The Tenderness of Wolves (47 page)

Parker makes a poultice of the tea-leaves wrapped in calico and cooled in snow, and makes me press it to my eyes. It is some relief, though not as good as a few drops of Perry Davis’s Painkiller. Perhaps it is as well we do not have any.

I think of Nesbit in the office, cornered and feral; how once that was me.

‘How far are we from this … place?’

It is habit that makes me lower the poultice; impolite not to look at someone when you are talking to them.

‘Keep it on,’ he says. And when I have replaced it, ‘We will get there the day after tomorrow.’

‘And what is there?’

‘A lake, with a cabin.’

‘What is its name?’

‘It has no name that I know.’

‘And why there?’

Parker hesitates for a long minute, so that I peer at him from behind the poultice. He is staring into the distance and doesn’t seem to notice. ‘Because that is where the furs are.’

‘The furs? You mean the Norwegians’ furs?’

‘Yes.’

Now I drop the poultice and look at him in earnest. ‘Why do you want to lead him to them? That is exactly what he wants!’

‘That is why we are doing it. Keep it on.’

‘Couldn’t we … pretend they are somewhere else?’

‘I think he already knows where they are. If we went in another direction I don’t think he would follow. He came this way before–he and Nepapanees.’

I think about what this means: Nepapanees, who did not come back, so must be there still. And fear steals through me, creeping into my bone marrow, making itself at home. It is easy to hide my reaction behind the sodden poultice; not so easy to pretend I am brave enough for this.

‘This way, when he comes, it will be sure.’

And then what? I think, but don’t dare say out loud. Another voice in my head–the annoying one–says, You could have stayed behind. You’ve made your bed. Now lie in it.

Then, after another pause, Parker says, ‘Open your mouth.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Can he read my mind? Shame rushes through me, just about obliterating the fear.

‘Open your mouth.’ His voice is lighter now, amused at something. I open it a little way, feeling childish. Something angular and hard meets my lips, forcing them wider, and into my mouth slips a jagged piece of what feels like lake ice–flat and deliquescent. His thumb or forefinger brushes against my lips, rough as glasspaper. Or perhaps it is his glove.

I close my mouth around the object and as it warms and melts, it explodes with dark, smoky sweetness, causing a dizzying rush of water to my mouth. I am smiling: maple sugar. Where he got such a thing I have no idea.

‘Good?’ he asks, and from his voice I can tell he is smiling too. I tilt my head to one side as if considering my answer.

‘Hm.’ I say lightly, still secure behind the poultice. It makes me reckless. ‘Is this supposed to make my eyes better?’

‘No. It is supposed to taste good.’

I take a deep breath–scented with autumnal smoke and sweetness, an undertow of bitter char. ‘I am afraid.’

‘I know.’

I wait behind my mask for Parker’s soothing words of reassurance. He is thinking about them, choosing them carefully, it seems.

They don’t come.

There are five volunteers in the Search Party: Mackinley; a native guide, Sammy; a local youth called Matthew Fox, intent on proving his backwoods worth; Ross, the man with the missing son and wife; and Thomas Sturrock, ex-searcher. Of all of them, Sturrock is aware that he is there on sufferance; to the rest he must seem an old man, and no one is quite sure what he is doing in Caulfield anyway. It was only his considerable charm that bought his place on the party; that and a long evening buttering up the fox-faced Mackinley and reminding him of his past triumphs. He even talked up his tracking skills, but fortunately Sammy has had no need of help; in the pristine dazzle of the new snow, Sturrock has no idea whether they are following previous tracks or not. But he is here, every step taking him closer to Francis Ross and the object of his journey.

Since Maria Knox came back from the Sault with her extraordinary account of meeting Kahon’wes, he has been fired with an excitement he thought he had lost for ever. In his mind he has turned it over many times–could Kahon’wes have known that he was behind it? Could the names he said have been pure coincidence? Impossible. He has decided that the tablet is written in an Iroquoian language and records the confederacy of the Five Nations. Who knows, it might even have been written at the time. Whether it was or not, the greater implications are not lost on him: the effect such a discovery would have on Indian policy; the
embarrassment it would cause the governments above and below the border; the weight it would lend to native calls for autonomy. What man does not long to do good, and profit by the doing at the same time?

