Heart So Hungry (9 page)

Plus there were all those letters from Mrs. Hubbard to explain. In a place like Missanabie, if a letter arrived from the States, everybody in town soon knew about it. Mina wrote frequently to tell George about the plans she was making, the provisions she had ordered, the contacts she had made with a publisher eager for a
book about her expedition. Now and then she included a newspaper clipping about Wallace’s preparations. From these George learned of Wallace’s attempt to give his trip the imprimatur of science. He had signed on a young geologist to help him scout the area for mineral deposits, a young forestry student and an Ojibway guide.

Mina also wrote to ask George’s advice. Should she order this or that? How many of each? Could he fill out the crew with a couple of good men who could be counted on to hold their tongues about the plans?

She wrote to inform him that certain people, the necessary people, had been informed of her expedition—friends of hers or Mr. Hubbard’s who could be relied upon for financial support. But she had been careful to tell them something less than the full truth. A dissimulation, yes, but unavoidable. She had told them that she planned to visit Labrador for the purpose of gathering information for her book about Mr. Hubbard, that she would travel only as far as the North West River Post to conduct interviews. She seemed, in her letters, to take some delight in this charade, and in the admonishment of her friends that even a modest foray into that brutal peninsula might well prove the undoing of such a delicate lady.

But George’s worst moment came the day he received a letter from Dillon Wallace, a letter he had been expecting. He and Wallace had not been what George would have called friends, had never shared the depth of affection and respect George had had with Mr. Hubbard. In fact, there had been times on the trail when Wallace’s bossy tone had rubbed George the wrong way. Even so, it always made sense that Wallace would want George to accompany him on this second journey. After all, George now knew as much about the interior as any man. Moreover, he and Wallace had lived through the ordeal together, and that fact alone created a bond between them.

So George had been dreading the appearance of Wallace’s letter, had prayed more than once that the letter would get lost in the mail.

But it did not, it found its way to Missanabie. And that very night George wrote his reply, not even allowing himself a full day to think about it, lest he lose the resolve to tell his biggest untruth yet.

“I’m sorry,” George wrote. “But I’m getting married in the Spring. So it wouldn’t be right for me to go off with you.”

The remaining days passed in a kind of blur. For George to escort a white woman into the wilderness was simply madness. Who had ever heard of such a thing? If anything happened to her out there—and a hundred different things could happen—he might as well just take out his knife and slit his own throat. Every white person north of the border would assume that either he had been too foolish and incompetent to protect her adequately, or else he had let his animal nature get the better of him. He didn’t want to think about what might be done to him afterward. Even so, most times, it was all he
could
think about.

In early June, Mina travelled to Halifax, dressed all in black, and met again with George. He brought not only the gear Mina had ordered but also two strapping fellows to accompany them. Joe Iserhoff was half Russian, half Cree, and Job Chapies was a full-blooded Cree. Like George, they had been born and raised in the James Bay country and were expert hunters and canoemen, and each possessed the quiet dignity of those whose daily lives are lived to the rhythms of nature.

Joe, despite his Russian name, spoke with a soft Scottish accent that Mina found almost musical. Job, on the other hand, did not speak much English and, at least in Mina’s presence, was very reserved. But from the beginning the men were gentle and considerate not only toward her but toward each other as well, engaging in none of the tiresome rodomontade so common among more civilized men.

Somehow, all three of Mina’s crew had managed to make it to Halifax under the veil of secrecy. But it did not take long for the veil to be whisked aside. While they waited for the ice to break so they
could set sail for Labrador, an observant reporter from the
Halifax Herald
put two and two together and eventually harassed Mina into admitting that, yes, all that gear did belong to her. Yes, those three men with Indian blood were with her too. And yes, if you must know, she was about to set forth on an expedition of her own, not merely to the Northwest River but all the way to Ungava Bay, just as her husband would have done had misfortune not befallen him.

She was aware, of course, of Dillon Wallace’s expedition?

On that matter, there was nothing she cared to say.

Was it her intention to beat Wallace to Ungava?

She did not care to discuss the matter further.

What were her feelings toward Mr. Wallace? Was she bothered by the insinuations he had made against her husband?

She had nothing to say. Please, not another word on the subject.

On June 13 the
Herald’s
headline blared, “Hubbard Expedition Is Rival of Dillon Wallace.”

“Mrs. Hubbard is a slight woman,” the reporter wrote, “with a delicate pale face, lighted up by a very fine pair of brown eyes, whose expression is distinctly indicative of tenacity of purpose. She wears deep mourning. She objected to give out anything whatever as to her plans or to state whether or not there had been any difficulty between the original exploring party and herself.”

Two days later the same paper carried another inflammatory headline:

The reporter, unable to get any further information from Mina, had gone to S. Edgar Briggs, the manager of Fleming H. Revell Company, publisher of Wallace’s first book. “It is no secret among
the publishers,” the reporter noted, “that the relations between the widow and the man who succoured her husband until he himself almost lost his life have been strained.” He quoted Briggs’s adamant affirmation of Wallace’s integrity, but also his concession that Mina “could not reconcile the apparent discrepancy between the diary of her husband and that of Wallace.”

The story that Mina was in Halifax with a crew at the ready created a sensation all the way down to New York City. Wallace got wind of it in St. John’s from the editor of that city’s
Evening Herald
, who fanned the flames by repeating the rumour that Mina had accused Wallace of hastening her husband’s death. Wallace was infuriated.

And so the veil of secrecy surrounding Mina’s expedition was not only lifted, it was shredded to pieces.

The race was on.