Settlement

by Ann Birch

  The sun had moved a bit to the west, and the lake was perfectly calm, excellent for paddling. It was time to go. First, Sam had to get Sir Francis aboard. He moved from the pier towards the Officers’ Mess. He had just put his hand on the latch when he heard a cry from the lakeshore. The bateau had landed, and its crewmen were running up the shore to where he stood.

  The first man to reach him was a sunburned, lean young man, scarcely more than a boy. “Sir, sir, we have an urgent message to pass on to the men stationed here. An Indian canoe intercepted us an hour ago and...” He stopped, out of breath, while his comrades overtook him.

  “Calm, calm, man,” Sam said. “Take your time, take your time. Not another war with the Yankees, is it?”

  That got a weak snort of laughter. Then a stout man, mopping his forehead, gasped, “King William is dead, sir.”

  Some of the Penetanguishene officers who were outside ran into the stone building to tell Sir Francis. He came out immediately, one hand inserted between the buttons of his waistcoat, the other extended palm up as if he were about to make an important point before the Legislature.

  “I am Sir Francis Bond Head, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, Royal Emissary of King William—”

  The stout man interrupted, “But, your reverence, King William ain’t with us no longer—”

  The young man who had arrived on the scene first cut in. “What he means to say, sir, is that—”

  Five people began talking, all at once. Sam turned to Sir Francis. “They say that Victoria is now Queen of the Realm.”

  “A girl of eighteen? I cannot believe it.”

  “They say that King William died on the thirtieth of June, sir, and therefore, our new Queen, young as she is, appears to have been in charge of the Empire for more than a month.” Sam took off the low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat that had once belonged to his father, and which he often wore to shield himself from the sun. He swept it across his chest, and bowed his head. “Long live Queen Victoria!”

  Sir Francis took his cue. Hand over heart, he repeated, “Long live Queen Victoria!” And then, “Unpack the canoe, Jarvis, I must get back to Toronto. There must be a memorial service for King William. And an official reception to pay tribute to the new Queen. And speeches to prepare. My country and my countrymen have placed their trust in me. I must honour it. I shall be off to Toronto within the hour.”

  “But the gift-giving ceremonies at Manitoulin, sir?

  “No time for the savages now. You travel on by yourself, do what you can without me.” Sir Francis looked at his pocket watch, shook his head and wagged his forefinger at Sam. “For god’s sake, Jarvis, don’t stand around twiddling your thumbs. Where is that confounded rogue with the oxcart?”

  Sam dispatched Henry on a borrowed horse to chase down the road after the oxcart and its driver, who had departed ten minutes before. Then he, Jacob, and the voyageurs staggered up from the beach again with the Duesbury Derby china, the travelling stand, the tin bath, the boxes of spirits and the wine cooler. They had it all piled neatly in front of the Officers’ Quarters just as Henry returned, followed by the oxen and their driver.

  “Can’t stand to drive that’un again,” the man said to Sam, ignoring Sir Francis’s agitated gestures. “Begging your pardon, but that’s the way it is. ‘Oh my god, oh my god.’ I heard that ditty sung too often. As if I’m responsible for them ruts. Enough is enough. I got plenty other jobs that put food on my table.” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand, then shook the reins.

  But before he could say, “Giddap,” Sam intervened. Since the driver had come back, he obviously expected persuasion. Sam reached into his pocket, extracted a gold coin, and held it in front of him. “Think of it this way, man. It’s one day out of your life. Keep a civil tongue in your head, and you will be the richer for it.” The driver took the coin and turned it over between his fingers. He chewed the edge of it for a full minute, then dropped it into one of his big leather boots. Without speaking, he backed up his team, turned the wagon around and waited while Sam and the voyageurs loaded the Gov’s belongings into it.

  King William couldn’t have died at a better time, thought Sam. He waved a cheery goodbye to Sir Francis and his son as they jolted down the road. Now he would have the show at Manitoulin Island all to himself. He would write his own speech, hand out the gifts to the tribal chieftains in his own way and try to bridge the gap that had grown between the white man and the Indian. It would be the first major achievement of his new position as Chief Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Yes, he would make his mark. It would be a chance to drown forever his shameful past in a glorious present.

