Voyageurs

by Margaret Elphinstone

  Rachel, it turned out, was not willing to explain anything. I found our winter quarters far less peaceful now that she was with us. She didn't say much, but her presence was unrestful, as it had always been. I was shocked at my own resentment. It wasn't the first time in my life that Rachel had come in as the unwanted fourth. Perhaps she told Alan more than she told me, but they had very little opportunity to be private together, for fine weather in March seldom lasts for long, and we spent many days crammed together inside the wigwam. Rachel interrupted the easy flow of silence and story to which we'd grown accustomed, and she didn't make up for it by telling us any stories of her own. In fact she was singularly unforthcoming. Alan never seemed to be irritated. He said little, but very often I caught his eyes resting upon her, and what I read in them told me he still loved her. I couldn't see what she'd done to deserve it. But then my part in this was done, and the sooner I could go back to my own life the better.

  It was her silences that were the worst. Alan, Loic and I were not inclined to prattle needlessly; we had grown used to our own easy silences, just as we'd grown used to our evenings of desultory talk and occasional stories. Rachel's silences were not like that. They had a gowry, brooding quality, which cast a tension over us all, even Loic. The first time that she got up abruptly from her place by the fire, and walked off towards Bear Lake, we were left looking at one another, uncertain what we had done, or said, that might have upset her.

  I got up to follow.

  ‘Leave her,’ said Alan curtly, without looking up.

  ‘Alan, ‘twas how she was lost before!’

  ‘Ay,’ said Alan. ‘Do you think you need to tell me that?’

  ‘The Indians are back in the maple village by the lake here,’ I reminded him. ‘There's no saying that she may meet them. On purpose even.’

  ‘And if she does?’ said Alan. ‘Who am I to stop her? Besides,’ he pointed out, with a faint grin, ‘We have a hostage, brother Mark.’

  I'd forgotten about Clemency-Zhawenjigewin, who was sleeping peacefully inside the wigwam. Alan was cleverer than I was. I sat down.

  Rachel did come back just as it grew dark. But if anything – or nothing at all – happened to upset her or displease her, she'd walk away without a word, which seemed to me inconsiderate, to say the least, in the light of what had gone before. But sometimes I was actually relieved to see her go, her presence often being wretchedly oppressive to us all. Her Maker knew what was in her mind, no doubt, but for mere mortal men her inexplicable melancholy was a sad trial. I would have thought she would be filled with joy that she was back among her own, but joy seemed to be the furthest state from her condition. I could not help thinking her ungrateful, and was peeved accordingly. We were not happy with each other, but then, I began to ask myself, had we ever been?

  Loic said, when he and I were working on the canoe together, ‘I think she is sad for what she has left. You did not see the man?’

  ‘What man?’

  He looked at me as if I were a particularly obtuse small child. ‘Her man, Mark. Zhawenjigewin has a father, does she not?’

  ‘I know nothing of him,’ I said stiffly.

  ‘That is a pity,’ observed Loic. ‘If you, her own brother, cannot speak to her, then she is lonely indeed, I think.’

  ‘Lonely? But she is back among her own people. She has her husband again!’

  ‘It would be better if she could talk to you, I think.’

  ‘Talk about what?’

  ‘What she cannot say to Alan.’

  I gave up. Rachel presented me with enough riddles without Loic offering more. ‘If thee passes me that spruce root,’ I said pointedly, ‘I can lash the gunwale here.’

  My little niece was easier company. She was blate at first, and fretful if her mother was not immediately at hand. Soon we grew used to one another. I kept the bears’ claws round my neck because she liked to play with them. She preferred Alan, because he sang to her for as long as she desired it: all the old voyageur songs I'd learned on my journey west, and other, more plaintive, songs in his own Scotch language, which I'd never heard him utter before, except when he was very sick, and knew not what he spoke. But Clemency seemed to understand it well enough, and, what was a blessing to us all, the songs often had the power to make her fall asleep, when nothing else would do the trick.

