The Trappers
The snow swirled. The snow fell. The snow slanted in sideways. It even went straight up at times. And then suddenly it would be bright sunshine. The autumn weather was becoming unpredictable. But he could always rely on the cold. And the pain. And fatigue.
Sometimes the swirling white became swirling black. But then he would force his eyes to focus on the black and it would be a crow, forcing its eyes to focus on him, one at a time. The crow was his constant companion of late. It was good company. Before the snow fell, before the world became confused, there was an army of some kind of mouse that used to gather around the fire of a night to keep him company. He could tell they were there because of the sea of tiny eyes staring at him, glowing in the fire. But if he grabbed a flaming stick and tried to see what they were besides eyes then they would evaporate into the night. So he just sat and stared back at them. And sometimes he would preach to them, as if they were so many brethren at a meeting house. They were good listeners, though he doubted that they had much faith.
But sometimes what surrounded him were simply phantoms. People and things that later he would determine had not really been there. Still, they were better than no company at all.
The trapper sat in front of his simple shelter, by the fire, in the morning light, in his fur clothing. There was nothing fashionable about his attire. These were not quality furs; those would end up as gentlemen's hats in a far off land. The clothing the trapper wore was an ever changing tapestry of castoff bits and ends of all of the animals he killed, cut out of the overall garment as they wore out or lost their insulation, to make way for a new bit or end to be sewn in its place, likely from a different animal. The trapper was an apparition from hell to most animals.
As the trapper sat he tried to collect himself enough to get up and check the trap lines once more. He no longer cared about the furs. He knew that he had to eat, even though it would make him throw up and have an agonizing, bloody shit. But he probably wouldn't be able to eat anything in any event; his teeth were all loose in his bleeding gums. So maybe it wouldn't be worth the effort, he decided.
The fire was burning low. It was quite smoky. There was no more wood close to hand, and it seemed like too much effort to go and get some more. All of the low-lying and easily gathered branches nearby, the ‘Squaw Wood' he used to call it, before gaining some education at the hands of an Indian woman, had long ago disappeared and now it would be a trek to get more. Anything more than a few feet from the fire was beginning to seem like an impossible journey, though. So the trapper simply sat, and began to fade. There was a certain warmth and comfort in fading.
“English!” shouted a bit of the woods, somewhere behind the trapper. It did not seem to require a response, though, so the trapper ignored it.
“Ohé! Anglais! Regarde-moi, fils de pute toi!” shouted the woods. This did not seem right. The woods should not be speaking French. The trapper gathered his strength and slowly turned towards the sound.
He couldn't be quite sure what he was looking at, but it seemed that some of his furs had come to life and were crawling towards him, all the while cursing in French. The trapper did not have the energy to do anything about it though, so he just stared blankly at the apparition.
“You! Stupid! Son-of-a-whore! Get up and help me!”
The trapper continued to stare, uncomprehendingly, at the pile of furs approaching him from the woods. It had the vague shape of a man, although it seemed to be crawling, and dragging one of its legs behind it.
“Encule-toi! Wake up! We're both going to die you salaud!” and then the pile of furs gasped and stopped moving and became silent, some twenty feet from the fire.
The crow was suddenly present in a nearby tree, cawing and staring first with one eye and then the other. The cawing was as loud as thunder and hurt the trapper's ears. He tried to make sense of these things, but could not, so he forgot about them, and the fire continued to burn and smoke.
As the fire burned down to its last dying ember, an ember of sorts flared to life in the mind of the trapper. The world drifted back into a kind of focus. It did that sometimes. He was dying. And he appeared to have company. Probably a phantom. But any company was welcome.
He got up, slowly and painfully. It was a long way to the mound of furs, and he had to take some time to prepare himself. Then he half stumbled, half walked over to inspect his visitor. It appeared to be another trapper, clad in furs very much like his own. The visitor seemed to be shorter and squatter, and, as far as could be determined through the furs, hairier. The crow flapped off on some pressing errand.
The visitor opened his eyes and grimaced in pain. The trapper half sat, half collapsed into the snow beside him.
“Je parle français aussi.” Said the trapper, slowly and painfully. A bit of blood dribbled into his beard.
“No you don't, you English ass fucker you. You sound like an Englishman trying to talk French while he has another Englishman's cock in his mouth… ah… calice…” said the visitor as a stab of pain took him.
