Lily Fairchild. Don Gutteridge

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      “Sun-in-bitch soldier,” said Sounder behind them. Then, after a decent interval: “They start dancing now.”

      Against the tangerine sun, the Indian dancers were silhouettes freed from gravity, moving at the will of the drum. Their feet struck the ground as if beating the stretched hide of the earth itself. The air above shook with their cries. They danced towards enchantment, expiation, communion. Lily was drawn into the melee and felt her feet take off, seeking out the cadence, finding it with astonished ease, letting her body swing free. She danced until exhaustion overtook her and she moved to the edge of the circle to sit and watch once again.

      After a while a small group of Pottawatomies approached the central fire. They appeared to be members of a single family, a mother and father, some grown sons and a slender girl perhaps a few years older than Lily. The drum dance had stopped, but at a sign from the father it started again, subdued but insistent. His daughter knelt before him as he placed a garland of some sort on her head and began a long incantatory song in Pottawatomie. Lily could catch none of the words, but she knew it was a joyous chant, full of affection and hope.

      “She has changed her name, little dancer.” It was the voice of Southener, the Shawnee, seated beside her. “Her name was White Blossom. Tonight she becomes Seed-of-the-Snow-Apple. It has been proclaimed before all of the tribe. Now she must strive to live up to the name bestowed upon her.”

      Southener said nothing else, as the ceremony ended and the fire grew smoky and fickle.

      Suddenly very tired, Lily dropped her head to his soft shoulder. Papa would find her there, safe and sleeping beside the old Shawnee.

      4

      In honour of Lily’s eleventh birthday, Papa had installed a glass window in her loft sanctuary. From there she could see the quarter moon, the black rampart of trees, the outlines of the new road to the west, and the figures of two men walking purposefully towards the cabin. They knocked, doffed their hats at Papa’s greeting, and entered, the candlelight catching their red hair, slick lapels, and polished boots.

      As soon as Lily heard them speak she knew they were Scots. One spoke smoothly, the other with a sort of hitch, a kink somewhere in every sentence.

      “Yes, thank you very much, but just a thimbleful if you don’t mind. Good for the gout my doctor says.”

      A gurgle of whisky escaping.

      “I’ll join you as well. I haven’t got the gout, but of course I’m anticipatin’ it.”

      They both laughed.

      “Bein’ a gentleman who gets out and around, you’ll know all about our new county status and the marvelous – could I say miraculous – changes it’s bringin’ to our citizens, whatever their race or beliefs.”

      “Or, uh, colour,” added Kinky.

      “Citizenship in Her Majesty’s kingdom is colour-blind, I thank the Good Lord.”

      “To Her Majesty!”

      “What sorta changes do you have in mind for me?” Papa asked, evenly.

      “Well now, they aren’t really, they don’t exactly apply to you, specifically or –”

      “What my cousin is sayin’ is that we are merely servants, appendages of the council who in turn must carry out the laws duly passed by the Legislative Assembly to which – may I remind you – we all sent the Honourable Mr. MacLachlan.”

      “We got snowed in,” said Papa.

      “Precisely why the new road is bein’ expedited.”

      “No citizen will be disenfranchised by a…by the weather.”

      “What laws?”

      “You’ll recall that the survey of ’43, lamentable though it was, served us well enough, but a new one has been made necessary by certain irregularitiesdiscovered in the original.”

      “They had, after all, only the, ah, crudest of instruments and the Indians, we are told, ah, pulled up the markers as fast as they could be laid.”

      “Done, I’m assured, in all innocence.”

      “This ain’t my land, then?”

      “Dear sir, please, uh, please –”

      “– don’t leap to such dire conclusions. We’re here on a mission of mercy, as it were. To be blunt, and to allay any apprehension on your part, let me say straightaway that I have been authorized by the duly elected council of Lambton County to inform you that several small errors were made, back in ’43, in the lot alignments along this particular section of Moore Township.”

      “Very small errors, I assure you.”

      Papa’s chair emitted a sudden groan.

      “Infinitesimal.”

      “Tell me the truth.”

      After a pause, Smoothie said: “Your property is too far east, sir. That is why the road out there runs so far from your cabin-line. Your farm should front almost on the road.”

      “Five yards from it accordin’ to the, ah, lawful survey.”

      “But that still leaves more than thirty yards –”

      “Thirty-three to be precise. Ninety-nine feet, three inches.”

      “More than half my East Field!”

      “That’s correct.”

      “What does this mean?”

      “Calm yourself, sir.”

      “In technical terms it means that you do not own a half of your East Field. And, correspondingly, you own a hundred feet of land to the west –”

      “Covered in bush!”

      “There’s no need for, uh, that sort of tone.”

      “Donald is right. You’ll have every opportunity to buy that improved field. No plans exist for a second line of farms behind this in the immediate future. We’re movin’ south with the new road, and the crossroad will continue from Millar’s farm to the east.”

      “I’d say you have four – even five – years to buy that field.”

      “What with?” Papa’s question went unanswered.

      “There is, I’m afraid, one more point to be made.”

      “A very wee one,” Kinky said.

      “But pertinent. Accordin’ to your contract you were to make a specific number of improvements within ten years, excludin’ your СКАЧАТЬ