Going Home

by Richard S. Wheeler

  But Simpson’s was not the face of a martinet, and Skye knew that Hudson’s Bay had chosen well, selecting a top man among a seafaring people.

  Then, slowly, the schooner slid free of its anchorage and hove into the wind as the shuddering sails caught the breeze. This trip downriver would rely heavily on the current of the Columbia to take it to sea, but there was nothing like a good two-masted schooner with fore-and-aft sails to employ an adverse wind.

  Skye’s home would be a cramped cabin on the quarterdeck, behind the master’s own. He and Victoria would share a tiny galley with the entire crew, including the master and two mates. There were few amenities. The Cadboro was but fifty-six feet from bow to stern, and but seventeen at the beam, and carried a crew of thirty: chief and petty officers, seamen, cooks, navigators and helmsmen, carpenters and sailmakers. It was armed with six brass cannon, good for little other than scaring Indians and saluting passing vessels. But it was a clean ship, well caulked and scraped and enameled, gleaming the pride of its master.

  In its eight-foot-high hold rested the entire year’s fur catch, the wealth of the HBC borne in a single fragile bark that would sail clear down the Pacific coast of North and South America, round the fearsome Horn, head across the South Atlantic, and then north to England, a journey that would take six or seven months with good winds, longer if beset with troubles. The return, to York Factory on Hudson’s Bay and then overland, would fly faster.

  Skye felt the ship stir under his feet and heel subtly in the wind as the sails filled and the chattering stopped. The helmsman had measured the wind, checking its direction with a glance at the wooly wind gauge, and quartered north. The river there ran more northerly than west, but eventually would swing west to the sea. That vector made for fast sailing.

  Skye said nothing and revealed nothing. His past was a secret known only to Victoria and himself. For the rest of those on board, he was a British gentleman, smartly turned out in serviceable fashion, escorted by a comely Indian maiden he had taken to wife in the fur trade. That suited Skye fine. The less they knew of him, the better.

  The shoreline receded and the fort diminished to the rear, and then there was only the glittering river, shooting sparks off its surface, purling toward the sea, cold and hazy on a bright day. The wooded shores seemed small and distant even as the helmsman caught the swiftest current to carry it along.

  They strolled the small deck, where temporary disorder reigned. But Skye knew that no master would allow such disarray upon reaching the sea, where great waves would wash anything not tied down or anchored into the rails.

  Then Victoria pointed. There on a promontory, small but unmistakable, was the yellow dog, its head high, staring squarely at Skye and Victoria. The dog rested there, its sides heaving, and then started west again, tracing the shore, never stopping because the ship never stopped.

  Skye felt a bitter weight. “It’ll turn around and go back,” he said, not really believing it.

  “It will find a way,” Victoria replied. She was sincere; he hadn’t been.

  “It’ll wear out. A ship never stops unless fog or haze forces it to. If the moon’s full it can run at night. The pup’ll come to a river and quit, and find its way back to wait for us.”

  “No,” she said, and he stared at her.

  Most of the next hour they didn’t see the dog, but every time Skye thought the dog had quit, it reappeared, ghostly and yellow and staring at the distant ship, sometimes half a mile distant when the helmsman skirted the south bank.

  Mr. Simpson appeared at their side. “Here’s my glass,” he said. “He’s a fine loyal dog. The watch up there is talking about nothing else.”

  Skye lifted the telescoping brass spy glass to his eye and failed to see the dog.

  “You’re behind it, I think,” Simpson said.

  Skye swung the lens forward and caught a flash of yellow, and then finally focused on No Name, who was running easily, a few hundred yards at a time before sitting on his haunches to rest a moment.

  He gave the glass to Victoria, who found the dog and muttered bitterly, keeping her thoughts in Absaroka rather than sharing them with the white men. Then she handed the glass back.

  “We’ll reach the Pacific about nine this evening. Rough water there, some dangerous bars, and often some fog. With a favorable wind, we should be at sea just before full dark. It’s the most dangerous point in the entire journey, more so even than Cape Horn. But once we reach the Pacific, we’ll head down the coast, riding the Japan current, doing some trading in Mexican California before we abandon the continent.”

