by Paul Almond
“Well, to get on, I’d been trying to clear land, with Catherine foraging for food. We ate wild roots and what berries she could find. No land cultivated, of course.”
“Why not?” asked Robert Byers, now a sturdy teenager.
“You had to have an ox for that. And m’son, whoever could afford an ox in them days? Well, this one time in Paspébiac, I stopped by a general store, and there in the corner, I saw this here little bull calf. Looked dead to me. I went over and I stroked his head, and he opened an eye.”
That was a story they all loved. But several had not heard it. Jim sat back and ruffled his dog Rusty’s ears.
His father went on to tell how he’d bought the baby bull for thirty shillings “from a weaselly little fella, small eyes, sharp face, as crooked as a ram’s horn.... Then I had to get him home by land, because they were watching down by the dock. I slung him round my neck, forefeet on one side, hind quarters on the other; he weighed seventy or eighty pound.”
Jim looked up as a fish hawk screamed above: the sky at this hour was peopled with gulls; in the barn, a calf bawled for its mother. In winters, they’d gather about the fire for Bible reading, or stories, but Jim enjoyed this veranda time best.
“Now Paspébiac, that’s one helluva long way down to here with a seventy-five-pound calf.” James went on about the brigands chasing him most of the way, and when he got to the fight, he told that in detail. “Pitch black, m’ son, ’cause o’ the overcast, and she started to rain, byes, spring of the year, cold as a frog stuck in ice. That little calf, he was going to freeze to death in no time.” He grinned. “But I remember at one point, I felt this here warm water trickle down my back.”
“Oh Lord, he was pissing,” laughed Jim.
“No road in those days, you know, but around dawn, I saw a couple of houses, up in Hope.”
“Is that all?” asked Ann. “You mean Hope’s only got settled since then?”
“Not all settled,” William objected. “Still lots of places, just woods.”
“Get to the end, my dear,” said Catherine. “I want them to see what a hateful wife you’d married.”
“No you weren’t,” Ol’ Poppa objected. “How I got me over the river, I don’t know, but Catherine found me passed out not a hundred yards over there.” He jerked his head to where the vegetable garden now stood. “Lord! Was I that happy to see such beauty bending over me, those blue eyes, round cheeks, like an angel.”
The family reacted at his praise for their Ol’ Momma.
“Keep on, dear, tell them the rest,” Catherine prompted.
Jim noticed that his father shifted uneasily, but everyone was watching intently. “Well, you see, when she found out that I’d brought another mouth home to feed, she took off in such a rage! Madder’n two tomcats in a sack!” Jim turned to his mother, surprised. “And here, I’d brought her the one thing that saved our farm.”
“As it turned out,” Catherine prompted, “Broad did save it.”
“Broad? Is that where you got that name, Poppa?” Mariah asked.
“Are those his horns over the door?” one grandchild piped up.
“Yep. Named by Catherine. You see, she soon took a liking to the little fella. Fed it porridge till it got on its feet.”
“So Momma,” Mariah asked, “you named him Broad?”
“Not ‘broad’ at the time, though later, he was huge,” James said. “Now make sure to tell your children so that they’ll know how that ox got his name.” Jim saw a tear form which his father brushed away angrily. Maybe thinking about his other ox, Keen, poor Keen, whose bones lay buried back by the stony bridge. Why else should such a happy gathering make his father sad?
* * *
Jim came out with a bucket from having fed the pigs. The old sow had gotten to know him. He had scratched and rubbed her stomach to bring down her milk for the twelve little piglets to have their midmorning drink. As he walked along in front of the barn, he saw Margie hanging clothes on the line. He put his buckets down and went over to help.
“Big pile o’ washing today,” remarked Margie. “Dunno what you fellas is up to.”
“I don’t either. I guess some of us like to stay clean.” He grinned and picked up the basket with her so she wouldn’t have to walk back and stoop every time she hung up a pair of socks.
“You don’t need to do this, Jim. This is woman’s work.”
“I know, I know. But I always like to give you a hand when I can.” They worked in silence. “Them piglets sure look fine, I’ll tell you that,” Jim offered, something on his mind.
