The Shaman/Chapter 19

With such perfect sled dogs, skilled runners, and complete equipment, our journey outward was made with surprising ease. I have not much knowledge of the route beyond its general direction; but I am certain that it was chosen by the shaman so that we might avoid the sparse native villages. For from the time we started until we reached the seacoast we never encountered a human being. I do not recall more than one confidential warning uttered by Peluk in that smooth succession of days.

“Explain to your friend if he does not understand Russian,” he said on the first night's camp, “that he must guard his tongue. Some of these with us understand as much English as I, and—might overhear. I have told them that the Lady Malitka returns again after a time. It was necessary to lie to them! It was a lie, I know, for she returns no more!”

Our evenings were usually passed in Malitka's tent that was rendered almost luxurious through the shaman's forethought and care. It was but rarely that we could induce him to join us, and then he sat, cross-legged, in the most remote corner he could find, saying little, smoking much, and thoughtful. Not even I could arouse him to his former friendliness. It was as if he had erected a barrier between him and us.

We finally came within sight of the cold arctic seas. We dropped down across unbroken snows to a village and a trading post. The trader, a half-breed Russian, old and fat, welcomed us, and Peluk spoke to him in Russian and called him aside. A moment later they returned together, with the information that the trading company's steam schooner was more than twenty days overdue on its annual voyage. It was satisfying news. We took possession of such accommodation as could be put at our disposal, and prepared to wait in patient resignation; but luck favored us in that at noon the next day a bellowing siren apprised us of the steamer's approach.

“Stim-bo-oat! Stim-bo-oat!” the natives shouted in great excitement while dogs of the camp, and ours that had held proudly aloof for once, joined in long-drawn wails. The quiet native village awoke as if from an annual sleep when the master's boat came ashore, and the first white man we had seen for many months rolled upward from the beach and entered the trader's doors. A whaleboat landed with its huge pile of stores, its rowers cursing the surf that compelled them to come in stern first. Natives swarmed to the long, inhospitable beach to seize and carry to the trading post the precious bales, boxes, and bundles. The trader, in a frenzy of excitement and importance, waddled to Peluk, and said, “This is the end of her voyage this way. Her captain is willing to take your people back, but they cannot land until they are in Seattle.”

I think that up to then he had not been aware that I used his tongue, for he seemed surprised when I said, “That is "Satisfactory to us.”

“It will take two hours to put our trade of furs and pelts aboard,” he said; “and after that we will send yours. Is that all right?”

“It is all right,” I said, and he hastened away.

I gave the news to Malitka and my comrade. They were standing together on the beach staring at the steamer.

There was some hitch in the trader's arrangements after the first boatload of pelts had been put aboard, and the captain of the schooner approached us, gave us each friendly greeting, then said, “These traders always lose their heads in times like this. We might get your outfit aboard while he is getting his next lot ready.”

I turned and shouted to the shaman who was standing in the midst of his men quietly talking, and whatever lack of discipline was shown by the trader's men there was nothing wanting in his. He uttered short commands, and his men sprang to the sleds and began crossing the narrow strip of beach to the waiting boat. Each, although carrying burdens of small compass, trudged heavily with heels biting deeply into the sand.

“What—what's this? What are those men carrying?” the captain shouted.

“They carry gold,” Peluk answered as imperturbably as if giving the news that their burdens were merely sand. Not only the master of the schooner and his men, but Malitka, Jack, and I were astounded. I remembered now that he had declared his intent to provide us with some funds; also that throughout our journey to the coast I had speculated on why Peluk required such a retinue of dogs and men. Now it was explained. He was enriching us!

We stood speechless in the midst of a great excitement while the boat sank lower into the water and the skipper himself, anxious for its safety, and troubled by such an unexpected responsibility, demanded that one of us accompany it aboard and remain to guard it and to receive the remainder. Jack walked to Peluk and extended his hand. They talked quietly, and Jack was the only one of the two to show any emotion. The boat pulled out with him, passed alongside the black hull of the schooner to the leeward side and was lost to view.

