Heart So Hungry (16 page)

The river, of course, was not the Naskapi but the Susan, a fact Hubbard would never learn. And with that sudden, enervating remembrance, the grief hit Wallace again, coming out of nowhere like a great black-winged bird swooping down: Hubbard is gone. Hubbard was gone, and Jennie was gone, and there was nobody waiting for him back in the city. Here he was, knee-deep in a marsh on his second plunge into the wild, again being eaten alive by insects, and he was unremittingly alone. Yes, Labrador truly was a godforsaken place. But was New York City any better?

His next footstep was the hardest of the trip. He could not extricate his boot from the muck, could not lift it clear. And finally, with a soft moan, a sound he had not meant to make, he came to a halt.

Duncan McLean looked back. “You all right, Mr. Wallace?”

Wallace blinked. Perspiration dripped from his forehead. His feet were numb with cold. “Sometimes,” he said, “I …” But he would not allow himself to finish. What good would it do?

“I just need a moment to get my breath.”

Duncan waited beside him. “We’ll likely be out of here soon.”

But on this point, Wallace knew, Duncan was wrong. Wallace would never be out of Labrador, no matter where he lived. Labrador would hold him its prisoner forever.

Mina Hubbard’s expedition, third week of July 1905

I
N A SMALL CLEARING
a few hundred yards from the river, Joe and Job and Gilbert dropped their loads on a bed of moss. They waited several minutes for George and Mina to catch up. After they had, Joe asked, “How’s this for tonight’s camp?”

“Suits me,” George said, and he slipped off the heavy pack.

“We’ll bring the rest of the outfit forward,” Joe said. He and Gilbert and Job retraced their steps to where they had left the canoes and the remaining gear.

George studied the surroundings. A sparse line of trees ran across the centre of a hill approximately a quarter-mile away. He told Mina, “I bet if we climb that rise there we can look back and see how far we’ve come.”

A half-hour later she and George stood together atop the hill. The sun was slowly sinking toward the western horizon, a magnificent orange glow spreading out from it—reaching toward us, she thought. In the opposite direction lay Seal Lake, winding like a broad river between the hills. Its calm surface caught and held the orange of the sun, glimmered and sparkled. In every direction there were blue hills and, between them, more lakes. From the distance it seemed a fairyland, impossibly beautiful.

“It’s been three weeks less a day since we left the North West River Post,” George told her. “We’ve come a hundred and fifteen miles, more or less. It won’t be long before we get to Michikamau.”

Something welled up in Mina’s chest then, a mixture of pride and something else, so heavy in her chest she could not speak.

George pointed to a low ridge of mountains to the southwest. “Over there is where I crossed with Mr. Hubbard. You see that little opening? I think that’s where we crossed over from the head of Beaver Brook.”

Her voice was hoarse and throaty. “What are those mountains called, George?”

“I don’t know that they have a name.”

“Then I shall call them the Lion Heart Mountains.”

He nodded. It was a good name.

She gazed at the mountains, blue and snow-capped, awhile longer. Finally she turned slowly to take in the entire panorama, where she had been, where Laddie had gone, and where she was headed. “It’s almost all too beautiful,” she said.

He understood, and said nothing.

“Do you think there will ever be a time,” she asked, “when the beauty will cease to bring pain?”

He would have liked to tell her yes, and to mean it. But there was nothing he could say.

Monday morning began with an early breakfast. Then, as always during a portage, the men allowed Mina her privacy in camp while they carried the first loads forward. By the time they returned for the final load, she was ready to join them.

Mina thought this a glorious morning, awash with full, unbroken sunlight, the sky clear and the wind still—a combination of elements not often enjoyed in those latitudes. Their trail led down into a valley enclosed on three sides by steep hills. The hills were covered with the sombre green of spruce trees, but here and there the white bark of a birch glimmered. Above the treeline the hills were bare and windblown, their faces sometimes sheared down to nothing but stone walls and cliffs.

