TWENTY-ONE
HAZEL WONDERED WHERE HE’D BEEN. A week had passed since she’d awakened cold and alone at his camp, and she still hadn’t seen him. This fact would have been unremarkable in most of the places she’d lived, but she could walk the length of Moose Factory in under an hour and Gideon didn’t blend easily. She couldn’t ask anyone; the talk would only get worse. It was telling that no one mentioned his name when she was around.
Had he gone? Foolish, even insane. He would never make the Northwest Passage this late, wherever he thought that was, neither alone nor with a guide, not that any island native would take him. It was late September. They knew better. Boats could negotiate the waters north of there for only a brief window of time in August, and for the remainder of the year it wa
