A Discovery of Strangers

by Rudy Wiebe

  Richardson looks at them both: in the spastic firelight Hepburn is clumsily sewing a tear over his knee, Hood is almost invisible under his robe against the high mound of the sleeping Indian. Back — the smallest but strongest officer, with good French and certainly the quickest gun. And ruthless.

  “The strong know that, and may therefore have reason to fear the desperation of the weak … but…” Richardson’s tone for an instant becomes the doctor’s again, analysing carefully, “such … flesh … would sustain nothing. Really, since it itself is starving. It would provide no nourishment. And if it suffered from scurvy.…” He shrugs. “Less than useless.”

  “A starving man don’t think of much but eating, sir.”

  “I understand. But we,” Richardson says, steady and careful, “are Christians … you are not like that, Hepburn.”

  “No, no,” Hood echoes him.

  Hepburn says nothing; he is certainly stronger than the other two. “I was born on a croft,” he once told these two officers at Fort Enterprise. “I knew enough hunger waiting at the next corner, and people starve in the Orkneys.” Though he has not mentioned any of that since they started to walk away from the ocean.

  And now it may be that they are all three weeping. If Michel were awake and if he, after two years of working for them, had some understanding of what it was these strangers wanted so badly to find that it made them drag themselves so mercilessly over oceans and lands, a trek on which they expected every inhabitant they met to be similarly sacrificial and assist them for nothing more than what they had already decided was “proper compensation”, yes, to slave for them to the very point of death, perhaps then Michel too would be weeping. However, it is Hepburn who sobs aloud.

  “After the doings of the land of Egypt,’ ” Richardson begins reading again, “wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do.… Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgements: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord your God.’”

  And his hunger-gravelled voice declares further: “ ‘None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness.… The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother; shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.… The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness shalt thou not uncover. The nakedness of thy son’s daughter, or of thy daughter’s daughter, even their nakedness.…’ ”

  Richardson’s cathedral solemnity begins to falter: “ ‘ … thy mother’s sister’s daughter or … thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s brother’s … brother’s naked.…’ ”

  And stumbles to a stop. Hood is laughing.

  The other two are suddenly aware of it but for a moment cannot understand what he is doing, his cavernous skull agape with such staggered jerks of his bony skeleton that Michel grunts and seems about to turn on him, flinging his bare arm — once so huge with muscles but now stretched into ropes — about the air before huddling down again, twisting the buffalo hide even farther over himself so that suddenly Hood’s bare leg and seal-skin feet lie exposed. A crossing of blotched blue sticks.

  Richardson leans to him and tugs the hide back, tucks it under again.

  “My f-f-father,” Hood stutters between the feeble hiccups left in his skeleton, “never read … that … vespers!”

  “I have … lost the readings … I’m just following Leviticus, and this doesn’t seem appropri —” Richardson does not conclude. Hepburn is crawling past them.

  “Maybe morning readings, sir.” He is almost outside. “The light, it’s coming up, I think.”

  It may be, barely visible as Hepburn crawls out of sight, light like a line painted deeply south-east by south all along the tundra’s edge. Richardson lays the little Bible aside, fumbles with his calendar notebook.

  “Then it must be Sunday. October 20,” he says at last. “Fourteen days since Mr. Franklin left us. Or is it Saturday?”

  “One must … never … father instructed us,” Hood is still twitching a little, “travel on … Sundays!”

  Though they have of necessity, so often. Is it the twentieth Sunday after Trinity? If it is Sunday. Hood sees this number with staggering clarity arise with the meagre dawn, and the ridiculous laughter that stretched him flat and gasping suddenly explodes again with his father reading that ponderous text so long after Trinity, they should be somewhere in the Prophets, always on Sunday; like the arrangement of their familial decorum into ritual goodness before they all trail after his black robes into St. Mary’s, first the comforting wife and mother, she of all true gentleness, and then the three upright downright sons, Richard Jr. and Robert-robin and Georgy-porgy the blessed king for ever, and then the virtuous girls, Catherine … a parade of Anglican clerical perfection. Robert Hood’s mind is sodden with texts, touch him and he floods, his doors wrenched open and the rivers of sacred English words dammed up in his memory stream out, all of them into this arctic dawn, visible and blaring out loud surely there is a vein for silver and a place for gold he setteth an end to darkness and searcheth out the stones of darkness and the shadow of death but where shall wisdom be found the depth saith it is not me the topaz of Canaan shall not and he looketh to the ends of the earth for I mourn for my love here’s a pretty dove he putteth forth his hand upon the rock he over-turneth them by their roots doest thou do well and also much cattle to be angry yea I do even unto death I do well that cannot discern my right hand from my left to be very angry and also much cattle yea I do

  “Doctor Richardson?” Hood whispers; who knows how far Hepburn has managed to drag himself.

  “What?” the doctor responds, as closely confidential.

  “Is there, anything, about a daughter’s … nakedness, or a son’s?”

  Richardson shudders. He has assumed that in their suffering together they have already spoken of everything necessary; for him at least starvation (and so he thought for them both) was their complete and mutual confessor. But never this; what childhood abomination has Leviticus led this poor boy’s dying memory back into? Truly there are more things in heaven and on earth — he cannot deny his friend anything, not now.

