Chapter Thirteen
Three days later, Shaw lies silent and immobile, too weakened and sickly to speak more than a few words at a time or raise his head more than an inch or two from the nest of damp and fetid blankets.
He sips brandy and water now and then but cannot stomach any kind of meat, however tender or daintily prepared, and even a cup of marrowbone broth when he tries to swallow it makes him retch.
Hearn, although he wishes it were not so, thinks it unlikely now that Shaw will survive his injuries, and decides it is time to talk to Abel Walker and ready him for what may be about to occur.
Early the next morning, after keeping watch all night, he asks Pawpitch to sit beside Shaw for a while and help him as required, while he and Walker go outside to take some air.
There is a wind from the east, but the sky above is clear, and the bright gleaming snow is firm underfoot. They walk for several minutes without speaking before Hearn breaks the silence.
“I think it very likely that John Shaw will die soon. If he was going to recover, we would have seen some signs of it by now.”
Walker gives up a quick, involuntary sound, something between a gasp and a groan.
“And are we to blame? Was it a mistake to do as we did?”
Hearn shakes his head.
“I don’t believe so. The wound was poisoned, so there was no better course. We have no reason to reproach ourselves, Abel. It is a poor piece of luck and nothing else.”
“And afterward, if he does die, what will we do? Will we continue northwards together?”
Hearn has not thought of continuing, and he is surprised that Walker should even suggest it.
“I don’t see how we can. Shaw was the leader; he was the one your uncle put in charge. Without him, the expedition can’t continue.”
“You could take his place. We’re more than halfway there already, and after what we’ve been through, it’s a shame to think that all our efforts will be thrown away.”
Hearn wonders again why the lad is suddenly so eager to continue given how much he has suffered already from the rigors of the journey.
“The Company can easily mount another expedition next year,” he says, “or the year after, one better equipped and more carefully planned than this. If there is gold at Ox Lake, it will still be waiting there, so nothing important will be lost.”
As they continue onward, their two long shadows stretch out ahead of them like fallen monuments.
To the north there is a narrow lake edged at the far end by sandstone cliffs, while to the south, like a desert or a painted ocean, the stark white reaches roll away toward a vague horizon.
Walker frowns and falls silent, and when he speaks again his voice is low and nervous, as if despite their present isolation, he still fears being overheard.
“I must tell you a secret. You might have found it out eventually anyway and it makes no sense to keep it hidden any longer: The Company know nothing about this expedition. My uncle intends that we should keep all the gold we find for ourselves. My uncle and John Shaw will each take two-fifths and I’m to take the rest. So, you see, if John Shaw dies here and we go back, there’s no one suitable to lead another party next year.
My uncle is too old and I’m too young, but if we stay now and push ahead, we might still succeed. ”
Hearn wonders why he did not realize this before. Why would I ever suppose a man like Magnus Norton, he thinks, so cunning and venal, would willingly give up any part of such a great prize if he imagines he has a choice?
“So that’s why you’re so eager to continue onwards,” he says. “I understand it now.”
“I’m not thinking only of myself. Not at all.
If you take John Shaw’s place, then you could also claim his portion of the gold.
That would only be fair. Your twenty-pound fee is nothing compared to two-fifths of what we might bring back from Ox Lake.
You could earn ten or twenty times that much if all goes well.
Enough to live a life of ease and leisure when you return to England. ”
Hearn, who harbors no ambitions to be rich, finds the careless assumption that such greed and deceitfulness is commonplace and unexceptionable both disheartening and distasteful.
He wonders for a moment if he should be angrier than he feels, since he has been taken, by Magnus Norton at least, quite plainly for a fool.
“A life of ease and leisure has never been my goal,” he answers flatly. “As you may have noticed, I prefer to keep myself well-occupied with work or study.”
Walker only looks perplexed by this reply.
“You could buy your own ship,” he suggests. “Your own fine ship to sail wherever you like, under your own command. Just think of that.”
Perhaps the lad cannot be blamed too much for his crass opinions, Hearn tells himself as they continue walking on in silence.
