The Tenderness of Wolves

THE SICKNESS OF LONG THINKING

Years ago, when he was searching for Amy and Eve Seton, Sturrock sat in a barroom very like this, drinking whisky punch with a young man he had just been introduced to. He had heard of Kahon’wes before, and was flattered by the younger man’s desire to meet him. Kahon’wes proved to be a tall, striking Mohawk who was trying to make his way in journalism. Though articulate and intelligent, he was caught between two worlds and did not seem to know quite where to place himself. This was evident from his dress, which on that occasion was entirely that of a young man of fashion–cutaway coat, top hat, button boots and so on. He was even something of a dandy. But on subsequent meetings, he was dressed in buckskins, or in a strange hybrid of the two styles. His language also wavered between a fluent and educated English–as at the first meeting–and a more stilted way of speaking that he seemed to feel was more ‘Indian’; it all depended on whom he was with. Sturrock was happy to talk about journalism, but he was also hoping that the man could be useful to him in his search. Kahon’wes had a wide range of contacts as he was always travelling, talking to people and generally being what the governors in Toronto called a troublemaker. Since Sturrock was also a troublemaker, they got on well.

Sturrock told him of the search for the girls. He had already been working on it for the best part of a year, and by then had little hope of success. Kahon’wes, like most people in Upper Canada, had heard of the case.

‘Ah … the two girls who were spirited away by wicked Indians.’

‘Or eaten by wolves, I am beginning to believe. Still, the father will leave no stone unturned in the whole of North America.’

He told Kahon’wes he had visited bands on both sides of the border, going to the contacts and men of influence who had helped him before. But he had heard nothing of any use.

Kahon’wes paused before saying that he would ask those he met: as Sturrock must be well aware, there are times when an answer (like his own manner of speech and dress) depends on who sits the other side of the table.

Several months later, Sturrock had word from the journalist. He was passing through Forest Lake, and was told that Kahon’wes was only a few miles away. On this occasion he was dressed in the Indian style, and his speech was altered. He was frustrated by his attempts to get articles published in the white press. Sturrock had the impression of a volatile character who, without the right encouragement, could become lost. He offered to read some of his articles and give advice, but Kahon’wes now seemed uninterested in his help.

This was the occasion on which the two men spoke of an ancient Indian civilisation, greater and more sophisticated than the one that came after. Kahon’wes was passionate in describing such a thing, and though Sturrock did not believe in it for a moment, he could not help but be beguiled by his vision. He saw Kahon’wes only once after that, some months later outside Kingston, when they did not speak for long, and Sturrock got the impression he was drinking heavily. However, at that last meeting he did have news. He had spoken to the chief of a Chippewa band living around Burke’s Falls, who had news of a white woman living with Indians. That was all, but it was no worse a lead than many Sturrock had followed in his line of business.

Some weeks later, Seton and he journeyed to a small village from where, after much negotiation, they were taken to an Indian camp to meet the girl. It was more than six years since the girls had vanished, three since Mrs Seton had died of a mysterious ailment, commonly said to be a broken heart. Sturrock had always felt sorry for Charles Seton, his distress ever-present like a terrible wound under the thinnest of scar tissue. But this anticipation was worse, if anything could be worse. Seton had said barely a word since they set out from the village, his face white as paper. He looked like a sick man. Beforehand, he had seemed most taken up with not knowing which of his daughters this was supposed to be: Eve would now be seventeen, Amy nineteen, but no one seemed to know how old this girl was. There was no suggestion of a name: or rather, she now had an Indian name.

Sturrock tried to keep Seton talking, reminding him that the girl, if indeed she was his daughter, would be very changed. Seton insisted he would know her, no matter what.

‘I could not forget the slightest detail of their faces, as long as I live,’ he said, staring straight ahead.

Sturrock persisted, gently. ‘But it is remarkable how changed some of them become. I have seen parents not recognise their own children, even after a short period with the Indians. It is not just a matter of the face … it is everything. How they speak, how they move, how they are.’

‘All the same, I would know them,’ Seton said.

They dismounted outside the teepees and left their horses grazing. Their guide went and spoke at the largest teepee, and a grizzled old man came out, listening as he spoke in the Chippewa language. The guide translated the reply:

‘He says the girl came with them of her own free will. She is one of them now. He wants to know if you have come to take her away.’

Sturrock intervened before Seton could speak. ‘We are not going to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to, but if she is this man’s daughter, he wishes to talk to her. He has searched for many years.’

The old man nodded, and led them to another teepee. After a moment, he beckoned Sturrock and Seton to follow him in.

For several moments, as they sat down, it was impossible to discern anything. The interior was close, dark and smoky, and it was only gradually that they became aware of two figures sitting opposite them; a Chippewa man and woman. Charles Seton gave a little gasp, almost a mewing noise, and stared at the woman, who was barely more than a girl.

The skin of her face was dark, with dark eyes, and her hair was long and black, and glinted with grease. She wore a skin tunic and was wrapped in a striped blanket, although the day was warm, and stared at the ground. At first glance, Sturrock would not have taken her for anything other than a Chippewa girl. He assumed the young man at her side was her husband, although they were not introduced. After that first exclamation Seton made no other sound. It was as though he was choking on words, his mouth open but his throat closed.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see us,’ Sturrock began. He thought he had never in his life seen anything so cruel as the pain on Charles Seton’s face at that moment. ‘Could you look up please, so that Mr Seton can see your face properly?’

He smiled encouragingly at the young couple opposite. The man stared back, impassive, then rapped the girl on the hand. She lifted her head, although not her eyes. Seton’s breathing sounded loud in the confined space. Sturrock looked from one to the other, waiting for one to recognise the other. Perhaps it was all a wild goose chase. A minute crept by, and then another. It was agonising. Then, at last, Seton took a breath.

‘I don’t know which one she is. She is my daughter … if I could see her eyes …’

Sturrock was startled. He looked at the girl, still as a graven image, and used her Indian name.

‘Wah’tanakee, what colour are your eyes?’

At last she looked up, at Seton. He looked into her eyes, which, as far as Sturrock could tell in the murky light, were brown.

Seton drew another painful breath. ‘Eve.’ There was a catch in his voice, and a tear slid silently down his cheek. But it was a statement. After six years of searching, he had found one of his missing daughters.

The girl stared at him for a moment, then dropped her eyes again. It could have been a nod.

‘Eve …’

Seton wanted to lean over to her, to gather her in his arms, Sturrock could feel it, but the girl was so still and forbidding he did not move. He merely said her name again, one or two times, and then struggled to calm himself.

‘What … I don’t know how … Are you well?’

She moved her head in that single up-and-down movement. Now the old man spoke again, and the interpreter, who was also crammed into the teepee behind them, translated.

‘This man is her husband. The old man is his uncle. He has brought her up in his own family since they found her.’

‘Found her? Where? When was this? With Amy? Where is Amy? Is she here? Do you know?’

The old man made some remark that Sturrock recognised as a curse. Then Eve herself began to speak, and all the time her eyes looked past them, at a spot on the floor.

‘It was five, six, seven years ago. I don’t remember. It seems very long ago. Another time. After we went for a walk we got lost. The other girl went first. She went off without us. We walked and walked. Then we were so tired we lay down to sleep. When I woke up I was alone. I didn’t know where I was, where anyone was. I was frightened and I thought I would die. And then Uncle was there, and took me with him and gave me food and shelter.’

‘And Amy? What happened to her?’

Eve did not look towards him. ‘I don’t know what happened. I thought she had left me. I thought she was angry and had gone home without me.’

Seton shook his head. ‘No. No. We did not know what had happened to either of you. Cathy Sloan came back, but there was no trace of you, or Amy. We looked and looked. I have never stopped looking for you since that day, you must believe that.’

‘It is true,’ Sturrock said into the silence. ‘Your father has spent every waking minute, and everything he has, in the search for you and your sister.’

Seton swallowed–it sounded loud in the little tent. ‘I have to tell you, I am sorry to say, that your mother passed away three years ago this April. She never recovered from your disappearance. She could not bear it.’

The girl looked up, and Sturrock thought he saw the first–and last–trace of feeling on her face. ‘Mamma is dead.’ She digested this, and shared a glance with her husband, although what it meant Sturrock could not guess. Although it sounds callous to say it, it was unfortunate–the presence, even at a distance, of Mrs Seton could have made a difference to what happened next.

Seton wiped a tear from his face. There was a moment when Sturrock thought he would start to make small talk, start to release the terrible tension he had been holding, and then there would be a way forward. He was wondering how long he should leave it before bringing the meeting to an end, before anyone got irritated. And then it was too late.

Seton’s voice seemed harsh and too loud in the confined tent:

‘I don’t mind what took place, but I must know what happened to Amy. I must know! Please tell me.’

‘I told you, I don’t know. I never saw her alive again.’

The phrasing sounded odd, even to Sturrock.

‘You mean … you saw her dead?’ Seton’s voice was strained but controlled.

‘No! I never saw her again at all. That’s what I meant.’ Now the girl was sullen, on the defensive. Sturrock wished Seton would leave the question of Amy alone; harping on about her to the other daughter would hardly help.

‘You will come back with me. You must. We must carry on looking.’ Seton’s eyes had a far-away, glazed appearance. Sturrock leant towards him and put a hand on his arm to calm him. He didn’t think Seton even noticed.

‘Please, I think we should … Excuse me …’ he was talking to everyone now. ‘It’s the strain. You cannot imagine how hard it has been for him all these years. He does not know what he is saying …’

‘Good God, man, of course I know what I am saying!’ Seton threw his hand off with a violent movement. ‘She must come back. She is my daughter. There is no other course …’

Then he reached towards the girl across the fire, and she flinched backward. With that movement, she revealed what the striped blanket had so far hidden–that she was heavily pregnant. The young man was on his feet, barring the way to Seton.

‘You should leave now.’ His English was perfect, but then he switched to his own language, addressing the interpreter.

Seton was gasping and crying all at once, shocked, but determined. ‘Eve! It doesn’t matter. I forgive you! Just come with me. Come back with me! My dearest! You must …’

Sturrock and the interpreter manhandled Seton out of the teepee and over to the horses. They managed to get him into the saddle. Somehow, although Sturrock’s memory is vague on this matter, they persuaded him to leave. Seton never stopped calling out to his daughter.

A year later, at the age of fifty-two, Seton was dead of a stroke. He never saw Eve again, and despite further searching, they never found the slightest trace of Amy. At times Sturrock doubted she had ever existed. He was ashamed of his own part in it: he wanted to stop the search, because Seton’s obsession was unanswerable; the meeting with Eve had taught him that. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to walk away–the man had suffered too much already. So Sturrock carried on, unwillingly, without being much use or comfort. He should, he thought afterwards, have got someone else to take his place. But the afternoon at Burke’s Falls had somehow bound the two men into a confederacy of silence, for the strangest thing of all was this: Seton refused to admit that they had found Eve; he let out that it had been another false alarm, another girl. He persuaded Sturrock to keep it quiet also, and Sturrock reluctantly complied. Only Andrew Knox had been let in on the secret, and that inadvertently.

