Little Bird Lands Read online

  “Oh!” I call out, as the boat lurches and loses me my balance.

  I reach out for Lachlan’s arm, but my younger brother has quite forgotten he has a sickly sister; in his excitement at seeing the shanty town and harbour growing ever closer, he has hurried back to rejoin the throng of folk who stand at the front of the ship, bundled in layers of coats and scarves and shawls against the slap of the winter winds and the lightly drifting snow.

  And then a strong arm comes about me, and I feel moored again.

  “Are you all right, Bridie?” says Father, gazing into my face in concern. His scruffy dark-red hair and beard bring a cheer of colour against the bruised sky and whirling snowflakes.

  “I’m fine,” I lie, wishing – despite my best intentions to be cheerful – that I was resting in my bed in our rooms at Mrs Drummond’s, with the chicken coop and its chirping inhabitants outside the window and the merry sound of our landlady clattering about in the kitchen downstairs. I hold still for a second and can almost hear her singing “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” or some other Scottish song that Marthy-Jane likes to skip and dance around to.

  “I’m not sure you are quite fine yet, Bridie, but once we’re settled you’ll be back to your usual good health,” Father says with a nod, then stands straight and looks about him. “Ah, now … do you hear that?”

  “Do you mean the ice cracking?” I ask.

  “No. Listen again!”

  Ah, now I do hear something else. I hear a hard, metallic thumping and presume it to be a mechanical matter from the bowels of the ship as it slows and gets ready to dock. I nod in reply, though it makes my head swirl unpleasantly.

  “That is the sound of a stamp mill,” Father says.

  “A stamp mill?” I repeat questioningly.

  “Look. Can you see the top of that tall wooden structure just rising above the roofs of those buildings?” he asks.

  “The thing that looks like a capital ‘H’?” I check.

  “Yes! Though we can’t make it out from here, between the wooden struts are great metal hammers that come down one after the other upon rocks to crush them, and so release the copper welded inside.”

  “How do you know about that, Father?” I ask, peering in the direction of the noisy piece of mining machinery.

  “Gordon described it to me,” Father says, his face quite lit up with the marvel of it all.

  Gordon. I never met this Gordon Gillespie, another Highlander who Father worked alongside in the making of Central Park. If it were not for him and his brother – who needed a winter tenant for his carpentry store in Hawk’s Point – we would not have found ourselves here.

  “What luck to have found this place.” Father sighs contentedly, before looking at me with a knowing smile. “Or is it the ‘invisible thread’, Bridie?”

  “Aye, Father, I suppose it is,” I say, remembering the conversation we once had around the table at Mrs Drummond’s.

  We’d been speaking of the peculiar luck or coincidence that meant newly arrived immigrants to America – whether they be from Scotland, Russia, China or whichever land – should end up travelling hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles to some particular settlement, only to find themselves living right next to a neighbour from their old village back home!

  But of course it is not luck or coincidence at all. For an immigrant coming to a new land, there is sense and comfort in following the routes and trails of those who have gone before. That night I told the others that I likened this to an invisible thread – fine as a spider’s web – that stretched almost magically from people’s homelands, across the ocean, only to weave and wander its way all across this vast country.

  And so our invisible thread has brought us here…

  “Father, Bridie – listen!” Lachlan calls out to us over his shoulder.

  At first I suppose that Lachlan is talking of the stamp mill’s steady chest-pounding clatter and bang, but there is another sound above it – the pleasing peal of a bell and sharp trill of whistling.

  “The townsfolk are glad for us to be coming, Father!” Lachlan calls out again in delight.

  “It seems so.” Father laughs at my brother’s words, before turning to me. “Is that not a good omen, Bridie? Showing us that we are in the right place? That we three shall be content here?”

  My sister Effie was always one for omens, but I don’t truthfully think my city-loving sister would see any good ones here, in this tucked-away corner of a faraway state, in this biting cold.

  “I hope so, Father!” I say as brightly as I can, feeling my chest burn and tighten after my last coughing fit.

