Heart So Hungry

by Randall Silvis

  The rain continued through Saturday but in the afternoon it showed signs of coming to an end, and Mina’s party, restless to be on the move, took to their canoes. By evening the rain had ceased and they enjoyed their first dry camp in several days.

  Next morning they agreed that they should take advantage of the dry weather and forego their Sunday rest. As the canoes were being reloaded, Gilbert happened to look far ahead where the river widened into a small lake. He saw a dark shape moving across the water. “What is that?” he asked.

  The others looked up. Before they could follow Gilbert’s gaze, he cried out, “It’s a deer!”

  In a flash the last of the gear was tossed into the canoes and tied down. Mina quickly climbed aboard. Too excited to fiddle with the knot that held the canoe tied to a willow, George whipped out his knife and slashed through the rope. In seconds both canoes were plunging toward the lake, the men digging in hard with their paddles, lifting and driving the slender crafts with every stroke.

  “He seems too far away,” Mina said.

  But the canoes closed quickly. The caribou, which they could soon identify as a stag, was swimming toward the north shore, fighting the current just as the canoes were. George reached for his rifle, slammed a bullet into place, took careful aim, and fired.

  Mina saw the bullet’s splash a yard or so in front of the caribou, and she secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Fresh meat would have been a welcome treat but their provisions were in no danger of running out and she did not share the men’s thrill in hunting and killing. She understood that thrill but she did not share it.

  Her relief, however, was short-lived. She soon realized that George’s intention with that first shot had not been to hit the caribou but to turn it from shore before it could bound away to freedom. And the ploy worked perfectly. The caribou swung east, its thick neck and heavy head ploughing forward with short, plunging movements.

  The animal was broadside to the current now, and its pace slowed even more. Soon the canoes were a mere twenty yards from overtaking it. George laid the rifle aside and pulled his revolver from its holster. He stretched out his arm and sighted along the barrel. Mina pulled her hat down over her eyes, leaned forward, doubling over, and clamped her hands over her ears.

  She jumped a little in her seat when the revolver barked. She expected to hear the men cheering, but when they did not she looked up. The stag was still ploughing toward shore. Thank goodness! Mina thought. Then she saw the dark stain spreading out alongside the animal, the blood streaming from its neck, the terror in its round, dark eye.

  “Oh, George, please,” she said. “Use your rifle this time. Please put an end to it.”

  He did so, and a few seconds later the animal stopped swimming. One last stroke of the paddles and Job had the stag by its antlers. Its legs no longer churned the water.

  “Is it dead?” Mina asked.

  “It is,” George said.

  “Please make sure it’s dead, Job. It isn’t fair that it should suffer.”

  “No suffer,” Job told her. “No feel nothing any more.”

  A rope was looped and tightened around the stag’s head and the animal was towed to shore. Mina spent the next hour sitting alone, well upwind of the men, as they gutted, skinned and butchered the stag. The meat was cut up and packed in waterproof bags. George washed the hide clean in the river, wrung it dry and folded it as neatly as he could and stowed it in the bow of the canoe. He washed his hands and forearms and then he walked upshore to Mina.

  “Two hundred fifty pounds of fresh meat,” he told her.

  “I suppose it’s a good thing,” she said. “I just can’t stop thinking of how fine he would have looked bounding over the hills.”

  “We need fresh meat for energy, though.”

  “I know. I only feel bad for the caribou.”

  “Life through death,” he said quietly. “That’s how it works out here.”

  “I know.” She looked up at him and smiled.

  She climbed to her feet, brushed the dirt off the back of her skirt. “I know you have to kill animals to keep us fed. I’ll try not to mind so much in the future.”

  “Don’t be anything but what you are,” George answered. Then he turned away quickly, blushing, and without waiting for her he returned to the canoes.

  They made good time all the rest of that day, moving upriver through one small lake expansion after another. The mountains on each side were barren of trees, with sharp, craggy faces of naked rock. From lake to lake there was no telling which way the river might turn next or what lay ahead.

