"We were two days out when Florence, my youngest sister, sickened. My father insisted it was the food, but it was smallpox. When she died, the captain slipped the body overboard quietly at night so the crew wouldn't know. We were forced to keep in our quarters. Food was left at the door for us. The hands were told we were quarantined for measles.
"Then we began dying inside our cabins. I shared a room with my two remaining sisters. The morning of the fifth day, I found they'd locked us in. From then on we did not know if our parents and our brothers were alive or dead. When my sister Viola died, I pounded on the door and screamed for my mother. No one came, no one answered me, no one brought food. The whole ship is dead, I thought. And I held onto Jeannette, who tossed and moaned; and begged her to stay with me. But she died too. I covered her with one sheet, and Viola with the other. But I was frightened of the still bodies, and I began throwing myself at the door. I dug my nails into the wood and screamed."
She turned her eyes on me, soft, wounded eyes. "I hadn't eaten in two days. It was hot in that little cabin, and the smell of death was there. I closed my eyes and prayed to die fast. When I opened them I was lying on the berth, and there was a tray of food in front of me. My sisters were not there. I got up and tried the door. It was open. Suddenly I knew it wasn't real, that I had dreamed it, that I alone had been sick and dreamed these things. I ran to my mother's cabin, holding to the wall of the passageway. I tried the door, and it opened. There was no one there; even the trunks were gone. I ran on to my brothers' cabin. The berths were made up. It was neat and tidy, no clothes around, nothing." She stopped talking and looked at me.
"That's the way it was. It had struck the men too. They had fallen from the ropes and the rigging. A third of them died. The whole crew had been demoralized. They had forgotten our food, they had forgotten everything, had prayed and sung and wept. The boat somehow looked after itself.
"It took two months to reach America. And, as I said, the crew blamed the captain for the curses he had called down, the captain blamed my father, and he was dead."
Constance smiled at me. "Don't look like that, Katherine Mary. It happened such a long time ago, twenty-five years. I can talk about it now, tell it as if it were a story, because so many years of living have passed between me and that little French girl. She was called Constance too, but the language she spoke is not my language. The things she learned on the Riviera I do not remember."
"What did you do, all alone?" I asked her.
"I got a position as a maid. A housemaid. I was very fortunate. Did I tell you even the trunks had been thrown overboard, for fear of contagion? But I was fed and clothed and given a day off once a week. I would go to church, and then walk. I walked and walked all over the city because there was only a small empty room to go home to. One day, on my day off, while I was walking, I heard my name called. I recognized him at once, Georges Beau-claire. He had been our groom. A great man with a horse, my father said. I was so glad to see him I almost kissed him. It was as though a part of my family had been restored to me. He knew my name, he knew theirs. When he asked me about myself, I cried. I had not been able to cry all that time.
"I married him that afternoon. He told me he had nothing. Well, that nothing of his was enough to get us into Canada. Georges dreaming of this immense wild country where a man worked for himself and had no master. And because I had no dreams of my own, I shared his. At Edmonton we bought a horse and loaded him with our supplies. He went lame in two days and had to be shot. We spread out our goods there on the trail. Georges took a gun and cartridges, a knife, matches, and a fifty-pound sack of flour. I took a fifty-pound sack of sugar on my back, and we walked. We walked till our shoes fell apart, and then we walked barefoot. We ate the berries along the way, and at night I cooked the flour with sugar and water. It kept up our strength.
"We'd been on the trail six weeks when the first snow fell. We had no other clothes. We had nothing. We thought we would have to die. But we didn't say that to each other, we didn't say anything, we saved our breath for walking. And came to a trapper's cabin. He was a Russian. Gorgin his name was. He was leaving for his winter's trapping, and he took Georges along as partner. I stayed seven months in the cabin alone. My first baby was born there. It didn't live."
"Oh," I said, "was that Suzanne?"
She shook her head. "No, the first was a boy. I never named him. What was the use?"
She got up and walked to the window. A dying sun lit her features. My mother told me there were people in this world born to sorrow. Constance was one of them.
"You asked me about my families. Women up here speak of their first family, their second family, their third family. Counting the baby boy I lost that first winter, I've had four families. Nine children. They're out there." I knew what she meant, the little graveyard we'd passed on the way in.
"When Georges came back that winter, we had money for clothes, a team, and provisions. We came here to Grouard. We built our house. The Indians helped us. And I had my second family, three children. It was the little girl, Suzanne, that reminds me of your Mary. I raised one of the boys, Paul."
"What happened?" I asked, glancing nervously at Mary Aroon, who was asleep in her crib.
"Measles, that time. Whole tribes were wiped out with it."
"But the other times? You said you had nine children."
"Once it was scarlet fever, and once it was typhoid. The winters are hard up here. There is no doctor, but I raised four. You saw my girls. Paul is married; he lives in Edmonton. And Timmy you know."
She turned from the window. "A nice family. It's enough for any woman. But sometimes I think of the others."
