A Dark and Promised Land

by Nathaniel Poole

Alexander hesitates. “They are the wives of some of our men.”

  Soft laughter carries from beyond the fire. “That is very unusual is it not, for a White man to bring his wife with him? I have never seen this before. The Indian takes his wife with him, but the White traders leave her behind, is this not so?” Alexander bites into the food without answering the question. There is a long silence, and he can feel Turr’s agitation beside him.

  “You have many guns my warriors say,” the voice begins again. “Guns and much gear.”

  “We have what we need.”

  “All men have needs. But it seems to us that Whites need much more than Indians.”

  “A man must decide what he needs and does not need.”

  “Truly, and so you will decide thus.”

  “What are they saying, Mr. McClure?” Turr interrupts.

  “Who is this rude idiot?” says the voice. “Tell him to shut up.”

  “Do not speak!” Alexander says to Turr. Perspiration slicks his forehead. He knows that a parley is occurring, couched in nuance, and he struggles to understand the meaning behind the chief’s speech.

  “A raven spoke to me in a dream.”

  “Raven is wise.”

  “But foolish.”

  “But his foolishness always has a purpose, whether we understand it or not.”

  “This is so. In my dream, raven carried a brigade to me, on his back, telling me the Manitou has given it to me for my glory and greatness. But he said to be careful and use the gift wisely, for it is dangerous.”

  “His words are indeed mysterious.”

  “Not so mysterious. The brigade promised me has arrived.”

  “I beg your pardon, but we are not the brigade promised. We are men travelling through this land seeking naught but trade and beaver furs. Do you have furs to trade?”

  The laughter again. “Indeed, we will trade with you. We will trade you half of your gear and supplies for your lives. Raven warned me I must be cautious, and so I will wisely only take half, leaving the rest to whatever fate the Manitou has in mind for you. Now this is very fair, for I could easily take everything you have, including your scalps.”

  “Truly, but then the king will be very angry with you, and his soldiers in the red coats that you so fear would seek for you, and you would be destroyed.”

  The voice changes, becoming harsher. “I am Ikmukdeza, and I do not fear the red-coated king’s men. If they come into my territory, it is they who will be destroyed, and I will have their scalps on the prow of my canoe!”

  “I have not heard that your people are so warlike.”

  “I am Ikmukdeza! I do as I wish and take what I will. My people follow me because they know of my strength and courage. All will soon know of me.”

  “I must consult with my comrade, so that we may consider your generous offer.”

  “As you wish,” a dim hand waves at him.

  Alexander turns to Turr. ‘We have arrived at the pinch of the game. I have had dealings with the Asinepoet, and they are a good people who would not countenance such treatment of guests and strangers. I believe this chief is no more than a common highwayman. He is ransoming us for one half of everything we have — the trade liquor, supplies for the settlements, guns, powder, and shot.”

  “One half? But that’s impossible. The guns!”

  “There is nothing we can do. With the settlers in the brigade we cannot afford a confrontation, although myself I would dearly love to get my hands on this arrogant bastard’s neck.”

  “So what must we do?”

  “Agree to their terms. Hand over half of everything, and then get the hell out of here.”

  Turr closes his eyes. “When London gets word of this, I shall be roasted alive. I shall be ruined.”

  “It shall be hard all around. Those supplies are needed for the settlement.” He takes a deep breath and turns back to the smoky fire. “I have spoken with my friend and we agree to your terms.” Several of the Indians nod and smile.

  “Very wise. Then let us pass the pipe of peace.” With that, a long-stemmed pipe wrapped in strips of hide and decorated with dangling feathers is lit and handed to him. For the first time since he had come ashore, Alexander relaxes, and he draws deeply on the pipe.

  They pass it around several times, and then Alexander stands up. “I must prepare the brigade to distribute our gifts to you. But I have not seen you clearly, and I would like to truly meet the great Ikmukdeza, so that I will know him the next time that our paths cross.”

