“When will you leave?” Denning asked.
“Tomorrow, I’m hopin’, although we won’t hold the elections until tonight, so there’ll be no way of knowin’ what we’ll decide until then.”
“Is everyone in from the hills?”
“Aye, they are, and champin’ at the bit to be off. I’m hopin’ for an early start tomorrow.” Turcotte looked vaguely uncomfortable, and Isabella scowled.
Gently Denning reminded: “And Mass, John? And the blessing? What of those?”
“We must, Big John,” Turcotte blurted.
“I daresay few would leave without them,” Denning added.
Big John forced a smile. “Aye, and do ye think ye’re tellin’ me something I don’t know?”
“McTavish!” Isabella scolded.
Denning smiled piously. “Such resentment, John. You could do so much good for the valley, working arm-in-arm with the Church.”
“’Twas born a Protestant, Father. I don’t think the Church would be wantin’ the likes of me… or me the likes of it.”
“You still blame the Church, after all these years?”
“Aye, I do,” Big John replied bluntly.
“Non!” Turcotte exclaimed, sitting up straight with both hands flat on the table. “It is the rum that speaks for him, Father.”
“Angelique was a terrible tragedy,” Denning continued gently. “For you and the Church, John. But Satan is a powerful adversary, and unfortunately evil often does triumph over good. We can only try harder.”
“Ye’re sayin’ she burns in hell, then?” Big John asked thickly.
“You know the Church’s stance on suicide,” Denning replied. “I’m sorry.”
“Aye, well, I suppose that’ll have to do.” He stood, anger making him clumsy, and thrust his cup into the air. “A toast then, to the hunt. Ye’ll drink to that, won’t ye, Father?”
Denning hesitated, then nodded. “Of course.”
The priest stood, and Turcotte with him, and the three of them brought the rims of their cups together, then lowered them to drink. Although Big John could feel the priest’s eyes on him, he kept his own averted. He knew his hostility toward the Church didn’t surprise Denning, although it had clearly shaken Turcotte. Big John’s biggest regret, in fact, was René’s presence. He knew that, by evening, Angelique’s name would once again become common gossip among the half-bloods.
They finished the rum in short order, talking cautiously of small things until Isabella set out an early dinner of stew and hard biscuits, with milk for Big John and Denning, tea for Turcotte. Afterward, Denning and Turcotte returned to the Métis camp, while Big John went to the open-faced shed where he kept his carts. Isabella had already sorted and packed the things they would take with them.
Gabriel was already in the shed when Big John got there, checking the rawhide bindings on his own vehicle. His harness was laid out in the grass nearby, shining under a fresh coat of oil, buckles gleaming. Picking up the belly band, Big John idly flicked the small brass bell with a finger. “Ye be ahead of me, lad. Will ye be ready by morning, do ye think?”
“I will be ready in a couple of minutes,” Gabriel said.
Dropping the harness, Big John went to where his own carts were parked on sapling platforms to keep them up out of the dirt. He didn’t expect to find anything wrong, but he was particular about his gear, and would usually double-check everything if he had a chance.
“Denning?” Gabriel remarked.
“Aye, though better him than others, I’m thinkin’. A smidgen of sense he’s got, and not afraid to saddle his own horse if he has to.”
Gabriel was silent, as if gauging Denning against some of the others who had accompanied the hunt in recent years. Like Father Steele—soft, flabby Father Steele—who even the most pious bois brûles had ridiculed. After a time, he said: “Will there be a Mass tonight?”
“He wasn’t sayin’, though I’d guess tonight or in the mornin’, if not both.”
“Will you go?”
“Me?” Big John looked up from where he was inspecting a hub. It seemed a foolish question. Gabriel knew how he felt about the Catholic religion. He studied the youth thoughtfully for a moment, then said: “Ye can go or stay, lad. Ye know it doesn’t matter to me.”
Gabriel stared at him, his eyes swimming with indecision. Finally, taking a deep breath, he said: “Will she go?”
“She?” Then it hit him, and he reared back in surprise. “Celine?”
Gabriel nodded wordlessly.
