Sarah handed me a little box made of bark. "You laugh now, Mrs. Mike?"
I smiled. The atmosphere of the place had changed. It was still a witch's den, but a den of white magic, sorcery that ended in a joke. I followed Sarah down the shed while she exhibited her treasures: bearberry leaves drying on a plank, starweed soaking in a bucket of water, peels of slippery elm bark stacked in a corner, stalks of trumpet weed crushed in a stone bowl. Here were remedies for sore throat, for rheumatism, for snake bite, for unre-turned love, for headache, for a broken leg, for a balky horse, for bad hunting, for all the ills and afflictions of man. Sarah's catalogue fascinated me so that I forgot all about the wet cobwebs, the toadstool, and the animal under the box. Curiously I asked her if she had any deadly poisons.
"Much easier to kill than make well," she said. "Anyone can pick up rock, crush in head of a man. Take wise man to fix. I could go in wood, pick here, there, many poisons. What for? I don't need. In pot here under table I have a little bit musquash— beaver poison—I keep covered so dog won't eat. This grow in wood, and anything come along and eat, little by little legs get stiff, body get stiff, no move, no breathe, then die. Once I remember deer eat, but not much. Get all stiff, lie down, look like dead. Along come Indian boy, cut off hide of deer. Get deer three-quarters skinned, suddenly deer him wake up, deer run off— without skin, no—not this much!" Sarah spread out her hand.
"No!" I burst out. "That's horrible!"
"It happen. Musquash bad medicine."
"Good! I come for bad medicine." A woman stood in the doorway at the other end of the shed. She leaned forward in a half-crouch, taut and intent.
"What you want?" Sarah said harshly.
"I just come to talk," the woman said, and edged into the shed.
"I already tell you no, many times. What you want talk for?"
"I. . . Mrs. Mike," the woman caught sight of me and raised her head. "How are you, Mrs. Mike? I am Mrs. Marlin. I just come by to talk," she added defensively.
"Mrs. Marlin!" I cried. "I've wanted to see you, to thank you."
"Thank me?"
"For my flowers. They were lovely."
She lifted a thin hand to her face and looked at me wonderingly. Mrs. Marlin had that fragile exotic beauty that comes of the mixing of many races. Her eyes were deep blue, yet the sockets they were set in were slightly slant. Perhaps a Russo-Chinese prospector had met the French-Indian klooch that was her great-grandmother, and touches of Scottish and Irish had been added since. There were faint echoes of all races in her beauty, and this made the whole in some way inharmonious. It was an alien loveliness that delighted the eye but disturbed the soul.
"Flowers?" She paused. "I remember. I planted garden for you, Mrs. Mike. It is pretty, no?"
I stood looking at her, trying to think of something to say.
"They die?" she said. Then, nodding her head. "They die. I knew. What I touch ... it dies."
Sarah stepped forward. "You go now!"
Mrs. Marlin sat down stubbornly on the packing case. The rustling inside began again, but she didn't appear to hear it.
"I think she wants to speak to you alone," I said to Sarah.
"She not belong here. You go!" Sarah shook the young woman roughly.
A heavy cloud passed over the sun, and it became suddenly dark in the shed.
Mrs. Marlin spoke in a sly simple way. "You make death medicine, give me."
"I have no death medicine," Sarah said. "Who you want kill?"
"No man ... no woman," Mrs. Marlin crooned.
I leaned forward. Under the table my foot kicked an iron pot. Beaver poison? I remembered. Little by little the legs get stiff, the body gets stiff, you look like dead, then . . .
"Law get you if you kill. Redcoat get you." Sarah was saying.
"I no kill person . . . just..."
"Animal?"
Then, after a long pause, "I think I know who is this no-man-no-woman," Sarah said ironically. "No. You right. Law not get you. Redcoat not get you. Very easy ... if I help." Slowly Sarah's large hand closed on the woman's shoulder. With a jerk she pulled her to her feet. "But... I not help!"
Mrs. Marlin shook herself free. "I ask you ten, twenty time," she said bitterly. "You not help, I do myself, with knife maybe, with this hand maybe ..." And she held out her trembling right hand, the fingers clawing in a terrifying gesture.