  There is no reply, just the snapping of the fire and swirl of smoke. All eyes turn towards him. After a long silence, the chief gets to his feet. He is a man of about twenty-five, of no great height, with broad shoulders. Smallpox scars corrugate his face, and the remnant of his left ear is no more than a tiny flag. Elaborately carved trade silver pierces his nose and ears. A breastplate of mussel shells with red and blue quillwork decorate his chest, and a lithograph of King George hangs from his neck on a beaded chain. Feathers are tied to his black hair, which drapes untied down his back. His eyes are challenging and there is a hard edge to his mouth.

  “Truly, I will remember you,” Alexander says, with just the slightest menace in his voice. Ikmukdeza smiles slightly and bows. Alexander pushes aside the door hide and steps out, Turr almost crawling between his legs in his haste to follow.

  “Get that last boat unloaded, Mr. Irving, if you please.” Several bales had already been moved to shore when the young steersman, hurrying to obey, trips over a poorly stowed mast and falls in the water. He thrashes about, choking.

  “Mr. Ramsay, could you please lend a hand to our young Mr. Irving? I do not wish to pen a letter to his widow telling her that he drowned in four feet of water and not but two paces from shore.”

  “Aye, sir,” Ramsay replies with a grin, walking into the river and lifting the young man by his collar. “There ye go, lad, just stand up. That’s right.” Irving’s feet find the river bottom, and he stands up, water streaming from him as he coughs and hacks. Ramsay slaps him hard on the back and the off-balance Irving trips again, his arms cartwheeling and knocking the man sitting in the boat beside him. The man’s musket fires, and, in response, a fusillade erupts from shore, answered by several following shots from the boats.

  “Hold!” Alexander shouts. The gun smoke drifts away, revealing two Indians lying on the strand, one holding his stomach and feebly attempting to crawl away. Several others stare at him, frozen in the act of reloading. In the river behind him, Irving’s body, pierced by many balls, begins to float away.

  No one moves. Those in the boats and standing in the river stare down their barrels at the Indians, while those on shore respond in kind. The brigade is vastly outnumbered, but far better armed than most of the Indians with their miserably inaccurate trade muskets. But if it came to it, the final outcome would undoubtedly be a bloodbath. The Indian crawling up the strand stops with a shudder and a few feeble kicks of his legs.

  Alexander knows that they stand on the edge of a blade, and that someone will very soon do something stupid, yearning for something, anything to break the awful tension. He slowly lowers his carbine into the bow of a boat. He raises both his empty hands palms out toward shore. “Mr. Ramsey, get the men into the boats, quickly but slowly, he says,” speaking over his shoulder in low tones. “Tell them to lower their weapons.”

  “But sir!”

  “Do as I say!”

  “And what about poor Mr. Irving, dead in the river, filled with the Savage’s shot?”

  “Put him into the boat and make haste.”

  Alexander has not taken his eyes off the warrior closest to him, willing him not to shoot; the Indian is very young — hardly more than a boy — and sweat runs down his brown cheek. The muzzle of his fuke wavers with his trembling, and fear calls from his eyes.

  Alexander turns and looks at the body of Irving as it is dragged into the boat, then at the two prostrate Indians. “Accident,” he says in Stony language with
a shrug. “We will leave now, no more shooting.”

  The young Indian takes a deep breath and lowers his weapon. One by one, the rest of his companions do the same.

  “I want to kill those fucking bastards,” Ramsey hisses into Alexander’s ear.

  Alexander nods and answers, “The women, Mr. Ramsey. If we are ready let us get the hell out of here.”

  He turns to step into his boat and almost collides with Rose, who has not moved since the shooting. She is staring wide-eyed at the dead Indians leaking blood into the sand.

  “Miss Cromarty, quickly now.” Taking her by the arm, Alexander eases her aboard. The sweeps are put out, and the boats back away from the beach with the sound of creaking oars; Alexander turns them into the stream of the river. His back to the shore, he says in a low voice: “What are they doing, Mr. Ramsey?”

  Ramsey looks up from where he is sitting with his head in his hands. His cheek is wet with tears. “The buggers ain’t doing naught, sir, just staring.”

