Wallace responded with a smile.
“Though pretty rough in there,” Pete Stevens said. “Might get better, might not.”
“No matter,” said Wallace. “What does matter is the contribution we can make to the scientific knowledge of the area.”
Besides, in his heart he knew that the Indian trail was his best hope for catching and passing the Hubbard party. And that, he knew as well, was the way it was meant to be.
“This hill is nothing but damn clay!” Easton complained the next day.
They had already climbed the hill once in this drizzling rain, each man with a heavy pack on his back, and that trip up and down to the shoreline had turned the wet ground into a slippery ooze. Every man in the party had stumbled two or three times, crashing to his knees or, in Stanton’s case, slipping onto his backside on the descent. Their clothes and boots and hands were heavy with mud.
Wallace had daubed some of the mud on his face as a deterrent to the blackflies, but the mud proved no more effective than the grease and commercial “bug dope” the men smeared over every inch of exposed skin. Even Duncan McLean, a native of this country, was made miserable by the pests.
“Damn these flies!” he said, and slapped first at the back of his neck, then at a cheek. “Goddamn little sonsabitches eat a man alive!”
On this second trip up the hill Stevens carried the front end of a canoe, with Richards bringing up the rear. In front of them, Stanton and Easton hauled the other canoe. Wallace and McLean, at the rear of the pack, shouldered the final loads of gear.
“Where did you learn to swear like that?” Wallace asked.
“Lumber camps,” said McLean.
“What else did the white man teach you? Anything useful?”
“Swearing is sometimes useful, sir.”
“How so?”
“Keeps me from screaming.” He stuck a finger in his ear and dug out a fly.
“They call them the devil’s angels,” Stanton said over his shoulder.
“Hmpf. More like the devil hisself.”
A minute or two later Richards called out, “How much farther to the top?”
Stanton lifted his head from under the bow of the canoe. “Another sixty, seventy yards.”
“It must be ninety degrees already. And not even noon.”
“At four this morning the thermometer read thirty.”
“Freezing at night and hot as Hades during the day. Lovely place you brought us to, Wallace. Remind me to build a summer home here.”
The pack straps pulled hard on Wallace’s shoulders, cutting his skin. “One step at a time, gentlemen.”
He had barely gotten the words out when he heard a loud grunt followed instantly by a thud. Then came more grunts and exclamations and, before he knew it, Stevens and Richards came sliding toward him. They had been bowled over by Stanton and Easton after Stanton slipped and dropped the stern end of his canoe, pulling Easton down as well. Duncan flattened himself against the side of the hill, then Wallace lurched into the brush just as the canoe came shooting toward him, sliding on its side. He watched it go scraping and bumping toward the bottom like an unmanned toboggan on an icy hill. It banged to a halt in an alder bush some two hundred feet below.
Wallace looked uphill at the men sprawled across the trail, the remaining canoe lodged between them. “Everybody all right?” he asked.
“Damn sonsabitching clay,” McLean said.
Mina Hubbard’s expedition, July 1905
SUNDAY, JULY 2, A DAY OF REST. It had been more than two years since Mina had awakened to such an idyllic day. By way of the Naskapi they had passed through a body of water the trappers called Mountain Cat Lake, a small, clear lake surrounded by spruce-covered hills, and their camp not far above this lake was their finest yet, high on a sandy point well away from the rapids, where the only watery sound in the night was a pleasing susurrus of current.
Now, at dawn, Mina hunkered near the water’s edge, rubbing her dirty clothes against a large, smooth stone. Across the shore the land rose in a gentle slope to a long wooded hill; at its base were gravel flats blanketed in the fresh green grasses of spring. The flats were criss-crossed by little waterways of burbling crystal water. Now and then, as the sun shone over the hilltops, those streams sparkled red or orange, and the dew on the grass glinted like a scattering of diamonds.
