Yet now, all is quiet. The ships have not come. What is happening in the world that so much he has trusted is in danger of slipping away?
“I don’t know what to say, sir.”
“Listen, son, if I didn’t think it was possible I wouldn’t put this on you. You’re young, but you’re capable. It’s a test, all right, but we all have to endure. The Company might not last another year. The ships might have foundered. You might lead the colonists to ruin. I don’t need to tell you that life is lived on the edge of death and disaster, but we do the best we can. I have my crosses, and I’m giving you yours. God help us all.”
Chapter Three
The Indians silently approach the survivors on the beach. As the Europeans become aware of the strangers, they stumble away. The tallest of the newcomers approaches Lachlan. His shadowed eyes travel over the Orkneyman and glance at the burning wreck. The cries for help are dying away; the flames still growing. The Indian gestures to Lachlan and turns away.
Lachlan grabs the officer sitting on the beach, and hauls him to his feet.
“I think they mean for us to follow them. Quickly, man, there is not a moment to lose.”
“What? Oh, yes …” says the officer, seeing the departing Indians for the first time. “Come along everyone, we must follow the Savages. Smartly now!”
One by one, the colonists fall into line. Moans and soft cries can still be heard. A dark line of them forms off the beach; not all who leave the water’s edge make it as far as the tree line before collapsing. A few hold back in fear, but, after the flames find the ship’s magazine, the Intrepid explodes with a great detonation, the icy water of the Bay instantly rushing in and consuming the hulk. A great hiss goes up, followed by roiling clouds of steam.
Absolute darkness and the silence of the dead chase the last stragglers from the beach, following as best they can, stumbling over the occasional body in the darkness.
The Indians had not waited, and, almost as soon as the Europeans enter the forest, they become lost in the tangled, scrubby trees. They stand together crying for help in God’s name, when they find the Indians amongst them again, eyeing them like mouse shit found in the pemmican.
Rose clings to her father as they stumble over half-seen bushes and branches in the dark, snow dusting them. Her awareness has diminished to a small, shrinking core.
The path to the Indian’s camp is mercifully short, and soon they come upon a collection of five conical tents of hide stretched over poles; a pale yellow they glow, a weird and unearthly light flickering like a will-o-the-wisp. Dogs bark and flaps are thrown open as they approach.
The widowed women commandeer a tipi for themselves and the orphaned children. Once inside they sprawl about, several almost naked. The tipi is too small, and those with the strength sit leaning against each other. A few sobs for those who died, and more for those who survived.
Indian women bring in armloads of wood and throw them on the fire. Sparks and a smoky haze, miasma of wet wool, and the sour spice of filthy, lousy bodies engulfs the tipi. The temperature soars. They sit in a huddle separate from the Europeans, and a sheen of sweat appears on their dark faces. They set a copper pot to boiling and toss in a handful of small, hairy leaves. One of them fills tin cups and carries the tea to the survivors. Perhaps a dozen are capable of responding.
She brings Rose a cup, and, propping up her head, holds it to her lips. The scent is earthy and fragrant, but the taste bitter. She softly speaks words that Rose cannot understand, but there is no mistaking the tenderness in the woman’s voice. She chews several of the tea leaves and places them as a damp poultice on Rose’s cut hands. Rose smiles at the touch and looks into the kind woman’s face. The Indian returns her smile, her brown fingertips tracing with wonder along Rose’s white arm. She wraps the cuts in soft cloth.
Another presents Rose with a ribbon of dried meat from a skin bag. While she had never really believed all the ghoulish stories she has heard about these people — stories of infant sacrifice and cannibalism — when confronted by this piece of anonymous flesh, Rose thanks her, and surreptitiously pushes it out under the edge of the tent where it is wolfed down by one of the dogs.
The Indians give them a few blankets and robes in which to wrap themselves, and those who are able, turn away from each other and pull off their sodden clothes. The Indians watch with wide eyes.
“I’ll take a cane to your eyes, any o’ thee that look upon me,” says an old woman in a voice high and weak, her thin jaw quivering. “’Tis not Christian to be seen like this, not afore the heathen.” She pulls off her rags, revealing pale, sagging buttocks covered in veins and blue blotches. The Indians attempt to suppress their giggles as they chatter to each other in their own language.
“Look at the udders on her; like a nursing buffalo.”
“They are so pale, like a pike’s belly.”
“Pike with hair, you mean; see the thatch on the old one!”
The wind rattles the stiff hides against the poles, and Rose feels a cold draft wrap around her legs like a snake. There are nowhere near enough furs for all the Europeans and they are forced to share; chilled, naked bodies press against one another in great embarrassment.
Pushed to the edge of a robe, the skinny feet and legs of an emaciated and filthy girl stick out. Rose opens her blanket and the child mechanically slides over. Pressing her cold, knobby frame against Rose, she immediately falls asleep.
Rose too needs to sleep, and wishes her father is with her. She curls up on the bed of prickly conifer boughs and wraps her arms around the child, surprised at how cold and hard she is: utterly without animal warmth, like a tree root. A flea bites her, and mechanically she scratches at the place. She wonders where they are and whether it is near the end of their journeying. Her father said something about Red River. Perhaps this is the same place.
When she closes her eyes, scenes from that night’s horror intrude: screams of the dying, wooden feel of corpses that they pushed past on the trail. The smell of the burning frigate. She clenches her teeth, squeezing her eyes against the tears. Her body shakes.
Beside her, the Indians stare into their snapping fire while Vega glimmers down through the smokehole. Out in the forest, a nighthawk chuurs and Rose thinks she hears a wolf howl, but it might be a dream.
The next morning dawns cloudy and grey, the light in the Indian’s tipi broadening in the dull morning. The child beside Rose is stiff and cold. Rose had cried many tears in the long night, and, looking at the girl, all she feels is an empty sorrow. She pushes the matted hair aside and closes the eyes, muttering a brief prayer.
The air in the tipi is thick with smoke and the low-tide smell of the colonists. Rose vaguely wishes she still had the perfumed handkerchief she had often pressed against her nose while aboard the close, foul ship.
She sees one of the Indian women nursing an infant. They are comely enough, she decides, despite their bizarre colouration. High cheekbones, small, flat noses, and full lips. Black hair rolled up on either sides of their heads, held in place by a strip of leather and a bone pin. White paint and red ochre cover their arms, and white woollen blankets ringed with twin indigo stripes serve as coats. Soft leggings of skin, decorated with beadwork in colourful patterns. Their feet are dressed in slippers of a similar material, likewise decorated. They are very exotic, Rose decides.
“We be forsaken,” moans an Orkneywoman from beneath a heavy fur robe. Limp hair hangs in her swollen red face. She jostles her huddled neighbors. “The heathen be eatin’ us for certain.”
The nursing woman gives her