by Ann Birch
“They will listen to me. After all, it is the Indian Affairs Department that is paying their wages.” He turned around and spoke to the old man slumped behind them on the floor of the canoe.“Wake up, Solomon. Time to translate. Tell the crew that from now on they must shoot on land, if possible, rather than from the canoe. And if they catch fish, they must kill them instantly rather than leave them gasping to death.”
Anna soon had an opportunity to see the effects of Sam’s commands. As the canoes passed through a bed of reeds, a cry went up from the cargo canoe, “Otter! Otter!” But just as the voyageurs started beating the reeds with their paddles, Sam shouted, “Stop!” and they changed their minds. Quickly they moved out of the reeds back into the main channel between the islands.
“Thank you, sir, for giving that poor creature another day of life.”
“I think I have a special feeling for otters. Don’t I, Jacob?”
He smiled. “Yes, Nehkik. You swim like the otter.”
Anna thought for a minute. “Ah yes. Now I understand. ‘Nehkik’ is Chippewa for otter, is it not? You know”—she leaned towards Sam and touched his knee—“it is so pleasant that you have a Chippewa name. I love mine, too, though I know it is not given with the genuine affection that Jacob accords to you. In fact, as Mr. McMurray pointed out to me, I could have killed Camudwa in my race for glory.”
Just at sunset, they landed on a flat ledge of rock. The men pitched the marquee and set up Anna’s tent at a respectful distance from the rest of the group. Sam made her a soft bed of boughs, over which he spread a bearskin and over that, blankets. She put on a fresh pair of gloves and covered her head with mosquito netting. Then she walked along the cliff to enjoy the strange blending of rose and amber light in the western sky. The lake was a bath of molten gold; the rocky islands nearby were a dense purple except where their edges seemed fringed with fire. While she stood there, the purple shadows darkened, and the crescent moon rose.
Sam came out from his tent to stand beside her. “Beautiful, beautiful.”
“‘My spirits as in a dream are all bound up’,” she replied. “I have such a deep respect for the power that created this beauty that...” She paused and turned to him. “I am so suffocated by it all... I cannot find words.”
She noticed the blush under Sam’s tanned cheeks.
“In Toronto, I seldom have to search for the right word,” Sam said. A loud voice—sometimes, even a fist or a pistol—usually fills the bill. But now I remember some words that seem exactly right.” He cleared his throat. “Would you like to hear them?”
And without waiting for her answer, he began to sing:
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
The unwearied sun from day to day,
Doth his Creator’s power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an almighty hand.
“Lovely,” she said. “It is one of my father’s favourites. And you sing it so well. It was only this morning—in the canoe—that I realized you have a fine baritone voice.”
“Until today I didn’t realize how much I enjoy singing, though I have always liked listening to songs. But in Toronto, it’s the tenors that rule the roost.” The smell of the campfire cooking wafted upwards, making Sam’s mouth water. He gave his canoe partner his arm with a bow and a flourish, and they descended to the campfire for an excellent supper of fish and pigeons, wild gooseberries and a good glass of madeira.
He was glad to see Anna’s response to the meal.
“Yes,” she said, seeing him look at her tin plate piled with roast pigeon. “I acknowledge my hypocrisy. Though I inveighed against the massacre of these helpless fowl, I am thoroughly enjoying them now. I fear the fresh air and excellent food have played havoc with my morality. No doubt you despise me.” She laughed at him through her mouthful of pigeon.
He thought of his own ill-fated resolutions to deny himself Crimshaw’s best imported sherry. “Not at all. We all have our hypocrisies.”
She lingered after her meal, seeming to enjoy the fireside and the companionship of the voyageurs. At one point, she went back to her tent for a minute. Call of nature, he assumed, but when she returned to the campfire, she carried with her the instrument that had been the subject of much conjecture in Toronto and so much pleasure on the Niagara steamer.
“Your Spanish guitar,” he said.
