The Deserter (6 page)

As Thomas stared down at the envelope in his hand, his provider went on, “My address is at the top of this letter. If you do ever contrive to make a landing on the far shores of the New World, please notify me to that effect. By that means, I shall know my sea captain has been an honest fellow. And of course, that your brave initiative has matched your own somewhat extravagant dreams.”

Their eyes met. Thomas tried to stammer out his thanks, but was taken aback to see the noble Marquis’ eyes mist over. Abruptly he had swung his gun up onto his shoulder and stridden off, leaving Thomas with a plethora of mixed and overwhelming emotions. So often he had dreamed of this land, and now at last, he had arrived.

The next morning at his fishing hole, he picked up his three trout, each about six inches long, and walked back to the place he had chosen for a cabin. Time to build his first fire. He’d never started fires in the castle, nor had he on board ship. Carefully, he unwrapped the tinderbox, remembering how long it had taken to work the linseed oil into the covering cloths, over and over again, to waterproof them.

And indeed, safe and dry its contents were. Now, to see if he could make it work. He broke off a few dead branches and also upright sticks of bush that would be drier than any lying on the ground.

In the bottom of his tinderbox, he fluffed up the pieces of charcloth, the charred linen, and spread the tinder, a mixture of fibres that kindled easily. He shaved his sticks and laid them aside. Taking the straight sharp edge of the flint and pointing the steel into his tinderbox, he struck the steel hard so the sparks fell on his tinder. He’d been taught to use short, choppy strokes and keep his fingers well back from the edge of the steel; no cuts or nicks here, miles from any medical help.

Awkwardly at first, he tried striking the sparks, which meant shaving tiny pieces off the steel with the sharp edge of the flint: he knew the sparks came from the steel, not the flint. After a few tries, the charcloth began to smoulder and then glow. Quickly he folded in the tinder around the glowing embers and blew gently. The glow spread and, after a bit, burst into flame. His first fire.

The crisp sizzle of silvery bodies in the iron frying pan allowed him to relax. Be ever vigilant, he warned himself, but if the smoke were detected by a sailing ship, it might be thought of as coming from some native family. Would His Majesty’s Navy go to the immense time and trouble of tracking him down in this wilderness? Probably not. But he knew Jonas Wickett would go to any length to catch him, and he did not feel safe for a second relying on Jonas’s ability to forgive and forget. Other ships would be passing, no doubt. Any one of them might set landing parties ashore in this area, prompted by Wickett’s desperation. Don’t let down your guard, he warned himself.

And what about Fury, who had lost his son? He and his friends might well come hunting for him, looking to finish him off. If they did, very little could save him. Double reason to be on guard.

Washing down his fried trout and the fiddlehead ferns with a container of icy brook water, he marshalled his optimism and focussed on the enormities ahead. Around him, patches of snow were melting. But another winter would be upon him almost before he knew it. No matter how sturdy a cabin he might build, he had nowhere near enough money to buy stores for those long dark seven or eight months. He had to find an instructor from the Micmac.

But would only a spell of teaching prepare him to snare enough game? He had no new powder or shot from the trading post, it being probably forbidden to sell to Indians.

This silence too was new, a silence filled with unfamiliar bird calls or the distant yapping of a fox. How he missed the flurry of footsteps on the winding stone staircases of the castle, or indeed the slap of lines and whine of the wind as the ever boisterous seas crashed about his man o’war. Fine to be negative, he thought, but look, now, for the first time in his life, he had no one else to worry about. He was quite alone: the gurgling brook his only companion. Running as it did down from the interior hills to the sunny bay, it abounded with trout. Solid food for the summer. Why not rejoice in what he had?

A squirrel scolded him overhead. Starving, he thought. Don’t bluster at me, mate, just go find those nuts you’ve hidden. A moose bird swooped low over his head with a squawk and lit on a branch, watching with sharp eyes. Such a bright blue, must be his breeding colours. He longed for some means to identify these new friends. Often on the trail in the last couple of days, he’d heard the most haunting call, sounding like, “Oh happiness happiness happiness.” What should he call that warbler?

The moose bird sat gawking at him and his trout. All right, he thought. He picked up an uneaten head and tossed it to the tree. He waited. The bird kept tilting his head on one side and the other to peer at it. Thomas went on eating and before too long, was rewarded by the moose bird flitting swiftly down. With a raucous rattle, it grabbed the morsel and flew off into the trees. At least, he thought, two of us are getting sustenance.

Ten days later, Thomas stood back to look at a square of six-inch logs, five layers or so high, twelve feet square, notched at the ends in the manner of military building. It stood well back from the brook, above any trace of high waters that broke over the banks in the spring flooding. The site he’d chosen was also hidden from the brook by a screen of young cedar.

