Back to God's Country and Other Stories

Back to God's Country and Other Stories Synopsis

A collection of short stories set in the wilderness. Back to God's Country opens on an idyllic note at the peaceful Canadian mountain home where the innocent child-of-nature Dolores LeBeau lives with her doting father Baptiste LeBeau and a legion of animal friends. When a handsome naturalist Peter Burke stops in at their mountain paradise he is charmed by Dolores and the pair are soon announcing their engagement to Baptiste. But the always changeable mood of Back to God's Country suddenly shifts from a bucolic love story to a genuine nightmare. A murderous criminal Rydal hiding out in the mountains and traveling with his half-breed sidekick, spies Dolores skinny-dipping in a brook and vows to "e;have"e; her. Back to God's Country was based on a typically sensational James Oliver Curwood short story "e;Wapi, the Walrus."e; Curwood was known for a bizarre fiction formula in which decent women were threatened with rape, only to be rescued from a fate worse than death by a protective dog. Curwood's prototypical woman-beast storyline was also used in Back to God's Country, with Dolores finding an abused, vicious black dog Wapi, her only companion and helpmate in the barren winter landscape where she and Peter are trapped. Dolores and Wapi form a bond that transforms this fascinating, strange story yet again, from a tale of human evil, to an oddly touching story of the loving relationship between a woman and a dog.BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY (Excerpt)When Shan Tung, the long-cued Chinaman fromVancouver, started up the Frazer River in the old days when theTelegraph Trail and the headwaters of the Peace were the Meccas ofhalf the gold-hunting population of British Columbia, he did notforesee tragedy ahead of him. He was a clever man, was Shan Tung, acha-sukeed, a very devil in the collecting of gold, and far-seeing.But he could not look forty years into the future, and when Shan Tungset off into the north, that winter, he was in reality touching fireto the end of a fuse that was to burn through four decades before theexplosion came.With Shan Tung went Tao, a Great Dane. TheChinaman had picked him up somewhere on the coast and had trained himas one trains a horse. Tao was the biggest dog ever seen about theHeight of Land, the most powerful, and at times the most terrible. Oftwo things Shan Tung was enormously proud in his silent andmysterious oriental way-of Tao, the dog, and of his long, shiningcue which fell to the crook of his knees when he let it down. It hadbeen the longest cue in Vancouver, and therefore it was the longestcue in British Columbia. The cue and the dog formed the combinationwhich set the forty-year fuse of romance and tragedy burning. ShanTung started for the El Dorados early in the winter, and Tao alonepulled his sledge and outfit. It was no more than an ordinary taskfor the monstrous Great Dane, and Shan Tung subserviently but withhidden triumph passed outfit after outfit exhausted by the way. Hehad reached Copper Creek Camp, which was boiling and frothing withthe excitement of gold-maddened men, and was congratulating himselfthat he would soon be at the camps west of the Peace, when the thinghappened. A drunken Irishman, filled with a grim and unfortunatesense of humor, spotted Shan Tung's wonderful cue and coveted it.Wherefore there followed a bit of excitement in which Shan Tungpassed into his empyrean home with a bullet through his heart, andthe drunken Irishman was strung up for his misdeed fifteen minuteslater. Tao, the Great Dane, was taken by the leader of the men whopulled on the rope. Tao's new master was a "e;drifter,"e; andas he drifted, his face was always set to the north, until at last anew humor struck him and he turned eastward to the Mackenzie. As theseasons passed, Tao found mates along the way and left a string ofhis progeny behind him, and he had new masters, one after another,until he was grown old and his muzzle was turning gray. And never didone of these masters turn south with him. Always it was north, northwith the white man first, north with the Cree, and then wit h theChippewayan, until in the end the dog born in a Vancouver kennel diedin an Eskimo igloo on the Great Bear. But the breed of the Great Danelived on. Here and there, as the years passed, one would find amongthe Eskimo trace-dogs, a grizzled-haired, powerful-jawed giant thatwas alien to the arctic stock, and in these occasional aliens ran theblood of Tao, the Dane.Forty years, more or less, after Shan Tung losthis life and his cue at Copper Creek Camp, there was born on a firthof Coronation Gulf a dog who was named Wapi, which means "e;theWalrus."e;... ABOUT JAMES OLIVER CURWOODJames Oliver Curwood, (June 12, 1878 - August13, 1927), was an American novelist and conservationist. A greatnumber of his works were turned into movies, several of which starredNell Shipman as a brave and adventurous woman in the wilds of thenorth. Many films from Curwood's writings were made during hislifetime, as well as after his passing through to the 1950s. In 1988French director Jean-Jacques Annaud used his 1916 novel, The GrizzlyKing to make the film The Bear. Annaud's success generated a renewedinterest in Curwood's stories that resulted in five more films beingproduced in 1994 and 1995.