They stood there facing each other, motionless, silent, eyes expressionless, a violent wordless battle going on between them. I saw Sarah's face fall slack, saw the heavy wrinkles in her cheeks deepen.
"Yes," she said at last, in a voice so low and husky that I could barely make out the words, "I give."
Mrs. Marlin said nothing. Her lips parted slightly and bared her clenched teeth, her eyes widened, and she turned the clawing hand palm up. That was all.
Sarah took a jug out of the cupboard, fished around for a small bottle, and carefully poured a sticky black syrup from one to the other.
Mrs. Marlin seized the bottle and silently fled.
Sarah immediately lit a fire in the stove. After a few minutes she choked it down and covered the hot coals with a bunch of dried sweet grass. Thick white scented smoke poured out of the stove, and Sarah passed her hands through it again and again with a washing motion.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I make myself clean."
After a while she said, "You should know what this about, Mrs. Mike."
"I don't want to," I said. "I think I'd better go home. I don't feel very strong."
"Mrs. Mike," Sarah said gently.
"Well, I'm afraid for my baby," I said defiantly. "This has been a strain."
"Don't worry about your baby, Mrs. Mike. You love, you want
to have, you will get. She too, that woman, will have child. But she hate, she don't want. She tell you herself, she want kill it. Kill it before it begin to live. Not one look does it get at world, at bright sun. No, not one yell does it make for show its own strength. No, into ground she put it, before it have one chance to walk on ground." Sarah stopped and added heavily, "Me, I help."
"No, you can't," I whispered. "Take back the medicine."
"Many times before, woman come ask me for to help kill baby. I say no. I bring maybe five hundred baby into light, only lose one. I not help kill them. All right. Two, two-three year ago, Indian woman come. Have some reason, not want baby. I say, no help. She go away. She do nothing. Just sit and hate child. Hate all day. Not sleep. Hate all night. Day come when child is born. She reach down to kill him, to choke him. Pull him out by head. Twist head. Break arm. Crush little fingers. Bend soft back. Old, old woman take away broken baby."
The packing case was moving. Sarah put her hand on it, to steady it. But the rustling inside continued.
"Old, old woman give me child. I keep. I try fix. But can't fix good."
For the first time I noticed the air holes punched in the case. Then I understood. That's where she kept it, that broken, misshapen child. I watched, horrified, as the case rocked and swayed. I leaped up as it overturned.
The thing sat there. It was a giant frog, blinking at us. Sarah took advantage of its surprise and clapped the box over it again.
"What did you do with that baby?" I asked. I was shaking all over.
"The baby? Oh, him not live long." The good witch sighed. "Just as well, I not fix too good."
Eighteen
The big event of the winter was the Edmonton mail. I had a letter from Uncle John, and a letter from my mother, and a package that was marked DO NOT OPEN UNTIL XMAS. It was the first package I'd had from the outside since my marriage and, as Christmas was long past, I opened it; First I untied the string and put it in my string bag. Next I unwrapped the paper and put it in the cupboard. Then, when I couldn't draw out the excitement any longer, I permitted myself to look into the box. Out came handfuls of corrugated cardboard padding, and something at the bottom flashed. It was a
mirror—the size of a baking pan, with a Boston label pasted on the back, and my face smiling up at me in front. I could hardly recognize myself. The face in the glass was my mother's, younger and stronger perhaps, but not at all like that of the skinny child who had come to Calgary for her pleurisy. In the box was a little note: "My darling, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you both, Mother."
I opened my mother's letter.
She wrote of many things: her new curtains, the hot summer, the coat she had had remodeled, the scarcity of eggs, the mysterious disappearance of two good silver spoons, the bronchitis my sister had in August, the trouble her stove was giving her, and the way Boston was getting dustier all the time. She didn't say she missed me, she didn't say how badly she wanted to see me; but I felt it, and in all the chatter about eggs and spoons I saw my beautiful mother standing in the doorway waiting for a girl who would not come, who was raising her own family in a cabin four thousand miles away. As I read, my life in the North wavered and flickered. It seemed to me that it was a wild dream, with all the inconsequence and crowded incident of a dream. My mother and our home were suddenly so real and present to me that I almost heard the clatter and roar of traffic in the streets of Boston.
