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Benjamin Disraeli - "Sybil, or the Two Nations"

The Valley Of Silent Men

J >> James Oliver Curwood >> The Valley Of Silent Men




A low cry broke from Kent's lips. It was the great, gray ghost of
a man he had seen in the lightning flare that night from the
window of his hiding-place in Kedsty's bungalow.

"My brother," said McTrigger chokingly. "I loved him. For forty
years we were comrades. And Marette belonged to us, half and half.
It was he--who killed--John Barkley." And then, after a moment in
which McTrigger fought to speak steadily, he added, "And it was
he--my brother--who also killed Inspector Kedsty."

For a matter of seconds there was a dead silence between them.
McTrigger looked into the fireplace instead of at Kent. Then he
said:

"He killed those men, but he didn't murder them, Kent. It couldn't
be called that. It was justice, single-man justice, without going
to law. If it wasn't for Marette, I wouldn't tell you about it--
not the horrible part of it. I don't like to bring it up in my
memory. ... It happened years ago. I was not married then, but my
brother was ten years older than I and had a wife. I think that
Marette loves you as Marie loved Donald. And Donald's love was
more than that. It was worship. We came into the new mountain
country, the three of us, even before the big strikes at Dawson
and Bonanza. It was a wild country, a savage country, and there
were few women in it, but Marie came with Donald. She was
beautiful, with hair and eyes like Marette's. That was the tragedy
of it.

"I won't tell you the details. They were terrible. It happened
while Donald and I were out on a hunt. Three men--white men--
remember that, Kent; WHITE MEN--came out of the North and stopped
at the cabin. When we returned, what we found there drove us mad.
Marie died in Donald's arms. And leaving her there, alone, we set
out after the white-skinned brutes who had destroyed her. Only a
blizzard saved them, Kent. Their trail was fresh when the storm
came. Had it held off another two hours, I, too, would have
killed.

"From that day Donald and I became man-hunters. We traced the back
trail of the three fiends and discovered who they were. Two years
later Donald found one of the three on the Yukon, and before he
killed him he made him verify the names of the other two. It was a
long search after that, Kent. It has covered thirty years. Donald
grew old faster than I, and I knew, after a time, that he was
strangely mad. He would be gone for months at a time, always
searching for the two men. Ten years passed, and then, one day, in
the deep of Winter, we came on a cabin home that had been stricken
with the plague--the smallpox. It was the home of Pierre Radisson
and his wife Andrea. Both were dead. But there was a little child
still living, almost a babe in arms. We took her, Donald and I.
The child was--Marette."

McTrigger had spoken almost in a monotone. He had not raised his
eyes from the ash of the fireplace. But now he looked up suddenly
at Kent.

"We worshipped her from the beginning," he said, his voice a bit
husky. "I hoped that love for her would save Donald. It did, in a
way. But it did not cure his madness, his desire for vengeance. We
came farther east. We found this marvelous valley, and gold in the
mountains, untouched by other men. We built here, and I hoped even
more that the glory of this new world we had discovered would help
Donald to forget. I married, and my wife loved Marette. We had a
child, and then another, and both died. We loved Marette more than
ever after that. Anne, my wife, was the daughter of a missioner
and capable of educating Marette up to a certain point. You will
find this place filled with all kinds of books, and reading, and
music. But the time came when we thought we must send Marette to
Montreal. It broke her heart. And then--a long time after--"

McTrigger paused a moment, looking into Kent's eyes. "And then--
one day Donald came in from Dawson City, terrible in his madness,
and told us that he had found his men. One of them was John
Barkley, the rich timber man, and the other was Kedsty, Inspector
of Police at Athabasca Landing."

Kent made no effort to speak. His amazement, as McTrigger had gone
on, was beyond the expression of words. The night held for him a
cumulative shock--the discovery that Marette was not dead, but
alive, and now the discovery that he, Jim Kent, was no longer a
hunted man, and that it was O'Connor, his old comrade, who had run
the truth down. With dry lips he simply nodded, urging McTrigger
to continue.

"I knew what would happen if Donald went after Barkley and
Kedsty," said the older man. "And it was impossible to hold him
back. He was mad, clean mad. There was just one thing for me to
do. I left here first, with the intention of warning the two
brutes who had killed Donald's wife. I knew, with the evidence in
our hands, they could do nothing but make a getaway. No matter how
rich or powerful they were, our evidence was complete, and through
many years we had kept track of the movements of our witnesses. I
tried to explain to Donald that we could send them to prison, but
there was but one thought in his poor sick mind--to kill. I was
younger and beat him south. And after that I made my fatal
mistake. I thought I was far enough ahead of him to get down to
the line of rail and back before he arrived. You see, I figured
his love for Marette would take him to Montreal first, and I had
made up my mind to tell her everything so that she might
understand the necessity of holding him if he went to her. I wrote
everything to her and told her to remain in Montreal. How she did
that, you know. She set out for the North as soon as she received
my letter."

