The Deserter (14 page)

The band moved off more or less together, the families travelling within half an hour of each other. At the first fork of the Port Daniel river, the band separated, two-thirds going up the right fork, leaving the family of One Arm and a couple of others to take the west fork. Several families owned dogs that trotted along with them, though oddly enough none pulled sleighs. It was their last farewell, and they all waited for each other to assemble here.

Thomas said goodbye to Burn and his family, shaking his new bow high in signification of his “present” from Big Burn, the arrow maker. He actually saw the glimmer of a smile on the old man’s face. When it came time to say goodbye to his good friend Burn, he saw a change. Burn looked at his feet, almost tongue-tied and evidently in pain. Thomas saw him throw a glance at Little Birch, who was standing off, having no part in this. Thomas thought fast, and then said, “I will do my best to bring her back to you safe.”

When the full import of this got through, Burn seemed relieved, but still clearly confused and hurt at the idea of Thomas spending all winter with the woman he had been thinking of as his future wife. But what alternative had they? Burn was certainly needed by his own family, and they were not yet betrothed.

After they parted, Thomas trudged with his new family through the afternoon as snow began to fall in big fluffy flakes that caused Brightstar to caper about excitedly and Little Birch to lift her face to the sky with pleasure. It seemed to make the going easier. They all had snowshoes strapped to their backs, although Thomas had not practised with them yet: the snow had not lasted long enough nor was it deep. The further into the interior they went, the deeper it would be and the longer it would last.

Thomas wore Big Birch’s
muksins
,or moccasins, soft boots of sealskin lined with hare, suitable for walking through the snow, and probably waterproof. He was now dressed for the winter, thanks to the clothing that Full Moon had passed on from her late husband, Big Birch. She had cleaned and prepared the clothes, and gave them in a small cere mony the morning after they left with the band. Had Full Moon suspected something between him and Little Birch, and put this idea forward herself to the Chief? Possibly, if she thought it likely that Thomas might make for himself a solid and bountiful life as a settler, free from starvation or other dangers. But Thomas doubted she’d looked ahead that far. He was just an unfortunate white man who had been assigned to help, and she’d be sure to doubt just how much help that would be.

For his undershirt he wore the softest deer hide. His next covering was a woven wool shirt, and outside that, a heavy jacket reaching down like a morning coat almost to his knees, which all Micmacs wore. This one had a hood whose fur lining and trim were made of wolverine that, Full Moon explained, did not frost up from the breath. He counted himself inordinately lucky to be inheriting the clothes of one of the more prosperous members of the band.

As they struggled back on the trail with their winter loads, Thomas found his sense of chivalry battered. He could not bear the sight of his Little Birch pulling the
toboggan
,the Micmac means of transporting heavy loads that always fell to the women. This carrier made from slats of wood, smooth on the bottom and curved at the front, slid easily over snow, but Little Birch had to drag it over the ground wherever snow had blown clear. Her mother struggled with an equally heavy one, while the three men carried big unwieldy packs on tumplines, a belt that passed around their foreheads. Both women wore traditional peaked hats with flaps to protect their ears, which Full Moon had woven in heavier material than their summer headgear.

The first night, the families camped together at a pre-arranged site, having located the remnants of a kind of base camp. Thomas duly lit the fire while the women prepared the food. One Arm, amazingly dextrous for one so handicapped, made the site habitable with other husbands, cutting boughs for the beds and laying out the furs on top. Male members of the families went off with their bows and arrows to try to find small game for the evening meal, although they had brought a stash of dried salmon.

Thomas felt clearly a new distance between him and Little Birch, for they both knew they would be sleeping and eating in close proximity for a long time. She must, he reasoned, be as concerned as he was. After all, would she not know Burn’s intentions? That other young Micmac, slim, gentle, accomplished and intelligent, would make her a good husband, in spite of his disfigured face. Thomas made up his mind to be as prudent as possible. But as he sat across the fire from her, he just could not stop his eyes from straying to her extraordinary features, the clear planes of her cheeks and forehead, her emphatic cheekbones and almond eyes, all shaped through millennia of wilderness living. He had to force himself to look down and concentrate on trying to stomach his tough dried salmon.

