Sweetland (21 page)

You haven’t said nothing about where you might be shifting, Pilgrim said one afternoon.

I’m not going anywhere, Sweetland told him. Even to himself it was a surprise to have his mind stated so plainly.

What do you mean, you’re not going?

I still got title to my property.

You took the hundred grand.

I’ll give it back.

It don’t work like that, Moses.

Look, Sweetland said. What if I leaves on the ferry in September and comes back on my own a week later. Where’s the law says I can’t do that?

Pilgrim worked his mouth a few moments. There’s no law.

Well I’m just skipping that step.

Skipping it?

I’m not getting on the ferry.

I don’t know, Pilgrim said. Seems to me there’s nothing that simple about it.

And the blind fucker had been right about that.

In the morning he made the walk down to Music House to retrieve the food bag, setting off at first light, wanting to be out of the open as early as possible. When he worked himself clear of the valley he spent a moment watching the ocean, scanning east and west. But it was quiet out there.

The bag was a green duffle with a single strap that he wore across his chest, leaning forward to balance the weight as he carried it up the rise. In the valley he had to slough it off in spots to drag it through brush, heft it over piggledy moss-covered rock. It was like travelling with a corpse for company. The valley falling into afternoon shadow by the time he settled on his bed of branches, too tired for the moment to open the goddamn bag. He wanted a cup of tea but wouldn’t chance the fire. Draped an arm across his eyes and slept.

The noise of the Coast Guard chopper woke him before dark, coming in low over the shoreline. Likely they had spent the day searching the waters beyond St. Pierre and worked their way back toward Sweetland. Three people in the open bay doors, all wearing orange floater suits, all focused on the ocean below, and the sight of them made him feel suddenly ridiculous. He’d thought of it as a private decision to come out to the valley and turn his back on the world, something that concerned no one but him. But he felt now like he’d made a public fool of himself somehow.

He watched the vessels on the water all through the following day. A Coast Guard ship travelling slow toward Fortune Bay. Fishing boats out of Burgeo and Francois volunteering for the search. Searchlights swinging against the black into the evening, the beams scissoring along the shore. One more day at most they’d be out there. And that thought was all the comfort he had to offer himself.

In the days after he’d recovered Jesse’s body at the Fever Rocks, before he was well enough to get out of bed, he woke to see Clara sitting beside the window, one hand across her eyes as if she was dozing, or fending off a headache.

Ruthie, he said to her.

It’s Clara, she said, lifting her head to him.

He nodded slowly. Yes, he said. And the world began pouring in through that single thumb-sized fact.

We buried him yesterday, Clara said.

Who?

Jesse.

Yes, he said again.

We wanted to wait until you was well enough, she said, but.

He was a good boy, Sweetland said.

Clara stood and crossed the room at the foot of the bed, opened the door to leave. She paused there before she closed it, hidden from his view. She said, I wanted to thank you for getting him. Out at the light, she said.

She wasn’t able to say more than that for a long time. He thought she’d left and gone down the stairs when she said, Did you want anything, Moses? Something belonged to him?

Sweetland was too addled to decipher what she was suggesting and he let it sit awhile, though the longer he waited the less substantial it seemed, like a lozenge dissolving under his tongue.

You let me know, she said finally, if you thinks of something.

He had a boatload of dry goods set by for the coming winter, materials he’d smuggled in from Miquelon in the middle of August. Every night for a week he’d made a trip down to the shed that housed the ATM and withdrawn his daily limit. Seven thousand dollars in cash all told. He considered going into Fortune or Placentia or Burgeo, but there wasn’t a soul on the south coast of Newfoundland who wouldn’t hear of it within three days’ time. And after his conversation with Pilgrim, he thought it best to keep his intentions to himself. Took the boat across to Miquelon where no one knew him from Adam.

