The Red Pirogue/Chapter 9

Jim McAllister and Noel fed Sherwood with milk, dosed him with quinine, bathed his hand with a hot solution of boric powder and touched it with iodine, placed hot compresses on his arm and bandaged him generously if not scientifically. He responded encouragingly to the treatment. It was easy to see that the pain in his arm had lessened. For a few hours of the afternoon he appeared to be cooler and felt cooler, lay awake without gabbling and slept without muttering and tossing. Once he recognized Noel Sabattis and spoke to him by name; and Noel patted his head and told him not to worry about anything for everything was going fine.

Sherwood was delirious during the night but not to the extent of the night before. In the morning he showed marked improvement, took his bitter dose of quinine as if he knew that it was good for him, drank an egg beaten up in milk, spoke affectionately to the red dogs and then to Jim McAllister, in puzzled tones, with something of recognition and more of fear and suspicion in his eyes.

“What are you going to do with me?” he asked.

“Take you home, Dick, and get a doctor for you,” replied Jim.

“What's the idea?”

“I'm Jim McAllister. I live with my sister and young Ben O'Dell and your little girl—all one family—at O'Dell's Point. And that's where Noel and I mean to take you to. That's the idea. So there's nothing for you to worry about.”

“Where's Louis Balenger?”

“You don't have to worry about him any more. He's dead.”

“Yes, I remember that. Noel and I buried him. You remember that, Noel? He was dead, wasn't he?”

“Yep, he won't never move no more,” replied the Maliseet.

“Did I shoot him?” asked the sick man.

“No, you didn't,” said Jim sternly. “You weren't anywheres near him when he was shot; and if you hadn't been sickening with fever you wouldn't of run away. Balenger was shot by a man from Quebec and Ben O'Dell is hunting him this very minute.”

“Who's Ben O'Dell?”

“He's John's son. Now you quit talking and take a rest.”

“I was at John's funeral. You didn't know it but I was there. No one knew it, for I was ashamed to show myself. He was my friend. He was my company commander once.”

“I know all about that, Dick. But you mustn't talk any more now. Yer a sick man.”

Sherwood fell asleep. Jim and Noel made a stretcher of two poles, crosspieces and a pair of blankets; at ten o'clock they broke camp. They made a mile in slow time, then set the stretcher down and fed their patient. They marched again, walking with the utmost care, but Sherwood soon became excited and they had to halt, make a fire and bathe and dress his hand and arm. Again they dosed him and fed him. They rested until long past n«on. They thought him to be asleep when they raised the stretcher for the third time, but he awoke instantly.

“Leave me alone!” he cried. “You can't fool me! I know you. You set a trap for me.”

They kept on.

“That trap wasn't set for you, Dick,” said McAllister over his shoulder. “That was a mistake.”

“I didn't shoot Balenger, honest I didn't!” pleaded Sherwood. “I was going to—if I had the nerve—but I didn't do it. I was scared—afraid they'd hang me and Marion would starve—that's why I ran. But you set a trap for me—and caught me—and now you've got me.”

“Nobody catch you!” cried Noel. “You all safe now. Jim an' me take you to Marion. You sick an' crazy, dat's all. Go to sleep. Shut up!”

He was quiet for a time but again broke out in terrified ravings before they had gone far. They had to set him down to quiet him. Again they built a fire, boiled the kettle, applied hot compresses to his arm. They fed him a hot drink and he went to sleep. But Jim saw that it would be dangerous to try to carry him farther that day, that all the traveling must be done in the morning when the fever was at its lowest. They had already covered about four of he eight miles. Old Noel rubbed his arms and said he had never before traveled such hard miles.

Jim was tired and anxious, but more anxious than tired. His anxiety was for the farm and his sister and the little girl almost as much as for the sick man. He was afraid of old Tim Hood, though he didn't admit it frankly even to himself. But Hood had always been a tricky character as well as a spiteful one and he had held a grudge against the O'Dells for many years; yesterday, when the old fellow's eyes had met his for an instant after the humiliating adventure with Red Chief, Jim had seen danger there. So after drinking a mug of tea he continued on his way, promising to return some time during the night. He took one of the rifles and Red Lily with him.

Jim reached home in time for supper. The last load of grain was in, but Bear and Sacobie and Mrs. Sacobie had not yet taken their departure. He asked all three to remain until after breakfast next morning, which they gladly agreed to do; and then, without his sister's knowledge, he arranged with the men that one should stand guard on the barns all night and one on the house. He told them that he had caught Tim Hood in the woods with a loaded rifle and disarmed him and that the old man was mad enough for anything. Hood was not popular with the Indians or any other poor and needy folk on the river, so Jim knew that the watch would be well kept.

