Mrs. Mike

by Benedict Freedman

  "Thank God!" he said, over the top of my head. Then he pushed me arm's length from him.

  "Get to the river, Kathy. Its widest point is just opposite the store. Wade out to the middle and stay there." His hands tightened on my arms. "Stay there till I come for you. Promise me you'll do that."

  "Yes," I said. "I will. Oh, Mike, is it going to be bad?"

  "There's a wind," Mike said, "and a forest fire's never any joke."

  "What about you? Mike—I'm so frightened you won't be careful!"

  Mike pulled me to him; his hands were in my hair a moment. "I'm fine. You know that. You do just what I tell you, Kathy. Don't be frightened, don't get panicky, and don't leave the river. No matter how bad it looks, don't leave the river. It's safer there than anywhere else, and the minute it isn't I'll be there to take you out."

  He gave me a push. "Hurry, Kathy!"

  I ran so that Mike would see that I would do everything as he told me. The brush broke behind me, and in a moment Mike was running at my side.

  "I'm going with you, girl—as far as Henderson's. He's going to be worth ten men to me now."

  I stopped running. "But, Mike, he's not there. He's hunting."

  "Damn! That's right, went south, didn't he? That means he's cut off. All right, darling, I'll leave you here then."

  "Be careful and—a blessing, Mike." But already he was gone. He had left the path and struck out in the direction of the reserve. I stood and watched the red of his jacket as it moved through the filigree of laced branches and brush that already separated us. I turned away.

  "Dear God, don't let anything happen to Mike! Please, God. Please, please, please!" And by God, I meant God and the woods and the mountains and the unknown old gods that the Indians knew. I walked in that prayer all the way. The air was a blue blur, and the rest a dark blur full of many colors, all blending— and I was alone, knowing for the first time in my life, knowing through anguish how I loved Mike Flannigan.

  I saw the flag in front of the Hudson's Bay Company. I saw it clearly and distinctly, and everything else came into focus for me. Women, dragging children, pulling children, holding children, were crowding the river banks. Some had waded into the river

  and were standing waist-deep. The children cried and whimpered and stared with frightened eyes past the store, where clouds of smoke circled up and bright flashes leaped among the pines. Two little boys were not crying. They thought it was fun to be in the river. They made faces at the dark column of smoke and then dived under so the smoke couldn't get them. I went down to the bank and walked into the river. The water was cold, and I waded up and down the edge until my ankles were used to it. The hottest day cannot warm water the ice has imprisoned all winter. It felt strange, sloshing into my shoes. I thought of taking them off, but the bottom was too rocky.

  It was terribly hot. The wind was no longer Meyoonootin, fair wind, but Sou-way-nas, the fierce south wind. It blew hotly over us, bringing us gray ash that was our homes and our forests.

  There were more people crowding down to the river. Oo-me-me waded out in water past her waist. In her arms was the child. I went over to her. "Oo-me-me," I called.

  There was no response. Her eyes were on me and were very quiet. She had resigned herself. She was waiting for the known or the great unknown.

  "Oo-me-me," I said again, "did Sergeant Mike tell you to come here?" There was no answer.

  I had to know where he was. "Oo-me-me, please! Was it Sergeant Mike who sent you and the others down here?"

  Her eyes were past me now. As I looked into them I saw reflected the smoke and the darting flame. Nothing more.

  Of course it was, I said to myself; it's Mike directing things. He's sending everyone where he told me to go, the widest part of the river. But maybe he hadn't reached them. Maybe something had happened to him. The Indians would probably come here anyway.

  The wind whipped the smoke wall. It beat the flames and made them dance. They reached out golden arms and leaped into new places. I strained my eyes. Little black figures darted among the smoke, but whether one of them wore a red coat I could not tell. I remembered my prayer and began saying it again.

  Someone was calling my name. It was Lola, the 'breed wife of one of the men who had left with the fur brigade. She held a baby in either arm, and a third at her skirts, crying.

  "Mrs. Mike!"

  "Yes," I said. "I'll take him."

