twelve

She felt the miller’s soft gaze on her, a gaze that was assessing in nature as if he were looking for signs of madness. Which he no doubt was. Not many Métis women would walk into his rough building and announce that they had received a vision from a saint—and would commence to build a church.

“You are with your husband, madame?” he asked softly.

“I am alone.”

“And you have a place to board?”

“I will find one.”

“There are none here—for respectable women. Have you means?”

“Nothing.”

“You have a family, madame?”

“Oui. My papa, he is Montclair Trouville. My mama, she is Helene.”

He shook his head.

“Our cousins are the Desportes. We have friends, the Lesages. We came after the troubles in Manitoba, and settled in this territory as soon as it was safe, after the Sioux and Cheyenne were defeated.”

“And do they approve of this—enterprise?”

“I did not give them that choice, monsieur. I was instructed by a heavenly apparition to do this thing, and so I came here.”

Blanc stared at her, his fleeting expressions mirroring his inner conversation.

“You have a plan for this church? A churchyard? Masons and carpenters and joiners and ironworkers?”

“Non,” she said.

“A place to pasture that donkey?”

“Non,” she said. “I was hoping to find refuge—here.”

“Madame, my poor household can afford no more boarders. Several of our families, unable to take frail older people, or one or two deformed little ones, cannot take them to Canada, and have begged me for help, and I can offer nothing except a millroom, where there are some bags of grain, some seed, and too many mice.”

“Is there a place there, where I may lay my head?”

“There isn’t, madame. I am sheltering six, no seven, of those driven from their homes by the army, and I cannot feed them except a little flour.”

“Would you need a servant? I am able and healthy, monsieur. I can do chores.”

“Ah, non, my wife and petite ones are crowded into a single room, and I enjoy an excess of labor and am lacking none.”

“Might I do better with the woodcutters—the other Métis?”

The brown-eyed miller drew up straight. “It would not be suitable, madame, with a man and two sons.”

Therese felt herself sagging within. For all of the long walk, the thought of her vision, and building a church, had sustained her. But now she was facing reality. Here was a hostile town, barely tolerating two Métis households, a town of drovers and rowdies, men wearing six-guns, false-front saloons, a town unsuited to women of any sort. And here she was, intending to build a church for her people. She would need land. She would need a plan, and artisans. She would need money to pay them. And while all this was happening, she would need to support herself in some respectable way. And she would need to send word out to the Métis hiding in the countryside that here was their home.

She was hungry and worn. Blanc had been kind but could offer her nothing. She tugged the donkey along and traversed the rude town. It was raw; the main street was little more than muck. The foul cross streets were worse. There were no boardwalks to protect her skirts. But she was used to all that. She eyed the saloons, sleeping in the sunlight, and the hardware and general store, which advertised dry goods and groceries. She saw a blacksmith shop, and a harnessmaker. She spotted a livery barn. She saw no butcher or baker but did see a cobbler and a barbershop. There was a wooden residence of some sort. The general store would have some ready-made clothes, mostly for men; women would have to sew their own. She passed through, safe in sunlight, but at night this place would be dangerous for a single woman. Her silver ring would not spare her and her mixed blood would only invite unwanted advances. But for the moment, with a single wagon parked on the street, and a couple of saddle horses at hitch rails, it was serene.

She continued on to the wood yard and turned in. Here were heaps of firewood, cut and split and drying in the warmth. She discovered mossy logs that had been hauled by wagon to this place. She saw axes and long two-man saws, and a grindstone operated by a treadle, used to sharpen all the blades and axes and saws.

The rude log cabin seemed barely large enough for Armand Trouffant and his sons; there could be no place in it for a woman not connected to the family. And yet, she had no other option.

“Mademoiselle?”

She turned, discovering a blocky dark man in his middle years, with great mustachios curling from his lips and cheeks.

“Je suis Madame … Skye,” she said, feeling she was using her soon-to-be-jettisoned husband. “You are Monsieur Trouffant?”

He nodded, his eyes roving over her every curve. It was all she could do to stand there, but stand she did.

“I am looking for a safe place to board; I would offer work in exchange.”

“I don’t believe we’ve met, eh?”

“Therese … Skye. My papa, Montclair Trouville?”

“Ah, Trouville! Red River, oui?”

She nodded.

“And he sends you here for what?”

“I came on my own, to fulfill a task given to me … by my name saint.”

He laughed. “My name saint gave up on me years ago. But we salute each other now and then, eh?”

Plainly, he was waiting for an explanation, and she was afraid that when she revealed her purpose, he would laugh her away. But there could be no avoiding this moment, so she started in.

“Monsieur, I have come upon a sacred mission, and I pray your indulgence while I tell you.”

His enormous eyebrows caterpillared up and settled, and he ushered her to some logs suitable for sitting. “You will entertain me here,” he said.

That’s what it would be. Entertainment!

