The larger shadow followed behind, they slowly came closer, and while his grandfather was calm Simon noted he had his hand on the rifle.
The second large shadow emerged. It was a moose, bathed in green, laboring to keep up but following the wolf on a course that led them both closer and closer to Joe Loon and Simon.
The wolf trotted, his head red, his body blue, and then red head to tail, until without any apparent recognition he changed his path slightly as he passed by, his head slung low, his tongue hanging out. He barely glanced at the men, and never broke his dogtrot, and the big blue moose followed, ten yards back, on limping and wobbling legs. Joe Loon and Simon watched them pass by and head on their way, the moose following the wolf together, changing colors constantly, until they vanished in the lights.
“They were lost until they found each other.”
Simon grabbed the rope and turned Joe Loon around and continued their slow progress through this world, trying to get home to their world.
On her way to the car Maureen joined the street disturbed by the early rumors that someone had been shot, perhaps a police officer. Kevin’s man stepped in next to her as she passed by and asked if she needed anything. She nodded no and he drifted back.
She was confident she hadn’t been seen, but she wasn’t certain. She was tempted to join the crowd that was heading closer to the scene of the shooting to learn what she could, and that’s when it was Kevin’s turn to approach her, though he didn’t acknowledged her. Once he knew she saw him he walked behind her, just off her shoulder.
“I’ll follow you to your car to see if anyone else is.”
They walked away from the action and soon the sidewalks were empty. Still, they were careful. As they drew near to her car Maureen spoke for the first time.
“He nearly bested me Kevin. He must of figured I was followin’ him an’ he had my arm an’ we struggled… An’ then… I closed my eyes, yeah. At the last moment, as I was pullin’ the trigger… I didn’t want to know his name… I didn’t want to see him get shot… I just wanted him dead… I just wanted to avenge Da’s death… ”
They got to the car and Kevin kneeled down at the curbside rear tire, acting as if he were inspecting it.
“I have to go to Derry. Something’s come up I need to attend to. I’ll be back by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Will you have a chance to look in on Mum? I don’t know if she’s gotten any of my messages an’ she was worried when I left.”
“Yes, I can do that.”
“Tell her I’m fine an’ wish her a happy birthday an’ tell her I’ve got good news for her when I see her.”
The sacred spot continued to change as winter followed winter. There were more cabins among the pines. Then a large log structure appeared; it was twice as tall as the other cabins and many times bigger. A new dock was built, one that extended out into the cove, and two buildings sat at the end of the dock. And still This Man repeated the song cycle as more and more spirits joined him.
And then the spirit of Mathew Loon, the River’s true warrior, joined them in their call.
It was near dusk when Maureen left Banbridge. She was alert to any car following her and when one did pull out behind her she decided to change her route and headed north. The other car drove off to the east but she continued north, not south to the safe house, and unsure why. She drove on and when she got to the River, near Dromore, she turned west, and followed it. In the last light she pulled off to the side of the road and walked down to the River and stood at the shore.
She watched the River flow, its surface black and slick.
She had accepted that smuggling bomb making materials into London years earlier could result in people being killed, and when two men died from the first mission, and one more from her second, she accepted she had a role in their deaths. And she knew when they executed the Ebrington Barracks raid that she might be called upon to shoot someone; she had convinced herself and Kevin then that she was ready to shoot a man straight on if it came to that.
But this was the first time she had. This was the first time she pointed a gun and pulled the trigger and shot a man and watched him die.
“He weren’t no feckin’ innocent,” she said to the River, and spat out the bad taste in her mouth.
She decided to continue, to meet Kevin at the safe house and craft a plan for an IRA victory that hit the Brits in their heart, not just in Belfast but Stormont itself. If Kevin could help her identify and plan an operation that could be executed now, in the next couple of days, she was ready. She got back in her car, returned to the main road, and suddenly the full weight of not calling Brian hit her so she detoured to Dromore to find a phone box.
Night was falling as Maureen drove into Dromore, a small market town. She saw the Catholic church, St. Colmans, and parked to go inside. The church was empty; she walked to the front of the church and kneeled in front of the altar, and prayed. When she left she found a phone box, and called the hotel in Chicago where the fishing shows were being held. When the hotel operator answered, Maureen asked her to ring Brian Burke’s room.
“He’s been expecting your call.”
“Pardon me.”
“My manager let me know that when you called, I was to make sure I got you connected with him.”
“Then please ring me through.”
There was no answer, and Maureen waited for the hotel operator to come back on the line.
“Tell him his wife called, that she sends her love, that all is fine, an’ I will call him in the mornin’.”
“He’ll be disappointed he missed you, but I’ll make sure he gets this message as soon as he returns. Is there a number he can call you?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Would you like me to ring the front desk and see if they can find him? Perhaps they’re having an early supper in our restaurant.”
“No, I’m at a phone box, a pay phone, an’ I really do need to be movin’ on.”