He didn't say a word about Mel Lunt. He wasn't worrying about the constable, knowing that his worst faults were stupidity and professional vanity. That Lunt would try to get even with him was very likely, but by means and methods within the law—to the best of Mel's knowledge and belief, at least. He would probably make an other effort to arrest Sherwood if he was able to obtain a warrant through the blundering of his superiors at Woodstock; and he was sure to try to get a warrant for Jim's arrest. But Jim didn't worry about anything Mel Lunt might do. Old Hood was the man he feared.

Jim managed a few minutes of private conversation with his sister, and they decided that if Sherwood should reach the house next day the little girl should be kept in ignorance of his identity—at least until medical care had cured him of his wild delirium. They believed that Doctor Scott and good nursing would accomplish this in a day or two. Little Marion was not of a prying disposition. To tell her that the sick man in the big spare room was not to be disturbed would be enough. The big spare room was so far from Mrs. O'Dell's room, in one corner of which Marion occupied a small bed, that there would be no danger of poor Sherwood's humiliating and pitiful and cruelly illuminating fever talk reaching the child's ears.

Jim spent a few minutes with the little girl before she went to bed. She took him to the library, set the lamp on the floor, sat down beside it and pulled a portfolio of old colored prints out from under one of the bookcases. She had discovered it a few days ago. The prints were of hunting scenes—of men in red coats and white breeches riding tall horses after red foxes, flying over green hedges, tumbling into blue brooks, but always streaming after the black and liver and white dogs who streamed after the fox.

“My dad once told me about that,” said Marion. “He used to do it before he came out to this country, whenever he wasn't soldiering.”

“Rough on the fox,” said Uncle Jim. “Worse than trapping him, I guess. Why didn't they shoot him and be done with it?”

“That's what I said to dad,” replied Marion. “But he said it wasn't so, for as soon as the fox felt tired he jumped into a hole in the ground and then the hunt was finished. They must have chased foxes a great many years in England, for I am sure these pictures are a great deal older than dad.”

“Sure thing, much older,” agreed Jim. “Those pictures were bought in London by Ben's great-grandfather.”

The little girl returned the portfolio to its place and drew forth a shallow box of polished mahogany.

“Have you seen these, Uncle Jim?” she asked.

McAllister smiled. He had seen the contents of the box, but he also saw what she was up to. She was entertaining him in the hope that by so doing she might be allowed to sit up a few minutes past her usual bedtime.

“I don't mind seeing them again,” he said.

She raised the lid of the box and disclosed to view two short brown pistols beautifully inlaid with silver about the grip and lock, a little metal flask, a cluster of bullets, a little ramrod, a lot of paper wads and dozens of tiny metal caps. All these curious articles lay on dark-green felt, the pistols in a central position, each of the different sorts of munitions in its own little compartment. The barrels of the pistols were short but large of bore.

“Ben showed me these,” she said. “He told me all about how to load them. They are very, very old. You don't just put a cartridge in, like you do with a rifle or shotgun, but you ram the bullets and powder and wads down the muzzles, with that little stick and then put those little caps on, the same way Noel Sabattis does with his duck gun. I've seen Noel put the caps on his gun, but dad's was like a rifle. Noel's duck gun must be very old.”

“Yes, but it's still of more use than those pistols ever were,” replied Jim, thinking of the good work the Maliseet's great weapon had done only yesterday and of the purpose for which the little dueling pistols had been so beautifully and carefully made in the ignorant days of the gay youth of one of Ben O'Dell's kind but conventional ancestors.

“What were the little pistols used for, Uncle Jim?” asked Marion.

“Well, you see, in the old days it wasn't all clover being a man of high family,” he said. “It had its drawbacks. You were a man of mark, for sure. If a man is sassy to you nowadays, calls you names or any thing like that, all you got to do is sass him back or kick him if you can; and all he can do is kick back—and that's all there is to it, no matter who you are or who yer grandfather used to be. But in the old days when these pistols were made it was different. If a man was rude to you then—said he didn't like the way yer nose stuck out of yer face or that the soldiers in yer regiment all had flat feet or maybe got real nasty and called you a liar—you had to throw a glassful of port wine or sherry wine into his face. Then it was up to him to ask you, as polite as pie, to fight a duel with him. And you had to do it or yer friends would say you weren't a gentleman—and that was considered a rough thing to say about a man in those days. So you had to do it, even if the law was against it. That's what those little pistols were for.”

“To shoot gentlemen with?” asked the little girl in an awe-struck whisper.

“Yes—but they'd hit almost any kind of man if they were aimed right.”

“And have these ones done that—shot people, Uncle Jim?”

