The Stroke of Winter(34)

They made promises to get together for coffee soon, as Kate went back to her table. Tess and Wyatt found a spot by one of the windows. After ordering—a turkey, bacon, and avocado sandwich for him, a bowl of squash-and-apple soup for her—they sipped on their drinks and Tess realized, as she stared across the table at this man, that she didn’t know the first thing about him.

Well, she knew he had dogs. And that he was a friend of Jim’s. And that he knew just about everyone in Wharton, from the reception he got when they walked into the restaurant. She knew he helped people with their various projects and problems around their homes. He called a Scottish animal wrangler a friend. But that was about it.

“What brought you to Wharton?” she asked before blowing softly on her spoon filled with steaming soup as she brought it to her mouth.

A chuckle, then, from Beth St. John, who was passing by their table on her way out. “How long have you got?” she said to Tess with a grin. She winked at Wyatt and patted Tess on the back. “It’s a great story.”

Tess turned to Wyatt. “Oh?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

He smiled and shrugged. “My great-great-great-grandfather was John Wharton,” he said, and took a bite of his sandwich. “I guess you could say he founded the town.”

Tess’s spoon hung in midair on its way to her mouth. “You’re kidding.”

His grin grew wider. “Nope. Interested to hear about it?”

“Absolutely!”

Wyatt took a sip of his drink. And then he began to tell his tale.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN



More than two centuries ago, John Wharton was a fur trapper and trader on the land that would become the town that bore his name. Long before LuAnn’s boarding house was built a hundred years ago to house them, long before there were streets and buildings and restaurants and anything else that made up the town of Wharton, John Wharton’s canoe found its way to this rocky shore.

Back then, it was pristine wilderness, filled with pine trees reaching up to the sky, wide beaches where the waves crashed, and otters, beavers, and other furry mammals scurrying up and down the shoreline on the prettiest bay on this side of the lake. Moose strode elegantly through the forests; wolves stole silently behind them. Foxes played in open meadows.

That was what John Wharton found when his canoe was blown off course during a storm on the other side of the lake in Canada. It was as though the lake itself had taken John’s canoe and, after a few harrowing days, set it gently on the shoreline that would become the Wharton ferry dock more than one hundred years later.

His canoe was filled with goods to trade for furs—blankets, metal tools, firearms and ammunition, even brass kettles. He also had traps of his own. The fur trade was big business around the Great Lakes during this time.

But the day that John Wharton’s canoe slid onto shore, he found something astonishing, something completely unexpected.

John had been battered by rain and wind, baked by the sun. So he wasn’t altogether himself when he was greeted by several men. Englishmen. Or Canadians. John wasn’t sure. They roused him from the canoe bottom and helped him to their village, a neighborhood of domed structures covered with bark where their people lived. It was nestled in the forest on the hill overlooking the water, safely protected from the lake’s harsh winds and crashing waves.

There, the people gave him food and drink, and after sleeping the night through, maybe longer, John awoke, refreshed, if a bit sunburned and sore.

He wasn’t completely sure where he was, but after some conversation with the men of the village he understood that he had been blown all the way across Lake Superior. It didn’t quite seem possible for him to have survived such a journey, but there he was, in a land he had never before seen, nor imagined.

The very woods seemed different here. It was almost as if they were enchanted, buzzing with an energy John couldn’t define. The sky seemed a deeper blue, the stars closer and more brilliant. The furs more plush, as though the animals themselves were of another ilk. The people themselves were kind—almost unnaturally kind—welcoming him for as long as he wanted to stay. There were long nights by the fire trading stories and laughter instead of goods and furs. They told him of the Indigenous peoples, Ojibwe, who were expert trappers and traders and taught them how to survive in this land. He took long walks in the forest or along the shoreline, marveling at the magnificence of it all.

But the most magnificent of all was Elizabeth. One of the women from the village. With her silky, dark hair, which she wore down, unlike most of the women of the day, she was the most beautiful woman John had ever seen. But there was more than that, so much more. Her smile. Her laughter. The touch of her hand.

John saw children happily running through the village, and soon he began to imagine children of his own.

John didn’t quite grasp how much time had passed. Days? Weeks? Years? It was as though he were caught out of time, somehow. But he didn’t much care about that. He didn’t care about getting back to his trading post. He only cared about Elizabeth and making a life for her.

And so they were married one summer evening on the shores of the lake that had brought him to them. It was the happiest John had ever been. He had a home, with a loving wife, and a loving and kind community around them. Soon, there would be children. Month after idyllic month passed.

Until that day. That horrible day.