A Dark and Promised Land (12 page)

The revolution in foreign parts that saw kings and queens lose their heads had struck terror in the lairds and even the merest whisper of discontent was a sure and quick path to the gallows. All knew they waited for any sign of rebellion at which they would push the Highlanders into the sea.

But as long as the people could be sat upon and cowed, they were useful, and so emigration was forbidden. When Lord Selkirk's envoy had offered transit to the New World, Alistair had not hesitated; he had once loved his laird, his chief, and his country, but now he could not wait to see the back of it all. Perhaps now he had a chance to make something of himself. In Rupert's Land, they say a man does not suffer himself to be burned out. And his people will always be suspicious of fire.

The next morning as the brigade heads out into the river, a long pall of smoke rises behind them.

“Quire right,” Turr says. “Scoundrels and trespassers all of 'em. They should be burned right out of the country.”

This length of the river is a series of falls and tumbling water, and most progress achieved by dragging the boat over many portages and poling through rapids.

After their earlier loss, the colonists are reluctant to remain in the boats through the white water, but often there is no alternative; with no passage on shore, they had to ride it out aboard.

These are now horrible moments for Rose; she sits hunched in the bilge with black hissing water tossing them about, eyes closed and fists clenching the gunwale, a fog of spray dampening her hair and shawl.

Alexander directs them here and there across the surface of the river, and if Rose had opened her eyes, she would have seen the art in this; behind every large stone is an arrow-shaped region of calm backwater, and in this gentle current, the men are able to pull the boat forward with little resistance. Upon reaching the face of the rock, they swing back out into the current and madly pole into the tail end of the next eddy.

In this manner, they are able to climb many miles of rough water without mishap, but the going is exhausting work and provisions are running low; the hunt is poor, the fishing dismal. The daily allotment of pemmican is reduced, which as far as the Orkneymen are concerned is of debatable hardship, but fourteen hours of rowing and poling requires food to sustain itself and their pace upstream slows.

“It is nae what I expected, the emptiness,” Declan says to Iskoyaskweyau.

“It is you whites, you
Êmistikôsiw
,” Iskoyaskweyau replies, looking at Turr relaxing on a chair with a mug of tea beneath a large spruce. “The Company. They have trapped and hunted out all between the Bay and
Missinipi
.” He does not share the universal belief in the canoes, that the sour stink of so many whites announced their coming miles ahead in the river valley, clearing whatever game remained.

“How is that possible? The land is so vast …”

With that, Iskoyaskweyau tells Declan what life was like for his grandfather, and his father, who lived and hunted throughout the north before the
Êmistikôsiw
came inland, when York Fort was a wigwam on the Bay. In those days, his people brought furs to York Fort while the
Êmistikôsiw
hid in their wood house, like children.

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.