“You are hurt.” Said the trapper, through teeth that did not feel like his own.
“Ah, so you have noticed the arrow in my leg have you? Then it is not true that all English are as stupid as a pile of cow shit.” Another wave of pain took the visitor for a time.
“But you, English. You are dying.” He continued when the wave had passed. “You are mostly dead from the Scorbut, eh?” He pronounced it ‘scor-boo' with a very heavy French accent, the kind of accent that one acquires in the bush.
“I don't know… I'm very tired.”
“And your teeth are falling out and you cry all the time and your skin is turning purple and your breath smells like a bear's asshole and the sights and the sounds and even the smells of the woods are driving you crazy like a foaming dog. Would that be accurate, English?”
“Yes.” Was all the trapper could say, his strength flagging.
“English, I do not like you. I will kill you tomorrow. But today I find I need some help, even from an English foaming dog.”
“I don't think I can help you.” Said the trapper, with the surety that comes from approaching death. And his eyes started closing of their own accord as he swayed a bit.
“Wake up! Listen to me, English. You are dying from the Scorbut. It is because you are stupid. You do not belong in the woods in the winter. It is lucky you found me.” The visitor grimaced as another wave of pain silenced him. “And it is lucky I need you, otherwise I would let you die.”
The cawing from the tree nearby sounded like cannon fire to the trapper. There were two crows now, shifting their heads in order to stare at the trappers alternately with one eye and then the other.
The visitor was lost in a world of pain for a time. But that didn't matter because the trapper was lost in his own world of dark things. But then the visitor marshalled somewhat, and brought the trapper out of his reverie. “English. I do not have much time unless you help me. You do not have any time unless I help you. So do this thing I will tell you and do not ask questions. Take this.” He said, proffering a bag to the trapper. The trapper opened the bag, looked at the contents and sniffed them tentatively, although most smells made him nauseous. This smelled somehow soothing. It appeared to be simply twigs and bark and some cedar leaves, all cut very finely with a very sharp knife.
“It is Annedda. It comes from the Wendat in these parts, but I first had it from some Algonquins trading around l'Habitation. It is a magic drink. You must…” and the visitor paused to wallow in pain for a while.
“You must boil two mugs of water.” He said when the wave had passed. “And make an infusion with a small handful of Annedda in it, as the maudit Dutch make their China drink. You drink one, you give me the other. Now, English!” said the visitor, before being racked by a spasm and passing again into the dreams of the damned.
The trapper sat upright, which took all of his strength. He looked at the bag of tree bits. It didn't seem to be particularly evil, although a bag of Indian magic given to him by a papist couldn't possibly be wholesome. He sniffed the contents again. While the smell of most anything else, even, or perhaps especially, his own smell filled him with revulsion and nausea, the bag's contents seemed almost fragrant. Maybe there was magic in it. He tried a tentative nibble, as much as his swollen gums and wobbly teeth would allow, on one of the bits of chopped up cedar leaves. The effect was marvelous; he felt a little better immediately, though all things are relative when you are nearly dead. He decided that, since he was dying anyway, and most likely damned already, and since this was all a dream in any event, he had little to lose by trying the papist magic.
He had a small pot, more of a billycan, near the fire which he used to melt snow for his drinking water. It would suffice to make the magic drink. But the fire was mostly out. With a supreme effort, the trapper lurched to his feet and started the almost impossible quest for more firewood. He grabbed his poor quality axe, which had been sunk into a nearby tree, and set out, wobbling, into the woods. The crows lost interest, and flapped away, but in a manner that somehow suggested they would be back.
***
The blaze was quite cheery, and gave off little smoke. It wasn't overly large, but sufficient to drive off the gathering gloom and chase away the odd snowflake that tried to land on it. There was a billycan propped over the fire by a stick, and it was steaming invitingly and giving off a strange, though pleasant, citrusy fragrance. The visitor had awakened, and had half crawled, half been dragged over to the fire to have some of the annedda.
“And see you don't throw out the stuff in the can when we are finished drinking it, English. That stuff I rub onto my leg.”
“What does that do?” asked the trapper, who was much improved from the morning, though he still spoke painfully and dribbled blood into his beard.
“Ah, qui sait. But the people of Wendake say you drink the drink and then rub the stuff on the sore part. And so that is what I will do, English.”
“What is Wendake?”
