“We could sell pictures of your family. It’s the fashion back in England to take photographs of natives, Eskimos, South Sea Islanders, headhunters, and so forth. Meanwhile I’ll find out who owns the land.”
Spring Thaw translated and they all nodded. They seemed to trust him. He recalled with a pang his old gift of winning over sailors and islanders. But what about Silent Owl? He seemed able to lead two parallel lives without a qualm. Tom could endure months of separation if he had to. Seafarers learnt how. But now that he knew Silent Owl returned to his wife’s embrace for half the year, Tom felt the rip and tug of jealousy. Was there a map for men like him? Men who led a double life? He remembered married masters at school who seemed to be impersonators, shrugging on family life like an ill-fitting overcoat. Silent Owl though felt no shame or jealousy in sliding between his two lives.
“How can you split yourself in two?” Tom asked him later.
“I go away in the summer and stay with my family in the winter. Everyone is satisfied.”
Not me, thought Tom, but if I want to keep his affection I have to accept his rules. He couldn’t endure being alone again.
When he returned home, he made enquiries about the forest. It belonged to Malcolm Buchanan, a reclusive man who had moved to Cape Breton over twenty years earlier. He lived alone on a small cabin on the edge of his woods. There was plenty of gossip about his secretive ways but little information.
“I could visit him,” Tom suggested. “It might be he has no wish to sell.”
“We’ll come with you,” said Spring Thaw, looking at her husband and brother. “This man needs to know that it’s us who are buying his woods.”
As so often, Tom was taken aback at her directness. He had been given information about Buchanan’s whereabouts but there was no sign of any path through the ranks of trees. Tom scratched his head.
“How would you have done on your own?” Silent Owl asked, slapping Tom on the back.
They had to thrust and hack their way through low branches and undergrowth. Silent Owl led them, stopping often to look and listen. He found a length of twine behind a rock, close to some overhanging sticks bound together to form a roof. As he pointed it out they heard a crash. Something huge and urgent hurtled toward them. Tom pushed Spring Thaw behind him, cursing that he had no rifle. Silent Owl crouched down, knife in hand as a snarling head with glistening teeth leaped at him. But instead of striking it he dropped his arm and made clicking sounds in his throat. The creature whimpered and lay down, its feathered tail swishing.
“Take us home,” Silent Owl whispered in its ear.
It stood and padded ahead along a narrow track up to a homestead. It looked abandoned with its sagging roof and bulging walls. But a thread of smoke spooled out from the chimney. The grizzled dog whined and scratched at the battered door. It swung open to show a man with long, tangled hair, wearing a fur waistcoat.
“What do you want?” He spat out a plug of tobacco.
“Mr. Buchanan? May we speak with you?” Tom held out his hand. The old man glared at it. A second sticky pellet splattered in front of Tom’s feet.
Spring Thaw stepped forward. “We want to buy your wood,” she said, her dark eyes fixed on the old man’s rheumy blue ones. He opened his mouth and Tom braced himself for a roar of fury. The dog’s ears twitched and a growl rumbled in his throat. Silent Owl felt for the knife in his belt.
But it was a rumble of laughter that erupted. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said and showed them inside into a warm but bare room. He kept staring at Spring Thaw, “Aye, maybe I’ve got the second sight.”
Was he simple minded? Tom wondered. Had living as a hermit rotted his brain?
It was Spring Thaw who recovered first. “We need somewhere to live. Somewhere that can’t be taken away from us. Our ancestors helped yours when the first white people came. They saved them from starving. They didn’t know that hordes more would come and drive us off our land.”
What was she doing? Tom thought. That kind of talk would only vex the old man, but he seemed bewitched by her.
“And how much money do you have to reclaim the Garden of Eden?”
Tom intervened, “So far only £100 as a deposit.”
But Malcolm wasn’t listening. His parched eyes drank deep of Spring Thaw’s face, drawn toward her like a neap tide to the moon.
“You’re so like my wife in her youth. ‘Bright Star’ she was called, a chief’s daughter. You have her bearing.”
“How did you meet her?”
“I came out to work for the company up north at the end of Boney’s war. It was like the Garden of Eden then, a cold one.” He paused as his laugh turned into a wheeze. “In those days we got on well with the natives, well enough to marry them.” He spoke only to Spring Thaw. It was as if the others were invisible.
“What went wrong?”
“Greed. That was the serpent. Greed and trickery. Too many furs taken. Indians given drink that made them crazy. The women used to hide all the weapons when their menfolk were on the whisky. So they tried to kill each other with their bare hands.”
“But what became of Bright Star?”
“Dead these many years and our children died young.” She came close, hugging him and putting her head on his chest.
“I couldn’t bear to stay up North any more. I bought the woods here to clear them but I couldn’t do it. Too much gone already.” He loosened her arms and tilted her chin up. “I’ve had men with money sniffing around here but I set the dog on them.”
“Would you let us have it?” she asked.
The only sound in the room was the dog panting,
“I’ve no one to leave it to. So you shall have it. I’ve been waiting for you to come.”