The Valley of Silent Men: A Story of the Three River Country

by James Oliver Curwood

They came into the sodden dip at the foot of the ridge, and the lightning revealed to him the edge of the poplar growth in which O'Connor had seen Marette many weeks ago. The bayou trail wound through this, and Kent struck out for it blindly in the darkness. He did not try to talk, but he freed his companion's hand and put his arm about her when they came to the level ground, so that she was sheltered by him from the beat of the storm. Then brush swished in their faces, and they stopped, waiting for the lightning again. Kent was not anxious for it to come. He drew the girl still closer, and in that pit of blackness, with the deluge about her and the crash of thunder over her head, she snuggled up against his breast, the throb of her body against him, waiting, watching, with him. Her frailty, the helplessness of her, the slimness of her in the crook of his arm, filled him with an exquisite exultation. He did not think of her now as the splendid, fearless creature who had leveled her little black gun at the three men in barracks. She was no longer the mysterious, defiant, unafraid person who had held him in a sort of awe that first hour in Kedsty's place. For she was crumpled against him now, utterly dependent and afraid. In that chaos of storm something told him that her nerve was broken, that without him she would be lost and would cry out in fear. AND HE WAS GLAD! He held her tighter; he bent his head until his face touched the wet, crushed hair under the edge of her turban. And then the lightning split open the night again, and he saw the way ahead of him to the trail.

Even in darkness it was not difficult to follow in the clean-cut wagon path. Over their heads the tops of the poplars swished and wailed. Under their feet the roadway in places was a running stream or inundated until it became a pool. In pitch blackness they struck such a pool, and in spite of the handicap of his packs and rifle Kent stopped suddenly, and picked Marette up in his arms, and carried her until they reached high ground. He did not ask permission. And Marette, for a minute or two, lay crumpled up close in his arms, and for a thrilling instant his face touched her rain-wet cheek.

The miracle of their adventure was that neither spoke. To Kent the silence between them had become a thing which he had no desire to break. In that silence, excused and abetted by the tumult of the storm, he felt that a wonderful something was drawing them closer and closer together, and that words might spoil the indescribable magic of the thing that was happening. When he set Marette on her feet again, her hand accidentally fell upon his, and for a moment her fingers closed upon it in a soft pressure that meant more to him than a thousand words of gratitude.

A quarter of a mile beyond the poplar thicket they came to the edge of the spruce and cedar timber, and Soon the thick walls of the forest shut them in, sheltering them from the wind, but the blackness was even more like that of a bottomless pit. Kent had noticed that the thunder and lightning were drifting steadily eastward, and now the occasional flashes of electrical fire scarcely illumined the trail ahead of them. The rain was not beating so fiercely. They could hear the wail of the spruce and cedar tops and the slush of their boots in mud and water. An interval came, where the spruce-tops met overhead, when it was almost calm. It was then that Kent threw out of him a great, deep breath and laughed joyously and exultantly.

"Are you wet, little Gray Goose?"

"Only outside, Big Otter. My feathers have kept me dry."

Her voice had a trembling, half-sobbing, half-rejoicing note in it. It was not the voice of one who had recently killed a man. In it was a pathos which Kent knew she was trying to hide behind brave words. Her hands clung to the arm of his rubber slicker even as they stood there, close together, as if she was afraid something might drag them apart in that treacherous gloom. Kent, fumbling for a moment, drew from an inner pocket a dry handkerchief. Then he found her face, tilted it a bit upward, and wiped it dry. He might have done the same thing to a child who had been crying. After that he scrubbed his own, and they went on, his arm about her again.

It was half a mile from the edge of the forest to the bayou, and half a dozen times in that distance Kent took the girl in his arms and carried her through water that almost reached his boot tops. The lightning no longer served them. The rain still fell steadily, but the wind had gone with the eastward sweep of the storm. Close-hung with the forest walls, the bayou itself was indiscernible in the blackness. Marette guided him now, though Kent walked ahead of her, holding firmly to her hand. Unless Fingers had changed its location, the scow should be somewhere within forty or fifty paces of the end of the trail. It was small, a two-man scow, with a tight little house built amidships. And it was tied close up against the shore. Marette told him this as they felt their way through brush and reeds. Then he stumbled against something taut and knee-high, and he found it was the tie-rope.

Leaving Marette with her back to the anchor tree, he went aboard. The water was three or four inches deep in the bottom of the scow, but the cabin was built on a platform raised above the floor of the boat, and Kent hoped it was still dry. He groped until he found the twisted wire which held the door shut. Opening it, he ducked his head low and entered. The little room was not more than four feet high, and for greater convenience he fell upon his knees while fumbling under his slicker for his water-proof box of matches. The water had not yet risen above the floor.

The first light he struck revealed the interior to him. It was a tiny cabin, scarcely larger than some boxes he had seen. It was about eight feet long by six in width, and the ceiling was so low that, even kneeling, his head touched it. His match burned out, and he lighted another. This time he saw a candle stuck in a bit of split birch that projected from the wall. He crept to it and lighted it. For a moment he looked about him, and again he blessed Fingers. The little scow was prepared for a voyage. Two narrow bunks were built at the far end, one so close above the other that Kent grinned as he thought of squeezing between. There were blankets. Within reach of his arm was a tiny stove, and close to the stove a supply of kindling and dry wood. The whole thing made him think of a child's playhouse. Yet there was still room for a wide, comfortable, cane-bottomed chair, a stool, and a smooth-planed board fastened under a window, so that it answered the purpose of a table. This table was piled with many packages.