“Look around you, English! How did you get so far into the bush and you don't know where you are? This is the Land Apart, the Land Surrounded by Water, the home of the People of the Peninsula. And soon it will be a signeury under the protection and guidance of France and the Mother Church, and then you had better not be here, English.” The effort of smiling and attempting to laugh caused the visitor to grimace wildly for a moment. He could feel his own pulse beating like a hammer within his leg.
“Let me look at your leg.” Said the trapper, moving over closer to the injured leg.
“Alright, but you be damned careful, you!”
The arrow was buried in the visitor's thigh, probably right into the big bone. It didn't seem likely that it was near the bits that would bleed a lot, perhaps fatally, if an arrow was there. So that was good. There was still a great deal of blood, though, and the fur legging of the visitor was caked with both old and new blood.
“You need to take the legging off so I can see your leg. Let's get you into the shelter.”
Just behind them, and very close to the fire, was a simple A-frame shelter made of bits of the forest, covered in snow, and piled high inside with green things from the trees.
“You call that a shelter, English? No wonder you are dying. You should build your shelter on a hill facing south but out of the wind, your roof is too high, all the heat goes bye-bye, the fire should be inside, though maybe not, you would burn it down you are so stupid, you need another foot of boughs at least under your ass when you sleep, you…”
The visitor passed out from the sudden pain as he was dragged backwards into the lean-to. The trapper removed the legging from the injured leg, which involved some cutting to get around the arrow shaft. There would be some tailoring before the visitor could go outside again. He gingerly prodded the arrow, and verified that it was stuck fast in the bone. Even passed out, this caused some grunts from his visitor.
The wound itself seemed fresh, no more than a day or two old, perhaps three, and there was no smell of corruption yet. But still, the trapper gave the visitor a week at most. Maybe a day or two of that he would be talking, the rest would be a nightmare spinning down to death. If his assailant had been trying to kill the Frenchman outright then he was a lousy shot. If, however, the goal had been to inflict a lingering death, then his assailant was a man to be feared.
The trapper started cleaning off the blood, but that just caused more so he gave up. With as quick a motion as he could manage, he snapped the arrow shaft off as close to the wound as he dared. This caused another grunt and much blood. Then he delicately replaced the legging, got out his sewing bag and did a quick repair to the cuts he had made to it. A better job would not be necessary.
The trapper was immensely hungry. The visitor had some food in his bag - dried rinds of some kind of animal - but there was no way the trapper was going to be able to chew them. So he cut them up as fine as was possible with the blunt and rusty knife he kept on his person, and added them to the billycan of annedda.
After drinking as much of the strange stew as his weakened guts could handle, a great fatigue took hold of the trapper. Though not the fatigue of one about to die, just the fatigue of one very much in need of sleep. And it was quite dark now. So he poked the fire around a bit with a stick to get access to the somewhat round rocks he had placed in there. Then, after making sure he wasn't getting sparks into his shelter, he kicked and poked the warm rocks into the shelter and near the visitor, then retired for the evening, on the other side of the warm rocks.
***
The morning came, fair and bright. And a little cold. The trapper had been sleeping as close to the visitor as his revulsion would allow, after first removing anything sharp or otherwise dangerous from his guest, and also the rocks which had grown cold. The visitor had taken to shivering violently in the night, and it seemed that he needed warming, even the faint warmth of another fur clad body beside him. But now it was daytime, and the trapper felt he should be up and doing things.
The first order of the day was a mighty piss. There had been a lot of annedda drunk the previous night, fortified with cut up bits of jerky. So the trapper removed the boughs covering the entrance to the shelter and went outside. The pissing went quite well, with very little staggering, just a brief wave of nausea when he first tried standing. There would be a shit later; he could already feel the cramping, although it didn't seem as bad today. The trapper felt a level of energy that he thought he should capitalize on. So he went out in search of a quantity of firewood.
***
The sound of a snapping fire brought some moans and curses from the shelter.
“English! Where are you, cochon!”
“I'm out here getting warm by the fire.”
“Well then stop that and come get me! I'm freezing my couilles off.”
The trapper went into the shelter and looked at his visitor. His visitor did not appear well. His teeth were chattering with the cold although you could fairly feel the heat pouring off of him. He was sweaty and stank, and there was some fresh blood here and there around the arrow, and likely a great deal more inside his fur legging. Nonetheless, hospitality has its rules. So the trapper helped his guest outside.
