A Dark and Promised Land Read online

  “You are correct, Father, for there are times when I feel it would be worth a beating just to flee from here and run wild upon yon hills.”

  “And the beating well deserved, the misdemeanor being worth thrice the price,” the priest responded, but Lachlan noticed that he did not smile.

  “So what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? May I offer you some tea?”

  “No, thank you, my son, I cannot stay long.” They sat in Lachlan’s office, a small damp cave wherein as the master of the school he meted punishment to students, convened with the schoolmistress, and composed his lessons. A massive oak desk dominated the room, with a Bible resting on one corner and a cane on the other, the twin pillars by which he impressed his authority upon the student population. There was barely room left for the two of them. Lachlan leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe.

  The priest sat upright on his own chair, his dark head almost brushing the low ceiling. He watched Lachlan with eyes that were large and sad, in a face that carried the marks of a life spent toiling in the service of others, fighting a battle that could not seem to be won. His hands were very large with long fingers and knobby knuckles, and he rested them on his threadbare cassock.

  “Will you not smoke, Father Louttit?”

  “I doubt I will enjoy a smoke with you in here again, my friend. The Society has decided to close the school.”

  Lachlan stopped mid-puff, crossed his hands on his stomach, and stared out the window for several minutes. At last, he turned back to the priest. “Can you tell me why, Father?”

  “Listen,” he replies.

  “I hear nothing.”

  “Exactly, my son. Subscriptions have fallen drastically this past year.”

  “But Father, ’tis the noon meal …”

  “Forty percent, they tell me. You must know how things are in the village, Lachlan. Many can find no employment. Poverty is rampant, and some of these men returning by ships have brought disease. There are whispers of plague returning, and many people are leaving Stromness, at least those who can afford the school’s fees.”

  “This is not very good news, Father.”

  “Indeed, but the Society for Christian Knowledge is not heartless.” The priest looked at him with a wry smile. “You are an accomplished headmaster, and the Society recognizes this and wishes to keep you on, but in a slightly different capacity.”

  So the priest told him about Red River and the New Colony, and the Society’s belief that knowledge must follow into the wilderness to keep the settlers from falling backwards into darkness. Lachlan would begin the very first school at Red River.

  He was at first shocked at the suggestion; he had never been away from Scotland in his entire life, and now they wanted to send him, at the age of thirty-nine, to a tiny settlement deep in the heart of what surely was a dark and savage land.

  He had at first refused, but the priest told him to think about it. “I suggest you make good use of the next seven days and decide what is truly best for you and your daughter. It is a challenge, I agree, but not one beyond your capacities. I will return in a week for your answer. Until then, God keep you.”

  He and Rose did just that, spending their evenings around the fire talking about the possibilities for them, both in Orkney and in the new colony. Lachlan was concerned that his daughter had not yet been courted, and that her prospects would be greatly lessened if they were to settle in remote Selkirk’s Grant, which was where the new colony was located. They spoke with people who had family and friends working with the Hudson’s Bay Company, but these were individuals planning to return to Orkney after their usual seven-year contract at the Bay. No one knew of anyone who had surrendered their life on the islands and moved permanently to Red River.

  “Be thou careful, schoolmaster. I’s heard of some troubles out West,” a neighbour told him.

  “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

  “Ah dinna ken, ah only knows at I’s heard, from the boys off the boats from the Bay. Settlers stuck in Prince William Fort for the whole winter; trouble with the Indians or something. Best watch out for thy lass.”

  When he mentioned this to Rose, she just shrugged. “Here, there, life is not easy no matter where we are, Father. There are troubles in Mainland, too.”

  He had to agree with her. Just the previous day, a storm had blown through Mainland; it was a fierce sou’wester, and, channelled by the mountains of Hoy, had wreaked terrible damage to the barley crop used by many crofters to pay their annual rent to the lairds. As if life for the poor was not difficult enough.

