The Shaman/Chapter 12

All the following day we were left alone, the shaman appearing for but short intervals, and always with an air of restless preoccupation and grim annoyance. Once when he was out and I stood staring through the window I saw him in the center of a group of natives, his hands gesturing now and then as if he were vehemently addressing them, and once he shook his fist under one tall buck's nose as if threatening him. The man turned and walked away as if angry and disappeared into a cabin.

For a while some of the men at the mines worked, and I could see several windlasses going where stalwart squat forms labored like automatons, first laying broad shoulders and powerful arms to the hoisting of the great buckets filled with what I surmised was pay dirt, then skidding them out to the end of the dumps, emptying them, skidding them back to the shafts and lowering them for another burden of earth, gravel, and gold. Later, however, as if a general air of infectious restlessness pervaded the camp, these men stopped work and joined the idlers, who stood in knots or finally disappeared in some of the houses. There could be no mistaking a universal excitement nor doubt that it was due to our presence.

“Jack,” I commented, “something is boiling here in this camp. I don't know what's up. Wish I did.”

“If you're wishing for things, why don't you wish we had never come to Madame Malitka's camp?” he replied despondently.

“I might wish that, too, but for the fact that if we hadn't blundered into it we should have been dead before this, and as it is—well—we are still alive. We've had that much luck.”

“I don't know whether we can call it luck or not,” he declared moodily. “Somehow everything seems to have turned to bad luck. First I get snow blindness. Then we nearly die of starvation, find a place where we're not wanted, and you blunder—I'm not blaming you, old man!—into a secret of all these people so they don't dare let us go, and”—he stopped and walked across the room and threw himself into a chair by the fireplace from which place he muttered—“and I met her! I thought her so womanly; so fine!”

There came a loud bark and a snarl in the rear of the house, and then shrill expostulations. I stepped to the door, wondering at the noise, and was almost knocked down by the frantic lunge of my own pet dog, my own leader, who whined and whimpered in delight at finding me, and twisted his great body around my legs, finally turning and raising an angry ruff and growling with savagely bared fangs at the old woman who cared for the house. She drew back, uttering shrill and unheeded commands. Then suddenly the shaman appeared behind her and called to me, “Make quiet! Make dog still. Bring here.”

I caught the animal by its sturdy neck, soothed it, and led it outward. I had never been to the rear of the house. It was now exposed. Behind it was a fence of saplings and two large outhouses. Peluk led me to one of these, and I saw therein several dogs of our own team and some of his.

He turned to the woman and gave an order, “Keep them well fed so they will be quiet. There are three missing. I will bring them also as soon as I can find them. And—be sure to feed them so well that they make no noise. Tell no one that they are being kept here. Is that plain?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then see that you obey,” he commanded and, advancing toward me, indicated we were to return to the main room of the house.

Once we were inside and he had removed the huge, shapeless, vividly colored Mackinaw coat from his shoulders and stood in front of the fire, he made a little clucking noise with his tongue, as if audibly punctuating a mental exclamation. His great chest rose and fell as if in anger. The heavy muscles of his throat, exposed and bared by the opening of his collar, moved as he twisted his head from side to side, as if restless.

“Peluk,” I asked, “what's up? Trouble?”

“Heap!” he replied regarding me.

“On our account?”

He nodded emphatically, started to speak, seemed to consider the advisability of confiding in us, and then said affably, “One young man here makeum trouble many time before you come. That very bad young man, what you call savage, ummh? Him say must killum you quick! Me say, 'No, not so much hurry.' Say can killum mebbe next week, mebbe nex' mont', jus' as good as killum now. Think mebbe young man talk other young mans, makeum think his way, ummh? Me speak to one old man, say, 'One white man my friend. Osser white man no matter. Killum and be damned; but no like my friend be kill so quick.' So, when get ugly say, 'To-night big talk in big house. Say then what do.' Young mans go way. No like talk. Say all palaver, ummh? Unnerstan' palaver, ummh?”

“Yes,” I said, “I understand that word. But—what happened then?”

“Nossings! Palaver to-night.”