I didn't know what to say. I closed the window and fastened it, to give me something to do. She watched me, and when I had finished she said:
"Katherine Mary, we're going to know each other very well, for many years, I hope. You'll see, you'll come to understand. These big things, these terrible things, are not the important ones. If they were, how could one go on living? No, it is the small, little things that make up a day, that bring fullness and happiness to a life. Your Sergeant coming home, a good dinner, your little Mary laughing, the smell of the woods—oh, so many things, you know them yourself." She took my hand.
"You know I didn't come to talk about myself—but you are the only woman to come in in all these years; the others, the 'breeds, the Indians, even my own daughters, have never been out. It makes a difference, so you'll forgive me."
"Oh, no, it's been ... I mean, you've been—" I stopped. I wanted to say, "How wonderful you are, how beautiful..." But I didn't know how. She picked up the bottle of liniment.
"Thank you, Katherine." She walked toward the door and then paused.
"You haven't seen the Mission. Perhaps you and the Sergeant would enjoy the midnight mass. I usually walk. The woods are very peaceful at night."
Before I had time to answer, Mike kicked the door open. He and Constable Cameron were half-supporting, half-dragging Timmy between them. Constance rushed past me. The boy was sobbing. She lifted his head and looked into his face.
"Is he all right?" she asked Mike. Mike nodded. They brought Timmy into the house, and Mike pushed him into a chair. None of us looked at him. He was trying to control his crying, and long rasping breaths shook him again and again.
"You went to my house first?" Constance asked Mike, and I was amazed how calmly she spoke.
"Yes," Mike said. "Georges was there, soaking his foot. He's got a pretty bad sprain. Anyway, he said you were with Kathy."
Constance turned to Timmy. His dark, tousled head was in his hands, but he seemed quieter.
"What happened, Tim?" she asked.
"Mish-e-muk-wa ..." the word was muffled by his hand. Mish-e-muk-wa was the Cree name for bear. The Indian word startled me. I thought of what Constance had said—none of her children had ever been out.
"As near as I can figure it," Mike said, "Tim was out hunting wit
h Jerry West. They were on their way back with a few rabbits when they bumped into Doug and Ray Lamont and Dennis Crane. They'd been fishing, hadn't they, Tim?"
"Yes." Tim choked out the word without looking up.
"So they all walked back together," Mike went on, "and the men were kidding Tim and Jerry about their hunting, asking them why didn't they really bring down something, like an elk or a mountain lion, when all at once Doug lets out a whoop and grabs Tim's rifle, for there's a grizzly. You see, they were coming back along the lake, and this grizzly's on the other side of Miller's Cove. So Douglas says this is his kind of game, and he lets the grizzly have it. It's at long range, clear across the water, but he hits the bear.
"But he didn't kill it." Timmy looked up at us, his face streaked with tears. "It went into the water and swam toward us, right across the cove. And Doug kept pulling the trigger and it just clicked because it was empty, but he kept pulling it anyway."
"Didn't the others have guns?" his mother asked him.
"Fishing poles." Timmy's lips twitched, and for a moment I was afraid he was going to laugh.
"It kept coming, and Doug kept clicking that empty gun at it. And Jerry, he dropped his rabbits and started running. The bear wasn't swimming any longer; he was touching bottom. His neck and shoulders were out of the water." The terror in Timmy's eyes grew.
"Don't tell it, Tim," Constance said. But he had to tell it.
"We ran, all of us. There was a shack, no one lives there now, they used to make liquor in it. You know, Mother."
Constance nodded.
"We ran for that and—Jerry fell—" Timmy looked at his mother, faced her as though he were facing God. "I didn't stop. I could have picked him up, but I didn't." The anguish that darkened his eyes darkened hers. She didn't say anything.
Mike spoke up then. "The others didn't stop, Mrs. Beauclaire. Grown men, and none of them stopped. There wasn't time."
"Yes," said Timmy, "there was. We ran into the house, and Dennis slammed the door. Then Jerry got up and ran to it. The grizzly was behind him, its mouth open. Jerry grabbed the door and tried to pull it open. But they held it. I tried to open it; they pushed me away. Jerry was pounding at it and calling to me—to me! And I couldn't make them open it. I begged them, I begged them . . . and then Jerry began to scream."
Constance put her hand on his shoulder. "Timmy," she said. But Timmy didn't hear her, he heard Jerry screaming.
"He's dead?" Constance asked Mike.
"Yes," Mike said.
"God, you should have seen him," Constable Cameron said. "His face was torn apart."
"Ned!" Mike said. And Constable Cameron stopped talking, but bears were on his mind, and I was sorry when he said he would go to the Mission with us for midnight mass.
It was, as Constance had said, very peaceful walking in the crisp cool air. Timmy walked silently, his eyes on the ground. Mike was talking to Constance, but talking so Timmy could hear.
"When you're overwrought like that, things go on happening, and it seems that they're taking a long time about it. But really everything took place in a matter of seconds."
Timmy's hands clenched. "Mike," he said, "cut it out."
"All right, Tim. I just want you to know that after talking with the others, I'm convinced that it had to be done like that." Timmy didn't say anything, and we walked on. It had been a long evening. Mike had visited the shack, and he and the Constable had made out a report. Supper had been silent. I looked up. Black trees against a midnight sky.
