Читать книгу Mine Inheritance - Frederick Niven - Страница 24

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“Odd,” remarked Court Nez, “that we should meet here, us coming from Brandon and just going to make camp when we sighted the big herd and you coming from Pembina and sighting it dusting across in front of you. Yes, very odd our meeting—Baxter. Still shaking? Well, you’ll get used to that kind of thing. Had you any special liking for the lad that was killed or was it just the sudden death that caught you that way?”

“I felt sorry for him rather than liked him,” I confessed. “There was something childish about him.”

“There is something childish about most of us.”

Our horses were moving in unison, step for step, with flirting of dust from their hoofs and rhythmic swing of their long tails. At Fort Gibraltar I had felt strongly a revulsion against this man and as we rode side by side then I had also a feeling of being attracted to him. Revulsion and attraction indeed I was then again aware of together.

We rode down into a shallow coulee through the centre of which a narrow stream ran, some tributary perhaps of the Pembina River. Indian women were busy pitching tepees there and by the length and weight of the poles it was arduous work. Two of them had just completed the erection of one by which Court Nez halted and were setting up the pole which held in place, as the wind ordered, a cowl-like triangle of hide that extended from the tapering top.

“My wife and concubine,” explained Court Nez as the women walked away. “The Old Testament men had the right idea. I wouldn’t want as many as Solomon but many hands make light labour, you know.” He swung off his horse and commenced to unsaddle. “This is man’s work,” he said. “We do our own unsaddling. You’d better tie your horse. If you don’t he’ll go over to join his friends and you’ll have to find your folks’ camp afoot later.”

There was a fringe of trees along each side of the twisting creek in the bottom of that coulee, cottonwoods and willows. To a cottonwood nearby I tied my horse. One of the women began to carry bundles inside from a travois that lay upon the ground. The horse which had dragged it would be one of those then stepping and grazing, contentedly stepping and grazing, along the coulee slope. The other woman was tending a small fire in the open.

“Come in,” said Court Nez, and led the way into the tepee. He sank down to a sitting position on the ground very much in the Indian manner. “We’ll have tea presently. They know—soon as we camp—always.”

The two women came and went, paying no attention to me.

“Different from Renfrewshire,” remarked Court Nez as he watched them coming and going. Then he shot a quick glance at me.

I could not remember telling him that my home was in Renfrewshire. Sitting there he gave me the impression of a man who held strange secrets, gave the impression, in fact, of a man brooding upon these. And it was as though coming out of a melancholy reverie he spoke again suddenly, looking round the tepee.

“Comfortable they make them,” said he. “Buffalo robes to lie on and these wicker affairs behind you so that you can restfully recline. Sometimes I think even the Indians have too many possessions—possessions!—especially for a people who are on the move most of the time. But with more cows than bulls, of course,” and he gave a laugh that reminded me of that evening at Fort Gibraltar, “one can have several housekeepers. Aye, aye! Well, here’s our Soochow tea.”

One of the women came in with a smoked kettle such as most of the tribes used, carrying it by a forked stick in which its brail was held. She set it down before Court Nez and opening a box made of bark and covered with hide, parfléched, she took out two tin cups and a small sack of sugar and placed them beside him. As she turned to go out she spoke a word or two and with but a word or two he replied. She did not drop the flap when leaving and I saw her bending over another parfléched box in front of the tent and taking out two long, gleaming knives. I saw her pass one of these to the other woman—wife to concubine or concubine to wife as might be—and they departed.

“I have just been telling them that I killed four, and whereabouts,” said Court Nez. “I hope they have no trouble with the Pembina half-breeds in claiming them. I don’t know if you noticed the arrows of my people in dead buffaloes.”

“Not specially,” I replied. “As I rode back I had been thinking of Jules and looked only for him.”

“Otherwise employed, eh? Yes, you would be. I didn’t use bow and arrows, of course, but I did, after getting my last one, mark it and the other three on the way back with a slit in the ears for sign. But if you had looked at the arrows on any carcase you would have seen different colours in the hefts. Every man has his own markings. That prevents wrangling over possession. Great people! Simple. Direct. One gets to like them.”

“Some of them seem very dirty,” I said—I know not why, considering his marked friendliness to the race.