'Then—then—why did you collect our dogs and your own and fasten them up in the shed out back?” I asked.

He grinned, turned his back on me, poked the fire and squatted down beside it before answering, with a childlike blandness, “Me got very fine dogs, ummh? You got very good dogs, ummh? Think bes' keep good dogs where can see get plenty grub. If killum you, think mebbe keep your dogs.”

It was a most cheerful explanation. The old rascal was keeping an eye open for future eventualities. We were of far less importance than the possession of so many first-class animals. It was useless trying to get anything more out of him. I repeatedly attempted and failed, as the afternoon wore away. He would talk of anything but subjects vital to us, craftily avoiding any reference to our extremity. It was not until we had eaten our supper and he donned his Mackinaw again that he even referred to it. Then in a tone of the utmost gravity he said, “Me go now. Big meeting. Make talk. But—lissen! You mans stay here! No go out—unnerstan'? No go out! Not even if hear noise. Stay here. Me come back, you bet! Me do—do my bes', unnerstan'?”

I jumped to the window and pulled the shade aside to watch him depart. In the light of stars and snow I could see him leisurely trudging along, ambling like a great bear toward the other end of the village where the lights from the big council house, or whatever it was, threw dim, yellow reflections into the night. Our situation was anything but reassuring.

“Hang it all! If he thinks so much of you, why doesn't he at least give us back our rifles and turn us loose so we can make a fight for it, if nothing more?” Jack cried.

“Because that would mean that some of his own people would get wiped out before we did,” I retorted. “Any fool can see that! If you ask me, I believe the old ruffian, bad as he is, wishes to do the best he can for us. I don't think he wants us to precipitate a fight that, after all, could be nothing but hopeless and predecided.”

Jack moved around the room like a caged animal two or three times before throwing himself into a chair and saying, “Well, I suppose you are right. But, anyhow, we shan't have long to wait. That's one consolation.”

But his prediction proved slightly amiss. We did have a long wait; or, at least, it seemed long to men in our position and jeopardy. It was nearly ten o'clock, a late hour in those latitudes, when we heard, faintly through the thick walls, the crunching of feet on crisp snow. The hall door was jerked open, then closed impetuously, the strides advanced and our door opened to disclose the shaman. He shut it, then stood with his back against it and his eyes swept over us and finally fixed themselves on the floor at his feet. He removed neither Mackinaw nor fur cap, and his arms hung listlessly by his sides. He scowled as if not only angry, but thoughtful. His whole attitude was one of a man at bay and uncertain. And then, as if coming to some swift determination, he moved quickly from the door and advanced to where I was standing, facing me with his black eyes sparkling in the firelight.

“Go get trail parka, trail mukluk, make ready run fas'!” he said. “No can tell what come. But no run till me say 'go!' Mebbe not have to run. Lissen! Down in kashime many mans talk. Think mebbe do what me say but for one young man!” He characterized him with the worst invectives in his tongue. “This savage say mus' killum you, and if me no quiet, mus' killum me. But me makeum afraid! Then me come away. Some young mans stay there palaver. No can tell what they do. Hope do nossings. But if do—well—mus' do bes' can. Me! Still shaman, tyune. Mus' wait see. You do what me say, ummh? If young mans come no let see you, ummh?”

“Nothing else for us to do,” I replied; and then, sensing that perhaps through his friendship for me he had jeopardized himself, I added, “But, Peluk, it's not fair to you. You've done all you could. You are my friend. That's so, isn't it?” He appeared to understand and to be grateful for my declaration, and nodded his head in emphatic assent. “Then why don't you give us rifles and open the back door and let us go?” I demanded.

He lifted his hands and shoulders in a shrug.

“Go? Where go? Lissen! If you get away and go ten—yes, more as twenty sleeps—no good. Catchum you. Bang! Bang! Dead! No, mus' let me, Peluk, say what bes' do. Mus' wait! Mebbe young mans do nossings. Heap young mans talk big but do nossing. Mebbe cool off same as bad dog in water, ummh? Mebbe soon see, No wait long.”