  I lifted up the baby that sat crying in the water. I rocked him in my arms and talked to him. After a while he forgot to cry, and then he fell asleep. It was good to hold a baby in your arms and to have quieted him.

  It was terribly hot. I waded deeper into the river. Lola followed me.

  "Why did everyone come here? Did Sergeant Mike tell you to?" I asked.

  She shifted one of the babies onto her shoulder. "No, him send three fellers to tell everybody come and be safe in river. One, she go reserve; me, I live by there, so I hear, too. Other two, they warn cabins. One go east, one west, tell all women, children, come."

  It was good to hear this news of Mike, to be able to follow his movements, to know that then, at least, he had been all right.

  "You think we die in damn river?" Lola asked.

  "No, Lola, we won't die. Sergeant Mike has all the men together by now. It looks to me like they're going to try to stop the fire at the lumbered-over spot behind the Company store. See, you can see them over there, a little to the left of the big smoke." It helped me to hear these words even if I had to say them myself.

  "Look!" said Lola. A red fox dived into the water from the cliff above. The wind brought to us the smell of his scorched coat. He swam until he was just within his depth, and there he stayed completely submerged, with only the top of his nose showing. There were twenty or thirty dogs around, but they paid no attention to him. I looked for our own dogs and saw Black-Tip, the team leader. I called to him but couldn't coax him past where he felt bottom.

  The fire had entered the back door of the Hudson's Bay Company. The building broke into flames; fire poured from every

  chink and opening. The roof fell in. They had not checked it at the clearing. The river was the next natural barrier.

  The wild things, hesitating at the brink of the river, hesitated no longer. Moose, deer, otters, mink, bears, wolves, lynx crowded into the river with the humans. The smoke thickened. The only sky to be seen was a dense, thick, curling, shifting gray. The baby woke gasping. I waded farther into the river. The current was swift there, and I had to brace myself against it. I bathed the child's face and wet his hair, but still he cried.

  "I do not see Ookoominou, my mother," Lola whimpered. The smoke stung my eyes and obscured the faces around me. I could no longer see who was here and who was not. But there were not as many as there should have been. This threw me into a panic. If they were not all here, Mike would try to get them through, and it was no longer possible.

  The flames shot up along the river like a ragged fringe. Everything was bright, terribly bright, but because of the smoke I could no longer see. I closed my eyes, but I couldn't shut away that brightness.

  The child screamed terribly. I lowered him until the water was at his chin. Hot ashes were falling and burning me. The air blistered my face. My eyebrows and lashes were singed. My face and throat burned; my body was numb with cold.

  The fire danced on the edges of the river; the water was gold. Ripples mirrored the flames, glittering red and orange. Everything was intensified. Color! There had never been such color. The world writhed in searing, burning color!

  Sound was the only thing that could travel through that color and live. Animals and humans cried with the forest, with the trees as they strained, as they broke, with the trapped creatures.

  I tried to guess how long it had been, how long I had been in the river. Was it day or was it night? I could not see the sky. I did not know. I only knew the torturing heat and the smoke. I tried to figure it out by deciding w
hether I was hungry. But the skin of my face seemed to throb and swell, and food was a word I remembered from a long time ago.

  I saw the fire leap the river. It burned, a bridge of flame, from shore to shore. That was farther up, where it was narrow, but it was blowing down on us. The heat cracked my skin open. I couldn't stand it. Mike! I thought: Don't let this happen to Mike. I covered the baby's nose and mouth and ducked both of us under the water. It felt wonderful, cold and wonderful on my blistered face, and if I was dying I didn't care. The child struggled, but I kept my hold until there was no breath in either of us. Then we came up, gulping for air, but the air hurt. I clapped my hand over the baby's face before he could breathe out. Once again we were under. I lost count of the times we came to the surface. I'd wait until my lungs were bursting, then up, to let the burning air rush in through nose and mouth. The child still struggled, so I knew it lived.

