Surface Rights

by Melissa Hardy

  “What do you mean — it doesn’t stay put?” Paisley asked.

  “Birches grow old and die and topple to the ground, tearing a new hole in the canopy,” explained Verna. “For a time, the ground beneath that opening is where the glen is. The centre shifts.”

  “Meaning …?” Paisley asked.

  “Those bones could be anywhere over a pretty large area,” said Winonah.

  “The glen is not so much a location with coordinates as it is a state of grace,” Verna told her. Somebody had said that to her. Once. Long ago. Was it Donald?

  “But surely there is something we can do?” Paisley insisted. “I know. We could tie ourselves to the birches. We could lie down in front of the bulldozer.”

  Romy tugged at the sleeve of Paisley’s shirt. “I hope you don’t expect me to lie down in front of anything. That’s not my style.”

  “We’ll do something,” Verna promised, hoping to hell that she could come up with some sort of fix to save the glen from depredation — having worked in the Department of Agriculture for twenty-eight years, she knew full well that governmental bureaucracy was, at the same time, relentless and lugubrious. Her best chance was probably to throw some spanner in the works, something that would buy them time. “What I don’t know, but we’ll come up with something. As far as the cremains go, though, Winonah’s right. Until we’ve got a handle of this thing, we’d better hang on to them.”

  “I’m hungry,” announced Granny. “What’s for lunch?”

  “How about fish sticks?” asked Winonah. “There’s baloney, too. And red-hot wieners.”

  “I hope you don’t expect me to eat meat,” said Romy. “Because I’m a strict vegan.”

  On the canoe ride back to the cottage, Verna suddenly thought of Carmen. Surely a real-estate broker would know about property rights and the laws governing them. Maybe she would have some advice or know how Verna could get more information. How she could fight this thing. With that in mind, the first thing Verna did when they arrived back at the cottage was to dial Carmen’s office on the red wall-mounted rotary phone in the kitchen. She got a busy signal.

  “You got any arrowroot biscuits?” Winonah asked Verna.

  “Probably,” Verna replied. Her father had always stocked up on arrowroot biscuits. It was the cookie he most admired. Born stale, it defied the passage of time. It was, as he used to say, incorruptible, pure.

  “Where are they?”

  But Verna was too preoccupied to want to think about the location of hypothetical cookies. “I thought you knew everything that Lionel knew.”

  “He didn’t know where the arrowroot biscuits were,” said Winonah evenly. “He didn’t like arrowroot biscuits. He liked Fig Newtons.”

  “Look for a tin. A tartan tin,” she told her. She redialled Carmen’s number. Still busy.

  “This tin?” Winonah emerged with a tarnished tartan tin.

  “That’s the one,” said Verna. How had she remembered that Donald kept the arrowroot biscuits in a tartan tin? What minute wrinkle in her brain had that piece of data been tucked into all these many years? It was unfathomable, the way memories lurked in the shadows. “Give me one of those,” she said. She took a cookie and tried the number again. Busy.

  She stamped her foot peevishly. “What the hell is she doing?”

  “Talking on the phone,” said Winonah. “She is a person. She has a life.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Verna. “I thought you were going to fix lunch.”

  “We’re waiting for the kids,” explained Winonah. They were due to arrive from their trek to the glen in another ten minutes. “When they come, we’ll make lunch. This is a snack.”

  Verna glared at the phone.

  “A watched pot, eh?” Granny reminded her. “Never boils.”

  “What kind of arrowroot biscuits are these?” Winonah asked. “Are they Nabisco? ’Cause they don’t taste like Nabisco. They taste like President’s Choice. Nabisco is better.”

  “How do I know?” asked Verna. “I didn’t buy them.”

  “Got any condensed milk?” Granny asked. “Eagle’s — that’s the best, eh? Sweet.”

  “And tea,” said Winonah. “Red Rose Tea.”

  “Nothing tastes better than a Nabisco arrowroot biscuit dipped in a cup of Red Rose tea sweetened with Eagle’s condensed milk,” Granny said longingly. It was a dazzling display of brand loyalty.

