A Name of Her Own by Jane Kirkpatrick

Author:Jane Kirkpatrick [Kirkpatrick, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-56882-3
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2013-07-25T00:00:00+00:00

It was clear they could not make passage to the sea by this Canoe River. “I had hoped it was a way,” Hunt said. He chewed the inside of his cheek. The partners’ eyes glanced uneasily between them.

Pierre watched Hunt in the firelight. Were his eyes pooling? No. Surely no leader had watered eyes. It was enough that Mackenzie grieved his dog, that his own sons had cried when they left that Hawk horse behind with the Shoshones, and again when Antoine Clappine was lost to his watery grave.

But a leader should never cry; it only disheartened his followers. Even Pierre knew that.

These men, these partners, were soft. They had trouble making the hard decisions. Sometimes things did not work out, but a thing had to be decided, just the same. If not for all these men, then each one for himself. A leader must give hope. Hunt kept sending parties out, looking for information as though some right and perfect piece of news would be brought back to tell him exactly what to do next.

A leader had to gather up what he could and twine it like a bridge over an empty chasm, moving from where he was to where he needed to be. A man’s strength was the courage it took to cross that gorge, not in the gathering up of information about how to do it.

“Dorion, head on up, you and an engage or two. See if the rapids cease after a few miles.”

“Wilson …” Mackenzie said.

“Do it!” Hunt ordered.

The men obeyed, found that the river still twisted and snaked. When they were alone, Hunt said to Pierre, “This is a branch of Lewis’s River, then, not the Canoe at all. Just the Mad River that snakes to the Columbia, I know. It can’t be floated, not from here. We’ve come upon it too far north.” A light snow fell as they talked.

“We will go back, winter at Henry’s Fort?” Pierre suggested.

Hunt chewed on his cheek. “No. Let’s see if we can’t find some way of putting canoes in and out on the south bank. We’ve turned back enough.”

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