The Americans Are Coming (23 page)

Shad arose, dressed, toileted and limped into the kitchen. The hard work, running the chainsaw, had stiffened his muscles. He was not lying about being sore. He checked the time. “Nine o’clock,” he thought. “Dad will be ugly at me. I was s’pose to be back in the woods at eight. I’m an hour late.” He turned on the radio and sat at the table to listen, to wait for his toast and eggs. The radio was turned to CFNB, and Jack Fenety said, “Good morning, ladies, and welcome to
Facts and Fancy
. Today we are coming to you from under overcast skies. Our temperature is expected to remain stable at about fifty-five degrees, and we can expect rain, rain, rain.” Jack Fenety went on to read some poetry and a prayer; he sent out birthday greetings to Mrs. Smith who was “a hundred years young today”; he played “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and “Bernadine.”

Shad eyed the kitchen window as he ate his eggs and toast. “Please, God, let it rain,” he prayed. Shad knew that his father would not work in the rain. Shad knew, by the swiftly moving clouds, that chances were very good he’d get the day off.

At nine-thirty, Jack Fenety played CFNB’s rattling, ear-torturing news music and said, “CFNB, where New Brunswick hears the news.” Shad didn’t care about the news. There was nothing happening outside of Brennen Siding that concerned him. Shad gulped down the last of his tea and headed for the woods.

When Shadrack stepped outside, the September morning greeted him with a light drizzle. “It’s gonna rain, it’s gonna rain,” he sang, “ya can’t work in the rain, thank God, it’s gonna rain.” The rain seemed to Shadrack to be a magical rain, for, indeed, the soreness left his limbs with every drop that fell.

On the way back to the worksite, Shadrack met his father coming home.

“Gonna rain,” said Bob Nash.

“I figured that,” said Shad, “that’s why I didn’t bother to hurry.”

“I covered up the chainsaw and the gas jug,” said Bob. Bob Nash didn’t want to work that day either. It was mid-September and the salmon, the September run, were here. Bob Nash had it in mind to go fishing.

An hour later, Shadrack announced that he had it in mind to go to Shirley Ramsey’s to get the mail. He put on his jacket and headed for the footbridge. The rain was heavier now and slanted in from the southwest. The red checkered Mackinaw did little to keep him dry. Shadrack didn’t care if he got wet. “Getting wet is a lot better than working in the woods,” he thought.

*

Dryfly awakened to the sounds of Palidin moving about the room, and Shirley talking.

“What are ya gonna be doin’ way out there in T’rono?” Shirley was asking Palidin.

“I don’t know,” said Palidin. “Get a job . . . work. Ain’t nothin’ to do around here.”

“How ya gonna get there?”

“Train.”

“Where ya gittin’ the money?”

“I got some money.”

“Where’ll ya live?”

“I’ll get a room.”

“Way out there in T’rono all by yerself! T’rono’s an awful bad place, so it is! No one to cook fer ya, or look after ya. It’s not like home, ya know, and you’ll be all alone!”

“I won’t be alone, Momma! George Hanley’s goin’ too.” Palidin was packing a cardboard box with his belongings. The box was not very big. Palidin only had one extra pair of jeans, a shirt, a pair of shorts and a pair of socks with the heels worn through to put in the box. He found a white t-shirt in the corner – it was dirty, but he threw it in the box anyway.

“How long ya plannin’ on stayin’?” asked Shirley.

“I don’t know. A month, six months, a year. If I get a job, I’ll send ya home some money.”

“What if ya don’t get a job? What if ya git lonesome?”

“I’ll be all right, Mom!”

The tears were threatening to overflow Palidin’s eyes. He was getting lonesome already.

Shirley went back into the kitchen to smoke, to cry, to think things over.

“Poor little Paladin,” she thought, “only sixteen, way up in T’rono! I might never see him again!”

Palidin sat on the bed to talk to Dryfly.

“I’m goin’ to Toronto,” he said. “No? Yeah! What for?”

“Gotta get a job. Ain’t nothin’ to do around here.”

“When ya comin’ back?”

“I don’t know for sure.”

“Did I hear ya say George Hanley’s goin’ too?”

“Yeah. We’re catching the train in half an hour. Will you stay home and look after Mom?”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

“Mom’s losing the post office. She’s gonna need a lotta help. I’ll send yas some money soon’s I get on my feet.”

“You won’t be scared up there?”

Palidin shrugged. “Gonna miss ya, Pal.”

“You won’t miss me. You’ll be too busy courtin’ all the women.”