“You, Lady Malitka,” said the shaman, “must go with the next boatload. To you I have written a letter voicing many words my tongue cannot speak; for in it goes my heart.”

Tears suddenly filled her eyes and she cried, “Peluk! Dear Peluk!” and would have said more had he not given her hand a harsh grip, and then, as if he could not speak, bent suddenly over and kissed it. He turned brusquely away, calling over his shoulder, “Grayhead, after you have put the lady in the boat return to me. To you I have not written but would talk.”

I stood there trying, somewhat awkwardly, to comfort Malitka, and when at last her sobs had ceased and we looked around the shaman was nowhere to be seen. The boat with its excited men was backing for its run up the surf, with some of its rowers standing in readiness to plunge into the icy water and seize and force her stern up on the sand. The last of the gold and our few personal belongings were speedily loaded. I picked Malitka up and carried her to the stern to spare her feet from the running surf, and again the boat left for the ship.

“How long can I have now?” I shouted to the captain.

“At least an hour and a half before we can get the last of the trade aboard,” he called in reply.

I looked for Peluk. He was standing well behind his men, with his hands in his pockets, giving them orders. Now and then they glared at the villagers, some of whom were staring at them when not bestowing attention on the ship or the string of carriers who were coming from the warehouse behind the dunes, bending under great bales of pelts and furs.

“You are to go back there to the edge of that timber and make camp,” he told his men. “You are to speak to no one, not even the trader. You are to answer no questions. You are to wait until I have bought the trade we are going to take back with us and send for you to bring it. Be ready, for to-night we must be far from here. I have spoken.”

Obediently they turned and straightened out the dog teams and without so much as a glance at me ran lightly away toward the fringe of timber a mile or two distant. For a moment the shaman watched them, and then turned toward me and beckoned. I followed him as he trudged away, wondering whither he was taking me. There was a cliff a little farther along that bleak and desolate shore against whose base the surf, comparatively light as it was for those waters, hurled itself in uprearing waves that broke and fell in a smother of foam. A gradual ascent led to the cliff's summit that stood at least two hundred feet sheer above the sea. As I plodded after Peluk I wondered why he was taking me to such a spot for our final conversation. Once I asked him, but he did not reply nor so much as hesitate, but climbed upward, his great legs moving as steadily as the pistons of an engine, his hands still in his pockets, his head bent forward.

Somewhat out of breath myself, I finally came abreast of him as he stood on the top and looked around—first in the direction of the timber line as if to assure himself that his men were obeying his commands, then at the little village as if to make certain that his men had not been followed, then out at the schooner. My eyes followed his, took it all in at a glance. I saw the string of Peluk's natives, dog teams and sleds, running lightly, looking now like strings of soldier ants crossing a barren field of unbroken white, and noted the cluster of barrabaras huddled about the log-trading post as if for protection, and the schooner that was to carry us away. From that height she appeared absurdly small, frail, inadequate, and the slow plume of smoke from her funnel made a black smirch ill befitting the cleanliness of the pure atmosphere. It was as if she intruded on something that belonged to God alone. The far-distant horizon where sea and sky faded into union did not at that moment hold for me any glamour. I knew what lay beyond. It is inevitable that nothing other than the unknown can bring visions or sway our hopes.

“Grayhead, thou dost dream! I brought thee here to talk,” said the shaman in Russian.

I can't tell now why I turned to him and gave way to impulse. But I'm candid enough to confess what I said.

“Peluk, why be such a fool? Why stay here in this land? Why not come with us? Why not with me? I've lost my partner. I shall be alone. Think of the places neither of us have ever been—places we could seek—adventures big enough to satisfy!”

The stolidity of his face broke as does sunburst through clouds of storm. There was something of an incredulous happiness in his giving way.

“I want you!” I added. “We understand each other now, you and I. Come! Let's go together.”

He came forward and put both hands on my shoulders, and his fingers gripped hard. His dark eyes widened and probed and were warm with a great light as he stared at me.

