The prey of the strongest

by Morley Roberts

XX

Though the railroad, the mighty railroad, the one and only Railroad of the Big Admiring World, was the chief topic of talk from Montreal to the Pacific, and not least so in little Kamloops by her blue river and lake, yet there was time for talk of other things even there. The men cackled and chattered in saloons and out of them, as is the fashion in sparsely inhabited countries as well as in suburbs, of all the windy ways of men. Like dust was the talk lifted up, like dust it fell and rose again. And the boys often talked of Ned, who, it seemed, had struck a new streak of virtue and avoidance of liquor.

"'Twas nip and tuck with him and the law," said one, "and he's still scared."

"True 'nough, Indian Mary nigh payssed in her checks. One more cut and she'd ha' bin mimaloose. They say so at the hawspital," said another.

"I wonder if he's done with Pitt River Pete, yet," wondered a third. "D'ye think he druv them steers into the cañon?"

"Who else? No, Ned Quin ain't through with Pete. Now I like Pete, he's a first-class Siwash, not bad by no means. And I never cottoned to Ned. He's got religion now, eh? Oh, shucks!"

So the fates and men disposed of things even at the time that the Kamloops sternwheeler came sweeping west through the quiet waters of the lakes and the quick stream of the connecting river, bearing Pete and his strange fortunes.

He fell instantly among such thieves of reputation, such usual slanderers of hope in sorrowful men, and heard the worst there was to hear, made better by no kindly word. Perhaps they knew well in their hearts that reformation was a vain thing: they scorned Ned's efforts to be better, and made the worst, as the world is apt to do, of all he had done. They drew frenzying pictures of Mary with the half-hid face: they told Pete of her sad aspect, and related, in gross passages of bloody words, exaggerations constructed out of stories from the hospital of mercy.

As if their incitements were insufficient, the coast talk of George and Jenny came up stream to him.

"Him and her's havin' a hell of a good time, Pete. He took your pretty klootchman over to Victoria as bold as brass, as if he was Lord High Muckamuck and she my Lady Dandy oh! Druv her araound in carriages, little Jenny as we knowed in Mis' Alexander's kitchen: she ez praoud ez any white woman, dressed to kill, and no fatal error. He's giv' her silks and satins like as if she wuz his wife, and she gigglin' happy. I say it's a dern shame for a man to kapsualla a chap's klootchman. Bymby he'll throw her over, chuck her out. And they say she's got a kid now, and it ain't yours, Pete."

There was love of offspring deep in Pete's heart, hidden from himself till this moment. He ran out of the shanty into the street.

"There ain't no need to fill the boy up the way you're doin'," said one of the loafers uneasily. "If ain't no good to make him so ez he'll murder them Quins."

The others laughed.

"None of us is stuck on the Quins," they declared. "And if Pete is burro enough to bray too loud and kick up his heels, forgettin' he's only a Siwash, they'll fill him up with lead. And even in this yer British Columbia, which is a dern sight too law-abidin' for a man, we reckon that self-defence is a good defence sometimes. Here's the worst of luck to Judge Begbie, anyhaow."

Next morning Pete rode on a hired horse towards the Nikola, being full of liquor ere he set out with a bottle in his pocket. He had tried to buy a gun, a six-shooter, but there are few in most British Columbia towns, and those who wore them by habit, in spite of the law, were not sellers. When a man has carried a "gun" for years he feels cold and helpless without it. That's one of the facts that are facts, tilikum.

But Pete didn't care. There were such things as shovels, said Pete furiously.

It was a heavenly bright morning, and the far distance of the warm hills, rising in terraces above the Lake, shone clear and warm. Such is the summer there, so sweet, so tender, so clear, and every day is a bride of kindly earth.

Pete rode hard and saw nothing but the wan aspect of his sister, and the giggling jeer of Jenny, clad in scarlet and bright shame.

The good brown earth with the lordly bull-pines scattered on rising hills was very fair to look upon. On the higher levels of the terraces were pools of shining lakes: some shone with shores of alkali and some were pure sweet water.