Once or twice Seton mentioned going back to Burke’s Falls and trying to persuade Eve to come away, but he seemed half-hearted. Sturrock suspected he wouldn’t have gone through with it. Without telling Seton, Sturrock went back a week later to speak to her alone, but could not find them anywhere. He doubted it would have done much good if he had.

The way northward along the river exerts its pull on all of them. Now more men, it is rumoured, are getting ready to set off. Searchers after searchers. She will not be included, of course. But she feels the pull just the same–that is why she is here. A sharp wind cuts into Maria’s face as she follows the path beside the river. The trees are bare now, the fallen leaves muddied, the snow spoilt. She sees the smooth lump of Horsehead Bluff up ahead, below which the water swirls in its self-scoured basin. In summer she and Susannah used to come swimming here, but that all stopped years ago. Maria has never swum since the day she saw the thing in the water.

She wasn’t one of the ones who found it–they were a group of younger boys who had come fishing, but their shouts attracted the attention of Maria and her best friend at the time, David Bell. David was the one person at school who sought her out; they weren’t sweethearts, but outcasts united in opposition to the rest of the world. They rambled in the woods, smoking and discussing politics, books and the shortcomings of their peers. Maria didn’t much like the smoking but liked doing something that was forbidden, so she forced herself.

When they heard the urgent cries, they ran up the river-bank, and saw the boys staring down into the water. They were laughing, which jarred with the alarm in their initial yells. One boy turned, addressing David, ‘Come’n see! You ain’t seen nothing like this!’

They stepped up to the bank, smiles already forming on their faces in anticipation, and then they saw what was in the water.

Maria put her hands to her face in shock.

The river was playing a joke on them. The hands rotated slowly, reaching up out of the brown depths. They were bleached and slightly bloated. Then she saw the head below, now facing towards them, now turning away. The face is as clear in her memory now as it was then, and yet she could not describe it if she tried–whether the eyes were open or shut, or how the mouth was set. There was a peculiar horror in the lazy motion of the body caught in the eddy; by some freak chance it was twirling upright in one spot, hands above its head as if it were dancing a reel, and she could not stop watching any more than the others could. She knew the man was dead, but did not recognise him. Even afterwards, when told that it was Doctor Wade, she could not reconcile the face in the water with what she remembered of the elderly Scotsman.

Even now, all these years later, she has to force herself to peer into the depths of the dark pool. Just to be sure that it’s empty.

When they left the river, David held her hand on the way home. He was silent, unusually for him, and before they came out of the woods, he pulled her behind a tree trunk and kissed her. There was a desperate look in his eyes that scared her; she didn’t know what it meant. Frozen, unable to respond and somehow repelled, she pulled away and walked home ahead of him. Their friendship was never quite as easy as it had been after that, and the following summer his family moved back east. He was the only boy who ever wanted to kiss her, until Robert Fisher.

After nearly an hour she comes to Jammet’s cabin and dismounts. She walks through the crust of rotten snow round to the front door. The unwarmed roof still has snow on it, and the cabin looks small and dejected. Maybe a murder will be enough to put off prospective buyers, where a drowning was not.

There are various footprints circling the cabin, mostly of children playing dare. But in front of the door the ground is smooth–no one has been inside recently. Maria marches firmly across it. A wire on the door holds it shut. She takes this off, tearing the skin on her thumb. She has never been inside; Jammet was not thought a suitable acquaintance for girls of good family. She finds herself murmuring an apology to his spirit, or something like it, for the intrusion. What she is doing, she tells herself, is just checking to make sure that the bone tablet was not overlooked in a corner. A little thing like a bone tablet could easily have been missed. She is also forcing herself to do something she is afraid of, although exactly what she fears, she is not sure.

Only a weak light seeps through the buckskin window-panes, and the whole place has the queer feeling of being under a shroud. It is very quiet. There is nothing inside, other than a couple of tea chests and the stove, waiting for new hands to bring it back to life. And dust, like a thin layer of snowflakes on the floor. Her feet print a trail in it.

Even an empty house, it turns out, has plenty to offer when you start to look: old kitchen implements, pieces of newspaper, a handful of nails, wadded dark hair (she shudders), a bootlace … All the things that people don’t bother to remove, because they’re not worth anything; because no one would want such things, even the person who lived there.

We leave so little.

There is no way of knowing what Laurent Jammet was like now, not for her. Upstairs, where she ventures at length, there are a couple of half-empty wooden boxes. Nothing like a bone tablet in either, but she unearths something else, something tucked into the gap between the doorframe and the wall (and what made her look there?).

A piece of brown paper, such as you might find wrapping a purchase from Scott’s store, has been used as a makeshift artist’s pad, on which someone has drawn a pencil sketch of Laurent Jammet. Maria’s cheeks burn: in the drawing, Jammet lies on the bed, apparently asleep, naked. It must have been summer, for a sheet is tangled round his feet, as though he has kicked it off in the night. The artist was unskilled, but there is grace, and a palpable sense of intimacy. Maria feels not only a searing embarrassment at seeing this representation of a naked man, but also shame, as though she has blundered into the most private, most hidden recesses of someone’s mind. Because the artist, whoever she was, loved him; of that she is sure. Then she sees a signature of sorts, scrawled into the scribbled lines that make up the sheet. It looks like François. No ‘e’, she is sure. Not Françoise.

And instantly she thinks of Francis Ross.

She stands there holding the piece of paper, barely aware that it is almost dusk. She sees to her horror that a smear of her blood has stained it. Her first coherent thought is that she must burn it, in case anyone else should ever see it and reach the same conclusion. Then she realises, with a guilty lurch of the heart, that she will have to give the drawing to Francis, because if it were hers (if only her cheeks would stop burning), she would want it back. She feels strangely, intimately disturbed by it, and folds the paper carefully, the drawing to the inside, before putting it in her pocket. Then she removes it from her pocket, picturing, for some reason, her sister plunging a hand in and finding it. Instead she tucks it into her bodice, where no one but she will go. There, next to her heart, it burns like a hot coal, causing a warm flush to climb over her throat. In the end she tucks it impatiently down the side of her boot, but even from there it sends filaments of heat stealing up her leg as she rides back to Caulfield through the falling dark.

Line busies herself building a fire. After that one rifle crack, there was nothing. They wait, at first chattering, excited, cheerful, then silent, huddling a little closer to the fire. The light starts to fail too soon; darkness comes stealing out of its daytime lairs in root hollows and rotten stumps. Line boils water and adds sugar, and makes them all drink it while it’s scalding, so that it burns their mouths. She makes a stew of oatmeal, berries and dried pork, which they eat silently, waiting for the sound of footsteps and a body pushing through the branches. Espen’s share bakes hard in the kettle. Still he doesn’t come.

Line fends off the children’s questions and sends them to gather more wood to bank up the fire, so that it will be bright and he will be able to see it from a long way off. Then she rigs a shelter for them to sleep. Then they stop asking questions.

But, after Anna has curled in a warm comma round Line’s right thigh, Torbin, on her other side, speaks in a whisper. He has been quiet these last couple of days, since they lost the compass. Not at all his usual unquenchable self.

‘Mamma, I’m sorry,’ he whispers, his voice tremulous. She strokes his hair with her mittened hand.

‘Shh. Go to sleep.’

‘I’m sorry I tried to run away. If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be lost, would we? And Espen wouldn’t have gone off like that.

And now he’s lost too …’ He cries quietly. ‘It’s all my fault.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ Line speaks without looking at him. ‘That’s just the way it is. Go to sleep.’

But her lips press themselves in an unbecoming line: the truth is, it is his fault they lost the compass. It is his fault they are lost in the cold forest; his fault that, once again, she has lost her man. Her hand strokes mechanically, and she does not notice that Torbin has gone rigid; does not notice that she is hurting him, but that he does not dare ask her to stop.

She cannot sleep, so she sits in the mouth of their shelter with the children curled round her back and legs, staring into the fire. She tries so hard not to think. It’s easy when Torbin and Anna are awake and she has to reassure them, but alone, like this, with no one but her fears for company, it’s hard to keep them from overwhelming her. Despite being lost, freezing, deep in the forest, surrounded by snowdrifts and God knows what else, her greatest fear is that Espen has left her. When she sat in the stable at Himmelvanger, she knew she could force him to do what she wanted, however unwilling. Now it occurs to her that he seized on the rifle shot as an excuse; that he has run off, not intending to return; and this time she does not know where to find him.

Nearby, the two horses stand nose to tail, heads down. At some point, when she is very cold, one of them starts, spooked at something in the trees. It flattens its ears along its skull, weaving its head from side to side as if it detects a threat but does not know exactly where it is. The other horse–the sick one–barely moves. Line, after the initial, heart-wrenching shock, strains into the darkness, hoping to hear Espen, but knowing that Jutta would not react that way if it were him. She hears nothing. Eventually, she can wait, nor fend off sleep, no more, and curls up beside her children, wrapping her shawl over her face.

She dreams, almost instantly, of Janni. Janni is in trouble and seems to be calling for her. He is somewhere dark and far away, and cold. He says he is sorry for his foolishness, for thinking he could make money this way, by theft and mutiny. Now he is paying with his life. She can see him from an immense distance, and he seems to be lying in the snow, a tiny dark speck in a vast field of white, and he cannot move. She yearns with all her being to go to him, but she cannot. Then it all changes and he is right there with her, so close she can feel his warm, moist breath on her face. In the dream she closes her eyes and smiles. His breath smells rank, but it is warm and it is his. She doesn’t dream of Espen at all.

She wakes before it is fully light. The fire is out, a sodden charred mess; the air is wet and smells of thaw. She looks around. She cannot see the horses; they must have moved off behind the shelter, foraging for food. No sign of Espen–but then, she didn’t really think there would be. She pushes herself onto her elbows, her eyes becoming used to the grey-ness. And then she sees the trampled and stained snow only twenty yards away.

At first she refuses to accept that the dark-red stains are blood, then detail piles on vile detail: a spray of red arcs across the snow there; here a smear of red, and a staccato of hoof prints, stabbed into a deep drift. She makes no sound at all. The children must not see this, or they will panic … Then she looks down.

Between her elbows, pressed into the only untouched patch of snow that remains outside the shelter, is a paw print. Just one. It is at least four inches across, with the prick-holes of claws ranged in front of it. A dark-red stain colours two of the prick-holes.

With a sick jolt, she is reminded of what Espen called her: a vargamor–a woman who consorts with wolves. She tastes bile, remembering the warm stinking breath from her dream, and how she revelled in it. The wolf must have stood right over her, leaning into the shelter, panting into her face as she slept.

Line gets up as quietly as she can. She kicks snow over the worst of the traces, scattering clods of snow over the parabola of blood. She can see the trail as Bengi tried to get away, followed by the wolves–there must have been more than one. Fortunately it leads back in the direction they came from; they will not have to see where, or with what, it ends.

