The Curse of the Viking Grave (7 page)

In the pale early light he saw seven teams of dogs and seven carioles swinging across the ice toward him. Kakumee recognized the approaching strangers as Chipewey
ans, but made no move either to flee or to take up a defensive position. Instead he quietly lit his fire, put a kettle on to boil, and waited with empty hands as the carioles swept up to his islet and stopped on the ice.

There were nine Chipeweyans in the party. At first they kept their distance, but when they had assured themselves that Kakumee was alone they came up to his fire. One of them insolently flung back the hides covering Kakumee's load of furs. Another kicked one of Kakumee's dogs, and when the animal lunged at him he struck it across the head with the butt of his rifle.

Kakumee could speak no Chipeweyan, but he could guess what the Indians were saying. When three of them casually began to rip open his bales of furs, while three others moved slowly around the fire so they would be behind the Eskimo, he wasted no more time.

He had concealed his .44–.40 repeating rifle under the loose folds of his parka. Without any hesitation, and so rapidly that the Chipeweyans could not have stopped him even if they had realized what he was up to, he flipped the rifle to his hip and shot the nearest Indian through the stomach. Even as this man screamed and fell, Kakumee whirled and shot one of the three who had tried to get behind him.

The remaining Chipeweyans panicked. They sprinted for their carioles while Kakumee methodically fired .44–.40 slugs into the ice right behind them. In ten minutes they had reached the far shore where they vanished into the forests, leaving the Eskimo in possession of his life, his furs, and two corpses. Abandoning the bodies
where they had fallen, Kakumee continued on his way, reached the trading post, and returned safely home. Word of his exploit spread like fire through the forests and he saw no more Chipeweyans either then nor on later journeys south.

While Peetyuk was telling this story Zabadees seemed to pay no attention, but at several recurrences of the name “Kakumee” his gaze flickered toward Peetyuk. Peetyuk had observed this.

“That fellow he know story, I think. Awasin, you tell him what I tell. Also tell him all happen right on this lake, and tell him Kakumee my grandfather.”

With evident relish Awasin translated the gist of the tale. He could see that it made Zabadees markedly uneasy. The Chipeweyan's gaze kept shifting from Awasin to Peetyuk, and when Awasin mentioned Peetyuk's relationship to Kakumee, Zabadees slipped out of his robes, spat angrily on the dying fire, and stalked off into the dark forests. He did not reappear until all except Peetyuk were asleep.

When the Chipeweyan eventually returned and slipped into his robes, Peetyuk got up and threw some sticks on the embers of the fire. When there was enough of a blaze to see by, he got his rifle from the cariole and methodically began to clean it. Every once in a while he cast a long, thoughtful look in the direction of the dark shadows which showed where Zabadees lay rolled up in his robes.

Then Peetyuk began to sing an Eskimo song, almost—but not quite—under his breath. It was a weird, alien chant that sounded as if it could easily have been an invocation to the dead. It rose and fell with nerve-wracking
monotony. At intervals the name “Kakumee” occurred in it, and each time he chanted the name, Peetyuk clicked the bolt of his rifle.

In the dim and flickering light of the little fire his performance was immensely effective. By the time the fire died down and blackness returned, Peetyuk was chuckling to himself. “That is
one
Chipeweyan who will not sleep well tonight,” he thought with satisfaction as he curled up comfortably under his robes.

 

CHAPTER
7

Nuelthin-tua

J
AMIE SLEPT RESTLESSLY AND WAS
the first to waken. He lay quiet for a while, enjoying the warmth of the robes, then he sat up and looked about him. Awasin and Angeline were asleep with the carioles providing a windbreak for them. On the other side of the dead fire Peetyuk lay completely buried under a mound of robes. Zabadees was gone.

For a moment Jamie attached no significance to the Chipeweyan's absence, thinking he had gone hunting or was off gathering wood. Then he realized that Zabadees's sleeping robes were missing. He scrambled out of his own robes and stood up, looking toward the dog-lines down by the lake shore. Zabadees's dogs were gone…and so was his sled. The two canoes lay where they had been hastily dropped on top of a snowdrift.

“Wake up!” Jamie shouted urgently. “Wake up, you fellows! Zabadees has done a bunk!”

Peetyuk's head popped out from under his robes, his red hair awry. “Where bunk?” he asked, puzzled. “Here no cabin. Here no bunk.”

“He's
gone
, you idiot!” cried the exasperated Jamie. “Awasin! Wake up!”

The three boys hurriedly pulled on their stockings and moccasins and ran together to the shore of the frozen lake. There was no doubt about it. They could plainly distinguish the tracks of Zabadees's sled overlying those they had made the previous day.