He turned and hastily moved out into the hallway where he muttered orders to the old squaw who was our housekeeper. I heard a door open, and, alert to learn what was afoot, stepped cautiously out into the hall. Jack fallowed me. A muffled yelping of dogs and the sharp commands quieting them reached our ears. We slipped farther along the hall until we could look through the rear door that had been left ajar. In the outhouse the shaman and the squaw were putting the harnesses on the animals, harnesses that had been unsnapped from the long sled rope that lay stretched out on the snow in front of the empty birch sled.

The moon was lifting itself clear and white above the high peaks making of each snowy incrustation a phantom shape of jewels, beautiful, motionless, chill. Save for the movement of dogs and the sharp mutterings of the shaman and his helper all was still. We stood and watched until, after all the animals had been harnessed, the shaman shut the door upon them, leaving them in the warmth of their outhouse kennel. He inspected the sled, and the rope, bending over like some grotesque shape in the moonlight. Once he struck a match to inspect a lashing of a stay that was loose, seemed to regard it as unimportant, and then moved toward us. Jack and I stole swiftly back to the living room and awaited him.

When he came he was apologetic, as if he had been a suave host detained from guests. He mumbled something about the necessity for food, and then, observing that we had not laid out garments suitable for the trail and the frigid night, said gently, “Think bes' get warm things. Mebbe go nowhere. Mebbe run fas'. If clock go so far”—and he stepped to the nickel-plated clock on the mantelpiece and indicated a round of the hour hand—“can sleep.” He turned to me with his wide grin, and the wrinkles netted themselves at the corners of his eyes as he added, “Hope so!”

It would have been difficult to conceive after a glance at his smiling, half-humorous, half-thoughtful face, that any of us were in stress and this a portentous hour. As if all his doubts were dissipated after he had once made a decision, he calmly walked to the crude mantelpiece, found thereon tobacco and papers and with a hand that did not in the least falter made himself a cigarette, lighted it with a pine spill from the fireplace and blew a cloud of smoke upward before he said, “Jus' same thing mebbe bes' you get parka, trail boot, cap, ummh?”

He had not for a moment forgotten details. He was insistent upon obedience to his orders. We brought them into the room and after changing the moose-hide moccasins for hair-seal mukluks we looked to him for further instructions.

He did not seem to notice us. His eyes were fixed on the slow movements of the hands of the clock, as if he were measuring time itself. Two or three times he crossed to the window, cautiously pulled the denim shade aside and peered outward. Each time he dropped the folds and returned to glance at the clock and then to succumb to abstraction. A full hour passed. He took another peep through an aperture of the curtains, returned, and with a sigh of relief said, “Well, think all go good. Think can sleep. But—to-morrow think mus' make sure young man what speak of not talk too much. Mus' get that young man a klootch. Nothin' like good squaw make young mans quiet, ummh? You think same? Squaw and babee make mans go quiet. Ummh? Makeum heap think.”

He relaxed, dropped into a chair with his feet sprawled in front of him to toast their soles in the heat of the fire, and with his hands clasped over his lap, began to philosophize. And then with his acute, half-savage sense of hearing, he suddenly stopped, lifted his head and listened intently. His nostrils dilated, his heavy black eyebrow's settled into a frown and his parted lips closed. He jumped to his feet and blew out the lamp.

“Somebody come,” he whispered. “Bes' you keep very still. Lissen!”

And in the ensuing silence we could hear the trampling of feet on snow, becoming ever more audible, the muttering of voices, a cough, and a sharp exclamation. A sense of danger invaded the room. In the dim blaze from the fire we saw the shaman move to the door. He opened it cautiously and stepped into the darkness of the hallway. Then, sharply, there came a harsh, imperative rap on the front door. We heard the shaman open it, and Jack and I stepped to the window and peered out.

The moon, now at the full, had arisen so that in its clear light we could observe every thing distinctly, the faces of men, even the expressions of those nearest us. A score of them were standing there, with one tall native some paces in front, as if he had been duly chosen as their spokesman. In the stillness every word that passed was wafted back through the open doors, fittingly accompanied by the chill air, and so distinctly spoken that even I, alien to that tongue, could understand. The shaman had advanced to meet them, for after rapping upon the door they had fallen back several yards. He stood where the moonlight shone upon his face, upon his broad shoulders, and with his hands tucked in their habitually careless attitude under the folds of his flannel shirt.

