Chapter Twenty-Five
When he sees the lad standing alone beside Nabayah’s corpse, gazing raptly down and looking pale and mesmerized, John Shaw steps across and puts his one remaining arm about his young attendant’s neck.
In a gentle and consoling voice, he explains that Nabayah has suffered the righteous consequence of his wicked actions because a man’s private property is a part of himself, indivisible and sacred, and so to take that property without consent is no less an injury than cutting off an ear or a nose and must perforce be punished in the same unyielding fashion.
Abel Walker, after taking a moment to ponder this strangely abstract proposition, inquires if the iron law that Shaw is speaking of applies even here in the wilderness, where no English judge or jury has ever set foot, and Shaw insists that yes, it certainly does and it certainly must, for the law is not man-made but rather divine and God-given, and so it never deviates or alters but applies in every place, barbarian or civilized, just the same.
“Justice has been well served here today,” the deputy reassures him, “albeit in a rather queer and roundabout fashion, perhaps, so calm yourself, young Abel, and put aside any qualms you may feel. Nabayah’s crime was an insult to the natural order, but now that the devious schemer is dead and the gold is returned to us, its rightful owners, the world is back in its proper balance, and all is well.
“Only think,” he continues eagerly, warming to his theme, “if this villain had escaped, since he had no use for our gold except as a means of gaining his revenge, he would either have discarded it out of spite or else traded it away for a pittance. Just imagine that, Abel,” he says.
“All our time and labor squandered; all that power and value given away or buried back in the earth. For thoughtful creatures such as you and I, such a depth of folly and resentment is hard to fathom, I know. We strive to improve the world, make it better and richer by whatever means we can, but the Indians only want to keep it as it is, fixed and unchanging. We use God’s gifts for our profit and improvement, and they leave them to rust and molder.
That’s the greatest difference between us, and the reason why in future times our race will flourish and multiply and theirs will be swept aside. ”
“Because of their ignorance?” Walker asks.
“Because they’re too stubborn to learn and too proud to be taught.”
When they first find her there, crouched and trembling by Nabayah’s lifeless body with the bag of gold lying unregarded on the sward by her side, Keasik’s face and mouth are so bloody and swollen from her husband’s assault that she can barely speak a word.
It is only later on, after Hearn has helped her clean her wounds and then offered her brandy to sip and encouraged her to eat a morsel of food, that he learns that before he died, Nabayah, while in the midst of some kind of frenzy, killed one of the esquimaux men.
At first, he thinks he must have misheard her or mistook the meaning, but when she says it again more slowly and clearly and explains that the man he killed was old and gray and brandished an odd little stick as though it were a weapon, he realizes that, strange though it sounds, it must be the truth.
He goes over to John Shaw right away, recounts what he has heard, and warns him that if a feud starts up between the two tribes, they will all be placed in grave danger.
But Shaw, after the rescue of his precious treasure and the unexpected death of his rival, is far too elated to give such worries any weight.
“It’s the gold that matters now,” he says, “nothing else. We came within an inch of losing it all, so this is a moment for rejoicing, not looking for new reasons to be fretful. If the girl’s story is true—which I honestly doubt, since why would an old fellow like that be wandering about in the dark?
—we’ll just have to explain to our neighbors that one of our Indian servants regrettably lost his mind, but here you are, gentlemen, have some more pieces of iron to help soothe your grief. ”
“Can’t you see our luck is running out?” Hearn says.
“We’ve lost our best hunter, and the canoe is gone as well, and now the Esquimaux may be looking to take revenge for this killing.
We’ve been fortunate so far, and you’ve got what you came for, but that good fortune won’t last much longer.
We should take this calamity as a sign.”
“It’s not a calamity, it’s a success, and I don’t believe in signs and never have. Any path that’s worth traveling has a rocky patch or two, and a man who gives up and turns around in the face of such small upsets isn’t worth much, in my opinion.”
Shaw looks at Hearn in a way that suggests they both know which particular man he’s thinking of, but instead of defending himself, or continuing to argue, Hearn in the end just grinds his teeth a little, shakes his head, and says, “Very well, then, but we’re making a big mistake because the longer we stay up here, after all that’s just happened, the more dangerous it becomes. ”
“Your trepidations are duly noted, Mr. Hearn,” Shaw says, “and if whatever horrors you imagine descending upon us do in fact descend, I’ll be sure to tip my cap to your abnormal powers of foresight.
Until then, we’ll stay here tonight to rest ourselves, then get right back to the vein, for we still have a job of work to do and I doubt the blessed gold will start to dig itself. ”
To have to kill your own husband is a dreadful thing, Keasik thinks, whatever the reasons.
What will Nabayah’s family say, she wonders, when I tell them all that happened here?
Will they forgive me and understand why I had to do it, or will they doubt me and call me a liar and a murderer?
Will I be welcomed back by the whole band, will it be just as it was before, or will I be shunned by all my old friends and treated like an outcast because of what I have done?
Will I ever find another husband after this, or will I be left alone in the woods to fend for myself, a pitiful, lonely widow only good to be mocked and mistreated?
Oh, what will become of me now, she wonders miserably, with this husband’s blood staining my hands? What will become of me? What?
All that night, she has terrible dreams filled with death and disorder, and the next day near noon when they stop by a stream to rest, Keasik notices Nabayah’s vengeful spirit in the form of a fat-bodied raven perched on a boulder, staring back at her.
She hurls a stone and he flies away, but later she sees him again, a black crisscross mark high in the sky, watching and following them.
All the rest of the day as they walk, he comes and goes, sometimes alone, sometimes in company, and each time she sees him, she feels a chill inside and an awful sense of rising dread.
The only thing that brings her any comfort is the knowledge that when they get back to the camp, Pawpitch will be there, and when she hears what’s happened, even though she’ll be shocked, Keasik is sure she will have something reassuring and comforting to offer.
Perhaps she’ll suggest an old song they can sing together to keep the unhoused spirit at bay.
Or perhaps she will remind her again of the advice she gave her once when she was feeling scared and sad—that every portion of evil, however dreadful it seems, is always matched and balanced by a portion of good, and that even if the evil seems stronger and truer, it isn’t, because goodness is like water and evil is like rock.
If you wait long enough, even the worst, most appalling thing that ever happened, the thing you imagine will haunt you forever, is rubbed down to nothing.
To pebbles first, she had told her, then to sand, my sweet, lovely child, and then to nothing. Just think of that.