“Yesterday afternoon. I typed it right after the men from Abitibi left.”
“Doris, you've done a good deed here tonight. It might even turn out to have been a noble thing. So let's enjoy our dinner, yeah. I've already taken a peek at the desserts an' they look grand.”
They all studied the menus for a moment in quiet.
“After we've had our dinner, I'd like a few minutes of your time. Maybe you can join me for a drink in our hotel; it's just round the corner.”
“Everything I can tell you is in that envelope.”
“I was hopin' you might be interested in discussin' a new job.”
“A new job?”
“Helpin' me, workin' for me. I may be settin' up a new export enterprise.”
After the radio patch into the international operator failed repeatedly, Dutch flew into Innish Cove to retrieve Brian and returned with him to the NOA offices. During their first call, they discovered the best time for Tommy to travel was right away, then they lost the connection again.
Finally, they got Tommy on the phone to hear him say, “I'll be there in three days.”
Brian asked, “What do I do when I see you?”
“What?”
“I don't want even a moment that goes wrong. So should I shake your hand? I'm sure I'll want to hug you, but I don't know if you'd want that.”
“Let's shake hands.”
“Sure.”
“I've got to hang up now. I'll see you Thursday.”
An early morning fog floated over the River. Skirting the edge of a dense cloud bank, Mathew was alone paddling Nigig with a soft, easy stroke and he let the canoe's glide come to a stop before he paddled again.
Just inside the cloud bank This Man paddled his canoe, keeping pace.
For an instant Mathew caught a glimpse of This Man through the fog, and he turned Nigig into the cloudbank, paddling more steadily, trying to discover what he saw.
An early morning fog lay easy over the lough. Tommy knelt beside a Celtic cross on a small knoll above the shore where he looked out over the waves of fog. He held his arms out at his side, assuming the position of the cross.
He closed his eyes, and he prayed for forgiveness. Tears came to his eyes then began to roll down his cheeks.
A flock of yellow wagtails landed in the tree branches just above him, a dozen small birds with bright yellow and soft green bodies and black wings. They flitted from branch to branch, often no more than a foot from Tommy's head as he knelt below them, still.
The yellow wagtails sang to each other and groomed themselves.
A great convulsion shook Tommy's chest and he collapsed on the ground, crying out loud, scattering the birds. He sobbed deeply, lying at the base of the cross. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, leaning against the cross, and cried and cried, and cried still more.
The fellow outside the office door in Dublin let another in and that meant four from the IRA Executive Military Council had arrived for the meeting. There was a lookout stationed down the hall, another on the street. Kevin was the only one missing.
“He's been in the West these last few days.”
“He told me he'd be back for this meetin'.”
“I haven't heard from him since the day he left.”
“Not a phone call?”
“Me neither.”
“That's not good.”
“Which way do you mean that's not good?”
“Do ya think others got to him?”
“Which way do you mean, killed him, or flipped him?”
“Flip Kevin? I was wonderin' if they might have done him in.”
“What makes ya think they could flip him?”
“I wasn't sayin' they could, I was askin' if you thought they did.”
“Are we ready to handle this as an urgency?”
There was a knock at the door, then again, and Kevin stepped in.
“Ah, grand, it's Kevin himself.”
“Evening. Everything all right?”
“We was just getting' a bit agitated when we realized none had seen nor heard from ya since ya left for the West.”
“We lost two good lads when word got out what we did to their hurling champion. It's going to take some serious recruiting to replace those who quit us. At least they didn't go over to the others.”
Maureen had been taught that two o'clock in the morning was when the world was quietest. In the darkest first hours of morning on the side street of a nice old neighborhood in Kingston, very near Queens University campus, the glow of the street light on the corner barely carried to the second house.
Maureen and Simon had parked her rented car and walked the sidewalk for a couple of blocks, passed through the light, and used trees and fences to melt away and reappear at the back door of the third house down.
Maureen checked the door, found it secure, them discovered a window she could shimmy open. As she slipped inside, Simon faded back into the shadows.
No more than a minute later, Maureen climbed back out. She joined Simon standing in the bushes.
“Yes, it's just the right thing to do.”
“I will carry the next one.”
A block over, a few minutes later, Simon was in a kitchen, paper in his hand. He left it on the table then left through the back door.
And in another house, just two blocks down from the second, still dark, Maureen took a knife to stab a photo in place on the pantry door. The photo was framed by the piece of paper behind it. Hearing noises, and then footsteps above her, Maureen quickly retreated back out the window.
A moment later a man flipped on the lights as he came down the stairs cautiously. He took the candlestick from the mantle as he passed through the living room and slowly peeked into the kitchen. He turned on the kitchen lights. It was empty.
As he turned to flip the lights off he noticed something on his pantry door. A knife, and the blade frightened him into readying the candlestick for use. It took him a moment to approach it, but when he did he realized the knife held in place a photo of an old Indian woman holding a baby in front of a wigwam.
In any photos he had seen of Indians they all looked serious. This grandmother was smiling.
