by Gary Collins
“I don’t give a damn about you ’atin’ me.” Redjack also spoke low, and I could plainly see anger in his eyes, yet somehow I sensed it was directed at something more than me. “I ’ate all women! Vengeful bitches and murderers is wot ye are!” A mad look bordering on insanity entered his eyes, and for a second he looked pitiful. It passed quickly, and he shouted to be heard again.
“Our b’y!” He stared at me. “Will not be coming ’ome from the war! Dying like nippers, they are, over there. Dying from germs and wot I ’ear they calls mortification, a fancy word fer gangrene is wot it is. A wounded soldier is a dead soldier over there.”
There came a cry of despair from above. I looked up the hill and saw Eliza, with Little Jake in her arms, run crying up the path.
“You bastard!” I snarled at Redjack. “How dare you say such a thing! That girl is Eliza, Jake’s girl, and the boy in her arms is their son. She is already at her wit’s end waiting and praying for Jake, who has been wounded in Gallipoli, to come home to her.”
Redjack had little concern for Jake. He had concern about the child in Eliza’s arms, though. “A redhead, by Christ! He has my hair. I have a grandson?” His voice was suddenly meek, and I caught that tinge of sadness in his eyes again.
“Aye, it pains me to admit such a thing. But Little Jake is as you say.” I couldn’t bear to say the words your grandson. “Only by forced blood does he have any connection to you. Neither he nor Jake has your vile ways. No one wants you here. You have nothing here. I will die before I see you a part of their lives.” The sad look went out of Redjack’s eyes then.
“Aye! Die and kill the b’y, too, I ’lows, just to spite me, eh? Vengeful bitch! All women are vengeful bitches. But vengeance ’as been mine!” He was shaking.
‘Kill the boy? Vengeful? Are you mad? You’ve lost yer senses, you have!” I cried back at him.
Redjack looked all around, as if fearing he had said too much, and when he spoke again he had calmed down. Again he changed the subject. “No matter now, ’tis past. Wot matters now is my right to lawful property.”
I screamed at him once more that he had no rights to anything in the Place, that what was Tobe’s was now Jake’s and mine.
“As to that, my dear,” he went on, “I will enlighten you, being a mere women and not expected to understand such scriptural or legal matters, as to the purity of my intentions.
“As fer the first part, ’tis clearly ordained by Almighty God that men will be masters above women in all matters. This includes the right to fill ’em wit’ a man’s seed and cause ’em to be fruitful. And fer the second part, be law, women have no rights to their husbands’ property wotsoever, if he be dead or alive, providin’, mind ye, there is a male chil’ involved, which plainly is the case ’ere.
“Such a chil’ has no right wotsoever to said property, either, till he reaches the age of twenty-one years. Till that time the property belongs to the b’y’s father. Which you yerself have clearly stated to be the case is me! So, as ye can plainly see, my dear, all of this, yer property . . .” Redjack waved his arm around as though he could claim ownership of the entire Place, “. . . is mine whether the b’y be dead or alive.”
Redjack went on to explain to me and the few others still listening that he was a “limb of the law,” that he had sworn on the Good Book to be truthful and fair. “Why, I sat at the desk of the ’ead magistrate himself. Like old friends, we are, with the king staring down from the wall, and me and the magistrate cuffering about legal matters wot I wanted to know.”
I was speechless. My God, I thought, this man is demented. He has brushed aside the issue of rape as if it were the right of all men by the law of God Himself. The fleeting glimpse of compassion I thought I had seen in his eyes at the mention of Jake and Little Jake had disappeared quicker than it had appeared. All Redjack wanted was to possess everything Jake and I owned. That would be his revenge against me. I had no idea why. I couldn’t bear his company any more, and I walked away from the wharf.
“Get away from Jake’s wharf. You are not welcome to tie up here,” I said in parting.
“As to that, Rebecca my dear, as I ’ave already explained to ya, ’tis my wharf. I will be staying aboard me punt until the next schooner comes by. At sech time I will be sailing to S’n John’s fer further consultation with my good friend the magistrate—er, correction, my dear, wot I meaned to say was ’ead magistrate—concernin’ property and sech.”
