He watched its slow progress, knowing that it held his fate on board. When it was still a hundred yards distant and fighting the current, he made out five men in it, two rowing on each side, while one steered. The big canoe, longer and wider than any he had seen, drove straight at him, and finally beached on a strand just below his perch.
A young man peered upward. Four French-Canadian voyageurs rested on their oars.
“Be ye, by any chance, Barnaby Skye?” he asked.
“I am.”
“And this is your party. Who have ye with you?”
“My wife Victoria, and Alistair Nutmeg, a naturalist from Leicester. He lectures at Harvard, in Boston, but he’s an Englishman and a gentleman, sir. And who are you?”
“Douglas, sir. Hudson’s Bay, at your service.”
“Well, Mr. Douglas, we need to carry three horses, two dogs, and three mortals, across those waters.”
“We’ll manage it. Dr. McLoughlin has been hoping you’d arrive in time. She’s sailing in two days. Hop in, sir, and we’ll carry you over.”
Skye paused. “I’d prefer to cross with my wife and colleague, Mr. Douglas. We’ve come a long way together and we’ll finish this trip together.”
“The factor will be disappointed.”
“Only for an hour or two.”
“Very well, sir. We’ll likely bring the flatboat over. She’s slow, but there’s a small sail.”
“It can board the horses?”
“From that bench there, sir. The channel runs deep there, and they’ve a long gangway.”
“We’ll be ready, then.”
A voyageur clambered out, grappled the prow of the canoe, and then hopped aboard as the crew rowed into the blue. Skye reckoned that before dark he would know whether he and Victoria would be going to England.
He stared guiltily at No Name, who sulked beside him, accusation in his eyes.
twenty–three
As the flatboat closed, Skye beheld McLoughlin standing at the bank. It could be no other. This man towered a foot above everyone else, was built on the model of a keg, and his head was crowned with a burst of white hair, which gave him his name: the White Eagle.
Behind him, well back from the Columbia, stood the imperial Fort Vancouver, a large stockaded fortress Skye had seen once before. Everything about it weighed heavy, from its towering stockades to its huge waterfront gate. This western capital of a pounds-and-pence empire struck awe in him. But it was larger now, double what it had been, and a village surrounded it. In every direction he could see agricultural pursuits: orchards, vineyards, hay- and grainfields, a grist mill.
Scores lined the riverbank, but it was McLoughlin who commanded his gaze. The man radiated something regal, as if he were the true royalty here. At his side stood a dark and stocky woman wearing a dress that no doubt would be fashionable in London. That, no doubt, would be the notorious Marguerite, his consort of many years, the widow of the explorer Alexander McKay, but not before she had taken up with McLoughlin.
This was no outpost but a city. The closer the leaky flatboat drew, the higher ran Skye’s estimates. Several hundred lived in this self-supporting capital. He eyed, as well, the schooner, a trim white ship better suited to coastal trade than navigating oceans. Did the entire resupply of HBC arrive in that small vessel, and did it take a whole year’s gathering of pelts and furs to England in that tiny hold?
But it was McLoughlin who riveted him. The man was lord and emperor here, responsible only to Governor George Simpson half across a continent at York Factory, and thus largely sovereign in his lordship over this northwest quarter. As the flatboat slowed and the voyageurs tossed hempen ropes to shore, a swift fear built in Skye; he knew at once he could not brook the awesome will of that sovereign lord of the wilds.
Then the flatboat bumped land, and voyageurs leapt to drag it up a gravelly beach. Amid a great hue and cry, Victoria slipped close to Skye, unnerved by this white men’s world she was seeing for the first time. He plucked her hand and held it tight within his rough one, saying things with his fingers that she would understand.
They were helped over the prow and set foot on the shoreline, and people whirled tight like a sliding noose. Professor Nutmeg stepped out, and the two dogs bounded onto land.
Skye found himself staring upward into a probing gaze.
“McLoughlin here. Welcome to our post, Mister Skye!”
Skye found himself shaking hands with the giant.
“There, you see? I know a bit about you. Have I addressed you as you wish?”
