Blackstrap Hawco (4 page)

‘You're sweet, Isaac,' she said mournfully. And she touched his cheek with the back of her smudged fingers, transferring the mark. First checking over her shoulder, she then faced Isaac again, leaning to kiss him on the lips. ‘You're sweet,' a slow whisper.

Spirits restored, Isaac grinned, despite the tone in which the compliment was spoken. Again, he laughed, this time wetly, having to wipe at his chin for he had burst forth with joy. He nodded three times, a brisk succession stiff with formality. He barely raised his eyes to her, and uttered not another word before he left.

Junior Hawco at play and the birth of his brother, Blackstrap

The weekend was filled with activity for Junior. Bazzing marbles with Paddy Murphy and Bren Coveyduck on the damp floor of Bren's barn, their fingers almost numb with the cold, the quartered meat from the recently slaughtered cow hanging above them, the smell of it only vaguely noticeable in the chilly air. He'd won two new unchipped whoppers. Skating down on the pond with Bren, barrel staves tied to their boots for blades, they'd shot an ice puck back and forth with the curved tree limbs they used for hockey sticks, the puck shrinking smaller and smaller until there was nothing left of it and they fell into argument about what bit of snow was actually in play. Trading comic books with Wince Drover, the fat man who worked in the general store and, subsequently, had access to all the comic books Junior wanted. And watching the parlour window be taken out of the Critch house. Junior had stood there with Paddy and Bren as the window trim was removed, piece by piece, and laid aside. Then the large window box had been edged out and carefully set down on the ground. Junior knew what was coming next. Waiting in silence by the Critch fence, he and the other boys had turned to stare up the lane, hearing the distant jangle of bells as they caught sight of the black, horse-drawn carriage with the coffin on board. Mister Myrden up front in black, reins in hand, not looking anywhere but straight ahead. Mist blasted from the horse's nostrils as it trod near. Silver bells jangled louder. The creak of the wheels over the hard earth sounded like death itself, impressing its trail toward them. The horse grew larger, towering over the boys, as it came to a halt a few feet before their frozen faces. Mister Myrden on the driver's bench watching them with numb interest.

Three of Old Missus Critch's sons had unloaded the coffin and fit it in through the hole in the house where two other men from Bareneed received it. One son had made a comment and another son had laughed, which made something shrink inside Junior. Then the sons had raised the parlour window and nudged it back into the hole, carefully realigned the window trimmings and nailed them in place, as though nothing had ever been opened up in that house.

Old Missus Critch had passed away. To Jacob Junior it seemed as if
she had been old, sick, and dying for most of her life, yet she had often managed to call to him from her doorstep and, with trembling hand, offer him a peppermint knob from a dish, dipping her chin and grinning at the clump of pink and white that needed to be pried apart. ‘'Av anudder,' she'd say. ‘One fer yer mowt 'n one fer yer pocket.'

Dead old woman in a box. Gone. That's where she went when it was over, in a box, then into the ground. There would be a service, and all the children would have to go. No more peppermint knobs. No more porcelain dolls laid out on her doorstep to please and entice the Bareneed girls. Say a prayer for the soul of Old Missus Critch. Now, she's gone, the horrible witch. He'd imagined a girl skipping and singing that song.

It was Sunday after supper when Junior was in his room with his book of animals. He was thinking about the box and Old Missus Critch, the remembered taste of peppermint knobs in his mouth, while he tried reading about what a moose ate. He had just shifted his eyes over to the picture of a red fox when he heard his mother's cry. A startling sound he had never heard before. It was as though she were surprised and afraid at once, but slightly excited too. The moment after the sound, his mother called out to him. ‘Junior.'

He was already on his feet and moving toward her room where she was standing by the bed staring down at the floor. A huge spill of water was darkly spread out over the wood. Junior looked to the jug on his mother's washstand. It was upright.

‘Go get Missus Murphy.' Her voice was cut with concern. ‘The baby.'

Junior did not know if he should be scared, but he was. Something was the matter with his mother, something like sudden sickness. At first, he hesitated, thinking that he or Uncle Ace might be able to help. He thought of his uncle, but knew that he hadn't been in the house for ages. Where is Uncle Ace? he now wondered. Where has he gone?

‘Go,' said his mother, sweeping her long black hair back out of her face and looking at him, her forehead wrinkling. ‘Hurry.'