Mary Aroon wailed, and Boston vanished.
To almost every cabin of Grouard the winter mail brought a warm breath of the civilization south of us. Mike had a circular from Winnipeg warning against an epidemic of smallpox moving east from British Columbia. Along with it came a case of vaccine which he was to put in cold storage until further notice. Louis Carpentier got a package of dried dates from his cousin in California. Mrs. Marlin received a check from her late husband's family. Old Irish Bill received six months' issues of the London Mathematical Gazette. There was a postcard for Baldy Red threatening him with half a dozen kinds of destruction if he should ever show his face in Edmonton again. It was signed "Emily." And there was a heavily sealed letter for Mr. James Mc-Tavish informing him that he was an earl and peer of Scotland.
The McTavish brothers lived in a tiny cabin down by the lake. They were extremely poor and unlucky. If James McTavish went fishing, the other boats put in to shore; no fish would bite that morning. If Allan McTavish trapped a rabbit, it would be sick; if he shot a moose, it would rise and charge when he came up to it. Their credit at the store was good, but their accounts were always on the debit side of the ledger. An amazing piece of good fortune like an earldom could not fall to our McTavishes. We were all sure it was a mistake.
But Mike examined the papers with the stunned brothers, and when he came home that night he told me it was true.
"James McTavish is an earl, all right, Kathy. And he's the owner of a castle and a whole village in Scotland."
"Lord McTavish," I said. "Somehow I can't picture it."
"It took a remarkable number of deaths," Mike said, grinning, "but one way or the other all the other heirs are gone, and only James McTavish and his brother are left."
"And what is Allan, now that James is an earl?"
"Why, just the younger brother of an earl. That's all."
We both laughed. Allan would never get used to that. He was the younger brother in fact, but not in spirit. In the early days the brothers had taken turns at trapping and housekeeping. One did the hunting, the other cured the skins; one caught fish, the other cooked them; one drove the sled, the other mended the harness. Gradually James McTavish began to shift the active labor to his brother's shoulders while he sat home with his books and his pipes and his domestic duties. True Scot, he kept his house as neat as a pin, and there were even some who called the little man Mrs. McTavish behind his back. Now he was an earl, and his domineering athletic brother was only an earl's younger brother. It wouldn't last that way. We all knew it.
In the morning the brothers called on me to say good-bye. They were leaving for Edmonton immediately, thence to Winnipeg, Montreal, Liverpool, Edinburgh, and their earldom.
James showed me a threadbare plaid skirt, carefully patched. "The tartan of the clan," he said. "I expect to wear it at the ceremony."
"What ceremony?" I said.
"They will ask me to take an oath of loyalty to the king, I have no doubt."
"Not in that rag, Jamie," said his brother. "It's not fitting for an earl to have patches in his pants."
"I'm not ashamed of honest poverty," James replied stubbornly.
"You're not poor," Allan went on. "You're the owner of a castle and a mountain and a glen and a village." He turned to me with a worried expression. "We've been racking our brains, Mrs. Flannigan, trying to figure what that comes to. Ten thousand pounds, would you say?"
"I don't see how I can possibly guess unless I know how big the mountain is, and how many houses are in the village, and I'm not even sure what a glen is," I answered helplessly.
"Mrs. Flannigan," Allan said, "the letter said there was a castle. Not a cabin, mind you, which is one room, or a house, which is three to ten rooms, but a castle, that's at least fifty rooms. Now, a fifty-room castle is a valuable piece of property."
"There are castles in Scotland," James said sourly, "which are just rocks falling into the road. The rats wouldn't give you three cents for the lot." He grimaced. "I have a feeling it's just such a castle we've got."
"Fine talk for a new-crowned earl!" his brother stormed. "And the mountain and the glen? What of the mountain and the glen?"
James smoothed the worn tartan with his dry, spare, hand. "A mountain and a glen! And who is to buy a mountain and a glen? What market is there for mountains? A mountain is worth that—" He snapped his fingers. "This is no mountain such as are in the Yukon, full of silver and gold. It's a Scottish mountain, full of furze and wild goats. That's the kind of mountain we've got!"
