The Tenderness of Wolves (28 page)

I can see from here that there is something wrong with it; it has the sinister quality of a building in a nightmare.

‘We should go and look. In case he has been there.’

Closer to, I realise what has happened. The post has been burnt to a skeleton; rafters stand gauntly against the sky, broken beams jut out at wrong, upsetting angles. Where walls remain they are charred black, and sag. But the strangest thing of all is that it was recently covered with snow, which melted by day then froze by night, layer on layer of meltwater congealing so that the bare bones are swollen and glazed with ice. It is an extraordinary sight: black, bulbous, glittering, the ice engulfing the buildings as though they have been swallowed by some amorphous creature. It inspires me, and Moody as well, I think, with a sort of horror.

I want, more than anything, to get away from here. Parker walks in between the walls, studying the ground.

‘Someone has left clothes.’ He indicates a shapeless bundle on the ground in one corner. I don’t ask him why anyone would do something like that. I have a hunch I don’t want to know.

‘This is Elbow Ridge. Have you heard of it?’

I shake my head, fairly sure this is something else I would be better off not knowing.

‘It was built by the XY Company. The Hudson Bay Company didn’t like the fact that they tried to set up a post here, so they burnt it down.’

‘How can you know that?’

Parker shrugs. ‘Everyone knows. Things like that happened.’ I glance over towards Moody, thirty yards away through a vanished door, poking about by a jumble of wood that might once, a long time ago, have been a piano.

I look back at Parker to see if he intended any malice, but his face is blank. He has picked up the stiff, frozen cloth and stretches it out–the ice creaks and splinters in protest–to reveal a shirt that was probably once blue but is now so dirty it is hard to be sure. It has been soaked and stained and left here to rot. I suddenly, belatedly, realise the import of this.

‘Is that blood?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

He pokes around some more, and lets out an exclamation of satisfaction. This time even I understand why–there are traces of a fire, black and sooty, close by a wall.

‘Recent?’

‘About a week old. So our man came through here, and stayed the night. We could do worse than copy him.’

‘Stay here? But it’s early. We should go on, surely?’

‘Look at the sky.’

I look up; the clouds, sliced into quadrilaterals by the black beams, are low and dark. Storm-coloured.

Moody, when told of the plan, is bullish. ‘But what is it–another two days to Hanover House? I think we should keep going.’

Parker replies calmly, ‘There is going to be a storm. We will be glad of shelter.’

I can see Moody’s brain whirring, deciding whether or not it is worth arguing, whether Parker will yield to his authority. But the wind is getting up, and he loses his nerve; the sky has become ugly and oppressive. Despite the brooding strangeness of the abandoned post, it is a good deal better than nothing.

Accordingly, we pitch camp within the ruins. Parker constructs a large lean-to against one of the remaining walls, and reinforces it with blackened timbers. I am alarmed when I see how much sturdier this shelter is than any I have seen him build before, but I follow his instructions and unpack the sled. Over the past few days I have become much more adept at the tasks necessary for comfort and survival; I stack the food inside (does he really think we will be trapped for days?), while Moody collects wood–at least there is plenty of that around–and chips ice off the walls for water. We work quickly, infected with a dread of the darkening day and rapidly increasing wind.

By the time we finish our preparations, snow is whipping about us, stinging our faces like a swarm of bees. We crawl into the shelter; Parker lights a fire and boils water. Moody and I sit facing the entrance, which has been secured with large beams, but which has begun to twitch and heave as though desperate men are trying to get in. Over the next hour the wind rises in force and volume until we can hardly hear ourselves speak. It makes an eerie screeching noise, together with the sharp snapping of canvas and a horrible creaking of wall timbers. I wonder if they are going to withstand it, or will collapse under the force and the weight of ice on top of us. Parker seems unconcerned, though I would
wager that Moody shares my fears; his eyes are wide behind his spectacles, and he jumps at any variation in the noises around us.

‘Will the dogs be all right out there?’ he asks.

‘Yes. They will lie down together and keep each other warm.’

‘Ah. Good idea.’ Moody laughs shortly, glancing at me, then drops his eyes when I don’t summon up a laugh to keep him company.