“Well,” he asked silkily and, smiling, “What have you come to say?”

The group behind the spokesman shifted uneasily, but the latter had no hesitancy and spoke belligerently.

“We have come to get the two white men.”

“You have, ummh?” said the shaman, as unperturbed as if the errand were a casual one of good will. “And what do you propose to do with them?”

“They must be killed,” the tall native asserted. And then as if to bolster up his followers' courage, he fell into loud declamation, bending his head forward to scowl at Peluk and gesturing with his hands. “Hark you, Peluk! Always before now, when strangers came and the Great Lady sent you out upon their trails to slay lest the secret that has made our people richer and happier than any other people in this land be loosened, you obeyed. You slew. You told us then that it was her will that none might ever come and go away to carry the tale. She told you to follow these and slay! But you did not. Your heart has turned to water, because one of these white men you made a friend and because you are old. Peluk, you are no longer fit to be chief. Shaman, yes—to sit by your fireside and tell legends; but to rule and carry out the Great Lady's orders never more. From to-night I am chief of our people. We have so decided in council.”

He stopped as if to give the shaman a chance to resign himself to their will; but Peluk stood there in that careless attitude and the moon shining on his swarthy face was reflected from his white teeth as if his grin had merely broadened. He took his own time to answer, and I observed that the men in the group behind their new leader moved restlessly as if the suspense was telling upon them. When the shaman spoke it was in that same placid voice, save that in it was contempt.

“Bah! Big words! So you are named tyune, are you, Tzitka? By all the people, ummh? You mean by yourself and the few men here in the gold camp, without giving the hundreds in the village of the Great Lady, or even herself, a chance to speak. You are chief? Fool! Go back home. Be glad that you are still head man in the mines. You have no other wisdom. Yours is not the brain to understand or to lead anything more than a few miners and a team of dogs! You shall not have the white men!”

The tall man seemed to sense the doubts of his followers, who were whispering and muttering together, and he put his new authority to the test. He was palpably angry and excited. He shook his fist at the shaman and shouted, “I say we shall. If you try to object we shall move you out of the way, even if it is necessary to kill you. I, who am now tyune, say so. Are you going to submit or not?”

His followers seemed to gather a trifle more courage and all became motionless once more, watching the shaman, who still stood there, smiling, motionless, squarely planted on his feet.

“And I ask you, Tzitka, who are no more chief than one of my dogs, if you are going to obey my orders and go back to your cabin? Take heed how you answer. One should keep cool on such a nice night, such a beautiful night, so moonlit as is this.”

His deep voice was as musical, unconcerned, indolent as if he were merely there to discuss the weather.

“We have talked enough! Out of the way!” shouted Tzitka, starting toward him.

With an almost incredible rapidity the shaman's right hand leaped from cover, the moon glinted on the blue steel of the pistol he had adroitly gained from me, and with the flip of his wrist showing that all his pretended ignorance of the use of the firearm had been for my illusionment, he fired. Fired as only an expert gunman can! Tzitka, charging, falling dead in mid-air, was by his own impetus carried forward so far that the shaman had to step aside as the body of his would be assailant lunged headlong, face downward, to the snow. The dogs of the camp, alarmed, set up a turmoil of howls and barks, that came faintly to our ears.

Tzitka's followers jumped back in confusion, shocked as was I by the swiftness and unexpectedness of the tragedy. The shaman stood almost as quietly and indolently as he had before inflicting death, with his left hand still comfortably thrust under his belt and the other holding the pistol. He was still smiling, but now he shook his head slowly, as if amused by the action of a child. There was something appalling in his very immobility and disregard of the dead man at his feet. There was something terrifying in the very quality of his voice, still calm and musical, when he inquired, “Have you any more chiefs among you—'duly chosen,' I think was said—who wish to take my place? If so, I hope his modesty in his new honors will not prevent him stepping forward. No? No one to take Tzitka's place? What a pity! And on such a nice night, too, with the moon so bright, ummh? When one can see so plainly!”