“You have, sir. This is my wife Victoria, of the Crow people, and Professor Nutmeg, a naturalist who started with the Wyeth party but joined us.”
McLoughlin’s gaze bored into Victoria. “Ah, a most lovely consort, Mister Skye. And may I introduce my Marguerite? You women will have much in common.”
Marguerite smiled and clasped Victoria’s hand.
Victoria found her voice. “Goddam,” she muttered.
“Well said, madam. A woman after my own heart. And Nutmeg? I didn’t know about you, sir. Welcome.”
“A most amazing post, Doctor.”
“Do I detect England in your voice, Professor?”
“Leicester, sir, but now a lecturer at Harvard. A naturalist, a botanist.”
“And what are your plans, eh?”
“I’ll be returning on Wyeth’s ship, the Sultana.”
“I’ve not heard of it or Wyeth.”
“It’s a brig sent round the horn, Doctor. Wyeth plans to set up a salmon fishery on the Columbia and send the proceeds back. It’s carrying machinery for making casks and processing fish, and also some trade goods to sell to American trappers.”
All that was news to Skye. It had never occurred to him to ask Nutmeg what Wyeth was up to. So Wyeth wasn’t going to buck the already fierce competition in the fur and peltry business except as a sideline.
McLoughlin paused suddenly, taking stock of the obvious threat to HBC, and then smiled.
“Come in.” He turned to some subordinates. “Put these horses up, and bring in our guests’ truck.”
Skye led the silent Victoria into the jaws of the post, and found himself cloistered by walls he guessed were twenty feet high. Within, he discovered, to his astonishment, a complete settlement, a gracious headquarters and home for the factor, barracks for the single men, great kitchens, and warehouses for the peltries.
And women, even one or two white women. He had not seen a white woman in more years than he could remember. Marguerite was a half-breed, as were most of the well-dressed ladies present there, but there, indeed, across the yard, stood a fair-fleshed woman.
Victoria sucked breath. She had never seen a white woman.
McLoughlin was looking him over, but making no overt move, and Skye realized that not until the amenities of the evening were behind them would he and the factor have a talk, probably closeted somewhere.
Assorted lackeys settled the guests in two rooms, and Victoria gasped at the interior of the one she shared with Skye. She walked over to the bed and pressed it, marveling. She peered through the glass panes, touched the glass, astonished. She studied the washstand and bowl and pitcher, scarcely believing what lay before her eyes. She studied the smooth, polished plank floor. She sat in a chair, surprised that she didn’t need to squat on her heels as she usually did. She explored under the bed and discovered a porcelain thunder-mug, and understood its purpose at once. She pulled back the coverlet and beheld crisp sheets of good English cotton, covered with thick, four-point Hudson’s Bay blankets. She poked a pillow and then examined it closely, discovering that it was filled with down, and scowled. Skye wondered whether she would object to sleeping on feathers.
Skye showed her how to pull the shutters tight for privacy, and how to open and close a door by turning the iron knob. He showed her the candles in their holders, and how to light one with a taper sitting near a small iron stove.
He thought she would enjoy these things, but h
e discovered a fear in her, and understood. All the marvels she had seen in the rendezvous, in the traders’ kits, were nothing compared to what she was seeing now.
“Victoria,” he said, “don’t be afraid of this world. These are all useful things but they are nothing. Dr. McLoughlin’s wife is half Cree, and she’ll help you with anything you need or wish to learn. I think you’ll enjoy these things, but if you don’t, say so, and we’ll head back to the mountains. If you’re unhappy …”
“Oh, Skye,” she said, pushing tears away with her small brown fists.
He hadn’t given much thought to what all this would look like to a Crow Indian woman who had never seen a white man’s city. He hadn’t expected anything like this; just another roughhewn fort, which it obviously still was, except for this one corner of it, the factor’s own home and guest quarters.
But she was showing a brave face, and next he knew she was pouring water from the white porcelain pitcher into the basin, sampling the ball of scented English soap, whose use she understood intuitively, and was washing away her tears and her fear. She found a towel, marveled, wiped her face and hands, and grinned cockily at him.