  But Father is now busy calling for my brother and hurriedly sorting through our luggage. In a few short minutes we are all laden like packhorses with bags and satchels, while Father and Lachlan carry the heavy trunk between them.

  “Are the people of Hawk’s Point always as friendly and welcoming?” Father asks the deckhand who is wrestling with the gangplank that will let us ashore.

  “They are not welcoming you, sir,” the deckhand replies in some burred, Scandinavian accent. “They welcome the ship and the goods it brings.”

  I see Father’s smile fade a little; so much for the good omen he foresaw.

  “They all know that this is the last sailing of the year,” the deckhand continues. “Nothing more’s coming though this way till spring.”

  At that last remark, I see Father’s smile reignite, while I cannot help myself shivering a little at the notion that we are to be stranded for months in this unknown place, as trapped as Mr P. T. Barnum’s beluga whale in its watery jail. However, Father clearly feels that we are all safely marooned, so very far from the Civil War and its battles – and acts of terror done in its name.

  But if we are to be cut off from the world here, who will be our neighbours? I gaze out at the faces in the throng and see some women, perhaps twenty or so children of all ages, several babes-in-arms, and many rough-looking men in battered clothing, some with white clay pipes wedged in their mouths. Miners, they’ll be, taking time away from their underground burrowing to collect provisions for the coming winter.

  “Thoir an aire, Bridie!”

  Father tells me to take care in Gaelic as the crowd of locals jostle close to the end of the gangplank, leaving little space for us to disembark.

  And the single-minded business and chatter of the crowd carries on as we finally step on to dry land and seek out a cart that might take our luggage and chest to our new lodgings, at the carpenter’s store. A handcart is secured, and its owner is a young Indian man, I’m surprised to see. I have not met such a person before. New York’s streets team with people from countries far and wide across Europe and Asia, but if an Indian has walked the city’s streets, I have not been lucky enough to see one. I sneak a sideways glance at him, at his still, high-cheeked face, his long, black, braided hair and loose suede trousers, which he wears alongside a black jacket, shirt, waistcoat and wide-rimmed felt hat. His belt is unusual, though – it is a band made of many small, coloured beads.

  As we walk towards what looks like one single street of shanty buildings, I try to catch a glimpse of the belt again, to make out the intricate pattern of it. But then I hear a raised voice and glance back towards the bustle of the harbour-front.

  “You cannot be!” a very smartly dressed man is yelling, his face as florid red as his hair is startlingly white-blond. He is yelling at a tall woman who must have come from the ship, guessing from the luggage piled at her feet.

  “Well, as you can clearly see, I am,” the bespectacled woman answers calmly, hands stuffed in the deep pockets of her long, thick overcoat.

  “I’m expecting a STEPHEN Spicer,” the man bellows.

  “You have STEPHANIE Spicer, I’m afraid, so we’ll just have to make the best of it, won’t we?” the woman states flatly.

  “Bridie!”

  I turn in the direction of my brother’s call and see that a skinny, rough-haired dog – with extraordinaril
y pale-grey eyes – seems to be padding alongside Lachlan, Father and the rattling cart and its owner. They are all swiftly leaving me dawdling, and so I do my best to make my leaden legs follow after them.

  The conversation between the woman and the smartly dressed man – I can no longer hear it. But I suspect I’ll find out what it’s all about soon enough. In a place this small there can be no secrets, can there?

  Then again, I wish most sincerely that no one will find out ours… Young Lachlan MacKerrie, a black-hearted thief. Our father Robert MacKerrie, suspected of a murder plot. And myself, Bridie MacKerrie, a kidnapper would you believe.

  No, some secrets need to stay buried where they belong, back in Scotland…

  “It’s a fine-looking animal!” says Father, his boots slip-sliding on the frozen ruts of the road.

  The Indian nods in agreement as he pulls the handcart between two rows of low, roughly built wooden buildings.

  In truth, the grey-eyed dog looks like some wild creature. A wolf from the mountains. But it walks – in its springy way – quite peaceably at the side of its master.

