A Dark and Promised Land (24 page)

Fort Douglas is small and shaggy, an outpost intended for the simple gathering of furs, not a beachhead for an empire. It stands alone as a shoal; a dark reef of presumed conquest marked on London-made maps and troubled Indians' dreams. Naked on a featureless plain, obvious, imperious, gnawed by wind and weather, and by a landscape that lends itself to madness. Visible from more than twenty miles, obscured only by the curve of the earth itself.

As most things that survive this land, winter in the fort is usually a time for sleep and rest and patience — waiting for spring and the breaking of the land. Seed waits like hope in the granary, dormant with promise, the colonist's entire enterprise trapped with a few bushels of golden kernels. But the level of seed falls daily in a race to see which will prove the greater: the dilatory yet implacable change of the seasons or the hunger of foraging mice.

The fort is busier now than any previous winter. Due to Nor'wester hostilities and the rumour of war, many who farmed in the area had retreated to the fort once their crops were off the ground, and the place is not happy to receive Rose's brigade — yet another cohort of mouths at the beginning of the hungry season.

Poplar poles are cut and dragged from the river valley, and the crowded, walled-in space echoes with the sound of axe and adze as several new shacks are built to house the newcomers. It all feels a race, a deep breath before the plunge of winter.

Rose marries Declan not long after arriving at the settlement. There being no priest, Governor Semple performs the rites, assuring them that his moral and spiritual authority equaled or exceeded that of a deacon. Several amazed colonists witness them, and the event becomes impetus for a massive, several-day drunk for many of the fort's inhabitants.

Rose has no idea if her choice is wise or foolish, just that events have taken on a life of their own, and it is her fate to follow them to their conclusion. She prays that the child she carries benefits from her choice.

“Here, let me help you with that, Mary,” Rose says, taking the dish of turnips from her. They are in the fort's kitchen preparing the midday meal with several other women. The hearth fire is roaring and women flit about, chatting like so many sparrows on a pile of spilled seed corn.

Mary wipes a lock of her thin, prematurely grey hair from her eyes and smiles at Rose. Rose takes the turnips and carries them to a table; she sits on a stool and begins cutting the knobby vegetables. The chunks fall into the bowl with a wooden clatter. A raw, earthy smell rises from them. But the knife slips and cuts deep into her palm. Blood appears like a surprise, and Rose's stomach lurches. She runs through the doorway and vomits on the threshold.

Mary rushes to her, and, kneeling, places a tiny red hand on her back. Rose can feel the heat of it through her dress. Frost rises from the ground into her bleeding palm.

“I-I'm sorry,” Rose chokes.

“Hush, girl, don't you say anything. Margaret, be a dear and grab a wet cloth?” She smoothes Rose's hair back. “Oh, you have cut yourself … and you are quickening fast,” she adds softly, feeling the swell in Rose's belly. Rose hesitates, startled. She looks at Mary.

“How did you know?”

Mary smiles faintly at her. “I am a woman. The signs are not hard to see.” She pauses, lowering her voice. “Does Declan know?”

At that, her eyes fill with anguish. A couple of fur traders pass by, giving them both quizzical looks. “Not here,” Rose whispers. Margaret arrives with the cloth, and Mary wraps it around Rose's bleeding hand.

“Come with me,” she says, taking her hand and helping her to her feet. As always, Rose is surprised at the small woman's strength, her frame as hard and knotted as a birch burl. She leads Rose to a food storage shack; when she opens the door, mice burst from the room, running over their shoes and scurrying along courtyard walls. The cold-soil smell of stored vegetables is strong in the dark space.

They leave the door ajar just enough to allow a slender
V
of light into the room. Mary sits Rose on a sack of pemmican and takes the girl's hands in her own.

“Tell me,” she says, kneeling before Rose and looking into her eyes. A vertical band of soft light illuminates the seated figure, and, for a moment, she appears to Mary like a grieving angel.

