Siwash

by Jack London

　　

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"If I was a man--" Her words were in themselves indecisive, butthe withering contempt which flashed from her black eyes was notlost upon the men-folk in the tent.Tommy, the English sailor, squirmed, but chivalrous old DickHumphries, Cornish fisherman and erstwhile American salmoncapitalist, beamed upon her benevolently as ever. He bore womentoo large a portion of his rough heart to mind them, as he said,when they were in the doldrums, or when their limited vision wouldnot permit them to see all around a thing. So they said nothing,these two men who had taken the half-frozen woman into their tentthree days back, and who had warmed her, and fed her, and rescuedher goods from the Indian packers. This latter had necessitatedthe payment of numerous dollars, to say nothing of a demonstrationin force--Dick Humphries squinting along the sights of aWinchester while Tommy apportioned their wages among them at hisown appraisement. It had been a little thing in itself, but itmeant much to a woman playing a desperate single-hand in theequally desperate Klondike rush of '97. Men were occupied withtheir own pressing needs, nor did they approve of women playing,single-handed, the odds of the arctic winter. "If I was a man, Iknow what I would do." Thus reiterated Molly, she of the flashingeyes, and therein spoke the cumulative grit of five American-borngenerations.In the succeeding silence, Tommy thrust a pan of biscuits into theYukon stove and piled on fresh fuel. A reddish flood poundedalong under his sun-tanned skin, and as he stooped, the skin ofhis neck was scarlet. Dick palmed a three-cornered sail needlethrough a set of broken pack straps, his good nature in nowisedisturbed by the feminine cataclysm which was threatening to burstin the storm-beaten tent."And if you was a man?" he asked, his voice vibrant with kindness.The three-cornered needle jammed in the damp leather, and hesuspended work for the moment."I'd be a man. I'd put the straps on my back and light out. Iwouldn't lay in camp here, with the Yukon like to freeze most anyday, and the goods not half over the portage. And you--you aremen, and you sit here, holding your hands, afraid of a little windand wet. I tell you straight, Yankee-men are made of differentstuff. They'd be hitting the trail for Dawson if they had to wadethrough hell-fire. And you, you--I wish I was a man.""I'm very glad, my dear, that you're not." Dick Humphries threwthe bight of the sail twine over the point of the needle and drewit clear with a couple of deft turns and a jerk.A snort of the gale dealt the tent a broad-handed slap as ithurtled past, and the sleet rat-tat-tatted with snappy spiteagainst the thin canvas. The smoke, smothered in its exit, droveback through the fire-box door, carrying with it the pungent odorof green spruce."Good Gawd! Why can't a woman listen to reason?" Tommy liftedhis head from the denser depths and turned upon her a pair ofsmoke-outraged eyes."And why can't a man show his manhood?"Tommy sprang to his feet with an oath which would have shocked awoman of lesser heart, ripped loose the sturdy reef-knots andflung back the flaps of the tent.The trio peered out. It was not a heartening spectacle. A fewwater-soaked tents formed the miserable foreground, from which thestreaming ground sloped to a foaming gorge. Down this ramped amountain torrent. Here and there, dwarf spruce, rooting andgrovelling in the shallow alluvium, marked the proximity of thetimber line. Beyond, on the opposing slope, the vague outlines ofa glacier loomed dead-white through the driving rain. Even asthey looked, its massive front crumbled into the valley, on thebreast of some subterranean vomit, and it lifted its hoarsethunder above the screeching voice of the storm. Involuntarily,Molly shrank back."Look, woman! Look with all your eyes! Three miles in the teethof the gale to Crater Lake, across two glaciers, along theslippery rim-rock, knee-deep in a howling river! Look, I say, youYankee woman! Look! There's your Yankee-men!" Tommy pointed apassionate hand in the direction of the struggling tents."Yankees, the last mother's son of them. Are they on trail? Isthere one of them with the straps to his back? And you wouldteach us men our work? Look, I say!"Another tremendous section of the glacier rumbled earthward. Thewind whipped in at the