IN THE morning Michael and Rachel sat to a more leisurely break­fast than they had enjoyed for many days. They hoped that they’d be able to spend two nights at this village—for the first time since they’d left Waknuk. A good opportunity to rest and recover some of their strength.

After checking that the horses were well stabled, they set out to look for a store. That was not hard: in fact there were three in this village. Calling in at the most likely one, they asked casually for a map.

“Map, eh?” replied the shopkeeper. “Travelling, I suppose, with no idea where to go? Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t have any maps here. I reckon you’ll find a map hard to come by in these parts. Folks here don’t travel far, and those that do know all the local roads. There just isn’t the call for maps. But I suppose you could try the other stores. Anything else I can do for you?”

Michael decided that they couldn’t leave the shop without buying some things, so they stocked up with provisions again. Then they walked on to the second shop—with exactly the same result. Just as they were leaving, with an apology, Michael remembered something. “Got any fur coats here?”

“No—that I haven’t—but you could try Peter’s store down the end of the village. I think he has one or two still.” Thanking him, they went on to the last shop—Peter’s—and found that he indeed had a few furs for sale. “But they’re not cheap, I’m afraid. I’ll be asking forty dollars each.”

Michael searched his dwindling money-pouch in some dismay. Eighty dollars would leave him with very little spending-money for the rest of the journey. “Would you settle for thirty—if we take two?”

“Tell you what. How does thirty-five sound—if you take two? My final offer.”

Michael was silent for a while, but Rachel at once spoke up. “We’ll take them for thirty-five, thanks very much—and Michael, I’m paying for these. I’ve got a little money of my own.” With that she fetched out a pouch from her trouser pocket which Michael hadn’t even noticed up till then. Emptying it out on the counter, she counted sixty-three dollars. “All right then, Michael, you’ll have to find the extra seven…”

Peter looked at the money on the counter, and smiled. “Tell you what: I’ll let you have them for sixty-three. How’s that?”

They gratefully accepted the offer—Michael ruefully realising that he could probably have haggled Peter even further down—but at least they had the coats. They found one that fitted Michael perfectly, but the smallest in the shop was still a bit too big for Rachel. “Don’t worry, it’ll do fine for me. Oh and by the way, I don’t suppose you have any maps—or a compass?” she added as an afterthought.

“Maps, indeed! I reckon you’ve been asking around already! Sorry, I can’t help you there. You could try the Inn—I think there’s a map on the wall somewhere, though it won’t be for sale. But I do have a compass. Not a very good one, I’m afraid: compasses don’t work well in this part of Labrador for some reason. But since you’ve bought the coats, I’ll let you have it for a dollar, OK?”

Gratefully wrapping the coats around them, and pocketing the precious compass, they went straight back to the inn. Searching around, they did indeed find a map on the wall, in one of the private rooms. They went straight to the innkeeper.

“Sell my map? You must be bloody joking, my friends! That’s the only map for fifty miles around: I’d cut off my arm before I part with it…”

Rachel had an idea. “If we can’t buy it, can we at least copy part of it?”

“Well, I suppose you can—just so long as you don’t damage it in any way. Tell you what: I’ll get some paper and a pencil.”

“Let me do this, Michael,” said Rachel, when the paper arrived. “I probably sketch better than you: I had some lessons when I was younger.”

After a quick lunch, she settled down before the map. After about two hours’ work, she had produced what she thought was a passable copy, concentrating mainly on the south-east, which was the direction they intended to travel. When the innkeeper next came by, she asked him “do you know what the scale of the map is?”

The innkeeper seemed puzzled by this question, so she tried again. Searching out a village which was marked near the south-east corner of the map, she pointed to it and asked “Do you know how far this village is from us?”

The innkeeper scratched his head for a while, then he answered “Well, I reckon it’s about two days’ journey there, by cart. Let’s call it forty miles, shall we?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Rachel realised that this was the best she’d get from him. Better than nothing. So the map would guide them some of the way towards Rigo, before they ran out.

Meanwhile, Michael had been exploring the village, particularly the north-west road which ran alongside the lake to the east. Reaching the last house by the lakeside, he thought he’d ask how far the lake extended, to the north. He still had this hankering idea of diverting to the north, perhaps even persuading Rachel to do a circuit around the lake at the very least. And there appeared to be Old People’s works of some sort at the very head of the lake, although he couldn’t fathom out what their purpose might be.