  “Look in the cabinet,” Verna told them. “Look in the pantry. I don’t know what’s in there.” She tried calling again. This time, Carmen picked up. Third’s the charm, as Donald would have said. “Hey, Carmen,” she greeted the realtor. She could hear the air purifier hissing in the distance.

  “Verna!” Evidently Carmen had Call Display. “How’d that thing of yours turn out?”

  “What thing?”

  “That guy. The one in the truck. You and Winonah left in an awful big hurry. Was everything all right back home?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t a guy. It was Paisley. You know. Paisley. Fern’s oldest child.”

  “He’s a she?”

  “Yep.”

  “Could’ve fooled me. Did fool me. But that’s good, isn’t it? You’ve got the one niece there already and now the other.”

  “Actually all three of Fern’s kids are here,” said Verna. “The boy came up this morning. Tai.”

  “All three kids! Imagine that. I thought you said they’d disappeared.”

  “Well, they’ve reappeared.”

  “What did I tell you?”

  Verna couldn’t remember. “What did you tell me?”

  “The cat comes back!” said Carmen triumphantly.

  “I guess,” said Verna, “but that’s not the reason I called. I need to pick your brain about something.”

  “Pick away!”

  “It seems that some guy’s staked out part of our property. Actually, his name is Eubanks. J.R. Eubanks. Apparently he did it yesterday morning. We just found the corner claim post.”

  “Okay,” said Carmen.

  “He can’t do that, can he? I mean, my grandfather bought that land from the Crown. He handed it down to my father and my father handed it down to me. We have first title. We’ve always had first title.”

  “Yeah,” said Carmen, “but do you own the mineral rights?”

  Verna was puzzled. “The what?”

  “The mineral rights,” Carmen repeated.

  “I own the land,” Verna said flatly. “Doesn’t that mean I own the mineral rights?”

  Carmen sighed. “Let me give you a little history lesson. Before gold and silver were discovered in these parts, people came and went as they pleased. Stayed, left, put down roots, pulled up stakes. The land didn’t belong to anybody per se. The way those old guys figured, before you can own land, you have to know that it’s there. You have to be able to find it on a map. And that’s what your grandfather did: he put land on the map so people could own it and he picked this spot where you are now for himself and his family. But more importantly, he put land on the map so that people could prospect it, lay claim to it, mine it. Think about it. Who did your grandfather work for?”

  “The Crown,” Verna replied slowly.

  “What part of the Crown?”

  “The Bureau of Mining.”

  “And why did the Crown and the Bureau of Mining want the region mapped?” Carmen asked. “Any reason you can think of?”

  “Gold and silver had been discovered,” said Verna. “But that was a long time ago. The place was uninhabited, well,” she glanced apologetically at Winonah and Granny, “except for a few Native tribes and some trappers. Now people live here. They own property. They have property rights.”

  “And they owned property back then, too,” Carmen assured her. “They owned the surface rights to property. The Crown didn’t necessarily cede them the mineral rights to that same property. As often as not, it held those rights in reserve. Remember that governments like natural resources; they like them more than they like property ri
ghts.”

  Verna tried to take this all in. “So you’re saying that this man has the right to stake my property?”

  “You can go to the Land Registry Office in North Bay and have a look at your title,” said Carmen, “but, if I had to put money on it, I’d say you’re pretty well screwed.”

  “Damn!” said Verna. “But what makes him think that there’s anything worth digging for on my land?”

  “You’ve heard of the Precambrian Shield?” asked Carmen. “That slab of rock we’re both standing on right this minute? Well, actually, I’m sitting, but you take my point. That’s where they find most of the minerals and metals mined in Ontario. Only one in a thousand drill tests results in a mine, but, if you’re going to find something, you’re going to find it in northern Ontario.”

  “But surely you just can’t stake randomly,” Verna objected. “Surely there are restrictions of some sort.”

  “There are,” said Carmen. “Let me see if I can pull them up on my computer. Give me a minute.”

  At the kitchen table Winonah lit a cigarette. “‘We own this land,’” she said. “That’s what my people said. A lot of good it did us.”