“One of my favourite things. When my first book came on the market some years ago, I said to the publisher, ‘If it is a success, I want nothing more from you than a Spanish guitar.’ And it has been with me ever since.”
She struck a few chords of “En roulant ma boule, roulant” and soon they were all singing. They went through the day’s repertoire, then came the finale, Solomon’s tribute to the mosquito.
Anna rose, walked over to where Jacob was seated, and handed him the guitar.
“Very pretty,” he said as he stroked its shiny surface. “I keep it safe for you until morning?”
“No, indeed. You must keep it forever. It is my gift to you and the crew. I wanted to part with something that is precious to me, something that would say to you all, thank you, thank you for this voyage, for your kindness.” In the darkness, Sam saw tears shining on her cheeks.
Soon afterwards, she left. Later Sam went to his tent, closed the flap and drifted into a sound sleep. He wakened at midnight. The voyageurs were still up, dancing and singing on the rock below his tent. It was their relaxation from the hours of hard paddling. At last the noise subsided. He knew the men would be lying now on their blankets and bearskins between the upturned canoes and the fire, not minding at all the smoke that served to dispel the mosquitoes. He fell asleep again.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Just at dawn, Sam wakened, hearing a splash. He took his hunting telescope and opened the flap of his tent. He knew where the sound had come from: a pool in the secluded cove just behind the rock where the voyageurs had pitched Anna’s tent.
First he looked down at the shoreline. All the men, including Jacob, were busy caulking the canoes with pine gum, applying it to the seams with torches. At least once on every voyage, they did this to keep the crafts watertight.
Telescope in hand, he crept along the rocky height and looked down on the pond, hidden by the juniper bushes fronting the water. Anna had left her garments over one of the bushes and was now stroking her way across the pond’s breadth. He followed the progress of her white shoulders as she swam, feeling the same excitement as when he stalked a moose.
She turned at the far side of the pond and came back towards him, her arms pushing the water aside in steady strokes. Glass trained on her, he watched her step out of the water onto the rocky shore. Her figure was an hourglass, with large breasts and wide hips, and her waist was narrow, her legs long and shapely for such a short woman. He became conscious of his stiffening prick.
She turned her back to him and walked into the pool again. “Come and join me,” she said, speaking over her shoulder. “The mosquitoes can’t get us under water.”
Down went the telescope onto the lichen. Off with his clothes and into the water. “How did you know?”
“I saw the glint of your telescope.”
His prick now at full alert, he pressed against her. The water was deep, and she grasped him about his waist, while they both kicked their legs gently to stay afloat. He ducked his head under water and nibbled her breasts, feeling the nipples grow hard.
He took a gulp of air and dived down again, seeking her pubis. She managed to keep herself upright, using her arms and legs to tread water. But just as he was about to touch her, he saw a huge reptile swimming towards them. His erection collapsed.
“We must get out of here,” he said, surfacing.
“What is it?”
“A snapping turtle. A big one. Swim, swim.”
A minute later, they scambled up onto the rocks where they lay, panting.
“What is this creature you fear so much?”
He took a few seconds to catch his breath. “A two-foot mass of hard shell...with a scaly tail like an alligator’s and hooked teeth that sink into your flesh and remove a finger or a toe without trouble. One of my classmates at school lost half his hand in the jaws of one of the brutes.”
“Why are you laughing all of a sudden?”
He couldn’t tell her. He’d just had the thought that his lost member might have solved some problems for Mary.
They got back into their clothes. “Perhaps it’s as well that the critter brought us to our senses,” he said. “There’s so much to think about before we get into something we can’t get out of.”
“What specifically are you thinking about, dear Sam?”
“All my life, in all the important moments of my life, that is, I’ve acted without thought or reason. Just fallen into one mess after the other. Time to grow up. Time to think about...about an unwanted child, for instance.”
“Forget that. I have sponges. But...” She laughed. “I wasn’t prepared this morning. I didn’t expect you with your glass. So, yes, perhaps the turtle saved us from that worry.”
