The High Missouri (9 page)

Chapter Eight

Dylan was standing where, all his life, he had wanted to be. They called it simply the depot. It was the wilderness center of operations for the NorthWest Company. A thousand miles deep into the
pays sauvage
. Even a gray June day couldn’t keep it from glistening, not in his eyes.

True, his fantasy had been different—he had dreamed of wearing a black robe. He had dreamed of coming as a savior, not an adventurer. Nevertheless, to be here was the fulfillment of a dream.

Though he wasn’t wearing a black robe, he was handsomely decked out. Dru had helped him get outfitted at the company headquarters in Montreal, and today, for the first time, he was wearing his finest country clothing. Though it was also almost his only covering, it was fine—cap of knit wool against the cool evening, cloth shirt with pleats and drop shoulders, drop-front pants of a homespun wool called
etoffe du pays
—they had belled legs and were helped up by braces—moccasins made by Marguerite, and a splendid, colorful sash to give it that
je ne sais quois
.

He felt grand. He was sashaying out into the society of the NorthWest Company’s depot, all the half-breed wives and children and
les sauvages
, and he was looking fine. Maybe he was only a
mangeur de lard
now, a fellow just out from the city, with no real time in the interior, no knowledge, and no ties, but he intended to fix himself today toward becoming a
hivernant
, the canoemen’s term for a fellow who had passed a winter in this remote country, an initiate, an experienced man. Which would give him the right to strut.

The depot was no rude wilderness outpost. Forty-two buildings palisaded in a rectangle faced the loading docks near the mouth of the Kaministikwia River and a grand vista of Lake Superior.

Dylan had been busy in camp since they got in this noon, but Dru had told him all about the doings at the depot. Every June the city partners brought trade goods out from Montreal, and the partners who wintered in the
pays d’en haut
brought furs in from the most remote wilds. They did not just exchange goods. They sat and planned how to fling their empire even farther, to stay ahead of the bloody Hudson’s Bay Company, which was Here Before Christ and thought it owned North America, and how to twist its tail in the bargain.

They always succeeded, said Dru, not because they had the best plans, but because they had the best men of the wilderness. While the nabobs of Hudson Bay studied maps and developed theories about trading for furs from a boardroom in London, the NorthWest Company’s
hommes du nord
—men of the north—knew the land, knew the peoples, knew the ways, knew how to get the furs, knew how to live in wild country. It was an advantage no gentlemen could match.

Dylan had a start on becoming one of these wilderness savants, if only a start. Dru had worked with him on his shooting, though he didn’t own a gun yet. His fire-making skills were coming up. His eyes had improved a lot—now he saw the still, silent animals they passed, and knew where other animals hid and where they lived. He had a start on reading sign of man and beast. What he didn’t know—didn’t have a clue about—were the Indians. An
homme du nord
knew Indians. From this point, the jumping-off place into the real interior, Dylan would begin to learn.

His heart was set on it, and for a special reason. He had come to the wilds to see Indians, get to know them, learn to help them. He had discovered that you couldn’t know them without knowing the land they lived on. Their life was a kind of weave, and its threads were, as Dru put it, all the four-legged, winged, crawling, burrowing, swimming, and rooted creatures. The red man, unlike the white man, seemed to Dylan somehow
of
this congregation, intimately part of the weave.

Dru had been teaching him both to understand and appreciate. That was the advantage of being apprenticed to the Druid, the master of woodcraft.

The pleasure was how much Dylan loved the learning. The canoeing had become a kind of idyll for him, hardening the body, yes, and uplifting the spirit. Often, it was learning, seeing with Dru’s eyes, listening with his ears. And often it was a sense of blessing, a subtle glory that came to him, especially on the long evenings as they approached the summer solstice. The sun, arcing far to the north, shed a kind of splendor through the long twilight. The water glowed gold, and the air turned a lilac-tinged silver, pearly, liquid, crystalline.

Yes, he was a civilized man, Dylan said to himself as he pushed the canoe gently through evenings like this, and proudly so. Somehow he was a civilized man who belonged here. He felt that, breathed it. And he would show the
hommes du nord
that he belonged.