Margie rifled in the basket for the next item. It was well known you had to hang your clothes in a certain order. Wrong order, and any other folks passing in their horse and buggies or oxcarts would turn that into a big gossip: that new wife there, she don’t even know how to hang clothes on a line...
“Sure is better than doing this in the middle of winter. And today they’ll dry a lot quicker.” Margie seemed pleased as she picked out more socks.
“Margie I got in my mind a new idea.”
“Oh-oh.”
“You think you can get your father to row us out this afternoon into the middle of the bay?”
“That’s an awful long way, Jim!”
“No no, not the middle, just maybe a mile or two out. You think he might if we gave them one of our piglets to fatten on his own for butchering this fall?”
“I reckon Poppa would do anything for a piglet.” Jim knew that her father would have to catch a good few fish to trade for a piglet. “But why ever for would you want Poppa to row you out into the bay?”
“Not just me, Margie. Poppa. And you.”
“Me! I never even been in one o’ Poppa’s boats. And I bet your father never set foot in one either.”
“Ol’ Poppa’s canoed more miles than you’d ever believe.”
“Maybe has. But I sure haven’t. And what’s all this about a canoe?”
“Never mind Margie, I don’t want to tell about that now. This here has got to be a surprise. For all of yez. But I want you to come. And I want Poppa to come, and I want your dad to row us out.”
That afternoon as they made ready to push out Mr. Skene’s fishing boat from Shigawake Brook beach, Jim reflected that a lot of talking had been done to get this accomplished. But he was tickled at what might happen.
Great boulders had tumbled from the cliffs and now lay worn smooth by spring storms. One dead spruce stretched out its branches, covered in moss, while shoots of small trees clung to crevices crammed with soil. The passage of time was etched into withered trunks leaning lopsided over the bank, while behind, fields with wheat sprouts awaited a warmer sun, now low in the western sky. Gulls were swarming, angry at the disturbance, and out beyond, the hell divers, such sleek but ungainly birds, were fishing like crazed cannonballs piercing the steely hard surface of the grey sea.
“I don’t know the why of this pile of craziness, Jim,” Will Skene grunted, pushing his heavy boat, “but that piglet you brought over, she looks fine. May and me, we’s sure lookin’ forward this winter to some nice roast pig, and a good supply of crackling that May makes in the oven.”
“Now don’t go blaming me, Poppa. It’s all Jim’s idea. I’m only comin’ because I know how Momma likes a nice roast pig.”
“And there’ll be lotsa roasts when that piglet fattens by autumn,” Jim went on, as they finally got the boat out. “Give her all the water from your vegetables, and any peelin’s. Maybe some wheat biled up.” He came back in to heft Margie in her skirt out through the water to the boat.
His father had been sitting in the prow all the while, shaking his head, gripping the sides with gnarled hands and determined, it seemed, to do whatever his son asked for whatever crazy reason. And anyway, he’d never been against a good adventure, or a surprise, whatever it was.
After Will Skene had rowed a good ways and the Shigawake shoreline was beginning to grow thin in the distance, Jim figured it was time to begin. �
�Now, Poppa, do you mind the time you told us about that there dream you had when you was out here with Momma afore I was born?”
“You mean, when we were in that canoe?”
“Yep. I heard you tell it a couple of times.”
“Well that weren’t no dream. More like an imagination thing. Some fellows would say vision.” He paused, and waved over the fairly still sea. “The waters were so still, even calmer than now. And I was paddling quietly, Elizabeth sitting up there in the bow of our canoe — but what did you bring that up for?”
“I want you to tell Margie, she’s never heard it.” Old Will Skene shipped his oars and let the boat drift so they could hear the story.
“Foggy, it were, and so still,” James obligingly went on. “I had to guide the canoe by listening to the waves against the shore. That air was so dense, like rain or a big storm coming.
“And out of the mist, now listen to this, I believed I saw some monster of a ship, with no sails! Yes sir, not a sail on it! Not even masts. How did it come by so fast? And the sound: like a sawmill driving it, somehow. I saw people waving at me up at the railing above. I still never heard tell of such a thing.”
