: Murder Point: A Tale of Keewatin by Dawson Coningsby - Fiction; Detective and mystery stories

@FreeBooks

Posted in: #FreeBooks #FreeBooksIndia #FreeBooksApp #gg

Vote Up Vote Down   0 Reactions

Login to give Reaction!

MURDER POINT

JOHN GRANGER OF MURDER POINT

John Granger, agent on the Last Chance River in the interests of Garnier, Parwin, and Wrath, independent traders in the territory of Keewatin, sat alone in his store at Murder Point. He sat upon an upturned box, with an empty pipe between his lips. In the middle of the room stood an iron stove which blazed red hot; through the single window, toward which he faced, the gold sun shone, made doubly resplendent in its shining by the reflected light cast up by the leagues of all-surrounding snow and ice.

Speaking to himself, as is the habit of men who have lived many months alone in the aboriginal silence of the North, "Well, and what next?" he asked.

He had been reviewing the uses to which he had put his thirty years of life, and was feeling far from satisfied. That a man of breeding, who had been given the advantages of a classical and university education, and was in addition an English barrister, should at the age of thirty be conducting an independent trader's store in a distant part of northern Canada did not seem right; Granger was conscious of the incongruity. During the past two years and a half he had obstinately refused to examine his career, had fought against introspection, and had striven to forget.

But to-day Granger had given way before the wave of emotional memories and had permitted his mind to recapitulate all the happiness which he had lost; and with this result, that like a child in a darkened house he feared to advance and stood still trembling, questioning the future, anticipating and dreading that which was next to come. It was the second week in April; the break-up of the winter had almost begun; the spring was striding up from the south and a cry of travel was in the air, both hopeful and melancholy. The world would soon be growing young again. Even in this desperate land the scars of the frost would soon be obliterated; but to his own life, he was painfully aware, the spring had vouchsafed no promise of return. Was it gone forever? he asked.

At the present moment he was remembering London and St. James's Park with its banks of daffodils and showers of white may-blossom, its groups of laughing children at play, its parade of black-coated horsemen, with here and there the scarlet flash of a Life-guard as he sped trotting by, and for bass accompaniment to this music of the Joy of Life the continual low thunder which in the Mall the prancing hoofs of countless carriage-horses strummed.

Now it was Piccadilly in which he wandered, returning from the west with his back toward the setting sun; the street-lamps had just been kindled, and ahead of him, massed above the housetops, the blue-grey clouds of evening hung. He watched the faces of the people as they passed, some eager, some jaded, some pleasure-seeking, some smug, and he strove to conjecture their aim in life. At the Circus he paused awhile, breathing deep and filling out his lungs with fragrance of violets and narcissi, which flower-girls clamoured for him to purchase. He bought a bunch and smiled faintly, contrasting the beautiful significance of the name of the vendor's profession with the slatternly person to whom it was applied. Then onwards he went to Leicester Square where the dazzling lights of music-halls flared and quickened, and scarlet-lipped Folly smiled out upon him from street corners, and beckoned through the dusk. In the old days it had always been when he had attained this point in his advance that the pleasure of London had failed, leaving him with a cramped sensation, a frenzied desire for escape, and an overwhelming sense of the inherent rottenness of western civilisation. It was upon such occasions that he saw, or thought he saw, the inevitable tendency of European cities to emasculate and corrupt the rugged nobilities of mankind. A revolt against artificiality had followed. Immediately, there in the heart of the world's greatest city, there had grown up about him the mirage of the primeval forest, whose boughs are steeped in silence, borne up by tall bare trunks, which lured him on to explore and adventure through untried lands, where quiet grows intense and intenser at each new step, till he should arrive at that ultimate contentment for which he blindly sought.

He laughed at the memory, smiling bitterly at the manner in which that former self had been beguiled. As if to give emphasis to his jest he arose from his box, lounged over to the window, cleared its panes of mist with his hand, and gazed out upon the landscape of his choice. It stared back at him with immobile effrontery, with the glazed wide-parted eyes of the prostrate prize-fighter who, in his falling, has been stunned--eyes in which hatred is the only sign of life. He threw back his head and guffawed at the conceit, as though it had been conceived by a brain and given utterance to by a voice other than his own. Then he paused, drew himself erect, and his face went white; he had heard of solitary men in Keewatin who had commenced by laughing to themselves, and had ended by committing murder or suicide. Yet, as he stood in thought, he acknowledged the truth of the image; his existence on the Last Chance River was one long and wearisome struggle between himself and the intangible prize-fighter, whoever he might be,--Nature, the Elemental Spirit hostile to Creation, Keewatin, the Devil, call him what you like. Sometimes he had had the better of the combat, in which case days of peace had followed; but for the most part he stood at bay or crouched upon his knees, watching for his opportunity to rise; at his strongest he had only just sufficed to hold his invisible antagonist in check, battling for a victory which had been already awarded. He had long despaired of winning; the only question which now troubled him was "How long shall I be able to fight?"

A certain story current in the district, concerning a Hudson Bay factor, flashed through his mind. At the beginning of the frost his fort had been stricken with smallpox; one by one his six white companions had died and the Indians had fled in terror, leaving him alone in the silence. In the unpeopled solitude of the long dark winter days and nights which had followed, he had grown strangely curious as to the welfare of his soul, and had petitioned God that it might be disembodied so that he might gaze upon it with his living eyes. After a week of continuous prayer, he had fastened on his snowshoes, and gone out upon the ice to seek God's sign. He had not travelled far before he had come to the mound where his six companions lay buried. There against the dusky sky-line he had seen a famished wolf standing over a scooped-out grave. So the factor had had his sign, and had looked upon his disembodied soul with his own eyes.

When the ice broke up and the first canoe of half-breed voyageurs swept up to the fort, they had been met by a man who crawled upon hands and knees, and snarled like a husky or a coyote.

Granger shrugged his shoulders and shuddered. He thanked his God that the spring was near by. Upon one thing he was determined, that whatever happened, though he should have to die--by his own hand, he would not grovel into Eternity upon his hands and knees as had that factor of the Hudson Bay.

Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg

(0)

Login to post a comment!