Once landed, the agent’s mercantile bonhomie did not abate; he seemed oblivious to the violent din of the flocks, even though they filled the sky beyond his face and shoulders like a living storm cloud. He merely smoothed his ratty whiskers with his gloved fingers and proceeded to calculate the likely amount of cases in the coming season’s salmon pack.
“I hear rumours of the run being very lucrative, Lansdowne. You’d best keep your Chinese busy at those shears. You can’t have too many cans this summer.” Ah, so that was the sound coming from over the dike, the sound of tin being cut. Anson was about to inquire about particulars, even if it was only a matter of the agent rattling off more prices and statistics, but he didn’t have the chance.
Henry Lansdowne, arranging luggage in the skiff, cut matters short. “It’s my brother, Thomas, you’re here to see. He handles the cannery business.” With that, he lowered himself behind the oars and pulled for the wharf. His expression did not change, but Anson noted the tautness in the jaw and neck muscles. Henry Lansdowne was not a young man—Anson reckoned him ten years senior to himself. Perhaps Lansdowne’s three-score age, combined with the heavy sadness and welcome aura of silence after the agent’s ceaseless chatter, made Anson favourably disposed to the man.
Even though the rain had stopped, the day’s gloom deepened. Unable to push its light through, the little smudge of sun gave up and retreated behind the scudding grey. Other than the creak of the oarlocks, followed by the plash and gurgle of the oars, and every minute or so another punching thunk of the shears, silence descended on the river. Even the rat-faced agent fell quiet; he shrank into the tailored shoulders of his coat and stared at the afternoon’s fresh pall as if it was a personal affront. He blew longer puffs of cigar smoke and tapped a gloved hand on the gunwale.
It was a short passage, the shortest of his whole journey, but the doctor crammed a wilderness of reflection into it. In a way, he had lied to the agent by saying that he had no prospects in this place. The truth was, he had helped to finance Dare’s cannery operations from the first year, 1874, and he held shares in the venture, even though he did so out of friendship and not with any expectation of increased wealth. To date, the returns had been modest at best, but it was a young industry with a bright future. Anson’s understanding, limited to what he’d overheard while travelling the coast and to the sparse information in Dare’s rare correspondence, was that this year, the high point of the salmon’s four-year cycle, should be the most productive yet.
But it didn’t much matter to him, except in his sincere hopes that Dare would do well and perhaps make a permanent life here. Anson Baird prided himself on self-knowledge—to lie to yourself seemed to him the very height of folly. He was well into middle age, a widower with no children, and the illnesses that had ravaged him during the war would not grant him a long life. These were the facts. Others—especially that of Dare’s most recent communication, a telegram reading, “Difficulties here stop come as soon as able stop,” explained merely his physical actions. The larger issues of his solitude and poor health had already made him a dispassionate observer of the various madnesses of men. The war had preserved the union and freed the slaves—Anson had done his part, and he did not lack for pride in the contribution. But all madnesses after the surrender at Appomattox seemed small and petty by comparison. What mattered now was what he had accepted as his purpose at Antietam—to preserve one good man’s life in a world indifferent and even hostile to virtue.
They reached the wharf. As Anson climbed out of the skiff, another great clatter of bird-cry rolled across the southern horizon just beyond the dark, peaked roof of the house, which now looked to billow black smoke. Anson paused, stricken by the astonishing violence of the flocks. If he were superstitious, he might have considered the event a bad omen. But the sheer mass of dead flesh he had known left him more than skeptical of unbodied fancies, including God. Anson kept such doubts to himself, however. His patients would have neither understood nor appreciated them—and why upset a man who’d asked for your help?
As soon as the agent had set foot on the wharf, he clutched his collar around his throat and ducked his oily head. “I was told there’d be a hotel this time,” he muttered. “I’m accustomed to decent lodgings when I’m on business.”
“My wife keeps a good house,” Lansdowne said from the skiff. “You can board with us. Or you can return to the boat and find lodgings in New Westminster. I understand there are several hotels there that cater to those of more refined tastes.”
His scornful tone did not elude Anson, but the agent appeared not to notice.
“Perhaps. What time does the boat leave? I need to discuss business with your brother first.”
With impressive dexterity for a man of his years, Henry Lansdowne put his hands on the wharf and swung himself stiffly over the edge and into a standing position. Not even taking a deep breath, he immediately said, “My brother is working in the fields and will not stop until this evening. If you wish to talk with him, you must lodge here for the night. Or, if my wife’s housekeeping is not to your standards, you are free to shelter where you can.”
The agent looked dubiously skyward and tugged at his lapels. The great clatter of bird-sound had faded almost as rapidly as it had come—now the trickle of tide below and the whisper of wings above brought the day more comfortably together. Anson looked at the house—dark, square, a short walk from the wharf down a tilted gangway through a field of mud and slickened grass. Just to the southeast carved the pewter slough. Another house, equally dark, rested squat on the slough bank a half-mile distant. The wind carried a sour, brackish smell off the muddy bank. It seemed an unlikely place for a man to make his fortune.
Anson took up his bags and said, “I’m looking for the home of William Dare. Is it far?”
Henry Lansdowne hesitated just slightly. “Crescent Slough. Best to go by boat, but the tide’s against you now. Have to wait till morning.” His liquid eyes hardened to wet stone. “Are you expected?”
Anson admonished himself, remembering the telegram. The difficulties Dare had mentioned could refer to anything or anyone.
“Yes. But he didn’t know exactly when I’d arrive.” Anson shifted uncomfortably, lowered his bags to the wharf. It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d have trouble actually getting to Dare’s house. Was he to hire a skiff and row there himself?
“I can take you tomorrow,” Lansdowne said. “He doesn’t come to the Landing often.”
The agent, who had been waving a cloud of mosquitoes away from his face, suddenly went still.
“Dare, did you say?”
Annoyed with himself, Anson simply nodded.
“If you don’t mind the question, doctor, what could a man such as yourself want with a man such as that?”
Anson stepped forward. “What do you mean? A man such as what?”
The agent glanced at Henry Lansdowne and then away.
“Oh, nothing, nothing at all. Dare is just, well, he’s a little rough compared with yourself. How do you know him exactly?”
Anson could see no sense in answering, especially as the agent’s tone was almost excitedly curious. So, when the thunking of the shears sounded again, he allowed the noise to end the conversation. In the silence that followed, he bent and picked up his bags.
The agent shrugged slightly and flicked his burning cigar onto the wharf. “Damnable insects! I’ve had enough. I could use a drink.”
Lansdowne scowled. He stepped on the cigar butt with his boot and strode off toward the gangway.