  Skye nodded. His thoughts were on the dog. Even without the glass, he could occasionally see the movement of a bit of yellow.

  “Crew’s betting when the dog’ll quit,” Simpson said. “They’re taking odds that the pup will quit at the Lewis River.”

  “No,” said Victoria.

  “No dog can keep up for long,” Simpson said, gently disagreeing. “We are moving at nine or ten knots.”

  The master returned to his watch, and Skye and Victoria watched the silent world slide by. A chill rose from the river, but neither of them would leave the rail even to fetch a shawl or a cape from the wardrobes hastily assembled for them.

  Skye watched the dog struggle along the shore. It was obviously weary now, pausing to rest frequently. Skye could not see his sides heaving, but he knew exactly how that dog would look close at hand, and he sorrowed. He felt helpless and saddened and finally despairing, feeling that the dog would run itself to death rather than do the sensible thing and turn back.

  What had Skye done to deserve such loyalty?

  They passed the confluence of the Lewis, a large stream out of the St. Helen’s wilderness and the crew lined the rail until a sharp word from the mates sent them to their posts again.

  Skye did not see the dog. They sailed past the river. The forest thickened and the shore vaulted upward again. And then, at a rocky point, they saw the yellow dog. The sun caught it until it glowed like gold. It stood proudly in the sun until the Cadboro passed, and then ran downstream again.

  No one cheered.

  twenty–seven

  They saw no more of the yellow dog. By the time they passed the Kalama River, Skye knew the dog had given up. He grieved. No creature had ever loved him so much. He was ashamed at how reluctantly he had come to love the dog, how stupid he had been.

  He brooded a while, studying the shore, hoping yet not hoping, wanting the dog to turn back to Fort Vancouver but wanting to see it again, a golden streak pacing the schooner as it cut the tide. The confusion of his mind wearied him.

  Still, the future beckoned. He turned at last to his cabin, settling himself for a half-year journey home while Victoria still patrolled the deck of the small ship as if to measure her new world. The thought of England stirred feelings so deep he couldn’t even name them. Not all of them were pleasant. His father’s warehouse stood deep in East End, surrounded by misery and ignorance and depravity. The cruelties he had seen, even as a boy, had made it easier for him to adapt to the New World, where most people had a chance to fashion a life in a fresh, sweet land.

  Maybe he would swiftly weary of London. After making his peace with the Crown and embracing his family, he would itch to escape to this vibrant continent where people were carving out a new life for themselves and severing the chains of Europe. He decided not to worry about all that: he was going home for a while, and what else mattered?

  He felt increasingly confident about the weathered master, Simpson, who was sailing swiftly but not recklessly down the river, going faster than a square-rigged ship could but never so fast as to endanger his vessel. The Cadboro swung easily from one channel to another, responding instantly to the helmsman. Skye studied the men and the ship, seeing in their conduct more than the master suspected.

  Victoria had slid into silence, mourning the dog, but later in the day she recovered her spirits.

  She questioned him about everything:

>   “Why does that tree stick out in front?” she asked.

  “That’s the bowsprit, and it increases the amount of sail for the wind to catch.”

  “Why do the master and bosun’s mates wear blue clothing?”

  “Those are merchant marine uniforms, and they express the master’s authority over the men.”

  “Why do the men obey?”

  “Many reasons. They are paid to obey. Their life depends on obeying, working in unison. They could be punished if they don’t.”

  “How?”

  “Lashes across the back. That’s a common punishment. Starvation and thirst. Execution.”

  “Death?”

  “In the worst cases, yes. The sea kills swiftly.”

  “No war chief would kill one of his people.”

  “Unless the warrior tried to kill him. On a long voyage, seamen sometimes mutiny.”

  She wanted to know the names of things and he supplied them: the foremast, mainmast, taffrail, capstan, hold, and crow’s nest.