“Come on,” Jamie cried urgently. “Let's get a team hitched up. Maybe we can catch him.”

Awasin, who had been examining the trail, replied quietly. “I think not, Jamie. He has been gone many hours. And if we did catch him, how could we turn him back?”

Jamie was beside himself. He turned fiercely on Peetyuk.

“This is
your
fault!” he shouted angrily. “You and your fool yarns. You must have scared the wits out of him with that story and he took off.
Now
how are we going to find the road…and,” a blank look spread across his face, “how do we get rid of Angeline?”

Peetyuk replied rather meekly. “I sorry, Jamie. Not know he so big coward. Only I wish make him leave Angeline alone. He bother her too much.”

“That is true,” Awasin cut in. “And there is more than Peetyuk knows. I would not tell either of you before.
You
would have been angry at Angeline, and Peetyuk might have made real trouble with Zabadees. Two days ago when he went so fast ahead of us, he said things to Angeline. I do not blame him too much. He is a young man, and the girl he would have married died of the lung sickness this spring. So he wished to take Angeline and make her
his wife. When he found she would not have him, maybe he did not want to help us anymore. Anyway, it is a good thing he is gone. If you had said she had to go back with him I would have taken her home myself.”

“I wish I shoot hole in his head!” Peetyuk blazed. Then a slow smile spread over his face. “I guess he
think
I shoot—like Kakumee. Listen, I tell what happen…” and he described the charade he had acted out for Zabadees's benefit.

Awasin chuckled and, despite himself, Jamie could not suppress a half-smile. Then his face clouded.

“That's fine and dandy fun for you, but we're in a real jam now. Not only are we stuck with Angeline, we don't have a clue about the route from here to the edge of the Barrens.”

“Clue? What that?” Peetyuk asked. “Never mind clue. That story I tell, all true. I hear many times. Kakumee come this way. So we go east on Dead Men's Lake. It run into big lake Idthen people call Nuelthin, then go north. I find way easy.”

Angeline had joined them as they talked and now she spoke directly to Jamie.

“I too am sorry, Jamie. I wished not to make any trouble, and I would never have told any but my brother what Zabadees was like. If you want me to go back, I will go alone on my snowshoes. I can carry enough food in a packsack.”

Jamie bit back the sharp reply he was about to make, for he saw that the suggestion of tears glinted in the girl's dark eyes. “Listen, Angeline,” he said awkwardly. “I don't
think it's a good idea to take you into the Barrens. It can be awfully tough out there. But you sure can't walk back to Thanout Lake alone, so I guess you'll have to come with us.”

Awasin and Peetyuk were both smiling as Jamie finished, Awasin from relief that a difficult situation had been eased and Peetyuk from pure delight. When, an hour later, they sat around the fire eating their breakfast of porridge, bannock and tea, they were a gay and purposeful crew—more cheerful than they had been for many days.

 

When they broke camp they did so with renewed enthusiasm. They rearranged the loads, placing some of the lighter gear from Peetyuk's long sled on the carioles, and tied the two canoes (nested one inside the other, with their thwarts removed) upside down on top of Peetyuk's sled. Angeline would drive Peetyuk's team in the lead position, while Peetyuk went ahead on snowshoes to find and break the trail.

The dogs seemed filled with new energy, too. The sleds moved off at a good pace and were soon abreast of the rocky islet. On its crest stood two gray clusters of poles, cone-shaped and looking somewhat like the skeletons of tepees. Awasin called to his team and the dogs broke into a run and drew up alongside Jamie's cariole.

“Old-fashioned Chipeweyan graves,” Awasin shouted, pointing to the two “tepees.” “Peetyuk's story must have been true.”

Dead Men's Lake was not a long one and in an hour they had found its exit. There followed half an hour's swift
run down the ice of a small river, then suddenly ahead of them lay an immense expanse of open ice stretching to the eastern horizon.

The carioles and the sled came to a halt and the four travelers stood together looking out over the vast reaches of Nuelthin-tua. To the south the gray waste of ice lost itself amongst innumerable wooded islands. To the north there seemed to be just as many islands, but these were barren of all trees. Black and rounded, they humped up from the ice like the backs of so many sleeping mastodons.

“That where
my
land begin,” said Peetyuk proudly, pointing to the north.

“Then let's get moving,” Jamie replied. “Look at that sky. If we get caught in a blizzard out on the open ice we'll have a rough time.”

The almost colorless sky was streaked with long streamers of white clouds which seemed to be fleeing, like a school of silver herring, in front of an ominous dark mass which was swelling up over the eastern horizon.

“Big storm, maybe,” Awasin said. “It is better if we do not go far from shore.”

