The Survivor

by Paul Almond

  Another grunt signified agreement.

  James leaned against one of the four posts used for a horse being shod. “Tap-tap-tap, dong-dong,” sang the smith’s hammer as he beat a thin, flat iron into a rosetteshaped piece, expertly punching holes in the glowing metal with small hardies, devices made to fit precisely into the holes of the anvil.

  The smith chucked the metal into a half-barrel of water, and the sizzling gave rise to bubbles and smoke. He straightened. “What can I de fer ye?” he asked in a strong Scots accent.

  “Well sir,” James replied, “I wondered if you might need a bright young assistant?”

  The smith eyed him. “I’m nae a money-bags, laddie, I’m a smith!”

  “Oh no, sir. Of that I am well aware. But perhaps another body might increase your output, or avoid you turning down those many offers.” James Alford smiled.

  The smith replied by hauling out a large red handkerchief and blowing a resounding toot. “I have in mind some able-bodied man, but until I get all these offers ye speak of, I cannae afford one.”

  James wiped his brow with his sleeve. “Well, sir, that sounds like you might want an apprentice — someone who would work for nothing.”

  “Does it now?” He grinned and with his heavy pincers selected another piece of iron to begin another rosette, probably for a doorpost. James had noticed such decoration in front of the better appointed houses. Tap-tap-tap, dong-dong, went the hammer once again. “I might indeed.”

  “Well sir,” James allowed, “’tis an offer to be thought over, for sure. If you would be good enough to hold it open for a day or two.”

  The smith’s ample mouth broke into a kind of grin. “Not too many laddies hereabouts fool enough to sweat for nothing.”

  “But,” countered James, “I presume ‘nothing’ would include a good midday meal?”

  The hammer paused in mid-action as the smith looked across at him. He placed the sheet on the anvil and neatly hammered off a portion, and thrust it into the glowing charcoal and pumped the bellows. “Aye, I might be able to offer that, if ye’re nae agin a big bowl of porridge with molasses, even a bit of milk from time to time.”

  “Better and better,” James responded, and replaced his hat. “Well sir, my name is —” He stopped. “James,” he said. “James Alford.” Why not? Must get a start on this new identity, he realized, coming here now among British settlers. James paused in the doorway. “And you are, sir?” The smith snorted. “Everyone knows me, laddie. There’s only two of us, and I’m the better. Robbie MacGregor.”

  “Why thank you, Mr. MacGregor. You’ll be hearing from me.”

  “We’ll see to that,” said MacGregor. “We’ll surely see to that.” But then as James was going out, he called after him. “Och, listen, will ye, I’ve got a thing I’d pay for, if ye were of a mind...”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Charcoal. Most of it comes from the Old Country. Expensive. But the making, nothing to it. Ye could have a go at preparing me some. I’d pay ye fer that.”

  “Not considered the best nor cleanest occupation,” James blurted out, not giving it a lot of thought, and partly to challenge the smith.

  “No, but not the most difficult neither. Ye must only select suitable quantities of wood, build them into a beehive-like structure,” the smith waved his hot tongs, gesturing, “maybe the size of a small house, make sure it’s got some ventilation holes built in — the ends can be open or closed — and ye put over the top some sod or earth and ye start a little fire.” He grinned, revealing large and somewhat decayed teeth. “Ye make it burn for, like, a month. Ye gotta control it, mind, so’s it burns enough, but not too much, and doesn’t burn up. Ye’d enjoy that, maybe?”

  “I’ll think about it, Mr. MacGregor. Thank you.” But as James passed down into the street, he said to himself: No sir! Not on your life! But otherwise, a start. Any possibility is better than none, he thought, as he started down a street toward the Garretts.

  What next? He turned eastward toward another house with a shed in front that he remembered seeing on his previous visit. A simple sign outside proclaimed: John Gilchrist, cabinet-maker. He wondered if perhaps the cabinet-maker would be willing to part with a few pence a day for an energetic assistant.

