Читать книгу B.J. Bayle's Historical Fiction 4-Book Bundle - B.J. Bayle - Страница 17

When a rush of adrenaline overcame his fear, Peter glanced right and left. To try to circle around DuNord would be foolhardy, even though he might be able to outrun the heavy man. Somewhere to his left was the river — not a good choice. He tensed himself to dart deeper into the woods, then paused uncertainly. DuNord had stopped twenty feet away and was looking at him with a strange expression.

“I will do so no more,” the hulking voyageur said. Puzzled, Peter waited, and DuNord repeated his words, adding, “I swore the oath. No more will I strike a dog.”

Peter’s mouth dropped open in surprise, and he stared back at the man.

DuNord gestured impatiently and frowned. “Many things in my life I have done, but never did I break the oath.” With that he turned on his heel and trudged back through the trees.

Peter’s mind whirled as he watched DuNord disappear into the forest. He wanted to call after him but didn’t know what to say. Shaking his head, he thought about what had just happened.

Slowly, Peter retraced his steps to the camp where he found Dog curled against a wide-branched pine tree in a soft pile of drifted snow. The campfire was sputtering, popping sparks onto the damp ground each time Boulard poked it with a stick. Thompson was leaning against a rock cleared of snow as he used his knife to scratch words on a piece of bark. Beside him stood Thomas, and nearby Villiard, Côté, and Pareil waited with heavy packs on their backs and straps around their heads. Peter felt a cold chill run up his spine. Were they leaving, too?

Thompson straightened and handed the strip of bark to Thomas. “Give this to William Henry and ask that he copy it on paper before he sends it on to Fort William.” Then, to the waiting men, he said, “Take care through the pass if you choose to walk on the river. The ice might not bear your weight now. And take from the provisions we cached in the tree where we lightened the load for the dogs.” Almost as an afterthought he added, “It’s possible William Henry can’t give you all the provisions we need. Please be sure to tell him we thank him for what he can spare.”

Packs on their backs and leading the sleds they were ordered to leave with William, the men grinned as they waved and left the camp. Thompson looked at those who remained — Boulard, Vallade, L’Amoureux, and Peter. “It’s now near the end of January. So we have about two months to wait for the snow to leave the river. We must first build a shelter and then find the means to build a canoe of sufficient size to carry men and goods. It will be a daunting task to find wood for the canoe. I walked a distance in these woods and found birch, but it appears the rind is too thin for our use. For shelter there is cedar aplenty, though the size of the trees may wear our axes down to the handles.”

It was work enough to hack at the giant cedars to bring them down and split them into boards to line their shelter. The men had been skeptical when they first viewed the mighty cedar they were to cut down with two-pound axes. It was one of the smaller trees — about thirty-six inches in girth, but its branches reached to the sky. Working with a thin plank they had used to clear a place for the fire, Peter scraped away the four-foot-deep snow to make a large square beside the river. Then the men lined the sides and the floor with rough boards they managed to chop from the tree. More boards covered the top, and for the first time in five months Peter slept under a roof — one that leaked when the falling snow melted, but still a roof.

The last of the flour and fat had long since been eaten, but there was no lack of meat, for the deer survived by stamping the snow around patches of brush to nibble on all winter, thus creating a roofless shelter of their own. They were trapped in their shelters, making them easy targets.

Without success David and Boulard searched a wide area for birch trees with rind suitable for a canoe. The men seemed to be startled when Thompson proposed they build one by splitting cedar boards and lashing them together, but they set to work again hacking at a tall tree. Peter took his turn with the axe, and though his arms ached each night, he was glad to feel his muscles harden. He was happier still when — in mid-February — he heard Villiard cry a greeting and saw Pareil appear through the trees, followed by his companions who were leading a team of dogs pulling a loaded sled.

When the greetings were over, the sled was unloaded to reveal almost a hundred pounds of fat and plenty of gunpowder and lead, along with a bit of clothing material and three packs of trade goods. The men looked apologetic, and Villiard explained that William Henry had given all he could spare and had wished them Godspeed.

