The Journey of the Shadow Bairns

by Margaret J. Anderson

  The Beatties’ wagon only made it a little way out into the slough before getting stuck. The straining horses could pull it no farther. There was nothing to do but lighten the load. Mrs. Beattie, holding her skirts above her ankles, splashed back through the mud and settled herself on a box to wait. She watched expressionlessly while Mr. Beattie, helped by men from other wagons, piled crates and furniture around her.

  “You’d be better off leaving some of this here,” one of the men suggested. “There are a lot of these sloughs to cross, and you’ll get mired down every time with this load.”

  “Leave one piece behind and I stay with it,” Mrs. Beattie said tonelessly.

  They must have believed her, for they said nothing more, but continued to work.

  The horses were finally able to move the Beatties’ wagon, but then the boxes and chests had to be unloaded on the other side so that Mr. Beattie could fetch his wife and the rest of their belongings. Geoffrey and Arthur both helped. Mr. Beattie nervously wiped sweat from his forehead and neck, mumbling apologies for the trouble he was causing. He was more than eager to hitch one of his big horses to Geoffrey’s cart and pull it through.

  It took the entire afternoon to get all the wagons across, and would have taken longer without William Reed and his big horses. “You’ll travel with us,” he said to Geoffrey, when they were resting between loads.

  “We’d be glad to,” Geoffrey answered. “Especially through country like this.”

  At first, Elspeth was sorry to learn that they were joining the wagon train. She’d enjoyed being on their own. More people would mean more questions. And that Mrs. Beattie, although she never asked anything, and mostly stared straight ahead, sometimes watched Robbie with the strangest expression on her face.

  The only other woman in the group was Violet Simms, a young bride, only a few years older than Elspeth. She was obviously glad of company. She came over to sit by Elspeth while they were waiting for the last wagon to cross.

  “Are these your brothers?” she asked.

  “The little one, Robbie, is my brother,” Elspeth answered. “We’re just riding with the Whitcombs. We’re looking for our aunt and uncle.”

  “I didn’t think he was your brother,” Violet said, pointing to Geoffrey. “He talks posh—a bit like the Farthingtons I used to work for in London. But how do you mean, looking for your aunt and uncle?”

  If Elspeth had known Violet better she might have told her the whole story, but she let the moment pass. She merely said, “We’re going to meet them in Battleford. They came out earlier.”

  “And you came on your own with your little brother? How old are you?”

  “Nearly fourteen,” Elspeth said. “I want to get a job as a maid.”

  “Then you’ve come to the wrong place, haven’t you? If it’s a maid job you’re looking for, London’s the place. I worked there as a maid myself for Mrs. Farthington. A big, fancy house, she had, with three maids and a cook. Sidney was the groom—that’s how he’s so good with horses—and we’ve only been married a month. You should have heard what Netty and Elsie had to say—they were the other maids—when I told them we were going to be big landowners out here! A hundred and sixty acres, and I’ll be mistress of my own home!” Violet tossed her black curls.

  Elspeth listened, envying the certainty with which Violet faced the future in this vast new land.

  Chapter 9

  “Obstacles are something to be overcome”

  APRIL 20-24, 1903

  The following morning, Violet invited Elspeth to join her on the high front seat of the Simmses’ wagon. Sidney was leading Beauty, and Violet wanted someone to talk to. Robbie sat between the two girls, his legs swinging as the wagon jolted along. He paid no heed to their chatter.

  “That Mrs. Beattie is a funny one,” Violet said. “Whenever I try to talk to her, she doesn’t even let on I’m there. She puts me in mind of our cook, Mrs. Rogers. Ever so stuck-up, she was.”

  Elspeth had been thinking about Mrs. Beattie too. Last night when Sidney was playing his fiddle by the campfire, Robbie jumped up and began to dance, trying to do the Highland fling, the way he used to do it to make Papa laugh. It hurt Elspeth to remember those happy days. Then she noticed Mrs. Beattie looking at Robbie in her strange, hungry way. Elspeth grabbed him and pulled him down beside her, saying, “Stop acting so silly, Robbie MacDonald. You sit down beside me!” Sidney said not to spoil the lad’s fun, and Robbie fussed and cried till Elspeth had to bribe him to be quiet with the last piece of barley sugar. All the time, Mrs. Beattie was watching them.

