by Paul Almond
James wanted so much to resolve this amicably, but he could see no other way: the truth must not come now, it must wait till later. How much later, he did not know. “I shall leave tomorrow morning, Catherine, and let’s not find ourselves divided over so small a trifle as two days.” He looked across at her.
She did not return his look, but instead, sat on the piling. Then she stooped and reached her white arm down into the blue waters of the bay and dabbled her fingers in the wavelets.
What a lovely sight! I shall be so glad, he decided, when this whole difficult past is out in the open. The time will come, soon enough, when I’m forced to reveal everything.
They stood there on the jetty, looking out at two schooners and a barque moored close to the lee of land, rocking at anchor, and several fishing boats. All seemed calm, with the glorious Gaspé cloud patterns high above, but unnoticed now by the young couple struggling with their mounting difficulties.
Chapter Fifteen
The sun was setting behind James as he drove the canoe through the waves toward Port Daniel. This morning, he had brought most of the supplies for the long autumn ahead and first beached the canoe at his brook. Making several trips to the cabin on the run, he wasted not a second, hastily arranging the wedding presents, the flour, sugar, molasses, and other foodstuffs they had been given. They had even received tea, a costly gift, more valuable than the rum for a time of celebration. Then he had raced back to the canoe, jumped in, and pushed off eastward toward his Micmac tribe.
After his walk with Catherine yesterday, festivities had continued at the Garretts’, for relatives had come from Gaspé to join them. Catherine seemed to have forgotten her earlier irritation — or was it anger? That night, lying with her by the fire, he had made a few gentle overtures, but she had rolled on her side to look at him.
“I’m sorry, Catherine,” he had whispered, “I’m so sorry. I had no intention of upsetting you. But this stubbornness of mine, ’tis a trait for which I have often been chastised. I must try to rid myself of it. You will have to help me, for I have long been known for... um... well, willful obstinacy.”
She studied him, looking deep into his eyes, illuminated as she was by a faint glow from the dying embers. The candles had been blown out for they were costly to buy and arduous to make, and whale oil for the two lamps the Garretts owned had risen in price. “I want you to know, James, that I trust you. And I know that whatever secret it is —”
“Secret, my love? What are you —?”
“Ssh!” She put her fingers on his lips. “Do not incriminate yourself with a lie,” she said, “just listen. I know you’re hiding something. And I know, equally well, my dear James, that you will tell me all in good time. I trust in the Lord. And He tells me that you will do what is required. So I shall remain a dutiful and faithful wife, until that time.”
***
James rounded Port Daniel point which was a good hard afternoon’s paddle from Shigawake brook. He headed into the very estuary where his ship, the Bellerophon, had moored two years before during a storm. The experience washed over him once again: the angry waves bashing the ship’s hull, his dangerous swim, arriving safely by the grace of God, and then making his way up the river until the Micmac had captured him.
Paddling toward Port Daniel, he remembered his first view of Little Birch, kneeling beside him as he recovered in her warm wigwam; her almond eyes, dark and piercing, her smooth skin, her silky, black hair; and then the two of them with fascination and love watching the Northern Lights that long cold winter he had spent with her family in the interior plateau. Then — how well he saw it! — that moment when, in Micmac tradition, he had proposed to her by tossing the smooth pebble from the river’s bed into her lap. She had picked it up and with long slim fingers pressed it to her lips, signifying she would accept him as her husband for life. He could not stop the tears rising and at long last allowed himself to cry. Shoulders hunched and head bowed, he bawled like the baby he was going to see, his only son, John. He had never cried for John and for the death in childbirth of his wife Little Birch. The grief then had floored him for days, if not weeks, when he had lain in her family’s wigwam, refusing all food and succour. He now realized that even when he had revived, thanks to the ministrations of their shaman, the Buowin, he had not cried even then. About time now to give in to the tears so long repressed, out here alone in his fine canoe. And so he floated on the wide estuary, broken and lost.