The visitor let out a hearty scream when he was dragged out of the shelter. The scream turned to French curses, and then babbling, and then silence. He was propped up near the fire, near the billycan of annedda, put on fresh for the morning with some chopped up jerky added. A fresh wad of gooey dough made from the trapper's store of flour, with a little water, animal fat and salt, had been shaped around a stick, poked into the snow close to the fire so it could bake, and this was also in easy reach of the visitor should he wake up. And then the trapper went out to do his trap line, or at least the closest parts of it.
***
The trapper returned to the camp, and found his guest was awake and had eaten all of the stick bread, and was currently having some annedda soup. The trapper was dragging a beaver on a length of rope; not too badly frozen, but needing attention very shortly. He also had some cattail root, harvested with a great deal of pain from the almost-frozen waters of a little creek nearby.
“Hey, English. I must thank you for your hospitality. But you need to go easy on the annedda, eh? You make your own from swamp cedar most of the time. Is that shitty knife of yours sharp enough to cut cedar? You should have better stuff, English. You have a shitty knife and a shitty axe, and you do not have a gun. It is because you are stupid and do not belong in the woods. So make your own cedar most of the time and go easy on the annedda. You only use the good stuff if your teeth hurt. Or maybe your leg, eh?” he said. He tried to laugh but that immediately caused enough pain to stop him.
“So who are you, English? Do I keep calling you English? What are you doing here? This is Wendat land. Or maybe French land. Depends who you ask. I don't ask too many questions. Sometimes French people buy my furs. Then it is French land. Sometimes Wendat, who sell to French people. Then it is Wendat. I sell my furs either way. But what about you, English? You will not sell your furs to either French or Wendat. And you will die before winter really comes. So no matter. But who are you?”
The trapper waited to see if there was any more, or if it was his turn. Also, his mind wasn't totally clear and it took a while to process things. After a bit, it appeared to be up to him to speak.
“My name is Philip. I'm from the Pool Plantation; you might call it Ferryland. Most recently.”
“Ferrilon? Is that pig's cunt David Kirke still running things there?”
“Yes. I have heard him called many things, but never a pig's cunt. It seems to fit, though. He's my father.”
“You are Philip Kirke ?”
“At your service.”
“Then, English, you must die.” Said the guest, although he didn't make any kind of move, and had no weapons anyway.
“What do you have against the Kirkes?”
“I am from Kébec. Perhaps your father told you how he and his pirates stole the settlement?”
"Privateers. Under the charter of King Charles. I did hear something about that, yes. But you got it back.”
“At enormous cost! Mon Dieu. And so you are a Kirke, from Ferrilon. And you come to my woods to die. Why is that, Kirke?”
“I'm a young man. I want to make my own way. There's only one way in Ferryland at the moment, and that is my father's. So I decided to make my fortune in furs.”
“No, you will die in the woods, as soon as it gets cold. You do not even have raquettes for your boots. How do you suppose you will walk on the snow when it is five feet deep? No, English, you will not make your fortune here and you should run home to papa.”
There didn't seem to the trapper to be any response required, so he simply stared at the fire and had another swallow of the magical annedda. He pulled the carcass of the beaver closer. It was beginning to firm up in the cold, and it was probably already too late to gut it. So he put it close to the fire, but not so close that the fur was in danger. Then he cut up his cattail root and added it to the pot. The visitor was lost in a world of his own for a while. After a time he stirred and continued talking.
“So tell me, English. How is it that an English can travel all the way here from Ferrilon? Must be five hundred leagues. None of it friendly to an English scum, eh?”
“My father controls the fishery at Ferryland.”
“That is not an answer, English, and it is also not true. Fish are free for the taking. Your father does not control that.”
“True, but he controls the only safe port near the fishery. And the taverns. And the brothels.”
“Taverns and brothels! Is that what it is to be a Quaker, English?”
“It is if you are my father. He is making many enemies. And many men are making an enemy of him. One such was the captain of a French fishing ship. He was on his way to bring fish to Ville-Marie and pick up furs. But he would need to put into Ferryland on his way back to France and due to a little dispute he was having with my father that didn't seem likely. So I smoothed the whole affair over, mostly by promising my father to be on the ship when it left. So for settling the dispute I got safe and quite secret passage to Sault Saint-Louis, at the end of the Rivière du Canada. From there a little barter with the local Indians got me a canoe and a guide to a village almost at the end of the Lac de Frontenac and the Indians there were quite happy to give me some knowledge and supplies for some metal implements I had. So I set off on the northbound trail that they showed me and I found myself here.”
