The Way Lies North

by Jean Rae Baxter

  Behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I tell thee: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

  And he arose and took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt.

  Just like us, Charlotte thought. They couldn’t go home. She met Louisa’s eye. Louisa nodded. Yes, she saw it too. Rations were cut back after Christmas. For each person, Sergeant Major Clark measured out half a pound of flour, six ounces of salt pork, four ounces of dried peas and six of rice. “I’m sorry it’s so little,” he said. “But it’s the same as the soldiers get.”

  When Charlotte brought the rations back to the tent, Mama grumbled, “Hardly enough to keep body and soul together.”

  “I wish we were bears,” said Charlotte. “We wouldn’t notice hunger or cold if we slept all winter.”

  When anyone spoke, the words came out in white puffs of vapour.

  “Well, we aren’t bears,” said Papa grumpily. “And a tent is no place for human beings to spend the winter. By this time next year, we’ll have a house. I give you my word.”

  “At Cataraqui?” Charlotte asked.

  “Yes. And if we’re going to build it in the spring, it’s time I had a look around.”

  “How will you get there?” Mama asked.

  “Soon the channels will freeze. When the ice is strong enough, I’ll walk. It’s only a one-day journey there and back.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Charlotte. “I’d like to see that old French fort.”

  Freeze-up came the following week, on a windless day so cold that Charlotte’s nostrils stuck shut when she breathed through her nose. Mist veiled the water. It rose straight up, higher than a man’s head, with wisps drifting above like threads of spider silk.

  In the afternoon the mist disappeared, revealing an unbroken sheet of ice that stretched for miles. Now that the water had released its heat, the day seemed not so cold. Charlotte walked down to the shore, where a group of children had gathered to skim stones across the ice. Could she still do that? Hoping that no one was watching, she picked up a flat stone and hurled it underhand, across her body. Yes, she could. Her stone skidded a hundred feet over the ice.

  “Good throw!”

  Caught in the act, she whirled around. “Oh! Elijah! I didn’t notice you there.”

  “See this!” He flung a stone that travelled twice as far as hers.

  “I wasn’t even trying,” she protested. But she didn’t try again. Feeling the tingle of frostnip, she drew her hands inside her cloak and tucked them under her armpits.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here. I heard that every man under sixty had been ordered into The King’s Own Regiment.”

  “That’s a fact. I start drilling tomorrow. In the spring, soon as that new warship, the Ontario, is fitted, The Royal Greens will be off to Fort Niagara.”

  She smiled. “So you’re going to be a soldier after all. Will you still wear the medicine bag that Okwaho gave you?”

  He laid his hand on his chest. “I vowed I’d never take it off. Besides, if Ma got her hands on it, I’d never see it again. She hates all Indians since Moses ran away.” He paused. “Sometimes she hates me too.”

  She looked directly at him, noticing for the first time, above the tight line of his lips, the sparse, coarse hairs that promised whiskers within a year.

  “Your mother doesn’t hate you. She just acts like that when she’s feeling bad.”

  She felt sorry for Elijah, but not as sorry as she felt for Mrs. Cobman.

  After two days of frigid weather, the ice could bear the weight of a man. Then came snow, followed by a thaw, then by more snow. The ice cracked explosively, opening fractures hundreds of feet long. At night the lake growled as massive ice plates rubbed together. Broken slabs a foot thick were driven onto the land. Along the shoreline, water mixed with crushed ice lapped with a tinkling, musical sound.

  “There’s just enough snow on the ice to give good footing,” said Papa. “If the weather’s not too cold, Charlotte and I will go to Cataraqui tomorrow.”

  “Wait a few days longer,” said Mama.

  “Martha, that ice could carry a team of oxen. If we delay and there’s a heavy snowfall, we won’t be able to walk without snowshoes. The right time is now.”

  Mama lowered her face. “Whenever you are out of my sight, I fear lest I never see you again.”

  Chapter eleven

  The sheered sides of the ice slabs gleamed like green glass in the morning sunshine, and the snow on their tops looked like sugar frosting on a cake.