  My opportunity came when Rachel said she'd like to come up the dunes with me. There was a brisk wind at the top. Our eyes watered as we gazed across the shining icefields to the distant Manitous. ‘The ice is like clouds,’ said Rachel, ‘like looking down on the cloud over Borrowdale from the top of Skiddaw.’ She gave a little chuckle, the way she used to do when something pleased her very much. ‘I'd like to walk on it.’

  ‘ ‘Twould be too slippery for thee.’ I glanced at her sideways; it was the first time I'd seen her smile since she was found. I seized my chance. ‘Rachel, will thee not tell me what happened, just this once? I give thee my word I'll never ask thee again, if thee tells me now.’

  Her face clouded over. She went on staring at South Manitou, a little frown between her eyes. I let the silence be, and at last she spoke. ‘I suppose I could have fought. I can fight. They were five or six, and I was but one, and a woman at that. I don't think I could have helped it.’

  ‘I'm sure thee couldn't help it,’ I said, when the silence seemed to grow too long.

  ‘I died to the world I came from,’ she said eventually. ‘Or so I thought. For ever and ever. I thought of myself as dead. My old self, that is, because when I grew accustomed, I found I was still myself. Deep inside, I mean, for in every other way I was someone else. I was a different woman in another life. God gives us life, and we have to take our strength in our hands and live it, whatever he sends. I tried to do that, according to his will. I did my best to learn – I tried to be brave – and God rewarded me. I changed. I was a different woman: a woman who could still be happy sometimes, even though she had no past. I am that woman, Mark. I don't wish to die again.’

  ‘Of course thee isn't going to die!’ Such talk seemed to me morbid, and yet Rachel was a woman of robust mind, and I hoped to encourage her.

  She sighed. ‘Oh, Mark!’ But after a moment she went on, ‘In the eyes of God I belong to no one but myself.’

  ‘That's true enough.’

  ‘And yet I'm capable of love, Mark. I don't know what thee thinks love is like. I don't think thee and I would ever agree about that. But I can love.’

  And that was all I could get out of her.3 I felt more in charity with her when we were scrambling over the dunes. She was as sure-footed as ever, a fast runner, for a lass, and daring with it. I think we always did best together when there were no words.

  * * *

  I never told my parents that Clemency was not Alan's child. I didn't lie; merely, I didn't allow the question to arise. Moreover, what they believed was true, because in Alan's own mind Clemency was his daughter, and as far as I know he has never wavered from the opinion he gave when he first laid eyes on her, either in word or deed. When Loic and I walked over to Lake Michigan early in Fourth Month, there was still mottled ice as far as the eye could see, but it was breaking up fast. Icy waves lapped the shore with a whispering sound like the wind through summer leaves. Further out, the jagged ice ridges were worn smooth by the waves until they looked like nothing so much as cream poured over a steamed pudding. We kept a close eye on the lake as the days grew warmer. The ice on our own little lake was beginning to melt, so we could set the net at night. We were trapping more game too, so we didn't go hungry. The Ottawa came back to their maple sugar camp by Bear Lake. Although we never saw the men whose hunting ground this was, we were surprised one day by a visit from Nidon and the other men from the South Manitou village, for this was their maple sugar camp too.

  When Nidon saw Rachel his eyes widened, but the Ottawa are an impassive people before strangers. When she'd gone away, we men talked very little, but sat before the wigwam and smoked. Loic mentioned
presently that I'd bought Rachel back from the people that had taken her. Nidon looked across at me. We met each other's eyes, and no words were said. I don't think he'd lied to me before, but simply held his peace.

  We parted as friends, and when he realised we had no more tobacco he gave us two big rolls of it. Recklessly – for spring seemed very near – Loic and I gave our own trade blankets in return, and slept in furs thereafter. We enjoyed having neighbours in the maple sugar village after the long solitude of winter. When the breeze blew our way, it bore the heavy sweet smell of boiling sugar, and filled my heart with memories of baking days at Highside. The children were curious, and egged one another on to visit us, and on still days we could hear the voices from the maple grove, and the sound of drumming in the evenings. But Rachel kept herself aloof, and when Nidon and the others came over for a smoke in the evenings, she always hid away in the wigwam. I didn't think she was frightened; it was something else. I went so far as to ask her about it, but all I got was the answer she'd given me all her life: ‘Doesn't thee understand anything?’ I said to her – and the words seemed stale on my tongue, I'd spoken them so often before, ‘How can I understand if thee won't tell me?’ At which she sighed, and walked away from me.