  “Not here,” he says finally, searching to focus in chapter eighteen. “What is it…?”

  “My daughter,” whispers Hood, “or it may be, my son. Will need washing, their nakedness, their soft: nak —”

  “My dearest Robert!” Richardson interrupts before he can say more — but does not know how to continue. And Hood seems suspended on one elbow, staring at him as if he would drag assurance out of his very eyes. “Of course, of course the mother … washes.…”

  “O yes,” Hood exclaims, “yes, she’ll wash, o Greenstockings is, very clean, she smells quick as firelight, moss, woodsmoke, that is, Doctor Richardson, the purest, and cleanest, when the child is born she’s absolutely clean…” — sitting up now, a structure of bruised bones shouting as if it still had the strength to walk wherever its eyes led, its still fingers shivered in anticipation of those delicately turned numbers spreading like columns of trees over pages, the shimmering paint and brushes were clenched between its teeth — “sand and smoke and ashes is the sweetest washing, I’ve seen her wash herself, and the girl, clean as my mother dreamed in the manse, when I take her, and my daughter back to England, or my son, she will show my mother her washing, there is always uncleanness, my father read that, it is there, you should read that, ‘If a woman have conceived seed, and borne a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days,’ that is what he preached, from the high pulpit, seven days! ‘But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean fourteen days, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days’! Greenstockings! Read it!”

  Hood’s voice, ravaged by hunger, roars about the blotched tent and
breaks off as he collapses against Michel, who stirs but refuses to awaken; he will never waken for a White scream. Richardson grasps a wrist, which is mere bone. Hepburn scrabbles at the door,

  “What, sir? Sir!”

  “No,” Richardson says quietly. “Not yet. He fainted. Leave him, just fainted. Unfortunately.”

  “He said … a name?”

  Richardson quietly covers his skeletal friend again. “He has not said her name aloud for nine months” is all he says to Hepburn, weeping again. And he lifts his Bible, bends to it, knowing he read those words — how could Hood remember them so perfectly — as recently as yesterday perhaps, or last week: and finds them under the tip of his finger — Leviticus, chapter twelve:

  “And the Lord spake unto Moses saying … Who shall offer it before the Lord, and make an atonement … if she be not able to bring a lamb … two young pigeons … and she shall be clean.”

  A brace of ptarmigan then, will that suffice? And blood, of course; always sufficient blood.

  Not spoken her name since that dreadful January night — nine months? certainly nine. Not even later, in July when they left the Indians on the Coppermine River, just before they came to the useless mountains that revealed no copper at all — it is all somewhere in his notes — in July that dangerous woman whose beauty caused all those fights vanished with the pretty-faced hunter. Or was it with that one from the huge lake they said was in the north-west, Great Bear Lake, with that other Yellowknife, The Hook? They had hung him with medals — it is all detailed in his notes, facts upon dangerous facts. And in his memory. In his report he will arrange and edit them properly, as always, so they will make proper and decent, acceptable sense.

  A very short chapter of Bible. Eight priestly verses for Greenstockings.

  Or should he burn his notes? Sacrifice must be made. Not necessarily blood, but burnt sacrifice most surely. If he cannot write his report properly, as Lieutenant Franklin advises him, the notes must be burned. When he is about to die, that must also be done. Things have taken place that would not be understood properly, they may be there in memories, like ineradicable teeth, and whoever survives, whoever, must write the acceptable account of what can be properly reported; and crush, burn his memory.

  Hepburn is studying Richardson as though reading his thoughts on the grey Sunday (Saturday?) morning light.

  “He’s good,” the sailor says suddenly, “on my honour, sir. That’s all I know of Mr. Hood.”

  Richardson looks at Hood’s flatness of bones; if he is no longer in a faint, he is sleeping. Who would want him to awaken in this horrid place? He has paid more than double for all his sins.

  “Yes. As Englishmen,” Richardson softly includes Hepburn, “we hold for ever sacred the memory of our blessed, our glorious dead.”

  But when Michel sits up, Hood is immediately conscious, one unawareness breaking the other. His mind still teems with inchoate phrases and he gropes for Richardson’s Bible, he will find the exact places, the exact words and every detail of punctuation as they go on and on beyond what he has or will ever read unto the least jot and tittle every iota frozen aloud into him that he is now condemned to recall here in this mocking inescapable land, they burst blazing as ice inside his head but God prepared a worm I will when the morning rose the next day and they wander for lack of food knowest thou knowest thou bring forth Canaan the wrens so small who bore Cock Robin’s pall in his season canst thou kill I will guide Arcturus with his sons canst thou provide raven his food thou kill when his young ones cry unto God for food canst thou knowest kill thou kill kill but he cannot see anything.

  Raven could brush the snow from him and he would not be able to see a speck of his blackness. Hood feels icy paper against his nose and sees nothing; a possible dance of snowstorm. Is it? Soundlessly, without wind? He puts his hand to his face: yes, his eyes are open. It is the book.

