The Tenderness of Wolves (12 page)

Knox feels a wave of irritation at the events of this evening. At Mackinley’s officiousness and certainty, at the prisoner’s raw and powerful presence, even at the unfortunate Jammet and his messy death. In its short life Caulfield has always been a peaceful community that has no gaol and never needed one. Now, for the last few days, wherever he looks there is violence and bitterness.

His wife is still awake when he goes upstairs. Even when the man Parker is out of sight, he is in everyone’s mind. There may be a murderer in their town, separated from them by thin wooden walls. There is something about the man that makes it easy to believe in his guilt. A man cannot help his face, of course, and should not be judged by it. Is that what he is doing?

‘Some people don’t make it easy for you to like them,’ he observes as he undresses.

‘Are you talking about the prisoner, or Mr Mackinley?’

Knox allows himself a suppressed smile. He looks at her face and thinks she looks tired. ‘Are you all right?’

He loves the way her hair waves when she lets it down, just as lustrously brown as when they married. She is proud of it and brushes it for five minutes every night until it crackles and clings to the hairbrush.

‘I was going to ask you the same question.’

‘Quite all right. I’m looking forward to all this being over. I prefer Caulfield when it is quiet and dull.’

She shifts over as he climbs between the sheets. ‘Have you heard the other news?’

He can tell by her voice that it is not good. ‘Other news? What is it?’

She sighs. ‘Sturrock is here.’

‘Sturrock the Searcher? In Caulfield?’

‘Yes. Mr Moody has met him. He knew Jammet, apparently.’

‘Good God.’ He never ceases to be amazed by what his wife can pick up on the rumour circuit. ‘Good God,’ he repeats quietly. He lies down, doubts crowding into his mind. Who would have thought Jammet had so many unseen connections? Some peculiar power extends from the empty cabin, drawing the unlikely and the undesirable to Caulfield, in pursuit of who knows what. He has not seen Thomas Sturrock for ten years, not since shortly before Charles died. He has tried to forget that meeting. Now try as he may, he cannot think of an innocent reason for Sturrock’s presence.

‘Do you think he did it?’

‘Who?’ For a moment he can’t remember what it is she is talking about.

‘Who! The prisoner, of course. Do you think he did it?’

‘Go to sleep,’ says Knox, and kisses her.

The day before they left, Donald spent valuable time combing Scott’s store for a present for Susannah. He considered buying her a fountain pen; although it would be an apt present on parting, she might find it too heavy-handed a reminder of her promise to write to him. There was a limited choice of items, and in the end he settled for an embroidered handkerchief, ignoring the potential implication that he might be expecting her to cry in his absence–she probably wouldn’t think of that.

That afternoon Susannah loitered for hours in the library of their house, waiting for Donald to find her by chance, leafing through a book. She had the opportunity to read one right through by the time he finally realised what was going on, but had not; the novels in the library were mostly dull, having been chosen by her father when young, or by Maria, who had strange tastes. Donald heard her cough, and timidly opened the door holding one hand behind his back.

‘We are leaving tomorrow. Before dawn, so we won’t see you.’

She hastily put down the treatise on fishing and glanced at Donald with her irresistible sideways look. ‘It will be very dull without you.’

Donald smiled, his heart rioting inside his ribcage. ‘I hope you don’t think it a liberty, but I bought you this. I wanted to give you something before I left.’

He held out the little parcel, wrapped in the store’s brown paper and tied with a piece of ribbon. Susannah smiled and opened it, unfolding the handkerchief.

‘Oh, it’s so pretty! You are too kind, Mr Moody.’

‘Please, call me Donald.’

‘Oh … Donald. Thank you so much. I will keep it with me always.’

‘I can think of no greater honour.’

He wavered on the brink of saying how he envied the handkerchief, but lost confidence, perhaps fortunately. He was not to know that Susannah had another just like it, bought from the same store and presented to her less than a year ago by a smitten local youth. But now Susannah was blushing; the faint wash of colour in her cheeks made her seem to glow from within.

‘Now I am embarrassed I have nothing to give you in return.’

