It was a small room, containing only a chair, a few boxes loosely stuffed with straw packing, a barrel marked SALT FISH (empty), and a rusty hurricane lamp, which I lit up. The room smelled of moist, mildewed wood. A single grimy window overlooked the crowded stalls and torch-lit shops of Guy Street. From the window I could see a little of the night sky, which was very dark and shot through with distant flashes of lightning; the wind had a gustiness that flapped all the Guy Street awnings, and I guessed a storm was imminent. Certainly the air in the city was humid enough for it—and swelteringly hot, especially in this upstairs chamber. I perched on one of the boxes, thinking Calyxa might prefer the chair, and waited for her to arrive, trying not to perspire.
She opened the door not ten minutes later. The reader may imagine the excitement and the curiosity her visit aroused in me. Her hair was a skein of ebony knitwork in the light from the hall. She put her hands on her hips and regarded me.
“Evangelica thinks you’re harmless,” she said. “Are you harmless?”
I guessed “Evangelica” was the name of the waitress. “Well, I’m not dangerous, if that’s what you mean.”
“Adam Hazzard—that’s your name?”
I nodded. “And you’re Calyxa Blake.”
“Adam Hazzard, I don’t know who you are—you’re only a loose soldier to me—but I need a favor, and Evangelica thinks you might be willing to help, without wanting too much in return.”
“Of course I’ll help, whatever your situation, and without demanding anything at all in return.”
“Western boy. Just as Evangelica said. How old are you?”
“Nineteen,” I said, exaggerating by less than a month.
“Do you know how to use the pistol you carry around with you?”
“As a soldier I’m supposed to, and I do.”
“Have you ever used it? To shoot at someone, I mean?”
“I’ve shot at many people, Miss Blake, all of them Dutchmen, with my Pittsburgh rifle; and hit some of them, I don’t doubt. As for my pistol, it’s only shot targets to date, but I understand the principle and I’m not a stranger to the practice. Do you mean for me to shoot someone? That’s a tall order… not that I’m backing down… but an explanation would be welcome.”
“You can have one, if there’s time.” She glanced around the narrow room.
“Take the chair,” I suggested, “if you want to sit.”
“I do want to sit, but I want to look out the window while I do it.” She dragged the chair in that direction. She didn’t need help—Calyxa was a sturdy girl, evidently accustomed to performing such tasks on her own hook. She sat with her head turned, so that she could watch the window while we talked, putting her neck in profile. “This is awkward,” she said.
“You can sit on a box if you’d prefer it.”
“I mean the conversation.”
“Well, that’s because we hardly know each other… though I’ve thought of you often since Easter.”
“Have you? Why me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Of all the women in the choir, what set you onto me? Most of the soldiers I’ve met are more interested in whores than choristers.”
“To be honest, I can’t say. You seemed—exceptional.” I could hardly speak for blushing.
“How childish. But never mind.” She scanned the street again. “I don’t see them… though in this murkiness it’s hard to tell.…”
“Who are you expecting?”
“Some men who mean to harm me.”
“In that case I guarantee you every protection in my power! Who are these villains?”
“My brothers,” she said.
* * *
We talked for most of an hour more, alone in that airless chamber. What she told me—with a frankness I found admirable, if surprising—was that her parents had died when she was just three years old, and that she had been raised by her brothers, Job and Utty (Uther) Blake, who were bush runners. [“Bush runners” are men who operate in the wilds of the Laurentians and up into the rocky wastelands of Labrador , living on the margins of the law. Some of them form guerilla bands, and might align themselves temporarily with the Americans or the Mitteleuropans; but their main business is horse thievery, smuggling, and opportunistic pillage.]
Calyxa was not of much use to them, as a female, and her brothers had never been patient or kind toward her. Her only relief from their autocracy was a four-year period when Job and Utty were sent to prison, and she was installed in a charitable Church School in Quebec City , where she learned to read and write. The school was not a paradise, but she had thrived on three regular meals a day and had enjoyed at least some access to the world of learning. Her innate curiosity and liveliness had been engaged, and she had fought bitterly against her return to the custody of her paroled siblings.
But the law was stern, and she was eventually given back to them. To her horror, they no longer considered her a useless encumbrance, but had worked out a scheme by which she could be sold to a Montreal brothel, or, failing that, bartered to some other guerilla band in exchange for considerations.
That did not suit her plans, and she resolved to escape before the transaction could be consummated. Fortunately her brothers still thought of her as a child, at least in her mental and spiritual faculties, and assumed they could bully her into submission. They were wrong. Calyxa had grown up considerably during the time they languished in prison. She was not just clever enough to outwit them, she was wise enough to disguise herself as meek, and lull her captors into equanimity, until an opportunity for escape presented itself. When Job and Utty left her alone in the wilderness cabin from which they ran their autumn trap lines—trusting in the isolation of the place, and a few stern threats, to keep her docile in their absence—she recognized an opportunity and took it.
She packed up what little food was available, along with a compass she had stolen from Utty, and set out for Montreal. She spoke reluctantly of that grueling, lonely journey, and would only say that she had arrived in the city exhausted and starving. A few nights spent on the streets convinced her she needed to support herself in better style, and that was when she took up singing—at first on sidewalks, for pennies, and then in establishments such as the Thirsty Boot. She had learned singing from the clerics at the residential school, and she had a natural aptitude for the work.
Since then she had got along all right, and had fallen in with better company than Job and Utty Blake. But her escape from her brothers would never be complete as long as they lived, for they were angry at the loss they had suffered. In their eyes she had stolen herself from them; and they meant to have her back, and to punish her for the crime of self-theft.
Calyxa was determined not to let that happen. During the winter months there was little to fear, for the Blake brothers wintered on land held by the Dutch Governor of the Saguenay Region, poaching and drinking and hiring themselves to the Mitteleuropans as spies. But in summer the brothers became more ambitious, and often came into Montreal with furs to trade or money to gamble away. For three years now Calyxa had spent the summer months dreading the chance that her brothers would discover her whereabouts. She relied on friends, who were sympathetic to her cause, to keep their eyes and ears open; and so far, though the brothers had twice come to the city, they hadn’t found her, or heard anything about her, and she always had sufficient warning to keep herself out of their view.
To night, however, Calyxa had received the worst possible news. Job and Utty were back in town, and they had picked up hints of her presence and were actively hunting her. In fact—so Evangelica had heard from a friend—the Blakes had learned that she frequented the Thirsty Boot, and they were hastening this way even now.