“Thou art brother of mine!” he cried in that big resonant voice that I had heard in so many crucial times. Then his lips moved and he tried to speak and could not, clutched me a little harder, and at last, as if incapable of other action, released and thrust me staggering away with a single movement. I did not resent. I knew that he could do nothing else. I appreciated his mental maelstrom. He turned to a wind-swept ledge of granite near by and sat thereon—as if like had sought like and, finding it, was thereafter safe.

We forgot the ship far below, the village, everything. We were engrossed in ourselves and an issue.

“No,” he said at last, “I'd like to go. It tempts me, Grayhead, because we should be together, in quest of many and strange adventures; finding some; failing in many; perhaps victoriously satisfied in a few. But—you don't understand! You can't! You haven't suffered as I have. Because yours, Grayhead, is a just mind and open heart, you forget wounds that might come to one such as I am—out there!”

He swept his hand aimlessly over the waiting sea, in indication of the thousands of leagues beyond.

“Come! Think of it! Look at these!” he exclaimed, sweeping the fur cap from his head and lifting his face toward me as if courting scrutiny of his scars. “These,” he said, touching them with his fingers, “are ineradicable marks of the esteem in which such as I are held by those with whom you must hereafter associate. My father's brother put them there. Isn't that enough?”

I could not find words to temper such great injustice. I sat dumb and without answer, indignant and impotent.

“But we needn't go to Russia,” I said, grasping at an evasion. “There are other places on earth. You sent gold to the ship. Some of it, I presume, is for me. But Peluk, you and I can take that and outside we can”

“Nichevo!” he interrupted me with his Russian word of fatalism. “Don't speak nonsense!” He stopped so long that I lifted my eyes- to look at him and saw that he was staring at the snow between his feet.

“The Lady Malitka is gone forever,” he said. “The partner you had is gone with her forever. And that is well and as it should be. The inevitable. So, why not come back with me, brother? There is more gold in the hills—more than any man might wish; but to me that is nothing. What I must do is to care for my people”

“Your mother's! Not your father's! Not all yours!” I exclaimed.

“True,” he admitted. “But I am not for the stronger side. It can protect itself. The weaker cannot. No, ridiculous as it may seem, I'm for that weaker and more helpless side. Moscow taught me what it is to suffer, to endure, to hope, to seek justice. I'd like to go with you—Grayhead, but—I can't! I can't!”

He got to his feet and strode backward and forward in front of me, beating a path in the snow, never looking at me, with bared hands behind his back, heedless of the winter's chill, and spoke as if thrashing out a prodigious problem alone.

“I can truthfully say that in all my life I have loved but two men—my father and you! I have liked some—hated many—and loved but two, my father and yourself.”

He stood for a time stern, aloof, and then with a swift gesture faced me with appeal. He stretched out his hands, as if to spread life before me.

“Come back with me, Grayhead! Come back! The others desert us. Let them go. They will be happy and secure. Neither of us need worry about their future content. Perhaps in a few years' time, when I can have found a man of my mother's race strong enough and wise enough to justly rule and protect his people, you and I will then go outside together. We could go as men of very great wealth. Be sure of that.”

He stared at me awaiting my answer, but I slowly shook my head.

“Ah, I forgot that you are not as so many men of your race for whom gold is a god!” he said. “It means but little to you. You are a wanderer who would be free. No, you are right to go. When the wings of the great migratory birds are clipped they die with broken hearts. Also I am selfish, for the day may come when those others, so much younger, will lean upon your wisdom—will need your advice. You also have duties that must be fulfilled. But know this!”

He had halted in front of me and now stood looking at me with eyes in which was unabashedly, gladly shown, a great affection.

“Know this!” he repeated as if to impress it upon my memory. “Even the stanchest, most gallant ship must some day run from the blasts of the tempest and seek port of refuge. If that sad day comes upon thee, brother—which may all my gods forbid!—seek thou me! In that hour all I have to share or to give, even to my life if it serve, is thine! Go now! And—farewell!”

