Rendezvous (3 page)

McLoughlin, a commoner and licensed physician who had spent years in the fur trade, mostly with the North West Company, had little use for titled nobles with all their conceits and blindnesses, but they governed his world and he had no help for it. And if he was a cynical adherent of the Crown, he nonetheless did his duty whenever called upon.

But now his sense of obligation grew thin. Priestley had intended to sail earlier. McLoughlin listened impatiently as Priestley explained in detail, with that nasal and shrill Hampshire voice of his, why his departure had been delayed.

“I should have hanged that wretch long ago. Pity I didn't. He's costing the Royal Navy a pretty penny, I say. Straight out of Billingsgate and with a coarseness to match. Troublemaker from the start, this Skye. Pressed in seven years ago, and refused to serve the Crown. Skulking brute with the mind of an ape and the habits of a pit bull. He's been the joke of squadron, you know. ‘Oh,' they say, ‘you get Skye this tour, Priestley. If he acts up, quarter him and feed him to the sharks.' Good advice, but out of the kindness of my heart I spared the devil his due. And now how am I repaid? He went over the rail! Over the rail! And I'm shorthanded. I'll give that watch a whipping when we're at sea. That Bosun McGivers! Right before the man's sleepy eyes Skye gave me the slip.”

McLoughlin was hearing this the tenth or eleventh time. “I presume the navy'll fetch him back ‘ere long,” he replied, as he already had.

“Of course we will. That brute's scarcely set foot on land since we pressed him and doesn't know a thing. He won't get far.”

“You were saying that some days ago. The party you sent downriver hasn't returned.”

“McLoughlin, where can a man go? Up the river, that's where. Or out to sea, that's where.”

McLoughlin disagreed. A deserter could go anywhere and lose himself in an unexplored wilderness. “He might strike overland—up the Willamette to the Mexican country, my lord. If I were in Skye's shoes, I'd make it my first business to escape the Crown's territories.”

“Skye wouldn't be so smart. He hasn't the slightest knowledge of the local terrain. He's been below decks. How would he even know of the Willamette? Don't give him credit, McLoughlin. The man's an ape. And besides, he speaks only English, and barely that. Why would he go to Mexico? He couldn't even ask them for a cup of grog.”

“Perhaps because you wouldn't expect him to go there, my lord.”

“Ah, you mock me, McLoughlin. Insolence, insolence. But I'll let it pass. I wish to enlist you against this freebooter, this traitor to the crown. He's no ordinary deserter; he's arguably the worst man in the Royal Navy, incorrigible, reluctant to perform his duties, given to brawling, sullen and contemptuous of his betters. I want him back. On the small chance that my search parties don't haul him in, I'm charging Hudson's Bay with the responsibility of catching him, putting him in irons, and sending him to London for his hanging.”

“We'll do our best, my lord.”

“Of course you will. Anything less than your best will result in a report to the Admiralty and the Colonial Office. Catch him. I'm putting a ten-pound price on his head, dead or alive. It's to your advantage, of course. You don't want this murderous, ruthless brute loose in your country.”

“He's murderous?”

“Why, I imagine he'd murder a thousand if he could. We prevent it by keeping him behind iron strap when he provocates.”

“But he's killed no man?”

“What difference does it make? He has the penchant. He has that low brow, the mean cunning of the criminal class.”

McLoughlin smiled. “Very well. I'll post the award. You'll give me a description, of course. If you don't catch Skye, he'll show up eventually at one of our posts. We have our ways, in HBC. I can enlist a dozen tribes, for starters. I can alert every factor at every trading post.”

“That's not enough. I want more. I want an expedition to go after him if the navy fails.”

McLoughlin poured some more darjeeling and arched a brow. “And who'll pay?”

“You will, of course. It's your duty to the Crown.”

“I see,” said McLoughlin. “You'll need to put this in writing, and I'll send it along to George Simpson for approval. I don't have the authority—”

“Tut tut, McLoughlin. Just do it.”

“—to spend resources that are not included in company objectives. But we'll catch the devil if we can.”

Commodore Sir Josiah Priestley's response was thwarted by the appearance of McLoughlin's clerk. “Excuse me, sirs, but Mr. Carp requests the commodore's attention.”

“Ah, McLoughlin, news at last. I'll wager they have the bugger, or at least his head. Send him in directly.”