  Toward sunset they were moving smoothly across another small lake when George tapped her shoulder. When she turned, he pointed to the northeast. There, approximately eighty yards ahead, the river appeared to be gushing into the lake out of a large hole in the side of the mountain.

  “We might as well find a good place to camp,” George told her. “We’ll be portaging in the morning.”

  “And now with an extra two hundred fifty pounds of meat to carry,” she said.

  “Two-forty maybe. I’ll make us a nice roast tonight.”

  And he did just that. The block of meat was seared in the skillet until the outside was crusted black, the centre pink and sweet.

  Mina told the men, “I’m almost ashamed to admit how much I’m enjoying this.”

  “Why ashamed?” Gilbert asked.

  “Because I was secretly hoping that George would miss when he was shooting today.”

  Joe said, “Even George couldn’t miss from that distance.”

  They laughed and chewed and continued shaving away at the roast until the skillet was empty.

  That night, before turning in, Mina went to the river to wash her face and hands. George soon left his seat and followed her. He knelt a yard or so from her and splashed water over his face. As always, he kept glancing her way out of the corner of his eye.

  But tonight she did not mind his overprotectiveness. Tonight she felt the warmth of it, the depth of his affection. When she had finished washing she sat back against the rocks and gazed into the night sky. Directly overhead, three long fingers of blue-green light were reaching tremulously toward the centre of the sky, fluttering like banners in the wind. All around them was a misty glow of white and pale orange, it too gently undulating, bathing the river and the campsite in soft luminescence.

  “The northern lights are so beautiful tonight,” she said.

  “The Indians claim it’s from the glow of lanterns carried by spirits as they lead the new dead into heaven.”

  “Somewhere in the Bible it’s described as ‘horsemen charging in mid-air, clad in garments interwoven with gold.’”

  “I’ve not seen them any prettier than they are right now,” George said.

  After a few minutes he stood and walked toward her and stood there looking at the camp some thirty yards away. He and Mina could see the two tents pitched well behind the fire, could see Joe and Job and Gilbert seated in a half-circle, sucking on their pipes. Neither Mina nor George was in a hurry to join them again.

  “Do you know what’s strange?” she asked.

  “What, missus?”

  “I don’t feel lonely any more.”

  “You’re getting used to the place.”

  “I know that everyone at home would expect me to feel lonely out here. And maybe I should still. Maybe it’s wrong that I don’t.”

  He lowered himself to his haunches, sat there gently rocking back and forth. He said, “I don’t see how it could be wrong. I really don’t.”

  They sat without speaking for a while. She looked over at him once and caught him looking at her. She smiled, then turned away. He imagined then that she would stand and say good night and return to her tent. But she gave no indication of wishing to be anywhere but where she was.

  “I think I feel less homeless here than I ever have, ever since Laddie went away.”

  George felt something thickening in his throat. He tried to swallow it d
own.

  “I never imagined I could really do this. It’s only now beginning to seem as if we might.”

  “He’d be mighty proud of you, that’s for sure.”

  “He’d be proud of you too, George.”

  “I hope so. I don’t always know.”

  “Oh, I know he would. The way you’ve taken care of me, and how kind and gentle and brave you always are.”

  George looked up at the northern lights. He could think of nothing to say, no words to express the confusion he felt.

  For just a moment she leaned close to him. “Let’s not feel bad, George,” she whispered. “Let’s not feel bad about anything.”

  And a moment later she was walking back toward camp. He watched her go into her tent and light her candle and tie shut the flap. He remained on the shore a while longer, alone with the northern lights and the river and the jumble of his thoughts.

  Dillon Wallace’s expedition, July 20, 1905

  THURSDAY WAS A COLD, WET DAY. Not a pleasant day for travelling, especially over rough, broken ground that showed no sign of the Indian trail. Even so, Wallace decided that his crew should make an early start, considering how slow their progress had been of late. By his reckoning, based on a series of lakes he had spotted the day before from a hilltop, they were not far from Lake Nipishish, which, he had been told back at the North West River Post, was nearly halfway to Seal Lake.

