Pierre Leroux had pale green eyes. His brown hair fell in long curls about his shoulders. He wore a thin mustache over his small delicate mouth. In true French fashion, his shirt sleeves gaped to show off his expensive linen. Knots of ribbon tied his breeches at the knee. Around his waist he wore a scarlet sash. This clean-shaven, well-dressed man bore little resemblance to Groseilliers with his full beard, deerskin jacket and beaded pouch.
“How far have we travelled?” Etienne asked.
“Not far,” Médard responded. “We still have a good day’s journey ahead of us.”
Perched between them, Etienne studied the canoe’s interior. Packages and provisions balanced over poles fitted across the bottom. The two ears at the top of the cloth sacks where they were tied reminded Etienne of the litter of pigs about to arrive on the farm.
The St. Lawrence River, swollen by the melted snows, sparkled with late sunlight.
Pierre shook his long loose hair in the breeze, sending out a whiff of pomade. He turned to Etienne, smiled, and in a voice as clear as the mission bell, sang out, “En roulant ma boule roulant, en roulant ma boule.” Pierre’s song set the rhythm for paddling. The men joined in unison, marking time with their paddles.
The little canoe bounced gently across the waves until Médard raised his arm to signal them to stop. He used his long paddle to hold the canoe still. Less than a league away, a deer moved along the edge of the woods. Etienne heard the creak of the bow as Pierre drew the notched arrow back on the string. The deer gazed directly at them, its eyes curious. The arrow flew, and the deer collapsed into the water.
Médard signalled to the men behind.
“We will have fresh meat for dinner,” Pierre said gleefully as the larger canoes moved in to claim the prize.
For hours, Etienne watched the waves, the clouds, and the sky pass with little change. When Pierre stopped singing, they paddled to the sounds of the birds along the shore. One beautiful melodious song caused Etienne to seek out a bird that had black feathers like a hooded cloak over its white body. The red triangle on its chest looked like a melting heart.
Etienne passed the time naming trees of maple, poplar and beech. Just as the sun set, he spotted a tall pine, missing all of its branches, but for a small tuft at the top. “Look at that,” he said as he pointed. “What a strange tree.”
“Good eye,” Médard responded. “That marks our camp.”
The canoes passed cliffs where roots of trees clung to the rocks like claws. Rounding the bend, a pine-sheltered nook came into view directly below the tufted pine. The men saluted the strange pine and gave three cheers.
In a flash, Médard and Pierre jumped into the water and waded through the weeds.
Etienne watched them convey the goods to the grassy shore. Pierre’s look told him he would not get a ride this time. With a clumsy leap, he went over the side. He whimpered as his aching legs met the icy water.
Médard and Pierre carried the canoe from the water and set it on its side. Its large painted eye stared upward to the heavens.
Soon the sweet smell of roasting venison curled about their nostrils. “Souper!” someone called out, and the men gathered in a circle tearing meat from the bone as fast as they could.
By the light of the noisy, crackling fire, Etienne inspected the contents of his brown sack. The largest item was a bedroll with a red woollen blanket. A stained leather apron lay inside a grey wool cloak. There was a cloth pouch that turned out to be a sewing kit. He examined the pair of scissors and spool of hemp. Opening a small tin, he found several horn buttons, three iron needles, two metal pins and a thimble. Etienne unfolded a lace-edged handkerchief of fine linen to discover an embossed silver case with a mirrored lid. Lastly he removed a soft woollen bundle. As the mound of half-finished knitting tumbled from the two wooden rods, a huge spark from the fire landed on the coarse wool. Etienne jumped up and shook it off.
“Brought your knitting, have you?” one of the voyageurs called out. His merry eyes shone in the light of the fire. A huge roar of laughter came from those around.
Etienne stuffed the items back into the sack, his face the colour of a berry. That boy’s mother must have been a seamstress. What did his father do?
Before he settled beneath his canoe roof, Etienne studied the faces of his fellow travellers in the firelight. The smoke from their pipes lay above their heads like a storm cloud. Amid their tang of sweat and tobacco and loud belches, they boasted of trades and troubles. These men of the woods were nothing like what he had expected.
Neither is this journey, he thought, bitten by bugs, scorched by the sun, and sick from the motion.
The evening wind rustled the trees and the waves slapped against the shore.
Etienne watched a man add handfuls of dried peas to the large tin kettle hanging over the fire. As the voices died out, frogs croaked in their place.
He wrapped his arms around his huddled knees and put his head down. Loneliness burned inside him like the embers of the fire. A thickness rose in the back of his throat. He realized he had nothing of his parents or of his home but the chickens.
FOUR
Portage
Levez-vous, levez-vous, nos gens!” resounded through the camp before the first glimmer of light. The long route lay up the wide St. Lawrence River to its meeting with the great northern river. In the cold, clammy air of a grey morning, they paddled upriver. Scarcely an hour had gone by when mist enveloped them. Etienne pulled out the cloak.
The water murmured as it swirled over protruding rocks. Again and again, Médard turned the canoe aside in less than a second with a single stroke of his paddle to avoid sunken rocks. From ahead came a great roar. Everyone leaped from the canoes and hauled their freight over the sides. Médard yelled above the roar. “You are in charge of all you own.”
“Where are we going?” Etienne yelled back, but his voice was lost in the thunder of the rapids. He had no choice but to gather his things and plunge into the icy water.
Amable, the man in the beaver hat, tied a pack onto straps dangling from a leather collar. He slung it over his neck and pulled it up to his forehead. He turned to the man called Henri, who placed a second pack on top of the first. Amable picked up a bundle in each hand. Others did the same. They left half-running, slightly bent, up the steep path.
Those remaining threw the canoes up onto their shoulders and followed.
Etienne stumbled along carrying the chicken cage, his drawstring sack and a heavy burlap bag Médard pressed into his arms. They followed the well-trodden portage route along the gorge. The effort of clambering up the steep side of the falls made Etienne’s head swim. At the top, he was breathless and soaked with spray.
But they did not rest. On they went, through deep mud, littered with fallen branches and exposed roots. Branches smacked him in the face. Clouds of black flies, thick as dust, took large chunks of skin, making his blood run.
Etienne tripped on the heavy, wet cloak, wrenched his ankle and fell into a pile of rotting branches. He dragged the cloak off and threw it to the ground. With a handful of damp grass, he wiped the blood from the cut on his
