The Nor'Wester

by David Starr

  “Travellers!” someone yells as we beach our canoes, and from out of nowhere a score of men scurry down to the shore and greet us with laughs and hugs.

  “Food and rum!” cries Lapointe, and once the precious cargo of trade goods is safely unloaded, we’re led into the largest log building I’ve ever seen in my life.

  One hundred people or more are already eating in the room Lapointe calls the Grand Hall, but there is still plenty of room for us. Before we can sit, however, a man approaches, easily the largest person I’ve ever seen, nearly seven feet tall with shoulders the size of kegs and a flaming orange beard that bounces up and down.

  “Luc!” The giant shouts in the thickest brogue I’ve heard since leaving Scotland. McGillivray was right, I see. I know who this man is immediately.

  Callum Mackay embraces the voyageur in a crushing bear hug. “Damnation, Luc, but it’s guid to see ye again! I feared ye’d grow soft wintering in Montreal!”

  “Callum, every now and then even I need a break from the wild.” Lapointe puts his arm around my shoulder. “This is Duncan Scott, and he’s got a letter for you.”

  “The post can wait! It’s rum and roast moose that count now!”

  “Non, Callum, it’s from McGillivray. Can we find a quieter place than the Hall? I don’t know what the paper says but I know le patron wanted you to read it as soon as we arrived.”

  “His lairdship himself,” mutters Mackay, leading us into a small office off the Grand Hall. Mackay shuts the door, unfolds the oilskin, breaks the seal on the letter and reads the contents in silence.

  “Most interesting,” he says, putting the document down some time later. “Most interesting, indeed. I hope ye enjoyed yer time in Montreal, Luc, because ye’ve got more o’ the bush in front o’ ye than ever before. The laird’s given Simon Fraser permission to leave Fort St. James and travel the Columbia to finish the job Sir Alex started, and ye get to deliver the news to Fraser personally.”

  “Alexander Mackenzie? I read about him in Montreal,” I say. Sir Alexander Mackenzie’s travels in the West have made him a legend in the Company.

  “Aye, lad. Fifteen years ago the Knight discovered a large river west of the Rockies. He believed it to be the Columbia and travelled it fer a while, searching out a route to the Pacific, but he abandoned the river not long after. ’Twas far too wild and dangerous, or so Mackenzie claimed. He went o’erland to the ocean instead, on a route too treacherous fer trade. Fraser always believed Mackenzie exaggerated the dangers. He believes the river’s navigable and aims to prove it himself.”

  “Simon Fraser is our most senior officer west of the Rocky Mountains,” says Lapointe. “He’s always believed Mackenzie was wrong to give up on the Columbia. He thinks the river will work perfectly well for the Company. More than two years ago he asked permission to travel its length, but was refused. Now it looks like he’s going to get his chance to find out.

  “And a good thing, too,” he continues. “The cost of hauling fur and trade goods from the West to Montreal is bleeding us dry. We need access to the Pacific if we’re to survive much longer.”

  That much I knew. Without access to Hudson Bay, every fur and every axe and bolt of cloth the Nor’Westers carry goes overland to and from Montreal, increasing our costs dramatically. Finding a route to the Pacific has been a Company priority for years.

  Mackay lowers his voice and attempts a whisper, no easy feat for the giant. “But that’s not the least of it, Luc. McGillivray received a letter from the Colonial Office in London. Apparently the Yanks have set out west to snatch the Columbia fer themselves. Two fellows, Lewis and Clark, have been sent by the president himself. Ye can well imagine that neither the Company nor the Empire is happy about that. Fraser’s to ensure the West remains in British hands, and that the Company gets a navigable route to the Pacific.”

  “Très bien,” says Lapointe. “Simon will be ecstatic. He’s been looking to get his name written in the history books for years. Besides, you know how he feels about the Americans. He’d love to stick it to them.”

  Mackay looks at me with a twinkle in his eye, and I suddenly feel very uncomfortable. “The laird mentions ye as well, lad. Why do ye think ye were sent here?”

  “To bring the letter?” I reply, alarmed.