Now Dylan had an appointment with Duncan Campbell Stewart, one of the wintering partners. He didn’t know exactly what the appointment was about—Dru had arranged it. He did know that through it he might get a job that would make him a
hivernant
. Dru warned Dylan that Duncan Campbell Stewart was a man of many prejudices and peculiarities. A Campbell like my father, thought Dylan. He shook the thought off. Campbell was no longer a clan, really, nothing but a name, and not any longer Dylan’s name. He wondered what the fellow’s peculiarities were.

Dylan walked through the main gate of the depot, between buildings, and into the large quadrangle faced by the main buildings. The big building across the way, he’d been instructed, was the Great Hall. Here, said Dru, the partners lived and dined in absurd luxury.

Dylan entered the Great Hall. A bust scowled at him from atop a pedestal. Simon McTavish, the first head of the NorthWest Company, said the identifying tablet. Dylan recognized Lord Nelson in a huge portrait, and a painting of the Battle of Trafalgar. Having little feeling for such painting or sculpture, he passed on and knocked at the door on the left. A low, hard-edged voice bade him come in.

Duncan Campbell Stewart stood to an immense height, perhaps an entire foot taller than Dylan. “Welcome, Mr. Davies,” he said. He pointed to a chair on the other side of the small Queen Anne writing desk. The room was sumptuously appointed: bed, couch, writing desk, chairs of a luxury that would befit even the elder Mr. MacDonald, and silver candelabra.

This wintering partner, on the other hand, was skeletally slender. He had great, shelving brows, and eyes so deeply recessed as to be invisible. His craggy face made Dylan conscious of bone beneath flesh—he might have been looking at a fleshless skull.

Stewart gave him a dry, lifeless handshake, his fingers like withered stalks, and Dylan sat.

“Now, according to the word Mr. Bleddyn sends, you’re looking to become a
hivernant
. He says you’re a graduate of the College de Montreal, so I’m sure you read and write and figure well.”

“Yes, sir. I signed on as a
voyageur
with Mr. Bleddyn, and I want further employment. I am determined not to go back with the
mangeurs de lard
.”

Stewart swiveled the seat of his chair halfway from Dylan, smiled thinly—a skull’s smile—and stared at a far wall. Odd to think of this sepulchral figure as a Campbell clansman. Not that his father’s side mattered anyway. “Are you? I wonder. I wonder what it is you want in the
pays sauvage
.”

Dylan had no idea how to answer him.

Duncan Campbell Stewart felt curious about this young man. They had no idea, none of the young ones did. “Tell me about yourself.”

“My father is a… merchant, but peddling bores me.” Dylan stopped, and Stewart saw his embarrassment.
Pedlar
was the Hudson’s Bay Company insult for a Nor’Wester.

Stewart looked from underneath his brows at Davies. He knew his shadowed eyes made others uncomfortable. “Are you an idealist, then?”

Davies hesitated, then spoke. Stewart was a sophisticated man who would understand. “My first thought was for the priesthood, sir. In the last century the Jesuits were active among these Indians. I wanted… I wanted to get that program started again, to be a missionary to this country, to save the souls of these Indians.”

God help us, thought Stewart. He said only, “An idealist indeed.” He regarded Davies for a long moment. “Do you know what an idealist is, young Mr. Davies?”

“No, sir.” Stewart saw that like other youths, Davies hated to be played with this way.

“An architect who designs buildings without water closets. In other words, a man who sees with his dreams instead of his eyes. That can be dangerous in this country
sauvage
, Mr. Davies.”

Davies nodded. Polite, anyway, and Stewart meant to take advantage.

“I, too, came here an idealist.” He swiveled back toward Davies. “I am a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Mr. Davies, and of All Souls College, Oxford.” Davies looked surprised. He must have thought Oxford was closed to Highlander barbarians.

“My great model was Adam Smith. Have you heard of the late Professor Smith, Mr. Davies?” Stewart raised the dark, craggy eyebrows.

Dylan told himself there was nothing to be intimidated about. “No.”

Stewart spoke deliberately. “He taught that trade is the great ameliorating influence of civilized man. Good not only for the economy of men, but for their souls.” Stewart gave a short, hacking, humorless laugh, like the grate of chisel on marble. “Naive, Mr. Davies. Naive.” Dylan pictured Stewart cutting that word into the marble of Professor Smith’s tombstone.

