Where the Trail Ends: American Tapestries (3 page)

Heat crawled up Alex’s skin and into his cheeks. He didn’t like to talk to any of these men about his intended wife. “Pining would not become Lady Judith, but she will be faithful to our promise.”

Simon laughed so hard that Alex thought he might pop one of his shirt buttons. “You clearly don’t have much experience with women.”

Alex looked over the heads of the men and women lined up on opposite sides of the room, traveling toward each other and then back to the wall, dancing to the muted sound of the fiddles. It was true; he didn’t know much about the ways of women, but Simon didn’t know Judith Heggs.

His uncle and her father had negotiated a marriage between Alex and Judith more than a decade ago. It might seem strange to those who lived at the fort, but Alex had never balked at the idea of an arranged marriage, especially since he and Judith had been such chums in their younger years. Of course, that was years ago; he was twenty-nine now, and she was twenty-four. But they plenty of time to renew their acquaintance, and marriage, he hoped, would only increase their mutual admiration and respect.

His uncle had begun mapping out Alex’s life when he was eleven, and it seemed to be a good life, much better than he’d had the first decade of his life. His only act of rebellion had been to stay here a year longer than what his uncle had planned, but he had written letters to both Judith and his uncle, the esteemed Lord Neville Clarke, explaining in much detail why it was important for him to stay. During this past year, he had visited three of the company’s other trading posts, until he felt confident that he understood every aspect of the business that would sustain his family.

Alex pushed open the door, a blast of night air refreshing the room. “I mustn’t keep McLoughlin waiting.”

Simon strung a few notes on his fiddle, a smile on his tobacco-stained lips. “You couldn’t pay me enough money to spend an entire evening trying to act like a British gentleman.” Simon was the son of a Umatilla woman and a French-Canadian
voyageur
who’d paddled away from Fort Vancouver when Simon was four, but the loss of his father didn’t seem to bother him—at least not like the loss of Alex’s father bothered Alex.

Alex smiled. “I think you would do just about anything if I paid you enough.”

Laughter burst from Simon’s lips like water flooding over the great falls on the Columbia.

Alex stepped out into the night and slowly crossed the grassy piazza washed gray with moonlight. Pointed palisades twenty feet high hemmed the border of their village, and the gates on both sides of the fort were locked for the night to keep thieves away from their storehouses of food and supplies.

Alex was a British gentleman known as
Lord Clarke
on the other side of the world. Nobility had been in his father’s family for generations, and his uncle had told him stories of his ancestors dining with King George I. Although the blood of aristocrats flowed through
him, he no longer felt much like a gentleman now that he’d been at Fort Vancouver for four years. Nor did he feel entirely comfortable in the company of trappers and laborers.

Some days he felt trapped right in between.

Most of the officers of Fort Vancouver were British gentlemen who had taken Indian women as their wives. These men liked to pretend they lived just as fine as their counterparts in Great Britain, but most hadn’t been back in decades. None of them knew about the changes in fashion or politics or world affairs. News came to them six months after it occurred, with the annual arrival of the ship, and then they didn’t receive news again for another year.

The person Alex respected most at the fort was Doctor John McLoughlin, the chief factor of the trading post, though everyone here called him “governor.” Alex’s uncle respected McLoughlin as well and had requested that Alex work directly for the governor to learn everything about the trapping-and-trading business at Fort Vancouver before Alex returned to London for his place on the Hudson’s Bay Company committee.

Alex could tell by his uncle’s last letter that the tide was changing. Great Britain’s patriots weren’t as enamored of McLoughlin’s policies as they were of his ability to manage Fort Vancouver.

McLoughlin had Alex working plenty hard at the fort, but he felt neither privileged nor indentured. Over the past four years, McLoughlin had given him the opportunity to work in nearly every area of Fort Vancouver, including the kitchen, the trading post, and out at one of the trapping camps. When he returned to London, Alex would know the business of Hudson’s Bay Company better than anyone else on the committee, which was exactly what his uncle planned. Then Alex could move into the role of president when Lord Neville Clarke retired.

