Summary
A lone Mountie, Douglas MacLeod, glides through the crystalline stillness of the sub-Arctic, his crimson tunic a slash of blood against the permafrost; he carries not only the queen’s law but a private ache for Suzanne Foucharde, the francophone settler whose compassion has braided an orphaned Cree infant into her own life. Rumour, that shape-shifting wraith, arrives in the person of louche fur-runner Louis La Rocque, whispering that the child is Suzanne’s shameful secret. Her brother Henry, aflame with fraternal fury, punctuates La Rocque’s sneer with a single leaden period, thereby unspooling the moral calculus of the tundra: love versus duty, blood versus badge. MacLeod, shackled by oath, escorts Henry toward the timber fort’s gaol, yet in the whiteout of conscience he stages a counterfeit escape, intercepting the musket ball meant for the fugitive and collapsing into scarlet snow. Spring’s thaw exhumes the corpse of Na Fa Kowa, the child’s biological mother, her testament folded beneath her frozen tongue, absolving Suzanne. Convalescent, MacLeod discards the queen’s silver for a ring of boreal gold, and the aurora itself seems to veil the lovers as they speak vows to a horizon that no longer judges.
Synopsis
Douglas MacLeod of the Royal North West Mounted Police is in love with Suzanne Foucharde, who has adopted an abandoned Indian baby, the illegitimate child of Louis La Rocque and Na Fa Kowa. When La Rocque insinuates that the baby is Suzanne's, her brother Henry defends his sister's honor and kills the villain. In spite of his love for Suzanne, it is Douglas' duty to arrest Henry. He does so, but later allows him to escape, taking the bullet himself that was fired after Henry by Constable Burke. Meanwhile, the dead body of Na Fa Kowa is found, accompanied by a note proving that the Indian was the baby's mother. In the spring, when Douglas recovers from his wounds, he and Suzanne are married.
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