Downhill Chance (28 page)

It must’ve been past midnight when her fitful dreaming was disrupted by Prude’s door opening and slamming, and gnashing snarls sounding from Tricksy. The door burst open again, and Prude’s cries sounded across the patch: “Luukkeeee! Luukkeee!” Crawling up on her knees, Clair shoved her curtain to one side, catching the last of Luke’s back as he disappeared up through the woods. “Mother of God, Luuke, come back!” Prude cried out.

Willamena’s French doors squeaked open and her footsteps trod heavily across the kitchen floor. “What’s going on? My, what’s going on?” she sang out the same instant as Beth flung aside her curtains and hoisted up her bedroom window as Nora ran out on her bridge in her nightdress.

“It’s Tricksy!” cried Prude. “She’s gone surly, she is, from birthing. Trying to eat it, she was and then went surly when Luke took it from her—my oh my she was snapping at his hand and snarling like the devil—ohh, Nory, I thought she was going for his throat, I did, and now he’s gone up the woods after her, he is—Luuukkkeeee!”

“Now, Mother, Luke’ll be fine,” said Beth, as Nora ran down over her steps and across the patch in her bare feet.

“Come on now, back in the house,” coaxed Nora, wrapping an arm around the old woman’s shoulders. “He’ll be home in a bit.”

“He’ll be lost, he’ll be lost in this dark, mark my words,” Prude cried out, raising her fists to the woods.

“My God, sure what’s he doing leaving his mother and going off like this?” exclaimed Willamena. “Sure, he knows what she’s like for worrying.”

“If we give heed to Mother, we’d all still be tied in high chairs,” said Beth. “Go on in with Nory, Mother, Luke’ll be home when he finds Tricksy.”

“I’ll go get him,” sang out Roddy, appearing in his mother’s doorway, buttoning up his shirt.

“You get back inside, you young bugger—get on,” ordered Nora. “Nate!” she called out. “Cripes, it’s the dead you’d wake before you woke he—Roddy! Get back in that bed.”

“The racket,” exclaimed Willamena.

“Nothing a pillow over your head wouldn’t shut out,” snapped Beth, and mindless of Willamena’s closing her door with a huff, she called out to her mother, “Go on in with Nory; Luke’s going to be fine. Sure, you wouldn’t hear him coming anyway with all that bawling out.”

“Yes, come in, we listens for him,” coaxed Nora, “he’ll be home the once, dog or no. Come now, and show me the pup. Poor little thing, how’s we going to feed it with his mother gone?”

Inching her mother back inside the house, Nora closed her door, and all fell quiet once again. Leaving her curtains opened, Clair lay back in bed, propping herself upon her pillow, staring through her window up over the darkened woods. But as hard as she tried to stay awake, sleep overcame her. And because of the lateness of the hour, she slept past the men’s leaving for work in the morning. Hopping out of bed, she quickly dressed, leaving the house without breakfast and before the youngsters had chance to stir. Aside from Prude saying her prayers to Joey underneath the stagehead, only the gulls stirred the quiet of the morning. Letting herself into the schoolhouse, she heaped some coal into the stove and lit the fire and sat, on this her last day in the little schoolhouse. The door burst open soon enough and Roddy charged in across, his cheeks as red as his ears.

“What’re you doing here so early?” asked Clair.

“Luke said to give you this, miss,” he said breathlessly, hauling a whimpering ball of fur from beneath his coat and shoving it across the desk at Clair.

“It’s—it’s Tricksy’s pup!”

“Yup. It’s for a fellow down Lower Rocky Head. But Luke said you was to feed it till he got back from looking for Tricksy. She come home agin last night, she did, but the minute Luke set his foot up over the hill to go after her, she run off agin. So he’s gone to work now, but he’ll be looking for her along the way—and Dad and Uncle Calve, too.”

“Why did he give it to me to feed?”

“He never said. Just that he wants you to feed him with a bottle dropper, like the one from the peppermint bottle that got the dropper. You got one?”

“No. No—”

“I’ll go get Mom’s. You got some milk, miss?”

“Milk?”

“I’ll get some milk, too.”

“Roddy—wait,” she called out as he bolted back to the door. “It’ll have to be our secret, won’t it? I mean—” she stood up, taking a step towards the boy “—it wouldn’t be proper having a pup in school, so I’ll keep him wrapped nice and warm in the back room, all right?”

“Then who’s going to feed him, then?”

“I’ll sneak back after I sets the lessons.”