  He had walked on Brinkie’s Brae, the heather-capped ridge looming over Stromness. The hills were vacant but for the occasional flock of sheep stark against the emerald hills and a cool, fresh wind blowing in from the sea. Lachlan had a deep love for these empty, barren places, but as he bent and dug his fingers into the thin soil, he was reminded of the precariousness of life in the Orkneys. The island could not feed itself if the frost came too early or a summer storm destroyed the crop.

  Remnants of ancient feudal systems still held sway, and most farmers still struggled to grow enough to feed themselves and satisfy the lairds. Lord Dundas, William Watt, James Riddoch William Graham, and William Honeyman all grew fat while their tenants starved.

  Year after year spreading dung and kelp over the fields, sowing and praying that the crop will come. Sometimes it did.

  Thin rocky soil; jealous soil. A turnip garden behind a damp stone house where an entire family lived with their animals. No windows, a smoky peat fire, muddy floor. Hunger always sleeping in their doorway. Walking barefoot in the mud, stepping unheeding in the cow’s dung. Filthy children rolling among the animals, ignorant and barely civilized through no fault of their own, left behind by a world where nations are born under such banners as “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,” and “All Men Are Created Equal.”

  Just then, a deep boom had echoed from the harbour. On Stanger’s Brae, overlooking the entrance to the harbour, sat a cannon captured from an American privateer. It was fired to herald the arrival of the Hudson’s Bay Company fleet. Climbing onto the crest of Brinkie’s Brae, Lachlan looked down at a flotilla of three Company ships approaching the harbour. The clouds to the west broke and slanting sunlight shone through their billowing white sails. The sight took his breath away.

  Oh, God, is this a sign that you have sent me? Shall I pull up from this harsh, miserly, beautiful place and start a new life in Rupert’s Land, where the soil is not thin and rocky, but deep and loamy, where a man can work his hands and grow something to be proud of, something that will last forever?

  There was no further sign, and even if there had been one, he would have dismissed it as coincidence. The clouds swallowed the sun again, and the ships reefed their sails and pulled into Stromness harbour.

  Iskoyaskweyau pushes aside the bearskin that serves as a door to the sweat lodge. He dribbles some water from a skin flask onto the fire, and steam rolls toward the roof of the habitation, looking in that dim light like thunderclouds. He kneels a moment in silence beside the fire, as if praying. After a time, he approaches Lachlan, who, alarmed, tries to sit up on his elbows, but the bolt of pain that screeches up his side knocks him onto his back. He lays staring at the roof, panting, lightning bolts flickering across his blurred vision. He doesn’t notice Iskoyaskweyau remove his bandage or pull out his long knife.

  There is a tugging and an even sharper pain at his wound. “Oh, dear Christ …” he gasps, tears filling his eyes. The swimming shape of the Indian looms over him, and something soft and wet presses into his mouth. He begins chewing, the taste of his own flesh revolting him. He tries to spit it out, but Iskoyaskweyau shakes his head, and thrusts it back between Lachlan’s lips. Gagging, Lachlan swallows. The Indian lifts his head and gives him a sip of water.

  Laying the Orkneyman back down, Iskoyaskweyau reaches into his bag and pulls out some short willow twigs. Using his knife, he shaves one, and, with his teeth, peels off the thi
n white inner bark. He chews this a moment, and then leans over and spits into Lachlan’s wound. He does this several times, and the Orkneyman can feel the cooling saliva running down his side.

  Chew, spit, chew spit. It seems to Lachlan the most absurd farce imaginable, and he yearns for the strength to strike the big, dumb brute. Soon most of the twigs are chewed, and Iskoyaskweyau wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Soon you feel better,” he says to Lachlan, ordering him to chew a bit of the bark himself, but to swallow, not spit. As Lachlan does so, he is surprised to feel the pain in his side diminish slightly. He contemplates the significance of this when he feels a pattering across his breast. Looking down he sees that Iskoyaskweyau has tossed some tiny bones on top of him, bones from some kind of bird. With that, the Indian picks up his drum.