“Usually clean dirt,” he assured me, quaffing scalding hot tea with enjoyment. “And anyhow they are always trying to keep clean.” He gave his thick laugh. “You can tell who is most deeply and sincerely courting among them when you see one of the girls sitting down with a lad’s head on her lap and she going over it for him very carefully and affectionately with a small-tooth comb traded from the Hudson’s Bay Company, or more likely the Nor’-Westers, eh? More likely the Nor’-Westers. The Hudson’s Bay men have been content too long to sit in their forts and expect the Indians to come to them. These Nor’-Westers have pushed out to the ends of the land. Eh?” he snapped, as though prepared for argument, or inviting it.

What side, I considered, was this man on? Did he favour the Hudson’s Bay Company or the North-West Company? I tried to recall if there had been any indication of his leanings when we met at Fort Gibraltar? What had he contributed to the talk when it touched on the ownership of lands or rival rights of occupancy? Nothing that I could remember save an interjection to the effect that the land had been parcelled out between allegedly civilised nations without by your leave of the Indians.

“Have some more tea,” he suggested, and refilled my cup.

Twilight had been deepening in the coulee, in all the coulees, in all the creases of the plains, rising, brimming, running in the grass, and had given way to night while we talked. Outside I could hear voices of many people returning to the camp. There was a flicker of light at the entrance to the tent. One of the women came in. In her hand was a two-pronged stick, the prongs twisted so that it was a simple tongs, with which she carried flaming embers from the fire. She dropped them in the centre of the tepee, heaped them together, and up the leather wall behind Court Nez went his great shadow. He favoured the woman—wife or concubine—with a smile. She smiled back, went away, and returned with an armful of wood that, laid atop the small fire she had already put there, quickly ignited.

Suddenly there arose a sound extraordinary to me.

“What in heaven’s name is that?” I exclaimed.

“It is the mother, I expect, of the boy we buried, wailing for the death of her son.”

The sound rose and fell with utter melancholy. It accentuated in my mind that sense of the bigness of the land, gave me also a thought of its antiquity, of the ages long before the rivalry of Hudson’s Bay Company and North-West Company, long before the Hudson’s Bay Company’s charter. Above all, in that wailing, was the sorrow of all humanity for the fact of death.

“What was I talking about?” asked Court Nez. “Yes, the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Nor’-Westers. Here’s Lord Selkirk, one of the chief shareholders of the Company, and he arranges for Lord Selkirk of the Settlement Scheme to be sold an enormous tract of land for a mere song.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “And some of the Nor’-Westers, others besides Sir Alexander Mackenzie, I believe, bought shares in the Hudson’s Bay Company with no other reason than to baulk him in that.”

“Well, I don’t blame them. He gets that all for a song.”

“Conditionally,” said I, on the defensive. “The Hudson’s Bay Company retain justiciary rights over the territory.”

“Oh, is that in the deed? I don’t seem to have heard of that.”

“Yes, that is in it. And a certain proportion of the lots have to be kept vacant for retiring Company employees. And if the earl does not settle a certain number of people on the others by a given time the land goes back to the Company.”

“What, in that event, would become of those who had settled there?” asked Court Nez sharply.

“They would, of course, retain their property,” said I. “That’s in the contract.”

“Well,” said Court Nez, “as you know, the Nor’-Westers don’t like it. They think it spells the beginning of the end of the fur trade.”

“Captain Macdonell,” said I, “thinks that the Nor’-Westers themselves may live to be grateful for a settled community there, between them and America.”

“How blasted polite that Captain Macdonell is!” said Court Nez. “And he looked at me once, that night at Fort Gibraltar, as if he thought I was drunk! I can carry my liquor.”

He threw his empty cup down beside the kettle in a gesture of annoyance and then, elbow on knee, grabbed hold of his chin and mouth with a plucking hand, and frowned, meditating.

“When one thinks of the size of all Rupert’s Land,” I observed, “the space that the earl has purchased, conditionally purchased, is next to nothing.”

There was no reply. Court Nez might not have heard. His eyes, staring before him, had a blind aspect in them. But I continued:

“I wonder how many of the Hudson’s Bay factors will want to retire in the land instead of going home.”

The last words seemed to attract the attention of the brooding Court Nez.

