The 53rd Parallel

by Carl Nordgren

  Brian pinned his baby boy on his back on his bed, on Deirdre's bed, where she had lain dying slowly and surely, and Brian knelt in front of the baby, his shoulder throbbing, his head throbbing, both burning hot, and he leaned over as close as he could, nearly nose to nose and he roared, “Shut the feck up!” trying to blow all the sound out of the room.

  Patrick stopped crying. He froze. All that moved were his eyes' frantic search of his father's face.

  Brian held his breath in the moment of quiet, hoping this worked, hoping that his guilt for his dreadful neglect of Deirdre's care would stop feeding his demon, wishing his neck and back and head and shoulder would stop hurting so much that he was getting sick. On the five-count the baby boy screamed his cry, and Brian picked him up by the front of his night shirt and threw him down hard on the bed, too hard, he knew, even before Patrick's head jerked with a snap in his neck. Brian picked his son up so he wouldn't do it again, and Patrick's hottest cry yet burned to cinders anything still alive in Brian's heart and soul.

  Katie pounded on the door. She fell to her knees, continuing to beg and plead as she beat her fists against the door.

  Then she heard the sound of muffled blows and Patrick's terror-filled shrieks, all to the beat of her father's demonic voice. “Shut… the… feck… up!'”

  And she froze when Patrick's cry stopped, and the hitting stopped, and her father's roar became a sound she'd never heard before.

  Katie was sitting on the floor staring at the bedroom door when Eamon arrived. As he entered the bedroom Tommy appeared at the cottage door, breathing hard, then walked to the bedroom door and tried to block his sister's view while he watched.

  Eamon found baby Patrick curled in a ball under the pillows shaking and moaning in pain. When he pulled the pillows back he saw bruises were already forming, and Eamon turned to where Brian was sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, crying. Eamon took one step into a hard-booted kick to Brian's side and they both felt his ribs break.

  Eamon carefully cradled the baby in a pillow as he picked him up and then stood over Brian. Tommy was standing at the door crying. Katie was crying, still sitting on the floor behind him, her face buried in her arms.

  “These children are mine now. You leave here an' you don't never come back. If I see you in the mornin', I'll set the Gardai after you an' I'll make sure you're sent—”

  “Take care of 'em.”

  “Shut up. God damn you, just shut up. You're nearly beatin' the life out of your own son is what it appears to me, an' you're tellin' me what now?”

  “I do love you, Katie… Tommy, I love you, son… I'm so sorry for what I did is what I'm tellin' you.”

  “I don't care where you go, just take all them feckin' plans of yours with you so then you have nothin' to come back here for, 'cause these children, they're mine now. You'll never see them again.”

  Eamon turned, and led Tommy and Katie away. After a few moments, Brian got up, the pain in his side and the pain in his shoulder nearly blinding, and he collapsed in the bed, where he cried well into the night. Before sun up he shambled about, bent and broken, to collect a few things. He left under the last cover of darkness and was as far down the road at dawn as a beaten man could travel.

  Chapter 13

  Grassy Narrows

  The next two Canadian winters were bitterly cold, so cold they forced Joe Loon's clan and the other Keewatin tribes who still traveled the River and lived in these forests to move to Grassy Narrows Reserve as their winter camp. There they lived in the cabins that the Grassy Narrows Ojibway and other neighboring clans had been paid by the government to build on the banks of the River years before. The cabins had wood-burning stoves and a couple had fireplaces as well, making them much easier to keep warm when it was 30 below night after night.

  The second of these bitter winters, Joe Loon sat in a one-room cabin on a pillow on a tree-stump stool and repaired one of his snowshoes. Naomi sat on a pillow on the floor next to him, boarding a mink pelt. Stretched and framed furs of beaver and mink and muskrat, along with a fox and a fisher, hung on the walls, and in one corner were stacks of furs ready to be traded at the Hudson Bay Post.

