The Diviners (17 page)

“Okay, Morag, if you want. Let's see.”

 

CHRISTIE'S TALE OF PIPER GUNN AND THE REBELS

Now Piper Gunn lived there along the Red River on his farm for more years than you could shake a stick at. And him and his woman had a fine family, too, five sons and five daughters, the boys all strapping and husky, and the girls all tall and as beautiful as tiger lilies. And Piper Gunn and his wife grew old, in time, and yet both together, for as is well-known, when the Angel of Death spread his wings out for them, they kicked the bucket the selfsame day, for neither could live without the other, so the story goes.

(You're romantic, Christie.)

Hush, girl, I'm about as romantic as a pig in a trough and that's the bloody christly truth of the matter, but can I help it if that's how Death finally took up old Piper and his lady?

Now, then, when Piper was a real old man, and not working the land that much any more but leaving it all to his five sons, it happened that the halfbreeds around the settlement got very worked up. They decided they was going to take over the government of the place. So they got themselves a rebel chief. Short little man he was, with burning eyes. His name was Reel.

(Louis Riel, Christie. We took it in school. He was hanged.)

That's the very man. Well, but he wasn't hanged for a hell of a long time after the time I'm telling you. So this Reel or Riel, however you want to call him, him and his men took over the Fort there, and set themselves up as the government.

Now, all the Sutherlanders, over the long years, had kind of forgotten how to fight, eh? Peaceful farmers, they were, and their sons reared to that way. Not a mother's son of them remembered the old days in the old country, except for Piper Gunn and a few oldtimers. They were not what you'd call a spineless lot, oh no. But they'd grown up here, farming. So when Reel took over, with his gang of halfbreeds, they didn't know what to do. There was a lot of chewing the fat, but nobody moved. Reel and his men started doing a little shooting, do you see, and killed one or two Englishmen. But the Sutherlanders didn't trust the goddamn English, them bloody Sassenachs from Down East, no more than what they trusted the halfbreeds. They kept themselves to themselves. So they sat on their butts and did nothing.

(The government Down East sent out the Army from Ontario and like that, and Riel fled, Christie. He came back, to Saskatchewan, in 1885.)

Well, some say that. Others say different. Of course I
know
the Army and that came out, like, but the truth of the matter is that them Sutherlanders had
taken back the Fort
before even a smell of an army got there.

(Oh Christie! They didn't. We took it in History.)

I'm telling you. What happened was this. Piper Gunn says to his five sons, he says,
What in the fiery freezing hell do all of you think you're doing, not even making a stab at getting back the bloody Fort?
So his five sons, they said,
We're ready to
try if you can think up a way of raising all of them Macphersons and Macdonalds and Camerons and MacGregors and all them.
Piper Gunn rises to his feet, and him taller than his five sons even though pressing eighty, and not stooped one inch, no sir, straight as an iron crowbar.

I've played the pipes in sorrow
, says he,
and I've played them in joy and I've played them in bad times and in good, and I've played them to put the heart into the souls of men, and now I'll play them for the last bloody time.

Will we come with you, then?
asks his five sons.
I'll go alone
, says Piper Gunn, for that was his way. So walk he did, along every farm on the river front, there, and he played the entire time. He began with the pibrochs, which was for mourning. To tell the people they'd fallen low and wasn't the men their ancestors had been. Then he went on to the battle music. And the one he played over and over was “The Gunns' Salute.” A reproach, it was.

The Sutherlanders listened, and they knew what he was saying. They gathered together and Piper's five sons with them, and they took the Fort at the rising of the day the very next morning. The army from Down East got the credit, of course, but the Sutherlanders were a proud lot and didn't give a christly damn. They let it be.

And Piper Gunn went home and hung up his bagpipes and they have been silent from that day to this, for he died soon after, and no one ever dared play them, for no one could ever play the pipes like Piper Gunn himself could play them.

(I like him, though. Riel, I mean.)

That so? Well, he had his points, no doubt.

(The book in History said he was nuts, but he didn't seem so nuts to me. The Métis
were
losing the land–it was
taken from them. All he wanted was for them to have their rights. The government hanged him for that.)