Jim smiled and lifted his arm to point.
James turned and got the surprise of his life. A speck, coming toward them from the direction of Matapédia, was growing larger. A dull throb began to reach their ears. Jim saw his father stare in astonishment.
Margie, beside Jim, poked him in the side, and nodded, eyes aglow.
“It’s the steamer, the steamer from Carleton,” Jim explained. “Just started, once a week.”
James stared. “What the hell’s it doing — coming along over the surface like a real boat?”
Jim beamed. “Just sit tight.”
And indeed the steamer, which appeared enormous, came closer. Jim saw his father’s eyes widen as he turned, shook his head, and watched as it chugged past them. High above them at the railing, people waved down.
“And look! They’re waving down, just like what I saw.” He broke out laughing and stood up, trying to reach his son, almost upsetting the boat as it rocked wildly in the wake of the great steamer.
Jim, for himself, was mighty pleased at the reaction. Margie hugged him and gave him a big kiss. He’d succeeded in surprising them all, and most important, delighting his old father.
Chapter Twenty-Six: November 1862
A violent crack of thunder shook the house. James stirred. All night long he had lain half awake, half asleep, listening to the glorious orchestra of the heavens ring out its tribute to Mother Nature and her extraordinary ways. Usually, he loved thunderstorms: the feel of them coming on, the stillness of the air, the warmth beginning to permeate the currents moving among the trees and over the fields, and then, the great lightning bleaching out massive clouds that rolled their darkness over solitary farmhouses. And then the rain, beating its nourishment into the land, drenching it with new life. But tonight, somehow, all felt different. Feelings of unease bred turbulent nightmares to match the storm outside.
He found himself back in his Micmac canoe, long before he had won the hand of Catherine, making that lonely way to Paspébiac in the freezing spring rain. He had sought shelter under the cliffs on a heap of boulders, pulling the canoe up with him, but those waves, attacking the rocks with a feral intensity, now beat in his mind with ever greater savagery. Soon in this dream he would be pulled from his perch and thrust into the tempestuous seas. And then, choking, suffocating, he would black out, in total fright, and then wake in his bedroom and sit bolt upright.
He turned his head. The bed was empty. Catherine had gotten up. He hoped she wasn’t afraid. Usually not. But she had become increasingly frail. Perhaps she was just relieving herself in the chamber pot out in the hall.
New gusts of rain hammered his sturdy house. Inside it felt warm, dry, safe. How he had loved building it with Catherine’s brothers, and the help of John Gilchrist, the carpenter from New Carlisle. He must calm himself. He had nothing to fear.
At sunset, he had been doing one of the few jobs allotted him, feeding the chickens and shutting them in the henhouse, when the rolling thunder began with a sharp crack to get his attention, and then rolling onwards and it seemed upwards, high and more distant, through so many layers of cloud piled on cloud, and even higher, until it faded. Then it seemed as if the harsh flash of lightning which preceded each thunderclap came toward them until the whole barnyard was encompassed with a great light, as though some primaeval god was on a rampage letting nothing, not one particle of existence, escape his glare. How amazing, James thought, that this simple globe of earth could produce such wonders, such rain teeming down onto plants, ferns, spruce trees, the slow-growing birch and age-old pine and all living things, replenishing even the springs for thirsty animals. He marvelled at the way it all worked together, winter and summer.
So he had nothing to fear. That is, until he saw by the dawn’s illumination, the wraithlike form of Catherine steal into the room and lie down beside him. She remained as one frozen.
“Mother has left us. At last.”
“In the night?”
“No, as dawn was breaking.” Catherine gave a long pause. He reached out and touched her hand. It felt cold. “Something told me to get up. I crept into her room. Then I decided to sit down by her bed, I don’t know why. I reached out and put my hand on hers. And as I did, a great rush of breath shook her body. And then, I just know, her heart stopped.”
James absorbed the thought. Eleanor Garrett, née Caldwell, gone into the Great Beyond. Well, probably just as well. It had been a long time coming.
