Murder Point: A Tale of Keewatin

by Coningsby Dawson

Then he awoke to the knowledge that he was lost. His first sensation was of blank bewilderment, producing in him an utter loss of memory. He strove to quiet himself, but his will-power refused to operate. Who he was, and why he was there, he could not remember; of two things only was he conscious, that he was pursued by something that was evil, and that he was lost.

A state of chaos reigned within him, which was soon succeeded by an all-pervading terror. He must escape somehow to safety, to a place where there were men. He longed to dash on somewhere, on and on; but he was paralysed by his utter inability to think consecutively or to choose out any particular direction. He began to see horrible contorted shapes about him, and to imagine modes of death which were still more horrible. He might die of starvation, he might die of thirst, he might die of frost; but his worst fear was of something which he would never see, which would steal softly up, when he was too cold to turn his head, and strike him from behind. He circled round and round to avoid the blow; but he felt that, as he moved, the thing moved keeping pace with him, so that, for all his alertness, it was always behind his back.

In a way in which he had never desired it before, he longed for human companionship—just to look once more upon a living face. And to all these fears and yearnings there was the undertow of an added horror—the terror lest he should become insane. He burst into a passion of weeping; as the tears fell they froze upon his face. The air was thick with snow which the rising wind drifted about, driving it into curious and fantastic shapes. Had he been more quiet, he would have known that his only wise plan was to lie down until the blizzard was past. It would bury him, but as a covering it would act as a blanket to keep him warm. The blizzard seemed to him to be hemming him in, building up about him a shifting wall through which the pursuer could attack him unseen.

Always he was conscious of the pursuer's presence; always he could see the picture of Spurling's uplifted face and the pleading that was in his eyes as the assailant, with his back turned towards the onlooker, poised the axe above his head. That he might not share that fate he broke away into the greyness, tripping over snow ridges, falling into drifts, and bruising his body against the trunks of trees in the madness of his flight. His huskies added to his panic by following him.

There were times when he ran so far ahead that he could neither see nor hear them; but, when he halted, panting, they would emerge and lay themselves down at his side. He hated them; they were sinister in his eyes. Had they not brought Spurling from Winnipeg, and had not their yellow-faced leader been the cause of Strangeways' death?

The wind, rising higher, shrieked among the branches. He wandered on, neither knowing nor caring where he went, for he had lost all sense of locality or time. There were intervals during which he must have dreamed and slept, for he passed down an endless street of tall houses, built in the English fashion, and the blinds were up and it was nightfall. On the windows danced the light of fires, burning on the hearths inside; and sometimes he could see the faces of children looking out at him. He held up his blue hands at them, making signs that they should let him in that he might warm himself; but they shook their heads mischievously, and ran away and laughed.

After one of these experiences, more real to him than the others, he came to himself. Surely that was the sound of music and dancing that came to him above the cry of the storm. He waited for a lull and listened, then followed the direction of the sound. As he drew nearer, he caught the thud of moccasined feet beating time upon a boarded floor, and snatches of the tune which the violin was playing. Something loomed up out of the darkness to meet him. He held out his hands to force it from him, and drove them against a door. Then he knew that he had arrived at God's Voice.

He was half inclined to knock; at least they would not threaten him and drive him away this time as they had done in the previous winter. What was more likely to happen was that the man who opened to him, recognising him, would seize him by the throat, drag him inside and quickly slam the door. He would push him before him across the square till he came to the room where the trappers were dancing, where, in all probability, the factor was. And Robert Pilgrim when he saw him, wagging his red beard at him, would shout, "Ha, so you heard me whistle, and have come like a dog!"

He drew himself upright and stepped back from the gateway. No, he could not endure that. Any death was preferable to the price that he would have to pay for such shelter.

He worked his way along the wall till he stood beneath the window where the fort was assembled. It was a comfort to him to hear again the sound of voices. He listened to the fiddling and recognised it as that of Sandy McQuean, the half-breed son of a famous Orkney man. He had learnt his art from his father. They were all Scotch airs that he played. He could sing, when he chose, with a Highland accent, and had caught the knack of imbuing what he sang with an intolerable pathos.