A Dark and Promised Land

by Nathaniel Poole

  Each stroke of the oarsmen moves them across the river in a gentle rhythm, their bodies rocking as hips moved before heads. The motion feels soothing and safe, and she suddenly realizes that Alexander had moved on top of her with the same slow cadence. After all his years on the river, the motion has become one with the man, an ineffable part of his nature. It is in how he walks, how he swings his gun, how he makes love. Perhaps it echoes his very heartbeat.

  “A lovely morning,” Lachlan informs her.

  “Indeed,” she replies. “It is warmer than it has been for a long while.”

  “Yes, the sun is low as befits the season, but the weather is uncommonly civil. Perhaps it is a harbinger? I shall speak to Mr. McClure about it when we stop for our breakfast.”

  “I imagine he if anyone would know all about heat and premonitions, Father. I too would like to know what he believes the future holds in this regard. There has been too little of it, and I wonder at its sudden, unforeseen arrival. Should I trust it or will it quickly flit away on the heels of storm?”

  “You are poetic this morning, I see. Or perhaps the more correct word is philosophical?”

  She smiles at him again. “I do feel passionate. I have had unusual dreams of late, dark phantasms that make my tongue waggle nonsense.”

  “Passion is it? Well, I think we could all use a little passion. And it is not to wonder that your dreams are disturbed; there has been much gloomy talk and murmuring among the brigade; a good dose of passion might set everyone to rights.”

  Rose does not respond, but looks up again at Alexander. For a moment, their eyes touch. That fleeting contact carries much, and she feels a surge of delightful fear, thinking that others must see and be aware of their thoughts and emotions. But she must have a care. Her play with her father is one thing, but it is harder for the eye to deceive. Words may hang a man, but it is the glance, the gaze, that truly condemns. She has a sense of recklessness, like riding a horse too hard and fast, on the edge of being thrown.

  “Mr. McClure?” she calls, pleased to see him jump.

  “Yes, Miss?”

  “Do you think that passion arises at night? In dreams?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Is night the wellspring of men’s dreams and desires?”

  “Now, Rose, don’t go bothering Mr. McClure with your rubbish,” her father says. Alexander turns away and coughs.

  Rose opens her mouth to rejoin him, considers the wisdom in this, and then dismisses them both from her thoughts. The thwart board digs into her and she squirms, doing her best to smooth her muddy skirts. She thinks of her Bible and hurriedly puts that also out of her mind; with a sigh, the ever-present boredom blankets her yet again.

  The deep wilderness and dark river have long lost their novelty and each day seems much like the interminable last, with neither the landscape nor anything else changing. The rhythm of the oars, the taciturn quiet of her companions, the slap of water repeat themselves endlessly, and she has a feeling of traversing a long dark tunnel.

  The shock of the accident at the rapids has worn off and she catches herself almost wishing for more mishap, anything to interrupt the tedium of staring at a changeless nothing.

  When her father first told her about his plans, Rose had been quite excited about the prospect: wild lands, fierce Aboriginals, iron men. Perhaps here she would find the dash that was missing from her life. But as she watched, the dark trees lining the riverbank move slowly past, she feels quite dissatisfied with the experience so far.

  The trees seem like a wall to her, behind which lay unknown secrets and half-imagined threats. She feels no more a part of this land now than when they first saw the shores of Hudson’s Bay.

  It occurs to her that the water on which they travel flows into that great Bay, which itself communes with the North Atlantic, that frigid sea bearing her beloved Orkney. In a sense, they had not really left; not until they abandon the river will they really know the land they had come to claim as their own.

  The thought frightens her. The journey so far has been far more brutal than she could ever have imagined, weighted with unimaginable suffering and squalor. The few books that had been published by men who had adventured in Rupert’s Land talk about courage and adventure, not about death and filth and fear and this deep, gnawing hunger.