  “If any Indian raises his musket, kill him; if any Indian makes for a canoe, kill him. Any man aboard with an empty gun, reload, now!” Raising his voice, he hails the other boat. “Mr. Hollar, make for the further shore; we must travel as many pipes as possible before nightfall.”

  Chapter Twelve

  As the brigade approaches, there is little to see but a jumble of low cabins scattered amongst grey rocks and wizened spruce, shadowed by a particularly squalid encampment of Home Guard. The smoke from the chimneys does not rise and dissipate in the cold air, but sinks and clings to the immediate environs so that the place seems wreathed in fog. An unseen dog barks as the brigade drifts toward shore.

  “It is a — a simple affair is it not?” says Rose with a cocked eyebrow, regarding the crude peeled-poplar buildings and discarded refuse littering the site. Several Indians are sprawled on the ground, succumbed to disease or liquor.

  “Shabby or no, it will be a blessed relief to warm my toes before a proper fire, by God,” says Turr, looking for evidence of the governor. Several York boats are stowed in the shadows of the spruce, but none belong to the rest of the brigade; they have missed them yet again.

  Their boats touch the shore at the same instance, the foremost rowers jumping overboard and pulling them onto the rocks. With muted relief, the colonists tumble out, clustering together and whispering amongst each other and staring at the unfamiliar surroundings. Grabbing his carbine, Alexander leads the way to the trading house.

  At this time of year, the house would normally be almost empty except for a few permanent laborers and Company staff. But, as they walk, Alexander notices many people about, including a line of very wretched individuals sitting outside the trading house. Obviously Europeans, they stare at the ground or off into space, eyes empty and lifeless. A few women rest their heads on the shoulders of their men, who lean against the rough wall with their feet pulled up and knees bent, red hands resting on the dirt. Their frock coats, bonnets, and dresses are torn, dirty, and threadbare. A fly wanders across the face of one of the women and she makes no attempt to brush it off. As they pass, none of them speak or acknowledge the newcomers.

  They push inside the trading house where a clerk, engrossed in his ledger, looks up and scowls.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, not another lot! God in heaven, we shall be sunk.”

  From behind a boulder, Rose shadows the figures on the beach. She hates sneaking about this way, becoming the mute shadow that most men want and expect of women, but she needs to know and suspects them of hiding the truth from her and the other colonists. Things had not come to pass as expected — that part was clear to everyone in the brigade. But she is certain that anything revealed to them would be altered for her presumed benefit. And she would rot before she allowed that. Her father had always been straightforward with her, but she knows she cannot expect that from any other man. She is on her own and needs information — she needs the truth.

  Holding her breath, Rose moves closer, her bare feet chilled by the smooth, cold rock beneath her. She sidles up to a knot of cottonwoods and a few leaves rustle beneath her, then skitter away in a gust. The bark is rough against her hands, like stubble on an old man’s cheek. The men’s voices are small but clear against the chilly night. She feels power in her secrecy, and blesses the darkness.

  Utterly dark it truly is, the moon discouraged to a pale wash by thin cloud. Duck wings whistle overhead and out on the water a loon laments the cold. The night carries the smell of burning tobacco and wood smoke. From the Home Guard camp carries the sound of a crying child. The three men sit on the granite of the water’s edge, wrapped in buffalo hides and smoking their dudheens. The water laps at their feet.

  Although instinctively seated close to each other against the cold, they are invisible except when someone draws on his pipe and the outlines of his face are for a moment defined by the dim, orange glow.

  Alexander stares up at the faint stars overhead, not seeing any particular pattern or mythology, just a scattering of improbable motes that give shape and often guidance in the pathless night. The veiled moon is nearly full, low on the horizon, and barely revealing a sawtooth line of treetops.

  Turr pulls his cloak tighter, staring into the darkness and shivering.

  “Well, well, well,” he mutters, for probably the tenth time. “So your rumours have proven correct, Mr. McClure. The settlement has been put to the torch and the colonists scattered. An act of war if ever there was one, methinks.”

