Chapter Twenty-Five

Once, to be with Samuel beneath a moon such as this was Catherine’s own version of paradise. But in no version in her imagination did they share the romantic setting with a deserter groaning again for lack of drink.

Bowed low in the bottom of the vessel, Gaspard trembled between Samuel and Catherine. At least his retching had stopped several miles upstream, but his suffering remained obvious to them. She only prayed it would not be obvious to anyone else. Reaching forward, she touched his back. Heat radiated from beneath the linen.

Samuel looked on, his profile severe with censure. “If fever wracks his mind as it did when he attacked me . . .”

“It may not come to that,” she whispered as she rowed. With Gaspard unable to help, she’d tied the steering oar into position, reaching to swivel it and make course corrections as necessary while she helped Samuel move the bateau north.

“I pray you’re right. But he may not have his wits at his disposal.”

Catherine knew that well enough. “Just let him rest.” For the past two days, she had matched their travel to the moon’s pull on the tide so the currents could carry them swiftly downstream, well out of view of any lookouts on the bluffs. The river had been two miles wide or greater since they’d left Trois-Rivières. The one time the bateau had drifted too close to shore, Gaspard had persuaded inquiring soldiers that all was just as it should be. All they needed to do now was keep quiet.

Bright Star had excelled at that, even when there had been no risk of danger. The first porting trip they’d made together after the loss of her family, Bright Star had been so silent that Catherine could scarcely believe she was the same sister who had once had so much to say. As children, Bright Star had been the first to grow up and quick to correct Catherine’s ways. But she’d also told the best bedtime stories, especially on the nights when their parents argued outside.

Almost as soon as Strong Wind and Gabriel began slinging harsh words by the fire, Bright Star had scooped Joseph and Catherine onto her bed and spun fantastical tales that always began with, “I have a story you just won’t believe!” And just like that, the ugliness between their parents faded behind adventure, love, loss, and reunion. Joseph was always the first to fall asleep, and then it was just the two sisters. Bright Star brushed the hair off Catherine’s sweat-damp forehead and gave her stories happy endings night after night after night. “Your kids are going to love that one!” Catherine would tell her, for she’d always known Bright Star was born to mother.

So when the silence had stretched for hours on their first trading trip together, Catherine had been the one to break it. “Tell me a story?” she’d asked, hoping to reach back to the place in time when they’d had at least that in common. Bright Star hadn’t responded right away. Then, “I’m all out of happy endings.”

Oars creaked in the oarlocks, and Catherine pulled herself back to the present. By the time she rejoined her siblings and Thankful after this trip, what tales would they have to share? Whatever lay ahead at Cap-Rouge and Quebec, the one thing she knew was that the story of her forced reunion with Samuel Crane would soon be at an end.

The bateau bobbed in the current, and Gaspard moaned again. Samuel offered him a canteen, but Gaspard pushed it away.

“What does he need?” Samuel whispered to Catherine. “What could make him feel better?”

“Aside from being on dry land, I don’t know,” she replied. “My father has never tried to give up drinking, so I have no experience with this.” Her lips tipped up on one side.

Samuel chuckled and shook his head.

Perhaps she ought not make light of Gabriel’s struggle, if one could call it that. “He isn’t a completely horrible person, you know.”

“Bright Star and Joseph would disagree, and I’ve seen enough myself to know why.” Finger to his lips, he began rowing once more.

While they resumed their silence, Catherine recalled fond memories that tempered her father’s faults. Gestures as small as tucking a wildflower into her hair had told her what his words rarely did.

The loons were muffled in the early morning fog. Dew settled a chill onto her skin and made heavy the braid coiled about her head. Not ten miles separated them from Quebec. The closer they were to gaining that city under siege, the more alert Samuel grew, a soldier preparing to rejoin the fight.

Thick mist hovered over the river and slowed their progress. Sounds, though dim, traveled across the water.

Voices.

Samuel’s back jolted ramrod straight. Catherine held firm the oar, tilting her head, straining to hear. Before she could distinguish the words, let alone the riverbanks, the bateau jerked and skidded to a stop. In the fog and her distraction, she had accidentally beached it on the shore. She winced at the scrape of the bateau against rock, unnaturally loud in the quiet morning.