‘I don’t want anything in return.’ Again, he hovered on the brink of daring to ask for a kiss, but again his courage failed him. ‘Only that you will write to me now and again, if you are not too busy.’

‘Oh yes, I will write to you. And perhaps, if you are not too busy, you may write to me occasionally.’

‘Every day!’ he said recklessly.

‘Oh, I think you will be too occupied to do that. I do hope it won’t be … dangerous.’

The remaining few minutes in the library passed in a sweet daze. Donald didn’t know what to say next, but felt that the ball was in his court and eventually plucked up the courage to take one of her hands in his. Then someone banged the Sumatran gong that stood in the hall–the signal for dinner–and she withdrew her hand, otherwise who knows what might have ensued. It makes him dizzy to think about it.

*

There are only two ways to leave Dove River: south to the bay, or north, following the river’s course through the forest. Jacob picks up the trail beyond the Price homestead. Angus Ross told them he found signs that Francis had passed Swallow Lake, and Jacob only pauses to assess the tracks and determine whether they were likely to have been made by the boy. The path is clear and they walk at a fair pace, passing the lake in early afternoon. Jacob kneels to take a closer look.

‘It has been some days, but more than one person came through here.’

‘At the same time?’

Jacob shrugs.

‘It could be that French trader. He came this way, didn’t he?’

‘More than one person went in this direction: two footprints, different sizes.’

They follow the trail for several miles. Where a tributary joins the Dove the trail turns westward and follows that, over stony ground that shows no traces. Donald follows Jacob, assuming he knows what he is doing, but is relieved to see a patch of ground near the stream where footprints have pressed leaves and moss into the mud.

‘Say he has been travelling on foot for six, seven days. And he is tired and hungry. I think we go faster. We catch him.’

‘But where is he going? Where does this lead?’

Jacob doesn’t know. The trail goes on, winding through the forest alongside the river, always climbing, but there is no sign that it leads anywhere other than into boundless wilderness.

They stop while it is still light and Jacob shows Donald how to cut branches for their shelter. Although he has been in Canada over a year, this is Donald’s first taste of the native way of life, and he is elated at the unfamiliarity of it.
He is throwing off his past and his bookish, finicky shell, finally becoming a man of action, a rugged frontiersman, a true Company Adventurer. He relishes the prospect of relating his experience to the men back at Fort Edgar.

After they have built the shelter and made a fire and Jacob has cooked a mush of meat and corn, Donald hunches by the fire and takes out pen and paper to write to Susannah. He hadn’t thought how the letters are going to get to her, but presumably there will be some form of habitation along the way from where delivery is possible. He writes ‘Dear Susannah,’ and then pauses. Should he describe the trek today, the forest with its dark greens and flaming yellows, the purplish rocks that rear through brilliant moss, the sleeping arrangements? He rejects those as being potentially tedious to her, and writes ‘It has been a most interesting …’ before somehow succumbing to the heat of the fire and losing consciousness, so that Jacob has to jolt him awake and push him under the birch roof, where he collapses onto the fir branches. Exhaustion hits him like a sledgehammer, and he is too tired to notice the moon cast ethereal shadows among the trees; certainly too tired to see Jacob observe the halo of ice crystals that surrounds it, and frown.

I have, over the years, built up a fine, if eclectic, collection of books, and have just lent some of them to Ida. Unlike her mother she is grateful, and she seems genuinely touched that I would trust her with something so valuable. I wouldn’t have done it before last week, but now even my most precious possessions don’t seem that important. One of the books I lend her is my dictionary, a book I have treasured for twenty years. I kept it with me throughout my asylum career, making up for my lost education, but Ida particularly requested it, as the Pretty household has never seen such a thing.

My mother gave it to me shortly before she died, as if to make up for the lack I would soon have of her. Small enough recompense, you might think, but not entirely useless. I hated coming across words in books that I did not know and doggedly looked them up: ‘limpid’, ‘termagant’, ‘intimated’. I looked up ‘suicide’ after her death. I thought it might help me understand why she had done it. The definition was crisp and succinct, two things she never was. ‘The act of self-destruction’ sounded purposeful and violent, whereas my mother was dreamy and gentle, often absent-minded. I asked my father, to see if he could explain–I assumed he knew her better than I did. He blustered and ranted that it was nonsense–she would never have done such a thing, it was a sin even to think it. Then, to my acute embarrassment, he cried. I put my arms round him, trying to comfort
him as he sobbed. After a minute or two of us standing in a simulacrum of father-daughter togetherness that made no difference whatsoever–a minute or two that seemed to last an hour–I let go of him and left the room. He didn’t seem to notice.

