The Americans Are Coming (7 page)

Nutbeam was six feet six inches tall and had a thirty-two-inch waist. With a nose four inches long, big negroid lips and ears the size of dessert plates, Nutbeam was, indeed, homelier than Shirley Ramsey.

Although Nutbeam was independent, he was completely without confidence.

His appearance was the reason for it – his appearance and the fact that nobody normal could face him without laughing. His appearance was also the reason he had never gone to school, never liked people and had left his home in Smyrna Mills, Maine, to journey into Canada’s Dungarvon country.

Although Nutbeam didn’t like people, he wasn’t necessarily uninterested in them. He liked to look at people, but he didn’t want people to look at him. Nutbeam kept his distance from people, ran into the woods when he saw someone coming, hid
behind his hood, or collar, when it was absolutely necessary to pass near someone.

Nutbeam sat in front of his camp, eyeing the treetops adorned by the setting sun. He watched a mosquito feasting off the back of his hand.

“Gorge yourself and then you die,” said he to the mosquito.

“That’s about all there is to life,” he thought. “A man ain’t no different than a mosquiter. Yer born, ya eat and drink, ya dump it out again and then you die. If you’re born ugly, or not too smart, ya might as well have your dump right away, die and get it over with.”

“You, little mosquiter, are prob’ly pretty for a mosquiter,” said Nutbeam and commenced to hold his breath. In a few seconds the capillary the mosquito was tapping tightened around its tiny proboscus, trapping it so that Nutbeam could reach out at his leisure, slap, pick off, or set it free. The mosquito’s fate depended on Nutbeam’s decision. Nutbeam’s decision came with a sigh. He took a breath (the sigh), the mosquito filled his tank and flew off. It’ll die soon enough Nutbeam thought and scratched the itch.

Nutbeam’s first year on Todder Brook had been a difficult one. He nearly froze to death. Without the few rabbits he managed to snare, he would have starved. On several occasions he came very close to seeking help from the Brennen Siding dwellers.

“I’m sure glad I didn’t have to do that,” he thought. “I’m all right now. I don’t need nobody now.”

He remembered that he had frozen his massive ears so many times and to such an extent that they flopped over and stayed that way. The experience turned out to be a beneficial one, however.

“Ya kin hear better with big floppy ears,” mumbled Nutbeam.

Nutbeam could hear a bird singing for a country mile. Nutbeam could hear a deer walking a hundred yards away. He could hear the mosquitoes humming outside his camp at night.

Nutbeam had no difficulty hearing Lindon Tucker’s radio and frequently stood outside Lindon Tucker’s house on Saturday nights, listening to Kid Baker singing.

Nutbeam recalled the night Lindon had taken an early break to see a man about a horse. Nutbeam had been standing in the shadows of a shed listening to Lee Moore sing “The Cat Came Back.”

“Lindon didn’t see me there in the dark, but he pissed all over me boot,” thought Nutbeam.

As he learned and practised the art of survival, life grew continually easier. He began taking the train into Newcastle once a month (at the risk of being seen) to trade his furs. At first, he traded for traps and snares; later, he traded for food and ammunition, fishing tackle, aspirins and candy. Later still, he traded for boots and the wonderful parka with the big hood that protected his ears and hid his face whenever he looked down. Last winter, Nutbeam lived very comfortably trading mostly for vegetables, Forest and Stream tobacco and money.

“I spent a bunch of money on that trumpet,” he thought, “and I doubt if I ever learn to play it.”

Nutbeam had been trying to play the trumpet for nearly three months and still couldn’t blow a recognizable melody. At first, he couldn’t even get a noise out of it, but now, after three months practice, he was making more noise than he realized. He was making enough noise to send chills down the backs of everyone in Brennen Siding.

Nutbeam always waited until nightfall to practise his trumpet playing. Somehow, playing in the dark seemed easier. He didn’t know why. Perhaps it was his fear of being caught. He didn’t know why, but he knew he would die of embarrassment if anyone ever saw him playing an instrument. Nutbeam was very shy.

“I’m nearly a mile into the woods. Surely nobody kin hear me playing this far away. I might hear it, but I’ve got these big floppy ears. Nobody in Brennen Siding got big floppy ears.” After three months, Nutbeam was convinced that nobody could hear the trumpet. Nutbeam underestimated the ears of Brennen Siding.

When he felt it dark enough, Nutbeam went into his camp and fetched his trumpet.