“Ain’t no women around here.”

“Dry?”

“Yeah?”

“‘Member me catching all them salmon?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, there’s a trick to it.”

“A trick?”

“Yeah, and I’m gonna tell ya the trick, but I don’t want you to tell anybody else. It’s a good trick and it could make us rich some day. Promise not to tell it?”

“Sure.”

Palidin proceeded to tell Dryfly the ins and outs of magnetizing salmon flies. When he was sure that Dryfly understood completely, he gave Dryfly the little lodestone he’d been using.

“Works every time,” said Palidin. “Now, I gotta go. The train’ll be here any minute.”

“Be good, Pal.”

“Yeah. You too.”

In the kitchen, Palidin stopped to kiss Shirley goodbye.

“I love you, Mom,” he said

“I love you too, Pal. You know you kin always come home, Pal. You know where your home is.”

“I know, Mom. I’ll send ya money, Mom. Don’t you worry.”

Palidin forced back the tears as he eyed the ugly, the laughed at, the forsaken woman. “My mother in Helen MacDonald’s hand-me-down dress . . . her hair is starting to turn grey . . . the most beautiful mother in the whole world,” he thought.

“Don’t cry, Mom,” said Palidin, and quickly, so as not to change his mind, he picked up the box and left.

On the way to the Brennen Siding sidinghouse, where he would meet the train, Palidin passed Shadrack Nash on the road. Shadrack was limping slightly and looked soaked to the skin.

“See ya, Shad,” were the only words spoken, and Palidin made no attempt to hide the fact that he was capable of crying.

At Shirley Ramsey’s house, Shadrack sensed that something dramatic had just occurred.

“What’s wrong with Palidin?” Shadrack asked Dryfly.

“Him and George Hanley eloped,” said Dry.

On the twenty-ninth of October, Shirley opened the mail-bag and found but three letters in it: a bill for John Kaston from Lyman MacFee, a letter from R.M. Crenshaw, Boston, Massachusetts, for Frank Layton, the manager of the Cabbage Island Salmon Club, and a red envelope with Dryfly Ramsey, Brennen Siding, N.B. written neatly on it in blue ink.

Ecstasy is not a strong enough word to describe how Dryfly felt when he saw the envelope. When Shirley passed it to him, he could not contain himself. He jumped for joy. It was one of the happiest moments of his entire life.

His joy was so obviously imprinted upon his countenance that Shirley, too, was stirred by his emotions.

“Thanks, Mom!” Dryfly hurried into his room and shut the door.

As she put the other two letters in their rightful compartments in the post office, she wiped a tear from her cheek and whispered, “Poor little darlin’.”

Dryfly threw himself on the bed and eyed the envelope.

“Lillian Wallace,” he whispered, “I love you, I love you, I love you!”

He sniffed the envelope and thought he could vaguely smell the scent of fly repellent. “Some kind of perfume, anyway,” he thought.

He carefully tore the end off the envelope and removed the pink pages. There were four of them, all folded neatly. “What a girl!” he thought. “What a wonderful, wonderful girl!”

He prolonged opening the letter, wanting to savour the feeling, the moment.

“I just want to see one word,” he thought. “The one magic word from the most beautiful girl in the world.”

Before he began to read, he sniffed the paper once more and kissed it.

Dear Dryfly,
I’m sorry I took so long to write. I’m the
world’s greatest procrastinator!
How are you and what have you been doing?
Did you go to work guiding? How’s Shadrack?

Lillian wrote about going back to school, the turning of the leaves and the harvest moon; she wrote about her plans to return to the Dungarvon River, her father’s plans for building a cottage, a recent trip to New York and a new friend, Rick, she’d met in school. She did not write “I love you” in her letter, but at the very end she wrote, “I miss you very much. I’ll always be very fond of you. Love, Lillian.” It was the “I miss you very much. I’ll always be very fond of you. Love, Lillian” that Dryfly read over and over and over.

Dryfly showed the letter to Shadrack. Shadrack was noticeably envious and that made Dryfly happy, for that put him one up on Shadrack in the women department. Shadrack figured that he, too, had dated Lillian and therefore they were even.

Dryfly read his letter to Nutbeam and after the “Love, Lillian” said, “What do you think o’ that, Nutbeam?”

“That’s a good letter! A real good letter! I think she likes you a lot, Dryfly. But who’s this Rick lad?”

“I don’t know. Some lad in school, I s’pose.”

