CHAPTER XX

For a few minutes after leaving the shore Peter did not trust himself to speak. He could see nothing but a gray chaos except landward, where the red sky and the darker blot of the cliff were visible through the smoke gloom. Even the weather-stained canvas of Simon's boat was indistinguishable, and where his father lay on a pile of blankets at his feet he could make out only a shadow. Now that the fire had burned itself out of the forests between the shore and the ridges the heated winds gave way quickly to a growing calm. The smoke hung like a dense fog and with this change came a strange stillness in which sound seemed to multiply itself until he heard clearly the wailing of a dog at Five Fingers.

Then the faint rattle of oarlocks came to him and his hand tightened on the tiller. It was Aleck Curry again—Aleck and the man-hunter, Carter, hurrying to cut them off before they could leave the shore! And suddenly in fierce passion he wanted to shout back his defiance to them just as years ago—three days before he came to Five Fingers—he had felt the desire to kill the men who had driven his father into the forest. Something in these moments brought that day back to[269] him—a vivid memory of the big log behind which they were sheltered, and armed men in the thickets, the blue jay screeching at them, his thirst and hunger and his father's pale, strong face waiting with courage for darkness to come; then the dusk, their escape on a log in the flooded river and their first fugitive camp in the big woods. How wonderful his father had been in those hours of peril which he as a boy could scarcely understand! And now he was lying at his feet, a pitiable wreck because of that same merciless and unfair law which had pursued him then——

Peter cried out. It was not much more than a throat sound, as if the smoke had made him gasp for breath. But a hand rose out of the darkness and touched him.

"Peter!"

"Yes, dad."

"It has all gone wrong, boy. If only I hadn't been so heartsick to see you—if I had never come back——"

Peter bent over and his hand rested tenderly against the face which Simon had cooled with ointment.

"If you hadn't come I'd have lost all faith in the God you used to tell me about," he whispered. "I wanted to give up but Mona wouldn't let me. She said you would surely come. And this isn't half as bad as that day behind the log when I was a little kid. Remember how you cared for me then—kept me above water when we went into the river, caught rabbits for me to eat afterward and tucked me into bed every night near the camp-fire? Well, it's my turn now. And I'm[270] almost glad you're sick—just so I can show you how much I've grown up since that afternoon you sent me on alone to Five Fingers so many years ago. You lied to me then, dad. You made me believe you'd come back that night, or the next day. Haven't you ever been ashamed of that?"

The strain was gone from his voice. It was his dad he was speaking to again, his pal and comrade of the old days, and the thrill of that comradeship was stirring warmly in his blood.

"I knew Simon would give you a good home," said Donald. "And he has made a splendid man of you. But I'm sorry, Peter—sorry I came back. After all those years I was hungry to see you. I just wanted to look on your face and then go away again without letting you know. I didn't mean to break into your life like this——"

His hand was stroking Peter's and for a moment Peter bent down until his face was close to his father's. Donald was silent but his hand continued its caressing touch. After a little he said:

"Did I hear something, Peter?"

"I think it was thunder. A storm must be following in the trail of the fire."

"I mean out there—near at hand. It was like wood striking on wood."

He sank back and Peter reached down and made his head comfortable. "This makes me think of that last night in the woods when you tucked me in my cedar-bough[271] bed and told me to sleep," he whispered gently. "And I'm telling you that now, dad. It's what you need. Try and sleep!"

Even as he spoke he heard the distant sound again and knew it was the clank of oarlocks. He fastened the tiller so that Simon's boat was heading for the open sea. Then he crept forward and returned with a blanket, and this blanket he quietly unfolded in the darkness, taking from it the weapon which Simon had loaded and placed there for his use. And Simon's words were running over and over in his head, as steady as the ticking of a clock. "Take care of him, Peter. It's your job now to beat the law."

As the minutes passed it seemed to Peter that sound became a living, stealthy part of the night, creeping about him in ghostly whispers, hiding behind the canvas sail, rustling where the water moved under the bow, purring at his feet and in the air. This impression of sound by its smallness and its secretiveness served to emphasize the hush which had fallen upon a burned and blasted world. Its muteness bore with it a quality of solemnity and a quickening thrill as if subjugated forces were muffled and bound and might unleash themselves without warning. In this stillness Peter heard the thunder creeping up faintly behind the path of fire. But the sound of the oar did not come again.

He strained his eyes to pierce the gloom even though he knew the effort was futile and senseless. The red[272] line of the fire was steadily receding. In places it was lost. Where he had left the cliff and the sandy strip of beach was a black chaos, and it was this darkness with its silence which seemed to reach into his heart and choke him with its oppression and foreboding.