  Then that morning, when they had been ready to leave, Robbie had wandered over and petted the Beattie’s calf. When Elspeth saw Mrs. Beattie walking toward Robbie, she left the dishes and ran over and grabbed Robbie, jerking him away from the calf.

  “You leave other people’s things alone, do you hear me?”

  “I was just talking to it,” Robbie said, taken aback at finding Elspeth so angry.

  “Well, you’re not to,” Elspeth answered.

  Robbie began to cry, and although Elspeth knew she was being unfair, she slapped him telling him to stop making a fuss. Of course, that only made him cry all the louder, and all the time Elspeth could feel Mrs. Beattie’s gaze on both of them.

  But now the Beatties’ wagon was some distance ahead, so Elspeth put Mrs. Beattie out of her mind and listened to Violet talking about her wedding day, and about the cake Mrs. Rogers had made.

  “Ever so pretty, it was, all decorated with violets and forget-me-nots—because of my name and I wasn’t to forget them after we were gone. Netty didn’t eat her piece. She put it under her pillow, so she’d dream about the man she’s going to marry. I wonder if she’s found him yet!”

  Elspeth loved listening to Violet’s chatter and Violet enjoyed having an attentive audience. The only problem was that Violet had no patience with Robbie, and he didn’t care one bit about the affairs of the Farmington household. He kept interrupting, asking if he could get down and walk.

  “Can’t Arthur and Geoffrey take him for a bit,” Violet suggested. “There’s not really enough room for him here. Or let him get down and walk if that’s what he wants.”

  “I’d have to walk with him to make sure he didn’t get too far behind,” Elspeth answered.

  “Please yourself,” Violet said with a shrug. “Seems to me you fuss over him too much.”

  Elspeth felt annoyed. After all, Robbie was only four years old and needed someone to look after him.

  She was about to jump down from the wagon when Sidney shouted up to Robbie, “Do you want to ride on Beauty, lad?”

  Robbie didn’t need a second invitation. He was soon sitting happily on Beauty’s broad back, his fingers tangled in the mane. Pig-Bear was buttoned in his jacket, his head sticking out so that he could warn them if he saw Indians. Robbie and Sidney discussed Indians at length.

  On the fourth day, they reached Eagle Creek. They had all heard plenty of hair-raising stories about this particular crossing, yet they stood in a huddled group, staring with disbelief at the narrow trail twisting down one side of the gully and up the other like a carelessly tossed brown ribbon. At the bottom, almost within reach of the swirling waters of the creek, lay the matchwood remains of a broken wagon.

  “London was never like this!” Sidney said, shaking his head.

  “They should have built a bridge,” Violet chimed in. “We can’t cross here. I don’t think we’re even on the right road.”

  “Have you seen any other?” Arthur asked.

  Finally, William Reed spoke up. He said they would need to jam poles between the spokes of the back wheels of the wagons to keep them from outrunning the horses on the way down. Cottonwood trees grew thick in the gully, so some of the men scrambled down to cut and trim poles.

  “I reckon I’ll have a go at it,” Reed volunteered when they had the wagons ready. No one challenged his right to go first. “I don’t like the way the land’s slipping on these
sharp turns, but I’m sure if there was a safer place to cross, someone would have found it.”

  Elspeth and Robbie sat quietly at the top of the ravine, watching each outfit descend the treacherous path. Reed’s wagon slithered at the first bend, but after that he had no real trouble. The Beattie’s wagon, top-heavy with their belongings, took the first turn all right, but at the second bend, one wheel hung over the edge for a moment, causing the wagon to lurch and the load to shift. Mrs. Beattie, sitting up front as erect as ever, was the only one who didn’t cheer with relief when the wagon righted itself with no harm done. Poor Mr. Beattie, straining at the reins, had sweat streaming down his white face. He was so exhausted when he reached the bottom that William Reed had to lift him down from the wagon.

  “You’d better walk down with Robbie,” Arthur told Elspeth.

