The Curse of the Viking Grave (8 page)

“Get guns quick,” he said urgently. “Around point,
tuktu-mie
—many deer. Angeline, you stay. Keep dogs quiet.”

Slipping their rifles out of their deerskin cases, the boys ran swiftly for the cover of a long, low point of rock. When they reached the point they crawled slowly up to the crest and peered over it.

Ten feet below them, and not fifty yards away, the black ice of the bay almost disappeared under a flowing tide of caribou. Perhaps a thousand animals were in sight, strung out in long, twisting skeins, crossing the bay from south to north. They moved slowly and the boys saw that they were all does—most of them with swollen bellies, for the fawning time was almost on them.

Jamie and Awasin were so fascinated by the spectacle
that they did not even think of raising their guns. As a dozen skeins of deer crossed in front of them, others descended to the bay ice from the southern hills. Away to the north they could see that the rising hills in that direction were lined and veined with countless lines of caribou. Each skein—and some consisted of as many as a hundred animals—seemed to be led by an old doe, perhaps one who had made the thousand-mile spring migration a score of times before.

“Not wait all day,” Peetyuk said impatiently. “We also must go fast north. I shoot now.”

He eased his rifle up to his shoulder, took quick aim and fired. The flat crash of the shot echoed over the ice, but the mass of the deer seemed to pay little heed to it. One barren doe sank to her knees, struggled to rise again, and then fell over on her side. The rest of the animals in the file behind swerved slightly and passed by her. Here and there a few does halted for a moment, thrust their heads out in the direction of the point, snorted, and continued on their way.

“When does go north to fawn nothing stop them,” Peetyuk explained. “Not afraid wolf, people. Not stop for anything.”

He proved the point a few minutes later. Having returned to their teams, the boys and Angeline drove right into the deer herds. The hungry dogs nearly went mad. Jamie was caught off guard and lost control of his team, which went belting across the ice at full gallop, leaving him running far astern and bellowing uselessly at them to stop.

But the deer simply spread out to let the dogs go past, and when the team turned in pursuit of a single animal, the caribou only sprinted far enough to out-distance their pursuers before turning purposefully north at a sedate trot. Jamie's dogs now tried to run in all directions at once and their frantic efforts soon resulted in such a tangle of traces that they and the cariole were brought to a standstill. When Jamie panted up to them he found the lines so fouled that it took him twenty minutes of yelling, thumping and sweating to get the dogs disentangled. Meantime Awasin and Peetyuk had butchered and quartered the barren doe, flung the meat on their sleds, and driven on to join him.

Peetyuk shook his head sadly as he looked down at the tangled harness. “Maybe you be good driver some day,” he said. “
Some
white men learn, but take long time. Got white beard by then.”

Too winded to reply, Jamie could do nothing but grunt disgustedly as Peetyuk's sled swept past, heading toward the foot of the long bay.

 

CHAPTER
8

Race Against Time

T
HE NORTHWEST BAY OF NUELTHIN
ended in a snow-choked valley which wound away to the westward between high, barren hills. Without slackening pace, Peetyuk led the teams onto the ice of a river flowing out of this valley. The surface was rough and pitted and in places it had sagged, allowing thaw pools a foot in depth to form on top of it.

They had gone several miles when Peetyuk halted the train and went carefully forward, testing the ice with the butt of his rifle. He came back in a few minutes looking very worried.

“Rapid run under ice,” he told the others. “Melt ice from under. Too thin here. Must go shore.”

“We'll never get anywhere along the shore,” Jamie protested. “The drifts in this valley must be ten feet deep, and the snow's so soft a butterfly would sink in it.”

“Maybe wrong river anyway,” Peetyuk replied hesitantly. “This one go west, and big. River we want go northwest, and not very big. Should go out over country, not up big valley. Maybe I too much hurry. Maybe we go back and look again.”

It was a depressing prospect, but there was really no
alternative. They turned the sled and carioles about, and two hours later they reached the river mouth and were again on the bay ice. Here they halted while Peetyuk climbed a hill and scanned the north shore of the bay. When he scrambled down to join the others, his worried frown had been replaced by his usual grin.