She was amazed by the contentment she felt. Her feet were swollen from long hours of hiking along the rocky shore, now and then turning an ankle, and her face and hands were red and bumpy with the bites of blackflies and mosquitoes, which even now droned and swooped around her. But somehow she felt above all the torment. The men had risen early to bathe in the misty river and all were now clean-shaven and dressed in clean clothes. Gilbert, up by the campfire, was cutting Joe’s hair. Job, scouring the skillet, sang softly to himself. George sat in the sun just outside his tent and read his Bible.
They had come together, Mina thought, to a soothing place, this sandy point, this place of wondrous calm.
The sense of peace stayed with her throughout the day. She smelled spruce trees in the air, heard birdsong in the trees. When she went to her tent in the afternoon for a nap before supper, she felt no need to wear herself out first with fervent prayer. Her mind today was not a roil of dark thoughts. She could only wonder if, the day before, they had passed some magic meridian and crossed over into an enchanted land.
A thunderstorm burst upon them in the evening, brief and refreshing, driving the flies away just before dark. Afterward the air was redolent with the fragrance of pine and river and rain-washed stones. And that night, after writing in her journal, Mina crawled between her blankets and listened for a while to a loon calling in the distance, serenading its mate, and Mina knew that she had been given this day as a blessing, a calm that could not last, and she said only “Thank you” before closing her eyes to the soft midnight light.
They slept late Monday and lingered in camp until eight-thirty. Mina sensed that all were reluctant to leave this place. But there was work to be done and there were miles to be covered, and too few days for it all.
After a breakfast of tea and bacon they moved ahead a short way to the next stretch of rapids. There a portage was necessary. The entire outfit was broken down and hauled two miles upriver. Here the water was still too violent for canoeing but calm enough in the shallows close to shore that Job thought the canoes could be loaded again and, if steadied by a tracking line pulled by two men while being poled by two others, taken safely through the rough water. Mina would walk, away from the danger, along the shore.
She carried only her cameras and the revolver and knife she wore on her hip. “If I climb higher up,” she told George, “above that line of willows, I can get some fine pictures of the men as you take the canoes forward.”
George cast a critical look at the top of the hill. “I think you’d better stick to the shore.”
“I’ll only be thirty or forty feet away. And it’s easier walking up there. Besides,” she teased, “this close to shore I might get dizzy and fall in the rapids.”
George found no humour in the situation. “What if you come across a bear up there?”
She patted the revolver in its holster. “Then we’ll be having bear for supper.”
Now George gave her a smile, but a worried one. “All you’ll accomplish with that revolver, missus, is to make him peeved at you.”
“Then we’ll just have to see who can get the most peeved.”
George looked back at the men. Mina could have sworn he rolled his eyes. Then he turned to her again. “All right. I’ll go with you.”
“Oh then just never mind. I’ll stay along the shore.”
“I think it’s better that you do.”
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
What she longed for most was an hour or so alone. The only time George took his eyes off her was when she was in her tent or attending to the call of nature. Ever since the incident at the first rapid, George�
��and, to a lesser extent, the other men too—had acted as if she might go plunging into the river at any moment. She knew they would have tied a tether to her ankle if they could have. They were responsible for her, and that, not the success of the expedition itself, they saw as their primary duty. What mattered most was that they bring her out alive. George, particularly George, was determined not to let another Hubbard die in Labrador.
He told her, “You can get started if you want to. We’ll be along right behind you.”
So that you can keep an eye on me, she thought. But she said nothing, only started picking her way over the rocks. Didn’t he realize that his overprotectiveness made her feel small? Didn’t he know that his suffocating kindness rankled?
Now and then she glanced back to watch the men at work. The tracking line was slipped through the eye-hook mounted on the bow of the canoe, one end of the line held by George, the other by Gilbert. Both men then waded ahead, pulling the line taut. With Job standing in the bow and Joe in the stern, they pushed off, easing the canoe forward. The water was swift and drove hard against George and Gilbert, splashing onto their chests and soaking their faces. Job and Joe drove their poles against the river bottom and pushed with all their strength.
