THE MASS OF GEAR WAS monstrous. Du Pré walked around it, looked at the canoes, some fiberglass and the others bark, the big freighters. They looked crude, and they were. Bark and pitch, fir for struts and thwarts and ribs, laced with woven spruce roots.
Oddly beautiful. Even had the roll of birch under the stern.
“Got maybe a disco in here, roller rink?” said Nappy. He was used to greenhorns; they always brought ten times as much stuff as they needed, and the wrong stuff at that. “Maybe this big tent has a hot tub, maybe a nice deck.” He kicked a huge bag.
“Papa, he has the big head this morning,” said Felix. He looked at the piles of duffel and laughed.
“Where’s yours?” said Nappy.
Du Pré pointed to his sleeping bag—a cheap Dacron one, but if it got wet, you could wring it out and still be a little warm—and two duffels with his clothes and few possibles in it.
Compass—didn’t need one of those in Montana, since the mountains stuck up so high—some fruit leather and jerky; clothes, jacket and dew pants and rubber-bottomed boots, plenty of wool socks; some detergent and salt and tea; aspirin; six bottles of Canadian whiskey, full liters, none of this dinky little fifth business.
Du Pré had poured the whiskey into a six-liter gasoline can, a plastic one. Had a neat little spout you could unscrew. It had been made to hold gasoline for chain saws, but Du Pré had seen its other possibilities.
A knot of people was headed their way. Some TV camera people and a couple reporters. Paul Chase was in the center. One of the reporters broke off and trotted over to Du Pré and the Florissants.
“Mr. Chase said to ask you when you would embark.”
“Soon as we get all this shit loaded,” said Nappy. “I say maybe two weeks.”
The pile wasn’t that bad, though, everything had been duffeled or put in dry bags. Du Pré asked about food, and Nappy said the Smithsonian had a whole department got good food together for expeditions.
“Somehow that don’t make me feel much better,” said Du Pré.
“We got a whole bunch in our two canoes, too,” said Felix, laughing, “and there’s plenty fish and a couple rifles. Deer and moose along the river and not too many them game wardens, you know. Lots of porcupines.”
Du Pré had eaten porcupine. The meat was horrible, what there was of it. The flabby animals moved slowly and didn’t need much muscle. But the liver, which was large, was delicious.
The gear was laid in the canoes; the members of the expedition got in and paddled off before noon. The day was calm. Lac La Ronge was big enough to have good-sized waves on it. They would hug the shore for the first couple of days, until they came to the lake’s outlet and went down the river to the next lake.
Du Pré asked Nappy what river. He was riding in Nappy’s canoe and helping the man paddle.
“All Red River,” said Nappy. There were a lot of local names for the little stretches—had to be so the voyageurs would know where they were and what they were talking about. Du Pré took out a notebook and began to list them. The first was a twelve-mile stretch between Lac La Ronge and a small and unnamed lake called the Le Vieux.
They were paddling in to shore to make the first camp when Du Pré had a thought, one coming out of his buried mind into the light. He had once heard a song that went “La Ronge, Le Vieux…” but he couldn’t remember the rest. A lot of the voyageurs’ songs must have been maps. They were illiterate. They had to move through a flattish country that had no high, unmistakable landmarks. Songs were easy to remember. So somewhere there was or had been some songs which described the landscape the entire length and breadth of the fur trade, all of it.
“How much miles you make in a day, average?” said Du Pré to Nappy.
“We do maybe twenty. Long river stretch, maybe more. Takes a long time put up and take down these camps. Just you and me, we could maybe do sixty, even mostly paddling. That’s hard work, though.”
The shore was coming up. Du Pré thought he could see clouds of bloodthirsty mosquitoes banked up, waiting.
He could. The canoes were drawn up and people cursed and slapped and smeared themselves with repellent.
Nappy walked off toward a little sluggish feeder brook. He pulled up some bushy plant and stripped it of leaves. He pounded the leaves with the handle of his knife and then rubbed them on his face.
“What plant is this?” said Du Pré.
“Bug plant,” said Felix. “It works better than them creams, keeps the blackflies and no-see-ums off, too. Them no-see-um, can’t get people to bite they eat rotten fish or meat. So when they bite you, you get a little bad spot where they bite.”
“Yeah,” said Nappy. “These pretty girls, they look like they kissing porcupines before we get to York Factory. Shame, lose them nice complexions they got.”
Chase and his assistants were setting up a big wall tent and laughing too hard about it.
I am not thinking this expedition will make it, thought Du Pré.
The Indians were putting up tattered and stained pup tents, three of them, and they already had a little fire going.
Paul Chase opened one of the big food bags and found “Food—15 people. Supper.”
We got thirteen here, Du Pré thought suddenly. No, we got fourteen, I guess. I am not superstitious. Like hell. I still go to that Catholic Church, yes.
The food the Smithsonian had sent was freeze-dried, everything from chow mein to pork chops to Irish stew.
Nappy and Felix had built a big fire. People sat on logs or duffel and poured boiling water on their plates and then they ate.
This is pretty good, Du Pré thought.
The firelight danced on the dark faces of the Indians and the bright faces of Chase and his young people. After a time, Chase rose and made the same introductions that he had the night before.
The two blond young men were Tim and Sean, the women, one redheaded and one brunette, were Hilary and Susan.
The Indian women from Quebec were Françoise and Eloise. The men were Lucky, Hervé, Guillaume, and Herbert.
Du Pré, Nappy, and Felix sat pretty much to themselves, the Indians pretty much to theirs, Chase and his four young assistants to themselves.
Du Pré got out his fiddle; the Indians dug out a couple of drums and an old flute, a plain silver one.
The mosquitoes whined and the smoke drifted up to the stars.
Du Pré fiddled for a while, then he listened to the Crees.
He wondered who would crack first.
First night out and this thing is already coming to pieces, thought Du Pré. I am here because of Benetsee. Chase and his people are here because it is their job to do fool things like this.
The Cree are here…I don’t know why. They got rivers where they live.
He wondered about that.
Nappy and Felix are here because they are paid to be here.
So I will trust them the most.
Suddenly Du Pré wished, without knowing why, that he had his gun with him.
These Canadians didn’t like pistols, though, at all. They had gone through Du Pré’s car with tweezers. Asked him flat out. Told him how long he’d be in prison if he did manage to smuggle one in.
For some reason, I had a nine-millimeter and a couple clips, I’d like this better, Du Pré thought.
The mosquitoes whined in front of his face, furiously. They couldn’t stand the bug plant’s juices and they couldn’t land, but they smelled blood.
Du Pré heard an eerie, lilting cry.
A loon.
It sounded beautiful and quite insane.