  Alexander shouts to the leading boat, and like a naughty child her mind returns to the forbidden. He had at first been very gentle with her, like she was a flower he was fearful of treading upon, like she was made of delicate petals needing to be opened with the most delicate of touches. She soon learned him that this orchid was a snapdragon, her teeth leaving marks on his shoulders and neck, nails furrowing his back like a lash. She sees how artfully he has covered his throat with a red sash and smiles again, squeezing her hands.

  He had been surprised by her, Rose is certain. She knows what is expected of a woman, how the game is played. But she is no virgin. That honour she had long ago bequeathed to a cousin who often visited her and her father when released from University. A pale, gangly sort with a topknot of red hair and an unquenchable ardor. He collected maidenheads as other men collected anecdotes, and was constantly being called out. He was no great shot with a pistol, and more than once found himself carried from the field of honor with a father’s ball as a token of the experience. But she had found him irresistible and gratefully surrendered to his advances.

  “Better to offer the thing to a stranger or a cad, so that one can focus on more important matters with one’s husband,” she had told her friend, Agnes. “All that weeping and blood cannot but distract your dear man from his duty, and I will not bear anyone who finds such things to be his taste.” She had welcomed Alexander with far more than he had a right to expect.

  But he was more of an enigma. Her cousin was only one of many lovers, and she knew the feel of experience on her and in her, and Alexander’s rush was urgent and hastily done. His lack of finesse was quite distinct from the skilful manner with which he played his scull. In other men, this frequent ineptitude merely amused her, but with Alexander, it evoked tenderness; she knew the lack was one only of practice, of opportunity, and felt glad that he had not made a habit of bedding Savage women. She could teach him much, and yet careful as always to have him believe that it was she who was the student.

  Pipe smoke and small conversation swirls about her. The water bucket rattles as someone removes the ladle. A short, harsh laugh. Squeezing her father’s hand, she returns his smile and rests her head on his shoulder.

  Chapter Eight

  The mood as they divide the loads is one without enthusiasm. Robinson, Oxford, Knee, and Swampy Lakes are behind them, and they prepare to enter the sluggish and marshy length of the Echimamish River. Although this length of the passage from York Factory to the Forks flows with them rather than against, the weeks-long journey has taken its toll on their bodies and spirits. And they still have not found the rest of the brigade. It seems that Semple decided to not wait for them at any of the portages, but pressed ahead as if the Devil’s whips were lashing his back. Alexander wonders if there has been some troubling news; that rumours he has heard, now old, did not bode well for the settlement.

  He shares the great man’s desire for haste, but for different reasons, and he has not the governor’s authority to be able to drive them as he would; he is a simple guide, no more; the true captain of their journey has long ago abandoned them at the foot of a rapids, to follow or else seek their fate as they may. Turr was ostensibly in charge, but the man is too without spirit to occupy more than the stool behind the throne, whispering intrigues and advice in his master’s ear. He had not yet taken his sceptre, preferring to let the burden of command, the daily details of managing a host of ill-equipped and ill-suited passengers and crew to fall on other’s shoulders. Alexander wanted to give the laggard a good shaking, or more.

  The mood that morning had been particularly difficult. Squabbles had broken out, and men argued over trifle
s. The complaints seem endless: not enough food, not enough shelter. He tells them repeatedly that this brigade is like any other, that hardship and hunger are part of travelling in Rupert’s Land. But the colonists are unmollified: hardship had been their lot for all their short lives, and they needed no Half-caste to teach them about fortitude. Stoicism was one thing, but needless suffering was another, so they blamed him, the Company, the Indians, and the governor for their troubles.

  He is aware that all the prating, the discontent, is more than hunger or tragedy or even their guide’s unmistakable uncertainty. Many of the people have been together since Orkney, and living so closely they have established a feel for each other, an undercurrent of understanding forged in hardship and uncertainty. Most days what needed to be done had been done, with no argument and little discussion. He had been amazed at how quickly these unprepossessing people had adapted to the rhythm of life on the river.