I walked away. I had to leave him for now. The Skipper and his crew would deal with this when they returned from the Offer Ground. That was my hope, at least. Still, I wondered if Redjack was right. I had never seen anyone representing the law come to the Place. I knew nothing about the legalities of owning property. One thing I did know, but would never admit to him, was that women had few rights.
Could Redjack be right about a father’s rights as well? The thought was disturbing. We were a simple people who knew little about law or anything else outside the Place where we lived. I walked up over the hill, my heart heavier than my feet. There was no one left on the path.
36
That same evening there was a confrontation on Jake’s wharf between Skipper Guy and Redjack the Culler. Everyone in the Place was on the hill above the wharf again, watching. I was one of them. Eliza was beside me with Little Jake in her arms. She hardly spoke at all. Redjack’s declaration that morning, of Jake being dead, had taken the spirit out of her. Though I tried to console her, she was sure Redjack was right.
The conversation went much like the one in the morning, but with one exception. The issue of rape never came up. I knew the Skipper wouldn’t discuss such a sensitive subject with everyone listening. Redjack vehemently maintained that he was legal owner to all that Jake owned. The Skipper told him that Jake was also shareholder in his enterprise and part owner of their trap skiff and their one-lunger engine.
Redjack told him, “As fer that, being a fair man, I am willin’ to take cash money fer Jake’s share of stuff, or in lieu of money, fish to the value of said property, providin’, o’ course, as I does the cullin’.” The Skipper was going to hit him, then, and Redjack recoiled in fright, shouting to the old man, “’Ave a caution! I’m a limb of the law, I tells ya. Why, the ’ead magistrate ’isself told me wot a father’s rights o’ his underaged son’s property is. ’Tis mine, I tells ya. All mine in the eyes of the law.”
Skipper Guy, his fists balled and his shoulder muscles bunched for the blow, relented. He was a reasonable, sensible man of good character, like the rest of us, and he knew nothing about the law. Reluctantly, he gave Redjack the benefit of doubt.
“But,” he said, his voice grave, “know this! If you lay a hand on Becky, or any other girl or woman in the Place, if you knock on ’er door . . .” He swung his big fist right up to Redjack’s face. “. . . no threat of ’ead magistrate, nor the devil in ’ell, will keep this out o’ yer filthy mouth. An’ be the time I finish wit’ ’e, limb o’ the law er no, only the crabs will find ’e.” With that, the Skipper turned and walked away. The showdown had come to nothing. The crowd, mumbling among themselves, dispersed.
But I stood there a moment longer. I could have hugged the Skipper. He believed that Redjack had raped me. It also meant something else. The Skipper believed Redjack was capable of doing it again.
That night, my door opened and startled me. For the first time ever, the Skipper stepped inside my home. He told me he was sorry for the intrusion. Seeing the fear on my face, he shuffled his feet in embarrassment and stood there, cap in hand. I asked him to sit and offered him tea, which he gladly accepted. Then he revealed to me all he had heard about the Culler over the years, the man we all knew as Redjack.
Jack the fish culler went logging in the wintertime and spent all season in the logging camps in the deep forests at the head of the bays, he said. I nodded. It was a common enough practice. There were a few summer fishermen from our
Place who became winter loggers. In most cases it earned them the only hard money they saw for the year.
“’Tis a ’ard, sad tale I’ve to tell ’e. But if there’s anyone who has a right to ’ear it, ’tis you, Becky my love. Redjack plied the logger’s trade a coupla times. The last time after the winter’s cut was in and ’e had gone back to cullin’ fish fer the chandler, he come home one day only to larn his wife and baby daughter was dead.” The skipper stopped to let that sink in.
“That must’ve been a hard blow for him,” I murmured, half to myself.
“Aye, ’twas that. That’s not the ’ardest part of it, not be a ball shot! Nor the worst of it. Their bodies was found in one of them shaller coves filled with deep, sticky mud.” The Skipper paused to fill his pipe. “’Tis common enough up in the bays,” he said, tamping the pipe with his broad thumb. Snapping a match against his rough breeks, he let it flare before lifting it to the pipe. “Seen sech a cove meself,” he said between puffs. “Damn near lost a pair of rubber boots in the bloody mud one time.” He puffed again. “Digging fer cocks and hens fer bait, we was.”
