The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor (14 page)

“Wioche, son of Amoq’t, I hear you. You speak well, as did your father and you are as subtle as he. But this subtlety is best applied to the messages you carry to the people in other camps. You cannot revoke my promise or supplant my place as chief. The father commands the daughter, and in his place, the father’s friend brings her home.”

“Ah, if I may interrupt ye, chief, an’ meaning no offence whatsoever.”

Silence. Eyes turn. A fair-haired boy in the well-worn suit of a sailor, one arm in a sling, walks slowly from the edge of the group, where he had stood unseen.

“Ah, chief, I’m William MacCulloch and in the service of George Walker and His Majesty’s merchant marine. Nou, chief, I wish, if I might, to say a word on behalf of the English and a few others, if you’ll let me do so.”

He looks around, but no one speaks.

“Nou I may leuk an Englishmaun to ye, chief, but I’m not. I’m a Scot and so too is George Walker. I wanna tell ye what ye seem not to ken—that this woman Charlotte Taylor is in actual fact Charlotte Willisams, married and nou a widow. And, chief, in the customs of her country, a married woman is no longer at the disposal of her faither but is a free body, as free as ye, chief. That’s not all I hae to say. The other is on account of Commodore George Walker, who is a fine man, a Scot and as guid a captain as any of us will ever ken. But he is a
maun
, chief, an’ I’m here to tell ye—and don’t ask me how I ken this, chief, ’cause I will never tell ye—I’m here to tell ye that the captain—auld as he is—wanted this bonnie wife for himself, but she told him nay. She seeks a younger maun for a husband and a faither to her bairn. The captain is a maun of honour, chief, and would do no wrong on account o’ the devil. But ye might understand that he did not seek to see this woman ivery day in this place he calls his hame. Much better she should be in England, with a faither who does not own her and does not want her. Do ye stairt tae see the thrust of me argument here, chief? I hope ye do.”

With that he turns and walks away. Charlotte watches him go, stunned by the lie he told for her and not for a moment did she imagine that she would never see him again.

Chief Julian stands silent and studies her closely.

“I am the chief of the Salmon,” he says at last, “and I have heard all that has been said. Today I will go into the hills and hunt the deer as I did as a young man. Tomorrow I will return. While I am gone, Wioche, son of Amoq’t, will act for me as he has in the past.”

With that the assembly rises and the People return to their tasks.

J
ACK
P
RIMM SITS
at the long table, his rum bottle his only companion. Bob Simpson looks in at the door.

“Can I fetch you anything, sir.”

“You cannot. Is she gone?”

“We’re still looking for her, sir.”

“Not the wretched woman! The
Hanley!
Is she gone?”

“She was gone before dark, sir, when her boat brought letters for the commodore.”

“I am damned then.”

“Are we to resume the search in the morning, sir?”

“What matters now?”

“She may be in danger, sir, in them woods.”

“Let her die there. Bring me for now MacCulloch and I shall tell him his punishment. There’s some satisfaction.”

He fills his mug with rum again.

“He don’t seem about, sir,”

The
HMS
Hanley
, bound for Bristol, catches a good evening breeze from the west and sweeps toward the wide Gulf of St. Lawrence.

“We thought to carry a woman,” says Captain John Robbins.

“Aye, sir, but sudden illness confines her now and she must wait a later ship. But this letter, sir, I am entrusted to carry to her dear father in Sussex, who is himself sickly. It may be their last communication, sir.”

“Alas, a melancholy burden.”

“It is, sir, but I am honoured to carry it.”

“And who pays your fare?”

“I shall pay my own fare, sir, if you will but employ me. I am an able seaman, sir, and can do the work of two men as is attested by these papers, sir.”

“And your arm?”

“It is almost healed, sir, and I shall soon not favour it.”

“Your name?”

“Will MacCulloch, sir, at your service.”

“A Scot.”

“Awhiles a Scot, sir, an’ whiles mony anither!”

T
here is much to learn. There is no written language, only storytelling and drawings she is unfamiliar with. The legends of the Mi’kmaq are full of superstition and mythology, relying on the past to fathom the future. She’s enchanted with the analogies and the use of hieroglyphics.

She had already discovered a veritable pharmacy in the woods with Marie but wonders how she’ll keep all the medicinal remedies straight. Eat this, don’t touch that. Boil one, scrape the other. How will she ever remember? And by now she knows about Gluskap, the legendary alter ego of everyone in the camp. The stories about the shenanigans of Gluskap are about monsters and wisdom, magic and moral laws.

The people, including the few Acadian families that remain in the camp, eat communally around a great fire. Charlotte quickly learns that food is either roasted over the coals or poached by putting it in bowls of water heated with red-hot rocks. Sometimes steaming is the method of choice when, for
example, lobster, cod or bass are put on top of the coals and water is sprinkled over them until they are cooked. Meat such as moose and deer are usually roasted but also poached in the deep bowls, the rocks being replaced when they cool, about every ten minutes with a new supply from the fire.