Pete, riding a doomed man however he wrought, drank no pure water with his heart. He sucked bitter water from the bitterest lakes, poor fool, going to do his duty, as his Indian blood said, and as much white blood would have said as well.

The sun, unclouded as it was, shone without the fierceness of the later summer. The grass, though it was browned, had still sap within it.

Pete rode half-drunken, with fire within him.

And then at last he topped the rise that hid Ned's shack. He saw a woman by the shack, and with his eyes discerned even from afar that she wore white linen on her head. But he could not hear her sing. And yet poor Mary sang: it seemed that out of her sorrow there had grown so great a joy that song would come from her wounded healing heart.

Pete rode down the trail. So in fine weather among the hills a storm may break. So may a cyclone, a tornado, approach a city. So may fire burst out at quiet, sleepy midnight. In one moment there was horror in the happy and repentant and praying home where Ned and Mary had come together once again.

"Oh, Mary," said Pete. He came riding fast. She looked up, did not know him, and looked again, and knew him. She called to Ned, who came out at the sound of galloping.

"It's Pete," she cried, but Ned stood there stupidly. In his great repentance and his new found peace he could not believe in bitter enmity, in war or in revenge.

There is a power of strange madness in the Indian blood, diluted though it be. Under the maddening influence of liquor the nature of the Indian flowers in dreadful passions, forgetful of new circumstances, oblivious of punishment and of law. None knew this better than Ned Quin, and yet he stood there foolishly, with a doubtful smile upon his face, a smile almost of greeting. He was even ready to forgive Pete for what he had done. He felt his heart was changed, and without a touch of religion or creed this was a natural and sweet conversion. But Mary tugged at his arm, for she knew.

The whirlwind came down on them: Pete rode at him and, ere he awakened and turned, rode him down. Ned fell and was struck by the horse, reluctant to ride over him, and Pete leapt from the saddle. He saw Mary with her hands up, but chiefly saw the white shroud on her face. He forgot her, forgot his horse, and only remembered that one of the brothers he hated lay sprawling before him, half stunned, raised on one hand. With a club, a branch of knotted fir, that he seized on, he went for the man and battered him. Mary flew at him, and he sent her headlong with a backward motion of his left arm. She reeled and fell and got upon her knees, screaming with bitter rage at her brother. But she was weak, and though she got to her feet again, she fell once more. She saw Ned bleeding, saw him fall supine, saw his empty hands open and shut: she heard the blows.

"Oh, God," she cried. Within the shack there was a shot-gun. It stood in the corner, there were cartridges handy. She crawled for the house, and got on her feet again and staggered till she reached it. She found the gun and the cartridges, threw the breech open, rammed one in and closed it. The possession of the weapon gave her strength. She ran out, and Pete saw her coming, saw the gun go to her shoulder. With the club in his hand he ran at her as quick as he had been in the Mill. And as he nearly closed with her she fired. He felt the very heat of the discharge, was blinded by it and by the grains of powder, and fell unhurt, save for a burnt and bloody ear. Mary struck him with the butt and knocked him senseless: he lay before her like a log. She dropped the gun and ran to Ned and fell upon her knees. She lifted his battered head and prayed for his life, and even as she prayed she believed that he was killed. There was no motion in him; her trembling hand could feel no heart-beat. She heard her brother groan.

"He's killed him," she screamed, "he's killed him!"

She laid her man down with his head upon a sack that lay near by. She turned to Pete with blazing eyes and saw the man she believed she had slain sitting up and staring about him foolishly. From one car blood ran: his white face was powder-scorched.

"You devil," said his sister, "you've killed my man, the man I loved; oh, you wicked beast, you cruel wretch, you pig——"

She screamed horrible abuse at her brother, dreadful abuse and foolish.

"They'll hang you, hang you, hang you!"

She yelled this at him as she stood before him like a fury. The words went by him like a breeze: they entered his ears but not his brain: he was still stupefied, half unconscious. He turned away and was violently sick. She pitied him not and was remorseless. She took him by the shoulder and shook him. He turned a foolish and wondering face at her, with some dawn, a very dim dawn, of consciousness in him.

