A Dark and Promised Land (25 page)

The lightning cuts a jagged swath across the night sky, for the briefest of moments illuminating the silhouette of two riders on a solitary horse. The thunder is an almost constant cannonade, filling the gaps between the blinding flashes. A cold wind roars across the prairie, flattening the grass and forcing the riders to hold dearly to their horse — hats long since lost. Another flash, much closer, and Jacque breaks out laughing.

“What is it, you ass?” Alexander says, in no mood for humour.

“Your hair … it stands as if you have seen a ghost.” He is laughing deep and full, slapping his breeches.

Alexander frowns and turns toward his friend. Another flash and he sees Jacque's long hair also standing on end, reaching for the heavens. With a cry he knees his horse, and it leaps forward with a lurch, almost dropping Jacque onto the prairie. They thunder along, the sound of their footfalls utterly lost in that immensity of sound and noise. The air about them sparks and crackles, crawling with fairy-light.

“Merde!”
cries Jacque, clinging to Alexander's jacket and wondering what the hell is happening. The horse pounds along zigzagging this way and that, throwing great divots from its hooves. Alexander is terrified that they will step into a gopher hole in the darkness.

But the lightning illuminates the valley of the Assiniboine River and the belt of trees growing along its bank. With a great, stomach-churning crash that rolls and tumbles and flattens the very grass, and compels the now thoroughly frightened Jacque into crossing himself, they charge into the valley and the safety of the trees, lightning flicking their mount's streaming tail.

They give the weary horse its head as it picks its way through the cottonwoods. It knows the area well, and soon they find their way to a small cabin and corral, not a stone's throw from the river. Pulling up to the gate, Alexander strokes his horse on the neck and dismounts, Jacque following.

“What was that all about?” the big man grumbles, rubbing his buttocks.

Alexander turns to him in the dark. “Lightning. If we had stood there another moment we would have been blasted to hell.”

“I thought you had more balls than that, my pale friend. And your horse — I was certain he would step in a hole, and we would have our necks broken. Ah, my poor little
Marie
.” He shakes his head.

“I have seen it before,” Alexander says. “On a buffalo hunt. The man, Pardie, was sitting alone at a fire while the storm banged around us. I was checking my horse's hooves, and when I looked up Pardie's hair was all on end. We were all laughing at him when a great crash flung us about like dolls. Pardie's hair was all scorched, and he was gibbering like an idiot. All his clothes were burnt off. He lived, but was never right in the head after that. Whenever we visited an Indian camp, he would tear off his clothes and chase the women. The Indians thought he was possessed by a demon, so they didn't kill him, but our trade suffered.”

Jacque whistles, and spits. “Piss!” he says, shaking his head again, and then after a moment's thought, crosses himself. The door to the cabin opens and a small figure stands in the doorway, lit from behind by warm firelight.

“Who is there?” a woman calls.

They let the horse into the corral and walk to the cabin. They see that she carries a fowling piece and lifts it toward them as they approach.

“Oh, my little pig!” Jacque cries, spreading his arms. “It is your husband, home at last.”

“Jacque! I was wondering what had happened to you, great fool.” She steps from the doorway and wraps her arms around her husband, who bends over her and kisses her long and deeply while Alexander takes great interest in a rusty plough leaning against the house.

When the couple at last pause for a breath, she scolds Jacque for being away so long, then sees Alexander standing in the shadows, his eyes watching her with great affection. He reaches for the brim of his cap, and then remembers it is somewhere out on the prairie.

“Hello, Elise,” he says.

“Dear Alexander, I did not know you were to come. Jacque say nothing to me. Welcome, dearest friend,” she says, taking his hand and Alexander bends over, giving her a light kiss.

“No, no, wretched woman, keep thy tongue in thy mouth,” Jacque says. “And for the disgusting fire in your loins, Alex, we have a goat in the back, a good prime goat I save for you and any other English or damned Half-caste.”