  “What kind of dog is it, sir?” Lachlan asks.

  The young man gives my brother a startled smile. Perhaps he is not used to being addressed as “sir”. “He’s an Alaskan husky. Got him as a pup from a hunter fella in a town along the coast. Alaskan huskies are working dogs up in Canada and further north.”

  “Has he got a name?” asks Lachlan.

  “I call him Odayan,” the man answers with a shrug, and the dog looks up sharply at him.

  “Odayan… Odayan…” Lachlan carefully repeats, earning a glance from the dog himself. “Is that an Indian name?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does it mean?” Lachlan persists, hop-skipping alongside the dog and risking a shy stroke of its head. The wary dog lowers itself away from my brother’s hand.

  “Dog,” says the Indian, with a hint of a smile.

  “Dog!” Lachlan laughs, trying a second stroke, which this time the creature does not shy away from, only giving an unsure shiver.

  But Lachlan’s laugh has a crack to it, and sure enough, while my brother’s mouth smiles, I see him quickly wiping at his eyes with the sleeve of his thick jacket.

  The Indian notices; he frowns.

  “We had a dog back in Scotland,” I tell the man, blinking as snowflakes land on my lashes. “We were not able to bring it when we came to America.”

  Lachlan will sometimes talk fondly and sadly of the little terrier Patch, though he will not mention our older sisters any more. Perhaps it’s because Father told us both that it might be better not to speak of them, as it is too hard on the heart. I understand what Father means, but I don’t know if I think the same way. There are times when I would love nothing better than to reminisce about how much my older sisters maddened me with their nagging and nit-picking, and yet how much I loved them. As for Lachlan, it seems he finds it easier to mourn the loss of Patch than the loss of Ishbel and Effie. Or perhaps it is his way of secretly mourning all three?

  A sudden, sharp whistle catches my attention, and that of the others. The dog gives a low, menacing growl, but quickly quietens with a warning hiss from its owner.

  The whistler is a boy, somewhere between Lachlan’s age and mine. He watches as we approach the wooden building he leans against. A worn cap is set back on his fair-haired head, and there’s a cocky smile on his face. The building behind him is one-storey high, the same as all the others – most still part-built – up and down the short stretch of street. It is a simple style; two glass windows on either side of a door of planks, and a badly hand-painted sign above it that reads “Nat’s Store”. It is a very long way from the grand, gas-lit streets and avenues of New York, and even the Glasgow I knew before it…

  But Lachlan isn’t much interested in the boy. Drying his nose on his jacket sleeve, he stares at the man and his dog, impressed, I think, by how obedient the husky is.

  “Are you an actual Indian, sir?” he finally plucks up the courage to ask.

  “He’s a Chippewa injun. Ain’t you, Jean?” the boy calls over, saying the man’s name in the French way rather than the Scottish.

  “I am Anishinaabe,” the Indian answers almost under his breath.

  I don’t know if that means he’s correcting the boy’s telling of his tribe name or if it is his real name…

  “Does your whole tribe live here?” Lachlan asks Jean, glancing around hopefully.

  “Nah, most of ’em got moved on years ago,” the boy calls out again, punctuating his words with a spit on the ground. “Live on the reservation miles from here, don’t they, Jean?”

  Reservations; I’ve read of those in Father’s newspapers. The US government paid money to many Indian tribes for their land, moving them on to other areas – “reservations”. I did not think it would happen here, in this great, quiet state. I thought there’d be more than enough room for all types of folk to live their lives.

  “Then there’s injuns like Jean,” the boy continues, “who like to hang around the white settlements, trying to earn a buck from us.”

  I can hardly believe that someone who is just a scruffy boy can dare to speak to a grown man with such cheek!

  The Indian blanks the boy. Instead, he looks to Father and says, “This is the place,” while nodding towards Nat’s Store.

  “It’s MY place too – I’m Charlie Nathaniel and my father is Nat!” the boy bellows, pointing up at the sign.

