The Survivor

by Paul Almond

  Starvation faced them. Before his back went out, he had managed to procure a few supplies in New Carlisle but they would be gone soon too. What would February bring? And March? And April? His beautiful farm, his dreams, his land, all abandoned, in ruins. Just waiting for some other hardy settler to come and seize it. But no settler, no matter how hardy, was escaping this peril. The whole Coast, in fact the country itself, was in peril. The year of no summer. 1816.

  He remembered when he had gone off to hunt moose last winter, how Catherine had been more worried than usual. What if he were hurt, how would she keep the land? What were the laws of succession? Would she have a home? “James, we must get our land deeded somehow. I’m worried about it.”

  “But you’re a beautiful woman — if anything happened to me, you’d have suitors galore. No fear for the future. You’ll be besieged.”

  “James, stop that talk. I want you; I want no other.” She closed her eyes and a tear fell to the table.

  James reached out to hold her hand tightly. “Catherine, I told you my dream, my vision: we will live to a ripe old age. I saw both of us. I am sure it was from the Lord Above — vouchsafing to us, if we continue in His ways, a fine future with all our children. Now let’s have no more black thoughts.”

  But black thoughts he most certainly was having, as he gave himself up to despair.

  Later that afternoon, Catherine blew in out of the snow, her pale cheeks rosy with frost, her eyes flashing, her voice pitched high from the cold. “We have a visitor! Grey horse and sleigh. They’re trying to make it up the hill from the brook. Must have come over the ice. Could be that friend of yours from Nouvelle.”

  She threw off her coat, looking peaked, but lovely as ever, James thought, and then returned to the door to usher in — sure enough — John Ross, and with him his son.

  “Come in, come in!” James managed to rise to his feet. “Well, I didn’t know you were one of the lucky ones with a horse!”

  John Ross entered, a big tall man, accustomed to winter obviously, with a huge bearskin coat. “Got him as a colt, in trade. Yessir, real useful. This here’s my eldest bye, John.” About twenty, the lad was not as tall as his father but with the same long, thin face, short black eyebrows and mouth in a straight line. His hair was close cropped under the cap, which he took off on entering. “Came down over the ice?” James asked.

  John nodded. “Never seen so much this early,” John said. “Lots of fellas come past me on the ice. Not often I seen that.”

  “More and more of us,” James agreed, sitting to lessen the pain. “I couldn’t believe the number of settlers in East Nouvelle. So the road from Paspébiac to the river is better.”

  “This side of the river now, too. The McCraes, old Farquhar specially, they’ve been settled there a good while. And his son Duncan.”

  “Well, the march of progress,” responded James. “If the weather ever turned back to its bountiful self, more’d be coming, too.” He resolved, later this spring, God willing, to run a real clear line delineating his property. With Catherine’s carping the last little while, he’d become as wary as she of someone coming after their land. “Any talk of a land commission yet, John?”

  “Been some. But nawthin’ this winter, us all so close to starvation. No point in getting land if you’re going to die on it.”

  “And you, what about you, John?” Catherine asked gently.

  “Terble hard, ma’am, with a big family. Crops never grew.” He and his son accepted the cups of watery soup offered by Catherine.

  James sipped in silence, shifting uneasily to lessen his pain. “So what brings you here, to our homestead, John?” John sipped his soup. “Well, there’s talk of a pile of people gathered up in Carlisle at the courthouse...”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Ship from Quebec docked last week. Some fellas got a pile of money unloading it. Stored it all in the courthouse.”

  “Stored what?”

  “Flour, they say. Barrels of flour.”

  James’s eyes widened. “A new supply of flour? From where?”

  “Must be Quebec,” young John said.

  “Talk is,” John Ross went on, “we only got to go and make a petition.”

  James had heard that through the autumn, settlers on the Coast had been complaining, even agitating, about the inactivity from the government. Could this now be producing results?

  John Ross shrugged. “I reckon we better go and if there’s enough to go round, we’ll be sure t’get some.” He glanced up at Catherine, who had been standing still, almost frozen, at this exciting news. “So I came to get yez. Got the sleigh outside. We’ll get us some barrels of flour, and I’ll bring yez back down.”

  Catherine gave James the hug of his life as he rose unsteadily. He too felt his despair evaporating. They’d make it through, yes, with flour and potatoes, they would make it through.

  ***

  With the supplies they had petitioned for and gotten, they had weathered that endless winter. And now, two years later, James was focussed on keeping his land. Last summer he had run a really good line, along the cliffs for five acres, and then run straight back for about a mile. It covered about two hundred acres.

  Now he was building a better roadway up from the Hollow for the sleighs and carts that seemed to be coming more frequently. Catherine was clearing stones off the track and lining them along the sides. Little John had a small bucket and was helping fill in the ruts while Mariah was pottering happily, stooping from time to time to pick up bugs she would put in her mouth. Oh well, thought James, she’ll likely eat a peck of those before she dies.

  From above, he heard a loud bawl from Broad. He glanced up, but paid no further attention. Until an answering bawl came from another ox.

