A Dark and Promised Land Read online

  The bank is cut deeper now, and the trees along the upper edge have tumbled into the water. The effect is rather claustrophobic with the high walls and narrowing of the river. Down inside this small arterial cut the breeze is stifled, biting flies and mosquitoes tormenting them. Men’s arms run with sweat, and the women dip their scarves in the river.

  As the shadows lengthen, they scour the shore for a landing in that great wall of alluvial silt. After a long search, they find a promising beach and pull wearily ashore. The cooking fire is started and tea made, but this time there is no fresh meat. Rose declines the offer of pemmican; she is not that hungry, at least not yet. Supper is quick and subdued. Tobacco smoke swirls as everyone settles in to await the coming of night.

  Rose feels a need to stretch her legs. Lachlan insists that he accompany her, and, with a shrug, she turns away and climbs the bank, the eyes of all the brigade upon her. It is a stiff climb, and her legs welcome the chance for movement. Once she has crested the bank, she does not wait for her father — who is grumbling something about precocious sin in daughters — and walks away from the wall of riparian trees onto the open tundra. She faces the westering sun, and yet the greater part of her traces her shadow to the east, back to her homeland.

  More water than earth, it is as if the ground itself burns, reflecting the sky’s fire in an endless succession of pools and marshes and fens that weave through the spongy muskeg. Every step sinks into the mossy ground. Here and there the odd island of spruce, blasted by wind and frost, struggles for life in the frozen peat. To her the land seems to continue forever, without rise or feature, just carrying on into infinity of green and red and gold and reflecting water.

  The sun slips under the night-covers of horizon, and the glowing tundra wraps itself in the diminished shades of twilight. In the nearest pool, she sees the faint stars of Pegasus and looks up to see the Great Square swinging above her. There is no twilight song of birds, no ringing of bells as the cattle return to the barns, hooves clattering on cobbles. It is if the land is drained of all sound, all life.

  As when she stood on the shores of Hudson’s Bay, she feels again the flood of loneliness. A land so empty and dreary, yet brazen in its bold displays of fierce colour. As if in a fury against its own emptiness.

  She hears the squish of his shoes long before he stands beside her. He puts his arm over her shoulders; almost imperceptibly, she shrinks from him.

  The two figures stand at the edge of the great barrens, small and alone, like shipwrecked survivors staring in vain for a rescue that never comes, with long shadows reaching into a distant and almost irrelevant past.

  Lachlan removes his sweaty cap and waves it at the cloud of mosquitoes enveloping him. He takes a deep breath and looks around. Never had he seen such a country like this, never read a description that could prepare him for it — vaster and more impossible than he could ever imagined. He swings his arm in a futile and empty attempt to encompass it; as he does, he realizes his folly and his arm drops, words dying on his lips.

  “It’s so empty — a wasteland,” Rose suggests in a quiet voice.

  “It is not all like this,” Lachlan says. “We are on the Northern wilderness. The place called the Forks is different.” At that, his mind’s eye fills with thoughts of rolling hills with grass knee deep, of broad rivers, and soil black and deep. A land green and warm and rich that puts the very best of Orkney to shame. Good land is the foundation of civilization; poor land the wounded heart of poverty. “I look to dear Orkney and see how many struggle to draw a living from our miserly soils, the want so great because the land is niggardly. Rich land creates a rich people, and we shall be there to see the new beginnings of a wealth scarce known before, and a new civilization. When we arrive you shall see, my daughter; you will behold a light in the heart of a dark country. The thought stirs me so.”

  “You speak of a lot of new, Father, and yet so far all I have seen is the banality of men, the violence, fear, and toil.”

  “Ah, but we are not there yet.”

  “Indeed, but the farther we go, the darker it becomes. I cannot see this light of which you speak. I saw a shadow at the Bay, and the light grows dimmer the farther west we travel. When will we arrive at this dark and promised land, and how shall we see without light when we arrive?”

  “Soon, my love, soon, and we shall put our faith in God to provide the light we need. It has always been so, has it not? But let us speak no more of it. I am being consumed alive by these little demons, and I have no wish to be carried away by wolves. Let us return to the fire.”