McTrigger's shoulders hunched lower. "Well, you know what
happened, Kent. Donald got ahead of me, after all. I came the day
after Barkley was killed. I took it as a kind fate that the day
preceding the killing I shot a grouse for my dinner, and as the
bird was only wounded when I picked it up, I got blood on the
sleeves of my coat. I was arrested. Kedsty, every one, was sure
they had the real man. And I kept quiet, except to maintain my
innocence. I could say nothing that would turn the law on Donald's
trail.

"After that, things happened quickly. You, my friend, made your
false confession to save one who had done you a poor service years
ago. Almost simultaneously with that, Marette had come. She came
quietly, in the night, and went straight to Kedsty. She told him
everything, showed him the written evidence, telling him this
evidence was in the hands of others and would be used if anything
happened to her. Her power over him was complete. As the price of
her secrecy she demanded my release, and in that black hour your
confession gave Kedsty his opportunity.

"He knew you were lying. He knew it was Donald who had killed
Barkley. Yet he was willing to sacrifice you to save himself. And
Marette remained in his house, waiting and watching for Donald,
while I searched for him on the trails. That is why she secretly
lived in Kedsty's house. She knew that Donald would come there
sooner or later, if I did not find him and get him away. And she
was plotting how to save you.

"She loved you, Kent--from that first hour she came to you in the
hospital. And she tried to exact your freedom also as an added
price for her secrecy. But Kedsty had become like a cornered
tiger. If he freed you, he saw his whole world crumbling under his
feet. He, too, went a little mad, I think. He told Marette that he
would not free you, that he would go to the hangman first. Then,
Kent, came the night of your freedom, and a little later--Donald
came to Kedsty's home. It was he whom you saw that night out in
the storm. He entered and killed Kedsty.

"Something dragged Marette down to the room that night. She found
Kedsty in his chair--dead. Donald was gone. It was then that you
found her there. Kent, she loved you--and you will never know how
her heart bled when she let you think she had killed Kedsty. She
has told me everything. It was her fear for Donald, her desire to
keep all possible suspicion from him until he was safe, that
compelled her not to confide even in you. Later, when she knew
that Donald must be safe, she was going to tell you. And then--you
were separated at the Chute." McTrigger paused, and Kent saw him
choke back a grief that was still like the fresh cut of a knife in
his heart.

"And O'Connor found out all this?"

McTrigger nodded. "Yes. He defied Kedsty's command to go to Fort
Simpson and was on his way back to Athabasca Landing when he found
my brother. It is strange how all things happened, Kent. But I
guess God must have meant it that way. Donald was dying. And in
dying, for a space, his old reason returned to him. It was from
him, before he died, that O'Connor learned everything. The story
is known everywhere now. It is marvelous that you did not hear--"

There came an interruption, the opening of a door. Anne McTrigger
stood looking at them where a little time before she had
disappeared with Marette. There was a glad smile in her face. Her
dark eyes were glowing with a new happiness. First they rested on
McTrigger's face, and then on Kent's.

"Marette is much better," she said in her soft voice. "She is
waiting to see you, M'sieu Kent. Will you come now?"

Like one in a dream Kent went toward her. He picked up his pack,
for with its precious contents it had become to him like his own
flesh and blood. And as the woman led the way and Kent followed
her, McTrigger did not move from the fireplace. In a little while
Anne McTrigger came back into the room. Her beautiful eyes were
aglow. She was smiling softly, and putting her arms about the
shoulders of the man at the fireplace, she whispered:

"I have looked at the night through the window, Malcolm. I think
that the stars are bigger and brighter than they have been in a
long time. And the Watcher seems like a living god up in the sky.
Come, please."

She took his hand, and Malcolm went with her. Over their heads
burned a glory of stars. The wind came gently up the valley, cool
with the freshness of the mountain-tops, sweet with the smell of
meadow and flowers. And when the woman pointed through the glow,
Malcolm McTrigger looked up at the Watcher, and for an instant he
fancied that he saw what she had seen--something that was life
instead of death, a glow of understanding and of triumph in the
mighty face of stone above the lace mists of the clouds. For a
long time they walked on, and deep in the heart of the woman a
voice cried out again and again that the Watcher knew, and that it
was a living joy she saw up there, for up to that unmoving and
voiceless god of the mountains she had cried and laughed and sung
--and even prayed; and with her Marette had also done these
things, until at last the pulse and beat of women's souls had
given a spirit to a form of rock.