“A godly man never sets his eye upon a friend's true love,” Alexander replies.

The men stomp into the house, throwing down their gear and tracking in grass and mud onto the sawn-wood floor. There is a birch fire burning on the stone hearth, and it is warm in the tiny room. Alexander sits at the table while Jacque retrieves a jug and two tin cups. He fills them both brimming.

“And what about me?” Elise asks, her hands on her hips.

“Food, little pig. Food first, then you will drink. We have ridden hard and long under the very bolts of Thor himself, and only escaped with our necks by a cunt-hair, praise God. Fleeing is difficult work, and at this moment, I believe I could eat a skunk's asshole.”

“I think I do much better than a skunk's asshole,” says Elise smiling and lifting a heavy frying pan from a hook on the wall.

As he drinks his rum, Alexander watches Elise prepare a meal of buffalo tongue and bannock. She is a slight Cree woman from a tribe near Cumberland House. She had married Jacque earlier in the year,
à la façon du pays
, and once as slight as a slip of thread-paper, she already shows a swelling belly. Her Cree name had been Pinackopicim, roughly translated as “autumn moon,” a name given to her for her fair skin and reddish-dark hair, the result of some forgotten liaison with a fur trader somewhere in her ancestry. Alex thinks her Indian name is beautiful, but she insists that only her French name be used. Watching her movements, he feels a stirring in his breeches and is immediately reminded of Rose.

“Drink, drink, my friend,” shouts Jacque in his ear. “You look a man sentenced to hang, not one who has escaped the gallows. Drink!”

They drink, all three, until late into the evening. They are accustomed to the vicious solvent that Jacque nursed in his barn, though an outsider would be startled by the sheer quantity of liquor a native of the country will consume and still be able to carry on an intelligible if not respectable conversation.

Somewhere along the way, however, the mood changed; about the time Elise mentioned in passing that Cuthbert Grant had stopped by, seeking Jacque.

“Cuthbert Grant! What the hell does that pig turd want?”

“He would not say. Something to do with colony, the new people at the Forks.”

“Damn him, damn him to hell. He is always poking and prying and raising mischief. You see, there will be trouble again, more than before. When it smells bad, you look for shit, and it has smelled bad around here for too damned long. Piss on him, I say.”

“Now Jacque, must not speak like this.”

“Who is Cuthbert Grant?” Alexander asks.

“The fornicating son of a cross-bred goat, whelped by a bitch-dog and nursed by a half-penny whore.”

“He our chief,” Elise says with a smile. “One of them. Jacque mad because he not pay debt for pemmican. Grant owes Jacque new musket.”

“Damn right he does, that foreign son of a poxed whore's left tit. But it is more than that, little pig. When he and his doxy Duncan Cameron are not busying tonguing each other's holes, they raise so much shit that the redcoats must surely come. He could have let those Scottish half-wit peasants freeze or starve, but he has to burn them out, and now the mad King George will be pissing himself and sending in his troops.”

“What do you mean, ‘foreign'?” asks Alexander, trying to make his eyes focus on Jacque.

“He's a foreigner, by God. He might have been born an honest Half-breed, but he was sent by his papa to Scotland, grew up on the fucking moors or heaths or whatever the hell it is called. Came back to Rupert's Land dressed like a doxy with his pantaloons and boots and hats. Shits gold dust and diamonds. Yet, just last month I saw him dressed like one of our warriors, with paint and feathers. I would have shot the fool right off his mount, but I was afraid of hitting the horse.”

“Didn't you grow up in Montreal, Jacque? Your people so rich you were nursed by saints and had angels wiping your arse?”

“Yes, I did, by Christ,” says Jacque with enormous solemnity. “I went to school for four whole years, before I kicked the good Father in the balls, and they threw me out, the whores. My dear Papa put me on the next brigade westward, and here I have been: a true Voyageur and trader and hunter while Cuthbert Grant was still in Scotland, stuffing his scaly prick up every cassock he could find.”