Stewart stared into space. Dylan wondered what scenes he was seeing, remembering, vast murals of dark, recollected pictures of life in the
pays sauvage
. Scenes that would account for his sepulchral manner. “Professor Smith saw with his dreams. But he was never here to see…
actual
Indians, was he?”

Dylan didn’t know what to say.

Stewart turned his head, and his darkened eyes to Dylan and spoke gently, in a tone that imitated kindness. “Mr. Davies, I find your company engaging. Will you come in to dinner with me?”

Dru had told him about the extravagant dinners at the Great Hall. Dylan could hardly refuse. Surely Dru and the family wouldn’t mind. “With pleasure, Mr. Stewart,” he lied.

It was an immense dining room, seating up to two hundred people formally, according to Stewart. He and Dylan were ushered to seats at a table running perpendicular to the head table. Only Montreal partners sat at the head table, said Stewart, “their innocence protected against intimacy with the likes of us wintering partners, who have rubbed shoulders too familiarly with savages.” The pecking order was something like Montreal partners, wintering partners, factors, clerks, and guides.

Dylan thought he would hardly be able to hear for the hubbub. The men were in high spirits. They met here only briefly once a year, and celebrated when they had the chance. And these diners, Stewart pointed out, were not the engagés—hired men—out from Montreal or the
hommes du nord
from the remote country. These lived in tents outside the palisades and ate their
sagamité
there, that and pemmican, said Stewart. The diners here were the brains and the power of the NorthWest Company.

The diners fell quiet when the man at the center of the head table, whose name Dylan never did get, stood to propose a toast with the fine West Indian rum before them. “To the Mother of all saints,” he intoned. “Hear, hear” rang all around the huge room. The man to that fellow’s right then stood and offered, “Up the king.” More cries of assent. The man to the left of the fellow proposed, “To the fur trade in all its branches.” And so went the last two toasts, alternating right and left, “To
voyageurs
, wives, and children,” and “To absent partners.” Rousing cheers all around.

Then, swiftly, the food was served. A filet of lake trout first, with peas and butter from the fort’s farm. Delicious, Dylan thought. Next an entire goose per man, with a thick gravy and wild rice. Dylan ate only half, because it seemed too rich. Last a piece of buffalo hump almost the size of a man’s upper arm, with potatoes and parsnips. He thought he was much too full to do more than sample the hump, but it was the best meat he’d ever tasted. He stuffed himself unpleasantly full. Then they brought several desserts, mince pie, boiled spotted dick, blancmange, and pastries, which Dylan didn’t even look at. He did take a cup of tea. All the others ate like trenchermen, and Dylan wondered how they managed. The only exception he could see was Stewart, who hardly bothered to eat, but took on liquor mightily.

A prodigious amount of food altogether, introduced, washed down, and followed by a more prodigious amount of spirit. After the rum to start, a bottle of wine per man with each course, and brandy after. Dylan had not imagined human beings could drink so much. The din grew to a roar, like the sound of a ravenous pack of beasts, Dylan thought. He was glad when Stewart suggested they repair to his rooms. And pleased when he noticed that Stewart, like himself, walked with the delicate care of the man conscious of inebriation.

Stewart lit one candle, put it well away from them, and settled into one of his high, straight-backed chairs. He was the sort of man who would prefer a hard chair to a comfortable one. He waved Dylan vaguely in the direction of an opposite chair. He lolled his head back and gave a loose, easy chuckle. His body was partly lit by the flickering candle, his face in darkness.

“I dare say you’ve heard a few tales of this wilderness,” said Stewart. “And its Indians, oh yes, more than a few. I’m not interested in the ways in which these… fables are petty lies—stuff of escaping murderous tribesmen, slaying grizzly bears, defeating seven-foot warriors in mortal combat, sighting monsters, all that sort of thing. I’m concerned with the ways in which they mince oh so scrupulously around the truth.”

Drunkenly, wildly, Stewart jerked his head forward and at Dylan.

Jarred, Dylan suddenly wondered if he could have seen the man’s eyes when his head was back. He had the most uncomfortable feeling about those eyes, a fancy that they were lightless, mere black holes. He still couldn’t see them in the wavering candlelight.