Worlds Between

by Nordgren, Carl;

  While Joe Loon slept Simon was fighting to stay awake to tend the fire. Grandmother sat at the fire, with Young Sister. They were covered in her blanket and furs; Simon stirred the flames and watched the twisting flurry of sparks spiraling up into the stars.

  Finally, exhausted, Simon fell asleep. Grandmother looked after the fire and wakened him when it needed more wood.

  Chapter 8

  Missions Planned and Executed

  It was approaching noon before Maureen woke. She found little in the pantry but a box of stale biscuits. She slipped a few in the pocket of her coat, washed out a bottle to fill with water, left a note for Kevin, then stuffed the pad of paper and pencil in her pocket with the biscuits. She thought to go back to the bedroom for a blanket then slowly walked up the easy slope of the pasture behind the farmhouse. When she crested the rise and looked out over the next fields, she could see at a distance the grove of trees that was her destination.

  At the edge of the grove, just across the property line of the Ballymascanlon Hotel, sat a Neolithic tomb, the massive Proleek Dolmen.

  The dam was over a mile from their shelter in roughly the same direction Simon would travel to return to Grassy Narrows. They decided if Simon didn’t find anyone at the dam he would continue on to the Reserve; if he wasn’t back by evening with help from the dam workers, Joe Loon would plan to be alone for two or three days.

  As the sun rose Simon chopped enough wood for Joe Loon’s fire for four days. They divided their remaining matches and blankets and food, then Joe Loon gave Simon his scarf and the rifle.

  “You keep the rifle Grandfather.”

  “No, you must take it.”

  “If I must travel on to the Reserve I travel as light as I can.”

  “You will take my scarf for your eyes.”

  Simon’s eyes had always watered more than others in the cold wind, so he wrapped his grandfather’s scarf around his head, covering much of his face, but he didn’t take the rifle.

  They prayed together, touched each other, and Simon headed off down the shoreline towards the dam. Grandmother stayed with Joe Loon, to watch over him.

  There was a light snow falling, the wind was calm. Simon would follow the shoreline to the dam—they decided he would stay off the ice—and when he got to the dam he hoped to find someone to help them.

  He had traveled about half way, walking over and through a deep snow bank, pain from his back accompanying each step, when the binding broke on the same snowshoe that had caused the trouble on the ice; he lifted his foot, the snowshoe dangling by the toe strap only. He tried to wedge his boot deeper in the toe strap but that helped for only twenty or thirty yards before it became so loose that the snowshoe slipped off all together. Simon retrieved it, then staggered and hopped through the knee-high snow to step out on the ice. He took the other snowshoe off, tied them to his pack, and walked on the ice right at the shore, in a slow gliding motion that relieved much of the pain in his back, listening anxiously for cracking ice.

  Maureen walked around the Dolmen, studying it from all angles. The megalithic portal tomb looked like a giant three-stemmed toadstool, a tripod of vertical stones holding up its capstone, altogether twice the height of a man. She could see a good portion of the surface of the Dolmen’s cap, and she wondered how it had become dotted with the warts of so many stones sitting atop the capstone. She decided they looked like they belonged there as part of a fairy tale.

  She found a place to spread her blanket and removed the items from her coat, laying the water bottle, the biscuits, her note pad, some loose sheets, and one envelope with both packets Kevin had sent on the blanket in front of her. She read them all again, in the light of the previous day’s events, making notes as she did. She pulled papers out of the notepad to rearrange them. She finished her reading, set it aside, and took another walk around the Dolmen.

  When she sat down again she started writing a letter to her mum, telling her what she had done. Then she made a list of what she needed to know from Kevin about his organization and she reviewed her first thoughts about a mission against Stormont. She got up again for another trip around the site then sat down to note what had come to her.

  On her third trip around the tomb a plan began to take shape; she soon found she had too many questions for Kevin before she was confident enough to finish it. But she considered the work a promising start; Stormont was in her sights.

  The same two men who met there two days earlier were back at the Giant’s Causeway, and their argument about whether Maureen had been positively identified was growing more heated.

  “So tell me again.”

  “Feck you, it don’t get no different in the retelling of it.”

  “Tell me again.”

  “One of my lads tailed her out of Derry, with a second car behind him. The second lad tailed her to a meeting with Kevin at Toome Bridge and caught up with her again in Antrim in time to see Kevin enter a townhouse, then she entered, then over the next thirty minutes or so, four more of Kevin’s brigade entered one at a time. They were all together there for a little over an hour. After the first men left, one more arrived.”

  “Your boys must be telling you what you want to hear.”

  “What makes you so goddamn sure? I think you’re just trying to keep from paying my boys what’s due, taking the info but holding the pounds.”

  “I’ll tell you what makes me so goddamn sure. I already knew of Kevin’s meeting in the townhouse in Antrim. One of Kevin’s brigade who was in that meeting is one of my lads, you see. I have my own infiltrators I’m taking care of, you see. And he says no, she wasn’t at that meeting.”

