“We did a good job,” Shane said, as Theresa set the canoe down after carrying it up from the lake one afternoon. He ran his hand along the goes sealed with spruce gum and the gunwales lashed with spruce root. He had tea ready for her.
“I’ve missed a lot over the years,” she said.
“Mitanawe,” he agreed, with some sadness.
Then he thought it better to change the subject.
“The bark canoe is pretty trusty.”
“You can say that again,” she agreed. “You can smash it like crazy in a rapid, and it won’t puncture.”
“May I ask how you know that?” He eyed her suspiciously.
She demurred.
“All right, where did you go?” he demanded.
“On that little quarter-mile rapid between Lac Écarté and Lac à la Truite. I wanted to see how the canoe would hold up. And besides, it was fun. I went through five or six times.”
“You might have upset. Those aren’t easy rapids. And it doesn’t take much to get in trouble.”
Theresa only showed enough contrition as she thought was needed to let the issue pass.
They sat around for a while, both continuing to examine the canoe.
“It’s a thing of beauty, isn’t it?” Theresa marvelled.
Shane nodded. “I’m surprised we did so well. Patrick’s lessons were well learned.”
“You should consider it a gift to be skilled enough to make one,” she said.
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Do you know that I almost revere this canoe? It’s that beautiful.”
“I’m glad somebody does. I’ll tell you something I saw once that made me very sad. The only birch-bark canoe that I have seen was in Montreal. I was visiting a friend, and he told me one day that he had seen a birch-bark canoe at his neighbor’s house. We went over and looked at it. It was a canoe that had once been pretty good. It was full size and well made. It may even have been made by Patrick Matchewan many years before. I don’t know; I didn’t know birch-bark canoes at the time. It was set up on carpenter’s horses, had been filled with dirt, and was being used as a flower planter. Would you believe that it choked me up when I saw that? It was the only birch-bark canoe I had ever seen. And look what happened to it.”
Theresa spent a great deal of time in the bark canoe now. Shane spent much time in the back of the cabin with the bucksaw, cutting wood for the winter.
A few days after Shane had told her about the other bark canoe he had seen, he returned from a long day at the woodpile to find her puttering around in front of their cabin. With a load of dirt she had scrounged from the woods, along with some transplanted trillium and wood blocks for support, she had made a very attractive planter from their four-hundred-dollar, factory-made canoe.
“You’re priceless,” Shane said.
III
At the end of the summer, they harvested potatoes, onions, and the rest of the vegetables from the garden, as each ripened in turn.
Their summer in the wilderness drew to a close with the multi-coloured pastiche of the leaved trees which were here and there among the conifers that surrounded Lac des Îles. Days grew shorter and evenings got cold enough to put wood in the stove. Winter was not far away.
When Shane had put up most of the wood, he worked on things to amuse himself.
“Do you like mushy things?” he asked her one day.
“Depends.”
He handed her a square piece of birch-bark that he had framed in cedar. He had burned a poem into it with the burning point of a stick.
“I wanted you to have this. It’s Nootka,” he said.
Theresa took it from him and read:
No matter how hard I try
to forget you
you always
come back to my mind
and when you hear me singing
you may know
I am weeping for you.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I
Winter announced its coming quietly, at first, with a few snow flurries at the end of September and more through the beginning of October. On the smaller lakes, including Lac des Îles, the lee began to creep out from the shore.
October was not a happy month for them, because it was cloudy most of the time. The overcast days had failed to set off the brilliant leaves that remained on the trees in the first part of the month. Their wood was put up, chores were minimal, and the most they could hope for in terms of diversion was to remain in the cabin and read, or make moccasins and snowshoes. Theresa’s spirits sagged with the weather.
“I feel nauseous,” she said one day.
“Your pregnancy is advancing,” Shane pointed out. He liked the looks of her stomach rounding out. The pregnancy seemed to be putting some weight on her. “It’s probably that.”
“Or my sickness.”
It was unlike her to complain about being ill.
Then, on the first of November, a foot of snow covered everything. Whipped by winds, the snow piled in drifts that nearly reached the gables of the cabin. Shane had made the mistake of building the door so that it opened out instead of opening in. Now the snow piled deep against the door; it couldn’t be opened. He opened a window, climbed out into the snow and shovelled out the front door. That day he changed the door so they wouldn’t be trapped again.
Theresa was bubbling with the excitement at the first big snowfall of the year. As soon as he had them dug out, they went off on snowshoes. She wouldn’t have stayed in the cabin for anything. A foot of snow by itself would not have justified their using snowshoes, but drifts were so frequent that they could not have travelled any great distance without them, and Theresa was anxious to put them on for the first time of the season. Her strength was not sufficient for a long walk. Were it not for her excitement by the first snowfall, Shane doubted that she could have mustered the courage to walk outside the cabin. She was late in her pregnancy but had not gained appreciable weight. He knew that her pregnancy had nothing to do with her weakened state.