  He had plenty of money at hand to fund whatever was needed. The government had provided him with a generous discretionary fund for distribution to those chieftains who had served the nation well. But he could foresee other uses, too, for the funds. To start with, there was the driver’s bribe. No reason that it should come from his own pocket. And, come to think of it, he’d have a quick drink at government expense before he embarked, perhaps stow a couple of bottles in with his luggage while he was at it.

  In half an hour, twenty crew members embarked in two birchbark canoes. Each vessel was over thirty feet in length and had a bowsman, steersman and eight middlemen. Sam’s canoe was decorated with the profile of an Indian chieftain’s head, complete with feather headdress, carved into the bark. The baggage canoe had a four-petalled flower cut into the rear.

  Sam sat near the stern, the lower part of his body resting on the bottom of the canoe. He propped himself up with a cushion that he laid against one of the thwarts. His back was to Jacob, who stood upright in the stern, and ahead of them, the eight paddlers and bowsman cut through the clear, still water. As they moved into the bay, Jacob began to sing an old French ditty that Sam had heard many times before. Though he couldn’t understand the words, he hummed along. The paddlers joined in, keeping time with their oars to the steady beat of the song.

  Sam wished that there had been an opportunity to learn French at his school in Cornwall. He envied Jacob, who could make his way not only in his Chippewa language but in English and French. He wished he had not joined in the general dislike, in his Toronto circle, of anything “frog”.

  There was still plenty of sunlight. Perhaps I should get started on the damned speech-making, he said to himself. He reached for his satchel where he kept his pencils and paper. But the song lulled his senses, and the sun was warm on his face. The satchel remained closed. In a moment, he had pushed himself down farther into the bottom of the canoe, so that his head rested on the cushion. Another round of the song, and he was asleep.

  He awoke to the gentle bump of the canoe’s prow against the sand.

  “Where are we, Jacob?” He pushed himself upright.

  “Christian Island, Nehkik. We make stop for the night here. Still enough daylight for fishing. Then a good supper afterwards.”

  “And while we fish, my friend, we shall have a pipe. It will keep us happy, and the mosquitoes unhappy.” Sam turned to the paddlers. “Well done. We have made good time.” They began the task of lighting fires and setting up tents.

  From the baggage canoe, Sam took his favourite rod. It was made of the best Calcutta split bamboo with a tough fibre and long growth between the joints. Job Crimshaw had ordered it specially for him from Scotland, and no doubt the exorbitant price he’d charged for it could still be found in the list of Sam’s ever-mounting debts.

  He put on an artificial fly, also from Crimshaw’s Scottish supplier, stood near Jacob on a rocky outcropping, and spun his line into the deep pool just below them. Jacob set up a smudge on a nearby rock and handed Sam a pair of gloves for further protection against the mosquitoes. Then he, too, cast his line. In a split instant, Jacob’s rod curved into a shallow U.

  As Sam watched, his friend’s pole bent even more until the tip of it was almost at right angles to the water. The fish, realizing its predicament, had dived farther towards the bottom in the
hope that the hook would jerk from its mouth. That failing, it shot straight to the surface, leapt into the air, and with its tail gave a whack at the line in a desperate effort to snap it. That too was futile. Next, in rapid sequence, came the turning from side to side, the shooting into the rock cavern, the effort to cut the line on a piece of sharp rock.

  But after five minutes of struggle, it gave up. Jacob flipped it onto the rock, and grabbing a short, stout stick, whacked it once over the head, putting an end to its agonized efforts at escape. It was a beautiful trout, perhaps ten pounds in size, its scales a silver grey with a delicate pink cast.

  “Well done,” Sam said, though not with much enthusiasm.

  Jacob took the hook from its mouth. He stowed his catch safely back from the edge of the rock. Then he picked up a piece of something and baited his hook again.

  “What have you there, Jacob? Not an artificial fly, is it?’

  “No, Nehkik, I tell you before. I do not use white man’s bait. Use piece of dry leaf.” He cast into the water again. Sam’s line drifted with the current. Another strike at Jacob’s rod. Another large trout lined up beside the first one.