  James entered the yard where, in front of a shed, Mr. Gilchrist and his apprentice were making a long pine table. He’s got one helper, James thought to himself, I doubt he’ll need two. But no harm in trying.

  So the conversation with the blacksmith was repeated once more, except this time to even less effect. One apprentice was all the cabinet-maker could handle or pay for. James gave his thanks and left.

  Well, the moment had come to risk facing Will Garrett Sr. whose son Will had tried to turn him over to a JP in a drunken moment. But take time now, he thought, take in your surroundings. Should danger strike, better know the layout of the town.

  A man passed him and doffed his hat. “Good afternoon to you, sir,” he called, to which James replied, “Fine day.”

  “For sure, fine day ’tis.”

  Must be upwards of sixty dwelling here, thought James, a goodly settlement. Now multiply that by the number of wives, children, and their grandparents. Well established too. He knew the majority had come in 1784, almost seven years after the Revolutionary War, though many had left after the first few harsh winters to return to the Old Country or to set up homes in a slightly more temperate clime down in Nova Scotia. But here, these hardy remnants had clearly found a living to their liking. Walking along, lost in thought, he was overtaken by a girl who passed hurriedly.

  Although she was dressed in a nondescript blouse and a billowing skirt, something familiar about her form made him hurry to catch up. Who was she? Blonde hair pushed up inside a pretty cap — yes! “Catherine!”

  She stopped and turned. He saw by her colouring that she was stricken with astonishment. “You came back!” How could he have forgotten that fraught night? He had been given shelter by her worthy parents, and offered padding next to the Garretts’ dying fire, on that one and only visit. Something had made him open his eyes, and he had become aware of a singular presence enfolding him as he lay. He looked up and by candlelight saw her face, very close to his, closer in fact than any young lady had ever been.

  “Ssh,” Catherine had murmured, finger to lips.

  She had leaned in close, so close he felt the feather touch of her light hair as her cheek brushed his, sending tingles down his spine. “I heard my brothers talking. Laughing and joking. Long into the night. At the general store, there’s a notice about Navy deserters. They’ve decided you could be one of them.”

  James had tried to absorb it all.

  She leaned in, looking deeply into his eyes. “You have to go, I fear.”

  Befuddled, James began to gather himself. But she hadn’t moved. Their two faces, poised, began to merge. He reached out and pulled her close. For one exquisite moment, their lips met. It seemed to him that her whole life went into this touch; for one delicious instant he felt his being joining with hers.

  She broke away, flustered, and went to unbar the door. He gathered his coat and his pouch and hurried out.

  Had it not been for Catherine’s quick thinking, he might now be under the grass in the New Carlisle cemetery. The memory of her late-night kiss set his cheek burning once again. He had said then that he would return, a promise he was now keeping.

  “Oh yes,” he said, “did I not make a promise?”

  “Two years is hardly keeping a promise.” James winced. “But Catherine, now that I remember, was it not you who made the promise?”

  She blushed and dropped her eyes. “I... don’t remember.” She walked on and he quickly fell in beside her.

  “So what are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Coming to see you, of course. Why else would I venture into this den of iniquity?”

  “What rubbish,” she joked, with a slight edge.

  “Yes,” he murmured, “rubbish... of cou
rse.”

  They walked on for a few moments, in silence. She was even prettier than two years ago, slimmer, having shed some of her baby fat. Surely, even a match for the lovely Sorrel. Lovely complexion, no doubt, and such a sturdy body.

  “And what makes you so hasty?”

  “I had brought two dozen eggs to sell,” she held out the empty basket, “and now I am hurrying home to help Mama with her supper.”

  There was a pause as they hurried on.

  “Pray won’t you join us,” she invited at last. “I’m sure my mother and father would be only too pleased to see you again.” But there was something in her tone that James could not quite fathom.

  “By all means, thank you,” he replied brightly. “I have thought for a long time of your splendid family with great affection, and have anxiously awaited this return.”

  “Not so anxiously as to return in good time,” she replied tartly.