Grunting, Gaspard sat up and peered around. He put a hand to his troubled stomach, but the tremors seemed to have passed.

“What’s this, what’s this?” A man emerged from the vapors, spying Samuel first. “Are you here to caulk? Monsieur Cadet sent you?”

Catherine could not believe their fortune. No suspicion laced the man’s tone as he mentioned the purveyor general of Canada. In fact, it seemed they would fit right in, exactly as Samuel had hoped.

Rallying, Gaspard licked his lips and replied. “Mais oui.” As the French soldier introduced himself to them as Richard Martin, Samuel climbed over the edge of the bateau and into the shallows. The river eddied about his buckskin-clad legs as he grabbed the vessel’s side with his good arm and pulled it farther onto the beach. Rocks crunched under the bow as it swiveled sideways, becoming parallel with the shoreline.

“There are four other caulkers here already,” Martin was saying. “Arrived not long before you, but . . .” He scratched his chin while looking at the bow of the bateau. “You’ve come from a different direction, it would seem.”

Catherine’s heart tapped an erratic beat. “The fog did not make you easy to find.” She climbed out and stood beside Samuel, feet wet inside her moccasins. Gaspard was slow to join her, his strength clearly not recovered.

“True enough.” Martin peered into the thick mist. “Went right past Cap-Rouge, did you, before you turned around again? Well, no wonder you’re later than the others.”

Gaspard introduced himself with a false name and explained that Samuel was a military captive skilled in bateau repair.

“We have need of that, for certain.” Martin straightened the hat on his head. “But pardon me, young lady, you cannot be here to caulk, too.”

“No.” The only explanation was the original plan she and Samuel had devised. The one Pierre Moreau had extinguished, the one that had flared back to life in Samuel’s mind in Trois-Rivières. “I have many skills, but caulking is not one of them. I came to offer the use of my bateau here, should you need it. It is seaworthy, and I’m a fine hand at rowing, so I’ll carry whatever cargo it bears myself.”

Martin grunted, then scratched the side of his bulbous nose. “A woman rower.”

She stiffened. “I’m a trader, monsieur. Voyaging is part of my business.”

His gaze narrowed on the knife hanging about her neck and her buckskin dress. “You savage women are such drudges, doing all the heavy labor while your men go off and hunt, eh? Seems you’re bred for strength, if not beauty.”

“I am just as French as I am Mohawk, which means I also possess the grace to be embarrassed by your lack of manners. You meet my generosity with insult.” She clicked her tongue. “It would seem you’ve been away from civilized company too long. Or do you simply have no need of aid?”

Martin scratched behind his ear. Behind him, several other men had come to inspect the situation. The fog began to lift its lacy veil, and beneath it, Catherine spied an armada of bateaux dragged onto the beach, away from the tide’s reach. A quick count revealed nineteen of them.

“That vessel looks solid,” one of the men called out to Martin. “Some of ours aren’t anymore and won’t be, no matter how much caulk they get.”

“What happened?” Gaspard pressed a balled-up handkerchief to his face and neck, dabbing fever-sweat away. What he needed was a bath.

“Holmes happened, that’s what,” Martin grumbled. “About fourteen miles southwest of here, the British Royal Navy pounced. We had already transferred the wheat from the schooners into the bateaux, expecting the smaller vessels to sneak past the British unnoticed. We were wrong.”

“Spotted you anyway, did they?” Gaspard asked.

“A British warship opened fire on us, so we had no choice but to beach at Pointe-aux-Trembles. We saved the cargo, storing some in the local church and the rest in wooden carts, but some of our bateaux did not handle the sudden landings well. Others were damaged by Holmes. He had us trapped there before an all-day rain turned the ground to quagmire. He gave up his attempt to make a landing and drifted downstream. It was a delay we can ill afford.”

“So you lost the use of a bateau,” Catherine prompted. “Or more than one, perhaps?”

A dark laugh erupted behind Martin. He waved it away, then composed himself. “All right, if you’re offering the bateau and your help to row it, we accept. Monsieur Cadet says the men at Quebec have just two days left of food—and I warrant those two days’ worth are reduced rations that wouldn’t amount to one decent meal when put together. Meanwhile, here we sit on thirty-three tons of flour and five hundred twenty-five bushels of wheat from Montreal. We’ll take all the help we can to get it north.”