open doorway, bulging out the sides of thetent till it swayed like a huge bladder at its guy ropes. Thesmoke swirled about them, and the sleet drove sharply into theirflesh. Tommy pulled the flaps together hastily, and returned tohis tearful task at the fire-box. Dick Humphries threw the mendedpack straps into a corner and lighted his pipe. Even Molly wasfor the moment persuaded."There's my clothes," she half-whimpered, the feminine for themoment prevailing. "They're right at the top of the cache, andthey'll be ruined! I tell you, ruined!""There, there," Dick interposed, when the last quavering syllablehad wailed itself out. "Don't let that worry you, little woman.I'm old enough to be your father's brother, and I've a daughterolder than you, and I'll tog you out in fripperies when we get toDawson if it takes my last dollar.""When we get to Dawson!" The scorn had come back to her throatwith a sudden surge. "You'll rot on the way, first. You'll drownin a mudhole. You--you--Britishers!"The last word, explosive, intensive, had strained the limits ofher vituperation. If that would not stir these men, what could?Tommy's neck ran red again, but he kept his tongue between histeeth. Dick's eyes mellowed. He had the advantage over Tommy,for he had once had a white woman for a wife.The blood of five American-born generations is, under certaincircumstances, an uncomfortable heritage; and among thesecircumstances might be enumerated that of being quartered withnext of kin. These men were Britons. On sea and land herancestry and the generations thereof had thrashed them and theirs.On sea and land they would continue to do so. The traditions ofher race clamored for vindication. She was but a woman of thepresent, but in her bubbled the whole mighty past. It was notalone Molly Travis who pulled on gum boots, mackintosh, andstraps; for the phantom hands of ten thousand forbears drew tightthe buckles, just so as they squared her jaw and set her eyes withdetermination. She, Molly Travis, intended to shame theseBritishers; they, the innumerable shades, were asserting thedominance of the common race.The men-folk did not interfere. Once Dick suggested that she takehis oilskins, as her mackintosh was worth no more than paper insuch a storm. But she sniffed her independence so sharply that hecommuned with his pipe till she tied the flaps on the outside andslushed away on the flooded trail."Think she'll make it?" Dick's face belied the indifference ofhis voice."Make it? If she stands the pressure till she gets to the cache,what of the cold and misery, she'll be stark, raving mad. Standit? She'll be dumb-crazed. You know it yourself, Dick. You'vewind-jammed round the Horn. You know what it is to lay out on atopsail yard in the thick of it, bucking sleet and snow and frozencanvas till you're ready to just let go and cry like a baby.Clothes? She won't be able to tell a bundle of skirts from a goldpan or a tea-kettle.""Kind of think we were wrong in letting her go, then?""Not a bit of it. So help me, Dick, she'd 'a' made this tent ahell for the rest of the trip if we hadn't. Trouble with hershe's got too much spirit. This'll tone it down a bit.""Yes," Dick admitted, "she's too ambitious. But then Molly's allright. A cussed little fool to tackle a trip like this, but aplucky sight better than those pick-me-up-and-carry-me kind ofwomen. She's the stock that carried you and me, Tommy, and you'vegot to make allowance for the spirit. Takes a woman to breed aman. You can't suck manhood from the dugs of a creature whoseonly claim to womanhood is her petticoats. Takes a she-cat, not acow, to mother a tiger.""And when they're unreasonable we've got to put up with it, eh?""The proposition. A sharp sheath-knife cuts deeper on a slip thana dull one; but that's no reason for to hack the edge off over acapstan bar.""All right, if you say so, but when it comes to woman, I guessI'll take mine with a little less edge.""What do you know about it?" Dick demanded."Some." Tommy reached over for a pair of Molly's wet stockingsand stretched them across his knees to dry.Dick, eying him querulously, went fishing in her hand satchel,then hitched up to the front of the stove with divers articles ofdamp clothing spread likewise to the heat."Thought you said you never were married?" he asked."Did I? No more was I--that is--yes, by Gawd! I was. And as gooda woman as ever cooked grub for a