For two miles they travelled well in the lee of a heavy forest of birch and poplar growing right to the waterline of the river. When they reached Wigwam Point, the Exploits veered northwest into the wind and each man shouldered into the weight of it as if the sledges had twice the heft of a moment earlier. A mile further on they passed Hughster’s upper salmon station and carried on from there to the remains of a tilt William Cull had used while trapping the previous winter. It was near 3 p.m. with not much more than an hour of light left in the day and Buchan ordered the caravan to a halt. He took Cull and Hughster to reconnoitre the stretch of river ahead while camp was struck.
The tilt’s ceiling had caved in and one wall fallen and the snow had drifted six feet deep against the others. Most of the men were engaged digging out the shelter while Richmond and Taylor took the ship’s boy to cut fresh spruce for bedding and they gathered several turns of young birch and scrag for firewood. A studding sail was unpacked from the sledges and rigged up across the space left by the downed wall and folded across to form something of a ceiling along one side. Two rifle shots reported in the distance.
“Red Indians?” Corporal Bouthland asked.
“Not likely this far down the river,” Peyton said. “If we’re lucky, they come upon some fresh craft for our supper.”
The party hung their wet stockings on sticks near the fire. Half an hour later the advance party returned, dragging the haunch of a caribou. Buchan announced there was clear ice and fair travel for at least the first two miles in the morning. The sleeves of Cull’s coat were laced with blood where he had paunched the animal and severed the back leg from the torso. Large strips of flesh were cut from the haunch and roasted over the fire. The men had not had a proper meal since before dawn and they ate the meat nearly raw.
Buchan made a point of sitting with Peyton. After they had finished eating, both men took out pipes and tobacco, drawing the heat of the smoke into their bodies. “Richmond and Taylor now,” Buchan said quietly. “Should I be keeping them apart?”
Peyton said, “You’d have an easier time parting the waters of the Red Sea.”
“Is that right then?”
“Like an old married couple,” Peyton said, nodding. “Their families fished together on the French Shore, then in Trinity Bay before they came our way.”
“They’ve been with your father how long now?”
“It was Harry Miller hired them. Long before my time,” Peyton said. And then he told Buchan the story as he’d heard it from others on the shore.
Richmond first met Miller on a schooner carrying goods and passengers north into Conception and Trinity bays and on to Fogo Island. He was not more than twelve years old. His family and the Taylors were just returned from a winter in England and heading for new fishing rooms in Trinity Bay. The weather blew hard as soon as they sailed into open water and forced the passengers to keep to the shelter of the steerage quarters. Richmond’s father fell into conversation with a heavy-set man sprawled on the bunk opposite. He had unruly grey hair and bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “There’s land for the taking on the northeast shore,” Miller said. “Salmon galore and as fat as a whore’s leg. Traplines through the backcountry and not enough people to run them all.” He leaned back onto the bunk where he ferreted bed lice out of the straw and nipped them dead between his fingernails. “If you find Trinity not to your liking, you come down to the Bay of Exploits and look for Harry Miller. I’ll set you up.”
Richmond was sitting beside his father during this exchange. John Senior was on the bunk next to Miller though he never spoke a word through the entire conversation.