Thompson praised the men for their quick return and added, “The fat will go well when we cook the moose. They’ve been remarkably thin and their meat difficult to chew, and we can use some of that fat to make soap.”

“And perhaps you brought a wife with you,” Boulard said as he peered at the empty sled. “Who then is to cure the hides of these thin moose so we may braid it into ropes?”

Even Thompson laughed. It had been Boulard’s task to dig pine tree roots from the frozen ground to use in lacing the boards together for the canoe, and he would have appreciated a length of sturdy rawhide to use instead.

Thompson no longer spent hours after dark searching the sky and writing in his new journal. Instead he worked beside the men, hacking and sawing. And, in spite of the strain on his one good eye, every night he read a chapter of the Bible by firelight. Peter liked hearing stories from the Bible, but he preferred the later hour when the talk became general. Often one of the men would tell of an experience he had had in the past. Villiard and Côté both had come from small farms not far from Montreal, and Pareil had once lost his britches escaping from a bear. Boulard, too, told stories of his youth, many involving la femme.

Thompson listened with apparent interest but volunteered nothing about himself until Pareil bluntly asked, “And you, Monsieur Thompson, how is it you left your country to live in this land?”

Peter held his breath, for he sensed the explorer didn’t like to talk about himself. However, after thinking for a few moments, Thompson told the men what Peter already knew. The school he had attended in London had arranged for him to join the Hudson’s Bay Company. Thompson, though, said nothing of how he felt about being sent to a strange world.

Plainly emboldened by Pareil’s success, Côté asked, “How is it you are no longer with the Hudson’s Bay Company?”

For a long moment Peter thought Thompson wouldn’t answer, but finally he explained. “I was with them for more than six years and might still be had they not broken their promise to allow me to leave off trading for furs and survey and explore for them.” Stretching out his leg, he knocked on it and went on. “I had broken this in a few places, and whilst it was mending, Mr. Turnor, their surveyor, taught me his craft as well as how to study the stars and soil and all things that grow. He loaned his books to me, as well. It was the most interesting winter of my life.”

The group around the fire waited expectantly when Thompson paused and poked at the fire with a stick before he continued. “In all else the Hudson’s Bay Company treated me well. After seven years, when my apprenticeship was finished, instead of the customary new suit of clothing, I asked for surveying instruments. They obliged me with a very good set as well as a ten-inch brass sextant and a salary of fifteen pounds a year. I used the money to buy more books.”

“Why then …?” Côté began, and was interrupted by Thompson.

“Why did I leave the company? It was as I said. I learned they had been given a mandate along with their large grant of land that obligated them to survey and explore for the good of England. That was why I signed on with them for another seven years. When it became known to me there would only be trading for furs and little surveying, I left with my good friend Boulard.”

“It is true,” Boulard said. “And what adventures we had in those first days when our good North West Company ordered you to survey the forty-ninth parallel and find the company posts that must be moved or discover themselves in the United States.”

Vallade’s eyes widened. “This is true?”

“Of course,” Boulard retorted. “Did I not say as much? England and the Americans to the south agreed which land is theirs, and Monsieur Thompson made the line on the map that we may know also.” He chuckled. “You may be certain there was much excitement when we learned that Grand Portage was six miles on the American side. They moved it pretty quick, I tell you.”

Hoping Thompson would speak of these adventures, Peter started to ask a question of his own, but the mapmaker yawned and stretched, announcing it was time for bed.

As the days went by, and the hoped-for success in binding the boat boards together turned into failure, the builders became snappish. Dog, as though she sensed the mood of the camp, followed more closely on Peter’s heels and leaped about to keep out of the way of the men. Finally, after a month of planning and working by trial and error, the boat was finished and ready to be tested in the river. Peter watched anxiously as it was lifted — two men on each end — to be taken to the water. Before they took three steps, however, it broke in half.

That night Peter heard Thompson confide in Boulard. “It’s possible I ask too much of these men. I’m concerned that even men as loyal as these might become discouraged and leave us.”

Boulard was silent for a moment before he replied. “They are accustomed to hardship, but hardship and work from dawn to dark without knowing if it will ever end is not good, my friend.”