Shane could no longer mistake the changes that were coming over Theresa. It was as if the medicine no longer had any effect. She still took the palliatives daily but she was becoming gaunt and pale. She walked with more difficulty and did not go outside often. For the first time since he knew her, Shane saw Theresa as he had never seen her — pale, weak, and almost spiritless. She no longer had something to say every time he spoke to her. She didn’t laugh as easily — she of the smile and laugh that struck people so strongly that it was the first thing they remembered about her. Sometimes, now, she only nodded her head at something she thought was funny. The painkillers were no longer masking her pain all the time, yet she barely showed it. She didn’t want him to know. One time she went to the cabin door with him as he was leaving. She smiled at him as he turned to go and then, having forgotten something, he turned back, already a grimace of pain had returned to her face. She had tried to hide it but had not been able to. She knew it wouldn’t be long now; they both knew it.
“You should go out more often,” Theresa said. “You don’t have to stay in the cabin because of me.” She was sitting in a little rocking chair and working on a pair of moccasins.
“To be very truthful,” he said, “I really don’t enjoy going out of the cabin without you.”
She squeezed his hand.
“And I hate to see you in here, only able to make it from the bed to the rocking chair.” It was as close as he had ever come to pity.
“I miss not being able to fix meals,” she said.
Shane did not know what to say to that. He studied her when she was not watching him. She was noticeably wan.
“I wonder if I should have insisted to the doctor that we come in the bush. You would have been more comfortable in Montreal,” he said.
He was upset at himself the moment the words were out of his mouth; he could well see himself sliding into lugubriousness — the only thing they did not need at the moment.
�
��We did the right thing when we came here,” Theresa said. Even her voice did not have the vitality it always had.
“I thought the cold would be fun,” he said, “but that’s not what you need.”
She looked at him, apparently too tired to answer, and with a look that suggested she hoped he would discontinue such talk.
“Would you mind if I went off by myself for two or three days?”
Theresa was lying on top of the bedclothes as she often did now, propped up against a pillow and reading a book. She always gave the impression of enjoying long periods of reading, but Shane knew that it was only a kind of waiting.
She gave a big sigh of relief and smiled thankfully.
“So you feel it too,” Shane said.
“I’m afraid so,” she admitted. “We’re becoming bushwhacky sitting here all the time with nothing to do but think. I thought of suggesting you go into Casey for a few days, but I didn’t know how you’d take it. We need a little relief.”
“Would you be alright?”
“Of course. I’ll help you get your things ready.”
But he was more concerned that she be well. He tried to think of everything. If she were well, she would have no trouble going outside to the woodpile. But not to take any chances, he piled five days’ supply of wood and kindling inside the cabin a few feet from the stove. He placed matches at several places in the cabin so she couldn’t lose them. He checked all the food to make sure there was enough. He brought in three large pails of drinking water from the lake so she would have enough in case of emergency. “And here’s the potty pail,” he said, placing another pail not far from the bed.
He put extra books by the side of the bed for her. And he put two more blankets on the bed in case she was not, for any reason, able to make a fire.
The rest of the day Shane spent preparing his own things to leave, the following morning. Theresa was right behind him with questions.
“Have you got enough food?” she asked, and Shane laughed that she was showing the same close attention to his welfare that he had shown to hers.
“I’m taking just barely enough for three days. I don’t want to be weighted down.”
“What happens if you break a leg and have to stay out longer?”
“That’s not likely. It’s more likely that I get homesick or cold after one night on the trail and decide to come back after two days.”
“Remember what Patrick said about being careful.”
II
Next morning he had his axe, snowshoes, and other gear ready at the door. Theresa had awakened early to make him breakfast. A topographical map was spread out on the table.
“I think I’ll head up to Pointe à l’Indienne on Lac Kinonje, then circle around to this little lake here and back home.” He pointed to a small lake three or four miles from the larger Lac Kinonje. “That’s fifty miles round trip, maybe less.”
“Isn’t that a little far for three days?”
“If it is, I’ll know by tomorrow morning and head back.”
He kissed her and went outside to put his snowshoes on in front of the cabin. Theresa was shivering at the door of the cabin, shouting after him, “Be careful!”
He felt as though he had flown to Lac Kinonje. It was twenty miles but easy going once he had spotted a game trail that followed a large river. He walked easily along the trail. The snowshoes on the deep snow kept him well above the underbrush, brush that he would have to trudge through at any other time of the year. It felt good to be out in the woods.
In between brisk stints walking on the trail, he stopped to eat a little and to drink from the occasional hole through the ice of a fast-running stream. The water was so cold that he could only sip it. At noon he made a fire.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, much to his surprise, Shane came to the very broad Lac Kinonje. He made his fireplace against the flat side of a high rock so that heat would be reflected. It was already starting to become dusk. He had hoped to make his little three-day jaunt a bit of a challenge, but so far it had been easy, and he was a little disappointed. Not that he wanted to make trouble.