“I guess they never shot anybody very seriously, dear. The O'Dell who owned them was a kind man, like all the O'Dells before and since, and brave as a lion and steady as a rock and a dead-sure shot. So whenever he was fussed and tricked into proving he was a gentleman—which everybody knew already—by fighting with a fool, he'd shoot the other lad in the hand that held the pistol—or the elbow or maybe the shoulder. It |wasn't long before folks quit being rude to him.”

Just then Mrs. O'Dell entered the library. Marion closed the box, shoved it back beneath the bookcase and kissed McAllister good night.

Jim posted Sol Bear and Gabe Sacobie, charged them to keep a sharp lookout and armed them with sled stakes. Enthusiastic Indians were not to be trusted with explosive weapons on such a job as this at night. And he left Red Lily with them. With two good Indians and a red dog outside and a squaw and another red dog in the kitchen he felt that old Tim Hood would not accomplish any very serious damage no matter how spiteful and reckless he might be feeling. Then he set out for the spot in the wilderness, due north and four miles away, where he had left the sick man and Noel Sabattis and Red Chief.

Jim might have spared himself these elaborate precautions had he known that Tim Hood's cowardice was still in excess of his rage. The old fellow still agreed with Mel Lunt, the thrice foiled but ever hopeful, that the safest and quickest way of getting in the first return blow at Jim McAllister was through the unfortunate Sherwood. So he continued to work with Lunt, to support the might and majesty of the law as interpreted by that persistent local constable. The O'Dell barns were not threatened that night. Sol and Gabe twirled their sled stakes in vain and at last fell asleep at their posts.

Jim found the camp without much difficulty. Sherwood was sleeping then but Noel said that he had been awake and raving for hours. Jim slept for an hour, then bathed and dressed the sick man's hand and arm, with Noel's assistance, dosed him with quinine and a full mug of cold water. All was quiet after that until about three o'clock, when Sherwood's restlessness again awoke the others. Again they applied hot compresses to his arm and gave him water to drink and tucked his blankets securely around him.

Sherwood awoke again shortly after dawn, hungry, clear of eye and as sane as you please. He drank fresh milk, a bottle of which Jim had brought in last night. He recognized Jim and of course he knew Noel Sabattis. He thanked them for all the trouble they were taking for him and said that he wasn't worth it.

“When I made sure Marion was safe and would soon be happy enough to forget me I didn't care how soon I pegged out,” he said. “I was ill, very ill. The sickness had been in me for weeks, I think—I don't know how long. I was delirious even in the daytime and my nights were wide-awake nightmares. All my past haunted me. If I had ever been unkind to Julie or the baby I'd of gone mad and killed myself. But I'd never been unkind to them—not intentionally—just weak and a coward.”

“You a'right now, anyhow,” interrupted Noel. “Marion a'right too. Take annoder drink.”

Sherwood drank obediently.

“The last night I crawled in,” he continued, “and got my hand in that trap—well, that finished me! I don't know how I got the trap clear of my hand. I don't know how I got into the woods.”

“My brother Ian set that trap and no one else knew anything about it,” said Jim. “I guess he didn't stop to think what he was doing. Ben and I were away. But Doctor Scott'll fix yer hand, don't you worry.”

“But will I be safe, Jim? From the law?”

“Sure thing! There's nothing you need fear the law about. I reckon Ben and Dave Brown know exactly who shot Balenger by this time and like enough they've caught him. But that don't matter one way or the other. The police know you didn't do it. But why didn't you tell us you wanted food? Why didn't you come right in and eat with us?”

“I was ashamed. And I was crazy with fear. I was sick, too—sick with fever, I suppose. I thought every one was hunting me to hang me and half the time I thought I'd really shot Balenger. I had a picture in my mind of just how I did it. But I couldn't go far away from the little girl.”

“How was it the dogs never tackled you?” asked Jim.

“Never mind dat!” exclaimed Noel. “Shut up an' lay quiet! You shut up too, McAllister! You start him talkin' crazy ag'in, maybe.”

“Dogs know me, and that red breed better than any,” said Sherwood. “I think that the red dogs inherited a friendship for me.”

“Maybe so, Dick; but Noel is right. Rest now. Don't try to think any more or yer fever'll be up again. We've got four miles to carry you yet.”

They started after breakfast with Sherwood in the stretcher. They made the four miles by noon. They set the stretcher down behind a clump of bushes at the back of the barnyard and Jim went ahead to warn his sister and get little Marion out of the way. Marion was given lessons to learn in the library.

