I glanced around to our party, everyone’s hair streaming, voyageur moustaches dripping like moss. Even Aurora’s ringlets had half-uncurled in soggy defeat.
‘Aye, we will not get to Grand Portage too soon,’ Pierre said. ‘The lake never lets us. See why we paddle hard when we can, American?’
‘What if we hadn’t been near this bay?’
‘Then we would die, as we all die someday. What if the wind had been on our nose? That has happened too, and driven me a dozen miles back to find proper shelter.’
‘What about those others?’
‘We’ll cross the point to look for them. And if the witch doesn’t give them up, we will fashion more crosses.’
‘That was more than a thousand in freight those fools lost!’ Cecil seethed. ‘They have to answer to the devil, but I have to answer to McTavish!’
We never found their bodies, but some of the trade goods did wash ashore, so tightly wrapped in tarpaulins as to be salvageable. Their contents would be dried in the next day’s sun.
The storm moved on, the sun low when it finally broke clear in the west. I was stiff and shivering with cold and thus happy for the exercise when Pierre beckoned me to follow him into the trees in search of dry wood. Magnus came too, swinging his great axe to break trail like a moose. In moments we were swallowed in a labyrinth of birch and thick moss, the wind and waves audible but our path back swallowed. I soon lost track of our direction.
‘How do you know where we are?’
‘Our blundering leaves signs, and the sound of the waves. But I like the water, not the forest where a man goes blind. I’ve had companions planning to walk a hundred paces to fetch a pail of berries and vanish without a trace. Some say Indians, some say bears, some say Wendigo. I say it is simply the soul of the forest, which sometimes gets hungry and swallows men up.’
I glanced about. The trees shuddered, the shadows were deep, and water pattered everywhere. I could be lost for days.
Pierre, however, seemed to have a calm sense of direction. We found a downed tree in the lee of a rock, its underside punk wood, and chopped until we quickly had armfuls of dry fuel and moss for tinder. We followed his sure route back and the other voyageurs used flint, steel, and gunpowder to catch the kindling. Smoke began puffing up in great grey clouds. Meanwhile Magnus was chopping more sizable wood with his axe, snapping dead driftwood into lengths with a single swing. I carried these to add to our pyramids of flame. Soon we had three bonfires roaring. Clothes steamed as the voyageurs began a makeshift manic dance like red savages, singing bawdy French songs and laughing and weeping at our escape and the death of their comrades, a tragedy they seemed to regard as unremarkable as the storm itself. Death was as common as snow in the north country.
The sun neared the horizon, giving the wet beach and forest behind it a golden glow as if lacquered. The canvas tents of our nobility went up, steaming, and Cecil broke out a keg of rum and gave us each a tot, even Aurora gulping the fiery liquid down like a sailor.
We began to grin stupidly, the way people do when they escape. Nothing makes you feel more alive than a brush with death.
Then the fires burnt down to manageable coals and we began to cook our peas and pork and hominy, stomachs growling. The men stirred fat into the corn porridge.
We ate as if famished, shaking with weariness. Pierre, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and licking it, addressed Cecil. ‘Lord Somerset, we’ve had loss but also gain this day. I watched the donkeys perform well – maybe because they wanted to keep their canoe in pace with that of your pretty cousin, no?’
‘If Ethan and Magnus are as weary as I am, then we all did yeoman work.’
‘They are not yet North Men but they are, perhaps, worthy of the company of the Pork Eaters of Montreal, eh, my porcine-loving friends?’
‘A Pork Eater is worth a hundred North Men!’ his Montreal companions cried. ‘Yes, let the donkeys be baptized into our company!’
Pierre addressed us, arms folded like a potentate. ‘Ethan and Magnus, you have had a taste of the real lake and, much to my surprise, not only lived but have not completely embarrassed yourself. With my own eyes, I saw you drive and bail our canoe past Dead Man’s Point with the terrible will this country requires. As voyageurs die, new ones vie for their place. I think it is time you truly joined our company, if you dare to receive such high honour.’
‘My muscles are twitching, I’m so tired,’ I confessed.
‘A few weeks more and you will not be such women. So we will baptize you now.’ He picked up a spruce branch snapped by the wind and walked down to the breaking waves on our ruddy beach, the surf on fire in the setting sun. He dipped the branch, carried it back, and shook its droplets over our head. ‘By the power vested in me as a North Man of the North West Company, I initiate you into our fellowship! From now on you are no longer donkeys but have names, which at dawn I will carve into a tree!’
‘It’s an honour,’ Magnus said. ‘If we have satisfied you, you’ve impressed me with your endurance, little man. You have the strength of a giant.’
Pierre nodded. ‘Of course I have impressed you. A French voyageur is worth a hundred Norwegians.’ He looked at me. ‘And now you must thank the assembly for this honour by taking your silver dollars and buying from Lord Somerset two kegs of shrub, as custom demands.’
‘How do you know I have silver dollars?’
‘Fool American! Of course we have been through your things a dozen times while you slept. All must be shared! Nothing is private among the voyageurs! And we know you can afford to treat us at Grand Portage as well!’
I resolved to hide a few coins for myself in the sole of my moccasins.
So a drunk began, earned by the day’s dramatic storm, the rum a needed fire in our throats. As night fell the fires were built up again, sparks swirling up into a sky now brushed clean and full of stars, and Aurora’s tent glowed with a pale translucence from a candle within. Pierre had said we’d rest the next day, and it occurred to me that I might have more energy for evening recreation if I knew I could sleep in the next morning. I wanted a taste of life after the day’s death. As inebriation mounted I backed into the shadows and crept to her tent flap, the others singing behind me. Surely she was ready for some warmth by now!
‘Aurora!’ I whispered. ‘It’s Ethan! I’m here to attend as you suggested. The night is cold, and we can bring each other comfort.’
There was silence.
‘Aurora?’
‘What cheek, Mr Gage. I gave no invitation. I am a woman of propriety, after all. We must be discreet.’
‘Discretion is my specialty. Let’s wager that I can be quieter than you can.’
‘You are presumptuous, Yankee Doodle!’
‘But companionable. I hope your memory is as fond as mine.’ I don’t know why, but women require a measure of persistence and palaver before agreeing to the obvious. Fortunately, I am a fountain of charm. As Franklin said, ‘Neither a fortress nor a maidenhead will hold out long after they begin to parley.’
‘But what has changed, Ethan Gage?’ she said. ‘There’s no true intimacy when a man won’t share his purpose. No affection without a demonstration of trust. How can we unite our purposes if I don’t know what your purpose is?’
Women do take patience, don’t they? ‘I’m just an explorer! I’m never quite sure of my purpose, actually. I just wander about, hoping for the best.’
‘I don’t believe that. And I’m not sure of my own affections until you are sure of our partnership. Imagine if we all joined your quest.’
‘Aurora, I told you – we’re looking for elephants.’
A sharp intake of breath. ‘I have shared everything with you, Ethan. Everything! You give me nonsense in return!’
‘I’m in a giving mood right now.’
‘Good night, sir.’
‘But Aurora!’