He cleaned up and waited, not knowing what to expect.
Victoria spent a while prettying herself. From her small kit she withdrew her prized vermilion and ran a streak down her forehead. She smoothed her soft doeskin dress and cleaned her quilled moccasins. She enjoyed the looking glass.
Skye watched gently, loving her, knowing that his Crow wife would be struggling and perhaps distraught when she faced the dinner table.
“Victoria, just enjoy yourself. You’ll see how life is lived in the white men’s cities and maybe even how it will be in London.”
“Well, dammit, Skye, I don’t know nothing.”
“Be yourself, and if you have doubts, watch.”
They found their way to a dining hall where the factor and his wife and their guests had gathered, a place separate from the great mess hall that fed many of their employees.
This was indeed civilization, though only the veneer of it. The long table and chairs had been crafted locally, but good English china and wine goblets rested on it, and candles in pewter holders lit it, and linen serviettes rested beside silver at each place setting. If the walls were hand-sawn plank, the mirrors and art on them were encased in gilt frames.
The women wore brown, or scarlet, or cream, or muted green cotton dresses, some trimmed in white, elaborately sewn and decorated with myriad buttons. No matter whether they were full-bloods, half-bloods, or white, they were all dressed fashionably in the European manner. The gentlemen were, likewise, dressed in frock coats, shirts, and cravats. John McLoughlin cared less about his dress than the underlings, and wore no cravat.
Skye felt out of place in his calico shirt, buckskin britches, and high moccasins, and he supposed that his bear claw necklace didn’t help him any. Victoria clung close to him, not frightened but intensely observant, choosing deep silence as her refuge.
Professor Nutmeg remained casually dressed as well, having lost all his clothing in the Cayuse village. His ancient jacket had been patched repeatedly with leather at the elbows. It was not clean, any more than Skye’s hard-used buckskins or shirt were clean.
Still, no one seemed to notice. McLoughlin could scarcely expect company dressed to the nines at such a place.
McLoughlin proved a gracious host. He introduced James Douglas, second in command; then the various women, wives or consorts of the post’s administrators. He introduced a white-bearded gentleman in a plain but natty blue uniform as Emilius Simpson, master of the HBC schooner, Cadboro, which bobbed on the river a hundred yards distant. Several of his merchant vessel officers were in attendance, also.
Skye, in turn, introduced Victoria, and shook hands with the whole lot of these gentlemen and ladies.
Skye could barely remember such a scene, and dredged his memories for youthful recollections of such things in his family’s home. His father and mother had occasionally welcomed guests, but Skye could remember nothing like this glittering banquet, with candles in dizzy numbers illumining the great room, and fashionable guests at every hand.
Such dinners as he remembered had been served by his mother and younger sisters, who were barely visible at table, and Skye wondered if these women would do the same. But when McLoughlin invited the company to be seated, the women sat beside their men, with Marguerite McLoughlin at the opposite end of the great table.
Then Indian women poured in from the kitchen, bearing platters burdened with savory meats and vegetables and fresh bread. Skye marveled. He had not had a slice of fresh bread in a decade. Swiftly the women deposited these massive heaps of food on the table.
McLoughlin rose. His wine goblet was filled only with water, and Skye suspected he didn’t touch spirits. But the other glasses on the table glowed with ruby wine.
“Ladies and gentlemen, let us welcome our distinguished guests. Mister Barnaby Skye, his wife Victoria, and Professor Alistair Nutmeg, in case any of you have not met them, Englishmen and friends of the HBC.”
They toasted the guests, and Skye arose to toast his hosts and their company. Victoria sat quietly, transfixed by all this.
Skye soon found himself wolfing down food that had only been a memory for many years: beefsteak, potatoes and maize swimming in butter, apples and plums and pears, and breads galore.
Then he noticed Victoria sitting primly, her plate of foods untouched, her hands folded in her lap. She was staring at the rest, and he understood. She had never seen Europeans eat at table, had never seen the uses of silverware, had never seen serviettes across laps, or food enter mouths without the aid of fingers. She had never seen people dab their lips with those cloths, nor had she seen people sip daintily from glass goblets. She had never seen serving women hurry empty platters away and bring fresh ones. She had never listened to polite conversation at table.