  I don't know when I realized the air no longer hurt to swallow. The smoke and fire were still there. But hadn't they always been? Wouldn't they always be? I was too tired to think about it. I only knew that for some time I hadn't cooled our faces in the water. The river went past, went past, went past—it was time moving by. It flowed without stopping, it was silvery now with no brightness in it.

  Mike picked me up. I don't know where he came from. He picked me and the baby up. He was taking the wet clothes off me. When he came to the shirt, I tried to help him by holding my arms up, but I couldn't. I was too tired. With his hunting knife he cut the clothes from me. The next thing I remembered was feeling warm, under blankets and drinking hot soup. I was dressed again, this time in skirts, Indian skirts and a man's shirt. It was day, a different day, the next day, Mike said. I looked at everything; there was a sky over my head, not a roof. My blankets lay on the ground. A smudge was burning at my head.

  "Am I all right?"

  Mike grinned. I don't know how I knew it was Mike. His face was black with streaks of skin showing where the sweat had run down. The red coat had gone and the shirt under it. He laid a hot compress over my face and throat.

  "It hurts," I said. "What is it?"

  "Tea, strong tea. Best thing in the world for burns. The Indians use it."

  "Mike, Mike!" I sat up and threw my arms around him. "Mike, Mike, Mike!" I wanted to say, "Are you all right? I love you. Were you careful?" I wanted to tell him, to ask him about the baby, the fire, what had happened; but the only thing that came out was "Mike."

  Mike held me. He whispered little words to me, pet words. He told me I was fine and that the baby was fine. "You were just tired, Kathy. Chilled and tired, and you got second degree burns on that pretty face of yours."

  "Yesterday," I said, "you just went to the office. We might never have seen each other again. . . . Oh, Mike, it can happen like that!"

  Mike's blue eyes looked hard. "It has happened like that for some of them."

  I had forgotten there were others. For a moment there had been only Mike and me, but now suddenly there were those others, almost a hundred and fifty of them.

  "Mike, were many—" I stopped. The drawn look on his face told me.

  "It's not your fault, Mike."

  He looked at me for a long while. "I don't know," he said slowly. "I haven't been able to think that out yet. I don't know yet if it was my fault, but it was my duty to protect the people against this country."

  He had told me once he was a policeman, not against man, but against Nature.

  "Tell me about it, Mike." I knew it would be better if I could get him to talk.

  "We got the fire under control in fifteen hours. It's still not out." He was reciting facts, making a report. He was judging now, and his voice was impersonal.

  "I needed every man if I was to stop the fire at the river. I wasn't able to do that. At one place the fire jumped. But where

  the Peace is wide, there at the bend where you were, Kathy, we stopped it. I had forty-seven men. I needed a hundred of them. I sent three, took them from their stations. Young Eagle I sent to the reserve with orders to evacuate all women and children to the river. Pierre and Scotty I sent to cover the outlying cabins. Pierre went east of the store, Scotty west. Scotty got through."

  "Pierre?" I asked.

  Mike shook his head. "He never came back."

  "Mike, you can't blame yourself."

  "I should have sent two men," he said. "One would have gotten through."

  "But you couldn't spare them."

  "No."

  I put my hand over his big one.

  Atenou walked toward us over burned ground. Mike rose to meet him. One question was asked and answered. Mike turned to me.

  "Will you be all right, Kathy?"

  "Yes," I said, and tried to get up to prove it.

  Mike pushed me back. "Rest, Kathy. You've got to be careful. It's been a shock and a strain on you."

  "Where are you going?" I asked him.

  He hesitated. "I'm going to the cabins east of here to see what can be done."

  He kissed me swiftly.

  "Be good, Minx."

  I rose up on my elbow and watched him stride off. I'd forgotten to ask him about our own home, if it was standing.

  "Atenou."

  He looked down at me.

  "Our home, Sergeant Mike's home, is it burnt?"

  "Burnt," he said.

  "Completely? I mean, there's nothing left?"

  "Him burnt."

  Somehow I couldn't picture it. I saw it as I'd seen it last. My wedding dress from Calgary hanging in the closet, Mike's map of

  Canada tacked to the bedroom wall. That big iron stove, it couldn't be gone, I thought. And my garden. The field peas were just coming up.