  The only light in the room came from the kerosene lantern. The corners of the cabin were in shadow. In one corner was a mattress, where Joe Loon and Naomi made their bed. It was piled with blankets, highly valued commodities so far North. The rug Naomi spread out on the floor when the family ate their meals was rolled up on top of the mattress, out of the way. In the other corners were propped two fishing poles, a rifle, a bow and quiver of arrows, an ax, and a two-man crosscut saw.

  On a small shelf next to the stove were a couple of sacks and three or four boxes of food staples, and on the floor a sack of flour.

  Simon Fobister's bed was up the ladder to the cabin's shelf-like loft. He looked down at his grandparents from his bed.

  Joe Loon stood, placed his work aside, and looked up to Simon.

  “If you will come with me to check the trap line tomorrow, you must sleep now.”

  Later that night Joe Loon and Naomi lay under blankets and furs in the dark.

  “Tomorrow I will check the long leg of the trap line, so I will spend the night at Gone Again Waters.”

  His wife reached under his bed clothes. “Is this the long leg? Ohhh, see how it gets longer, Husband.”

  “Longer and longer, Wife.”

  “I will catch it in my trap, Husband.”

  In pre-dawn, Simon Fobister climbed down the ladder. Naomi was fixing the first meal. Joe Loon sat on the stump in front of the stove, the door open. He was staring into the fire.

  “I have dreamt this now for four nights.”

  He put a small log on the fire. This Man stood in the darkest corner.

  “It is a big dream. Now I understand this big dream to be true in all of the Four Directions.”

  Simon Fobister stepped forward to stand at his side, and Naomi turned from her work.

  “Tell us your dream, Grandfather.”

  “I camp on the shore of Kaputowaganickcok. I stand at the place where the funeral fires burned those who died of the white man pox. The spirit of one who died appears before me there. This spirit tells me the white man is coming. I do not want to laugh at the spirit when I tell him the white man is always coming. Though I try to hide it, the spirit hears the laughter in my voice. He becomes angry with me. So angry that he goes away.”

  Joe Loon closed the stove door.

  “The next night I dreamt I am camped there again and the spirit returns. He tells me to be quiet. He tells me to listen to him. He tells me the white man is coming to help our people. He tells me the white man is coming who will help protect this place for our people. I tell this spirit that a white man coming to help will be a strange sight to see. That I do not need a spirit to find this white man. He becomes angry with me again and he goes away.

  “The third night I dreamt I have returned to camp on the same shore and the spirit is waiting for me there. He says that there will be another white man coming, and then he goes away though I was quiet.

  “Last night was the fourth night I had this dream. I am camping there and many more spirits come, ah gee, so many of our people died from the white man pox and now the spirits of all the men who burned are standing there. Behind them, I see the spirits of the women who burned and they are holding their babies. Their children stand around them and so many old men and old women. They all speak to me with one voice.”

  This Man began a soft lament as Joe Loon paused to prepare to speak clearly.

  “They tell me that the white man is coming who would help our people and the white man is coming who would destroy our people. The spirits tell me that all the clans who live on the River should fear the white man who will be against us. But that all the clans who live on the River must invite the white man as a brother who comes to help us.

  “They tell me the white man who gave them blankets did not mean to give them the white man pox. They
meant the blankets as gifts. They say the white man who comes to destroy us will not know that is what they do. If we do not stop them, they will turn our River against us. If we do not stop them, they will make the River a poison and this poison will kill everyone. The babies will become sick. The old people will die. They will destroy our forests. After our forests are destroyed and our River is poisoned, the white man who did this will not let us live with them. Our people will be so sad, many of us will want to die. The spirits tell me I must watch for these men. They tell me I must not let them poison the River.”

  Simon and Naomi were silent. Joe Loon placed his hand on Simon's head. This Man stopped chanting and stood behind the boy.