  Verna put her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “This is different,” she said. “You were the oppressed; we were the oppressors. The oppressors shouldn’t be oppressing the oppressors. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

  “Thanks for clearing that up,” said Winonah. “I feel much better now.”

  “I’m not saying that it’s right,” Verna defended herself.

  Carmen came back on the line. “Okay, I’m on the website of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines,” she said. “Here’s your list of places you can’t claim stake. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Subdivisions, railway lands, Crown town sites, Ministry of Natural Resources summer resort locations, lands certified by Ministry of Transportation for public purposes, Indian reserves, and provincial parks. Does your property conform to any of the aforementioned types?”

  “No.” Verna’s heart sunk.

  “Is there a dwelling, cemetery, church, public building, dam, garden, vineyard, orchards, or crops that could be damaged on the part he staked?”

  “Well, maybe. Sort of. A cemetery.”

  “A pet cemetery,” Winonah clarified.

  Verna scowled at her. “Winonah says it’s supposed to be the site of an old Ojibway burial ground, but we don’t have any proof of that. I don’t suppose ashes count? Scattered ones, I mean.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” said Carmen.

  “Damn,” said Verna. She racked her brain, trying to think of loopholes. “But he trespassed! Can’t I charge him with trespassing?”

  “The Mining Act gives anyone who holds a prospector’s licence right of entry on land open for staking. Sorry, Verna, but the laws weren’t written for you; they were written for prospectors.”

  “So there’s absolutely nothing I can do to keep this guy from digging up my birch grove?”

  “Nothing legal,” replied Carmen. “Course he could be a lazy son of a bitch and not work the claim. If a year goes by and he hasn’t spent at least four hundred dollars on it, the claim’s forfeit.”

  “What are the chances of that?”

  “Who knows?”

  “So, you’re telling me it’s just watch and wait? That there’s nothing I can do?”

  “Pretty much,” said Carmen. “If he’s going to dig, you get twenty-four hours’ notice. You’ll see it coming.”

  Verna felt sick to her stomach. “I can’t believe this. It isn’t right. This shouldn’t be happening. Not on my watch.”

  “Shit happens,” said Carmen. “Shit doesn’t know whose watch it is and shit doesn’t care. That’s shit for you. What’d you say this guy’s name was?”

  “J.R. Eubanks.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell. Probably some drifter.”

  “Drifter?” Verna asked. “That’s not very reassuring.”

  “All it takes to get a prospector’s licence is twenty-five bucks and one piece of photo ID,” Carmen told her. “They don’t do a background check or nothing.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Verna fumed. “Absolutely ridiculous.”

  “So,” said Carmen, “what do you plan on doing?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I can reason with him.”

  “Your average prospector isn’t exactly what you’d call an upstanding citizen. More like a coyote. Try and buy him. That’s what I’d try if I were you. Or you could kill him.”

  The last suggestion so shocked Verna that she could think of no response.

  “Just kidding.” Carmen said smoothly. “And now, if you don’t mind, I’m signing off. Time for my daily meditation to Tibetan Singing Bowls.”

  There was a sudden commotion on the porch: the sound of the screen door squeaking open and slamming shut, the creak of floorboards, laughter, footfalls and a scramble of claws.

  “We’re home,” cried Romy.

  So shocked were Paisley and Tai by the lack of whole or fresh foods in the cottage larder that they decided to go into Beverley that afternoon to stock up on healthier fare. Romy tagged along for the ride and to purchase the ingredients needed for her “special vegan diet.” As for Winonah, she had spent the afternoon stolidly caulking the downstairs windows and doors, while Granny, curled up tight as the frond of a fiddlehead fern under the black-green-and-blue afghan, napped on the couch. Verna stewed confusedly on the porch, alternating between trying to stretch her hitherto fairly rigid idea of the past enough so that she could wrap it around Paisley’s story and consider the light it shed on aspects of her sister’s life that had, up to now, been unknown to her and trying to figure out just what the hell she was going to do about J.R. Eubanks.