On the second day, the various families parted. This is it, thought Thomas, as he watched the others move off down the west fork, which would parallel the coast before plunging up into more distant highlands. His adoptive family struck due north from here — the five of them, alone against the Gaspé winter. Little Birch caught his look of concern, and explained the whys and wherefores as best she could. She had taken to communicating with Thomas, speaking slowly, using her hands a lot, scattering in the few words she’d gleaned. Another family had been asked to relinquish the area they were heading for, as the Chief thought it would be a better source of game. Thomas took this to mean that his family were least likely to survive. Probably true, he thought. He already found it surprising how much work they did on so little food. His stomach had shrunk, but that did not stop him from being always hungry.

At the same time, Thomas felt a welling up of confidence. He was used to being up against impossible odds, and in fact welcomed the duel that destiny had set for him. He resolved to be the winner at any cost. After all, Little Birch was now his responsibility, though all too shortlived. Through the falling snow, with flakes clinging to his eyelashes, he watched her struggle on ahead with her
toboggan
following One Arm, who led, searching out the easiest paths. Brightstar followed, then Full Moon and finally, Thomas brought up the rear.

He also could not forget the look in Burn’s eye when they parted. Were Little Birch and Burn truly meant for each other? He tried not to let his
joie de vivre
disappear. Keep optimistic, he told himself, especially now, facing a long winter of deprivation. Her image had meant so much more to him during the summer than he had imagined. Why had he not guessed that someone as pretty and accomplished as she would already have been spoken for?

Late in the afternoon of the second day, they came upon a hill whose north face lay covered in deep snow, so they all stopped to put on their snowshoes. Brightstar came over to help Thomas, who was struggling with winding a strip of welloiled leather round his ankles, so that he could fix on his snowshoes.

“I wish I’d had time to practise all this,” Thomas confided.

When they rose to go on, he kept stepping on his own shoes and tripping. Big Birch’s giant racquets, three feet long and over a foot wide, were made up of ash bent into a U-shape at the front, curving back into a long tail. In between, a taut rawhide webbing had been stretched, with a hole for the toes at the crosspieces. At first, Thomas found them hopelessly awkward, though he saw Brightstar capering about with great agility.

The first hundred yards up the steep hill, Thomas fell twice, his pack flipping over and items spilling out.

Brightstar laughed and pulled off his beaverskin mittens to help him reassemble the pack.

“I’m sorry,” he said in English “I just don’t seem to know how.”

After his second tumble, he took care to watch the others and swung his legs wider, taking bigger strides, placing each snowshoe carefully, one after another. By the time they stopped for dinner, Thomas had actually begun to enjoy this new way of walking. Picking his feet up high made his thigh muscles ache but he had added another skill, he realized with a glow of accomplishment. One Arm was leading, following instructions of the family who had used this territory previously. But he was not finding their next stopping place. He called a halt anyway, and set up camp for the night. Thomas used his tinderbox to start a fire and One Arm prepared the bedding, with Brightstar chopping boughs for a lean-to, in case it snowed in the night. The women prepared the simple meal, heating snow in a tin pan for the bitter tea they made out of the needles of white spruce to help them avoid colds or sore throats.

At noon on the third day, rising early and pushing on hard, they crossed the final foothills and dropped down into the semi-flat swamplike plateau that was to be their territory. With no adequate drainage, the giant trees of the coast did not grow here: only stunted spruce and fir. Just the kind of territory moose loved.