  James straightened. So did Catherine. They looked at each other. Broad began a full bawling welcome. James frowned, dropped his shovel, and walked over to investigate. He rounded the house, and what should he see break through the woods to the west but an oxcart loaded with a family.

  The entourage bumped across the foot of his property down by the cliffs, and stopped. A man about his own age jumped off the cart and came across.

  “You must be James Alford? I’m James too. Come meet my wife, Mary Nielsen.” James walked across to greet her and help her down, as the newcomer dealt with his children. “This big girl here is Elizabeth.” James smiled at the pretty youngster, about five years old. “And that there’s Sarah, and this here baby is Henriette. I see yez got some kinda slope down into the Hollow there.” James Nielsen pointed to where his cart was heading.

  “Just fixing up a road now. How far you going?”

  “This is it, I guess,” Nielsen said. “Mary’s relatives on the other side of the brook, they suggested there might be another piece of land we could grab a hold of. This spring looked good, best ever. So come this July, we decided to make a try.”

  “Stuff sure has been growing,” James agreed. He led them up toward the house. “See my potatoes? Up on top of the hill I’ve started wheat. Showing not too badly. Terrible long time to clear a patch of land, I’m learning.”

  “I see your corn comin’. Looks like you’ll have a good year.”

  James was still trying to place the stranger and figure out which of his neighbours he was related to.

  By now Catherine had come up the hill with her two children: Mariah, who always asked to be carried, now happily ran along ahead of her mother, following John, who pulled up short to stare in wonder at the impressive ox with its handsome, though cobbled together, cart behind.

  “And this is Catherine,” James said. “My children, John here, and Mariah. I guess maybe you’d better all come inside. Catherine, think we could rustle up some supper?”

  James Nielsen introduced his family and they accepted her invitation to walk in, admiring the house which they were surprised to see this far from Carlisle. “I’m just making up a stew, if you give us a bit of time.”

  “Let me give you a h
and, Catherine,” Mary said. “I’ve brought some provisions. We’ll let the men gossip.”

  The two men walked over to the beach trail. “First thing I intend,” Nielsen volunteered, “after we get somewhere to live, is cut a decent trail back through them woods.” He jerked his thumb towards the Nouvelle River. “Took all day just to get them last four miles. Farquhar McRae warned us. Nice old lady too, Widow Travers, she told us it was nigh impossible to get through. She was right.”

  “Good idea,” James said. “You know, the Allens, Smiths, and that Sam Allen, they all moved back this summer. I reckon they’d be happy to help, if we all took spells. Wouldn’t take too long to make us a kind of rough track.”

  But James could see that an iron-clad deed to his house and land was more urgent than ever. Settlers were beginning to crowd around, grabbing whatever land they could. Before long, he could foresee a dangerous struggle. Who would have thought that, only three short years ago?

  ***

  The Nielsens stayed a couple of weeks, and with the help of the Smiths and Sam Allen, helped James clear and fix the brook trail and on up the other side to the flats beyond the Hollow. And so the summer progressed. The neighbours sometimes got together on weekends. Later, they all pitched in, with Sam Allen’s expert direction, to raise James Nielsen a house. He had selected a plot of land near the brook, further back, given him by his relative, Isaac Mann.

  One autumn evening, Catherine came down the stairs, having put the children to bed. She sat beside James as he was carving a doll for Mariah.

  “With these new neighbours, and more coming along, we don’t have any one piece of paper to show that we own our land, James.”

  He agreed with her, of course. He had long intended to do something about registering it. But what? So far as he knew, no mechanism existed to safeguard what you had always believed to be rightfully yours. Suppose some highly placed family with no morals just came and seized it? “You know this spring I ran a good clear line on the west there, back for a mile. That’s all we need.” But was it?

  “The Nielsens coming just proves it — we’re going to be crowded out.” She got her sewing. “By the way, James, when are you going to buy some lambs? We need the wool. I want the children to have pullovers and warm socks next winter. They’re growing fast.”

  James nodded. “Maybe so. I’d been thinking of getting us a cow for milk, too. But maybe sheep first.”

  “Either way. We could do with butter, and homemade cheese, curds and whey, I remember how my mother —” Catherine stopped, looked down, and changed the subject.

  James could see that she was still worried about her family, as was only right and proper. So had he not better tell her the news that the Nielsens brought? “I didn’t know if I should tell you, but John and Will are in jail in Quebec.”

  Catherine dropped her sewing. She looked up in dismay. “In jail? Who told you?”

  “The Nielsens. Apparently your father was devastated.”

  “Well he might be. I am, too!”

  “They owed money, I gather. So into debtors’ prison they went. Something to do with the building of their ship, I would imagine. John must have been counting on getting some cargo runs to pay for all the fittings. But those companies in Montreal, they slapped them with a court summons.”

  James had heard that the prison was fairly new, a great square stone building but very dark inside, no windows, one convict per cell. If you were drunk, or penniless, or indeed a woman taken in adultery, in you went with the common criminals; the food was of course atrocious. She put her sewing on her lap. “What do we do now?”

