The Wendigo Read online

  Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Dave Morgan and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team.

  THE WENDIGO

  Algernon Blackwood

  1910

  I

  A considerable number of hunting parties were out that year withoutfinding so much as a fresh trail; for the moose were uncommonly shy, andthe various Nimrods returned to the bosoms of their respective familieswith the best excuses the facts of their imaginations could suggest. Dr.Cathcart, among others, came back without a trophy; but he broughtinstead the memory of an experience which he declares was worth all thebull moose that had ever been shot. But then Cathcart, of Aberdeen, wasinterested in other things besides moose--amongst them the vagaries ofthe human mind. This particular story, however, found no mention in hisbook on Collective Hallucination for the simple reason (so he confidedonce to a fellow colleague) that he himself played too intimate a partin it to form a competent judgment of the affair as a whole....

  Besides himself and his guide, Hank Davis, there was young Simpson, hisnephew, a divinity student destined for the "Wee Kirk" (then on hisfirst visit to Canadian backwoods), and the latter's guide, Defago.Joseph Defago was a French "Canuck," who had strayed from his nativeProvince of Quebec years before, and had got caught in Rat Portage whenthe Canadian Pacific Railway was a-building; a man who, in addition tohis unparalleled knowledge of wood-craft and bush-lore, could also singthe old _voyageur_ songs and tell a capital hunting yarn into thebargain. He was deeply susceptible, moreover, to that singular spellwhich the wilderness lays upon certain lonely natures, and he loved thewild solitudes with a kind of romantic passion that amounted almost toan obsession. The life of the backwoods fascinated him--whence,doubtless, his surpassing efficiency in dealing with their mysteries.

  On this particular expedition he was Hank's choice. Hank knew him andswore by him. He also swore at him, "jest as a pal might," and since hehad a vocabulary of picturesque, if utterly meaningless, oaths, theconversation between the two stalwart and hardy woodsmen was often of arather lively description. This river of expletives, however, Hankagreed to dam a little out of respect for his old "hunting boss," Dr.Cathcart, whom of course he addressed after the fashion of the countryas "Doc," and also because he understood that young Simpson was alreadya "bit of a parson." He had, however, one objection to Defago, and oneonly--which was, that the French Canadian sometimes exhibited what Hankdescribed as "the output of a cursed and dismal mind," meaningapparently that he sometimes was true to type, Latin type, and sufferedfits of a kind of silent moroseness when nothing could induce him toutter speech. Defago, that is to say, was imaginative and melancholy.And, as a rule, it was too long a spell of "civilization" that inducedthe attacks, for a few days of the wilderness invariably cured them.

  This, then, was the party of four that found themselves in camp the lastweek in October of that "shy moose year" 'way up in the wilderness northof Rat Portage--a forsaken and desolate country. There was also Punk, anIndian, who had accompanied Dr. Cathcart and Hank on their hunting tripsin previous years, and who acted as cook. His duty was merely to stay incamp, catch fish, and prepare venison steaks and coffee at a fewminutes' notice. He dressed in the worn-out clothes bequeathed to him byformer patrons, and, except for his coarse black hair and dark skin, helooked in these city garments no more like a real redskin than a stageNegro looks like a real African. For all that, however, Punk had in himstill the instincts of his dying race; his taciturn silence and hisendurance survived; also his superstition.

  The party round the blazing fire that night were despondent, for a weekhad passed without a single sign of recent moose discovering itself.Defago had sung his song and plunged into a story, but Hank, in badhumor, reminded him so often that "he kep' mussing-up the fac's so, thatit was 'most all nothin' but a petered-out lie," that the Frenchman hadfinally subsided into a sulky silence which nothing seemed likely tobreak. Dr. Cathcart and his nephew were fairly done after an exhaustingday. Punk was washing up the dishes, grunting to himself under thelean-to of branches, where he later also slept. No one troubled to stirthe slowly dying fire. Overhead the stars were brilliant in a sky quitewintry, and there was so little wind that ice was already formingstealthily along the shores of the still lake behind them. The silenceof the vast listening forest stole forward and enveloped them.

  Hank broke in suddenly with his nasal voice.

  "I'm in favor of breaking new ground tomorrow, Doc," he observed withenergy, looking across at his employer. "We don't stand a dead Dago'schance around here."