Métis? Huh?

(Halfbreeds.)

Well, well, hm. Maybe the story didn't go quite like I said. Let's see.

(No. That's cheating, Christie. Thanks for telling the story, I liked it fine. Really.)

You're welcome. I'll send you the bill at the end of the month.

 

Memorybank Movie: Down in the Valley, Act II

Early spring, and the air still has a bite in it despite the sun. The snow, so clean before, is melting dirtily, honeycombed with black patches, leaving the winter's hidden accumulation of dogshit and tossed-away empty cigarette packets soggily soiling the streets. Slush everywhere. Maples and elms have not yet begun to bud, but out beyond town, in the valley, the pussywillows are making grey-furred beginnings.

It is also Grade Eleven, and there are a few boys in the class, but in the Grade Twelve class there are none. All in either the Army or the Airforce. One or two have recklessly joined the Navy, but the sea does not have much appeal for the prairie boys, being too distant an element.

Morag is walking home, carrying an armload of books.

“Hi, Morag.”

He has, it is clear, been waiting at the corner of Hill Street. Slouched against a telephone pole. Looking heavier than before, in his thick rough-textured khaki uniform with the badge of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders on the sleeve. Rank–Private.

“Skinner! How come you're here?”

“Everybody is. Overseas leave. Wanna come for some coffee?”

She has scarcely spoken to him for two years, since that day in the valley. He quit school a year ago and moved back to the Tonnerre shack. Then he joined the Army and left town. Morag is surprised at how glad she is to see him.

“Sure. But can I drop off these books first?”

“Okay by me.”

They go into the Logan house. Prin, rocking with sleep-glazed eyes, all at once looks up with what for her, these days, is enormous alertness. Which is to say, she opens her eyes, half rises, thinks better of it, and lowers her heavy obesity, her soft barrel bulk, wraparound clad, back into the safeness of the rocking chair. She hardly ever moves these days, except from rocker to table to bed. Morag gets the meals. Prin hardly ever talks any more, either. But will not see a doctor. Even Christie, who worries seldom, worries now.

“Prin–this is Skinner, I mean Jules Tonnerre. I went to school with him. He's in the Army. You know?”

Morag feels embarrassed, adding this bit about the Army. But she is not certain Prin will notice or recognize the uniform.

“Pleased to make yer acquaintance, Mister,” Prin says, in an oddly girlish voice, formally, as though with reference to some long-forgotten formula learned in a distant past.

“Hi.” Skinner looks away.

Morag goes upstairs to change out of her school tunic, which would look dumb and kid-like beside an Army uniform. When she comes down, Christie has come in and is talking to Skinner. Christie, of late years, has taken to chewing tobacco. The spittoon of his choice, culled from his own
private happy hunting grounds, is a large china chamber pot with mauve violets on it. He hawks massively into it now. Morag glowers, then thinks that whatever Christie Logan is like, he's probably not a patch on Lazarus Tonnerre.

“Whatcha doing with yourself these days, Skinner?” Christie says.

“Fighting for King and Country. Can't you see, Christie?”

“Yep. Well, then, boy, stay alive if you can. That's all that matters, though why it should the Lord only knows.”

Skinner's eyes narrow.

“I joined for the pay, Christie. I don't aim to get hurt if I can help it.”

“That's the spirit, boy. It's never the generals who die, you know. Don't let the buggers on either side get you.”

As they walk up along Main Street, towards the Parthenon Café, Skinner says something that astounds Morag.

“He's quite a guy, that Christie.”

“I'm glad
you
think so.”

“Don't you?”

“He's never tried to do anything,” Morag says. “He thinks it's just great now because the Town Council have bought him a beat-up old truck for work. He thinks he's pulled a fast one on them because no one ever suspected he could drive. He learned on a Model-T years ago and he drives that truck as though it were a horse. Everybody laughs at him.”

Skinner is laughing too.

“Well, let them. You don't like him being the Scavenger, do you? What if nobody would do it, eh? He's worth a damn sight more than a lawyer–all those guys do is screw things up.”