"Sure," said Ned Cameron, "it was just a case of one or all." No one said anything. The leaves stiff with frost crackled under our feet. It was again Cameron who spoke.
"Yeah, a wounded grizzly's a mean animal. Ordinarily they're pretty easygoing and shy. But they're desperate fighters when they're wounded or when you get them cornered. How big was this one, Tim?"
Tim didn't answer.
"Remember the one McTavish got last summer? Weighed over a thousand pounds. I never was lucky enough to get one of them big fellows. Mine have always been right around four hundred pounds. But this fellow the McTavishes got, front claws were six inches long. They trapped him, you know. It's pretty easy, once you find a bear trail, because a bear will always step squarely in the print of his own tracks, so there are well-worn footsteps, almost like stairs in the hills. But the ground between isn't broken down at all because it's never walked on. So what you do is set the trap right in the middle of a print, and you got your bear."
I glanced at Timmy. Shadows crossed his face and lay in his eyes; from the trees, I thought.
"Another thing about real bears. That's what the Indians call 'em, real bears ..."
"Ned," Mike said.
"I was just going to say, it's too bad it isn't six weeks later. The whole thing could never have happened then because they hole up about the time the first heavy snows hit us, and that's usually November. Have you noticed there's frost on the ground already?"
We came into a clearing, and the moon struck Timmy's face. Constance was watching him anxiously. I slowed my steps and smiled at Constable Cameron.
"Mike showed me once where a bear was hibernating in a drift."
"They'll do that, north side of a snowbank. But usually they den up in a watee about five feet high, six feet wide, and say ten feet deep."
'I had stopped to pin my scarf tighter. We were far enough behind now so Timmy couldn't hear.
"You notice the grizzly didn't eat the kid, just mauled him up. As a rule, you know, they'll eat anything. But about a month before they den up, they quit eating. They go into hibernation with a clean belly and intestines. Their stomachs are drawn up in a solid lump like a chicken's gizzard." I gulped and nodded.
"That grizzly may be wounded worse than they think. I'm going to have a look around tomorrow. If the fur's in good condition, they fetch quite a price."
I was glad when we reached the Mission. It was the largest building I had seen; in fact, it looked a little like a fort. It had a stockade surrounding it, and inside were gardens.
"They raise their own food," Mike said. "They took the prize last year in hard wheat. Bishop Grouard is a fine man, Kathy. I'm anxious for you to know him. Grouard's named for him, of course. This Mission was the first building on Lesser Slave."
"It took God to beat the Hudson's Bay Company," said Cameron, and laughed.
"There are eighty children living here now, and they keep the place up. Each one has his job, gardening or sewing or whatever it is, and they take a pride in it, as you can see by the look of things."
The service had started, and we slipped in quietly. The pews were logs split in two. They rested at right angles to one another, forming seat and back. Candles made little pools of light, and shadows wavered on the rough-hewn walls. They were strange shadows, pointed and long—an eagle headdress . . . rounded shadows like a turkey's back, made by the women as they pulled their blankets around them. But the dark faces were lifted, their bodies yearned forward, and the words reached quietly into the corners of the chapel. The softness of the Cree language, with its deep musical notes, was very restful. I felt peace steal over me. I looked at Tim. There were tears again on his face. But the words drew me, and I turned toward the altar.
The bishop was a white-haired, vigorous-looking man. Thick' hunter's boots showed beneath his black cassock. He stood straight, like a sturdy old oak, and when he prayed it was a gentle conversation. Closing my eyes, I felt the answering response. In the hush and the quiet I felt I couldn't pray. I could only feel a happiness and a contentment. I opened my eyes and looked into the face of the Mother of Sorrows. She was carved in wood. The work was crude. It looked as though it had been done with a hunting knife. But the face was not cold, like expensive marble faces. A great beauty was there, a great love and sincerity that made you forget its awkwardness and the strangeness of its proportions. The purity of the expression haunted me, the sorrow of the eyes, the sweetness of the
mouth. I knew it. I had seen it before ... I turned away, but the face was still in front of me. No, it was Constance Beauclaire, and her eyes rested on Timmy. Mother of Sorrows, I thought; and now my prayer came.
Fifteen
Mike wanted me to take a girl from the Mission to help with the house and the baby. I had completely forgotten my pleurisy, but every now and then I would catch Mike watching me with a worried eye. I still didn't stand straight enough or breathe deep enough to suit him.
"You don't have to take too much on you, Kathy," he said. "You can have one of the young girls at the Mission give you a hand with the housework."
"How young?" I said.
Mike laughed. "Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen," he said. "At what age do you get jealous?"
I gave him a push. "Who's jealous of you? You think you're such a dashing figure of a man in your red coat and all!" I looked him over and I had to admit, "Well, you are."
"Now look, Kathy," Mike said seriously, "you think I don't know about your sneaking down to the cage, taking Baldy Red things to eat, and squeezing in through those saplings to fix up his shed. If you want to do it, that's okay. But pampering Baldy Red with hot meals and clean sheets adds to your work."
I was mad that he had found out about it. I lashed out. "It's disgraceful! That filthy place, and the horrible things he cooks for himself!"