that our jumping-off place. A few other Americans had travelled part of the route before us; they sold liquor to the Injuns for furs.
‘The trail wasn’t very clear, and it was rough going. We did O.K., though, and we were well north, when we had to make a detour round a huge slough. I was lagging behind because I had to – well, Ma’am, relieve myself.’
There was a hint of impishness in her understanding smile.
Encouraged, he continued, ‘And I’d got my eyes to the ground, watching where I trod between the bulrushes on one side and a lot of willows on the other – I guess they were willows. One minute I could hear the others shouting at me – and the next minute I couldn’t; and the next thing I know the darned horse got mired, and I called and called to ’em to come help me out. And no answer.
‘I couldn’t get the animal out – the more it struggled, the deeper it went. Finally, I had to watch it drown.’
‘Terrible, terrible,’ Leila sympathized.
‘I called and called to the other men. I was scared, I can tell you. Finally, I picked my way round the slough, but I’d no idea where I was. I couldn’t find a hint of the trail; and I’d nothing – gun, blanket, beans and tools, all went down with the horse. When I couldn’t even find the track of the others’ horses, I must’ve gone stark mad. When the Blackfoot found me, I was clean out of my mind.’
‘Blackfoot?’ queried Leila, wide-eyed, her mouth open.
‘Yeah. Injuns. A hunting party. They fed me and put me on a horse. I don’t remember much about it – I was too far gone, I guess. Next thing I know truly is I’m in bed in Fort Edmonton, with a Cree woman nursing me better. She told me the Blackfoot simply dumped me at the gate of the Fort and rode away. She was a medicine woman sent for by the Cree wife of one of the Hudson’s Bay clerks. I tell you, that old woman had me on my feet and sane very quick. I owe a lot to the Injuns up there – and I never forget it.’
‘What happened to your friends?’
‘Dunno. When I inquired around the Fort, they’d never arrived. Never heard of one of them from that day to this. Maybe they struck another Fort – or joined up with a group of whisky-runners. Or maybe they got lost, as well – and died.’
Leila nodded her head from side to side in wonderment. ‘Terrible,’ she repeated, it being the one word she knew in English to describe his experiences.
‘We were plumb crazy to go north without a guide. We were miners, not explorers or even trappers.’
‘What happen next?’
‘Well, to be honest, I was afraid of the bush for a long time. So I stayed put, worked on the farm belonging to the Fort for a while, and got to know the land around so I wouldn’t get lost again. Then I found a piece of land upriver, which the Bay seemed to have forgotten they owned. Somebody’d been there before – there was an old cabin there and I reroofed it, made a place to live. And I started clearing the land round it. After a while, I met up with a guy called Joe Black – and we worked together. We’ve got quite a homestead now – he’s looking after it while I’m down here.’ He took out a pipe and, without asking whether she minded the smoke, he lit up.
‘You find gold?’ she asked.
‘Nope. I pan a bit out of the river sometimes – but nobody’s ever found the mother lode.’
‘Mother lode?’ she queried in puzzlement, her smooth brow wrinkling slightly.
‘The main vein of ore – gold, Ma’am.’ He watched her delicately sipping her coffee. What a beauty she was! He wondered if she could endure a wilderness home, and told himself not to be a fool. She must be able to pick and choose the men she would take up with.
He plunged into conversation again. ‘I don’t make much in cash,’ he admitted. ‘But one way and another we mostly eat O.K. The worst years are over. We’ve two other men helping us now – both Crees. And Joe Black’s mother came from working at the Fort, to help in the house. She’s Cree, too.’
She dimpled, and inquired coyly, ‘You’re not married?’
‘I was, Ma’am. Married a Cree lady – a nice, intelligent woman. But about a year ago, she died giving birth.’ He sighed heavily.
‘And the baby?’
‘Little Wallace? He died too; it was a bitter winter and a lot of kids died – and old folk round the Fort.’
Remembering her own dead sons, Leila felt an overwhelming compassion for the man before her. Impulsively, she put out her hand and touched his arm. ‘You suffer much.’
‘I think you have, too, Ma’am.’
She nodded sad agreement.
He called for more coffee, and then began to describe the country he lived in, its superb beauty, the summers hot and comforting; he omitted to mention the myriads of mosquitoes and blackfly in summer, the problems of getting water into the house during the harsh winter, the vast unexplored territory round the tiny settlement
She listened in wonderment. It was obvious that the man loved his adopted home. She visualized it as country rather like that she had passed through on the train between New York and Chicago, which had seemed very empty to her in comparison with the Lebanon or even Britain. She watched his face which was leathery with exposure to the weather, and noted the grey in his moustache. He was a fine man, she felt, and her sex-starved body cried out with need, though she was thirty years old – quite old, she told herself.
By the time the fresh coffee had been consumed, Tom was telling himself there was no way he was going to let her go. She could adapt, like other immigrant women to the United States had done. ‘She can take one more step in her life,’ he assured himself, hope overwhelming his doubts.
He accompanied her home and left her on her doorstep, after agreeing to meet the following evening. Leila went up the stairs in a dream. She slowly took off her hat and laid it on the table. Helena was not yet home from work, so she flung herself on her daughter’s bed, spread out her arms as if to embrace the world, and for the first time since she had come to Chicago, she laughed with pure joy.
A week later, Leila broke it to her daughter that she was seriously considering remarriage. Since Leila had already mentioned that she had met a very nice man, a Canadian, and had gone out to meet him every evening for the past week, Helena received the confidence without too much surprise. It did, however, sadden her that her own beloved father was to be replaced.
‘It hurts, Sally,’ she confided to her old friend, as they sat together on the bottom step of the staircase leading to Leila’s tiny flat. The weather was thundery and the rooms upstairs stifling. Leila was out with Tom.
Sally took a pull at the cigarette hidden in the palm of her hand and slowly blew out the smoke. ‘Your mother is a very beautiful person; it’s bound to happen. She must like this guy particularly, though, because I know one or two who’ve approached her and she’s turned them down.’
‘Really?’
‘Sure.
