remembered his drooping ear, his uncounted blows and prodigious

wrongs, and without a sound sprang on the sleeping man.

 

Leclere awoke to the pang of the fangs in his throat, and, perfect

animal that he was, he awoke clear-headed and with full

comprehension. He closed on Batard`s windpipe with both his hands,

and rolled out of his furs to get his weight uppermost. But the

thousands of Batard`s ancestors had clung at the throats of

unnumbered moose and caribou and dragged them down, and the wisdom

of those ancestors was his. When Leclere`s weight came on top of

him, he drove his hind legs upwards and in, and clawed down chest

and abdomen, ripping and tearing through skin and muscle. And when

he felt the man`s body wince above him and lift, he worried and

shook at the man`s throat. His team-mates closed around in a

snarling circle, and Batard, with failing breath and fading sense,

knew that their jaws were hungry for him. But that did not matter-

-it was the man, the man above him, and he ripped and clawed, and

shook and worried, to the last ounce of his strength. But Leclere

choked him with both his hands, till Batard`s chest heaved and

writhed for the air denied, and his eyes glazed and set, and his

jaws slowly loosened, and his tongue protruded black and swollen.

 

"Eh? Bon, you devil!" Leclere gurgled mouth and throat clogged

with his own blood, as he shoved the dizzy dog from him.

 

And then Leclere cursed the other dogs off as they fell upon

Batard. They drew back into a wider circle, squatting alertly on

their haunches and licking their chops, the hair on every neck

bristling and erect.

 

Batard recovered quickly, and at sound of Leclere`s voice, tottered

to his feet and swayed weakly back and forth.

 

"A-h-ah! You beeg devil!" Leclere spluttered. "Ah fix you; Ah fix

you plentee, by GAR!"

 

Batard, the air biting into his exhausted lungs like wine, flashed

full into the man`s face, his jaws missing and coming together with

a metallic clip. They rolled over and over on the snow, Leclere

striking madly with his fists. Then they separated, face to face,

and circled back and forth before each other. Leclere could have

drawn his knife. His rifle was at his feet. But the beast in him

was up and raging. He would do the thing with his hands--and his

teeth. Batard sprang in, but Leclere knocked him over with a blow

of the fist, fell upon him, and buried his teeth to the bone in the

dog`s shoulder.

 

It was a primordial setting and a primordial scene, such as might

have been in the savage youth of the world. An open space in a

dark forest, a ring of grinning wolf-dogs, and in the centre two

beasts, locked in combat, snapping and snarling raging madly about

panting, sobbing, cursing, straining, wild with passion, in a fury

of murder, ripping and tearing and clawing in elemental

brutishness.

 

But Leclere caught Batard behind the ear with a blow from his fist,

knocking him over, and, for the instant, stunning him. Then

Leclere leaped upon him with his feet, and sprang up and down,

striving to grind him into the earth. Both Batard`s hind legs were

broken ere Leclere ceased that he might catch breath.

 

"A-a-ah! A-a-ah!" he screamed, incapable of speech, shaking his

fist, through sheer impotence of throat and larynx.

 

But Batard was indomitable. He lay there in a helpless welter, his

lip feebly lifting and writhing to the snarl he had not the

strength to utter. Leclere kicked him, and the tired jaws closed

on the ankle, but could not break the skin.

 

Then Leclere picked up the whip and proceeded almost to cut him to

pieces, at each stroke of the lash crying: "Dis taim Ah break you!

Eh? By GAR! Ah break you!"

 

In the end, exhausted, fainting from loss of blood, he crumpled up

and fell by his victim, and when the wolf-dogs closed in to take

their vengeance, with his last consciousness dragged his body on

top of Batard to shield him from their fangs.

 

This occurred not far from Sunrise, and the missionary, opening the

door to Leclere a few hours later, was surprised to note the

absence of Batard from the team. Nor did his surprise lessen when

Leclere threw back the robes from the sled, gathered Batard into

his arms and staggered across the threshold. It happened that the

surgeon of McQuestion, who was something of a gadabout, was up on a

gossip, and between them they proceeded to repair Leclere,

 

"Merci, non," said he. "Do you fix firs` de dog. To die? NON.

Eet is not good. Becos` heem Ah mus` yet break. Dat fo` w`at he

mus` not die."

 

The surgeon called it a marvel, the missionary a miracle, that

Leclere pulled through at all; and so weakened was he, that in the

spring the fever got him, and he went on his back again. Batard

had been in even worse plight, but his grip on life prevailed, and

the bones of his hind legs knit, and his organs righted themselves,

during the several weeks he lay strapped to the floor. And by the

time Leclere, finally convalescent, sallow and shaky, took the sun

by the cabin door, Batard had reasserted his supremacy among his

kind, and brought not only his own team-mates but the missionary`s

dogs into subjection.

 

He moved never a muscle, nor twitched a hair, when, for the first

time, Leclere 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 pere,

dat is one beeg devil, dat Batard. You will bring me one pistol,

so, dat Ah drink de 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.

Batard 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 Leclere 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."

 

Leclere laughed softly. "Look you, mon pere. Dat w`at Ah now

spik, to dat does he lissen."

 

As if in confirmation, Batard just perceptibly wriggled his lone

ear up to catch the sound.

 

"Ah say `keel`."

 

Batard 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 Batard. Batard, with a single leap,

sideways, landed around the corner of the cabin out of sight.

 

"Bless me!" he repeated at intervals. Leclere grinned proudly.

 

"But why does he not run away?"

 

The Frenchman`s shoulders went up in the racial shrug that means

all things from total ignorance to infinite understanding.

 

"Then why do you not kill him?"

 

Again the shoulders went up.

 

"Mon pere," he said after a pause, "de taim is not yet. He is one

beeg devil. Some taim Ah break heem, so an` so, all to leetle

bits. Hey? some taim. BON!"

 

A day came when Leclere 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 Koyokuk to

deserted Arctic City, and later came drifting back, from camp to

camp, along the Yukon. And during the long months Batard was well

lessoned. He learned many tortures, and, notably, 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 fibre of his being. It made him howl, long and wolf-life, as

when the wolves bay the stars on frosty nights. He could not help

howling. It was his one weakness in the contest with Leclere, and

it was his shame. Leclere, on the other hand, passionately loved

music--as passionately as he loved strong drink. And when his soul

clamoured for expression, it usually uttered itself in one or the

other of the two ways, and more usually in both ways. And when he

had drunk, his brain a-lilt with unsung song and the devil in him

aroused and rampant, his soul found its supreme utterance in

torturing Batard.

 

"Now we will haf a leetle museek," he would say. "Eh? W`at you

t`ink, Batard?"

 

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 that men had

never heard before. Then Batard, dumb of throat, with teeth tight

clenched, would back away, inch by inch, to the farthest cabin

corner. And Leclere, playing, playing, a stout club tucked under

his arm, followed the animal up, inch by inch, step by step, till

there was no further retreat.

 

At first Batard would crowd himself into the smallest possible

space, grovelling 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

jerkings, till he was all a-quiver 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, nostrils distended, eyes

dilated, hair bristling in helpless rage, arose the long wolf howl.

It came with a slurring rush upwards, swelling to a great heart-

breaking 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, falling, and

dying slowly away.

 

It was fit for hell. And Leclere, 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

shred of grief. It was frightful, and for twenty-four hours after,

Batard was nervous and unstrung, starting at common sounds,

tripping over his own shadow, but, withal, vicious and masterful

with his team-mates. Nor did he show signs of a breaking spirit.

Rather did he grow more grim and taciturn, biding his time with an

inscrutable patience that began to puzzle and weigh upon Leclere.