“And our marriages—”
“Mine is over, I told you that.”
“But mine—”
“I know, I know. You would give up so much more than I. And frankly, I don’t know if you’re able to take a step that would sever you from Mary and your children. And do I want you to? That’s a question that—at the moment—I can’t answer.”
“Can you understand—”
“Your responsibilities? Of course I understand. And I have a fair idea of what you’re thinking right now. That I, unlike you, am a free creature, without responsibilities. You’re wrong. I work hard to survive. Do you think it’s easy writing books?”
“You have a settlement from the Vice-Chancellor, so you said.”
“Three hundred pounds a year. If he gives it to me. He’s not a bad man, and I hope he will live up to his agreement. But that stipend does not cover the expenses of my father, who has suffered a stroke. And I also support my mother and two unmarried sisters.” She got up. “So I have responsibilities. Now let’s go back to our tents and try to act as if nothing has happened.”
When Sam got into the canoe an hour later, Anna was already seated, making sketches of the men as they waded into the shallows with the baggage and provisions. “Look,” she said, and pulled up her petticoats to show bare legs and wet moccasins. “I waded out on my own this time. Solomon had only to hold the canoe steady while I got in. There will be no more complaints about his back.”
He was relieved that she could talk normally.
As the paddlers got under way, she showed him the pages of her work, asking from time to time, “What is this one’s name?” So excellent were her drawings that he had no trouble identifying the men she did not know.
“I shall give each of them a pencil portrait when we reach Penetanguishene. It will be a way to say ‘thank you’, as I do not have much money at the moment. I have just enough to purchase lodgings and meals in the town, share the cost of the wagon for the portage to Lake Simcoe, and pay for the steamer.
“The men all have such well-muscled upper bodies,” she continued, looking over her sketches. “Any of them could have served as models for Michelangelo’s David.” She leaned in towards him and whispered. “Including my swimming companion of this morning.”
“How I wish I could draw. I’d do a picture of you. I can’t stop thinking of you...” Sam broke off, afraid to say more, but thankful that she had forgiven his stupid innuendos about her carefree life.
Now she was pointing at the faces of the men she had drawn. “Look at that one with his nose bitten off. By a snapping turtle, no doubt. And that one with the huge nose and jutting chin, but no forehead. And Jacques, the boy whose features are wrenched ever so slightly to the right. Quite fascinating. And do you know why?”
“Some sort of birth defect?”
“Not at all. He told me this morning that he had been slapped on the face by a grizzly bear!”
Sam tried not to laugh. It would be a good story for the lady’s travel book, and her credulous European readers would probably swallow it. “It’s the sort of thing foreigners think is typical of Canadian life. Do you believe it?”
“Of course. Don’t you?” She laughed.
In the afternoon they landed on the Island of Skulls, an ancient Indian burial ground, so Jacob told them. Sam and his crew had at first decided to dine here on the shore, but the sight of two newly dead bodies wrapped in bark and laid upon a rock upset them.
“This is no place to eat,” he said to Anna, holding a handkerchief over his face. “but I observe your notebook at the ready. Take a few minutes and see what you must see. Jacob will go with you and translate.”
“Please come, too.”
“If you wish it. The rest of the crew can perch here on the shore where they get a breeze from the lake.”
They followed a narrow trail to the interior of the island. In a bark wigwam, they found an old Indian, alone, seated crosslegged on a bed of balsam. His face was smeared with the black paint of mourning.
Jacob recognized the old man at once. He clasped the man to him, and they stood for a minute in a close embrace. “Father of my dead wife,” he said. “Father of this dead woman and grandfather of child. Now he loses all his family.”
“Jacob, we must not intrude,” Sam said. “Let us leave the poor man to grieve. I cannot even imagine the pain of having all your children die before your own departure.”