Rose looks down at the slender, calloused fingers in her own, and her tears fall with tiny pops into the dust. She opens her heart, telling Mary of her trysts and loves and her dangerous games in Stromness. She tells her about the yearning that drove her, the seeking, and the emptiness that she felt inside that she hoped to assuage in the arms of another. She tells of her many conquests and her few failures and of disasters narrowly averted. She had never worried much about conceiving and never kindled, although she rarely took precautions. Therefore, it was a great shock to her when she missed her time, and the morning illness arrived.

Mary listens to her in shocked silence, wondering how such a life could be; what it meant to her and her family. Sin aplenty she herself was guilty of, but never with such wanton desire, with such conscious will. A fear and jealousy rises for her man and she now has an image of Rose as a succubus. She fights an urge to pull away. But then the door groans open, pushed by a gust of wind burdened by snow. The illusion fades and all she sees is a lonely, lost woman, weeping and afraid.

“Why did you choose such a life?” Mary asks.

“There have been many nights I've pondered that question. It was more than a spoiled brat's distraction, although I was less than honest with myself. Yet I've since found far more meaning in a child's hungry tears than any man's lust. I've become an orphan, and yet it seems to me that I have found myself, waking as if from a dark dream. Your kindness and the kindness of our people have shown me love, if I may call it that.”

“Does Declan know?” Mary asks, after a long pause.

“No, no, you are the only one I have told.”

“I see. Well, he will have to know about the baby, at least.”

Rose looks up at her. “I do not think the baby is his.” She sees the unspoken question in Mary's eyes. “Alexander. It's likely Alexander McClure's”

“Alexander McClure? The Half-caste?” Mary says, shocked again.

Rose nods. They sit in silence for a while. “I don't know what to do,” Rose says at last, her voice entreating.

“Do? You are not really showing yet, so there is time. And clothing can hide many sins.”

“But I will have to tell Declan what I suspect.”

“You will do nothing of the kind, girl. As you said, you are not sure. You are to be wed soon and Declan will be the father of your child. Come; let us speak no more of it. We must return to the kitchen. I shall catch my death of cold in here.”

The sun is low in the sky, its reach withered with the aging season. Blue shadows reach across the square, the palisade logs silver against the white ground. Rose and Mary sit outside in the courtyard, wrapped in white trade blankets and watching the fort's children play. One group represented the marauding Half-breeds, the other the beleaguered colonists. Rose cannot tell which group represented whom, as they took no particular care to dress their parts, but she suspects that the much larger group must have been the Half-breeds. If she had a choice, she knew which was likely to be the winners and would throw in with them. Shouts and mock gunfire and blood-curdling screeching echo in the square.

Rose tells Mary that she yearns for the courage of Isobel Gunn, an Orkneywoman who had impersonated a man and under such guise travelled to Rupert's Land to follow her lover. But someone discovered her true sex, raped her, and she was found out when she whelped a bastard in the great hall of Fort Douglas itself. Gunn was returned to Orkney in shame with her son. As Rose saw it, the woman had the greatest backbone when she defied the core of social convention simply to follow her own heart.

Mary opines that Gunn was a fool, albeit a tragic one. A woman may earnestly love a man, but none are worth such a price. The fact that she had been raped gave further credence to the value of men in general.

Rose considers this, and wonders about her own choices. She had searched for something permanent in Orkney; sought it in the company of old men and young girls, in bankers and fishmongers, soldiers and cripples missing limbs from the wars with Bonaparte and the Americans. All to no avail.

“Perhaps her greatest terror was that she would never find another love, and emptiness would forever haunt her days,” Rose says.

“You speak as if love is something to find and keep. That has not been my experience. When I choose to love, I find it waiting; when I do not, love distains me.”

After a moment's reflection, Rose realizes that even the sweetest, most tender boy rarely elicited more than a moment's stirring in her heart, and this in a woman who once believed that love was her birthright. She wanted to love, craved it, in fact, but could not get her stubborn heart to respond. Something always seemed to draw down between her and the other that she had thought so promising. Now with a new husband sharing her bed, she wonders about the strange evolution of love in her life; how she had arrived at this place. The cause, if there is one, is not obvious.

“Perhaps not all are fated for love.”

