Buchan nodded a while. It seemed to him, from the way the story had been told, that it was the Mi’kmaq who were mostly to blame for the enmity between the two peoples and for the bloodshed that followed, and he said as much to Young, as diplomatically as he was able in his stilted French.
Young shrugged. He pulled the cloak of caribou hide across his shoulders higher around his neck. He said he would have expected an officer in the British navy to lay the blame on the French who posted the bounty in the first place. But given the nationality of his wife, he supposed it was understandable that Buchan proved to be an exception.
It was night by this time and the only light in the shelter was cast by the fire. Noel Young pushed himself to his feet and announced he was about to go down to the river to fish and he invited the officer to come along.
Buchan looked at him. “Vous alhez pêcker maintenant?” he said. “Dans le noir?” He’d seen no sign of it to this point, but he thought the man must be drunk to the point of senselessness.
“Venez avec moi,” Young said, and he went out the door and headed down towards the river.
Buchan got to his feet. “Rowsell,” he whispered to the corporal. “Take a couple of men down to the shoreline in a few minutes. I’m not sure what this one has in mind. He says we’re going fishing.”
“In the dark, sir?”
“Apparently, yes.”
He found Young kneeling beside the canoe. A long torch lay on the ground beside him, the head wrapped with tightly woven dried reeds. The Mi’kmaq struck sparks into a ball of tinder and blew gently on the fragile ripple of flame, then held the torch above it, turning the head slowly until it was well alight. He stood and used a hand to invite Buchan into the canoe, then handed him the torch. He pushed the length of the canoe into the shallow water and stepped in himself, paddling out into the current and drifting slowly downstream.
“Où allons-nous?” Buchan asked.
They rounded a point of land and Young turned the canoe into a broad steady where the water ran twice the depth of the river. “Ici,” he said. He set the paddle down and took up a spear, its wooden shaft about five feet in length. The tip was barbed iron. There was a length of cord tied at the bottom and Young fastened the loose end to his wrist. He moved to the middle of the canoe and pushed his knees as wide as the sides allowed for balance. Buchan turned to face him, still unsure what was happening, or what might be expected of him. In the light of the torch he could see only the man kneeling across from him, the gunnels of the canoe, a six-foot circumference of river water. The shoreline, the forest, even the stars overhead were lost to him.
“You think Noel Young crazy, hey?”
“Not at all.”
The Mi’kmaq smiled at him. “You think Noel Young drunk?”
“No,” he lied.
Young told him to hold the torch out over the water, about two feet above the surface. He lifted the spear to his shoulder and stared past the torchlight down into the river. Buchan watched his face, the hairless upper lip, the motion of muscles in the jaw as he clenched and unclenched his teeth. His ears were pierced and hung with pendants of birds and fish carved from bone or shells. “You were on the River Exploits last March,” he said, “when the Peytons carried the Red Indian woman down from the lake.”
Young lifted a finger to his lips without taking his eyes from the water, then pointed. Buchan looked down to see one of the last salmon of the season rise to the light and turn from the surface, the pale length of its belly flashing in the glow of the torch before the spearhead drove through the water.
Noel Young lifted the spear from the water and the writhing fish came out of the river with it. He looked across at Buchan.
“Dick Richmond said that you spent a night with them.”
“After they got the woman, heading down to the coast.” Young released the salmon from the barbed head of the spear and it slapped its torn body helplessly against the bark of the canoe.
“They killed two Red Indian men. Did they tell you that?”
He motioned for Buchan to hold the torch back out over the water and lifted the spear to his shoulder again.
“Richmond shot one of the Reds, yes?”
Young nodded.
“And the old man, John Senior. He killed the other?”
The Mi’kmaq turned his face from the river to stare at Buchan. “Richmond say it was Irishman.” He looked back to the water. “His wife Micmac.”
“Reilly?”
“Reilly. Joe Jep. He put the rifle behind the ear.” Young used his free hand to point to a spot above and behind his own ear. “Bang.”
A second salmon rose staring into the light and torqued away too late. The canoe rocked and settled.