“English, English, mon dieu. How is it that you have made it so far, and no one has killed you for your ignorance? Learn this: there are no Indians on all of Turtle Island, which is everything you see in any direction you travel for as long as you care to travel. There are many peoples, though. The people that surround you in Ferrilon are Mi'kmaq. I do not know much about them or their language. But the people around here I know. They are, broadly speaking, Iroquois, Ojibwe or Algonquin, which would be the language they speak. But then even if two groups speak a similar language they will likely consider themselves a different nation. So the people you bartered with at Sault Saint-Louis were probably Iroquois that call themselves Mohawk. Your little village I expect was Teiaiagon, an Iroquois Seneca village on the Carrying Place, the toron-ten, the trail you took to get here. Those are some of the bad Iroquois, English. Now you are in the territory of the good Iroquois, the Wendat. You would do well to learn that there are no Indians here, just different peoples who are generally at war with each other and with you. And some will pretend to be your friends if you have things to trade, and some will kill you on sight, and some will not care whether you live or whether you die. Learn this, English.”
“The Seneca seemed quite friendly.”
“The Seneca were not your friends, English. They were sending you to your death and they are still laughing about it. They will come by in the spring to see what remains of your metal items, or if you managed to catch any furs.”
“Perhaps. So I am Philip Kirke, from Ferryland. And I do not belong in the woods with Indians. But what of you? Who are you, and why are you here? I mean, right here. With me.”
“Ah, well, English, that is a story to be sure. Basically I am on my way to Taenhatentaron in Huron territory. They are called Hurons when you are speaking to French people. It is a bit of an insult. So when you are talking to Wendat people you had better refer to them as Wendat. Never Indians, no matter who you are talking to. Except maybe a stupid English pile of cow shit. Anyway, I go to Taenhatentaron to spend the winter. And as I am travelling, what do I see? A dying cochon of an Englishman. You know how I know you are a dying English when I am far off and can only see the smoke from your fire? It is because I can see the smoke from your fire. That means you are dead. Today or tomorrow. Next week maybe, but probably sooner. It also means you are stupid. Being stupid makes you English. That is how I know there is a dying English up ahead, and I thought, maybe he has some things he could give me. He won't need anything he has for longer than a day or two. So I come over to say, ‘Allo'. And then I was attacked by a Haudenosaunee, that is, a bad Iroquois from the south. He shot me as you see and then took all I had that was of value, which was my arquebus and my knife and my axe. And then he left me to die, without ever saying a word. So that is my story, English.”
“You know your journey ends here, don't you?”
“Your fire had the very great misfortune of attracting a Haudenosaunee, English. Misfortune for me, at least. It seems he is not after a stupid dying English who has some Seneca stuff. But maybe next it will attract a Wendat. They would be very upset to find a stupid dying English who comes from the Seneca. Then we will see who dies. But for now, you have me at a disadvantage. That is true, English.”
“Why would your bad Iroquois be travelling in these woods? You say this is either Wendat territory, or French territory, depending on who you are trading with at the time. Would either be friendly to an Iroquois from the south?”
“The Haudenosaunee are a league, English. Five nations. Living in what passes for peace. And they wish to extend the Great Peace northwards. Through war. Ha-ha, is that not always the way, English? So my friend was no doubt a spy, and there is no doubt going to be a war. Very soon.”
“He probably considers himself a scout.”
“Anywhere north of Teiaiagon he is a spy, English. And he will be killed in a terrible way when he is caught. Or maybe we will convert him to the true church, eh? Which would be worse do you think, Huguenot?”
“My mother was a Huguenot. Now we are all English Protestants. And I think it would be better for your Iroquois friend to die now in ignorance than to die later in heresy.”
“Ah, see, that is the problem between us my friend. And that is your very big problem here. You do not belong here, English. This is French land. Or this is Wendat land. Either way, it is Catholic land.”
The trapper let this barb go. There was little to be gained by entering into a theological debate with a dead man, and especially a dead man who worshiped idols. So he changed the subject.
“This annedda. It has a powerful magic. What other Wendat magic do you have?” asked the trapper.
