[Canadian West 04] - When Hope Springs New

by Janette Oke

  Our spirits began to lift somewhat, though we knew the days ahead would be difficult and uncertain.

  SIXTEEN

  Difficulties

  We limited ourselves to two meals per day. We were all so hungry that our breakfast, a thin cornmeal gruel and coffee, was gladly welcomed. Each cooking pot fed a small, family-sized group. At my fire I had ten people of various sizes and ages. There was a young widow with two small children, two teenage girls who had been orphaned, a middle-aged widow who was alone, an elderly couple who had no family members to care for them, and LaMeche and I.

  Midmorning the boys returned from the lake with four fish. Though they were proud of their achievement, I knew four fish would not go far among all the people. I smiled when I thought of how many the “two fishes” had fed. Well, the Lord will need to perform another miracle if we all are to eat today, I thought.

  The snaring had produced nothing. The boys who had tried came home discouraged and ashamed. I assured them they would be more successful the next time, but I did wonder knowing that snaring takes great skill, untold patience, and perhaps a good measure of luck.

  We kept the fires going and the pots boiling. I divided the fish among the families who had elderly or sick to feed. I pulled vegetables from my garden and put some of them in my pot. At least we would have vegetable stew for our evening meal.

  I walked the line of fires, a handful of vegetables ready to hand out where they seemed to be especially needed. I wanted to be sure that everyone had something to eat. For many it was only gruel again.

  I was feeling a bit downcast. If only someone, somewhere had a gun! I wished. When the men came back they, of course, would have guns, and Wynn would bring a gun with him upon his return. But we needed a gun now. It might be three or four days until any of them returned, and with our limited amount of cornmeal and flour, we had to have meat. With so many to feed, the basic foods would last a very short time.

  I was so deep in thought I scarcely noticed the barking of the dogs, which was a constant thing anyway. And then I realized this sounded different somehow, and I looked in the direction from which it was coming.

  Others in the village must have sensed the difference, too, for I saw women lift their heads, and children stop in their play, and boys hesitate mid-stride—all looking toward the approaching sound.

  And then the most unusual sight met our eyes. The village dogs had formed a pack and were hunting, Kip leading the chase. Stumbling along in front of them, his eyes wild and his flesh seared by the fire of the day before, limped a bull moose. He bellowed his rage and headed straight for the safety of the lake.

  I jumped to my feet, waving my arms in a foolish display of excitement. “Stop him!” I cried. “Stop him!”

  Of course there was no way we could stop him. As I watched him lope nearer to the water’s edge, I saw the hopes of a meat supply for the next few days disappear with his coming swim.

  But just as he neared the water, he stumbled and fell, no longer able to continue. The dogs were fast upon him, and just as fast upon the dogs was LaMeche. He seemed to be everywhere, dragging off animals and pushing them aside, eventually striking a fatal blow to the suffering moose with a blunt club.

  Boys ran to help him and claimed their dogs and pulled them aside. With great excitement the people crowded around, exclaiming over the meat that nearly had fallen right into our cooking pots.

  The moose was skinned and dressed and portions of meat were handed out to hungry families. I added some chunks of meat to my own cooking pot and sniffed deeply as the fragrance began to waft upward from two dozen fires.

  The remainder of the meat was tied and hoisted high in a tree to protect it for the next day’s meal.

  I remembered Wynn’s sled dogs. I still had not taken them any food except for a small amount of cornmeal mush. I picked up scraps and bones now, and hurried off to feed them while my stew cooked.

  We were all fed to satisfaction that night. By now we were dry, our stomachs were full, and we were fairly comfortable. The families had constructed crude shelters of pine boughs and skins. Some of them even had bits of canvas to stretch across small areas.

  I had been too busy to prepare a shelter, but I wasn’t concerned. I would sleep by the fire again if need be. At least I was dry now, and I had a blanket to keep me warm.

  I had just washed my dishes in the lake water and set them out to dry when I heard a strange sound. I looked skyward. It had sounded like distant thunder.

  To the west, storm clouds had gathered. The storm was moving our way and looked dark and ominous. I pushed back my wayward hair and studied the sky.

  “I know we need rain, Lord,” I whispered, “but now doesn’t seem like a good time.”

  I looked around me at the makeshift dwellings. Few of them would keep out water.

  I was still standing, wondering what to do, when LaMeche joined me.

  “Rain now come,” he commented, and I nodded.

  “Where you sleep?” he asked, and I broke from my deep thoughts and pointed toward the fire.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head, “not tonight.”

  He looked around deep in thought. When his eyes rested on the wagons, he stopped and studied them.

  “What is under canvas?” he asked me.

  I looked at him with wide eyes and open mouth. I had not even stopped to think about what was under that canvas.

  “Supplies,” I said. “Blankets, clothes, dishes and pots. Lots of things we need! There are impractical things we cannot use but—”

  “Can we take canvas?” he interrupted.

  I was surprised that the trader was more interested in the canvas than the contents of the crates.

  “Yes,” I nodded vigorously. “Take it.”