“I’ve not asked her, but I suppose the choice is hers, the same as ye.”
Speaking rapidly, as if afraid the words would bog down in his throat if he didn’t get them out quickly, Gabriel said: “I would like your permission to accompany her to Mass tonight, Big John. Whenever Father Denning wishes to hold it.” Meeting the older man’s eyes, he swallowed loudly.
Turning toward the trees along the river where he’d last seen Celine, Big John didn’t immediately reply. Conflicting emotions tugged at him. Gabriel, who had always seemed like a son, standing before him as a stranger, asking permission to escort his daughter to Mass. And his own daughter like a stranger, a creature so foreign he could barely communicate with her.
“Big John?”
He sighed, and his shoulders drooped a notch. “Aye,” he said finally. “If the lass is willin’, ye have me blessin’.”
Gabriel nodded solemnly. “Thank you.”
Not knowing how to reply, Big John abruptly stooped and lifted the shafts of the nearest cart—the one he used most often—and pulled it into the sunlight. It was small compared to his other carts, with planed sideboards and a solid tailgate for greater protection from the elements. Its top was a sun-faded reddish-brown oilcloth stretched over the steamed cottonwood bows and fastened to the sideboards, then drawn to puckered ovals front and aft—similar to the canvas coverings he had once seen in a woodcut illustration of Conestoga wagons freighting supplies over the Allegheny Mountains.
He checked the rawhide binding on the wheels and around the box. He thought the hubs might be a little loose, but he was confident they would last. He could have Quesnelle construct new ones for him over the winter if he was still concerned about them when they got back. He always carried a couple of spare axles and spokes for the wheels, and knew that, with the cart’s rawhide and wood construction, there wasn’t much that couldn’t be repaired on the range if the need arose. It was why the Métis preferred such simple modes of transportation over the iron-mounted carts of Quebec or Montreal, or bulkier American-made wagons.
Big John’s other two carts were simpler affairs, larger and more crudely built, with slatted sideboards and gates and no covers at all. He seldom used them except for the buffalo range, but they seemed solid enough, the rawhide tight and hard, like iron itself.
The sun was setting by the time he finished, the air dimpling the pale flesh of his legs above his stockings. Although he was tempted to slip back into the cabin to replace his kilt with a pair of buckskin trousers, he knew Isabella would be disappointed if he did. He’d explained to her years before that the kilt was a kind of badge among his people—the color and design of the plaids representing his clan in Scotland. It was his medicine, he’d explained, and her face had brightened with comprehension. Now she insisted he wear it on important occasions, and usually he didn’t mind, except when it was cold.
After wheeling his carts back into the shed, he went to where Gabriel was forking hay to the horses in the corral. Folding his arms over the top rail of the corral, his gaze slowly hardened. “Have ye seen Alec lately?” he asked Gabriel.
“On the prairie to the south. He and Isidore were racing.” Gabriel paused in his work. “Why?”
“And ’twas it the spotted pony he was runnin’?”
“Yes. His pinto against Isidore’s sorrel.”
“That sorrel doesn’t belong to Isidore, Gabriel. ’Tis René’s pony the lad was racin’, against me own spotted horse, and me
own wishes, too.”
Gabriel laughed. “Alec is young. Sometimes he doesn’t listen, but he will cool the pinto out before he brings it back. He is bois brûle, and would not put a horse up sweating.”
“I had thought to use oxen for the carts this year, but maybe I’ll use horses, instead. The pinto and the black and Solomon. Will ye see to their hitchin’, come the mornin’?”
The smile slipped from Gabriel’s face. “Alec was planning to ride the pinto this year,” he reminded Big John. “There are other horses to pull the carts.”
“Aye, there are, but ’tis the pinto and the black and Solomon we’ll be usin’, and Alec will have to walk or ride in the cart. ’Tis his own doin’, Gabriel, and time enough he learns that.”
“He will be mad, Big John. He will be furious.”
“The lad’s thirteen,” Big John replied grimly. “If he cannot act as such, then maybe he still needs to be treated like a boy.”
“He would not stand for that. It would destroy his pride.”
