There was one small beach in the face of the island where a boat could be hauled up onto the shore. The Beothuk had arrived ahead of him and were already off along the cliffs to gather eggs, their canoe lying against the grey stone. His first notion was to turn about and pull for the mainland, but he looked down at the twelve-bore long-barrelled duck gun he’d brought for birding and the musket he carried with him at all times. There couldn’t be more than six people in the one canoe, he guessed.
He muffled his oars as he rowed into the shallows and stepped out into knee-deep water. He grabbed the painter at the bow and sloshed up onto the beach. Above the landwash was the only bit of woods on the island and Richmond flipped the skiff onto an edge and coopied underneath to heft it onto his back. He nestled the boat out of sight and sat as deeply in the droke as he could without losing his view of the canoe. He loaded both guns, humming tunelessly under his breath and stealing glances up towards the beach. He laid the shotgun near his feet and sat with the musket across his lap and waited as the day steadily burned off the mist.
Taylor startled him awake with the toe of his boot, kicking at his shoulder where he lay asleep. He looked up over the edge of his blanket at the figure standing above him. It took a moment to register where he was, to place himself on the banks of the River Exploits, on the way to the Red Indian’s lake. “Your watch,” Taylor said and then turned to wake John Peyton.
“Leave him,” Richmond whispered. “Let him sleep.”
He laid an armful of dry scrag onto the fire for the quick heat and put water on to boil for a mug of tea. He ran his fingers through the length of his beard as if the dream’s greasy residue was tangled there and he was trying to ferret it clear.
His sister had been hanging out sheets on the line beside her house when he came up from the landwash at Tom Taylor’s river, carrying the girl. There was a sharp, warm breeze of wind and the wet clothing tailed out and snapped behind her. She had clothespins in a pocket of her white apron and held three in her mouth. Her long dark hair was tied back into a ponytail but fine wisps had come free of the ribbon and blew around her head and into her face. She took the clothespins from her mouth and stood to watch him as he came up the low grassy hill. She used both hands to keep her hair clear of her eyes. Richmond carried the girl awkwardly against his shoulder, as if he was shielding her face from the weather. When he reached his sister he held the staring child out in his hands. “Here,” he said.
She handled the girl but never took her eyes from his face.
“She haven’t made a sound since I found her,” he said. “Out on the bird islands.” He motioned over his shoulder with his head. “She was left all alone out there.”
Siobhan looked down at the girl.
“Where’s Tom?”
She motioned to the forest behind them. “After a bit of wood.”
“She’s probably half starved to death,” he said. “Find her something to eat, will you?”
By the time Richmond found Tom Taylor and the two made their way back to the house, the girl was sitting at the table with a fig tit, sucking at the flavour of raisins through a cloth. Her free hand held a wooden figure, a doll of some sort, to her chest.
“Well Jesus loves me,” Taylor said.
“We got to get her into St. John’s Tom.”
Siobhan looked from Richmond to her husband and back several times. “And what do you think you’ll be doing with her there?”
Richmond said, “She’s worth fifty pounds if we can get her to the governor.”
Taylor shook his head and looked at his feet, embarrassed to have it stated so plainly. Siobhan’s face was pale as milk despite her years of working outside and her pulse pounded in the blue veins at her temples. “And you think the governor is going to believe you found this child wandering around on her own on the bird islands?”
Taylor said, “I knew it was a mistake to let her see the girl.”
“I suppose you’re in for it as much as he is,” she said to her husband. “I never seen the likes of the two of you in all my born days.”
The girl stared and sucked at the cloth in her hand.
“Well now, there she is, like it or not,” Taylor said. He took his hat from his head and folded it between his hands. “We can’t go put her back on the island and leave her there, can we?”
Siobhan had suffered two miscarriages early in her married life and had never managed to become pregnant again. The two men could see all the grief and anger she accumulated through those losses expressing itself now in her protectiveness of the child. Taylor turned to Richmond and said, “We’ll never talk no sense into her.”
“Well, we’ll see what Master Peyton has to say about it all then,” Richmond said.
They slept that night at the Taylors’ house. Richmond lay on the daybed in the kitchen and the girl was given a tiny room opposite the one where Tom and Siobhan slept. Taylor tied a string to the doorknob of her room and, once in bed, tied the end of the string about his big toe to guard against her sneaking the door open and wandering off in the night.
Siobhan shook her head. “She’s not five years old, Tom Taylor.”