Читать книгу B.J. Bayle's Historical Fiction 4-Book Bundle - B.J. Bayle - Страница 20

There were no birch trees to be found on the windswept hills, and locating good cedar to cut into lengths for their boat was far more difficult than Thompson had thought it would be. They were forced to cut boards from many different trees, and most had to be carried more than five miles to the riverbank. Working from sun-up to sundown, however, the crew managed to finish the canoe in four days. So, early one morning near the beginning of July, they left by first light for the final journey down the Columbia.

Clearly, the men enjoyed the challenge as they guided the craft through foaming cascades, laughing and shouting as they fought to keep it in the middle of the river. Peter grasped the rope on Dog’s collar tightly and watched the scenery sweep past. It was a warm, sunny day, and in the meadows long grass mixed with purple, white, and blue flowers swayed in the steady breeze. Occasionally, he saw stands of trees smaller than those along the Kootenay and not so close together.

“Fifty-six miles,” Thompson called from the bow of the canoe, pointing to a wide stream pouring into the Columbia. “Spokane River,” he added.

In the late afternoon they landed not far from a small village made of poles covered with rushes. It was home to the Indians Thompson had hired at Kettle Falls. Before the men leaped from the canoe they tossed their paddles into the grass growing along the shore. Peter had seen them do this before and had wondered why. This time, pointing to a long black snake that shot from the grass and slithered quickly down a path, Thompson turned to Peter. “You see now why we may have need of your dog. That one is very dangerous, and your dog would find it before we did.”

A thrill of fear for his pet rippled up Peter’s spine. He grasped the rope he had fastened to Dog tightly and pulled the protesting animal to a tree close to where they were to wait for the village elders.

The Simpoil leaders arrived one by one, and when they were all seated, the chief, a dignified, wrinkled man with stone-grey hair tied in two braids, presented Thompson with a basket of roots and onions and two large salmon. Peter was delighted. Salmon was a fish he liked, and these were large enough for all of them to have a feast. His mouth watered and his stomach rumbled again. Beside him Boulard poked him in the ribs and whispered, “Order the voice inside to be quiet,s’il vous plaÎt, so that I may hear these important words.”

Peter grinned at his friend ruefully. He knew the smoking of the pipe would take time. With close attention he watched as the long, elegantly carved pipe was filled and offered to the sun and the wind in all four directions. The chief smoked first and then passed the pipe to Thompson who, after his turn, handed it to the elder next to him. When the pipe completed the circle, the conversation began.

Although the sun had long since dipped behind them, there seemed to be no indication that the chief would stop talking so his guests could eat. Bored with listening to words he didn’t understand, Peter amused himself by staring at the chief and willing him to stop talking. To his astonishment the chief sat down abruptly. However, it took almost as long for the interpreter to repeat the words — thanks for the arrival of the white man and hope that the next time Thompson came to the village he would bring guns, powder, axes, knives, steel, flints, and many other items. The chief’s interpreter said the Simpoil would pay for all that was brought to them. Right now they had only their hands and weak arrows to get game.

Thompson seemed to listen to the chief’s words with great care and promised to bring all he requested and more provided he gave them accurate information on the big river, particularly how well large, heavily laden canoes could travel up it.

Later, as at last they sat in a wide circle and dined on the salmon, deer meat, and berries the women had prepared, Peter found he was seated next to a young Simpoil barely older than himself. On the other side was one of the interpreters. With the interpreter’s help the Simpoil youth asked, “You find the meat to your liking?”

Peter nodded. “If your weapons aren’t good, how do you kill deer?”

“Many hunt in a big circle,” the young man explained. “With care we move to make the circle smaller and smaller until we are close enough to kill the deer we find.” He stared at the fire sadly. “Arrows of flint often do not kill, and the deer run away.”

Peter felt guilty that he was eating something that had been so difficult to obtain, so he decided not to take a fourth piece.

Thompson was so intent on getting as much information about the Columbia as possible that they didn’t leave until noon the next day. By early afternoon, they found another village where they had to stop and smoke with the people. Plainly, the Indians were unafraid of the white strangers and listened intently as the mapmaker described his reasons for coming to their village. They nodded at one another happily and then at Thompson when the interpreters translated his message. As Thompson talked, some of the villagers walked around Peter and the rest of the voyageurs, peering at their clothing and hair. Later, when Côté and Vallade used axes to split driftwood for their fire, their efforts were regarded with wonder.

Watching the village people, Peter thought of the times he had found life hard. Sometimes he had known hunger in Montreal, and many times they had had little to eat while crossing the mountains and beyond. But knowing the hunger would end when they returned east had made it easier to bear. Here the people had little to look forward to but search for food, make rush mats to cover the poles for their house, and find driftwood to burn. They didn’t seem unhappy, but he didn’t envy them, and he hoped the company would bring goods to make life easier for them. When they waved goodbye the next morning, he felt depressed.

At times, when the current appeared to slow, the men lifted their oars and allowed the canoe to drift down the river. The terrain on both sides of the river seemed to be drier and less fertile now. The soil was greyish-white, and the grass grew in short clumps. The pungent scent of sagebrush filled their nostrils when the breeze blew over the river, and the cries of hawks sounded eerily in the silence as they spiralled overhead.

Indian camps appeared more frequently now, and each time they did Thompson ordered the men to pull for shore. With the aid of the Simpoil interpreters, he engaged the Indians in conversation, always explaining he was there to learn if it was possible to bring trade goods down the river. Without fail both men and women seemed more than happy to agree to trap for furs and trade them for the goods Thompson would bring.