  "What about the reserve?" I asked Atenou.

  "Some place fire eat up. Some place strong medicine, fire him no go."

  That was good. At least the village hadn't been completely demolished. It could probably be rebuilt.

  I came to the question I feared. "And the outlying cabins?"

  "Many gone, some not."

  "And the people who weren't in the river?"

  "On gray wings went they."

  "How many?"

  Atenou told off the names. He held the endings, drawing out the sound of it. The effect was a chant, a death chant. I shuddered. Most of the names meant faces to me, sometimes words, sometimes laughter. Children and women, all of them, and all from cabins east of the shore. Atenou stood like the angel of death, slowly intoning. He must have counted off forty names, a third of the people. The last named were men who had died fighting the fire. There were only three of them, and the last was Pierre, the man Mike had sent to the east.

  "They found him?"

  "Found," replied Atenou. "Him under tree on way to cabins, him back crack like kindling."

  "But didn't the people try to do anything when they saw the fire coming?"

  "Ground show some get through to river. Fire she come between—those who were afraid to go; now they cannot, they take children, go hide down wells, in root cellars."

  "Did—did that save any of them?"

  "Sergeant Mike him take bodies from there now."

  I turned my face against the blanket. It was rough. It hurt my skin, it made me cry.

  My arm was seized in a powerful grip. I was half shaken to my feet. The face I looked into was mad.

  Joe Henderson twisted my arm under me. He glared at me from green glittering eyes over which were neither lashes nor brows. Both had been singed from his face. His lips were cracked and swollen, they were caked with blood. They twisted and grimaced before the word came out. The word was "Tommy!"

  Still I could only stare. The clothes had been torn from him. His body was a network of gashes. He must have crawled miles on his hands and knees; they were pulp. And his side, his entire right chest was burned and blistered.

  His mouth twisted itself for another effort. "Where's Tommy?"

  "There were s
o many people, such confusion ..."

  "He was in the river. He must have been. You saw him." He commanded me to have seen him, but I hadn't.

  "There was so much smoke I couldn't be sure." A film spread over Henderson's eyes.

  I tried to reassure him. "But he must have been there. That's where we were right in front of your place—" I stopped suddenly and remembered something from a long time ago. No, from yesterday morning. Uaawa taking an east trail with little Tommy.

  Joe Henderson's burnt mouth got ready to say "Tommy" again. I couldn't have stood it, so I told him, "Yesterday morning you went hunting, Joe. I know, because Uaawa came past my house with Tommy. I called to her, and she said you'd left and she was going to visit her sister."

  "Her sister—the Bonnard cabin. East—she took him east into the fire. Tommy ..." His voice broke over the name and he started running. He staggered like a drunken man, he almost fell from the cliff into the river.

  "Mr. Henderson!" I called. "Joe!" He didn't hear me. I got up. I felt pretty good, just dizzy, and he couldn't go alone. He was in no condition to. It wasn't hard to catch up with him because he wasn't walking straight. I took him by the arm, and I think several times kept him from falling.

  It was witches' country, black, burnt over. Trees stood hol-

  lowed, empty of their life, with only stark charcoal wrappers left. It was hot underfoot; the fine ash burned through our shoes.

  Along the dead shore and over the smoldering ground a woman walked, looking into the Peace River and calling. We came closer. The woman was Lola, and it was my own name she called, "Mary!"

  "What's the matter, Lola? What are you doing here?"

  She did not take her eyes from the water. "Did you come by river, Mrs. Mike?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Did you see my baby, my Mary, Mrs. Mike?"

  "Oh, Lola!"

  "The river took her, damn river. I held them both. I slip on bottom, on damn rocky bottom, and river take her from my arms. You no see her, no?"

  "No," I said, and turned to Joe Henderson, but he was not there. I plunged into the forest of black stumps.

  "Mary!" called the woman on the shore. "Mary, Mary!" I ran from the sound.