‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘But Darcy said he acted as guide to the geologists.’
‘Then I know him,’ she cried. ‘I was hoping perhaps it is the same one. He was guide to my father three years back.’ She sat down on the bed and reached for her boots. ‘Where is he camped?’ she demanded as she hurriedly put them on.
I told her. ‘But he doesn’t know anything,’ I said. ‘It’s two years ago that he found the lake. And even if he does agree to act as a guide for me,’ I added, ‘there’s no certainty that he’ll be able to find it again.’
‘If he has been there once,’ she said firmly, ‘then he will be able to find it again.’ And then she was staring up at me, frowning. ‘You were really planning to go in with him alone?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. And because she looked so incredulous, I added, ‘It’s bad country, I know. But at the worst it’ll only take five days and there’ll be the radio there — ‘
‘How can you be so stupid?’ she cried angrily. ‘I tell you before it is not possible. Do you think you can walk into Labrador as though you are strolling down a country lane in England? The Montagnais pace would kill you. And it is necessary we move fast,’ she added.
She had said ‘we,’ and I knew then what that pile of gear meant. She intended to come in with us, and my heart sank. It was bad enough to have her up here in this camp, but the thought of her trekking in with us to Lake of the Lion appalled me, for if, when we got there, my fears were confirmed, then its effect on her didn’t bear thinking about.
I suppose she misunderstood my reaction for she jumped up off the bed and, with a quick change of mood, came and put her hand on my arm. ‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘That was not very kind of me and maybe I owe you a great deal. I am still half-asleep, I think. I don’t get any sleep last night. But it is true what I said,’ she added. ‘I was brought up to this country. I know what it is like.’
‘Well, anyhow, he probably won’t agree to go,’ I said. And I realized that it was what I was beginning to hope.
‘He’ll go if I ask him,’ she said. ‘But I’ll have to hurry.’ She knelt down and began to lace up her boots.
I watched her then as she pulled on her outer clothes, moving quickly with a sense of urgency. ‘You’re going to see aim now, are you?’ I asked. And when she nodded, I said, ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No. It is better I go alone. Because I am a woman, he will be shamed, and he will do what I ask.’
‘Well, you’d better wait for Darcy,’ I told her. ‘At least he’ll drive you as far as the trestle.’
But she shook her head. ‘Ray has his work to do. By the time he returns it may be too late.’ She looked like a boy as she stood there facing me in all the bulk of her clothes, except that her face was too small and the large brown eyes burned with a feverish intensity. ‘You see,’ she explained, ‘Mackenzie will not like to say No to a white man. If he does not like the place and decides not to go, then he will simply move his camp and it will be days before we can find him again.’
‘I wish you’d wait till Darcy gets back,’ I said. Darcy would know whether it was right for her to go up to Mackenzie’s camp on her own. But probably it was. Bill Lands said she’d been raised in her father’s survey camps.
A car drew up outside and there was the slam of a door. ‘Here’s Darcy now,’ I said, feeling relieved.
But it wasn’t Darcy. The latch clicked, the door was flung back, and Laroche stood there, facing me. He didn’t see the girl at first. I think she had stepped back so that I was between her and the door. ‘I was told I should find you here,’ he said, and the dark eyes seemed unnaturally bright. ‘I have something to tell you — something I felt I should tell you myself. We’ve decided — ‘ He saw her then and he stopped, his face frozen with the shock of seeing her. ‘Paule!’ He was standing quite still, framed in the rectangle of the door with the muddied clearing of the camp sharp-etched in sunlight behind him, and the surprise on his face turned to an expression that I can only describe as one of horror. It was there on his face for an instant, and then he turned and slammed the door to. The crash of it seemed to release the sense of shock in him, and he strode across the room towards her, suddenly talking in a furious spate of words.
I didn’t understand what he said, for he was speaking in French, but I could see the anger blazing in his eyes. And then he was gesturing at me with his hand and Paule Briffe was answering him, standing very still and tense, staring up into his face. The anger in him seemed suddenly to flicker out. ‘Men Dieu?’ he breathed. ‘It only needed this.’ And he turned to me and said, ‘What have you been telling her?’
I hesitated. They were both looking at me, and I could feel their hostility. I was an intruder and because of that they were drawn together again, both of them hating me for coming between them with facts that couldn’t be answered. ‘Well?’ His voice trembled.
‘There’s an Indian,’ I said nervously, ‘camped up beyond the trestle. He says — ‘
‘Mackenzie. Yes, I know about him. We met Darcy down the Tote Road and he told us.’ He loosened the scarf about his neck. It was a slow, deliberate movement to give himself time. ‘You were thinking of going in with him, weren’t you? That’s what Darcy told us. You were going in with Mackenzie to try and find Lake of the Lion.’
I nodded, wondering what was coming.
He was staring at me and the anger seemed to have drained out of him. ‘Well, I guess there’s nothing else for it.’ His breath came out of his mouth in a little sigh as though he were suddenly resigned. ‘I don’t understand you,’ he murmured, ‘why you are so determined.’ He sounded puzzled and pushed his hand up over his scalp as though the wound still worried him. ‘But it doesn’t matter now,’ he added. ‘I’m going in with you. That’s what I came to tell you.’
‘You’re going in with me?’ I couldn’t believe it for a moment.
‘That’s right.’ He nodded.
I stared at him, feeling no elation, only a sudden, inexplicable sense of fear. ‘But why?’ I murmured. What had made him change his mind?
‘You’ve given me no alternative, have you?’ It was said quietly, and I was conscious of a change in him. He was different, more relaxed, as though he had come to terms with something inside himself. ‘I talked it over with Bill Lands driving up this morning,’ he went on. ‘We agreed that I should make one more attempt — try and back-track my route out. And then we met Darcy and heard about this Indian.’
‘Then you’re not going to try and stop me?’ I was still bewildered by his change of attitude.
‘Why should I?’ He smiled, a touch of the boyish charm that I’d noticed down at Seven Islands. Somehow I found that more deadly than his anger, and suddenly I knew I didn’t want to go into the bush with him. It was a strange thing, but now that the opposition I had been fighting against ever since my arrival in Canada had crumbled, all I wanted to do was to get out of this desolate country and go home and forget about the whole thing. But I couldn’t do that — not now; and I heard myself say, ‘When did you think of starting?’
‘First light tomorrow. That is, if Mackenzie agrees to guide us.’ And then he had turned to Paule Briffe again and was talking to her in French. I think he was trying to dissuade her from coming, for I saw an obstinate look come into her face. ‘Excuse us a minute,’ Laroche said. ‘I have to talk to Paule alone.’ And they went outside, closing the door behind them.
I could just hear their voices then. They were arguing in French and gradually the tone of his voice changed. He was pleading with her. And then suddenly there was silence.
I went to the window and saw them standing close together by the car, not talking. He was staring out across the camp and she was standing, looking at him, her small figure stiff and somehow very determined. And then he gave a shrug and said something to her, and they climbed into the car and drove off.
I was alone again then, and the sense of fear was still with me, so that my whole body felt chilled, and I went over to the stove and piled more wood on and stood there, warming myself. But the heat of it couldn’t drive out a coldness that came from nerves. It sounds absurd, writing about it now in cold blood, but I had what I can only describe as a premonition — a premonition of disaster.