He tied up next to a raft of sailboats in the tiny marina. There was an office at the gate, a man in uniform behind the plate glass, and Sweetland waved a hand as he passed by, walked up through the town. Single-storey bungalows on an expanse of land that seemed to have been graded level,
the streets laid out in a careful grid. He wandered half an hour looking for a shop that might carry salt beef and pickling salt. Stopped into the first grocery store he saw. He took a small cart and drove it up and down the aisles, filling it with flour and sugar and tea. He found a rack of batteries and loaded them all into the cart.

The woman at the cash said, You are staying in Miquelon?

Just picking up a few things for home, he said.

For home?

Yes, he said. Have you got any more of these?

What size?

Double As, I spose. Any will do.

She called toward the back of the store, carrying on an indecipherable conversation with a young man stacking shelves. He disappeared through a doorway and came to the front with an armful that he laid on the counter. He had a shaved head and an angry tattoo across the back of his neck.

Any of these? the woman asked.

Sweetland hooked the thick stack of twenties from his ass pocket and gestured toward her. Do you take this stuff?

Her eyes went back and forth between Sweetland and the money several times. Oui, she said quietly. We will take Canadian.

You don’t sell kerosene, by any chance.

No, but there is a place. She spoke to the young man in French a moment. He will get you what you need. How much?

Whatever they got. And ammunition, he said. For a .22. They wouldn’t have pickling salt, by any chance?

Pick-ling?

For making the fish, he said. Salt fish?

Oui. Give him five hundred dollars, she said, and then spoke in French awhile. He will bring you your change, she said.

After the young man left, she gestured at the material he had piled on the counter. Should I be worried? she asked.

Sweetland stared at her blankly.

Is it the world that is ending?

It took him a moment to follow what she was asking. No, he said and he half laughed at the notion. Not where you lives, anyway, he said.

He walked around the store a second time, picking through the bottles of oil and red wine vinegar, the racks of spices and shelves of oddly shaped bread, looking for anything useful. When he was done, the woman at the counter tallied up the bill. Sweetland counted out the twenties slowly and by the time he’d finished, a derelict blue Peugeot had pulled up outside. The young man got out of the driver’s side and came into the store. He handed Sweetland a fistful of euros in change and then began carting the boxes and bags out to the car.

He will drive you, the woman said. But he has no English.

I got little enough myself, Sweetland said.

Sweetland pitched in to help him load the trunk and back seat. Looking to see what the youngster had purchased on his behalf. There was a single five-kilogram bag of salt and Sweetland pointed at it. Any more? he said. More, he repeated and he stretched his hands apart.

The boy shook his head. C’est tout, he said, and shrugged apologetically. They came in for the last of the supplies and the woman behind the counter spoke to the young man awhile and he glanced quickly at Sweetland.

The drive to the harbour took all of two minutes. They coasted through the gate, the young man nodding to the uniform behind the glass. He backed the car onto the wharf and parked near the boat Sweetland pointed out to him. They unloaded the back seat and the trunk together, piling his purchases on the concrete. The young man glancing up now and then toward the town.

Sweetland climbed into the boat and asked him to pass the provisions down. He gestured with his arms but the young man held one hand aloft. Wait, he said. S’il vous plaît. And then he shouted to someone at the far end of the wharf.

The gendarme wore a blue tunic and a short stovepipe hat with gold piping around the base, like someone out of a cartoon. He looked only a few years older than the tattooed boy and they seemed to know each other well, talking back and forth as he walked out the dock. After a few moments the young man went to the car where he sat on the hood and lit a cigarette.

Bonjour, the policeman said, and Sweetland waved up to him.

May I see your identification?

ID?

You are Canadian?

More or less.

This is France. You have a passport or a driver’s licence?

I never needed no ID the last time I come through here.

The policeman tilted his head at an angle that made Sweetland worry about him losing the hat. When was this? he asked.

Jesus, Sweetland said. 1964 or ’65.

The policeman watched him steadily. Things have changed since 1964, he said. Where are you visiting from?

