River of Strangers

  All rights reserved.

  This title is in the public domain in Canada and is not subject to any license or copyright.

  Cover design: Lisa Jager

  Ebook ISBN 9780735254398

  www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

  v5.4

  a

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  CHAPTER I

  It was thirty below with no wind stirring; not a twig moved or spruce branch swayed to drop its glittering load. A full cold moon gleamed on rounded drifts of snow; a broad level marked the river, though no one could say where bank ended and river began. Beyond the river rose a black cliff, crowned with pointed black spruces. An infinitude of chill unfriendly stars glittered in a blue sky. Save an occasional dull rumble of impetuous water fettered beneath four feet of ice, there was no sound in Nature; not a rabbit stirred, so deeply the snow shrouded everything.

  A stranger standing there might have thought himself in a wilderness had it not been for a stiff black thing, the smokestack of the Company’s sawmill, that stood up against the whiteness of the river, and that the chill stillness was pierced by wild whoops and yells, mingled with the shrill notes of a fiddle, from a long low building with lighted windows across which human figures twinkled. Closer inspection would have revealed that this was but one of a group of similar buildings, roofs so rounded with snow, so hung with icicles, so deeply banked, that in the moonlight they might easily have been mistaken for snowdrifts. The fiddle shrieked higher; the yells reverberated from the black cliff across the river.

  They were raising hell down at Duggan’s. Half-breeds and Indians, the Company’s trappers, had arrived from up river at eleven that morning, furs piled high upon their sleds, and since then everyone had been drunk. Now, close upon midnight, they were dancing furiously in the long mess hall. Big Pete, the Indian with the white scar down the left side of his cruel face; Roxy, the half-breed Eskimo; Johnny Deveau, headman of the half-breeds; Pete Surette; Lanky Morris, the frozen hobo, and a score of Duggan’s men were there, all drunk and dancing with the girls. There were almost enough girls to go round, for Duggan had turned loose his retainers for the evening, some Indian girls had come in from the village behind the hill, and MacDonald’s Rosy had joined the party. It was too bad that it was “almost” and not quite enough, since “almost” meant a fight in the end.

  The room in which they danced was oblong in shape and large—sometimes fifty men sat down to eat there—the boards and studding of the walls, uncovered by plaster or paint, were mellowed by time and smoke to a dingy brown. The long tables had been carried outside and laid on the snow. Suspended from the rafters were six coal-oil lamps with big tin shades that swayed and jingled with the beat of the dancers’ feet. Beneath their yellow light, the motley crowd of white men, half-breeds, and Indians, the girls in gaudy cottons bedizened with cheap jewellery, the men red-sashed with great rings of gold in their ears, brown faced and hard after months of living snowbound in the forest, danced furiously. A big sheet-iron stove stuffed with knots glowed at one end of the room; at the other end was the bar behind which sat the white-jacketed McGowan, Duggan’s business man. McGowan was a drunken Scot from Glasgow, who held his job with Duggan because he had a system in his drinking: he kept sober when everyone else was drunk, and drunk when everyone else was sober. In the small room behind the bar, all the bargains were made with the trappers after they had been properly lined with whisky. There McGowan displayed a collection of glittering trash, bright cottons, gaudy muslins, shoddy clothing marked pure wool, brass lamps, pocket knives, brass watches, rings set with coloured glass, celluloid combs, gilded necklaces. “A nice present for your woman, boy,” he would say to the salacious trapper with a simpering grin, as he fondly handled these gewgaws. When he had done trading for furs, he played poker with the boys and arranged assignations with the girls. In the end, McGowan had the furs and his money back. He was a good trader and, though drunkard, cheat, and pimp, a staunch Presbyterian, upholding the Kirk and sniffing at both Anglicans and Romanists. That night he was sober as became the high priest of Bacchus. He loved to ladle out drink to the boys as they staggered up to the bar and to watch the stages of their drunkenness. He loved to rake in the money for Duggan too, and was none too particular about change toward the end of the evening.

