“And an object of revenge for the loser,” he grumbled with annoying logic.
We boarded a cutter, Swallow, for a trip up Lake Huron to the American post at Mackinac Island. From there, we’d join the freight canoes taking trade goods to Grand Portage. Then a jaunt into the interior, a quick glance around for blue-eyed Indians, woolly elephants, and electric hammers, and back to civilization with treasure at best, burnished reputation at the least.
It’s good to have new friends.
I did have a moment of disquiet when I saw, as I waited for the last trunks and servants to be loaded, that Lord Somerset was holding an intense conversation with Girty, Brant, and Tecumseh on the lawn of Alexander Duff’s house and that glances were cast my way. I feared for a moment that the trio meant to join us, but no, they looked hard in our direction and then gestured good-bye to Cecil, as if some decision had been made. I had, after all, the protection of my new president and the first consul of France. With that, the aristocrat strode aboard, nodded as if to reassure me, and we cast off for the north, firing a salute to Detroit on the opposite shore. No canoe full of American officers came out, begging me to come back and become their responsibility.
We passed wooded Ile Aux Cochons, or Hog Island, where feral pigs were still hunted, and anchored that night on Saint Clair, which would be a giant lake in any other country but hardly a puddle in this one. The next morning we rose after sunrise, breakfasted pleasantly on tea, biscuits, and cold cuts left from Duff’s party, and were on our way again in a building breeze. This was the way to travel! I stretched out on deck to take in the view as we made our way up the Saint Clair River to Lake Huron, while Magnus studied his maps of vast blank spaces and Somerset bent to fur trade bookkeeping. Even aristocrats have to work, it seemed.
Aurora and I got on famously. She found my stories about Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign and his unsuccessful siege of Acre the height of entertainment, never failing to laugh gaily at my little jokes with that flattery that goes with flirtation. She was, I presumed, understandably smitten by my charm, inflated reputation, and agreeable good looks. I related bright little stories about Sir Sidney Smith and Bonaparte, Franklin and Berthollet, old Jerusalem and ancient Egypt…and now I had descriptions of mercantile New York, rustic Washington, and the curious new president to offer as well! The Somersets in turn told me how threatening Bonaparte seemed to England and how they hoped his acquisition of Louisiana would not set off a new North American war. “You and I must work to keep the peace, Ethan,” Aurora said.
“I prefer affection to fighting.”
“Someday, England and America will be reconciled.”
“Reunion can start with us!”
Aurora and I had both met Nelson, I on a warship and she in London, and the lady was brimming with gossip about his rumored infatuation with Emma Hamilton, a one-time adventuress who had married well and was sleeping her way even higher. “She’s a beauty with her portraits all over London, and he’s the greatest hero of the age,” Aurora sighed. “It’s magnificent scandal!” There was envy in her voice.
“You’ll eclipse her, I’m sure.”
Cecil educated us on fur politics in Canada. The Hudson’s Bay Company operated from its huge namesake in the north and had the advantage of being able to transport its trade goods to the shore of the bay in cargo ships, meaning shorter river distances to trading posts in the Canadian interior. Magnus nodded at this, since his theory was that his Norsemen had used the same route. The Bay Company’s disadvantage was short summers and long winters. The rival North West Company, dominated by Scots who employed French voyageurs in long-distance canoes, operated out of Montreal on an epic, five-thousand-mile water route across the Great Lakes and connecting rivers. Their season was longer, but they were limited to canoes, requiring an immense workforce of two thousand men. And then there was Astor, who had organized trappers on the American side of the border and monopolized the fur trade going to New York via the Mohawk and Hudson rivers.
“Each route has its advantages and problems, and the sensible thing would be to form an alliance,” Somerset said. “Cooperation always achieves more than competition, don’t you think?”
“Like us on this boat. You sail me to Mackinac, and I’ll use my letter of introduction from Jefferson to smooth the way with the American garrison. We have a little league of nations here, with you representing England, Magnus Norway, and me America with ties to France.” I looked at Aurora. “Partnership has its pleasures.”
