No Safe Anchorage

by Liz Macrae Shaw

  “Try Widow MacKenzie,” he was told by a passerby. Surely it couldn’t be the same person? Tom squeezed through the door of a small shop stuffed full with barrels of dried goods, heaped-up tools and sacks of seed. The owner bustled in as the doorbell jangled. It wasn’t her of course, but a short, round woman with busy eyes. Her voice was different too. Just a few tatters left of a Scottish accent. Tom breathed again.

  “Aye, I’ve a small room upstairs that would do you and the lad. There’s my husband’s old workshop you could have too, if you give it a lick of paint. You’d take your meals with us, all included.”

  Tom nodded. It would do for the time being. He gave the smaller bags to Iain and heaved his trunk up the ladder to the first floor. Mrs. MacKenzie hovered in the doorway of the clean but bare bedroom until he said he needed to rest. Even then he had to almost push her out. The evening meal was a big bowl of fish stew. He and Iain fell on it, famished after their weeks of mouldering oatcakes and salted meat.

  “Here’s my family. Eliza’s just had her twentieth birthday. Helen’s my youngest,” Mrs. MacKenzie presented them as if they were part of the menu. “And Rab, of course, my firstborn. I’ve had to be both mother and father to them since their papa died,” she sniffed. “I never expected life would be so hard in a new country. Still the girls will have an easier time of it when they get married.”

  Her eyes stopped their constant flickering and fixed on Tom’s face. Eliza simpered while her sister blushed and their brother grunted. Oh dear, she’s as bad as Mrs. Bennett, determined to marry them off, Tom thought. Both of them are penny plain too, with their broad hips and moon faces, younger versions of their mother. Rab though was a sturdy lad, with a firm jaw. Maybe he took after his father. Tom envied Iain whose youth and lack of English meant that he could concentrate on eating his way through the tasty food without having to talk. Tom meanwhile faced a fusillade of questions at that meal and every time afterward when he ventured downstairs.

  “I hear tell that you saved the lives of everyone on board,” she announced the next morning at breakfast, nodding in excitement so that her double chin jiggled.

  “That’s not true at all,” Tom replied, keeping his voice light.

  She tapped the side of her nose. “Surely you know you can’t keep any secrets here, just like back home. I heard you were a hero.” She surveyed his long frame, sitting stiff and uneasy. “A brave sailor, they said.”

  Tom munched on his bacon while he ransacked his memory for the stories the captain used to tell about his early life. If only I had listened to his ramblings, he thought. I need to borrow them now.

  “No, not a proper sailor although I was raised near the sea. I learned about boats from an old fisherman when I was a boy. But I never went to sea to earn my living. I was a shipping clerk in Liverpool.”

  She kept nodding but her smile slipped a little. “What will you do in Canada?”

  “Buy a farm but that’s not all. I’ve brought something very novel with me. I’ll show you.”

  They waited until he came back with a wooden box. Mother and daughters gawped at him while he unstrapped it.

  “Have you seen one of these before? I brought it across the Atlantic, the finest camera I could buy. Photography is all the rage now.”

  They all ooed and ahhed in a satisfactory way.

  “I’m sure your camera is very fashionable but I’d prefer a proper portrait. Would you draw a likeness of me?” Eliza pouted.

  Tom smiled tightly, thinking that she was barely worth the effort of a photograph, let alone a portrait. He would prefer to paint Rab’s rugged features.

  “I would be honored to do so, but my first task is to buy some land,” he said.

  “Aye. You’ll need to be settled before the winter,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “You’ve never seen a Canadian winter? It’s colder than you would ever believe.”

  “Iain can give me a hand. And maybe you would like to earn some money helping me?” Tom asked Rab.

  The young man shrugged. “There’s not much left now. All the good land’s been taken. If folk sell up, it’s to people they know.”

  Was that a hint of malice in his eyes? Tom squared his shoulders. “We’ll have to see what we can find.”

