The Wanderer (40 page)

Not long after gaining Skagway, I managed to talk the captain of a steamer, bound for Seattle, into taking me on. I tried to persuade Robert to likewise seek a working berth, but he said he preferred to stay on in the frozen North and continue his humanitarian enterprise, meant to head back down the trail once more, make it all the way to Dawson City this time. His eyes filled with sentimental tears when he talked of this duty, which, despite the high esteem I, by that stage, held him in, still irked a mite.

We spent our last evening together in a saloon – a seamy, noisy, sawdust-and-rotgut establishment typical of that place – drinking cheap whiskey (Robert’s scruples did not extend to temperance). After a few glasses of the acrid liquor, an enigmatic phrase my friend had employed when we first met, and which I had hitherto forgotten, returned to me, prompting me to ask him a question.

‘You mentioned before you were led astray by the lure of riches. What did you mean by that?’

‘Do you believe there are things that, though beyond the ordinary ken of man, nevertheless mold our lives, weird forces at work?’

‘No, I do not.’

‘Neither did I once. Back then I would have scorned such notions, but now…’

‘You have your belief. I’m not a religious man.’

I tried hard to keep the scorn from my tone, but Robert heard it, looked a touch wounded.

‘It was not to God I adverted.’

He was silent a moment, then peered at me through the fug in that place.

‘Will you permit me to tell a tale? It’s true, and concerns things
that befell me back when I was a rash youth.’

Given that Robert was still young, I thought this formulation queer, but ignored it.

‘Of course. I enjoy hearing a yarn spun.’

Then, as we sat there, at the counter, staring into our tumblers like crones scrying for auguries, Robert told me a bizarre tale as would shock you and grume your blood, if only I could tell it, a tale set in Glasgow, Scotland, a tale of penury, bloody murder, card-sharping swindles, sham séances, and the realms of the foul olden horrors that prowl the primeval lightless ways that riddle the Earth. But to say any more would be to break my word for, as I wrote at the beginning of this account, I promised him then I would not ever divulge the story to another soul.

When he was through, my companion took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. Though the fire in the saloon’s grate had died right down, and a biting wind howled in through the open door, he was sweating profusely. At a loss for words, I murmured that I was sorry. He grinned and turned to me.

‘Oh, it’s not your fault.’

I had been filled with horror by what I had heard, so packed the bowl of my briar, lit the tobacco with a match taken from a pot on the bar, and took a calming draw.

‘What did you do after?’ I asked.

Robert took his own pipe from his shirt pocket.

‘First, could I thieve some ’baccy from you?’

I assented, gladly. He took my pouch and set about filling and lighting his pipe, a deft feat one-handed.

Once he had it smoking nicely, stem clenched in his teeth at the corner of his mouth, he continued his tale. Following the awful caper, he told me, he had fled for North America. On his arrival in the New World after a rough but uneventful crossing of the Atlantic, he had settled in Boston, a town he chose on a mere whim. Many years followed, filled with a slew of tribulations
– poverty, hardship, a spell in a labor camp, some time wandering the brutal Old West – before he finally wound up in New York, where he suffered a beating at the hands of a drunken mob and was taken in and nursed back to health by a preacher. Robert repaid this kindness by staying on, once recovered, and helping his rescuer, who was aged and doddery, if not doting, with his duties. When the minister died, a few years later, it was only natural that Robert take over his flock. He subsequently married a member of the congregation, a beautiful young woman, who returned his affections in spite of his being a cripple, but, as he had already told me, she died in childbirth two years after their wedding.

‘The pain has not paled one bit, though it’s been many months since I suffered the loss,’ Robert concluded, biting his lip. ‘When I heard of the Klondike Gold Rush and of the stampeders’ hardships, I came out here to wander these frozen lands and offer succor where I could. I’ve found respite from my grief in ministering and preaching to those in need.’

Again, I said how sorry I was to hear tell of his woes. Smiling, he once more brushed my expressions of sympathy aside, suggested we eat. This proposal met with my favor, I realized then I was ravenous, my composure, and appetite, restored by pipe smoke. While we tucked into some poor fare brought out by the barkeep, it dawned on me that Robert’s apparent youth could not be reconciled with his account of his life. I challenged him.

‘It is of no consequence to me whether you choose to credit me or not,’ he countered, with some asperity.