She sees another trail, and stares at it; a boot print crisply outlined near the bole of a cedar. It takes her a long moment to realise that this is Espen’s boot print, from yesterday. He was heading almost due west, whereas their path lies south. No more snow has fallen since he left, nothing to cover his traces. He could have followed his own trail back to them, but for some reason did not.

Line jumps, heart pumping painfully, as Jutta ambles through the trees towards her, and then sighs with trembling relief as the horse sticks her nose in Line’s armpit. The relief seems to be mutual.

‘We’re all right,’ Line tells the horse fiercely. ‘We’re all right. We’re all right.’

She holds onto the horse’s mane until she stops trembling, then goes to rouse the children, to tell them they must go on.

Donald watches Parker and Mrs Ross leave the post. They walk out of the gate and head into the north-west without a backward glance. Nesbit and Stewart wish them a good journey and go back to their offices. Nesbit manages to give Donald an unpleasant, meaningful look as he does so, defaming both Mrs Ross and Parker, and somehow Donald himself, in the process. Donald bears it, but it riles him. He thought Parker a fool when he had explained his reasoning, and worse when he said Mrs Ross was going with him, although it seemed to be Mrs Ross’s wish also. He pulled her aside and told her his opinion. Was it his imagination, or was she amused by him? Both Parker and she impressed upon him the importance of watching Stewart’s movements, and though he thinks there is little point, he supposes he will do it.

He watches Stewart walk over to the village to enquire after Elizabeth. Despite her sullen hostility, Stewart does not cease to take an interest in her. As for himself, he cannot restrain the urge to visit her again. He has developed an overpowering curiosity about her since conceiving the notion that she is one of the Seton girls, albeit based as it is, somewhat tenuously, on the name of her daughter. No, not just that; on her features, which are undoubtedly white, and which to his mind bear a faint but discernible resemblance to those of Mrs Knox. He finds himself outside her hut after Stewart has gone back to his office, waiting for a signal to go in.

The fire stings his eyes, and he breathes through his mouth to acclimatise himself to the smoke and smell of unwashed bodies. Elizabeth squats by the hearth, wiping the face of the little girl, who has been crying. She flings Donald a brief, dismissive glance, and then picks up the squalling child and hands her to him.

‘Take her. She’s giving me the devil of a time.’

Elizabeth walks behind the partition that divides the room from the sleeping quarters, leaving Donald with the girl, who squirms and wriggles in his arms. Nervously, he jiggles her up and down, and she stares at him, affronted.

‘Amy, don’t cry. There, there.’

Were it not for his experiences with Jacob’s children, this would be the first time he had ever held a small child. He holds her as if she were an unpredictable small animal with sharp teeth. However, by some miracle she stops crying.

When Elizabeth comes back, Amy has discovered Donald’s tie and, enchanted by its strangeness, is playing with it. Elizabeth watches for a moment.

‘What made you think of the Setons?’ she asks suddenly. ‘Was it just the name?’

Donald looks up, caught off guard. He had been about to ask her about Stewart.

‘I suppose so. But the story was in my mind, you see, because recently I was told it by someone who was very close to it.’

‘Oh.’ If she has a more than passing interest, she hides it well.

‘I recently made the acquaintance of the family of Andrew Knox. His wife was, well, she is …’ he is watching her now, while the child gives his tie a sharp tug, almost throttling him ‘… she is the sister of Mrs Seton, the girls’ mother.’

‘Oh,’ she says again.

‘She is a delightful, kind person. One can tell that even after so many years, she finds the memory of the disappearance deeply distressing.’

There is a long silence in the hut, punctuated by noises from the fire.

‘What did she say about it?’

‘Well, that it … it broke the parents’ hearts. That they never got over it.’

Donald tries to read her face, but she looks angry more than anything.

‘They–the Setons–are both dead now.’

She nods briefly. Donald finds he has been holding his breath, and exhales.

‘Tell me about Aunt Alice.’ She says it very quietly, with a sort of sigh. Donald feels a great leap inside him. He tries not to show it, or to look at her too hard. She stares at her daughter, avoiding his eye.

‘Well, they live in Caulfield, on Georgian Bay. Mr Knox is the magistrate there, a very fine man, and they have two daughters, Susannah and Maria.’ Emboldened he adds, ‘Do you remember them?’

‘Of course. I was eleven years old, not a baby’

Donald struggles to keep the excitement out of his voice, but it makes him squeeze the child more tightly. She pushes her fist into his spectacles in retaliation.

‘Susannah … I can’t remember which was which. The last time we saw them, one was only a baby. The other was no more than two or three.’

‘Maria would have been about two,’ he says, with a warm feeling at saying her name.

She stares into the shadows, and he has no idea what she is thinking. He removes the child’s surprisingly strong fingers from his mouth.

‘They are all well, and … they are a charming family. All of them. They have been very kind to me. I wish you could meet them. They would be so happy to see you … you cannot imagine!’

She smiles queerly. ‘I suppose you will tell them about me.’

‘Only if you wish it.’

She turns her face away, but when she speaks her voice is unchanged. ‘I have to think of my children.’

‘Of course. Think about it. I know they would not force you into anything you did not want.’

‘I have to think of my children,’ she says again. ‘Now, without a father …’

Donald manages with difficulty to extract his handkerchief from under the child’s body. But when Elizabeth turns back, her eyes are dry.

‘Did they tell you my father found me?’

‘What? They said you were never found!’

Her face flickers with something–pain? disbelief? ‘He said that?’

Donald doesn’t know what to say.

‘I refused to go back with him. I was not long married. He kept asking about Amy. He seemed to blame me for her not being there too.’

Donald can’t keep the shock from his face.

‘Can’t you understand that? They lost their daughters, but I lost everything! My family, my home, my past … I had to learn to speak again! I couldn’t break from everything I knew … again.’

‘But …’ He doesn’t know what to say.

‘There was horror on his face when he saw me. He never came back after that one time. He could have. It was Amy he was hoping for. She was always his favourite.’

Donald looks at the unconcerned child; it keeps the wave of pity from overwhelming him.

‘He was in shock … You can’t blame him for asking. He did nothing but go on searching until he died.’

She shakes her head, eyes hard: you see?

‘You were the …’ he struggles on, trying to make it better ‘… the great mystery of the age! You were famous, everybody knew about you. People wrote from all over North America, pretending to be you–or to have seen you. Someone even wrote from New Zealand.’

‘Oh.’

‘I don’t suppose you remember what happened.’

‘Does it matter, now?’

‘Doesn’t it always matter, finding the truth?’ He thinks of Laurent Jammet, of their supposed quest for truth–all those events tumbling one into another like a trail of dominoes–all leading him across the snow-covered plains to this little hut. Elizabeth gives a sort of shudder, as if a draught bothers her.

‘I remember … I don’t know what you heard, but we had gone for a walk. Collecting berries, I think. We argued about where to stop; the other girl, what was her name, Cathy?–she didn’t want to go far; she was worried about burning her face because it was so hot. Really, she was scared of the bush.’

Her eyes are fixed on a point just over Donald’s shoulder. He hardly dares move, in case he breaks her thread.

‘I was scared too. Scared of Indians.’ She gives a tiny smile. ‘Then I argued with Amy. She wanted to go further, and I was worried about disobeying our parents. But I went along because I didn’t want to be alone. It got dark and we couldn’t find the path. Amy kept telling me not to be silly. Then we gave up and fell asleep. At least, I think … And then …’

There is a long silence, filling the hut with ghosts. Elizabeth seems to be looking past him at one of them.

Donald finds he is holding his breath.

‘… she wasn’t there any more.’

Her eyes refocus, find his. ‘I thought she’d found the way home and left me in the forest because she was angry with me. And no one came to find me … until my uncle–my Indian uncle–found me. I thought they had left me there to die.’

‘They were your parents. They loved you. They never stopped looking.’

She shrugs. ‘I didn’t know. I waited for such a long time. No one came. Then, when I saw my father again, I thought, now you come, when I’m happy, when it’s too late. And he kept asking about Amy.’ Her voice is thin and husky, stretched to breaking point.

‘So Amy … disappeared into the forest?’

‘I thought she’d gone home. I thought she’d left me.’ Elizabeth–despite everything, he can’t think of her as Eve–looks at him and a tear runs down her cheek. ‘I don’t know what happened to her. I was exhausted. I went to sleep. I thought I heard wolves, but I might have been dreaming. I was too scared to open my eyes. I would remember if I’d heard screams or cries, but there was nothing. I don’t know. I don’t know.’

Her voice has trailed away into nothing.

‘Thank you for telling me.’

‘I lost her too.’

She drops her face until it is hidden in shadow. Donald feels ashamed of himself. Her parents had been the object of so much sympathy; everyone was in awe of their loss. But the lost grieve too.

‘She may be alive somewhere. Just because we don’t know, doesn’t mean she is dead.’

Elizabeth doesn’t speak, or lift her head.

Donald has only one sibling, an elder brother he has never really liked; the prospect of him vanishing for ever into a forest is rather appealing. He becomes aware that his right leg has gone to sleep and shifts it, painfully. He makes his voice jovial. ‘And here is Amy …’ The child on his lap is unconcernedly pulling off her stockings. ‘I’m sorry. Forgive me for making you speak of it.’

Elizabeth picks up her daughter, shakes her head. She paces for a few moments.

‘I want you to tell them about me.’ She kisses Amy, pressing her face into her neck.

Outside the hut, two women are in heated discussion. One of them is Norah. Donald turns to Elizabeth.

‘Please, one more favour. Can you tell me what they are saying?’

Elizabeth gives him a sardonic smile. ‘Norah is worried about Half Man. He is going somewhere with Stewart. Norah told him to refuse, but he won’t.’

Donald stares towards the main building, his heart suddenly in his throat. Is it happening now?

‘Does she say where, or why? It’s important.’

Elizabeth shakes her head. ‘On a trip. Maybe hunting … though he’s usually too drunk to shoot straight.’

‘Stewart said he was going to find your husband.’

She doesn’t bother to answer this. He calculates rapidly. ‘I am going to follow them. I have to see where they go. If I don’t come back, you will know what you said is true.’

Elizabeth looks surprised–the first time he has seen this expression. ‘It’s dangerous. You can’t go.’

Donald tries to ignore the mocking amusement in her voice. ‘I have to. I need proof. The Company needs proof.’

Just then Alec, her eldest son, walks out of a neighbour’s hut with another boy, and the two women move away, Norah back to the main building. Elizabeth calls out to the boy and he veers towards her. She speaks to him briefly in their language.

‘Alec will go with you. Otherwise you will lose yourself.’

Donald’s mouth drops open. The boy’s head barely reaches his shoulder.

‘No, I couldn’t … I am sure I will be all right. It will be easy to follow the trail …’

‘He will go with you,’ she says simply, with finality. ‘It is his wish also.’