“What is happening at the Forks now?”

“
Merde
is happening, my friend. I hear that the fucking colonists have since come back, and they recaptured Fort Douglas, stormed Fort Gibraltar across the river, and even arrested Cameron. Grant is running all over the country rousing our people to war. Piss on it all, I say! Here, little pig, pass the drink, won't you?”

Alexander is awakened by a grunting in a corner of the room, the place where their willow bed is pushed against a wall. Confused, he turns over just in time to see Elise take Jacque's penis in her mouth. Jacque looks up, sees Alexander watching, and winks at him. Alexander stares for a moment, in his confusion not understanding what he is seeing, but, as awareness dawns, he flushes and quickly turns away.

After a while the sounds die away; he tries to sleep but cannot, and lies in the darkness listening to the shrieks of owls and the occasional snap from the fire, long since burned down. The air in the cabin is warm and fetid, filled with the smell of birch smoke, tobacco smoke, farts and sweat and another elusive scent that he finds particularly repulsive. He gets up from his blankets on the floor and opens the front door for a piss. As he stands swaying in the doorway, he looks up at the sky and is surprised by a crown of stars. His piss steams and he can tell that the temperature is dropping fast. He hurriedly buttons his fly and returns to the noisome warmth of his bedroll.

Alexander is roused by Jacque groaning, “Mother of God,” and the sound of vomit splattering the floor. His own head is pounding after the past night's heavy drinking, and he scrabbles up, heading for the door. His head is swimming and he hits the door hard, sending it crashing back against the outer wall.

“Be careful of the portcullis, you clumsy English bastard,” Jacque shouts at him, followed by a pained screech from Elise. Alexander staggers into sunshine reflecting off a glorious patina of frost covering everything about him. He gulps the cold air to clear his head as he walks toward the corral. His horse is standing there steaming, one forefoot tipped onto the edge of its hoof. He had been frisking about the enclosure in the cold morning, judging by the sweat and proud toss of his neck as Alexander approaches.

“Good morning to you, my old friend,” Alexander murmurs to it as the horse lowers its head and nibbles on his ear. The bubbling song of a meadowlark calls from the top of a nearby cottonwood, and a pair of crows sweep overhead, cawing as they pass by.

He throws some hay into the corral along with a shovel of grain. He is examining Jacque's colourful bridle hanging off a corral post when he hears the thunder of several hooves approaching at a run. Soon there is a flash of many colours and a group of horseman pound into the yard. Alexander approaches the nearest rider, taking the restive animal's bridle as it tosses its head.

Some of the Métis are dressed in the capotes and paint and feathers of their mother's tribes, but most are in beaded leather buckskin and leggings and wear a broad red sash around their waists. Some have jaunty feathers in their caps. All are armed with knives and muskets.

“Hallo, Alexander. Good day to you.”

“Hallo, François, and a good day to you.” He turns to the rest of the band, all lined up and watching him, their horses chewing at bits and capering. “And what is this? Off to find you a wife at last? I think you will need more men to assist you.”

“The hunt, the hunt!” François replies. “There was a council and it was decided that it is time.”

“François!” Jacque shouts from the doorway, dressed only in his long red woollen underwear, the rear flap hanging down. “Come in, come in, we must have a drink. Get up little pig, get up my love, we have guests. Food, we must have food.”

“The last time I was a guest at your house, I had the running shits for a week,” one of the horsemen call.

“That is because you are not used to solids, Théophile. It really is time your mother weaned you. But there is no worry, I will do you a great favour and shoot the ill-bred nag you ride, and there shall be fresh meat for all. Come in, come in, everyone.”

By the time the good-natured party has jammed their way into the cabin there is hardly room to move. The riders have their own kegs with them, and it soon becomes apparent that the buffalo will remain unmolested for at least another day. Elise insists on a roaring fire — likely an ill-fated ruse to ensure that the guests do not overstay — and the space not filled with sweating bodies is occupied by several voices, all speaking at once and loudly discussing everything from the imminent hunt to the spring weather, but mostly the certainty that all-out war will be declared on Selkirk's settlement.

