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“Are there no sane voices to be heard?”
“It is imprudent to go against the public will. A certain baronet in the House of Lords was so unwise as to speak of a possible search for peace. He was not only shouted down but physically assaulted.”
“This is hard to believe, but I suppose I must. But will they do it? Take the final step?”
“You can answer that far better than I can, Mr. President. You are privy to the negotiations over their ultimatum, while I am not.”
“There is little I can tell you that you don’t already know. We want to talk, but I fear that they do not want to listen. And I am beginning to think that we have run out of options. Our newspapers and theirs are filled with fire and brimstone. Their ministers are just as ardent. Lord Lyons has given us his passports and vacated our shores. Our minister Charles Adams does his best to have London accept a rewording of their dispatch, but they agree to nothing. Now Lord Palmerston keeps him at bay and will not admit him to his house, although Adams has called repeatedly at that gentleman’s door. The lord pleads gout as the reason. I believe in the gout but not the excuse.”
Fox nodded agreement. “Meanwhile the cause of all this, Mason and Slidell, live a life of great luxury in their prison cells. Ordering the best food and wine from Boston and smoking their way through their bottomless supply of Havana cigars.”
“Luxury it may be — but they are still imprisoned. And as long as they are the Britons will remain adamant in their condemnation of this country. Find me a way out of this impasse, Mr. Fox, and I will bestow upon you the highest rewards this country can offer.”
“I wish that I could sir, how I wish that I could.”
BRINK OF WAR
Although it was the first day of May, it felt more like winter here in the northern hills of Vermont. Cold rain lashed the pine trees, turning the little-used track into adhesive mud. The horses walked slowly, heads down with weariness, and had to be urged on constantly by pulling on their reins. Both of the men who were leading them were as weary as the horses, yet they never for an instant thought of riding. That would have meant that their mounts would have to carry heavier loads. That was not possible. The reason for this long and exhausting journey was there in the barrels on the horses’ backs.
Jacques squinted up at the sky, then wiped his streaming face with the back of his hand. Only the rich could afford to buy a watch — and he was anything but that. But he knew by the steadily darkening sky that it was close to sunset.
“Soon, Phillipe, soon,” he shouted back in Canadian-accented French. “We will stop before we cross the ridge. Then go on after dark.”
His brother answered something, but his words were drowned out by a sharp crack of thunder. They plodded on, then turned from the track to seek some shelter under the branches of an ancient stand of oak trees. The horses found clumps of fresh grass to graze upon while the men slumped down with their backs against the thick trunks. Jacques took the cork from his water bottle and drank deep, smacking his lips as he sealed it again. It was filled with a strong mixture of whiskey and water. Phillipe watched this and frowned.
Jacques saw his expression and laughed aloud — revealing a mouthful of broken and blackened teeth. “You disapprove of my drinking, little brother. You should have been a priest. Then you could tell others what they should and should not do. It helps the fatigue and warms the bones.”
“And destroys the internal organs and the body.”
“That too, I am sure. But we must enjoy life as well as we can.”
Phillipe squeezed water from his thin, dark beard, and looked at the squat, strong body of his older brother. Just like their father. While he took after their mother, everyone said. He had never known her: she had died when he had been born.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Phillipe said. “It is dangerous — and some day we will be caught.”
“No we won’t. No one knows these hills as I do. Our good father, may he rest in peace with the angels, worked the stones of our farm until he died. I am sure that the endless toil killed him. Like the other farmers. But we have a choice, do we not? We can do this wonderful work to aid our neighbors. Remember — if you don’t do this — what will you do? You are like me, like the rest of us — an uneducated Quebecois. I can barely sign my name — I cannot read nor write.”
“But I can. You left school, the chance was there.”
“For you perhaps, I for one have no patience with the schoolroom. And if you remember our father was ill then. Someone had to work the farm. So you stayed in school and were educated. To what end? No one will hire you in the city, you have no skills — and you don’t even speak the filthy language of the English.”
“There is no need for English. Since the Act of Union Lower Canada has been recognized, our language is French — ”
“And our freedom is zero. We are a colony of the English, ruled by an English governor. Our legislature may sit in Montreal but it is the English Queen who has the power. So you can read, dear brother, and write as well. Where is the one who will hire you for these skills? It is your destiny that you must stay in Coaticook where there is nothing to do except farm the tired land — and drink strong whiskey to numb the pain of existence. Let the rest stay with the farming — and we will take care of the supplying of the other.”
He looked at the four barrels the horses were carrying and smiled his broken smile. Good Yankee whiskey, untaxed and purchased with gold. When they crossed back into Canada its value would double, so greedy were the English with their endless taxes. Oh yes, Her Majesty’s Customs men were active and eager enough, but they would never be woodsmen enough to catch a Dieumegard who had spent his life in these hills. He pressed his hand against the large outer pocket of his leather coat, felt the welcome outline of his pistol.
“Phillipe — ” he called out. “You have kept your powder dry?”
“Yes, of course, the gun is wrapped in oilskin. But I don’t like it…”
“You have to like it,” Jacques snarled. “It’s our lives that depend upon this whiskey — they shall not take it from us. That is why we need these guns. Nor shall they take me either. I would rather die here in the forest than rot in some English jail. We did not ask for this life or to be born in our miserable village. We have no choice so we must make the best of it.”
After this they were silent as day darkened slowly into night. The rain still fell, but not as heavily as earlier in the day.
“Time to go,” Jacques said, climbing stiffly to his feet. “One more hour and we will be across the border and in the hut. Nice and dry. Come on.”
He pulled on the horse’s reins and led the way. Phillipe leading the other horse, following their shapes barely visible in the darkness ahead.