“Tonight, I’ll practise that Earl Mitton tune,” he thought. “What’s it called? ‘Mouth of the Tobique’?”

When fishermen waded down Todder Brook, they could not see Nutbeam’s tiny camp embedded in the forested hillside twenty yards away, nor could the camp be seen from the bushy old truck road, a hundred yards to the south. If you were to stand thirty feet from the camp, looking directly up at it, you might not see it, unless you knew it was there. Nutbeam had built three quarters of the structure under ground, with the slant of the roof parallel with the hill. He built it down and into the hill like a mine shaft, so that he had to actually tunnel out a path to the door. All that could be seen from the front was a small door and two grey logs. Once a deer had actually walked on the roof. The tiny seven-by-ten-foot square camp contained a table, two chairs, a cot to sleep on, a barrel stove and three tiny kegs. In one keg he kept salty salmon; in another, he kept salty gaspereaux and in the third, flour. There was a shelf on the eastern wall, on which sat a can of tea, a can of Forest and Stream tobacco, a can of baking powder, two pipes and a can of molasses. On another wall hung two rifles and a wrinkled, frameless picture of the Virgin Mary. On a nail beside the picture hung Nutbeam’s rosary beads. On a wall beside the stove were some more shelves occupied by pots, tin plates, cups, a frying pan, a box of matches, knives, forks, spoons and a tin can full of odds and ends – a pencil, a small magnifying glass, a ball of string, some fish hooks, one of a set of dice which Nutbeam called a “douse,” a spool of thread, buttons and a red squirrel’s tail. Clothing hung haphazardly on all four walls.

In a box in the corner he kept his traps, a revolver, ammunition and his trumpet.

There was no window in the camp, so that when he entered he either had to leave the door open so he could see, or light the lamp that sat on the table. Lit, the lamp was usually turned as low as Lindon Tucker’s.

By the light of one tiny star, which shone through the open door, Nutbeam found his trumpet.

He took the trumpet outside, put it to his lips, pointed the horn at the star-spangled sky and blew.

HONK, HONK, BEEP, BEEP, BARMP-BARMP!

The sound of the trumpet echoed from hill to hill, crossed brooks and rivers and shot through windows and doors all over Brennen Siding. Nutbeam played what he hoped sounded like “There’s a Mansion in the Blue” for several minutes.

Then the rifle shot went off, the retort slamming against his big floppy ear, startling him into a sudden, silent trance just a hair short of death.

Darkness reigned supreme.

*

Shadrack and Dryfly stood on the steps that scaled the east end abutment of the bridge, panting heavily from running all the way from the forest to the river. Shadrack was particularly tired from carrying the heavy .303 rifle. Both boys were very happy to see the lit windows of the little settlement. The sight of the river, calm, reflecting the starlit sky, restored their courage. The river, a symbol of home, strength and identity, would give them courage for the rest of their lives. At the age of eleven, they already loved it.

During their lives, Shadrack and Dryfly would travel to Vancouver and New York, Toronto and Nashville, England and Italy, but their hearts would always remain on the Dungarvon, the Renous and the Miramichi. At the age of seventy, they would still at times speak a little too fast and at other times a little too slow and would repeat the word “and” too much. At the age of seventy, they would still speak with a Miramichi accent, softly, as the river people do, and refer to themselves as “Dungarvon boys.”

“You gonna be able to go home by yourself, Dry?” asked Shadrack.

“Yeah, I’ll be all right.”

“I have to sneak the rifle and flashlight back in. If I git caught doin’ it, I’ll be killed.”

“What d’ya s’pose happened to the whooper thing?”

“Must’ve scared ’im, that’s all.”

“Me and you scared the whooper, Shad!”

“Yeah, I know. Can’t be nothin’ too dangerous if me and you scared it.”

“We gonna tell what we did?”

“What d’ya think?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What d’ya think it was, Dry?”

“I don’t know. Panther, I guess.”

“Well, we kin talk about it tomorrow. I gotta git home and try and git this rifle in the house without getting caught.”

“Okay. See ya later, Shad.”

“Yeah. Night.”

The boys separated.

Dryfly’s fear might have climaxed back in the woods, but its memory still shook him from within. What was more, he was still out in the dark night and now he was alone. The boardwalk of the footbridge ribboned before him; the river swept below, another ribbon with its reflections of forest and sky.

Reasoning told him not to be afraid of the bridge. “It’ll hold the devil,” everyone always said, and he was accustomed to its bounce and squeaks; he’d walked it many times. But in the daylight . . . always in the daylight.

