Cold Ghost

A dozen fascinating new possibilities opened up to Hager. It was as though he had been blind and was able to see only now. Breath-taking vistas blossomed before his awakened eyes. There was music in what he visioned, music and the voices of women, bright lights, color, movement, and the warmth of gentler climes.

The brightest part of the picture was that Cahill's death need not be outright murder. The man was sick. His life depended on getting him into the hands of the doctor in Moose Gulch as quickly as possible.

If Hager were simply to delay in reaching the settlement, Cahill would die as surely as though from the thrust of a knife or the impact of a bullet. Exposure to the biting cold would finish him. And nobody would know. Hager could always claim that he had hurried as best he could under the difficult, hampering circumstances of the storm, but that Cahill had died on the way. As easy as that. If Marshal Art Maddox stuck his long nose into the matter, Cahill's unmarked body would be proof that there had been no foul play.

Hager felt satisfied that his scheme was without loopholes. The idea had become a definite plan. And now his square lips hardened with determination behind the scarf. He looked at Cahill, dozing feverishly on the sled, with deep-set gray eyes that were bleak and implacable.

Cahill would never reach Moose Gulch alive.

With his grim purpose giving new drive to his actions, Hager glanced about him. It was difficult to see through the curtain of snow that hung between him and the landscape, but by squinting steadily through momentary rifts made by the frigid, lashing wind, he was able presently to discern that they were near the pass leading out of the valley. Beyond the pass, he knew, was a forest, dipping down to the banks of a frozen stream. The stream ran for several miles until it branched into a river, which in turn led directly into Moose Gulch. With these landmarks to guide him, a traveler through the snow-bound wilderness could reach the settlement easily and quickly. But Hager didn't intend to do that. He now had time to kill. He chuckled darkly over the accuracy of the phrase.

Plodding toward the pass, he deliberately slowed his steps. He no longer used the whip or shouted at the dogs for greater speed. The animals were grateful for the respite. They slackened their pace, tongues lolling and bushy tails waving as they bobbed in their plowed path through the white drifts.

Cahill dozed on. Once or twice he moved restlessly amid the furs piled about him. It was as though some deep, vague instinct warned him that something was wrong.

Hager watched the other sharply for a time, then desisted to give his attention to maneuvering the sled through the pass. The forest appeared, the trees wraith-like under their thick, white mantles of snow. Hager didn't follow the dip in the land that led toward the frozen stream. He guided the dogs in the opposite direction and began watching Cahill again. He hoped that the man would not awake until less familiar territory surrounded them.

Cahill didn't awake. He dozed and tossed, his lips moving occasionally in a soundless mutter. His gaunt, leathery face was pale under its growth of grizzled whiskers.

The snow-covered land rose, became rocky and difficult. The dogs began laboring with increasing weariness in their efforts to keep pulling the heavy sled. Hager realized he couldn't go in this direction much longer. When a ravine suddenly presented itself, relatively free of snow, he decided to call a halt.

Unfastening the dogs, he left the ravine and began searching through the snow for brushwood. It took time, but Hager was in no hurry. He gathered an armful and finally returned to the sled.

Cahill was awake. He had propped himself feebly among the furs, his gaunt face blank and drab with sickness. His filmed blue eyes fastened on Hager.

"Water," he whispered. "Water, Matt."

"Coming up," Hager said. "Just you wait a minute, Ben, and you'll get all the water you want."

Cahill fell back among the furs, and Hager leisurely shaved kindling and stacked the wood and then set it ablaze. The ravine was shielded from the wind, and the wood ignited without difficulty. At last Hager went to the sled and removed the small pack he had fortunately thought to bring along. His experience with the wilderness had trained him never to overlook the smallest precautions.

Hager took a handled pan from the pack. He filled it with snow and then held the pan over the flames. When the snow melted, he filled a tin cup with the liquid and went over to Cahill. He had to steady the cup as the other drank.

Finally Cahill nodded. His eyes seemed to clear. He glanced about him, and a dim worry moved in his face.

"Matt, where are we?"

"Somewhere near Boot Valley."

"You ... you mean we're lost?"

"I sort of got mixed up in the storm. Nothing to worry about."

Cahill shivered suddenly. "We got to reach town, Matt. Got to see the doctor."

Hager nodded. "How do you feel?"

"It's getting worse. I can feel it getting worse. I'm cold now, Matt. Before ... before I was...." Cahill's voice trailed off. He had to make an effort before he was able to speak again. "Got ... got to see the doctor, Matt. Can't waste any time."

"I know," Hager said. "But the team needs a little rest. They've had a lot of heavy hauling, and there's still a distance to go."

Cahill nodded miserably, shivering. He burrowed into the furs, still shivering, breathing rapidly through parted lips. Slowly the chill left him. His eyes clouded again. Then his lids fell, and he dozed once more.

Hager brewed tea and drank it slowly, squatting before the fire. Then he packed and lighted his pipe. He stared into the flames with narrowed eyes, seeing his dreams pictured there. They were pleasant dreams.

Hager remained in the ravine until the supply of wood was gone. Then he fastened the dogs back into their traces and resumed his position behind the sled. With shouts and cracks of the whip, he guided the animals out of the ravine, following the downward slope of the land this time.

The snow stopped falling after a while, but the wind and the cold increased. The cold hung on the air like an enormous, transparent weight. Somehow it seemed to give an impossible crystalline purity to the snow blanketing the trees and the land. In doing so, it emphasized and magnified its very presence. It made itself something almost alive and sentient, icily malignant, overbearing, utterly cruel and without mercy.