Yukon Madness

 

Itauk the Madman, stalking across the bitter wastes, squinting with slanted eyes over the backs of his twelve-wolf team, stared into the blackness toward the snarling flares of red and green and white which shot into the indigo winter sky—the aurora borealis. Itauk the Madman, a horror in the raw north of Hudson Bay, spreading death with sharp steel and throwing the shattered bodies of men to his slavering team.

 

Twelve wolves as black as the winter sky, glittering teeth as sharp as the white ice which jutted through the dry snow, mouths as red-flecked as the borealis, tugged at the sledge traces. And Itauk laughed—a piercing, grating laughter which splintered the great silence.

 

Tommy McKenna heard the laugh, though it was far away. And Tommy McKenna shuddered under his red coat and sealskin parka. He could see nothing, but he heard. The cold barrel of the Lee-Enfield was hard under his tight fingers. His eyes—gray eyes as cold as arctic ice—closed to lines. 

 

That was Itauk. The sound came far through the ebon chill. That was Itauk and Billy Simmons was back at camp alone, sleeping. Or was he sleeping still? Had Itauk struck again in the Yukon Territory?

 

Tommy McKenna raised his snowshoes and struck out in a rapid lope for camp. He had forgotten the bear tracks he had seen earlier in the day. He had forgotten that he and Simmons were almost out of food. He remembered only his charge to “get his man.”

 

“Get Itauk!” the lieutenant had ordered at Post Ledoux. It had sent McKenna and Simmons on a five-hundred-mile trek through blackness, through acid cold, across uncharted seas of snow.

 

And now Itauk’s laugh out of the ebon cold. Tommy McKenna’s snowshoes rapped the dry crust in a steady tempo. His lean, weathered face—handsome before it had been too long exposed to screaming winds and silent mountains of white—was almost buried in the fur hood. It was fifty-five below and a man’s breath froze in his nostrils and stayed there, freezing his lungs.

 

He came within a hundred yards of the camp and stopped. He called out, his voice clear as a trumpet, “Simmons!”

 

No answer. Heavy, throbbing silence. The flare and flash of the northern lights as they shot spitefully up at the stars. A wolf howled out in the cold alone, dismal and quavering. Answering the call.

 

Calling “Simmons!” again, he listened intently.

 

Tommy McKenna threw off the safety of the Enfield. His mittens were clumsy but he dared not take them off. His hands would freeze to the barrel of his gun.

 

“Simmons!”

 

Uncertain now. Knowledge as icy as the half-year night told Tommy McKenna that he would never again hear Simmons’ voice. With that sixth or perhaps seventh sense born in men who stand eye to eye with danger and the raw North, Tommy McKenna already understood.

 

He advanced slowly. The fire was a red glow against the blue darkness. The flame had died down. A shadow lay against it, a shadow queerly limp and empty.

 

Tommy McKenna stared at the patch of scarlet cloth. A bright warm stain was growing in the dry snow, spreading out slowly and steadily.

 

Simmons’ face had been torn away as though by claws. Nothing remained but the broken, red-shredded skull. Tufts of his parka lay black against the white. Blood was scattered far.

 

Tommy McKenna’s voice was stiff, unreal. “He . . . turned his wolves . . . to feast . . . ”

 

Anger blocked out the body, blacked the northern lights. Tommy’s hands shook with rage. He looked north and his eyes were chill.

 

The unwritten law of the Mounties: Swift death to those who would kill one of us.

 

Itauk would die. With either bullets or steel or bare hands. No trial for Itauk now. He had committed the unforgivable crime, punishable by instant death on sight. He had killed Simmons of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. No wooden gallows in the Yukon Territory headquarters, with a priest to see Itauk through death’s door; it had to come when—and as soon as death could!

 

Tommy McKenna looked back at the fire. The torn fur and scattered bones of the sledge dogs told a swift story. Tommy knew that he was on foot, that he would have to live from kill to kill—unless he met Itauk.

 

The garish flame of the northern lights showed up the trail. The large pads of Itauk’s wolves had left their plain print upon the snow, and over the pads was the print of a kamik-covered foot. That was Itauk.

 

Picking up a bundle of supplies from the ruin of their outfit, Tommy struck out. His snowshoes rasped over the dry cold surface and the weight of the Enfield was hard against his arm. No time to bury Simmons now. The pause might lose him his quarry.

 

Slogging through the never-ending night, Tommy heard the sounds of the North: the crackle of ice under terrific stress; the moan of sharp wind across the great reaches; the shivering hunting cry of the wolf.

 

For hours the trail was straight, leading into the very heart of the borealis. Itauk the Madman was traveling fast and far, lengthening the road which was milestoned with blood.

 

Tommy’s breath was ice on his lips and his lungs burned from exertion and freezing air. The Enfield grew heavier. The revolver under the parka banged with steady monotony against his thigh.

 

His squinted eyes did not leave the trail. The sound of his snowshoes was like the staccato flicking of sandpaper across a drumhead.

 

He stopped, still looking down, his practiced glance reading the story.

 

Someone had intercepted Itauk’s trail. The sledge had stopped. Then a pair of shoes led off at an angle, traveling west.