A Dark and Promised Land (16 page)

“Leave that with her,” he says. Iskoyaskweyau nods and places it in her hand.

Alexander stands up. “Everyone, gather around, please,” he says to the watching colonists. “Mr. Turr, perhaps you might say a few words?”

The brigade shuffles up, with several black looks to Iskoyaskweyau.

Turr rubs his jaw. “The twenty-third psalm, I suppose? Has anyone a Bible?” There is an embarrassed silence. “I see. Well, I shall do my best.” He clears his throat. Everyone except Iskoyaskweyau lower their heads. The Indian sits on the ground beside his wife, and looks out over the river

“We are gathered here to mourn the passing of this poor woman. Her life was like that of most of her kind: full of savagery and hardship and brutally cut short. Such is the lot of those who live without the grace of our Heavenly Father …” Rose walks over and places her hand on his arm and speaks into his ear. “Are you sure?” he says, looking startled. Rose nods.

Frowning, he addresses the company again. “I have just been informed that our sister here has been baptized, and was in fact a Christian. Praise …” At that moment, a crow discovers an owl hidden in a nearby spruce and begins a frightful racket. Several other crows immediately gather, perching on nearby trees.

“Our Lord,”

Caw-caw-caw

“
That He found this …”

Ca- caw-caw

“Child in the …”

Caw-caw-caw

“… wilderness …” Turr's face turns a bright scarlet, but still he perseveres.

Caw-caw-caw
“… and in his …”
caw-caw-caw
“… mercy …”
caw-caw-caw
…

Declan takes two long steps, and before Alexander can react, the Highlander grabs his carbine and fires into the trees. The suddenness of the report makes everyone jump, and the crows burst protesting into the forest. The report chases itself with an echoing crash down the river valley. Declan hands the carbine back to Alexander.

“Thank you,” Turr says. “Where was I? Oh, yes. And so we thank our merciful Lord that he has shown his light to this poor sinner, that she might indeed be part of His holy harvest. We pray that he forgive her evil and Savage ways. Amen.”

“Amen,” they all chorus.

“Where shall we bury her?” someone asks.

“We shall not,” Alexander replies. “Iskoyaskweyau shall stay behind to build her a coffin. He will carry her into the forest, where she will be placed in a burial mound. This is their way.”

Muttering breaks out among the men. One of the Highlanders approaches. He stands in front of Turr, feeling the weight of his fellows behind him. He is a small, round man with a yellow face and a greasy horseshoe of bluish-grey hair about his temples. His eyes are the colour of ashes. As he stands in front of the officer, he spreads his legs a little.

“Mr. Turr, we canna allow this; if she were Christian, she be deserving of Christian law. It is not right that man be left free.”

“Since when did you care what these people do to each other, Mr. Burgess?” says Turr, cocking an eyebrow.

“I never liked those bastards, Mr. Turr, and there be a good man lying in there with his guts hanging out. That savage should be stretching hemp.”

“Oh, indeed? But Mr. Cromarty has not yet succumbed to his wounds, and there are circumstances that you have not considered. Like where the Indian came by the liquor in the first place. We all know the Savage does not tolerate drink, which is the reason I limit the distribution of spirits. But someone pilfered a keg last night, with tragic consequences. I would like to know who that person is.”

“The Savage …”

“Does not go near the boat. Ever. No, it was one of you, a verminous scoundrel who has not the balls to step forward and take responsibility.” He glares at Burgess, who stares right back. “She is the Savage's wife and will be dealt with according to their custom. I will hear no more of it!”

Lying in the steaming heat of the sweat lodge, Lachlan spends the day drifting in and out of sleep. When he at last fully awakens, he cannot tell what time it is, the only light coming from the coals of the fire. The smoke burns his eyes, although he can see the lodge is empty. His side feels as if on fire and perspiration beads his face and forehead. He yearns for his daughter to be with him, but is too weak to call for her. A twig snaps in the fire.

He remembers that day in Stromness, the day his life changed. It was cool and raining, the spring grass growing in the cracks of the cobbles and the rain-polished stone houses. The air was filled with the rich smells of peat and kelp fires wrapped in the muddy aroma drifting down from the tidal flats of Hamla Voe.

Sitting at his window, he had the shutters open, listening to the rain and staring at the Whitehouse Rock lighthouse across Stromness harbour. He had been composing that afternoon's Greek lesson when the sight of the harbour distracted him. He often looked down at the comings and goings in the harbour, at the lovely ships and the green islets of inner and outer Holm bejewelled with countless white seabirds. Like a scholar, he often wished he was elsewhere, yearned to walk across those heath-covered rocks, stealing eggs and frying them on a peat fire overlooking the great barques, sloops, whalers, and frigates crowding the harbour.

The sound of footsteps echo in the narrow, winding street, and he saw the figure of the father approach, his black cassock swinging. Tall and gangly, the priest often reminded Lachlan of a black stork. But he could tell by the man's quick steps that there would be no smoking in front of the fire that day, as they often did, musing on the finer points of philosophy and Greek poetry.

“Good morning, Lachlan,” the priest said, spotting him in the window. “You seem like one contemplating truancy, if I am to judge the wistful manner in which you stare out your window.”

“You are correct, Father, for there are times when I feel it would be worth a beating just to flee from here and run wild upon yon hills.”