‘But I cannot …’ He doesn’t know how to say it–he feels unqualified to look after anyone in this climate; not even himself, let alone a child. He lowers his voice. ‘I couldn’t take responsibility for him too. What if something happened? I can’t allow him to come.’ He feels hot with shame and uselessness.

Elizabeth says simply, ‘He is a man now.’

Donald looks at the boy, who lifts his eyes to his and nods. Donald can see nothing of Elizabeth in him; his skin is dark, the face flat, eyes almond-shaped under heavy lids. He must be like his father.

Later, when he is going back to his room to pack, Donald turns round again, and sees Elizabeth framed in her doorway, watching him.

‘Your father only wanted an answer. You do know that, don’t you? It wasn’t that he didn’t love you. It’s only human to want an answer.’

She stares at him, her eyes slitted by the setting sun out of a sky like polished steel. Stares at him but says nothing.

Something strange has happened to the weather. It is nearly Christmas, and yet, though we walk across frozen snow, the sky is as brilliant as a sunny day in July. Despite the scarf wrapped around my face, my eyes burn with the brightness of it. The dogs are delighted to be on the go again, and in some ways I can understand. Outside the palisade there is no treachery or confusion. There is only space and light; miles done and miles ahead. Things seem simple.

And yet they are not; it is only numbness that makes me think so.

When the sun goes down, I find out what my stupidity has led to. First I fall over one of the dogs, managing in the process to tear my skirt and set off a cacophony of barking. Then, having set down the pannikin of snow water, I cannot find it again. Quelling a flutter of fear I call Parker, who examines my eyes. Even without his telling me I know they are red and weeping. Flashes of red and purple cross my dull vision. There is a throbbing pain behind my eyes. I know I should have covered them on leaving yesterday, but I did not think of it; I was so happy to be going with him, and the wide white plain was so good to look at after the soiled surroundings of Hanover.

Parker makes a poultice of the tea-leaves wrapped in calico and cooled in snow, and makes me press it to my eyes. It is some relief, though not as good as a few drops of Perry Davis’s Painkiller. Perhaps it is as well we do not have any.

I think of Nesbit in the office, cornered and feral; how once that was me.

‘How far are we from this … place?’

It is habit that makes me lower the poultice; impolite not to look at someone when you are talking to them.

‘Keep it on,’ he says. And when I have replaced it, ‘We will get there the day after tomorrow.’

‘And what is there?’

‘A lake, with a cabin.’

‘What is its name?’

‘It has no name that I know.’

‘And why there?’

Parker hesitates for a long minute, so that I peer at him from behind the poultice. He is staring into the distance and doesn’t seem to notice. ‘Because that is where the furs are.’

‘The furs? You mean the Norwegians’ furs?’

‘Yes.’

Now I drop the poultice and look at him in earnest. ‘Why do you want to lead him to them? That is exactly what he wants!’

‘That is why we are doing it. Keep it on.’

‘Couldn’t we … pretend they are somewhere else?’

‘I think he already knows where they are. If we went in another direction I don’t think he would follow. He came this way before–he and Nepapanees.’

I think about what this means: Nepapanees, who did not come back, so must be there still. And fear steals through me, creeping into my bone marrow, making itself at home. It is easy to hide my reaction behind the sodden poultice; not so easy to pretend I am brave enough for this.

‘This way, when he comes, it will be sure.’

And then what? I think, but don’t dare say out loud. Another voice in my head–the annoying one–says, You could have stayed behind. You’ve made your bed. Now lie in it.

Then, after another pause, Parker says, ‘Open your mouth.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Can he read my mind? Shame rushes through me, just about obliterating the fear.

‘Open your mouth.’ His voice is lighter now, amused at something. I open it a little way, feeling childish. Something angular and hard meets my lips, forcing them wider, and into my mouth slips a jagged piece of what feels like lake ice–flat and deliquescent. His thumb or forefinger brushes against my lips, rough as glasspaper. Or perhaps it is his glove.

I close my mouth around the object and as it warms and melts, it explodes with dark, smoky sweetness, causing a dizzying rush of water to my mouth. I am smiling: maple sugar. Where he got such a thing I have no idea.

‘Good?’ he asks, and from his voice I can tell he is smiling too. I tilt my head to one side as if considering my answer.

‘Hm.’ I say lightly, still secure behind the poultice. It makes me reckless. ‘Is this supposed to make my eyes better?’

‘No. It is supposed to taste good.’

I take a deep breath–scented with autumnal smoke and sweetness, an undertow of bitter char. ‘I am afraid.’

‘I know.’

I wait behind my mask for Parker’s soothing words of reassurance. He is thinking about them, choosing them carefully, it seems.

They don’t come.

There are five volunteers in the Search Party: Mackinley; a native guide, Sammy; a local youth called Matthew Fox, intent on proving his backwoods worth; Ross, the man with the missing son and wife; and Thomas Sturrock, ex-searcher. Of all of them, Sturrock is aware that he is there on sufferance; to the rest he must seem an old man, and no one is quite sure what he is doing in Caulfield anyway. It was only his considerable charm that bought his place on the party; that and a long evening buttering up the fox-faced Mackinley and reminding him of his past triumphs. He even talked up his tracking skills, but fortunately Sammy has had no need of help; in the pristine dazzle of the new snow, Sturrock has no idea whether they are following previous tracks or not. But he is here, every step taking him closer to Francis Ross and the object of his journey.

Since Maria Knox came back from the Sault with her extraordinary account of meeting Kahon’wes, he has been fired with an excitement he thought he had lost for ever. In his mind he has turned it over many times–could Kahon’wes have known that he was behind it? Could the names he said have been pure coincidence? Impossible. He has decided that the tablet is written in an Iroquoian language and records the confederacy of the Five Nations. Who knows, it might even have been written at the time. Whether it was or not, the greater implications are not lost on him: the effect such a discovery would have on Indian policy; the embarrassment it would cause the governments above and below the border; the weight it would lend to native calls for autonomy. What man does not long to do good, and profit by the doing at the same time?

Those were his thoughts for the first couple of hours. Then he started to think–because he is nothing if not a pragmatist–of the possibility that Maria was right, and the thing is a clever fake. In the deepest recesses of his mind he knows it will make no difference. He will persuade Kahon’wes to back him up; that shouldn’t be difficult. If he presents the thing with enough conviction and cleverness (no problem there), the initial splash will make his name, and any subsequent controversy can only be good publicity. As for the matter of not knowing where the tablet is, he refuses to let it worry him. He is confident that Francis Ross did take it, and that as soon as they catch up with him, he will be able to talk it into his own hands. He has rehearsed the lines he will use, many times …

He stumbles on something uneven, his racquette catches on the crust, and he goes down on his knees. Last in the line, he pauses, one gloved hand flat on the snow, while he recovers the breath jolted from his body. His joints ache with cold. Years since he has travelled this way; he has forgotten how it takes its toll. Hopefully it will be the last time. The next man to him, Ross, notices he has fallen behind and turns to wait for him. Thank God he doesn’t walk back and offer him a hand; that would be too humiliating.

Maria had described seeing Ross at the Sault with another woman, and speculated as to whether his wife’s disappearance was as innocent as was generally supposed. Sturrock was amused, because Maria seemed like the last person to entertain such a lurid notion. But as Maria pointed out, it was hardly more lurid than the widely accepted theory that Mrs Ross had run off with the escaped prisoner (and her husband not turned a hair!). Sturrock finds the man interesting. Nothing shows in his face; if he is worried about the fate of his wife or son, he does not reveal it. This does not endear him to the other men of the party. Ross has so far resisted Sturrock’s attempts to engage him in conversation, but undaunted, Sturrock puts on a spurt to catch up with him.

‘You seem easy in this country, Mr Ross,’ he says, trying to still his labouring breath. ‘I would wager you have done a fair bit of this sort of travel.’

‘Not really,’ Ross grunted, and then, relenting perhaps at the older man’s wheezing breath, ‘just hunting trips and so on. Nothing like you.’

‘Oh …’ Sturrock allows himself to be modestly flattered. ‘You must be worried about your family.’

Ross trudges for a moment in silence, his eyes fixed on the ground. ‘Some seem to think not worried enough.’

‘One doesn’t have to make a public display to feel concern.’

‘No.’ He sounds sarcastic, but Sturrock is too taken up with placing his snowshoes in the imprints made by the youth ahead of him to look at his companion’s face.

And after a moment, Ross says, ‘The other day I was in the Sault. I went to a friend of my wife’s, just to see if she had heard from her. While I was there I saw the elder Knox girl. She saw me and gave such a start–I suppose word has got all over town that I have a fancy woman.’

Sturrock smiles, guilty but relieved. He is glad Mrs Ross has someone who cares about her. Ross casts him a dry look. ‘Aye, I thought so.’

On the second day out from Dove River, Sammy stops and holds up his hand for silence. Everyone pauses in mid-stride. The guide confers with Mackinley at the front, who then turns to the others. He is about to speak when there is a cry from the trees on their left, and the sound of crashing branches. All the men turn in panic; Mackinley and Sammy raise their rifles in case it is a bear. Sturrock hears a high-pitched cry and realises that it is a human–a woman.

He and Angus Ross, being nearest, start forward, plunging into deep, drifted snow and hampered by brushwood and hidden obstacles. The going is so difficult that it is some moments before they can see who is calling them. Glimpses through the trees: Sturrock thinks there is more than one figure–but a woman? A number of women … out here in the middle of winter?

And then he catches her in plain sight: a thin dark-haired woman struggling towards him, her shawl trailing behind her, her mouth open in a cry of exhaustion and relief vying with terror that they might, all these men, be just a figment of her imagination. She plunges through the brush towards Sturrock, collapsing in a heap just a few yards away, as Ross catches a child in his arms. Another figure darts through the trees behind them. Sturrock reaches her and goes down on one knee in an awkward parody of romance, his snow-shoes getting in the way. The woman’s face is sharp with exhaustion and fear, her eyes haunted as if she is afraid of him.

‘There now, it’s all right. You are safe now. Hush …’

He’s not sure she understands him. Now a young boy has come up behind her and stands with one hand protectively on her shoulder, staring at Sturrock with dark, suspicious eyes. Sturrock never knows what to say to children, and this one doesn’t look friendly.

‘Hello. Where have you come from?’

The boy mutters some words he cannot understand, and the woman answers him in the same strange tongue–not French, which he knows, nor is it German.

‘Do you speak English? Can you understand me?’

The others have joined them and crowd around, staring in amazement. There is the woman, the young boy, maybe seven or eight years old, and a little girl, even younger. They all exhibit the early symptoms of exposure and cold. None of them says a word anyone can understand.