  He begins to chant a deep and melodic entreaty to his God to save this poor fool of a White man who is so far from his home and is in need of help and guidance and healing. The drum beats are slow and thoughtful, laying a deep, deep foundation to the man’s sad song. Lachlan suspects the song to be a dirge.

  The chanting carries on long into the night, Iskoyaskweyau’s eyes distant and unseeing, his body covered in sweat, glowing in the light of the coals.

  Chapter Nine

  The rain stops some time before dawn, although every branch, every leaf tip, still drips. As the morning light broadens, they look out into a narrow cut in the forest thick with fog; the light grows to a dull grey, but stubbornly refuses to brighten any further. The snapping of the campfire sounds loud and disturbing in that silent, thick air. Every footstep, every muffled cough seems to draw attention to itself. All is silent except for the murmur of the river.

  Alexander stands on the shore, moccasined foot resting on the gunwale of the boat, his carbine across his knee, smoking his pipe, and staring at the water. He is wondering whether they should attempt the next set of rapids that morning, or portage. They are nearing Jack River House and he is anxious to press on, but there is a real danger of missing the landing in the fog.

  The length of the Echimamish River between the Nelson River and Robinson Lake is a twisting labyrinth of shallow reaches and swift waters, trapped-out beaver ponds and dams and spooky, burned swamps. Through this torturous region, they drag the boat more than paddle, running an endless succession of shoals.

  All are obliged to walk, carrying as much gear as they are capable of. The boats are dragged through the portage, a rocking motion of heave, lurch forward, heave again, and with each effort advancing perhaps a yard or so, the wooden keel pushing aside the mud or rolling over hewn lengths of logs, the men sliding in the greasy holes left by the boots of the man in front. Now and then someone will slip and fall, and their progress lurches to a halt.

  Behind the cursing and mud-splattered crew, the colonists stumble, their backs bent beneath their burdens and harried beyond belief by a fog of mosquitoes, horseflies, deerflies, and blackflies.

  In the middle of one such portage, Alexander calls for a rest, and, with relief, the crew stops pulling; like the flowers of desert plants after a passing rainstorm, a host of pipes emerge and after a fire is struck the crew leans against the boat, puffing clouds of smoke.

  Their leathers caked in black mud and sweat running in their eyes and dripping from their matted beards, they look like a troupe of circus bears as they spit and grunt and stare with their tiny blue eyes at the sky.

  The portage runs through a great burn, and blackened stumps and jumbled lifeless poles surround them. The tangle is unbelievably thick, with visibility so limited they can scarce see a hundred yards in either direction. Beneath them is a soggy carpet of mud and ash, with just the beginnings of new green showing through. A year later, the land still reeks of smoke and charred wood.

  A chickadee flutters to the top of a burnt spire and calls out tee-dee-tee-dee before arcing away in a flutter of tiny wings. Rose watches the bird for a moment, and then drops her little pack in the mud and straightens her back. Neither she nor Lachlan is expected to carry anything, but she cannot walk beside her people with their burdens without making an effort herself. Her dress clings to her back, and as the fresh air moves against it, goosebumps rise on her arms. She pushes her dripping hair from her face. The shadows of the forest are long, and the insects dancing overhead catch the last rays of the setting sun, turning them into early stars.

  Rose’s hair reminds Alexander of the autumn leaves he had seen that year he had travelled with his father to Montreal; mountain after mountain blazing a brilliant scarlet as if the frost had turned to fire. In the gloom, her hair shines with a deeper glow, like the embers of a fire. He sees her father approach, and he frowns. Although well-tended and his wound is healing fast, there is still something very much wrong with the man.

  After the stabbing, Rose had not come to Alexander for many nights. This did not surprise him, as her father needed nursing and close care. But when he finally heard those footsteps outside his tent, he felt very pleased and welcomed her with feverish long-denied kisses. But later, she simply lay beside him, his arm around her and no more. She did not speak to him. After a few long, quiet hours, she had left his tent without a word or backward glance. The next night she did not return, nor the next.

  A howl distant yet sharp and clear, breaks the evening peace. Rose looks sharply at Alexander.

