The Crimson Gardenia and Other Tales of Adventure
of isolation and silence--could not help but communicate itself to his
companion, and there resulted a mutual antagonism, which grew into a
dislike, then festered into something more, something strange,
reasonless, yet terribly vivid and amazingly potent for evil. Neither
man ever mentioned it--their tongues were clenched between their teeth
and they held themselves in check with harsh hands--but it was
constantly in their minds, nevertheless. No man who has not suffered the
manifold irritations of such an intimate association can appreciate the
gnawing canker of animosity like this. It was dangerous because there
was no relief from it: the two were bound together as by gyves; they
shared each other's every action and every plan; they trod in each
other's tracks, slept in the same bed, ate from the same plate. They
were like prisoners ironed to the same staple.
Each fought the obsession in his own way, but it is hard to fight the
impalpable, hence their sick fancies grew in spite of themselves. Their
minds needed food to prey upon, but found none. Each began to criticize
the other silently, to sneer at his weaknesses, to meditate derisively
upon his peculiarities. After a time they no longer resisted the advance
of these poisonous thoughts, but welcomed it.
On more than one occasion the embers of their wrath were upon the point
of bursting into flame, but each realized that the first ill-considered
word would serve to slip the leash from those demons that were straining
to go free, and so managed to restrain himself.
The crisis came one crisp morning when a dog-team whirled around a bend
in the river and a white man hailed them. He was the mail-carrier, on
his way out from Nome, and he brought news of the "inside."
"Where are you boys bound for?" he inquired when greetings were over and
gossip of the trail had passed.
"We're going to the Stony River strike," Grant told him.
"Stony River? Up the Kuskokwim?"
"Yes!"
The mail-man laughed. "Can you beat that? Ain't you heard about Stony
River?"
"No!"
"Why, it's a fake--no such place."
There was a silence; the partners avoided each other's eyes.
"MacDonald, the fellow that started it, is on his way to Dawson. There's
a gang after him, too, and if he's caught it'll go hard with him. He
wrote the letters--to himself--and spread the news just to raise a
grub-stake. He cleaned up big before they got onto him. He peddled his
tips for real money."
"Yes!" Grant spoke quietly. "Johnny bought one. That's what brought us
from Seattle. We went out on the last boat and figured we'd come in from
this side before the break-up. So--fake! By God!"
"Gee! You fellers bit good." The mail-carrier shook his head. "Well!
You'd better keep going now; you'll get to Nome before the season opens.
Better take dog-fish from Bethel--it's four bits a pound on the Yukon.
Sorry I didn't hit your camp last night; we'd 'a' had a visit. Tell the
gang that you saw me." He shook hands ceremoniously, yelled at his
panting dogs, and went swiftly on his way, waving a mitten on high as he
vanished around the next bend.
The partners watched him go, then Grant turned to Johnny, and repeated:
"Fake! By God! MacDonald stung you."
Cantwell's face went as white as the snow behind him, his eyes blazed.
"Why did you tell him I bit?" he demanded, harshly.
"Hunh! _Didn't_ you bite? Two thousand miles afoot; three months of
hell; for nothing. That's biting some."
"_Well!_" The speaker's face was convulsed, and Grant's flamed with an
answering anger. They glared at each other for a moment. "Don't blame
me. You fell for it, too."
"I--" Mort checked his rushing words.
"Yes, _you_! Now, what are you going to do about it? Welch?"
"I'm going through to Nome." The sight of his partner's rage had set
Mort to shaking with a furious desire to fly at his throat, but,
fortunately, he retained a spark of sanity.
"Then shut up, and quit chewing the rag. You--talk too damned much."
Mort's eyes were bloodshot; they fell upon the carbine under the sled
lashings, and lingered there, then wavered. He opened his lips,
reconsidered, spoke softly to the team, then lifted the heavy dog-whip
and smote the malamutes with all his strength.
The men resumed their journey without further words, but each was
cursing inwardly.
"So! I talk too much," Grant thought. The accusation struck in his mind
and he determined to speak no more.
"He blames me," Cantwell reflected, bitterly. "I'm in wrong again and he
couldn't keep his mouth shut. A hell of a partner, he is!"
All day they plodded on, neither trusting himself to speak. They ate
their evening meal like mutes; they avoided each other's eyes. Even the
guide noticed the change and looked on curiously.
There were two robes and these the partners shared nightly, but their
hatred had grown so during the past few hours that the thought of lying
side by side, limb to limb, was distasteful. Yet neither dared suggest a
division of the bedding, for that would have brought further words and
resulted in the crash which they longed for, but feared. They stripped
off their furs, and lay down beside each other with the same repugnance
they would have felt had there been a serpent in the couch.
This unending malevolent silence became terrible. The strain of it
increased, for each man now had something definite to cherish in the
words and the looks that had passed. They divided the camp work with
scrupulous nicety, each man waited upon himself and asked no favors. The
knowledge of his debt forever chafed Cantwell; Grant resented his
companion's lack of gratitude.
Of course they spoke occasionally--it was beyond human endurance to
remain entirely dumb--but they conversed in monosyllables, about trivial
things, and their voices were throaty, as if the effort choked them.