  “They’re beautiful,” said Charlotte.

  “Maybe so,” said Papa, “but treacherous. Be careful how you walk. If you step on one that’s tilted towards the water, you’ll slide right in.”

  Papa went first. He jumped over the ring of water at the shoreline, and then held out his hand to help Charlotte cross onto the channel’s solid ice.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Leaping across open water isn’t easy if you’re wearing a gown.”

  But once on the ice, Charlotte had no problem. Walking was pleasant over the light carpet of snow. In a few minutes she and Papa had crossed from the north shore of Carleton Island to Wolfe Island, its larger neighbour.

  Here was a region of open woods where tufts of dry grass stuck up through the snow and brightly coloured winter birds flitted in the undergrowth — cardinals, evening grosbeaks, and redpolls. Charlotte and her father walked beneath tall trees whose bare branches cast black shadows on the white snow. A cottontail rabbit watching from the edge of a thicket twitched its nose as they passed by.

  By midday they stood on Wolfe Island’s north shore, looking out over two miles of snow-covered ice toward a dark line of trees.

  “That’s the mainland,” said Papa. “Cataraqui.”

  Squinting into the glare of winter light, Charlotte saw a gap in the trees and, to the left of the gap, a slender column of smoke.

  “Somebody has a fire over there.”

  “Where?” Papa raised one hand to shade his eyes. “Yes, I see it. If that gap is the mouth of the Cataraqui River, then the smoke is rising from Fort Frontenac. I thought it was deserted.”

  “Do you reckon somebody is living there?”

  “We’ll find out soon.”

  Once again there were ice slabs to climb over and water to jump across before they stood upon a level field of solid ice. Charlotte and Papa headed toward the column of smoke. When they were halfway across, she could see that the smoke was rising from a dome-shaped lodge. A little further, and she saw a man come out, walk a short distance, then stop.

  “He’s watching us,” said Charlotte.

  “Yes. We must be a curious sight — a man and a woman out on the ice, coming to visit in the middle of January.”

  They kept on walking, but the man did not move.

  “He’s wearing a red hat,” said Charlotte.

  As they neared the shore, the man came forward and held out his hand to help Charlotte over the clutter of broken ice.

  “Bonjour.” His broad smile revealed a gap where front teeth ought to be. “Je m’appelle Louis Tremblay.”

  Papa offered his hand. “Henry Hooper.” Louis shook it vigorously.

  When Charlotte introduced herself, he bowed.

  “Parlez-vous français?” They shook their heads. “Then I speak English.”

  “Good,” said Papa.

  It took Louis a couple of minutes to find the words he needed, and when he spoke, he formed each phrase with care.

  “Come at my house. It makes warm.”

  He led them to his bark lodge and lifted the frozen bearskin that served as a door. The interior was smoky, with only a hole in the roof for a chimney. Overhead, dried fish hung from every spot that a rawhide cord could be attached — large fish suspended from lodge poles, small fish strung through the gills on lines from one side of the lodge
to the other.

  Louis fetched beaver pelts from a stack and spread them near the fire. “Sit yourselves. You have hunger?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he pulled three small fish from a line overhead, handed one to Charlotte, one to Papa, and took one for himself. Following Louis’ example, Charlotte peeled the skin from the flesh and took a bite. Smoked trout. It was delicious.

  While eating, she regarded their host carefully. He had dark eyes and straight black hair — true Indian hair, but worn in a queue as a white man would wear it. His skin was light for an Indian’s, and his features more sharply formed. He was dressed in buckskin, except for his red toque, which now lay on the ground by his side.

  “From where come you?” Louis asked Papa.

  “Our home was in the Mohawk Valley. But now we live in the English fort on Carleton Island.”

  “Why you are come to Cataraqui?”

  “A friend told me there was cleared land here. I’m looking for a place to settle. We live in an army tent with no fire. My wife is not strong. She needs a warm house.”