It was getting late in the afternoon, and he wanted to try for another round of logs before dark, but right now he needed to eat. He had fished this morning, as usual, and had left the trout securely held on a twig through their gills, dangling in the stream to keep cool. The last of the bread he’d been given by Burn was getting mouldy, so now he would try to finish that with his fried fish. Amazing how little one needed now to survive. Had his stomach shrunk? He was actually getting to accept this Spartan fare.

He left his axe leaning against the notched logs and walked the hundred feet down a trail he’d made leading indirectly to the brook, still being cautious about discovery. As he walked, Magwéssprang into his mind. Her image had been keeping him company recently, especially when the “Oh Happiness” bird called. Its song brought him back to the Micmac maiden with fierce eyes and sleek black hair.

A dark mound at the edge of the stream caught his attention. He stopped to look more closely. It had not been there before. Or had it? Round and black — it moved! He caught his breath The mound backed out of the brook. Not ten feet away — a bear cub, about two feet high, with his twig of trout hanging from its mouth.

The cub took one look at him and let out a loud whimper. From upstream, Thomas heard a roar. The water thrashed as a large mother bear charged up and leapt over the lip of the brook as effortlessly as a buck leaping a fence on the Durham estate. She stopped short, seeing Thomas. The cub was between them. For a frozen second mother and man stared.

The mother bear. And a cub! All the things he had been warned about. Fast and powerful, bears could crack a leg in their jaws, climb trees, knock over a horse with a blow, and they were always ravenous in spring. For a flash, he chastised himself for being careless again, messing up as usual.

Pistol! his mind cried. Back at the cabin. He whirled and tore for home.

With a roar, the mother bear charged after him. The axe, his brain screamed. He dodged this way and that, yelling aloud to scare her off, yanking his knife from its sheath.

In seconds she was on him. Her claws raked his back, knocking him flat.

Winded, he spun, saw above him this monster out of all nightmares reared on her hind legs. He shouted to frighten her, spun like lightning on the ground to make himself a moving target.

She leapt sideways after him, then pounced. Holding his knife ramrod straight with both arms, Thomas aimed at her heart.

The knife went in. With another roar, she lifted her snout in rage and rose up again to fall on him and tear him to pieces. Her open mouth dripped saliva, her white teeth gleamed.

The end. He saw it clear as day. Nothing could stop her. A juggernaut, a gigantic nightmare from Bedlam, a finish to all his dreams. Wounded, he still whirled over and over, then leapt up and tore for the bushes. But why had she not followed? From behind a tree, he turned. The animal was circling in a devilish dance, trying to get at something sticking out of her side. The cub pranced, whimpering, beside her.

Then he saw it. An arrow! She’d been hit.

Suddenly faint, he gripped the tree trunk. His back stung with pain. At his feet a pool of blood was forming. Those claws had torn his neck and back open.

The she-bear bellowed and ran northward into the woods, cub following. Who had arrived, he wondered, who had saved him? Not Fury, he hoped. Across the brook splashed a familiar form.

“Burn! Burn!” he gasped and then, losing consciousness, slid to the ground.

***

Burn stayed with Thomas for almost two weeks. He first boiled a kind of tea out of cedar leaves and poplar bark to help lessen the pain from the claw strikes. Then he took off after the bear, predicting she would not get far. He tracked her a good deal farther than he had first thought, and finished the wounded animal off with his spear. He had butchered the carcass, and stashed it in a tree, for them to retrieve just as soon as Thomas was better.

Burn returned with some meat for their immediate needs, one reason Thomas had recovered his strength so quickly. He used a tendon to sew up the flap of skin while Thomas bit hard on leather soaked in an herb soporific. Definitely the worst time Thomas had gone through, though in one sense the best, because Burn had saved his life.

Then Burn applied salve from a pounded and crushed herb to keep the flies off and showed Thomas where to find that plant. He also constructed a lean-to for Thomas until he was well enough to finish the cabin’s roof with birchbark. Later, they retrieved the meat carcass and Burn stretched the bearskin taut in the sun for curing. He made sure to perform a ceremony of gratitude to the Keeper of Bears for the bounty that had been given them. He smoked the rest, thereby handing Thomas a crucial lesson. Hopefully in this cool forest, hung in a tree, there’d be enough for him to last long into the summer. Thomas did remember well the hams hanging in the cavernous fireplaces in the basements at Raby Castle, where the cooks cured great haunches of venison shot on the estate, along with grouse and partridge. In the process, Thomas learned more about how to preserve the small game he’d catch. He didn’t much like the taste of bear, but he had to eat substantial meals to help with the healing process.