A smooth-cheeked youth barely in his majority stepped in, saluted smartly, and addressed the commodore. “With permission, sir—”

“Yes, yes, have you got the devil?”

“No, he gave us the slip. Not a trace. We penetrated several leagues upriver, as far as a native village. No luck. But one small clue, sir. The villagers lost a pirogue that night—maybe a mishap, maybe not.”

“And you failed to follow up.”

“Your pardon, sir, we looked up and down the river. It moves right along, you know.”

“So you failed, Carp. I seem to have misplaced my trust. Or perhaps I overestimated your abilities.”

The young man, holding the juniormost officer's rank in the Royal Navy, stood silently.

“It's all politics, McLoughlin. These useless sons of knights and barons get preferred over men of ability. Go, my boy. Tell Lieutenant Wickham we'll sail at dawn before we're fighting a headwind and rowing our way out.”

“Very good, sir. I—I'm sorry. It's a huge country, sir—”

“Excuses.”

The youth fled.

“So, my crew couldn't round up a common oaf. If the Admiralty'd give me a few good men, I'd have strung up the blackguard long since. Now, thanks to them, I'll look bad. Very well, McLoughlin. I'm expressly placing this matter in your hands. Hudson's Bay will pursue this Skye by all available means and report to the Admiralty.”

“What does Skye look like, my lord?”

“Why, you can't possibly mistake him—the low cunning, the criminal brow, the wildness of eye—”

“Ah, my lord, is his hair brown or blond or black?”

“How should I know?”

“His age, then?”

“He's been in service forever. I inherited him. Three commanders before me inherited him. Who knows?”

“His eyes—are they blue or brown or gray?”

“I never examine commoners closely.”

“His build, then.”

“A brute, McLoughlin, an ape. And yes, there is something. Skye has a battered nose, broken a dozen times in his brawls. Look for a man who's all nose. That's all you need.”

“Like me, I wager,” McLoughlin said, aware that he had a royal nose, a nose that dominated his face like a hogback.

“No, McLoughlin, twice your nose; grotesque, I'd say. The monster of degenerate parents. Look for a physical degenerate and you'll have your man.”

“What is he wearing?”

“Sailcloth. I've learnt that much.”

“The charges, sir? Murder, theft, disobedience? Attacking an officer?”

“Worse than that. A habitual criminal, as devoid of civilization as the Arctic. A lone wolf. And desertion of course.”

McLoughlin had a sneaking suspicion he might like Skye. Or at least admire him. But he set that aside. “I'll put out word. We'll have scores of men looking for the man or his bones.”

“See to it,” Priestley said, rising. “You have your company on the wharf at dawn to see us off. I'm going to press one of your trappers. When you give us Skye, you'll get your man back.”

“My trappers? But—”

“No buts. HBC owes me a man.”

“We owe you nothing of the sort.”

“McLoughlin, I'm an officer of the Crown. I'd press you if I had to. Thanks to HBC's laxity, the ship's company is even shorter. We lost four men to scurvy.”

McLoughlin knew better than to argue. He stood suddenly, stretching his six-foot, seven-inch frame, filling the primitive office with his presence.

“I will see you off in the morning,” he said in a way that brooked no further discussion.

Then he escorted the commodore to the gate and had his men bar it. If they wanted to press an HBC man, they would have to resort to the ship's battery to do it, and then answer to the Admiralty and Home Office. Let that titled fool try.

Chapter 4

Rain, cold, starvation, and fear dogged Skye, sometimes all at once. A Pacific storm dropped snow on the mountains and a cruel drizzle on the Columbia, numbing him in spite of his woollen skullcap, pea jacket, and sailcloth cape. He lacked the skill to build a fire in wetness, and wished he had pocketed some dry tinder while he could. He regarded his ordeal as a lesson in wilderness survival, and would remember.

The thought of pursuit tormented him: time and again, he climbed an outcrop or low rise to study his backtrail. If not the navy, then surely some HBC man, a veteran of the wilds, would pursue and capture him. He saw nothing, but that didn't allay the imaginings of his fevered mind.

But worst of all was the hunger, which maddened him, reduced him to weakness. At times he even considered backtracking and turning himself in at Fort Vancouver. Anything for a belly full of hot food.