They moved so slowly that Mina, walking at a snail’s pace, frequently had to stop to let the canoes catch up. Once, when she had moved too far ahead, George called out, “Slow down, please, missus!” She would have barked a retort had he not looked so miserable out there in the water, cold and tired, as drenched as a muskrat.
When she came to a slender opening in the heavy brush that lined the shore, she paused for a minute, pretending to fiddle with a camera. Not far ahead in the river, directly in the canoe’s path, lay a large black boulder. George and Gilbert, as they waded forward, were discussing how best to circumnavigate this obstacle, whether to turn closer to shore, where the canoe would likely scrape bottom, or into the deeper water farther out.
With encouragement shouted from Job they decided on the latter course. Now their progress became painfully slow. Every footstep had to be tested.
Mina noticed that George, so intent on not losing his footing, had not glanced her way in a while. “Now’s the time,” she told herself, and quickly slipped into the willows, ducking branches as she plunged ahead for higher ground.
She emerged on the other side of the willows with her face scratched, but she was grinning nonetheless. A short climb would take her to the top of the hill. She looked back to see if her escape had been noticed yet. And at that moment she saw both George and Gilbert suddenly disappear from sight as if they had stepped off a ledge on the river bottom.
Instantly the tracking line went slack, and before Mina even had time to raise a hand to her mouth in surprise the canoe turned sideways, rolled bottom up and pitched Job and Joe into the river.
First George and then Gilbert reappeared, each breaking to the surface and standing upright after being driven several yards downstream. Both still held to the tracking line, but the overturned canoe, as heavy now as a drifting anchor, was carried past them and threatened to drag them away.
Joe came up a moment later, minus his pole. He splashed his way to the tracking line and grabbed hold. Job, who had been tossed farthest out in the river, emerged for just a moment, barely long enough to suck in a breath. Then the current seized him and dragged him under again.
In a flash Joe let go of the tracking line and dove headlong downstream. Mina stood trembling halfway up the hill, scarcely breathing, unable to move.
It seemed to her an eternity before anything happened, anything other than the swift, loud drone of surging water. Then both Job and Joe appeared some twenty yards downstream, close enough to shore that they could stand upright, with Joe holding fast to Job’s arm.
Mina sucked in a breath. It was cold and serrated in the back of her throat but she did not care. Job and Joe were alive and well. Everybody was all right. George and Gilbert soon pulled their way back to the side of the canoe, where, with one expert heave, they rolled it right side up. Most of the gear still appeared to be strapped in place.
Suddenly Mina’s legs gave out. Her knees buckled and she sat down hard on the side of the hill. She could not stop trembling. What if one of the men had drowned? What if all of them had drowned, and the canoe had drifted away, and she had been left to stand there alone in the wilds of Labrador, a small woman with her cameras and revolver?
“Missus Hubbard!” came Joe’s frantic voice. “Missus Hubbard! Where is Missus Hubbard?”
She sprang to her feet and waved her arms back and forth. “I’m here, Joe! Up here! I’m all right!”
The men had nearly drowned and Joe’s first thought had been of her. She felt more childish than ever then, awash in guilt for trying to slip away. And at that moment what she felt for the men was unlike any emotion she had ever felt before. She loved those four dripping men down there on the shore, those four men laughing now, slapping each other on the back, all of them soaked to the skin and numb with cold. Those four men were her brothers.
And now she felt responsible for them. She also felt as if she, in trying to slip their protective embrace, had nearly precipitated their deaths. She knew that this was an irrational guilt, that her actions had in no way caused the canoe to capsize or made George and Gilbert step into a hole in the river bottom, yet she could not shake the nagging sting of culpability.