Catherine sat in the shade of a tree and mended the moccasins of those who came to lay them at her feet. Her supply of patch leather already exhausted, she did the best she could with her awl, boring new holes through which to sew the seams together. The sinew in her patch kit had been quickly used, so she had taken to unraveling the fabric of an apron to salvage thread. Strips of it had already been ripped off for bandages for Gaspard, so whittling it further did not trouble her. The change of pace was a welcome relief for her shoulders and arms.

Every now and then, she paused to eat a few hazelnuts from their dwindling supply, saving the last of Fawn’s venison for later. She glanced up to see Samuel caulking a vessel and teaching Gaspard to do the same. The fact that they’d come without the necessary tools had not concerned the men here, as the policy among the French army was to supply men with what they needed only at the moment they needed it. Samuel made use of the tools sent with the four other caulkers and was not questioned. His skills were enough to recommend him, and Gaspard proved a reliable apprentice, though they both had much to lose if their true natures were discovered.

From where she sat, the mood at Cap-Rouge was restless and tense. With the morning fog but a memory, the sun set the red shale cliffs surrounding the settlement ablaze. The V-shaped cape off the St. Lawrence narrowed along the path of the Cap-Rouge River. Maples, oaks, and ash trees moved in the wind, gemstone-colored blurs of ruby, topaz, and garnet. On the north shore of the river, on the heights, lookout soldiers moved back and forth, patrolling for the enemy. From some place unseen, Catherine could hear columns marching, drilling.

Richard Martin ambled toward her and kicked off his moccasins, adding them to the pile beside her. Apparently, his turn drilling would be later. For now he sat cross-legged on the ground, squinting at the men repairing the bateaux. “He’s good, that Englishman you brought. Some of these bateaux were run aground so hard, I thought they couldn’t be saved, but he might yet prove me wrong.”

Catherine sent him a small smile. “He might.”

Martin turned toward the sun-sparked river. “We’ll make the final run to Quebec past Holmes’ squadron as soon as we finish repairs and get reloaded.”

She thrust her needle through a hole in the leather and pulled it through. “And when do you suppose that will be?”

“The night of the twelfth. So the day after tomorrow, we’ll hurry to reload the cargo and then set off at dark for the six-mile trip. Tidal conditions will be ideal then, likely the best of the month. You’re all right to row at night? Silently, like?”

She smiled. “I’ll manage rowing in the dark just fine.”

Martin swiped a hand across the back of his neck. “I figure we’ll leave around ten o’clock, and then the falling tide will carry us right quick starting about two in the morning. If all goes well, we’ll be in Quebec before first light at five thirty. None too soon, but not late either.”

Catherine’s hands stilled. “But we’ll be rowing right past Holmes’ squadrons? All nineteen bateaux?”

He raised his hands. “Real quiet-like, though! Just as silent as you please. They won’t see or hear us this time. That disaster where Holmes pinned us down won’t be repeated. They must have been tipped off by a deserter that we were near, that’s all. But on the twelfth, the British won’t even hear our own lookouts giving a challenge as we go by. And we’ve got a whole chain of outposts from here to Quebec, ready to fire on British ships should they harass us.” His grin creased his face.

“But why wouldn’t the lookouts challenge us and ask for a countersign?” Masking her eagerness, she bent over her work once more. Shifting a finished moccasin to the ground beside her, she drew its twin into her lap and inspected it.

“It’s being managed. Monsieur Cadet sent word from Sillery just today. Governor-General Vaudreuil has ordered Bougainville’s troops—the lookouts—to remain as silent as possible while our convoy passes by. No challenges.” He tapped the side of his nose. “The British will have no idea we’re bringing this campaign to a glorious close right beneath their noses. And all they’ve done so far is make useless attacks.” He pushed himself up and stood over her, the breeze pushing the smell of his unwashed body in her direction. “You’ll be ready, then? When the time comes?”

“I will,” Catherine told him, and he left. As she pushed her needle in and out of the holes in the leather, her thoughts darted in similar fashion, binding together what patches of information she held. New pieces and old aligned.

But with just one tug in the wrong place, it would all unravel.