At the Parthenon they sit in a booth and drink coffee. Now they are both suspicious of each other again. Skinner is looking hard at her, studying her face as though trying to read
what lies behind her eyes, inside her skull. Is she trying to do the same with him? If so, neither of them seems to be getting very far. For a while they don't speak. Is there too little to say or too much?

“Why'd you leave the Pearls' place and go back to the valley?” Morag asks finally.

He reaches out and puts one of his long thin hands on hers. Only for a second. Then he takes it away.

“Really want to know? I guess Simon Pearl didn't spread it around, then, eh?”

“No.”

“Well, it was this way. I got some fancy notion I'd like to be a lawyer, see, on account of if you've always been screwed by people it seemed a good idea to do some of the damage yourself for a change. Right? So I asked old Simon how a guy would get to be a lawyer. He didn't actually laugh out loud, but he kinda covered his mouth with his hand to hide the smile. Then he tells me it's a fine thing to get an education, but a person like me might do well to set their sights a bit lower, and he will ask Macpherson at the
BA
Garage to take me on as an apprentice mechanic after Grade Eleven. So I walked out. I thought of breaking his jaw, but then I thought it'd only land me in the clink and it wasn't worth it. So I went back to the valley. My old man never batted an eye. Just said,
You're back, eh? Well, give us a hand with this barrel–it's about ready to be put in the jugs.
We had a hell of a party, just him and me. Sat around with me singing and him playing out of tune on the mouth organ till near morning. He's not such a bad guy. He didn't give a fuck when I joined the Army, but he'd never turn me out. He'd never turn any of us out. He don't care if we leave, but we can stay if we want to.”

“I'm sorry,” Morag says. “I mean about Simon–”

“There's no call to be. I don't give a damn. I never have and I never will.”

“Where's your sister these days?”

“You mean Piquette? She took off as soon as her leg was okay. She had
TB
of the bone as a kid–maybe you remember. She's married to a guy in Winnipeg. Al Cummings. I think she's got herself a first-rate no-good, but that's her business. He'll leave her one day. I hope to christ she leaves him first.”

“How do you know? You can't tell.”

“I can tell. He'll never look you in the eye. Also, he's always telling Piquette what a lousy housekeeper she is. It's quite true, she
is
. But he's a dirty bugger himself. It don't help much.”

The Parthenon begins to fill up with the saddle-shoe gang, girls in long loose sloppy-joe sweaters and plaid skirts, boys in grey flannels and smart tweed jackets. All the kids. The jukebox.

“C'mon,” Skinner says brusquely. “Let's go.”

No one says anything as they walk out. Miklos thoughtfully holds the door open, relieved to see them go. To Miklos, the word Tonnerre spells only one thing, Trouble. There will, of course, be plenty of comments after they've left. They both know this, and walk stiffly, not speaking.

“Jesus, I hate this town,” Skinner says finally.

“Me too.”

“Hey, Morag, come down to my place and meet my old man?”

She glances at him. They both know. She feels nauseated with indecision. Then doesn't care.

“Sure,” she says. “Why not?”

The valley road is like a miniature river, the deep ruts in it running with brown muddy water. The snow still lies in the bushes on either side of the road. Morag has her overshoes on,
and Skinner's Army boots are impervious to the wet. They splash along, and he takes her arm so she won't slip. Suddenly she feels good, and laughs.

“What's the joke?” he says.

“Nothing. I just feel okay again, that's all.”

“Hey, that's good.”

He stops and breaks off a couple of twigs of pussywillows. Hands them to her.

“Orchids,” he says.

“My, that is the first time anybody ever gave me orchids. Thanks.”

“Well, there's a first time for everything,” Skinner says.

He hasn't meant to say that, probably. Then, of course, they both fall silent again.

The Tonnerre shack is really a collection of shacks. The original one has now decayed and is used as a chicken house. The main shack has been put together with old planks, tarpaper, the lids of wooden crates, some shingles and flattened pieces of tin. Around it lie old tires, a roll of chickenwire, the chassis of a rusted car, and an assortment of discarded farm machinery. The backhouse stands at a slight distance. There is also a small shack, built in the same manner as the main one, but newer. Skinner steers her towards this one.