Somehow word gets out to the surrounding community, and even more riders show up, many accompanied by their womenfolk. The corral fills with horses and the gathering thankfully moves into the barn. Someone has brought a fiddle and the little farm on the banks of the Assiniboine River echoes with lively jigs and rumble of buffalo-hide boots on wood.

The gathering lasts all day and into the night, and after a time Alexander wearies of it, retreating to the house. It is cold and dark inside and he pokes up the fire before taking a burning brand and lighting his pipe. He sits back in the darkness, resting his moccasined feet on the table, the music and drone of the crowd faint through the log walls. He is barely into his second pipe when the door opens, and Elise steps inside. She looks around and seems surprised to find Alexander sitting there in the dark, the fire warm. Her face is rosy and flushed, her dark hair long and hanging down her back. Drops of sweat shine on her forehead, reflecting the fire like tiny suns.

“Excuse me,” Alexander says, preparing to get up.

“Just sit there,” Elise replies, looking around and lifting her damp hair from her face. She takes a tin cup and fills it with rum, collapsing in a chair beside the table.

“Jacque will leave tomorrow,” she says, and sighs.

“Will you not come, too?” Alexander asks after a pause. The question feels heavy; she can feel him searching her.

“Jacque does not want me. Want me here for the baby.” She drops her hand on her belly and squeezes.

“I am surprised to hear it,” he replies. Neither Indians nor Half-breeds gave any special exemptions to pregnant women; they pulled their weight along with everyone else.

“He is afraid … afraid for baby. I lose before, once. Baby did not live, you understand?”

“I did not know. I am sorry.”

“I am lonely, Alexander. Jacque, he hunts all days. He is never with me. I am alone in this place. It feels so dark to me now. Once I was happy, so very happy, but not now. I miss my family.”

Alexander clears his throat and begins a few inadequate sentences, then falls mute. His hand reaches across the table and gives hers a few cautious pats. It is wet with her tears. She is suddenly furious with him and turns, staring at him. She cannot see his face in the dark.

“You are just like him!”

“Eh?”

“Another asshole hunter that would rather sleep with buffalo than woman. Or with men. Do you fuck men, Alexander?”

“What the Christ are you saying?”

“You all alike, fuck each other. Probably fuck buffalo too, right? Maybe even bitch coyote. Do you roll on the grass with my Jacque, that why he no come home?” She is shouting now.

He stands up, kicking away the table. Elise leaps to her feet, her eyes glaring in the firelight. He steps towards her with his fists clenched. He expects and hopes that she will pull a knife. Half-breed women could be incredible vicious in a fight, much more so than their men.

He is surprised when she lowers her fierce eyes, and shocked when she pulls a shoulder free of her dress, and then another. With a sigh, it whispers down her body and piles up around her feet. She stands in the firelight, gazing at the floor. Her body shines in that unearthly glow, more shadow than substance, the light flicking across her breasts, small, round dome of her stomach. She pulls her shoulders up and raises her head. Tears are on her cheeks, and she looks so forlorn that Alexander just checks himself from wrapping his arms around her. He takes both of her hands and squeezes them. His head is spinning, but he knows that much is at risk now, and he must be careful. For all their sakes.

To reject her would be dangerous. You don't fuck with Half-breed women. But Jacque … with her standing so lovely there, so incredibly desirable, he pulls her toward him and the memory of Rose crashes into the room. He freezes, caught in a triptych of fear and grief and desire. Elise looks at him closely and knows that they are no longer alone.

“I … I will speak to Jacque,” Alexander says in a choking voice, his hand of its own accord running along her side, until he feels the weight of her breast on the back of it. He makes a motion as if to leave, but finds that his other hand is around her, moving down. Her lips are on his own in a heartbeat, the pain that fills them both moving across the moist touch like lightning, and they are sure of one another.