Back in the chateau which Malcolm McTrigger and his brother Donald
had built of logs, in a room whose windows faced the Watcher
himself, Marette was unveiling the last of mystery for Jim Kent.
And this, too, was her hour of triumph. Her lips were red and warm
with the flush brought there by Kent's love.

Her face was like the wild roses he had crushed under his feet all
that day. For in this hour the world had come to her, and had
prostrated itself at her feet. The sacred contents of the pack
were in her lap as she leaned back in the great blanketed and
pillowed chair that had been her invalid's nest for many days. But
it was an invalid's nest no longer. The floods of life were
pounding through her body again, and in that hour when Malcolm
McTrigger and his wife were gone, Kent looked upon the miracle of
its change. And now Marette gave to him a little packet, and while
Kent opened it she raised both hands to her head and unbound her
hair so that it fell about her in shining and glorious confusion.

Kent, unwrapping a last bit of tissue-paper, found in his hands a
long tress of hair.

"See, Jeems, it has grown fast since I cut it that night."

She leaned a little toward him, parting her hair with slim, white
fingers so that he saw again where the hair had been clipped the
night of Kedsty's death.

And then she said: "You may keep it always if you want to, Jeems,
for I cut it from my head when I left you in the room below, and
when you--almost--believed I had killed Kedsty. It was this--"

She gave him another packet, and her lips tightened a little as
Kent unwrapped it, and another tress of hair shimmered in the lamp
glow.

"That was father Donald's," she whispered.

"It--it was all he had left of Marie, his wife. And that night--
when Kedsty died--"

"I understand," cried Kent, stopping her. "He choked Kedsty with
it until he was dead. And when I found it around Kedsty's neck--
you--you let me think it was yours--to save father Donald!"

She nodded. "Yes, Jeems. If the police had come, they would have
thought I was guilty. I planned to let them think so until father
Donald was safe. But all the time I had here in my breast this
other tress, which would prove that I was innocent--when the time
came. And now, Jeems--"

She smiled at him again and reached out her hands. "Oh, I feel so
strong! And I want to take you out now--and show you my valley--
Jeems--our valley--yours and mine--in the starlight. Not tomorrow,
Jeems. But tonight. Now."

A little later the Watcher looked down on them, even as it had
looked down on another man and another woman who had preceded
them. But the stars were bigger and brighter, and the white cap of
snow that rested on the Watcher's head like a crown caught the
faint gleam of a far-away light; and after that, slowly and
wonderfully, other snow-crested mountain-tops caught that greeting
radiance of the moon. But it was the Watcher who stood out like a
mighty god among them all, and when they came to the elbow in the
plain, Marette drew Kent down beside her on a great flat rock and
laughed softly as she held his hand tightly in her lap.

"Always, from a little child, I have sat and played on this rock,
with the Watcher looking, like that," she said in a low voice. "I
have grown to love him, Jeems. And I have always believed that he
was gazing off there, night and day, into the east, watching for
something that was coming to me. Now I know. It was you, Jeems.
And, Jeems, when I was away--down there in the big city--"

Her fingers gripped his thumb in their old way, and Kent waited.

"It was the Watcher that made me want to come home most of all,"
she went on, a bit of tremble in her voice. "Oh, I grew lonely for
him, and I could see him in my dreams at night, watching,
watching, watching, and sometimes even calling me. Jeems, do you
see that hump on his left shoulder, like a great epaulet?"

"Yes, I see," said Kent.

"Beyond that, on a straight line from here--hundreds of miles
away--are Dawson City, the Yukon, the big gold country, men,
women, civilization. Father Malcolm and father Donald have never
found but one trail to this side of the mountains, and I have been
over it three times--to Dawson. But the Watcher's back is on those
things. Sometimes I imagine it was he who built those great
ramparts through which few men come. He wants this valley alone.
And so do I. Alone--with you, and with my people."

Kent drew her close in his arms. "When you are stronger," he
whispered, "we will go over that hidden trail together, past the
Watcher, toward Dawson. For it must be that over there--we will
find--a missioner--" He paused.

"Please go on, Jeems."

"And you will be--my wife."

"Yes, yes, Jeems--forever and ever. But, Jeems"--her arms crept up
about his neck--"very soon it will be the first of August."

"Yes--?"

"And in that month there come through the mountains, each year, a
man and a woman to visit us--mother Anne's father and mother. And
mother Anne's father--"

"Yes--?"

"Is a missioner, Jeems."

And Kent, looking up in this hour of his triumph and joy, believed
that in the Watcher's face he caught for an instant the passing
radiance of a smile.

THE END

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