In itself, youthful ambition is nothing to be ashamed of, and if the object of those ambitions is unworthy, the influence of his uncle and John Shaw is the cause rather than any natural, inborn wickedness.
“I understand your wish to continue onwards, and I sympathize,” he says, “but even if I fully approved of this venture, I’m not the man to lead it, that’s the simple truth. I don’t have the will or the determination to carry it through.”
“Why not? You are as capable as John Shaw and as clever as he is.”
Hearn pauses and takes a long breath before replying.
“I’ve learned through hard experience that it’s dangerous to reach too high or want too much.
Desire unchecked will only meet with disappointment or reversal, so it’s wiser, much wiser, to contain one’s wishes within the proper limits of one’s existing power—to want, in other words, only what you may easily and plausibly attain. ”
“You mean you don’t care to be made any richer than you already are?”
“I don’t care enough to become a party to your uncle’s scheming. If Shaw dies, as I fear he will, we will have to return to the Factory. I’m sorry, Abel, but that’s how it must be.”
“You would give up your fine ship and your own command?”
“That ship doesn’t exist. It’s just a dream you invented for me. A dream I don’t believe in.”
Walker nods as if he knew that very well all along. He takes a few more steps, and when he speaks again, his voice has a different and lighter tone.
“In Norfolk, near a place called Hunstanton a mile or two from the sea, there’s a fine old house built of stone and yellow brick,” he says.
“It sits up on the brow of a small hill with woods all about. It is not a grand construction, I would say, but sturdy and respectable, the sort that a prosperous country gentleman might build for himself. My ambition was always to use my portion of the gold to buy that house, or one most like it, and to live there peacefully with my sister, Agnes. I suppose you think me foolish to harbor such a fanciful desire.”
He imagines I’m cruel, Hearn thinks, because I don’t indulge his fantasies, and perhaps he’s right. Now that the truth has been made clear, what harm can it do to allow the lad a little room for hope?
“What I’ve told you is only my opinion,” he says, “and my opinions are not always correct. Even if we are required to turn back soon, perhaps later on you will find another way to rise up in the world and win possession of your fine house. I hope you do.”
Walker nods and smiles a little at this small gesture of encouragement, then looks about cheerfully, as if imagining the pleasing view from his drawing room window—the wending gravel driveway and flocks of sheep at pasture.
“If I do take possession of the house one day, however it comes about, would you visit me there and spend a week or two?” he asks. “If I promise to make you comfortable but also keep you busy as you prefer?”
“Of course,” Hearn replies without irony, happy to put his doubts aside this once and play along with the lad’s continued dreaminess. “If you will have me, Abel, I would enjoy nothing better than to spend a fortnight at your country home.”
That night, Hearn dreams that his dead mother has come back to life.
She is lying on a truckle bed in the old house on Blackfriargate, dressed like a painted angel in a long gown of brilliant, shimmering gold.
Her flaxen hair is long and bright and her skin is as pure and glowing as a girl’s.
When she sees him in the room, she rises from the bed smiling and laughing, and Hearn has the sense, as she opens her arms wide to embrace him, that everything is changed for the better and instead of growing old, she will live on forever, and so will he.
He closes his eyes and waits for her kiss to arrive, but then, at the very moment when their lips are poised to touch, he is jolted from his rapturous dreaming by a clamor, and when he awakes he sees Walker’s anxious face staring down at him.
“Shaw is calling for you,” he says. “He must want something, but I don’t know what it is.”
Hearn pushes the blankets aside and sits upright. In the faint glow of the moss fire, he sees John Shaw rolled over onto his side, mumbling curses and slapping the ground with his one hand as though searching for some precious object that has been carelessly mislaid.
“He’s been talking about the gold,” Walker says. “That’s all I can make out. The gold will save me. That’s what he seems to be saying over and over again. The gold will save me. I can’t understand it.”