Before I could move, so unexpected was his action, he threw both his great arms about me, fervently clasped me in the fashion of Russian brothers upon parting, and then, as if overcome by emotion, turned his back and waved me away, climbing slowly upward to a still higher point of rock as if he would be alone.

“Peluk, is this good-by?” I called after him, and without stopping his march he gestured affirmation.

“Will you not write to me?” I cried. “Will you not wait until I can give you an address?” And then when he did not answer I added, “Then I shall leave it with the trader. Will you not write some time?”

He paused, as if considering, and then without looking back replied, “Perhaps, brother of my heart! Perhaps!” and then more hurriedly moved away.

A blast from the steamer's siren, impatient, insistent, warned me that I must hasten. I plunged down the hill and in a few minutes climbed into the waiting boat. It thrust out in the froth of foam and my eyes sought the cliff. I was disappointed that from that position its peak could not be seen. When I climbed to the deck of the schooner both Jack and Malitka were waiting for me. They asked a question or two that I could not answer, while the small boat came swinging up from sea to davits. The steamer's parting bellow roared out drowning all sounds, her screw seized the water as if impatient to be off, her bow swung to the south-southeast, and with Jack and Malitka following me I walked to the stern rail.

“There he stands,” I cried, pointing to the great cliff on whose very top stood a lone and unmistakable figure rendered sharply visible against the sky above and the snow beneath. His very size seemed magnified and exaggerated into gigantic proportions there against the sky line, like some barbaric Colossus of the North. He stood there for a long time with folded arms, not responding to the waving of our caps and Malitka's handkerchief in farewell. He must have been watching us, for at last he raised both hands high above his head, clutched them together, and then threw them widely apart with a gesture of whose significance I have never been certain. I have never been able to decide whether it was of resignation or despair or whether, having resolutely chosen his path, he was brushing away as hopelessly futile all grief for our memories. We could not evoke from him another sign, and at last ceased our efforts.

My companions had each other for diversion, with great dreams of happiness, splendid hopes for the future. Time has but made those dreams come true. But then they seemed to me fantastic. They paced back and forth across the open space of the after deck that was for the time being deserted, she with an arm confidingly in his, and he gravely bending his head toward her as if to lose no inflection of a loved voice. For some time they seemed to have forgotten my presence as I stood there resting both elbows on the rail, not losing sight of the diminishing cliff.

I was somewhat disturbed by Jack's voice when he halted behind me and he called, “I say, old man! Did I tell you that the shaman's letter to Malitka says that, inasmuch as he knows that she is already amply provided for by government bonds deposited in a Seattle savings vault, all the gold aboard this ship is yours? Do you know you are now worth about a quarter of a million dollars?”

“No,” I replied, “you didn't tell me,” and went on thinking.

“Humph! You don't seem particularly elated over it. That's just like you!”

“Yes, just like me,” I agreed.

“What's the use!” I heard him exclaim in disgust. “He's always been a grumpy, surly, unimaginative old cuss. Come on, Malitka, let's go forward and see if they've got this ship headed right for some place where there's sunshine and warmth and”

He must have lowered his voice to whisper the remainder of his speech, for I heard her soft, happy laughter.

“By the way, Jim, look after those binoculars I left lying there on a grating—they're the skipper's!” he called back.

I looked around. With Malitka he had disappeared behind the corner of a deck house. I aroused myself to seize the glasses and focus them to my sight. I turned them backward across the constantly widening sweep of chill waters that intervened between the ship and her last anchorage. I caught the dimming outline of the landmark—the high cliff upon which the shaman and I had made our farewells. They were good, powerful glasses.

They brought, leaping to my view, the figure of one whom I esteem as a very great man. But now, it appeared, as if shorn of strengthened power, for the time being, at least, despondent, conquered, with his back turned to us, the shaman was on his knees beside a gray rock and his head was pillowed upon his outflung arms.