CHAPTER 14
The bushes parted slowly and out stepped two young women dressed in buckskin trousers and tunics beaded with intricate designs around the necks and sleeves. When they caught sight of the men, they immediately halted and their eyes dropped to the muskets pointed at them. They stood helplessly awaiting their fate.
When Thompson called out to them, the girls looked up, their faces filled with delight. Running closer, they chattered as they did so, and Peter was certain he heard one speak the explorer’s name. Boulard verified this by whispering, “They remember David when he traded in their village. They are Salish.”
Thompson turned and repeated Boulard’s comment. “They’re Salish. They’ll lead us to their camp.”
The camp was a village of about forty tents and home to the chief of all the Salish. He, as well as the rest of his people, was plainly pleased to have Thompson and his companions as guests. Soon the entire group was seated in a wide circle around a fire with the chief and elders of the tribe. Food seemed to come from everywhere, and after the steady diet of deer and moose meat, the plentiful meal of steelhead trout and camas root was very welcome. Peter’s wooden bowl was refilled twice before he put it down. Beside him Côté poked him with an elbow. Nodding in the direction of Thompson and the chief, he said, “Our mapmaker does not eat — only talk, talk, talk. He frowns many times, and you will notice the chief does not look so happy, as well. Perhaps we are not so welcome as we thought.”
Clearly, Boulard had overheard, for he leaned forward to peer around the hatchet-faced young warrior beside him and said, “I have travelled here with Monsieur Thompson before and also understand the language of these people. We are welcome. The chief is not happy and Monsieur Thompson frowns because the Peigans have been raiding villages on this side of the mountains. Because of the Peigans, Monsieur Finan McDonald was forced to leave Kootenay House.”
Peter grew increasingly uneasy. In order not to run into the Peigans, they had struggled along the Athabasca and again upstream on what Thompson now thought was the Columbia. But after all that would they be troubled by the Peigans now? He waited impatiently for the food to be taken away and the pipe to be passed around the circle so he could learn more from Thompson, but the pipe kept moving from man to man and the talking didn’t stop.
A thin sliver of moon was high above the trees by the time Peter heard the mapmaker’s footsteps approaching. The brigade had walked far that day, and Peter had finally given in to the fatigue that had plagued him ever since his stomach had been filled. After he put up the tent he shared with Boulard, he had dropped onto his blankets with Dog at his feet, but Boulard had waited outside. Waking from a nap, Peter heard the two men talking.
“We won’t find Finan McDonald at Salish House, either,” Thompson said. “He’s been threatened by the Peigans there, as well. One of the free traders told the Salish that Finan has moved his trade goods to the post on Little Spokane River.
“This is the one you sent Jaco Finlay to build three years past, is it not?” Boulard asked.
Thompson must have nodded, for Peter heard, “Let’s hope if this isn’t true that Finan left some word at Salish House before he abandoned it. It will soon be impossible to supply posts that move about willy-nilly.”
“Let us also hope they did not burn Salish House,” Boulard said.
“That they wouldn’t do,” Thompson said. “Though not for any consideration of the North West Company. The Peigans have too much respect for trees and animals and wouldn’t risk a forest fire.”
Peter heard no more, for he had slipped into a sound sleep.
In the morning, with some skilful bargaining, the mapmaker obtained a horse for each of them and promptly sent Ignace, Côté, and Pareil back to collect the trade goods they had cached. “We meet at Salish House,” he said before they cantered away. “While there we’ll build a canoe so that we can deposit most of our trade goods at Kullyspell House.”
Before the sun achieved its zenith, they reached the Clark’s Fork River and the deserted Salish House. Certain this time there had to be a message from Finan McDonald, they searched both the inside and the outside of the cabins twice but to no avail. Thompson made no comment, but Peter sensed his frustration when he abruptly ordered Vallade and Charles to hunt for game and the rest to look for white cedar to build a canoe.
The men sang as they set to work constructing the canoe, but Thompson appeared worried. “The river’s rising two feet a day,” he cautioned. “Our boat must be sturdy and the paddles strong.” He grew even more concerned when a little more than a week later the boat was ready and their hunters had found only small game to keep everyone fed as they worked, but none for their journey. After Ignace, Côté, and Pareil returned with the cache of trade goods, the Salish braves who had accompanied them gathered up the borrowed horses and prepared to leave. Thompson stopped them to bargain with tobacco and powder, and the Salish agreed the voyageurs could have a plump filly to slaughter for meat to take in the canoe as they shot down the Clark’s Fork River.
Much later, after they took their places in the canoe, Peter wasn’t surprised when Thompson ordered him to sit in the back. They now had enough men to paddle, and experience would be needed to navigate the rapids ahead. “May God guide us,” Thompson said. He then hopped into the canoe and sat beside Peter. Dog crouched between boxes of trade goods, and Boulard enthroned himself on a sack of flour.
Charles gave the bobbing vessel a mighty shove into the fast-moving water before leaping in to take his place at the bow. Accustomed though he was now to travelling on water, Peter felt his heart hammer as they flew with the current — Boulard determinedly keeping the canoe in the middle of the river.
In spite of Boulard’s efforts the current often tossed the boat in front of the small islands he tried to avoid, and sometimes they found themselves tipping downward through a series of eddies or twirling in a whirlpool. Each night the battered canoe had to be turned over to dry, and in the morning it had to be freshly caulked with heated pitch scraped from the pines found in the woods along the way. Also each night Thompson led the men in a prayer of thanks for keeping them safe that day and another to ask for an equally safe journey the next day.
“We must cross the lake that two years earlier I named Pend Oreille to reach the Pend Oreille River,” Thompson said in the morning. “Praise God it should be less furious than this one. With good fortune we should reach Kullyspell where we’ll give the trading goods to James McMillan and build a better canoe to proceed down to the mouth of the Columbia.”
Peter admired the mapmaker’s ability to recall each river individually, for he was right about the Pend Oreille. In some places it was over its banks, but it had no islands or rocks midstream and the current was swift but not treacherous. Peter relaxed and, no longer fearing Dog might get frightened and leap from the canoe, he let go of the braided rope around her neck.
Before the end of the day they reached Kullyspell House and found that McMillan had already left for his annual trip east over the mountains. Except for twelve tents of Kullyspell Indians camped beside the lake, this post, too, was deserted. Luckily, Thompson understood enough of the language of the people camping there to converse with them for several minutes. When he returned to the men in the canoe, he said, “I’m told our elusive Finan McDonald is with Jaco Finlay at Spokane House, thus I’ve hired two of the men here to find him and tell him to bring horses to carry our goods.”
That was good news to Peter, and judging by the grins of relief on the faces of the tired voyageurs, it made them happy, too. The Kullyspell people were very friendly and insisted on preparing a feast for them. That night they dined on baked fish, dog, some sort of waterfowl, and bread that Thompson said was made of moss hanging from trees. Peter found it dry and hard to swallow, and Dog refused it totally.
Peter