"I'll get you hanged," she said. He heard the word "hanged" and again "hanged" and wondered sickly what it meant. She ran from him and he watched her. She went to the horse which stood some twenty yards away. The animal started and walked away and she stopped and spoke soothingly to it, using low words and bidding it be gentle. She went round in a circle and got upon the other side of it, and at last the horse stood still and let her grasp the bridle. Pete wondered what horse it was and why she was catching it. She brought it to the shack and slipped the bridle reins over a post.

He saw her use incredible strength and drag Ned Quin into the house. She cried aloud and sobbed most dreadfully. She put her man in the shadow, laid his head upon a pillow and covered his wounded face with white, even as her own was covered. She shut the door and came out. Pete still sat upon the ground with both hands outspread behind him. She said that he would be hanged, again she said it. He saw her get upon his horse and ride away towards the road. Where was she going? Who was it that was going? What was this woman going for?

These were horrible problems, but he knew, as a man knows things in a nightmare, when he cannot move, that their solution concerned him. They concerned him seriously. He struggled to solve them. It seemed that he spent years, aye, centuries, in the bitter attempt and still he saw the woman astraddle on a horse go up the rise to the north. This was a woman, oh, God, what woman?—a woman with a white cloth on her face, a ridiculous fierce figure who had said "hanged!" What was "hanged"? What did it mean? And why did she say it to him? What was he for that matter, and who was he? He struggled hard to discover that. So far as he could see, he was an unnamed, peculiarly solitary speck of aching, struggling matter in a world of pain. So they say the disembodied may feel. His senses were numbed: they sent foolish messages to him, messages that warned him and alarmed him without being intelligible. He knew that he was in some great danger. He saw a house, but did not know it; a gun, but could not say what it was and why it lay there in the pounded, trodden dust. Something wet dripped from his head: he put his hand up and saw blood upon it. Whoever he was, he was hurt in some way. He sighed and still saw the woman. Now she disappeared. It mattered very much. Why was she leaving him? He spoke suddenly.

"What's my name?" said Pete.

If he could only get that. On that point hung everything: he felt sure of that. Now he knew he was a man; he had got so far. But what manner of man he could not tell. How silly everything was! He groaned and grinned. Then he started.

"My name's Pete," he said suddenly. "It's Pete!"

This was the clue: this the end of the tangled cord of things. It was, he felt, utterly idiotic and alarming to know so much and no more. It was infinitely annoying. He said "I'm Pete, am I Pete, I'm Pete, eh!" and then sat staring. He wanted some kind of help, but what help he did not know. The task of discovering what all things were from what seemed the primal fact of all, that he was called Pete, appeared hugely difficult. He cried about it at last. And then some chickens came round the corner of the shack, and pecked in the dust. A big rooster came after them and stood upon a log, and whooped a loud cock-a-doodle-doo! It was a natural sound. Pete knew it and stared with sudden intelligence at the brilliant bird upon the log. Of a sudden the whole veil over all things was lifted. He knew who he was and why he was there and what he had done! Above all he knew what the word "hanged" meant. It was his sister who had said it. He got upon his knees and staggered till he could hold on to the house. It was a help to hold on to something while he thought.

"Hanged," said Pete. He had killed a man. Where was he? It was Ned Quin. But if he had killed him how had he got away?

"I won't be hanged," said Pete. "I won't. She's gone to tell 'em I've made Ned mimaloose, killed him. I'll stop her!"

That was a very clear idea, and the notion satisfied him for a while as he swayed to and fro. But how? The woman with the white linen had taken his horse. It was again a hard problem, but since he knew who he was, things were very much easier, though they were still a struggle. He didn't know how he got there, but presently he found himself in the stable, leading out Ned Quin's horse, a lean and old, but still sound, sorrel. It was wonderful to find that he had a horse already saddled and bridled. He didn't know that he had put the saddle on and cinched up the girths himself.

