Chapter Twenty-Four
Before, even when the darkest moods were upon him, Nabayah wasn’t completely lost. If you said the right thing or looked at him the right way, or just stayed patient and waited long enough, eventually he would return to life again, to the shared human world.
But now it feels different, like his mind has been poisoned and there is no way to bring him back.
When he grabbed Keasik by the throat and she looked into his eyes, what she saw there was horrible.
There was no pity or doubt anymore, only layer upon layer of hatred as deep and dark as a grave, and it was just the same or worse when the old esquimaux man appeared from nowhere in the middle of the storm, waving his strange little truncheon in the air.
Nabayah didn’t hesitate or call out any warning; when he saw him rushing toward them, he simply raised the musket up to his shoulder and fired, as if killing another man was as easy and necessary as killing a deer.
Keasik is scared to be alone with him and wishes she could be anywhere else instead.
All night she’s been trying to talk to him gently, to ease him back to his senses, but he won’t listen to anything she says, and now, as they walk along, she can hear him in the thick darkness talking to himself in a low voice, like a mad stranger, muttering questions and blurting out frantic, incoherent replies.
As dawn finally breaks and the pale sun rises slowly from behind a ragged bastion of cloud, they see at last the shadowy bend of the White River off in the far distance, and Nabayah with the musket in his hands and the canoe still roped sideways across his shoulders stops bickering with himself and instead starts shouting at Keasik to walk more quickly because they’re nearly there and the Englishmen can’t be far behind.
They follow a narrow deer path to the end of a long gravel ridge and turn down into a hummocky, rock-strewn peat plain spattered with crowberry, cotton grass, and sedge.
Keasik is walking ahead with a deerskin bundle containing Shaw’s gold on her back, carefully watching where she goes because the ground is wet and uneven, so when Nabayah slips as he crosses a stream and topples backward, she doesn’t see it, only hears the noise it makes, the crack of birch bark splitting open on the wet rocks, then the yelling and the cursing as he realizes what’s happened.
When she turns around, he’s still lying on his side in the water with the canoe underneath him twisted and bent out of shape.
She shrugs off the bundle quickly and goes back to help, but when she reaches him, he pushes her aside and gets up on his own.
They stand silent for a while with the cold stream water rushing around their ankles, looking down at the broken canoe.
Two of the trusses are snapped, and the hull has been split apart.
If they could find a good stand of birch trees, Nabayah might possibly mend it, but they both know there’s nothing like that for a hundred miles at least, and even if there was, there’s not enough time.
“If you give back the gold, I’m sure they won’t hurt you,” Keasik says, trying her best to sound calm. “You’ll be perfectly safe if you just give it back. It’s only the gold they care about.”
Instead of answering, Nabayah makes a furious growling sound, then starts stamping on the broken canoe, jumping up and down on it again and again, grunting with fury.
When he’s completely finished, and there’s nothing left to break, he stays still for a moment with his eyes shut tight, then walks away and stands near some rocks.
Keasik knows that his plans are ruined and nothing she can say or do now will help, so she drinks some water from the stream, then finds a dry place to sit down and rest. She curls up and falls asleep for a moment, and when she opens her eyes again, Nabayah is standing in front of her holding his musket, looking furious, as if she is the one to blame for all his bad luck.
“Get up,” he says. “I want to ask you a question.”
She stands up slowly and looks at him. He’s smiling a little now, but she knows he isn’t happy. In fact, he’s probably about as far from happiness as any man could get.
“What happened after I left the camp?” he says. “Did you and John Shaw start fucking each other again?”
“No,” she says. “Of course not.”
“Is that why you wanted me to leave you there? So you could stay with your friend John Shaw? So you could become his wife?”
“That’s not why. I don’t like John Shaw. I hate him.”
“You’re carrying his child.”
“If I am, that’s not my fault,” she says. “I didn’t choose it.”
“When the child comes out, you should kill it, then. If you really hate Shaw, that would be the right thing to do.”
She knows she shouldn’t argue, but the thought of murdering the baby is too much to bear.
“That’s an awful, stupid idea,” she says. “You’re just angry now because the canoe is smashed and your clever plans have all gone wrong.”
She sees him flinch and look surprised because he’s not used to her answering back.
“Don’t tell me why I’m angry!” he shouts. “I’m angry because of your filthy whoring. That’s why I’m angry.”
“You let that happen. What went on at Crow Lake was all your fault,” she says. “You could have stopped it, but you didn’t do a thing because you were too scared.”
He steps forward and knocks her down with his fist. A tooth comes loose and her mouth fills with blood, but even though it hurts, she doesn’t feel frightened, just disdainful.
I’ve had enough of his pride and self-pity, she thinks.
I used to admire him despite his flaws. I thought he was brave and clever, but now I realize that he’s just a fool who wants to blame everyone else for his problems.
“Are you happy now?” she says. “Does it make you feel stronger to beat your own wife? Do you feel like more of a man?”
“Just watch your tongue,” he spits. “I’m warning you.”
His hands are shaking as he grips the musket; he’s so pumped full of anger it looks like he’s about to split apart.
Keasik knows she should keep quiet and not provoke him anymore, but now that she’s started she can’t stop herself.
It’s as if the words are in control. They’re gushing out in a flood, and there’s nothing she can do to hold them back.
“You call yourself a great hunter,” she says. “But you’re just a coward and a weakling. If you had any real courage, you’d have stayed in the camp and stood up for yourself instead of running away like a child.”
He hits her full in the face with the stock of his gun, then drops to his knees and starts to choke her as she lies dazed on the ground.
She can’t breathe and isn’t strong enough to push him aside, but she knows that if he kills her, then the baby dies too.
So she feels in her belt for the little paring knife she always carries, and when she finds it, she stretches out with her left hand to find where his head is, and then, with her right hand, she stabs him as hard as she can in the neck.
It’s only a short blade and she can’t see well enough to take proper aim, but she must have hit an artery, because the hot blood starts squirting, and Nabayah bellows like he’s been kicked in the balls or hit in the head with an axe.
Keasik twists away from him, gets back onto her feet, and starts running as fast as she can.
She runs without stopping until she can’t run any farther, then falls down onto her hands and knees, gasping for air.
One of her eyes is swollen shut already, and her nose is broken for certain, but when she turns to look back, there’s no sign of Nabayah anywhere.
All she can see is moorland, fens, and lakes, and in the distance, off to the south, the White River, its wide surface mud-brown, roiled, and twisting, like a braided leather belt pulled tight across the great green belly of the earth.