me, McClure. Because I am making them your problem.”
“I don’t understand?”
“I will not countenance their staying a day longer than absolute necessity at York Fort. Once they arrive — if they arrive, God help us — you will immediately guide them to Fort Douglas. The very next day, in fact. Take what supplies and men you think you need, but I will want them gone, y’hear me? When that cannon over there fires, that’s your signal to pack.”
“But, sir, I was hoping …”
“I don’t care what you were hoping for, McClure.”
“I’ve never guided a brigade before. And I don’t know how to deal with Scottish peasants. No one can understand their chatter, their tongue.”
“Then you will learn how. I’m not giving you a choice, man, your father’s son or no, you will do this for me. Or you will never again set foot in York Factory or any other Company post for the rest of your days.”
Alexander begins to sweat. While he can easily trade with the Nor’westers if he chooses, he holds a superstitious awe of the London-based company and feels almost a filial duty to her. Exile from York Factory would be to lose his only contact with his dead father’s world.
But to guide a brigade of foreigners! He knows the route between York Fort and Fort Douglas better than most, but has been content to travel as part of a brigade lead by others, limiting his role to trading furs and manning the sweeps. This is something else entirely.
The fort below them is subdued, too quiet for the time of year. In that the Factor is truthful — nothing will be right until the field pieces by the river are let off in honour of the ship’s arrival. It was a cause for celebration, with feasting and heavy drinking following the emptying of the ships. As a boy, he frequently took advantage of the drunken adults, lifting their purses or other personal effects to trade for sweets. Once at twelve years of age, he had stolen a trader’s pistol, but when the man awoke, he accused someone from another brigade of the thievery. A deadly fight was in the making, forcing a terrified Alexander to confess his guilt to his father, who hauled him before the furious trader. The man was shaggy and dark, bristling with weapons, and he whipped Alexander’s behind and legs with a sharp willow until it broke, while Alexander’s Indian friends laughed at him. He ran off in shame and did not return to the fort for three days, forced at last by hunger to apologize to his father.
As he grew older, he had followed his father more often into distant lands, paddling with the others, trading and learning the craft of the wilderness. When his father drowned in Knee Lake, he took over where the old man had left off, as a fur trader on the Bay. But he felt an incompetent shadow of the great, bearish Scot who had dominated his life, especially after the death of his mother.
Yet now, all is quiet. The ships have not come. What is happening in the world that so much he has trusted is in danger of slipping away?
“I don’t know what to say, sir.”
“Listen, son, if I didn’t think it was possible I wouldn’t put this on you. You’re young, but you’re capable. It’s a test, all right, but we all have to endure. The Company might not last another year. The ships might have foundered. You might lead the colonists to ruin. I don’t need to tell you that life is lived on the edge of death and disaster, but we do the best we can. I have my crosses, and I’m giving you yours. God help us all.”
Chapter Three
The Indians silently approach the survivors on the beach. As the Europeans become aware of the strangers, they stumble away. The tallest of the newcomers approaches Lachlan. His shadowed eyes travel over the Orkneyman and glance at the burning wreck. The cries for help are dying away; the flames still growing. The Indian gestures to Lachlan and turns away.
Lachlan grabs the officer sitting on the beach, and hauls him to his feet.
“I think they mean for us to follow them. Quickly, man, there is not a moment to lose.”
“What? Oh, yes …” says the officer, seeing the departing Indians for the first time. “Come along everyone, we must follow the Savages. Smartly now!”
One by one, the colonists fall into line. Moans and soft cries can still be heard. A dark line of them forms off the beach; not all who leave the water’s edge make it as far as the tree line before collapsing. A few hold back in fear, but, after the flames find the ship’s magazine, the Intrepid explodes with a great detonation, the icy water of the Bay instantly rushing in and consuming the hulk. A great hiss goes up, followed by roiling clouds of steam.
Absolute darkness and the silence of the dead chase the last stragglers from the beach, following as best they can, stumbling over the occasional body in the darkness.
The Indians had not waited, and, almost as soon as the Europeans enter the forest, they become lost in the tangled, scrubby trees. They stand together crying for help in God’s name, when they find the Indians amongst them again, eyeing them like mouse shit found in the pemmican.
Rose clings to her father as they stumble over half-seen bushes and branches in the dark, snow dusting them. Her awareness has diminished to a small, shrinking core.
The path to the Indian’s camp is mercifully short, and soon they come upon a collection of five conical tents of hide stretched over poles; a pale yellow they glow, a weird and unearthly light flickering like a will-o-the-wisp. Dogs bark and flaps are thrown open as they approach.
The widowed women commandeer a tipi for themselves and the orphaned children. Once inside they sprawl about, several almost naked. The tipi is too small, and those with the strength sit leaning against each other. A few sobs for those who died, and more for those who survived.
Indian women bring in armloads of wood and throw them on the fire. Sparks and a smoky haze, miasma of wet wool, and the sour spice of filthy, lousy bodies engulfs the tipi. The temperature soars. They sit in a huddle separate from the Europeans, and a sheen of sweat appears on their dark faces. They set a copper pot to boiling and toss in a handful of small, hairy leaves. One of them fills tin cups and carries the tea to the survivors. Perhaps a dozen are capable of responding.
She brings Rose a cup, and, propping up her head, holds it to her lips. The scent is earthy and fragrant, but the taste bitter. She softly speaks words that Rose cannot understand, but there is no mistaking the tenderness in the woman’s voice. She chews several of the tea leaves and places them as a damp poultice on Rose’s cut hands. Rose smiles at the touch and looks into the kind woman’s face. The Indian returns her smile, her brown fingertips tracing with wonder along Rose’s white arm. She wraps the cuts in soft cloth.
Another presents Rose with a ribbon of dried meat from a skin bag. While she had never really believed all the ghoulish stories she has heard about these people — stories of infant sacrifice and cannibalism — when confronted by this piece of anonymous flesh, Rose thanks her, and surreptitiously pushes it out under the edge of the tent where it is wolfed down by one of the dogs.
The Indians give them a few blankets and robes in which to wrap themselves, and those who are able, turn away from each other and pull off their sodden clothes. The Indians watch with wide eyes.
“I’ll take a cane to your eyes, any o’ thee that look upon me,” says an old woman in a voice high and weak, her thin jaw quivering. “’Tis not Christian to be seen like this, not afore the heathen.” She pulls off her rags, revealing pale, sagging buttocks covered in veins and blue