  Violet would have liked to walk with them, but Sidney said he needed her help with the wagon. She was so frightened that Elspeth didn’t think she’d be much help. But the Simmons and the Whitcombs both had smaller outfits than most and managed better.

  When they had all reached the bottom, they faced the new hazard of crossing the creek, swollen at this time of year by spring rains and melting snow. It was here that the bigger wagons had an advantage. Geoffrey was worried about a back wheel that was wobbling a little, but decided they should try to reach the top of the gully before they did anything about it.

  “Maybe you and Robbie should cross with Sidney,” he told Elspeth. “I don’t want you thrown into the river if the axle breaks.”

  Violet was only too glad to have company. “I don’t know how to swim,” she said. “If this thing tips over, I’m going to hang on to you!”

  “Don’t do that!” Elspeth said. “I can’t swim either. You’d do better to hold onto a wooden crate.”

  Everyone watched each wagon in turn ease into the swirling water as if their collective wills could guide the horses safely to the other side. When the Simmses’ turn came, Robbie clung to Elspeth, half fearful and half fascinated by the water rising almost to the top of the wheel. Then it seemed to fall away as Beauty dragged the wagon onto the narrow strip of shingle on the other side.

  They ran to the water’s edge to shout encouragement to Geoffrey and Arthur, who were now almost halfway across. The water was even higher on their small cart. Suddenly, the right front wheel plunged into a hole, the cart swayed, and something went flying from the top of the luggage in a wide arc and landed in the river.

  “It’s Pig-Bear! It’s Pig-Bear!” Robbie screamed. “It’s Pig-Bear and he’s drowning!”

  Elspeth, afraid that Robbie was going to jump in after Pig-Bear, went running alongside the creek, trying to keep the poor battered toy, swirling and bobbing in the brown, frothy water, in sight. At the first bend, she tripped over a root and plunged right into the river. Her breath left her completely as she felt the icy water rush over her, roaring in her ears and tearing at her clothes. She tried frantically to struggle back to the shore, but she was caught in the swirling current, completely at the mercy of the rushing water. For a long, sickening moment she couldn’t feel the gravel bottom with her feet, but then her knee hit a sharp rock, and she felt herself being dragged across stones. The rushing sound of the water was replaced by voices—crying, screaming, shouting voices. Someone was shaking her, calling her name.

  “Of all the stupid things to do! To jump in after that silly animal!” Arthur was saying, shaking her by the shoulders so that her hair slapped wetly against her cheeks. “Do you never think before you do anything?”

  “What made you dive in when you couldn’t swim?” Violet asked.

  “I fell in,” Elspeth tried to explain, but no one listened. No one could hear above the noise of the creek and Robbie’s crying. He went on crying even though someone had rescued Pig-Bear from where it had become entangled with the branches of a cottonwood tree trailing in the swollen water.

  “I thought you were drownded,” Robbie said to Elspeth, tears streaming down her face.

  “I knew it would be like this, taking children with us,” Geoffrey said in a disgusted voice, turning his back on Elspeth.

  “We’d better get the rest of the wagons up top while there’s still daylight,” William Reed suggested. The incident was all but forgotten as they turned to face new problems.

  Elspeth didn’t wait for Arthur or Violet to offer her a ride, but trudged up the steep slope from the river bottom. Robbie reached for her hand, but she ignored him. He followed her quietly. Elspeth’s wet clothes clung to her, and the wind, razor keen, took her breath away. By the time they reached the top her jaws ached from chattering and she could hardly claw her way up the last few yards. But even worse than the numbing cold was the memory of the sharp, angry voices shouting at her as they dragged her from the river. They had shouted at her more to release their own tension than in anger, the way she often did with Robbie. But Elspeth felt that the closeness, the feeling of belonging, was gone. Geoffrey’s taunt about taking children with them rang in her ears.

  She stood shivering, as near the fire as possible, but she couldn’t get warm. It was a smoky fire of wet, green cottonwood, and didn’t give off much heat. She had changed out of her wet outer clothes and spread her coat to dry, but foolishly she had not taken off the gray skirt, which still clung damply to her legs. She had worn it night and day, ever since she left Scotland, and only felt safe as long as she could feel the money sewn in the lining of the bodice. She shivered again and tried to get closer to the fire, but the thick smoke made her eyes smart.