Heartened, they pushed on until late afternoon, and then rested while One Arm searched for the camp, or at least some trail blazes. He found the trail to their west and led them over. Although exhausted, they kept snow-shoeing in the light of a low moon until long after sunset. At last they arrived at the site, a round depression in the ground among shorn trees fixed with old frames for skin-stretching. In winters, the Micmac practice was to dig down a couple of feet and then over the birchbark to pack snow around the base for insulation. On a rise, and sheltered by a low set of craggy rocks, the site did seem at first primitive, but liveable.

Worn out, the little family just chewed dried seal meat and fell into their hastily unrolled hides without even making a fire. Thomas lay thinking, so this is it: winter in the Gaspé woods with an Indian family — only our combined wits and the acquired learning of generations to keep us from an untimely end. He made sure to offer up a proper and heartfelt prayer; he’d need all the help he could get.

***

The next three weeks proved even more difficult than Thomas had feared. Game was indeed scarce; Burn had been right. The family had to dip into their store of dried meat, a dangerous practice this early on. The days had grown much shorter as they approached the winter solstice, but they still seemed inordinately long to Thomas. He and One Arm had to make the most of the available light, leaving before dawn and coming back as dusk was settling, choosing the best layout for their traplines. They travelled most of the snow-covered territory, checking for hare and otter runs. A couple of times, they stayed overnight, a new and rather exhilarating experience for Thomas. They would first dig a kind of shelter in the snow under the branches of broad spruce, making a windbreak should the weather turn nasty in the night. No question of having a wash or hot tea in the morning: just mark the place as suitable for a bivouac, chew a bit of dried salmon, and off you go. He marvelled at his new-found stamina. They did come across several runs of small game, but oddly enough, no moose yards.

What a desolate landscape this plateau was, deep in the Gaspé Peninsula about thirty or forty miles back from the river. Stunted pine grew throughout the ever-present swampland of frozen mud and ice-covered ponds. It was a bleak environment, enlivened only by the tell-tale signs of a few animals. Some streams on which ice had not yet formed might be suitable for drinking. One Arm seemed to know which water was good, just from the look and taste. They came across three larger lakes, which One Arm said might hold fish. One contained a beaver house, and One Arm pointed it out, remarking the occupants could provide nourishment once located — much easier with a dog to smell them under the ice, but theirs had died the year previously. Thomas learned more about making snares and where to set them. He even learned to set large deadfall traps for prey animals: cougars and lynx that lived on the small animals active in this hostile environment. The caribou roamed farther north, the provenance of the Chief, being the best hunter, who took his family deeper into the interior. It was an unusual spring when he did not come back with a good store of caribou, to feed the band until salmon began their annual spring drive up the rivers.

That high distant caribou terrain hosted bands of wolves, which scared Thomas. His British upbringing and those medieval tales of the supernatural awakened an instinctual dread of any encounter with a wolf. He passed his fears on to One Arm, using his best Micmac, but One Arm brushed off such superstitions. He was much more con cerned with the omens that criss-crossing snowshoe hare and tiny vole tracks seemed to provide, together with aspects of the stars and such like divinations. Nevertheless, Thomas was glad they’d been assigned this arid wilderness where wolves seldom came. Their territory comprised two plateaus separated by a slight rise connected by a shallow ravine through which ran a stream. It gathered into a lake and later trickled down through more hills to the west, finally ending up on the coast, perhaps forming the Nouvelle River. After they had laid out a basic trapline, One Arm went immediately to the lake. Thomas saw him sitting, well-wrapped in the beaverskins that he slept under at night, his line down a hole he’d cut in the ice. Thomas found this sight hard to compre hend: he’d never heard of fishing that way. One Arm came back that afternoon reporting that he had found but little sustenance: two trout. Under the deepening ice this winter, for some reason the fish seemed lethargic, with no appetite for bait.

A blizzard snowed them in for three days, during which Thomas worked hard with Little Birch on her English, and she on his Micmac — one thing both enjoyed, and from the time of their setting off, a nightly exercise. The family again ate into their reserves of food, and Thomas wondered if the plentiful game predicted for this region would ever appear.