man.""Slipped her moorings?" Dick symbolized infinity with a wave ofhis hand."Ay.""Childbirth," he added, after a moment's pause.The beans bubbled rowdily on the front lid, and he pushed the potback to a cooler surface. After that he investigated thebiscuits, tested them with a splinter of wood, and placed themaside under cover of a damp cloth. Dick, after the manner of hiskind, stifled his interest and waited silently. "A differentwoman to Molly. Siwash."Dick nodded his understanding."Not so proud and wilful, but stick by a fellow through thick andthin. Sling a paddle with the next and starve as contentedly asJob. Go for'ard when the sloop's nose was more often under thannot, and take in sail like a man. Went prospecting once, upTeslin way, past Surprise Lake and the Little Yellow-Head. Grubgave out, and we ate the dogs. Dogs gave out, and we ateharnesses, moccasins, and furs. Never a whimper; never a pick-me-up-and-carry-me. Before we went she said look out for grub, butwhen it happened, never a I-told-you-so. 'Never mind, Tommy,'she'd say, day after day, that weak she could bare lift a snow-shoe and her feet raw with the work. 'Never mind. I'd sooner beflat-bellied of hunger and be your woman, Tommy, than have apotlach every day and be Chief George's klooch.' George was chiefof the Chilcoots, you know, and wanted her bad."Great days, those. Was a likely chap myself when I struck thecoast. Jumped a whaler, the Pole Star, at Unalaska, and worked myway down to Sitka on an otter hunter. Picked up with Happy Jackthere--know him?""Had charge of my traps for me," Dick answered, "down on theColumbia. Pretty wild, wasn't he, with a warm place in his heartfor whiskey and women?""The very chap. Went trading with him for a couple of seasons--hooch, and blankets, and such stuff. Then got a sloop of my own,and not to cut him out, came down Juneau way. That's where I metKillisnoo; I called her Tilly for short. Met her at a squaw dancedown on the beach. Chief George had finished the year's tradewith the Sticks over the Passes, and was down from Dyea with halfhis tribe. No end of Siwashes at the dance, and I the only white.No one knew me, barring a few of the bucks I'd met over Sitka way,but I'd got most of their histories from Happy Jack."Everybody talking Chinook, not guessing that I could spit itbetter than most; and principally two girls who'd run away fromHaine's Mission up the Lynn Canal. They were trim creatures, goodto the eye, and I kind of thought of casting that way; but theywere fresh as fresh-caught cod. Too much edge, you see. Being anew-comer, they started to twist me, not knowing I gathered inevery word of Chinook they uttered."I never let on, but set to dancing with Tilly, and the more wedanced the more our hearts warmed to each other. 'Looking for awoman,' one of the girls says, and the other tosses her head andanswers, 'Small chance he'll get one when the women are lookingfor men.' And the bucks and squaws standing around began to grinand giggle and repeat what had been said. 'Quite a pretty boy,'says the first one. I'll not deny I was rather smooth-faced andyoungish, but I'd been a man amongst men many's the day, and itrankled me. 'Dancing with Chief George's girl,' pipes the second.'First thing George'll give him the flat of a paddle and send himabout his business.' Chief George had been looking pretty blackup to now, but at this he laughed and slapped his knees. He was ahusky beggar and would have used the paddle too."'Who's the girls?' I asked Tilly, as we went ripping down thecentre in a reel. And as soon as she told me their names Iremembered all about them from Happy Jack. Had their pedigreedown fine--several things he'd told me that not even their owntribe knew. But I held my hush, and went on courting Tilly, theya-casting sharp remarks and everybody roaring. 'Bide a wee,Tommy,' I says to myself; 'bide a wee.'"And bide I did, till the dance was ripe to break up, and ChiefGeorge had brought a paddle all ready for me. Everybody was onthe lookout for mischief when we stopped; but I marched, easy asyou please, slap into the thick of them. The Mission girls cut meup something clever, and for all I was angry I had to set my teethto keep from laughing. I turned upon them suddenly."'Are you done?' I asked."You should have seen them when they heard me spitting Chinook.Then I broke loose. I told them all about themselves, and theirpeople before them; their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers--everybody, everything. Each mean trick they'd played; everyscrape they'd got into; every shame that'd fallen them. And Iburned them without fear or favor. All hands crowded round.Never had they heard a white man sling their lingo as I did.Everybody was laughing save the Mission girls. Even Chief Georgeforgot the paddle, or at least he was swallowing too much respectto dare to use it."But the girls. 