River City by John Farrow Page B

to comprehend the idea that more people lived upon the earth than lived upon the earth. More land rose up from the waters than rose up from the waters. What were the people to understand about these terrible truths?
    Cartier had carried on, to explore the shores and islands further north, and when he departed for his land across the waters before the return of winter, he took with him not only Donnacona’s gifts but also the man’s two sons, Domagaya and Taignoagny. They would fare well across the sea, and in the following year they returned home with wild stories of villages as large as forests, and of a house as huge as a mountain, made primarily of gold, in which thewhite chief dwelled. They spoke of other wonders so astounding that the chief had threatened to punish his sons if they did not stop uttering such terrible lies. In the land of the pale-skins, massive four-legged creatures taller than moose pulled land canoes in which they carried a man’s belongings, the man himself, and his wife and children. These giant beasts obeyed the white man’s words and allowed the white man to ride upon their backs.
    “I will drown you!” Donnacona had cried out.
    In the land of the snow-skins, the women sang like birds in the morning.
    “I will slice open your bellies and feed you to the crows!”
    In the land of the limestone-skins, trees gave beautiful, sweet-tasting berries the size of a man’s fists to eat.
    Perhaps they were gods, these cloud-skinned, black-furred strangers.
    That other world had changed his boys. They had adapted to the vessel and to the white man’s oily seal-stink and now laughed at their father’s dismay. As a matter of honour, then, Donnacona had had to demonstrate a modicum of courage, yet he chose to wait until the ship merely bobbed at anchor before sleeping below. Throughout the long night, the chief fretted that he’d go mad from the stench. He slept little and under duress, yet endured until dawn without fleeing to the mercy of an open deck and the rebuke of his sons. Life inside a whale, Donnacona believed, might be more pleasant.
    He observed sailors in their rapt state. They looked as though they had never seen geese as they watched the flight patterns overhead, all of them curiously silent under the belligerent honking. Had they never seen forests so charged with colour? His sons were right about one thing: the pale-skins were fascinating—their canoe was pushed and pulled by the wind, no man paddled!—they possessed magic, but they behaved in curious ways and seemed to possess little useful knowledge.
    Donnacona climbed higher and stood on deck. Sailors gazed upon him now as attentively as they had stared at the ducks. He wore different clothing today—a deerskin laced by coloured caribou thread and decorated by beads—for he had stripped off the contaminated skins in which he’d slept and applied a ceremonial paint. He was expecting to meet his own people soon, another tribe, and was dressed for the occasion. Looking back across the deck at him,Cartier determined to take his cue, to don ceremonial dress himself. Better to look as though he expected to be welcomed than to wear the garb of a soldier gearing for a fight. He called over his cabin boy, Petit Gilles, and commanded that he prepare his formal attire. If he was going to meet the Indians of Hochelaga, these men and women who held the key to the riches of this land, he would do so properly.
    Domagaya, fresh, eager, and his younger brother, Taignoagny, generally taciturn, heaved themselves up onto the deck as well, and were also surprised by the silent, stiff stillness of the sailors. They were in a strange mood. The men only began to stir when Gastineau, the king’s man, rumbled up the main companionway. His presence broke a spell.
    “Jacques! Good morning to you!” Even ducks peaceably paddling near the Émérillon took flight, quacking madly, in response to his loud greeting.
    “Gastineau,” Cartier replied, sighing.