“That's not what Jesus tells us.”

Rose shakes her head. What did Jesus have to teach about love, other than as something to be tortured and die for? When she was still quite young she had invited Jesus to her heart's bedchamber, but of all her lovers, He was the most demanding and the least satisfying. She clutched at Him with all the ardour at her command, but he stood away, mute and unapproachable. No matter how the priest exorcised her lack of true faith, no matter how hard she tried to surrender her will to Him, His essence lay as cold and unmoved as the type in her Bible. In the end, her love for Him devolved to one of distant warmth: they way one cares for a sweet uncle who only visits occasionally.

“I believe that when one is human, flesh still matters; a theology cannot warm like a pair of strong arms or a lover's breath on your neck.”

“Perhaps. But what fruit did that bear you?” Mary asks in a quiet voice, but at the same time opens her blanket. Rose moves into the warm space and breathes deep, as the older woman's arms wrap around her. Rose immediately knows the answer. She had gone into the world with her ache an unseen golem buried under fine powder and a charming smile. And each touch only confirmed her pain.

Her thoughts turn to scones and strawberries and warm milky tea, the fire laid out before her and the comforting sounds of the servants talking quietly in the corridor. It might be dull, but it surely is safe; if she had known the evils the journey to Rupert's Land held for her, she certainly would have refused it. How that simple Orkney girl had managed it, alone and ever fearful of discovery, Rose has utterly no idea. Perhaps
she
simply is no Isobel Gunn. Mary is of the opinion that she is better for it.

The red glow of a May early morning silhouettes the two horsemen, a warm breeze whispering through the brown foxtail as they make their way across the rim of the coulee. The upper limb of the sun touches the horizon and morning bursts across the prairie, and, as if on cue, a melody of birdsong lifts from the surrounding mats of wet fescue emerging through the snow. From one of the riders a hearty accompaniment — sung with more lust than tune — of “En roulant ma boule” drifts with the wind.

“You are uncommonly cheerful this morning, my friend,” Alexander observes.

“It is not I who is gay, but you who is morose. You have a weight upon you, my brother.”

“The only weight upon my soul is your song, Jacque. I believe it is melting the snow for ten paces about my horse, for which no doubt he thanks you. Indeed, his stride has increased now that the way is easier. Pray do not cease, I have plenty of gun cotton for my own poor ears.”

“The Half-caste has no love of art.”

“And the
bois-brûle
have a love of hideous noise. Indeed, only yesterday, I saw one of your clan driving a cart with an ox, and the infernal device made a racket like a hundred rutting toms all shrieking with one voice. I daresay it cleared the country of game for a hundred miles.”

“A hundred rutting toms? All pricks and fight? Mother of God, I cannot think of a better description of myself!”

“The noise part anyway,” Alexander replies. “But come, my friend, where is this water you promised? I see nothing but withered grass and snow, and my horse is thirsty.”

“Why, it is just below us. Where are your eyes? See down there, in the willows?” Without answering, Alexander turns his horse and walks into the coulee. The willows at the bottom are thick and tangled, and, as he enters, the silver branches clutch at him and catch in his gear. The night's dew has collected on every branch tip and soon his clothes and his mount are dark with wet. He sees a spider's web strung with the tiniest of diamonds, refracting the morning sun into glorious colour. The web moves to and fro as the prairie breathes, and the colours shift and flow up and down the threads. He reaches out a finger; it folds, and the light vanishes. He feels suddenly ashamed.

A drift of white petals covers the soft ground and once through the willows, they cling to his wet horse as white spots bright against the darker wetness of its fur. He is almost at the bottom of the draw when his horse stops and lifts his head. Alexander reaches down and strokes the animal on the neck.

“What is the matter, lad?” he murmurs in its ear. The horse tosses its head and its nostrils flare as it takes an elusive scent.

“What is going on up there?” Jacque calls from behind. “Are you shitting yourself, by God?”

“There is something in this wood.”

“Indeed, it is called water. If you must fornicate yourself, at least move aside and let a man through.” Without waiting for a response, Jacque knees his horse and passes alongside. Uncertain and wary, Alexander follows.