Through the stillness a sound came to him, floating softly over the sea, sweet and distant. His fingers slowly unclasped and he bowed his head. It was the bell over the little church of logs and Father Albanel was tolling it. Even now in this smoke-filled hour of the night he was calling the people of the settlement together that they might offer up in prayer their gratitude because homes and loved ones had been spared by the red death that had swept the land. It was like a living voice, gently sweet and soothing as it brought him faith and reverence. There was a God! Every fiber in his body leaped to that cry of his heart. Without a God his father would have died, the whole world would have burned, there would be no Mona, no hope, no anything for him in the darkness of the freedom which lay ahead. His lips moved with Mona's prayer and he stood up quietly so that he might hear more clearly until the last peal of the bell died away. And when the gray silence shut him in again he felt as if a protecting spirit had come to ride with him in the gloom.

Softly he spoke to his father but there was no answer. Exhaustion and the peace of the open sea had overcome the stricken man and he was asleep.

[273]

Encumbered by stillness and smoke, the night passed with appalling slowness. The distant thunder with its promise of rain died away. Half a dozen times Peter lighted matches and looked at his watch. At last it was three o'clock and the horizon of murk and smoke that shut him in receded as dawn advanced. Then came a sudden keen breeze, like the last sweeping of a great broom, and he could see the coast. His own heart was thrilled by the sight of it, for behind the menacing headland of barren rock that rose like a great gargoyle hundreds of feet above the lower cliff was a strip of water which he had once hazarded in a dead calm and which led back half a mile between towering walls of rock and naked ridges into that very chaos of wildness which he had wanted for a hiding-place.

Scarcely had this moment of exultation possessed him when the wind died again. At the same time a clearer light diffused itself over the sea. The horizon drew itself back like a curtain and half a mile away he saw an object that sent his heart into his throat.

For a few moments he neither moved nor seemed to breathe as he stared at a swiftly approaching skiff. Then he looked at his father. Donald McRae had not awakened. A livid scar lay across his eyes as if a red-hot iron had burned out his sight. His hands were blistered, his lips were swollen and his neck and shoulders were scarred and covered with the ointment which Simon had used. Yet—even then—his father slept! The horror of it choked Peter and his soul cried out[274] for vengeance against those who had made this wreck of a man. He turned and his hand rested upon his rifle. He no longer feared the law or Aleck Curry or Carter, the ferret. His desire at first was to kill them. With astonishing calmness he waited, watching the approaching skiff. When it was two hundred yards away he picked up his rifle.

He chose the small of Aleck's back for his first shot and raised his gun. In the same moment he observed that with Carter in the stern and Aleck amidships the bow of the skiff was high out of water. It was this situation which saved Aleck and Peter's first bullet crashed through the boat an inch or two below the water line. He followed with two other shots. The effect was almost instantaneous. Aleck Curry lurched away from the oars and the skiff came within an ace of upsetting. In another moment the quick-witted Carter had called Aleck into the stern and there both crouched, their combined weight raising the shattered bow above the water line while Carter stripped himself of his shirt.

The shots roused Donald, and with an effort he drew himself up beside Peter.

"What is it?" he demanded. He turned his scarred face toward Peter and then with a strange cry covered his face with his hands. "My God, I can't see!" he cried. "Peter—I can't see!"

In that darkest moment of his life Peter thanked God the wind came and filled the sail of Simon's boat and[275] that neither Carter nor Aleck Curry shouted after them or made a sound that his father might hear, and like an inspiration a lie came to his lips—he had done some poor shooting at a flock of mallards! He spoke cheerfully of his father's efforts to see, telling him it would be days before he could hope for vision when his eyes were swollen and scarred by burns. And Donald, seeing nothing of the agony in Peter's bloodless face, smiled cheerfully up at the clearing sky in spite of his pain. He did not mind so much about his hands, he said, but it was a hardship to have his eyes covered as Peter was bandaging them now because he wanted to see as much as he could of his boy in the short time they would be together. There was a note of happiness in his voice which was in strange contrast to the pathos of his appearance and his helplessness.

And Peter fought to keep up that spirit of cheer and of gladness that was in Donald McRae's heart. But his own heart was breaking—for he knew that his father was blind.

Hours later Simon's boat came stealing back to shore in the sunless dusk of the evening. This time the sail was down and with muffled oars Peter rowed cautiously for the break in the cliff. Blended with the deepening shadows of the sea, he worked his boat into the narrow maw of the crevasse whose rock walls rose two hundred feet over their heads. In utter darkness, with the thin streak of light far above, he felt his way for half an hour. Then the fissure widened and after another[276] fifteen minutes of slow progress its walls bulged outward, losing themselves in the gloom, and ahead stretched the hidden inlet, smothered on all sides by precipitous crags and cliffs and towering forest ridges.