The valley opened before them in a widening corridor toward Seal Lake, their destination, a point of golden light in the far distance. For the most part the party hiked without speaking. The morning itself was hushed and wordless, so that the only sounds were of the singing rapids and the trill, now and then, of a small bird.

Finally they reached a place where the rapids were not so fierce. “The boys can take the canoes through these,” George told her. “You and me will walk on ahead some.”

But Mina had had enough of walking for a while. She studied the rapids. “If the boys can ride through them safely, why shouldn’t I?”

“Nobody said they was perfectly safe.”

“Then perhaps we should all continue to portage.”

“It’s safe enough for the boys, is what I meant.”

“And why not safe enough for me as well?”

“They have experience with rapids.”

“And how am I to gain experience if you won’t let me near one?”

George turned to the other men for help. But all three just stood there grinning at him.

He turned his back to them and stepped closer to Mina. Softly he told her, “I could never forgive myself if anything was to happen to you.”

“Well, then,” she said with a smile, and briefly touched a fingertip to his cheek, “allow me to absolve you in advance.”

With that she strode toward the shoreline and the waiting canoes. “Where shall I ride?”

Joe cut a quick look at George, read the expression of surrender on George’s face and told her, “You can ride with me and Job if you like, missus.” With a challenging grin cast in George’s direction, he added, “We’re the ones know the most about handling the rapids.”

George came forward. “Let Job go with Gilbert this time. I’ll ride with you and Missus Hubbard.”

Within minutes the canoe was launched. Immediately a wave broke against the bow and splashed all the way back to George in the stern. Mina, seated in the centre, gasped as the cold slapped her face. Joe turned to look at her, his eyebrows arched.

“Oh, it’s fine,” she told him. “It’s fine! Go on!”

The men dug in hard with their poles, driving the canoe through the waves. Up a wave and down into a trough, then thrust up again, the bow being pushed to the side, corrected by Joe, then tossed up again with a splash, then splashing down. Mina gripped her seat and sat low, huddled tightly, breathing in short gasps and
exhalations. The buffeting lasted only a few minutes before the rapids faded, by which time her face was shiny wet. The second canoe pulled alongside and Gilbert called out, “How’d you like the ride, Missus Hubbard?”

“Oh, I liked it fine, Gil! It was exhilarating!”

She turned on her seat to flash a smile at George, but when she saw the strain in his face she lost all desire to tease or gloat. The short ride had obviously been an ordeal for him. He had not only fought the waves and the current, but with every ounce of strength he had been willing the canoe to stay upright, keeping Mina glued to her seat. With every jounce and slip of the canoe he had wanted to reach out and grab her, have her safely in his grasp should the canoe capsize. The effort of not doing so had utterly drained him.

So all she said was, “Thank you for letting me experience that, George.”

It took him a while to find enough breath for words. “You’re welcome, missus.”

Not long after that they came to another set of rapids, these too rough for any of the party to brave. During the portage, which took them along a well-worn bear trail over white moss, George told her, “I’ve seen men couldn’t handle rapids the way you did back there.”

“Really, George? Did I do all right?”

“Lots of men would’ve jumped out of their canoes rather than go through those places.”

“They weren’t very big rapids, though.”

“Nearly as big as we can handle.”

“Honestly?”

“I wouldn’t want to tackle any much bigger.”

“Does that mean I can ride them with you from now on?”

He laughed softly. “I don’t suppose I’ve got much choice, seeing as how I just said what I did.”

“You weren’t lying, were you?”

“I wouldn’t ever tell you a lie, missus. You can count on that.”

So many of their moments lately seemed to call for a touch of some kind, her hand on his arm, her fingers squeezing his. But he was two steps behind her, a heavy pack on his back, his rifle in his hands. So she merely kept on walking. Still, the connection felt unfinished.