It was easy to see now that some of the voyageurs were getting impatient with the time spent at these villages — stops that lasted anywhere from an hour to all night. But Thompson wouldn’t risk offending any of the Indians along the way. “They’re good people,” he said. “They ask for very little.”

By Thompson’s calculations they were at a village near the confluence of the Snake River when the Simpoil said it would be useless to go farther since they didn’t know the languages of the people down the river. “This is trouble,” Boulard said.

Thompson appeared unconcerned, though. “There are a man and his wife here who wish to return with us to their village downriver.”

Boulard seemed surprised. “They speak our language?”

Thompson shook his head. “Charles, our steersman, speaks a little of the man’s tongue. He’s the one who told me the man wishes to go with us. I think he’ll prove to be of help.”

Charles was able to translate, but in Peter’s opinion this made conversations with village people even more lengthy and tedious. Thompson, however, was pleased, for several of the chiefs they met asked for a post to be built on the river, and he promised that would be done where the Snake River emptied into the Columbia.

Peter received that bit of information with dismay. Did that mean they would have to camp long enough to build a fort? he wondered. With each day that passed it had become increasingly clear that when they returned to the east they again would cross the height of land in the winter. It was an effort to keep his feelings from showing on his face when they reached the waters of the Snake and Thompson ordered the boat to shore. But Peter breathed a sigh of relief when the mapmaker announced they wouldn’t camp there. On Thompson’s orders Côté and Vallade stripped a tall pine of most of its branches, then the explorer firmly tied a paper to the tree.

While Thompson stared up at the paper, lost in thought, the men whispered, “What is it on the paper? What does he say?”

Peter read the notice carefully, then said, “The paper is a claim to the land all around this place in the name of England. And it states that the North West Company will build a trading post here.” He examined the paper again. “And Mr. Thompson signed his name and the date — 8 July 1811.”

If their leader had planned a small ceremony to honour the occasion, he must have been disappointed, for the men granted him only a quick cheer and leaped back into the boat, ready to take on the mighty river again.

The Columbia widened to about eight hundred yards as it carried them southwest on fairly placid water. Suddenly, on the left, a huge white mountain loomed over the trees. It was so perfectly shaped in a cone that Peter thought it looked as though it had been drawn on a piece of blue paper. From his place in the bow Thompson said, “That mountain is called Hood. It was first seen by the captain of a ship named the Columbia, hence the name of this river.”

Silently, Peter rejoiced. Months ago Thompson had spoken of Mount Hood. This had to mean they were near their destination. If there were no more rapids, perhaps they would be at the mouth of the river in a few days. However, the calm of the Columbia proved to be deceptive when Thompson suddenly called out a warning to Charles.

The mapmaker pointed at the walls of rock that jutted menacingly into the river, shrinking its width to less than a hundred feet. Even from that distance Peter could see the river raging high against the vertical slabs of basalt that forced the water into a boiling torrent. As one man, the paddlers pulled hard for the shore, but they made little headway as their canoe gained speed and the current swept it sideways toward the rocks.

The velocity of the current kept increasing, and Peter anxiously watched the efforts of the men as they paddled more rapidly than ever before. One moment they seemed to gain distance, and in another instant they appeared to be losing their struggle until Boulard, waving his arms and shouting, urged Charles to point the helpless craft at an angle to the shore. When the steersman did so, it seemed they were getting closer to the beach, but the cliffs loomed close enough now to cast a shadow on the small boat.

About ten feet out Charles suddenly leaped into water up to his chest, the rope in his hand, and began to pull. Boulard, too, jumped in, followed by Vallade, and waded to the bow of the canoe to help the steersman. Following Thompson’s lead, Peter snatched one of the paddles they had dropped. His arms ached with his efforts to help keep the back of the canoe from swinging around and allow the current to broadside the canoe, and his breath came in ragged gasps. Long moments passed before the boat landed on a narrow strip of stones and dirt not more than fifty feet from the first perpendicular slab of rock.

No one spoke until the canoe had been pulled out of the water and they had dropped beside it. It was Charles who broke the silence when he glared at the two passengers they carried and shouted at them angrily. The woman seemed frightened, but the man rose from his seat on the ground and answered in kind. The conversation lasted for several minutes before Charles turned to Thompson, disgust written on his face. “He say people of the village where we stopped did not tell him bad waters were ahead. He say we passed his village. They go back now.”

Boulard’s eyes followed the man and his wife as they walked upstream along the river. Dripping water, the big voyageur trotted after them when they disappeared around a sharp bend about a half-mile away. Peter, meanwhile, sat with the rest of the group staring upward at the sheer face of the hill they had to climb. It appeared to be impossible. For a moment even the mapmaker looked defeated, but his face changed quickly when Boulard reappeared, calling his name. ”David, there is a way. The man and his woman followed a trail made by animals.”

“A trail for animals, not men, to be sure,” Côté grumbled as they struggled up the zigzag path, sometimes pulling, sometimes carrying the canoe.

Boulard heard and replied with in an exaggerated tone of hurt, “Me, I am very happy I have the great intelligence to find this trail. Perhaps you would prefer to fly in the canoe over the water?”

As the two men bantered back and forth, Peter’s feelings of admiration came to the fore again. When Thompson agreed they would portage on that trail, Boulard had been the first to jump hip-deep into the river to push the heavy canoe along the shore while Côté had snatched the bow rope to pull. They had managed to get their craft upstream again to the beginning of the trail where each, including Peter, made two trips uphill and downhill until they crossed the land above the rocks, carrying bales and boxes of goods and the hindquarter of a horse, the last of their food.

The work was heavy, but no one stopped to rest. The man and woman who had disappeared might be blameless, but then again they could have hurried to tell their village of the big canoe and what it carried. If the village was large, the brigade could be hopelessly outnumbered.