“You must let her come on the hunt.”

“Oh, ho, listen to the English telling me, Jacque, what I must do with my wife. Your testicles are big enough for the both of us now, are they? And what do you know of it? You are still a damned virgin, by Christ. What do you know about keeping a wife?”

They are in the muddy corral trying with little success to corner Alexander's stallion, which is unusually stupid this chilly morning and will not allow anyone to approach him. Several Half-breeds sit on the corral rails watching with vocal amusement.

“Look, my friend, Elise spoke with me last night. She is very unhappy living here alone, and it will be worse now that you and everyone else is to leave for the hunt.”

“Bah, in my home is her place. I will take my belt to her back and then she will know the meaning of misery. I've got you now, you great oaf.” He lunges for the stallion with the bridle, but the horse easily dodges and thunders off with a flick of his tail and mud flying from his hooves. The watching assembly cheers.

“Shit on a priest,” moans Jacque, holding his temples. “It feels like there is a brat with a drum inside my head this morning.”

“You know Half-breed women will not endure such treatment, Jacque. If she doesn't leave you and return to her family, she will cut your throat one night while you lie beside her.”

Jacque pauses for a moment considering. “You really think so?
Mon dieu
, I must consider this. Elise can be a bitch when the mood is upon her. No, no, I have no horse for her. That bastard Lefebvre tells me he will sell me a horse, but he wants thrice what it's worth, the Jew. I offered him a musket ball, but he showed little interest. Told me to fuck myself in the ass. I told him it was impossible, as his mother's tongue was in the way. But I cannot afford one for Elise as well.”

Alexander stops and looks down at the mud. “She can ride with me. My horse is big enough for the both of us, as you well know.”

Jacque frowns and spits on a fencepost. “Ride with you? Fuck all priests and bishops. I do not know …”

“I did not want to tell you this, my friend, but she said that she is so angry that she desires not to slit your throat, but to cut your prick off.”

Jacque blanches and crosses himself. “Why do did you say that? God in heaven! You are an evil man, worse than the English, Half-caste. Why would thee say such things to me, your friend? That damned bitch …”

“Hand me the bridle; you are making the horse nervous with your frightened gibbering. I will catch him myself.”

“Truth, did she really say such a terrible thing, Alexander?”

“Indeed she did, promising to nail the thing to the door, for the crows to peck at.”

Jacque's hands went instinctively to his crotch. “God save me. But you will do this for me, will you not? You will carry my Elise with you, so that I may not be gelded?”

“I said I would, now stand still! I almost have him.” Alexander manages to corner the horse and is approaching slowly, the bridle held forward. Normally he rides without one, but with all the horses they will be riding with, including many mares, he wants to take no chances. The stallion's nostrils fill with their scent, and they flare as his eyes roll red; he stamps the ground and snorts. Alexander watches him, thinking himself a fool for ever imagining this is a broken horse. It is as likely to kill him as to let him mount.

The catcalls and hooting at the fence stop as everyone waits to see what will happen when the hide is looped over the horse's face. All of them, including Alexander, expect an explosion. The watchers are very disappointed when the horse lowers its head and nuzzles Alexander as he slowly pulls the bridle on. He leads the now docile animal back to Jacque. The Half-breed pats the horse's flank.

“My God, he is a beautiful animal.”

“Not on your life, Jacque. Take that worm-eaten screw of yours and load up. Make haste, as we are late. See, the sun is halfway to noon. Make haste.”

When he awakens, sunlight is already streaming through the saffron canvas of his tent. As he lies on his back, his eyes follow a blue bottle fly as it wanders back and forth along the ridge. Outside he can hear the camp awakening: the bark of dogs, clatter of kettles being filled with water. The smell of buffalo dung fires. Muted voices carried, half-heard, sounding like the muttering of a distant shore.