Guy Vanderhaeghe by The Englishman's Boy

Author:The Englishman's Boy [Boy, The Englishman's]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781551995700
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 1997-09-12T22:00:00+00:00

By early afternoon, Evans suggested they call a halt, but some time between breakfast and then Hardwick had undergone a change of plan. He had ditched the notion of leisurely travel and demanded they press forward. Evans did not argue and no one else asked for an explanation; they knew Hardwick better than to question the man’s decision. For the next five hours they pushed on, then paused to water the horses while the men ate a little biscuit and jerked meat. After twenty minutes, Hardwick signalled them to mount again, there were miles to be made before dusk fell.

As they advanced on twilight the wind died down, but heavy, grape-coloured clouds were louring in the north, gloomily dragging toward them. They and the wolfers met on the spine of a ridge in the last vestiges of tinted light, the world displayed behind smoked glass. A slow, steady rain began and with it night descended, a swift black sword. The men dismounted and the few with waterproofs wrestled into them, the rest crouched miserably under tented coats and blankets, passing a glum hour watching water puddle around their boots.

As abruptly as the rain had begun, it ended. Men, soaked and chilled to the bone, threw off soggy blankets, groaning as they shook and stamped free joints which had locked while they hunkered under cover. They hobbled about in the darkness, doing what needed to be done, unsaddling and picketing the horses, spreading bedrolls, breaking out biscuits and dried meat, dim wraiths, shadows of routine. Soft, impersonal curses, the clink of metal buckles and the creak of leather, someone’s dry, hacking cough were the only sounds. A few damp buffalo-chip fires began to fume and stink. Tonight Hardwick had relented and said they might smoke and build fires – if they could find anything dry enough to burn. A long, cold night threatened. Grace and the Englishman’s boy were muffled up in saddle blankets still warm with the body heat of horses. They sat before a small fire started from a bundle of kindling the Eagle packed for just such emergencies. The boy was toasting a stack of damp buffalo chips on a stick, drying them so they would burn. That was Grace’s idea. He had a handle on things, a practical turn of mind. Some of the pissers and moaners would rather stay wet and complain than do something to make themselves as comfortable as they could. The two of them were getting on though, doing just fine.

Or perhaps he should say the three of them because the Scotchman had crept up to the cheer of their fire like a woebegone dog. There he sat hugging his knees, three or four feet off where the flames licked at the night, his face wavering in and out of the black in tune with the beating heart of the fire. He wasn’t talking any more, to himself or anybody else for that matter, but he was still smiling, although the corners of the smile appeared to have wilted and run a mite in the rain.

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