The skipper was a born storyteller. I prompted him to continue.
“Aye, now comes the ’ardest part of the cuffer. ’Twas why I strayed from it, I expect. Even the tellin’ of it saddens me. Well, Becky maid, the rub of it was the chil’s ’ead had been bludgeoned be a hammer still resting on top of the mud. The mother, her feet stuck in the mud, had drowned be the flood tide. Never tried to free herself from the mud. Chil’ and mother was moored to one another be one of them fancy women’s stockin’s as rich ladies wear.”
Oh my God! I couldn’t believe the grisly story the skipper was telling me, and I said so.
“Aye, Becky maid, ’tis wunnerful ’ard to understand, I’ll grant ya that. The sad part o’ it all is that part of the story is true, as proven be the law. Wot is not known—not fer sure, anyway—is as to why the woman would commit sech an unpardonable sin.”
Skipper Guy puffed on his pipe as if he didn’t want to talk just now. I could hear the suck of his pipe grow shallow, and I knew it had burned down. He rose to his feet, lifted one of the covers off the stove, and tapped the tobacco dottle out. His movements, though soft, were loud in the kitchen. Back in his chair at the table opposite me once again, he sipped on the last of his tea. Then he told me what was rumoured about the event.
The murder-suicide was such a disgrace to the community where it happened, it cast a pall of shame over it. Unlike other gossip, it didn’t spread far. The people refused to talk about it when they were questioned about it. They even went as far as to say the woman’s husband was a logger and not a fisherman at all—anything to remove the sting of a baby girl murdered by her mother. Some details did leak out, of course.
The Skipper told me he had heard a rumour, from the logging camp where Redjack had worked, that he had been seen courting a pretty girl with yellow hair. She was a brazen, “loose girl,” according to the talk, and well-known to walk the twilight trails with loggers, especially young ones. Then it was the letter Sophie, Redjack’s wife, had been seen bringing home from the post office. Someone was said to have asked the postmaster if he could shed some light on the letter’s place of posting, but he refused.
One nosy woman, by whose door the lane that Sophie walked was the closest, swore the letter was unopened. And as letters were so rare, why hadn’t she opened it on the walk home? Everyone else did. No, the town was convinced, after weeks of analyzing it all over card games and countless cups of tea and talks on stageheads, that the letter was from the wench in the logging camps. Sophie had read the letter that they were certain was a love letter for Jack. And her broken heart had led her to do the unthinkable.
It was the most disturbing tale I had ever heard. Added to all of that, the Skipper said, was the talk that Redjack was suspected of attacking several young women over the years. None of them ever came forward. I knew all too well why. The shame was theirs alone to bear, along with the sure knowledge they would not be believed.
The tale finished, his cup empty, the Skipper bade me good night and left. I felt terribly alone when the door closed behind him. The odour from his pipe lingered in the kitchen. It somehow gave me comfort, but I still shifted the water gully against the door.
I was looking out the upstairs window, down at the harbour, where I could see the faint lantern glow from the cuddy of Redjack’s punt, when it came to me. The rumours about Redjack and Sophie were true! Without even knowing it, the Culler had as good as confirmed it.
When Sophie walked through the Place on that fateful evening, her child in her arms, she was not seen carrying the letter. She could have hidden it in her pocket. Hidden? Now, why was I thinking that? No, Sophie had carried it home. The nosy woman had seen it in her hand. But she made no mention of seeing the letter that evening when Sophie walked away from her door for the last time. Sophie had left the letter for Redjack to see. I was sure of it. All women are vengeful bitches, he had spat at me. Murderers, spiteful! Redjack held a grudge against all women for what Sophie had done. He had even suggested I would kill Little Jake out of spite. Redjack had read that letter. There was no doubt in my mind. Maybe he had raped the young girl in the logging camp, as he did me. She might have even born a child for him. If Sophie had killed her daughter out of spite, I hoped she would rot in hell.