On a narrow strip of sand he grounded the boat and lighted the lantern which Simon had placed in the outfit. Its illumination threw up grimly the black shadows about them, and questing among these, he found huge masses of torn and twisted rocks so wildly thrown together that among them were many little caverns and grottoes thickly carpeted with white sand. One of these he chose for a camp, but not until he had gathered an armful of bleached driftwood and had started a fire did he return to the boat. It was then, in the yellow light of flaming cedar and pine, that he noted a strange and startling change had come over his father. Donald McRae no longer bore the appearance of a sick man. He stood straight and was breathing deeply. His lips were smiling as he faced Peter and quite calmly he removed the bandage from his eyes.

"At last we are home," he spoke softly. "And just beyond you—I see your mother!" Instantly he seemed to sense the shock of those words to Peter, for he said: "Don't let that frighten you, lad. Every day and night she is at my side. Only—now—she is nearer!"

He reached out his hands and almost fiercely Peter's arms closed about him.

Donald stroked his hair. It was the old caress, and he spoke to Peter as if to a little boy again.

[277]

"You're not afraid, Peter?" he asked.

"Afraid——"

Peter's heart stopped beating.

"They can't hurt you," said Donald soothingly. "I won't let them do that, Peter."

Peter drew slowly away. His face was gray in the firelight and in his eyes was a growing horror. He tried to speak but no words came from his lips. Donald's scarred face was strangely tranquil. It seemed to Peter that years had dropped away from it. In it was no fear, no sign of strain, no consciousness of the terrible hours they had passed through or of the tragic future which lay ahead. And the truth came to Peter, a suspicion at first, a whisper, growing and overwhelming him until at last it was a dizzying sickness that set him swaying on his feet. In this hour Donald McRae was not the man who had returned after years of wandering to see his boy. His mind had gone back. It had returned to the days of Peter's childhood and his voice was repeating words almost forgotten—a sacred promise of days when Peter had built mighty castles in the air and his father had helped him plan them with the understanding smile that was on his lips now.

For he was saying: "They won't hurt a boy, Peter. We'll get away. And then we'll go through the big woods to the mountains just as we've always wanted to do."

Peter raised clenched hands to his face to stifle his agony.

[278]

In the torturing slowness of the hours which followed Donald McRae lived again in the precious years when Peter was a boy, recalling forgotten incidents as if they had happened yesterday, bringing forth their old dreams, painting their pictures of the future as he had done so often with Peter at his side in the afterglow of evenings long ago. And Peter, with his soul torn and bleeding, talked with him. Together they were hunting again. They followed the old trap-lines. They heard the song of birds and planted seeds and flowers in the little garden back of their cabin home, and Peter was kneeling at his father's knees when he said his prayers at night. These things Peter had dreamed of and treasured in his years at Five Fingers, but now they were horrors—coming out of the past with a voice that trembled with the thrill and joy of a strange madness.

At last Donald slept. It was after midnight and the last embers of the fire had burned out. Peter rose to his feet and walked up the shore, staring into darkness. The rock walls that inclosed the inlet rose sheer above him, making of the place a deep and sombrous pit. He could see the stars and their distance lent an abysmal solitude to the gloom. About him was no movement and no stir of life; the water lay still; no whisper came from dark forests on the ridge tops; the black walls were dead and in the soft sand his feet alone disturbed the sepulchral quiet.

To Peter this strangeness seemed naturally a part[279] of the change that had come into his life. Everything was changed. His world had gone into atoms and now it was reassembling itself; and with deadened emotions, almost dully, he was beginning to accept it. His yesterdays, it seemed, had existed an infinitely long time ago. Five Fingers was no longer home or a necessity and even Mona seemed a vast distance away from him in these hours when his own soul was remolding itself to fit the grimness of a new existence. His mind no longer questioned the path he was to take and no shadow of revolt rose in it.

One thought was as steadfastly fixed in him now as life itself. He belonged to his father and his father belonged utterly to him. He must go on with him, care for him, fight for him, save him from that one dread brutality of the law if his own life paid the forfeit in the end. That was settled. Even his love for Mona could not change that duty and older love which urged him. It was more than a resolution; it was as immutably a part of him as the beating of his heart and his own flesh and blood.

The stars faded and day broke swiftly above the walls of the inlet. He returned and found his father on his hands and knees groping in the sand. He was gathering sticks and placing them with the remnants of last night's fire, and when he heard Peter's footsteps he paused in his labor and raised a face out of which once more the years of grief and hopelessness seemed to have gone.

[280]

"Are you hungry, Peter?" he asked.

And Peter, as he knelt beside him, knew that he was speaking to Peter the boy and not to Peter the man.

Together they built the fire.