  “And my lad says she was, that he saw her go in, that she spent the night there, and in the morning she must have snuck out the back alley way, and if I go back and tell him he don’t get paid for his day’s work, his night’s work, he’s gonna want to know who it is that’s calling him a liar.”

  “If he’s so sure he can actually lay eyes on her, tell him he can fiddle around with a few pounds for information, or he can come see Jerry and me about a big reward.”

  “What big reward?”

  “The kind that comes when we give the fellows in Stormont and London absolute proof she was here, but that this trip will be the last one she’ll ever make.”

  “If it’s an action worth doing your meaning could be clearer.”

  “If you’re right, if she’s here, well that means the only London bomber gone unpunished has made a return trip home. Some would be very happy if they were to know for certain that all them feckin’ Fenian murderers have been punished.”

  The wind grew stronger all morning and now it howled across the lake. Snow was falling at a hard angle, the treetops swayed in circles, and a sudden hard wind gust nearly swept Simon off his feet.

  He rounded a point of land and the wind roared right in his face; his eyes watered so much he could barely make out the dam and the buildings on either side of it. The dam was still two hundred yards away.

  Simon stepped up on shore, behind a tree, to get protection from the wind, to wipe his eyes, to rest his back. As he studied the dam, he reached inside his coat, then inside his shirt, and pulled out some venison jerky wrapped in a cloth. He took a small bite and chewed it deliberately while he studied the outbuildings. He took a second bite, put the meat away, then took two or three mouths full of freshly fallen snow.

  He would stay on shore the rest of the way, even if it meant plowing through drifts waist high, knowing that would make his back pain even worse, but the thought of falling through the ice so close to the dam terrified him. He pushed his way through the snow, studying the new angles and sight lines of the dam and its buildings as he approached, looking for any signs of habitation, finding none.

  It began snowing even harder.

  When Maureen returned to the farmhouse, she found Kevin had arrived and was in the kitchen putting away the supplies he purchased. He had hardly stopped moving since Maureen saw him the d
ay before in Banbridge and hadn’t slept at all, driving to Derry and back, and he looked even more haggard than before. He paced from the box of supplies on the table to the cupboard, and back again, filled with nervous tension, retrieving one item from the box, putting it away, absently, and then another, one item at a time.

  “I got bad news Lady Girl.”

  Maureen showed panic. “Mum’s all right.”

  He stopped and took a breath to collect himself the best he could.

  “Sorry, yes, sorry, no I looked in on her and she’s fine.”

  “Jaysus, Kevin, you taught me better… Now sit down, will you, you’re makin’ me nervous. You’re exhausted.”

  He sat.

  “Then what is it?”

  “We lost two, last night, we lost two of our best. Not from my unit, from the Armagh brigade. The mine they were planting on some railroad tracks exploded as they were placing it.”

  “Bad makin’s or sabotage?”

  Kevin stood. “Some says one, some says the other. I’m going to call one of mine who has been checking it out. If it’s sabotage… well, we need to find out who the infiltrator is.”

  “When you return my presence will still be a kept secret?”

  “That’s right.”

  “My Mum have any message for me?”

  Kevin was at the door, stopped, shook his head in embarrassment again, and came back to deliver the news.

  “Yes, yes she did. I’m sorry, Maureen, I’m just so worn out right now. She said to tell you to take care, to do what’s right, and to come home to her when you’re finished with your mission.”

  “She said that?”

  “That’s right.”

  “She said when I finish my mission.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you didn’t tell her what’s done already?”

  “That’s yours to tell, not mine.”

  Simon pounded on the metal door of the first building he came to at the dam site, a cinder block box. There was no answer. He walked around the building, but the windows were small and placed too high for him to see in, and there was no other door. He could not imagine anyone would live in such a building, and his were the only tracks in the fresh snow, but he pounded on the door one more time.

  Across the dam, on the other side of the River, was a second and much bigger building. Though the snow kept falling hard, Simon thought he could see a light on at the larger building. He hesitated before he stepped out onto the walkway that led across the top of the dam. He took one step and waited. Then he walked quickly. The wind kept roaring, blowing the snow into his face.

  There was a hum from the dam that he felt in the vibrations that entered his body through his feet. Simon stopped in the middle of the walkway, for while it was bitterly cold, the weather’s fury and the dam’s power had filled and then thrilled his body, and he breathed deeply the freezing air, adding to the rush of it all. He looked out over the frozen lake and tried to find where Joe Loon’s shelter was, but the falling snow blocked sight of the lakeshore well before. He slowly punched his fist in his grandfather’s direction, shaking his fist a bit while he held his arm at full extension, and he repeated the move four times, shouting while sending the dam’s tremendous energy across the lake against the winds to his grandfather in his shelter.

  His back pain was spiking again, so he walked slowly to the end of the dam and approached the larger building. He followed a series of tracks in the snow that were nearly enveloped in the newly fallen snow; they led him to the door—there was a light on just above the door—and he knocked, waited, then pounded it hard.

  There was no answer.

  He waited, then pounded it one more time.

