The High Missouri (28 page)

Claude gave Dylan a look that seemed to mean, Leave us, or even, Get them away from here. Moving off, Dylan heard Claude say something to the fellow about a “fine opportunity.”

Dylan looked down the alley alongside the building. The old Campbell Trading Company sign had been moved into the alley, and apparently the new entrance for his father’s business was the old freight door. In front the ware house sign was gone, and Claude’s new sign proclaimed,
LAND OFFICE
. Claude had said the business was trying to appeal to Yanks.

Dylan led Dru and Anastasie through his father’s old office, now tripled in size and very much spruced up in appearance, into the huge storage space. He felt funny about it. This was the heart of the Campbell business, the end of the efforts of hundreds of very skilled men facing very real dangers in the wilds, sacrificing their blood, their sweat, their lives. Here the furs came from the interior and were shipped to London. Here the trade goods came from London and were shipped to the interior. With the Campbell family making a profit each direction.

As a boy Dylan had spent afternoons after school here with his father and liked the place, liked the pungent smells and the rough camaraderie of men. Now that he had been into the wilds, had seen what it took to get the hides to ship to England to provide fashionable hats for civilized people, he felt ambivalent about it.

It was a big, dark, low-ceilinged structure of logs. There were few windows and no candles. The chinking left holes, and on this summer day the doors were thrown open, creating slanting striations of bright light against blackness. Through this bleak pattern of black and white stripes moved a dozen or so men, working.

There were clerks checking shipping manifests, counting items and storing them on shelves, counting them and packing them into bundles for transport to Indian country. There were inspectors checking hides to make sure they were completely dry, other men grading the furs, others sorting them for shipment, others packing them into bales, or stenciling addresses onto the bales. Wrapped in oilcloth, the bales would cross the Atlantic in the hold of a ship. In London they would mark the difference between people of fashion and, well, the lower classes.

Dylan walked among stacks of beaver plews, kegs, tables loaded with trade goods. What he remembered best about the warehouse, and loved most, was its smells. There was the ripe smell of a dozen animals, not only beaver, but marten, fox, wolf, ermine, mink, and others. Making that pungent was the odor of decaying flesh, for not all the hides would be perfectly scraped and desiccated. There was the aroma of the alcohol they not only stored in kegs but sprinkled on the hides to keep vermin off. The oilcloths wrapping the shipment bales smelled resinlike.

Mixed with these smells and confusing everything was the buzzing of thousands or millions of flies, drawn by the hides.

In the end of the building where goods were incoming instead of outgoing were his favorite smells, exotic fragrances from far away—Virginia tobacco in plugs, Mexican hemp, Louisiana sorghum, roasted coffee beans.

In a corner a man was mixing a batch of ink from powder. To Dylan fresh ink was one of the headiest of all smells.

And all of these brought back to him the presence of Ian Campbell, home in the evening after a long day in the warehouse trying to make a profit, bringing all these earthy aromas to the Campbell home. To Dylan it was the smell of his father, of attention, comfort, play, closeness.

He reminded himself forcibly that in those days his father was mostly gone into the wilds. As he was now.

“Suppose bringing back the skins of dead animals was the real reason we went to the wilderness?” asked Dru softly.

Before Dylan could respond, Claude said, “Oh yes, I’m always struck by that thought when I come back here, which is not often. Reality is rather always less than ideal, isn’t it? That’s why men must shield women and children from it” Dylan wondered if that was a veiled reference to Anastasie and Lara, who as Indians required no such protection in Claude’s view. “But this bestial commerce does provide the comforts of living that separate us from the beasts.” He smiled at his own play on words and added, “Ironic.”

A swarthy man with a bandanna-wrapped head walked up to them. “Do you know Mr. Campbell?” Claude asked the man. “Dylan Campbell, Jacques-René, the warehouse manager.” Now Dylan did remember—a longtime employee. They shook hands.

He corrected Claude. “My name is Dylan Davies now.”

A queer look passed across Claude’s face. “Yes, of course, Davies.” He looked back at Jacques-René. “Mr. Campbell’s son.” Then he introduced Dru and Anastasie, putting Dru first. He didn’t mention Lara in her cradle board.

Dylan thought how strange white manners were—white women politely before white men, but Indians after everybody. His heart twisted. Such prejudice now included his child.