No one disputed the wisdom of this, and when they started on again it was along the shore of what was evidently a great bay which ran northward until it terminated in a line of barren hills.

Soon the wind began to rise, kicking flurries of snow crystals ahead of them. The sky darkened rapidly. By noon it was completely overcast. Anxious to make as much distance as possible before the storm broke, they did not stop for lunch but pushed on, munching pieces of cold bannock
as they trotted beside their sleds. Reaching the foot of the bay they turned east to skirt its hills and this brought the wind dead in their teeth. Suddenly the black clouds overhead began to disgorge not snow, as they had expected, but a bitter, driving rain.

They raced toward the nearby shore, but there was little shelter there. Gone were the thick spruce and jackpine forests of the Putahow country, leaving a scattering of small and wind-distorted trees. The only protection they could find was behind a cluster of frost-shattered boulders. By the time they had the tent up everything was soaking wet.

It was almost dark before the boys could gather enough twigs and brush for a fire, and when they eventually got it lit the wind and rain put it out again before they could even boil the tea billy. They gave up and crawled into the tent where Angeline had been doing what she could to arrange the drier robes for them to sleep under.

They spent a miserable night, but cold and uncomfortable as they were they were not unhappy. As the tent flapped and snapped under the assault of wind and rain, they sat huddled together with robes pulled over their shoulders and sang to keep up their spirits. Angeline had a particularly sweet, clear voice, and at her brother's urging
she sang some songs she had learned at the mission school.

Only Peetyuk, that usually amiable and jovial youth, seemed subdued. When Jamie teased him a little, calling him a “gloomy-gus,” he mustered a smile.

“Forest country—that your country,” he explained. “
You
know that country and so
I
not worry there. Now we come
my
country. You not know so much. Now I worry for all. Soon rivers melting. After that ice go bad on small lakes. After that go bad on big lakes. If we not get to Innuit camps soon, we stuck. This rain no good. Much water come in rivers.”

“That's true,” Jamie agreed. “But I guess we'll be all right on Nuelthin. It won't thaw for a long time yet. How far do we go on it, Peetyuk?”

“Maybe two-three days. After that must go on little rivers and lakes and over country.”

“The rain is not so strong now,” Awasin said. “Perhaps it will stop soon. We should try and sleep a little.”

“Only a fish could sleep in this tent,” Jamie grumbled. Nevertheless, it was not long before they were all dozing.

 

The morning broke dry and warm with a south wind blowing and clear skies overhead. Cold, stiff and tired, the four crawled out at dawn. Peetyuk got a fire going, and after a hasty mug of tea and some fried deermeat the travelers hitched up the willing dogs and moved off.

The rain had made shallow melt pools on top of the ice and had turned the overlying snow into thin slush. Nevertheless, it was good going for the sled and carioles, and the dogs seemed to share the impatience of their masters to
get north. All that day they drove steadily on, stopping only twice to brew tea on willow fires at the shore and to have a bite to eat. Before noon they passed through a narrows into the northern part of Nuelthin-tua, and here they said good-by to the last trees. Ahead of them stretched the gigantic sweep of the Barrenlands, where the only wood they would find would be tiny clumps of willows huddled in the bottom of a few protected valleys.

When they pitched camp that night they had covered twenty miles, which, considering that none of them had been able to ride on the overloaded sleds, was a good day's run. And “run” was the right word, for the boys and Angeline literally ran much of the way.

The following day—their sixth since leaving Kasmere House—they made equally good progress. There was frost at night, but in the daytime the temperature rose well above freezing and the thaw continued. Peetyuk grew more and more concerned and he led them on at the fastest pace dogs and people could maintain. Their camp at the end of the sixth day was on the shore of a deep bay which ran off to the northwest from the main body of Nuelthin.

The hard pace had begun to tell on them and they took time only to gulp down a hasty meal before crawling into their robes. The dogs went hungry, for the supplies of caribou meat were almost exhausted and the boys had seen no deer all the way up the lake.

The spring-like weather seemed determined to persist. There was only a light frost that night and the morning sun rose white and hot in a cloudless sky. Once more Pee
tyuk got them moving almost before everyone was fully awake. “Sun too hot,” he told them with a worried frown. “Maybe little rivers break ice already.”

As they drove up the bay (which now swung almost due west) sled and carioles threw up a steady spray, for the thaw water on top of the ice was several inches deep in places.

“Good thing we have the canoes,” Jamie remarked to Awasin, who was driving alongside. “Another day like this and we'll be using them. Either that or we'll have to teach the dogs to swim.”

Awasin was about to offer a joke in reply when he saw that Peetyuk had turned and was running back toward them, holding up his hand to warn Angeline to stop. In a moment the other teams had drawn up to Peetyuk's sled.