“How far to the north? Oh, I reckon it’ll be about a hundred miles or so.”

“A hundred miles!” said Michael, flabbergasted.

“Yes indeed,” replied the old man who had answered his knock. “Didn’t you realise? This is one of the largest lakes in Labrador, I reckon. If there aren’t larger ones, even further north. And you really want to do a circuit round it? I wish you luck, mate! There’ll be no roads up there, and no end of impassable torrents to get across. I don’t know if it’s even possible. Never been that way myself.”

Michael at once thanked him and returned to the village, thankful that his wild plan had come to nothing. At least he didn’t need to argue with Rachel about it! He found her in the map room, just putting the finishing touches to her copy. She showed it to Michael. “Best I can do, but we’ll be off the edge of it in another fifty miles or so, so it won’t carry us far.”

“Rachel, you’re a treasure. I couldn’t have done it half as well.”

“Now now! Flattery isn’t the way to win me round!”

“OK, but we must really protect this like gold dust, for as long as we need it. Driest part of one of the saddlebags.”

They sat with the copy spread out on a table in front of them, doing their best to memorise as much as possible of it. Rachel pencilled in a few additional settlements from the original on the wall, seeing as they didn’t know what detours they might be forced to make. When they were satisfied that they had as much information on it as they could possibly need, Michael took it to his room and carefully folded into one of the saddlebags. Returning, since it was now well into the evening (days being short at this time of year), he and Rachel sat down to dinner.

“Early night for me, I think, and early start—OK?” said Rachel, finally getting up from the table. Michael nodded, pointing to his unfinished cocoa as excusing his delay. Once he’d finished, he in turn went upstairs to his own room. As he entered, he put a hand to the communicating door with Rachel’s room, and to his surprise he found it was now unlocked.

As he gingerly opened the door a crack, Rachel called out from the other side, “Come on in.” Michael suddenly felt a moment of shy­ness once more, but pulling himself together he swung the door open. Rachel was lying on the bed, naked, eyeing him intensely. Michael found himself eyeing her back, equally intensely: it was the first time since they had swum in the rock-pool. Meanwhile it was taking him forever to divest himself of his clothing: everything seemed to be getting tangled up. Finally, without once taking his eyes off her, he joined her on the bed.

“Not the world’s greatest beauty, am I?” murmured Rachel, kneading her breasts. Michael muttered something inaudible. Her beauty was different to that of Stephanie’s: more homely, less exotic. But all the same, it was Rachel’s attractions that now consumed him…

In the morning, after Michael had carefully disarranged his own bed—they could do without rumours—they had a hurried breakfast, paid their bill,.mounted, and were on their way. Their horses seemed fresher for the day’s rest, at least. As they left Michael surveyed what was left in his money-pouch. Enough for one—perhaps two—more stays in inns, plus a few provisions—then their money would be exhausted. He kept this information from Rachel for now. He knew they were running short, and felt he ought to find answers for himself.

As they followed the south-east road, they found themselves coming to more settled regions, with more villages. More people passed them on the way, but no-one exchanged more than the odd greeting. Michael suggested they would do better not to stop at any of the villages—still mindful of their unfortunate experience back at Kipalup, he explained to Rachel. Instead they made camp as best they could by the roadside, taking care to tether the horses well away from the road where they could not be seen. The weather was now getting steadily colder, but with their fur coats spread over them, and huddled together, they were able to keep reasonably warm.

On the fourth day out from Curkajak, they were almost at the edge of their map which would then become useless to them. Just as they were setting out, however, Rachel suddenly stopped, with her hand in the air. “Listen!” she said urgently. “In thought-shapes,” she added, unnecessarily.

Michael was already straining as hard as he could—yes! there were faint but distinct thought-shapes coming from somewhere to the north. Someone—a woman, no-one they recognised—was saying something like “Morning, dear. Is it today we call on Peter?” And a man replied something like “I think it was tomorrow we agreed, Rachel. I’ve got skins to set out.” Then there was silence.

Clearly this ‘Rachel’ was a different person.

So there were others out there!

Michael could contain himself no longer. They had not, themselves, projected thought-shapes for some time now, recognising that there was some risk in doing so. But now, putting forth all his strength, he sent out “Hello! Who are you, and may we meet up?”

There was no response for about a minute. Then an urgent-sounding message “Peter’s place, OK? And hurry!” Then, again, silence.