Far North by Marcel Theroux Page B

said.
    Ping’s child had been a girl, too. Choked with her own belly cord as she lay wrong-side up in her mother’s womb.
    So that line perished with her. And as for my line, I was the last of it, and there would be no slippery little women dropping out of me.

     *
    I thought life back home was hardscrabble, but Horeb was even worse, grubbing in the woods for ferns and burdock, thin watery soups at mealtimes, and meat at most twice a week. The only thing they got to fill up on was religion. They had big helpings of church three times a day. Morning, lunchtime, and evening, they would troop into that building and have Boathwaite read or preach at them for up to an hour. It struck me early on that if they prayed less, they’d eat better, but as a guest, I felt bound to keep my thoughts to myself.
    From the second day, I decided I’d give the sermons a miss and went off to the woods for a scout around. I’d not gone further than five hundred yards from the stockade when I came upon half a dozen wild caribou nosing through the forest, scratching up lichen to feed on. Boathwaite still had my guns, so there was nothing I could do but watch. It was too much for me to take. All those fools sat in church with their bellies grumbling, and here there was breakfast, lunch, and dinner, wandering about on four legs, just daring you to put it in your mouth.
    I ran back to the stockade. There was one man on guard at all times and he let me in. I went straight to the little chapel and burst in, breathless. I begged them to excuse my interruption, I told them about the caribou, and I said that if the Reverend would be willing to return one of my firearms, I’d put more than enough meat on the table to repay their hospitality to me.
    The Reverend’s face hardened into a hatchet while I was speaking, and as soon as I had finished, he told the congregation that just as many of them had not yet made the acquaintance of Cousin Makepeace, neither had Cousin Makepeace had the opportunity to acquaint himself with the customs of Horeb, in particular that the service of god came above all other works. The appetite for sanctity surpassed mere carnal appetite.

    If I’d been a little smarter, I would have stopped there. Everything was counselling me to bite my tongue, from the angry sparkle in Boathwaite’s eye to the dumbstruck faces of his congregation. But living alone for so long had made me stubborn.
    I said I was sorry for bursting in so loud and unmannerly, and I would never have done it in the ordinary way. I didn’t mean that they should stop their praying or the Reverend should stop his preaching. But since I waso loud andquo;t much of a churchgoer myself, I’d be happy to make myself useful to them. And I said that even Jesus let the disciples gather ears of corn on the Sabbath. So how about it? Could I have one of my guns?
    By now, I saw that I’d made myself as unwelcome as a juggler at a funeral. The Reverend hissed at me that there would be no further discussion until the service was over. Then he turned his back on me and prayed in a loud voice for ten minutes. Most of the congregation turned their faces with him, but one or two of the children stared at me and had to be cajoled into looking away again.
    I was so angry I barely heard a word he said. My mind was fixed on the caribou, snuffling away through the forest. I was hungry myself, of course, but I also thought of those pale, skinny children in the chapel, with their streams of yellow snot and dirt-streaked faces, and how much better off they would be with a plate of meat than a belly full of fine words.
    They grumbled away in their prayers and I stalked out, furious.
    The Reverend didn’t speak to me for the next couple of days. I mean, he greeted me when he saw me, but very cool and offish, and most of the others in Horeb followed his lead. It didn’t bother me any. I had enough to do with nursing my horses, and when I wasn’t doing that, I liked to be outside.