“Ah, you are becoming wise, English! Many men have died refusing to touch magic things from les sauvages. But I have seen some things in the woods, English. And I have seen some things on the water. If magic will keep me alive then I will use magic. Here, if you found the annedda useful, you may find this useful too. In case you are still here in the summer. Which I doubt, English.”
The trapper was handed a pouch containing a dried leaf, which smelled foul, but yet very familiar to someone who had grown up in taverns, brothels and docks.
“This smells like tobacco.”
“Very good, English. It is in fact tobacco, which comes from the Petun people near here.”
“I do not take snuff. What use would I have for tobacco?”
“Ah, English, I am about to give you some very good advice. You must get yourself a pipe. Any dealings you have with les autochtones, be they good Iroquois, bad Iroquois, Algonquin, Outchibou or whatever, you must start by offering them a pipe. Or else they are not taking you seriously and might kill you.”
“I have not heard this before.”
“That is because you have never been taken seriously in any of your dealings. But that is not the biggest reason for the tobacco, my English friend.”
“And what would that be?”
“It is a magic that makes the waters quiet so you will not die when you are paddling across.”
“Oh come on. You seriously believe that?”
“It's true, English. There is a demon from hell that lives in the waters here, in the very deepest parts. I have seen him myself. Very far from here, on the shores of the great fresh water ocean, le lac supérieur, there are two Outchibou tribes, the Gens-du-Lac, sometimes called the Michipicoute, and the Gens-de-Terre. They guard the sacred island where the demon is said to live. It is also said that the island has very much cuivre in its rocks and while les autochtones much prefer iron they will still trade you things for copper. So I decided I would go to this sacred island myself and see what I would see. Well I never made it to the island, English. Half way there, maybe five leagues out into the freezing waters, it became as rough as anything you could find in the open ocean. The sudden wind was blowing me straight back the way I had come, so I had no choice but to paddle like the very hounds of hell were chasing me, with a following sea. Not a good thing in a canoe. And then, a cable or two from land, the wind stopped and by and by the seas calmed down. And as I neared a big bay where I thought I would shelter and spend the night, English, that is where I saw the demon. He came from behind, maybe from his island, and swam under my canoe and surfaced in front of me. It took a very long while for him to swim past me, English, since he was some five fathoms long. From behind, he is mostly an enormous ridged tail. But then he turned and faced me with his horrible head out of the water. And you know what his head looks like English? He looks like a lynx, only one who was spawned in the fires of hell and lives in the coldest deeps. And he looks at you as if to say that he could eat you or kill you or ignore you, it is all the same. And then he swam off and the water became as calm as a whore who has been paid more than she asked.”
“Quite the story.” Said the trapper. He knew that the visitor's mind was straying into a dark place, and this would likely be his last day sitting up by the fire.
“Ah, but that's not the end of the story, English. There are some high places surrounding this bay. From some angles you can see an old woman's face in these rocks. And from those rocks you can look out into the fresh water sea and see quite a long way. And so I was seen and the water demon was seen and there was a party of Michipicoute on shore to greet me. Or kill me, as far as I knew. But they greeted me like a brother. They said I should be killed, because I was coming from the sacred island. But if the great Mishipeshu Himself forgave me then I was to be honoured. So they took me to their camp and gave me food and a woman and most importantly, they taught me how to sprinkle a little tabac onto the waters as an offering to the water lynx so he would leave me alone. And so that is what I do, English. Oh, and they said if I ever again went to the sacred island or took any copper from anywhere my death would be slow. So that is the story, English.”
“So they worship this demon, this Mishipeshu?”
“It's not quite like worship, English. More like respect. There are Animkiig, the great spirit birds, that live in the air and protect the people, and there is Mishipeshu, the water lynx, who lives in the deep waters and is a bit of a bastard. But they are both necessary somehow, and there, English, is the extent of what I can understand with my knowledge of Ojibwe. All I can tell you is I wish to never again see Mishipesu, and if the price of that is a little tobacco and not stealing copper then that is what I will do, English.”
The trapper was becoming interested in the story in spite of himself.
“What happened to the woman? Did you use her dishonourably and then just leave her?”
“Ah, that is a sad story, English. Since I had survived meeting their demon I was in very high honour in the little village of the Michipicoute. So they gave me one of their structures made of skin to live in with my new woman. And she taught me much, English, and was very good to me, because otherwise she would have a hard life since her husband did not come back from a hunt the previous winter. But very soon my legs grew restless, English, and I left her and the village for a time to go and trap some castors. I was only gone a month, English. Maybe two. But when I came back everyone in the village was dead. My woman too. It was terrible. Some disease had taken them.”