  The next morning the air is cold and damp, the valley filled with mist. The men return the boats to the endless river. The sweeps take up their dirge, sounding even louder in the cold air.

  Soon they pass the confluence of another waterway, seen only as a dark gap in the fog; Alexander identifies it as the mouth of the God’s River. Keeping to the nearer shore, they continue up the Hayes, which becomes narrower and shallower. The rhythm of the sweeps increases, the creaking louder, the rasping of breath harsher. Blisters erupt on dripping, knotted palms. But still their progress declines.

  After a few hours, the fog burns away, and the river turns fast and stony; the brigade lands. Breakfast is the only break in the day’s work. They bring supplies ashore and start a fire. Rose takes her ration of dried buffalo tongue, biscuit, and a mug of weak tea, and, as her father converses with Cecile Turr, she sneaks away to breakfast alone, ignoring Alexander’s warnings and Lachlan’s order to stay within view of the camp.

  As when bedridden, Rose chafes under the constant gaze of others. Not all of the looks given her are respectable or even remotely polite. Many are overtly lustful, and a few of the burly Baymen have even made crude advances when her father’s attention was elsewhere.

  Through secrecy and deception, she had once made a game of observing others, but now she is the naked one, the object of strangers’ desires. She can feel their eyes on her, especially at night, reflected in the evening fire. Ordinarily she would have chosen one — yes, even one of these beasts — to satisfy a curiosity. But that required her to be in charge, to be able to appear and vanish at will. But now she is powerless, dependent, and even worse, vulnerable. Not that she is completely helpless. Rose knows men and what they are capable of, knows that they always show intent long before they act, and so she keeps a dirk under the waist of her shift. More than once she has pulled it out and waved it under shocked eyes.

  But this is no bedroom above a tavern or hall, with civilization and all its constraints ready to be summoned at will; here the pillory and gallows do not rule.

  Seeing the lack of civilization in those dark eyes, she knows that only a ragged hierarchy and authority protects her from their gnarled hands and ghastly breath. How slim is the veil separating her from them, and she feels it weakening. The farther from York Fort they travel, the more the wilderness creeps aboard the boats while the fear of God and master fades from their hearts. She sees it slipping already: commands are more forceful, responses slower and more reluctant. Wry looks common. How thin must the barrier be by the time they reach the Forks?

  She sits on a rock and watches the wild river sliding from the hidden continent to the sea. Although she is utterly weary of the river, from shore it still reflects a wild, secret beauty. She wonders what mysteries it carries; what it has seen. As she dips her feet, she is certain that murder has occurred along its length, and it whispers to her of dire deeds and secrets and fear. It is wild and furious, rumbling and roaring in cataracts and boiling spume. A cold breath rises from the river and mist fills the air, rainbowing in the morning sun.

  She wonders how they are going to continue; it seems obvious that further navigation upriver is impossible. Bending, she dips her tin cup into the river; it feels like a religious rite to taste the water, to taste the lifeblood of the secret land that she is destined to make her own.

  She senses a presence behind her and whirls, dropping the cup with a
clatter on the rocks.

  Declan Cormack stands leaning against a tree, watching her, arms crossed against his chest. Like a secret or something precious hides there. His curly dark hair rests on his shoulders and his mouth twists in a grin. His body radiates a conscious attempt at arrogance.

  “You startled me,” Rose says. She had forgotten about the Highlander who had accompanied them from the Indians’ camp. She notes that his peasant clothes have been replaced with Savage leggings and a stained deer-hide shirt. His legs are too short for the barrel girth of the rest of him; whatever else he might be, he is no runner.

  “I beg your pardon,” Declan replies with his strong, Highland burr in a tone on the edge of rudeness. He moves toward her. “But it be dangerous for anyone to be on their own, much less a lass. If the Savages don’t carry you off, fierce beasts surely will.”

  “I thank you for your concern, Mr. Cormack, but I am sure I will be fine.” She moves slowly away from the water, her hand going to her waist.