"Now I'm all right. That kloshe," said Pete. He almost forgot in his satisfaction what he wanted the horse for. But presently he remembered that he had to stop that woman (his sister, was she?) from going somewhere. Was there such a place as Kamloops? Very likely there was. Then he saw the gun.

"She shot at me," he said with feeble indignation, "I'm bleeding."

He wept again.

And suddenly he saw all things as clear as day. He had killed Ned: she had shot him and then she had said she would go into Kamloops and denounce him. There wasn't any time to lose. He "hung up" the horse and picked the gun from the ground. He went to the house and opened the door. It was very dark inside and the outside sun was now burning bright. He stumbled across something and only saved himself from falling with great difficulty. What had he stumbled over? He peered on the ground and as the pupils of his eyes dilated he saw a body stretched out with a white cloth over the face. He trembled.

"It's—it's Ned," he said, shaking. "They'll hang me!"

He wanted to lift the white cloth but dared not. He went round the body to the shelf where he knew the cartridges were kept. He put a handful in his pocket and then went out with his eyes straight before him. But he still saw the white cloth. When he was outside he loaded the gun in both barrels and clambered on the old sorrel with great difficulty. As he rode he swayed to and fro in the saddle.

But he had to catch Mary, had to stop her. That notion was all the thought in him. It helped to keep him from falling off. Yet he rode like a drunken man, and the landscape reeled and shifted and danced. The big bull-pines swayed as if there were a great wind and the road was sometimes a double track. Yet far ahead of him he saw a figure on a horse. It must be Mary. He clutched the gun and the horn of the saddle and spurred the old sorrel with a solitary Mexican spur which he had borrowed in the town. And as he rode the world began to settle down before him at last. Though his head was splitting he rode without his hat. It lay in red dust by Ned's house.

At first he went at a walk, but presently he urged the sorrel to a reluctant lope. The figure before him loped too. He saw he made little headway. He put the sorrel into a gallop and knew that he gained on her who now hated him. It was unjust of her: what he had done was for her, not for himself. Ned had hurt her horribly. Pete couldn't understand her. She appeared to love the man who had cut her down. It was foolish, strange.

And she meant to have him "hanged." That was the last spur to him: his vision cleared and became normal. The shifting planes of the terraced land in front of him sat down at last. He drove the spur into the sorrel brutally and set him at a furious gallop. He knew the horse that Mary rode was tired: it was not much of a cayuse at any time. He saw her plainly now.

And then she looked round and saw a horseman coming furiously. What horseman it was she knew not. Yet it might be Pete, though he was disabled. She made her horse gallop: she flogged him with a heavy quirt that hung to Pete's saddle.

But the man behind her gained. She saw him coming in front of a cloud of white dust. She looked back through dust. But perhaps it wasn't Pete.

Then she knew the action of the old sorrel, and panic got hold of her. It was Pete. Yes, that was certain. She screamed to her horse, and struck him hard. Now she heard above the sound of his hoofs upon the road the following echo-like thud of the sorrel as he crept up to her. She topped a little rise and raced down hill recklessly. Behind her now there was a moment's cessation of the following sound. Then she heard it again and looking back saw Pete come down the hill. He was within a quarter of a mile of her and she was not yet half-way to Kamloops!

She was his sister and an Indian. She was usually merciful to animals in spite of that: merciful and kind. But now she feared for herself, and the deep nature within her flowered as it had done when she sought Pete's life. She flogged the horse till she was weary and then pulled out a little knife she carried and stabbed it through the hide just behind the saddle. It was a bitter and cruel spurring. Under the dreadful stimulus her tired horse responded and galloped furiously. But the old horse behind her was the better animal: he answered that gallop of his own accord and was emulous, eager.

She heard Pete's voice, she turned and saw him creeping up to her: she saw he had the gun. She looked at him over her shoulder as they galloped: his face was dreadful to see: part of his ear was hanging loose: the blood was on his neck and shoulder. She saw him open his mouth: he was speaking: telling her to stop!

But he had killed her man! She believed it! She would not stop.

