Lily Fairchild. Don Gutteridge

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      Next day they rose and were well on their way before sunrise. But this time Lily knew more about what lay ahead. From various overheard conversations at the Partridges she learned that the village of Port Sarnia sat less than two hours’ walk along River Road to the north, and that one was not to be surprised by periodic farms in lee of the road, though the spread of a dozen at what the locals called Bloomfield was the largest group below the Port itself. Here and there slash-roads were cut eastward through the woods so that one could imagine not merely strips of settlement, but successive waves challenging the hidden heart at the centre of the territory, known only to the natives and the hibernating bears who were said to rule there unmolested. At the end of River Road the bush would relent and they would come to a huge clearing where the river eased into a wide bay, the site of the new town, and behind it to the south and east the Ojibwa, or Chippewa, Reserve where several thousand Indians lived in scattered equanimity. What they were there to witness, what Sounder couldn’t stop dancing about, was the arrival of the government ship for the annual dispersal of gifts given in exchange for land ‒ territory of which the native owners had already been dispossessed.

      Just moments before Lily and the others emerged from the bush into the misty dawn-light, the steamer Hastingsweighed anchor and slipped from its overnight mooring in the bay towards the river bank below the town. On board was Major John Richardson, who had joined the official expedition at Windsor on October 9, 1948, and who was carefully recording the events surrounding the gift-giving ceremonies at the Reserves on Walpole Island and at Port Sarnia. The weather was flawless: the sky unscarred by cloud, the sun brilliant as a rubbed coin, the wind at ease in the sea-grasses along the shoreline. As if the whole enterprise had been choreographed, dozens of parties of Indians, large and small, materialized from the forest of their Reserve at various spots along the two-mile curve that formed the natural bend of the bay. Most walked, single file, with the women and children behind. Others, more resplendent, rode the motley ponies bred on the Island.

      At some undetectable signal, the Government contingent marched down a single plank to the shore, a sort of colour guard, dazzling in blue, red and white, breaking off and standing crisply at attention while a larger platoon of regulars from the Canadian Rifles wheeled southerly just ahead of the navvies freighted with the Queen’s largesse. At the same moment, five dignified Indians, obviously chiefs, moved towards the colour guard, stopped dead-still, and waited. Major Richardson, wan and aged beyond his years but impeccably turned out, stepped forward with Captain Rooke. While Her Majesty’s gifts, neatly bound in fleece-white blankets tied at the four corners, were being carefully laid out in predetermined rows, White Man and Indian exchanged formal greetings, then sat down at the entrance to a huge skin tent and passed the ceremonial pipe. Major Richardson was seen to talk animatedly in Ojibwa to several of the chiefs whose smiles were all-encompassing. Meanwhile the more than one thousand natives who had now reached the plain began to select their presents. The bundles were not marked in any way, but each individual or group knew, from custom and tradition, which kind of bundle was intended, and deserved. There was no rush, no confusion even though the actions of the several families and tribes appeared to be spontaneous. Bundles were carried off to the edges of the plain where families had set up their cooking apparatus and blankets for the events ahead. Fires sprang up, cards and dice appeared, fresh calico paraded, Cavendish proffered and puffed. The Great White Mother had wafted her attention and grace across the world-sea and blessed them with this day.

      Only one element seemed out of place on a morning described later by Richardson as having “all of the softness of mellowed autumn.” One of the chiefs, a wrinkled and scarred veteran of the Battle of the Thames who had stood beside Tecumseh when the Yankee bullets ruptured the great man’s heart, did not smile, did not sip peace with his brothers, did not take the gifts offered, did not bend his gaze from the badges and brass before him. He was Shaw-wah-wan-noo, the Shawnee or Southener, the only one of his race known to still inhabit these grounds so long after those cataclysmic events. Richardson, at an age when romanticizing is either foolish or profound, wrote in his account that this man, “notwithstanding five and thirty years had elapsed since Tecumseh’s fall, during which he had mixed much with the whites, suffered not a word of English to come from his lips. He looked the dignified Indian and the conscious warrior, whom no intercourse with the white man could rob of his native independence of character.”

      Lily was made dizzy by the colour and the crowds. The Indians’ regalia took two forms: the outlandish harlequin suits of many of the younger Chippewa – complete with scarlet sashes, blue leggings, black and white ostrich feathers, and an English-made beaver hat – and the traditional deerskins, rabbit furs and eagle feathers of the older males and of most of the Pottawatomies. At first Lily could observe only the natives since, when she had stepped out of the bush that morning, the plain was dotted with them. Later she followed the slow-paced Acorn towards the bay and the ceremonial party. There she saw the soldiers she had heard about from Gaston LaRouche and his war stories. Their scarlet uniforms caught the mid-morning sun, imprisoning it; the bright steel and gilt of their swords dazzled all who dared look their way. Never had she seen men uniformly attired, prancing in step, swinging their arms high in unison, marching to the panicked hammering of drums. She saw too their sleek rifles and the bayonets thin as a wish-bone: these weapons, she knew, were not for hunting.

      There were a few white women in the throng too, whose tailored jackets and fancy bonnets she could only gawk at. Since observing the Partridges, mother and daughters, she was all too aware of her sack-cloth chemise, her improvised leggings, and her unadorned reddish-blond hair. She sat down by the fire-pit, the better to hide from notice. She did not hear Acorn squat beside her in the commotion, but then became aware of his presence. He held out an offering.

      “For you, little fawn,” he said, averting his eyes. It was a gift, a buckskin pouch bearing an intricate configuration of beading that might have been inspired by the stars.

      About noon-time, Lily ventured down to the River. The paddle-wheel steamer blocked her view until, from its iron stack, clots of soot shot upwards, smudging the sky. Several men tossed whole logs into a square stove-like affair and the flame inside blew white and venomous. Suddenly a man in a dirty uniform gave a shout. A metallic rod whined, the wooden sides of the boat shivered, and the wheel beat frantically at the calm water, sending the steamer northward towards the townsite.

      The River was now hers. She could see the other side, but the trees there were faded and shapeless, so vast was the blue torrent flowing past them. To the south she could trace its surge for miles as it swept through the bush. This was no creek, however magnified in imagination. No shadow touched its translucent face save that of the herring-gull or fish-hawk; it was forever open to the sun and the stars. There was an eternal earth-light in that blue tidal twisting, even in the depths. It rejoiced in its flowing.

      To the north, beyond this brief inlet, the near-bank bent slightly west, and Lily strained to see through the autumn haze the place where the Freshwater Sea of the Hurons fed its own waters into the River. She felt its mammoth presence behind the mist.

      Papa spent much time talking with the officers and other white men from the steamer and Port Sarnia. Many times he laughed out loud; other times, his eyes clouded over, the way they did when he talked about Mama. Twice his gaze had searched out Lily among the throngs, looked relieved to find her, and then twinkled. Sounder hopped and skittered, threw dice and horse-traded, and finally snoozed beside her in the afternoon grass.

      “I’ll give you a half-dollar for it, ancient one.” The officer held the coin up to the sun as if it were a jewel or a talisman. The old Pottawatomie chief eyed it, tempted. His hands unconsciously rubbed the black walnut war club they had polished with their affection these many years since the wars ended.

      “This club belong to my father,” he said, more to himself than to the pot-bellied military man before him.

      “Two half-dollars, then.”

      The old one looked СКАЧАТЬ