Moody swallows his tea and takes off his boots and socks, revealing feet covered in dried blood. I have watched him tend to his feet on previous evenings, but tonight I offer to do it for him. Perhaps it is the thought of Francis, that the age difference between them is not so great; perhaps it is the storm outside, and the thought that I need all the friends I can get. He leans back and stretches out one foot at a time for me to clean and bandage with strips of linen, which is all we have. I am not gentle but he makes no sound as I clean the wounds with rubbing alcohol and bind them tightly. He has his eyes shut. From the corner of my eye Parker seems to be watching us, although what with the smoke from the fire and from his pipe, visibility in the tent is practically nil and I could be mistaken. When I have finished bandaging his feet, Moody digs out a hip flask and offers it to me. It is the first time I have seen it. I accept, gratefully; it is whisky, not particularly good, but bright and fiery as it burns down my throat, making my eyes water. He offers the flask to Parker too, but he merely shakes his head. Come to think of it, I have never seen him touch liquor. Moody replaces the blood-soaked socks and boots–it is too cold to keep them off.

‘Mrs Ross, you must be a tough backwoods-woman indeed if you can keep this up without blisters.’

‘I have moccasins,’ I point out. ‘They don’t chafe the feet in the same way. You should try to acquire some when we get to Hanover House.’

‘Ah. Yes.’ He turns to Parker, ‘And when will that be, do you think, Mr Parker? Will this storm blow itself out tonight?’

Parker shrugs. ‘It may. But even so, the snow will make the going harder. It may take more than two days.’

‘You’ve been there before?’

‘Not for a long time.’

‘You seem to know the route well enough.’

‘Yes.’

There is a short, hostile pause. I’m not sure where the hostility came from, but it is there.

‘Do you know the factor there?’

‘His name is Stewart.’

I notice that this doesn’t exactly answer the question.

‘Stewart … Know his first name?’

‘James Stewart.’

‘Ah, I wonder if that is the same one … I heard a story recently about a James Stewart, who was famous for making a long winter journey in terrible conditions. Quite a feat, I believe.’

Parker’s face is, as usual, unreadable. ‘I can’t say for certain.’

‘Ah, well …’ Moody sounds tremendously pleased. I suppose that if you know no one in a country, having heard of someone before meeting them is tantamount to having an old friend.

‘So you do know him, then?’ I ask Parker.

He gives me a look. ‘I met him when I worked for the Company. Years ago.’

Somehow his tone warns me against making any further pleasantries. Moody, of course, doesn’t notice.

‘Well well, won’t that be splendid … A reunion.’

I smile. There is really something rather endearing about Moody, crashing about like a bull in a china shop … Then I remember what he is trying to do, and the smile fades.

*

The snow does not stop, nor does the shrieking wind. By unspoken consensus, the canvas is not rigged into a curtain to give me privacy. I lie down between the two men, rolled in layers of blankets, feeling the heat from the embers scorching my face but not wanting to move. Then Moody lies down beside me, and finally Parker smothers the ashes and lies down, so close I can feel him and smell the scent of greenhouses that he carries with him. It is pitch dark, but I do not think that I will close my eyes all night; what with the howling of the wind and the battering the tent is getting; it billows and trembles like a live thing. I am terrified that we will be buried in the snow, or that the walls will collapse and trap us underneath; I imagine all sorts of awful fates as I lie with racing heart and wide stretched eyes. But I must have slept, because I dream, although I do not think I have dreamt in weeks.

Suddenly I awake to find–as I think–the tent has gone. The wind is screaming like a thousand banshees and the air is full of snow, blinding me. I cry out, I think, but the sound goes unheard in the maelstrom. Parker and Moody are both kneeling, fighting to close the mouth of the tent where it has been torn free. They eventually manage to secure it again, but snow has gathered in drifts inside the tent. There is snow on our clothes and in our hair. Moody lights the lamp; he is shaken. Even Parker looks slightly less composed than normal.

‘Well.’ Moody shakes his head and brushes the snow off his legs. We are all wide awake and extremely cold. ‘I don’t know about you but I need something to drink.’