But the afflicted man seemed to welcome their visit. Perhaps he needed the company of the living. He led them back along the trail to the corpses on the rock and showed them the household items piled beside the bodies for use in the afterlife. Nearby a bonfire had been kindled. He spoke to Jacob at length.
“He tells us,” their friend said, “that the fire shows departed spirits the route to land of the dead.”
The stench was overpowering, but Sam managed to keep his handkerchief in his pocket. He looked at Anna. Her face was grey, she had put a hand upon a tall rock to steady herself, but she did not faint.
“Father takes us now to see important skeleton,” Jacob said. One hundred yards away from the newly dead was the skeleton of a chief who apparently had died leading a war party against another band. “We do not bury Indian war chiefs,” Jacob told them. The chief had been placed in a sitting posture, his back against a tree, with his head-dress mouldering on a grinning skull, and a tomahawk and scalping knife in his bony fingers.
Sam found a gold coin in his pocket. He knelt down and placed it near the skeleton. Perhaps the old man would consider it part of the treasure of the afterlife. But Sam hoped he would use it himself to lighten his own burdens.
It was a relief to return to the crew. On the sandy shore, two of the men skipped stones into the still water of the lake. “I won,” old Solomon said to Sam, “fifteen skips to LeDuc’s twelve.” His watery brown eyes shone with the pleasure of his victory, and his wrinkled cheeks were ruddy. For Sam, it was an antidote to the horror of the past hour.
That afternoon, the canoe travelled onwards past a cape which Alexander Henry called Pointe aux Grondines because of the never-ending moan of breakers from the heavy swell. LeDuc told Anna that a fur trader and sixteen people in a canot du maître had been wrecked here upon the rocks.
They passed near the mouth of Rivière des Français and came again upon lovely groups of Elysian islands, channels winding among rocks and foliage, and more fields of water-lilies. But Anna could not put from her mind the memory of the corpses and the grim history LeDuc had related. “Even Paradise contains lost souls,” she said to Sam. “I have had enough of death for one day.”
A sudden rain came down later, accompanied by a brisk wind that lashed up the waves. The sky darkened, forcing
the canoes to go ashore. Anna was grateful for the special attention the voyageurs gave to her. They pitched her tent high on a rock so that the water ran off on all sides. “Get inside quickly,” Sam said, thrusting dry bearskins and blankets inside the flap. “Got to get the canoes unloaded and everything covered with a canvas,” he told her before he ran off.
She arranged the skins and coverlets to make a comfortable bed, undressed, and lay in the shadows of her tent. Then she got up, rummaged through her portmanteau and found her sponges. Over the noise of pelting rain, she could hear the laughter and singing of the crew below. The rain seemed not to bother them one bit. It meant an early end to their day’s labours, that was why they were so merry, and she lay still, enjoying the sound of happy voices. It was a far cry from her Toronto nights with Robert.
Sam in the meantime had pitched his own tent near Anna’s on the height of land overlooking the shore. Everything in the canoes now safely under cover, he waited while the crew built a roaring fire, tipped the canoes over for shelter, and passed a bottle of rum from mouth to mouth. Then he heated a flask of madeira for himself, intending to drink it in the privacy of his quarters, and bade them goodnight.
He opened the flap of his tent, closed it again, and stood for a moment in the rain, holding the flask. Then he turned, walked a hundred yards, and stopped. He was a foot from the pegs of Anna’s tent. He called softly, “Perhaps you are cold? I have hot madeira here.”
“Come in.”
He walked into the tent, stood while his eyes adjusted to the darkness, then saw her outline in the gloom. He moved towards her. A blanket covered her neck and shoulders. She motioned for him to sit beside her on the bearskin and stretched out her hand for the hot drink.
“There’s enough for both of us,” she said, as she took a sip from the flask and passed it back to him. He put the flask to his own lips, catching the scent of her breath on it. It was a clean, fresh fragrance. They sat in silence enjoying the warmth of the drink. Then, without preamble, she shrugged the blanket from her shoulders. She was naked.