  Louis looked around his lodge with evident pride. “A tent is good in summer. But in winter one has need of a house.”

  “This is a fine house,” said Papa.

  “I built it. I live at Cataraqui all my life.”

  “How do you live?” asked Papa.

  “I hunt and fish. Every spring fur traders stop here. They trust me because my father was a coureur de bois. French, like them. They lend me all sorts of trade goods: blankets, beads, knives, hatchets. The Indians trust me because my mother was one of their people. In the fall the fur traders come back. I pay for everything with furs.” He looked thoughtful. “It goes well. But it is not the life for a man like you. You want to plant the crops.”

  “Yes. I’m a farmer.”

  “There was land cleared at Cataraqui. Now it is grown over a little. But yes, this would be a good place.” He tossed his fish bones into the fire. “If you like, I show you the fort.”

  “Yes.” Charlotte stood up. “I want to see.”

  “Let’s go, then,” said Louis. He and Papa got to their feet. Louis jammed his toque onto his head and lifted the bearskin. They followed him outside.

  Charlotte looked all about. So this was the fortress that had guarded the entrance to the Great Lakes for a century. Now there were gaps in the four curtain walls. The stone bastions at the corners and the fort’s great central tower and the turret on the shore were all in ruins.

  “Were you here when the English destroyed Fort Frontenac?” she asked.

  Louis nodded. “I was twelve years old. I remember everything. We had one hundred and twenty French soldiers and forty Huron warriors to defend the fort. The English came in the night with three thousand men. When we woke in the morning, there were eleven cannons aimed at the walls. The old Commander, Monsieur de Noyan, was brave as a lion. He wanted to fight.” Louis shrugged. “But what could he do?”

  As Louis led them past a long, low wooden building with leaning walls and no door, Papa said, “Those look like barracks.”

  “Yes. The English did not bother to knock them down. Since twenty-five years they stand.”

  Barely, Charlotte thought. One good wind should finish them.

  Papa stood at the entrance, looking in.

  “Do not enter,” Louis warned. “It is dangerous.”

  But Papa was already inside. From the threshold, Charlotte saw holes in the floor and bird droppings everywhere. And there was Papa, picking his way towards a heap of debris in one corner.

  “Look!” He held up a battered tin pail. So that was it — the tin pail Papa wanted for holding hot ashes to warm the tent.

  “May I take it?”

  “Bien sûr. Who could object?”

  They walked back with Louis to his lodge. “Come in,” he said. “Warm yourselves before you go.” Papa glanced at the sky. The sun had disappeared.

  “I wish we could, but it looks like snow. If all goes well, we’ll see you in the spring.”

  “Au revoir,” Louis said.

  Charlotte and Papa were halfway to Wolfe Island when a gusty wind sprang up, driving before it the first hard grains of new snow. Charlotte bent her head and drew her shawl about her face so that only her eyes were exposed.

  The wind swept the snow into ridges, leaving patches of bare ice interrupted by drifts. As it swirled about, the wind seemed to push at her from every direction. Keep moving, she told herself. When she looked up, she caught glimpses of dark cedars between bursts of snow. The trees were getting closer. Soon she and Papa would reach Wolfe Island, where trees would break the force of the wind.

  Then Papa had her by the arm to help her across the margin of dark water along the shore.

  “The worst is over.” He patted her shoulder reassuringly. His eyebrows and eyelashes were white with snow, and a watery drop hung from the end of his nose. “If we follow the footprints we made this morning, we won’t get lost.”

  What footprints? Charlotte saw none. Snow had filled them. As she trudged at Papa’s heels, fear seeped in. How could Papa be sure that they were walking in the right direction? Dogs and horses had a second sense for finding home, but people didn’t. In a storm like this, lost travellers walked in circles until they lay down exhausted and waited for death.

  Daylight faded, but darkness did not come. Snow filled the sky, whirled in the air and covered the ground. The only thing she could see as she plodded along was Papa, two paces ahead, his dark coat crusted with snow.

