Perilous Passage
Perilous Passage
For the Bayle cheering section: Audrey, Nicole, Lauren, MaryBeth, Shawn, Chris, and two Hanks
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My gratitude forever to my husband, Hank, who served as both chauffeur and cameraman when we attempted to follow the route taken by David Thompson and his brigades as they struggled to find the source of the Columbia River and a viable trade route to the Pacific Ocean. Our journey began at the impressive Rocky Mountain House National Historic Site with its wealth of information and ended at Astoria, Washington. I am grateful to the staff of the museums we visited along the way for their willingness to add to our information about Thompson — in particular those at the Windermere Valley Museum in Invermere, British Columbia; the Kettle Falls Historical Center at Kettle Falls, Washington; the Spokane House Interpretive Center in Spokane, Washington; and the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta.
I am also grateful to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, which funded my research. Most of all, I owe many thanks to Michael Carroll, The Dundurn Group’s editorial director, who with insight and hard work edits my stories and makes them better.
CHAPTER 1
He had become accustomed to the taunting from the innkeeper’s two young sons. Now, ignoring their cries of “Peter No-Name,” he plunged down the path leading to the small river that rushed to join the mighty St. Lawrence. Peter filled the two wooden buckets he carried and turned to climb back up to the bluff overlooking the growing settlement of Montreal. As he laboured upward, he noticed a stocky man with a dark beard standing at the top. The man had one booted foot propped on a large rock, elbow on his knee and chin in his hand, as he stared into the distance. His broad, muscular torso and heavy arms were almost out of proportion to his short legs, which told Peter the man was most likely one of the voyageurs who usually stayed at the inn at the end of a journey. The other clues were the fire-red shirt and the gaily striped yellow-and-red sash that he wore.
As Peter drew close, the voyageur flashed a friendly grin. The last section of the path was steeper, so Peter leaned one wooden bucket against the rock while he grasped the other with two hands. Swinging the heavy pail onto the boarded walkway, he turned to reach for the one by the rock and saw out of the corner of one eye the boys running toward him. Before he could react, Peter found himself tumbling backwards down the hill, drenched by the water flying out of the bucket bouncing behind him.
Pretending not to hear the laughter of the half-dozen men fishing from the river who had witnessed his fall, Peter jumped to his feet and reached for the fallen pail. He bent to the water, trying to ignore the pain where the pail had crashed into his ribs, and allowed the container to fill slowly. Stony-faced, he began to climb once more. Those who had laughed had returned to their own tasks, but above him the two youngsters were calling out, “No-Name, No-Name ain’t got no brain.”
Peter moved upward steadily, hoping the boys hadn’t noticed that the second bucket was leaning against the rock near the top of the hill. He hoped in vain, though. Wearily, he saw his tormenters dart toward the bucket. They could keep this up for hours.
Still smiling, the voyageur stepped in front of the giggling boys. He addressed them in a patois — a mixture of English and French with words from Cree, Scots, and Irish thrown in, a language Peter was beginning to understand.
“Ho, mes amis,” the man said. “I, too, am one to play games. I will join you.” With those words the voyageur lifted the heavy bucket easily and with one hand tossed its contents onto the open-mouthed boys. Then he flung the bucket to the ground at their feet and, no longer smiling, suggested they go down to the river and fill it.
Aghast, Peter watched as the frightened boys stumbled down the hill, bucket in hand. They would tell the innkeeper and he would be blamed! With two hands clutching the second bucket, Peter stepped over the crest of the hill and placed it almost at the feet of the voyageur.
Before Peter could speak, the man asked, “You are Peter?” When Peter nodded, the voyageur hesitated for a moment before continuing. “I am Boulard. Tell me,s’il vous plaÎt, though you are no thicker than a small tree, you stand much higher than those who attack you. Higher still than me, Boulard. How is it that you do not teach these fellows better manners?”
As Peter tried to wring the water out of the too small, shabby brown shirt, he said, “They’re kin to the innkeeper at Wharf’s End. I dare not trouble them lest I lose my place there.”
Boulard frowned and put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Me, I have no wish to make difficulties for you.” He thought for a moment. “Together we will approach this innkeeper and I will say, ‘I, Boulard, am the bad man of this event.’”
Too late. Behind Boulard, Peter saw the rotund innkeeper trotting toward them, his scowling face red. “You, boy! The horses aren’t watered, the chickens haven’t been fed, and here you are gossiping!” Before Peter could reply, the irate man spied his sons struggling up the hill with the water bucket. The scarlet on his face quickly spread to his bald head. “And now I see my sons doing your work. That’s too much. Collect your things and get out!”
“Monsieur,” Boulard interjected, “I know you to be a man of reason. Perhaps you will allow me to explain what takes place here.”
The innkeeper’s face brightened immediately with an oily smile. “Excuse me, Monsieur Boulard, for making you a witness to this lout’s manner. He’s done nothing to reward my charity and I’ve had enough of him.”
“You will not reconsider?” Boulard asked.
The innkeeper folded his arms over his bulging stomach and set his jaw. “No, sir, I won’t.”
Boulard smiled. “Then, Monsieur Innkeeper, you are an imbecile.” Taking Peter’s arm, he marched him down the dirt road leading to the older part of the city.
Events happened fast when they reached the small house of Annette and Jacques Vallade, Boulard’s friends. While Madame Vallade constantly refilled the tin plate in front of Peter with stew, he satisfied the curiosity of his new acquaintances between mouthfuls. “I don’t recall much at all before I woke up on the ship that found me,” he told them. “They told me the other seven in the longboat were dead.”
After a brief silence, Boulard asked bluntly, “And you do not recall so much as your name?”
It was true he had no name except the one given to him by the captain of the ship that had found him half-dead in the drifting longboat. The captain and the sailors had been kind to him during the weeks it had taken to reach Montreal, each trying their best to help him regain his memory. But he couldn’t remember anything — not even how he got the wide scar on the back of his head that stretched from one ear to the other.
“The crew took seawater and christened me Peter for a first name, but they couldn’t agree on a last name.” Peter smiled as he remembered. After several days of arguing, the crew had agreed that with his freckles, his speech, and hair that resembled summer wheat, must be from England — Portsmouth perhaps or Yorkshire but certainly not London. It was the captain who had thought Peter was about fifteen when he was rescued. With a flourish the captain had written in the ship’s log: “Peter, an Englishman, born in 1794.”
With