  But something had changed. He does not believe that anyone as yet realizes what is occurring between him and Rose; no one has seen her enter his tent at night. But all depend upon each other for their very survival, and their tight and inflexible society may be incapable of accommodating the subtle shift that has taken place.

  He is a strong believer in the power of things that cannot be seen, and is afraid they are all aware at some obscure level that their bond has been betrayed, that an illness has crept into their lives.

  They would likely kill him if they knew. And Rose would be cast out, which in this wilderness would be much of the same. It disturbs him greatly that she makes sport of their love, teasing him before his men, and even her father, with obscure, dangerous references.

  She watches him far too much, and he has taken to avoiding her glance, deeply though it pains him. What he wishes most is to be able to speak freely, to laugh and sing and announce his love for her to others, and to his Manitou, Jesus.

  Their nights together are wonders within themselves, when for a moment they can cast off most inhibitions, although they must remain mute. So they let their hands and lips and bodies speak what may not be spoken. And while the ecstasy of these moments is beyond anything he has known, there is always a part of his mind listening, watching, and waiting for the sound of footsteps outside his tent, and the inevitable calling out. The rope would quickly follow: soft and pliable in the beginning, hard as iron at the end.

  Rather than quench his fire, the danger stokes it, his heart presumably feeding its desire while it may. It is possible the girl feels something similar that would account for her foolish behaviour and this unnecessary risking of hers. It may be that she needs the fire more than he, the flames building in her breast to eventually consume them both. He has never heard of a desire like theirs; the drunken debaucheries the men brag they share with the Home Guard women are debased liaisons that pale in comparison.

  Occasionally he had sated himself there, but always the thing was one of lust, and always he would slink away in shame, like a cur. He did not know where this grief came from, as such liaison was acceptable and even typical among his mother’s people.

  He suspected the priest’s thundering blandishments had distorted his thinking; he had heard the man condemned any such practice since Alexander was a boy. He had even caught Alexander fouling himself and had beaten him with a stick until the blood had flowed freely down his back. His father had threatened murder if he ever laid a hand on the boy again, but Alexander could always feel the priest’s malignant eye on him. All his life he feared the hellfire that he had been threatened with, his almost inevitable lot not only for his behaviour, but also for his unclean, Savage blood.

  What he feels for Rose is unlike anything he has experienced with a woman, and he cannot believe that it is not a gift from God itself. He yearns to speak of it but cannot, and the need drives him mad.

  As Alexander had predicted, the weather turned to the north and brought with it clouds and almost constant rain. The factor had not supplied the colonists with adequate tents, assuring them that he in fact had none, and that the tradition of using the York boat sails as an awning against the weather must suffice. After all, if it was good enough for Company men, it was bloody well good enough for a rabble of Highlanders and Orkney peasants.

  So the sails are removed from the boat and crude communal tents made to shelter them from the worst of the onslaught. There is little dry wood, and they huddle beneath the tarps shivering and stinking and eating cold pemmican. Everyone is wet through, and even the blankets are mouldy and soaked.

  The Indians seem much better off; they have brought several stout hides with them and each night after landing the women scour the bank looking for saplings for poles. They cut a lattice of spruce branches for a floor, covered by an oilcloth. They erect the poles, and drape several hides over this frame. They leave a gap in the covering for access, closed off by a tattered okimow. Inside, a small fire warms the cozy space.

  But there is hardly room for the entire brigade in a small skin hut, and the only ones invited inside are Alexander and Declan; the rest do their best to keep out of the rain, maddened by the warm light that escapes beneath the edge of the Indian’s comfortable, dry shelter.

  It is better in the day — for the men — for although completely exposed to the weather, the hard work warms them and, as they row, their coats and shirts steam with their heat.