I glared at him, shook my head. The anger that had flared up died away, and he looked down at his food, said, in a tone of mollification, ‘But I am grateful to you for listening. Each time I tell my tale, its burden grows lighter.’

I could not respond straightway, as I was chewing one of the lumps of tough, gristly meat that were swimming in the stew we had been brought (lamb on the menu, but I doubted this, particularly
as I had seen the proprietor of the place buying a broken-down old mule from a stampeder only the day before). Once it was pappy enough to swallow, I replied, ‘I’m sorry. It isn’t that I didn’t believe you. I was bemused is all.’

‘As for that, all I can say is that I haven’t, in my outward seeming, aged a day since…Since then. I don’t expect you to believe that. I wouldn’t myself if I didn’t have proof of it every time I look in a glass.’

I nodded, turned the conversation to other topics, sensing it would be futile to press Robert further. I am, to this day, unsure whether the weird things he told me of were delusion, a mere pack of lies, or the entire truth. I quail to consider this last possibility…

We finished our food, then Robert proposed we share another bottle of whiskey before turning in. I agreed, he ordered it, and the barkeep brought it over. Robert poured us both a slug, then asked me what I thought I might do with myself on my return south.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘I’ve always fancied trying my hand at writing. I might give that a go. Your story would make a great yarn, you know.’

I was half-joking, but he suddenly looked very stern. And that is when he made me take the vow.

Afterwards, his expression lightened.

‘Otherwise, I wish you all the best with it,’ he said. ‘I hope you can understand?’

I nodded.

‘Of course. It was crass of me to suggest it at all.’

We finished the bottle, chatting easily, then went back to our lodgings. I slept poorly that night, apprehensive about the voyage I was to embark on the following morning, disquieted by Robert’s ghastly tale. Lying awake, on my bunk, I gazed up at the fly-specked ceiling, wondered how flies could breed in a country so grimly cold I could not picture a rotting carcass, even at the
height of summer. Instead, I imagined them pouring forth, in a droning mass, from a crevice, high up in the mountains, a chasm that gave on to some vile alterior place.

The following morning was cold, blustery; ragged scraps of white cloud scudded overhead through an ashen sky. Robert accompanied me down to the docks. We said our farewells on the wharf, then I walked up the gangplank and boarded the steamer. As the vessel pulled out of the harbor I stood at the taffrail waving to my friend. His breath plumed in the cold air – it was as if his spirit had broken free of the hawsers mooring it to the flesh. I gazed at him until he was little more than a mote in my eye – a dark smut at the point where the yellowish daub of smoke belched from the ship’s funnels and the churned wake converged – then turned away from the shore, went to report to the boatswain. He assigned me first watch at the bow. I was to keep a lookout for ice floes. Crossing the deck, I took up my position, leaning far out over the gunwale, holding onto the bowsprit to steady myself. For several hours I watched the hatchet prow cleave the sea. At one point I am sure I glimpsed a narwhal’s tusk break the surface of the water.

I have never seen Robert again. But my encounter with him changed my life utterly. Unable to get his tale from my thoughts, barbed as it is by weird and sinister implications, I have spent a great deal of time, as this book is testament, seeking others like it. My motives are obscure, even to me. I think it is partly that I sought similar yarns in the hope that, discovering them all absurd lies or delusions, I would finally be able to dismiss Robert’s as falsehood or madness. Too often, however, I have found a shred of truth in the stories told me, and have, over the course of my life, sewed these scraps into a patchwork of uncanny horror.

Acknowledgements

Peterkin (or whoever) dedicated
The Wanderer
to a ‘hoped for, though doubtless chimeric, reader.’ I would like to dedicate this book to Fi Ment, much missed, without whom it’s likely the typescript would have never come to light.

Much of the work on this book was done as part of a PhD project. I’d like to thank my doctoral supervisors, Willy Maley and Andrew Radford, for their generous support and insightful critiques; the examiners of the resultant thesis, Rob Maslen and Adam Roberts, for astute and valuable feedback; and the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding. Much gratitude to those who read this work and gave encouragement, comments, and editorial suggestions: William Curnow, Al Duncan, Susan Jarvis, James Machin, and Neil Stewart. Many thanks to Phil Jourdan for patience, enthusiasm, and hard work. Thanks to my family for all their support. And thanks, Sophie Tolhurst, for endless tolerance and kindness.

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