  Abruptly, he stopped — halted so suddenly that she bumped into him. When she lifted her head she saw that the sky ahead was lit up with a rosy pink glow, softer and more magical than a sunset.

  “Oh!” was all she could say as she looked up in wonder.

  “That’s the light from a hundred Loyalist cooking fires, reflected by falling snow.”

  Charlotte heard the relief in his voice. So they were headed in the right direction, and they were almost back.

  One last channel to cross. The shore was white; the channel ice was white. The band of black water that lay between was easy to see and less than a yard wide. Papa had managed jumps just as broad many times before.

  This time he missed.

  Still on his feet, ankle-deep in icy water, he tossed the tin pail ahead of him onto the channel’s solid ice and climbed out. He reached for Charlotte’s hand to help her across.

  “That was unlucky,” he said, and picked up the pail.

  “We’d better hurry.” She did not need to say the word “frostbite.” Papa knew as well as she did that wet feet could freeze in a quarter of an hour, and Fort Haldimand was still twenty minutes away.

  They had covered half the distance when Papa stumbled. “I can’t feel my feet. At first they were all pins and needles, but now they’re numb.”

  She gave him her shoulder to lean on. With every step his weight bore down more heavily. He stumbled when stepping from the channel ice to the Carleton Island shore and fell twice before they reached the fort gate.

  Snow still whirled about them while they made their way across the parade square. The Loyalists’ white tents were barely visible as they approached. But there was Mama, standing outside in her dark cloak, watching.

  As soon as she saw them — they were barely twenty feet from her when she did — she ran forward and braced her shoulder under Papa’s other arm.

  “Quick! Get inside!”

  “Wet feet,” said Charlotte. “He slipped.”

  “I knew something like this would happen!” Mama wept as she helped him to sit down. She unlaced Papa’s boots and pulled them off. The skin of his feet was hard, waxy and cold.

  “Should we rub his feet?” Charlotte asked.

  “That’s the worst thing we could do. Frozen flesh needs gentle warmth. Body heat is best.” Mama sat down facing him and drew his bare feet under her gown.

  “How does that feel?”

  “I can’t feel anything.”
>
  “Then your skin is frozen.”

  Charlotte held out the pail that Papa had found in the barracks. “I’ll put some hot ashes in this,” she said.

  Mama glanced at it, then at Papa’s tense face. “So you got us a pail. Henry, I fear you paid too high a price.”

  Embers glowed and winked amongst the ashes when Charlotte brought the pail inside the tent. She held her hands over them to feel the rising warmth.

  A few minutes later, Papa groaned. “I can feel my feet. They hurt like hell.”

  “That’s a good sign,” Mama said.

  The next morning Papa’s feet were blistered and red. “They feel as if I’d walked barefoot through fire,” he said.

  “I’ll bandage them,” said Mama. “We can’t let the blisters break.” She took some rags that once had been a petticoat and wound them all around Papa’s feet, carefully separating his toes. Charlotte was surprised at how calm Mama was this morning, unlike last night. Or was she simply resigned to the worst?

  Charlotte felt the pail of ashes. Stone cold.

  “I’ll bring in some hot ashes,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said Mama. “And when you’ve done that, will you fetch our rations from the blockhouse?”

  Carrying the tin pail, Charlotte stepped outside. During the night the wind had blown itself out. Snowflakes floated downwards in soft, feathery clumps. A blanket of snow a foot deep covered the ground.

  Outside the tent, the cooking fire had been nearly extinguished by the blizzard, but there were enough embers and hot ashes at the centre to fill the pail. Before taking it into the tent, she added wood to the fire to start it blazing again.

  When she entered the tent, Papa was sleeping. That must mean that his pain had lessened. Snoring softly, he lay on his beech-leaf mattress, covered with Charlotte’s blanket as well as his own for extra warmth.

  “I’ll get the rations now,” she told Mama.

  “Hurry back.”

  “I shall. And then I’ll take a walk in the woods to gather firewood. Some dead branches must have come down in the storm.”