“Chores are less gender-based down south, I presume. I hope so. It had been changing when I left, but it moves so slowly.” Her bone needle glides through leather. “For myself, this is fine. I would rather sew than fish. It’s good to have choices, though. That is what I want for them.” She nods at the children. “Let Becky choose to sew or fish. Let Miles choose, too. The old ways can be just as hard on the boys, if it is not what they want.”
“True. It’s easy to see what choices the girls lack, but sometimes it’s tougher to see that the boys lack some, too.”
Nancy brings me a cup of tea. It’s regular herbal tea from ingredients found in nature, the bitterness of the brew cut by dried berries. Unlike the hostiles, the Second Settlement doesn’t drink their narcotic brew regularly. This cup does, however, provide the perfect segue into the subject that brought me here.
“We’ve had some potential activity by the wild people,” I say.
I’m about to tell them what has happened when I stop. Tell them seven people are dead? That would be national headline news in Canada. It is shocking in a way I haven’t fully allowed myself to process.
This might be the biggest crime committed in the Yukon since the gold rush. And for these women, still reeling from a single murder in their community, to have me nonchalantly inform them that seven people were attacked nearby just last week?
They need to know about the danger, of course. That’s what Dalton is speaking to Tomas about. I suspect, though, that he’ll also realize the enormity of what he’s saying before he numbers the dead. So I do the same. I tell the women that there was an attack on a group of tourists.
“And you think it is the wild people?” Josie asks.
“It seems to be, but we’re investigating all possibilities. Right now, we’re warning everyone to be careful. We came by today to do that, but also because I have more questions about your ritual tea. I realize I didn’t get enough information the last time I spoke to your settlement about it. Specifically, I’m interested in the person who created the tea.”
“The tea man, hmm?” A smile twitches the corners of Nancy’s mouth. “You don’t know anything about him, do you, Auntie?”
Josie sighs and shakes her head.
“He was a handsome tea man, wasn’t he?” Nancy elbows Josie. “That’s what I heard. Did you hear that, Auntie?”
“Are you done, child? I can wait if you aren’t.”
Nancy’s eyes dance. “I think Josie can tell you a bit about the tea man.”
“I got that impression,” I murmur.
“Yes,” Josie says. “I knew the…” She cuts a look at Nancy. “Tea man. As you can probably guess by Nancy’s tittering, I had a relationship with him. A fling. I’d been in the settlement for a year, and the other men all had wives, so he was a welcome arrival.”
Nancy snickers.
Josie only shakes her head and continues. “It was no great love affair. I was young. He was young enough. When he left a year later, I was sad to see him go, but not heartbroken. I could tell the settlement had only been temporary for him.”
“Did he become a settler?” My mind leapfrogs forward, thinking of my theory.
“No, no. He returned to Rockton
and requested passage south.”
“So he was from Rockton?”
She nods.
“How long had he been there?” I ask.
“A month or two? It didn’t suit him. After a year, he decided this wasn’t quite what he wanted either and went home.”
“That was … okay? With Rockton and your settlement?”
She shrugs. “It was a different time. He wanted to try life out here. Rockton suggested us, and we allowed him in. After he returned, I found a pair of his boots and took them to Rockton, but he’d already left.”
I double-check the times with her, confirming that he’d been in the Yukon for less than his two-year minimum before they allowed him to return down south. Is that significant? Maybe. But also, as she says, it was a different time. Rockton certainly wouldn’t be recommending the settlements to residents now, no more than Josie would feel comfortable walking in with those boots.
“Can you tell me more about how he created the tea?” I ask.
She can and does. He’d spent a lot of time in the forest. He’d often be gone for days, and when he returned, he’d brew teas for himself.