He pulled out the knife to examine the picture more closely and to read the paper behind it. “Naomi Loon. Born on the River 1898. Her grandson Little Stevie born this year, 1951. Are you asking this child to take on a risk you wouldn't?”
It was another house like the others, but the sun had been up for thirty minutes. Maureen and Simon walked up the sidewalk to the front door in the early morning light.
The man inside was in his bathrobe and pajamas and he pulled back a corner of the curtain to see who was knocking on his door before he'd even had his breakfast.
It was a splendid if confusing sight. A handsome Indian man-child stood next to a lovely woman, Indian he thought, before he realized she was a white woman. The Indian handed something to the woman. The man adjusted and retied his robe before he opened the door.
Before he or Maureen could speak, Simon began.
“We have come to help you.”
The man's surprise grew and he could only sputter, “Good morning.”
“We gave the others pictures of my people. Next time they will listen to you about your fears for the River. So you will speak with them again. You will continue your dissent.”
“What are you talking about? Who are you?”
“I'm Maureen O'Toole, an' this is Simon Fobister. Before we knew your name we called you the Dissenter.”
“You call me what?”
“The Dissenter.”
The man's wife, after peering out the window, had stepped up behind him, fully fascinated, but her husband was beginning to see direction to this and he was stepping back to bring the door half-way closed.
“Who are they?”
“We were just sitting down for breakfast, so why don't you just tell me what this is all about.”
It was the report the Dissenter
had seen Simon handing to Maureen, and she opened it to the page where his dissent was noted.
“This is you. You say there are reasons to believe this new paper-makin' process will poison our River. All by yourself, your concerns weren't sufficient to stop the project until more study can be done.” Maureen shifted her gaze to the man's wife. “Your husband is a brave man, ma'me. We're here to thank him.” She returned her attention to the husband. “An' we are here to offer you our help.”
“Where did you get that? You aren't supposed to have that. And what does he mean, he gave them pictures? What pictures?”
“Ask him.”
“Pictures of what?”
Simon had removed two more photographs from his shoulder bag, one of Mathew paddling Nigig across the river, the other of children wading in the River. He stepped right up to the door and held the photos high over the man's shoulder so his wife could see them, too.
“The River gives us our life.”
The man's wife peeked over her husband's shoulder to see the photos as her husband snatched them from Simon's hand.
“We're through here, and I am asking you to leave right now.”
“No, please. Let's at least talk. Just invite us in for a bit of tea an' let us ask you a couple of questions so we can understand better what we're up—”
“I'm telling you to leave now. Good-bye.”
He closed the door, so Maureen raised her voice.
“What was it that scared you so you had to speak out?”
There was no sound from the other side.
“If you don't answer that question, I'm afraid your wife won't like the consequences.”
The door opened fast and wide, the dissenter stepped forward, and he closed the door behind him.
“You're threatenin' my wife?”
“No. But if there is a threat to your wife, it will come from livin' with her shame of you because you didn't do all you could to stop it.”
“I wrote that nearly a year ago. I've had time for further consultation with my colleagues, and I amended the report in a recent memo. I acknowledge my earlier statement was an untested hypothesis and that I have absolutely no evidence of any kind that the mercury will have the effect I initially modeled.”
“It's mercury that they'll be dumpin' in the River.”
“Ah, yes, that's right.”
“An' now your position is that you have no evidence to suggest dumpin' mercury in the River will cause harm.”
“Indeed, if you were ever to swallow a large drop of it, why it would simply roll down into your stomach then pass through your bowels and out of your body without any effect at all which, I might add, happens with some regularity, as thermometers do break.”
“What?”
“We put mercury in our mouths all the time, in thermometers. You've more danger from the broken glass of a thermometer than the mercury inside it.”
“But surely you knew that all along, while you was testin' your ideas that suggested mercury could poison our River. Let me ask, what convinced you that you were wrong?”
“I've said all I have to say. Any further attempt to speak with me will be reported as harassment.”
“Be ready for your colleagues to bring all this up again with you, for we did share some pictures with them. An' if you decide it does need to be stopped, you can contact me at the Northwest Ontario Airlines office, in Kenora. I'm Maureen O'Toole.”
Chapter 30
Come A' Calling
Kevin closed his music shop in the early afternoon, packed an overnight bag, and drove the road that followed the Royal Canal out of Dublin due west. When he got to Mullingar he headed northwest, past Longford, into the River valley, and on towards Lough Arrow. He stopped in front of a small cottage that sat just above the shore.
An old man came walking up from the lough at the sound of the motor car and rounded the cottage as Kevin stepped from his car. Kevin greeted him with a bag filled with goods from the market.
The old man accepted the goods and offered disappointing news in return.
“He's left.”
“He's left? I told him to stay here 'til I was ready to move him.”
“Twas but two days after you left he lit out fer Sligo. I was remindin' 'im you was hidin' him to keep from havin' to take his life, but he was sayin' if he's got to hide he's gonna hide wit' his friends an' not wit' an ol' sod like me.”