Those were his thoughts for the first couple of hours. Then he started to think–because he is nothing if not a pragmatist–of the possibility that Maria was right, and the thing is a clever fake. In the deepest recesses of his mind he knows it will make no difference. He will persuade Kahon’wes to back him up; that shouldn’t be difficult. If he presents the thing with enough conviction and cleverness (no problem there), the initial splash will make his name, and any subsequent controversy can only be good publicity. As for the matter of not knowing where the tablet is, he refuses to let it worry him. He is confident that Francis Ross did take it, and that as soon as they catch up with him, he will be able to talk it into his own hands. He has rehearsed the lines he will use, many times …

He stumbles on something uneven, his racquette catches on the crust, and he goes down on his knees. Last in the line, he pauses, one gloved hand flat on the snow, while he recovers the breath jolted from his body. His joints ache with cold. Years since he has travelled this way; he has forgotten how it takes its toll. Hopefully it will be the last time. The next man to him, Ross, notices he has fallen behind and turns to wait for him. Thank God he doesn’t walk back and offer him a hand; that would be too humiliating.

Maria had described seeing Ross at the Sault with another woman, and speculated as to whether his wife’s disappearance was as innocent as was generally supposed. Sturrock was amused, because Maria seemed like the last person to entertain such a lurid notion. But as Maria pointed out, it was hardly more lurid than the widely accepted theory that Mrs Ross had run off with the escaped prisoner (and her husband not turned a hair!). Sturrock
finds the man interesting. Nothing shows in his face; if he is worried about the fate of his wife or son, he does not reveal it. This does not endear him to the other men of the party. Ross has so far resisted Sturrock’s attempts to engage him in conversation, but undaunted, Sturrock puts on a spurt to catch up with him.

‘You seem easy in this country, Mr Ross,’ he says, trying to still his labouring breath. ‘I would wager you have done a fair bit of this sort of travel.’

‘Not really,’ Ross grunted, and then, relenting perhaps at the older man’s wheezing breath, ‘just hunting trips and so on. Nothing like you.’

‘Oh …’ Sturrock allows himself to be modestly flattered. ‘You must be worried about your family.’

Ross trudges for a moment in silence, his eyes fixed on the ground. ‘Some seem to think not worried enough.’

‘One doesn’t have to make a public display to feel concern.’

‘No.’ He sounds sarcastic, but Sturrock is too taken up with placing his snowshoes in the imprints made by the youth ahead of him to look at his companion’s face.

And after a moment, Ross says, ‘The other day I was in the Sault. I went to a friend of my wife’s, just to see if she had heard from her. While I was there I saw the elder Knox girl. She saw me and gave such a start–I suppose word has got all over town that I have a fancy woman.’

Sturrock smiles, guilty but relieved. He is glad Mrs Ross has someone who cares about her. Ross casts him a dry look. ‘Aye, I thought so.’

On the second day out from Dove River, Sammy stops and holds up his hand for silence. Everyone pauses in mid-stride. The guide confers with Mackinley at the front, who then turns to the others. He is about to speak when there is a cry from the trees on their left, and the sound of crashing
branches. All the men turn in panic; Mackinley and Sammy raise their rifles in case it is a bear. Sturrock hears a high-pitched cry and realises that it is a human–a woman.

He and Angus Ross, being nearest, start forward, plunging into deep, drifted snow and hampered by brushwood and hidden obstacles. The going is so difficult that it is some moments before they can see who is calling them. Glimpses through the trees: Sturrock thinks there is more than one figure–but a woman? A number of women … out here in the middle of winter?

And then he catches her in plain sight: a thin dark-haired woman struggling towards him, her shawl trailing behind her, her mouth open in a cry of exhaustion and relief vying with terror that they might, all these men, be just a figment of her imagination. She plunges through the brush towards Sturrock, collapsing in a heap just a few yards away, as Ross catches a child in his arms. Another figure darts through the trees behind them. Sturrock reaches her and goes down on one knee in an awkward parody of romance, his snow-shoes getting in the way. The woman’s face is sharp with exhaustion and fear, her eyes haunted as if she is afraid of him.