  "Agreed," said Cathcart, always a man of few words. "Think the idea'sgood."

  "Sure pop, it's good," Hank resumed with confidence. "S'pose, now, youand I strike west, up Garden Lake way for a change! None of us ain'ttouched that quiet bit o' land yet--"

  "I'm with you."

  "And you, Defago, take Mr. Simpson along in the small canoe, skip acrossthe lake, portage over into Fifty Island Water, and take a good squintdown that thar southern shore. The moose 'yarded' there like hell lastyear, and for all we know they may be doin' it agin this year jest tospite us."

  Defago, keeping his eyes on the fire, said nothing by way of reply. Hewas still offended, possibly, about his interrupted story.

  "No one's been up that way this year, an' I'll lay my bottom dollar on_that!_" Hank added with emphasis, as though he had a reason forknowing. He looked over at his partner sharply. "Better take the littlesilk tent and stay away a couple o' nights," he concluded, as though thematter were definitely settled. For Hank was recognized as generalorganizer of the hunt, and in charge of the party.

  It was obvious to anyone that Defago did not jump at the plan, but hissilence seemed to convey something more than ordinary disapproval, andacross his sensitive dark face there passed a curious expression like aflash of firelight--not so quickly, however, that the three men had nottime to catch it.

  "He funked for some reason, _I_ thought," Simpson said afterwards in thetent he shared with his uncle. Dr. Cathcart made no immediate reply,although the look had interested him enough at the time for him to makea mental note of it. The expression had caused him a passing uneasinesshe could not quite account for at the moment.

  But Hank, of course, had been the first to notice it, and the odd thingwas that instead of becoming explosive or angry over the other'sreluctance, he at once began to humor him a bit.

  "But there ain't no _speshul_ reason why no one's been up there thisyear," he said with a perceptible hush in his tone; "not the reason youmean, anyway! Las' year it was the fires that kep' folks out, and thisyear I guess--I guess it jest happened so, that's all!" His manner wasclearly meant to be encouraging.

  Joseph Defago raised his eyes a moment, then dropped them again. Abreath of wind stole out of the forest and stirred the embers into apassing blaze. Dr. Cathcart again noticed the expression in the guide'sface, and again he did not like it. But this time the nature of the lookbetrayed itself. In those eyes, for an instant, he caught the gleam of aman scared in his very soul. It disquieted him more than he cared toadmit.

  "Bad Indians up that way?" he asked, with a laugh to ease matters alittle, while Simpson, too sleepy to notice this subtle by-play, movedoff to bed with a prodigious yawn; "or--or anything wrong with thecountry?" he added, when his nephew was out of hearing.

  Hank met his eye with something less than his usual frankness.

  "He's jest skeered," he replied good-humouredly. "Skeered stiff aboutsome ole feery tale! That's all, ain't it, ole pard?" And he gave Defagoa friendly kick on the moccasined foot that lay nearest the fire.

  Defago looked up quickly, as from an interrupted reverie, a reverie,however, that had not prevented his seeing all that went on about him.

  "Skeered--_nuthin'!_" he answered,
with a flush of defiance. "There'snuthin' in the Bush that can skeer Joseph Defago, and don't you forgetit!" And the natural energy with which he spoke made it impossible toknow whether he told the whole truth or only a part of it.

  Hank turned towards the doctor. He was just going to add something whenhe stopped abruptly and looked round. A sound close behind them in thedarkness made all three start. It was old Punk, who had moved up fromhis lean-to while they talked and now stood there just beyond the circleof firelight--listening.

  "'Nother time, Doc!" Hank whispered, with a wink, "when the galleryain't stepped down into the stalls!" And, springing to his feet, heslapped the Indian on the back and cried noisily, "Come up t' the firean' warm yer dirty red skin a bit." He dragged him towards the blaze andthrew more wood on. "That was a mighty good feed you give us an hour ortwo back," he continued heartily, as though to set the man's thoughts onanother scent, "and it ain't Christian to let you stand out therefreezin' yer ole soul to hell while we're gettin' all good an' toasted!"Punk moved in and warmed his feet, smiling darkly at the other'svolubility which he only half understood, but saying nothing. Andpresently Dr. Cathcart, seeing that further conversation was impossible,followed his nephew's example and moved off to the tent, leaving thethree men smoking over the now blazing fire.