  “War, indeed,” replies the factor, Samuel Lynch. “And none too soon. No more border skirmishes, no more insufferable diplomatic rows with the damned Nor’westers. The Company will now be forced to raise the issue of her monopoly at Whitehall. Lord Selkirk’s damned enterprise has set a stoat loose in the hen coop and now that the gamekeeper is aware, its hide shall soon hang from his gibbet.”

  “I wonder if the foreign secretary will see it that way,” muses Turr. “I’ve long appealed for a military wing of the Company to protect our interest from Canadian and American invaders. But after three major wars in thirty years and preoccupied with Bonaparte’s rampages in Europe, Parliament has been unwilling to consider further military intervention in North America, especially by a private force of arms beyond their control.”

  In the distance, a wolf howls, followed by an orchestra of answering calls. The wind picks up, searching for weakness in the men’s wrappings. Unconsciously they move closer to each other, the tempo of their puffing increasing. The river before them murmurs.

  Lynch rubs his hands together as if in anticipation. Or perhaps simply to warm them. “Recent events will force them to reconsider,” he replies. “The colonists were driven north and east in July, although many that arrived here have since returned with a Mr. Colin Robertson. I understand he is to be the new governor of Assiniboia as Macdonell has been seized and taken away in disgrace to Montreal by the Nor’westers. The rest of the settlers await transport back home, but I daresay they will wait long. I do not foresee any such opportunity until the brigades pass in the spring; that is if any of the wretches are still alive by then. Damn and blast, it shall be a hard winter with so many beggars to feed. The pox on them.”

  Samuel Lynch is small and mean, with a despotic disposition and ill patience for those who disagree with his opinions. The bastard son of an Anglican priest, he had not been many years at the post, but since arriving had made for himself a reputation that went far and wide through Rupert’s Land, one far surpassing the relative size and importance of Jack River House. A harsh and unforgiving master, meting out punishments exceeding his authority and more in line with what is considered the norm in a taut Royal Navy man-of-war.

  Although he reserves flogging for the Indians, banishment and withholding of pay and provision is common punishment for Europeans. He even had a crude pillory built, which provided great sport for the Home Guard, although many thought it barbaric, not least because they were most likely to find themselves locked within its
embrace. A visiting Company official passing inland had been horrified by the spectacle of a White trader taunted and stoned by Savage children, and had ordered the pillory dismantled. But after word arrived that this man had drowned in a rapid, it was quickly resurrected.

  Even if such violence is rare in the Company, in the surrounding wilderness, murder is weighed only in the cost of corresponding shot and weight of powder, and such trifles as a miscreant being sent without food or stoned in a pillory passes without much comment among the brigades. While Lynch is proud of his reputation, which runs from Pembina to Great Slave Lake, he would be disappointed to learn that it is not his Christian discipline that gives him fame, but a Ferdinand Hoffman grand piano imported from Vienna to London and then to York Factory at incredible Company expense — recorded in company records under trade bayonets, ten gross. An entire York boat and crew was dedicated to smuggling it inland where it now stands in the factor’s personal residence, the only Hoffman in the continent, and the only grand piano west of Montreal.

  He had a passion for the concerti of Brahms and Hayden, and it was not unusual in the evenings to hear the sweet voice of the piano offering a melodic counterpoint to the dirges of wolves and loons. But his playing is the only evidence of a sensitive nature to be found in the factor, and he rages against this unwelcome burden placed upon him by events far beyond his power, foreseeing greater troubles ahead.

  “Too long has this damned rabble run free and loose,” he says in a rising voice. “Usurping trade and assaulting the king’s subjects and servants. The Free Half-breeds of Red River they call themselves; they even have raised their own filthy flag. But now they have crossed the line in the sand and with God’s good grace, their freedom shall be brief and their necks destined for a rope.”

  A wall of darkness rises from the northern horizon, and soon the pallid moon is fully veiled. The wind dies as the silence of the forest deepens. Even the river seems hushed. Alexander pulls a pewter flask from beneath his buffalo hide and takes a deep pull. The smell of rum swirls about them. He hawks and spits into the darkness.