The sun neared the horizon, giving the wet beach and forest behind it a golden glow as if lacquered. The canvas tents of our nobility went up, steaming, and Cecil broke out a keg of rum and gave us each a tot, even Aurora gulping the fiery liquid down like a sailor.
We began to grin stupidly, the way people do when they escape. Nothing makes you feel more alive than a brush with death.
Then the fires burnt down to manageable coals and we began to cook our peas and pork and hominy, stomachs growling. The men stirred fat into the corn porridge.
We ate as if famished, shaking with weariness. Pierre, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and licking it, addressed Cecil. ‘Lord Somerset, we’ve had loss but also gain this day. I watched the donkeys perform well – maybe because they wanted to keep their canoe in pace with that of your pretty cousin, no?’
‘If Ethan and Magnus are as weary as I am, then we all did yeoman work.’
‘They are not yet North Men but they are, perhaps, worthy of the company of the Pork Eaters of Montreal, eh, my porcine-loving friends?’
‘A Pork Eater is worth a hundred North Men!’ his Montreal companions cried. ‘Yes, let the donkeys be baptized into our company!’
Pierre addressed us, arms folded like a potentate. ‘Ethan and Magnus, you have had a taste of the real lake and, much to my surprise, not only lived but have not completely embarrassed yourself. With my own eyes, I saw you drive and bail our canoe past Dead Man’s Point with the terrible will this country requires. As voyageurs die, new ones vie for their place. I think it is time you truly joined our company, if you dare to receive such high honour.’
‘My muscles are twitching, I’m so tired,’ I confessed.
‘A few weeks more and you will not be such women. So we will baptize you now.’ He picked up a spruce branch snapped by the wind and walked down to the breaking waves on our ruddy beach, the surf on fire in the setting sun. He dipped the branch, carried it back, and shook its droplets over our head. ‘By the power vested in me as a North Man of the North West Company, I initiate you into our fellowship! From now on you are no longer donkeys but have names, which at dawn I will carve into a tree!’
‘It’s an honour,’ Magnus said. ‘If we have satisfied you, you’ve impressed me with your endurance, little man. You have the strength of a giant.’
Pierre nodded. ‘Of course I have impressed you. A French voyageur is worth a hundred Norwegians.’ He looked at me. ‘And now you must thank the assembly for this honour by taking your silver dollars and buying from Lord Somerset two kegs of shrub, as custom demands.’
‘How do you know I have silver dollars?’
‘Fool American! Of course we have been through your things a dozen times while you slept. All must be shared! Nothing is private among the voyageurs! And we know you can afford to treat us at Grand Portage as well!’
I resolved to hide a few coins for myself in the sole of my moccasins.
So a drunk began, earned by the day’s dramatic storm, the rum a needed fire in our throats. As night fell the fires were built up again, sparks swirling up into a sky now brushed clean and full of stars, and Aurora’s tent glowed with a pale translucence from a candle within. Pierre had said we’d rest the next day, and it occurred to me that I might have more energy for evening recreation if I knew I could sleep in the next morning. I wanted a taste of life after the day’s death. As inebriation mounted I backed into the shadows and crept to her tent flap, the others singing behind me. Surely she was ready for some warmth by now!
‘Aurora!’ I whispered. ‘It’s Ethan! I’m here to attend as you suggested. The night is cold, and we can bring each other comfort.’
There was silence.
‘Aurora?’
‘What cheek, Mr Gage. I gave no invitation. I am a woman of propriety, after all. We must be discreet.’
‘Discretion is my specialty. Let’s wager that I can be quieter than you can.’
‘You are presumptuous, Yankee Doodle!’
‘But companionable. I hope your memory is as fond as mine.’ I don’t know why, but women require a measure of persistence and palaver before agreeing to the obvious. Fortunately, I am a fountain of charm. As Franklin said, ‘Neither a fortress nor a maidenhead will hold out long after they begin to parley.’
‘But what has changed, Ethan Gage?’ she said. ‘There’s no true intimacy when a man won’t share his purpose. No affection without a demonstration of trust. How can we unite our purposes if I don’t know what your purpose is?’
Women do take patience, don’t they? ‘I’m just an explorer! I’m never quite sure of my purpose, actually. I just wander about, hoping for the best.’
‘I don’t believe that. And I’m not sure of my own affections until you are sure of our partnership. Imagine if we all joined your quest.’
‘Aurora, I told you – we’re looking for elephants.’
A sharp intake of breath. ‘I have shared everything with you, Ethan. Everything! You give me nonsense in return!’
‘I’m in a giving mood right now.’
‘Good night, sir.’
‘But Aurora!’
‘Please don’t make me call my cousin for help.’
‘I must have reason to hope!’
Silence.
‘Some small measure of pity!’ I hate grovelling, but it occasionally works, and the more I thought about her, the hornier I became. Yes, I know I was addled as a loon.
Finally she answered. ‘Very well. If you teach me to truly use that remarkable firearm you’re so proud of, perhaps I will relent. I am quite fascinated with shooting.’
‘You want to fire my gun?’
‘We can hunt together in the morning. Sport gets my blood up.’
I considered. Did the girl simply want more privacy? A roll on the forest moss away from the others? I could impress her with my accuracy, bag some game, massage her delicate feet near a clear forest stream, try to remember a sonnet or two … So off I crept, thwarted but not yet ready to surrender.
I came back into the firelight and a circle of drunken men.
‘You look frustrated, my friend!’ Pierre cried, taking another swig of rum. ‘Having been baptized, are you impatient to be immortalized in the bark of a tree?’
‘I was seeking distaff company.’
‘Ah. Women wound.’ Heads around the fire nodded with sympathy.
‘Ethan, haven’t you realised that your worldly success is in inverse proportion to your romantic success?’ Magnus said. ‘We’ve got better things to discover than Aurora Somerset!’
‘But she’s here. Discovery is out there.’
‘Forget about the fancy lady,’ Pierre agreed. ‘That one is like trying to carry berries in your cheek and not lose any juice. More care than it’s worth.’
‘She’s so beautiful.’ My plaintive tone embarrassed even me.
‘So are half the dusky wenches at Grand Portage, and they are a hundred times more appreciative. Forget the fancy one and pick yourself a squaw.’
‘I don’t want a squaw.’
‘How do you know when you haven’t met her yet?’
But I was tired of the jocular insults and advice, so I moved away to restlessly wait for the morrow’s hunt beneath a canoe, knowing Aurora was making a fool of me but not particularly caring. The best way to regain my equilibrium was her conquest. Perhaps it would be easier away from camp. I wouldn’t even mind babbling about Norse hammers, but she’d just think us lunatics and leave us on the beach.