Ridgwell Cullum - The Way of the Strong

"I – I sometimes feel as if I could blame you for all – this," he began, in a low, harsh tone. "But I don't. I've still got sense enough for that. And it's lucky – lucky for you."

The woman's face paled under the beaver cap pressed low down upon her head. The threat was the more terrible for the simplicity of the manner in which he uttered it.

"How could I be responsible?" she asked, while her heart chilled within her.

"How?" Leo laughed without mirth. "I tell you I don't blame you – and yet I might. I did not intend to make this journey in winter."

Audie understood. She knew he was making this journey for her sake. Therefore she remained silent. How could she deny the blame, which, she knew in her heart, he set at her door?

"Say, I wonder if you know what this means to us – to me," he went on, in a tone of suppressed passion. "No, you don't – you can't. Guess it's not likely. You just remember we've still enough food for the journey which is to bring us where your child can be born in – in decency. You know we have no money. But that don't mean a thing to you, because you guess there's a man's hand ready to get busy in your service. You've no thought for anything else, because – because I guess you're a woman."

He caught his breath sharply as though laboring under a stab of intense bodily pain.

Then he laughed a short harsh laugh.

"If you could only look into my brain – my heart – my feelings, maybe you'd realize something of the destruction that's been done there by the loss of my gold. Oh, I'm no miser, greedily hungering after the precious stuff. It's not that." He paused and looked steadily at her. "I s'pose you can't realize what it means to have the concentrated hopes of years suddenly dashed to a thousand atoms. No, course you can't. You can't see, you can't feel these things, because you have never got up against those hills of success, which confront every man of purpose who's determined to cut himself a path which is to lead him right up to the – top of things. I've got busy that way, and the walls have fallen in and well nigh broke me up. That's what's happened. But I'm not down and out – yet. Not quite. No. I want to get right up and hurt some one in return. I want to hit out and – hurt. I want to do things by way of – retaliation. Guess there's nothing to – to retaliate on but those very walls that have so nearly crushed me.

"That's the way I'm feeling now. But I don't guess it's all. Not by a sight. Guess I've been well nigh mad. Maybe I was mad. I don't know. I don't care. Anyway I am mad no longer. How long my sanity will last I can't say. All I know is I daren't look back. If I did – well, I wouldn't gamble a heap on the result. No, I got to look forward. Maybe that'll save me."

Audie nodded. The fear of him was dying out of her.

"I think I understand – all," she said, in a low voice. "Yes, look ahead, it will be best for you. Don't let thought of our – our boy concern you now; forget everything – but that goal you spoke of."

Just for a moment the man's eyes softened. He was not insensible to the utter self-effacement in the woman's desire to help and comfort. But they hardened again almost at once.

"I'm not going to let – anything – interfere," he said almost brutally. "My plans are fixed. Now listen. To-morrow I get right back to Sixty-mile Creek. Anyway I start out for it. I'll have to go on foot. Maybe I shan't ever reach it. Anyway that don't matter. If I do I'll remain there until I have washed up as much gold as I have lost. It may take a year – two – three. It don't matter how long."

"But – " Audie broke in with wide, horrified eyes.

Leo stopped her with a swift gesture.

"It's no use shouting," he said harshly. "I tell you my mind's made up. You'll go on down to the coast with Si-wash. You'll be able to get the help you need there."

"Yes, yes, I can manage. I can get to my sister in San Sabatano."

"Good. You'll go on then. I can trust Si-wash. He's been paid. You'll have food enough, and you'll travel light. If he fails you, and I survive, if I hunt the world over I'll kill him."

Audie's eyes lit. It was the one expression of feeling Leo had displayed which she could take to herself.

"Then afterwards – God knows when – I'll come and marry you. It's the best we can do. It's all I can promise. We're plumb up against it. Whatever happens, I'm going to marry you. That goes."

Audie breathed a deep sigh of heartfelt gratitude. The ice had been broken. She knew that Leo's mental balance was restored. It mattered nothing to her at that moment that she had to face the world alone with her burden of motherhood. It mattered nothing that the shame she had so dreaded was still to be hers. The future had no longer any terrors for her. How should it? The man she had always known had once more resumed sway in the mind so recently distracted to the verge of madness. Her lover was once more the ruthless, powerful creature she had followed into the wilderness, was ready to follow into the wilderness again if he would only permit her.

"Must I – must I go on to the coast? Is there need?" she said, in a low, pleading voice, after a moment's silence. "If you are going back, cannot I go back, too? There's the sled. Why go on foot? Let me return with you, Leo."

The man shook his head, and his negative was as irrevocable as any spoken words. If he understood the devotion prompting her he gave no sign.

"Your life shan't be risked that way," he said. "The child must be born where you can get help. That's – our duty. It's my duty that you reach the coast in safety as far as the matter is humanly possible. Si-wash'll have to fix that. After that I'm helpless – I haven't a cent in the world or I would give it you. You'll have to go on to the coast, and I – I return alone."

Audie bowed her head submissively. She knew he was right under the existing circumstances. Anyway, right or wrong, she was ready to submit to his will. More than that she was glad to do so. Her big eyes stared thoughtfully into the blaze of the fire. There was no more to be said. She was content to sit there in silence, dreaming her dreams; those dreams which the silent northern world so mysteriously fosters, to cover up its own nakedness and make life possible upon its sterile bosom.

Later on the shuffling of Si-wash's moccasins scrunching upon the pine-cones made itself heard. He came with a great load of firewood upon his broad back. Leo watched him deposit it and replenish the fire. Then Audie set about preparing a meal, and the dogs were fed from the store of frozen fish, which, by a trick of Fate, had been saved in preference to their precious store of gold. After that, as the twilit woods were swallowed up in the darkness of night, Audie vanished into the tent, and was seen no more.

The solitude of the tent was preferable to the silence round the fire. She had permitted her lover to dispose of her life as he chose, but she passionately longed to return with him to the north, whatever the dangers to herself and her unborn child. All she cared for was this hard, unyielding man. So long as she had him she could think of and consider those other things which now seemed so small in her life. Without him they were utterly swallowed up by the desolation of all her thoughts and feelings. She wanted him. She wanted this love of hers. Nothing else in the wide world really mattered. He was going out of her life. She knew it. She knew more. He was going out of her life for ever. It was a haunted, despairing woman that sought the warm furs which the man had given up to her use. And the eyes that finally closed in slumber were stained with tears wrung from the very depths of her warm, foolish heart.

For long hours after the woman's eyes had closed in troubled sleep the two men hugged the warmth of the fire. They had neither blanket nor bed. All that had been saved had been given to the woman. The fire stood between them and the bitter cold of the northern night, and beside it was their couch of rotting pine-cones. But they were hardened to the deadly winter, and, so long as they could keep the frost out of their flesh, nothing much mattered.