He ran down over the stairs, his palm skimming the banister rail, took a turn and headed to the kitchen at the back of the house. In the back porch, he pulled on his boots but forgot his coat as he bolted out
into the winter, the lash of the wind stinging his cheeks and hands, the snow gusting into his hair and caking there as he ran uphill toward the Murphy house. Looking back, already out of breath, he saw that he had not shut the door, light spilling out onto the snow, and spreading, then retracting as the door was violently pulled shut by the wind.

He passed the Critch house and saw the lamp on in the parlour, shadows moving behind there. Black and stretching tall and wide. Old Missus Critch rising up out of her box to chase after him through the blinding snow, wanting to tell him something the way she had always seemed to want to, after she gave him the peppermint knobs, her eyes watching his face in a sad strange way that spooked him. Even worse now that she was dead and after him, rising up from her sleep, the dish of peppermint knobs rattling in her hand as she bound across the snow to chew on his ankles.

He was clear of the Critch house, then passed the Coveyducks', a lamp burning in the kitchen window at the back, the stream of smoke pouring from the chimney bent and swept along by the hardness of the wind.

When he arrived at the Murphy house, he was completely out of breath and banging on the door in such a fit that Missus Murphy, Paddy's grandmother, not Paddy's mother, for Paddy's mother had perished in childbirth, answered with a look of alarm on her wrinkled face that might have been the exact face of Missus Critch in the dim light.

Stumbling back, Junior tried to speak, but could not squeak a word out. He struggled to swallow. ‘It's Mom. Something the matter.' He glanced back over his shoulder, fearing for his mother's safety and dreading the claw-handed grasp of Old Missus Critch.

‘Da baby?'

He shrugged. ‘Don't know.'

‘Run on 'ome ta be widt 'er. I'll be along da once.'

Junior turned and raced back down over the hill, into the pelting crystals, stumbling in the snow and falling, his hands sinking deep, the stinging frost at his wrists. He gazed up and over. The Critch house. Shadows in the lamplight. He looked back to see Old Missus Critch coming through the dusk in her shawl, a black bag in hand, not a dish of
peppermint knobs. She was calling his name, screeching it out like a banshee. No, it was not the voice of the dead, but the howl of the wind. The black bag. Missus Murphy. He knew by the black bag, the one that babies were delivered in. The shawl blowing and rising as Missus Murphy braced herself against a blast of wind that blew her a little off course, bringing her arms out like feathery black wings for balance.

Junior pushed himself up and ran ahead, gasping, his heart hammering. He kept glancing back and was soon in the warmth of his house, his boots still on. ‘Mom?'

A noise of pain sounded from upstairs.

Junior took the stairs two at a time, passing Uncle Ace somewhere along the way, the old man stood there as though watching toward the distance, his hair uncombed, his mouth crusted at the corners, his eyes like two entirely forgotten things. Junior charged into his parents' room to see his mother seated on the edge of the bed. The beating in his chest filled every inch of his body. The snow had already begun melting from his hair and was running down the back of his neck, the sensation making him flinch. He checked over his shoulder, fearing cold fingers upon him. Sweat and snow mingling as one. His mother's hands were now on her belly, her face seized with pain until the pain seemed to stop and her desperate, seeking eyes were questioning him.

‘Where's Missus Murphy?' she asked, one hand reaching back on the bed as she began to lay down.

‘She's coming,' he said to the sound of the back door banging shut downstairs.

Missus Murphy took her time rising up the stairs. Junior leaned over the banister and saw her, still covered in snow, lifting her legs one at a time and grunting, ‘Me ol' knees're miserable dis eve.' Soon, she was there by his side. She brushed herself off and, with black bag in hand, a bag that seemed too small to hold a baby, she crossed into the room and shut the door.

Junior stood there, staring at the barred door, hearing the low calming words from Missus Murphy, hearing his mother's whimpers. He bent his head forward and shook the snow from his hair.

Soon, the door was yanked open, the fastness of the action urging Junior back a step.

‘Dere's a kettle o' water on da stove. Bring 'er 'ere.' The door shut again. The monstrous, unbelievable sound of cloth being torn to shreds.

Junior raced downstairs to find the steaming kettle on the stove, snatched hold of its hot handle and carried it despite the pain burning into his palms, his legs stepping awkwardly as he lugged it ahead of himself up the stairs.