Roddy nodded and was about to dart outside, only to catch himself and turn to her again, “And, oh, miss, Luke said you was to name him. And, oh, yeah, he’s a boy.” Then he was gone, slamming the door so hard the windows rattled. Picking up the pup, Clair held it trembling and whimpering against her breasts as she fished her scarf out of her coat pocket. Wrapping it loosely around the pup, she sat down, rocking with it till Roddy came tearing back along the path, and in through the door with the bottle dropper and a can of milk, lodging them onto her desk.

“Want me to show you how, miss?”

“No, I can do it—Roddy, do you have the rest of your story for this morning?”

“No, miss.”

“The—rock hasn’t told it to you yet?”

“Nope.”

“Roddy, there’s another secret I have to tell you,” she said urgently, seeing Marty strolling along the bank, firing rocks out over the water. “Promise you won’t tell?”

“I won’t.”

“I won’t be teaching here no more after tomorrow— there’s another teacher coming. A real nice one, too,” she quickly added as Roddy’s eyes widened in surprise, “but I’d like to hear the end of your story before I go tomorrow—”

“But I don’t know it—”

“Go ask the rock,” she interrupted. “Seeing how it’s my last day teaching, it might tell you the rest of the story.”

Jamming his hands into his pockets, Roddy glanced out the window and up over the hills. “It’s a long ways in, miss— where the rock is.”

“Oh.” Clair’s eyes dampened as she followed his glance up over the woods. “Oh dear.”

“Not that far, though.”

“Can you go by yourself?”

“God, yes. I goes in by meself every day in the summertime. Just that I mightn’t be back till recess, is all.”

“Ohh—that’s fine, that’s just fine. It’s special schoolwork you’re doing, so it don’t matter how long it takes—and I needs the rest of your story so’s I can give you a mark before I leaves. And a red star to stick on your book. And Roddy,” she said with a quick grin as he was setting off, “keep your promise about the new teacher and I’ll give you two stars.”

“I won’t tell, miss.”

“Not even the rock,” she called after him, but he was gone, the door slamming once more, and the sound of his footsteps stomping down over the steps.

The morning crawled. Keeping everyone occupied with copies and readings, she wandered to the window every two minutes, scaling the hills, searching for Roddy’s red-topped head. When she had a free moment, she slipped into the back storage room where she had the pup resting in the top drawer of a discarded desk, soothing him with a few drops of milk from the tip of the bottle dropper.

Recess came—and went. And then lunch. No sign of Roddy. Watching everyone leave for the evening, Clair called after Marty to tell Nora Roddy was doing an errand for the teacher, and then she returned to the window with a leaden stomach, searching for the thousandth time the woods covering the hills. He met with a bear, she thought. Oh, Lord, suppose he met with a bear. Or fell down and broke his leg. Or he’s lost and becoming more lost as she just sat there, waiting, praying—for a boy to come back from talking to a rock. Ohh, what had she done? And what won’t Willamena do with this? And everyone else. But wait—there he was coming down through the woods, leaping and jumping, his hair glinting like a new penny. Onto her feet she was and running outside to greet him, near frightening the youngster out of his wits as she swooped down over the steps, grabbing hold of him in a hug. “I thought you’d gotten lost!” she exclaimed. “Oh dear, I thought you’d gotten lost.”

“On that old horse road, miss? Sure, you can’t get lost on that; it leads right to the brook and back down on the beach.”

“Ooh, thank God you’re back,” sighed Clair, weak with relief, “thank God.”

“Yup, I’m back, miss, but the rock never talked.”

“Never?”

“Nope, miss,” said Roddy, shaking his head.

“Oh.” She stared, speechless. “Did you tell it I—I was leaving?”

“You said not to,” said Roddy, smiling, the clear grey of his eyes shining, his ears reddening further. And then he burst out, “Nay, miss, the rock talked—I was only joking. And that’s how come it took so long, because I was a long time remembering it.”

Her release was painful. “I should strap you,” she said. “Come, come, tell me,” she cried out, grabbing the boy by the arm and dragging him towards the school.

“But it’s not school time!” Roddy protested.

“There’s no school tomorrow, remember? And I’ve got to hear your story to give you your mark—hurry now, and the pup wants to hear it, too.”

Roddy’s eyes brightened as he lit inside the school door. “What’d you call him?”

She stopped. “I haven’t thought of it,” she replied, and then, “Henry,” she burst out. “His name’s Henry.”

“Hah,” Roddy said, laughing, “he’ll like that.”