I wished the boat had been bigger so the girl and I could get off by ourselves, but each night she commandeered the captain’s private cabin like a pampered princess while we dozen men slept on deck between the trunks, bags, satchels, and shipments that made up the Somerset luggage. There were Fitch, a cook, a butler, a French Canadian maid who slept in Aurora’s cabin, and a master-of-arms who looked after the assortment of sporting weaponry and swords that Cecil had brought with him. The English lord greeted each dawn with fencing exercises at which he thrust and slashed while balanced on the bowsprit, the captain keeping a wary eye lest the nobleman cut an important line.
Meanwhile, civilization slipped steadily away.
As we sailed north on the vast freshwater sea that is Lake Huron, the sky seemed to inflate, stretching to ever-emptier horizons. The shoreline, when we could see it, was a flat, unbroken expanse of forest. Not a white village, nor a farm, nor even a lonely cabin broke its endless green face. We once passed an Indian encampment, bark wigwams set on a sandy shore, but spotted only a couple figures, a wisp of smoke, and a single beached canoe. Another time I saw wolves loping on a sand beach and my throat caught at their easy wildness. Eagles soared overhead, otters splashed in the shallows, but the world seemed emptied of people. The planet had turned back to something infinite, pristine, and yet oddly intimidating. Here, Earth didn’t care. The custodial God of Europe had been displaced by the lonely wind and the spirits of the Indians. So much space, such yawning possibility, everything unrealized! Even in bright sunlight, the great northern forest seemed cold as the stars. Nothing and no one out here had ever heard of the famed Ethan Gage, hero of the pyramids and Acre. I had shrunk to insignificance.
While the crew of the ship regarded this unbroken forest as so expected and monotonous to be beyond comment, Magnus was transfixed by the ceaseless rank of trees. “This was the world of the gods who were the first men,” he said to me as we cruised. “This is what it all was once like, Ethan. Great heroes wandered without leaving a mark.”
“It’s the world of the Potawatomi and the Ottawa,” I replied. “And whatever they are, it’s not gods. You’ve seen a few: poor, diseased, and drunk.”
“But they remember more than we do,” he insisted. “They’re closer to the source. And we’ve just seen the ones corrupted by our world. Wait until we get to theirs.”
Chapter 21
MACKINAC ISLAND WAS A GREEN KNOB BETWEEN THE reflecting blue platters of lake and sky, its American garrison of ninety men guarding the straits that led to Lake Michigan. It represented the edge of the United States. Beyond were only British posts, trappers, and tribes. Our little cutter banged a one-gun salute as we coasted into the island pier, and the fort replied in turn, the bark of its guns flushing great clouds of birds from the forest and then echoing away into emptiness.
The fort was in the shape of a triangle, with three blockhouses and two ramparts for cannon, earth and stone on the water side, and a log stockade facing the land. The high white officers’ quarters, with hipped roof and twin chimneys, was the dominant building. Other cabins and sheds marked out a parade ground. The forest was cut back around the fort to make pasture and cropland, giving the outpost light to breathe.
“We British moved the post here after Pontiac’s Indians overcame the old French fort of Michilimackinac on the mainland shore,” said Lord Somerset, pointing. “It was a masterful attack, the braves pretending at lacrosse, following the ball through the fort gate and then seizing weapo
ns from their waiting women who had hidden them under their trade blankets. The fort fell in minutes. The new post doesn’t let the Indians land, though in winter you can walk to Mackinac across the ice. With the boundary settled we’ve passed this fort to you Americans, while we build a new one on the Saint Mary’s River, near the rapids that lead to Lake Superior.”
“Ninety Americans to guard all the Northwest Territory?”
“In North America, empire hangs by a thread. That’s why our alliance is so valuable, Ethan. We can prevent misunderstandings.”
