The Friends of Meager Fortune

by David Adams Richards

  SIX

  In the camp the worry over who the body was or was not meant nothing. It was not heard about. And no one had heard of the men. The wind had not let go in three weeks. Only twenty-two loads had gone down. On certain days between February 26 and March 11, men stayed inside and the food was scarce, for the portager could not get in and did not want to chance it.

  Meager was out each morning, sometimes with young Gibbs trailing behind with a set of wire snares. They would bring in pine needles for tea and soup. Meager dug out blocks of ice and took brook trout from the pools. He made the men eat the brook trout raw, heads and all. He felt this would keep the men healthy. At twilight on March 4 he shot a young moose while alone—four miles from camp. He gutted it open, and cut stakes to cool it—though the weather was cold enough, and warm blood soon froze to his fingers so much he had a hard time prying them apart. He put the bloody liver in a bag, and into his sack. Then with his rope he tied the back legs and managed to lift its hindquarters off the ground enough to start the process of taking the hide off from the back hooves forward to the rump, and then little by little hauling the hide down each side with one hand while slicing it away from the heavy white fat with the other. The starkness of the landscape and the sky, the gray naked branches of a thousand hard trees, stated the emptiness of the world, the utter feeling of desolation and coldness that surrounded him. Yet to Meager the world was not only not empty, but filled with possibilities. Trout in the brooks, rabbit in a snare, and a moose down.

  The sunlight seemed to dissolve his shadow on the snow as more of the hide was taken down and the animal became whiter, showing its muscled flanks and white insulation fat over solid lengths of red muscle. He cut the head and hide off with an ax, and cut it down the middle in the same fashion, for he did not have a saw. With the carcass now halved it was easier to hang, and he managed this in a big spruce, with blood frozen to the hide and the carcass and his fingers and his face. He now cut a quarter from the first half, and putting it on his back little Meager Fortune, who had been doing this in the deep woods of New Brunswick since he was twelve, made his way back to the camp in the dark, followed by curious moose birds hopping from limb to limb. The wind was pitiless, and it was hard to move—many times he staggered, and once or twice went down to the ground.

  He walked under his burden as if carrying a cross, in order to keep men alive and himself go back home to Story town in the spring. He still told people about little Duncan and his wife Evelyn as if they were alive and well and waiting for him to come home.

  “Oh yes, I will go back and see them, and hug them,” he said. “Duncan will run to me as he always does, his pants high on his ankles and his sneakers untied, and I will lift him up and hug him, oh like a mother loves a child.”

  This was Meager Fortune, five feet, four inches tall. This was Meager Fortune, who had managed now for a month to keep his men fed and entertained.

  When he got to the camp that night, he could hear men coughing long before he reached the door. Our poor Tomkins (a man like ourselves), his long legs as thin as sticks so that the snow seemed to stick more to his pants, was in the corner bunk with his face to the wall, curled up with his legs under him and his bald head half covered. Meager knew a disturbance had taken place.

  In fact, Stretch had lost his bonus at poker that afternoon, for the wind was so high on Good Friday that the men had not gone out, and except for the loads they had piled the night before, no sled moved. The air was frozen and the piled sleds dark and foreboding at the top of the skid road, looking down into the night.

  Stretch had bet a pair of queens against an ace high, and waited for his one chance to make the money back that he had lost in the fire. But Pitman’s final draw included an ace, and our Stretch lost it all. He went outside and kicked the door.

  Later he went back to the table and gambled his fine parka, and had now traded it over for a coat with string for button and the smell of spruce and sweat. Meager asked him how he was.

  “I got me a sore toe,” he complained. The men began to laugh so hilariously at his expense that Stretch started to cry silently.

  Meager cooked the moose liver in onions and gave the biggest portion to our Mr. Stretch Tomkins.

  And then Tomkins said, quickly, something which he later regretted. “I know something,” he smiled. “Meager has a secret—his wife and son are dead—no one knew that, did they—he talks about them just as if they are alive, but he told me, he told me. He has no one in the world to go home to. That’s why he stayed here over Christmas—that’s why!”

  Later he put his face to the wall and wouldn’t speak. The cold came again, so his cares remained.

  SEVEN

  By the second week of the storm on the mountain the trial was in its most important stage.

  There was one witness everyone was waiting for. She was called on March 8 as a defense witness. She wore a gray coat and a black dress with white cuffs, a kind of girlish idea of a homemaker—or what was prevalent in this age, the idea of society’s homemaker—where the times specified that even the most senior office women were called girls, and thought of as juvenile. She wore a small round hat that turned up at the front, and made her look even more like a girl. Her hands shook when she drank water. She did not look at Owen. She had heard that Owen had betrayed her—and said terrible things about what she wanted from him. She might not believe it, but her own lawyer Miss Fish told her not to have any contact with him now. (That she had hired Miss Fish, the only female lawyer in the province, showed, they believed, her lowly estate.)