  Oddly enough, now that the day of our departure drew near, I felt in no hurry to leave. I was almost sorrowful. The weather was mild enough now for me to climb the dunes every day, and I'd look out over the shifting icefields, and watch the far blue line of open water creep gradually nearer. On windy days Lake Michigan was filled with the noise of breaking ice, rattling and cracking as it moved. Then all of a sudden the days – though not the nights – were hot, and we shed our smelly furs at last, and went bare-chested in the fresh heat of the sun as the Indians do. Now, instead of pools of water among the icefields, there were islands of ice in the blue waters. Rafts of ducks began to appear, sitting on the ice or floating in the free waters. The ice on Bear Lake broke up into segments, and our winter paths were drowned.

  We didn't want to take any risks with a fully loaded canoe, so it wasn't until a week into Fifth Month that we finally broke up our winter camp. We left the rolled up birchbark, the snowshoes, and some other tools we'd made, just inside the frame of the wigwam. The absurd thought crossed my mind that the correct thing to do would be to leave a note. That made Alan laugh, but Loic said seriously that Nidon and the others would read our message without any difficulty. And so we pushed off into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan, carefully skirting the remaining rafts of ice when we encountered them. As we got farther north we found more ice, and indeed we had to wait at L'Arbre Croche for several days, for there were still miles of broken ice clogging up the Straits. At Sleeping Bear I would never have guessed it would be so bad at Mackinac, though Alan and Loic had warned me.

  We travelled in easy stages, for we had a fall load, and Alan was pretty weak at first. It was hard for him to sit in such a way that he could paddle, so I kept my place as bowsman. Rachel and the child sat on the floor of the canoe, where we made a sheltered hollow for them among the bales. The weather was kind, and sky and water stayed blue and bright. The onshore breeze merely played with us, never threatening to fling us back on to that inhospitable shore. We met no one until we got to the village at L'Arbre Croche. The summer villages along the shore were empty; everyone was still inland at the maple groves. There were times when we even fell into a holiday mood, as if we were merely cruising for pleasure close to home.

  On one such day I heard Rachel say – for I had my back to her, being bowsman – ‘Mark, does thee mind that day we went on the barge right to the end of Derwentwater? And they fired the cannon under Lodore crags, and it echoed back and forth from Cat Bells to Castle Rigg for hours and hours?’

  ‘Not hours and hours. A minute or so, if that.’

  ‘But thee minds it?’

  ‘Ay, I mind it.‘4 I laughed, and called back to her – for I had to keep my eyes on the waters ahead – ‘That was the day thee pushed Jamie Wilson off the jetty on Lord's Island, because he guillotined thy doll.’

  ‘ ‘Twas not that day. The barge didn't land on any islands. Thee's thinking of when we took a pic-nic to Lord's Island after the hay harvest, in uncle John's big rowing boat. Father and Mother weren't there the time Jamie fell in.’

  ‘Ay, but thee did push the poor lad off the jetty, all the same.’

  ‘Ay, and so would thee have done, if it were thy baby had its head wrenched off!’

  I laughed again. For the time being we were happy. At night we made voyageur camps along the shore. I remember a night when I stood under the pines and looked up through their canopy to the stars slowly pricking out. A nightjar sang from the darkening thickets while a small wind stirred the branches, and brushed my face with cool fingers. A pair of loons were calling back and forth across the lake, each like an echo of the other. I looked down at our camping place on the beach, and saw four familiar figures – three big, one very little – silhouetted against the red glow of the fire. I heard the flames crackle, and two – no three – voices singing:

  Derrière chez nous, y’ a-t-un étang,

  En roulant ma boule.

