Arctic Wings

 

They came into the post with little ceremony. The older one said, “This Taggart, Streak?”

 

“Yeah,” said Streak.

 

“Taggart, I’m Bob Dixon. Heard of me?”

 

Evidently Taggart had, as Nancy noticed him flinch. She looked with new respect at Constable Pilot Bob Dixon. Yes, there was steel in the man, and his face was as emotionless as though carved from iron. His gaze was level and penetrating. He had not glanced toward Nancy.

 

“We thought you’d be here,” said Dixon. “Would you like to tell what you know about the Hanlon killing or shall I knock it out of you?”

 

“It’s a lie,” said Taggart, bristling and stalking forward. “It’s a lie. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with Hanlon’s shooting.”

 

“I didn’t say he was shot. And it happened night before last up at his placer.” Dixon smiled without a hint of humor. “Keep on talking, Taggart. You’ll hang sooner or later and this might as well be the time.”

 

“Hang, will I?” said Taggart. “To hell with you, Mountie. I said I didn’t know. . . .”

 

Suddenly Bob Dixon’s big fist balled up and crashed into Taggart’s jaw. Taggart went down to his knees, shaking his head. Dixon yanked him to his feet and struck again but this time Taggart rushed. Dixon ducked and threw his weight sideways and sent the bigger man hurtling against the wall.

 

Deliberately, the Mountie advanced, jerked the man to his feet, plucked out the Colt and slammed Taggart down into a chair. Dixon did not appear to be ruffled. There was no anger in him, only thoroughness.

 

“Maybe he didn’t do it,” said Streak Faulkner, staring at Taggart’s bloodied face.

 

“All rats are the same,” snapped Dixon. “Even if he didn’t, he’s given more beatings than he’s taken.”

 

“Yeah,” said Streak in a melancholy way, “but I think you go too far with this stuff sometimes, Bob.”

 

Suddenly Nancy knew the Mountie. She had heard of him time after time. They called him “Lawbook” Dixon, but she had not known that he had been ordered to the Tokush River country.

 

Dixon slapped Taggart away with his gauntlets. Taggart lunged to get out of the chair but a hard blow smashed him back.

 

Nancy felt a little sick. She went out of the porch and looked at the lake but the day was no longer so crystal bright. In the room she heard an occasional blow and once a chair went over. And in a blood-chilling monotone, Dixon kept asking over and over about the killing. Taggart’s voice was getting weak and once Streak interposed. He was a good kid, Streak. A little reckless and without too many brains, but men liked him.

 

At last they dragged Taggart out on the porch. The bully was a bully no more. His face was swollen and thick and his beard was dyed red in spots. Terror had its grip on him. His bedeviler had not even showed signs of weariness.

 

“If you didn’t do it,” said Dixon, relentlessly, “then how is it you have so many pound notes? Hanlon had a cache, they tell me, and it’s empty. There were pound notes in that cache.”

 

“I didn’t get them from Hanlon!” cried Taggart, beaten down.

 

“Then where did they come from?” said Dixon.

 

“I’ll tell you,” whimpered Taggart. But he didn’t. He sagged between them as though he was going to pass out.

 

Nancy watched because she couldn’t look away. Taggart was tough and this was the first time Taggart had ever been whipped, that was plain. But he had been whipped and this chunk of granite in khaki, this Mountie without a heart, had done it without half trying. She did not recognize the cunning of intelligent training there.

 

They started to let Taggart down to the puncheon boards but he had only been shamming. With a wild back sweep of his arms, he sent both Mounties reeling and leaped off the porch to sprint for his canoe.

 

Dixon got up on one knee. “Stop, in the King’s name!”

 

Taggart was too frightened to stop. He made the gunwale. The explosion of powder was like a physical blow to Nancy. She saw Taggart stiffen, half in and half out of the craft. Gradually he sank sideways into the water and streamers of red fanned out from him.

 

Dixon walked down to him and pulled him to the shore. Taggart’s hip was shattered by the big Webley slug and he slowly came around, moaning in pain.

 

“Damn you,” whispered Taggart, “I was straight for once. Straight! The Crees been selling furs and I’ve been selling them bullets and traps and they had pound notes. I didn’t know nothing about the Hanlon killing.”

 

Streak patched him up with a first-aid kit and the two Mounties loaded him into the police ship.

 

“Take him down to Fort Ledeau,” said Dixon. “I’ll wait here.”

 

“Okay,” said Streak. “But I kinda wish you hadn’t shot, Bob.”

 

“All rats are the same,” said Dixon.

 

Streak turned and taxied out into the lake and headed into the wind. He took off with a steep, climbing turn to give vent to his feelings.

 

Bob Dixon walked slowly back to the porch. “Sorry, Miss . . .”

 

“Nancy McClane.”

 

He took off his helmet. “They’re all the same, those fellows. They’re yellow at heart and they terrorize every weaker person they meet. Say, that must have been nasty, having that fellow drunk on your hands. I’m glad we happened in.”

 

“I was in no danger,” said Nancy. “You are not the only one that knows tricks.”

 

He looked at her admiringly. “One wouldn’t connect wrestling tricks with such a pretty girl—if you’ll pardon me, Miss McClane. Say, you talk like a Yank.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“That’s swell,” said Dixon, but gravely. “My mother was a Yank. Are you up here with your father?”

 

“My father is dead.”

 

“Oh. I’m sorry. Was he from this country?”

 

“From Virginia,” said Nancy.

 

That struck a chord in Dixon. He frowned a little, searching his police file brain and then, eyes wide open in astonishment, he looked at Nancy and his calm was gone.

 

“Why. . . why that must have been Thomas McClane who was—” He stopped, embarrassed and now more than a little uneasy.

 

“Go ahead,” said Nancy, coolly. “I see now why they call you ‘Lawbook’ Dixon. Go ahead. Certainly I’m the daughter of a criminal and criminals are all rats. Certainly. They arrested Thomas McClane for selling fraudulent stocks on a loaded mine and they put him in prison and he got tuberculosis and died. He was a gentleman, not a rat.”

 

Uncomfortable, on more than one count, Dixon turned and went down to sit on the edge of the wharf and watch for Streak’s return.