Thomas also learned from Burn which portions to use for bait, and how to construct snares for predators. He drove sticks into the ground, notched, with one piece across that would jerk out when the animal ran into it. The secret was to let the game come and go for a while first. After several days, a loop of
babiche
(a strip of raw scraped moose hide or caribou)with a slipknot, would be put in and attached to a bent-over sapling. When the animal dislodged the crosspiece, the sapling would spring up, breaking the animal’s neck, to avoid it suffering. Before Burn left, they even caught squirrels, usually the domain of the women, and one snowshoe hare. A few edible plants were appearing in the spring, so Burn taught him which ones to use for what purpose, and applauded his discovery of fiddlehead ferns. In the evenings round the fire, Thomas spent time teaching Burn English words, as he in turn learned Micmac. They were fast becoming friends.

One day Burn mysteriously disappeared only to return late in the afternoon. Eyes glowing, he held out his hand. In it Thomas saw three little stunted plants with odd leaves. Blueberry plants. Yes, a few miles west back in a large burned area behind another river, acres of them awaited the summer sun, enough to provide Thomas with much healthy nourishment. Burn took him there, blazing the trail, before returning to the band.

The next month Thomas finished the walls of his modest cabin. He was about to tackle the roof when Burn returned to alert him of a forthcoming trip. The band had presumed that the French traders in Paspébiac would be safer for Thomas — unless his man o’war were moored offshore again. Thomas dreaded the prospect of seeing a British naval vessel off the Robin’s
barachois.
Should he go with them? But how else to get supplies for the winter? He realized that the whole enterprise was more complex than he’d ever imagined, fraught with danger on every count, and nothing for it but to take risks, if he were to survive.

A few days later, a great birchbark canoe thrust through the waves driven by four Micmac paddlers with furs and other trading items. Thomas, kneeling amidships, turned to look up at the sheer red cliffs whence came an awful clamour: large black birds — hell-divers, as fishermen called them — wheeled and screamed overhead, while ungainly young, nestled in thousands on ledges, flapped and squawked at the passing canoe. The stench was heavy in his nostrils. It reinforced the apprehension he felt about this foray into civilization.

The paddlers hugged the high red cliffs, letting this shield them from an offshore gale that was blowing. The water was rough but the canoe seaworthy. Thomas could not see across the bay now, but from the deck of his man o’war he had seen both shores and figured Chaleur Bay to be about twenty-five miles across, which naval charts confirmed. Once the
Bellerophon
had sailed thirty leagues past Paspébiac, to the bay’s beginnings at Restigouche, where the last naval battle of the Seven Years War had taken place in 1759. Captain Hawker had wanted to ascertain if any American privateers were in hiding up beyond their reach, as the French had done then.

Today, Tongue paddled ahead of Thomas in the canoe. His job would be to negotiate with the Paspébiac trader.

Thomas watched his burly frame with its rhythmic motion, thereby learning the best way to handle a paddle. Thanks to the week with Burn, Thomas had made some headway with Micmac and so was able to carry out a more effective exchange. He discovered the band had decided against doing further commerce with the English trader in Port Daniel. This morning at dawn they had portaged their canoe around the mountain and put out from the beach to the west, to avoid notice.

As the canoe sped forward, Tongue turned and pointed to a low estuary, at the mouth of another river, larger than his brook.

“
Rivière nouvelle.
French name. New river.” He laughed. “For native, very old river.
Dlabadaqanchíj
, ‘make small potatoes,’ which mean river washes stones into small pebbles.”

Hard to miss the twinkle in those brown eyes, Thomas thought. Tongue had a way of making everything sound jocular. Nothing perturbed him. “Native family summer here other year. Everyone very thin when summer end!” “Not enough fish?”

Tongue shrugged. “Maybe family too big!” He grinned. “Lots of children?”

“Brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, too big, too big. They go other band.” Even as he twisted around to wink at Thomas, Tongue paddled forcefully, always carrying his share of any burden. Odd that such a burly Micmac should be blessed by such intelligence. Thomas actively hoped they would stay friends.

“What about that father in your band who lost his son?” Thomas was glad of the opportunity to bring up Fury who had been on his mind. He hated having to be on guard against such a fierce native who knew the woods and the ways, and could finish him off in a second.

“Still crazy, I think.” Tongue shook his head.

“He still blames me?”