Jacques-René headed back to work, and Claude led them along the aisles. “I’m expanding the business considerably. It’s not just the Indian trade anymore. Any kind of item that can be imported profitably for people in this city. To plug tobacco, for instance, we’ve added snuff. Sugar from the Caribbean. Silks from Canton. These goods are commonly shipped on the same vessels that bring our Indian goods, and they return money much more quickly. Instead of shipping them to the interior and waiting months for furs to come back, we sell them to local merchants for immediate payment, or within the month.” His eyes gleamed at Dylan.

Dylan murmured the obligatory “Clever.”

“Come, let me show you something.” He led the way back to his well-appointed office. There on the wall was a map of Montreal. On the crooked streets some of the major buildings were labeled, and blue or red squares filled other small spaces. “This city is going to grow,” he said. “It’s suffering a little now because of the damned merger”—he looked wryly at Dylan and Dru “HBC mostly doesn’t bring its business here.
But.
That has only permitted me to buy cheap. I’ve used my patrimony, not that it was great, to buy buildings and land. The red squares are lots for resale, and the blue ones are buildings we’re renting out.” There were half a dozen red squares and a dozen blue ones.

“Your father’s enterprise is high risks for great rewards. Whether he succeeds or not, I think you can feel assured that I’m going to be able to take care of your sister and your future nephews and nieces quite well,” he boasted, smiling.

“I’m glad,” said Dylan sincerely. “What about that job?”

“It’s a bit sticky,” answered Claude. “I hate to let a man go when he’s been loyal. I could work you in now as a shipping clerk. By winter we may require an additional bookkeeper.”

Dylan looked sharply at his one-time lodging mate, now his brother-in-law. Sod that, he thought, a chance to work up to the job he’d thrown over at the bank. And not even that for sure. Claude knows I hate this, he thought. Not much for the only son of the founder and co-owner.

But now Dylan had his daughter to provide for. “Seems…”

“I do quite understand,” said Claude. “We’ll do better as soon as we can. But I must say I’m a bit uncomfortable with all this. You know…

“We’ll talk more later.” Dylan regarded his one-time friend, apparently and unfortunately his superior in the family business. He stamped the face and the moment in his memory, accompanied by the music of loss.

Claude and Amalie took Dylan to Clamp’s Coffee House for coffee and pastries. Sensitive to their apprehensions, Dru demurred, claiming that he and Anastasie wanted to settle into the nursery with Lara. Maybe they did. Dylan felt a little lost without Lara. The good black coffee gave him some comfort. He remembered when Ian Campbell used to take them out on saints’ days, father, son, daughter, and Aunt Meredith standing in as mother, like a proper family. The memory warmed him.

Now the three talked of commonplace things, how Montreal was changing, the pushiness of the bloody Yanks in commerce, the merger, the fortunes the great Scots families had taken from beaver. Claude told a story of going to the Beaver Club with Ian Campbell. The dining and drinking were as hearty as ever, said Claude, but both he and his father-in-law were secretly glad to see that the attitudes of the Scots who had owned the Nor’West Company were not quite so grand. The edge was off their arrogance, truly.

Dylan thought that people seldom let go of their resentments. His father had never become one of the true fur barons.

At last Claude broached the subject. “What’s this about changing your name?”

“When Daddy Ni and I had our… tiff, I dropped my last name in favor of the middle one. Right then I wanted to do what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want him to be able to find me. Also, I was trying to emphasize my Welshness over my Scottishness. Dru, he was my mentor then, and he’s Welsh.” Dylan thought a moment. “I guess it was a brash thing to do.”

“A hurtful thing to do,” said Amalie with some color in her voice.

“Your father took some trouble to trace your movements,” explained Claude. “When he found you’d gone to the
pays d’en haut
, it upset him very much. He raised you to do the opposite. He was even more upset that you’d changed your name. Rejected the family, it seemed, don’t you know? Montreal Scots are a proud lot.”

“Dylan,” Amalie pitched in, “right now we’re not sure what Dada would want. You’re my brother, and you’ll always be welcome in my home. I very much want the two of you to be reconciled. That’s just my desire, though. The fact is…”

“The fact is,” Claude continued her sentence, “Mr. Campbell has forbidden us even to speak your name in front of him. So I’m not sure how high a position he’d want me to give you. He is the senior partner.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Father, I’ve been turned out of my own home,” said Dylan. “And the business.” This time he used the word: “Disinherited.”