He pulls out the hip flask and drinks from it before handing it to me. I give it to Parker, who hesitates and then accepts. Moody smiles as though this is some sort of personal triumph. Parker lights the fire for tea, and we are all grateful, huddling round it with scorching fingers. I am
trembling, whether through cold or shock I do not know, and do not stop until I have drunk a mug of sweet tea. I watch the men smoking their pipes with envy; it is another warm and soothing thing and that would be welcome, as would a rosewood stem to clench between my chattering teeth.

‘It looked deep out there,’ Moody says when the whisky is finished.

Parker nods. ‘The deeper it gets, the warmer it will be in here.’

‘Well that is a nice thought,’ I say. ‘We will be warm and comfortable while we are smothered to death.’

Parker smiles. ‘We can easily dig ourselves out.’

I smile back at Parker, surprised to see him so amused, and then some little thing recalls to me the dream I was having when I awoke, and I bury my face in my cup. It is not that I remember what I was dreaming exactly; it is more that the feeling around it washes over me with a sudden, peculiar warmth and causes me to turn away, feigning a fit of coughing, so that the men cannot see my cheeks colour in the darkness.

By late morning the storm has almost blown itself out. When I wake again it is light, and more snow has drifted into the corners of the shelter and into the spaces between us. Struggling out of the tent I emerge into a day still gusty and grey, but seeming glorious after the night we have spent there. Our tent is half hidden in a drift three feet deep and the whole place looks entirely different under its blanket of snow; better somehow, less foreboding. It takes me a few minutes to realise that, despite Parker’s assurances, a section of the wall did blow down in the night, though without endangering us. I try not to think about what would have happened if we had made our shelter twenty feet to the east. We did not, and that is the main thing.

Initially I am afraid the dogs are gone, buried for good; as I look round there is no sign of them, whereas usually they are barking their heads off demanding food. Then Parker reappears from somewhere with a long stick of wood which he plunges into the drifts, calling to his dogs with the strange sharp cries he uses to communicate with them. Suddenly there is a sort of explosion by him, and Sisco erupts from a deep drift, followed by Lucie. They jump up at him, barking furiously and wagging their whole bodies, and Parker pets them briefly. He must be relieved to see them; normally he does not touch them at all, and yet now he is smiling, looking genuinely delighted. I have never seen him smile at me like that. Or anyone else, of course.

I go over to where Moody is clumsily packing up the tent material. ‘Let me do that.’

‘Oh, would you, Mrs Ross? Thank you. You put me to shame. How are you this morning?’

‘Relieved, thank you for asking.’

‘I also. That was an interesting night, was it not?’

He smiles, looking almost mischievous. He too seems in high spirits this morning. Perhaps we were all more frightened last night than we cared to admit.

And later, when we are walking north-east once more, even struggling as we are through a foot of driven snow, we walk closely together, Parker regulating his stride to ours, as though we are three people who find solace in each other’s company.

Espen’s voice is urgent.

‘Line. I must talk to you.’

Line tries to still the wild lurching of her heart at hearing him speak her name. They have not exchanged a word for several days.

‘What? I thought your wife was too suspicious.’

The look of pleading in his eyes almost makes her want to weep with joy.

‘I can’t stand it. You haven’t even looked at me for days. Do you care for me so little? Have you thought of me at all?’

Line gives in and smiles, and he embraces her, folding her into himself, pressing her body against his, kissing her face, her mouth, her neck. Then he pulls her with him, opens a door–which leads to a store cupboard–and closes it after them.

Wrestling with their clothing in the absolute dark of the cupboard, pressed against stacks of soap and something that feels like a broom, Line has a jolting, incoherent vision. It is as though the lack of light exonerates them. She cannot even tell who is in here with her. It must be the same for him–they could be any man and woman, anywhere. Toronto, for example. And then she knows what she will do.

Line prises her mouth from his skin long enough to say, ‘I cannot stay here. I am going to leave. As soon as I can.’

Espen pulls back. She can hear his breathing, but cannot see his face in this darkness.

‘No, Line, I can’t stand to be without you. We can be careful. No one will know.’