“James, I sat there, very still, with her. And then, a while later, my hand was still on hers, I saw something like a little cloud of mist rise out of her. And then James, it moved across the room, and you know? It slid out under the window. In spite of the storm coming, I had left it open a couple of inches. And I felt certain... there was no point in sitting there any longer. So I came back.”
James nodded. “Well, it seemed a peaceful passing.”
“It was.”
They both lay silent. Much too early to get up and alert the others, though James knew Margie would soon be stirring to make a fire for Jim’s tea. Then Jim would go out and do the milking, and come back for the breakfast that Margie would have ready.
“Now my dear, I shall get up and tell Jim. He’ll go and get Sam Nelson’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Scott, to come and help Margie prepare the body. You just lie here, and try to sleep.”
“No James,” Catherine spoke sharply, “that is something I do. I’ve done it often. It’s my job.”
“I think, in this case, we’ll let the others do it. Just keep yourself steady — for advice Margie will need. It’s the first body she’ll have to deal with, the first of many, I fear. Let her go through it with another experienced woman. Old Isabella Scott, as we all know, has done mostly everyone in Shegouac these last years.”
They lay again in silence.
“All right, James,” Catherine said. “I’ll do as you say.”
* * *
Throughout his dinner that noon, Jim watched his wife Margie, who looked washed out. Her jaw quivered as though she might break into tears, and her hand shook as she ate her boiled cod with potatoes and carrots. He’d been talking incessantly, trying to cheer them all up. He’d already gotten the news to the Rev. Mr. Milne and arranged for his grandmother to be buried in St. Andrew’s churchyard. No church in Shegouac yet, and no real attempt to build one. But Jim would soon get going onto that.
“Margie’s the best helper I ever had,” Isabella Scott said, downing her last cup of tea. “Nawthin’ like her anywheres else. You could see she didn’t like it, mind, but she did everything she was asked. That Mrs. Garrett? — she’s all ready to go, wrapped in her winding sheet, clean and nice.”
Margie raised her eyes, smiled briefly, and then began to cry. Jim longed to go and comfort her, hug and wrap his arms around and kiss her, but that was
not the way. He nodded his head to one side, and she caught his look. Together they went out onto the veranda, where they sat and watched the rain sheeting off the roof. Holding her tight, he let her cry her eyes out, having held it in so bravely. So strange, he and his wife, having witnessed this brush with the Hereafter, hugging each other like two kids, their love spilling over them like tears.
* * *
That next winter, Jim blew in from the freezing barn to find his father in the kitchen. “Now Poppa, what kind of craziness is this?” he asked with a laugh. His father was struggling with his heavy winter clothes and trying to get the snowshoes to work. He had already put on his Micmac moccasins recovered from the new attic he’d added on thirty years before. God knows how long it had taken him to climb up there. “Fine weather, m’son, I’m going out snowshoeing. I just want to check back by the stony bridge if them oxen are all right.”
Now where was the old man’s mind? Yes, the weather was good, the snow crisp and the whole hillside shimmered in the glittering sun. But Ol’ Poppa — was he back with that day when he’d shot his beloved Keen? Or was he talking about heading into the barn? He didn’t need snowshoes for that: the path between the house and the new barn was beaten down, easy walking. But a little bull calf had been born recently — maybe he was thinking of him? “Poppa, if you’re worried, I’ll go right out to check. The oxen were fine this morning when I went milking.”
His father struggled with those long moccasins that came up to his knees. “No sir. Not the barn. Never you mind. I’m just checking back by the stony bridge. Fine day for a walk. Those bears’ll be hibernating soon.”
“Poppa, look out the window, it’s deep snow. The bears are long asleep. The oxen are safe in the barn. Now don’t you worry yourself.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Jim, I’m your father. If I want to go snowshoeing, I’ll go snowshoeing. Magwés might be out there, too, you never know, and what about One Arm? Where’s he got to? They might need help. It’s awful cold out. Maybe some hot soup. Yes. Get your wife to heat me up some soup for them, quick-like.”