A Dark and Promised Land Read online

  He tells him of growing up along the coast, hunting inland. The families came together every summer for feasting and storytelling, but during the hard, lean winters, the families dispersed to hunt on their own. Game was never plentiful in the lands haunted by the ancestors of the Swampy Cree, even before the foreigners arrived at the Bay, and certainly there was never enough in one spot to support a whole village through the winter. So they loaded up the women and the dogs and dispersed throughout the forest, each family claiming several hundred miles of hunting territory for their own use. Sometimes even then there would not be enough game, and whole families would starve.

  Iskoyaskweyau lowers his voice and looks around. That’s when bad things would happen, sometimes. Cannibalism was always a danger in the winter, he told a shocked and delighted Declan, and was a terror to the Ayisiniwok. After the dreadful feast, the cannibal was said to be possessed and would henceforth always crave human flesh, and no one would trust him. It was the duty of the man’s family to kill him, as soon as possible. The killings that night at York Factory were because the woman and her children had eaten one of her cousins this past winter, and the people were terrified of her. Many times she and her whelps were seen walking at night among the tipis, the moon reflecting on their long knives. It was her husband’s duty to kill them, and the people had long insisted, but he loved his family, so until that night had refused. After he had performed his rightful duty, this man had himself become possessed and pistolled himself. To the people, the killings were a cause for celebration.

  But since the Êmistikôsiw had left the Bay and marched inland, that kind of evil had occurred with increased and alarming frequency; the food was not to be found where it once was and the old ways were no longer working. Men preyed upon men the way they once preyed on moose or the ituk.

  And now more and more Êmistikôsiw come from across the great water, come down the rivers. Canadians, too, and the game and his people were being crowded out. Forts sprung up like smallpox sores along every waterway, and you couldn’t throw a turd without hitting one. But the Êmistikôsiw said they were just passing by. Some left, some stayed, some married Indian women. The land is great and can provide for all, or so they had once believed. But the Êmistikôsiw destroy as they pass, and the land is now empty.

  “Even the bears and wolves shit ashes these days,” Iskoyaskweyau says.

  “That is bad. I know what it is like to have land stolen.”

  “And yet you come to take ours.” Iskoyaskweyau smiles at him.

  Declan shakes his head. “I come to take nothing. I only pass through this grand country, to see what I might, to learn what I can. But if you are so beset, why dinna you fight?”

  “Some fight, some kill the Whites. But the Ayisiniwok, my people, are few and scattered. Much disease and death. And we battle with our enemies, the Stone Indians. We cannot fight the Êmistikôsiw, too.”

  Listening to Iskoyaskweyau speak, Declan has an image of a people done a terrible injustice. He knows that his kind had brought Christianity to the Savages, and he deeply believed that whatever may befall a man in life such was nothing compared to his fate in death. And yet for all that, he has an uneasy feeling that it is his own that are in the wrong, a patently foolish notion. But what if the lands are not quite so empty and free as he had been led to believe? He hears of this suffering of Iskoyaskweyau’s people, but what of others? Are there more savage kingdoms farther along the river? Are they all as accepting as these poor, bedraggled forest creatures of the overlordship of the whites? After all the lurid, brutal stories, he has heard regarding the North American Savage, he is surprised to find such a meek, complacent group of half-starved curs as he had seen on the Bay.

  He knows he has a lot to learn from these people. While it rankles his pride somewhat, he will take knowledge wherever he might find it. His arm mends nicely, but until it is fully healed, he is vulnerable, a feeling of which he does not think highly. And he has come to the quick understanding that in this land that skill, not rank or title, is power, and he will learn from a deaf rabbit if he has to.