Nutbeam sensed that Rick was mentioned for a reason. He didn’t want Dryfly to be overly optimistic. “She mentioned him twice. Could be a boyfriend,” he said.

“Could be.” Dryfly had given the same thought consideration, but he didn’t want to think about it.

Nutbeam was more impressed with the letter than Dryfly realized. Nutbeam was not just impressed with what Lillian wrote, but he was fascinated with the whole concept of letter writing. Nutbeam had encountered an additional problem in the Shirley Ramsey venture – not being able to write. If one can’t write, one does not have letters to mail. In Brennen Siding,
if one does not have letters to mail, one might never enter the realm of Shirley Ramsey’s love nest.

“You gonna answer the letter?” asked Nutbeam.

“Yeah, prob’ly.”

“Wished I could write,” said Nutbeam. “Anyone can write. Didn’ you ever go to school?”

“I didn’t start to school until I was ten years old. I think me father and mother was ashamed of me, thought I was retarded. When I was ten they figured I maybe knew something and sent me off to school where everyone my age had the jump on me by four years. They not only laughed at me being ugly, but they thought I was stupid, too. They use to gang up and play tricks on me, and sometimes even beat me up. I raised a fuss and me parents let me stay home.”

Nutbeam seemed very sad. “I couldn’ go nowhere, Dryfly,” he said.

“If you could write, who would you write to, Nutbeam?”

“Aunt Johannah, prob’ly. She’s the only one that was nice to me. I’d like to find out who’s dead and how they’re all doin’.”

“Me or Shad could write letters for ya,” said Dryfly. “I ain’t a real good writer, but I could scratch something out for ya.”

“Maybe . . . maybe.”

“You got any paper and a pencil?”

“No. Ain’t got anything like that.”

“There’s paper and pencils in Bernie Hanley’s store. I could pick some up for ya.”

“Maybe . . . maybe.”

“You’ll need envelopes, too.”

“Yeah. Might work. How’s your mother doin’?”

“She’s all right. Awful lonesome for Palidin, though.”

“A woman like that shouldn’t be lonesome,” thought Nutbeam. “She ever hear from him?” he asked.

“Not yet. I guess she’s worried about him. She’s worried about the post office closin’, too.”

“When’s the post office closin’?” asked Nutbeam.

“First o’ the year.”

“Don’t leave much time,” thought Nutbeam, “two months and some.”

“What’s she gonna do for a livin’ when the post office closes?”

“Dunno. Somethin’ll turn up.”

“Maybe,” said Nutbeam. “Maybe.”

*

Lindon Tucker left his room on Pine Street and walked toward the Carleton Street bridge. This was the second time that day that he had walked “over town.” The first time “over town,” he’d gone to the bank and withdrawn two hundred dollars. This time he walked toward the hotel. Lindon Tucker always walked – he did not like spending seventy-five cents on a taxi. He didn’t like spending seven dollars a week for his room with kitchen privileges, either, and he did not like having to buy things like meat and potatoes. In Brennen Siding, he did not have to pay rent. In Brennen Siding, Lindon grew his own potatoes, and every fall he would shoot a deer or a moose and salt half a barrel of salmon. Lindon Tucker did not like spending money on anything. Lindon Tucker did not like Fredericton very much at all.

Brennen Siding and the people he knew there were his whole life. He thought of them day and night with an aching heart. He longed to be walking on the footbridge, or through the forest; he missed his Sussex Ginger Ale with the boys at Bernie Hanley’s store and he missed listening to the radio in his own kitchen and going behind a shed to see a man about a horse. He found the people in Fredericton cold. They rarely spoke to him on the street. On the few times he did manage to strike up a conversation he was as agreeable as he could be – to no avail. They invariably walked away to leave him, once again, alone.

“How kin ya be so alone with so many people around?” he asked himself many, many times. “I’d go home, if I thought that devil would leave me alone, so I would. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Home, yeah. Yep.”

Another depressing thing in Lindon Tucker’s life was his landlord, Arthur McGarrity. To Lindon Tucker, Arthur

McGarrity and his wife Monique were something lower than worms. Arthur and Monique McGarrity took great pleasure in beating the living daylights out of their five-year-old son, Bobby. If Bobby whimpered in the night, Arthur or Monique would stomp into his room and SLAM, BANG, THRASH! Bobby would be afflicted with a new set of welts and bruises. Lindon did not know what to do about the beatings. He figured it was not his place to interfere with the goings on of someone else’s family. Lindon gritted his teeth and remained silent – silent and alone.