The Canadian Civil War: Volume 4 - Mississippi Beast

by William Wresch

Chapter 16 –

  When the river moved

  It was already early afternoon, so we headed home to a late lunch. Gabrielle had been fussing for a while with our food. I hope I have that kind of energy when I am her age. We asked if there was any outdoor seating, and she led us to a shaded area behind the house that must have been the location of picnics for at least a century. Huge trees arced over a white-painted wrought iron table with matching chairs. It had to be at least ten degrees cooler in the shade, and we settled in to eat sandwiches and sorbet. Now it was beginning to feel like a vacation.

  We ate, held hands, talked, looked at the scenery. We were on the west side of the house, on the high part of the lawn before it descended to the marshland below. We sat with our backs to the highway to the south, and looked north at the river, or west at the marsh and forests beyond it. We had an interesting view. At one point I put my arm around Elise, she laid her head on my shoulder, and I think we might both have fallen asleep. But then Jean came to rouse us.

  “I am terribly sorry to bother you, but Mr. LaTrec is here.” I must have looked confused, because he hurried to add, “You spoke with him last night about the history of the house.”

  “The hospital director.” Elise reminded me.

  “Of course. Why not ask him to join us out here?” Jean returned to the house and then escorted Jean Pierre LaTrec to our table.

  “Thank you for coming.” I got up and we shook hands. “Would you like to join us out here for a bit, or should we go into the house?”

  “It is a beautiful day to sit here, and it will help me tell a story that might interest you.” LaTrec took a chair with his back also to the south. “In my time the river has always gone east around the island, so when we played out here, we always had this view. I guess I could claim the marsh looked different in my youth, but I really can’t see any difference. It was a marsh, and incidentally, very attractive to young kids. We got into lots of trouble lots of times getting down there in the mud. If you’re a child and want frogs, where else would you go?” While he talked, Gabrielle brought out a picture of lemonade. I was going to have to talk to her about the health benefits of wine.

  “Anyway, one day we were out here running around, just being kids. My great aunt was sitting right where you are, keeping an eye on us to make sure we didn’t “slip” and end up down in the marsh. There was a storm coming out of the west, and we could see it approach over the marsh. There was thunder and lightning, enough to get our attention, and we started drawing back towards the house. We expected Aunt Nicole to lead us back into the house, but in fact she called us toward her and pointed up the river. ‘Watch the river, children, when a storm comes, watch the river. It was on a day just like this when I was your age that the river moved. We were sitting right here, hiding under the trees from all the rain, when the river boiled up higher than any of us had ever seen. We thought it might come right over us. It just got higher and higher, and it seemed to get angrier and angrier as it boiled up and threw waves into the air and swirled one way and then another. It was like it was a living beast. We were all too scared to move. We knew it was going to come straight for us and eat us. We started crying we were so frightened. And then we saw the beast move to our east. It had been coming straight for us, then it moved just a few hundred yards to the east. And it ate the land. All the houses, the roads, the people, and the land, it just ate them all. And when it was done eating, it kept going on south to eat more. And that is how the river moved.’ Well, you can imagine how we all reacted. Aunt Nicole scared the hell out of us. We were all staring north at the river wondering if the river beast would get us that day. I remember being so frightened, I was shaking. Finally she said, ‘When the storms come, watch the river. Some day the river will be a beast again.’ She was a nice old lady, but she was responsible for lots of wet beds over the next few days.”

  “What year did the river move?” I asked.

  “1903. It found a channel around the east and took everything out in a single night. The best guess is over three hundred people drowned. Most of those who didn’t drown moved off the island. There wasn’t much left here.”

  “Was this house here at the time?” I asked.

  “Yes, but it was abandoned for over a decade, and had to be largely reconstructed once people started living on the island again. This was pretty much a ghost town over here for a while.”

  “It must have been sad to see it decay.”

  “No, I think that’s where Claude Jolliet had it right. Or maybe it was Aunt Nicole’s version of Claude that had it right. Remember what I said last night about listening to her in the dining room? She talked about every board in that room, and later about virtually every other board in the house. They each had a story. But the reason they had a story is they had all been reused. She said that was Claude’s idea from the very beginning. He saw the town grow from a few huts and a tiny stockade, to a trading center, and then to a town. He lived deep enough into his seventies to see everything change. Paths he walked on as a boy became streets. River frontage disappeared as the floods came through, or disappeared under wharves and warehouses. Houses he had seen as a child either burned down, or fell down, or were hidden under additions. Everything changed, and then changed again. And he made no effort to stop it. What he did was pick pieces of the town, and keep them. His first boats rotted away, but he kept the keel. His first stockade fell to pieces, but he kept the counter top where people traded pelts. One of his barns burned down, but the doors survived, so he kept them. Where did he put all this stuff? He built his house with it. Years later, long after he was gone, that house practically fell apart, but his grandson used materials from that house as part of a new house. Sixty seven years later, that man’s grandson built another house with the materials from the second house. You get the idea. Every house has components of the last.”

  “For three hundred years?”

  “Hopefully for much longer than that.”

  “And this house?”

  “I like this house, but nothing lasts forever. Maybe the river will take this part of the island. Maybe it will be fire. Maybe the block will be taken over by warehouses or office towers. Maybe the foundation will just crumble from age.”

  “And when it does?”

  “I’d like to think a Jolliet descendent will rake through the wreckage, take the best of what remains, and build it into something new.”

  “Are we still talking about houses?

  “Maybe not.”