“Tell me again.” Samuel adjusted his grip on the fishing pole. After a warmer than usual day, twilight had brought autumn’s crisp tang to the air. All along the shore of Cap-Rouge, other soldiers were catching their dinner, as well. Gaspard sat and watched, his shaking having returned. Rather than stop it with the rum now available, he chose to endure it. Soon he’d be home, and he wouldn’t show himself a drunk, an effort Catherine could respect.

Fishing net in her hands, she repeated in low tones what Richard Martin had revealed to her earlier that day.

“You’re certain,” Samuel prompted. “The plan is to deploy the night of the twelfth.”

Campfires cracked and popped along the beach where men cooked their catch and sent ribald laughter soaring above the flames. “I’m not mistaken.” Her fingers laced tighter into the net, eager to fill it with her own dinner.

In typical fashion, Samuel didn’t speak as he digested the information. A song rose up from a knot of soldiers behind them, while some on the bluff looked down, their silhouettes sketched against a burning sky.

The English search for laurels,

just like our fighters.

That’s the resemblance.

The French gather them in heaps,

the English can’t harvest them at all.

That’s the difference.

“They believe the British will attack at Beauport, if anywhere. Have you heard the same today?” he asked.

She had. “A considerable number don’t even believe that. They trust the British to be a scattered lot, all noise, no bite, who can do no damage before winter sends them off the river.” They were spies for certain now, though the intelligence had been freely given. The label rattled her conscience. They could be executed for this.

What had Joseph said at Odanak? What had he and Grey Wolf said before, after the French abandoned Mohawk hunting grounds without a fight? Catherine summoned the sentiments to mind. The French had not proven good allies to the People. Ties of friendship had already been broken. “The tides are changing,” Joseph had said. “We must be ready to change with them.” French, British, Mohawk. In Catherine’s mind, they were three pieces to one puzzle, but not one of them fit with another.

“They are confident.” Samuel’s musing was barely audible. “Too confident, now that they believe themselves so close to their aim. This will work in our favor.”

Rocks pointed into the soles of her bare feet as she waited for fish to bite. “I want this over,” she murmured, speaking of the war, not just the journey.

He seemed to understand. “We’ll speed the end. I heard the HMS Sutherland is anchored at Saint-Nicolas, with General Wolfe on board. Where is that? If we can get there, we won’t need to go all the way to Quebec.”

Catherine cringed. “It’s three to four miles from here. Upstream.”

His lips parted in surprise. “So we passed it already? How did we miss it? It’s a fifty-gun warship.”

“The fog, for one. But even if the mist hadn’t shrouded everything, we wouldn’t have been able to see it. The river is three miles wide at that point, and Saint-Nicolas is on the opposite shore.”

Samuel stared out at the water. In the distance, birds swooped, diving into the river and then flapping away with their catch. “Just as well. If we had reached the Sutherland first, we wouldn’t know about the plans to carry the grain. Now the question is, can we get there? If we leave after dark tomorrow?”

She wanted nothing more than to say what he wanted to hear. But she couldn’t. “It would be unlikely. Rowing upstream is challenging enough, but to do so in the dark, with the moon dragging us the other way . . . Saint-Nicolas is three miles behind us, and three miles across to the other side. Better to work with the tide, not against it, and let it carry us to another British ship, yes? Martin said the convoy would slip past Holmes’ squadron between here and Quebec.”

“Aye, that he did. But he cannot know exactly where they are. They might have gone back to Île d’Orléans or Point Lévis, opposite the city. Even if we come across them, Wolfe won’t be onboard. He’s the one who needs to hear what I have to say. He makes his decisions alone.”

Another peal of laughter from the beach speared the tension growing between them. “Your ultimate aim is Quebec, is it not?” Catherine reasoned. “So is Wolfe’s. You said yourself that Holmes may have returned there. So, too, Wolfe could be moving even now toward the city. If it comes down to a chase—our bateau in pursuit of a warship—we both know we’d never catch him.” She paused to let this sink in, scanning for any ears too close. “Aim true, Samuel. We’ll intercept the first English ship we come to, and they can send word with better channels than you and I have.”

He didn’t reply. Catherine stepped away from him, for she had said her piece and wished to end the matter there.

Slowly, he pulled back with the pole, then jerked it to set the hook. The tip of the willow cane arched.

