The next morning Tom made up his mind.
“We must go home at once to make sure everything is safe there.”
“What about the summer hunt?” Silent Owl asked.
“That will have to wait until next year.”
“You don’t believe in my map.”
“It’s nothing to do with your damned map. It’s about the old lady deciding to report me and soldiers arriving on my doorstep.”
“You’ll miss the caribou chase. We head the animals over the cliff face.”
Tom grimaced.
“We do it to eat. Not like you white men, killing for fun. We respect the spirits of the beasts and slit the throats of the wounded ones.”
Tom shut his eyes to squeeze out the image of Richard with his slashed neck, gaping like a blood-filled smile.
“You go. I’ll return on my own.”
“You can’t manage the sea canoe on your own.”
“I’ll get some help.”
He turned away to load up the packhorse. Then he plodded eastward without a backward glance. How could he expect a native to understand why he was so worried?
He was exhausted after three hours of trudging over hills, covered with rocks that poked out of the ground like petrified tree stumps. As he looked around for somewhere to rest, a feather of breath stroked his ear. There was Silent Owl behind him.
“You can’t expect the wolf to eat leaves.”
“Is that some sort of native riddle? It makes no sense.”
“Every creature has its own nature and you can’t change it. You’re trying to run away from yours.”
“Nonsense. I just need to get home. Are you coming?”
Silent Owl nodded. They barely spoke while they journeyed, first on foot and then by sea. Tom recruited a scratch crew, mainly half-breeds. Silent Owl looked down his nose at them. Never much of a talker he seemed unperturbed by Tom’s silence. They parted once they had landed at Sydney. Silent Owl was heading down to Lake Ainslee to wait until the rest of his band returned from Newfoundland. Tom handed him a heavy bag of coins.
“Here’s your share. Will I see you in the spring?”
Silent Owl grinned and swung the bag above his head in a wide arc before tying it to his belt. “Before then. Spring Thaw will show you the way.”
That promise anchored Tom during the next weeks although he yawed every time there was a knock on the door or reports of a stranger. He kept his concerns to himself. Iain and Spring Thaw knew any questions about his strange mood would meet with denials. So they didn’t press him. After Christmas he decided that the Widow MacKenzie must have kept his secret. Like a bedraggled dog hauling himself ashore he shook off the gloom that had clung to him.
He asked Iain what gifts they should carry for Spring Thaw’s family.
“They suffer in the winter when there’s so little game. But they don’t want charity.”
“I remember how people wanted Silent Owl to be in a photograph with them. There’s a call for native portraits. If they agreed to be photographed, we could pay them.”
So while thick snow still swaddled the earth, they set off with a sleigh weighed down with potatoes, dried fish, and oatmeal. Owlet was strapped to his mother’s back in a wooden frame and gurgled at the swaying motion. Where the trees were close packed, Iain and Tom put on snowshoes and led Maple along the narrow tracks, following the shoreline of the lake. They took care as the treacherous hummocks of snow smudged every feature. Land, frozen lake, every rise and hollow were all smothered. Silent Owl was right, Tom thought. An ordinary map was no use in this white blankness. Spring Thaw guided them as a pilot would steer a ship through unfamiliar shallows. There was no sight or sound of life until a clearing opened up before them to reveal a cluster of wigwams. Their birch bark sides with the poles bursting from their tops scarcely seemed like human habitations. More like a natural part of the forest, a squirrel’s dray or a raccoon’s den.
Their hosts had heard their approach and were waiting outside the entrance flaps of their tents. Spring Thaw translated and made the introductions. There were about twenty people there, including children. Tom noticed the gaunt faces, sunken eyes, and hacking coughs while he struggled to follow Spring Thaw’s description of the relationships between them all.
“And this is Silent Owl’s wife, Dark Otter.”
The slender woman beside her nodded. She was holding a baby in her arms while a toddler clung, wide-eyed to her leggings. Tom stared, beyond speech or movement. Everyone else was busy unloading the sleigh or walking to the largest wigwam. Tom floated helpless as flotsam as eager children pulled at his hands. Inside the space smelt of wood smoke and resin from the pine branches spread across the floor. Hands pressed him down onto a soft sealskin mat near the fire. He bent his numb legs and sat, head down while excited voices whirred around him.
“It’s not so different here from when I was a boy. Sitting on the earth fire and pickled by the smoke.” Iain spoke loudly, to cover up Tom’s silence.
Steaming clay pots of meat arrived, waterfowl, squirrel, and venison. Everyone else blew on their bowls before pulling out chunks of tender meat. They smacked their lips and let the juices trickle down their chins. Tom, though, swirled a piece around his mouth, fearing to swallow it in case he choked.
After the meal was over, they all lay back and a long pipe of carved wood was passed around. A cautious puff left Tom spluttering for breath. It was even more pungent than the tarry stuff the old sailors used to smoke. He kept coughing while the young men rose to dance. He had no intention of joining in. Iain, though, was up on his feet stamping and whooping outside. Tom was unaware of the small children who reached out to stroke his hair. Somehow he endured the eternity of time until everyone settled down to sleep and he could move into a smaller wigwam with the single men. The whole time he had refused to look in Silent Owl’s direction.
Early the next morning, Tom crept out to relieve himself. He turned back to find Silent Owl stalking him.
“You knew I was married. You saw my canoe the first time we met.” Tom looked blank. “A man and wife always build a canoe together.”
Tom scowled and walked away, but Silent Owl caught him by the shoulders. “How could I stay a barren twig? So many of us have died of white men’s diseases.”
“You should have warned me.” Tom broke away.
“I told him to ask you here,” a voice whispered behind him. It was Spring Thaw. “You can help us. One day soon white men will take this forest, rip out the trees and make the red earth bleed. They will drive us away. Iain told me how his tribe over the sea were pushed off their land. But they came here like wolves and took ours instead.”
“What do you expect me to do?”
“Show us how to buy this land.”
“It won’t be cheap.” Tom turned to Silent Owl, “What about your share from our trip?”
Silent Owl shuffled and looked away. His sister lunged to poke him in the chest. “You used it to buy firewater didn’t you?”
“No, I’m keeping it safe.”
“Liar!” she shouted, kicking him on the shin.
Tom enjoyed Silent Owl’s shame for a moment before saying, “We must think about how you can make more money. Let’s all sit down again with that smelly old pipe. Again.” He punched Silent Owl on the arm.