That night he laid his sleeping bag on spruce boughs near a fire and kept the fire going by feeding long dead-spruce poles into it at two-hour intervals, waking through the night to do so.
The next morning, he made a breakfast of side pork and some bannock that Theresa had made for him. A chipmunk and two chickadees came around to see if he would share. He threw some bannock crumbs on the snow for the chickadees. They cried, “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee! Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!” in excitement. To the chipmunk, he tossed little bits of fat from the side pork. The chipmunk gave feverish little smacking sounds as if to say, “What good friends we could become!”
After breakfast, he pointed toward the small lake three miles distant, which was his turnaround to go south again. He thought that if he had felt like going fast, he could easily have made it back to Theresa that day. He thought about her all the time. He’d spend some time camped at the lake and make an easy, fifteen-mile trek home tomorrow.
He had to go cross-country to the little lake, so for the first time on his trip he took his topographical map and compass out and held them in his hand. The branches were thicker here than they had been for him before. He had to use his axe.
He went up and down hills and across small, frozen creeks trying to make a straight line between Pointe à l’Indienne and the small lake. It made him a little nervous. Thinking back, it was actually the first time he had gone cross-country, relying on his skills of navigation, such as they were, and eschewing logging roads and rivers as guiding points.
Shane thought he was nearing the small lake — it had only been three miles away — and was looking forward to making very early camp and exploring the lake a little when he came down from a hill and saw a very broad stream in the next valley.
The creek was frozen over, but he knew by its width that it was probably fairly deep and would not have frozen solid — certainly not this early in the season. He viewed the crossing with trepidation. As a boy he had crossed frozen lakes and streams without hesitation. But the old people had made him very wary of walking on ice. Don’t trust lake ice when there is heavy snow on it, they said. The snow covering may have kept it from freezing solid. One had to be very careful of river ice, they said.
A glance in both directions along the bank told Shane he’d be unlikely to find a better crossing elsewhere on the broad stream. He cut a twelve-foot maple pole to use in case he fell through the ice. And he did something the old people had always told him to do: he loosened the bindings of his snowshoes. If a man ever accidentally passed through the ice, the worst thing he could have on his feet was snowshoes, they said, because there was no way he could rise out of the water with them on.
Shane tucked his axe tightly in his pack. He loosened the snowshoe bindings and grabbed the maple pole in his right hand.
He walked slowly out on the ice, the other bank fixed in his attention. Slightly comforting was the fact that the snowshoes would distribute his weight over the ice in the same way they had over the powdery snow.
With small steps, sliding and not lifting the snowshoes, he edged away from the near bank. He heard the water flowing swiftly past under the ice, but it gave no clue as to the ice’s thickness.
He slowed his already slow pace. The ice cracked. He stopped. He looked a little to the left and a little to the right, hoping that off to one side or the other the ice might be thicker. He inched slowly away from the spot and the ice cracked again. He tried to move his snowshoes a little backward and the ice cracked again. He would not be able to retreat. He held his breath. There was no way of telling the thickness or strength of the ice through the snow cover.
He took two small, sliding steps. There was no noise. Then, with a sharp crack and great splash, the ice gave way. His first thought was not his situation but Theresa’s. The instant horror of the predicament was reduced to one thought: Would he see her again?
>
As Shane was pitched down into the cold, swiftly running water, his pack with its tumpline slipped from his forehead and fell into the water. Reacting to the surprise, he dropped the map and compass from his left hand and the maple pole from his right hand. Of all these, he retrieved the pole first, grabbing it tightly again before it hit the water.
Although the water was moving swiftly, it did not draw Shane downstream because his falling through the ice had left a hole; the maple pole bridged the hole, and he held on to it for his life. His pack, still floating, was an arm’s length away, bucking against the ice. Shane grabbed the tumpline and put it again around his forehead. The map and compass were lost. Not yet experiencing the full chill of the water, he pulled mightily on the pole. He couldn’t lift himself six inches. At first, he thought of removing the awkward pack from his forehead and back. But then he realized that it was not the real problem. The snowshoes were a powerful drag on his legs. He knew he’d die of exposure minutes after the cold water penetrated his clothing. He tried again, desperately, to lift himself, and even with all the strength he could muster, he was able to lift himself only a foot.
He remembered that he had loosened the snowshoe bindings and began to shake them off. Then he stopped. He might lose them. But the alternative was to lose his life. Then he thought that perhaps they’d float around in the hole in the ice as his pack had, and he’d be able to retrieve them. So he shook hard, first the right one and then the left, while holding tightly on to the pole with both hands. Both snowshoes came off with little trouble. But they both stayed under water long enough for the current to carry them under the ice.
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