When he arrives at the edge of the tiny creek, Jacque already has a pipe lit and his horse is drinking deeply, the contractions running up her smooth neck. Alexander moves beside his friend, and his own horse lowers its head to drink. He reaches into the octopus bag tied to his sash and pulls out his own pipe and tobacco tin. Placing a piece of char cloth on the pan of his carbine, he dry-fires and the flare of sparks catch on the cloth. Cupping it with some tinder, he swings his hand back and forth as if preparing a throw of dice and smoke soon dribbles from between his fingers. He takes the tinder and holds it against the tobacco. Smoke trails from the pipe and he lifts it to his lips. Jacque watches without comment.

When the horses have drunk their fill, the men check their flints and proceed along the swamp at the edge of the creek, keeping an eye out for tracks. Mosquitoes swirl about them, heedless of the building warmth of day. The breeze along the creek follows them, announcing their presence to whatever hides in the brush ahead, and Alexander has little hope of catching game at unawares. He relaxes on his blanket, resting his gloved hands on his horse's neck.

Jacque rides ahead on his Indian horse, an almost-white pinto mare with a solitary black mark covering her hindquarters, as if she had sat in a barrel of printer's ink. He too rides without a saddle, although unlike Alexander, who rides without tack of any kind, Jacque's bridle is a colourful affair, with bright ribbons and feather plumes and beadwork that his wife has sewn onto it. Alexander thinks the horse a lovely animal, and so does his own, a fine sixteen-hand stallion. Whenever they ride with Jacque, Alexander constantly has to remind his horse of his proper business. Although normally a wise and phlegmatic animal, when the mare came into heat the stallion became an ill-tempered imbecilic fool, a state Alexander could sympathize with.

He is contemplating on the sorry state that the male can be reduced to in the pursuit of love, when he sees it out of the corner of his eye: a long, tawny shape whisking across their shadows, right under the nose of Jacque's horse. The pinto rears and neighs, almost throwing Jacque into the muskeg. Alexander's own horse capers about, rolling its eyes and tossing its head. The reek of cat fills the clearing.

Alexander reins in his horse and pulls up next to Jacque; their eyes meet and with simultaneous whoops, they whack their horse's flanks and charge through the willows. They burst out of the brush just in time to see the mountain lion disappear over the top of the coulee.

Alexander reaches into his shot bag and tosses a handful of balls into his mouth. As he pounds up the steep slope of the coulee, he pulls his carbine from its scabbard and pours in a measure of powder from his horn. He spits in a ball and whacks the stock against his leg to settle the charge. Both men goad their horses on and Alexander pulls away, tossing great divots into Jacque's face while a string of shouted obscenities lights up his horse's backside.

As he nears their quarry — running flat out, stretching as tight as a fiddle string in its bounds — Alexander takes a bead on the cat's shoulder and fires.

A flash and smoke and a great clod bursts out of the prairie just beside the cat. Alexander curses around the balls in his mouth, spits in another and urges his mount to greater speed. Jacque has veered off to intercept the dodging cat; he too fires and misses.

The cat whisks into another draw and Alexander exhorts the stallion to even greater speed; it leaps from the edge of the coulee, dropping down, down. The wind whistles in Alexander's ears and foam from his horse blows into his face.

They land with a great thud, dirt and turf flying in all directions, and Alexander is almost flung over his horse's neck. He squeezes his knees with all his strength and holds tightly on to the mane, his heart soaring with the pounding of his horse's hooves. He feels drunk on prairie, sky, and the smell of his horse, his senses focused by the ecstasy of the hunt.

Without breaking stride, the stallion surges forward, and Alexander can feel the massive shoulder muscles pumping between his legs, the animal's sweat soaking into his breeches. This coulee is much larger, and a tangle of willow and buck brush fills the valley bottom. Once the cat find its way in there, it will be gone for good; it will be impossible and even dangerous to follow.