  He smiles at Iskoyaskweyau. The Indian has taken somewhat of a shine to him, an advantage the Highlander is polishing like a blade. He is learning to hunt and fish and walk easily through the forest. Although they really were Indians of the coast and feel unhappy when hemmed in by the miles of forest, Iskoyaskweyau’s people have great skill in the wilderness. Though they think him a great, clumsy, ignorant buffoon, they seem pleased that he has taken it upon himself to learn what they are willing to teach, in the manner in which an elder craftsman might be pleased when a small child picks up a hammer and bangs away at a piece of scrap wood.

  As those will who have a close conversation with death, they have a profound sense of humour and laugh at him a great deal, and just as often curse him roundly for making noise when they are hunting. From Declan’s limited position, it seems obvious that there is nothing to hunt, and so what is all the fuss about, but the Indians inevitably tire of his shadow, and they vanish, leaving him to break his foolish neck or find his own way back to camp, according to the whims of the Manitou or fate, or some damned man-eating Frenchman.

  The first time this happened, he had been bent over and querying them about a plant when they looked at each other, and, without a word, disappeared in a manner that would have done credit to the wind.

  Declan had waited for them to answer and when he stood up and looked about, he realized his abandonment. He felt terrified, but held his composure and sat where dropped, like discarded trash, until they returned to pick him up on their back trail. He was cold and very hungry when they found him, clapping him on the back and laughing at his discomfiture, telling him he was lucky to still have his head as they were certain it was a bedded moose they heard beside the trail, so much noise he had made sitting on a pile of dried leaves.

  After that, he always took great care in noting their back trail and returned to the camp on his own.

  “Why you follow us, hey?” they ask as Declan prepares to accompany them yet again. It is a morning pregnant with fog; the fire is cold and it is so quiet that the loud snoring in the camp seems almost offensive in that otherwise pure, heavy, white silence. Beads of dew cluster to so many surrounding cobwebs, it is as if the little beasts have spent the night attempting to trap them.

  “Why you not stay here like the others,” Pisiw demands. “Stay with the women and children. That’s what you Êmistikôsiw do, is it not? This is not your country; you will die out there.” He steps up, and, holding a handful of arrows, taps them on the Highlander’s chest. “Why you not stay at camp and fuck a woman. Or maybe you fuck man instead? Êmistikôsiw damned good at that. Out there — he points to the forest — out there is only the Machi Manitou waiting for you.”

  Declan is much larger than Pisiw, but has no doubt the smaller man would cut his throat before he could even unsheathe his own blade, so he simply shrugs and raises a finger and wags it slowly in front of the man’s face.

  “Piss on you,” he says. The Indian follows the finger a moment, and then meets Declan’s eyes. They stand chest to chest while Iskoyaskweyau squats on the ground nearby.

  “Why are you waiting?” he says. “Kill him or tongue his asshole, but be done and let us go.”

  Pisiw smiles, nodding. “You may be piece of shit Êmistikôsiw, but you are friend, hey? You may follow us, but shut the fuck up. No words.” With that, he makes a slashing motion across his neck.

  Declan knows he is in danger of being lost or killed by the impatient Indians, but he is young and strong and a Highlander, and anyway, the walking is a welcome respite from the cramped boats.

  But if Declan expects the Indian’s magnanimity, he is shocked the day that Iskoyaskweyau offers the Highlander his wife. After Alexander rather hesitatingly explains that this is a common politeness among the Indians, Declan does not hesitate to accept the man’s offer.

  The Indians invite him into their wigwam — a low
hut made from willow branches bent over in a dome shape and covered with hides. He spends much time in the company of the Cromartys, making his interest in Rose plain to both of them, an interest the father is clearly warming to. But that evening, he offers an excuse to Rose is that he is planning a hunt and will remain with the Indians far into the night. He is surprised at how easily the lie falls from his lips.

  Many soft furs carpet the wigwam floor, with everyone including the three dogs crowded inside. The small space reeks of the Indian’s unwashed bodies and smoke from the little fire makes his eyes water. But he pays the strong air no mind; it had been worse aboard the cramped frigate on the journey from Orkney.