  Tap, tap went the moccasins over the swaying floor. The dancers were all gliding to a slow waltz time; the room was for a moment almost quiet. Suddenly the music passed into a quick and furious reel. Big Pete whooped and, grasping Bertha Riel by the waist, swung her in a circle clear of the floor; Johnny Deveau danced a buck-and-wing dance with his girl; all essayed their best steps; everyone yelled; red faces flamed and eyes blazed. Then the fiddler passed as suddenly into an old folk song—the fellow could make dance music out of anything: “Isabelle se promène” and “Marbrouch s’en va-t-en guerre” he played, and the dancers took up the chorus. Into drunken eyes came a sentimental leer. Then the music swept into “Ho ro mo Nighean donn Bhoidheach” and “Fhir a Bhàta na hóro eile,” with sad strains from the “Flowers of the Forest,” the pipes wailing in the hills, for the fiddler came from Cape Breton and was for a moment dreaming of his native land. Down dropped the drink-inflamed dancers to a tragic mood, and, pitying them, he played gaily “The De’il’s Awa’ wi’ th’ Exciseman.” He held them in the hollow of his hand and could sway them to any mood.

  The fiddler, Alex MacDonald, who sat on the bench beneath the bar by Duggan the factor, was a curious fellow to look at, one that you could never pass without a second glance. He was tall and strongly built, with broad, thick shoulders. His head was crowned with a shock of long auburn hair that waved to and fro as he played. As he turned his head to laugh and talk with Duggan, you saw a gleam of white and well-formed teeth. Deep-set blue eyes contrasted strangely with the red of his skin and hair. He was flushed with drink, but not maudlin like the others. Duggan, his stubby hands folded over his paunch, slouched in his corner with a crumpled back; MacDonald sat erect, his legs, extraordinarily long from knee to ankle, carelessly crossed. He had been a runner in his day, the half-back to whom the ball had been given in many a tight corner. The line of his jaw was firm; he was big, but neither fat nor flabby. On the Company’s books he appeared as, “Doctor at our post, River of Strangers.”

  He stopped playing, and McGowan handed him and Duggan another whisky out of a special bottle. The whole gang swelled up to the bar, swilling more liquor. They were pretty far gone, another round would finish them; McGowan had handed out free drinks in the afternoon as he traded. Now the skins were safe in the fur room; to hell with them! Pete Surette, who had been eating candy with his whisky blanc, was sick in the corner behind the stove. They were an unwashed crowd and reeked to heaven. To rid himself of them and get fresh air, MacDonald picked up his fiddle and broke into another jig.

  He was in strange company. He had been born thirty-five years before on a Bras d’Or lake farm in Cape Breton, the youngest of seven children. His father, a substantial, thrifty farmer, a man devout and severe, had picked him, after the fashion of Scotch people, as the scholar of the family and sent him to Pictou Academy, hoping that some day he might be a preacher in the Kirk. But Alex had no bent for theology; on the other hand, he devoured chemistry, zoology, and microscopic botany, and the “Origin of Species” finish
ed for him the book of Genesis. When the principal wrote the old man of Alex’s talent for science, family pride impelled him to send the boy to McGill for medicine. He said to his wife in the privacy of their bedroom: “The boy may make the name of MacDonald go far.”

  Now, Alex was endowed by the gods with great strength, fleetness of foot, and a fondness for liquor, fine girls, and music. In some sunny clime, these qualities might have been assets; in ancient Greece, he might have been the comrade of Ulysses, hero of an epic that smug young divines could have painfully conned over at Dalhousie, but in the dour land of his birth, these became traits to be fought against and repressed. But these strains were strong in Alex, harking back to some MacDonald of the clans who had fought, raped, pillaged, and drunk to the fulfilment of his heart’s desire. In the university, Alex found a new world of freedom, for thinking in the faculty of medicine was almost unfettered. He read widely, heard many concerts, and practised on his beloved fiddle. On the football field, his strength and speed made him the centre about which most plays were built. Many a fair heart sighed for him as he raced down the field, but no hand was stretched out to save him. When he met nice girls in the houses of his student friends, they admired him, but were afraid and repelled by his wild, rough vigour. Moreover, he had no dress suit, never went to church, and had never lost completely the manners of his country home. He trod the streets of the city clad in cap, sweater, and velveteen trousers, a great staff in his hand. Everyone in the university knew Alex MacDonald, but he had few friends for whom he cared. ’Twould have been a bold woman who could have dared to love him. In his junior year, he drank heavily, and when a pious young friend wrote to his people at home, he received a letter from his father full of reproaches. More reproaches followed, from time to time, and finally a letter of disinheritance, almost a curse, when the old man learned of Alex’s intrigue with his landlady’s pretty niece from Tadoussac.