  Camellia, however, believed she was a witness for the defense. She believed they would ask her what she had already been asked—about her relationship with Owen, how he had helped her, how she had phoned Reggie and told him about the job. How Reggie had said he would come back. All of this to her was so innocent that they would know she and Owen were innocent.

  But things had changed. The defense was now scrambling to keep their client alive. Billy Monk had testified that Camellia had demanded Reggie come home or she would divorce him, and that Owen wanted him to change his mind about Estabrook. It was very possible that Monk could have heard the one-sided conversation exactly as he stated.

  Therefore Pillar, unbeknown to Owen but known in some fashion by Buckler, treated her like a hostile witness. This had been his plan from the midpoint of the prosecution’s case. He had decided to deflect guilt from his own client by accusing the person all thought more guilty or most guilty.

  He was after the murderer as well. Camellia had become the principal target of the Jameson family now.

  He asked her about growing up. Was it hard, who had taken care of her? What were her cares? What were her ambitions? Were she and Reggie happy?

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Oh—you were happy?”

  “Well, he was so kind to me many times.”

  “And at times he wasn’t at all, was he?”

  No answer.

  “Answer the question,” Judge Fyfe instructed.

  “Sometimes he was not so kind because he was in pain—”

  “Is that why you wanted to kill him?”

  “I’m afraid he wanted to kill himself—”

  “So you say suicide.”

  “I say no such thing—he is still alive—”

  Owen was staring at the floor; he couldn’t look up. It seemed obvious to everyone that he had planned this ambush against her.

  Then Pillar came to a point of contention that he knew would alienate everyone, including or especially the prosecution. But he had to ask it—for he had had information about it. It spoke to her motive. He asked her why she had married Reggie.

  “I don’t understand the question,” she said.

  “Did you marry him because Mr. Brower asked you—wanted you to be settled?”

  “In a small way.”

  “You had come of age. There was worry about you—because of other things—and people here wanted you settle
d.”

  The way outsiders like Pillar and Mackey could take on discussions about the intricacies of a town they did not know, as if they had a unique perception, is one of the grander forms of famine.

  But Camellia did answer. “There were many men around and Mr. Brower was worried on my behalf.”

  “On your behalf or theirs?” someone yelled.

  Laughter and sniggering, then the gavel.

  “I see—and you decided this was a good thing to do?”

  “It was one thing to do,” Camellia said. “I married Reggie—and I was proud to. I am married to him, and he will come back and tell you so.”

  Pause.

  “When he treated you badly—did you decide on revenge. For women are often vindictive.”

  She did not answer this. He turned to another question: Where did her father work before her mother died?

  “He worked for Mr. Jameson’s father,” she said in a whisper.

  “By Mr. Jameson, you mean Owen.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said and smiled, “but I am not used to calling him Owen—I always think of him as Mr. Jameson.”

  “I see—I see— And your father was fired from that job, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, he was—”

  “Yes, for stealing from the company—did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t—but I don’t think he did.”

  “Did you know what happened that day—?”

  “I am not sure—I—?”

  “He went home early and found your mother gone out—did you know?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “And he knew where she had gone—to Winch’s cave—and he killed your mother that day, didn’t he?”

  “I—I—don’t remember.”

  “You knew this when you went to work for Mary Jameson—your father, who was hanged, was fired that very day and sent home. That caused a death in your house, two deaths, and you knew this about Winch’s cave.”

  “No, I didn’t—I knew I shouldn’t go down there because it was where Daddy and Mommy were.”

  “But you went back.”

  “I did not—ever.”

  “The letter from Lula Brower proves you did. Perhaps you were there alone—or with Reggie—”

  Silence.

  With hardly a breath, he switched topics: “Who wanted Owen home?”

  “Well—Mrs. Jameson.”

  “But it was you, wasn’t it, who wanted him off the train?”

  “I did suggest it to some of the men—”

  “Why did you suggest it—did you suggest it—well—you tell us why.”

  “To help Mrs. Jameson with the mill.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “I was the last in town to know he was on his way home—”

  “But did you want him back?”

  “Yes—but—”

  “Oh, you wanted him back—a hero, a Victoria Cross recipient—you wanted him back.”

  “Yes—to help Reggie—so Reggie would take his job back and be himself.”

  “But was Reggie here?”

  “No.”

  “You were here—you were at the house—you were staying at Jameson’s during the week—”

  She had no idea this was coming, and neither did Owen—though to the end of her life she must have thought that Owen did know. And it must have broken her heart.

  “So you felt betrayed not only by the Browers but perhaps by Mr. Jameson too.”

  “No.”

  “What else did you know about Owen—you say you knew he saved Reggie Glidden?”

  “Yes—I knew that.”

  “But you would marry Reggie Glidden?”

  “Yes—”

  “Why, did you love him?”

  Camellia didn’t answer. The judge instructed her to.

  “Did you love him?”

  “I don’t think so then—but now I—”

  Pillar interrupted: “Do you love Owen?”

  There was silence.

  “Do you love Owen?” Mr. Pillar stated.