When he reached the middle abutment, it loomed dark and menacing beneath. He quickened his pace and hurried by.

“I wished I was more like Palidin,” thought Dryfly. “Pal’s always out in the night. Ain’t scared a bit.”

“How can Palidin do it? How kin he not be scared?”

“Scared?”

“Of what?”

“The dark?”

“A ghost?”

Dryfly didn’t know why he, himself, was afraid. “Other people crossed the bridge and nothin’ happened to them,” he reasoned. “Why should anything happen to me?”

When he reached the west end abutment, he realized he was confronted with a decision. “Cross the fields to the road, or go down along the shore to Stan Tuney’s brook and go up
through the woods.” He knew the path along the brook better, but the thought of walking through the woods did not appeal to him. He dismounted the abutment and headed across Dan Brennen’s field, past the house, barn and sheds. He came to the road. “I made it to the road,” he whispered, and headed north toward home. He passed Billy Campbell’s farm and Bernie Hanley’s store. He was nearing the railroad crossing when the bird sang – the same bird he’d heard in the woods.

Dryfly’s heart leaped and began to drum in his chest. The hairs on his neck and back lifted, feeling like a chill. “I’m gettin’ outta here!” he gasped and ran as fast as he could all the way home.

It would be many years before he’d be man enough to admit that he’d been so afraid of a bird.

*

Shadrack climbed the hill toward home. His shoulder was sore from shooting the rifle, but he was not afraid of the devil himself. Shadrack had the rifle.

Outside the house, he peeked in through the window. His father sat in the kitchen, reading the
Family Herald
. That was a good place for him.

His mother was reading the Bible. Good enough, too.

“I’ll sneak through the front door,” thought Shadrack. “I’ll have to be quiet, though.”

Shadrack was just putting the rifle behind the chair, when his father yelled, “Where you been with that rifle?”

Bob Nash was standing in the livingroom door, slapping the palm of his hand with a tightly-rolled
Family Herald
.

Shad turned to face his father, knowing there was no escape, that a severe application of the tightly rolled
Family Herald
was about to occur.

“I shot the Todder Brook Whooper,” said Shad, quickly.

“You what?”

“I shot the Todder Brook Whooper!”

“WHAT! What did I hear you say?”

Bob Nash had already decided upon his course of action and
hit Shadrack, hard as he could, on the butt, with the tightly rolled
Family Herald
.

“Don’t, Dad!” yelled Shadrack.

“Don’t ‘don’t’ me!”

Whack! went the
Family Herald
.

“Take my rifle, will ya!” Whack! “Young lad like you!” Whack!

“OUCH! That hurts! Ouch! Stop!”

Bob Nash had a terrible temper. Bob Nash had fire in his eyes. Bob Nash’s fiery eyes could almost see the
Family Herald
’s John Deere Tractor ad imprinted on Shadrack’s behind.

WHACK! went the
Family Herald
. WHACK, WHACK, WHACK . . .

Monday night in Bernie Hanley’s store, Bob Nash took a drink of his Sussex Ginger Ale and said, “Yes sir, that boy of mine and that young Ramsey lad, Dryfly, took my rifle and went back in that woods alone, just the two of them, and scared that devil off. I haven’t heard it since, have you?”

“No,” said Bert Todder, “didn’t make a peep last night, far’s I know.”

“Heard the shot, so I did, yeah. Not a peep last night, no. Heard the shot, so I did,” said Lindon Tucker.

“I wouldn’t even have the nerve to do that meself!” said Bob Nash, proudly.

“Them boys got good stuff in them, I can say that,” said John Kaston.

“Did they see it, Bob?” asked Bernie Hanley, from behind the counter.

“Sure, they saw it! How would they fire at it if they didn’t see it! Shad said it was as big as a moose and had horns like a cow. Said he saw his eyes shining and they were as big around as saucers!”

“I heard the shot, so I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did, yeah,” commented Lindon Tucker.

“Gimme a new flashlight bulb, would ya, Bernie? And a bag of them peppermints fer me young lad.”

From the fifteenth of April to the fifteenth of October, Helen MacDonald cooked for the Cabbage Island Salmon Club. The job paid well. Helen was a good cook. She worked fourteen hours a day, seven days a week for thirty dollars. Occasionally, one of the club guests would tip her five or ten dollars. Helen MacDonald’s financial goal was to be able to afford an indoor toilet.