Meanwhile they continued to glow inwardly at a white heat.
Cantwell no longer felt the desire to merely match his strength against
Grant's; the estrangement had become too wide for that; a physical
victory would have been flat and tasteless; he craved some deeper
satisfaction. He began to think of the ax--just how or when or why he
never knew. It was a thin-bladed, polished thing of frosty steel, and
the more he thought of it the stronger grew his impulse to rid himself
once for all of that presence which exasperated him. It would be very
easy, he reasoned; a sudden blow, with the weight of his shoulders
behind it--he fancied he could feel the bit sink into Grant's flesh,
cleaving bone and cartilages in its course--a slanting downward stroke,
aimed at the neck where it joined the body, and he would be forever
satisfied. It would be ridiculously simple. He practised in the gloom of
evening as he felled spruce-trees for fire-wood; he guarded the ax
religiously; it became a living thing which urged him on to violence. He
saw it standing by the tent-fly when he closed his eyes to sleep; he
dreamed of it; he sought it out with his eyes when he first awoke. He
slid it loosely under the sled lashings every morning, thinking that its
use could not long be delayed.
As for Grant, the carbine dwelt forever in his mind, and his fingers
itched for it. He secretly slipped a cartridge into the chamber, and
when an occasional ptarmigan offered itself for a target he saw the
white spot on the breast of Johnny's reindeer parka, dancing ahead of
the Lyman bead.
The solitude had done its work; the North had played its grim comedy to
the final curtain, making sport of men's affections and turning love to
rankling hate. But into the mind of each man crept a certain craftiness.
Each longed to strike, but feared to face the consequences. It was
lonesome, here among the white hills and the deathly silences, yet they
reflected that it would be still more lonesome if they were left to keep
step with nothing more substantial than a memory. They determined,
therefore, to wait until civilization was nearer, meanwhile rehearsing
the moment they knew was inevitable. Over and over in their thoughts
each of them enacted the scene, ending it always with the picture of a
prostrate man in a patch of trampled snow which grew crimson as the
other gloated.
They paused at Bethel Mission long enough to load with dried salmon,
then made the ninety-mile portage over lake and tundra to the Yukon.
There they got their first touch of the "inside" world. They camped in a
barabara where white men had slept a few nights before, and heard their
own language spoken by native tongues. The time was growing short now,
and they purposely dismissed their guide, knowing that the trail was
plain from there on. When they hitched up, on the next morning, Cantwell
placed the ax, bit down, between the tarpaulin and the sled rail,
leaving the helve projecting where his hand could reach it. Grant thrust
the barrel of the rifle beneath a lashing, with the butt close by the
handle-bars, and it was loaded.
A mile from the village they were overtaken by an Indian and his squaw,
traveling light behind hungry dogs. The natives attached themselves to
the white men and hung stubbornly to their heels, taking advantage of
their tracks. When night came they camped alongside, in the hope of
food. They announced that they were bound for St. Michaels, and in spite
of every effort to shake them off they remained close behind the
partners until that point was reached.
At St. Michaels there were white men, practically the first Johnny and
Mort had encountered since landing at Katmai, and for a day at least
they were sane. But there were still three hundred miles to be traveled,
three hundred miles of solitude and haunting thoughts. Just as they were
about to start, Cantwell came upon Grant and the A. C. agent, and heard
his name pronounced, also the word "Katmai." He noted that Mort fell
silent at his approach, and instantly his anger blazed afresh. He
decided that the latter had been telling the story of their experience
on the pass and boasting of his service. So much the better, he thought,
in a blind rage; that which he planned doing would appear all the more
like an accident, for who would dream that a man could kill the person
to whom he owed his life?
That night he waited for a chance.
They were camped in a dismal hut on a wind-swept shore; they were alone.
But Grant was waiting also, it seemed. They lay down beside each other,
ostensibly to sleep; their limbs touched; the warmth from their bodies
intermingled, but they did not close their eyes.
They were up and away early, with Nome drawing rapidly nearer. They had
skirted an ocean, foot by foot; Bering Sea lay behind them, now, and its
northern shore swung westward to their goal. For two months they had
lived in silent animosity, feeding on bitter food while their elbows
rubbed.
Noon found them floundering through one of those unheralded storms which
make coast travel so hazardous. The morning had turned off gray, the sky
was of a leaden hue which blended perfectly with the snow underfoot,
there was no horizon, it was impossible to see more than a few yards in
any direction. The trail soon became obliterated and their eyes began to
play tricks. For all they could distinguish, they might have been
suspended in space; they seemed to be treading the measures of an
endless dance in the center of a whirling cloud. Of course it was cold,
for the wind off the open sea was damp, but they were not men to turn
back.
They soon discovered that their difficulty lay not in facing the storm,
but in holding to the trail. That narrow, two-foot causeway, packed by a
winter's travel and frozen into a ribbon of ice by a winter's frosts,
afforded their only avenue of progress, for the moment they left it the
sled plowed into the loose snow, well-nigh disappearing and bringing the