  “In a way,” she whispered, “but he was my friend.”

  “From the moment he kissed you—isn’t that right?”

  She didn’t answer. Tears started down her face.

  “From the moment he kissed you?”

  “Before,” she whispered, “when he was a boy, just as I would think of anyone being teased and—”

  “Do you care for everyone when they kiss you?”

  Loud laughter, judge’s gavel.

  Pillar turned away, adding, “Let’s just end with this. Reggie coming back did not destroy Owen’s plans—they destroyed yours.”

  Pillar turned and walked back to the desk where Owen was sitting in a state of helplessness.

  “I think we got her,” Pillar whispered to him.

  After the trial was adjourned for the day Owen was frantic to see her, to explain he’d had no idea the questions his lawyer was about to ask. She didn’t come.

  EIGHT

  The next day Pillar seemed to lose energy. He called few witnesses. One was Sonny Estabrook. He asked about the letter but was never able to refute the prosecution’s claim that one of the main reasons for Owen’s anger was the fact that Reggie was about to shift jobs. He was about to lose his best Push, who disagreed about men on Good Friday. Reggie had shown Monk this letter and bragged about it, had told Monk what a dangerous place Good Friday was.

  The other witness Pillar called was Mary Jameson. The first thing they cleared up was the matter of the fingerprints. Mary had gone down to the warehouse, which she said she periodically did because of Will’s memory, seen the old suitcase and put it inside the wall.

  “There was nothing intended by it, was there?”

  “Of course not,” Mary said.

  Mary, her hat on sideways and her new suit jacket already looking wrinkled, also told the court that nothing had gone on in her house between Owen and Camellia. That there had been a celebration and the kiss got mixed up. A great uproar occurred, and the judge said he would clear the court.

  She said that Owen had been away in the woods, so how would he have known Camellia was enticing her husband to come back—and how would he have known that Reggie Glidden was in town, or how would he have lured Reggie Glidden anywhere when he was not sure how long he would be on Good Friday. If anyone had known, it would be Camellia.

  “You didn’t see Owen flustered or covered in blood or any of those things?”

  “No—never—well, I mean not since he murdered Solomon Hickey—”

  This brought an uproar, and even Owen laughed.

  The prosecutor countered with this: “Of course you want to blame this on Camellia—it would be nice if you could. You would have it all sewn up. Well, Reggie did wait where Owen wanted him to. And Owen met him there. Reggie wanted to know about his wife. Owen was at the old warehouse—he had been seen there twice. Of course he would say he was going there for no other reason than to look for a place to store board. Of course he would lure Reggie there. Why haven’t we seen Reggie, yet seen his bloody coat? And why hasn’t live Reggie Glidden come forward to help refute the coroner’s assertion that dead Reggie Glidden is still in the morgue?”

  Laughter, objection overruled.

  That night, alone in the dark, his leg paining so badly he could hardly walk, Owen thought of something utterly fantastic—something that linked this to what was happening in his camp.

  At first it was just a flicker—some substance lingering in his thought—but once pressured by his intellect it glowed, and over time glowed again.

  He thought of two things. The first was that his men were in danger—in some internecine way beyond the storm. Then, almost asleep, he sat straight up. He got up and dressed and waited until dawn. It was a bitterly cold night. Jail seemed safe.

  How had he come to think of this? Well, he was thinking of his hanging. He had been told that there were many who wanted to help build the gallows, Colson and Davies and Llo
yd being three. Then he wondered where they would get the wood.

  “Hopefully from you,” the jailer had told him. “Estabrook won’t let a scaler do a rod—people think his wood’s bonkers—and Sloan is out.”

  “You can have my wood—it may as well be stamped Estabrook—”

  And then he slept fitfully, woke sweating and thinking of his wood. Then he sat up as if scalded.

  If they wanted prophecy, he would give them it.

  Someone was going to try and steal his wood, and he would hang unless Reggie Glidden came home, so they must let him out of jail and he must go and find him.

  Owen Jameson took the stand at 10:17 on the morning of the 101st day of the haul.

  What he had to say his lawyer was not prepared for, nor was the Crown. Nor was his mother, or anyone else. He said they had to let him go because he must do something, and lives were in danger if he did not.

  Everyone laughed, but nervously, unsure if this was a madman like people now said.

  “What do you have to do?”

  “I have to go and check my stamps.”

  Pillar did not understand this at all, but certain woodsmen laughed.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It is no matter—but lives are now in danger.”

  “What lives are in danger?”

  “I suspect my teamsters are—”

  “It’s a good time to find out,” someone yelled.

  Uproar, laughing, clapping, hooting.

  “My teamsters are in danger. And I’ll tell you this: the body in the morgue might be a Dan or a George but it is not Reggie Glidden.”

  Hilarious uproar.

  “How is that—can you tell us where Reggie is now?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “But what do you wish us to do?”

  “I want you to let me go, and I will help my men get the wood down—stop the culprit from stamping my logs with someone else’s stamp and figure out who that poor man in the morgue actually is.”