  They struck fog suddenly, late in the afternoon, a white blanket that had boiled inland from the Pacific, swallowing the wide river until they could not see twenty yards ahead. Simpson lowered sail, but the current still drew the ship along too swiftly and he finally ordered the anchors dropped, narrowly avoiding a large island dividing the wide river.

  The dank mist penetrated Skye’s clothing and chilled his face. They were approaching the sea now, and the mood of the weather changed. He smelled the salt sea in the breeze and sensed that they had reached tidal waters.

  “I do not like this,” Victoria said, and retreated to the cabin. He knew she would not find warmth or solace there. It was sunlight and fresh air that made the cabin comfortable.

  Simpson patrolled the deck, making sure the schooner was well secured.

  “Well, Mister Skye, what do you make of the Cadboro so far?”

  “A tight ship, sir.”

  “You’ve been at sea. I imagine it holds no terrors for you.”

  “The sea always holds terrors for me, sir.”

  “Then you’d make a good seaman. I imagine you arrived at York Factory, Hudson’s Bay, eh?”

  “No, sir, I set foot on North America at Fort Vancouver.”

  “Ah! Then this is all familiar. What bark brought you here?”

  “It’s a long story, sir, for some other time.”

  “Well, I’d say you know more of sailing than you let on. You are quite at home aboard.”

  “As you say, sir.”

  Skye wished to change the subject. He did not wish to lie.

  A mate summoned Simpson to deal with a rent in a sail, and Skye stared moodily into the whiteness, the whole world cloaked from his eyes by the soft fog.

  It would be a miserable night, with cold sweat gathering on the polished interior wood of the cabin. Only the galley and mess, where a cookfire supplied heat, would offer comfort to those aboard.

  The monotonous gray faded into blackness and the ship bobbed softly in the dark, hour after hour, nothing visible, not shore or stars or even the tops of the masts. Skye felt isolated, caught in a constricting world and aching for the freedom of the open sea.

  A bell summoned them to the mess, but Victoria chose not to eat. He realized then how profoundly this was afflicting her, in spite of her fierce loyalty and bravado.

  He thought he would at least salvage a few biscuits for her if she hungered in the night. The cabin contained two narrow bunks and was barely six feet wide. A porthole let in dim light. The climate within was so damp that he suddenly feared for her health. How would a woman of the dry interior, the high plains and arid mountains, endure this cloaked and choking sea mist day after day?

  But she said nothing, lying in her lower bunk, her gaze watchful of everything he did.

  It was two hours after their simple mess, plum duff and raisin pudding, that he heard the shouting from the deck, and left the cabin to see.

  The crew hastened up the hatchways and poured out on the slippery deck. The fog had lifted to some extent, forming a low ceiling. They could peer under it to a dark shore a hundred yards distant. But approaching across those inky waters was a big canoe of some sort, bigger than any Skye had ever seen, with some sort of lantern in its prow. It was propelled not by two paddlers, but a dozen.

  “Bring the cannon around,” Mr. Simpson said. “Load with grape and be quick. Mr. Burgess, prepare to repel boarders.”

  Several seamen began charging the brass six-pounders while others grabbed belaying pins, pikes, and axes. The mate and his men assembled at the rail, ready for war.

  The canoe glided across the glistening water, those aboard making a considerable commotion. They were certainly not sneaking toward the Cadboro.

  They were Indians of some sort, maybe Clatsop, but Skye didn’t know these people. They were nothing more than names he had heard at Fort Vancouver. He found Victoria beside him, wreathed in smiles, and he wondered why.

  “Goddam,” she said, grinning.

  “Who are they?”

  “People who listen to the spirits.”

  That was no help at all. Skye watched the dimly visible canoe heave to, and swing parallel. One old man stood, speaking in a tongue Skye could not fathom.

  “Mister Skye, perhaps you or Mrs. Skye could tell us what he wants,” said Simpson. “If it’s trade, say no.”

  But Victoria was nudging Skye, pointing at something gold in the darkness of the canoe.

  Skye exhaled slowly, refusing to believe.