It is decided that they will pitch camp, even though it is barely two o’clock. Sammy and Matthew build a shelter behind an uprooted tree and collect wood for a large fire, while Angus Ross prepares hot tea and food. Mackinley walks back into the forest where the woman points and reappears leading a malnourished mare that is now draped in blankets, eating oatmeal. The woman and children huddle by the fire. After they have had a quiet conversation, she stands up and comes to Sturrock. She indicates she wants to talk in private, so they go a little way away from the camp.

‘Where are we?’ she asks, without preamble. He notices her English is almost without accent.

‘We are a day and a half out from Dove River, to the south. Where have you come from?’

She stares at him, and her eyes flick towards the others. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Thomas Sturrock, of Toronto. The other men are from Dove River, apart from the man with short brown hair–that is Mackinley, a servant of the Hudson Bay Company, and a guide.’

‘What are you doing here? Where are you going?’ If her questions seem ungrateful, she gives no sign of being aware of it.

‘We are following a trail north. Some people have gone missing.’ No way to explain this complicated scenario simply, so he does not try.

‘And where does this trail lead?’

Sturrock smiles. ‘We will not know that until we come to the end of it.’

The woman breathes out then, and seems to release a little of her pent-up suspicion and fear. ‘We were making for Dove River. We lost our compass and the other horse. There was someone else with us. He went off to …’ Her face changes with hope. ‘Have any of you fired rifles in the last few days?’

‘No.’

She droops again. ‘We became separated, we don’t know where he is now.’

At last her face crumples. ‘There were wolves. They killed one of the horses. They could have killed us. Maybe …’

She gives in to sobbing, but quietly, and without tears. Sturrock pats her on the shoulder.

‘Hush. You are quite all right now. It must have been terrible, but it’s over. There’s no need to be frightened any more.’

The woman lifts her eyes to his, and he notices how fine they are; clear light brown in a smooth oval face.

‘Thank you. I don’t know what we would have done … We owe you our lives.’

Sturrock himself treats the woman’s frost-bitten hands. Mackinley calls an impromptu meeting and decides that Sammy and he will go and look for the missing man–there are clear tracks to follow–while the others stay in the camp. If they have not found him by the following evening, Matthew and Sturrock will escort the woman and her children to Dove River. Sturrock is not entirely happy with this arrangement, but he can see the sense of allowing the two hardened travellers to go on as swiftly as possible. Besides, a part of him is flattered by the woman’s preference for him; she has spoken privately to no one else, and keeps close to him, even favouring him with a particularly sweet smile from time to time. (‘So, you are from Toronto …?’) He tells himself that it is his age that makes him less threatening, but knows that is not the whole reason.

Mackinley and Sammy leave while there is light, gathering from the woman’s rather confused story that her husband may be hurt. They are swallowed up in the gloom beneath the trees and Ross doles out nips of brandy to everyone. The woman cheers up noticeably.

‘So who are the people you are following?’ she asks, when the children have fallen into a fathomless sleep.

Ross sighs and says nothing; Matthew looks from Ross to Sturrock, who takes this as his cue.

‘It is rather peculiar, and not easy to tell. Mr Ross, perhaps … No? Well, a few weeks ago there was an unfortunate incident, you see, and a man died. Mr Ross’s son went missing from Dove River at the same time–possibly he was following someone. Then two Hudson’s Bay men went to look for him as part of their enquiries. They have been gone some time and no one has heard from them.’

‘And …’ Matthew leans forward eagerly, encouraged by the woman’s interest, ‘that’s not all! There was another man, arrested for the murder–a half-breed and an evil-looking fellow–and then he escaped, well, no, actually someone released him, and he went missing with Francis’s mother … and they haven’t been seen since!’

Matthew stops and blushes deeply, realising too late what he has said, and throws a scared glance at Ross.

‘It is not known that they were together, or that either of them came this way,’ Sturrock reminds him, with a wary look at Ross, who seems unmoved. ‘But, that, in short, is why we are here–to find whoever we can, to see that they are … safe.’

The woman leans in to the fire, her eyes very wide and shining; she is quite transformed from the terrified creature in the forest of a few hours before. She takes a breath and puts her head on one side.

‘You have been so kind to us. We owe you our lives. So I feel I must say to you, Mr Ross, that I have seen your son, and your wife, and they are both quite well. They are all quite well.’

Ross turns to her for the first time, and stares at her. Sturrock would never have believed, had he not seen it, how that granite face could melt.

Francis wakes up to brilliant sunshine for the first time in weeks. There is an uncanny silence all around–none of the usual noises from the corridor or the yard. He dresses and goes to the door. It is open; things have got rather lax since Moody left. He wonders what will happen if he goes out on his own; perhaps someone will panic and take a shot at him. Unlikely, since the Elect are people of God and don’t tend to carry arms. There is nowhere he could go anyway, without leaving his distinctive limping print behind him in the snow. He hops out into the corridor, leaning on the crutch. No one comes running, and indeed, there are few sounds of life. Francis thinks quickly–is it Sunday? No, there was one only a few days ago (it is difficult to keep track of the days here). He fantasises that everyone has left. He negotiates the corridor stretching out in front of him. He has no idea where any of the doors lead, as he has not left his room since he was brought here. No sign of his jailer, Jacob. He finds at last a door that leads to the outside, and goes through it.

The shock of the fresh air is as cold as it is sweet. The sun is blinding; the cold makes his face sting, but he sucks great draughts of it into his lungs, savouring the ache. How could he have put up with lying in that room for so long? He is revolted by himself. He practises moving faster, hopping back and forth outside the door, getting used to the crutch. And then he hears a cry. He follows the sound round the corner of the stables, and sees, a hundred yards away, a knot of people. Despite his first impulse to duck back out of sight, they do not seem very interested in him, so he hops nearer. Jacob is one of them; he notices Francis and comes towards him.

‘What is happening? Why is everyone out here?’

Jacob glances over his shoulder. ‘You know I told you Line and the carpenter had left? Well … the man has come back.’

Francis hops slowly towards the gaggle of Norwegians: several of the women are crying; Per is intoning what sounds like a prayer. In the midst of them, he sees the man Jacob must mean–a hollow-eyed, unshaven creature, his nose and cheeks flayed red with frostbite, his beard and moustache white with rime. So this is the carpenter he has never seen, whom Line stole away. Someone seems to be questioning him, but he looks dazed. Francis chastises himself for being slow on the uptake, then staggers towards him, his anger growing.

‘What have you done with her?’ he shouts, not knowing if the man even speaks English. ‘Where is Line? Have you left her out there? And her children?’

The carpenter turns towards him in amazement–understandable, since he has never seen him before.

‘Where is she?’ demands Francis, fierce and afraid.

‘She … I don’t know.’ The man falters. ‘One night … we got to a village, and I couldn’t bear it. I knew I was doing wrong. I wanted to come back. So I left her … at the village.’

There is a sharp-featured woman beside him, clinging to him, in tears. Francis guesses she is the abandoned wife.

‘What village is this? How far away?’

The man’s eyes flicker. ‘I don’t know its name. It was on a river … a small river.’

‘How many days away?’

‘Uh … Three days.’

‘You’re lying. There is no village three days from here, not if you went south.’

The man blanches, even behind his pallor. ‘We lost the compass …’

‘Where did you leave her?’

The carpenter starts to cry. At last, half in Norwegian and half in English, he explains.

‘It was awful … We were lost. I heard a shot, and I thought I could find the hunter and he would show us the way. But I couldn’t find him … There were wolves. When I went back, I found blood, and they were … gone.’

He sobs wretchedly. The thin-featured woman draws away from him, as if in disgust. The others look at Francis with open-mouthed curiosity–half of them have not seen him since he was brought in half dead. Francis feels tears threaten, his throat has closed up, choking him.

Per holds up his hand in a command for attention. ‘I think we all had better go inside. Espen needs treatment, and food. Then we will find out what happened and send men out to look for them.’

He speaks in his own tongue, and gradually, they all turn and walk back to the buildings.

Jacob falls into step with Francis. He doesn’t speak until they are nearly inside.

‘Listen. I don’t know, but … It is strange that wolves attack and kill three people. Maybe that is not what happened.’

Francis looks at him. He wipes his nose on his sleeve.

At the door of his room, Per hails them. ‘Jacob … Francis … you don’t need to go back in there. Come to the dining room with everyone else.’

Surprised, and touched, Francis follows Jacob to the refectory.

They eat bread and cheese and drink coffee. There is a hushed murmur as people speak, but only just above a whisper, awed by the occasion. Francis thinks of Line’s kindnesses to him, her yearning to leave. But she is tough, too. Maybe it didn’t happen like that. He won’t think of it, not yet.

No one in this room seems to look at him with suspicion. He would go with them and search for Line, if he could, but his knee is throbbing with the unaccustomed exercise, and he feels as weak as water. It has been weeks that he has lain up in the white room, his muscles softening and his skin growing pale like rhubarb under a pot. Weeks since …

With a shock, he realises that he has not thought of Laurent for at least an hour, not since he saw the crowd of people bunched on the white field; not even, if he is truthful, since he opened the outside door and tasted the sweet, cold air. He has not thought of Laurent for that long, and he feels as though he has been unfaithful.

From the rise behind the cabin that night, a long time ago, Francis saw a light through the parchment window. He started down the bank, quietly, in case Laurent had visitors. He often does–did–and Francis stayed out of the way if that was the case. He didn’t want another telling-off from that vicious tongue. He heard the door open and saw a man with long black hair come out into the yard. He held something in one hand, Francis couldn’t see what it was, that he tucked carefully into his pouch, looking about him, or rather listening, with the alert stillness of a tracker. Francis stayed still and quiet. It was midnight and quite dark, but he knew it was no one from Dove River–he knows the way they all walk, move, breathe. This one was different. The man spat on the ground, turning towards the open door, and Francis caught a swift impression of dark, reflective skin, greasy hair curling round his shoulders, a stony, closed face. Not young. He moved back into the cabin, disappearing from view. Then the light in the cabin went out. The man left, muttering something under his breath, and moved off towards the river, northward. His tread was silent. Francis breathed a sigh of relief–if a trader was around, he would have to keep out of the way. But this man was not staying.

Francis crept down the bank and padded round to the front of the cabin. He could hear no sound within. At the door he paused before opening it.

‘Laurent?’ he whispered, ashamed of himself for whispering. ‘Laurent?’

There was every chance Laurent would be angry with him–it was only a day and a half since their last argument. Or–a chill strikes his heart at the thought–what if he has already left on his mysterious final journey, giving him the slip? He might have chosen to go earlier than he said, to avoid him, to avoid a scene. That would be like him.

Francis pushed the door open. Inside there was silence and darkness, but also warmth from the stove. Francis felt his way over to where a lamp usually stood, and found it. He opened the stove door and lit a rush, touched it to the lamp wick, and blinked in the sudden light. There was no response to his entrance; Laurent has gone, but for how long? He could be out tracking. He might not have left for good, for surely he would not have left the stove burning? He could be …

There were only seconds of his old life left, and Francis squandered them thoughtlessly, fiddling with the lamp wick. When he turned round, he would see Laurent lying on his bed. Would see instantly the curious red patch in his hair; would then move swiftly to where he would see his face, his neck, the fatal wound.