  “I am not sure of that at all, Miss, nor is your father.”

  “I wish to be alone and think for a while.”

  “‘Tis a crowded life, is it not? I can’t remember the last time I spent a few hours alone with my thoughts. There’s always someone poking and prying about; it is enough to make a man lose his wits.” He crouches down and looks out at the river. “Very pretty, is it not?”

  She looks over the water. “Yes. We have nothing so wild where I come from.”

  “There are many such rivers in the Highlands. The difference is a man knows where it comes from and where it goes. This,” — he waves a hand at the river — “is a mystery to me.”

  He stares in silence for a while, Rose watching him. Everything she sees speaks of peasant: the fingers sausage-thick, the rough clothing, the broad, stumpy body. A man who laboured all day, slept on a straw bed, woke to labour some more. A purposeless existence, she had always thought when viewing peasant life from afar. But watching those blue eyes staring over the river, she sees something new: a fierce yearning and pride rather than the flat gaze of despair and acceptance apparent in the other colonists. As he squats there, it as if she is seeing a part of the earth itself, as if he is made from stone. He appears immutable to her, and she wonders what force could possibly have shifted him from his native lands?

  Shaking his head, Declan looks down and spies the lichen on the rock at his feet; he lifts it up to show her. “Tripe de roche,” he says. “Our Savage friends have told me that this is eaten in times of hunger. It will keep starvation at bay, for a little while.”

  “Do you think we shall ever be in need of such food, Mr. Cormack?”

  “Who can know what waits for us?”

  “God knows. But what do you hope for?”

  Declan looks up the river. “An opportunity for a man to make something of himself,” he says.

  “So you have the same dream as my father, that farming in the new land will be the start of something unique?”

  “Nay. I will not farm.”

  “Was that not the purpose in coming here? I beg your pardon, but I thought everyone destined for the Forks had been engage to farm the lands.”

  Declan shakes his head and turns away from her. “I’ll not farm,” he says. “Digging in the soil with bare hands for what? The lairds throw you aside like a trespassing animal, never mind that your family has crofted that bit of Highland soil since long before this laird were whelped. Your love and sweat goes into the land and even in the best years, it gives back barely enough to pay your rent and feed the bairns and plant for next year. There is more a man can do; there are more things for a man willing to see further. Let small men dig for roots and husband cattle.” He turns to her with a smile. “I have other plans.”

  “I see. And what might they be, my good sir?”

  Declan gives her a thoughtful look. “We shall have to see won’t we, Miss Cromarty? Yes, we shall see. But it best we headed back, these rogues don’t take kindly to stragglers.”

  “I think you are somewhat of a rogue yourself, sir,”

  “Lies, spread by my enemies,” Declan says, looking pleased.

  Rose hesitates, and accepts the proffered arm. She feels its girth beneath its wrap and knows the man possesses a tremendous strength. “Thank you. On the contrary, one might mistake you for a gentleman, Mr. Cormack,” says Rose in a mocking tone.

  “There be no call for insulting me,” he replies.

  As they enter the camp, several people are lounging, smoking their pipes and taking whatever pleasure presents itself before the next leg of the journey. Some stare, including her father and Alexander. A few pointed snickers.

  Lachlan lowers his eyes on her; Rose sees the cold, hard light in them. “I thought I had made myself clear about your wandering,” he says to her.

  She waits for the inevitable punishment, but then with a thrill realizes that without a wall, that lacking their normal social context, he is essentially powerless. He would never cane her in public. The thought makes her giddy.

  “Do not fret so, Father. Mr. Cormack felt concerned for my well-being, and insisted I return. There seems to be so much worry over my welfare one would believe this to be a brigade of old aunts!”

  Lachlan stiffens. “Oh, indeed? Yet as your caution seems wanting these days I make my desire clearer: as of this moment you are forbidden to leave the camp. I am obliged to you for escorting her, Mr. Cormack.” Declan touches his forehead with a finger and walks away.