Having shed her leggings, Catherine hastened to the water’s edge and stepped into the river. Bending low, she scooped up a walleye with the net, releasing the pressure on Samuel’s pole. It weighed five pounds or near it, she judged, which would make a fine meal for the three of them.

She carried it back to Samuel. Mindful of the fish’s strong jaw and sharp teeth, she held it while he removed the hook. He bent his head so that his chin grazed her temple. “Tomorrow, it’s our turn to swim,” he whispered. “We’ll take the bateau. After dark.”

Staring at the walleye’s cold, dark eyes, Catherine could only pray her counsel had been wise, and that they would not be caught.

Catherine could not stay asleep. Rolling to her side on the fur-topped ground, she bent her arm beneath her head and pulled a blanket over her shoulder. Her body was now firmly in the rhythm of retiring early and rising again before midnight. All the better, she reflected, for by this time tomorrow, she would be back on the shining obsidian river.

Only six miles separated them from Quebec. Fewer than that, certainly, until they would meet an English ship.

Her thoughts circled back to Joseph, Bright Star, and Thankful. She wore a track in her mind exploring every uncertainty surrounding each fate until she finally brought them to God in prayer. Please heal them, please protect them, please carry them safely home, be it Your will. It was a different sort of prayer than she liked, admitting that God’s plan might not be hers.

Stifling a groan, she abandoned all pretense of rest and stood. Pulling her stroud blanket about her shoulders, she slipped her feet into her moccasins. Her loosely plaited hair swung at her waist as she passed the guttering fires of the soldiers.

A lone figure already strolled the beach. Even before she could see his face, his gait and frame revealed him. Samuel neared, and her heart twisted with that blade of joy and sorrow.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He rubbed at a muscle in his shoulder, belying a soreness he would not admit.

Stars shone in the sky above them like chips of glass thrown across an unending bolt of black velvet. “There’s too much to think about. And wonder,” she added.

“You wonder why you agreed to come.”

“As if you ever would have given up your begging.” It was an attempt to make light of the risks she took and the circumstances leading up to their flight. It failed.

He stepped closer. “I’m sorry, Catherine, for what happened to Joseph. I’m sorry the ones you love were ever endangered.”

The ones I love. Catherine peered into the deep wells of his eyes and wondered if he knew he was among them, in spite of everything. Her love for Samuel had been through the fire and come out altered, but it remained. There were different kinds of love, indeed.

“I knew there would be dangers.” She tugged the blanket more tightly about her. “It was my choice to come. And after you told me about Lydia, it was my choice to stay with you. I don’t regret it.”

“We’ll see if you feel the same way tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. I can’t begin to thank you. Nothing I say or do would be enough.”

She didn’t argue.

The river lapped at the shore, glittering in the moonlight. It was both calming and bittersweet, for it was the rhythmic backdrop behind uncounted memories with Samuel. “After all we’ve been through,” she whispered, “I wonder if I’ll ever hear the river again without thinking of you.”

He didn’t respond. His feet were rooted on the rocks, but his expression showed that his thoughts were cast far away. “You’re so natural on the water. You enjoy it. I envy you.”

The cold ground leached the warmth from her feet. “What do you mean?”

“All my nightmares take place on the river. Or should I say, took place. Whatever my mind conjures in sleep is only a retelling of what has already happened. The first incident was my accident when I tried to escape my bondage to your father and ended up with a broken leg and dislocated shoulder.”

Catherine felt the blood mount in her cheeks. “That was my fault for sending you alone.”

He held up his hand. “No more apologies. No more excuses or regrets. Right now I just need you to listen.”

Crickets chirped, but slower now that autumn’s chill touched the air. It felt almost indulgent to speak like this. For hours upon the river, she had always talked to him with someone else present. Still holding her blanket about her shoulders, she nodded for Samuel to continue.

“That nightmare of being broken and alone before I was discovered—that’s nothing compared to the nightly hauntings of Joel’s death on the river near his home. When I married Lydia and moved into their house, I had to see that river every day, hear it rushing every spring. I couldn’t get Joel’s near-frozen, colorless face out of my mind for years. In the dream, his eyes are open and he’s reaching up to me from under the ice. I grasp his fingertips and then lose him every time. Every night, I watched him die again.” He spoke with little inflection, but his hand curled tightly at his side.