Father Quesnel smiled across his desk in his kindly way. Dylan was surprised at how much the blackrobe had aged in just two years. His godfather looked frail now, the skin of his face translucent around his eyes, as though he were already becoming incorporeal on his way to heaven.

“Your father and sister didn’t turn you out, Dylan,” said his godfather benevolently. “You left.”

“Daddy Ni clobbered me with a table,” said Dylan. “I hit him back and shed his blood. That’s the last that passed between us,” Dylan said coldly.

“Dylan,” murmured the priest chidingly.

“That’s the last,” repeated Dylan.

Father Quesnel spoke in a simple, declarative tone. “Your father used his resources to find out where you went. He knew within days, even though your Mr. Bleddyn is clever and covered your tracks well. Peche wanted to send men after you, but he came to his senses. You know he never wanted you near the fur trade. But he let you go.

“When Duncan Campbell Stewart came back from Fort William and said you’d declined to send a message, your father was deeply hurt. He wants to embrace you. He has a father’s fear that he’s alienated you forever. He also fears for your soul. He knows what
le pays d’en haut
does to men.”

This was the pious story Dylan had grown up hearing from the Church. He was grown up now and knew it was ideal, not real. He didn’t think his father was doing any bloody pining to get his only son back.

“Your father didn’t run you off, Dylan. You left.”

“Left, maybe,” said Dylan irritably. “I didn’t die.”

“For all your family knew, you did,” said his godfather. He let it sit a minute. “Two years and more.”

Yes, all right, damn it, thought Dylan, I was blind to the pain I caused, and I do see it now. Do I have to be punished?

“Peche will be eager to take you into his business,” Dylan’s godfather went on. “When he knows you’re back.”

“A year from now,” protested Dylan.

“Probably,” said the priest. “And young Claude and Amalie will come through. Your father and I had dinner and a good talk the evening before he left. At Mansion House—Amalie and young Claude had the residence. He was in great spirits, best I’ve seen in… twenty years. He believes he has intelligence about a wonderful source of furs. He was looking forward to making a fortune, a real fortune this time, you know how he talks. He’s always wanted to be grand as a McTavish.”

Father Quesnel looked at Dylan with great gentleness and kindness. Dylan was touched.

“Will you bring your daughter to see me, Dylan?”

“Sure, Father, I wouldn’t fail that. We’re just taking today off carrying her around town.” He hesitated.

“May we baptize her today?”

“Sure,” said Dylan, sounding almost as certain as he wanted to sound.

“Half an hour before the angelus, then. I’ll arrange it.”

“Fine.” Dylan changed the subject. “The looks we get on the street are something. Yesterday one woman pretended we didn’t exist, even in our funny clothes, as they say, and with a way of walking they think is sneaky. I never realized I walk differently in moccasins until someone told me that. Well, this woman, dressed up like a swell, and with a servant to carry her packages, comes right up to us in the street to coo over Lara in her cradle board.” Like a good storyteller, Dylan let it rest for a beat. “‘I’m utterly charmed,’ the lady says to Anastasie. ‘Your child is so darling.’

“‘His child,’ says Anastasie, nodding at me, ‘and don’t she look just like him?’

“The lady turns her face into mine and gets one look at my white skin and near faints. Then she sets off like an army in hasty retreat. The servant had to scurry right along to keep up with her, escaping from us barbarians.”

“God made us, Dylan. He didn’t make us perfect or even good. Original sin, you know.”

Dylan looked out of his hurt at the priest. “What would they say, Father, if the white-skinned one was the mother, and the father dark-skinned?”

Father Quesnel squirmed. “They wouldn’t understand, Dylan. I’m not sure I would.”

The words rang through Dylan’s mind, and echoed: You too.

“You know, Dylan, considered alone, marriage between the races is understandable. We’re all God’s children, and the tie of love is one of God’s mysteries. Thought of collectively, though, marriage between red and white represents a backward step. We’re supposed to raise the Indians to our level, not join them on theirs.”

Yes, thought Dylan, I know that’s true. He felt deeply ashamed, and hated the feeling. A voice inside, the same voice that rang and echoed, was saying, Me too.

“Have you confessed, Dylan?”