Hearn moves closer, leans forward, and puts his hand lightly on John Shaw’s shoulder. Shaw turns and looks back. His eyes are pink and wild, and his quivering lips are rimmed with granules of dried blood and hardened phlegm.
“You should rest now,” Hearn tells him. “Whatever it is you want can wait until the morning.”
“I want the gold,” Shaw replies, his voice shaky and guttural. “Where is it? I need it now.”
“The gold is up at Ox Lake. A long way from here. We’ll get there soon enough if all goes well, but we can’t leave this place until your arm is healed.”
Shaw closes one eye and starts breathing more heavily, panting, almost, as if the effort of replying is nearly too much.
“Not that gold,” he says eventually. “The other kind.”
“What other kind?”
“The chloride,” he says. “Yonder in the box.”
Walker, puzzled, looks at Hearn, who grimaces and shakes his head.
“It’s an old remedy,” Hearn says. “Gold chloride. Particles of the dust dissolved into a solution. I’ve heard of it before but never known it to be used.”
“Is it good for healing a wound?”
“I doubt it’s good for anything much, but I’ll look to see if we have some anyway.”
“It’s a fine old medicine that,” Shaw says belligerently. “It works on any kind of hurt.”
“You need to eat and rest,” Hearn warns him. “That’s the only way you’ll get better.”
“The gold will heal me all right,” Shaw says. “You wait and see.”
Hearn reaches for the medicine chest, unclasps the lid, opens it up, and starts taking out the small glass bottles one by one and holding them close to the fire so that he can read the labels.
After a minute more of looking, he finds the correct bottle, peers at it skeptically for a moment, then pulls out the cork with his teeth and sniffs the contents.
“It’s your choice,” he says to Shaw. “But if I were in your place, I wouldn’t touch a drop.”
“Give it to the lad,” he says. “He can help me.”
Hearn hands the bottle to Abel Walker, who holds it up to John Shaw’s grimy lips. Shaw swallows once, then coughs; his white face reddens, and his eyes begin to water. Walker tips out some more onto his tongue, and he swallows it again.
“That’s all gone now,” Walker says. “It’s empty.”
Shaw mutters a word of thanks, then lowers himself back down with a grunt and a sigh.
Hearn, making no further comment but showing by his expression what he thinks, puts the empty bottle back inside the medicine chest, closes the lid, then gets up and goes outside to piss.
While he is gone, Walker puts another handful of moss on the fire and blows to make it catch.
He is about to lie down again to rest when he notices that John Shaw, who he thought was asleep, is still awake and watching him.
“I won’t die, Abel,” Shaw insists, looking him hard in the eye. “Not here and not now. Don’t you ever be afraid of that.”
His voice, which only a moment before had been cracked and unsteady, like the voice of a crone, is now clear and loud.
Walker is taken aback by the change. It’s as if Shaw has two bodies now, he thinks, one sick and the other healthy, and the better one lies concealed, curled up like a strange homunculus inside the worse. But how could that be true?
“I’m not afraid,” he lies. “I don’t think you’ll die.”
“Hearn thinks it and the Indians think it too. They have no faith.”
“Then you’ll prove them all wrong, I’m certain.”
Shaw nods at this, then lapses back into a sullen silence.
Walker begins to wonder if his previous display of strength was momentary and unrepeatable, a mere jolt or spasm rather than lasting proof of his resiliency, but then, as if to demonstrate the opposite, Shaw grabs hold of Walker’s arm with a firm, clawlike grip and tugs him closer in.
“Do you believe in the gold like I do, Abel?” he whispers. “I mean, do you truly believe?”
“Of course,” he says, too scared to contradict him. “I believe in it. I swear I do.”
Shaw holds on tightly for a moment longer, his wide-eyed stare still fierce and unwavering, then, satisfied, it seems, by this rough-hewn adjuration, he nods and lets the lad go free again.
“I’ve been sicker than this before,” he says in a vaguer, more dreamy tone, as if talking mainly to himself now. “Much sicker and lived. Losing half an arm is nothing. Nothing. You can tell them that if they ever ask ye.”