Show I Where Northern Lights I Come Corne Down 07 Nights N ig BY REX E BEACH F z fc y l lt t d dw w W w i r 0 t a t t 1 r ru i i u t e t tc f l c ij d t to 1 r 0 4 O 1 I P Pr PM r Most M st there now Cap Keep up your grit The Mission house at Togiak stands forlornly on a windswept ept Alaskan an spit while huddled around It a swarm t Of f Igloos grovel In an ec ecstasy ecstasy stasy sta of abasement Many natives crawled out of these and started across the bay as down a gully Bully came an Arctic caravan men and dogs do s black against the deadly whiteness white whiteness whiteness ness Ahead swung the guide strad straddling awkwardly on oli his webs while the straining pack pattered at athis athis his hili heels Big George the driver urged them with strong stron words idioms of the northland and his long whip bit sharp I Ib ly b at their legs leg His companion clinging to the sled stumbled now and then while his face splitting from the snap of the frost w was as smothered mothered in a muffler Sometimes he fell plunging into the snow rising painfully and groaning with the misery of Most olost there now Cap keep up your our grit Im all right answered the afflict afflicted ed man wearily Dont mind me George Georg too had suffered from the sheen of ot the unbroken whiteness and while his eyes ees had not wholly closed he saw but dimly His cheeks were and blackened with charred harred wood to break the tIie but through his mask showed signs of suffering while his bloodshot eyes e es dripped scalding tears and throbbed distressfully For or days he had ha t not dared to lose sight of ot the guide Once he had caught him sneaking the dogs away awa and he feared d he had killed the theman theman man mantor for a time Now Jaska broke trail ahead his sullen swollen swoll n features bale hale baleful baleful ful in their injury Down Donn the steep bank they slid across the humped up sea Ice at the river mouth and into the village At the greeting of their guide to his tribesman George started Twelve years ears of coast life lite had taught him the dialect dial t from Point Barrow south and he glanced at Captain Ca to find whether he too had heard the message As Jaska handed a talisman to the chief he strode to him and snatched it Oho Its Father Orloff Is it D him He gazed at the token a white spruce chip with strange marks and carvings What does it mean George said the blind man Its a long story litO Charlie and black You should have known It before we started Im Fm a marked man in this coast country count Its Orients work the renegade Father he calls himself Father to these devils deUs he rules and robs for himself in the name of the church His hate is bitter and hed have my life lite if these watery livered curs dread the sound of my voice God help him hint when we meet He shook his hairy claws clans at the hos hostile hostile hostile tile circle then cried to the chief in inthe Inthe Inthe the native nathe tongue Oh Shaman We Ye come bleeding and weary ear Hunger grips us and our bones are stiff with frost The light is gone t from my brothers eyes and we are t sick Open you the door to the house that the may rest Wd id d grow strong stron Tho Indians clustered before the por portal portal portal tal with its rude cross above and stared malignantly while the chief spoke At the name of his enemy the unsightly eyes ere of George gleamed and he growled contemptuously advancing among them They scattered at the manner of his coming and he struck the padlocked door till it rattled stiffly Then spying the cross overhead he lifted up and gripped the wood It came away ripping and of at rage and horror at the sacrilege they closed dosed about him Here Cap Bust her in quick He dragged Captain before the entrance thrusting the weapon upon him then ran ferociously among the people He snatched them to him cuffing like a abear abear abear bear and trampling them into the snow Those who came into the reach r ach of his hla knotty knott arms crumpled up and twisted under his feet He whirled into the group roaring hoarsely his angry face tace hideous with rage The is not a fight fighting fightIng fighting ing machine for him the sidestep and counter have no being They melted ahead of his blazing wrath and he whisked them fleeing by b their gar garments garments garments ments so go that they felt the stamp of his heels Captain dragged the team within and George following blocked the shattered door Were safe safo as long Ion as we stay In Jn inthe the church said he Right of sanctuary eh elf Does It oc occur occur occur cur to you how were going to get out Never mind well get out some somehow somehow somehow how said he lie And that night as Charlie Captain late university man lay la with eyes ees in steaming cloths the whaler spoke and amI with the bitterness of 8 11 at wrong It happened when we rocked the fears bars of Forty Mlle Mile before ever a Chichako chako ko had crossed the Chilcoot ChUco t I I went over to the Headwaters headwaters of the Tanana Into the big valley valle I went and got lost in the Flats a wIld wild country rimmed by high mountains full of neighborhoods and tundra with the river clean back to the source of the Copper I 1 run out of grub We Ve always did them t em days d s and built a raft to float down to the Yu Yukon Yukon Yukon kon A