“Not yet, Father.”

“Do you want me to hear your confession now?”

“Later, Father.”

“Promise me you’ll confess this afternoon, Dylan. It’s at one and at five.”

This habit of going by timepieces again. Confession at five, baptism at five-thirty. Even though he always carried his pocket watch, it was hard for Dylan to get used to.

“Your spiritual welfare concerns me, Dylan. I know that life in the
pays d’en haut
is not conducive to spiritual growth.”

“Aye, Father.” Bloody well right.

“I’m sure you discovered why your father didn’t want you in the wilds.”

“Aye, Father, I’ve much to confess.” He felt ashamed. He touched the slash of scar on his right cheek. Every moment on the streets of Montreal and in the public places, he felt like his pair of scars was a confession, all too open, all too shameful. Thank heaven Father Quesnel would be too polite to ask about the scars, and that he knew without asking what Dylan had to confess.

Father Quesnel considered. “Dylan, do you know why your father was so adamant that you shouldn’t follow him into the fur trade?”

“I guess I do,” said Dylan uncomfortably. “There’s not a temptation I didn’t feel.”

“It’s more than that.” Dylan could see his godfather’s mind weighing matters. “Peche wanted to tell you, meant to tell you, and I think you need to know now. Dylan, he had a country wife.”

“He
what
?” Dylan had the sensation of falling, a lurching, nauseating fall.

The phrase was a euphemism for a squaw taken as a more or less permanent woman, a man’s wife in the wilds and mother to his wilderness children. Some of the men were loyal to their country wives and country families, cherishing them for all their lives. Others changed them like they changed handkerchiefs, or had a country wife in each of several tribes. Some also had city wives, two families entirely, one for the winter in Montreal, one for the summer among the Indians. Two groups of children, white and red, legal and natural, with the Church’s sanction and without, one supposedly born of love and the other of appetite.

It was a scandal that all Montrealers knew of and no one talked about.

“Those months,” said Dylan miserably, “once an entire year away from us.”

“Yes,” said Father Quesnel. “He went to the wilderness partly because he had the comforts of the flesh there, and none at home. I counseled him about it, I advised him to remarry, I urged him to stay in the city, away from the occasion of his sin.” Father Quesnel waited, watching Dylan’s face. “But he wouldn’t, Dylan. You must understand his loneliness. It’s hard for a man suited to marriage to live in chastity.”

“Where? What tribe? Do I have half brothers and sisters?” He was not sitting in a chair in Father Quesnel’s office. He was falling through the unreality of his life.

“I don’t know many details, and they don’t matter. There were children at one time. Whether any are still living, I don’t know.”

The priest read Dylan’s mind. “He’s not gone back there, Dylan. It’s new country this time.” The priest studied. “You should know,” he said finally, “Peche said he loved her. When he got sick and couldn’t go to this country wife, that was his terrible pain. He loved her.”

Yes, thought Dylan, he was always thinking of them and not of us. Dylan was tumbling through space.

“Then, in the autumn after he hadn’t gone, the first summer he’d missed in the wilderness in twenty years, I’d say, the Rat brought word that she died.

“It was awful. His sickness of spirit was worse than his sickness of body. I feared for his life.”

Rage slowed Dylan’s fall.
Bloody
hypocrite, he thought.
Sodding
bastard. But the fury was too deep, too mad for curses. It was wildfire raging up the dry gullies of his soul, and leaving desolation.

“My son, what are your thoughts?”

Dylan spoke slowly, dragging the words out, stressing each one. “I will never abandon my daughter.

“I will give her a father.

“I will never be like my father.”

His godfather smiled gently. “I hope your thoughts, later, will be understanding, compassion, empathy. Your father loves you and Amalie, Dylan.”

Dylan did not say it: Not as much as he loves
la chatte
. Not as much as he loves his other children. Not enough.

“Meanwhile, he is he and you are you. Do you feel certain of what you want to do for your child?”

Dylan admitted it. “No.”

“What do you see in the future?”

“Father, I’m stuck. I need a job that pays enough to provide a house and a woman to watch Lara. I don’t see that job in Daddy Ni’s business.” Dylan swallowed hard. “Even if he wanted to give it to me. Claude and Amalie are afraid he wouldn’t want me to have any job.”