  At last Sam landed a trout. He was pleased to note that it was slightly bigger than either of Jacob’s two. His envy dissipated, and he gave himself up to the magic of the early evening: the brilliant sun sinking towards the lake, the scent of pine trees, the gentle lapping of the water.

  He wished only that he had someone with him who could duly admire his Calcutta rod, his fine hand-tied flies, his impressive catch, which Jacob was now putting into a tin pail with his own fish. Jacob never complimented Sam on his rig. He seemed totally satisfied with his simple, green-branch rod and his dry-leaf “fly”.

  Yes, how pleasant it would be to have someone with him now from his own society, someone to whom he could speak from his heart. He thought of Anna.

  “Would it be far out of our way to detour along the St. Mary’s River to Sault Ste Marie?” he asked.

  “Not now, Nehkik. Later, maybe. Maybe after Manitoulin. Not possible now.”

  Well, he knew that, didn’t he? “Three days there, three days back,” was how his friend McMurray had described the distance of the Sault from Manitoulin.

  “Not possible,” as Jacob rightly said. He imagined explaining to the Gov how he had missed the gift-giving altogether!

  On their third day, as they moved into the channel that separated Georgian Bay from the main body of Lake Huron, a canoe of Chippewa Indians from Sault Ste. Marie hailed them. There was much talk between the Chippewas and Sam’s men, little of which he understood, though he did comprehend that part of their conversation was about the Great White Mother who had replaced the Great Father as ruler of the realm. And then, as his attention began to wander, he heard clearly the word “Jameson”, followed by a spate of Indian lingo. There was much waving of hands, and loud exclamations of “Hah!” from the tall Indian brave who had whipped him at lacrosse on the beach. Jacob had once told him that “Hah!” was a word of approbation, a substitute for clapping of hands.

  Could it be Anna they spoke of?

  “What were those Indians talking about just now, Jacob?” he asked as his men waved goodbye to the strangers in the canoe.

  “They talk of Mrs. Jameson, call her ‘Lady of the Bright Foam’. I tell you the story soon,” Jacob said. “Now I must watch. Big rocks in water.”

  The Lady of the Bright Foam? What did that mean? Why would they make such a comparison? Something to do with her beautiful white skin or blue eyes? There was more to it, surely. It had been a long story that those Chippewas had told. And their tone had been excited but respectful. She seemed to be the centre of some major Indian speculation. Once they got around these confounded rocks, he’d know what it was all about.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The bateau which Anna had hired at Mackinaw Island deposited her on the Canadian side of the river at Sault Ste Marie. “There, madame,” the rowers said, pointing up the hill to a large stone house. “That’s where the McMurrays live.”

  It was eight o’clock in the morning, an unconscionable time to come calling, so Anna left her luggage on the pier and walked along the waterfront where there seemed to be much activity. She watched as an Indian family took apart its wigwam, packed it neatly into a canoe and embarked. What pleasure to be able to dismantle one’s house in an hour, travel with it wherever one wished to go and set it up again in a trice.

  “Where are they going?” she asked one of the rowers who had lingered near the pier.

  “To Manitoulin Island for the gift-giving ceremonies, madame.”

  “I’m going to Manitoulin, too,” she said. “I know Mr. Jarvis, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs.” And how pleasant it will be to see him again, she reflected, after all these weeks of travel—and without the never-ending surveillance of those Toronto women.

  But the rower seemed more interested in lighting his pipe than in her conversation.

  At nine o’clock, she climbed the hill to the stone house and banged the impressive brass knocker, an almost life-size replica of a lion’s head.

  The door swung open. Mr. McMurray himself, barefoot. “Who the hell?” He took another look at Anna. “Mrs. Jameson, please excuse the language. Come in, come in.”

  “I fear I have disturbed you, sir. My bateau from Mackinaw dumped me on the pier at eight o’clock. I have spent an hour making sketches, and I shall be glad to go back to the waterfront and make some more. I can easily return later.”

