The Cross Pull/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
Moran sat on a ledge of the rimrocks above the canyon, viewing the country with his glasses. Flash appeared suddenly, coming up through a break in the rims. He lingered near Moran for a few minutes, then started back as suddenly as he had come. With his forefeet over the edge he paused and looked back over his shoulder at Moran.
“This trying to keep in touch with both of us will wear you to a shadow,” laughed Moran. In less than an hour Flash had made four trips between the cabin and the rims. “Bring her back with you this trip,” said Moran. “She promised to join us up here, Flash.”
Half an hour later Flash reappeared, this time followed by the girl.
Moran led the way to a little projection of the cliff, a tiny promontory jutting out over the void of the canyon. A rolling jumble of hills and valleys spread out before them; dense spruce slopes and sidehill parks, bald ridges and windswept peaks. Far down in the stream beds each tiny meadow was framed as a picture by the fringe of trees that ringed it in, the pale green aspens shimmering through the deeper green of the pines. A few hundred yards behind them mighty cliffs towered up above the timberline at the base of the Wapiti Divide.
Flash was satisfied at last. These two were once more together. He lay flat, his head between his paws and peered off into the distance. Each movement that caught his eye aroused his immediate interest and he raised his head, regarding it intently.
“Poor Flash. He must have traveled miles this morning trying to keep in touch with both of us at the same time,” said Betty, leaning to run her fingers through his hair. “Look at his eyes. They’re positively human in their intelligence. I believe he knows every word we say. Don’t you, Flash?” When she spoke his name Flash wagged his tail. “See!” she cried. “That proves it.”
Moran smiled and shook his head.
“You make the common error of going to extremes,” he said. “Men either consider that animals have no intelligence at all or credit them with too much. Flash does not understand one word except those sounds which, from repetition, he has come to associate with certain things. You probably do not understand Siwash or Chinese, yet that is no slur on your intelligence. By the same token it doesn’t mean that Flash lacks intelligence because he has only the most limited understanding of what we say. On the contrary I believe him to be the very smartest animal I have ever known.”
“So do I,” she said. “But you have such an analytical mind that you probably know the cause as well as the fact. Tell me.”
“His coyote brain,” said Moran. “The coyote is the smartest animal alive but men have not yet fully awakened to that fact. Men usually get their facts reversed so it’s not strange that they speak knowingly of the cowardly coyote, while in reality he’s one of the nerviest little rascals that ever breathed. Men can’t exterminate them. There are more now than there were ten years ago. They’re adaptable. The coyote was once strictly a prairie dweller but he has increased his range to cover all these western hills; north to British Columbia and east to Michigan. In a few years’ time we’ll hear of him ranging in the New England States and in the Arctic Circle. Remember that and see how my prophecy works out. Brains have enabled him to increase in the face of conditions which have put a value on his pelt and a price on his head. Flash has that brain.”
“Yet in spite of that you don’t think he understands our words?”
“I know it. I’ll demonstrate the fact. He has heard me call you Betty a dozen times to-day yet the repetition has been insufficient to cause him to connect that sound with you any more than any other word which I use frequently in speaking to you. On the other hand he does associate the word Moran with me. I’ll show you.”
He spoke to the dog and Flash looked up at him. Moran spoke the girl’s name over and over again. Flash gazed at him, puzzled by this reiteration of the same sound. He inclined his head from side to side, his ears tipped forward alertly as he tried to understand. His attention was entirely centered on Moran and he never once looked at the girl.
“Now you try it,” Moran instructed.
She spoke to Flash and as she talked he accorded her the same close attention with which he had favored Moran. Then she spoke Moran’s name twice and Flash turned instantly and looked at him.
“It’s true!” she cried. “You know so many queer things like that.”
“He is physically incapable of speaking the words of men and that renders him mentally incapable of understanding man’s vocabulary except from repetition and association; but he can read tone inflection and know the spirit behind the words. However he is intelligent enough to learn any trick or work within his physical limitations. Each lesson would have to start from some basic fact which he already knows and be gradually developed from that. For example we could easily train him to be a liaison courier and to carry messages between us,”
“How?” she asked. “Please show me.”