  “Stanton and I will go ahead with our packs while the rest of you break camp,” he said. “We’ll mark our trail for you. If we all move quickly we can make up a bit of lost time.”

  Stanton gobbled down the last of his breakfast of fried trout, bread and tea. Seemed like he was always hungry these days and never got the chance to fill his belly. And when he shrugged on his heavy pack the straps bit into his skin as they did every morning, chafing him raw even through his clothing, rubbing new blisters or breaking open old ones.

  The first half-hour of these hikes was always the hardest for Stanton. Until the body settled into its rhythm, walking felt awkward and stiff, his body off balance. If the pack rode too high it threatened to topple him forward, splat onto his face. And if it rode too low it put excessive strain on his shoulders, pulling his spine into a concave curve. In either case the mere effort of putting one foot in front of the other felt unnatural—like a vaudevillian striding across the stage in a hurricane-force wind.

  Add to this that the mosquitoes and blackflies gave a man no peace. They swarmed to the scent of sweat, which, if you had not bathed in several days, was strong. And in all likelihood your feet were soon wet, soaked through, and the cuffs of your trousers hung heavy with mud.

  For the first half-hour or so you fought against all this and in doing so made yourself acutely aware of every discomfort. Only by focusing on other matters—keeping a keen eye on the dim and sinuous trail, for example—could you continue through the day with numbed detachment.

  Stanton had not yet reached that state of detachment when he realized that he could no longer hear Wallace’s footsteps ahead of him. No snap of branches, no rhythmic squish of boots on wet ground. He looked up from the trail, blinked, cocked his ear. Wallace was nowhere to be seen or heard. Stanton turned this way and that, gradually completing a full circle, taking only a step at a time before pausing to scan for some sign that he was not alone.

  Wallace was supposed to be breaking a branch now and then to mark the trail, or, when necessary, using his long knife to hack away at the brush. But Stanton could find no indication that he wasn’t the first man to pass through these woods. Worse yet, when he looked down he was not entirely convinced that he had been following the trail at all. There seemed to be a path here, but had it been made by man or animal? Was he lost, or was Wallace?

  He considered calling out to Wallace, maybe firing off a shot or two. But the ribbing he would take from the others was sure to be something awful. Just last night he and Richards and McLean had gone fishing only to lose their bearings on their return to camp. The laugh they had got when they finally came straggling in was not something Stanton wished to suffer again.

  He felt certain he could find the trail on his own. That done, he would move in double time to catch up with Wallace. And not even Wallace would be the wiser.

  Another half-hour came and went. Stanton followed one vague path after another, none more distinct than a slender suggestion of trampled moss or grass. He finally had no choice but to admit defeat and fire his rifle in the air.

  Immediately there came back a shout, which he answered. The voice boomed again—“Halloooo!” It was Easton’s voice. Back and forth the men called, with Stanton zeroing in on the sound like a hound on a rabbit. It wasn’t long before he heard the rumble of rushing water. Then he stepped into a clearing. He was back at camp. The men had extinguished the fire and repacked the gear and had been just about to set off on the trail when Stanton’s rifle shots had halted them. Now they were all standing there looking in his direction, each of them grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  Stanton, blushing fiercely, walked back into camp. “Don’t even say it,” he told them.

  And the men broke into a chorus of howls.

  What worried Stanton most, however, was what Wallace might say. It had become obvious to the entire party that Wallace was increasingly irritated by their lack of progress. Thus far they had spent more time looking for the trail than following it. Hard rains had kept them huddled in camp for days at a time. Ravenous insects were turning their bodies into masses of swollen, pulsing sores. And provisions were running low despite the bushels of fish they routinely caught.

  The men were eating like horses, no question about it. Yet they were constantly hungry. They expended more energy in a single muddy mile than would have been required for an all-day hike over solid ground.