After a while she spoke again. “You know, George, climbing that hill yesterday and looking back the way we did, and seeing how far we’ve already come, and then running those rapids with you and the men, all of us in it together for a change … I almost feel like an explorer finally.”

“It’s what you are,” he told her.

“Yes, but … This is your expedition, really. You’ve always been the one in charge.”

“You’re the only one thinks that, missus. This is your trip start to finish. Always has been.”

Again she felt the need for contact, and slowed just a bit, hoping he might come up close to her, put out his hand, touch her shoulder, turn her around. But he slowed too and stayed a full pace behind. And she thought, maybe he’s leaving me in charge of
that
as well.

Seal Lake was a mile wide where they entered it, but as they moved northward the shorelines drew closer, widened again, then grew closer. On both sides the ground sloped up toward hills of solid rock, some standing monolithic and sharp. One, named Mount Pisa, leaned toward the east. The surrounding countryside had been burned over years earlier, but white birch and alder had regrown from the shorelines to the cliffs. Close to the shores were numerous small islands and sandy hummocks covered with grass.

All along the way they saw geese, ducks, gulls and muskrats. A family of seals, lounging on the sunny rocks near an island, slipped into the water at the canoes’ approach, then watched curiously with only their round dark eyes and black heads visible as the canoes glided past.

Near the northern end of the lake a long arm of water reached some thirty miles to the west. But just ahead to the north lay the
opening to the Naskapi River again. Here the hills were low and less rugged, but the river, as it turned southwest toward Lake Michikamau, was fierce and foaming.

By seven
P.M
., when they pulled ashore, they had made seventeen miles that day. “A good day’s travellin’,” Gilbert said.

George hopped out of the canoe and held it steady as Mina disembarked. He said, “We’ve been making good time.”

Mina was proud of their accomplishment, but also concerned. “Do you think anyone has done better?”

Gilbert, Joe and George all spoke at once, a chorus of protests. When they fell silent, she turned to the laconic Job. “Do you agree with the others?” she asked.

“We doin’ fine,” Job told her. “Wallace nowhere around.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” she said.

Mina did not sleep much Monday night, tormented by mosquitoes and the drone of troubling thoughts. The walls and ceilings of her tent were thick with insects. Though she huddled inside her blankets and veil, the pests could not be kept at bay. They pricked at her through the veil, crawled into her clothing, slithered under the tops of her stockings. Finally she gave up trying to sleep and, knowing that a candle for reading or writing would only call greater hordes of insects to her tent, embarked upon a systematic extermination of her tormenters, squishing them one by one until her fingers were slippery with blood.

She could smell the smoke from the men’s pipes and she hoped they were faring better in the other tent. But if they were sitting up smoking, they too must be unable to sleep.

Around four she heard one of the men moving about outside. She peeked out of her tent and saw Joe building up the fire. By the time she had dressed for the day, the other men were moving about as well, all sleepy and silent and many times bitten.

But before they had finished breakfast the rain came, a hard,
unrelenting downpour driven by winds that would have made paddling impossible. They had no choice but to return to their tents and hope the shower would pass quickly.

The rain continued without relief until Wednesday morning, nine a.m. At the first sign of clearing they took to their canoes. Now, finally, the men had something to do, and the effort of paddling up a swift river brought smiles to their faces again. They rode another nineteen miles that day, even with a few pauses for shooting, which added a partridge, two geese and a muskrat to their larder.

But the good day was not to be soon repeated. Thursday brought another deluge of rain and wind. Despite these conditions, the men could sit still no longer. Around noon Job went off to climb a steep rise they had named Red Rock Hill. Mina, who spent the day reading, writing and occasionally napping in her tent, heard the other men moving about and talking in low voices outside. When Joe called her to supper she finally saw what they had been up to all day. They had strung up a tarpaulin so that it not only protected the fire but provided ample space for all to sit out of the rain. The ground beneath the tarp was dry and fragrant, covered with a lush blanket of fresh wood shavings.