Now he crept further up to her, and her old horse was urged on by the following thunder of near hoofs. She turned from her pursuer: he saw nothing of her face but the white cloth. She heard him cursing awfully. He called her foul names: he screamed insults. Though she kept her eyes upon the road she saw dimly that he was ranging up alongside her.

"Stop," cried Pete. She answered on her horse with the quirt: she had dropped her knife a mile back. Behind the saddle there were blood marks. She was in a whirlwind: the sun burnt: the dust rose: she saw cattle run across the road. Beyond that slope Kamloops lay: through a fold of one of the terraces she saw a patch of the lake away to the east: yonder was the crystalline and azure Thompson. In front, the dark stained hill beyond the river and beyond Kamloops rose more clearly. Then she heard nothing of what he said: she saw his furious face, saw the blood again, the flapping cartilage of his ear, and then she saw him lift the gun. This then meant death! But when the explosion burst upon her like a blow, she felt the horse throw up his head, and knew that they were both falling. She saw, even as she fell, the one clear picture: the horse with his bleeding neck outstretched and his legs failing: the white road: the radiant prairie: the tall brown trees: the splendid river. Then the earth rose at her: she pitched headlong, and rolled over motionless.

On the road the wounded horse lay, lifting up his head as one aghast at death. He made no sound: the blood poured from the burst arteries and his head sank back.

Pete never looked behind him as he threw the gun away and went at a merciless gallop for the last level mile before the uplands opened on the valley of the Lake. He cursed his sister and Ned Quin and himself. How could he get away?

Before he got to the pitch of the road he turned in his saddle and looked back. He saw the dark patch that the dead horse made. He saw the cattle coming to find out what the unusual spectacle meant, for their curiosity was insatiable. Some already stood, staring and tossing their heads, in a half-circle round Mary and the horse.

Soon all the world would be in a circle round the victims! Where was he to go and how was he to act? He pulled up suddenly and put his hand to his aching head. If he went into Kamloops as he was, with a horse all flaked with foam, and with his own ear bleeding, all the little world of the town would be agog to know what had happened.

And yet if he hid till dark, some would find Mary, perhaps dead, upon the open road. Someone might go to the shack and discover Ned. It was hard to know how to act. He remembered for the first time that he had a bottle in his pocket. He asked advice of that: it sent him flying down the road to Kamloops. It was best to risk things, best not to wait, not to dodge or to hide. His only chance was to get down to the coast and out of the country. To get north to the Columbia and then to Sand Point through Kootenay, practically the only alternative route out, was impossibly dangerous. And as he rode he saw a steamboat coming down the river from the Lakes. If he rode hard he might catch it and get away before a word was said. As he rode he bound up his head and ear with a big coloured handkerchief. It was red enough to hide the oozing blood.

It was an hour or more after noon when he rode into Kamloops. He came in at a lope and took on a careless air, calling "Klahowya" to some of his tilikums as they passed him. He even saluted a mounted policeman and went by him singing till he came to Alexander's, where he had got his horse from. He had to explain how he came back on Ned Quin's instead of the one he hired. But the stableman, who knew he had hired out a wretched crock, was easy enough to satisfy.

"That damned kieutan fell with me," said Pete, swaggering, "fell at an easy lope and burst my ear. I left him at Ned Quin's, sonny, and Ned'll bring him in to-molla and fetch out this old sorrel. Here's four bits for you."

He had paid the hire before he took out the horse that now lay dead upon the road. He heard the steamer's whistle at the nigh wharf and ran to catch her. In ten minutes he was on his way down stream to the Ferry.

He knew it would be, or so easily might be, "a close call" for him. And yet there was nothing else to do but to risk it. As the cool air of the river struck him he shivered. For he thought he had killed Ned Quin and, now that the heat went out of his blood, chilling the fever of revenge in him, he began to be very much afraid.

But he took a drink.

Far back upon the road the cattle ringed round Mary's body and the body of the horse, and a million flies blackened the pool of blood and drank against the dust that soaked it up. The cattle to leeward, smelling the horror of a spilt life, tossed their heads uneasily and challenged strange death, that horror of which their instincts spoke to them. Some to windward came closer and blew at the flies. They rose in black swarms and settled again. From a distance other cattle marched to the wavering ring about this wonder. Some came running. One of the inside steers touched Mary's body with his horn. She moaned and lifted her hand. The steer ran backwards, snorting, backing on others, who horned each other angrily. Then the steers crept up again to Mary and blew at the dust in which she lay.