'Oh, don't, Tommy,' they cried, the tears runningdown their cheeks. 'Please don't. We'll be good. Sure, Tommy,sure.' But I knew them well, and I scorched them on every tenderspot. Nor did I slack away till they came down on their knees,begging and pleading with me to keep quiet. Then I shot a glanceat Chief George; but he did not know whether to have at me or not,and passed it off by laughing hollowly."So be. When I passed the parting with Tilly that night I gaveher the word that I was going to be around for a week or so, andthat I wanted to see more of her. Not thick-skinned, her kind,when it came to showing like and dislike, and she looked herpleasure for the honest girl she was. Ay, a striking lass, and Ididn't wonder that Chief George was taken with her."Everything my way. Took the wind from his sails on the firstleg. I was for getting her aboard and sailing down Wrangel waytill it blew over, leaving him to whistle; but I wasn't to get herthat easy. Seems she was living with an uncle of hers--guardian,the way such things go--and seems he was nigh to shuffling offwith consumption or some sort of lung trouble. He was good andbad by turns, and she wouldn't leave him till it was over with.Went up to the tepee just before I left, to speculate on how longit'd be; but the old beggar had promised her to Chief George, andwhen he clapped eyes on me his anger brought on a hemorrhage."'Come and take me, Tommy,' she says when we bid good-by on thebeach. 'Ay,' I answers; 'when you give the word.' And I kissedher, white-man-fashion and lover-fashion, till she was all of atremble like a quaking aspen, and I was so beside myself I'd halfa mind to go up and give the uncle a lift over the divide."So I went down Wrangel way, past St. Mary's and even to the QueenCharlottes, trading, running whiskey, turning the sloop to mostanything. Winter was on, stiff and crisp, and I was back toJuneau, when the word came. 'Come,' the beggar says who broughtthe news. 'Killisnoo say, "Come now."' 'What's the row?' I asks.'Chief George,' says he. 'Potlach. Killisnoo, makum klooch.'"Ay, it was bitter--the Taku howling down out of the north, thesalt water freezing quick as it struck the deck, and the old sloopand I hammering into the teeth of it for a hundred miles to Dyea.Had a Douglass Islander for crew when I started, but midway up hewas washed over from the bows. Jibed all over and crossed thecourse three times, but never a sign of him.""Doubled up with the cold most likely," Dick suggested, putting apause into the narrative while he hung one of Molly's skirts up todry, "and went down like a pot of lead.""My idea. So I finished the course alone, half-dead when I madeDyea in the dark of the evening. The tide favored, and I ran thesloop plump to the bank, in the shelter of the river. Couldn't goan inch further, for the fresh water was frozen solid. Halyardsand blocks were that iced up I didn't dare lower mainsail or jib.First I broached a pint of the cargo raw, and then, leaving allstanding, ready for the start, and with a blanket around me,headed across the flat to the camp. No mistaking, it was a grandlayout. The Chilcats had come in a body--dogs, babies, andcanoes--to say nothing of the Dog-Ears, the Little Salmons, andthe Missions. Full half a thousand of them to celebrate Tilly'swedding, and never a white man in a score of miles."Nobody took note of me, the blanket over my head and hiding myface, and I waded knee deep through the dogs and youngsters till Iwas well up to the front. The show was being pulled off in a bigopen place among the trees, with great fires burning and the snowmoccasin-packed as hard as Portland cement. Next me was Tilly,beaded and scarlet-clothed galore, and against her Chief Georgeand his head men. The shaman was being helped out by the bigmedicines from the other tribes, and it shivered my spine up anddown, the deviltries they cut. I caught myself wondering if thefolks in Liverpool could only see me now; and I thought of yellow-haired Gussie, whose brother I licked after my first voyage, justbecause he was not for having a sailor-man courting his sister.And with Gussie in my eyes I looked at Tilly. A rum old world,thinks I, with man a-stepping in trails the mother little dreamedof when he lay at suck."So be. When the noise was loudest, walrus hides booming andpriests a-singing, I says, 'Are you ready?' Gawd! Not a start,not a shot of the eyes my way, not the twitch of a muscle. 