But . . . my God! I had nearly done the same thing to Jake! If he hadn’t been clever enough to see the new cut in Tobe’s old breeks, he could have been hanged. And I would have killed him as surely as if I had given him the long drop.
I was sick to my stomach. I ran from the room across the hall to mine, lamp in hand, my shadow racing ahead of me. There I yanked the chamber pot from under the bed and retched violently. All I was thinking was that Jake must have a hidden, blessed gene—my gentle father’s probably, for he sure as hell hadn’t inherited one good thing from either of his parents.
37
Redjack lurked around the Place for three days. He was not welcomed at any door, which under normal circumstances was unheard of here—all were welcome at every door. He never came knocking at my door again, and though I saw him walk the path and stare at the house, he never once stopped. He ate and slept in his punt.
One night it rained hard, and no one offered him shelter. And in the morning, after the rain had stopped, I saw Redjack bail water out of his punt with a wooden piggin. Then in the afternoon of the third day after his arrival, I watched him climb the path past my door and head to the lookout above the tickle.
Soon after he went up the hill, Eliza came to my door with Little Jake in her arms. She hadn’t come by of late. Though with my new feelings and revelations I so wanted to hold my grandson, I didn’t know how to approach it. Showing affection would be a learning experience for me.
The Maid’s features had changed in the last couple of days. I could see she had spent her nights in tears. She had a look of mourning over her pretty face that could very well be needless, and I told her so.
“I know,” she said in the saddest of tones. “But ’tis so hard to believe with no word of encouragement an’ all. I was on my way up to the lookout. I told Jake I would look for him every day till he came home. But I saw the Culler go up, and I was afraid to meet him. I hate that man, even if he is Jake’s fath—oh, I didn’t mean to . . . I mean to say I . . .” Eliza looked at me in anguish.
“No need to apologize, Eliza. I spoke true. Redjack is Jake’s father, and I have long hated him so, with good reason.”
I looked at Little Jake in his mother’s arms. He was staring at me, his grandmother. My heart melted, and I was about to say to Eliza that maybe it was time to let go of all the hate, when I heard Redjack’s voice outside my door.
“Schooner comin’ up the tickle!” he called out, knowing I would hear him. “I’ll be leavin’ on ’er to ’ave me talk wit’ the ’ead magistrate as to properties and
sech.” I heard his feet scuffing down the path.
A moment later, Eliza let out a pitiful wail. “Oh no! S’pose Jake is come home on the schooner?” she cried.
I looked at her in confusion. “What do you mean, my dear? Certainly Jake aboard that schooner will be the answer to all your prayers!”
“Oh, God’s trust! Yes it will! Ten thousand times over, for I have cried a doryload of prayers to Almighty God for him. Only, if he has come home and didn’t see me watching fer him above the tickle, what will he think of me?”
“Surely your love is stronger than a watch kept above the tickle, Eliza,” I said quietly, meaning it.
Eliza answered right away. “Aye, ’tis that, Becky. Still, I promised I would look fer him come sailing home.” She looked at Little Jake. “He won’t know about his son, though. Maybe he won’t want a child, not yet. We never talked about having children. Do you think he will still want me, wit’ a child an’ all?” Eliza was asking me a question concerning a son I wasn’t sure I knew.
“He will love you all the more because of Little Jake,” I assured her, and somehow I knew I was right.
The Maid’s spirit, which had soared at the possibility of Jake sailing home aboard the schooner, suddenly quailed. “Oh God, we are talking as if we are sure Jake is coming up the tickle. He’s not. I will be disappointed again. Oh, Becky, I fear the mailbag more than a schooner without Jake.” She ran out the door, and I followed her.
Redjack was leaning against an empty flake hard by the path overlooking the harbour, and we passed him by. A crowd had gathered in the harbour. A schooner’s arrival was a big event in the Place. Eliza stopped at the smooth rock above Jake’s wharf, and I stopped beside her. She shrugged Little Jake farther up on her shoulder. The boy was facing me, and I longed to hold him.