The day was chill, damp, the cold came in billows which sped double layered clouds over his head. The canoe swayed in a gentle rocking that soothed him.
After a time, he picked up the paddle and as tears kept running down his face, he stroked the canoe toward the narrow opening of the river.
He allowed himself a glance at the trading post, whose men had tried to track and capture him for the Navy. He saw two figures on the wood stoop of the distant post, watching. One, he felt sure, would be the trader. At this distance, they might make sense of his Micmac jacket, but his hair had been shortened, his face clean shaven, so he wasn’t sure how he’d be regarded. Then, his anger rose. His knife hung, in the fashion of the Micmac, round his neck; he’d not hesitate to use it should those men come after him.
He switched his attention to the narrow, rushing river mouth. Navigate that first, worry about any attack later. The canoe, empty save for a few presents he had brought, rode too high for this turbulence. So he nosed up the centre, driving with all his might. The canoe bobbed and twisted as he mounted the churning waters. Don’t let up! Panting, he stroked harder and further until he reached the placid lagoon behind the Port Daniel sandbank.
Had the two men come after him? They were obscured now by the trees. No sign of pursuit. Good. Had they taken him for just another Micmac? Still apprehensive, his swift strokes drove him over the calm surface toward clumps of pine, birch, and spruce hugging the entrance to the upper river.
Would the band welcome him? Was his son happy? Had he grown? A newborn when James had left in June, he’d be five months old. Be wary, be on guard for Fury, the villainous Micmac who had wanted him killed. Try to behave just like one of the band.
Yes, he did feel like one of the band, no doubt — closer to them than to the settlers in New Carlisle. And he let his strokes lengthen, assume an easier rhythm, as he headed up toward the Micmac mooring.
***
Leaving the canoe behind, he trotted up the trail, watching for the trip-line that warned the band someone approached. It had caught him once before and sent him flat. He saw it ahead and leaped over. Surprise them, he thought.
And surprise them he did. He reached the scattering of birchbark wigwams under the trees that he remembered so well. Three or four children recognized him and ran over, calling excitedly to their parents, surrounding him. Rejoicing, he picked some up and laughed as he made his way toward the wigwam of Full Moon, his former mother-in-law.
Having heard the commotion, she emerged from her birchbark dwelling. When she saw him, she brightened and called inside. A younger woman appeared in the low opening, took one look, and dove back. He embraced Full Moon warmly, forgetting that this was not in their tradition, apologizing as she shrank a little. The other woman, only a teenager, emerged and held out the baby, now almost six months old. His young son, John.
He took up John, strapped as he was to a keenakun, the Micmac cradle board, and held him high. Then he crushed him to himself as though this were life itself. John began to scream. “I’m sorry, John, I’m sorry. Here.” James handed his son back to the young woman. “She is our nùjiakunùsa. She has saved his life,” Full Moon told him in Micmac.
James was puzzled at the word. Did it mean, a wetnurse? He wondered where Tongue could be, the band’s translator.
He had not long to wait. The burly Indian soon arrived, with several others gathering round. He greeted James warmly and led him to the Chief’s wigwam for the ritual welcome.
Once inside, James was surprised at how comfortable
it all felt. Little was said: the encounter had none of the excited chatter that would mark any European reunion. He solemnly handed the Chief, who emanated warmth, his present of tobacco. Then James stuffed the ceremonial pipe, placed a glowing brand against its bowl, and inhaled. Tongue, who had entered to translate, could not avoid reminding James of the first time he had smoked in here: how he had coughed and sputtered. All three broke out laughing again.
“Don’t worry, I’ll probably do it again.” James drew in a mouthful of smoke as the Chief and Tongue watched expectantly. He blew it out without coughing, pleased with himself. They nodded assent.
After the ritual welcome in which Tongue acted as a mediator, James and the Chief exchanged news. James expressed his gratitude again for the present of the superb canoe. Pausing for Tongue to translate, he told how easy the trip had been for him now between New Carlisle and Shegouac, where he intended to live. For the moment, James thought it better not to mention his marriage to Catherine.