  When no one came, Simon followed another set of old tracks around the corner of the building to discover a Willy’s Jeep, with a snow blade, parked behind the building at the end of a one-lane construction road that needed to be plowed before anyone would be able to travel it through the forest to the highway. The Jeep was covered in snow.

  Simon returned to the door and pounded twice more, but there was still no answer, so he returned to the Jeep, found the door unlocked, and climbed in for a respite from the wind and snow.

  He was very cold. And sitting lessened some of his back pain.

  He untied the broken snowshoe from his pack and examined the busted binding. He looked around the Jeep for something he could use to fix it. He did not want to spend the next two days walking through snow that was knee high, even waist high in places, without snowshoes—he knew his pain was worse when he walked through the snow—but if he returned to Joe Loon to borrow his grandfather’s snowshoes he’d lose a day.

  He searched the Jeep thoroughly and when he couldn’t find anything to fix the binding, in frustration and in pain, he pounded on the steering wheel, surprised when he inadvertently hit the horn and it sounded a short blast.

  Now his hands hurt too, and his anger grew. To keep from pounding the steering wheel again he grabbed it and shook it, hard, again and again, and he cocked his head to look up and howl a long call of painful rage. He pressed the Jeep’s horn to honk it loud and long to accompany his second call.

  Then he stopped, he had to, his back was tightening, and slowly he regained control; he began to calm down as the energy in his anger dissipated and the worst of the pain receded.

  He was collecting his things to leave the Jeep to try each door one more time before he headed back for Joe Loon’s snowshoes, when around the corner appeared two white men in white overalls and light blue hard hats.

  Each white man had a rifle and one was pointing it, if not at Simon, certainly towards him. Simon held his hands in clear view, while the other white man opened the Jeep door and Simon stepped out, holding his hands out, palms up.

  “The son of a bitch was trying to steal the Willys.”

  “He was trying to hot wire it and got the wrong wires crossed and set off the horn instead.”

  “That’s what it looks like to me.”

  “I do not know how to drive.”

  “He could be lying about that as easy as they lie about how they’ll spend that dollar they’re begging you for.”

  “You must have heard me knock on the door. I wanted you to know I am here. So you can put away your rifles. I will do no harm.”

  “We heard you and figured you’d just go away. And you figured no one was here so you could steal the Willys, eh?”

  “I cannot steal it. I do not know how to drive it. I have come to ask for your help.”

  The men lowered their rifles.

  “What kind of help?”

  “My grandfather has a trap line along that ridge—”

  “We own that ridge now. You redskins shouldn’t even be up there.”

  “You own Waabizheshi? It has always been a place where my people… My grandfather hurt both his legs and cannot walk. He waits for me in a shelter we built on the shore.”

  “You’re not supposed to be trapping up on the ridge and you sure as hell aren’t building any shelters on the shore, not anymore. Ontario Hydro owns the land you’re standing on and pretty much all the land you can see from where you stand, and you’re breaking the law if you’re on our land for any reason. It’s called trespassing.”

  “I understand what you are saying.”

  “Is that right? Hear that, Oscar, he understands me. Well then go fetch your grandfather and make sure he understands and you both clear on out of here.”

  “And tell all the other redskins we’re off limits from now on.”

  “I will tell everyone I meet what you have taught me. But now I will ask you to understand me. My grandfather cannot walk. His legs are badly hurt. We would like to leave your ridge, but we will need your help.”

  “It’ll take more than a busted up old Indian to get me out in this snowstorm. How far away is he?”

  Simon stepped back to have the view past the building he needed and pointed across the lake. “On the shore line across th
e lake in that direction.”

  “I don’t think the company would approve of us leaving our posts anyhow.”

  “You have a radio?”

  “And a telephone. Who would you be calling?”

  “Do you know Big Brian Burke?”

  “Big Brian?”

  “He owns The Great Lodge at Innish Cove.”

  “I know who Brian Burke is.”

  “My grandfather and Big Brian are father and son now. The men of my grandfather’s village built the fishing camp and they work there as his best fishing guides. I will use the telephone to call Big Brian, and he will send help for my grandfather.”

  “Who’s Brian Burke?”

  “You know who he is. It was him and his wife who were tying us up in court there for a while, that cut the one build season in half.”

  “I will use your phone to call for his help. So we can leave your land.”

  “Come on in.”

  They entered and walked down a hall. Simon pulled down his hood and unwrapped the scarf from around his head. One of the men noticed the big gash across the corner of his forehead; it was scabbing over and bruised and swollen.

  “What happened to your head?”

  “In the dark last night I fell on a rock.”

  There was a telephone on a desk and a two-way radio on the table next to it.

  “I could use your phone to call for help. Then I could use your radio to talk to my people at Grassy Narrows.”

  “Who has a radio at Grassy Narrows?”

  “There is a Hudson’s Bay Post at Grassy. They have a radio.”

  One man picked up the phone and rang for the operator.

  “What’s Big Brian’s phone number?”

  When Simon first began traveling and spending time with Brian and Maureen, they had him memorize a telephone number to use if he ever needed them in an emergency.

  “The number I have is for Big Brian’s lawyer. He is named Tom Hall.”