  He was gone, rounding up three boys as he went. Soon I saw them throwing ropes off the wagon and freeing the canvas covering it. Two wagons were then lined up side by side about eight or nine feet apart and the canvas was stretched from the one to the other, forming a shelter of sorts. Then with axes in hand, the four headed for the pines.

  I turned back to replenish the fire and check on my “family” members. The wind was up now, bringing with it the smell of rain. Thunder rumbled across the heavens and flashes of lightning streaked the sky. I hastened to get everything I could under some kind of cover.

  Soon LaMeche was at my side again. With him came sprinkles of rain.

  “It is ready,” he stated, motioning toward the wagons.

  A shelter had been made—the three sides protected by pine branches and the top sealed off by the canvas. It looked wonderful.

  “Good!” I exclaimed. “Help me get everyone under.”

  “It is for you,” he argued.

  I looked toward the poor, makeshift shelter that held the elderly couple. It would do little for them in a storm. Then I looked at the two sleeping babies, and the two girls and two women who huddled around them, their scant blankets insufficient to cover their frames. “Please,” I said to the impatient trader.

  With a shrug of his shoulders he followed my bidding.

  We got all ten moved just in time. We had no sooner set up under the canvas than the rain began to fall heavier. The rain we had prayed for had come.

  There was no room under the canvas for another sleeper, so I wrapped a bearskin rug around me and went back to the fire.

  LaMeche was there, smoking his cigarette. I wondered where he had found the “fixing.” It was the first time I had seen him smoking since the fire.

  He scowled at me and turned back to the sputtering flames. I said nothing but reached for a stick of wood.

  “No,” he stopped me. “No use. Very soon now it will go out because of rain. No use to waste wood. We need it more later.”

  I listened to what he said, wanting to protest, but I knew he was right. We could not keep a fire going in the rain. Already there was only a small flame, fighting to stay alive, and then as I watched, it too sputtered and died.
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  So, I would have to manage without even the small comfort of the open fire. I shivered in my bearskin. My feet were sopping wet again, and my dragging skirt seemed to be soaking up the rainwater like a sponge. Soon I would be completely soaked.

  I lifted the skirt out of the puddle and tucked it more tightly around me. LaMeche still stared ahead saying nothing.

  I deplored the silence. I disliked the black look. I hated being so cut off from another human being.

  I tried for conversation.

  “I am glad for all your help today,” I said. “I don’t know what I do without you.”

  There was no reply.

  Boldly I spoke again, softly, because I didn’t know how this man might respond.

  “When I get up in morning and look at all people—and I know Sergeant Delaney not here to care for them, I don’t know what to do.” I waited for a moment and then went on slowly, “I pray ... I pray a lot. I ask God what to do—but I ... I ask for something more. I ask Him for help.”

  I looked directly at the sullen man.

  “He answer me,” I whispered. “He send you.”

  I watched his face only long enough to see the muscles twitching in his jaw, and then I dropped my gaze.

  We both sat in silence now, the heavy rain falling in sheets around us. I stole another glance toward LaMeche. He no longer had his dark, angry expression. He pulled on his cigarette, sending up little puffs of smoke around him, making him squint his eyes.

  I could hardly see his face through the storm, but I noticed little rivers sliding down his cheeks and I wondered if it was all from the rain. I still said nothing.

  He brushed a hand across his face.

  “You are stubborn woman,” he said, but there was no malice in the words.

  “I know,” I admitted quietly.

  “You saved village, you know?”

  “Not true, I only—”

  He broke in, “No one else think. We all run around in circles, and then it be too late to run.”

  I did not know what to say, so I remained silent.

  “Now you sit in rain while everyone else sleeps.”

  I looked around me at the crude dwellings. I was sure not too many of our number were really comfortable where they were. Very few, I guessed, were getting much sleep this night.

  But perhaps LaMeche thought—“I not ungrateful for what you do for me,” I tried to explain. “Shelter very nice—best one. I not think to arrange wagons and—”

  “But someone else need it more?”

  “Yes. Yes. Old folks and—”

  A chuckle stopped me. I looked up in surprise. I could no longer see his face through the rain and darkness, so I could not read there what might be making him laugh so unexpectedly.

  “Women!” he said, “They are strange creatures. They want most—but they accept least.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked, not understanding him.

  “You. You trim window with fancy curtains, you brush dog like he was toy, you fluff up hair like going to party, and then—this. When there is nothing, you give away little you have to people stronger than you, and you go without.”

  He laughed again.

  I was afraid I was being mocked. Then his words came softly through the rain, “I had forgotten. It was way of my mother also.”

  “I’m sorry—about your mother,” I whispered.

  There were a few moments of silence; then he spoke again.

  “She Indian,” he said. “She not fuss with curtains or hairdos. But she like pretty things. She make beaded vests and moccasins with beautiful designs. She hunt wild flowers just to study them. She point out to us rainbow, sunset.” He stopped again. “But she was fighter, too. She last to give up when fever took us. She nursed others when she could only crawl. She gave me last medicine when she need it more.” He hesitated again. “She Indian,” he said, “but she much like you.”

  I blinked the tears from my eyes. It was the nicest compliment I had ever been paid, and it brought a big lump to my throat.

