Read Online A Dark and Promised Land by Nathaniel Poole - Free Book Online Page B

between the palisade poles, he sees shadows of dancing figures cutting across the fire. The air throbs with dark and compelling drumming.
    â€œI dinna much like our position,” he remarks. “We are between our friends and whatever that is. Good for our friends perhaps, but nae good for us.”
    Rose turns to her father. She knows that such lapses into his native accent are a sure sign of stress.
    â€œPerhaps we should return to the Great House — what do they call it, the Octagon? The Indian word for it is Kitzi-waskahikan .”
    Lachlan turns to her and smiles. “Ah, lass, you do my heart glad. You have been in the country naught but two days, and already you are learning the Savage’s language. Where did you come by the word?”
    â€œI do not recall, father,” she says quickly, recalling her illicit liaison with Isqe-sis. “I imagine I must have overheard it.”
    â€œWell, I approve,” says Lachlan, nodding. “Judging by that bestial noise out there, these people can only be helped by what we can teach them, and in order to teach we must learn their language and their ways.”
    Rose gets up and takes her father by the hand. Though her face is shadowed and invisible, he looks up at her smile.
    â€œYou regret coming here?” she asks.
    â€œNo, but I am uncertain. The little I have seen so far falls fair short of what I had imagined. But listen! That racket is moving closer. Let us flee to the Octagon, or whatever you call it. What do the Irish say? Better a good run than a poor stand?”
    They abandon the cabin for the brightness and safety of the Great House and its peeling walls. Disturbed by the carryings-on outside the fort, most inhabitants have abandoned their beds and several traders carry loaded muskets.
    They enter the main hall where they encounter the chief trader, who is bullied by Rose’s father into giving them a tour. They move from one cold room to another, the way announced by a feeble lantern. Rose’s skirts stir a dirt floor thick with rat droppings, bones, and other filth as they pass through the chapel, mess, trading hall, and even a magazine, wherein Lachlan thinks it foolish to locate such capricious stores inside the place where so many people lived: one lucky shot from a devil Frenchman would send the whole place to heaven. They finish the tour in the warehouse.
    â€œThese are last winter’s furs, ready for shipment to England,” Spencer says, approaching the massive, iron-clad doors. The lock clacks loudly as he turns the key, the lantern guttering as the great doors are swung open, like the breaching of a tomb. It casts a moving, fitful light onto stacked bales of compressed and dried beaver pelts. The space is close and musty, filled with the stench of hundreds of untanned skins.
    â€œThis is a much smaller load than most years,” Spencer says, moving closer to Rose. “It’s been getting that way for some time. Just a few years ago, this room would not have space for a bleeding mouse; she were jammed so tight with beaver.”
    â€œIs it all just one kind of animal?” Lachlan asks, uncomfortable with the clerk’s obvious interest in his daughter. “Do you only trade in beaver?”
    â€œNay,” Spencer replies, not taking his eyes off Rose. “There is also marten and mink and bear. Caribou, moose, and buffalo. Anything ye can slit a hide off is in there. Hell, the Savages would skin mosquitoes if we paid ’em for it. But ’tis mostly the bloody beaver.”
    Lachlan reaches out and fondles the edge of a pelt; it is both crisp and luxuriantly soft at the same time. “Your profanity is unwelcome in the presence of my daughter, Mr. Spencer. However, I find it amazing that the European passion for hats has been responsible for the civilizing of an entire continent.”
    â€œI don’t know about that, sir, begging your Lordship’s pardon,” Spencer says