“’Tis not a thing I’m eager to do, but I’ll not have him ignorin’ me orders, either. Not without consequences, I won’t. I told him to put the horse up earlier, and not run him against Turcotte’s red horse. I told him to clean himself up for supper, too, and he didn’t do it. If he wants to hunt for John McTavish, he’ll have to learn to listen.”
“I will tell him,” Gabriel said, but Big John could see that he didn’t agree with his brother’s punishment. Leaning the pitchfork against a corral post, Gabriel headed for the cabin in quick, jerky strides.
Watching him walk away, Big John was struck with a feeling of sorrow. He was losing them both, he knew. At the same time, he recognized their developing independence as a natural and necessary occurrence, as inevitable as the changing seasons. It saddened him, sure, but there was a kind of pride to be taken in it, too, an acknowledgment of his own contribution toward a larger cause. They were good boys, both of them. Someday soon, they would be good men. It was all a man who loved them like a father could ask for, he thought.
With the sun just sunk below the horizon, Big John made his way to the Métis camp. He found Father Denning kneeling on a folded piece of buffalo robe beside the cold ashes of last night’s central fire, an ironwood rosary entwined through his fingers. A young girl was on her knees before him, her hands folded perfectly in front of featureless breasts. Cynically Big John wondered what sins someone so young had been able to achieve that it required the attention of God.
Footsteps padded the stiff brown grass behind him. Baptiste LaBarge appeared at his side. “’Allo, Big John.”
“Baptiste, my good friend. Have ye come to have ye confession heard?”
“Non, I have already had my confession heard and recited my Hail Marys and Our Fathers.”
“And such will set ye straight with the Lord, then?”
“Do not mock the Church, Big John. It is very powerful, very holy.”
“Aye,” Big John replied seriously. “I do not mock ye religion, Baptiste, only my own kinship with it.”
LaBarge shrugged. “We will have the elections tonight. Some of us want to leave in the morning.”
“And the others?”
He shrugged once more. “The day after. Yesterday. Who knows? Most want to leave tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow suits me. When will ye be holdin’ the elections, and where?”
“Here at the council fire, after the evening meal.” He studied the fading western sky, awash in evening colors. “After full dark, I think. There will be a wedding then, also. Young Dan Keller and Saint Germain’s daughter.” He grinned at Big John. “They have already been living together as man and wife, but tonight the priest will make it official.”
Big John’s smile was large, thinking of Keller, and of Herman St. Germain’s big-boned, beautiful daughter Hannah. “Aye, a fair match, that,” he opined.
“She is a hard worker,” LaBarge agreed. “Last spring she butchered for Charlo, and did as fine a job as any wife.”
Big John nodded. He remembered it well. They had all commented on how expertly Hannah had skinned the buffalo Charlo brought down. “I’ll be here, Baptiste, and Isabella, too, and I thank ye for the word.”
“Is nothing, Big John. I will see you then, eh?” With a curt nod, he walked away.
The girl with Denning finished and another took her place. Three more waited in line. Big John shifted impatiently as they slowly advanced. When the last child departed, Denning rose stiffly and hobbled over.
“I believe I spent four hours on that blasted hide, John.” He grimaced. “Rheumatic knees were not one of the hazards I’d envisioned of the priesthood.”
“’Twas not ye only surprise, I’m thinkin’. I’m not so old I can’t remember my first sightin’ of the valley, and the way my heart sank when I did.”
Denning chuckled. “I remember that feeling, although it doesn’t totally describe my experience. I had looked forward to hardship then. It would be proof of my love for the Lord, our Father. Even the possibility of martyrdom among the natives was appealing in its own naïve way. But in picturing my decapitated head mounted atop a pole outside some aborigine’s bark-covered hut, I’d failed to consider the hordes of mosquitoes that can cover a man’s face like a beard each spring.”
“Aye to that,” Big John replied. “I’ve seen ’em drive a pony near to madness with their bloody, suckin’ ways. But I don’t think mosquitoes’ll be troublin’ us much any more. The signs point to an early winter. We may be thinkin’ wishful-like of ’skeeters and such before we get back to the valley.”