Would see that his eyes were still moist.

Would feel that he was still warm.

Francis blinks away the tears. Jacob is speaking: he says he is going outside–he doesn’t like sitting for long periods. Jacob puts a hand on his shoulder–everyone is being nice to him today; he can hardly bear it–will Francis be all right here for a while? He no longer needs to threaten him not to run away … ha!

Francis assents, somehow, and his expression is taken for grief at Line’s imagined fate.

After he had seen Laurent’s body, after he had stood in shock for heaven knows how long, Francis decided he must follow the killer. He could not think of anything else to do. He could not go home, knowing what he knew. Did not want to stay in Dove River a moment longer without Laurent to make it bearable. He found Laurent’s satchel and packed it with a blanket, food, a hunting knife–bigger and sharper than his own. He looked round the cabin, seeking a sign, a last message from Laurent to himself. There was no trace of Laurent’s rifle–had the man been carrying one? He tried to picture him; suddenly realised what the man had tucked so carefully into his pouch and felt his gorge rise.

Keeping his eyes from the bed, Francis prised up the loose floorboard and felt for Laurent’s moneybag. There wasn’t much in it, just a small roll of notes and the funny piece of engraved bone Laurent thought was valuable, so he took that as well. After all, Laurent had tried to give it to him, months ago, when he was in a good mood.

Finally he put on Laurent’s wolfskin coat, the one with the fur on the inside. He would need it, at night.

He said goodbye in his mind. And walked away in the same direction the stranger had taken, not knowing what he would do if he ever found him.

I remember a time once, when I set out on a long journey, and I suppose it has stayed in my mind so vividly because it marked the end of one period of my life and the beginning of another. I am sure the same is true of a great many people in the New World, but I am not referring to the voyage across the Atlantic, unspeakable though that was. My journey was from the gates of the public asylum in Edinburgh to a great crumbling house in the Western Highlands. I was accompanied by the man who was to become my husband, but of course I had no idea of that then. And I had no idea of the significance of the journey, but once begun, my whole life began to change absolutely and for ever. I would never have guessed it, but I never returned to Edinburgh, and indeed, as the carriage left the asylum behind on its long curved drive, certain ties were severed–from my past, from my parents, from my relatively comfortable background, from my class, even–that would never be reconnected.

I liked to think of that journey, afterwards, imagining the hand of fate at work, snipping the threads behind me, as I sat in stupefied ignorance in that jolting box, wondering whether I was mad (so to speak) to have left the asylum and its relative comforts. And I wondered, how often are we aware of irreversible forces at work while they are in operation? Of course I was not. And conversely, I suppose, how often do we imagine that something is of great significance, only for it to evaporate like morning mist, leaving no trace?

Whatever my musings, we have arrived at last. The end of this journey, which feels so important. But perhaps it is just the fear of violence that makes it seem so.

The country is less monotonous here; it has developed bumps and creases like a rug that needs pulling flat. And there in front of us, I can see through the fiery flashes, a small lake. It is long and crooked like a finger that beckons us, kinked round a hulk of rock that rears up a hundred feet or more, halfway down its length. There are trees on the further shore, but more of a coppice than a forest. Most of the lake is frozen over, smooth and white like a curling rink. But at one end, where a river pours into it down a short fall of rock, steam rises from black water, the turbulence of the falls keeping it free of ice.

We walk across the frozen lake. The sun shines coldly out of the west; the sky is a wash of perfect cerulean blue, the trees a charcoal sketch against the snow. I try to imagine we are here for another reason, a good reason, but the truth is, there could be no other reason for me to be here with Parker. We have nothing in common except the death that ties us together: that and a desire for justice of some sort. And when that is done–whatever is done–there will be nothing tying us together at all. And that is something I cannot bear to think about.

So that is why I force myself to look, however much my eyes burn. I have to see. I have to remember this.

The snow is thinner on the ground under the trees. The derelict cabin has become so weathered that it is invisible until you are right up against it. The door is ajar, drooping from rotten hinges, and snow has found its way inside, forming a partial barrier. Parker climbs over this, and I follow, pulling my scarf from my face. There is only one shuttered window, and it is blessedly dark. The interior holds nothing that indicates it might once have been a habitation, just a heap of bundles, whitened with drift.

‘What is this place?’

‘Trapper’s cabin. Could be a hundred years old.’

The cabin, sagging and dilapidated, its timbers silver with weather, really could be that old. I’m fascinated by the thought. The oldest building in Dove River has been on this earth exactly thirteen years.

I stumble over something on the floor. ‘Are these the furs?’ I point to the bundles. Parker nods, and goes to one, slicing a binding with his knife. He pulls out a dark, greyish pelt.

‘Ever seen one of these before?’

I take it, and in my hands it is supple, cold and unbelievably soft. I have seen one before, in Toronto I think, wrapped around the wattled throat of a rich old woman. A silver fox fur. People were commenting on it, how it was worth a hundred guineas, or some such extraordinary sum. It is silvery, and heavy, and as slippery and smooth as silk. It is all those things. But worth all this?

I feel disappointed in Parker. I don’t know what I expected, but somehow, at the end of all this, I hate to admit that he has come all this way for the same thing as Stewart.

We set up camp in the cabin without speaking. Parker works silently, but it is a different sort of silence, not the usual total absorption in whatever he is doing. I can tell he is preoccupied with something else.

‘How long do you think it will take?’

‘Not long.’

Neither of us specifies what we mean, but we both know it is not the task at hand. I keep peering out of the cabin door, which faces south, so you cannot see the route we took. The light outside is dazzling; every glance sends a stabbing pain deep into my skull. But I can’t stay in the cabin; I have to be alone.

I keep within the trees that line the west shore, moving up to the black, unfrozen part of the lake, drawn by the falls at its head, which move but are uncannily silent. When I see them I pick up dead branches in a desultory way, for firewood. Will we even have a fire, if we are waiting for Stewart? There is a sour, metallic taste in my mouth that I have come to know well. The taste of my cowardice.

It is only a hundred yards to the head of the lake, so you would think it would be impossible to get lost. But that is exactly what I do. I stay close to the edge of the lake, but even walking back along the shore, I cannot see the cabin anywhere. Initially I don’t panic. I retrace my steps to the falls, where the water is dark, smoking, ringed with progressively paler ice. I feel that urge–as the walker on the cliff is impelled to go ever closer to the edge–to walk out onto the ice, from white to grey, to see how strong it is. To walk as far as I can, and then a little further.

I turn back, keeping the setting sun and its fiery flashes to my right, and walk into the trees again. The trunks break the sunlight into pulsing waves that streak and smear across my sight, making me dizzy. I shut my eyes, but when I open them I can see nothing at all–a burning blankness wipes over everything and the pain makes me cry out. Despite what I know, I have the sudden fear that my eyes will not recover. Rare for snow-blindness to become permanent, but it has been known. And then I think, would that be so bad? It would mean Parker’s would be the last face I ever saw.

I am on my hands and knees, tripped by what seems to be a mound of churned snow. I pat the ground with my hands: the lair of some animal, perhaps. The earth is dark and loose beneath the snow. A flicker of fresh alarm ignites in me; it must be a very large animal to have dug up so much earth, and so recently–it seems friable and fresh, yielding under my hand. I start to push myself up and my hand meets something just under the earth that makes me stagger back with a yell before I can stop myself. It is soft and cold, with the unmistakable give of cloth or … or …

‘Mrs Ross?’

Somehow he is next to me before I hear him approach. The blankness dissolves a little and I can see his dark shape, but my eyes are playing tricks on me; red and violet shapes blur with branches and patches of white snow. He takes my arm and says, ‘Shh, there’s no one here.’

‘Over there … something in the ground. I touched it.’

A wave of nausea fills me and then recedes. I can no longer see the earth mound, but Parker scouts around and finds it. I stand where I am, wiping the tears that run ceaselessly (for no reason, as I am not crying) from my eyes. If I don’t wipe them away immediately, they freeze onto my cheek in little pearls.

‘It’s one of them isn’t it? One of the Norwegians.’ I can’t get the feeling of it off my hand, which is unaccountably bare.

Parker is squatting now, scraping earth and snow away. ‘It isn’t one of the Norwegians.’

I heave a sigh of relief. So an animal after all. I pick up handfuls of snow and scour my hands to clean them of that terrible feeling.

‘It’s Nepapanees.’

I take a few steps towards him, unsteady, as my eyes cannot be relied on to tell the truth. Parker on the ground flickers and burns before me like a guy on the fifth of November.

‘Stay back.’

I can’t see much anyway, and my feet keep moving closer of their own accord. Then Parker is on his feet and holding me by the arms, blocking me from the thing in the ground.

‘What happened to him?’

‘He was shot.’

‘Let me see.’

After a moment he steps aside, but keeps hold of my arm as I kneel beside the shallow grave. By keeping my eyes almost closed I can make out what’s on the ground. Parker has scraped away enough snow and earth to uncover a man’s head and torso. The body lies face down, its braided hair soiled, but the red and yellow thread binding the braids is still bright.

I don’t have to turn him over. He didn’t go through the ice and drown. There is a wound in his back the size of my fist.

It isn’t until we get back to the cabin that I notice my latest imbecility. I must have lost my mittens somewhere in the trees, and the skin on my fingers is white and numb. Two cardinal sins in as many days; I deserve to be shot.

‘I’m sorry, stupid of me …’ Apologising again. Useless, stupid, helpless burden.

‘They’re not too bad.’

The sun has gone for the night, the sky is a tender blue-green. A fire burns inside the cabin, and Parker has heaped up a fortune in furs as a bed.

This is only the second time I have let this happen to me; the other was during my first winter here, and I learnt my lesson then. I seem to have forgotten much in the last few weeks. Like how to protect myself. In all sorts of ways.

Parker chafes my hands with snow. The feeling in my fingers is creeping back, and they have started to burn.

‘So Stewart was here–he knows about the furs.’

Parker nods.

‘I am worried I won’t be able to use the gun.’

Parker grunts. ‘Maybe it won’t be necessary.’

‘It would probably be best if you took them both. I can just …’

I was going to be another pair of eyes. Look out for him. Protect him. Now I can’t even do that.

‘I’m sorry. I am no help.’ I smother a bitter laugh. It seems inappropriate.

‘I am glad you’re here.’

I can’t see his expression–if I look straight at him, bright flares fill the centre of my vision; I can only see him in glimpses, from the corners of my eyes.

He is glad I am here.

‘You found Nepapanees.’

I pull my hands away. ‘Thank you. I can do that now.’

‘No, wait.’ Parker unbuttons his blue shirt. He takes back my left hand and guides it inside, to where his right arm meets his body, where he traps it in his warm flesh. I reach my right hand into the other armpit, and so we are locked like that, an arm’s length apart, face to face. I put my head on his chest, because I do not want him staring at my face, with its red, weeping eyes. And its burning cheeks. And its smile.