race with starvation and a dead heat it near proved too though I had a shade the best of it I drifted out into the main river r er ravin mad my m Mukluks eat off and my moose moosehide moosehide moosehide hide gun cover inside of me meA meA meA A girl spied pled me from the village and her that brought me ashore in her birch bark and tended me in her till reason rea on came and the blood ran through me again I mind seem a white man around at tl es and hearin him beg her to leave leae ne me to the old squaws She though She give me bits of moose meat and berries and dried sal salmon salmon salmon mon and when I 1 come to one day I 1 saw she was little and brown and and her clothes all covered with beads Her Hr eyes was big and sad Cap and dimples poked Anto her cheeks when she laughed then that Orloff takes a hand the white man A priest he called himself breed Russian Maybe he was but a blacker hearted thief never wronged a child He wanted the girl Metla and BO so did I T When hen I asked her old man for her he said she was promised to the Russian I laughed at him and a chief hates bates to be mocked You know what sway swa the church has over these Indians Well VeIl Orloff is a strong man He held em like a rock He worked on em till one day the came to me In a body and said Go Give me the girl and I 1 will says sa I T Orloff sneered She was mine for fora a month before ye Je came says the fiend back of his eyes Do Doye Doye Doye ye want her now no For a minute I believed him I struck once to kill and he went down They The closed on me as fast tast as I 1 shook em off a beautiful site for a ruction on the high banks over O er the river but I 1 was like water waters from the sickness I fought taught to get at their priest where he lay la to stamp out his grinning face tace before they drowned me but I was beat back to the bluff and I battled with my heels over the edge edger I r broke a pole from the fish rack and anda a good many T went ent down Then I heard Metla calling softly f from rom below belov Jump she said Big one Jump She had loosed a canoe at the land landing landing landing ing and now held it In the boiling cur current current current rent underneath paddling desperately desperate As they ran out of the tents with their rifles I leaped leaved A long drop and cold water but I hit feet teet first finst When I rose the little girl was alongside Its a II ticklish thing to crawl over the stern of a canoe in the spatter of slugs with the roar of above Its to the nerves but the maid never neer flinched not even een when a bullet split the gunnel She ripped a apiece apiece apiece piece of her dress and plugged a hole under the water line while I 1 paddled out of ot range The next winter at Holy Cross she sheran sheran sheran ran to me shaking one day He is here He is here Oh big bigman bigman bigman man I am afraid here says I He is here Father Orloff and her eves eyes was round and scared so 80 that I 1 took t ok her up and kissed her while she clung to me meshe she was such a little girl lIe He spoke to me at the water hole I have come for you 1 I ran very fast but he came behind Where Is George he said out of the cabin down to the mission and into the house of Father Barnum He was there Orloff What hat do ye yc want I says sas Father Barnum speaks up hes known for a good man the length of at atthe the river George says sas he Father Orloff tells me you stole the girl Metla from her tribe a shameful thing for tor a white to take tal e a red girl girt for his wife wite but Its a crime to live livo as you do What says sas I We cant sell you Jou provisions nor allow you to stay In the village Orloff grins You must go on he says sars or give her up No o Ill do neither And I 1 shows the papers from the missionary at Nu Nulato Nulato lato statin that we were married my wife says sa s I and too good for me left her people and her gods and Ill care for her I 1 saw how howit howIt it hurt Orloff Orbit and I laid my m hand on his shoulder close to the neck I 1 dis distrust distrust distrust trust ye and sure as fate yeII ell die the shocking death If ever harm comes to the little one That was the winter of or the famine though every winter was the same then and nd I went to Anvik for grub took all the strong men men and dogs In Inthe inthe the he village I was afraid when I left too for the time time I should have been with her but there was no no one else to go goy L y When you ou come lack back back she said there will be another a little boy and he lIe will hill grow mighty and strong like his father She hung her arms around me Cap and I left with her kisses warm on my m lips lipsIt It was a terrible trip the river wet I with overflows and the cutoffs drift drifted drifted ed deep so I drove back into Holy Ho Cross a week late with Ith bleeding dogs and frozen Indians strain n at the sled ropes I heard the wail nail of at the old women before I 1 came to the cabin and when Metla had sobbed the story out in her weakness I went back ba k into the dark and down to the mission I remember how the northern lights flared over the hills above aboe and the little spruces on the summit looked to me like head headstones headstones headstones stones black against the moon and I laughed when I saw the snow red in inthe inthe inthe the night glare for it