Sherwood was unconscious, murmuring, dry of hand and lip and flushed of brow by the time Jim laid him on the bed in the big spare room. His appearance shocked Mrs. O'Dell and at sight of his right hand she turned away to hide her tears. But she dried her tears and set to work as soon as the men had cut and pulled away Sherwood's tattered clothing and placed him between the cool sheets. She gave? the torn hand and swollen arm the most thorough and tender treatment it had yet received.

The little girl was told of the sick man in the spare room whom Uncle Jim and Noel Sabattis had found in the woods. She was cautioned not to play in the hall outside his door or make a noise in the garden under his windows, for he was very weak and needed sleep. She was impressed. She questioned old Noel.

“Where did you find him in the woods, Noel?” she asked.

“Way off nort', layin' on de moss,” replied Noel. “Red Chief find 'im first.”

“Do you often find sick men lying in the woods?”

“Nope. Some time.”

“It is a good thing the bears didn't find him and eat him up.”

“B'ars don't eat men up.”

“I hope dad isn't in the woods still. I saw him go into the woods, away upriver, but he said he would come here for me in a few weeks.”

“Sure, he come here for you. Come in two t'ree days now, maybe.”

“If he was sick and got lost in the woods like the man in the big spare room, what would happen to him, Noel?”

“What happen to him if he get lost in de woods, hey? Same what happen to dis feller—me an' Jim McAllister an' dese here dogs find 'im. Nobody git lost 'round here widout we find 'im quick an' fetch 'im heme.”

Jim drove away soon after dinner, headed for Woodstock and Doctor Scott. He reached the town in two hours. He drove to the doctor's house, only to learn that the doctor was out in the country, downriver, and wasn't expected home for an hour or two. Jim stabled the mare, treated himself to a big cigar and strolled along Front Street. He was greeted by several people he knew. Soon he was greeted by a man he didn't know but who evidently knew him.

“Yer Jim McAllister, ain't you?” inquired the stranger, halting squarely in his path.

The stranger wore the uniform of a policeman. Jim didn't like his looks or his voice.

“Christened James,” said Jim, dryly, “and with a handle in front of it when I'm smoking a fifteen-cent cigar.”

“Yer wanted, Mister James McAllister,” returned the other. “Come along, cigar an' all.”

“Who wants me?”

“Sheriff Corker.”

“Lead me to him, sonny. I can do some business with the sheriff myself. But I'm in a hurry.”

They walked along side by side. The sheriff was not at home.

“We'll wait,” said the policeman to the sheriff's cook.

Jim McAllister looked at his watch.

“I guess not,” he said. “We'll call again, some other day.”

“Guess again,” returned the young man in blue.

“My second guess is the same,” retorted Jim.

“I've heard about you, Mr. McAllister. Yer smart, but you ain't the only one. I know yer a game warden an' a big man upriver, but all that don't cut no ice to-day. There's a warrant out for you.”

“You don't say! Sworn out by Mel Lunt and old Tim Hood, hey? Where is it, chief?”

“I ain't the chief. And I ain't got the warrant. But the sheriff will know what to do next.”

“If he don't I can tell him. Mel got two, didn't he—two warrants? One was for Richard Sherwood, wasn't it?”

“That's right.”

“Suppose we take a scout around for Sheriff Corker. I'm in a hurry.”

“Guess we best set right here an' wait for him.”

“What's yer name?”

“My name? Bill Simpson.”

“Jerry Simpson's son, from down on Bent Brook.”

“That's right, Mr. McAllister.”

“I know yer father well. Smart man, Jerry Simpson. You look like him. Now about the hurry I'm in. There's a sick man out at the O'Dell house and I've got to get out to him with Doctor Scott. He's the man poor Mel Lunt's got the warrant out for. Mel's crazy. I've got Mel cold—and old Hood too—for toting rifles and ball ca'tridges through the woods in close season. There's nothing against Sherwood and Dave Brown is up in Quebec now, looking for the man who did the thing they're chasing poor Sherwood for. Mel Lunt is making a fool of Sheriff Corker. You come along with me, Bill, and save the sheriff's face—and maybe an innocent man's life, too. Mel's fool enough to drag Sherwood right out of bed, sick an' all.”

“I'd sure like to do it, Mr. McAllister, but I dassint. I'm on duty in town all day. If I went with you I'd lose my job.”

“Now that's too bad, but if you can't, you can't. The sheriff will wish you did when Dave Brown gets back from Quebec. I'll have to go by myself, then.”

“Sorry, Mr. McAllister, but I got to keep you right here till the sheriff comes home. Rules is rules.”

“And reason is reason, Bill—and when a man can't see reason it's time to operate on his eyes.”

There was a brief, sharp scuffle in the sheriff's front hall. Young Bill Simpson proved too quick for Jim McAllister. He didn't hit any harder than he had to with his official baton—but it was too hard for Uncle Jim.