“And the beating well deserved, the misdemeanor being worth thrice the price,” the priest responded, but Lachlan noticed that he did not smile.

“So what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? May I offer you some tea?”

“No, thank you, my son, I cannot stay long.” They sat in Lachlan's office, a small damp cave wherein as the master of the school he meted punishment to students, convened with the schoolmistress, and composed his lessons. A massive oak desk dominated the room, with a Bible resting on one corner and a cane on the other, the twin pillars by which he impressed his authority upon the student population. There was barely room left for the two of them. Lachlan leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe.

The priest sat upright on his own chair, his dark head almost brushing the low ceiling. He watched Lachlan with eyes that were large and sad, in a face that carried the marks of a life spent toiling in the service of others, fighting a battle that could not seem to be won. His hands were very large with long fingers and knobby knuckles, and he rested them on his threadbare cassock.

“Will you not smoke, Father Louttit?”

“I doubt I will enjoy a smoke with you in here again, my friend. The Society has decided to close the school.”

Lachlan stopped mid-puff, crossed his hands on his stomach, and stared out the window for several minutes. At last, he turned back to the priest. “Can you tell me why, Father?”

“Listen,” he replies.

“I hear nothing.”

“Exactly, my son. Subscriptions have fallen drastically this past year.”

“But Father, 'tis the noon meal …”

“Forty percent, they tell me. You must know how things are in the village, Lachlan. Many can find no employment. Poverty is rampant, and some of these men returning by ships have brought disease. There are whispers of plague returning, and many people are leaving Stromness, at least those who can afford the school's fees.”

“This is not very good news, Father.”

“Indeed, but the Society for Christian Knowledge is not heartless.” The priest looked at him with a wry smile. “You are an accomplished headmaster, and the Society recognizes this and wishes to keep you on, but in a slightly different capacity.”

So the priest told him about Red River and the New Colony, and the Society's belief that knowledge must follow into the wilderness to keep the settlers from falling backwards into darkness. Lachlan would begin the very first school at Red River.

He was at first shocked at the suggestion; he had never been away from Scotland in his entire life, and now they wanted to send him, at the age of thirty-nine, to a tiny settlement deep in the heart of what surely was a dark and savage land.

He had at first refused, but the priest told him to think about it. “I suggest you make good use of the next seven days and decide what is truly best for you and your daughter. It is a challenge, I agree, but not one beyond your capacities. I will return in a week for your answer. Until then, God keep you.”

He and Rose did just that, spending their evenings around the fire talking about the possibilities for them, both in Orkney and in the new colony. Lachlan was concerned that his daughter had not yet been courted, and that her prospects would be greatly lessened if they were to settle in remote Selkirk's Grant, which was where the new colony was located. They spoke with people who had family and friends working with the Hudson's Bay Company, but these were individuals planning to return to Orkney after their usual seven-year contract at the Bay. No one knew of anyone who had surrendered their life on the islands and moved permanently to Red River.

“Be thou careful, schoolmaster. I's heard of some troubles out West,” a neighbour told him.

“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

“Ah dinna ken, ah only knows at I's heard, from the boys off the boats from the Bay. Settlers stuck in Prince William Fort for the whole winter; trouble with the Indians or something. Best watch out for thy lass.”

When he mentioned this to Rose, she just shrugged. “Here, there, life is not easy no matter where we are, Father. There are troubles in Mainland, too.”

He had to agree with her. Just the previous day, a storm had blown through Mainland; it was a fierce sou'wester, and, channelled by the mountains of Hoy, had wreaked terrible damage to the barley crop used by many crofters to pay their annual rent to the lairds. As if life for the poor was not difficult enough.

He had walked on Brinkie's Brae, the heather-capped ridge looming over Stromness. The hills were vacant but for the occasional flock of sheep stark against the emerald hills and a cool, fresh wind blowing in from the sea. Lachlan had a deep love for these empty, barren places, but as he bent and dug his fingers into the thin soil, he was reminded of the precariousness of life in the Orkneys. The island could not feed itself if the frost came too early or a summer storm destroyed the crop.

Remnants of ancient feudal systems still held sway, and most farmers still struggled to grow enough to feed themselves and satisfy the lairds. Lord Dundas, William Watt, James Riddoch William Graham, and William Honeyman all grew fat while their tenants starved.

Year after year spreading dung and kelp over the fields, sowing and praying that the crop will come. Sometimes it did.

Thin rocky soil; jealous soil. A turnip garden behind a damp stone house where an entire family lived with their animals. No windows, a smoky peat fire, muddy floor. Hunger always sleeping in their doorway. Walking barefoot in the mud, stepping unheeding in the cow's dung. Filthy children rolling among the animals, ignorant and barely civilized through no fault of their own, left behind by a world where nations are born under such banners as “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,” and “All Men Are Created Equal.”

Just then, a deep boom had echoed from the harbour. On Stanger's Brae, overlooking the entrance to the harbour, sat a cannon captured from an American privateer. It was fired to herald the arrival of the Hudson's Bay Company fleet. Climbing onto the crest of Brinkie's Brae, Lachlan looked down at a flotilla of three Company ships approaching the harbour. The clouds to the west broke and slanting sunlight shone through their billowing white sails. The sight took his breath away.