Outside his mother's door, he laid down the kettle, knocked and backed away. Again, the door was hauled open. Missus Murphy looked down at once, not even casting her eyes at Junior until she grabbed the kettle in hand and said: ‘G'wan now,' tilting her head toward his bedroom at the back of the house. She then turned.

The door banged shut.

Junior looked at his palms, the red imprints of the kettle handle. There was not much to the pain now, but he felt it might get worse.

He remained on his feet, his shoulder against the wall. He waited, trying to hear beyond the door, but there was not much to be heard, only the occasional soothing comment from Missus Murphy, punctuated by the thrashing of snow against the house. This went on for quite some time. Junior felt himself slipping. Catching himself, he wondered if he might have been asleep. The house rocking with the punch of the winter wind. Dozing again, he saw Uncle Ace's smiling face and awoke with a start, stopping himself from sliding backwards.

A scream flinched his eyes to the door, a short scream, then a grunt and a whimpering. Wind pounded the walls and boomed in the floorboards. Soon, there was pleading and shouting, his mother in pain and need. He wondered what Missus Murphy was doing to her, what sort of torture.

‘No, no, no,' from his mother. ‘Ooohhhhh!'

‘Now,' shouted Missus Murphy. ‘Push da little bugger out.'

There was more screaming, almost savage, as the winter gale shoved harder, striking and striking…

Junior swiped tears from his eyes. He went nearer to the door, then backed away when another scream rose throughout the house, smothered by a rumble like thunder. He sobbed through his open mouth, not knowing what to do, his vision blurred with tears. His hand went out for the doorknob, then shot up to cover his ear.

‘Mom?'

‘Heave it outta ye, Maid. Heave it.'

There was much screeching and grunting as though his mother was being overtaken by something wicked, or was at war with Missus Murphy. The sounds continued for a long time, until Junior, weakened by his helplessness, slid down against the wall. Seated on the hallway runner, enduring the torment, he put his head on his knees and tried to block the sounds of human agony mingling with the throes of violent weather.

Then, his mother gone quiet.

Only words spoken in the distance. Barely heard words muttered from downstairs it seemed, but from who, from the lips of Uncle Ace?

He listened carefully, searching into the silence, a span of time that set him adrift within himself. He stood and pressed his ear to the door.

‘Yays,' said Missus Murphy. ‘Yays, tis a beauteous ball o' fluff.'

‘Mom?' Junior lightly scratched at the door with his fingernails.

Not a sound from his mother now.

‘MOM?'

‘T'is just ta get da rest outta ye now.'

The sound of Missus Murphy talking to his mother calmed him, and he stood in silence for some time.

Finally, the door was flung open and Missus Murphy scowled at him. She was wiping her hands in a cloth smeared with red and pink, the lamplight directly behind her setting her hair aglow. ‘Yer mudder's fit.' She stepped aside, and Junior could see that there was something in his mother's arms. His mother was watching it with a look of caution, her eyes barely open, strands of her long hair stuck to her face with sweat. She regarded Junior as he moved toward the bed, her face white and pink with heat, shining in the lamplight. He noticed blood on a clump of rags near his feet and his heart sped with fear. On the dresser, there was a flat chunk of what looked like bloody raw meat laid out on a piece of brown wrapping paper.

‘Junior,' his mother whispered, the beginnings of a smile.

‘Get me da bottle o' molasses in da kitchen,' commanded Missus Murphy.

Junior watched his mother. She nodded. Turning, he ran down the
stairs, snatched the bottle and pounded his feet back up toward his mother's room, hoping that nothing might have changed too drastically in his brief absence.

Missus Murphy uncapped the bottle and scooped up a gleaming gob of black molasses on her finger, guiding it to the baby's mouth. ‘'E were born widt da white mowt. Dis'll cure 'im.'

Junior inched nearer until he could see the tiny hands and scrunched-up face that seemed to be the wrong colour. The molasses was leaking out the baby's mouth, staining the cheeks brownish-black. His mother carefully dabbed away the fluid with the edge of the cloth wrapped around the baby. Junior noticed the black bag open on the washstand. There were scissors and a bit of string inside. What did they have to do with making a baby? He could not prevent his eyes from turning toward the hideous slab of meat on the dresser.