  “I reckon your father, with the right influence, will get them out fast enough. He’ll pay their debts, though I bet he’ll be angry!”

  Catherine smiled. “I bet he will too.” Then she dropped her eyes. “I’m sorry, James. But I do miss them all.”

  ***

  In the summer of 1819, James came in and closed the door. Catherine was sitting at the table, feeding Mariah and John their breakfasts. They had grown like weeds, and John had even become a bit of a help to his father around the farm.

  “Sheep are looking good.” James came across to sit and have his morning cup of tea.

  “Next it’ll be a cow?” Catherine poured some for James and sat down to drink hers.

  “Yessir! Going to get us two calves soon.” James stirred some molasses into his hot tea. “Seems there’s some sort of commission taking place.”

  Catherine looked up sharply. “Commission? What sort of commission?”

  “Something to do with land, I think. Sam Allen’s been telling me.”

  “Sam Allen?”

  “He goes back and forth to Carlisle so often. He’s a certified scaler you know.”

  “So what’s this commission about? Must be up to no good.”

  “Well, you may be right, from all the talk. Those rich fellows up in Quebec and Montreal, they’ve gotten some pretty big land grants. Two thousand acres, some of them.”

  “And you think they might be coming down here to take our farm?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just don’t have good feelings when I hear about fellows from the government coming here.”

  “Where are they going?”

  “New Carlisle. They’re up there now.” James sipped his tea.

  Catherine looked up. “Now? James, hadn’t you better go?”

  “Go where?”

  “Don’t act silly,” Catherine snapped. “To New Carlisle. Find out what’s happening.”

  “Well, that’s just what I’ve been thinking. And you know something, Catherine? Maybe you should come, too.” She looked up sharply.

  James paused, and then went on. “Do you good. You haven’t been up for a long while.”

  James was only too aware how, over the past couple of years, with the road between here and Nouvelle being open and somewhat travelled, and with the beginnings of a community here in Shegouac, his precious wife still thought about the family she had left behind. Time to do something about it! He was glad the land commission subject was prodding them into action. The time had come.

  Catherine rose and put the children’s dishes in a tub which she would take outside to wash. “I’ll think about it.”

  As she went to the door, James turned. “No more thinking about it, Catherine. I’m going. And you’re coming. We’re going together. Tomorrow morning.”

  “And what do we do about the children? And the animals?”

  “James Nielsen told me he’d look after them. The children?” He paused. “We’ll bring them, of course.” He stood and looked at her. He knew she’d see the resolution in his face. And that, usually, was that!

  She turned to go out the door. “All right. I’ll start getting us ready.”

  So now he had two great battles to fight, her family, and winning a deed to his land.

  Chapter Thirty

  The gentle rocking of the Micmac canoe as James and Catherine headed toward New Carlisle did little to quell his worries. What would the land commission be up to? And how would the Garretts take their arrival? He hoped that by now Eleanor and William Sr. would be regretting their lack of grandchildren. John and Mariah were the only two they had.

  As he paddled on, his mind went back over the farm. What a difference Broad had made all winter long, skidding logs. James had cut a good many for floating down his brook, and in spring and summer had traded them for goods, the first one being a spinning wheel for Catherine. No point in having sheep if they weren’t going to be able to use the wool. The chickens were multiplying now, lots of eggs. That meant healthy bread. Good cakes. In fact, trading the lumber he cut while clearing his land brought all manner of good things. Nothing like the barter system, he reflected. A shilling could be easily stolen, but try to steal a load of logs! A good way of life. Nothing James loved more than speeding his canoe with his family through the water. What a great gift it had been! And how he missed his Micmac friends! But he and Catherine
had finally agreed that it would be best for young John to continue in the status quo, with Catherine as his only mother and James his father, playing with the children of the white settlers around. Too divisive for him to try to learn Micmac ways just yet. It had been a long process of healing, and he wanted to leave the scars unscratched. And much too hard for Mariah to learn that John was only a half-brother. The main thing now was for John to be accepted by the Garretts. Well, by the end of the day, they would know the answer.

  James never ceased to wonder at those great, red cliffs passing. In the winter, he’d marvelled at the huge hanging icicles that now appeared as summer waterfalls. He had discovered — as John Ross’s sleigh had sped over the flat, frozen ice – why many winter travellers used that means of transportation. Smooth, no obstacles, and you could, as the saying went, go straight as the crow flies. “You know, I bet one could fish through that ice,” James thought to himself. He might try that next winter. “There she is!” Catherine sighted New Carlisle around the bend in the cliffs. Although she appeared excited, he knew she was worried about the coming confrontation — and the ever-looming possibility of losing their land. So much at stake.

  When they reached the floating jetty, who should they see but little Ben, saying good-bye to a Frenchman and putting change in his pocket. With the help of the worker, Ben hefted up the bag of flour, and balanced it on his head as they apparently did in Portugal. “Ben! What are you up to?”

  The lad turned, heaved down the bag, and rushed over. “James! Hello Mrs. Alford.” He looked down at the two toddlers, then up at James again. “You fellas been busy, I see.”