Chapter Ten
The next morning, before first light, quietly and without any ceremony, they leave Crow Lake and walk eastward in the cold dark under the gaze of the moon’s bright, unblinking eye.
Black tree trunks rise up through the gray snow like the barnacled masts of sunken ships, and as the dawn light slowly edges skyward, a line of low hills skirted by purple shadow appears on the horizon.
Near noon they reach the shore of another lake, which Datsanthi deems suitable, make camp, and begin to wait as before for the geese and ducks to start flying north.
In the days that follow, no one talks openly about the wrestling match or what came afterward, but the unhappy effects are nevertheless everywhere apparent.
Nabayah, who was always reserved, is now noticeably sullen and withdrawn.
When not out hunting with his father, he stays alone in a clearing in the woods and builds, slowly and with a dogged deliberateness, the birch-bark canoe they will need for the journey home.
In the evenings when Keasik brings him his food, he snatches it gracelessly without a word of thanks as if they are strangers—or enemies, even—and although she doesn’t complain, it’s more than obvious to all of them that she is confused and wounded by his sudden coldness.
Even Pawpitch and Datsanthi, the elders, although they remain polite and helpful most of the time, seem to prefer to keep their own company now and speak to the Englishmen only when required.
Abel Walker notices these changes and mentions them to Shaw, but Shaw, whose spirits are high since his triumph, insists that they are unimportant since the Indians are servants, not friends, so whether they are enjoying themselves is neither here nor there.
“They wouldn’t dare abandon us,” he says.
“They may be a little peevish for now, but what happened at Crow Lake will soon be packed away and forgotten, you’ll see. ”
Although Walker respects John Shaw for his knowledge and boldness and would never think to question his authority, he finds he does not greatly like or admire the man.
There is a crudeness to his character, he recognizes—a brutishness, even—which seemed insignificant at the Fort when looked at from a distance, but which now, when experienced perforce close to and on a daily basis, is hard to enjoy or endure.
Walker did not touch the girl Keasik when they were left alone together in the tent.
She seemed so frail and scared that he could not bring himself to try it, but he knows very well that Shaw, if he ever realized the truth, would mock him endlessly as a weakling and a coward.
He was not alone in holding back. Tom Hearn declined the offer to Shaw’s face, apparently, told him in so many words that she was only a child and he should be ashamed of himself, and ever since, John Shaw has lost no opportunity to deride and antagonize him, hoping perhaps to spur him into a fight and in that way reassert his power.
But Hearn is too careful to rise to that bait, Walker thinks, too careful and too shrewd.
Before they left the Fort, his uncle warned him that Hearn was a little bit strange in his manners—self-absorbed and silent in a way that might seem like arrogance but probably wasn’t.
“You don’t trouble yourself too much about Tom Hearn,” he had said, “and he won’t trouble himself about you.
He’s a queer one, and not much liked by the other men, but that’s one reason we chose him, because a fellow like that won’t blab our secrets or get ideas too far above his station.
” Walker took what his uncle said on faith but wonders now whether he underestimated Hearn a little, and whether in fact hiding behind the indifferent facade is someone with a stronger character than either John Shaw or Magnus Norton have guessed at.
So far on this journey their conversations have all been brief and unremarkable, but now, after the events at Crow Lake, he starts to ask himself if there might be some benefit to be gained, perhaps, something novel to be learned, by talking to Tom Hearn more candidly.
So when the opportunity arises one morning to speak with him in private without Shaw close by to interfere, Walker is eager to grasp it.
Hearn is setting out to check on some fox traps he laid the day before, and when Abel Walker volunteers to accompany him because, as he explains, he is bored in camp and looking for some useful way to pass the time, Hearn shrugs and tells him he is welcome to come along if he wishes.
Hearn waits while Walker finds his snowshoes and quickly binds them to his feet, then the two men, side by side, start walking away from the lakeshore through the frosted woods, past coal-black tree limbs whitely groined with snow.
Hearn’s manner is, as usual, friendly but reserved.
When they talk about the niceties of trapping and about when the geese might start flying north again, his comments are plain, brief, and unsurprising, and it is only when Walker brings up the events at Crow Lake and the effect they may have had on the morale of their Indian companions that Hearn shows any sign of genuine interest.