meant blood and death 4 It was as lusty lust a babe as ever crowed but Orloff Orlof had come to the sick siele bed and sent her squaws away Baptism and such things he lie said sh d hed do TI The T little fellow died that night They say the on door doors was locked and barred but I pushed through it like paper and came into Father house where they sat Fifty blows is bad for the naked flesh I 1 broke it bareheaded mitten less and Id rd froze Croze some on an the way I down He saw murder in my m my eyes anti and I tried to run but I 1 got him as he went out of the room room H his throat threat loose from stiffen fin ersan rs an went into the church but I r 1 beat down the door with my naked nak d fists mocking at his prayers inside and may I 1 never nev r be closer to death that Orloff was that night Then a squaw tugged at my m parka She is dying she said and andI I ran back bacle up the hill with the cold bitin at my heart There re was no death that night In Holy Cross though God knows one naked soul was due to walk out onto the At daylight when I r came back for him him he had fled down the th river with the fastest dogs and to this day da Ive never seen his face though Us often otten Ivet Ive felt his hate Hes grown grow grown into the strongest mis missionary missionary missionary on the coast and he never lets letsa a chance go by to harry me or the girl irl Dye mind the time Skagway Ben Bennet Bennet Bennet net died We Ye was up Nor Norton Norton Norton ton sound way when he was killed They thought he but I know I found a II belt in the brush near camp the kind they the make on the Father country His men mert took the wrong one all Im sorry sor I tell ye e this Cap before we started for tor now were into the south country count where he owns the natives lIe He knows weve come as the blood token of the guide showed He wants my life lit and theres great trou trouble trouble trouble ble cumin up Im hopin yell ell soon get Jet your sight si ht for by now theres a runner twenty miles into the hills mills with the news that were blind in the church at it Togiak Three days hell be gain goin and on the fifth yell yeli hear the jingle of Russian dog bells Hell Heli kill the fast tast fastest fastest est team in Nushagak In the comin and God help us if were here George scraped a bit of at frost trost lace from the lone window pane Dark fig figures figures I ures moved over oer the snow circling the chapel and he knew that each was armed Only their reverence for tor the church held them from doing the task taRk set by Orloff and he sighed as he changed the bandages on his suffering mate They woke the next morning to the moan of the wind and the sift of snow clouds past their walls Staring through his peephole George distin distinguished distinguished distinguished only a seethe of whirling flakes that grayed gra ed the view blotting even the neighboring huts and when the early earl evening brought a rising note in the storm the trouble lifted from his face faceA A y blizzard he rejoiced and the strongest team on the tho coast cant wallow through it under a week These onshore gales is beauts For three days the wind tore from off the tho sea into the open bight at whose head lay Togiak and amid its violence wrecked the armor of shore ice In the bay till it beat and roared against the spit a threshing maelstrom of shattered shat shattered shattered bergs The waters piled plied into the Inlet t driven by the lash of the storm till Ull they overflowed the river ice behind be behind behind I hind the village submerging and breaking it Into raged dangerous confusion con confusion confusion fusion I 1 IOn On the third day da with Arctic vagary vaga aga vagary agathe ry the wind gasped reluctantly and scurried over oer the range In its wake the surging ocean churned loudly and the tho back water behind the town held by the dam of at freezing slush Ice at the river mouth was skimmed by a thin ice paper pierced here and there bythe by bythe bythe the upended piles from beneath This held the nights snow so that morning showed the tIle village girt on three sides by b a a stream and safe to the th a buts beneath th the feet of or child r e t fr t t ti s ar along alon Ealon mighty slow worried George Im hopin his reverence Is up to his gills in drifts back yonder We must leave him a sled trail for a souvenir How Hon can we with the place guard guarded ed Z Hitch the dogs and run for it by b night Hell tHell burn us out when he comes Fine targets wed make on the snow by the light of a burning shack If ye e can see to shoot well go tonight Hel lo that Outside came the howl of and the cry of men Leaping to the window George rubbed it free and stared st red into the sunshine Too late Too late he lie said Here he comes Its time I 1 killed him He spoke gratingly with the dull anger an b bOn er of years site i On the bright surface of the hillside a sled bearing a muffled figure Sure appeared silhouetted against the glisten Isten g of the crust Its team mad by the village scent poured down the e incline toward the river bank and the i guide swung onto the runners behind while the voice of the Pe people PIe rose to their priest In a 3 whirl of soft snow they drove down onto the treachery treachery ery cry of the Ice The screams oC or the na tives frenzied the pack |