  Now how could he answer that? Something was amiss. What should he make of “in good time”? “I was hard at work constructing my meagre dwelling and trying to clear land for an eventual farm.”

  “Good for you,” she countered, less than effusively. He wondered what would happen when her brothers gathered from their fields for the evening meal. “How are your brothers?” he asked, in a roundabout way of reminding her of their adolescent treachery.

  “Working very hard now,” she replied. “You know, they were properly chastened by my father for their inexcusable lapse of manners when you were here.”

  “Lapse of manners?” They nearly had me killed, he thought to himself. But he didn’t want to pursue that.

  “Well, I am sure, all is forgotten now. They will welcome you as is right and proper. We are all of us duty bound to provide a welcome for any travelling settler.” The term “settler” pleased him. Yes indeed, he was truly a settler, though he hadn’t yet thought of himself as such. But still, she sounded distant. “Oh I see,” he said, “you think of me as just any old settler who must be accorded the welcome laid down by good manners?” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, and let that fall unanswered.

  “And how is your little sister, Eleanor?”

  “Oh, you won’t believe how she has grown!”

  “I’m sure she has.” James turned to study her as they walked on. What a lovely, healthy illustration of a working wife and future mother.

  “But truly,” she asked, “what does bring you to New Carlisle?”

  “Work,” he said, “I must find work.” She gestured ahead. “That’s our house.”

  “How could I forget it?” They went up the steps, crossed the veranda, and entered another unknown.

  Chapter Six

  Eleanor Garrett, a tall, rather thin-faced woman with penetrating black eyes and dark greying hair in a bun, was putting a meal on the table, serving from iron cauldrons hung over the open fireplace. Catherine set about helping her with little Eleanor, about ten, sparkling eyes, happy as a kitten, putting big slices of bread into a basket — woven, James was quick to notice, by the Micmac. He could hardly take his eyes from the steaming mound of potatoes, carrots, and turnips that was to be their meal. How hungry he was!

  Will and John entered, and James hastened to greet them, to demonstrate all had been forgotten. John, now eighteen, was inordinately handsome as well as personable, with black hair, dark eyes, and the kind of jaw one saw on statues. Will stood a shade taller than John, lean, almost ascetic, with a flat mouth and thin eyes from squinting in the hard winter sun. His long face gave him the air of a scholar, though he was hardly that: bold rather, almost uncouth. The two brothers could not be more unlike. The youngest, Joseph, about fourteen, was already at the table.

  John gripped James’s hand warmly. In contrast, Will Jr. appeared distant, throwing glances all the while at his sister, who was studiously ignoring them. Did that mean he took himself to be her self-appointed guardian?

  “James!” John said as he put out his hand. “Good to see you again!”

  “Good indeed,” Catherine snorted, “since you both nearly had him killed two years ago.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’s forgiven and forgotten, haven’t you, James?” John washed his hands under the indoor pump with a bar of homemade soap, and then dried them on the towel.

  “Of course I have, John, no harm done.” James quickly realized that he now must fully adopt this new persona of ‘James’, the name he had used previously. He turned to Will Jr. “And how are the crops coming?”

  “Fair enough,” replied Will curtly, the only one of the three brothers to have a hint of his father’s North Country accent.

  After pleasantries exchanged and much information traded, James brought up the reason for his return, the job hunt. Well aware that on the Garrett farm, the three brothers would be quite sufficient, he added, “Perhaps there might be another farmer, bereft of children, who might like a hand, sir?”

  “A ton of ’em,” William chuckled with the thick North Country brogue James loved, “but none as could pay anything.” He clumped across from his chair by the window and took his seat at the head of the table. James had heard on his previous visit about William’s leg wound received fighting in the Revolutionary War with His Majesty’s Militia some thirty years previously. “Ye’d better not look to farming. Ye say ye tried that rogue MacGregor? I warrant he wants t’git ye for nothing.” William sported a belly and a bluff manner common to the tough northerners of Great Britain. His grey hair was cut short, his hands large, the hands of a farmer. “And that John Gilchrist came here on the Brig Pollywith me, he did. He’d never part with his money for another helper. He’s got sons enough.”

