“Aye,” Alexander replies, not bothering to remove his hat. “You wanted to see me?”
“I asked for you over an hour ago, McClure. You seem to think that Company time is yours to piss away as you see fit.”
“Get to the point, man.”
“The point is that you have been living beyond your means, living off the Company’s good graces, in fact.”
Alexander crosses his arms and says nothing. Spencer’s colour rises. Sucking in his breath, he twitches a ledger sheet across the desk.
“What do you say to that?”
Alexander doesn’t bother looking at the paper, but continues to stare at the chief trader.
“I’ll tell you what it says, you illiterate bugger,” Spencer shouts. “You delivered a bundle of made beaver, or so you told my ass of a clerk. But there were no more than a dozen pelts worthy of the name and the rest is flyblown shit.”
“Is that so?” Alexander says, cocking an eyebrow. “I could have sworn …”
“And you helped yourself to several pounds’ worth of trade liquor, bought on what is now shown to be almost worthless credit!”
Alexander shrugs. “I will pay with next season’s furs.”
“Not good enough, McClure. I have shown this to the factor, and he wants to talk to you.”
“Eh?”
Spencer leans back in his chair and smiles up at the trader in front of him. “Yes. You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Half-caste. When Himself is finished with you, your balls will be flying from the Company’s flagpole.
“You’re a prick, Spencer.” Alexander says. Furious that shooting the chief trader is not a recommendable option, he strides over and kicks the desk. It careens back, sending the man crashing against the wall.
“McClure!” The factor has entered the room. He is a large man, with florid cheeks and sunken eyes carrying heavy bags. Although a gentleman, he gives the impression of having spent a great deal of time brawling in taverns. His habitual cravat, neatly pressed frock coat, and tailored trousers seem incongruous at York Fort. He is the most powerful man on the frontier — more powerful than a governor — and accountable only to the board of the Company of Adventurers in London. “Get up, you fool,” he says to Spencer, still tangled in his chair and scrabbling on the floor. “McClure, you come with me.”
Without a word, Alexander follows the factor out of the flanker. It is warm on the ramparts and fat blue bottles gather, lifting and buzzing and settling again on the sharpened posts of the palisade wall. They swirl about each other as if driven by unseen cyclones. A hum fills the air.
They walk slowly, the factor pausing occasionally, looking out over the walls into the distance. Time and again, he looks southward toward the roadstead, to the Hayes River scalloped by wind. In all other directions, the landscape is scabby swamp brush, a featureless black-green stretching to hazy distance. To the far west, Hudson’s Bay is barely visible, a silver herring on the edge of sight.
There are no ships at anchor, but they are due. Every year they arrive with the season, to take back furs to England and deliver trade stuff, equipment, and supplies. It had been that way since he was a boy, and even wars, local and distant, did not stop the trade. At the first sight of masts, he and his friends used to run to the cannon to wait the salute; the factor’s secretary came from the fort, and when the ship at last dropped anchor, the gun was touched off and the children running away squealing. A long time ago.
“I don’t need these kinds of petty annoyances, McClure,” the factor says, startling Alexander out of his memory. He searches the young man’s face and turns away. “You look a lot like your father,” he says. “No, don’t thank me! You’re not even a shadow of him. That man was as strong as bull and yet as honest as the day. He was a great friend of mine.”
“He spoke often of you, sir.”
The factor grunts in reply and mops his forehead with a greasy kerchief. “But nothing stays the same. Not for him, not for me, not even for you. You aren’t your father, but you will have to do. Do you know what’s out there, McClure?”
“No, sir.”
“Nothing less than the fate of the Company. The Nor’westers have us by the throat. There are three ships overdue and if they are lost, I fear the Company of Adventurers is bankrupt. But it’s more than that. Do you know what one of those ships is carrying?” McClure shakes his head. “Colonists. More of those goddamned colonists that we have had to deal with these last seasons. Starving, desperate, ignorant Highlanders shipped here by Lord Selkirk for his fucking colony. They should be transported to Van Diemen’s Land, but the Lords will not listen. And so they have become my problem.”
Alexander knows about the colonists. For the last two years, boatloads of desperate peasants fleeing the Highland Clearances had arrived unbidden on the shores of Hudson’s Bay. Last year’s lot had been mistakenly delivered to Fort Churchill, which could not possibly accommodate them, and they were forced to make a starvation trek south to York Fort. Their arrival was not cheered, and, as soon as possible, they were sent on their way to Selkirk’s new colony at Fort Douglas, deep in the heart of Indian, Métis, and Nor’wester territory.
Although unbidden and despised wherever they went, Alexander had to hand it to them: they were one hell of a tough lot. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be sorry for me, McClure. Because I am making them your problem.”
“I don’t understand?”
“I will not countenance their staying a day longer than absolute necessity at York Fort. Once they arrive — if they arrive, God help us — you will immediately guide them to Fort Douglas. The very next day, in fact. Take what supplies and men you think you need, but I will want them gone, y’hear me? When that cannon over there fires, that’s your signal to pack.”
“But, sir, I was hoping …”
“I don’t care what you were hoping for, McClure.”
“I’ve never guided a brigade before. And I don’t know how to deal with Scottish peasants. No one can understand their chatter, their tongue.”
“Then you will learn how. I’m not giving you a choice, man, your father’s son or no, you will do this for me. Or you will never again set foot in York Factory or any other Company post for the rest of your days.”
Alexander begins to sweat. While he can easily trade with the Nor’westers if he chooses, he holds a superstitious awe of the London-based company and feels almost a filial duty to her. Exile from York Factory would be to lose his only contact with his dead father’s world.
But to guide a brigade of foreigners! He knows the route between York Fort and Fort Douglas better than most, but has been content to travel as part of a brigade lead by others, limiting his role to trading furs and manning the sweeps. This is something else entirely.
The fort below them is subdued, too quiet for the time of year. In that the Factor is truthful — nothing will be right until the field pieces by the river are let off in honour of the ship’s arrival. It was a cause for celebration, with feasting and heavy drinking following the emptying of the ships. As a boy, he frequently took advantage of the drunken adults, lifting their purses or other personal effects to trade for sweets. Once at twelve years of age, he had stolen a trader’s pistol, but when the man awoke, he accused someone from another brigade of the thievery. A deadly fight was in the making, forcing a terrified Alexander to confess his guilt to his father, who hauled him before the furious trader. The man was shaggy and dark, bristling with weapons, and he whipped Alexander’s behind and legs with a sharp willow until it broke, while Alexander’s Indian friends laughed at him. He ran off in shame and did not return