  “I didn’t recognize you at first, ma’am. That was the problem. Your face...”

  Anna caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror. It was the first time she had looked at herself in the forty-eight hours since she had left Mackinaw Island. Her face was covered in red blotches, and there were scratch marks where she had clawed at the itchiness.

  “You warned me about mosquitoes, sir, when we talked on the pier at Toronto. But I fear you did not do them justice. I have met mosquitoes in Italy, but their assault is a jest compared with the torture inflicted by these Canadian devils. My blood has provided a rich banquet for them.”

  The front hall gave way to an impressive curved walnut staircase, down which Mrs. McMurray was now descending, buttoning her bodice as she came. “Dear Mrs. Jameson, how happy we are to see you. I fear we have had a late night and are just now readying ourselves for the day.” She shook Anna’s hand. As she did so, she said, “But your beautiful white hands, Mrs. Jameson—what has happened?”

  Anna looked down at her red, roughened fingers. “I must acknowledge that I had no idea of the realities I would meet, though my friends in Toronto tried to tell me. I had to help get a fire going because the rowers on the bateau needed my assistance. One of the men and I tugged at a dead bough almost as big as ourselves and managed to move it forward to the fire pit. After an hour of this, I’m proud to say we had a pile of driftwood almost as tall as St. Paul’s Cathedral...but I’m rambling. Fatigue, I fear. It was a sleepless night hunkered down under bearskins to keep out the mosquitoes.”

  “Come in, come in, sit down.” Mr. McMurray gestured towards a comfortable settee in a well-appointed drawing room.

  “What a lovely house!”

  “It belongs to a wealthy old miller who rents it to us along with all his furniture. I warn you about the beds. You have to climb into them by means of a stepstool. He thinks beds high off the floor allow for healthy circulation of air. As if the air in this place could be anything but fresh.” He massaged his ankle. “Fell out of the damn bed this morning.” And turning towards the door into the adjoining breakfast room, he added, “I’m going to rouse Cook now to get us some coffee.”

  “And I’m going to raid my supply of herbal remedies,” Mrs. McMurray said.

  She was back in a minute with a jar of bright yellow ointment. “First of all, ma’am, you must put this on your face and hands and rub it in well.”

  Anna did as she was told. “This is the goldenrod ointmen
t you mentioned when I talked to you in Toronto? It is so soothing. I no longer want to tear my face apart with scratching.”

  “The same. An Indian remedy, tried and true. My mother uses it on all occasions for insect bites. My father was a white man from Ireland, and when my mother first saw him here in this remote corner of the world, she said he was a perfect spectacle of deformity from mosquito bites. She made him an ointment of goldenrod, his bites healed, they married, and lived happily together for thirty-six years.”

  “I wish all marriages could be sealed with so simple a panacea.”

  “And what would you like now? A cup of coffee?”

  “First, if you please, a nap of several hours on any flat, stable surface you can provide. This one is so comfortable.”

  The Indian maidservant put a snowy sheet over the sofa and covered Anna with a pretty patchwork quilt. Mrs. McMurray looked down at their guest. “And when you wake up—whenever it is—we’ll give you blueberry pancakes with the maple syrup my mother makes on Sugar Island.”

  The McMurrays retired to the nearby breakfast room for coffee. Anna shut her eyes. As she drifted into sleep, she heard muffled laughter as Mr. McMurray said, “‘We had a late night and are just now readying ourselves’... That was a good one...”

  “Well, I didn’t tell any lies, did I? And fortunately my dark skin doesn’t show blushes.”

  More laughter, then Anna heard no more.

  At noon, she awakened refreshed and ate her pancakes and syrup. Then her hosts took her to the little frame Church of England chapel that was the heart of their missionary work. Here in the tiny vestry at the back of the church, Mr. McMurray showed her the catechism his wife had helped him translate into the Chippewa language. “Without Charlotte,” he told her, “the mission could not have been successful. Together we have achieved sixty-six communicants, thirteen marriages, more than a hundred baptisms, and seven Christian burials. And though I speak the Indian language well enough, I like to have Charlotte stand beside me to translate my sermons each Sunday.”