Afterwards, James went across in the deepening dusk to Full Moon’s wigwam where her brother, One Arm, and her son, Brightstar, were sitting around the fire. As the wet-nurse was preparing an evening meal, James was introduced to her young husband, scarcely out of his teens himself.
With Tongue there, they could exchange news and stories of the baby, his doings, how he had even now started to crawl. The first thing James did was to give a nickname to the young woman who had been acting as a wet-nurse to John.
“I shall call you Sunrise,” he said in Micmac, “because you have given my son a new day.” Brightstar, the twelveyear-old brother of Little Birch, clapped his hands in delight. The others giggled, and Sunrise did seem pleased. How young she looked, even though all the Native women appeared younger than their years. She was short and stocky, but with ample breasts for milk and a sunny smile. She seemed to enjoy her position with her new family, especially now that the long-awaited father of the child had returned.
John was soon unlaced and allowed to crawl around on a blanket, and crawl he did. Full Moon went on to explain that John spent his day, as did every Micmac child, wrapped in soft beaverskin and safely strapped onto the flat board. A hoop of ash curved over his head as protection. Thus the baby could be taken everywhere, leaned up against a tree, or in cases of danger hung from a high limb. Worn on the back with a tump line around the forehead, the board’s ample width protected the baby from limbs of branches while the mother made her way through thick woods. James noticed several little toys hung from the curved hoop. One particularly attracted James, and he fingered it. The toy hung on a thread, a dogwood loop strung with a web of vegetable fibres.
“Not toy — protection!” One Arm told him. “Trap for evil spirits which come take baby’s spirit. Baby’s spirit weak, easy to be snatched. Many infants get sick and die.” The spider spirits had taught the Micmac how to make these, and in fact, how to make nets for fish too. “Spider spirits very good spirits,” One Arm concluded. James felt happy and relieved they were taking such good care of his son. And only too soon, the pointed question arrived: Would he be coming back to live with the band?
No, sadly, he had to leave first thing in the morning. But he would come back often and eventually might collect his son and bring him back into his own world, to live in his cabin or the larger farmhouse he hoped to build.
This announcement did not fall happily upon his beholders. Take the child from the tribe? What could he be thinking, they asked. Where was the woman, the mother, that every child needed? What about brothers and sisters and other children to play with?
For his part, James was concerned about John during this next winter. What would the band do? How would Full Moon and One Arm survive? One Arm told him they would hunt again as always back on the plateau of the caribou. The Chief had adopted this family for now, and would look after them in his own enclave. After all, he had said, did not the Chief owe his life to James?
“And how did they find you, Sunrise?” James asked in Micmac, stalling for time so he could think about their apparent refusal to give up his son.
She hailed from Listiguj, the main community of Micmac up at the mouth of the Matapedia River where Chaleur Bay began. But she and her young husband had been fishing with a group on the Gesgapegiag River, a salmon river on the far side of New Carlisle. The Micmac communities all along the shore were in constant touch. The disaster of Little Birch’s death had been passed on at once, and Sunrise had canoed swiftly up to the Port Daniel band to feed and nourish the new, motherless baby. She had lost her own baby the week before, and now she and her husband would join the Chief’s enclave back in caribou country until the next spring, when she could go back to her Listiguj band and presumably start her own family over again.
Thus reassured that his son was well cared for, with good plans laid for the winter, James decided he could leave the next morning for New Carlisle, happy. He was intensely worried about how John and he would be reunited. And how he should tell Catherine. Certainly not before they could provide good provisions over the long winter, perhaps a couple of years or more. He had told Full Moon he was “looking for a suitable mother for John.” But had that fallen on deaf ears?
Catherine, with her fiery spirit, would be his main obstacle. Better wait until they had a child of their own, he decided. But then again, would that not make it even harder? Difficult times ahead.