  As it turned out, Stanton need not have feared Wallace’s reaction. Early that afternoon, when they finally caught up with him, he was coming back in their direction. “Did you find the rifle?” was the first thing he said.

  Easton asked, “What rifle?”

  Wallace admitted, with apologies, that at some time that day Richards’ rifle, which Wallace had been carrying, had fallen from his pack. “It must have slipped out onto soft ground. Or else I would have heard it.”

  “We didn’t know to be looking for it,” Richards said. “We’ll just double back. It’s got to be along the trail somewhere.”

  Wallace was then forced to admit that he had found and lost the trail on several occasions, and had wandered about, zigzagging through the brush, trying to locate it again. So there was no telling where the rifle lay. To make matters worse, the rifle wasn’t even Richards’ personal property; it had been borrowed from one of Wallace’s friends. And it was a brand new rifle to boot.

  They searched for two hours, creeping along, spread out in a line. Finally, exhausted, Wallace called a halt. “We might as well camp right here, fellas. The light’s no good any more. We’ll look again tomorrow.”

  To Stanton’s mind the day could not have gone any worse. But at least, he thought, the comedy of errors was over until tomorrow. Now they could sit down to supper and then relax with their pipes for a while.

  Unfortunately, supper brought more unhappy news. Duncan McLean, they were reminded, would be leaving the party soon, returning home to his family. So they should have their letters ready for him to take back to civilization. He planned to hike straight across country to the junction of the Red and Naskapi Rivers, where he had left his boat.

  Stanton asked, “How long do you figure it will take you?”

  “I’ll keep to the high ridges,” Duncan said. “Walking’s easier there. About two days’ walk, I figure.”

  Two days! Stanton could not believe his ears, nor could he shake the sensation those words evoked in him, the utter heaviness that flooded through him, the wash of something very close to defeat. Two days to the junction of the Red and Naskapi. Two days of easy walking.

  He knew what Wal
lace would say if he expressed his dismay. That their objective was not to win a foot race but to follow the Indian trail and to map the river valley. Besides, Wallace would say, with fifteen hundred pounds of gear and canoes to carry, how could they move as quickly as Duncan would alone, even if they wanted to? Still, the knowledge of how few miles they had covered nagged at Stanton. Their own expedition, bogged down by mud and plagued by mosquitoes and icy rains and trails that were impossible to find, had used up two full weeks in covering the same distance.

  Mina Hubbard’s expedition, fourth week of July 1905

  IT HAD CROSSED MINA’S MIND more than once that maybe the mosquitoes and blackflies were God’s way of keeping her from enjoying herself too much, a constantly buzzing, biting, stinging, maddening reminder that this was not a pleasure trip.

  The insects on the night of July 27 were the worst ever. Her party had camped for the evening on the shore of a small lake after a paddle of only three and a half miles. From noon on the twenty-fifth until mid-afternoon of the twenty-seventh they had been waylaid by illness, with all the men except Job too sick to travel, all suffering from the change of diet—too much caribou meat. Finally they had moved ahead a short distance to this last lake in a group of four, but no sooner had they gathered for supper than a dense cloud of insects descended on them.

  To settle the men’s stomachs Job made a venison broth thickened with a little flour. It smelled delicious, but every time Mina raised her silk veil to put the spoon to her lips, a dozen insects swarmed into her mouth. Hundreds more crawled atop her veil and stung her through the mesh. In desperation she rummaged through a pack until she found an empty waterproof bag made of rubberized canvas. With her knife she cut eyeholes in the bag, and another hole through which she could breathe. Over it all she sewed three layers of black veiling. But even with ventilation holes cut behind her ears, the waterproof bag, when tied together around her neck, was devastatingly hot. Her face was protected from stings but she could barely see because of the perspiration that ran into her eyes, and she could not lift the bag to eat without inviting a mouthful of insects under her mask. And the way the mosquitoes tapped and poked at her mask, their every sound amplified inside the rubberized shell, made her want to scream in frustration.