With my ear against a sliver of bare skin I can hear Parker’s heart beating. Is it fast? I do not know if this is normal. My heart is fast, I know that. My hands are searing, coming back to life with the warmth of skin I have never seen. Parker pushes the bundled silver pelt under my head; a hundred-guinea pillow that is soft and cool. The weight of his arm rests on my back. When, some time later, I move a little, I find that he is holding the hair that has come loose, twisted into a rope in his hand. He strokes it, absently, like stroking one of his dogs. Possibly. Or perhaps not. We don’t speak. There is nothing that can be said. No sound but our breathing, and the hiss of the fire. And the unsteady beat of his heart.

To be honest, if I could be granted one wish, I would wish that this night would never end. I am selfish, I know. I do not pretend otherwise. And very probably wicked. I do not seem to care for the men who have lost their lives, not if it means that in the end I get to lie here like this, with my lips close to a triangle of warm skin, so that he can feel my breath come and go.

I do not deserve to have my wishes granted, but then, I remind myself, whether I do or not, it makes no difference.

Somewhere out there, Stewart is coming.

I am woken by a light touch on the shoulder. Parker crouches beside me, rifle in hand. Instantly I know we are not alone. He hands me his hunting knife.

‘Take this. I’m going to take both guns. Stay inside and keep listening.’

‘They are here?’

He doesn’t need to answer.

There is no noise from outside. No wind. The clear, icy weather continues, the stars and a waning moon lending a soft almost-light to the snow. No birdsong. No sound of beast or man.

But they are here.

Parker positions himself beside the makeshift door and peers out through the cracks. I shuffle over to the wall behind the door, clutching the knife. I can’t imagine what I could do with it.

‘It’s nearly dawn. They know we’re here.’

I’ve always hated waiting. I don’t have the gift that all hunters have, of letting time pass without worrying at every moment. I strain to hear the slightest sound, and am beginning to think that Parker may be mistaken, when there is a light scraping outside, on the very wall of the cabin, it seems. The blood seems to go slack in my veins, and I make a sudden involuntary movement–I swear I can’t help it–and the blade of the knife knocks against the wall. Whoever is outside must hear it too. There is an intensifying of the silence, then the softest sound of footsteps in snow, retreating.

I don’t feel like apologising any more, so I say nothing. Then there are more foot-sounds, as though whoever owns the feet has decided it’s not worth the effort of being quiet.

‘What can you see?’

I speak so softly it is less than a breath. Parker shakes his head: nothing. Or I’m to shut my mouth. On the whole I would have to agree with him.

After another endless clump of time–a minute? twenty?–there comes a voice: ‘William? I know you’re there.’

It’s Stewart’s voice, of course. Out in front of the cabin. It takes me a moment to realise he’s speaking to Parker.

‘I know you want those furs, William. But they are Company property and I’m going to have to return them to their rightful owners. You know that.’

Parker looks at me quickly.

‘I have men out here.’ He sounds confident, unworried. Bored.

‘What happened with Nepapanees? Did he find out about Laurent?’

Silence. I wish Parker hadn’t said that. If Stewart knows we have found the grave, he will never let us go alive. Then the voice comes again.

‘He was greedy. He wanted the furs for himself. He was going to kill me.’

‘You shot him from behind.’

I swear I can hear a sigh, as though he is running low on patience. ‘Accidents happen. You know that, William–you of all people. It wasn’t … intended. I’m going to have to insist that you come out.’

A long gap now. I see Parker’s grip on the rifle tighten. My eyes still burn but I can see. I have to see. The other rifle is slung crosswise across his back. The sky is lighter. Dawn is coming.

William Parker, you are my love.

It hits me like a runaway horse. Tears fill my eyes at the thought of him walking out of that door.

‘We can make a deal. You can take some of the furs, and go.’

Parker says, ‘Why don’t you come in and talk?’

‘You come out. It’s dark in there.’

‘Don’t go out! You don’t know how many men he’s got.’ My teeth are clenched on the words. I’m praying with every tattered remnant of faith I ever had that he will be spared.

‘Please … !’

‘It’s all right.’ He says it very softly. He’s looking at me. And now there is enough light to see his face in sharp relief. And I can see every detail of his face, each curving line that I once thought savage and cruel, each furrow, indescribably dear.

‘Come out into the open first. Let me see you’re not armed.’

‘No!’

It is I who says that, but under my breath. There is some noise outside, and then Parker pulls the makeshift door, and steps outside into a grey twilight. He closes the door behind him. I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for the bullet.

It doesn’t come. I position myself behind the door, so I can see through the cracks. I can see a figure that must be Stewart, but not where Parker is; perhaps he is too close to the cabin.

‘I don’t want a fight. I just want to take the furs back where they belong.’

‘You didn’t have to kill Laurent. He didn’t even know where they were.’ His voice comes from somewhere to my right.

‘That was a mistake. I didn’t want that to happen.’

‘Two mistakes?’ Parker’s voice again, moving further away.

I cannot see Stewart’s expression from where I am, but I can feel the anger in his voice, like something hard and rigid stressed to breaking point. ‘What do you want, William?’

Having spoken, Stewart moves suddenly, disappearing from my field of vision. A shot rings out, and a flash, bursting from somewhere in the trees behind him, and something thuds into the cabin wall at the far end, to my right. There is no other sound. I don’t know where Parker is. The powder flash seared my eyeballs like a white-hot needle stabbed into my brain. My breath comes in loud ragged gasps that I can’t quiet. I want to cry out to Parker. I can’t seem to get my breath. Now no one is in sight. There is some sound to my left, then I hear cursing. Stewart.

Cursing because Parker got away?

Footsteps outside; very near. I grip the handle of the knife as tightly as my numb fingers can manage; I’m poised behind the door, ready …

When he kicks the door in, it’s very simple. It slams into my forehead, knocking me over, and I drop the knife.

For a moment nothing else happens; perhaps because his eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness. Then he sees me grovelling on the floor at his feet. I scrabble for the knife; by some miracle it has fallen underneath me, and I seize it by the blade and manage to get it into my pocket before he grabs my other arm and jerks me roughly to my feet. Then he pushes me, in front of him, out of the door.

When Donald hears the shot, he starts to run. He knows this is probably not the wisest thing to do, but somehow, perhaps because he is a tall man, the message doesn’t get to his feet in time. He is aware of Alec hissing something behind him, but not what it is he says.

He is near the end of the lake; the noise came from the trees on the far shore. He keeps thinking, they were right. They were right–and now Half Man is killing them. He knows he is extremely, foolishly, visible, a running figure against the ice, but he knows also that Stewart would not shoot him. Some simple solution can be reached; they can talk, like two reasonable men both in the employ of the great Company. Stewart is a reasonable man.

‘Stewart!’ he shouts as he runs. ‘Stewart! Wait!’

He doesn’t know what else he is going to say. He thinks of Mrs Ross–bleeding to death, perhaps. And how he did not save her.

He has almost reached the trees at the foot of a large hillock when there is a movement up ahead. The first sign of life he has seen.

‘Don’t shoot, please. It is I, Moody … Don’t shoot …’ He is holding his rifle by the barrel, waving it to show his peaceful intentions.

There is a flash of light from under the trees, and something strikes him with tremendous force in the midriff, knocking him over backwards. The branch, or whatever it was he ran into, seemed to hit him just over his scar, not helping matters.

Winded, he tries to get up, but can’t, so he lies for a few moments, trying to get his breath. His spectacles have fallen off; really they are not the thing for Canada, always frosting or steaming up at the wrong moments, and now … he gropes around him in the snow for them, encounters nothing but coldness everywhere. Surely someone could think of something more convenient.

Eventually he finds the rifle, and picks it up. At this point, because the stock is slippery and warm, he becomes aware of the blood. Raising his head with a great effort, he sees blood on his coat. He is annoyed; in fact, he is furious. What a bloody fool he is, charging into trouble like that. Now Alec will be in danger too, and it is all his fault. He thinks of calling out to the boy, but something, some greater sense from somewhere, stops him. He concentrates on getting the rifle into position; at least he can fire a shot, not roll over and die without a murmur. He will not be entirely useless; what would his father say?

But there is silence, as though he is, once again, the only person for miles around. He will have to wait until he can see something. Well, the person who fired, whoever it was, obviously doesn’t think he needs to come and finish off the job. Fool.

Then, at some later point, he looks up and sees a face above him. It is a face he distantly remembers from Hanover House; the face of a drunk, impassive and empty, closed somehow, like the stone that blocks a burrow. It is not drunken now, but there is no curiosity or fear, nor even triumph, there. It is the face, he realises, of Laurent Jammet’s killer. The man whose footprints in the snow have drawn them all here. It is what he came for–to know him, and to find him. And now he has. And it is too late. Typical, thinks Donald, for him to be so slow on the uptake, just like his father always said. And with a rush of heat to his eyes he thinks, Oh, to hear my father’s voice chastising me now.

Donald starts to think it would be a good idea to aim the rifle at the face, but by the time he’s thought it, the face has gone again, and his rifle has gone too. He is so tired. Tired and cold. Perhaps he will just lay his head back on the soft snow; rest a while.

Outside the cabin, I can see no one, not even Stewart, who holds my left arm twisted so tight behind my back I can only take shallow breaths for fear my shoulder will come out of its socket. No sign, at least, of Parker lying wounded, or worse, in the snow. No sign of Half Man, if that is who it is. Stewart brandishes his rifle in front of me. I am his shield. There is some movement, but all behind the cabin; a sound–inconclusive. He inches me towards the end wall, to where the sun is starting to burn the horizon. Of course, I have no scarf to protect my eyes. And my hands are bare.

‘Careless,’ he says, as though reading my mind. ‘And your eyes too. He shouldn’t have brought you here.’ He sounds mildly disappointed.

‘He didn’t bring me,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘When you had Jammet killed, you brought me.’

‘Really? Well, well, I had no idea. I thought you and Parker …’

It hurts to talk, but it pours out of me; I am molten with anger. ‘You have no idea how many people you have hurt. Not just the ones you killed, but …’

‘Shut up,’ he says calmly. He is listening. A crackle in the trees. From far to our left, there is a deafening crack–a rifle. It sounds different from before.

‘Parker!’

I can’t help it. A split second later I could bite my tongue off; I don’t want him to think it is a cry for help and come running.

‘I’m all right!’ I shout with my next breath. ‘Please don’t shoot. He’ll do a deal. We’ll go away. Just let us go, please …’

‘Shut up!’

Stewart puts a hand over my mouth, squeezing it so tight it feels as though his fingers will break my jaw. We move like some ungainly four-legged creature to the end of the cabin, but again there is no one in sight.

Another shot splits the silence in two–to our left, beyond the cabin now. And after it, this time, a noise. A human moan.

I gasp, the breath catching in my throat like tar.