  “This dream is so big, you must remember it with me. For these spirits did not tell me when the white man will come. They did not tell me which white man will come first. They only told me we must protect the River now and always. You must help me watch for them.”

  “Yes, Grandfather.”

  “Now and always.”

  “Yes, Grandfather. Now and always.”

  Chapter 14

  This Man and the French Trader

  This Man stood on the shore of a narrow bay where a reedy creek drained into the River's lake. He was waiting for the French trader and his Ojibway wife who approached in their canoe.

  It was 1761.

  Behind This Man, an Ojibway village of twenty or thirty families' wigwams lined both sides of the bay.

  The French trader's canoe touched shore. His wife was a daughter of this village. They would find their six-year-old son already there. Lately, the boy spent as many nights in his cousins' wigwams in the village as he did in his bed with his parents at the trading post cabin, as there were no other children at the post.

  The canoe was filled with supplies. The trader left them in bundles in the canoe, taking only the two new flintlocks which he carried in the crook of his arm, and the bottle of brandy he directed his wife to bring. She followed him, and This Man walked with her, past the sniffing dogs, into the center of the village where the trader found the wigwam of the chief.

  Many villagers had collected in their wake, for the French trader always brought gifts. By the time the trader was attended to by the chief and elders, then the tribe's warriors, they were surrounded by all the people of the village.

  Their son stepped away from his cousins and friends and stood with his parents.

  The French trader had for many years been a voyageur, and one of the first European trappers to return regularly to this fir forest River basin, often times alone, well before a trader's cabin was built, well before he married the young daughter of a warrior who was now an honored tribal elder.

  The trader and his son were fluent in both French and the forest language. His wife had learned only a little French, as her husband enjoyed speaking the language of the Ojibway people.

  At the fire ring outside the chief's wigwam, the French trader handed the flintlocks to his son so he could bend down to fill each of his hands with ash from the night's fire.

  “I come to speak of a sadness in my heart. I tell you my family is in mourning now.”

  The French trader poured some of the ashes on his head, and rubbed some on his clothes.

  “I come to tell you that your Great French Father across the great water has grown weary. He has been fighting the evil English for too long. Your French Father is so tired he has fallen asleep. While he slept, the English enemy stole many of your French Father's greatest treasures. The enemy has stolen this land that you have shared with your French Father. The English enemy now forces your French brothers to leave this place, to return to our homes across the great waters to the East. This is the reason for my great sadness. This is why I mourn. Soon great distances separate us.”

  “We will mourn with you.”

  The chief scooped a handful of ashes and slapped them on his shoulders and rubbed a hard line down his jaw.

  “The French Father has been kind to his Ojibway children. He has always been generous with his gifts.”

  The chief reached for the nearest flintlock, held by the tribe's best hunter who handed it to the chief.

  “With this firearm, Red Wolf keeps our wigwams filled with fresh meat. When the thieving Dakota hear its thunder, they grow afraid and hide in their wigwams like women.

  They no longer raid our villages to steal our women and children.”

  “I give you these last gifts before I leave my brother. Here are two more firearms. In my canoe I have more powder and many leads. There you will also find many cooking pots. There you will find the very best knives with the big steel blades. Here I place in your wigwam the last of the brandy.”

  The French trader took the bottle from his wife and handed it to his son who placed it at the door of the chief's wigwam.

  “These gifts are given the day you depart?”

  “Behind us is an empty cabin, for soon the English will arrive. The day will come that your French Father will wake again, and he will take back his treasures from the English. Then we will return to this land to live with you again. Until that day, your French brother will remember his Ojibway family when I pray to the Chief of all Chiefs, Jesus the Christ.”

  “You have warned us of your enemy, the English. Now they are our enemy. We will do battle with them. We will drive them out of the trading post before they light their first fire.”

  “Your French Father loves you just as you love your children. You will not ask your children to fight your battles for you. You are proud when your children grow up to fight by your side, but you will not ask them as children to put themselves in the path of your enemy for you. If my Ojibway brothers drive away the enemy, your French Father will be very grateful. But I love the people of this village. So I ask you to be careful, for these English are a treacherous people.”