“Starting from these few facts; he knows the words ‘go’ coupled with this motion—the outward swing of my arm. I taught him that in handling horses and cows. His present natural inclination is to travel back and forth between us. We would make use of that. At first he would not know where to go but he would know that I was sending him away. From habit he would retum to you. You could send him back to me by coupling the same words and motions with my name. Aside from the fact that he knows my name he would naturally look for me anyhow. In a short time he would see a definite purpose behind it all and soon understand what we expected of him.”
The following few days were busy ones for Flash. The next morning Moran fashioned a collar from an elkhide thong and took Flash some distance from the cabin. He rolled a leaf from his notebook around the thong and fastened it with a pin.
“Go, Flash,” he ordered, swinging his arm and pointing back toward the cabin. “Go! Go on, boy! Take it back to her.”
Flash bounded away in the direction of the cabin, stopped and looked back. He knew that Moran was ordering him to go somewhere. There were no horses or cows. He sat down and watched Moran, undecided as to what was expected of him. Moran’s insistent command assured him that he was to go. He knew that word. He trotted about in eccentric circles and whined. At last he started off.
As soon as he lost sight of Moran his natural inclination was to return to the girl and he made straight for the cabin. She unfastened the slip of paper from the collar, examined it at length and spoke to Flash in words of praise according to Moran’s instructions. Then she once more fastened the paper to his collar and pointed off in the general direction taken by Moran.
“Go, boy!” she urged. “Go! Moran! Moran! Take it to Moran, Flash! Go!
Flash knew that she was sending him away. He knew that she spoke of Moran but his mind was still hazy as to just what was wanted of him. Once more he merely followed his natural inclination and returned to Moran.
Each time this was repeated they unfastened the paper the instant he arrived at either end, examining it and praising Flash, at the same time holding the note out for him to inspect. After a few trips he knew what was expected of him—traveled between them with a certain knowledge that this was what was meant by their commands. However, the reason for this was not as clear to him as the mere fact itself. At last the light began to dawn, slowly at first, then with a sudden full realization of the truth. This from constant repetition of one thing! The paper was each time held out for him to sniff. At first it meant nothing to him. Then, in a vague way, he came to know that it concerned these trips. When either Betty or Moran picked up a slip of paper Flash was instantly alert, knowing he was soon to be started out. He sensed that men had means of communication which were beyond his comprehension. This paper was a message—a understanding between these two, delivered through his medium. He had no conception whatever of the written word. When the paper was held out to him he invariably tested it with nose instead of eyes. His most dependable sense was that of smell. There must be some scent to this paper by which these two read its significance. For a time he sniffed longingly at each paper but its scent told him nothing and at last he gave it up. His was not the mind of man—the mind which ever strives to fathom the very things that smack of mystery. There was no least particle of use to excite himself over what he knew to be beyond his understanding. He was content to carry this thing because they willed it so.
The little nose of the canyon wall which Moran had picked that first morning afforded a wonderful outlook over a wide expanse of country and the girl spent much time there with him.
Flash knew that a change had come into the relations of these two. That first strangeness had been swept away. He sensed a new, sweet current in its place, felt its growth from day to day. He read it in their voices, caught vibrations of which they themselves were unaware.
Life was now bright for Flash. The two extremes in him were satisfied. These two whom he worshiped were together and he could revel in the combined love of both. When that other urge came, when the wolf strain rose rampant and uppermost, he ran with the phantom pack and killed; killed joyously and with no fear of hard-running horses on his trail.
Moran partially understood the conflict of inherited instincts which swayed Flash’s every move. As nearly as possible he explained all this to the girl.
“Every action has two sides for him,” he told her. “There’s a cross-pull exerted on every act of his life; the opposite longings of dog and wolf. He has struck the strangest compromise I’ve ever known. Instead of being a mixture at all times like most crosses of his kind, he swings like a pendulum from wild to tame. It is as if the warring strains in Flash had never fused, that he is two distinct animals in one—two spirits who alternate in their rule over the same flesh; one gentle and loving, the other ruthless and savage in the extreme. Do you get what I mean?”
“Yes, it’s true,” she said. “He’s the most loving, faithful dog I ever knew. That lobo howl he gives when he goes off alone and reverts to the wolf—it’s the most savage sound in the world; it fairly drips with death. Those two strains you speak of—instead of flowing in a dull blend, each has been strengthened, sharpened by the clash until each extreme has built up a powerful individuality of its own.”