But this time she rose to a sitting position, and the ring of cattle with their lowered heads retreated from her.

She wondered where she was, and how she came to be there. Then she saw the dead horse, and the gun that a cow smelt uneasily. She remembered that Pete had killed Ned, and that he had perhaps tried to kill her. She scrambled to her feet and the cattle jostled each other to get away from her. She staggered as she stood: for she had no strength, and all desire of life had gone out of her. And with that there came a sickness of the notion of revenge: it would only be trying to revenge herself on the inexorable destiny which was hers. Pete had killed her man and had gone. She would go back to her dead.

Overhead the sun burnt as she staggered on the road, the long, endless, wearying road, so like to life. She went at a foot pace, and the miles were weary endless spaces without hope. For her man was dead, and Pete was a cruel madman, and there was nothing left for her. Yet still she walked, like some painful hurt creature returning to its lair. She ached in every limb: her head seemed splitting: the physical torture of her being dulled her mind. And as it seemed to her only the sun of all things moved swiftly. It was drawing on towards evening when she came to her house and stood outside the door. Her knees trembled: she clutched at the latch and door-post to prevent herself falling.

Inside was her man dead: her man who had been so good and so cruel. She began to weep and opened the door, letting the westering sunlight in. The next moment she screamed dreadfully, for the place where she had left him was vacant!

"Oh, Ned, Ned!" she cried in a most lamentable voice. And yet within her murdered heart there sprang a faint poor flower of hope even as she cried. If he had been moved was it not that someone had come and taken him away? Then—then, oh, God, perhaps he was not dead! Her brain turned: she reeled again and clutched at the table and held to it.

"My God, listen to me, be merciful, where is my man, the man I love?"

She wrestled with the dark gods of fate whose blinded eyes knew not, nor cared, whom they trod down upon the dusty roads of earth.

And then she heard a rustle in the room, as of something stirring! She prayed that this was true: that she did not hear amiss and that when her eyes opened she would see Ned once more.

She heard a groan and ran to it blindly and found her man there, on the bed, their bed, still alive, though half blinded, blood-covered and hardly conscious!

"Ned, Ned!"

In her mad desire for revenge she had left him, believing him dead. She fell beside him with a scream that was no more than a sigh, and when she became conscious again after that awful shock of joy, she found his wounded hands seeking hers. She heard his hurt mouth whisper for water. For the little good that came with all the evil she thanked her God very humbly and brought the man water. He spoke to her and did not know that she had been away from him. He knew not how he had reached the bed, or come back to life and to her. He was very weak and gentle.

"My dear," he said feebly. She washed his wounds and bound them up. She cried softly over his pain, which was so much less than her own.

"I've been a brute to you," he mumbled. "But God help me I'll be that no more."

"You've always loved me," she said. It was true in spite of everything.

"Yes," said old Ned. Then he fell asleep and woke in an hour and wandered a little in his talk. But she soothed him into peace again and he rested quietly. Yet she could not leave him to get help till next morning, and when she went over to their nearest neighbour, Missouri Simpson, he was away from home. It was noon when he returned and rode into Kamloops for the doctor. He told the police what had happened, and found that someone had already brought into town Ned's gun and told them of the horse. They telegraphed to all stations to the Coast to hold a certain Sitcum Siwash, known as Pitt River Pete. But by that time Pete was in hiding on the south side of the Fraser, over against the Mill, with a canoe, stolen from a house near Ruby Creek, where he had left the train. For it seemed to him that he could not escape if he went further. That he had not been arrested yet was a miracle.

"They'll catch me and hang me," he said with a snarl.

He felt sure they would and he had something to do before they did.

As he lay in the brush, across the river, he tried to pick out the lights of the house, high upon the hill, in which Jenny and George Quin lived.