He didn’t know whether she was afraid or simply observing with those sharp eyes of hers. But he paused, slipped a hand over hers, and squeezed.
“Sonofabitch,” she said, and began to eat, flawlessly mimicking her hosts and hostesses.
twenty–four
Skye found himself closeted with the formidable McLoughlin after the dinner. An oil lamp provided the sole illumination, adding a furtive and sinister quality to the interview. They sat in the factor’s study, surrounded by ledgers but barren of books. McLoughlin’s mind turned more to curios of the wilderness that had been presented him over the years.
McLoughlin motioned Skye to the cut-glass decanter of spirits—brandy, Skye supposed—but Skye declined. This was the interview that would shape his life. He would walk through the fateful portal as a man pursuing something radically new, or he would gather Victoria and ride back to the mountains.
“Well, Mister Skye, I’ve been following your case for years. I first thought of you as a criminal and lowlife. That’s what the blasted navy had to say of you. But then reports filtered in from my men in our trading houses. They have a keen eye and a good ear, you know. And the two Skyes didn’t match up. So, you see, I conducted a small inquiry of my own. I gather Ogden told you the rest.”
“Yes, some of it.”
“Enough to bring you here. That suggests to me that we may have something to offer. Eh?”
“What do you know of me, Doctor?”
“It’s John, if you please. I never was much for ceremony. Especially here.” A massive hand swept the air, and the gesture evoked a primal lordship.
But it was too much for Skye to call this man John. McLoughlin was the image of Empire, the king’s magistrate, the representative of a vast, royally chartered company, and a man of massive size and ability.
The factor continued. “You are a good man. We want you. You can have a distinguished career with us. That sums it up.”
“Why do you think I’m a good man?”
“I don’t think it, I know it.”
“I would like to hear you
r proposal in your own words, even though Peter Ogden gave it to me, sir.”
“We’ve kept track. You’re a resourceful brigade leader. You inspire your men. You don’t stoop to the usual Yank trickery or ruthlessness and yet you do the job better. You have dignity and courage. You’ve pulled out of scrapes that would sink any man I know of in the mountains except Ogden and maybe Bridger and Fitzpatrick. You’ve revealed an ethical nature, paying off debts that might easily be forgotten. Your word is your bond.
“Ogden may be leaving us in two or three years. I wish to have you replace him. You’re an Englishman. We’re an English firm. You don’t belong with the Yanks. Of course you had to stick with ’em, but I’ve been busy about that. You can come back to the Union Jack. I have good men here at the post, but none have the field experience you have. I’d put you out there, knowing you’d keep the Yanks from stealing our trappers, and send back peltries and make us a tidy sum.”
“You mustn’t listen to trappers’ tales, sir.”
“Would you deny any of it?”
Skye entertained mixed feelings about that. He knew he and Victoria, together, had survived where most men would go under. But she made the other half of it.
“Yes, sir. My consort Victoria …”
“Yes, yes, of course. That’s understood. I’ll confide in you.” He glared at Skye, as if daring him to whisper a word of it elsewhere. “I’ve been looking for a successor. Someone to fill my position in a half dozen years. HBC has damned good men. But the ones in the field would be poor at governing this unruly empire, and the ones around me have no field experience. Then I was thinking about you …”
That stunned Skye.
“Show me that you can do it, Mister Skye.”
Swiftly, this lord of the wilds answered Skye’s questions even before they were asked. Years earlier, when McLoughlin realized that Skye wasn’t cut to the Royal Navy’s cloth, he became curious. He dispatched letters to London asking for information, and got it. Yes, Skye was a merchant’s son who had vanished, deeply grieving the family. They thought him dead. Yes, the family had destined him for a business life. Yes, the press gang had snatched him near the London Dock. Yes, he had been a rebellious and sullen seaman, always on the brink of getting himself tossed into the sea to feed the sharks. Yes, he had become the joke, the byword, of the admiralty; the ultimate bad actor.
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