Thomas wrote down the names as White Paddler called them out. “Kettles, guns, shot, powder, powder horns, knives, hats, blankets.”
White Paddler paused and looked through some bins then resumed. By the end Thomas had a long list on the paper. He handed it to White Paddler.
“Thank you. There will be more to add, but this is enough for now.”
“How many canoes are going this year?” Wemple asked.
“I have sixty men who wish to go.”
“Are you leading again?”
“Yes,” White Paddler said. “We will leave soon after my child is born.” He looked over at Thomas. “That is, if my brother agrees to help Red Elk look after my wife and child while I am gone.”
Thomas’ jaw dropped in surprise. He was sixteen. His brother asking him to do this proved he was a man. And he knew he could do it. He could go to the village in the evenings and on his days off. He could hunt with the Indians and bring back meat for Little Bird and her family. He pulled himself up straight.
“Yes, I will,” he answered, readily. Then, with a boldness brought on by a deep and overwhelming desire, he added. “If you promise me I will be able to go inland with you one year.”
“It is a promise,” White Paddler said, solemnly.
Thomas stared at his brother. White Paddler had agreed and so easily. He did not dare trust his ears. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes. I believe the future of the fur trade is in the west. I want to be there at its beginning, and I want someone I can trust to be there with me. What better person than my brother.”
Thomas grinned with exhilaration. Even though he would probably never see the child who would have called him uncle in Stromness, he was going to have a niece or nephew here. The wish he had had since being reunited with White Paddler was going to come true. In a few years he would be going inland and would walk on land few white men had seen. Life was great here in the New World.
The End
Also by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey
Canadian Historical for Young Adults
West to the Bay
West to Grande Portage
Mystery
Gold Fever
The Travelling Detective Series boxed set
Science Fiction
The Criminal Streak
Betrayed
Joan Donaldson-Yarmey was born in New Westminster, B.C. and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. She married soon after graduation and moved to a farm where she had two children. She has worked as a bartender, hotel maid, cashier, bank teller, bookkeeper, printing press operator, meat wrapper, gold prospector, warehouse shipper, house renovator and nursing attendant. During that time she raised her two children and helped raise three step-children. She also had travel and historical articles published in magazines.
Between 1990 and 2000 Joan researched and wrote seven Backroads Series books about Alberta, B.C., the Yukon and Alaska that were published by Lone Pine Publishing in Edmonton, AB.
Joan has now switched to fiction writing and has written three mystery novels, Illegally Dead, The Only Shadow In The House, and Whistler’s Murder in what she calls her Travelling Detective Series. These are published by Books We Love Ltd. as a boxed set. Her mystery/romance novel, Gold Fever, is also available through Books We Love Ltd.
Joan loves change and has moved over thirty times in her life, living on acreages and farms and in small towns and cities throughout Alberta and B.C. She now lives on an acreage in the Port Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island with her husband, four female cats, and one stray male cat.
http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/
http://thetravellingdetectiveseries.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/writingsbyjoan
West to the Bay Page 19