  “Any idiot can deliver the post!” scoffs Mackay. “Nae, laddie, Montreal has greater plans fer ye. ‘I’m also sending a young clerk named Duncan Scott,’” Mackay reads, copying McGillivray’s patrician voice perfectly. “‘Promote him to apprentice clerk and send him west to Fort St. James with Lapointe and the trade goods Fraser will need for this venture. He’s an intelligent, hard-working young man, and Simon will benefit from the help.’ What do ye think, lad?” asks Mackay. “Fancy a wee trip to the Pacific yerself?”

  Send him west. My brain tries to register the magnitude of those three little words. Send him west. I thought once I’d reached Fort William I could return home and begin to look for Libby. The new title of clerk means nothing to me. All I know is that I won’t be going home for a very long time.

  Chapter 16

  A light drizzle falls as the Nor’Westers pace the dock anxiously, talking in low murmurs, smoking their pipes. The men are used to long journeys, but with the exception of Lapointe none has travelled as far west as Fort St. James. All are tense as Lapointe orders them to the water.

  “Allez! It will take four months to reach Fraser, and we won’t get there by wasting time in idle chatter.” As we head out onto the lake, Lapointe taps me on the shoulder with his paddle. “You don’t seem to be very excited about this trip.”

  I feel as if my heart is dragged down by stones. I’m overwhelmed with frustration and anger that I’m unable to find and help Libby. “I was counting on going back to England after Fort William,” I admit. “There are things I have to do.”

  “Tell me, mon ami, what are these ‘things’ that are so important they weigh you down like this?” Lapointe asks.

  “My sister’s in trouble and I need to help her.” Although I’ve travelled with Lapointe for almost two months, I’ve said almost nothing about my family until now.

  Lapointe doesn’t prod. Instead, he nods knowingly and exhales, pipe smoke rising lazily through the rain. “Family is important, perhaps the most important thing you can have, and if it’s meant to be then you will see your sister again, but life sometimes makes other plans for us. Now your destiny’s taking you west so make the best of it, or mope. The choice is up to you, but either way you’re going to Fort St. James.”

  With Lapointe’s words echoing in my head we travel ever west, traversing immense stretches of rocky tree-covered plateaus. Swamps and small lakes are everywhere and the water is home to moose and beaver and mosquitoes. I hate the voracious little pests and am soon covered in itchy red welts, but the voyageurs don’t seem to be bothered nearly as much by the insects, and one night I ask Lapointe why.

  “You must smell very tasty to les moustiques,” he laughs. “Our blood’s too old for them, I suppose.”

  I swat frantically at the cloud of buzzing insects that swarm around my head. “Stop joking!” I cry. “They’re driving me mad!”

  “Mosquitoes dislike the smoke from our pipes as much as you do,” Lapointe says, and I blush. I’ve tried smoking one of the long pipes favoured by the voyageurs, but it was as unpleasant an experience as the rum. I’d coughed so hard I nearly fell out of the canoe.

  “Besides, you wash too much,” adds Fournier. “There are no women to impress out here so let yourself get dirty — that will help keep the mosquitoes away as well.”

  The rocky woodlands finally give way to endless seas of flowing grassland, and more than a month after leaving Fort William, a sense of excitement builds amongst the men.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, watching as the voyageurs paddle with a renewed energy against the current and the warm summer air.

  Even Lapointe can hardly contain his enthusiasm. “Mon ami, we’re only a little way fro
m Red River. We have friends and family here we haven’t seen for a long time. There will be a great celebration when we arrive tomorrow night. We’ll sleep in soft beds and eat fresh food, so paddle hard, the Métis await!”

  The next evening the canoes glide onto shore at a small settlement at the edge of a grassy plain. A large man with a long black beard and fringed leather jacket pushes his way through the crowd, grabs Luc and me together in one arm and crushes us in an embrace.

  “Bienvenue!” he shouts as my nostrils fill with the strong scent of leather and smoke. “Welcome to Red River!”

  Lapointe extricates himself from the man’s grasp. “Duncan, this is Louis Desjarlais, a leader of the Métis. You and I will be staying at his guest house while we’re here, so have a wash and change your clothes; there will be a feast tonight!”