  After breakfast, the boats prepare for climbing the rapids. The “toffs” and a few infirm colonists are allowed to stay aboard while the Baymen line them up the cataracts. They fasten stout ropes to the prows of the boats, and the men on shore drag them upstream against the onrushing flow of water, while the rest of the peasants trundle behind them as best that can, burdened with as much gear as they could carry. The banks here are almost vertical and quite treacherous, while the level spots are choked with briars and willows. In some places, the men literally cling to the face of the bank, their feet digging into the soft soil, the ropes flung over their shoulders and threatening to pull them into the tormented river.

  Rose thinks the experience exciting; the water roars and hisses about them, splashing the boat’s occupants with icy water as the vessel pitches and twists and jerks in the current like a hooked salmon. Declan kneels in the prow — feigning a twisted ankle and Turr having long since surrendered this damp spot — raising his fists and crowing like a chanticleer, the spray flying against his face.

  Progress upstream is slow, but they are closing in on the end of the rapids when a lineman for the lead boat slips and takes down the man following close behind him. They both lose their ropes. The remaining men are suddenly burdened by the increased weight; they hang on valiantly, but are dragged back by the mass of boat, passengers, and stores; backs arch and knotted muscles grip at the cutting lines, quivering legs dig deeper and deeper furrows into the squelching soil. In danger of at last being pulled into the river, they abandon their lines with a shout of warning.

  The runaway boat hurls downriver, her passengers slumped and prepared for the worst. Lachlan barely has time to grab his daughter before the collision, the sharp stern puncturing their bow and jamming fast into the planks. Jumping clear, Declan hovers in midair, balances for an agonizing minute, and rolls over the gunwale into the foaming water.

  The shock of cold recalls the terror aboard the Intrepid. He fights for the surface, his head reeling. His flailing hand finds the gunwale. He yanks himself as far out of the water as possible. The current is too strong. He cannot haul himself back aboard. On shore, the weight of the two boats overwhelms the remaining linemen, and they are surrendered to the river.

  Several hands grip Declan, but rock after rock collides against his legs. The river pulls him away, his cold, wet weight too much for those who hold him. Before others can move forward to help, he is knocked from their grasp. His wide eyes are an accusation as he falls belo
w the surface.

  The roar of the river mutes to a visceral gurgle and rumble in his ears. Dim shapes of rocks slip past in the tea-coloured water. He rolls along and kicks against the river bottom, trying in vain to find footing, the current repeatedly dislodging him. Disoriented and unable to find the surface, his lungs feel like they will burst. Lights surround him like luminous smolts. He hears voices; his perception begins to recede and shrink, like a collapsing tunnel. A sob, an ineffectual bubble wobbles to the surface.

  As the dim shape of the Highlander drifts past, Alexander reaches out, grabs him by the hair, and wrenches him to the surface; the head breaks free with a heaving inrush of air.

  But Declan’s weight is enormous and threatens to pull them both away; Alexander shouts at the others for help. They grab onto him as he reaches over with both arms and drags the Highlander aboard. Declan collapses in the bilge, coughing and spluttering.

  They are jammed between the runaway boat and a large rock, listing at a sharp angle to the water; spray douses them while water is pouring in through the shattered bow. Soon they will swamp and pitch over.

  “What must we do?” Lachlan shouts to Alexander over the thunder of water.

  “Everyone into the other boat!” Alexander replies. The women are led forward, and the men help them step over the shuddering gunwale. Soon everyone is trans-shipped except Declan and Alexander, who lifts Declan from the bilge and half-drags him forward. The Highlander’s arm dangles at a strange angle. Several hands help pull him across.

  Alone, Alexander considers the bales of trade goods and bags of provisions surrounding him. Grabbing a bag of pemmican and his Baker carbine, he jumps off the sinking craft.

  With the change in weight, the boats shift and begin rotating. Alexander rushes to the stern, pushing aside the colonists. Just as he picks up the scull, the boats break free again and hurl downstream.

  The two vessels are still jammed together, and the offset drag fights with him, trying to turn them sideways to the current. They collide into rock after rock, their prow pushed skyward before sliding over and down and into the next rapid.