Sick Heart River by John Buchan

Author:John Buchan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Adventure
ISBN: 9781846970306
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
Published: 1941-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

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13

Next day the cold was again extreme, but the sun was out for six hours, and the shelf in the forest was not uncomfortable. Johnny, after sniffing the air, pronounced on the weather. The first snow had fallen; there would be three days of heavy frost; then for maybe ten days there would be a mild, bright spell; then a few weeks before Christmas would come the big snows and the fierce cold. The fine spell would enable him to finish the hut. A little drove of snow buntings had passed yesterday; that meant, he said, since the birds were late in migrating, that winter would be late.

‘You call it the Indian Summer?’

‘The Hares call it the White Goose Summer. It ends when the last white goose has started south.’

That day Leithen made an experiment. Galliard was mending well, the wound in the leg was healing, he could eat better, only his mind was still sick. It was important to find out whether the time had come to link his memory up with his recent past, to get him on the first stage on the road back to the sphere to which he belonged.

He chose the afternoon, when his own fatigue compelled him to rest, and Galliard was likely to be wakeful after the bustle of the midday meal. He had reached certain conclusions. Galliard had lost all touch with his recent life. He had reverted to the traditions of his family, and now worshipped at ancestral shrines, and he had been mortally scared by the sight of the goddess. This fear did not impel him to mere flight, for he did not know where to flee to. It drove him to seek a refuge, and that refuge was Lew. He was as much under the spell of Lew as Lew was under the spell of his crazy river. Could this spell be lifted?

So far Galliard had been a mere automaton. He had spoken like a waxwork managed by a ventriloquist. It was hardly possible to recognize a personality in that vacant face, muffled in a shaggy beard, and unlit by the expressionless eyes. Yet the man was regaining his health, his wound was healing fast, his cheeks had lost their famished leanness. As Leithen looked at him, he found it hard to refrain from bitterness. He was giving the poor remnants of his strength to the service of a healthy animal with years of vigour before him. He felt cruelly the frailty of his own limbs and the hollowness of his chest.

He crushed the thought down and set himself to draw Galliard out of his cave. But the man’s wits seemed to be still wandering. Leithen plied him with discreet questions, but got an answer to neither French nor English. He refrained from speaking his wife’s name, and the names of his American friends, even of Ravelstons itself, woke no response. He tried to link up with Château-Gaillard, and Clairefontaine—with Father Paradis—with Uncle Augustin—with the Gaillards, Aristide and Paul Louis, who had died on the Arctic shores.

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