Chapter Sixteen
The cry of the water-driven saw winding down still gave James an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. He could not for the life of him forget the image of Ben’s blood spurting into the air. But he hurried on down the roadway toward the sound, worried about Ben, and also the lumber Hall owed him for his weeks of work. He was not looking forward to this: Hall had been miffed at James for not helping at the mill this autumn, and had not even attended the wedding.
As the mill came into view, he headed down to find Ben hard at work, sporting the brace of leather round his neck that James had rigged to hold the handle of the wheelbarrow. James watched as Ben wheeled a load of sawdust over to a new white pile. “Ben!”
Ben dropped the wheelbarrow, unhooked his sling, and James gave him a hug as he might his own son. “Well Benigno, how is it all going along? The sling we made seems to be working.”
“Oh yes, James,” Ben said, “and Mr. Hall give me a raise!”
“Did he now? Wonderful news.” Well, that took care of his first problem. But what about the approaching winter, when the mill stopped working? For himself, he was going to Shegouac with Catherine the next morning, and would stay by his brook, trapping, snaring, and fishing through the ice. “I wish I could bring you, Ben, but I don’t know how we’ll make it ourselves; these winters are long.”
“You going up there to that wild place all by yourselves? You think that’s best for the missus?”
James did have his doubts, for sure. “But it’s you I’m worried about.”
“Oh don’t worry, I found me a good place this winter. I get to feed animals, and look for eggs — old Wida’ Travers, her husband died last spring. She says she’ll feed me all winter long. Her children is growed, and they promised to bring us food if we git into trouble. She told me she has three barrels of flour already. Should last us.”
“Very good, Ben! The Lord does look after you. I hope you thank Him properly.”
“I do, James. Every day. Specially fer giving me a friend like you.”
James slapped his shoulder a couple of times, and then headed up the path to the wide entrance of the mill. Pleased at Hall’s treatment of Ben, James shifted focus to his next problem, getting his lumber for his house next spring.
Mr. Hall looked up as he entered, and frowned, pointing to the saw. James saw that he did not have another assistant to run it so stood in wait, confined to his own thoughts.
His son, yes, he longed for his son, but he realized that he’d have a big problem getting him away from the tribe. He was even unsure how he and Catherine would su
rvive this winter. Enough trout in the brook, maybe, but they would need more than that. On his recent stopover, he’d noticed little progress from the turnips and potatoes he’d planted among the stumps in the spring. Most of all, they would need a barrel of flour, which perhaps the Garretts might give them. He could possibly shoot a moose, depending on blizzards, ice storms, and other vagaries of a Gaspé winter. And how would they fare together in just one small room?
In due course Hall stopped the mill and walked over. “Come for your lumber?”
“I have that,” James replied. “But I need nothing until the spring. The logs marked with Garretts’ insignia are half mine, as my father-in-law and I have agreed.”
Hall looked at him askance, and then the two of them went through the calculations they had agreed upon. James had counted on being able to draw upon some of the boards that Hall himself owned, as well as some of the Garretts’ supply.
“And what d’ye intend to do with the fact that I trained ye for being a fine mill assistant and you’re letting it all go to waste?”
“You don’t think I gave as good as I got?” asked James.
“Not nearly,” Hall replied. “You could get a job in any mill on the Coast now, with the training you got from me.”
“The only mill I’d ever work for is yours.” James looked the old man in the eye. “I was very happy working here and I know I could be so again. It’s just that now I have got myself a wife. And well you know how I’ve longed to be a real settler with a real family. I’ve never lied to you on that point.”
Hall met his gaze. “No, I’ll grant ye that.” Was he mollified?
“But I don’t want to leave you in a state of dissatisfaction neither,” James pressed. “Why don’t you suggest what would be fair to deduct for my training? I’ll gladly honour your proposal, Mr. Hall, if I can.”
The old man grudgingly got out his pipe, and James watched once more in awe as he managed the tinderbox with deft fingers, getting his pipe alight in a trice. It gave both of them time to think.