  Derrière chez nous, y’ a-t-un étang,

  En roulant ma boule.

  Trots beaux canards s'en vont baignant,

  En roulant ma boule roulant.

  En roulant ma boule.

  I found myself thinking of Hugh, and Marc and Jean-Pierre, and Alan and Loic, and the time left, which was so swiftly running out. I thought about how I found Rachel, because it was not like looking for a needle in a bottle of hay after all, and about the little maid who had not been born when I set out from England. I found the words of the first psalm I ever learned going through my head . . . for my cup runneth over. Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. Then – I know not why it was, except that many things had happened – in general I am not easily overset – I leaned against one of the pine trees – it smelt of bark and resin just like the pines at Highside – and fairly grat like a bairn.

  1 I said this in all sincerity, but it would have been a moot point. If Clemency had come to Highside, where her grandparents were in unity, I think, discounting her mother, she would have been accepted into birthright Membership under their guardianship. Legitimacy of birth would not have been an issue; being the offspring of parents who were married before a priest would have created more difficulty. My sister would have presented a more intransigent problem than her child. If Rachel had expressed sincere repentance for her backsliding, and a firm intent to mend her way of life, and if she had given a written statement to that effect to Monthly Meeting, I think after a time her plea would have been accepted, and she restored to unity. I cannot imagine that Rachel would have submitted easily to the process.

  2 I was right; it never has.

  3 To this day I do not know exactly what happened. Conjecture is easy enough; one could say that it's fairly obvious how she was taken. One can only surmise who may have been responsible, and why they did it. I suspect that over time Rachel confided more to Alan about her life among the Ottawa. There were references in one or two of his letters that made me suspect he knew more of her story than he told. I have one of his letters by me now, dated February (as he puts it), 1814, wherein he writes, ‘I don't care to trespass upon her loyalty, although the object of it is not entirely plain. She insists that – in her words – nothing was taken that was not owed. I don't say I understand, but I can only respect her silence, since I have no means to break it.’ Rachel's letters never referred to the matter again.

  4 It was the only half-holiday we ever took, I think – my father, my mother, Rachel and I – all at once. It was so contrary to our usual practice that I cannot conceive now how such a trip ever came about. It was hardly my parents’ practice to join the summer Lakers at their vain ploys. I can only think that Rachel desired to go, and would not let the matter rest until she ha
d persuaded us all to accompany her. There is no other way it could have happened.

  CHAPTER 25

  OUR CANOE ENDED ITS LONG JOURNEY WHEN LOIC and I drifted gently onto the Kerners beach at Bois Blanc. The brief glimpse of Mackinac had left me dazed, and Loic's sudden urgency infected me. It had taken us a bare half-hour to get Alan and Rachel ashore, and carry their gear up to McGulpin's house. Even in that short time I felt overwhelmed by the noise, the press of people, the strangers passing to and fro. And yet less than a year ago Mackinac had seemed to me a desert outpost. I had no time to think of the extraordinary change in my own appearance, or indeed of anything but Loic's need for haste. I think Rachel was upset when I announced that I couldn't stay. It must have been even stranger for her to be back in Mackinac. I realise, looking back, that she may have needed me. Obviously neither she nor Alan had expected me to go off immediately with Loic. If Alan had ever guessed my feelings about Waase'aaban, I imagined he'd have forgotten about it by now. Anyway, my task was done; I couldn't help Rachel rebuild her life. Alan seemed to know how to deal with her better than I ever had.

  At Bois Blanc Loic didn't wait to unload the canoe. We beached it half out of the water, then Loic leapt up the bank and ran towards the cabin without looking back. I followed him more slowly. He flung the door wide open and rushed inside, shouting. I saw someone coming from the garden. It was the old man: he was half-running, calling as he came. Loic came out and ran straight to his father and embraced him. Martin hugged him, then kissed him many times on both cheeks. My own father loves me well, but if he ever kissed me it must have been before I have any conscious memory. Martin Kerners knew no such reticence. He held Loic by both arms, talking fast.