  Ah, so the fact that his father is a storekeeper makes this lad feel he is “better” than the young man. How it vexes me when folk see themselves as more powerful than others! The Tornish islanders had to be meek and mild in front of the landowning Laird, as well as his dreadful snob of a wife and spoilt, spiteful daughter, Miss Kitty. I had hoped it would not be this way in America, that folk would be more equal, as I hear President Abraham Lincoln himself has said, and presidents before him whose names I do not know. It seems that it is not the case, sadly.

  “Well, thank you for your help,” Father says, holding out his hand to shake the Indian’s. “I should have introduced myself earlier. I’m Robert MacKerrie, and these are my children Bridie and Lachlan.”

  The Indian seems surprised at the polite introduction, but sets the barrow down so he has a hand free to shake Father’s in return.

  “I’m Jean Paquette,” he says. “I have a place in the woods, but I’m around if you ever need help with anything. I can turn my hand to fixing most things.”

  “I’ll certainly bear that in mind, Jean,” says Father, taking leave of the handshake so that he can find some coins in his jacket pocket to pay the Indian.

  “So we are to live here?” asks Lachlan, his eyes roving over the store-front we stopped in front of. He now looks warily at the cocky boy, I notice.

  “No – I was told that the gentleman who owns this place holds the keys to the building we’ll be looking after,” says Father.

  The Indian snorts as he drops his coins into a small pouch that’s as finely beaded as the belt around his waist. The snort was on account of the word “gentleman”, I think.

  “Is this where I can buy supplies too?” Father asks of the Indian, since he still has our luggage on his handcart.

  “It’s the only place to buy anything, and Nat will be very pleased to take all your money from you in any way he can,” says the Indian. “It’s the only general store in Hawk’s Point, and it’s the post office and saloon too, on Saturday night, after the miners have been paid…”

  My heart surges with hope when I hear the words “post office”. I sent two letters – one to Ishbel and one to Effie – before we left New York, telling them where we were headed. They’ll probably go unanswered, as all the others have, but I cannot help wishing for a miracle, for a reply. Though even if that miracle did happen, there’ll be no ship and so no postal deliveries for many months, till the sunshine of spring melts the ice on Lake Superior.

  “I’ll take your
bags over to Gillespie’s place,” adds the Indian, moving off across the street, all the while glowering at the storekeeper’s son.

  The boy just grins, then kicks the door open for us in a brutish kind of welcome. Following him inside, we find ourselves in the gloom of a low-lit room. There is a counter in front of us, but it is hard to see with the boxes and sacks piled up around it and against it and on top of it. Behind are shelves laden with shapes I can’t quite make out as my eyes adjust to the lack of brightness. The large bulk of a saddle is easily recognisable on the floor to my left, though, while a simple long bench runs along the right-hand wall.

  “Pa!” the boy hollers.

  “What?” a gruff voice calls out from a doorway just behind the counter.

  “You got customers!” says the boy, sliding around to the opposite side of the counter to us, just as a large, unkempt man comes ambling out from some unseen back room.

  The man seems in an ill humour, like a bear woken from its winter sleep. And he also looks as if he may have had some trouble with a bear or some such dangerous creature; he has much scarring across his upper face, the skin puckered and one eye quite gone, the emptiness of it sewn shut.

  “Are you Mr Nathaniel?” Father asks him.

  “I am. And who might you be?” the man answers warily in a muddled accent that is for the most part Yankee.

  “My name is Robert MacKerrie,” Father explains. “I am here to tenant the building of a carpenter called Gillespie?”

  The man looks a little taken aback, and studies Father for a second.

  “Wasn’t that the place you’re planning on renting out for lodgings, Pa?” the boy asks, earning himself a sharp clip around the ear.

  “Ow!”

  I quickly exchange a shocked look with Lachlan.

  “It got so late in the season, I didn’t think Gillespie had found anyone,” says this Mr Nathaniel, rummaging for something under his counter. “Here, for the padlock and chain on the door – catch.”