“Who’ll like that?”

“The rock, miss. And oh,” Roddy exclaimed suddenly, “the rock said if you wants to hear any more of the story after I tells you this one last bit, you got to ask it yourself.”

“The rock said that?”

“Yup.”

“Where—did he say? Or … or when?”

“Nope, he never said. Where’s Henry?”

“You stand in front of the desk—just like school time,” she said, “and I’ll get the pup.” And letting Roddy nuzzle with it for a minute, she took a seat near the window at the back of the room, holding the pup against the warmth of her throat, and signalled for Roddy to begin.

Shuffling self-consciously with just the teacher as his audience, Roddy dug his hands in his pockets, and began.

“Louder,” said Clair.

Clearing his throat, Roddy began again.

“And so, miss, it was like I said before—Henry was just sloused ashore to the other side of the beach across the mouth of the cavern. And he was getting scared because he knowed the way them fellows looked, with their dirty hair and scraggly whiskers, they wouldn’t from the Basin, nowhere, but was probably the ones from that foreign fishing boat who stole the youngster off the wharf that time and put him in boiling tar. And he was getting such a fright thinking about it, that his breathing would’ve stopped if Sammy never come outta the cavern at that minute and stood besides him.

“But then the strangers made a bolt towards him, singing out, ‘We’re going to get ye’.

“‘I’ll fight with you, Henry,’ Sammy said, but Henry was already jumping back into the water and beating across for the other side.

“‘Run, Sammy, run!’ he was bawling out, and then he tripped in the kelp and fell, head and eyes in the water. When he come back up, he was choking so hard he could scarcely see, and when he did, he seen Sammy running behind him with the gun hold up so’s it wouldn’t get wet, and Conner running besides him, screeching out, ‘They’re coming after us! Run! Run!’ And it sounded right weird, it did, with the cavern echoing his words over and over ‘Run, Run Run!’ And that’s what Henry did—started thrashing his way through the water, back to shore. A loud bang went off behind him and when he turned, he seen Sammy falling into the water, and the blood bleeding down his face and Conner screaming like a baby besides him. And then he seen the strange fellows just standing on the other side watching them, and he knowed they wouldn’t chase them after all, just playing around. But it was too late to figure that out now, because Conner was hauling Sammy towards the beach and Henry near fainted to see his eye all shot out and the blood pouring down his face. And after he helped Conner haul Sammy up on the beach, he fell onto his knees and started to cry.

“‘He’s not dead, Henry; he’s not dead!’ Conner kept saying, and then he saw the ten-cent piece fall out of Sammy’s pocket and he picked it up and handed it to Henry. ‘Here, you take it, Henry,’ he said, ‘and perhaps if you goes up the Basin with your mother sometime, you can still buy the orange drinks—you want to buy the orange drinks, Henry?’

“But Henry was shaking his head, still crying and shivering and looking down the shore to where he could see a grey cloud rising over the hills, which he figured was smoke from his mother’s chimney. ‘It’s all right, Conner,’ he said. ‘I don’t want no drinks.’ And heisting Sammy onto his shoulder, he started lugging him down the beach towards his mother’s house, and where he knowed the fire was always lit on cold days like this.”

“CRIPES, YOU’D THINK LUKE WAS TWO YEARS OLD
the way Prude was getting on last night,” Willamena began the second Clair had entered the door after school. “I swear she gets foolisher. I wouldn’t wonder what she’s going to be like ten years from now—my, what’s wrong? Getting a cold, is you?” she asked as Clair, scarcely looking her way, came in through the porch door and headed straight across the kitchen, head down, sniffling a little. Mumbling something about a bad head, Clair let herself into her room, closing the door.

“Poor little thing,” she murmured, pulling the pup, still shivering and whimpering out of her pocket and laying it on her pillow. With the wind blowing a gale, the youngsters were mostly crowded around the patch this evening, adding their charm to that of the scatter piece of clothing flapping on the lines, and the clucking of Aunt Char’s hens. Nate stopped to invite her over for tea, but Willamena was quick to meet him at the door, explaining Clair’s bad head, but how she’d make sure and tell her of the invite the second she got up.

“And be sure to tell her that Nora and Beth’s been down Lower Head all day sitting with the old midwife,” he added.

“That I will,” said Willamena.

“And that they’re not expecting her to make it through the night, but however it goes, Nory’s planning to have tea at the school tomorrow, after the vote—so’s they can celebrate her staying on as teacher.”