Here the commandant was a mere lieutenant named Henry Porter, who met us on the dock to escort us up the dirt causeway to the fort gate. He was impressed by my letter from Jefferson—“I’d heard there’s a new president, and here he is,” he marveled, looking at the signature as if written in the statesman’s blood—and he positively gaped at Aurora in a moony way I found annoying. The lieutenant seemed less plagued than Colonel Stone with dueling and bowling, and in fact his fort felt empty. “Half the garrison is off-post at any one time fishing, hunting, cutting wood, or trading with the Indians,” he said. “We’ve room aplenty in the officer’s quarters while you wait for your freight canoes.”
There might be room aplenty, but not enough for Lady Aurora Somerset. She took one look at the spare military cubicles and announced that while her trunks might fit in a closet, she certainly could not. After brisk inspection of every possibility she declared that the top floor of the eastern blockhouse would just barely serve for her privacy and comfort. With inherited authority, she ordered Porter to shove its two six-pounders out of the way, asked for a squad of American infantry to carry in a cornhusk bed with down comforter, declared the ground floor sufficient for her maid, and said she would require a certain number of furs to carpet the rough planking of her new abode to make it habitable.
“But what if we come under attack?” the young lieutenant asked, clearly overawed by the imperiousness of the English nobility.
“My dear lieutenant, none would dare attack a Somerset,” Cecil replied.
“And I will take my cousin’s squirrel gun and shoot them between the eyes if they do,” Aurora added. “I am a crack shot—yes, my cousin has taught me. Besides, the blockhouse is the safest place, is it not? You do care, Lieutenant, for the safety of women?”
“I suppose.” He squinted at Jefferson’s letter again, as if it might include instructions on handling this demand.
“I will keep a sharp lookout for red savages—and for any of your garrison that dare intrude on my privacy! This is how we do things in England and it would be well to pay attention. It will be instructive for you.” She sniffed. “This has a little of the smartness of a British post.” She touched his cheek and gave a thankful smile. “I do appreciate your hospitality, Lieutenant.”
With that Porter was in full retreat, Bunker Hill taken, Yorktown avenged, and Britannia triumphant. If she’d asked for his own washbasin, he would have surrendered it in an instant, and Indiana Territory, too.
I, of course, am more experienced when it comes to women. But, alas, no more sensible than poor raw Porter: I am a man, after all, anxious as an insect, and I immediately set to scheming.
“You want to jeopardize our passage north and infuriate Cecil by going after his cousin?” Magnus hissed while I looked hungrily at the blockhouse, just begging to be assaulted. “This is as irresponsible as your dalliance with Pauline Bonaparte!”
“He’s not her husband or father. And believe me, Magnus, conquering Aurora might prove as useful to our safe passage as Pauline Bonaparte was in getting us away from Mortefontaine. Women can be resourceful allies when they’re not betraying you.” I am ever the optimist.
“She’s above your station and has two cannon to hold you off.”
“Which means I have to be as wily as Pontiac’s Indians when they took Michilimackinac.”
I didn’t think I could follow a lacrosse ball to her boudoir, but I had a Trojan horse of another sort. I took my most prized possession, my longrifle, and enlisted Aurora’s maid to place it on the bed of my quarry’s blockhouse sleeping quarters, with a note offering it for her protection and amusement and applauding her claim of marksmanship. Meanwhile we dined at the officers’ mess. Everyone was curious about Jefferson, so I told them what I thought.
“The man writes like Moses, but can’t speechify enough to hold a schoolhouse. He keeps a live bird and dead elephant bones in his office and knows more about wine than the Duke of Burgundy. I think he’s a genius, but mad as a hatter, too.”
“Like all leaders not born to the post,” sniffed Cecil. “The American democrats are admittedly quite clever, but there is breeding, is there not?”
“At table he’s the most entertaining man I’ve met since my mentor Franklin,” I said. “Insatiably curious. He’s fascinated by the west, you can be sure.”
“I admire your young country’s talent,” Aurora said, “given that the highest-born fled to Canada or back to England during the revolution. I’ve read your Constitution. Who would have thought such genius could be found in common men? It’s a remarkable experiment you’re defending, Lieutenant Porter. Remarkable.” She gave him a smile so dazzling it made me jealous.
