Scattered Bones (32 page)

Florence had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Russell had insisted the rumours were nonsense, but she was sure there was something to them. Bibiane was bribing the girls with a lot of money, supplied, of course, by Arthur Jan.

Florence ran up the hill, puffing like a steam engine, and barged through the Arthur’s kitchen door. Following the shrieks and grunts, she walked straight into the bedroom. Even now she gasps at the obscenity – the girl’s outstretched arms and legs tied to the four posts of the bed with rope, the man’s skinny, white rump pumping up and down like a mongrel dog fucking a bitch in heat. Florence marched over, grabbed Arthur by his hair, and pulled him off.

“What do you think you’re doing!” he screamed as he struggled to free himself. “She’s here of her own free will!”

“Thirteen. That’s how old she is, Arthur Jan. Even in this primitive society, that’s unacceptable. If it’s with my dying breath, I’ll see you pay for this.”

Helen lay naked, crumpled on the bed. Florence untied her bonds, wrapped her in a blanket, and half carried her to her family’s cabin. There it was discovered that her back and behind were covered with welts, her arms and legs with bruises.

“Mr. Jan beat me with a whip,” she whimpered. “Again and again, and I couldn’t get him to stop.”

Florence was ready that very day to travel to the RCMP depot in Prince Albert to have charges laid, but, to her dismay, Russell refused to make the arrangements.

“I’m telling you the only thing you’ll accomplish is to harm the girl’s reputation even further,” he had insisted. “Jan will persuade the authorities that he had no idea of her age, and that she came willingly. Even pleaded with him to have sex. Who do you think they’ll believe? A young native girl or a respected man of business, a Justice of the Peace!”

Florence kept arguing with her husband until Alphonse Custer showed up. “Please, Mrs.
Smith, forget this whole thing. Helen has learned her lesson.”

Florence was horrified. “You’re saying Arthur Jan should get off Scot free? He was responsible for the disappearance of all those others girls, you know that.”

Alphonse nodded his head, yes, but said not another word.

“Well, the least you can do is give me your reason.”

“Okay, but it’s a sad story. I owe Mr. Jan a lot of money. Advances on next season’s catch. I’ve never been able to pay it back, and it’s piled up year after year. If you go ahead with this complaint, he’ll take everything I own.”

Florence gave up then, but she has never forgotten. Today, Arthur Jan will finally receive his just desserts.

Chapter Thirty-Six

It’s now five a.m.
and the sky
is turning egg-yolk yellow. Since the Treaty Party is eager to leave, guests will be arriving soon. Florence scurries down the hill and is relieved to see bustling on the beach. Russell is lighting the fire under the makeshift griddle. The coffee is being prepared. Annie has arrived with bannock and scones. All is well. The first stage of the plan can be set in motion.

Florence yells to the group, “I’ll be right back, I’m just going...” then mumbles something unintelligible under her breath. She throws a couple of sausages into the bush, and Artemis and Athena dive after them. Good, now she can escape.

She walks along a path which circles behind the HBC store. This is where the tents of the Treaty Party have been set up. No sign of activity there. She’s surprised Bob Taylor hasn’t sounded the bugles by now – everything is done with such precise routine under his watch. A meaner, more petty and narrow-minded man would be hard to imagine. And to think, as the Government’s representative, he personifies Canada in the Indian mind.

She continues down a cliff to a small bay where her canoe is tied, hidden behind willows that lean over the water. She unties the little craft, and, with surprising nimbleness for a woman of her bulk, settles herself in the bow.

She paddles close to the shore, praying she won’t be seen.

She passes St. Bartholomew’s rectory. No stirring there yet. Annie has already left, so there’s nobody to wake them. Poor Ernst Wentworth. He is a sincere man yet, try as he might, he’s so ineffectual. A joke of a missionary really. Good thing he doesn’t know how the Indians laugh at him behind his back. And Lucretia, that ridiculous wife of his. The Queen of England isn’t so pretentious. She’s obviously got herself ensnarled with Arthur Jan. Well, she’ll pay dearly for that. A broken heart, for sure.