“John Shaw says we are not to worry about it,” Walker says. “The Indians are our servants and so they will never dare abandon us.”
“We must hope he’s correct about that. I would hate to be left all alone up on the Barrens.”
“He’s been dealing with the Indians for twenty-five years, so I suppose he should know a thing or two about their manners.”
“I suppose he should.”
There is a touch of irony in the way Hearn says this, but when Walker turns to look at him, his firmly fixed expression gives nothing else away.
“My uncle admires John Shaw very much. You know that, I suppose. Before we left the Fort, he told me to follow his lead and use him as my model, but it’s not always easy to do so.”
“Mr. Shaw is an unusual man,” Hearn agrees blandly. “A singular character.”
“But would you agree that he’s a suitable model for a young man like me to follow?”
Hearn frowns a little and appears surprised by the suddenness and sharpness of the question.
“Your uncle understands your interests much better than I do,” he says after a pause. “So I’m sure his guidance is worth attending to.”
“You and Shaw had a falling-out over the Indian girl. He told me all about it.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That you said it was wrong. That he should have let her be.”
“Shaw’s in command here, so he does as he pleases, but I wanted no part of it, that’s true.”
“Neither did I. The two of us were left alone in the tent, but I never touched her. Shaw thinks I tupped her just like he did, but I couldn’t bring myself to try it.”
He expects Hearn to be surprised or possibly impressed by such restraint, but his expression doesn’t alter in the least.
“So you lied?” he says.
“I had to. If he knew the truth, he would mock me without mercy. I would never hear the end of it.”
Hearn nods again but doesn’t speak.
“My secret is safe with you, though?” Walker continues. “Since we two are in agreement about the girl, the rights and wrongs of it, I mean.”
“Of course. Your secret is quite safe with me.”
Walker is feeling disconcerted now by Hearn’s continued quietness. After making his confession, he was expecting something else to happen between them. He feels a sudden need to fill the silence.
“I know I’m still young and have a lot to learn,” he says. “When you were my age, you were no doubt much more certain of yourself than I am.”
“No, not really. At your age, I’d say I was quite confused.”
“But things have changed a good deal since then. They must have.”
Hearn stops for a moment to consider this supposition. He stands in silence, looking forward as though gazing at a picture or a pretty view, then shakes his head.
“Time passes, and after long enough you become more used to the confusion, so it doesn’t feel quite so strange or troubling anymore. That’s the only change I’ve noticed.”
“Now I think you’re making fun of me.”
“Oh no,” Hearn says. “I’m not at all.”
Afterward, when they have returned to the camp and he is sitting alone, Hearn wonders why he spoke like that.
What was the point of it? He has nothing good to teach the lad, he thinks, no wisdom to pass on, so why add to his obvious puzzlement?
If Walker wants to follow his uncle’s advice and become more like John Shaw, then so be it, he thinks.
Or, if he is bright enough, as it seems he may be, to sense the folly of such a path, then let him find another way by himself, alone, through his own patient endeavors, rather than following a road already marked by another.
Satisfied by the stringency of this logic, he determines to let Abel Walker be from now on, and to treat him as he treated him before, with politeness and respect, but not to encourage his curiosity or answer any more of his strange and impolitic questions.
Almost as soon as he makes his decision, however, he remembers how he felt when he first went to sea after the loss of his mother and sister and the collapse of all his grand priestly ambitions.
How bewildered and alone he was then, how despairing on occasion, and how it was only through the friendship of another deckhand, Stephen Cowper, a tall, rangy fellow with wide, dark lips and lively gray-green eyes, who guided and protected him with a homespun grace and careless good humor, that after six months he was restored and remade, not a would-be priest in mourning anymore but an English sailor, a fully-fledged tar, sure of himself (at least for that moment, that vanishing moment) and his place in the world.
Remembering those faraway times, he wonders if there is not some unkindness or cruelty in his refusal to respond to Abel Walker’s clumsy advances.
Perhaps I should listen to him, he thinks.
Perhaps I should try a little, even if it all dissolves or comes to nothing in the end.
Because really, after all, what am I afraid of?