  As we go off together, I ask Lapointe about the Métis.

  The Métis, he explains, are descendants of both the French coureur de bois and the original inhabitants of the plains. Apparently they have lived at Red River for generations and have been our partners in the fur trade, supplying us with pemmican. Made from dried buffalo meat, pounded into a powder and mixed with berries and hot fat, pemmican lasts for months and is the staple food of the voyageurs. In fact, we’ve eaten little but pemmican and pea soup since leaving Fort William. The prospect of the feast Lapointe speaks about is very enticing.

  As the sun dips low over the prairie, I dress in my cleanest clothes, leave Desjarlais’ guest house, a small sod cabin not much bigger than a chicken coop, and follow the sound of laughter and music to a large crackling bonfire.

  A crowd of perhaps two hundred people have gathered. Someone thrusts a plate full of roasted buffalo into my hands and I take a bite of the most delicious meat I’ve had in my life. “Thank ye, Monsieur Desjarlais,” I say to my host. “This is a great dinner.”

  “My friends call me Louis and you are now my friend. I’m glad you like the meal, but buffalo is more than just food, you know. Our entire way of life depends upon it. As the buffalo fare, so do the Métis.”

  Desjarlais’ brows furrow. “I fear, though, that winds of change are about to blow across this land. I’ve heard a rumour that the Bay men plan on bringing settlers to our valley, people who would take our land and farm it.”

  Desjarlais spits out the word as if it were a fly that he’d just swallowed. “Farmers! They would descend like grasshoppers, the buffalo would disappear, and we would have to fight for our very lives.” The Métis leader grows silent for a moment and looks away into the darkness.

  “Forgive me. I speak of rumours and gossip, and I’m not being much of a host. Tonight we won’t worry about the future. Instead we will sing, dance and tell stories far into the night!”

  Desjarlais is true to his word, and I eat far more than I ever thought possible. After dinner, fiddles and harmonicas emerge, and the crowd erupts in dance. At first I sit by the fire, content just to watch, until a young girl appears out of nowhere and extends her hand invitingly.

  “I … I don’t dance,” I stutter awkwardly.

  The girl grabs my hand and pulls me off my feet with more strength than I would have thought possible from such a tiny frame. “Everyone dances at Red River! My name’s Louise,” she says, putting her arms around my waist.

  “I’m Duncan,” I tell her. “I’ve never danced before and don’t have a clue what I’m doing.”

  “I know who you are,” she says. “You’re staying in my guest house! Louis is my father.” She lifts up my hand, spins in a tight circle and pulls me along to the beat of the music. “You’re doing very well for someone who doesn’t dance, by the way!” she says as my face erupts in a smile.

  After much dancing, I go to bed late. When I wake up the next morning I have nothing pressing to do, and so I go for a walk around the small community. I’ve hardly gone more than fifty paces when I encounter my dance partner from the night before.

  Louise stands smiling on the path, the reins of a large coal-black horse in her hand. “I enjoyed spending time with you last night,” she says. “I hope you got enough rest?”

  I blush. “I slept fine, thank ye.”

  “My father said it would be all right if I stole you away and showed you the country around Red River. You’ve ridden before, haven’t you?”

  As a child I rode on the backs of the stocky Highland ponies that pulled plows in the rocky fields of Scotland, but the massive beast grazing contentedly behind Louise is no pony. Muscles ripple under its jet-black skin and it towers over every horse I’ve ever seen.

  “Once or twice,” I say cautiously, “but I’m not much guid at it.”

  Louise jumps gracefully onto the horse’s back. “If I can teach you to dance I can certainly show you how to ride. Allons-y! Kavalé’s strong enough to carry the both of us.”

  There’s no saddle or stirrup to help me onto the horse and it takes a strong arm from Louise to get me seated behind her. She turns to me and grins when I’ve mounted. “Now whatever happens, hold on!”

  With a sharp prod of her heels, Louise urges Kavalé on, and the horse surges forward. I wrap my arms tightly around Louise’s waist to stop from falling as Kavalé thunders across the prairie, turf flying from his hooves.