  “Thank you,” I whispered in English, just before the thunder cracked and a fresh outburst of rain came sweeping down upon us.

  The night was cold and wet, the fire was out, we sat and shivered in our bearskins that offered us little protection, but somehow a new warmth was stealing through me.

  SEVENTEEN

  Counting the Days

  Uncomfortable in their soggy beds, people began to rise earlier than usual. A steady rain still fell the next morning. Wet and miserable, they crawled from a cold bed to a cold day. Children cried and women hushed them in quiet tones, as miserable as their offspring. I was glad I hadn’t bothered to change my clothing.

  A few of the women made attempts to get a fire going. The wet wood smoked and sizzled but produced no flame. There would be no hot gruel, no hot coffee or tea to warm up cold bodies.

  I fed my group leftover cold stew from the night before and prayed that the rain would soon cease.

  LaMeche asked my permission to use a team and the remaining wagon. I didn’t ask what he had in mind but nodded agreement. I was surprised he assumed that I had the authority to respond one way or the other.

  He gathered some of the older boys, and they set off toward what had been our village. I wondered briefly about their mission but was too busy serving stew to ask.

  In about an hour’s time they were back. By their cargo and sooted hands and clothing, it was evident they had been rummaging through the ashes of the village. Three small, blackened cookstoves were on the wagon, plus a number of sooted pots and hand tools. My smoke-darkened washtub and scrubboard also were on board. They also had a small amount of charcoaled lumber that had not burned completely in the fire.

  With my hammer and the trader’s nails, they began to construct a shelter of sorts. There was not enough lumber to fill in the sides, but at least an overhang was provided. Then skins were thrown over the lumber and two of the stoves were moved under the canopy.

  It was not long until a fire was going in each of them. The children were sent to the woods to bring back sticks to feed it, and the women excitedly moved their cooking pots onto the stoves.

  We had to take turns in the shelter. It seemed to take most of the day to get one round of meals cared for. Many of the children wanted to huddle around the crude kitchen trying to catch a little of the warmth from the fires, and the cooks had to constantly be chasing them out from underfoot.

  What a day of misery! We never did see the sun, and there was no way to dry any of the bedding for the coming night.

  Even the beds under the tarp and the two wagons got wet. The ground was so waterlogged that it ran in under the pine branches and soaked the bedding of those inside.

  But no one could accuse the storm of being partial—it treated all alike. No one was exempt from the cold and wetness.

  Again we sat huddled in our bits of furs or skins or blankets. Like protective hens, mothers tried to crowd all their children under their outstretched arms. The older folk and the sickly were invited to take turns near the cooking stoves. LaMeche took on the task of feeding the fires.

  There was no sleep for me that night either. I was too miserable. I stirred around the campsite trying to check on others. It was more comfortable to keep moving than to sit still anyway.

  Wynn should be back tomorrow or the next day, I kept promising myself. That was the hope that kept me going. When Wynn arrived, I was sure he would put things to right.

  Toward morning the rain began to lessen—not quitting entirely, but it did slow down. I took my turn at the woodstoves to get a hot meal for my “family.” I made a big pot of cornmeal, and while it cooked I also cooked my meat and vegetables for the supper stew. I thought it would save time and space to have all my cooking done at one time.

  Silver Star, the young widow, came to join me.

  “I work now,” she said. “You rest.”

  I thought as I listened to her soft voice that she should have been
called Silver Tongue rather than Silver Star. Her voice was soft and musical like a gently flowing brook or a trilling songbird.

  “If you watch pot, I go feed sled dogs,” I said, smiling at her.

  She nodded and I turned the stirring stick over to her and left the enclosure.

  LaMeche was busy slicing up meat portions for the day’s supper meal. I asked him for some of his scraps and started out for the small island.

  I was reminded that I had not been back to see the dogs since the day the moose had been killed. I had sent some of the boys across with some food scraps for them and had promised myself I would check on them later. I had forgotten. I chided myself for not taking better care of the team. I should have done something for Tip and Franco. I had been so busy caring for the people that the dogs had slipped my mind. Well, I told myself, I have no idea what I could have done for them anyway. Still I felt that I had failed Wynn in this. I knew how important a good team was to him.

  When I reached the stream, I could not believe my eyes. The steppingstones could not even be seen and the fallen log that stretched from bank to bank was under water as well. How will I ever get across? I despaired.

  I looked down at my clothes. They were already wet. My shoes sloshed with every step I took. I decided I couldn’t be much worse, so without even hoisting my skirt, I waded into the swiftly flowing water.

  Unprepared for the strength of the current against the sweep of my heavy clothing, I stumbled, hardly able to keep my balance against it. I finally righted myself and made it to the other shore.

  The dogs were glad to see me. I think they wanted companionship just as much as food. They pressed against me, leaving the meat scraps momentarily untouched as they licked my hands and waved their whole bodies.

  Someone had removed Keenoo. I had told LaMeche about the dog, and I surmised he had been the one. Another post was vacant also. I saw the leash dangling from the stake where the dog had been tethered. I had to look around the circle and review the dogs in my mind before I knew which one was missing. Tip, too, must have succumbed to the smokey fumes from the fire.