The Tenderness of Wolves Read Online Free PDF

everywhere, rather to his embarrassment. Donald does not much care for Mackinley, who is sarcastic and bluff by turns–a two-pronged method of deflecting the criticism he seems to expect from every quarter. He guesses that Mackinley is so touchy because he feels socially inferior to some of the men beneath him, Donald included, and is constantly on the look-out for signs of disrespect. Donald knows somehow that if Mackinley were less concerned about such things, he would be more respected, but the man is not likely to change now. As for himself, he is aware that Mackinley and the others regard him as a rather effete bean counter; useful enough, but hardly a real backwoods adventurer in the old style.
    When he got off the ship from Glasgow, he meant to be himself, and let the men take him as they found him. But he has in fact made valiant attempts to improve his image in their eyes. For one thing, he steadily increased his toleranceof the rough alcohol that is the lifeblood of the fort, although it does not agree with him. When he first arrived he would sip politely at the rum they decanted from vast smelly barrels, thinking he had never tasted anything so disgusting. The other men noted his abstinence, and left him marooned as they journeyed into the realms of drunkenness, telling long, boring stories and laughing repeatedly at the same jokes. Donald put up with this for as long as he could, but the loneliness weighed on him until he could no longer bear it. The first time he got spectacularly drunk the men cheered, slapping him on the back when he vomited onto his knees. Through the nausea and acrid dampness Donald felt a kernel of warmth: he belonged–finally they would accept him as one of them. But, although the rum no longer tasted as bad as it once did, he was aware that the others treated him with a sort of amused tolerance. He was still just the junior accountant.
    The other bright idea he had to prove himself had been to organise a rugby football match. Overall this was disastrous, but out of it had come one small ray of light, which causes him to pull himself straighter in the saddle.
    Fort Edgar is a civilised posting compared to most of the Company’s forts. It lies near the shore of the Great Lake, a huddle of wooden buildings inside a palisade–the whole obstinately sheltering from a stunning prospect of islands and bay behind a belt of spruce. But what makes Fort Edgar civilised is the proximity of settlers, and the nearest are at Caulfield on Dove River. The residents of Caulfield are happy to live near the trading post as it is stocked with imported English goods and upstanding Company men. The traders are equally happy to be near Caulfield, as it is stocked with English-speaking white women, who can occasionally be persuaded to decorate the fort’s dances and other social events–like rugby matches.
    On the morning of the match, he found that he wasnervous. The men were sullen and bleary-eyed after a marathon drinking session, and Donald was unnerved to see a party of visitors arrive. He was even more unnerved when he met them–a tall, stern-looking man who was the image of a hell-fire preacher, and his two daughters, who were excited to be surrounded by so many youngish, unattached men.
    The Knox sisters watched the proceedings politely, utterly mystified. Their father had attempted to explain the rules, as he knew them, on the journey to Fort Edgar, but his grasp of the game was rusty and he had only confused them more. The players moved around the meadow in a large ragged knot, the ball (a weighty lump stitched by a voyageur’s wife) generally invisible.
    As the game progressed, the mood darkened. Donald’s team seemed to have reached a consensus to keep him out of the game, and ignored his shouts to pass to him. He ran up and down, hoping the girls could not tell that he was superfluous, when the ball came rolling towards him, leaking bits of furry stuffing. He picked it up and ran up the pitch,