Denning nodded gravely. He had been in the wilderness long enough to know what an early winter, with its wind-driven snows and sub-zero temperatures, would mean to hunters caught on the vast, open plains, far from wood and shelter. At forty below, a man wasn’t allowed many mistakes.
“They’ll be holdin’ the election tonight,” Big John told the priest, “though not for another hour or so. Would ye care for a spot of tea, or maybe some galettes to warm ye belly?”
“Perhaps some tea, thank you. I’m afraid I won’t have time to eat. There are several children to be baptized yet, and a wedding tonight. Have you heard?”
“Aye, I have, and a likely pair, I’m thinkin’.”
They started together for the cabin. “It’s always so busy before a hunt,” Denning lamented. “Always so many to see, so much to accomplish. I wish we could open a church below the border again, and damn the politics that prevent it.”
“Will not the Americans allow a Catholic church within their territories?” Big John asked innocently.
A conceding smile crossed Denning’s face. “Yes, the Church is partially to blame, John, I’ll admit that. Trivial disputes that withhold the word of the Lord from a people who so hunger for it. Still, even a bishop is human.”
Big John stared straight ahead. For some, the answers were always that simple—right was right and wrong was the other person’s opinion. Still, it saddened him to recognize such Old World animosity here among the half-bloods of the pays sauvage, to know that the bloody seeds of war between Protestant and Catholic that burned so hotly in the British Isles had taken root here in the fertile soil of the Red River Valley. If not for the need of accord against a common enemy—the Sioux—on their twice yearly forays for buffalo, Big John shuddered to think what hostilities might have developed among the Métis.
Watching him, Denning said kindly: “You seem so pensive, John. What troubles you?”
“Nothing troubles me, Father. Me thoughts were wanderin’ a bit, ’tis all.”
“To the hunt?”
Big John smiled. “Aye, to the hunt.”
And in the end, he thought, it was true. The hunt. Always the hunt.
Chapter Seven
Gabriel sat at the far end of the table, braiding new reins he hoped to have finished before they left for the buffalo ranges. The slim strands of bison leather slid like silk through his fingers, the weave tigh
t and even, for all that his attention was largely focused elsewhere, his gaze skipping randomly around the room.
Isabella was busy as always, scurrying back and forth to light candles against the deepening shadows, seeing to the men’s drinks, or making last-minute changes to the packs she’d readied for the hunt the night before. Throughout it all, she apologized repeatedly to the priest for this imagined wrong or that, while Father Denning relaxed on his stool and protested that everything was fine, and that he’d hardly expected such amenities this deep in the wilderness.
Big John sat slouched in a cane-bottomed rocker close to the fireplace, silent for the most part, although his pipe, clenched in a white-knuckled fist, trembled as he observed the exchange between Isabella and the priest. Although Big John’s lips remained sealed, Gabriel thought his pipe spoke volumes.
Celine tried to help Isabella in her own uncertain way, but it was obvious she was flustered by the older woman’s energy, puzzled by the wide assortment of goods they would take with them on the hunt. She kept looking at the huge sheet-iron kettles leaning bottom-out against the wall, as if trying to fathom what kind of soup Isabella might concoct in them. Every once in a while Big John or Father Denning would cast her a questioning look, but no one spoke to her or tried to draw her out. It made Gabriel’s heart ache to see her looking so lost and alone in her father’s house.
He tried to remember what Celine’s mother had been like, but Angelique was a ghost in his mind, a time-shrouded figure without perspective. He could vaguely picture a pallid face and a beautiful voice, her eyes haunted as if with fear, but of what he could never guess. He had been working on the windmill with Big John when Isabella came to them with the news of her suicide. He could still recall the shattered expression on Big John’s face, the way his hatchet had slipped unnoticed from his fingers. He had seemed to cave away from the inside that day, deflating the same way a buffalo’s bladder would shrivel in the sun if it wasn’t cured properly.
Isabella had also looked stunned, he remembered, but there had been less astonishment in her countenance, more acceptance. Gabriel thought Angelique’s death had saddened Isabella, but he didn’t think it surprised her.
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