I don’t think either of us knew her at all.

I realised later that he was angry because I had guessed the truth. I think he blamed himself, and I believe he sent me to the asylum because he was afraid he had depressed my mother, and was doing the same to me. He was not an inspiring sort of person and I suspect he was right.

I have spent my life trying not to be like either of my parents. Now that I am approaching the age my mother was when she died, I don’t know how successful I have been: my only child has run away in these terrible circumstances and clearly I can’t blame it all on his Irish blood. I have played a part, I don’t yet know how damaging, in his fate.

It gives me some relief to talk to Ida, who is more cheerful today, and there is the added spice of gossip about the man locked in the warehouse in Caulfield. Ida does a good imitation of Scott puffing his cheeks with indignation at being asked to give over his precious real estate for such a purpose. And she adds something interesting–her brothers found signs that the man had come past their farm on his way to Jammet’s, which means he came from the north. Which means it is possible he saw Francis. Which means that, even if he is a villain, I have to go and ask him. And just before she leaves she mentions Thomas Sturrock, who is staying at the Scott house. Did I know he was the famous Indian Searcher who failed to find the Seton girls? The whole town is talking about it. I nod, vaguely, and say I’ve heard something about it. I wonder why he failed to mention it when we discussed the case. One more instance where I am the last to know.

*

Predictably, Knox kicks up a fuss about my talking to the prisoner. He argues that I will not get anything out of him, that they have already asked him, that it might be prejudicial, that it would be unsuitable, and finally that it will be dangerous. I remain reasonable. I know that if I stay there long enough and refuse to go away he will eventually give in, and he does, with much headshaking and gloomy sighing. I assure him I am not scared of the man, however fearsome he looks–he has everything to lose if he behaves badly (unless he is convicted, when I suppose it makes no difference how many murders he is hanged for, but I don’t say so). In any case, Knox insists on sending his servant with me, with instructions to sit by the warehouse door and keep an eye on things.

Adam unlocks the door to the warehouse, which has been cleared of enough dry goods that the prisoner is marooned in an ocean of space. There are two windows near the roof, presenting scant escape opportunities, but in any case he is slumped on a pallet and takes no notice when the door opens. He may have been asleep–he only stirs when Adam calls out, whereupon he sits up slowly, pulling a thin blanket around him. There is no fire and the cold seems even harsher and more insidious than outside.

I turn to Adam. ‘Are you trying to freeze the man to death?’

Adam mumbles–something about burning us all to the ground–and I order him to fetch some hot stones for our feet, and some coffee. Adam looks at me in astonishment. ‘I am not to leave you.’

‘Fetch them this instant. Don’t be ridiculous, we can’t sit here talking in this cold. I’m sure I shall be quite all right until you get back.’ I fix him with my most imperious stare until he goes, disconcertingly locking the door behind him.

The prisoner does not look at me, but sits like a statue. I move a chair over to a spot a few feet from the pallet and sit
down. I am nervous but determined not to show it. If I want his help I have to try to look as though I trust him.

‘Mr Parker.’ I have considered how to put this at length. ‘My name is Mrs Ross. I come to you asking for help. I apologise for taking advantage of your … detainment.’

He doesn’t look at me or acknowledge that I am there in any way. It occurs to me that perhaps he is a little deaf.

‘Mr Parker,’ I go on, louder, ‘I believe you came from the north, past Swallow Lake?’

After a long pause, he speaks, quietly. ‘What is it to you?’

‘It is this: I have a son, Francis. Seven days ago he went away. I think he went north. He knows no one up there. I am worried. I wondered whether you had seen any sign …? He is only seventeen. He has … dark hair. A slight build.’