“I find!” he told them jubilantly, and led them off toward a little cove concealed behind a string of islands. They did not see the river they were seeking until they turned a final bend.

“How did you ever find it, Pete?” Jamie asked.

“Not see river, Jamie. See
that…
” and he pointed to the crest of one of the masking islands. On the skyline stood a pile of stones set one on top of the other and no more than three feet high. To a casual eye the pile looked like a natural object, for the whole of the Barrenland plains are sprinkled thickly and haphazardly with jumbled rocks deposited by the retreating glaciers of the ancient past.

“He is
inukok
—stoneman,” Peetyuk explained. “Eskimo make him. Make many
inukok
all over country. Show way to go for other Eskimo. I think Kakumee make that one. Got right road now.”

Although the afternoon was growing old, Peetyuk would not let them stop even long enough to boil the kettle. Wearily the dogs took up the strain, and just as wearily the three boys and the girl plodded on.

This new river was not much more than a shallow stream winding its way up from the bay in a northwesterly
direction over open, rolling plains criss-crossed with long gravel ridges completely free of snow. Innumerable small ponds and lakes lay in the snow-filled valleys, and the edges of these lakes had already thawed, leaving a narrow ring of open water between their shores and the rotting ice.

Mikkiku, or Little River, which was what Peetyuk called it, offered hard traveling. Not only was its ice rotten, but it was studded with boulders. There was a great deal of melt water on the surface, and the travelers could plainly hear the ominous mutter of a river in spate under the decaying ice.

The toboggan-like carioles were not well suited to these conditions, since they lay flat on the surface and tended to build up masses of heavy slush ahead of them. Everything aboard the carioles soon became soaked. On the other hand, Peetyuk's Eskimo-style sled, with its high runners, rode easily through the slush so that his load remained dry.

All four were soon soaked to the knees, and the bitter cold of the ice water chilled and numbed their legs. There were still two or three hours of daylight remaining when Angeline, who had gamely kept up with the rest and never uttered a word of complaint, slipped through a melt hole and plunged into the water to her waist.

Awasin quickly hauled her out and then declared that the day's journey was at an end.

“That is enough,” he said wearily. “I know we must go fast, but we will kill the dogs if we go too hard.”

Peetyuk gave in. “Okay, we camp. Good sand ridge here. Maybe find wood for fire.”

Leaving the others to unload the carioles and spread the things to dry on the slope of a little sandy hill, he went scurrying off upstream and shortly returned carrying a huge armful of bone-dry, silver-colored sticks. “One time forest grow far out on country,” he explained when they asked him where he had found this surprising windfall. “Long, long time ago trees die, I not know why. Wood stand up and never rot. Very good for fire.”

These relics of a warmer climate and of the retreating tree line burned with a hot, white flame that sent steam curling from the moccasins, sleeping robes and stockings which hung over rocks and sticks all around the fire.

They ate a big meal of deer steaks fried in marrow fat and, since the sky was still clear, they decided against setting up the tent. Restored by good food, dry clothes and a rest, Jamie, Awasin and Angeline climbed to the top of the sand hill for a look at the surrounding country.

It was Angeline's first real look at the true Barrenlands and for a time she was silent in the face of the immensity of space, the vast panorama of rolling hills, rock ridges, and broad valleys that seemed to reach to the end of the world.

“I think I do not like it,” she said softly, and shivered a little. “It is too big…and empty.”

“It is not empty, sister,” Awasin told her. “Do you see the many little dots that look like rocks? Watch…they move a little, eh? They are caribou. This is indeed the land of the deer. They come to us in the forests for a little
while, in winter, but this is their land. When Jamie and I came north last year with Denikazi, we met so many deer sometimes we could hardly move among them. No, it is not an empty land.”

Peetyuk, who had been feeding the dogs, joined them. He seemed to have undergone a physical change in the past day or two, and he looked bigger, more powerful, and more sure of himself. He stood beside them, his red hair stirring in the breeze and his head thrust forward toward the north like a questing wolf. The jovial, rather devil-may-care boy Jamie and Awasin had known during the winter had been replaced by a youth whose competence shone in his blue eyes and in the very set of his face.