  Iskoyaskweyau rolls over and falls asleep at once, while Isqe-sis sidles over and lies beside him. The other two people talk quietly among themselves for a while, the child occasionally peeking over his furs and staring wide-eyed at Declan, who responds with faces that make the boy duck in a fit of giggles. Eventually all is quiet, but for the lamentations of an owl in the trees somewhere high above them.

  He sees her staring at him in the dark, her face shadowed, her eyes kindling in the coals of the fire. Her hair is of a great length and as she undoes it, it seems to cascade everywhere, covering her furs, her head and down her shoulders to her hips. She seems as if painted in ebony.

  As she pulls off her clothing and moves on top of him, her determination and strength astonishes him; his experience is with a more passive kind of woman. Her knotty hair swings down over him, drags across his face and covers her hands that rest upon his breast. Her thin knees pinch him, and he gasps. He still cannot see her face, but can feel her enmity giving energy to her lust. He steadies her with his hands at her waist, willing her to go slower, knowing that it has been too long and he cannot hold himself back. Indeed his climax is almost immediate, though she continues rocking until he feels himself fall out of her with a wet and ineffectual pop.

  She continues to move atop him until her head swings and her hair flares like the spreading of a raven’s wings as she collapses onto his chest.

  Lying like an infant at his breast, her breath comes in short gasps. He can feel her heart against him. Soon — altogether too soon — she pulls away, leaving his body cold. She wraps herself in a fur and lies down behind her husband, Declan watching her. He feels rather forlorn, but for what reason he cannot tell. Wrapping himself in his own fur, he hears the sound of a loon on the river and imagines the creature is laughing at him.

  At the sound of a distant howl, Rose wakes with a start. The fire is quiet embers. Shadowed humps and nasally whistles are the only evidence of the brigade. The moon is low, the night already old.

  The wolf howls again, more distant this time. Travelling on the wind, Rose thinks, and shivers at the thought of that gloriously wild creature gliding through the forest, crying aloud its yearnings.

  Her father is rolled in his blanket beside her, snoring gently. Her leg aches and she stretches, feeling the lovely tingle and heat as blood courses down her limbs.

  At the memory of the departed day, her heart quickens. Sitting in front of Alexander, she had been palpably aware of his presence: the smoke from his pipe, the occasional shouts to the men. Whenever he is occupied, she steals furtive looks at him, admiring the expanse of his shoulders, and strong arc of his back as he pulls on a hawser. Her gaze had slipped lower before she realized what she was doing, and with red face quickly turned away. Her father had given her a quizzical look.

  Since their meeting on the log beside the river, thoughts of him had occupied her; she wonders what it would be like to run her hands through that long, yellow hair, what that beard would feel like brushing her chin.

  They had flirted with each other in the subtlest ways possible: a brief glance, a smile was all it took to convey enormous meaning. But with the people so close — and especially her father, who would be outraged if he knew — it felt even more delicious.

  The Highlander Declan had chosen to approach her formally, through her father, and Lachlan seemed intrigued by this. She had no opinion of the man one way or another, happy to play her game of old, even though the stakes and chance of being found out are much higher. The idea of her with the Half-breed would set all Rupert’s Land aflame.

  But for all Declan’s peasant pretence to social formality, it is Alexander’s rough wildness that calls to her, his ability to absolutely experience the moment, almost like an animal, his mind not burdened by rules and convention. Her desire had always been so.

  Tearing her mind from him, Rose follows time’s back trail, breadcrumbs of memory leading to her careless youth in the Orkneys, to her young friends Isobel and Agnes. Like Rose, they refused the attentions of the local boys, waiting instead for one of the men from the ships that berthed at Stromness to take a fancy to them, and remove them from what they saw as a dull and provincial backwater of the kingdom.

  Lachlan had been appalled by their intransigence. “Life is not literature, my dears,” he preached from around his cigar, standing in their tiny drawing room with his hands in his waistcoat pockets and watching Rose and her friends with a mixture of annoyance at their ridiculousness and admiration for their optimistic stubbornness.