“I’ll have a word with them.” Father Quesnel hesitated. “Dylan, tell me why you came back to Montreal.”

In his anger and bitterness, it was hard to think straight. “I want Lara to grow up civilized. I want her to have every opportunity,” he said finally. “To be an Indian, if she wants, or to go to Greenwich and study astronomy, to sing opera in Venice, or to sell flowers in a shop. Whatever she wants.”

“You plan to send her to school here?”

“Yes, to church schools.” Like he and Amalie themselves. “Then Mrs. Harcourt.” A more fashionable school, where young ladies were tutored in art, music, dancing, and other accomplishments.

“Dylan, many Montreal fur traders have mixed-blood children. Do you recall any of them at Mrs. Harcourt’s?”

Dylan thought, puzzled. “As a matter of fact, no.”

“I think she discourages it. Perhaps more than discourages.” The priest looked sympathetically at Dylan. “The wealthier traders, in fact have sent their mixed-blood children to England for their education, isn’t that so?”

“I don’t expect to be able to afford that.”

“Ironic, isn’t it, that England welcomes them and Montreal excludes them? In England, they’re exotica. Here they’re unacceptable.” He shrugged. “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

Dylan said pensively, “I hadn’t thought of this.”

“Remember, though, they’re always welcome at the parish schools. And welcome in the house of God. We cherish their souls.”

Dylan looked at the priest, half willing to acknowledge his unpleasant thought: You mean covet their souls.

“Those who are unequal in this world will be equal in God’s love in the next,” said Father Quesnel.

Dylan felt like he’d spent too much of his life pining for the next world.

His godfather stood and came around the desk. “I have an appointment,” he said. He held his arms open and Dylan embraced him. “Five-thirty for the baptism,” said the priest. “I look forward to seeing your daughter. My blessing will be heartfelt.”

Dylan was preoccupied. He simmered and stewed. He paid almost no attention to his half sister, who was visibly nervous about some subject she wanted to broach.

At last Amalie leapt in. They were alone at the table, because Anastasie and Dru preferred to eat with Lara in the nursery. “Dylan, we want you to stay with us while you’re in Montreal. You understand we’re going to be crowded starting, well, late this afternoon when the McLeods arrive.”

Claude spoke up. “They’re crotchety and persnickety and won’t stay in hotels. Very important prospects too. Old McLeod is apparently amused by the idea that an American should own half of Montreal. Word is, he intends to make substantial investments.”

“Well, our point is,” Amalie lurched on, “would you mind moving back to your old room?” The one that was now the nursery. Where Lara and Dru and Anastasie were all sleeping. Which meant… Amalie would never suggest…

“We can move a small bed in there. The house will be crowded, with the McLeods, but we want you.”

“Of course,” added Claude, “where you belong.”

Dylan waited for the other shoe to drop. Amalie would never suggest that he sleep in the same room with Anastasie. Improper. It was almost cruel, the way he waited for her to blunder on.

“Lara needs Mrs. Bleddyn, of course, and the four of you… You see the problem.”

The four of us can scarcely share sleeping quarters. It was bitterly funny. Dylan wondered where Amalie thought they usually slept. Apparently she didn’t picture him and Dru and Anastasie and Saga and Lady Sarah in the same lodge for two years. Certainly she didn’t imagine the sounds he had often heard in the middle of the night, the groan and thump of human lovemaking.

Oh, Amalie, your civilization is a master without decency, much less love.

“So I’ve made arrangements at The Paddle and Pipe this morning,” said Claude with false cheer. The Paddle and Pipe was an inn where
voyageurs
often drank and sometimes slept in upstairs rooms. “I wanted one of the best hotels, but… You understand.”

Dylan did understand. His child was an
Indian
.

“The proprietor is a good fellow, and is making special efforts for the Bleddyns and Lara.” Claude chuckled. “Everything is paid for, and he’s promised to take very good care of them.”

Care as good as could be taken in dirty, lousy rooms among rough, drunken men.

Dylan mustered all his self-control. “It’s fine, I do understand. I don’t think The Pipe and Paddle is a good idea, though. Dru and Anastasie were wanting to go back to the lodge anyway. They prefer it.” Funny how a hide tipi could be cleaner than a fine home or hotel, morally cleaner. “I prefer it myself. It’s difficult for me to adjust to… luxury so quickly.”