She wanted to reach out and lace her fingers through his. Instead, she said, “How horrible. And this dream has haunted you again on this trip?”

“Yes, at the start.” He slid her a troubled gaze. “But it’s changed. It’s not Joel I watch drown now. It’s you.”

Catherine inhaled sharply. “I do not believe that dreams are predictors of what will come. Your past is mixing with your fear. That’s all.”

But Samuel looked unconvinced. “I don’t think it’s a vision or a prophecy, either. But I’d be a fool not to realize that these last few miles to Quebec may not go as planned. It’s a gamble, and the stakes are our lives.”

“Shh!” She cast a look about her, senses growing sharp and tight. “We knew this going into it, before we ever left Montreal,” she whispered.

He cut his voice lower, stepped near. “I’ve been running through the possible scenarios in my mind. Gaspard could betray us by accident or by intention.”

“We’re not leaving him behind.” A cloud obscured the moon, then drifted away like gauze.

“I know. But be aware of the risk he adds. And rowing in the dark past French lookouts and British ships . . . Someone could fire on us. You could fall overboard, and if you die on this journey, heaven help me, for I don’t know what I would—”

“Samuel Crane,” she hissed. “Stop this. It’s too late to do anything but follow through.” It was not her life she thought of now, but Joseph’s. She could not bear the notion of his suffering being in vain. “Think again about those stakes, for they are higher than just our lives. This story is about more than just the two of us. The war needs to end, and if you can speed it, you must.”

But his chin hovered above his chest, and she could see that her words had failed to bolster him.

“This is what you were made to do,” she tried. “See a wrong and set it right. If bringing fight and famine to a close isn’t the right thing to do, then I don’t know what is.”

Wariness etched his face. “I was not made to be a spy or warrior.”

Dismay shot through Catherine. Were these doubts common to any soldier just before a dangerous mission? Did voicing them set them free, or would they siphon his courage away when he needed it most? “Samuel.” She gripped his hands, and the blanket slipped from her shoulders. “You were made to love and protect. Tell me about your children.”

His gaze snapped up. His hands warmed hers before he squeezed and then released them, crossing his arms over his chest instead.

“You’re doing this for them, right?” she pressed. “When the war is over, and you are home again with your family, I’ll think of them. I’ll be glad to imagine their happiness at your return. Tell me about them.”

Tenderness softened his features. “Joel is four now and the very image of my brother, from his green eyes to the small dents in his cheeks when he smiles. He says he wants to be like me, so sometimes I give him a board to hammer without any nails, and he pounds away at it, practicing for when he gets bigger. But the way he loves his mama—” He glanced at Catherine, question in his eyes.

“Go on,” she told him. “Tell me.”

Samuel shifted his weight, nudging a piece of driftwood with his boot. “His favorite thing is to bring her flowers in his dimpled fists. Never mind if his flowers are really onions he’s pulled from the garden, or weeds fit for a roadside ditch. Lydia treasures them all. You should see the bouquets on our kitchen table. They’re absurd, of course, and the smell—onions!” His shoulders bounced in quiet laughter. “Lydia tells him they’re sweeter than roses, though, and he is fit to burst his buttons with pride.”

The smile on Samuel’s face was so full and free, it unlocked Catherine’s last defenses. She wanted this joy for him, had wanted it for him ever since she’d first thought of him as her friend. He’d suffered enough. She wanted this love to light him up, even though it had nothing to do with her.

“He sounds absolutely charming,” she said.

The gleam in Samuel’s eye was unmistakable. “That he is, almost as charming as his sister. Our daughter, Molly, reached her second birthday this week. If you saw her, you’d know she’s mine. Hair like the sun, curls springing from her head. And her laughter . . . there’s nothing more infectious.”

“You have a daughter,” Catherine whispered tightly, overcome. “And a son and a wife.”

“I do.” His smile was gentle.

So was hers. “There’s your reason for what we’re about to do.”

A gust of wind swept between them, smelling of last night’s cookfires. Stooping, Samuel picked up the blanket Catherine had dropped and draped it once more on her shoulders. “Thank you.” Voice hoarse, his hands lingered on her arms for a moment. “Does this mean—that is, do you forgive me?”

Wrapping herself in the stroud, she pulled it tight. “I do.”