As Maureen drew close to the border between County Armagh and County Louth—leaving British Northern Ireland and entering the Free Republic—she turned on the headlight’s high beams, anticipating something very like what she found as she rounded a curve: barriers blocking the road on the British side of the border, though there were many more men than she imagined—a half a dozen uniformed RUC and a couple in civilian dress.
They stood alert as her car approached. She slowed and drove closer. She checked her pistol; it was holstered in the coat sleeve loop.
An RUC officer separated himself from the rest to walk up the road toward her, squinting in her bright headlights, and he waved her to stop. She slowed, then stopped. Many of the men turned their backs to her lights or held their arms in front of their faces, the high beams were intense, and they yelled at her to turn off her lights. She acted as if she didn’t hear them as she rolled down her window.
The officer approached, his hand up to block the light.
“Turn off your lights Miss.”
She turned off her car, but left the lights on, and opened the door to get out when he shouted angrily.
“Turn off your lights now!”
“You’ve no reason to raise your voice with me. An’ you better have good reason for stoppin’ a woman at night.”
She turned off her lights and the men relaxed. Just before she got out of the car she decided to leave the pistol under the car seat, then she stepped out.
“Just what are you doing all alone on the road at night?”
“Are you tryin’ to intimidate me? My attorney will be very interested in how, do I count seven, how seven men treat one woman all alone on the road so late at night.”
“Your attorney is it now.”
“Confirm my count. Five RUC’s, yes that’s right, an’ them two in suits. What should I call them, your friends in civilian garb?”
Maureen had removed her Canadian driver’s license from her purse before she got out of the car, and she thrust it in the man’s fac
e, waited for him to see what it was, then continued.
“Folks in Canada, they ask me if I left this country because of the Brits. I tell them it’s their Proddie sheepdogs that spoiled the land an’ sickened me.” She took a couple of steps towards the other men. “Let me ask these fine gentlemen. Is there one Roman Catholic among your ranks?”
One of the men called out, “Shut ‘er up.”
She turned back to the officer.
“An’ now it’s your men threatenin’ me for askin’ an innocent question? Why don’t you ask one a them to start makin’ a list of their names for me.”
The officer turned to his men.
“Let her through. Get in your car and get out of here.”
She smiled and walked back to the car. “You gotta hand that to the Brits, they know how to train sheepdogs.”
“Now.”
She got in her car, started the engine, and her headlights came on in high beam. She drove through the opening in the barricade, the men calling her out as she passed.
“I think I can see shore through the lights ahead.”
As the shore took shape Simon did not like what he saw. He turned Joe Loon around to see the solid rock wall, running straight up from the ice floor to the ice ceiling.
Joe Loon stared at the wall for a few moments, remembering the rock faced bluff along and above the River’s old shoreline, there forever, before the dam was built. He pictured the shore on both sides of the rock wall, then told Simon which direction they should follow the shore.
After they traveled a short distance Simon told Joe Loon, “There is something ahead…it’s laying on the ice.”
The spectrum of ice light had slowly grown darker—the blues and greens darker until absorbed in the gray, the reds and yellows almost gone—so they had to be close before they were sure it was a deer, lying on its side, dead.
They passed by the full carcass, not killed apparently, simply dead. They continued following the face of the rock wall, and soon passed another dead deer.
The farmhouse where Maureen and Kevin would stay while they planned their next moves was still an hour away, and the last distance was down a side road. She pulled off the side road into the yard and parked the car around behind the house, out of view of the road, retrieved the key from the small flowerpot nearest the door, and went inside. Her exhaustion was profound; she’d slept no more than a couple of hours here and there since she left Canada, nearly four days ago. She pulled out her notebook and began to jot down some questions and ideas for a raid on Stormont, but when she realized she’d dozed off while sitting up, she knew it was time to find a bed.
The hotel operator was right: Brian and Dutch, along with Mary Fobister and the children, had been eating supper at the hotel diner when the call from Maureen came in. Brian checked with the front desk on their way up to their rooms and found the message. His anxiety was replaced by his anger. He was angry at the hotel for not coming to get him, and he was angry at himself for not thinking to tell them he was close by should she call; but mostly he was angry at Maureen, for failing to do as she promised, for failing to act as his wife and Grace’s mother should. He was angry that this trip of hers scared him so.
With Mary watching over the sleeping children—Grace and Little Stevie shared a bed with each other and a room with Mary—Brian and Dutch were in the hotel bar, the bar and tables filled with camp owners and outfitters. The room was loud with laughter and grand proclamations. Brian and Dutch were sipping whiskey—Brian the Irish, Dutch a Canadian blend. Brian still held the note about Maureen’s call in his hand.
“What about Gracie. Forget about me, what about Gracie?”
“I don’t know what to say that’ll soothe you Brian. She’s as independent a woman as I’ve ever met.”
“Which was fine when it was her an’ me an’ no one else.”
He finished the last in his glass and slammed it hard against the wood tabletop.
“God damn her.”
“That’s the second time you’ve done that Brian, damned her. He just might be listening and think you mean it one of these times.”