One desperate morning he whittled off a willow limb with his knife, grubbed about for worms, and rigged a fishing pole, using a navy hook he had pilfered from ship's stores. But the salmon ignored his bait. Then he tried one of the navy's ocean lures, thinking maybe salmon didn't eat worms or bugs. Over and over he drew the bobbing wooden lure through the water, but he caught nothing. That day he trudged eastward on an empty belly, dizzy from the want of food and fearful he would starve. What did he know about catching fish or killing game? What good were these big hooks and lures, intended for ocean fish?

He tried again that warm evening, hoping a fish would strike at dusk. He baited his iron hook with a caterpillar, tossed it as far out as he could, and let it bob on the river supported by a stick he used as a float. Moments later a silvery fish struck, almost yanking his crude willow pole from his grasp. He dragged in a salmon that weighed several pounds. Madly, he gutted and filleted it, tempted to wolf it down raw, but instead he spitted the fillets and set them to cooking. That evening he filled his complaining belly and cooked enough more to sustain him for a while. But he was unable to catch another fish although he tried until night overtook him.

He hiked eastward into dryer country, the river running through gloomy flats that oppressed his spirit. But here he enjoyed some spring sun. He knew the vagaries of fishing would leave him hungry more often than full, so he began a systematic hunt for other foods, scarcely knowing what was edible and what was foul. He could only sample roots and bulbs and wait to see if they sickened him. His best discovery was cattail roots, thick, foul-tasting, but starchy. He found them more edible if he mashed them between stones. In this fashion he managed to supplement his diet. But he longed for meat; any kind of fresh meat would have quelled his ravenous needs.

He scarcely saw game, only one or two distant does and a goatlike animal he thought might be an antelope. He found plenty of ducks and geese but lacked the means to kill them. He dug up plants, hunting for bulbs, but found nothing edible. Then one evening he stumbled upon a deer carcass, scaring off the predators feasting on it. Belly and haunches had been eaten out, but there was meat around the chest and forelegs. He built a fire from deadfall and set to work with his knife, slowly cutting strips and setting them over the fire on spits. This was a bonanza, a starving man's gold. He ate greedily and then cut more meat, intending to cook it and take with him what he could.

He was wildly lonely. The frigate had offered rough companionship. Here he knew only solitude, and it oppressed him more than he had expected. Even his days of confinement in the ship's brig had been marked by exchanges with his warders, the drift of conversation outside of his iron cage, the knowledge that he was never really alone, and he had friends 'tween decks.

At first he thought he could do nothing about his loneliness other than to dredge up memories. But as he walked eastward, he found himself enjoying the solitary life. To pass time as he hiked, he became an acute observer of his world and discovered that it was brimming with living things, and they spoke to him in their own way. The crows cawed his passage to each other. Ducks burst from cover when he approached and flapped into the skies. The birds became his scouts and sentries. If they burst from a tree, he paused to find out why. If they warned each other of his passage and followed along, hopping from bush to bush around him, he knew that probably nothing else was troubling them. The ears that no longer registered human voices began to register nature's subtle changes, and Skye knew such knowledge would help him survive.

One morning his newfound awareness of nature's rhythms kept him from discovery. He was walking through unusual silence, and felt it. He rounded a gentle hill and spotted Indians ahead cooking a meal, their three heavy log pirogues beached on a gravelly shore. There were at least twenty, all stocky bronze males, enjoying a breakfast drawn from the river. Their spears and bows and quivers lay about. He ducked out of sight, wondering whether he had been discovered. He retreated to a swale and hiked up it until he was well off the river road, and there he waited. He could afford to wait. He was a lone man going nowhere, on no schedule at all. But that didn't make it easier, and he knew he would need to learn patience if he hoped to survive.

He waited for what seemed an hour and tried again. They had left. He had not seen them going downriver, so he knew they were ahead of him and would continue to pose a menace. Maybe they might be friendly, but he suspected that Hudson's Bay would have a say in that. He scavenged their campsite, looking for anything useful, and found nothing except fishheads and tails. They tempted him. He had lost weight and his clothing bagged about his shrinking frame. He needed food and lots of it, much more than roots and bulbs and the occasional fish. He had exhausted the tea and hardtack and now had nothing at all to preserve him. He dreamed of bread and butter and beef and even burgoo, the oatmeal gruel that had been the jack-tar staple in the navy. His boots and clothing were showing signs of serious wear. Sooner or later he would have to stop dodging these people, walk into a village, and get help if he could.