'Iknew,' she answers, slow and steady as a calm spring tide.'Where?' 'The high bank at the edge of the ice,' I whispers back.'Jump out when I give the word.'"Did I say there was no end of huskies? Well, there was no end.Here, there, everywhere, they were scattered about,--tame wolvesand nothing less. When the strain runs thin they breed them inthe bush with the wild, and they're bitter fighters. Right at thetoe of my moccasin lay a big brute, and by the heel another. Idoubled the first one's tail, quick, till it snapped in my grip.As his jaws clipped together where my hand should have been, Ithrew the second one by the scruff straight into his mouth. 'Go!'I cried to Tilly."You know how they fight. In the wink of an eye there was araging hundred of them, top and bottom, ripping and tearing eachother, kids and squaws tumbling which way, and the camp gone wild.Tilly'd slipped away, so I followed. But when I looked over myshoulder at the skirt of the crowd, the devil laid me by theheart, and I dropped the blanket and went back."By then the dogs'd been knocked apart and the crowd wasuntangling itself. Nobody was in proper place, so they didn'tnote that Tilly'd gone. 'Hello,' I says, gripping Chief George bythe hand. 'May your potlach-smoke rise often, and the Sticksbring many furs with the spring.'"Lord love me, Dick, but he was joyed to see me,--him with theupper hand and wedding Tilly. Chance to puff big over me. Thetale that I was hot after her had spread through the camps, and mypresence did him proud. All hands knew me, without my blanket,and set to grinning and giggling. It was rich, but I made itricher by playing unbeknowing."'What's the row?' I asks. 'Who's getting married now?'"'Chief George,' the shaman says, ducking his reverence to him."'Thought he had two klooches.'"'Him takum more,--three,' with another duck."'Oh!' And I turned away as though it didn't interest me."But this wouldn't do, and everybody begins singing out,'Killisnoo! Killisnoo!'"'Killisnoo what?' I asked."'Killisnoo, klooch, Chief George,' they blathered. 'Killisnoo,klooch.'"I jumped and looked at Chief George. He nodded his head andthrew out his chest."She'll be no klooch of yours,' I says solemnly. 'No klooch ofyours,' I repeats, while his face went black and his hand begandropping to his hunting-knife."'Look!' I cries, striking an attitude. 'Big Medicine. You watchmy smoke.'"I pulled off my mittens, rolled back my sleeves, and made half-a-dozen passes in the air."'Killisnoo!' I shouts. 'Killisnoo! Killisnoo!'"I was making medicine, and they began to scare. Every eye was onme; no time to find out that Tilly wasn't there. Then I calledKillisnoo three times again, and waited; and three times more.All for mystery and to make them nervous. Chief George couldn'tguess what I was up to, and wanted to put a stop to the foolery;but the shamans said to wait, and that they'd see me and go me onebetter, or words to that effect. Besides, he was a superstitiouscuss, and I fancy a bit afraid of the white man's magic."Then I called Killisnoo, long and soft like the howl of a wolf,till the women were all a-tremble and the bucks looking serious."'Look!' I sprang for'ard, pointing my finger into a bunch ofsquaws--easier to deceive women than men, you know. 'Look!' AndI raised it aloft as though following the flight of a bird. Up,up, straight overhead, making to follow it with my eyes till itdisappeared in the sky."'Killisnoo,' I said, looking at Chief George and pointing upwardagain. 'Killisnoo.'"So help me, Dick, the gammon worked. Half of them, at least, sawTilly disappear in the air. They'd drunk my whiskey at Juneau andseen stranger sights, I'll warrant. Why should I not do thisthing, I, who sold bad spirits corked in bottles? Some of thewomen shrieked. Everybody fell to whispering in bunches. Ifolded my arms and held my head high, and they drew further awayfrom me. The time was ripe to go. 