  “Not that hard,” she laughs. “I can barely breathe!” Reluctantly I relax my grip and open my eyes. I’ve never travelled this fast before. The sensation of speed is thrilling. We gallop for a few exhilarating minutes until Louise eases the horse back into a trot. “What do you think of Kavalé?”

  “He’s marvellous!” I say, catching my breath.

  “I think so, too. Kavalé’s my best friend. His name means ‘sweetheart’ in Michif, our language. I named him that when I was seven and he was just a colt.”

  The air on the prairies is thick with the scent of wildflowers and grasses. With no mountains or buildings to block the horizon, the sky seems endless. Small white clouds float lazily past and the early summer sun beats down on my face. After a while Louise stops the horse and we dismount.

  She points to a plant that reminds me of the stunted barley that grew in the stony ground of our farm in Loch Tay. “It’s called sweetgrass and it’s one of our most sacred things,” she says. “It may not look very special on the outside, but it holds great power within. People are like that too. I think you have something special within you, Duncan, and I’d like to hear how you came to be at Red River.”

  Something gives inside of me. “The last time I saw my sister was on a dock in Liverpool,” I say as the words I’ve kept deep in my heart tumble out like water from a spring. “I hid like a coward. That was what the soldier called me, and he was right; I was a coward! I stayed on the ship and did nothing while they took her away. Now I’m stuck here and I can’t get back home to help her.”

  Louise listens intently. “I don’t think you are a coward at all,” she says when I finish my story.

  “How can ye say that?” I ask. “I abandoned my sister!”

  “It was an impossible situation you were in,” says Louise. “Your sister knew that. She made a choice to save your life. You could have tried to help her, but it wouldn’t have made any difference to her fate, and her sacrifice would have been wasted. Instead, you’re alive. You will find her one day, I know it.”

  Louise strokes my cheek and my skin burns from her touch. “Life is a terribly fragile thing, Duncan,” she says. “The ones we love can be taken away in a heartbeat. Ten years ago my mother died in childbirth. I lost her and a little brother I never came to know. I could have let my pain destroy me, but what good would that have done? Fate may decide what happens, but we are the ones who can choose how to respond. I chose to live — and you should too.”

  Louise takes my hand and we walk up a small rise. When we reach the top of the hill, Louise points excitedly to the horizon. “Buffalo!” she says. “Look!” To the west are thousands of enormous shaggy brown beasts milling about on the prairie. I’ve never seen so many anima
ls in my life and am amazed at the size of the herd.

  “We’ll go on a hunt soon. Perhaps you could stay and join us?” Louise’s eyes sparkle at the prospect.

  I shake my head sadly. “I’d like that very much but we’re leaving tomorrow. Lapointe and I have a long way to go.”

  Louise’s disappointment is evident. “That’s the way of you fur traders. Always travelling, never in one place long enough to call it home. Speaking of home,” she says, “it’s time for us to get back. My father must be told about the buffalo.”

  When we arrive back at Red River, Louis Desjarlais greets the news of the buffalo with great excitement. As predicted, a hunt is planned for the following day. We are asked if we will join, but with reluctance Lapointe declines, well aware of the importance of the letter I carry for Simon Fraser.

  “I’m sorry, my friend, but we’ve no choice. Duncan and I have important business in the West. We must leave before we become too fat and lazy to paddle.”

  “Then tonight we’ll feast!” the Métis leader exclaims. “And we’ll send you on your way with full bellies.”

  Desjarlais is true to his word and although the night is once again filled with food and music, it is not nearly as enjoyable as the first one I spent at Red River. Hours go by. Louise doesn’t appear and it isn’t until I’m about to go to bed, bitterly disappointed, that she finally arrives by the fire, a small bundle in her hands. “Where were ye?” I ask. “I waited all night to see ye.”

  “I’m sorry but I was making this for you,” she says. “I wanted to finish it before you left.” Louise holds up a small leather pouch, beautifully decorated with beadwork and quills. “It’s a medicine bag. It’s used to carry special things so that you never forget the people or places that are important to you. I’ve put a pebble from the Red River inside of it already. I want you to always remember this place. And me.”

  Louise’s eyes glisten. “Fill it with the things that mean something to you and tell me all about them when you return.”