  It is not easy to undress in a small tent without waking one'scompanion, and Cathcart, hardened and warm-blooded as he was in spite ofhis fifty odd years, did what Hank would have described as "considerableof his twilight" in the open. He noticed, during the process, that Punkhad meanwhile gone back to his lean-to, and that Hank and Defago wereat it hammer and tongs, or, rather, hammer and anvil, the little FrenchCanadian being the anvil. It was all very like the conventional stagepicture of Western melodrama: the fire lighting up their faces withpatches of alternate red and black; Defago, in slouch hat and moccasinsin the part of the "badlands" villain; Hank, open-faced and hatless,with that reckless fling of his shoulders, the honest and deceived hero;and old Punk, eavesdropping in the background, supplying the atmosphereof mystery. The doctor smiled as he noticed the details; but at the sametime something deep within him--he hardly knew what--shrank a little, asthough an almost imperceptible breath of warning had touched the surfaceof his soul and was gone again before he could seize it. Probably it wastraceable to that "scared expression" he had seen in the eyes of Defago;"probably"--for this hint of fugitive emotion otherwise escaped hisusually so keen analysis. Defago, he was vaguely aware, might causetrouble somehow ...He was not as steady a guide as Hank, forinstance ... Further than that he could not get ...

  He watched the men a moment longer before diving into the stuffy tentwhere Simpson already slept soundly. Hank, he saw, was swearing like amad African in a New York nigger saloon; but it was the swearing of"affection." The ridiculous oaths flew freely now that the cause oftheir obstruction was asleep. Presently he put his arm almost tenderlyupon his comrade's shoulder, and they moved off together into theshadows where their tent stood faintly glimmering. Punk, too, a momentlater followed their example and disappeared between his odorousblankets in the opposite direction.

  Dr. Cathcart then likewise turned in, weariness and sleep still fightingin his mind with an obscure curiosity to know what it was that hadscared Defago about the country up Fifty Island Water way,--wondering,too, why Punk's presence had prevented the completion of what Hank hadto say. Then sleep overtook him. He would know tomorrow. Hank would tellhim the story while they trudged after the elusive moose.

  Deep silence fell about the little camp, planted there so audaciously inthe jaws of the wilderness. The lake gleamed like a sheet of black glassbeneath the stars. The cold air pricked. In the draughts of night thatpoured their silent tide from the depths of the forest, with messagesfrom distant ridges and from lakes just beginning to freeze, there layalready the faint, bleak odors of coming winter. White men, with theirdull scent, might never have divined them; the fragrance of the woodfire would have concealed from them these almost electrical hints ofmoss and bark and hardening swamp a hundred miles away. Even Hank andDefago, subtly in league with the soul of the woods as they were, wouldprobably have spread their delicate nostrils in vain....

  But an hour later, when all slept like the dead, old Punk crept from hisblankets and went down to the shore of the lake like a shadow--silently,as only Indian blood can move. He raised his head and looked about him.The thick darkness rendered sight of small avail, but, like the animals,he possessed other senses that darkness could not mute. Helistened--then sniffed the air. Motionless as a hemlock stem he stoodthere. After five minutes again he lifted his head and sniffed, and yetonce again. A tingling of the wonderful nerves that betrayed itself byno outer sign, ran through him as he tasted the keen air. Then, merginghis figure into the surrounding blackness in a way that only wild menand animals understand, he turned, still moving like a shadow, and wentstealthily back to his lean-to and his bed.

  And soon after he slept, the change of wind he had divined stirredgently the reflection of the stars within the lake. Rising among the farridges of the country beyond Fifty Island Water, it came from thedirection in which he had stared, and it passed over the sleeping campwith a faint and sighing murmur through the tops of the big trees thatwas almost too delicate to be audible. With it, down the desert paths ofnight, though too faint, too high even for the Indian's hair-likenerves, there passed a curious, thin odor, strangely disquieting, anodor of something that seemed unfamiliar--utterly unknown.

  The French Canadian and the man of Indian blood each stirred uneasily inhis sleep just about this time, though neither of them woke. Then theghost of that unforgettably strange odor passed away and was lost amongthe leagues of tenantless forest beyond.