of square miles of bush? Maybe it was the schools themselves, or maybe the way they ran the system. He wasn’t close enough to the project to know, but it was a problem begging for a solution. What was strikingly obvious to him was that the kids in this remote village were happy.
Happiness is a strange thing. Rory had always believed you had to cultivate it yourself. He had come back from the war highly decorated, but missing an eye and three fingers on his left hand – and with more ugly memories than he cared to think about. Happily, life had gotten steadily better for him. He joined the Mounted Police, and years later married a wonderful Chinese woman from a small prairie town; and despite the protestations of his father at both of his choices, Rory had found married life and his career in the police force deeply satisfying. It was true, there was something about police work. If you weren’t careful, it had the potential to turn some of the most optimistic men into cynics. Maybe that was true for other professions as well, but as he had seen some wonderful men become embittered, long ago he had deliberately set out to counter that.
By the time Rory’s duffel bag was unloaded, the boy in the red-chequered flannel shirt had established for everyone within earshot that he was to be the one carrying it to the Mountie’s cabin. As the procession got under way, Sergeant John McWilliams and a heavy, grey-bearded black Labrador jogged down the rock-strewn path from the village. Although McWilliams was several years younger than Rory, an extra twenty pounds, thinning hair, and a bushy grey moustache made him look much older. Unlike his commanding officer, McWilliams was dressed in a mixture of Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform and Indian clothing. He wore a Mountie’s peaked forage cap, a buckskin jacket, regulation yellow-striped trousers, and moccasins; and as usual he was smiling broadly.
“Got your radio message last night, sir. Didn’t expect you to come up for another month. Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine, John. It’s a routine visit. I’ve brought some books and newspapers, and I’ve got some spices, books, and magazines for Angela as well.” Rory looked around him, drinking in the scenery with obvious satisfaction. “I’m posted out of the division and they let me do one last set of rounds before I head off. The new divisional commander hasn’t been designated yet. Thought I’d come up and see you folks. I’m going to miss this part of the world.”
“Where are you going, sir? I was sure you’d be with us for at least a couple more years. It’s only been nine months. Is there some kind of problem?”
“No, no problems. It sounds like I’m going to England – something to do with the war. They’ve let me do one last circuit. I get to tidy up some loose ends, and then I go to Ottawa and then off to London. I suppose I’ll find out what’s in store for me later, but from what I can make out, they’re being tight-lipped about what’s going on.”
Surrounded by a cluster of happy chattering children, the two men walked up the path from the dock. The birch trees were still a dying yellow and most of the scrub bushes had already lost their leaves, exposing a floor of pale green lichen-covered granite. There was more than a touch of autumn in the air, and it struck Rory that up here only the maples resisted this turn of the seasons with one last defiant but futile crimson flourish before winter’s iron frost.
At the cabin, McWilliams’s wife, Angela, a sturdy, black-haired woman with a ready smile, was tying a braid in her three-year-old daughter’s hair. Angela stood up and gave a mock curtsey, and then, instantly turning serious, hugged Rory. “Rory, I was so sorry to hear about Ruth. It was all so sudden.”
“Thanks, Angela. Yeah, it was sudden. One week she felt ill and complained of stomach aches, and five weeks later she was gone. To be honest, I still haven’t gotten used to the idea of her being dead.” For a few seconds nobody spoke. It was a tacit moment of remembrance and commiseration. Rory shrugged. He felt choked, and despite these two being among his closest friends, he didn’t want to lose control, not now. He took a deep breath. “Life has to go on, I guess. So tell me, how have you two been since I was up here in the spring? You both look great.”
Angela spoke. “We’re fine. We still love it, just like you did when you were up here with us. That seems like a long time ago now. I suppose some day John and I will have to go back down south, but until then, we’re happy here.”
Anxious to change the subject from married life, Angela gave a small shrug. “Just now, except for the three of us and the village grandmas, we’re the only adults within a hundred miles of here. Everyone else has gone downriver for the autumn goose hunt. They’ll be back in a week or so.”
Later, followed by two shy, giggling girls and a puffing Labrador, Rory and John McWilliams strolled through the village. They were in no hurry and stopped to chat with the elderly women who sat in front of their cabins expecting to see their visitor. Although Rory could only remember a few words of the language, he was gratified to see how fluent his old friend had become in Cree and how he was genuinely accepted by the native elders. That wasn’t always the case with some of the officers up here.
When they returned, Angela had a simple supper laid out in their cabin’s front room. They talked cheerfully for an hour, then Angela excused herself to put their daughter to bed. She followed not long after.
Rory was pleased that the conversation meandered throughout the evening. In truth, there wasn’t a lot of police work to discuss up here. The Mounted Police functioned more as a steadying influence than as enforcers of the law in these truly isolated communities, a practical link to the more intensely settled world rather than the long arm of the outside world’s law. As it was, Rory probably didn’t have to come here. He could have said his official farewells by letter, but Angela and John McWilliams were special friends; and there was something in the North that exerted an irresistible pull on him. No matter what the time of year, he loved the rock, the lakes, and the woods. But it wasn’t just the outdoors. For those with the Northland in their soul, there was a perceptible sense of freedom and simplicity up here. On the Canadian Shield, life was lived to the unhurried rhythm of the seasons rather than the ticking of a clock and the shuffling of paper.
Late in the evening as the two men sat outside around a stone fire pit watching the flames, Rory grew serious. They had exhausted their small talk. For those who had spent many years living amongst the Indian communities, they understood that a trusting silence was a kind of conversation in itself. “Have you heard anything about Tommy Many Dreams?” Rory asked. “I guess I haven’t seen him for over a year now.”
McWilliams stirred the coals with a stick. “He’s gone downriver with his daughter and her husband and his grandchildren. He lives with them in the Eagle Lake band now. I think he’s doing quite well. Someone was telling me about him a month or so ago. His limp hasn’t gotten any worse, and he has no trouble keeping up with the others.” He winced at the heat from the fire. “You know, you Great War veterans keep pretty close tabs on one another. I suppose that’s only fair. Come to think of it, one of the last things Tommy said to me was that I had to say hello to you for him when I saw you next.”
They stared into the fire for a long time. John asked, “Why are you going back, Rory? I can’t imagine you don’t have a say in this. You’ve already done your share. Anybody who knows you, knows you’ve done your bit.”
Rory didn’t answer right away. He poked the fire with a stick, squinting as a draught of wind blew flame toward them. “I suppose I could have said no. In fact, even though I’d prefer to stay here, I think I could have done some useful work if I went to Ottawa at the end of this posting in Manitoba. But this war just isn’t the same as the last one. We can’t lose it. I’ve no doubt: the Nazis are completely different from the Kaiser.”
He stopped and gazed at the fire as if trying to read a pattern in the coals. “If we lose this war, it really will be the end of our
