A Dark and Promised Land Read Free

looks at the dying ship. Smoke pours from an open hatch. With a sharp crack, the forward mast splits: ropes fly and bronze hoops burst. The great spar swoons forward, slicing through the clustered people in the water, dark heads bobbing like kelp floats.
    Wind whips Rose’s wet hair across her face. She pinches a fold of skin on the back of her hand, but feels nothing. Her shaking is uncontrollable.
    At the next wave, she allows herself to be swept off the rock. As before, the coldness of the water seizes her, but she does not fight it this time, accepting just a gasp of air, the smallest of breaths. She kicks toward shore. Her skirt encumbers her, and she attempts to pull it off in the water. Her body has become an unresponsive lump; the fabric tangles about her feet. She chokes, sinking; her legs drag. Her feet find the bottom and she thrusts away the tangling cloth; wearing only her shift she climbs onto the beach, water running off her and darkening the pure whiteness of the snow.
    Flames engulf the wreck, and by its light she sees people stumble out of the sea, pushing aside clustered bodies rolling with the surf. A cadaverous light shines on the faces of those who stand watching the frigate burn. Some weep, but one after another, they fall silent.
    â€œFather?” she calls between shaking teeth. It escapes her lips as a croaked whisper. She calls again, louder. A face turns toward her.
    â€œRose!”
    Lachlan runs over and embraces his daughter. “Oh, my wee bairn, I thought I’d lost thee … God’s blood, you’re freezing.” Too cold to reply, Rose slides into her father’s arms, hiding her face from death. He wraps her with his wet coat.
    Overheated cannon aboard the burning frigate ignites, blowing out the side of the ship and sending several balls whining over the water to smash into the forest, shattering several trees. In unison, all the watchers ashore jump back.
    Spotting a Company official, Cecile Turr, Lachlan seats his daughter on the beach and hurries over to him. “We must find shelter for these people, Mr. Turr,” he says, grabbing the man by the arm and blowing frost clouds into his face. “We must start a fire!” The man turns his sad, heavy eyes toward him, pulls his arm away and sits on the beach, lowering his face into his hands.
    Lachlan fights an urge to shout; helpless, he looks up the beach at a palisade of dark trees roaring in the wind. As he watches, several shapes emerge from the forest. Flames from the burning frigate glitter on polished silver and beadwork.

Chapter Two
    Alexander McClure opens his eyes and feels grit under the lids scrape against his eyeballs. He cannot imagine where he is, the smell of muddy pig shit, nauseating and unfamiliar. Fragments of memory whirl in his head like torpid summer fireflies.
    He is on his back, his eyes taking in a thin, washed sky; the fort’s palisade glows in the first light of dawn like a line of rough-hewn nails fresh from the forge. It had rained during the night; his clothes feel like peeling, wet skin. Distant shouts of men carry from the riverbank and a cannon thuds, startling him. York Fort. He rolls over with a groan.
    At this movement, an enormous hog bedded beside him begins nuzzling his hair with its wet snout. Alexander shoves at it, and pain sears through his hand; the knuckles are stiff and crusted with blood. Memories of a brawl hover at the edge of consciousness. Something about cheating at cards.
    He reaches for his purse, unsurprised to find it gone. Whether he lost during the fight or an Indian stole it as he lay in filth, he would probably never know. He sees a pair of them squat against the palisade, shadowed eyes watching him. The hog thrusts its snout into his shirt with a contented grunt.
    â€œGet away,” he mumbles as he stands up, leaning on the massive, black beast. Limping, he makes his way through the fort gates and slides down the high riverbank, his heels