Silent Owl dismissed Tom’s idea of traveling to the plains. “The tribes will be jumpy if white men are taking their game. They would kill us both without a second thought.”
He hoped that Emma would be more encouraging.
I can understand why you want to use art in the service of philanthropy. It reminded me of Mama showing me one of those medallions of Mr. Wedgewood’s that Grandmama had made into a bracelet. Do you remember? It showed a man in chains with the inscription, “Am I not a man and a brother?”
I know that artists have sold paintings to help the cause of the natives. There was an American gentleman called Catlin who opened an Indian gallery about twenty years ago, first in London and then in Manchester. Fred and I went to see it on one of the rare occasions he managed to escape from the demands of his patients. There were all sorts of objects displayed, weapons, costumes, skulls even but what impressed me most were the portraits. What fierce noble faces! And of course, there were some live Indians there, a troupe of men and boys. I believe they were from Canada. I read later that some of them died and Catlin’s own wife succumbed to pneumonia.
Would your idea of an exhibition of paintings and photographs be successful, I wonder? Fashions change. Pictures of exotic places are still popular. There are plenty of ladies like me with time hanging heavy on their hands who are willing to run charity committees. However, there are so many worthy causes that I doubt if helping dispossessed Indians would be a popular one. If people think about them at all, it is as rather bloodthirsty savages. Of course there is always a call from the Churches to convert the heathen, but I sense that you don’t want to see them turned into well-behaved Christians in European dress.
Tom scrunched up the letter. Iain had told him now that Spring Thaw was expecting a second child, he wanted her to rest more from the farm work. The wind was blowing against his westward adventure from every direction. It would have to be New Brunswick instead. At least he could pretend for a few precious weeks that he and Silent Owl were in the Garden of Eden. No that was wrong. There was no Fall. They were free of religion and convention. How far he had traveled from the rules of his past life. His old self was a tiny, distant figure seen through the wrong end of a telescope. By the time they came back, the fuss about the land sale would have burnt out. But he could blow on the embers of the summer memories to keep him alive through the lonely winter.
Again they were feted at every village. Why was everyone so keen to be photographed? A photograph told them that their lives mattered, even if they lived in the wilds. But the camera could only captured an instant of their lives. That moment was preserved, a sort of photographic taxidermy, an illusion of life. They were drawn to the beam of the camera as if it could illuminate their lives. But photographs were so fragile. They faded and crumbled away like the gossamer wings of a dead butterfly. And what about the photographer himself? He created a mirage of immortality for others but stayed invisible. Tom would never appear on the other side of the lens because his image could betray him.
People he photographed told him their stories. Many like Iain had left behind poverty and misery in their homelands although some had welcomed the chance of adventure and reinvention. Others had been exiled twice over, their ancestors forced to flee northward because they had stayed loyal to the Crown in the American wars. A photograph was a certificate of survival.
As always, once they turned homeward Tom felt the warning blast of losing Silent Owl again to his wife, but he braced himself against the blizzards of jealousy. Better to be together and complete for some of the year than not at all, he kept telling himself. How could they live and love together all the time? Tom had to act the part of the steady citizen, the quiet bachelor approaching middle age. He couldn’t risk the dangers of scandal seeping out among his neighbors.
They let the horses amble at their own pace once they were back on the island. Tom drank in every detail of his companion’s being as they rode side by side, his supple legs and muscular chest, ripened brown by the sun, the delicate softness of his ear lobes and the ridges of old scars on his arms, like rows of rough stitching.
Silent Owl turned his horse’s head several miles before home, leaving Tom to ride on by himself. But Iain was waiting for him at the summit of the small hill, in sight of the farm. Surprised and pleased, Tom was about to dismount and stretch his legs.
“No, don’t stop. Let’s get back.”
“Is something wrong? It’s not Spring Thaw or the baby?”
“No, they’re well. I’ll explain when we’re inside.”
“I hope he’s not worried you too much, father-in-law,” Spring Thaw said once they were inside away from the mosquito patrols.
“What is it? Imagining is worse than knowing.”
“Thank God you didn’t get back last week,” said Iain. “I was in the town when I saw that old witch MacKenzie. Talking with a stranger, too busy blethering to see me. I didn’t like the look of it. So I slipped into a nearby alleyway. There was no one else about and I could hear most of what they were saying.”
Tom felt dread, wind ripping a sail. “Carry on, son.”
She said, “John Robinson used to rent a shop from me.”
“Describe him to me if you will,” the man asked.
“Not young, but not yet well into his middle years.”
“The same age as me, perhaps? Yes? My height? Taller, you say? Now what about his coloring?”
“Fair, very pale hair, almost white.” Tom held back a gasp.
“Ahh, that’s interesting. Do you know anything about his life before he arrived here?”
“She sniffed, ‘A secretive man. I always thought he had something to hide. He claimed to have a fiancée back in England but no sign of her. Is he in trouble? A criminal?’
“The witch couldn’t keep the glee out of her voice,” Iain said. “The stranger kept firing questions at her.”
“Did he ever talk about his previous profession?”
“If I remember rightly he said about working in a shipping office. In Liverpool?”
Iain paused, his breathing ragged.
“What happened then?” Tom whispered.
“Some people walked toward them and they moved along to let them past. I couldn’t catch any more.”
“But you sniffed out more, didn’t you?” Spring Thaw prompted.
“The stranger was from a naval vessel, a Captain Rogers,”
Tom’s heart was bolting. That was a name he never thought to hear again.
“His ship’s left harbor now,” Spring Thaw said, touching Tom’s hand.
“Who is he? Iain asked.
“We served together. And hated each other.”
“We thought he might come snooping around,” Iain said, “I kept watch at night with my rifle loaded.”
Tom was trying to round up his stampeding thoughts. “What we don’t know is whether he came intending to hunt me down. Or did he meet Mrs. MacKenzie by chance?”
“She would have put out a line like she does for every stranger,” Spring Thaw said.” She’s still after a husband for her second daughter.”
“You’re right,” Tom answered, letting his shoulders drop.
“She likes to cause trouble. Surely if Rogers had really come to arrest me, he wouldn’t have given up so easily?”
“And if he had come here, I’d have shot him,” Iain said, in a cold voice that disturbed Tom much more than any shouting would have done.
“Well, he’s left and what evidence did he have? I’m not the only man in the world with pale hair.”
Spring Thaw smiled and rocked her son who had fallen asleep on her lap, but her eyes were shadowed. Tom looked at Iain’s grim face and there was no comfort there either.