“Going home?” he broke out, and then had the manner of a man trying to recall what has recently been said and only half heard. “Going home?” he said. “What would they want to go home for? Most of them, I should think, will want to stay in the country. A great country! I do not suppose you are homesick yet, are you?”

“No.”

“No! What part do you come from? It is Renfrewshire, is it not?”

“Yes, it is. What made you——”

“Oh, it may just be that thy speech bewrayeth thee, or it may be that I made a good guess.”

“Yes, from Renfrewshire—from Paisley.”

“From Paisley. Mother alive?”

“Yes, she’s alive.”

“Any other relatives?”

“Just a brother.”

“Just a brother. What does he do?”

“He is running a cartage, a haulage business. Our father had a cartage business.”

“Did he take it over from your father?”

“Oh, no. He did all sorts of things first after leaving school but in the end he was a clerk in a haulage business. He eventually started up for himself. Mother said it was very interesting that he should do so because not only our father but her father had been in that business.”

“Quite. I see. So your father—died—when you and your brother were both quite young?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “Yes,” but instead (out of my own uncertainty) I replied: “We do not know anything about our father.”

“Oh!” said Court Nez.

“I’ve no recollection of him,” I went on, “or only the very dimmest. I would not recognise him if I were to see him. I know that. He is just a sort of shape, faintly recalled. He went to one of the American colonies with the idea of setting up in business there.” I paused.

“Yes. And?”

“The ship he voyaged on was not wrecked. My mother heard he had landed, but she has never had a word of him from that day.”

“Phoo! He must have been killed by Indians. That is what happened to your dad.”

“It is generally believed that he is dead,” said I.

“Well, doesn’t your mother consider he must be dead, seeing she does not hear from him?”

“I’ve never been able to make sure.”

“Why did you leave your home?”

“To——” I paused. “To——” I began again and stuck.

Court Nez laughed.

“—make your way in the world,” he suggested. “Make a fortune. Young man with the world at his foot, eh?”

“It is sometimes hard to give a reason for the thing one does,” said I.

“That is so,” agreed Court Nez, “and that is honest. A reason, says you. I would say reasons for our actions. There may be various reasons. Your brother? What sort of a fellow is he? What age?”

“He is three years older than I. He’s the mainstay of the family, of the house. I did nothing much. He’s an exemplary fine fellow. The largest sum of money I ever gave my mother was when I left home, from an advance of wages I got from Captain Roderick.”

“Captain—Captain? Oh, what a hell of a lot of captains! Who the hell is Captain Roderick? Where is he? Do I know him?”

“He was recruiting for Lord Selkirk in Glasgow.”

“Oh, yes, Lord Selkirk. Quite so.” He had a gurgling fit of laughter. “Your brother ruled the roost and domineered over you.”

It was as much a statement as an inquiry. I stared in amazement.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said I.

“Wouldn’t say that? Quite so. Wouldn’t say it. But you got away from that condition of affairs instead of putting him in his place. So what will happen? You’ll take it out of somebody else. The chance will come for you, and because of the way your brother ruled it over you, you’ll rule ruthlessly over whoever you get under you.”

“Not at all, sir,” said I. “I don’t agree. Quite the reverse. All that has made me wish never to rule over anybody, or try to direct anybody, or act as if I thought I had the right to judge anybody.”

Impulsively I had spoken, and having spoken I realised that I had admitted to Court Nez—practically a stranger—that the brother I had called an “exemplary fine fellow” had been at least somewhat domineering.

“I see I was right,” chuckled Court Nez, “about one reason for your leaving home. Well, here you are in the service of that damnably polite Captain Miles Macdonell and as loyal in your heart to him, I surmise, as he is to his crack-brained earl. Now I’m a free-trader. I’m not being traitor to any, though you met me, my lad, in a North-West fort, when I tell you that it might be well for you to suggest to your people at Pembina to go hunting more to the sou’-west than the west, for if you head on west you’ll be meeting some of the Qu’Appelle half-breeds—whose chief occupation is supplying pemican to the Nor’-Westers. I know they are out there now. There might be trouble if you met. I don’t say necessarily any killing, but they might collogue with these kind friends you’ve made at Pembina and affect them with their own view of you Selkirk settlers.”

“Their own view of us?”

“Yes. As interlopers.”

I see.

“This is a warning, Baxter. I know what I’m talking about.”