  It is inevitable that sickness appears. Sniffles and coughs and fever. Even the Indians are not immune. The child develops some type of bowel ailment, and one evening squats and ejects a noxious yellow stream from between his flaming buttocks. Isqe-sis grabs him and bends him over her knee. She takes the blunt side of her knife — the one she had been using to fillet a fish — and scrapes away the feces from his buttocks. After releasing him, she wipes the blade on the moss and rinses her hands in the cooking water. Everyone watches in silence. The evening meal goes untouched by any but the Indians.

  With the advent of sickness, the pace of their traveling decreases still further. Alexander is furious at them; they do not seem to comprehend that they are on the run from the winter that he knows is waiting just over the horizon. If things seem difficult now, they simply would not survive if they do not leave the North country within a few weeks. September is already old. But no matter how he curses, no matter how he exhorts them, the pace of the brigade declines even further.

  “What disturbs you so, my love?” Rose asks, nestling under his arm and resting her hand on his breast. Their lovemaking had been half-hearted and unsuccessful and he had given up, lying down beside her while beads of sweat cooled his hot, brown skin. Rose enjoys the colour of him, seeing it as exotic and lovely. Men she had known always bore an unhealthy yellow or white pallor where the skin was covered, and red where it was not.

  He grunts and rolls over on his belly. She traces a choreography of history with her fingers on his back: scorings of the lash, puckered lips of a knife wound that became severely infected: results of a drunken brawl, the point to which he could never recall. The small, white moon where a sharp willow had pierced his shoulder when he had slipped on a riverbank.

  The scars whisper to her, telling of a hard life in the wild: pain, rage, repression; violent death always a moment away. But if the body shows its trials in its ragged integument, the aroma it gives is pure and sweet and healthy, unsoiled by time or human failing. It reminds her of fresh-mowed hay mingling with the blowing salt of the sea. He has been wounded, surely, but his scent reassures her, his soul remaining as honest as the day he was breeched. She moves her hands down and entwines her fingers in his own. He turns his head and looks at her, but her eyes are in shadow. The candle gutters, throwing wild shapes against the tent wall. He lifts her hand to his lips.

  “It is this voyage, I suppose,” he says at last, in answer to her question. “When journeying I always know where I am going and how — the road is clear. But the future is full of doubt, and I cannot see where it leads. All seems hidden to me.”

  �
�Is your mind clear? Do you know whither you would go?”

  Alexander smiles at her. “I thought I did, but then you arrived in my bed.”

  Rose turns away. “Please do not say thus, Alexander. You cannot blame me for your loss of vision. Such a burden would be too much to bear.”

  “I do not blame you, Rose, but my purpose no longer seems as sure as it did, that is all.”

  “Pray, what was your purpose?”

  “A good question. It once seemed to me to simply live free was enough, but as time passed, more was expected. Have you noticed this? Everyone wants you in their fold, to follow their path; you belong to me, you belong to us. Yet to chose a path requires one to abandon another perhaps equally worthy.”

  “I do not understand; please speak plainly to me.”

  “You are of one house and nation, of course you would not understand. I am of two fathers, each demanding absolute fealty. I am both Cree and Scots, and, in secret, these families despise each other.”

  “But you are more Scots, are you not?”

  “My mother was Cree. And so lies half of my heart.”

  “So honour both.”

  “I would, but others seem baffled by such ambiguity; it is choose one or none. Your country fought America — what would you do if your father was American and your mother British? Where would your allegiance be then?

  “That would be a difficult choice.”

  “So it would. Especially when one is doomed to defeat by the other.”

  Rose is about to reply when the sudden, distant yell startles both of them. Alexander jumps up, throwing on his trousers.

  “Stay here,” he whispers, checking the flint on his carbine. He leaves her sitting there, wide-eyed and trembling. Several men have climbed from their sleeping blankets and they all stand staring at a fire burning a little distance upriver. There is a flash as a musket fires into the night sky.

  “Bloody hell,” mutters Turr, running his hand through his thin hair. He turns toward Alexander. “We have a problem,” he says.