The Promise Part 31

Last night, in the wet red moon, I saw it--dripping tears of blood--twelve, besides one small one, and they were swallowed up in the mist of the river. I, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, who know the signs, have spoken.

"Before the full of the thirteenth moon blood will flow upon the bank of the river. But whose blood I know not, for a great cloud came and covered the face of the moon, and when it was gone the tears of blood were no more and the mist had returned to the river--and the meaning of this I know not."

She ceased speaking abruptly at a sound from the tepee as the girl emerged and stepped quickly to the fire.

"I am glad you have come," said Jeanne hurriedly to her brother. "You, who are skilled in the mending of bones. The man's leg is broken; it is swollen and gives him much pain."

Jacques followed her into the tepee and, after a careful examination, removed the unconscious man.

The setting of the bones required no small amount of labor and ingenuity. Carmody was placed between two trees, to one of which his body was firmly bound at the shoulders.

A portion of the bark was removed from the other tree and the smooth surface rubbed with fat. Around this was pa.s.sed a stout line, one end of which was made fast to the injured leg at the ankle.

A trimmed sapling served as a capstan bar, against which the two women threw their weight, while Jacques fitted the bone ends neatly together and applied the splints.

The Indians, schooled in the treatment of wounds and broken bones, were helpless as babes before the ravages of the dreaded pneumonia which racked the great body of the sick man.

Bill Carmody's recollection of the following days was confined to a hopeless confusion of distorted brain pictures in which the beautiful face of the girl, the repulsive features of the old crone, and the swart countenance of the half-breed were inextricably blended.

For two weeks he lay, interspersing long periods of unconsciousness with hours of wild, delirious raving. Then the disease wore itself out, and Jeanne Lacombie, entering the tepee one morning, encountered the steady gaze of the sunken eyes.

With a short exclamation of pleasure she crossed the intervening s.p.a.ce and knelt at his side. The two regarded each other in silence. At length Bill's lips moved and he started slightly at the weak, toneless sound of his own voice.

"So you are real, after all," he smiled.

The girl returned the smile frankly.

"M's'u' has been very sick," she imparted, speaking slowly, as though selecting her words.

Bill nodded; he felt dizzy and helplessly weak.

"How long have I been here?" he asked.

"Since the turning of the moon."

"I'm afraid that is not very definite. You see I didn't even know the moon had been turned. Who turned it? And is it really turned to cheese or just turned around?"

The girl regarded him gravely, a puzzled expression puckering her face.

Bill laughed.

"Forgive me," he begged. "I was talking nonsense. Can you tell me how many days I have been here?"

"It is fifteen days since we drew you from the river."

"Who's _we_?"

Again the girl seemed perplexed.

"I mean, who helped you pull me out of the drink?"

"Wa-ha-ta-na-ta. She is my mother. She is an Indian, and very old."

"Are _you_ an Indian?" asked the man in such evident surprise that the girl laughed.

"My father was white. I am a breed," she answered; then with a quick lifting of the chin, hastened to add: "But not like the breeds of the rivers! My father was Lacombie, the factor at Crossette, and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta was the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, and they were married by a priest at the mission.

"That was very long ago, and now Lacombie is dead and the priest also, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta has a paper; also it is written in the book at the mission that men may read it and know."

Carmody was amused at her eagerness and watched the changing expression of her face as she continued more slowly:

"My father was good. But he is dead and, until you came, there has been no good white man."

Bill smiled at the nave frankness of her.

"Why do you think that I am good?" he inquired.

"In your eyes I have read it. That night, before the wild fever-spirit entered your body, I looked long into your eyes. And has not Jacques told me of how you killed the _loup-garou_; of how you are hated by Moncrossen, and feared by Creed?

"Do I not know that fire cannot burn you nor water drown? Did you not beat down the greatest of Moncrossen's fighting men? And has not Wabishke told in the woods, to the wonder of all, how you drink no whisky, but pour it upon your feet?"

The girl spoke softly and rapidly, her face flus.h.i.+ng.

"Do I not know all your thoughts?" she continued. "I who have sat at your side through the long days of your sickness and listened to the voice of the fever-spirit? At such times the heart cannot lie, and the lips speak the truth."

She leaned closer, and unconsciously a slender, white-brown hand fell upon his, and the soft, tapering fingers closed upon his own. A delicious thrill pa.s.sed through his body at the touch.

As he looked into the beautiful face so close to his, with the white flash of pearly teeth in the play of the red lips, the eyes luminous, like twin stars, a strange, numbing loneliness overcame him.

She was speaking in a voice that sounded soothing and far away, so that he could not make out the words. Slowly his eyelids closed, blotting out the face--and he slept.

CHAPTER XXIX

A BUCKSKIN HUNTING-s.h.i.+RT

The days of his convalescence in the camp of the Lacombies were days fraught with mingled emotions in the heart of Bill Carmody.

Old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta treated him with cold deference, antic.i.p.ating his needs with a sagacity that was almost uncanny. She appeared hardly to be aware of his presence, yet many times the man felt, without seeing, the deep, burning gaze of the undimmed, black eyes.

Jacques, whom he had known in the logging-camp as Blood River Jack, treated him with open friendliness, and as he became able to move about the camp, taught him much of the lore of the forest, of the building of nets and traps, the smoke-tanning of buckskin, and the taking and drying of salmon.

During the long evenings the two sat close to the smudge of the camp-fire and talked of many things, while the women listened.

But of the three it was the girl who most interested him. She was his almost constant companion, silent and subtle at times, and with the inborn subtlety of women she defied his most skilful attempts to share her thoughts.

At other times her nave frankness and innocent brutality of expression surprised and amused him. Baffling, revealing--she remained at all times an enigma.