He blushed. “Indeed, Miss Somerset. And the bitterest of enemies can become the best of friends, can they not?” Then he smiled like a courtier. I swear, the young rascal had recovered his grit!
When she obligingly left for her little fortress so we men could talk over port and pipes—Somerset making a show of lighting a cigar, an innovation out of the Spanish Main—I made an excuse, crept out before Porter or anyone else could maneuver ahead of me, and scampered across the parade ground to her blockhouse. My knock was answered by her maid. I announced I’d loaned out my weapon and wanted to make sure it was handled properly. Smirking, the girl let me in.
“Is this what you’re inquiring about, Mr. Gage?” Aurora’s voice floated down from above. The muzzle of my longrifle appeared in the trapdoor entrance that led to her chamber above, like a probing serpent. “I was surprised to find this tool in my bed, though I’m informed by a note that it may be useful.”
“Your comment about shooting savages made me think you might enjoy practicing with a well-made rifle,” I said. “We could study this evening.”
“Forged in Lancaster, I presume,” her disembodied voice said.
“Jerusalem, actually. It’s a long story.”
“Well, if we are to go shooting together, do come up and tell the tale. Aim is improved with understanding, don’t you think?”
So up I scrambled, closing the trap and dropping a couple of furs over it to muffle her expected cries of passion. At her invitation I perched myself on a trunk while she smoothed her gown to sit daintily on the edge of her bed, her eyes flashing and her wondrous hair glowing in the candlelight. She was just disheveled enough to look erotic, two buttons carefully undone, escaping strands of hair artfully aglow, her slim boots slipped off her white stockings.
“The gunsmith was a British agent, and the stock was carved by his beautiful sister,” I began.
“Was she really?” Aurora tossed her hair.
“Not as beautiful as you, of course.”
“Of course.” She stretched like a cat, giving a dainty yawn. “But you’d tell this other woman the same thing, wouldn’t you? Naughty man. I know your type.”
“I’m sincere in the moment.”
“Are you?” The rifle was across her lap. “Well, Mr. Gage. Then do come over and show me how your weapon works.”
And so I did.
Now the most astonishingly beautiful being in all nature is a woman, and the best become a gate to heaven. I appreciate a sweet girl. But then there are the hotter, more disturbing, more tempestuous types who are a gate to a place of an entirely different sort. That was the ruby fire of Aurora, her auburn hair tumbling to white shoulders, eyes flashing, mouth hungry, breasts pink-tipped and as taut and aroused as I was, skin flushed, all
curve and fine waist and wondrous, mesmerizing shank: there was no mountain as glorious as the rise of her hip when she lay beside me, no glen as lush and mysterious as her particular vale. She was a paradise of fire and brimstone, an angel of desire. I was lost in an instant, except I’d already been lost when she came down the stairs at Detroit. The smell of her, the glow of her skin, the beauty mark on her cheek that demanded obeisance: oh yes, I’d thrown the reins away and would go wherever she stampeded. We writhed like minks and gasped like fugitives, and she coaxed sensation out of me I didn’t know was there, and suggested things I’d never quite imagined. Yet pant as we might, she never seemed to lose her curiosity about the famous Ethan Gage, her sly questions about my rifle giving way to murmured entreaties as we embraced that I share just what exactly it was that we were looking for beyond Grand Portage.
“Elephants,” I mumbled, and went at her again like a starving man.
My mention of pachyderms only added to my mystery and so when we finally caught our breath I tried to put her off by explaining curious ideas I’d picked up from Napoleon’s savants and the new American president. They thought that the world might be older than the Bible, and home to strange creatures now entirely extinct, and that the whole puzzling cornucopia of life, while testimony to the Almighty, also raised questions about just what our Creator was up to, so as a naturalist myself…
“You are toying with me!” She was beginning to stiffen, just as I was not.
“Aurora, I’m on a diplomatic mission for President Jefferson. I can’t share all the pertinent details with every bedmate…”
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