  When the dial-drop clock in the study hazarded a guess that it was five o’clock, Winonah shook Granny as gently from her nap as she might have a beloved child and told Verna, “We’re out of here.” She glanced over at the ladder that remained propped up against the back shed. “Don’t take the ladder down. I still have to caulk the upstairs windows and cut back that larch.”

  Left on her own in the cottage in the middle of the bush, Verna became restless. Strange, because she was used to being alone; indeed, she had almost always preferred it, there being less scope in solitude for recrimination. And, besides, she was not alone. Not really. She had the dog, Jude, her very own happy-go-lucky idiot child. What better company? Uncritical, enthusiastic, alive in the moment …

  Still she felt at loose ends, rattled, even panicky. Well, that was where the word panic came from, wasn’t it? The fear a person experienced upon finding him or herself alone in the woods, that inner flutter, that tripping heart. Except it was not the Greek demigod Pan who was the teasing author of her unease, but this Eubanks character. It wasn’t that she was frightened of him. She had been, initially, when Romy had first spotted him, but now that she knew his intentions were directed toward her property, she was less concerned with their personal safety. Still there were questions. Where had he come from? They were miles from the highway, from the spur road. She had heard no truck, seen no ATV or car. No, he had simply materialized at the opposite end of the lake and disappeared as quickly. He couldn’t just have been wandering around in the bush, randomly claim-staking, could he? That didn’t seem logical.

  She couldn’t sit still. “Come on,” she told Jude. “I’ve got ants in my pants.”

  She vaguely remembered a kind of rudimentary trail cut into the bush out back near the spring that fed the pump; it had, to the best of her recollection and with a few, brief digressions, followed the lake’s eastern shore to the lily pad colony and possibly beyond — a twenty-minute walk, perhaps more. If it was still there. After all it had been thirty-eight years since she had last walked it. Still it was something to do. Something to pass the time. She set forth, with the dog now going up ahead, now dropping behind, according to the information provided by his nose. No
sooner, however, had she entered their riparian realm, than a cloud of blackflies descended upon her, buzzing and crawling and browsing and biting. She put up with them for five minutes, then gave up. “The bastards! I can’t believe I forgot to put vinegar on my face,” she told Jude. “Damn! Next time.”

  When she arrived back at the porch door, frazzled and bothered, she saw that an official-looking brown envelope had been wedged in between the porch door and its sill. She yanked it free. The words PROPERTY OWNER were written on it in a childish scrawl.

  “What …?”

  With a sense of dark foreboding, she tore it open. Inside was a battered form of some sort, entitled, “Notice of Intention to Perform Assessment Work.”

  “Shit!” she said. “Shit!” She waved the form at the dog. “It’s my notice. The one Carmen told me about. Wait a minute. Did you hear a car? I didn’t hear a car. Why didn’t we hear a car? We were only gone ten minutes.”

  Jude looked confused. Canting his head to one side, he wagged his tail tentatively.

  She scanned the notice. “He intends to start work on Tuesday! Tuesday! That’s two frigging days from now and tomorrow’s Sunday and Monday’s a holiday. How can I get hold of anybody in a government office on a holiday? It’s impossible!” She sat down on the stoop and buried her head in her hands. “What the hell am I going to do?”

  There was the low burr of an approaching automobile. Wait a minute, she thought. Was that Eubanks? Was he coming back? Adrenaline crackled down her spine. Maybe this was her chance — her chance to talk him out of trenching the glen! Her heart skipped a beat and she lifted her head from her hands.

  But it was only Tai’s Camry emerging from under the leafy arch of forest into the open parking area.

  “I don’t understand, Auntie Verna,” Romy protested. They were in the kitchen making dinner. At least Tai and Paisley were making dinner — a pasta dish revolving around a rather wizened-looking chicken — purportedly free-range, which struck Verna as credible given the bird’s obviously low BMI. By this time she was on her third vodka and tonic and seated — or, to be more precise, planted at the table, her stance wide to maintain an increasingly fragile equilibrium. “How long were you gone, anyway?”