The men were all okay—wet and chilled but otherwise okay—but some of their gear had been lost. Just how much was missing became clear after the canoe was dragged ashore and an inventory was taken. All of the axes were gone, as were all the frying pans, and the extra pole shods George had brought from Missanabie. Plus one pole, one paddle, and the long crooked knife that was so handy for whacking through brush. Two pack straps, one sponge, one tarpaulin and Mina’s camp stove. And finally, Job’s hat and pipe.
For a few minutes after the inventory was confirmed, everyone stood motionless, staring at the gear spread over the rocks. Then George said, “It’s my fault for putting all the axes and pans in the same canoe.”
“It’s as much my fault as yours,” Joe told him.
“We all do the packing,” Gilbert said. “We shoulda knowed better.”
The men continued to upbraid themselves. Only Job said nothing. His face was pale, eyes vacuous. Mina wanted to go to him, wanted to wrap her arms around his wet shoulders and hold him tight, tell him how sorry she was. She wished George would admonish her for sneaking off as she had, for those few moments of panic she had caused. But he never mentioned it.
George said, “I don’t see how we can get by without those axes. We got to have at least one of them.”
Nobody refuted him.
“We can’t chop wood,” he continued. “Which means having to make do with windfalls for our firewood. Plus we couldn’t build a shelter now, if it came to that. Can’t cut trails through any kind of heavy brush.” He shook his head, disgusted with himself. “Without them axes we’re just about jiggered.”
Again Mina’s legs felt wobbly. She would have liked nothing better than to find some shade and lie down a while, talk this situation over with Laddie. But Laddie wasn’t there, she could not feel his presence. All she could feel was the fear and weakness in her legs, the throb in her swollen feet, the sting and itch of every single insect bite on her face and neck and hands.
She said, “I can’t have us risking our lives unnecessarily.”
The men turned their eyes to her.
“As you yourself said, George, it’s impossible to go on.”
“I didn’t say impossible, missus.”
“You said we can’t get by without the axes.”
“What I meant was, we’re gonna have to think of some way to make do without them. Mainly I’m just mad at myself.”
“You did nothing wrong. None of you did. This is simply the kind of thing that happens out here, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you say that, Joe?”
“I’m sur
e we ain’t the first ones to upset a canoe. Won’t be the last either.”
“It’s an inherently dangerous place,” she said.
With that she gazed down at Job, who had such a look of dejection about him as he sat there on the ground, shivering, hugging his knees.
“I simply won’t have it,” she said. “I won’t put you fine men in danger any longer. Not on my account.”
She saw the men exchanging glances. None of them knew what to say to her.
“Why don’t you all change into dry clothes,” she told them. “We’ll build a fire and get you warm, then we can start making our plans for heading back.”
She stood very still for a moment, unsure of the response she wanted to hear from them. They said nothing. She decided then that they would not want her with them now in their moment of defeat. She should go off and sit by herself.
It was Gilbert, the boy, whose words brought her retreat to a halt. “I sure hope we don’t have to pass them other fellas on the way back out.”
The statement was like a hand to the nape of her neck, cold and sharp, pinching.
Then Job said, “Not so bad down there with them fishes, you know. You boys oughta see. They got the prettiest little houses down there. All made outta stone.”
Joe chuckled. “You seen them up close, did you?”
“Had my eye right up against one of them’s windas. Seen inside real good.”
“What was it like in there?” Gilbert asked.
“Oh, they was havin’ a tea party, I think. Some such thing. Musta been a dozen of them settin’ around a little table and drinkin’ from little white cups.”
“Did they have their pinkies bent up like this?” Gilbert asked, and raised his right pinkie in the air.
“Fish don’t have no pinkies,” Job told him.
All the men were laughing now. Each in turn asked Job some question about the fishes’ lifestyles, how they kept their tea from mixing with river water, what kinds of chairs they sat in, did they serve biscuits with their tea? And Job had an answer for all of them, even claimed to have been pointed toward the surface by a trout in a railroader’s cap.
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