Isobel : A Romance of the Northern Trail

by James Oliver Curwood

A PILGRIMAGE TO THE BARREN

The fourth night after he had left the plague-stricken cabin Billy was camped on Lame Otter Creek, one hundred and eighty miles from Fort Churchill, over on Hudson’s Bay. He had eaten his supper, and was smoking his pipe. It was a clear and glorious night, with the sky afire with stars and a full moon. Several times Billy had stared at the moon. It was what the Indians called “the bleeding moon”— red as blood, with an uneven, dripping edge. It was the Indian superstition that it meant misfortune to those who did not keep it at their backs. For seven consecutive nights it had made a red trail through the skies in that terrible year of plague nineteen years before, when a quarter of the forest population of the north had died. Since then it had been known as the “plague moon.” Billy had seen it only twice before. He was not superstitious, but to-night he was filled with a strange sensation of uneasiness. He laughed an unpleasant laugh as he stared into the crackling birch flames and wondered what new misfortune could come to him.

And then, slowly, something seemed to come to him from out of the wonderful night like a quieting hand to still the pain in his broken heart. At last, once more, he was home. For the wind-swept Barrens and the forest had been his home, and more than once he had told himself that life away from them would be impossible for him. More deeply than ever this thought came to him to-night. He had become a part of them and they a part of him. And as he looked up again at the red moon the sight of it no longer brought him uneasiness, but a strange sort of joy. For an hour he sat there, and the fire died down. About him the rustle and whisper of the wild closed in nearer. It was his world, and he breathed more deeply and listened. Lonely and sick at heart, he felt the life and sympathy and love of it creeping into him, grieving with him in his grief, warming him with its hope, pledging him again the eternal friendship of its trees, its mountains, and all of the wild that it held therein. A hundred times, in that strange man-play that comes of loneliness in the far north, he had given life and form to the star shadows about him, to the shadows of the tall spruce, the twisted shrub, the rocks, and even the mountains. And now it was no longer play. With each hour that passed this night, and with each day and night that followed, they became more real to MacVeigh; and the fires he built in the black gloom painted him pictures as they had never painted them before; and the trees and the rocks and the twisted shrub comforted him more and more in his loneliness, and gave to him the presence of life in their movement, in the coming and going of their shadow forms. Everywhere they were the same old friends, unvarying and changeless. The spruce shadow of to-night, nodding to him in its silent way, was the same that nodded to him last night— a hundred nights ago; the stars were the same, the winds whispering to him in the tree-tops were the same, everything was as it was yesterday— years ago. He knew that in these things, and in these things alone, he would always possess Isobel. She would return to civilization, and the shifting scenes of life down there would soon make her forget him— almost. But in his world there was no change. Ten years from now he might go over their old trail and still find the charred remains of the campfire he had built for her that night beside the Barren. The wilderness would bear memory of her so long as he was a part of it; and now, as he came nearer to Churchill, he knew that he would always be a part of it.

Three weeks after he had left Couchée’s cabin he came into Fort Churchill. A month had changed him so that the factor did not recognize him at first. The inspector in charge stared at him twice, and then cried, “My God, is it you, MacVeigh?” To Pelliter alone, who was waiting for him, did Billy tell all that had happened down on the Little Beaver. There were several letters waiting for him at Churchill, and one of these told him that a silver property in which he was interested over at Cobalt had turned out well and that his share in the sale was something over ten thousand dollars. He used this unexpected piece of good-fortune as an excuse to the inspector when he refused to re-enlist. A week after his arrival at Churchill Bucky Smith was dishonorably discharged from the Service. There were several near them when Bucky came up to him with a smile on his face and offered to shake hands.

“I don’t bear you any ill-will, Billy,” he said, loud enough for the others to hear. “Only you’ve made a big mistake.” And then, in words for Billy’s ears alone, he added: “Remember what I promised you! I’ll kill you for this if I have to hunt you round the world!”

A few days later Pelliter left on the last of the slush snows in an effort to reach Nelson House before the sledging was gone.

“I wish you’d go with me, Billy,” he entreated for the hundredth time. “My girl ’d love to have you come, an’ you know how I’d like it.”

But Billy could not be moved.

“I’ll come and see you some day— when you’ve got the kid,” he promised, trying to laugh, as he shook hands for the last time with his old comrade.

For three days after Pelliter’s departure he remained at the post. On the morning of the fourth, with his pack on his back and without dogs, he struck off into the north and west.