He eyed the house in front of him, with its split staircase leading
up to the grand front door. The shutters on its four front windows were olive green, the walls white. The only painted house, he’d been told, west of the Mississippi. Grapevines decorated the trellis along the wide veranda, and flowers bloomed at the base. There was a cannon at the bottom of the house and a pyramid of balls stacked beside it, but as far as he knew, the cannon had never been used. No one had ever tried to raid the trading post.

As a servant opened the door, Alex took off his fine felted beaver hat, shiny and black as the night. It was fashionable top hats such as his that had kept the workers of Hudson’s Bay Company employed since 1670—a hat worth three years’ wages in England.

The natives scoffed at the British men who spent so much money on top hats, but they were quite willing to trade their pelts for the wool blankets, glass beads, and firing arms that the company stored at its trading post.

The servant held out his hand, and Alex handed his hat to the man before walking down a short entryway and into the dining room. Wide mirrors reflected the light of the lamps and candles, and blue walls clad with fine paintings circled the room. It wasn’t nearly as elegant as the finer dining rooms in London, but the McLoughlins’ home was the finest place to dine in the entire Columbia District.

Judith might laugh at the attempt to bring a bit of refinement to the wilderness. Or perhaps she would embrace the only house in the West that attempted to offer dining in style. Either way, he was glad Judith was in London. Two officers had attempted to bring their society wives over here, but both women’s minds...they became unwell with the shock.

The wilderness was no place for a white woman.

Fifteen men were already seated at a white-cloaked table, the majority of them in evening dress with silk cravats knotted around
their necks. Most of the men were officers at the trading post, rotating in their invitation to dine at the chief factor’s table.

There was only one man Alex did not recognize. Instead of a dark cloak, the new man wore corduroy trousers, suspenders, and a red flannel shirt like many of the traders. His brown hair was pulled back behind his ears, and stubble shadowed his thin face.

McLoughlin turned from his conversation and waved Alex forward.

“Come in,” the governor’s voice boomed, and all the men turned to look at Alex. He bowed his head and walked forward to shake the governor’s hand.

McLoughlin’s white hair was long and wild over his distinguished blue coat, his eyebrows as thick and white as his hair. His dark eyes shone with good humor tonight instead of the intensity the governor often displayed when he was overseeing the fort.

“Are the men ready to leave tomorrow?” he asked.

“More than ready,” Alex replied. “They are quite eager to set up their camps in the wilderness while the sunshine is still with us.”

“Excellent,” McLoughlin said, as he lifted his glittering glass of water in a salute. “Marguerite just told me that she is eager, as well, for a ride in the sunshine. We just might join one of the companies in the morning.”

Alex nodded politely, but his mind began to rapidly tick through everything he would need to do tonight and then early in the morning to prepare for such a ride. Madame McLoughlin, in particular, would need the best horse in the stables and all the supplies necessary to keep her comfortable while they were in the wilderness. Madame enjoyed getting out of the fort whenever possible, but when she did, she liked riding a horse padded with blankets and decorated with ribbons.

McLoughlin eyed Alex for a moment. “We don’t want any fanfare,” he said. “We’ll only be gone for a few days.”

“Of course,” Alex replied with a nod, though they both knew that Alex would leave straight from dinner to attend to this new detail.

McLoughlin lifted his glass again, speaking to the entire table. “Alex, here, could run the whole fort if he weren’t so anxious to return to England.”

“More obligated than anxious, sir.”

McLoughlin laughed. “I believe you might have a little native blood in you.”

The man meant it as a compliment, but Alex’s uncle would terminate the governor’s position if he heard him suggest that a member of their elite family might be tainted with Indian blood.

Alex’s uncle, along with the rest of British society, would be appalled to learn that many of their countrymen had taken Indian brides in this territory. Even McLoughlin had married a woman whose mother was Chippewa and father was a Swiss fur trader.