"But a village, Mr. McTavish," I interrupted. "A whole village full of people is worth something!"
"That's what I tell him, morning, noon, and night," Allan said.
"Precisely what is it worth?" James said. "Am I to sell the people? Mrs. Flannigan, a Scottish village is a liability. School, church, poorhouse, infirmary—money out of my pocket, that's all; money out of my pocket."
"Ridiculous!" Allan said.
"You'll see, Allan. That's all this village will be, money out of my pocket." Lord James McTavish shook his head dolefully.
I was half-convinced. "Maybe it isn't such a good thing to become an earl," I said.
"There have been earls of Scotland, leaders of a thousand men, so poor a bowl of porridge was food for the day," James said emphatically.
"Mr. McTavish," I said, "maybe it would be better if you didn't go."
"My duty, Mrs. Flannigan, my duty to the clan."
Allan broke in with a roar. "It's all a lot of nonsense! He has every intention of going. Do you know what it's all about, Mrs. I'lannigan? It's all about that miserable tartan. Fifteen dollars I want him to spend for a new one in Montreal, that's all, and he says he can't afford it."
"I have no the money!" James said.
"What about the old coffeepot?"
"There's nothing in the old coffeepot but twenty dollars to bury us when we die."
"We'll be earls before that! You'll have enough money to bury yourself twenty times over." Allan furiously snatched the plaid from James's hand and thrust it at me. "Look, Mrs. Flannigan, the earl's dress, with a mark on the seat of the pants they'll see as far as London!"
In truth, it was badly patched. The material was the same, but the stitches were large and loose, and the stripes weren't lined up right. I looked at James McTavish, but he only looked down at his feet and muttered, "I have no the money."
So it came about that I patched the tartan of an earl and lord of Scotland and sent him off to his coronation.
I WAS GIVING Mary Aroon a bath, and it was quite a job. Oh-Be-Joyful poured in the third kettleful of water. I tested it with my elbow. Mary Aroon sat and watched the whole process. She knew all this preparation was for her bath. And it plea
sed her to see her big giants running around like this. When I finally decided the water was the right temperature, I lifted her in. She laughed and chortled and waved her little fists. She loved her bath, as she always had an audience. Today it was Oh-Be-Joyful who leaned over the tub and swirled the water around in exciting ripples and splashes that made Mary Aroon gasp and gabble in that unknown tongue of hers. She was a plump, healthy baby who kicked her legs at you with energy. Her little back was strong now, and she sat in the tub by herself, my hands an inch away but not touching her.
She was in the midst of her bath when an Indian threw open the door, letting in cold drafts of air.
"Shut the door!" I yelled. But he didn't, so I jumped up myself and slammed it to.
"Sergeant Mike, Sergeant Mike!" the Indian said in a voice of terror.
"At the office."
"Him not there." The man opened the door.
"What is it?" I cried.
"Larry Carpentier, him in bear trap!" He was gone, the snow closing around him and covering even his tracks. I sat down slowly.
Larry, Sarah's boy! They'd be taking him to her cabin. Oh-Be-Joyful lifted Mary Aroon from the tub and wrapped her in a blanket. She came to me holding the baby.
"You go?" she asked.
"Yes." I got into my furs, my fingers working automatically at the buttonholes.
"You think him hurt bad?" Oh-Be-Joyful asked.
"I don't know. Get the baby dressed, Oh-Be-Joyful. Feed her at four."
I walked on snowshoes out into the white crisp world. The sky was a pale winter one. The trees were hung with frost lace. Icicles like sharp daggers pointed down at me. I tried to hurry, but the snow was so soft I was afraid of floundering.
Poor Sarah, seventeen children, six raised, and now this! A bear trap. They had them at the Company store. Terrible things. Two sets of steel jaws with teeth six inches long that interlocked, that bit in, that mangled. I tried not to think of Larry, of anybody, even a bear, walking into the pan, the flat part of the trap where the powerful springs are concealed. Forty pounds they weighed, the ones in the store. I shivered inside my buffalo jacket seeing the jagged jaws closing on the flesh and bone of Larry Carpentier. Odd, too. It wasn't the season for bears. It must have been an old trap someone set and forgot, or couldn't find.
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