“Of course I don’t mean it.” He waved to the bartender, got his attention, and signaled for two more. “Just God damn what she’s doin’ to me, that’s all.”
The lights in the ice world had continued to change, and now all the color was gone; the darker aspects dominated as the sun set in the world above.
The rock wall gave way to a slope that had been spruce forest before a lumber company logged the trees that would be flooded by the dam. Simon and Joe Loon studied the incline in the last of the light; the stumps offered themselves as something like steps except every bit of every surface, the stumps and the forest floor between them, and the logging remnants scattered all around, all of it was covered in a sheet of ice.
Joe Loon unloaded his lap, put on his pack, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and clipped the traps to a strap. He leaned to grab a stump. “I will pull myself up.”
As they searched for a course up the steep slope among the stumps the growing darkness obscured more and more detail.
Simon found the ice was treacherously slick, the footing precarious, and he slipped feeling for first footholds. He started again, and they were both making slow progress when Simon slipped again and fell down onto Joe Loon, knocking them both down onto the ice floor; Simon landing on top of his grandfather. When Joe Loon’s knee hit the ice he cried out in full pain for the first time.
“I am sorry Grandfather.”
“Yes. Yes, you should be sorry.”
It was nearly total darkness; dusk was giving way to night. Joe Loon sat up and leaned out to feel for the shore.
“We must not spend the night in between. When we climb out we are alive. If we stay here, we are dead.”
Again they started to climb, Joe Loon reaching out blindly for any handhold, his hands searching, searching, grabbing and pulling, pushing to reach again, resting each step along the way, his knee burning and his ankle throbbing. Simon was on all fours, secured what felt to be a firm base, then lay on his belly to reach out for the next advance.
They made their way slowly, unsteadily, each foot of progress hard won, stopping to rest often, for they were exhausted before they began. When Simon’s arm slipped from under him and his head hit an ice-sheeted rock, he turned into a ball at the pain and slid down until he slammed into a tree stump that caught him; again, the wind was knocked from him. This time it felt everything was knocked from him.
He heard Joe Loon’s voice above him.
“We must keep climbing.”
But Simon couldn’t keep climbing. His head was pounding. His head was spinning. His whole body ached. His whole body was exhausted. He wanted to rest right there. He needed to rest right there.
“We must keep climbing.” Joe Loon’s voice was insistent, but Simon didn’t hear it as he faded into a barely conscious state.
Below in the dark, there was a movement. Was a shadow taking shape and moving? Yes, and it came closer, slowly, but closer and closer.
It was Grandmother. She wore fur-lined skins, with a Hudson Bay blanket over her head and shoulders. As she approached Simon, she sang a song to the spirits of this place, and as she sang she covered him in her blanket. Soon Simon stirred, and he realized where he was and that he had to try again, though it seemed so peaceful he wanted to stay; he took a deep breath to enjoy the peace.
Grandmother lifted her blanket, covered herself again and, still singing, continued on up the slope. Simon took a deep breath that called to his last reserves but shot deep pains to his back and his side, and it hurt even more when he reached in the dark for a handhold. Once he found one he made sure he was secure, and then he started climbing, and kept climbing, his back blazing in pain with each reach.
Simon and his grandfather both kept climbing, they had to keep climbing, groping in the dark, learning what could be learned about the balance needed on ice-covered stumps and rocks, but maki
ng painfully slow progress for they each feared their next slip could be their last.
Just before Joe Loon reached the ice ceiling Simon caught up with him, and they finally broke through the ice together and climbed out, exhausted, to lay next to each other—in the snow, on the shore, breathing hard, confident for the first time that they were alive. Joe Loon attended to the pain in his legs by chanting his thanks to the spirits who helped save them. Simon’s head was throbbing, sharp pains attacked his back, and he removed his mittens to discover he had a frozen gash of blood at his hairline. Just then a break in the clouds opened and the moon shone brightly, so they both sat up to look out over the ice.
“We will build a shelter here for I cannot travel. In the morning you will go for help. It is nearly two days to Grassy in this snow.”
“I will go to the dam first to see if anyone there can help us.”
“Are there men at the dam? We did not see any men.”
“There must be men in one of those buildings. I will go there first to search for help.”
Just above them was a large boulder jutting out from the ground at the edge of the thick low boughs of a spruce. Simon pulled his grandfather up to it, and they dug away at the snow under the bough and formed the snow into walls, using the boulder as one wall of the shelter. Simon cut away branches with the hatchet and Joe Loon arranged them with their blankets as beds on the snow floor of their shelter and to prop against the wind.
Simon collected wood and started a fire, while Joe Loon offered small portions of the smoked fish from their provisions. After they ate, Simon cut more boughs, and while Joe Loon used them to improve their beds and shelter Simon cut more firewood.
Again, Simon prepared to care for the fire throughout the night.
All the clouds had blown away, and the sky was filled with bright stars and a nearly full moon, and the night was the dead of winter cold.
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