She told him the story of her vision, and he listened with intense concentration and a small, wicked smile. He obviously wasn’t accepting a word of it. She felt a little miffed, and continued piously. She had received a task from heaven above; she would persevere.

“Fantasy,” he said. “Superstition, naïveté, silliness, and probably lunacy too.”

He was enjoying himself. “I believe in nothing. My mama, she believed the Cree stories. My papa, he believed the church stories. Me, I read Voltaire and think all religionists are demented.”

He laughed. “Naïve little thing that you are. And why do you wear a wedding ring, eh?”

“I am married. But I am going to have it annulled as soon as I can hire a church lawyer to plead for me.”

“Who to?”

“Dirk Skye. He is a translator for the American soldiers.”

“Skye? Ah, there’s a name, ma cherie, known to the whole world, if this one is the sprout of Barnaby Skye.”

“He is. His father was British, but lived here all his days.”

“And you want to abandon the son?”

“I already have. He’s—I loathe him.”

“Come in here,” he said, rising. He ushered her into the cabin. It was dark, it stank, it was filthy. Bunks lined two walls, rude projections from the logs. A kitchen was built around a hearth at one end.

“Welcome chez Trouffant,” he said. “We will hire you to cook and clean.”

“Here?” She was utterly repelled.

“Ah! I will hang some old tarpaulins and you will have your corner.”

“Tarpaulins?”

“Oui, ratty old ones no good for anything else. You live here, keep house, feed me and my sons, and build your church, eh?”

She stared at the layers of grease, at the small room with no partitions, at the single window high up the log wall.

Trouffant was grinning. “Wait here,” he said.

He slipped out and returned bearing an ancient canvas, which he soon hung up to make a dubious wall around a corner bunk. Then he beckoned. “See here. You get a buffalo robe and this, oui?”

“The canvas is full of holes!”

“The better to enjoy you, ma cherie.”

“But I don’t wish to be enjoyed!”

“Well, then just endure it. We will enjoy you even if you don’t wish to be enjoyed. You are young and delicious.”

“But I must keep my virtue, monsieur. What are your intentions?”

“To be as virtuous as you wish, but not a bit more, eh?”

“Is that a promise?”

“My promise is like that canvas wall, madame. It is full of holes, but it will suffice in the meantime.”

She reddened. She had never been in such circumstances. But oddly, she didn’t really mind, if the sons were as entertaining as the papa here. “And will your sons respect my privacy?”

“Not unless you sew up all the holes, madame.”

“Will you help me build my church?”

He smiled. “Who knows? Churches ruin people, eh?”

She was weary. Here was a bed, of sorts, in a cabin owned by a Métis, of sorts, with a shred or two of virtue, of sorts.

“I must take care of my donkey,” she said.

“I’ll do that. You start supper. At sundown, my boys will return and will be hungry.”

He vanished outside. She stared, wondering what she had gotten herself into. She would soon be enslaved, compromised, and ruined. Or maybe not. If he misbehaved, maybe he’d be the ruined one. The odd thing was, she welcomed the test of wills. The heathen versus the pious woman. The libertine against the virgin. She could not imagine why she didn’t just walk away, but she had no intention of that. And besides, Armand Trouffant intrigued her. She’d never met a rascal before, and now she probably would meet three.

She eyed the miserable stove, with a pot half-filled with dried, caked something or other. She didn’t trust it, so she took it out and emptied it in some bushes. She’d start some soup, if she could find any ingredients. Soup was the heart of most Métis meals. Soup could be made of most anything and turn out just fine.

She found a nearby creek and rinsed the pot in it, and then set to work. She discovered no meat, but there were carrots and squash in a root cellar, and those would have to do. But first, a fire. She collected some kindling and some shavings, and started to lay the combustibles in the stove.

“I’ll do that,” he said.

She whirled. Trouffant was carrying a slab of meat as well as some onions and potatoes.

“Good,” she said. “We’ll have a stew.”

He set the food on the table and laid the fire in the stove, and lit it with a lucifer. A flame swiftly rose in the stove, and she felt its heat rising through the cast-iron top.

“Madame, we’ll help you build your church,” he said.

“You? The heathen?”

“This is the most important thing to come upon us. My sons and I, we will build it.”

“With field stone?”

“Non, madame, log. Many logs. Hard work. And we will get others. We know a few. But we will make the church rise up, just like in your vision. And maybe that will rescue the people like us, eh? You are a special one, touched by something, eh? Who knows what is the truth. I don’t. I listen to Cree elders, I listen to priests and French elders, and I don’t know anything at all. But you came here, sent by Saint Therese, and I scratch my head and say, good enough. We’re going to build that church, eh?”

She began peeling onions, stripping away the brown husks, and then cutting them into pieces, weeping all the while.

“It is not the onions,” Trouffant said.

“It is the onions!” she snapped.