Chapter Seven
Both the Indians and the Englishmen agree that, except for the few small bands of Esquimaux who make their home there and are suited to the place by habit and constitution, no man can survive a winter on the Barrens, since in that long, dark season of the year there are no deer to hunt and the cold is too fierce and unremitting.
John Shaw’s stratagem, therefore, as discussed and agreed with Norton and Datsanthi, is to walk west from the Fort some three hundred miles, remaining all that time within the shelter and safety of the woods, until they reach Crow Lake, and then to wait until the geese and ducks start flying—the surest sign that spring is begun—before turning their faces toward the north and striking first for the White River and then soon afterward for Ox Lake itself.
If they reach their destination as the ice is melting, they will have three months near enough before the winter returns—sufficient time, they trust, so long as they work hard and move quickly, to find and dig up all the gold.
After leaving the Factory on the fifteenth of February, they walk for five days through a patchwork landscape of lichen heath and shrub, then cross the Seal River’s frozen course and continue west-northwest on paths of fresh-laid snow through sloping fell-fields and stunted glens of pine and juniper with the bluish peaks of frost-tipped hills rising up five hundred feet on either side.
They sleep at night in tents made from pine limbs and deer hide and eat whatever game Nabayah and Datsanthi can find and kill for them—venison when possible but sometimes if the deer are scarce partridge, squirrel, or hare.
Warmly clad for wintertime in long capes of beaver fur, elk-skin britches, and caps and chin clouts made of thick duffel, the three Englishmen, even on the coldest and most exhausting days when they march for hours in a slow procession across the blazing longitudes of frozen lakes with the icy northern wind pinching and harrying them, remain outwardly protected and inwardly secure.
Although they have left their companions at the Factory far behind, in these first few weeks at least, they feel as if the Company is still with them in spirit, their guide and their defender.
They realize the vastness and desolation that awaits them in the far north, but they do not properly fear it yet, because in their hearts, despite all they have been told, they still cannot quite believe that such a place is real.
As intended, the party reaches the southern edge of Crow Lake in early April, some six weeks or so after leaving Prince of Wales’ Fort.
Once there, they discover to their surprise another large band of Northern Indians, men, women, and children, fifty or sixty strong, already in place.
These others have evidently passed the winter snaring deer in a pound, and their long-established camp is filled with curing hides, racks of drying meat, and piles of shattered marrowbone and antler.
Feeling wary at first, since they are greatly outnumbered and this other band are strangers who might be jealous or malevolent, Datsanthi seeks out the headman and speaks to him and then goes back to Shaw to report that they’re welcome to remain.
All that is required, he says, as a token of respect, are a few small gifts of black powder, lead, and tobacco.
That week by the lake, while the Englishmen look up at the empty skies and watch and listen for the first flights of birds to appear overhead, the days pass quickly without any notable upset or incident.
There is no sign of tension or distrust between the two groups, no indication, so far as Tom Hearn can see, of anything but the hospitality and friendliness that Datsanthi foresaw, until one night, after the supper is concluded and Hearn and the others have repaired to their tent, he hears a sudden commotion outside.
When he opens the flap and looks out, he sees Nabayah arguing furiously with a young man from the other band.
He doesn’t understand the cause to begin with, but after listening for a while, he realizes that the young man has taken a shine to Keasik and has tried to buy her, but Nabayah has rejected the offer and taken grave offense that it was even made, and so now the two rivals will have a contest of some kind to decide her fate.
When Hearn explains to the others what appears to be going on, Shaw groans.
“She’s a sweet little thing, that one,” he says. “A delicate young blossom. Too good altogether for a clod like Nabayah.”
“What kind of contest do they mean?” Walker asks.
“They’ll wrestle for her, I expect,” Shaw says. “Barbaric as it may appear to us, wrestling for women is a long-held and sacred custom among the Northern Indians, and if the other fellow has issued a challenge, it would be shameful and cowardly for Nabayah to refuse.”
“If he loses her, someone else will have to pull the second sledge and chop our wood,” Walker says. “It will slow us down and make our journey that much harder.”
Shaw acknowledges the accuracy of the observation with a low grunt and reluctantly rises to his feet.
“So what does this other fellow look like?” he says. “Which one is he? Let me get a good sight of him so I can judge our man’s chances.”
They step outside and walk over to the muddy clearing between the tents, where six or seven men from the other band are now gathered, drawn by the commotion. Hearn points out the suitor to Shaw and Shaw looks him over carefully, then looks back at Nabayah.
“I’d gauge it to be an even match,” he says. “The other one there is most likely quicker on his feet, but Nabayah looks the stronger.”
The two rivals are still glaring at each other and swapping insults, but after a few more minutes of acrimonious debate, once the contest has been formally agreed to, the shouting quiets and the two camps separate to make their own preparations.
As the Englishmen wait by the fire, Hearn notices Keasik standing in the shadows watching.