  “You take the daughter of the Loon clan with you across the great water?”

  “She will wait for me here, with her people. This is her wish. And our son will grow up in this village as your son. This is why my sadness is so deep.”

  “When you are gone, your son will be my own son. But you are welcome to build your shelter here to live the rest of your days with your brothers. It would be good for you to tell us your wisdom about how to fight this English enemy.”

  “I will sleep here tonight and tell you all I know of the English at your council fire. I must leave at daybreak. My honor calls me to one last duty I must perform for my chief.

  When that is done, I will find my way back to you.”

  Chapter 15

  A Time for Peace?

  All through the remaining war years Brian stayed exiled from Cong as he traveled spiraling circles around his village, from Galway to Oughterard or Clifden, to Westport to Castlebar or Sligo, with only an occasional side trip to Dublin, then back to Galway to begin another rotation. He was in one place a few days, the next a couple of weeks. With so many able-bodied men away earning a soldier's wage fighting in the Irish regiments of the British Army, odd jobs were usually available, and Brian accepted any dry bed he could find. But when a bottle was offered, or he had what was needed to purchase one, a hard night of drinking would send him out on the road again.

  Maureen spent the war living with her mother in their cottage just outside Derry. She recovered the valise from the mountain top eighteen months after she buried it there and at two in the morning to hide it from her Mum, she buried it again in the spot she mapped for Russell under two feet of dirt and clay, a large stone covering the spot at the far edge of the yard behind the cottage.

  She found a job working as a cook's helper in a large hotel and a year later became a cook's assistant. At first her wages didn't cover their meager living expenses, so once or twice a year under cover of darkness, she uncovered the valise and removed a few pound notes. Each time, she diligently recorded her actions on a slip of paper she kept in the valise, noting her situation and her use for the pound notes. She also noted he
r efforts at finding former IRA contacts, like the day she ventured by bus to Dublin to look for Kevin's music shop but found it closed, permanently it seemed. She also noted how she asked in the nearby shops but no one knew where he had gone. And each rumor she heard of renewed IRA activity was recorded as well, but nothing occurred to support any of the rumors.

  As months passed and the war went on there was no sign of the Brotherhood under any name. And when the months became years, she tore up the pages of notes of actions and transactions and threw them to the wind.

  One day while war waged across the world, Simon and Mathew paddled Nigig across two lakes linked in the River's complex chain, portaged the canoe to a landlocked lake sitting up in a ridge valley, then paddled to the far side. Simon sensed it was a good day for him to take the stern, for his Big Brother was not as excited as he was to be making this trip. They left after the midday meal and paddled all through the remaining daylight looking for the small wigwam that sat on a bit of open shoreline.

  The wigwam marked the foot of the path that led up to the top of the highest ridge peak for miles around. The path started up an easy slope but half way up it became a steep climb to the top, to the ancient and sacred place. The boys of the River clans and many of the boys from Grassy Narrows Reserve were brought to this place by their fathers and elders to pray for the vision that would guide their lives as men.

  Simon Fobister and Mathew had helped the elders repair the wigwam the year before when a Keewatin boy from Grassy Narrows was preparing for his vision. As they worked together, Old George told a story about his time there, and the dream vision that would set him on his path.

  “In my dreams I was a young man setting out to hunt all alone. I came to a shallow bay where a bull moose was feeding. He saw me and ran back into the forest. I stalked him for many days through the forests and swam after him when he crossed the River until after many days I finally got a killing shot. I killed him with just one arrow right through his heart. When I returned to my village with my kill, I had become an old man. I gave away all the best pieces of meat to the others and I kept the poorest portions for myself. When I told the elders this was my dream, they helped me understand I was to live my life without a family so I was always free to serve my village with the best portions I have.”