“The fecking idiot needs to be hiding from friends. Did he mention any names?”
“Lads on the Sligo Hurling Club. I got two names outta him by conversin'.
“So he's been gone a week?”
“An' 'is lucky if'n he tain't been dead most of it. So if you find him alive, you need to do what was called for in the first place, Kevin, or he's bringin' danger to yourself.”
“I'll stop on my way back and let you know it's done.”
Maureen and Simon returned to the Great Lodge at Innish Cove from their trip to Kingston and the next day, after getting three boats of guests out on the River for the day, Brian, Maureen, and Simon flew into Kenora with Dutch.
They had a second appointment with their new solicitor, Tom Hall, recently hired to help them stop the mill. He was to report on the success of his preliminary conversations with government officials.
After dropping off the others at the dock in Kenora, Dutch flew on to Winnipeg. Tommy would soon arrive there on a flight from Toronto, and Dutch would fly him back to Kenora later that afternoon.
Maureen told Tom Hall all she had learned, most importantly that the element causing concern was mercury. The report had studiously avoided naming it.
When she first described the break-ins to Brian, Simon's role was described fully and he was there to add details. When Maureen told the stories in the solicitor's office, she acted alone.
As soon as she finished, Brian spoke up.
“I've been tellin' her she went too far, bringin' a knife into it, escalatin', threatenin' violence. But I'm watchin' you listenin' to her rationale, an' it doesn't seem to have bothered you nearly as much as it bothers me. Unless you're just keepin' a professional openness to your client's angles an' ideas.”
“I am intrigued. I want to hear more.”
Maureen was insistent. “It was clear to me standin' there that the Dissenter has not changed his belief. He's taken it back to keep his standing at the university. Or they paid him off. But I could see it in his eyes an' I could hear it in his voice. He still believes whatever it was that caused him such concerns. He fears what the mercury could do to the River. In front of his wife I made him acknowledge he had just given up. When he did, I knew for sure. I've been around a man who had given up on somethin' that he knew was important. I know what it looks like.”
Tom liked to pace when he was thinking and did so now. He was a young solicitor, still building a practice, and he knew the risk of going against timber interests yet had taken this on enthusiastically. Even the disappointing results of his first discussions with the Indian Affairs and Timber agency counsels couldn't temper his determination.
He walked from the window on one side of his office with its obstructed view of Lake of the Woods to the other window looking out fully on Main Street. He was smiling when he turned and said, “You and Simon Fobister broke into three houses?”
“It was just me. Simon was on the trip with me, as he is here with us now. But he did not participate in any way in my house calls.”
“It would be best if we were to remember that, in fact, Simon was in his hotel room at the time.”
“That is my recollection. He was in bed. It was two in the mornin', after all.”
After Maureen and Simon told Brian about their break-ins, she then insisted that the story she would tell to everyone else was a version that kept Simon out of it, free from anything that might come of it. He didn't understand the reasoning but agreed to follow her lead.
Maureen enjoyed watching the activity on Kenora's Main Street during her first visit t
o this office so she stood at that window, collecting her thoughts while watching a mother holding hands with her young daughter as they walked down the sidewalk and entered a clothing store. When the door closed behind them, she turned to the room.
“So my overall strategy I am workin' here, an' this is as simple as I can see it, is that the cards have been dealt an' if this hand plays out, they win. This pulp mill gets built. So our slim advantage is to show them we are prepared to change the game; we have a play we can make that knocks them off the path they want to be on. An' more importantly, we're prepared to make that play, an' more.”
“That's it?”
“One thing more. They'll take all kinds of disruption before they want to call us on it.”
The office wasn't large enough for two folks to be moving around in it, so Tom sat back down behind his desk. “I can tell you we need something besides the formal political process. After meeting with the Ministry it's clear they will be much too slow. They started talking about how filled their calendars are, that it will be at least six months and up to a year before the preliminary hearings could begin. They can bury this in so many committee meetings. And when we could ever meet if we don't have the full support of Indian Affairs by then we won't make any progress.” He directed his next comment to Brian. “And as I am sure you can guess, they are none too happy with you right now.”
“I tried, but their… I guess I have to call it their silliness, they wore me down with their silliness 'til I had to call them on… bein' silly.”
“So I'll be insistent and steady with the Ministries without stealing your money with very little expectation. Now that this memo is written and the dissenter recants everything, that direction is working against us.”
Brian said, “We got money to pay you.”
“It's the waste of time that's most costly, for they'll be moving forward every day with their plans while we're fighting just for permission to speak to someone about it. I mean it when I say they can put this off for years, the sort of public hearing we need.”
Maureen nodded. “You stay attentive there, at the Ministries, probe an' look for high leverage plays. An' I'll play this out with Abitibi. They don't want any illegal proceedin' of any sort in any way related to this project. That's when we could go after 'em about why they are hidin' what they are doin'. So they keep absorbin' my provocation, I keep raisin' the stakes, at some point the only choice they have is to ask us to stop. Then we deal.”
The 53rd Parallel Page 27