How these two could have produced an offspring as splendid as Izzy Wentworth is beyond Florence. She’s seen so much of Izzy over the years that the girl has become like a daughter. But, of course, there’s the rub. Izzy is what Florence might have had. Often, when she catches sight of the girl running here or there, her hair spinning like golden candy floss, that terrible time comes flooding back.

~•~

After years of working
as a clerk, Russell had finally been promoted to a manager. Located where the parkland merges into boreal forest, the post he was assigned to had been doing poorly for decades – the Company would close it down a year later – and the house was small and shabby, a cabin really. Florence didn’t complain. At last her husband was getting ahead.

The baby, Katie, was four months old, a wisp of a thing with her little tuft of blonde hair, pale skin and green eyes. Florence couldn’t understand how a strong, big-boned woman like herself could give birth to such a tiny child prone to every kind of illness. Katie, though, had made up for the trouble this caused Florence by being so sweet, so cheery.

That year, spring arrived early, melting the snow and ice a month before the usual time. Russell decided he would take the pelts that had been traded so far to the main depot in Prince Albert. He’d be gone a few days. Would Florence be able to manage? She nodded her head yes, but felt uneasy, especially when she discovered that he had forgotten to cut more firewood.

That night, a cold snap descended, freezing the melt into hard, ragged ice, sharp as a razor. In the morning, she had to chisel out her front step so the door would open. She managed to get to the shed only to discover that there was barely enough wood for the day’s cooking and heating. Well, tomorrow she would have to chop some more herself.

In the evening the temperature dropped to minus 20, the wind raged, a blizzard descended. Florence knew she had to get to the woodshed, but when she opened the door, she couldn’t see two inches in front of her nose, and she realized that if she took another step, she’d be lost.

The firewood already stored in the house was quickly used up. Florence tried to keep the baby warm, wrapping her in blankets and coats until her little head could hardly be seen. Hour after hour, she held the infant against her chest.

By midnight, Florence’s nose and hands were so cold she thought they might snap off. Katie’s cough grew worse. One minute her little forehead was beaded with sweat, the next her teeth were rattling she was shivering so hard. She refused to suckle. At three a.m., she gave a tiny whimper and closed her eyes forever.

Florence knew she shouldn’t blame Russell – how could he know that a blizzard was on the way? But deep in her heart she thought that if it had been her, she would have found some way to get home. To rescue them. That he was as devastated by the baby’s death as she was didn’t ease the tension. Whatever love had been between them vanished. The tragedy did teach Florence one never-to-be-forgotten lesson – she must rely on no one, she must always take command.

~•~

What is she doing,
letting her mind wander like that? On today of all days she must stay focused.

She glides past St. Gertrude’s. Both priests are probably still in their beds; since Sally took ill they’ve had to fend for themselves. Of the two brothers, Ovide is definitely crazy, but Étienne is pretty strange too. His parishioners adore him, Florence acknowledges that, but he is so aloof, so sad. Like a doomed character in a Greek tragedy. Oedipus or Agamemnon, perhaps.

“This is a man who doesn’t pray very much,” she thinks to herself.

Father Bonnald treats Sally’s son as if he were his own. Which is probably okay. Joe seems a fine young man even if the priest has turned him into an introverted egghead, and a loner. Izzy claims she loves him. Florence can only imagine what the Wentworths will think of that. An Indian, and worse still, a Catholic! What a row there’ll be. Izzy will fight back, Florence is sure, but it won’t be pleasant.

Florence is now approaching Cornelius Whitebear’s dock. She spots the chief sitting on a log, bundled in a blanket. Despite his illness, he’s managed to get there, just as he promised. Her heart begins to pound. After all these years, he’s still the only man she has ever truly loved.

When she married Russell, she gave up her Lutheran faith and joined the Anglican Church. It seemed a peculiar religion – Florence still thinks of Henry the Eighth and all his wives every time the hymn ‘All God’s people come together, worship the King’ is sung. But it has served her well. Everywhere Russell was transferred, and this happened often, there were Anglicans to welcome them.