  “That’s about it, sir,” James said.

  “Now listen, there’s not a lot of paying work anywhere on the Coast, once you pass up that rogue Charles Robin.”

  “But,” James began hesitantly, as Mrs. Garrett placed heaping plates down for her sons, “New Carlisle seems a thriving community. Surely there must be some openings...”

  William shook his head, and hammered out a brief grace: “God bless the lot of us and this fine table of food, and keep us mindful of Your presence in all things we do. Amen.”

  The others repeated Amen, and tucked in. “What about the sawmill?” Mrs. Garrett finally sat down at the opposite end of the rough table, closer to the fire.

  “What about it?” William growled.

  “We do have a part interest in it.”

  “Sawmill’s working just fine, luv. We don’t want to interfere with old Hall and the way he runs it, now do we?” Be bold, thought James: nothing ventured, nothing gained. “But perhaps, sir, someone eager and hard working such as myself might help him expand his operation. I’m not afraid of long hours, neither.”

  William threw him a hard look, but said nothing. James noticed Will Jr.’s eyes went to his father, but he too kept silent. What was going on?

  Catherine seemed about to speak, and then said nothing.

  John lifted his head, mouth full of vegetables. “He can try, surely Father, can’t he? Might do old Hall a lot of good, to have a dynamic Britisher there. The others are all French.” He grinned at James.

  “That’s all he can find,” William mumbled sourly.

  “It’s back in the woods a good ways,” Will ventured, and then looked at his mother. “Very out of the way.”

  Mrs. Garrett caught his look and paused, as William Sr. nodded absently, and mumbled, “Aye, might be better than nothing.”

  “Could you not write him a letter on behalf of our young guest?” Mrs. Garrett wiped her mouth with a napkin.

  “We mustn’t meddle, mind. Old Hall’s been clear on that one.”

  “But dear, it’s so out of the way...” She glanced meaningfully at Catherine. “And Mr. Alford might not mind living that far out from New Carlisle.” William frowned, apparently trying to decipher his wife’s devious mind.

  “It’s not meddling, Father.” Catherine spoke up at last. “It’s just gi
ving Mr. Hall notice. Enlightening him on prospective employees. Surely we owe James that, after our family nearly had him flogged to death. If he wanted to go off tonight to take the letter... I could show him the trail, after dinner.”

  “I doubt anyone should go up that dreadful path after dark.”

  James looked up. “I’m not afraid of the dark, Mrs. Garrett. In fact, I rather like it.”

  “Pretty dangerous these days, James,” the elder Garrett added. “Good many villains hereabouts. They think nothing of preying on poor passersby. Have to be careful, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Aye, no telling what’s happened to New Carlisle these days,” John offered. “Lots of lawlessness about.”

  “It’s perfectly safe in the village,” Catherine said. “I’ll just show him the entrance to the trail. It’s not so easy to find.”

  “Now Catherine, what would Billy say to that?” her father demanded.

  “It’s none of Billy’s business,” she retorted, colouring.

  “I’d say it’s all his business, now that you two are betrothed.”

  James lifted his head. What? Betrothed? Could that be true?

  Catherine cast down her eyes as Eleanor spoke up. “Yes, isn’t it exciting? Only last week William went off to meet Mr. Brotherton, and they concluded a nice arrangement. The Brothertons, you know, are one of the better families in New Carlisle. He’s a Justice of the Peace, with large holdings.” She paused. “It would be so nice for both of us.”

  “Well,” James said in a calm voice, summoning every reserve of self-restraint. “I do hope you will be very happy, Catherine.”

  But for some reason, he felt as if the bottom had dropped out of his world.

  ***

  Here he was, heading into the unknown again. But there was still plenty of light this late in the evening to see his way, being not long after the summer solstice. The track to the mill was scarcely large enough for a horse and cart, James thought, difficult for a team with a heavy load. However did they get the lumber over this rutted track between these thick trees? And then how did they get the sawn boards back down?