“I have heard that Indians generally have a weak constitution and are prone to disease.”
“That does seem to be true, English. Sometimes when you meet a new tribe as you travel about, they are all dead the next time you travel there. C'est la vie. But many believe it is because they do not know the true religion, eh? We French are building very many missions. When we first build the missions none of the autochtones have the true faith, and many of them fall to sickness. But then they start to convert, and then they are well.”
“And as they convert you give them food and metal implements and maybe that has something to do with it?”
“And weapons, monsieur l'Anglais. Once they convert we give them guns, the arquebus. That helps many of them see the truth, eh!”
The stranger made no sound. He simply appeared beside the Frenchman as if the air had solidified into a man. His knife, very likely a recent acquisition, had cut through the Frenchman's windpipe before the new presence fully registered on either of the men around the fire. Blood sprayed everywhere. The trapper had the presence of mind, aided by a lingering weakness and muddy thoughts, to stay put and just watch. He watched the Frenchman die. It did not take long.
The stranger was an Indian, likely the Haudenosaunee that had shot the visitor's leg. He was clad simply in buckskin, and had moccasins of similar simple, yet rugged, design. He made little sound and no conversation as he rummaged around in the shelter, all the while keeping the trapper under observation. He removed any metal object, especially any weapons, even though all of the metal objects were of astoundingly poor quality. Lastly he went over the trapper's own body, and took his rusty knife. Then he got up as if to leave, but instead he turned around and spoke.
“You are not Dutch.” He said, in passable English.
“No.”
“Then we are not friends. But you are not French.”
“No.”
“Then we are not enemies. And you are not from the South.”
“No. East. The New Found Land.”
“Then you should return to your new found land very quickly.”
“You killed him.”
“He was French.”
“And you will let me live?”
“You will die anyway. But for now we are not enemies, Englishman. Also we are not friends. Go home. If you are quick you can walk back to Teiaiagon in two days. Unless it snows. Then you will die here.”
“I will not be able to make a fire without my knife or my axe.”
“Then you had better not let this one burn out before you leave.”
“What are you doing here? If the Wendat find you they will kill you.”
“They will not find me, Englishman. What they will find is a thousand Haudenosaunee armed with Dutch weapons. The Dutch do not care if we convert to their religion or not. They wish to obtain furs. We wish to supply them. So they give us weapons and we give them furs. So we are friends. The French wish to keep all of the furs for themselves, and have the help of the Wendat to do so. So we are enemies of the French and the Wendat. The French do not give weapons to their Wendat unless they take the religion of the French. So the Wendat are a weak people. We will drive both of them out of this land very soon. You must leave this place, Englishman.”
The stranger turned to leave. But then he thought of something further to say, and turned back.
“The Frenchman had to die because the French must not know the Haudenosaunee are in this land. But he was talking to you of respect. For this, he also deserved respect. And so he died quickly. You would do well to learn this lesson of respect, English. Perhaps then people wouldn't leave you to die in the woods.”
And the stranger disappeared, making the trapper wonder if he were simply seeing the phantoms of the woods again.
After a time it became evident that the stranger had gone and was not coming back. Still, the trapper stayed by the fire. He drank some annedda. The magical brew was making him stronger, by the hour it seemed. The trapper felt that he might even be strong enough to defend himself in a few days, in case any more Haudenosaunee showed up. The Frenchman had no opinion on this matter, nor any other.
He glanced around and took a quick inventory of his situation. The stranger had been almost entirely thorough, and had taken all of the poor quality metal implements that were plainly visible around the shelter, including his axe and his knife. Without an axe and a knife, survival for more than a day or two in the woods in the winter would be impossible. The trapper went into his shelter, and then pulled some branches over the opening that constituted the door. The trapper could not see out easily, although enough light came in that he could see within the shelter. More importantly, no one could see in from outside.
