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says.
    â€œAye, but with what?” someone replies.
    â€œYork Fort will have the tools that we need.”
    â€œPerhaps the other ships, they will find us?”
    â€œThey have been scattered by the tempest. But perhaps they will take us south.” Lachlan waves a hand at the Indians.
    â€œAye,” replied a grizzled Orkneyman. “Ah spoke with their chief, the big buck standing there. He says they can paddle some o’ us down the coast to the fort. It’s nae far, he says, though I dinna much trust him.”
    â€œPray, lower your voice, sir, they understand English.”
    â€œSo kin me dog, but I dinna worry about it.” Several men share a nervous chuckle.
    Lachlan looks down at the body. A middle-aged man, naked but for a wrapping of polished green seaweed over his belly and legs. He is on his back, eyes open and staring. Tiny puddles of seawater had collected over his shrunken orbits, and he appears to be studying the sky through spectacles. Lachlan wonders if he had met the man, had spoken to him. He does not remember the face. He reaches over and closes the eyes, wiping his wet fingers on his breeches.
    â€œWe cannot leave them here to the whitemaa or be washed out to sea. If we have no means to bury them then we must bring them above the tide, cover them with boughs, and stand watch. This much must be done.”
    â€œBut which of us will go with the heathen?”
    â€œI shall go. And my daughter shall go with me as she has lost her habiliments. The Company officer will know from whom at York Fort we should procure assistance. I do not know whom else. You, perhaps.”
    The man, a muscular Highlander with a black scraggly beard and weary eyes, nods at him.
    The task of gathering the dead is a grisly one, as scavengers have already defiled some of the corpses. At least half of the ship’s complement has died, though most are not accounted for in the pale forms scattered on the beach.
    As the day lengthens, the clouds begin to dissipate and a weak sun gradually emerges. The breeze dies and biting insects flow down from the wall of trees the way a cool air flows from a height with the coming of night. The Indians start a smudge fire of seaweed, but it doesn’t help much against the onslaught.
    The men carry the bodies to a spot above the high-water mark as far from the forest as possible, the Indians warning that there are animals who will and can walk off with a corpse or part of one at the turn of a back: bear, lynx, wolf, marten, wolverine, and lion, plus a host of small and furtive beasts happy to snatch a mouthful of carrion.
    The women take axes and cut spruce boughs to cover the bodies, the beach echoing with the sound of distant chopping. Although she is not expected to work, Rose feels she would be remiss to not contribute. She stands in a bog and hews at tough, pitch-covered spruce branches while mosquitoes and blackflies crawl over her hands and face. It is more difficult than anything she has experienced, and sweat runs into her eyes. With each step, she sinks ankle-deep into wet peat. Moss hangs from overhead branches, dragging through her hair, and coating it in cobwebs and pine needles.
    The axe handle suddenly shatters, the ricocheting head scoring her forehead. Blood quickly begins flowing. She stumbles and sits heavily in the peat, weeping. Isqe-sis yanks the broken handle from her hand and throws it into the forest.
    â€œThis what you Êmistikôsiw , you Whites trade with us, this …” and she begins a long diatribe, not a word of which Rose understands, although the anger is unmistakable. Still cursing, the woman presses a handful of the moss to Rose’s wound.
    â€œIn winter such axe could kill a man or his family,” she says. “Bad guns, bad axes, sick clothes …”
    Rose cannot help but feel that although Isqe-sis is tending her, the Indian would just as rather leave her to bleed. She feels a rising indignation; what