Entry Island

Shock spread through the crowd like fire, dispersing them in silent panic like smoke in the wind. The Bear stood over Michaél’s body, breathing heavily, his lip curled in contempt, blood dripping from the knife in his hand. He pulled a gob of phlegm into his mouth and spat on him as he lay on the ground.

His friends immediately grabbed him and pulled him quickly away as I ran to Michaél’s side. I crouched beside him and gently turned him over, to see the light dying in those pale-blue eyes I knew so well. ‘Focker!’ he whispered through the blood bubbling between his lips. His hand clutched my sleeve. ‘You owe me, Scotsman.’

And he was gone. Just like that. All that life and energy and intelligence. Vanished in a moment. Stolen by a brute of a man who knew nothing of human dignity. Of Michaél’s generosity or his friendship or his courage. And I wept for him, just as I had wept for my father. And I am not sure I have ever felt quite so alone in this world.

It didn’t seem right that the sun should shine so brightly, falling through the windows of the foreman’s office across his desk, reflecting a dazzle of light in our faces while Michaél lay dead outside. The foreman was about forty, and had spent all of his adult life in the lumber business. His jaw was set, and his lips pressed together in a hard line.

‘I’m not bringing in the police,’ he said. ‘We’d have to call a halt to production while they had an investigation. And you can bet your bottom dollar there’s not a man in the camp who’ll say he saw what happened. Not even your precious Scots.’

‘I will,’ I said.

He glared at me. ‘Don’t be a fucking idiot, man. You’d not live to testify.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t afford a war breaking out between the Scots and the French. Nor can I afford any more delays in production. We’re behind as it is.’

He crossed the room to a small safe that stood against the far wall and took out a pile of notes tied in a bundle he’d already prepared. He threw it down on the desk. That’s your money. Yours and O’Connor’s. You can have one of the horses. Just take the body and go.’

So there was to be no justice. Not of the legal kind, anyway.

It was dark by the time I had sewn Michaél up in a canvas sheet and strapped his body to the back of the horse. The camp had been quiet all day, and no one said a word to me when I gathered together all our stuff, mine and Michaél’s, to pack into saddlebags. No one came out of the huts to shake my hand or say goodbye as I led the horse off along the lumber trail that tracked away from the river.

Inside I was as icy as I was cold on the outside. But not so numb that I couldn’t sense the fear that still hung in a pall over the lumber camp. I didn’t go far before I pulled the horse off the track and into the woods to tie her up to a tree.

I had thought long and hard about Michaél’s final words to me. You owe me, Scotsman. I owed him money, yes. The cash he had loaned me on Grosse Île to pay the keep of Catrìona Macdonald’s children. I had been going to pay it back out of my wages. But I knew that’s not what he meant. I knew, too, what I had to do. And I knew it was wrong. But Michaél was right. I owed him.

I suppose it must have been about midnight when I sneaked back into the camp. There was no light anywhere. Not a soul stirring. These men worked hard, played hard, and slept the sleep of the dead. There was a new moon in the sky, a sliver of light to guide me as I drifted like a ghost between the long sheds until I found the one where I knew the French slept. The doors were never locked, and the only fear I had was that this one would creak in the silence of the night and waken men from their slumbers. I needn’t have worried. It swung open soundlessly, and I slipped inside.

It was profoundly dark here, and I had to wait until my eyes accustomed themselves to what little moonlight fell through the windows before I moved along between the rows of bunk beds looking for the big, bearded face of The Bear.

His bed was second from the end, the lower bunk. The man above him was breathing gently, purring like a cat, one arm hanging over the edge of his bed. The Bear himself was lying on his back, snoring like the wild boar we hunted in the woods. He slept deep, without a conscience, without a second thought for the life he had taken so gratuitously that day. Of the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years of accumulated experience that had made the man who was Michaél O’Connor. Flawed, yes. But a man of generous spirit and good humour, whose very existence he had erased from the face of this earth in the flash of a blade.

I felt anger and grief bubbling up inside me and knelt down beside his bald head. If I were caught, they would kill me for sure. But in that moment I didn’t care. I had one thought, one single purpose.