Harold Bindloss - The Ghost of Hemlock Canyon

Giant firs and hemlocks bordered the trail. The dust was soft and red, but where bright beams pierced the shade the trunks and ground were checkered by shimmering gold. Denis began to breathe harder. He had got soft on board ship, and the afternoon was hot. All the same, he had forty miles to go, and he pushed on.

After a time, the trees got smaller. Smooth rocks crossed the trail, and stones rolled under Denis’s boots. The top of the hill was open, and he looked about.

In front, a valley curved into the woods and rocks. Pines like dusky pyramids rolled down the steep slopes and, getting smaller, melted in a deep, blue gulf where a thin white river ran. Upstream, the valley turned behind folding hills, and in the distance a glacier sparkled. No smoke stained the landscape. All one saw was rocks and pines and sky.

The trail, plowed by wagon-wheels, went downhill. At some spots, one edge had slipped across the top of a precipice; at another spot, large stones from a snow-swept gully had buried the uneven road. All the same, it led on downhill, and Denis doubted if an athletic man could make much progress in the bush. Thick fern and tangled raspberry-canes grew between the trunks, and where big trees had crashed one must use an ax to clear a path.

A vivid, green-and-red woodpecker tapped on a slab of bark, and a little willow grouse flew to a branch and fearlessly watched Denis pass a few yards off. Then a sharp rhythmic note pierced the brooding calm, as if somebody in the distance beat a drum. Denis wondered whether a chopper was at work; but the noise stopped and began afresh at another spot. Human muscle could not force a passage through the brush so fast, and Denis speculated about the creature’s speed. He had not before heard a blue grouse call its mate.

By and by all was quiet. A light wind touched the pines and the heat began to go, but the blue shadows were yet splashed by sparkling gold. The smell of balsam and pine got keener, and Denis pushed ahead. He had no map, but he thought if it were possible to steer straight north his line to the Arctic Sea might not touch a clearing man had made. One got a sense of vastness; the wide spaces called.

His head was up, his light, muscular figure was firmly poised. The braces pressed his shoulders with a strain he knew, and he went with the quick step he used when the battalion swung along the roads in France.

Then the trail began to climb and his skin got wet. The yellow beams had vanished, and when he looked ahead the valley was dark but for the glacier’s silver streak. A stream splashed in the stones and Denis threw down his load. He had no ax, but he broke thin branches for a bed, and a dead hemlock supplied dry fuel. Brewing green tea, he fried bacon and crackers; and then, sitting by the fire, lighted his pipe.

Blue smoke curled about the straight trunks; a star shone above the glacier. The creek’s splash was musical, and Denis thought about the other Aylward who had taken the forest trail. When Tom Aylward started for the canyon, it looked as if he were making good. His letters were optimistic; a relation had yet the packet his mother had kept. Then it looked as if his partner were a good sort; anyhow, Marvin was just. His letter was frank, and he had sent a useful sum and a valuation certificate, although Denis imagined the fellow might have kept the lot.

So far as Denis knew, Marvin could not have saved his partner. The flood broke suddenly and his uncle was embarrassed by his load. He was not going to bother Marvin, but he was a raw stranger and the fellow might put him on the proper track. Denis remembered his uncle. Tom Aylward was big and humorous; he liked to joke, and he walked with a sort of careless swing, but the picture was indistinct. Well, he was gone, and now Denis faced the mountains the other had crossed. In the quiet evening he seemed to hear his rolling step, as he had heard it, long since, on the gravel in an English garden.

The important thing was, when Tom Aylward started for Canada he had money to invest, but Denis had not. The Aylwards’ fortunes had not mended in the war, and Denis, glancing at the massive trunks, reflected that money was needed as well as muscle to clear ground for cultivation on the Pacific Slope. However, he must not be daunted, and he began to think about something else.

Monica and Bride, he supposed, had now joined their friends. In a few weeks they would forget him, and for all their fresh charm, Denis was resigned. The other girls had got in the rig; he did not know where they went, but if it was to a ranch, the ranch was, no doubt, large and prosperous. They were cultivated young women, and one carried the stamp of command. Perhaps her relations indulged her, but Denis thought he had sensed force and pride and keen intelligence. Anyhow, like the Misses Cullen, she had vanished.

Denis admitted philosophically that a girl of her sort would not think about him again. Moreover, he must concentrate on getting a job. For all the poets and dramatists, he rather thought man’s real business was to labor at something useful; anyhow, one must supply oneself with food and clothes.

Well, he was perhaps not romantic; in France the boys had bantered him about his soberness. Denis was not at all a prig. He was frankly modern and challenged old-fashioned rules, but he was unconsciously fastidious. The ladies of the cabarets had not attracted him, and he could picture calmly the young women of another sort with whom he had joked and danced.

Brooding by the fire, he recaptured half-forgotten names and faces: singers at concert parties behind the line, nurses, Red Cross helpers, and post-war tennis girls. Some were kind and some were scornful. All had some charm, and Denis thought them a plucky lot, but none in particular had moved him much.

Although they had vanished, it now looked as if they were coming back. When the red flames leaped about the branches, unsubstantial figures floated in the curling smoke and vague faces smiled. Denis’s pipe was cold, but he could not bother to get a light. The river’s turmoil had melted; he thought he heard jazz music; and then the measured beat of feet and a marching-song.

A high fresh note, disturbing like a bugle, rolled across the woods, and Denis sharply turned his head. A timber wolf in the rocks? A loon on the river? He did not know; but the wilds had called and banished his fantasy. Only the pine-trunks loomed in the smoke, and the mountain creek splashed. Denis threw fresh wood on the fire, and in a few minutes was asleep.

VI

THE CHOPPERS

A big drop splashed on Denis’s face, and, pushing back his coat, he looked about. The light was good and he had slept longer than he ought, but he could not see the hills across the river for rolling mist and the pine-needles trembled in the rain. His hip-joint hurt, for some time had gone since he had slept on the ground, his coat was wet, and muddy ashes marked the spot where his fire had burned. It was awkward. Somehow he had reckoned on a fine morning, but he must get breakfast and shove off. Marvin’s ranch was the next stop and he wanted to get there before the sun set.

The wet wood smoldered and his kettle refused to boil. Damp crackers and partly melted bacon were not appetizing, and after a few minutes he pulled on his pack. Water flowed down the hillside, and where the trail had been graded the soil was a bog. Vague mountain-tops pierced the mist and vanished, and the dripping pines murmured in the warm Chinook wind. Moreover, the trail went uphill and Denis’s coat began to embarrass him. All the same, it did not look as if there was much use in waiting for the rain to stop, and he did not mean to camp another night in the woods.

At noon he reached the slope of a high tableland. The valley, filled by mist, curved round the hill; but on the rocks in front the trees were thin, and since the trail followed the river, Denis reckoned he might cut out a mile or two if he crossed the top. He had not had much breakfast, the food in his bag was wet, and he must try to make the ranch for supper.