  But Rose saw little around her that she thought worthy of her time or consideration; the men of her station she considered spoiled, effeminate, and filled with an unwarranted pomposity. There were a few crofter’s sons she briefly considered and though her father’s disapproval was enough to make her give these lads a second look, there was only so far she was willing to challenge him.

  If truth be told, there was really not much to any of them, either. So she waited. And as her father’s concern for her increased, her own melted away, and she entered womanhood carrying on her secret games in the town, loving lightly and without concern. Although the thought disturbed many of Lachlan’s nights, the idea never occurred to her that she was well on her way to spinsterhood.

  Yet now, for the first time in a long while she finds herself truly drawn to a man and wonders what to do about it. She looks at the face of her father, a widower for most of her life. His concern is deep and true, and yet what did he have to teach her about the ways of love? His own is as dry and mummified as a dead bird carcass long trapped inside a chimney.

  The obvious occurs to her with a sudden shock. But dare she? What is the limit to her courage? She had long ago decided to follow her own path, despite all the world against her. For many weeks she had been subservient and dependent, but at the thought of rebellion her old spirit rouses to flame.

  Carefully, she lifts the blanket away from her body; she shivers again as the night air finds her skin. She wishes she could keep the blanket about her, but it is entangled with her father’s.

  Wrapping her arms about her, she steps away from the cocoon of warmth. Her bare toes sink into the cold, damp sand. Alexander usually slept upriver from the brigade; he had a small tent that he pitched against the night, a luxury that raised the ire of many of his followers. She hurries toward this dark shape.

  As she approaches, she stumbles on an unseen branch and it breaks with a sharp crack, cutting her. She freezes, listening with pounding heart, expecting the whole camp to be wakened. The tent is very quiet.

  Rose has no idea what to do next; she realizes that she had no plan from the start, and wonders what ridiculous notion has drawn her into this position. The man she had tried to approach in the dark is heavily armed and knows nothing of her intent or identity; her people may have been frightened by the sounds of furtive steps.

  “Mr. McClure,” she says, scarcely audible over the pounding of her heart. There is no response.

  “Mr. McClure,” she says again, a little louder, agonized. “Alexander.”

  “Miss Cromarty?” whispers an incredulous voice from the tent.

  “Yes, it is I. May I come in?” The tent flap opens, and she can see little inside, but the highlight of a rifle barrel is unmistakable.

  “Come inside, and be q
uick.”

  Needing little encouragement, she pushes past him. She does not know what to say, and they sit together in embarrassed darkness. Soon his hand runs up the side of her arm, and she takes it to her mouth and kisses between his fingers. Without a word, they come together, and explore each other in the dark, their bodies moving it seems of their own volition, without thought or knowledge.

  Before the wraith of dawn shows the horizon, she wraps herself in her blanket beside her father. Lachlan at once awakens and pulls himself to her and folds her in his arms, his brow furrowing at the unfamiliar, wild scent clinging to his daughter.

  The next morning, he is particularly attentive to her, aware of something new and yet familiar about her, something he is not privy to. For a brief moment, he is terrified that she might have caught some kind of flux, but the way laughter bubbles out of her puts that fear to rest. Her spirits are obviously high, and when he catches her humming something lovely to herself and asks her to name the melody, she cannot — or will not — humour him.

  Rose shivers as she sits beside Lachlan in the boat. Mistaking this, he reaches below the thwart and pulls out a blanket that he wraps around her shoulders. She takes it with a small smile. Her shiver had not been from the cold. She had been surreptitiously watching Alexander, her eyes following the lovely curve of his hand as it grasped his scull, edging the boat here and there with skilled movements.

  That same hand had caressed her in the darkness of the tent, anguished desire in its wake. She could see the red welt on his forearm, the place she had bitten him when he had stifled her cry, the warm salt taste of his blood on her lips. The memory had caused her body to betray itself to her father.