  So he hired a horse, swung Iain up onto the saddle in front of him and set off to explore the countryside. He asked advice from everyone they met and found to his surprise that the boy was very useful. Now that he was clean and well fed, the urchin had become a handsome lad with delicate features and wistful eyes. He charmed people, especially middle-aged women. His hesitant English only increased his appeal. So he smoothed the way for Tom, translating the Gaelic spoken by people outside the town and making Tom seem less of an outsider. But after two weeks of riding out in ever wider circles, they had found no land for sale. One evening, sweating, saddle sore and scourged by mosquitoes they were riding along the northern shore of Bras d’Or Lake, near the settlement of Wagamatcook. Dispirited they stumbled off the horse’s back and set about making a camp on the shore.

  “I’m sure our luck will turn,” Tom said, trying to cheer himself up as well as Iain. “Look at this lovely sea loch here and the hills on the other shore. Not so different from home.”

  “I don’t like those dark woods behind us.” Iain pointed at the ranks of birch, maple, and larch. “Who knows what beasts are hiding there?”

  When they rose the next day, Tom affected a heartiness he didn’t feel as he heated up some porridge on the still glowing campfire. “Well at least no bears came to eat us in the night. There is another living creature though. Isn’t that a man I can see coming this way, with a fishing rod?” Tom greeted the stranger as he drew closer and with Iain’s help asked his usual questions about farms for sale. To his astonishment Mr. MacLelland gave a wary nod of his head, shouldered his rod, and led them to his farm. Iain talked to him with more excitement than he had ever shown before. Tom couldn’t follow much of their quick-fire Gaelic; so he concentrated on inspecting the farm. Most of it was pasture with healthy looking beasts and hay meadows. A patch of the original forest remained alongside a fast-flowing stream and there was an orchard of apple trees and sugar maples. Seventy acres altogether, with a solid one and a half story house of squared logs. After their tour Mr. MacLelland, a hardy-looking man in his sixties tapped Tom on the chest. “I’m willing to sell to you,” he said, in careful English. Both men turned to Iain for him to translate in detail.

  “Why has he agreed to sell to a stranger?”

  The boy’s face was solemn. “I told him you’re a good man, a hero for saving the ship and a saint for adopting me.” He paused and grinned. “That’s only a wee bit of the reason. His parents are from Skye, like mine, and he would prefer his farm went to a sgitheanach and a sasannach rather than some odd fellow from Lewis or Barra. His second cousin would like to buy it, but he’s a miser and a drunkard who won’t offer a fair price.”

  “Ah, I see. And what would Mr. MacLelland call a fair price?”

  “The cousin offered £150, but it’s worth £200.”

  “Hmm.” Tom suspected he was being tricked. £200 was a great deal of money and it would use up most of what Mr. Armstrong had given him to start his new life. But what choice did he have? He had to escape from living with the MacKenzies even if he still rented a studio from them. The farm would mean he and Iain wouldn’t starve. The boy was more animated than he had ever seen him, his eyes pleading for Tom to agree. But then he was a Gael, rooted to the land. This land might be in another country, but Iain wanted to burrow down deep into its red soil.

  “£200 it is,” he said, shaking Mr. MacLelland’s hand.

  Chapter 29

  Cape Breton Island, Summer 1862

  So Tom left his photographic equipment in Sydney and became a farmer. The rush was on to get everything ready before the winter set in. Hay to be cut, potatoes lifted, oats and apples harvested. Rab came to help with cutting down trees and preparing logs. Tom drew quick sketches of
him, trying to capture his supple strength as he wielded an axe or poured a pitcher of water over himself to cool down.

  “Waste of time,” Rab growled when Tom showed them to him. “Go draw the girls.”

  At this time of year neighbors helped each other with getting harvests in, repairing roofs or lending a horse. Tom went to local farms to help with Iain to translate although Tom’s understanding of the Gaelic language was improving. The farmers were hospitable and courteous, if a little reserved. So after a dram or two had been drunk in the evening, he took out the crumpled drawing he still kept in his pocket. They humored him as he passed it round, turning it this way and that, with a scratch of the head. Then came the teasing.

  “She’s a redhead, you say? Well that makes her a rare beast among hundreds of others.”

  “You don’t know her name? Or if she left home at all? She could be in Australia, hopping along with the kangaroos.”