Her expression betrays neither fear nor hopefulness, though it is difficult to believe that she is entirely indifferent to her fate.
Everyone must suffer in one way or another, he thinks, but the women have it harder.
For a man, it is possible to live apart, alone and unattached to any person or creed, as I have sought to, but not for a woman.
They are always dependent on others for their safety or survival, always closely bound in some way—to husbands, parents, children—there is no means of escaping or standing apart.
To be traded like that, just imagine, he thinks, to be passed back and forth as a kind of wager or trophy—who could endure it?
Yet it must be endured since there is no other way.
“I wonder,” he says to Shaw. “Do they ever think to ask the woman which man she prefers?”
Shaw shakes his head.
“The Northern Indians treat their women no better than we English treat our dogs or cattle,” he says.
“That’s common knowledge. On every journey, however difficult or long it is, they must pull the sledges or bend their backs under the heaviest loads, and when a camp is finally made it is their task alone to raise the tents, cut wood for the fire, and dress and cook the meat.
They enjoy no rest at all except when they are sleeping, and when it comes suppertime, they are always the last ones to eat, so if there is nothing left in the pot besides bones and gristle, that must suffice or else they go hungry.
Yet despite such endless hardships, Indian women will never complain about their lot because they are raised from earliest girlhood to expect no kinder treatment.
If they ever realized how our English women live, so pampered and protected all the time, like china dolls, they would think themselves hard done by, I swear.
But as it is, they live their whole lives like beasts of the field, in a half-contented ignorance. ”
Hearn is unsurprised by this opinion, since it’s the typical way of thinking among Company men.
The Indians, as they see it, are only partly human; they may have the same urges that we have, but all the higher and finer elements are missing.
That’s the reason, when the officers return to England, that they will leave their half-breed children here.
It would not be fair, they think, to introduce them into a society where they couldn’t hope to flourish and where their inborn weaknesses would be lamentably exposed.
There’s another argument to be made, of course—that plants may grow differently in different soils, that improvements are possible and nothing in human nature is permanent or fixed—but to make it in the company of men like Shaw is to risk being pilloried as a fond sentimentalist, tenderhearted and blind to the hard truths of experience.
“How old do you think she is?” Hearn asks. “Fourteen? Fifteen?”
Shaw nods.
“About that,” he says. “That’s why they’re troubling to fight over her.
It’s the best age of all, before the breeding starts, while they’re still firm and fragrant.
She’s a sweet thing now, fresh as a spring day, but that can’t last. In a year or two, she’ll be just as stretched out and wizened as the rest.”
After a short while, as the Englishmen watch, the two rivals come out of their tents stripped to the waist and slathered in bear fat, their hair pulled back tight against their skulls.
Nabayah is the shorter and heavier of the two—he has a sloped forehead and wide-apart eyes and looks already disconcerted and angry, as if he has been tricked into this contest against his will.
The other man is leaner, his expression calmer and more resolute.
“How will they decide the victor?” Hearn asks.
“They’ll go on with it until one man concedes,” Shaw says. “The Indians fight pretty fair as a rule. No low blows, no biting or gouging. Unless they’re drunk, of course. When they’re drunk, they’re not to be trusted.”
There are shouts of encouragement from the onlookers and the two men collide, grunting and flailing, each one seeking a grip.
They jab and slap at each other, then back away again with their arms outstretched and their mouths wide open.
For several minutes, as though locked in a secret dance, they move slowly back and forth, stepping left, then right, forward, then to the side.
The crowd calls out instructions and advice, but neither man looks away from the other or attempts an answer.
Nabayah makes a lunge and the suitor pushes him off, then steps back and straightens.
They circle about again, tentative, reserved, almost gentle in their gestures, then pause, then, suddenly, finally, as if both are responding to the same silent command, they come together, head to head, arms entwined and feet spread wide apart.
For a moment, they stand there poised, hinged, knotted, their two strengths equally balanced, it seems, until something gives way and, in a movement so quick it is almost invisible, the suitor twists sideways, tugs Nabayah forward, then throws his weight on top of the other man and drives him down into the ground.
Shaw groans and looks away.
“Too easy,” he says.
Nabayah gets back to his feet, wiping mud and wet ashes from his chest and face.
Datsanthi comes over to talk to him and Nabayah listens carefully, then shakes his head.
He rubs his hands together, steps back toward the center of the circle, and readies himself for a second bout.
The suitor is smiling and laughing with his friends.
When he sees Nabayah waiting, he speaks to him, but Nabayah doesn’t move or answer.
The second bout lasts longer than the first but ends with the same result.
Afterward, Nabayah rises more gradually.
He bends and unbends his elbow for a moment and winces with the pain.
After the third bout, one of his ears is torn and his nose is bloodied.
He wants to fight on, but Datsanthi urges him to concede the victory.
They argue for a while, then Nabayah spits a final insult at his opponent and, bowed and defeated, slouches back toward his tent.