The Shaman/Chapter 18

There are many memories of those long-gone days standing out clear and distinct; of the time when the shaman first spoke; of the time when he was first able to leave his bed and the day when, leaning heavily on my arm, he was first conducted to a chair in the living room. And there, for many days, he would sit, quiet, brooding, sometimes silent for long intervals in which his eyes regarded Malitka with warmth and Jack with appraisement. He seemed absorbed in consideration of the possibilities of their future. Once when both were absent he said to me in his rolling Russian, “Your friend is a fine young man; but neither he nor any other could possibly be worthy of the Lady Malitka.”

“Nonsense,” I replied. “You question him because you have never liked him.”

“Never so much as you, Old Grayhead,” he answered noncommittally. And then he abruptly changed the subject by saying, “Tell me more of thy life, friends—what thou hast done and what wouldst do in the future.”

He seemed to take an almost boyish delight in anything I might tell him, forever insistent on drawing me out and insatiably curious regarding my career. He asked me questions concerning myself, my ancestry, my family, my private affairs that in any other would have been intolerably impertinent. And, on the other hand, I could get but little from him concerning himself, save when, now and then, almost as if by accident, he let something slip concerning his wanderings or the dog's life he had led in Russia. Once I touched him on the raw and learned more of the Russian side of his ancestry than at all other times put together. It was when I questioned him how certain peculiar scars had been inflicted on his forehead and cheeks. I thought for an instant, when I saw a scowl of anger flash over his face, that I had asked one question too many, but after a slight hesitation he gave me a reply.

“When first I went to Moscow,” he said, glowering at the floor, “I had in my pocket a letter found in my father's effects. It was from his brother whose name was—no matter!—and written years before. I cared nothing for this uncle of mine, but sought news of my father. I went to a palace where they drove me away. I waited outside for many days. It was in winter. I got my reward. One night a magnificent troika came slowly through the great gates, the grooms clinging to the horses' heads on the sides to restrain them, and seated inside was a man who I recognized, from his resemblance to my father, must be he whom I had so long sought.

“I sprang forward with a foot on a runner of the troika and appealed to him. He fell back at first as if terrified, then bent forward, stared in my face, and cried to the driver, 'Throw this vermin off!' The driver lashed me over the head with his thonged whip, but I clung there, braving the blows and screaming my appeal to this uncle of mine until, blinded by blood, I loosened my hold and fell to the snow. The last thing I heard was a man's laughter. I was violently bitter then, but later I, too, laughed. I hadn't until then understood the gulf that divides the legitimate ones of a noble house from its bastard spawn—spawn rendered all the more unadmissible if it happens to be from a careless marriage with one of the lowest origin. If I had not at that time been so wildly intent on finding the father whom I loved, and who, considering the tolerant if amused pains he took to teach me reading, writing—many things—must have loved me in his way, I should have endured other patient vigils outside those palace gates until I could cut my uncle's throat.”

He laughed as if at a reminiscence and, although I tried many times thereafter to lead him into further confessions, he was too adroit to ever gratify my inquisitiveness.

One day when all of us thought him quietly resting in his bed of convalescence, he disappeared. When he did not respond to the luncheon button, I went to his room to find it empty. Within it was not a tiny single possession of his, nor so much as an indication that he had ever occupied it. It was neatly in order. He had taken the trouble with infinite attention to details, somewhat clumsily executed, to restore the room to an unoccupied condition. After we had eaten our lunch I insisted on being the agent of inquiry.

I found him, as I anticipated, in his own home. He sat there in the window where I had so often seen him with his carving tools engrossed in the creation of another button! Not a light, not a shadow, appeared different than on many days when I had invaded his seclusion.

“You're a good one, Peluk!” I exclaimed in its Russian equivalent, and not without some indignation. “What is the meaning of this desertion? Have any of us done anything to offend you? Why leave the Great House without a word of parting or of thanks?”

He threw his tools and chunk of ivory upon the window sill and came, almost impulsively, and with outstretched hands to meet me.

“I hadn't thought you would regard it in this way,” he said. “Me? I am of no moment! To be succored in distress, to survive scratches, and then to pass away from an unearned hospitality seemed fitting. Besides”—he stopped, attempted to turn his inconsequence into a joke and chuckled—“I-need one button more and it must be made!”

“Damn your button!” I exclaimed in annoyance. “What about Malitka? What about Jack? What about me? Isn't there something due us?”

I suppose there must have been something of personal hurt betrayed by my voice, for with a swift change from badinage to gravity he advanced and laid both hands on my shoulders and stared at me with warmth in his eyes.

“How could I tell you and those other two that I had decided to leave?” he demanded. “Partings are so unpleasant! And—I knew that you, Grayhead, would seek me wherever I went. I am happy in that knowledge. We understand each other, you and I. And so—you can agree that my way was best.”

“Well,” I said, relenting, “you might have whispered to me at least if not to the others, that you were coming back here. You might have known that I should be worried until I found you again.”