'Grab him,' Chief Georgecries. Three or four of them came at me, but I whirled, quick,made a couple of passes like to send them after Tilly, and pointedup. Touch me? Not for the kingdoms of the earth. Chief Georgeharangued them, but he couldn't get them to lift a leg. Then hemade to take me himself; but I repeated the mummery and his gritwent out through his fingers."'Let your shamans work wonders the like of which I have done thisnight,' I says. 'Let them call Killisnoo down out of the skywhither I have sent her.' But the priests knew their limits.'May your klooches bear you sons as the spawn of the salmon,' Isays, turning to go; 'and may your totem pole stand long in theland, and the smoke of your camp rise always.'"But if the beggars could have seen me hitting the high places forthe sloop as soon as I was clear of them, they'd thought my ownmedicine had got after me. Tilly'd kept warm by chopping the iceaway, and was all ready to cast off. Gawd! how we ran before it,the Taku howling after us and the freezing seas sweeping over atevery clip. With everything battened down, me a-steering andTilly chopping ice, we held on half the night, till I plumped thesloop ashore on Porcupine Island, and we shivered it out on thebeach; blankets wet, and Tilly drying the matches on her breast."So I think I know something about it. Seven years, Dick, man andwife, in rough sailing and smooth. And then she died, in theheart of the winter, died in childbirth, up there on the ChilcatStation. She held my hand to the last, the ice creeping up insidethe door and spreading thick on the gut of the window. Outside,the lone howl of the wolf and the Silence; inside, death and theSilence. You've never heard the Silence yet, Dick, and Gawd grantyou don't ever have to hear it when you sit by the side of death.Hear it? Ay, till the breath whistles like a siren, and the heartbooms, booms, booms, like the surf on the shore."Siwash, Dick, but a woman. White, Dick, white, clear through.Towards the last she says, 'Keep my feather bed, Tommy, keep italways.' And I agreed. Then she opened her eyes, full with thepain. 'I've been a good woman to you, Tommy, and because of thatI want you to promise--to promise'--the words seemed to stick inher throat--'that when you marry, the woman be white. No moreSiwash, Tommy. I know. Plenty white women down to Juneau now. Iknow. Your people call you "squaw-man," your women turn theirheads to the one side on the street, and you do not go to theircabins like other men. Why? Your wife Siwash. Is it not so?And this is not good. Wherefore I die. Promise me. Kiss me intoken of your promise.'"I kissed her, and she dozed off, whispering, 'It is good.' Atthe end, that near gone my ear was at her lips, she roused for thelast time. 'Remember, Tommy; remember my feather bed.' Then shedied, in childbirth, up there on the Chilcat Station."The tent heeled over and half flattened before the gale. Dickrefilled his pipe, while Tommy drew the tea and set it asideagainst Molly's return.And she of the flashing eyes and Yankee blood? Blinded, falling,crawling on hand and knee, the wind thrust back in her throat bythe wind, she was heading for the tent. On her shoulders a bulkypack caught the full fury of the storm. She plucked feebly at theknotted flaps, but it was Tommy and Dick who cast them loose.Then she set her soul for the last effort, staggered in, and fellexhausted on the floor.Tommy unbuckled the straps and took the pack from her. As helifted it there was a clanging of pots and pans. Dick, pouringout a mug of whiskey, paused long enough to pass the wink acrossher body. Tommy winked back. His lips pursed the monosyllable,"clothes," but Dick shook his head reprovingly. "Here, littlewoman," he said, after she had drunk the whiskey and straightenedup a bit."Here's some dry togs. Climb into them. We're going out toextra-peg the tent. After that, give us the call, and we'll comein and have dinner. Sing out when you're ready.""So help me, Dick, that's knocked the edge off her for the rest ofthis trip," Tommy spluttered as they crouched to the lee of thetent."But it's the edge is her saving grace." Dick replied, ducking hishead to a volley of sleet that drove around a corner of thecanvas. "The edge that you and I've got, Tommy, and the edge ofour mothers before us."

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