“Blame everyone. Never himself. Himself, he send son to trading post with skins. Wrong time. English ship there. He think, he get better bargain. But not better. Lose son instead. Bad thing. Crazy man.” “Oh. He brought it on himself?” Tongue looked around, puzzled. “I mean, sort of his own fault?”

Tongue nodded hard. “Maybe go Restigouche, soon. Bad man, crazy. Dangerous.”

Thomas nodded. He hoped he’d go sooner than later. The prospect of Fury skulking in the bushes made him almost as afraid as knowing Jonas Wickett was combing the seas after him. Better learn to paddle — who knew when it might come in handy. “Tongue, may I have a go?” Tongue’s lips broadened into a grin when he turned and motioned the others, as he changed seats with Thomas. “You become Indian soon!” he mumbled.
“Gdúlg!”

“Well, I don’t know how
Gdúlg
I’ll be, maybe not very
Gdúlg!
Maybe just very bad!” Tongue let out a guttural laugh and leaned forward to pat Thomas on the back. “Well anyway,” Thomas said, thrusting his paddle into the choppy waves, “I’m certainly going to try.” With that, Thomas focussed on his paddling, his mind somewhat easier. And anyway, he was hoping that up in Paspébiac, he might find a reason to stay for the summer, which would surely give Fury time to cool down.

Meanwhile, his mind went back to the only other time he had landed in Paspébiac, when he’d gotten his trousers. A certain Mr. Robin from Jersey had a cod-drying enterprise in the village, and was transporting the fish to the Old World, for which he needed boats built. When the
Bellerophon
had called in, Thomas had helped load fresh supplies of water and fresh meat.

After supervising the counting of flour bags, he had stopped to watch French carpenters working on a barque, about eighty feet long. A party of marines had been stationed halfway up to the village where they could survey the
barachois,
as they called the sand bank. Seeing no real chance of escape here, Thomas thought ahead. At some point, he’d get away. So what should he wear then? Shielded from the redcoats by the half-built hull, Thomas had pulled out a King’s shilling and offered it to the carpenter, pointing to the man’s ratty trousers. At first the man had let out a raucous guffaw, but seeing Thomas was serious, he took his pants off quickly, much to the hilarity of his French mates. Covering himself in an apron, the carpenter went back to work while Thomas hurried to his ship, stuffing the trousers under his jacket. Those trousers were now back in the native village, worn by the brave who had traded clothes with him. That visit had given Thomas an idea of what lay ahead. So far as he’d been able to observe, smart young craftsmen might well be in demand.

As he paddled on, he found the choppy waves awkward to move through, but he persevered, and by the end of his last stint, Tongue handed him a compliment. “You good, Thomas.”

Thomas turned, and smiled. “Thank you.” He paused.

Now seemed a good time to ask a question much on his mind of late. “Tongue,” he said, “Magwés, does that mean anything in English?”

Tongue grinned, and looked at him with a sense of connivance. Oh-oh, the old blighter sees right through me, Thomas thought, watching him tap the outer side of the canoe. “Birch.” “It means birch?”

Tongue nodded. He cupped his hands to suggest the girth of a sapling. “Small.”

“Oh. Like a sapling? Say, rather like, Little Birch?” Tongue nodded. “Now, we land.” “Good!”

In the faint light of a rising crescent moon, they beached in a cove shielded by jutting cliffs from Paspébiac. With an efficiency that might have made any company of marines envious, they leapt ashore, pulled their canoe above the high tide line, and scrambled effortlessly up a trail that Thomas could hardly see in this faint light. Even with the short spells of paddling, his shoulders and arms ached from the unaccustomed toil, and his knees pained from the cramped position in the canoe. The four Micmac set about preparing their temporary campsite. Spreading hides, they settled down to eat a snack. None of them seemed to have suffered from their long day of paddling. Such a hardy lot. One day soon, Thomas promised himself, I’ll be like that.

***

Thomas found it hard to sleep on the ground with only one skin beneath him, aching from his day’s paddling. But when he did, he slept with the dead weight of a stone. At first light they all roused, and shared with Thomas their simple meal of dried fish and the pulp of berries they had beaten into a kind of brick, preserved in birchbark. One of them had gone to reconnoitre Paspébiac and check out their trader. As he chewed on this simple fare, Thomas tried to repress his anxiety at what lay ahead.

After the meal, they climbed halfway down the cliff in the semidark, easing themselves along a narrow shelf of rock. Thomas saw them tilt their faces to drink their fill of freshwater filtering from the cliff face and splashing onto the beach below. Cautiously, he followed suit, wetting himself in the process. It tasted delicious, as did all the water he drank in this new land. Much fresher than the ancient wells of Durham.