He laughed, gave me a loving thrust with one of his quick hands, and then, as if embarrassed by his own impetuous familiarity, turned away and sought a chair.

“You can find me here after this,” he said. “This, such as it is, is my place. And,” he added almost shyly, “yours! Anything that I am or own is yours—Grayhead!”

And then with the abrupt change that characterized him, he became intensely serious, once again the planner, the masterful. Of the two personalities that dwelt within him the most dominant resumed its sway.

“I am again physically strong. Snows do not last. Traveling in summertime in this country, as you know, is impossible. You must finish your work. The Lady Malitka and your comrade wish to return to the outside. To-day, and perhaps for a little time longer, I hold the natives of my tribe in my hand. To-morrow or in a few days—I do not know.”

His coupling of himself with the Indians of his mother's race did not escape me. He did so without apology, pride, or shame, as if it were an accepted allotment.

“The Lady Malitka, assisted by the man who was her husband but never by nature a mate,” he went on, “has done much for my people and for me. It is not fair or fitting that she should pass from here without a kopeck, leaving millions of rubles behind in gold. I shall see to that while I have the power. Although this is a land where gold has small worth, it is of inordinate value in the places where you go. You and I know that, Grayhead, for you and I have learned.”

I started to protest but he silenced me with an upraised hand.

“You, yourself, I cannot see go without anything that I could give. And so for that, too, I will provide.”

He arose from his chair and walked to the window and stared out for a time, as if either measuring the climate, the weather, the seasons, or wishing to avoid my regard when uttering a decision.

“Day after to-morrow you and the others must be prepared for the trails. Day after to-morrow you start outward. I promise that you shall depart in safety. And”

Still looking away from me, not meeting my eyes, speaking across his shoulders, not turning head or body, he uttered a fatalistic Russian word, “Nitchevo!” “It doesn't matter.” And he added, “Go now. Tell them. I can say no more! Day after to morrow at seven o'clock of the morning you start. Outward bound!”

I rose to my feet and waited for him to say something more. In a way I was nettled by his peremptoriness.

“All right,” I declared. “If that is the way you are going to handle our affairs there's nothing more for me to say.” I waited a moment longer, hoping that he would at least meet me halfway in my wish to be friendly, but he stood immovable. “I'll see to it that they are ready, if you will send the sleds up to be packed.”

“I'll send the sleds,” he said, still without turning from the window.

And, resolved not to make further conciliatory speech I turned, walked out, and banged the door behind me.

When I broke the news to Malitka and Jack in the Great House, they appeared relieved, jubilant. They left me alone that afternoon, and I learned afterward that he accompanied her up to the edge of- the forest where he waited while she paid a last visit to the grave of the man for whom she had conceived a lasting affection if not natural love. It didn't strike me for a long time that she must have suffered somewhat in that hour when she paid reverence to a friendly memory and at the same time farewell to a dead, a turbulent past. It must have been the cleavage line. The kindly but trying hour when old mistakes were sponged from the records of life and the new and unmarked slates were grasped by her hands.

God knows there are but few of us who do not sorrow for the old, dead things, and seek hope in the new.

In the starlit morning of the allotted day we bade farewell to the Great House. A half dozen dog teams strained and yelped, eager for the adventure of the trail. Silent, heavy, aloof, the shaman stood outside waiting for us to declare our readiness. Malitka came last, as if she had wished to be alone in the rooms wherein so many years of her life had found security. They were not denuded. The priceless skins of the white polar bear, of red fox, of caribou, were left upon the floors. The fire in the huge fireplace crackled and glowed. The spreading moose antlers were still nailed in the hall. Some of her garments were still hanging thereon. The bookshelves that Harris Barnes had made with his hands, his and her books thereon, stood as they had been created in the corner of the living room.

Malitka did not come forth alone. My comrade returned to hasten her when time drew on and brought her out and seated her on a sled. He arranged the fur wrappings around her for her comfort. She seemed unaware of his solicitude, for her head was. bent and her body quivering with sobs. The shaman stepped up to the veranda, muttered some words of command to the weeping native servants, thrust them back with his hands, and pulled the doors shut.

“Go ahead!” he cried in the guttural native language. “We can't stop here forever. Go on!”

The men by the dog teams leaped aside. One cracked a whip. The released leaders sprang into the collars with resounding yelps. The sleds broke loose from the clinging snow and came to motion. In a long procession we ran down the village street. Our running feet beside or behind the sleds stirred our blood.

At the entrance to the defile, bordered by the white gates, I looked backward. There lay the village, the solemn, forest-clad hills behind, the white peaks dimly upreared against the stars of the morning sky and, last view of all, the somber shape of the Great House, with its windows alight with morning lamps, but obscured as if by parting tears.

A crowd of natives ran with us until the shaman ordered them back. The sleds streamed through the natural gateway and swerved in an abrupt turn. The entire familiar view was cut off and, so far as sight was involved, we might have been thousands of miles from a human habitation.