“I see,” said I again. “Well, sir, it is very good of you to advise——”

“Don’t be so damned polite!” Court Nez interrupted. “I have my reason. What did I say? My reason? Yes, yes. Blood’s thicker than water. Or so to speak, so to speak. Two Lowlanders we are, two Lowlanders together, eh?”

The high keening lamenting cry of the Indian mother of Jules sounded again. He raised his head and listened.

“Indians,” said he. “I like to have them round me, to be with them. I could talk to you by the hour of the Indians but that might give you an ennui. Many years ago I married an Indian woman. It was our daughter you saw, my lad, that evening at Fort Gibraltar.”

Court Nez’s daughter! Court Nez’s daughter ... That beautiful girl who had set my heart racing, made me haunt the fort in the hope of seeing her again! Court Nez’s daughter! His eyes were keen, probing, sharp on me. I must not show on my face what my thoughts were.

“Where is she, sir?” I asked, and found my own voice strange to my ears.

“ ‘Where is she, sir?’ ” repeated Court Nez with mockery in his accent. “She is far from here. I have sent her to be educated at the Ursulines Nunnery at Quebec. Court Nez is this, Court Nez is that, Court Nez is the other, but he is devoted to that daughter of his. He would kill any one who did her harm. You understand me?”

“The man is mad,” thought I, because of the expression in his eyes then; and yet, recalling well indeed how the girl had affected me when I saw her for but a moment at Fort Gibraltar, and how Court Nez had observed me observing her, I felt his question had a definitely personal significance.

“You understand me?” said he again.

“Quite so. Yes, sir, indeed,” I replied, and thought: “This man is dangerous.”

His manner suddenly changed. When he spoke again his voice had lost the challenging and harsh note.

“Yes,” he said. “Berry Woman was the mother’s name in translation. She wanted the child to have a white name, so I called her Christina.”

“That is my mother’s name!” I ejaculated, happily. This girl was far away, far from Red River, far from the coteau. I might never see her again. But her name was my mother’s name. Wonderful! There was something I could look upon as a bond. There was something to ease my heart—at twenty-one.

“Indeed!” said Court Nez dryly. “A coincidence!”

The wailing voice came again.

“This business of dying is melancholy,” he muttered. His manner changed. He might have been but talking to himself, or heedless whether I attended. “When Berry Woman died I got these other women. They are none too bad, but they are not as she was. She was la belle sauvage.”

He sat silent a while, looked this way and that, fidgeted. I had the impression that my host was weary of me, that I had overstayed my welcome.

“I must be going,” said I, rising.

Court Nez made no response. I bowed to him and——

“Good-night, sir,” I said.

Court Nez made no response.

Was he, I wondered, deep in meditation, so deeply that he was deaf for the moment, or had he lived so long among the Indians that he had fallen into their way of going without an adieu when he went, and had no ears for it when it was spoken to him by one who was departing? I stooped out of the tepee half-expecting a tardy “Good-night” to follow me, but it did not.

The two women were still at work, dim shapes, moving between a travois and a tripod. A smell of fresh meat, a smell of blood was there. One of them, seeing me coming, walked towards where my horse stood dozing, hip-shot, his head hanging, faintly revealed in a flickering of firelight on the edge of the creek’s aspen and cottonwood border; but I went past her, loosened the lines, mounted, rode aslant up the slope of the coulee to where I could see the twinkle of the campfires of the people from Pembina.

I had a sudden return of the shudderings which had caused Court Nez to take me to his tepee. Up and down my spine and over my loins ran the cold again because of the voice of Jules’ mother rising and falling in lamentation. While daylight, or twilight, was still on the scene it had been sufficiently melancholy, I thought, for any human heart. In that domed night through which a bleak wind blew all the sorrow for the transience of life and the muteness of death was in it.

Then my thoughts went back to that man of mystery I had just left and I wondered why it was I felt both repelled and attracted by him. Of the Settlement I thought and was irked by the lack of pemican that delayed its fair founding. And, above all, of that half-breed girl I thought—Court Nez’s daughter. What a father! I said to myself, and so was back again at marvelling why he should rouse in me such contradictory emotions. Not only of Red River Settlement but of myself is this narrative—and it is less lacking direction than perhaps, so far, to some it may seem to be.