“My country!” Peetyuk said proudly. “This is country of
tuktu
, and of Innuit. Deer and men. Is very good.”

Jamie grinned and lightly punched his friend in the ribs. “Pete, you talk like a tourist guide. I tell you one thing. I don't think so much of the
roads
in your precious country.”

Peetyuk did not return the smile. “Roads bad,” he agreed. “We come too late. Carioles no good here. Too early for canoe. My people not move around this time of year. But
we
must move…move quick. Maybe better cache some stuff here.”

“That is a good plan,” Awasin agreed. “The ice melts swiftly now. We will not make ten miles a day with our full loads.”

 

Returning to camp, they pitched into the job of spreading out the motley collection of gear and supplies and
sorting it into two piles—one to take and one to leave. The boys had brought two cases of rifle ammunition, several sacks of flour and three cases of tea as gifts for the Eskimos who had been so kind to Jamie and Awasin the previous winter when they had been lost in the Barrens. Most of these supplies, together with some tea, lard, flour, ammunition, spare clothes, and other things belonging to the boys, were placed high on the sand hill and securely covered with caribou skins weighted with rocks. Peetyuk explained that once the river was ice-free a party of Eskimos would be able to make a trip to the cache and ferry the contents back to the Eskimo camps in their kayaks.

 

The weather turned very cold that night, bringing a hard frost. The lightened carioles and sled made fast progress up the narrow, meandering channel of Little River. Before dark the party had reached the river's source and were on the height of land beyond which the rivers flowed northward. They camped in the lee of a high ridge upon whose crest stood several friendly-looking
inukok
.

“If stay cold, we come Innuit camps one day now,” Peetyuk announced jubilantly.

But in the Barrens the weather is always unpredictable. That night the wind veered to southwest and became warm. Before dawn a heavy rain began to fall. When they began descending Tingmeaku, Goose River, the runoff from the saturated snows in the nearby valleys was so heavy that the river was flowing on
top
of the ice, as well as under it. In a short time everyone and everything was soaked. An attempt to leave the river and go across coun
try was frustrated by the masses of soggy snow which filled the valleys. Reluctantly the travelers returned to the flooded river, but they could move on it only with the greatest caution, since the ice had become so thin it could barely support either sleds or people. Nevertheless, Peetyuk would not hear of a halt.

“Must go on,” he told the others. “Any time ice begin break. Then finish travel with sleds.”

Every few miles they had a brief respite when the river widened into a little lake, but even these small lakes were becoming dangerous to cross and several times the lead dogs broke through weak spots, necessitating long and careful detours.

By dusk they had not yet done with wading down Goose River, and again they had a cold and unpleasant camp. In the morning they were all so thoroughly miserable that Peetyuk had a hard time getting them to move at all. Sluggish, and dull with fatigue and chill, they finally started off. About noon the sky began to break, and shortly afterwards they saw ahead of them the broad expanse of a big lake.

“Halo Kumanik—Halo's Lake!” cried Peetyuk. “Now got no more trouble. Come on quick!”

With lightened spirits the travelers drove out onto this lake, having first had to bridge a narrow band of open water at the shore by means of Peetyuk's long sled. Floating free from the shore, the lake ice was dry and made ideal going. Even the dogs picked up heart. The train drove quickly northward. Late in the afternoon they passed through a narrows into another arm of the lake.

Peetyuk, who was well in the lead, gave a sudden shout. Catching the excitement in his voice, the others peered ahead.

“Look!” Angeline cried. “Up on that point! People and tents!”

On a long, low-lying point on the west shore stood five squat, conical tents. Although they were at least a mile away, the travelers could see signs of great activity about them. Dogs were chasing about in all directions and people were emerging from the tents and running toward the shore.

“You are right, Angeline,” Awasin shouted breathlessly, for his dogs had caught the scent of the camp and had broken into a gallop. “Now, little sister, we meet Ayuskeemos—the raw meat eaters. Make yourself brave in case they want to eat
you
up.”