While waiting for their fourth member to come back, they sorted through the skins and prepared bundles for the trader. The tide being low, Thomas picked his way through seaweed and over boulders to get around the point and take a look-see. Different eyes on Paspébiac this time for sure.

As he rounded the point, he spotted, anchored beyond the jutting sandbank, the unmistakable sails of a British frigate.

Now this did present a problem. Should he stop here, wait out the day, and return home with the Micmac?

Would the Captain of the frigate have heard of his deser tion? Or was Thomas being overly cautious? Surely the whole British Navy would not be focussed on the desertion of one minor Midshipman? But Wickett surely would.

Tales abounded of British Justice, which Thomas disliked as much as he respected its efficacy — the latest one being about a gun captain who had decided, as had he, to settle here years previously. Missing family and home and having saved enough money, he had tried to buy his passage on a British ship, and this being years later, had given his real name. They had seized him and turned him over to the Captain of a naval vessel, who treated him to a merciless lashing. They stopped before he had fully expired, but it was a poor gibbering idiot who returned to the family in Dorset, broken in body and spirit. Thomas had no great desire to put himself in danger of such treatment.

He sat out of sight on a rock and watched the waves rolling in and out: small waves, Atlantic waves, but dangerous in a storm, choppy and unpredictable. What should he do? He’d come all this way to Paspébiac to find a job, the only way to assure himself of enough supplies to get through the winter. Should he just forget the whole risky idea? The French, Tongue had suggested, would be his friends; little fear of them turning him over to the hated British, who had conquered them only fifty years earlier.

But now with the ship in full sight, he had second thoughts. Was it really wise to run the risk of staying? Perhaps he should try to camp here on the bluff out of sight until the frigate left, likely in a few days. But then, how easy would it really be to find a job? Dressed in his Micmac outfit, might they not dismiss him? No, his light hair and skin should mark him as European. Suppose another Navy ship took this one’s mooring — wait that out too? But few naval vessels patrolled here; once this went, he’d likely have time to try his luck. But then again, if he stayed until the frigate left and did not find a job, what about the long trek back home with no supplies, no food, no weapons?

Why not go back with his friends and try coming the next time? No, Tongue had told him this was their one summer trip. All right, borrow a canoe and come again by himself. But would they lend him one? A canoe took weeks of building — would they trust him with one over such a distance? Would he trust himself? Well then, pay someone to paddle him. No, he needed his money for supplies. Lucky that scout had gone to reconnoi tre: he needed this time to think it all through.

Sitting on his boulder, he cast his eyes over the settlement spread out on the sandbank below the village of Paspébiac. Thriving, he had to admit. On a ship’s “cradle and ways” as the underlying structure was called, he saw a skeleton hull taking shape. The Robin’s company needed coastal vessels to carry supplies up the St.

Lawrence River to Quebec City and on to Montreal.

Might he work on the construction of that vessel?

The scout came scrambling down the bank. Thomas watched him talk to the other three in Micmac, and then Tongue came over. “We go.” “Go... But is it safe?” Tongue nodded.

Thomas followed Tongue back to the cache of trading items. Safe for them, possibly — but safe for him?

Tongue never used three words where one sufficed, even though he formed good sentences. So the scout had probably meant that Thomas could come, too. Leaving one man to guard the canoe, they set off up the bank with their bundles, Thomas following with considerable misgivings.

***

Thomas strode with his three Micmac friends along a two-wheeled track through woods that were being logged. Piles of trunks lay ready for the sawmill; brush littered the clearings. The sun was rising behind them, but the air retained a late June chill.

After about half an hour, they saw ahead the general store with
G. Gendron et Fils
prominently displayed. His stomach tightened. Suppose the Micmac scout had been wrong, and even now a detachment of marines lay in wait inside. He ridiculed his nervous ness. One month alone in the woods with animals as his only companions made him altogether too suspicious of civilization.

The store was built of wood, with whitewashed clapboard sides and a shingled roof tarred black. A veranda ran around the front, with four chairs. They all walked up onto it and went in. Thomas held back — he’d let the others check for danger first. Tongue soon opened the door and motioned him in.

The Trader looked him up and down, and made a remark in French. Tongue laughed and translated. “He say, blond Indian. New style!”

Thomas grinned. Tongue went on to explain that his white friend had come to find work with James Robin.
“Eh, bien, le bureau n’ouvre pas avant sept heures.”
Tongue mimed taking a watch out of his vest pocket. “Seven,” he translated. Tongue went on in French and the Trader soon went to a shelf and pulled out a large tarred hat.
“Tu vas le rendre après ton rendez-vous,”
the Trader said. “Give back after,
hein?
”