Sweetland climbed up onto the dock. Fortune Bay, he said. He walked across to the young fellow with the tattooed neck and passed him the handful of euros as a tip, then turned back to the gendarme.

It’s just a bit of salt and flour, Sweetland said. Not like I’m smuggling booze.

Yes, very strange, the policeman said. He leaned over the stack of bags and containers, reached to pick out the boxes of ammunition. These you must leave, he said. You will have to declare the rest when you return to Newfoundland.

What, fill out a form or something?

A customs form, certainly. There will be a tariff to pay. May I go aboard?

Sweetland waved him on and the policeman stepped down into the boat, poking idly through the wheelhouse, looking into the compartments
where he stored the lifejackets and fishing line and water jugs. When he climbed back onto the dock Sweetland took his place in the boat, dragging boxes off the concrete. The gendarme looked across at the young man sitting on the car hood and nodded permission to help. He watched the two load the boat then, with his hands crossed behind his back.

We can refund the money for the ammunition, the policeman said.

Never mind, Sweetland said.

When they were done loading, the gendarme took a black notebook from his shirt pocket. He said, I will require your name and address.

Jesse, Sweetland said. Jesse Ventura.

V-e-n
, the policeman said as he jotted the name.
R-a
. And address?

Brig Harbour, Fortune Bay.

Brig Harbour, he said, his head still bowed to the notebook. I have not heard of it.

Back of beyond, Sweetland said. Half the people lives there never heard of it.

You will have to report to the customs office in Placentia, the policeman said.

First thing, Sweetland said.

You must bring a passport next time, Mr. Ventura.

Won’t leave home without it, don’t you worry.

The young man had untied the line and was holding the boat tight to the dock. Sweetland reached up to catch the rope when it was thrown aboard and waved a thank you. As he pulled away he could see the policeman writing the identification number painted at the bow into his little book. All the way home he cursed himself for an idiot, though even then he was hard pressed to say how it might come back on him.

An RCMP patrol boat arrived a week later. Sweetland working in the shed out back when the Mountie came knocking at his door, then turned and called for him. He stood at the open bay of the shed with his hands behind his back. Mr. Sweetland, he said.

He’s not here, Sweetland said. Moved into St. John’s a month ago.

Mr. Sweetland, the cop said. I was the officer out here investigating the burning of your stage last year.

Sweetland looked him up and down. You got any leads on that?

Mr. Sweetland, the officer said. We have a report from French customs that a man by the name of Jesse Ventura, driving a boat registered in your name, sailed into Miquelon recently. He left with a large quantity of food and supplies that were paid for in cash.

Is that right?

August fourteenth. He also attempted to buy a significant quantity of ammunition for a .22. Did this Mr. Ventura borrow your boat from you?

I guess he must have.

Do you have any idea where I might find Mr. Ventura?

Sweetland shrugged. He’s on the internet, if you minds to look.

The officer took a step into the shed, out of the daylight. He took off his hat and held it in front of himself. There was a crease ringing his head where the hat had been. He said, Do you know what he intended to do with forty-four hundred dollars’ worth of dry goods?

This is about paying the tariffs, is it?

No, sir. That’s a customs issue. Our office was contacted by a government official involved in negotiating the resettlement agreement with people here in Sweetland. They’re worried some residents might be planning to breach that agreement. And possibly using lethal force in the process.

Sweetland turned from the Mountie to shift through the tools on his workbench.

Sir, could you step away from the workbench for me?

He turned around and folded his arms across his chest.

Mr. Sweetland, we’ve been asked to assist in the completion of the terms of the resettlement agreement.

They’re sending the cops out here?

It’s a question of legal liability on the part of the government, as I
understand it. And there’s the issue of lethal force. We don’t want to see anyone get hurt. I’ve been asked to let people know that I will be on the last ferry to leave Sweetland. That’s less than two weeks from now. And all remaining residents are required to be on that ferry when it departs.

He waited then, to give Sweetland a chance to respond. A moment later he said, You are planning on boarding the ferry.