It is almost there, dodging and weaving its way over and around the folds of the coulee and Alexander leads it with his gun, guessing its next move. When the smoke has blown clear, he can see the cat on the ground, twisting and leaping and clawing at something unseen. He yanks his horse to a halt; in one smooth motion slides off, spits in a ball, kneels, and fires.

It lies at the bottom of the coulee, ten yards from the brush. Alexander walks forward, loosening his knife in its sheath. As he nears, he can see that the cat is still breathing, with long pauses between breaths. It has been hit in the shoulder and neck, and blood darkens the ochre soil beneath it. A convulsion and it slowly stretches out, limbs quivering. At last it lies still.

With a feeling of triumph, Alexander kneels besides the animal. Except for the tip of its tail, ears, and muzzle, which are charcoal, its pelt is the colour of fall grass, and is in prime condition after a winter of feeding on weak and starving deer. With one deft movement, he cuts its throat. Waiting for it to bleed, he stands up and looks for the arrival of his friend, a few choice words on his lips.

This is home
, he thinks, staring up at the spring-blue sky overhead, warm and flawless. The pounding of his heart is now a memory, but he feels as if his moccasins are incapable of bending a blade of grass.
The kill is a fine one, and the cat's hide will bring a good price
. The miserable weeks of portaging and lining boats, of dealing with ill-equipped and sullen colonists — the betrayal and loss have become a distant memory, with a long and challenging winter of trapping and hunting between himself and the river.

He had been melancholy for weeks after leaving the brigade, with many a night passed in rum's dulling embrace. But with the challenges of simple survival always at hand, he had found himself thinking less and less of her, and over time his old spirit returned. He exulted in his reclaimed life — one of wind and freedom and prairie. He swore he would never again place his heart in another's keeping.

By the time he has smoked a pipe and thrown the lion over his horse's back, Jacque still has not appeared. Alexander follows back along his trail, giving his horse its head, surprised to see just how far they had run. No wonder the stallion had felt so hot beneath him. He sees Jacque long before he catches up to him, a dark image on the horizon, and he is on foot.

When he walks up, his friend is headed the other way, his tack carried under his arm. Looking out over the prairie with his hand shielding his eyes, Alexander sees a couple of crows perched on something in the distance.

They walk together for a while. “What happened?” he asks at last.

“Prairie dog hole,” Jacque replies. Alexander nods. He had not heard the shot, but had been down in the coulee and caught up in the chase. God could have farted, and he probably would have missed it.

“Give you a ride, my friend?” Alexander lowers a hand. Jacque turns toward him, his face covered in dust and two telltale tracks line his cheeks. He takes the hand and swings up onto the stallion behind Alexander. The horse gives a mournful sigh and heads off.

The sun is low and cold begins to creep out of the ground. The line of dark clouds that had spent the afternoon hugging the southern horizon now roll toward the zenith, all saffron and lavender, their edges burning with a final caress from the setting sun. The air is still and silent, and the sound of the horse pulling at the new grass carries a long way. Coyotes yap in the distance.

Jacque examines the sky a moment, sniffs, and frowns. “You better hobble that horse. By the smell of the air and the look of the sky, I will wager my left testicle that it will be an ugly night.”

Using his knife, Alexander quarters a skinned and gutted jackrabbit and impales the meat on willow sticks, jamming an end into the sod so that the meat leans over the buffalo-flap fire. The rabbit is fat with spring grass, and the pieces drip hissing into the flames. The smell is glorious.

He glances up at the sky. “It is strange, is not — this time of year for a storm? I would swear by your mother's tit that it is nowhere hot enough.”

“You are right, Alex, and I think those bastards hold more than rain to piss upon us. This early in the year — Mother of God, if there is not a blizzard hiding behind those pretty colours, I will tongue a priest's anus. We are fools to be caught out in the open like this.”

“It is not far to your house.”

Jacque shakes his head. “We have walked many miles on top of that spavined turd you call a horse, and he is well spent. I remember that there is no shelter, no coulee for many miles around. We can do nothing but see what the night brings. I am worried for your horse.”

“He will carry us to the ends of the earth if that is your need. However, have a smoke and a bite of rabbit. There is rum in that pannier; fetch it will you?”