  “Or a grumpy wifey with a clutch of children.”

  He noticed how Iain cringed each time the paper appeared and Tom himself began to feel foolish. So after a few weeks, he stowed the drawing away in a cupboard.

  Then one sunny evening when he was out on the lake and watching the sun dip behind the sentinel trees it came to him that he was enjoying life more than he had for years. One of his greatest pleasures was paddling this old birch bark canoe Mr. MacLelland had left behind. After a few tumbles into the water, Tom had learnt how to steer while balancing on his knees. He had thought he had lost his interest in boats of all kinds but the canoe, like a coracle, was light enough to be carried on head and shoulders. Agile as a salmon in the water and so easy to maintain. Any damage could be repaired with a piece of rolled-up bark from a paper birch tree made watertight with twine from spruce roots and a splash of resin. The first time he watched someone do such a repair he thought how the bark could also be used as a parchment and wondered if the local Indians had ever used the material for drawing maps. Probably they had no need to do so, for like Highlanders they would store every feature of their surroundings in their minds. Every contour of the land, each rock and tree would be familiar, tattooed in their memories.

  He had heard accounts of the native tribes of the Americas with their outlandish dress and fierce habits but never seen any of them. A faint memory arose from his childhood of visiting a fair at the Abbey Fields in Kenilworth although surely not with his father who disapproved of such places. There were tall, glossy skinned Zulus and some paler tribesmen with intricate patterns on their faces although he couldn’t say where they came from. They had an exotic air but were shrunken in captivity, caged lions with drooping heads.

  The memory aroused his curiosity about the native people of Cape Breton. He asked the neighbors who responded with varying degrees of incredulity.

  “Savages,” said Simon MacDonald, as he paused in filling his pipe with tobacco. “There’s a few still hanging on up in the hills. An idle lot with no idea about farming.” He spat into the fire.

  Simon’s aged mother had been dozing in her chair but suddenly she opened her eyes wide. “They’re no savages. Papists maybe, but that was the fault of the French missionaries. When I came here as a wee girl, we would have died in the first winter if the Indians hadn’t helped us. They brought us game. Showed us how to make snowshoes. Mi’kmaqs they’re called, Macs like us. You know they call their shoes moccasins? That’s from mo chasan, ‘my feet’.”

  Her son snorted and spat into the fire again, making the flames hiss.

  There was only one drawback to his new existence: the MacKenzie girls. They invited themselves for a visit, their cart brimming with hampers and their mouths spilling gossip. Tom was pleased to see Betsy the mare, with her soft snickering mouth and rounded belly, but the same features on the young women were not so appealing. How he wished he could quiet their chatter with the gift of an apple for them to chomp on.

  The greatest surprise was the change that came over Iain during the summer. Once scrawny and timid, he had turned into a different boy. As if the stolen child had returned to replace the sickly changeling. Stunted before, he sprouted skyward now he was rooted in more fertile soil. Strong and athletic, it was clear that he was older than Tom had thought, fourteen years at least and rapidly becoming a man. He had become fluent in English and with Tom’s help soon learnt to read and write. The lad was useful, too. He could set snares to trap squirrel and possum for the pot, catch trout and chub from the river, as well as plant oats and potatoes. Outdoor work had calmed and strengthened Tom, too. He awoke each morning, relishing the day ahead. He was still at a loss though when it came to fending off Eliza and Helen. He tried staying taciturn when they came, but that only served to pique their interest in the moody, mysterious Englishman.