  He realizes he no longer has dimension. He is a sheet laid between frozen hides, become his own pencilled calculation so thin it cannot be seen, a hide ’twere better ’twere scrapped clean of hair and eaten, and therefore he must explain to Michel, yes, he must, he has Richardson’s Bible in his hands and sometimes he finds places where the words he can see for an instant collide with his memory. Richardson and Hepburn are somewhere nearby, scratching through snow for rocks again, and when Hood tilts up, the grey mist of his seeing gradually blurs into a gathering sharpness. He begins to see the thick words at the tops of pages, “Job”, “Romans”, “Daniel” — it is truly Bible but the small light rising towards noon reveals words he does not really need to see, dragging through his mind if then God so clothe the grass which today kill will wander in the field provide yourselves with kill bags which wax not old and he shall surely kill come in the second watch or in the third and what he must explain to Michel, Michel who squats in the tent doorway behind him, cleaning his long rifle so thoroughly for tomorrow, certainly tomorrow those two will start for Fort Enterprise, yes, but what he must explain to the Mohawk very carefully is that he will not show him how to use the compass!

  Only English Hepburn can carry that beautiful English copper, no savage can be entrusted with this civilized mysterium, this floating spirit whose pointer, when properly followed through the delicate labyrinth of numbers, leads always to the ridiculous play fort where their salvation sleepeth. Unless the ravens and the wolves come wandering here for lack of food, and they have not seen a track for seven days, the animals would now have to come driving an entire herd of caribou through the western notch of the eskers and offer to kill them at their feet if they were to have enough

  robbin-a-bobbin

  he bent his bow

  shot at a pigeon and killed a crow

  shot at another

  and killed his

  “What?” Michel roars behind him. “You say what?”

  Robert Hood can almost turn his head; for a moment he finds the strength to look back.

  The Mohawk is directly behind him in the tent entrance, his body bent to him as if to take him in his long arms as he holds the rifle in both hands high across his chest. Perhaps he expects an attack; with a slight twist he could thrust the weapon against Hood. But Michel is not doing that, not yet. He leans closer and closer, hissing a small circle of English words that abruptly explode like a black January memory:

  “I tell you, I kill you, all the time, I tell you, I kill you, before you die, I tell you I kill, you.…”

  But Hood cannot hold it. Neither that January night nor the words that have whispered themselves into this landscape week after week through winter and spring and the exhaustion of summer, until he recognizes them like starvation, the penitence of his fast eating him cell by cell down to the last frayed whisper of what he once knew he could not possibly have dreamed in this land of goodness, of beauty, of tenderness and love I will kill you For nine months these words have eaten him before you die When you have exhausted the last jot and tittle of suffering, when it is no longer possible for you to feel either God or country or duty, just before you die, at the instant of your last despair I will kill you

  a sighing and sobbing

  To hear the bell toll

  For poor Cock Robin

  Why? Why? Oh-h-h-h-h-h, he cannot even groan himself, the sound he hears Birdseye groaning somewhere is his skeleton body sinking to this earth, bowed under the heavy, heavy memories that have always pulled him, he realizes now, down; those follow-my-leader memories rooted and growing in him all his life — he was such a silly, gullible child, a child who thought he knew everything because he knew only the confident, simple world of English games, and endlessly elaborated, confident duty, words

  robbin-a-bobbin a bendy bow

  shoot at his brother and kill a crow

  shoot again and kill a wren and

  There is a spot of round, hard ice against the back of his head, so round and small, surely the fine, reassuring solidity of English steel against his hair just when you die I will as comforting as a child
’s prayer of forgiveness, and he leans back hard into it, pushes himself up against it harder with his last bit of fervent strength, perhaps that at least can be properly, firmly fixed

  and that will be all for gentle

  The last syllable may be floating, trying to float, there men … men … men And young Robert Hood never able to complete it.

  DOCTOR JOHN RICHARDSON

  October 24th & October 25th 1821 Brush Shelter

  On the two following days after Michel’s death we had mild but thick snowy weather, and as the view was too limited for us to preserve a straight course, we remained encamped among a few dwarf pines about five miles from the tent. Hepburn found a species of cornicularia, a kind of lichen, that was possible to eat when moistened and toasted over the fire; and we had a good many pieces of singed buffalo hide that had belonged to Mr. Hood remaining.

  Up to the period of his attack upon us, Michel’s conduct had been good and respectful to the officers, and in a conversation between Lieutenant Franklin, Mr. Hood, and myself, at Obstruction Rapids, it had been proposed to give him a reward upon our arrival at a trading post. His principles, however, unsupported by a belief in the divine truths of Christianity, were unable to withstand the pressure of severe distress. His countrymen, the Mohawk-Iroquois, are generally Christians, but he was totally uninstructed and ignorant of the duties inculcated by Christianity; and from his long residence in this part of the country seemed to have imbibed, and retained, the rules of conduct which the Indians here prescribe to themselves.

  11

  OUT OF THE LAKE

  Greenstockings kneels in her small shelter, the pad of moss between her knees. When hard pain swells through her again she tilts forwards, arms braced, her stomach mounded immense and heavy holding her erect against her doubled thighs. Will this stubborn, powerful child ever deign to let go of her?