Stewart shouts in a strange language. A command? A question? If Half Man is listening he does not answer. Stewart shouts again, the pitch of his voice taut, his head whipping back and forth, unsure of himself. Now I have to act, I tell myself; now while he is uncertain. He lets go his grip on my mouth so that he can point the rifle one-handed. I grasp the knife in my pocket, working it round until the handle is snug in my palm. I start to pull it out, inch by inch.

And then a voice comes from somewhere in the trees, but surely not the voice of Half Man. A young voice answers, in the same language. Stewart is disconcerted; he doesn’t know the voice. This is not part of his plan. I swing the knife across my body and into his side, as hard as I can. Although at the last moment he seems to realise what is happening and flinches away, the blade meets yielding resistance, and he howls with pain. I have a glimpse of his face, and his eyes catch mine–they are reproachful, bluer than sky; but he seems to have a half-smile on his face, even as he swings the rifle towards me.

I run. Another rifle crack, deafening me, somewhere very close, but I feel nothing.

Alec watches Donald run across the frozen lake, despite his shouts, and then his curses. He shouts to him to stop, but he does not stop. Alec feels an ugly fear clutch at his insides, is afraid he might vomit, and so turns away. Then he tells himself not to be a baby; he must do as his father would have done, and sets off after him.

Alec is a hundred yards behind when the flash comes–he would later swear he heard nothing–and Donald falls. Alec throws himself down behind some reeds that poke through the ice. He holds George’s rifle cocked in front of him, grinding his teeth in his anger and his fear. They shouldn’t have shot Donald. Donald was kind to his mother. Donald told him about his beautiful, clever aunts who live on a huge lake like the sea. Donald hurt no one.

His breath hisses through his teeth, too loud. He scans the trees–they have the advantage of cover–then gets up and runs, half crying, bent double; throws himself flat in the snow and crawls to the top of a hummock to look. He has reached the first of the trees, and it is possible they haven’t seen him. Up ahead, there is another rifle shot, and then silence. He couldn’t see the flash. It was not aimed at him. He darts from one tree trunk to the next, pausing, looking right and left, everywhere. His breathing sounds like sobbing; is so loud it must give him away. He thinks of the others–the white lady and the tall man–to give himself courage.

This rifle is heavier than the one he is used to, the barrel longer. It is a good rifle, but he has had little practice. He knows he will have to get close to have a chance. He works his way closer to the source of the shot. To his right there is the hump of rock that interrupts the smooth flow of the lake, and ahead, among the trees, he glimpses a building of some sort. A little closer, and he sees two figures outside it–the man who killed his father hiding behind the white lady.

‘They don’t know I’m here,’ he tells himself, so he will be brave.

Stewart’s voice, shouting out in Cree: ‘Half Man? What was that?’

Silence.

‘Half Man? Answer me–if you can.’

No answer. Alec moves forward from tree to tree, until he is fifty feet away, his body protected by the trunk of a spruce. He raises the rifle and sights it. He wishes he were closer, but doesn’t dare move. Stewart calls out, impatient, but Half Man does not answer him. And so Alec answers, from his hiding place, in his father’s tongue.

‘Your man is dead, murderer.’

Stewart whips round, seeking him, and then something happens: the lady lunges at him and breaks away; Stewart emits a howl like a fox, and takes his rifle to the only target he can see–her. Alec holds his breath; he has one chance to save her, they are so close. He squeezes the trigger; there is an almighty kick and a cloud of smoke engulfs the barrel.

One shot. One shot only.

He steps forward, cautious in case Half Man is hiding somewhere, waiting. As the smoke disperses, the clearing in front of the cabin seems to be empty. He reloads the gun and waits, then darts to a nearer shelter.

Stewart is lying in the clearing, spread-eagled, with one arm flung over his head as though reaching for something he wanted. One side of his face is gone. Alec drops to his knees and vomits. And that is where Parker and the woman find him.

I am so relieved to see Parker behind the cabin that I throw my arms round him for a moment, without thinking or caring. There is the briefest answering pressure and, though his face doesn’t change, his voice is rough.

‘Are you all right?’

I nod.

‘Stewart …’

I glance behind me, and Parker goes to the corner and peers round. Then he steps out; no danger. I follow him, and see a body lying in the middle of the clearing. It is Stewart–I recognise the brown coat; there is nothing else to recognise. A few yards away, a young boy kneels in the snow like a statue. I think I am hallucinating, and then I recognise Elizabeth Bird’s eldest son.

He looks up at us, and says one word: ‘Donald.’

We find Moody alive, but fading. He has been shot in the stomach, and has bled too much. I tear off strips of skirt to staunch the wound, and make a pillow for his head, but there is not much we can do with the bullet still in him. I kneel beside him and rub his hands, which are freezing cold.

‘You’re going to be all right, Mr Moody. We got them. We know the truth. Stewart shot Nepapanees in the back and buried him in the woods.’

‘Mrs Ross …’

‘Shh. Don’t worry. We’ll look after you.’

‘So glad you are … all right.’

He smiles weakly, trying, even now, to be polite.

‘Donald … you’re going to be all right.’ I’m trying to smile, but all I can think is, he is only a few years older than Francis, and I was never very nice to him. ‘Parker is making you some tea, and … we’ll take you back to the post; we’ll look after you. I’ll look after you …’

‘You’ve changed,’ he accuses me, which I suppose is hardly surprising, since my hair is loose and wild, my eyes weep without cease, and a large lump has risen on my forehead.

Suddenly he grips my hand with surprising strength. ‘I want you to do something for me …’

‘Yes?’

‘I have discovered … something extraordinary.’

His breath is getting horribly short. His eyes, without his spectacles, are grey and distant, wandering. I notice the spectacles on the ground near my foot and pick them up.

‘Here …’ I try to put them on for him, but he moves his head slightly, pushing them away. ‘Better … without.’

‘All right. You’ve discovered … what?’

‘Something extraordinary.’ He smiles slightly, happily.

‘What? You mean Stewart and the furs?’

He frowns, surprised. His voice is fainter, as though it’s leaving him. ‘Not what I meant at all. I … love.’

I lean nearer and nearer, until my ear is an inch from his mouth.

The words fade away.

Mrs Ross leaning over him sways like a reed in the wind. Donald can’t get over how she has changed–her face, even half-hidden by her hair, is softer, kinder; and her eyes shine, all dazzling colour like bright water, as though the pupils have contracted to nothing.

He stops himself from saying the name ‘Maria’. Maybe, he thinks, it is better that she doesn’t know. That she doesn’t have that tug of loss, of regret, of possibility snuffed out, always nagging at the back of her mind.

But now, in front of Donald a tunnel opens up, an immensely long tunnel, and it is like looking down the wrong end of a telescope, through which everything is very tiny, but very sharp.

A tunnel of years.

He looks on with astonishment: through the tunnel he sees the life he would have had with Maria: their marriage, their children, their quarrels, their petty disagreements. The arguments about his career. The moving to the city. The touch of her flesh.

The way he would smooth out the little crease in her forehead with his thumb. Her taking him to task. Her smile.

He smiles back at her, remembering how she took off her shawl to staunch his wound at the rugby match, the day they first met, all those years ago. His blood on her shawl, binding them.

The life whirrs before him like a riffled deck of cards in the hands of a dealer, each picture glowing and complete in every detail. He can see himself when old, and Maria, also old, still full of energy. Arguing, writing, reading between the lines, having the last word.

Having no regrets.

It doesn’t look like a bad life.

Maria Knox will never know the life she might have had, but Donald knows it. He knows, and he is glad.

Mrs Ross is looking down at him, her face in a mist, dazzling and moist, beautiful. She is very near and very far away. She seems to be asking him something, but for some reason he can’t hear her any more.

But everything is clear.

And so Donald doesn’t say Maria’s name, or anything else at all.

The worst thing of all was taking Alec to see the body of his father. He insisted we bring it back to Hanover House, as we will Donald, and bury them there. Stewart we decided to bury in the shallow grave he dug himself. That seems fair enough.

Half Man was badly wounded by Parker’s bullet, but when we went back to the cabin, he had gone. His trail led off north, and Parker followed it for a while, then came back. He was shot in the neck and probably wouldn’t last long. To the north of the lake there is nothing except snow and ice.

‘Let the wolves take care of him,’ is what he said.

We wrapped Donald and Nepapanees in furs–Alec found a deerskin for his father, which seemed important to him. Donald we wrapped in fox and marten; soft and warm. Parker made a bundle of the most valuable furs and loaded it onto the sled. Jammet had a son: they are for him, and for Elizabeth and her family. As for the rest, I suppose Parker will come back for them some day. I do not ask. He does not say.

We did all this by noon of that day.

And now we are walking back to Hanover House. The dogs pull the sled with the bodies on it. Alec walks beside it. Parker drives the dogs, and I walk behind him. We are following our own outward trail, and that of our pursuers, printed deep into the snow. I find that I have learnt, without realising it, to identify tracks. Every so often I see a print that I know is mine, and I step on it, to rub it out. This country is scored with such marks; slender traces of human desire. But these trails, like this bitter path, are fragile, winterworn, and when the snow falls again, or when it thaws in spring, all trace of our passing will vanish.

Even so, three of these tracks have outlasted the men who made them.

I find, when it occurs to me to look, that I have lost the bone tablet. It was still in my pocket when I left Hanover House, but now it has gone. I tell Parker this, and he shrugs. He says, if it is important, it will be found again. And in a way–although I feel sorry for poor Mr Sturrock, who seemed to hanker for it–I am glad not to have something that other people want so much. No good seems to come of such things.

I have been thinking of course, and dreaming when I sleep, of Parker. And this much I know: he thinks of me. But we are a conundrum to which there is no answer. After so much horror, we cannot go on–if I am honest, never could have.

And yet, whenever we stop, I cannot take my eyes from his face. The prospect of leaving him is like the prospect of losing my eyesight. I think of all the things he has been to me: stranger, fugitive, guide.

Love. Lodestone. My true north. I turn always to him.

He will take me back to Himmelvanger and then go on–back to wherever he came from. I do not know if he is married, I suppose he is. I never asked, and will not now. I know almost nothing about him. And he–he does not even know my first name.

Some things could make you laugh, if you felt like laughing. A while after I think this, Parker turns to me. Alec is several paces ahead.

‘Mrs Ross?’

I smile at him. As I have said, I cannot help myself. He smiles back in that way he has: a knife in my heart that I would not remove for all the world.

‘You have never told me your name.’

It is lucky the wind is so cold, as it freezes the tears before they fall. I shake my head, and smile. ‘You have used it often enough.’

He looks at me then, so hard that, for once, I drop my gaze first. His eyes do have a light in them after all.

I force my mind to turn to Francis, and Dove River. Angus. The pieces I have to put back together.

I force myself to feel the Sickness of Long Thinking.

And then Parker turns back to the dogs and the sled, and keeps walking, and so do I.

For what else can any of us do?