  Although he was bone weary, Tom couldn’t always sleep well in the midsummer nights that scarcely darkened. One night he woke abruptly, feeling uneasy. He lit a lamp and took down the rifle from the wall before walking to the door and listening hard. Was there something outside? A bear, crazed with the need to load its stomach before hibernating? Hearing nothing more he tiptoed over to Iain’s bed to see if he was awake. All was silent, too silent. There were no sounds of breathing. Tom swept the beam of light over the bedclothes and saw that the bed was empty. Heart pounding in his ears, Tom searched the rest of the cabin. Ian’s coat and boots were gone too. Had he run away? But why? He had seemed happy enough. Murky fears darkened Tom’s mind as he got ready to go into Sydney. If only he had a horse, but he had been unwilling to buy a beast with his shrinking savings. He debated whether to take the gun but then put it back. If things turned nasty, he would have to bluff his way through. The partial light made the forest threatening. The ranks of red spruce brooded, the strange furrows on their grayish pink trunks so different from any European tree. There were rustlings and scrapings beneath the thickets of maple and dogwood on the shore as he paddled along the lake. Foreboding drove him onward, through the woods, past the humped shapes of cabins and barns toward the sleeping town. There was no sign of wakefulness except for a few wavering lights gleaming down at the harbor. One after another he pushed open the doors of the drinking dens and scanned the faces within. Some shouted at him, others squinted blearily or slumped dead eyed but there was no Iain among them. Tom’s desperation was in full flight now. Had the boy been lured onto one of the boats? If so, he would never be seen again except as a bloated corpse snagged in a fishing net.

  He stopped in the empty alleyway, trying to slow his breathing. As he did so, he heard a murmuring. He stumbled toward the noise that seemed to be coming from inside a timber shack near the shore, even more ramshackle than the other ones. There was a sliver of light beneath the door. He nudged it open. Inside was a group of people, of both sexes and all ages, swaying together as they hummed. Above them soared the strains of a pure tenor voice. Tom gasped and pushed his way into the crowd. There in the center, standing on a stool, was Iain singing, his eyes half-closed in concentration.

  “What are you doing?”

  Iain’s voice faltered and the bemused audience gaped at Tom. He seized the boy by the arm, dragging him outside.

  “How dare you run away? When I think of all I’ve done for you.”

  “How could I ever forget? The big man taking in the stinking beggar boy.”

  “Have you gone back to selling your body? Old habits die h—”

  Tom’s words were throttled, as tough fingers crushed his neck. It took all his strength to pry them off. They stood glaring at each other, Tom rubbing his neck and Iain groping in his jacket pocket. He held out a fistful of coins.

  “Aye, I earned money right enough. For singing, singing to homesick people. Some of them came over with us. You wouldn’t know them. Far beneath you.” He trickled the coins through his fingers, letting them drop to the ground. “That’s for my keep.” He turned on his heel.

  “You’ve more than earned your keep. Come back home.”

  Iain stopped and Tom waited. F
inally, the boy nodded and they trudged back home together. For a long time neither said a word, until Iain blurted out, “You talk about me running away but it’s you who’s hiding secrets. What are you running away from?”

  Tom was silent, thinking how the two of them had become fellow travelers, much against his will. What was Iain to him now? An adopted son? The nearest he had to any sort of family. Someone who deserved the truth. So as they walked he told the boy his story in a simple way, not wanting to load him with too much adult cargo. He explained how grief over his mother’s death had made him go to sea and how he was drawn to survey work. He skimmed over the details of Richard’s suicide, but he was honest about why he jumped ship, lingering over his later adventures to entertain the boy. Iain listened without interrupting and stayed silent when Tom had finished.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you’ve not done anything really terrible, like killing someone.” Then he added, with an edge of anxiety in his voice,” Will you be safe here?”

  “I’m sure I will be,” Tom replied with more confidence than he felt. “But we must always guard our tongues.”

  “Especially with the Ugly Sisters”

  “Now that’s no way to talk about the Misses MacKenzie.” Tom tried to sound stern, but his laughter bubbled through. “You don’t want anything to do with ladies?”

  “No, that’s not true. It’s only ill-favored ones I avoid. I would dearly love to see the girl whose picture I keep.”

  Iain shivered, “She sounds like a fairy woman or a vision from another world.”

  “No. Flesh and blood.”

  “But she’s gone for good. You need to find someone else. Then the MacKenzies would leave you alone.”

  “If only it was so easy.”

  Once they were back inside the cabin, Tom took off his coat. As he hung it up he heard a crackling in the pocket. Reaching inside he found the letter he had been composing on the ship and had never finished. Pricked by guilt he resolved to finish it after he had slept. The next morning he smoothed it out and started to write.