  Fortunately, he had a little money in his own name, so he stayed on and was graduated in the middle of his class, though he was by far the most brilliant man in the university. He felt that established convention had given him a raw deal: how could the old man, with his limitations, interpret life to him? He knew his job well, he had a real understanding of books, he had some skill with his fiddle and loved music—he desired an untrammelled intellectual life. Sex matters seemed an incident in life to him: why did people make such a fuss about them? He thought vaguely that they must be necessary to the full development of man or woman. For two months after graduation he loafed about Montreal thinking, observing, drinking heavily, and steadily slipping down hill.

  One night in August, as he sat drinking in Surette’s bar on the Rue Cartier, Duggan, the New World Fur-Trading Company’s factor, came in. Duggan had with him a strong-arm man and a big dog, half mastiff, half husky. His quick eye caught in a glance the handsome figure, flushed face, the mop of red, the half-finished whisky of the lonely man at the table in the corner. The dog followed Duggan to the bar, then crossed the room, sniffed at Alex’s legs, and laid his muzzle across his knee for a pat. Alex liked dogs. Strange that the action of a dog should change the whole course of a man’s life and lead it into a new channel. Duggan was in a good mood. He had done good business in Montreal. He crossed the room to Alex’s table.

  “ ’Tisn’t often Jack makes friends with a stranger,” said Duggan, his Irish eyes twinkling. “May I sit down with you?”

  “Sure,” said Alex.

  “My name’s Duggan from River of Strangers, New World Company’s post up North.”

  “Mine’s MacDonald from Cape Breton. Glad to meet you, Mr. Duggan. Where did you say you came from?”

  “River of Strangers, New World post two hundred and fifty miles up the Churchill River. I’m factor there.”

  “Oh, ay,” said Alex.

  “The Company sent me down here to see about selling some skins; it’s sure great to hit the city, after five years in the bush.”

  “Ay,” said Alex. “You’ve got a fine dog here; do you breed them where you come from?”

  “Huskies are the native breed, but Jack’s a cross between a husky and an English mastiff. He can’t bark, only howl.”

  “I suppose the cold makes their pelts thick.”

  “Cold! Man, it’s a caution up there. Forty below, sometimes fifty, for weeks on end. It’s all right, though, when you get used to it and learn how to handle yourself. What are you doing so far from home?”

  “Bumming around.”

  The Irishman saw that the Scotsman had not yet had enough drink to make him communicative.

  “Jo,” he called to his strong arm, “two double Scotches.”

  They drank them as Duggan stuffed an ancient pipe.

  “Another drink?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Now, man,” said Duggan as they finished their second round. “Open up—what are you doing here? I liked your cut as soon as my eye fell on you. There’s the man, says I, for the North country. What a build you’ve got!”

  “I’m doing nothing,” said Alex. “The old man’s sore at me for drinking and casting my eyes on a maid, and will have nothing to do with hair or hide of me. I’m a doctor since May, and ready to hang out my shingle; meantimes, I’m drinkin’ and looking about me.”

  “A doctor! Holy Mother of God, what luck! Do you know the Company has commissioned me to get a saw-bones for the post? Man, you’re going North with me.”

  “It takes two to make a bargain.”

  “A bargain—it’s written in the book of fate—a hundred dollars a month, a house, fuel, a chance to do some trade in furs on the side, good whisky, and a couple of half-breed girls thrown in. You should see our girls, half French, half Indian.”