  The sky was gray and heavy and seemed to merge in the distance with the gray land. As darkness fell, snow dusted the ground, and the wind howled with a new note. Elspeth and Robbie slept in one of the government tents that night. It offered more protection than the tarpaulin, but Elspeth was still cold and slept fitfully.

  Snow continued to blow in the wind all the next day. Elspeth huddled with Robbie in the back of Arthur’s cart. She hadn’t the energy to listen to Violet’s chatter. Thinking that it might help the stiffness in her joints and muscles, she forced herself to walk for a while. All the time, she wondered how the world could have changed so suddenly. The emptiness of the land made her feel puny now, not important; the long, straight trail surely led nowhere; the wind carried threats, not promises.

  She tried to think about what she was going to do when she got to Battleford. She would ask Arthur to take them to the hotel. Suppose there wasn’t a hotel? There must, at least, be a boardinghouse. She stumbled and then dragged herself back to the cart. She’d have to act surprised when Uncle Donald and Aunt Maud weren’t there. She’d show the Whitcombs she had money for a room. Then she’d wait for news of Mr. Barr. He’d help her. He’d look after her . . . wasn’t that what he’d said on the ship? . . . that he was responsible for all these people. . . .

  In her head she carried on an imaginary conversation with Mr. Barr, but sometimes she seemed to be talking with Uncle Donald and sometimes even to Papa. If only Papa were here to look after them. . . .

  That night, in their tent, Elspeth counted out the money she had for the hotel. They’d likely want to see her money before they rented her a room. Everyone looked shabby and dirty and weary, but she realized that she and Rob looked worse than most. She would have liked to offer some money to Arthur, because she knew he was worried about being short of supplies for the rest of the journey, but he had been so aloof since Eagle Creek.

  The next day, Elspeth coughed and was feverish. She had given up the idea that exercise would help her aches and pains. When she tried to walk, the ground swayed in an alarming way, and the flat prairie seemed to be all uphill. It took all her strength to cling to the jolting cart.

  Robbie sat close beside her, a Shadow Bairn again, whispering words of comfort. “Arthur says we’ll soon be seeing Uncle Donald and Aunt Maud.” Getting no response from Elspeth, he said, “Arthur says Uncle Donald’ll give me a wee calf of my own. He’s sure he will. It can be
yours, too, Elspeth. . . . It would be nice to have milk again, wouldn’t it? Talk to me, Elspeth!”

  Elspeth hardly knew they had reached Battleford, although the rest of the group was wildly excited to see the houses and stores and mills at the meeting place of the Battle and Saskatchewan rivers. This would be their last chance to buy provisions and send messages back home before pressing on to find their own land. There was an air of urgency, almost as if they were nearing the end of a long race. The land was waiting, and the best claims would go to those who got there first. Even Sidney Simms, who had never been outside London before, could see that there were stretches of this land that could never be tamed by a plow.

  “You’ll want to go to the hotel,” Arthur said to Elspeth. “I do hope your uncle and aunt are there waiting for you.”

  Arthur’s voice sounded unnecessarily loud. What was he saying? Oh yes! Uncle Donald and Aunt Maud—they were waiting for them at the hotel. It would be nice to have someone to look after Robbie for her. And it would be nice to have someone look after her.

  “Are you all right?” Arthur asked anxiously.

  “I’m just tired,” Elspeth answered.

  The cart jolted to a stop again. A building—a hotel? Robbie was shouting that Aunt Maud and Uncle Donald were going to meet them here. Elspeth nodded in agreement. Yes, they had money for a room. She had the money here in her hand—lucky she’d thought of that last night. Could she go to the room now? To lie down. . . to sleep . . . till Aunt Maud came. . . .

  A girl, not much older than Elspeth, was saying something to Arthur, and Elspeth forced herself to make sense of the words.

  “Mrs. Morgan’s not here right now,” the girl was saying. “She’s the one who would know about their aunt and uncle. MacDonald, you said the name is? She hasn’t mentioned them to me.”

  “When will Mrs. Morgan be back?” Arthur asked.

  “Less than an hour, I should think. Will you be wanting a room?”