  “Wolves,” he says around his pipe. “There are many along the river. I often see their tracks on the river’s edge and hear them at night.”

  “Surely they are a danger? Must we flee this place at once?” Nearby colonists look concerned, but several of the Baymen grin.

  “Ah dinna think we need be afeard o’ no wolves, lass,” one of them says. He is a large and hairy man, with round red cheeks and missing his left eye — from falling drunk on a poplar sapling. He wears no patch and the brown, shrivelled lid sags over the dark slit. The other is a bright as the sky, and his rusty beard is stained dark with tobacco about his lips. “Savages an’ Nor’westers an’ Country Born cut’roats like our Mr. McClure are what thee need to beware of.”

  “You are saying, sir, that the wolves are not a threat?”

  “Ah dinna say no such thing. Thy wolf is a cunning brute, with blazing red eyes and jaws that will crush a moose’s hind leg like a willer twig. Even the Indian be scared to death o’ him. They’ll come into village at night and carry off the young. Nothing the Savage can do about it either. Arrows just bounce off the thick hides.”

  “Then why are you all just sitting here?” says Rose, her voice rising.

  “Do not mind them,” Alexander interjects. “These are merely tales told to frighten children.”

  Rose turns on the man. “So you think I am a child, sir? That it is right to mock me?”

  “Nay lass, nay,” says the man laughing, bending over and whacking his knee. “An’ I beg thee pardon. But thee want to be careful who thee listen to. I’ll be damned if McClure were not raised by wolves himself, or so they say.”

  “And you think that it is tolerable that I should be so misused by this fool?” Rose asks, turning on Alexander.

  “Just a bit of fun,” he says. “No harm intended.”

  “Indeed, well, I do not intend to remain here and bear the brunt of this man’s mischief. You are an uncouth scallywag, sir. Good day.” She stomps off as best she can in the slippery mud.

  Alexander stares after her, oblivious to the laughter of his men.

  “She got a temper, that lass,” a soft voice says beside him. He turns and looks into Declan’s face.

  “Excuse me?”

  “And not much of a sense of humour. She will peel a lad like an apple if he gets on the wrong side of her, and once peeled, I have no doubt she be finished with him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Forgive me for interrupting, Mr. McClure,” says Lachlan hobbling up. “But I was wondering if I might have a word with you,”

  “Certainly.”

  “Why don’t y
ou join us, Mr. Cormack?”

  “Aye.”

  “Lead the way to yon hillock, Mr. McClure.”

  “That would be ill-advised, sir. You are not yet healed.”

  “Take me. I must see!”

  Alexander finds the easiest route to a rocky outcrop that they had seen from the portage. Lachlan is puffing by the time they reach the crest, his face cadaverous and leaning heavily on Declan’s arm. They now have a good view of the country for many miles: a solid and featureless pelt of black, burned spires that runs from horizon to horizon, split by the undulating silver ribbon of the river. Thick clouds pass above their heads, so close that it seemed that they could lift a finger and pierce that grey cover, leaving a ragged tear.

  “Where are we, Mr. McClure?” Lachlan asks, his voice unsteady.

  “You should sit down, sir.”

  Lachlan shakes his head. “It is but a passing weakness. You were saying …?”

  “We are almost at the confluence with the Nelson River. See there? It’s hard to tell with the haze. We have run most of the portages now, and I daresay it will be easier and quicker going.”

  “And after that?”

  “Well, Jack River House. South along the eastern shores of the Big Water — Missinipi — until the Red River and then a day’s paddle to the Forks.”

  “That does not sound encouraging. We still have much distance yet to travel?”

  “We have.”

  “I doubt I shall see the end of that journey.”

  Alexander looks at him, searching his face. “No, I do not think you shall.”

  “Dinna speak thus,” says Declan.

  “No, he is correct, Mr. Cormack. But it is a damned shame, you know. I had such great hopes for this new life, for this empty country. To be part of a great beginning.”

  “Beginning of what, Mr. Cromarty?”