‘There now, it’s all right. You are safe now. Hush …’

He’s not sure she understands him. Now a young boy has come up behind her and stands with one hand protectively on her shoulder, staring at Sturrock with dark, suspicious eyes. Sturrock never knows what to say to children, and this one doesn’t look friendly.

‘Hello. Where have you come from?’

The boy mutters some words he cannot understand, and the woman answers him in the same strange tongue–not French, which he knows, nor is it German.

‘Do you speak English? Can you understand me?’

The others have joined them and crowd around, staring in amazement. There is the woman, the young boy, maybe
seven or eight years old, and a little girl, even younger. They all exhibit the early symptoms of exposure and cold. None of them says a word anyone can understand.

It is decided that they will pitch camp, even though it is barely two o’clock. Sammy and Matthew build a shelter behind an uprooted tree and collect wood for a large fire, while Angus Ross prepares hot tea and food. Mackinley walks back into the forest where the woman points and reappears leading a malnourished mare that is now draped in blankets, eating oatmeal. The woman and children huddle by the fire. After they have had a quiet conversation, she stands up and comes to Sturrock. She indicates she wants to talk in private, so they go a little way away from the camp.

‘Where are we?’ she asks, without preamble. He notices her English is almost without accent.

‘We are a day and a half out from Dove River, to the south. Where have you come from?’

She stares at him, and her eyes flick towards the others. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Thomas Sturrock, of Toronto. The other men are from Dove River, apart from the man with short brown hair–that is Mackinley, a servant of the Hudson Bay Company, and a guide.’

‘What are you doing here? Where are you going?’ If her questions seem ungrateful, she gives no sign of being aware of it.

‘We are following a trail north. Some people have gone missing.’ No way to explain this complicated scenario simply, so he does not try.

‘And where does this trail lead?’

Sturrock smiles. ‘We will not know that until we come to the end of it.’

The woman breathes out then, and seems to release a little of her pent-up suspicion and fear. ‘We were making for
Dove River. We lost our compass and the other horse. There was someone else with us. He went off to …’ Her face changes with hope. ‘Have any of you fired rifles in the last few days?’

‘No.’

She droops again. ‘We became separated, we don’t know where he is now.’

At last her face crumples. ‘There were wolves. They killed one of the horses. They could have killed us. Maybe …’

She gives in to sobbing, but quietly, and without tears. Sturrock pats her on the shoulder.

‘Hush. You are quite all right now. It must have been terrible, but it’s over. There’s no need to be frightened any more.’

The woman lifts her eyes to his, and he notices how fine they are; clear light brown in a smooth oval face.

‘Thank you. I don’t know what we would have done … We owe you our lives.’

Sturrock himself treats the woman’s frost-bitten hands. Mackinley calls an impromptu meeting and decides that Sammy and he will go and look for the missing man–there are clear tracks to follow–while the others stay in the camp. If they have not found him by the following evening, Matthew and Sturrock will escort the woman and her children to Dove River. Sturrock is not entirely happy with this arrangement, but he can see the sense of allowing the two hardened travellers to go on as swiftly as possible. Besides, a part of him is flattered by the woman’s preference for him; she has spoken privately to no one else, and keeps close to him, even favouring him with a particularly sweet smile from time to time. (‘So, you are from Toronto …?’) He tells himself that it is his age that makes him less threatening, but knows that is not the whole reason.

Mackinley and Sammy leave while there is light, gathering from the woman’s rather confused story that her
husband may be hurt. They are swallowed up in the gloom beneath the trees and Ross doles out nips of brandy to everyone. The woman cheers up noticeably.

‘So who are the people you are following?’ she asks, when the children have fallen into a fathomless sleep.

Ross sighs and says nothing; Matthew looks from Ross to Sturrock, who takes this as his cue.

‘It is rather peculiar, and not easy to tell. Mr Ross, perhaps … No? Well, a few weeks ago there was an unfortunate incident, you see, and a man died. Mr Ross’s son went missing from Dove River at the same time–possibly he was following someone. Then two Hudson’s Bay men went to look for him as part of their enquiries. They have been gone some time and no one has heard from them.’