It is impossible for me to convey the sneer of contempt that was in that silky voice of his; but now, of a sudden, after a moment's awed wait in which he derived no answer, it changed, as did his attitude. His other hand swept upward, clenched, his broad shoulders hunched themselves, his massive head thrust itself forward and his eyes seemed to flare and catch sparkling glints of light from the white moon. Without apparent effort or preparatory gathering of leg muscles he leaped forward to confront the rebellious natives. One of them started to run, and he shouted angrily:

“Stop! One step more and you shall join Tzitka, that vain, brawling dog who wished to be chief!”

The man who had started flight hastened to obey, lifting his hands upward in quick gesture of submission, and it is my candid conviction that he was not a fraction of a second too soon; for already the shaman's hand was lifting itself skyward for that deadly, dexterous, downward flick that would have meant death.

“So you elected Tzitka chief, did you?” he roared. “You”—and one after another he snarled out their names, as if to emphasize his brand upon them individually and mark them for his displeasure—“you let the ambitious vaporings of this foolish Tzitka cloud your heads and dazzle you as the sun upon glittering snow! I am tyune, shaman. I, Peluk! None other! Pick up that carrion and take it with you. Get back to your homes while you may yet walk. To-morrow I will decide what your punishment shall be! Whether it suits me best to have you alive, or send you to join this wonderful chieftain of yours that may have gone to a hunting ground where he has no followers until you come. It would be a pity to have so great a tyune arrive there with none to do him honor and explain his greatness. Pick him up and be gone, I say!”

The dogs of the camp had intensified their chorus to a wild crescendo. Lights were appearing in the windows of the cabins. Men and women were starting in our direction; but so fierce and so far-reaching was that great bellow of Peluk's that it carried above all other sounds; even some of those who had been disturbed by the gun's report must have heard, for glancing that way I saw the foremost hesitate and stand still, shadowy movements disclosing their agitation and fear.

Terrified by his deadliness and his consummate air of command, some of the men of the insurgent group rushed forward and picked the body of Tzitka from the snow. A dark blotch was exposed where it had rested. From where Jack and I stood, tense and breathless, we could see how certain had been the marksmanship of the man who had pretended that he could not use a pistol, for the exact center of Tzitka's forehead bore death's seal.

“To his cabin with Tzitka's body!” the shaman cried. “To your own cabins for yourselves, and there to stay until to-morrow! Heed! Until to-morrow! For to night I, Peluk, shall walk, and woe shall come to the house of him whom I meet!”

The bearers of the corpse became a tiny, slowly moving group in the center of those who had accompanied Tzitka upon his rash venture. As if the shaman's far-reaching threat had terrified them, the perturbed in habitants of the village no longer advanced, but shifted irresolute, appearing in the distance like black shadows restlessly moving over a field of glittering white. The one compact shadow was that in the midst of which was carried the dead Tzitka. It diminished, joined the others; there was a momentary halt, and then disintegration as if scattered by some invisible terror. Individual shadows were absorbed and lost in the darker shadows of houses and cabins. Every human form disappeared. Nothing suggesting life was left save the flitting shapes of wolf dogs, disturbed, scenting blood and reverting to type. Disappointed, they lifted their heads and bayed the brilliance of the arctic stars and moon before returning to their beds. Everything was again still—still as if forever locked and frozen by the chill gods of the utter North.

Probably but a few minutes intervened between the boisterous moment of death and the culminating silence; but to me they measured as a prolonged lapse of years. I blinked my eyes to convince myself that I had witnessed realities, stared at the white mountain peaks, at the cabins, and thence backward to the spot of tragedy where my gaze was arrested by a solitary figure. It was Peluk, the shaman, motionless, massive, standing there in the moonlight with both hands thrust under his belt beneath the overflowing folds of his shirt. His face was turned toward the village as if in steadfast inspection to assure himself that his commands had been respected and obeyed. His feet were spread astride a dark spot on the snow.