The women cook with an assortment of ancient utensils carved from trees and bones and European iron pots and knives gained through trade—or theft, according to some of the gossip she’s heard. The children are much adored and do whatever they like, slipping from one woman’s lap to another with the ease of fish moving through water, playing about the fire and, depending on their age, helping themselves to food from the spits or swallowing portions that have already been chewed by their parents. The men sit separately.

Charlotte stays with Marie, trying to mimic her behaviour, learn her methods. The chores are very much divided—the men hunt the animals, the women go into the bush to skin and butcher them for food, clothing, utensils and materials to patch the camp together. They only kill what they need; nothing is wasted, except perhaps the rum that the women tell Charlotte is arriving in an ever-increasing supply and is often blamed for everything from ill-will to a poor kill.

Before the meal is begun, Marie makes it clear that Charlotte should watch carefully, that she must learn the ways of the camp. The chief approaches the fire and tosses a handful of herbs onto the coals. The aroma they create is sweet and savoury. Charlotte understands it’s sweetgrass from the bay and sage from the woods, together they apparently create the scent of the earth.

Chief Julian looks her way and says, “We burn sage to take away evil and bad thinking and sweetgrass to invite the good.”
He’s carrying a long feather that he waves in all directions so the smoke wafts onto the food and the people sitting in the circle.

“It’s the feather of the eagle,” Marie whispers. “Our legend says it is the message of life and hope from the Great Spirit. When you hold it, everyone will respect you, no one will interrupt you.”

Chief Julian begins to chant, to call out to the north wind, east wind, south and west wind. He prays to Mother Earth for the children, the eagle and the women and men. Charlotte feels the power of the ancient ritual and lets the smoke waft around her while realizing what a very long way she is from her own traditions.

One evening after the meal while everyone in the camp is still gathered in the circle, she asks the chief how it is that the Acadians came to live with the Mi’kmaq. Chief Julian rises—as though a ceremony is about to begin, she thinks—walks over to Marie’s husband, André, and hands him the eagle feather. It is the signal that André has been invited to tell the story.

The night is cool; she wraps herself in a mooseskin hide offered by Wioche and moves closer to the fire as André begins. “Les Acadiens sont arrivés ici il y a cent quarante ans.” It is an extraordinary tale of small victories over the harsh climate, crushing defeats at the hands of the British, abandonment by their own government in France and ultimately betrayal and expulsion. It is also a story of resilience, and endurance, of abiding music and masterful storytelling. Charlotte has spent a lot of time with Marie and André by now. She’d met his parents when they visited from Caraquet and joined the extended family when they went berry picking or walked along the flats looking for clams. Her impression so far is that the Acadians are a people so comfortable in their own skin, one could be forgiven for
thinking they had triumphed here on the north shore rather than being turned into fugitives.

André continues. In 1755 when a war was stirring between Britain and France, the unimaginable happened. The Acadians, who had refused to take sides in the warring, committed a crime in the eyes of the victorious British and needed to be punished. Long suspected of being in collusion with the Indians, who were a thorn in the British side, the new masters decided to rid the land of the people whose roots were planted deeper than anyone else’s save the Indians in the soil of Nova Scotia. Families were shattered during the hurried expulsion, children being deported on one ship, parents on another, fathers were banished to one colony, mothers and children to another. The upheaval was catastrophic; many died en route. The Great Expulsion saw almost every one of them—more than eight thousand—banished, sent back to France, dispersed to other colonies as far away as South Carolina and Louisiana or pursued relentlessly until they died on the run of exposure, hunger or were slaughtered like hunted animals. Their land was confiscated, their footprints nearly wiped away.

André’s family and a few others managed to stay by hiding in the Indian camps, ultimately raising their families there and preserving what was left of l’Acadie. Although there were families who found their way home earlier, most did not return until now, when a modified government in Nova Scotia decided the Acadians were no longer a threat to British rule. It is twenty long years after the expulsion.

There is a hush over the camp when André comes to the end of his story. More tea is served as the embers die and a flagon of rum is passed around while the Mi’kmaq, the Acadians and the Englishwoman among them watch the coals glow, each caught in their own considerations.

L
ATER THAT NIGHT,
Charlotte finds her diary and writes:

I
T’S
O
CTOBER
when Commodore Walker returns. Charlotte had thought there would be a warning, some time to prepare for the explanation he would demand. There wasn’t. She is working with the other women, drying fish to store for winter when suddenly he is standing before her.

“May I ask what it is you think you are doing?” he demands.

When she stands to respond, he is flabbergasted at her obviously pregnant shape. “You are with child,” he utters.

“Too true,” she replies.

It’s a crisp autumn afternoon; the leaves have turned to gold
and scarlet, signalling the season had changed as well as Charlotte’s location during the commodore’s long absence.

“I thought your return would be announced to me,” Charlotte says, unable to find a more polished way to speak to the man who had been her benefactor.

“It was unexpected, by me as much as by yourself. I was very delayed in Quebec and endured a long and arduous return voyage.” Staring at her pregnant belly, he adds, “But I see that expectations of all sorts are matters of moment.”

She cannot help lowering her eyes.

For a moment he doesn’t seem to have any clear notion of what else to say. He clears his throat. “I do hope you are well.”