  “I’m none so keen on women.”

  “Fire and flame, fire and flame, they’re none of your dull jades. I’ve got, let’s see”— Duggan stopped to count on his fingers—“seven; one for every day of the week, like razors.”

  “I told you I wasn’t hipped on women,” said Alex sulkily. “How’s the shooting and fishing?”

  “Shootin’ and fishin’! The caribou migrate across your back yard; the river’s alive with salmon, the lakes are black with blue wings, and the still waters with geese. Shootin’ and fishin’! It’s the home of game.”

  Alex took a long pull at his whisky and thought the matter over. He had little money in his purse, and his trousers were fringed at the heels. A worn-through sole he had kept turned away from Duggan, though the quick-eyed factor had seen it at the first encounter. His student friends had long since departed, and his hard drinking had estranged him from acquaintances in the city. He felt that he was sinking. The smug boy from home had closed Cape Breton to him. Why not try it? Here was a chance to live alone and think, remote from stupidity, convention, cant, and the jingle of church bells.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said suddenly, reaching across the table to shake Duggan’s hand.

  “Done,” said Duggan.

  “What about instruments and medical stores?”

  “We’ll get everything and charge to the Company’s account. They’ve given me carte blanche on this deal. You’ll need some equipment too, heavy boots, larigans, shoe packs, rifle, shotgun, six-shooter, and rods. Let me get everything and take it out of your salary,” said Duggan tactfully.

  Alex nodded assent, and after a brief good-night, staggered off to his room. When he awoke, the bargain was clear in his mind; the world looked blue, but he was not sorry for what he had promised. It seemed that Destiny had brought him and Duggan together. Three days later, they proceeded down the Saint Lawrence, on one of the Company’s boats, en route for River of Strangers. Alex had his fiddle, a microscope, a box of books, and the kit that Duggan had bought him.

  That had happened ten years before, and it all ran through Alex’s head as he drew his bow across the strings and incite
d the dancers to madness or dashed them to despair. He had lived among them but not become wholly one of them. Convention would have dubbed them dirty dogs in mind and body, but, at any rate, they were free and generous. He had learned to love the great river, the broad lakes, the interminable forest. It was a giant’s land of mountainous rocks piled on rocks, down which crushed and slipped glacial masses. He was always conscious of great forces chained beneath the surface, struggling to be free. It was a land of strange gods, gods that lurked in deep forests, crashed ice masses from the mountains, and hung a curtain of fire across the sky: gods of the strong cold, not friendly but vindictive.

  Ten years had slipped away quickly. He had tended the sick, bound up broken limbs, sewed up knife cuts, and probed out bullets from the shrinking muscle. Drunks he had treated without number; he had done three operations for appendicitis on a kitchen table. Once he had found a leper among them. He had never heard from his people; to them he was dead. Probably he would grow old and die here alone in the wilderness. Through all this thinking his fiddle rambled on.

  Suddenly, there was a roar, a snarl, and a crash of two fighting bodies on the floor. Indian Pete had tried to cut in on Johnny Deveau, who was staggering around with big Bertha. The fiddle flickered out. There had been not quite enough girls to go round, that was the trouble. McGowan cleared the counter of glasses, while Duggan sprang up, rushed across the room, and began kicking both the fighters.

  “Get up, get out and fight in the snow, you lousy dogs. You know what I mean, get up, get out.” He kept kicking them all the time. They unclinched, got to their feet and staggered out. The opened door let in a biting blast. A couple of friends put on their fur coats and went out to see the fight in the moonlight. Some heavy blows were heard by those within, groans, grunts, a yell of anger, a crashing smack of naked fist against naked face, and a heavy fall. Horrid, vague, terrifying noises! Johnny Deveau came in with a bloody nose, put his arm about big Bertha, and swaggered up to the bar. Some friends brought in Indian Pete and sat him behind the stove, where he toppled over on Pete Surette—sick earlier in the evening—and went to sleep. For a half hour they tugged limply at each other for breathing space. The rest roared round the bar.