Alex had no problem with the officers or traders marrying the native women. Some of these men loved and cared for their wives for the rest of their lives. His problem was with the men who married Indian women to ensure peace or gifts or protection to hunt on native lands. They were the scoundrels who abandoned their Indian wives to return to Britain and marry English women. Or sometimes they left their Indian wives to return to the women they’d married before traveling west.

“Have a seat.” McLoughlin pointed him toward a high-backed mahogany chair across the table. “The cook has prepared roasted duck, cabbage slaw, and blackberry pie.”

Alex pulled out his chair beside the new man. Madame McLoughlin, as well as the other officers’ wives, ate in the smaller dining room at the front of the house.

“You must be Alex Clarke,” the man next to him said with a wide smile and an accent clearly not influenced by a British mother.

Alex nodded, but he groaned inwardly. The last thing he wanted to do was make polite conversation with a Yankee.

He met McLoughlin’s eye across the table, and the older man smiled.

“Doctor John, here, has been telling me all about you.” Alex’s neighbor stuck out his hand. “I’m Tom. Tom Kneedler.”

Alex shook the man’s hand reluctantly. “It’s a pleasure.”

Alex poured a light red Italian wine into his goblet as one of the menservants brought two baskets of bread into the room—probably baked that morning in the bakery beside the governor’s house—and set them on the long table. Across from them, McLoughlin reached for a piece of bread and began to butter it. “Mr. Kneedler was with the company that arrived last year.”

Alex had been visiting another fort when the boats full of Americans arrived, but he’d heard the stories. Some of the men who came had to crawl up the banks from the Columbia, the
bateaux
they’d purchased from Indians battered and almost all their belongings gone. They’d begged for something to eat, a place to rest.

Tom Kneedler, he’d been told, hadn’t begged for food. He’d begged for medicine for his sick wife, and the fort’s surgeon, Doctor Barclay, had nursed the man’s wife back to health. Alex wondered if she had survived her first year in this new country, but he didn’t dare ask.

“He and his new bride went straight to the Willamette Valley and set up a homestead,” McLoughlin said.

Kneedler sat up a little straighter. “Next month, I’m going to be a father.”

“Congratulations,” Alex replied, not knowing what else to say. The men never spoke of babies—and rarely about women—at this table. He took a long sip of his wine before he spoke again. “How long do you intend to stay?”

“My Sally loves this country as much as I do,” he said. “We’re
planning to raise our children here, and hopefully our children will stay as well.”

Alex choked on his wine, coughing as he set the goblet back on the table.

“Are you all right?” Kneedler asked.

He nodded, hiding his lips behind his napkin until the cough subsided.

“My parents are coming West too, hopefully this year.”

Alex cringed. He didn’t want to hear about more Americans coming or raising their children here. Almost two hundred years ago, the king of England had granted Hudson’s Bay Company a charter of 1.4 million miles that drained into Hudson Bay, and the company was trying to retain this land for the queen.

So far only a handful of women, such as missionaries Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding, had made it across the great mountains that divided the West from the East, but if this continued, it wouldn’t be long before more American women came—bringing their children with them.

It seemed absurd to risk the lives of children by coming overland, but no voice of reason seemed capable of stopping the Americans when they put their minds to something. Alex had hoped McLoughlin would turn them away from Fort Vancouver, would stop welcoming them to his dining room table, but the governor thought it better to be friendly to the Americans than risk starting a third war with them.

One of the servants set before them platters of cabbage along with three roasted ducks stuffed with potatoes and herbs from the governor’s personal garden. McLoughlin asked God’s blessing over their food and discussion, and when he finished his prayer, McLoughlin turned to speak with the officer next to him.

Alex heard the governor tell the man about his great pride in the twenty-four children at the fort and the man from England who
was educating them until their new teacher arrived. Alex wasn’t so fond of Warren Calvert, but many of the children in the fort didn’t speak English. If nothing else, Alex hoped Calvert would teach them English and prepare the boys to follow in their fathers’ footsteps as trappers, clerks, and officers.

As they waited for the duck to be sliced, Kneedler leaned toward Alex. “How long have you lived in Oregon?”