  “Mr. Simpson, they have brought my dog to me.”

  “Well, send them off. I will not ship a dog all the way to England.”

  Even as Skye stared, his heart thudding, the dog uncurled, paced forward, and stood high on the very prow of the canoe, arching as if he would jump.

  The seamen exclaimed.

  “Can you carry him until we reach Monterey?”

  The crew waited in utter silence.

  “Oh, I suppose. But you’ll have to leave him there.”

  “Then I will pay for his passage.”

  Simpson paused, weighing matters. “Your passage is paid for by HBC,” he said. “Very well. But you’ll be responsible for him. I run a tight ship, and if it’s fouled, that dog will be donated to the sharks.”

  An odd throaty cheer arose. Skye sensed that every seaman aboard would see to the cleaning.

  “Dog comes,” said the old man. “Dog looking for you. Watches water. We see.”

  “I will take him,” said Skye.

  The crew lowered a gangway until it hovered just over the canoe. Several strong bronze men lifted the dog to it. The exhausted dog crawled up the cleats and tumbled onto the deck, too tired to move, except for its tail, which wagged once.

  Victoria crouched over the half-dead No Name. The crew’s silence amazed Skye.

  He worked his way down the pitching gangway that rested on the bobbing canoe and clasped the old man’s hand.

  “You have made me whole again,” he said. Maybe he would not be understood, but maybe this Clatsop, or whoever he was, would grasp something of it.

  He could think of no way to say thanks except to dig into his money pouch and pull out one of the shillings that McLoughlin had given him, and hand it to the man.

  The Indian fingered the coin, smiled, and nodded. Then, with a quiet command, he set his canoe in motion, as oarsmen backed it away from the schooner. Skye found himself scurrying up the gangway and on board just in time.

  Victoria was stroking the inert, shivering, half-dead dog, crooning a lullaby in her Absaroka tongue.

  He stared at No Name, knowing he would never learn how the dog made it some eighty miles from Fort Vancouver, swimming two large rivers, and then inspired a Clatsop village or hunting party to take it to the schooner.

  Victoria was right. It was no ordinary dog.

  twenty–eight

  Skye scarcely dared talk to the bosuns and able seamen manning the Cadboro, knowing that he would s
wiftly give himself away. Their tongue was his. But little by little he did get to know some of them, including the carpenter’s mate and the sailmakers and cooks. They told him of their passages around the Horn, of porpoises and sharks and drifting treasures; of scurvy and thirst and starvation and new sails that fell to pieces.

  But always, their queries turned to the dog.

  “What’s his name?” one bosun asked.

  “He has none, sir.”

  “Then the bloody dog’s no pet, eh?”

  “No, he’s no pet. And I’m not his master. He is here because he wishes to take care of me.”

  “Now that’s a bloody strange mutt. Do ye pet him or train him?”

  “No, I barely touch him, sir.”

  “Then what’s the use, eh?”

  Skye had no answer to that.

  Victoria nursed the dog back to health. For a day it lay motionless in the tiny cabin, more dead than alive, acknowledging their presence with a bare flap of the tail, but always watching. Victoria lifted it to her bunk and crooned softly, ancient Absaroka incantations, but the dog paid no heed.

  Then, upon the second evening, it ate and drank heartily, and paraded around the small deck with Victoria, sniffing the endless green sea and measuring the constricted world to which it was now committed.

  For Skye, the dog remained an unfinished story. He had resolutely abandoned the dog at Fort Vancouver, torn as he was between the dog and the great promise of England. And now he would have to do it all over again when the Cadboro dropped anchor at Monterey Harbor and Mr. Simpson did a trade in sea otter skins and other HBC business.

  He wondered if he had cash enough to purchase casks of salt pork or beef to feed the dog clear to London, and knew he didn’t. He had five pounds, the residue of his horse sale, supplied by McLoughlin’s second in command, James Douglas, in a variety of coin, including pieces of eight, Mexican reales, Yank dollars, and English shillings and pence. That would have to sustain Victoria and him in London.