“There!” said Moran. “You’ve analyzed it. Those words are a complete summing up of the soul of Flash—at least so far as mortal mind is capable of understanding the soul of a dog.”
Moran handed his glasses to the girl.
“I won’t be gone long,” he said. “I’m going after something I want you to see.” I’ve had my eye on it for several days.” Flash followed him down the game trail into the canyon. Moran stooped occasionally and picked up something which he dropped into his hat. He had long since killed an elk for meat and brought the slender store of canned goods from his cache; but she had craved something fresh—and he was gathering the first of the delicious wild strawberries of the season. Flash scoured the adjacent slopes in search of small game.
An hour later Moran stopped at the cabin. He washed the tiny red berries in the icy spring and placed them in a tin dish. A can of condensed cream, the one chief treasure of his cache, he slipped into his pocket as he started for the rims. Half way up Flash joined him, a small striped animal dangling limply from his jaws. He carried it to the point of rocks and deposited it gravely beside the girl.
“Flash, you old sweetheart,” she laughed. “How like a man you are! You woo me with delicacies from the hills as a man would with chocolates, dinners and wine. It’s the male instinct to feed the she he loves.” She glanced up and saw Moran. He too had brought her food and for one brief instant she could not meet his eyes but locked off across the hills, wondering if he had heard. Then she turned and stretched forth her hand.
“Oh! Give them to me!” she said. “I’m starved for something fresh.” She ate them slowly, lingeringly, and thanked him with each bite. Moran had heard! That note which Flash had so long since detected in his voice was no longer an undertone but was now so apparent in each word he spoke that the girl could read it and know what it held out to her. She thrilled to it, craved its full expression as she had craved the taste of each delicious berry—a thousand times more insistently than that—and knew that it could never be fulfilled.
They spoke but little. Dusk settled down around them. A soft violet haze drifted across the hills, shaded to purple, and the deeper valleys swam in obscurity below them while the sun still glinted brilliantly from the snow caps of far off divides. The girl’s heart was touched with the shadows while Moran’s was alight with the sparkling reflection from the peaks. At last all was night except one gleaming spot, the blaze of snow on the most lofty point in the Sunlight Peaks.
Then Moran turned and held her close in his arms. She stayed there, clung to him for a long minute. As the last light faded from the distant point she drew away.
“Maybe it was wrong,” she said. “But I’m only human. Right or wrong—I had to have my one minute with you. Besides, I wanted you to know. You would rather know it that way—once; even though we can’t go on with it. I’ve made one big, unutterable mistake, the worst a girl can make.” Moran attempted to speak, but she shook her head.
“It meant everything at the time. It means a great deal now; enough so that I’d do almost anything—but not the thing I did. I couldn’t since this has come to us. Some day I’ll tell you what it issome time soon, before you go. You’re so understanding with animals, so tolerant of their faults, that you may find some extenuation for me.”
“Whatever you have done won’t matter a straw,” he said. “I don’t even care to know what it is. It’s past. You’re mine by every natural law. And I want you—now!”
“Not now,” she said. “Sometime perhaps. I can’t tell—only hope. But if that time ever comes I promise to send for you. Will you be satisfied with that?”
“For now,” he assented, “but not for long. The one big, outstanding fact is that we belong. Nothing, absolutely not one thing I can think of can stand for long against that fact. It’s a natural law—the most compelling law of nature. If there is any man-made convention which says it is wrong we’ll shatter it.”
He swept her to him, held her close, kissed her until she was dizzy with love. The lobo cry rolled up out of the valley below, swept past them and clanged against the cliff face behind; savage, powerful, exultant!
Moran released her and stepped back.
“I won’t do that again but I wanted you to be sure. You heard that cry. I’ve never had a mate. I’ve waited long years for the right one. You’ve given me your love. That’s all that matters to me. I’ve lived so long alone among wild things that perhaps I’ve absorbed some of their philosophy of life. I’ll keep that love you’ve given me. If there’s no other way to keep it for ourselves I’ll keep it as the beast that made that cry would keep it—as Flash would hold his mate!”