When the Smiths first arrived at Pelican Narrows, Reverend Wentworth was still trying to undo the damage done by that old reprobate, Canon James Mackay. He had turned to Cornelius Whitebear for help and the chief did his best to lure the Cree back to church. “Just got to show them kindness and respect and they’ll be faithful,” he had suggested.

He’d been so nice to Florence, shaking her hand and smiling that big, rubbery grin of his. He was such a spectacularly handsome man, tall even for a Cree, with a mighty, broad chest, huge muscular arms and thighs – like shanks of a moose, Florence thought – a head of thick hair, cut short so that it stood up like a porcupine quills, black-as-midnight eyes which conveyed every conceivable emotion, and a wide mouth forever in motion.

She fell instantly in love with him and she was sure he felt the same way about her. Not that anything sinful ever happened. Quite the contrary, they were entirely proper. This was not Florence’s idea
– she would have leapt into bed with him if he had nodded his head in that direction. To her sorrow, he kept her at bay. The relationship between Chief
Whitebear and his wife could hardly be called passionate, but Dolores Whitebear had been a good mother to his eight children, and he honoured her for that.

What Florence admired most about Cornelius
was his audacity. He was the most outspoken, the prickliest, Indian she had ever met.

Being an Anglican in a sea full of Roman Catholics, he laboured under a major handicap. Nonetheless, he had been elected chief of the Peter Ballendine Band eight times in a row. The reason was obvious – he had valiantly fought for his people in a battle that had come to mean life or death. He told Florence, “The government is determined to swallow us like the whale did Jonah, and vomit us out after we’ve been made into obedient, little white people. We are to be assimilated, never mind that we were here first, and that we like being Indians.”

During the sixteen years Chie
f
Whitebear was in office, petitions, requests, pronouncements flowed from his pen, landing on the desks of bureaucrats and politicians. Hundreds of them every year. And he was not afraid to confront an officious twerp like Bob Taylor, demanding that promises made by the government be kept. The Chief was never rude, just persistent. Taylor referred to him as “the Cree bulldog” in his reports.

The Indian agent and his bosses would have loved to get rid of a man that was so knowledgeable, diligent and obstinate, the most dangerous kind of trouble-maker, but they didn’t dare. Chief
Whitebear was too beloved, not only by the Peter Ballendine Band but by every other tribe in the north.

The officials needn’t fret any more, thinks Florence. What they hadn’t been able to accomplish, nature has. Cornelius Whitebear is mortally ill.

“All set, Chief?” she asks as she wraps the blanket around his shoulders.

He nods yes. Florence notices that he looks even more frail than when she had last seen him three days ago. She practically picks up the lanky man, now nothing but skin and bone, and helps him into her canoe. Then she paddles towards Arthur Jan’s dock.

Florence has gambled that his workers will be at the HBC breakfast stuffing their faces, and she is right. No one’s around. As she had foreseen, the three canoes are parked at the dock, one behind the other. They are already weighted down, ready to travel to The Pas. There, the precious cargo will be loaded onto a train bound for New York City.

She has brought rope which she uses to carefully attach the bow of one canoe to the stern of another, until all three are tied together. She then helps Cornelius over to the lead canoe – a motor is attached at the back – and settles him in the bow. She fetches the drum that has been hidden in bushes nearby, and hands it to him. He places it between his knees. “I’m ready,” he says in a steady voice. Florence turns around, puts her hands on his shoulders and kisses him – full on the mouth. Then she climbs into the boat and starts up the motor. “Here we go, Chief,” she says.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

It’s six a.m.
On the beach in front
of the Hudson’s Bay store, Russell and Annie are busy as bees tending the griddle while everybody else mills about.

The kids are all there, boasting about how many pancakes and chunks of bacon each has shoved into his or her mouth. Their parents have filled their bellies as well, and are now standing around, cracking jokes.