He removed the layer of green boughs from one corner of the shelter. They stank of piss. Only a complete amateur, or one in the throes of a fever, would foul the bedding inside his own shelter. It was a wonder that neither the Frenchman nor the Indian had commented on that. Underneath the fouled bedding was a ratty fur, made useless by incredibly bad butchering. But under that…
The trapper said a prayer of thanks when he looked at the objects he had hidden there, covered in animal fat to prevent rust and wrapped carefully in a bag. The axe and the knife were something of a joke, given to his father by the King of England, King Charles the First, in partial payment for some nefarious deed or the other. His father had proven quite useful to the monarch over the years, especially in that little matter concerning the settlement at Québec. So when David Kirke approached the King for a land grant in the wilds of the New Found Land, the King had instructed his royal swordmaker to create an axe and a knife suitable for the use of a gentleman enjoying royal favour while in the wilderness. They were made in the same foundry, and had the same foundry mark, as the Sword of Spiritual Justice, the sword used in Charles' own coronation. In a land where the value of a man's life was one beaver pelt, either one of these items would buy an entire village. His father must have been spitting venom when he realized his son had taken them. The trapper held the knife up to the light to admire it. It was as sharp as lightning.
But what he was most happy to see was the large and clumsy heavy arquebus, or musket as it was sometimes called. And a bag of powder and some lead balls. With this weapon, he could kill anything in the woods that would have the courtesy to stay in one place for a few seconds while the flintlock set off the powder.
The trapper very carefully put his treasures back in their greasy bag, and then replaced the ratty fur and piss-soaked bedding. Then he removed the covering over the entrance to his shelter and went back to the fire for some more annedda. And to consider his options. He didn't need to check his other stash of treasures. He could see from the fire that the pile of snow covering his precious agnonra and arocha had not been disturbed. Agnonra were the curious overboots the Indians made of shaped saplings and dried animal sinews that, when tied to your boots with lamp wick, allowed you to walk on snow no matter how deep, and the arocha was a sled made of white cedar that would allow him to move his possessions over the snow.
The bitter irony, of course, was that his furs were plainly on display. Some were bailed, and some were still stretched out on branches to finish curing. Neither of the two men who had come to rob him or possibly kill him had bothered about them. The Frenchman may have, to be sure, before he found himself crippled and dying, but if that were the original plan then he was keeping that secret to himself at the moment. Besides, he would have been travelling light to reach a safe place to overwinter before the heavy snows. The Indian certainly had no use for the furs, as he was on a scouting mission, not a trading mission, and was also travelling light. And so the whole reason for the very existence of this God-forsaken land and its God-forsaken inhabitants, the whole reason for the upcoming war, the only reason that the English and the Dutch and the French would choose these lands in which to be bitter enemies when they could do that at home, and the sole reason that the trapper was near death in these woods was of no value in the final analysis. He laughed and screamed as loud as he could at the absurdity of it all.
But then the fit left him. The trapper had no weighty issues on his mind, beyond seeing the sun rise tomorrow. And he still considered the furs to be immensely valuable. He had work to do. But before anything else, he had to remove his visitor. The dead Frenchman would attract all manner of trouble overnight, both spiritual and animal. And he stank already. With considerable effort, the trapper managed to drag his guest over to the crest of a nearby hill, and then, with the assistance of the gentle downhill grade, he dragged his visitor as far away from his camp as he could without blacking out. When he was sufficiently far away from the shelter, the trapper dropped his burden. He considered saying a few words, but decided there would be no point. His guest was likely already enjoying the warmth of hell. As he walked unsteadily back to his shelter, there was a rustle of feathers from a nearby tree.
“Take good care of my friend.” He said to the two crows, who immediately took to their task of watching the dead man intently; first with one eye, and then with the other.
The trapper resumed his deliberations by the fire. After a time he had his answer. The French could go to hell. And the Indians could join them. And his father would most likely kill him if he went back home. He was going to stay in the woods and make his fortune. The difficult thing would be getting his furs north or east to where he could find friendly English to trade with. But he had gotten this far on balls, he would figure something out. He had an axe, a knife, a gun, the magical annedda and even some tobacco to ward off demons.
But his current shelter was poorly situated for defence, and it was time to move on in search of more beavers anyway. Of course, it seemed that this whole area was on the invasion route of an upcoming Indian war. So in the morning he would have to move far away. Perhaps if he travelled for a couple of weeks north, he would find a new place, full of beavers, far away from the toron-ten and the French and the Wendat and the Haudenosaunee. Maybe he would make a shelter in this new place, part way up a south facing hill, and out of the wind.
And he would have to figure out how to get a pipe.