The Americans Are Coming (20 page)

Out back, Lyman MacFee hauled the pullcord of the chain-saw and a sonorous buzzing noise settled over half the village. The other half of the village could also hear the buzzing, but it was somewhat bearable if one was far enough away.

Lyman MacFee cut into a log he had placed out back for the purpose of demonstrating. The sharp new teeth of the chain cut with great rapidity through the bark, knots and wood of the unfortunate log.

The flying sawdust and the buzzing like so many giant insects frightened and depressed Max Kaston to no end.

Again and again Lyman sawed through the log, then handed the saw to John, who gave it a try. When John had zipped off a couple of blocks, he handed the saw to Max.

John Kaston thought that the chainsaw was, indeed, the best outfit for sawing lumber he’d ever seen. Max, on the other hand, was on the verge of tears. He sawed a couple of blocks, but lost heart quickly and handed the saw back to Lyman MacFee.

“What d’ya think, men? Ya ever see anything like it?”

“She’s quite the outfit, all right? What do ya think, Max?

Ya think you’d like to work in the woods with that outfit from daylight to dark?”

Max, detecting the sarcasm in John’s voice, said, “A lotta money.”

“A man could pay fer it with four or five cord a day.”

“She’s an awful heavy outfit,” said Max.

“Sure it’s heavy,” put in Lyman, “but ya’ll git used to it. Three or four days o’ sawin’ and ya won’t notice the weight at all. And even if it is a little heavy, it’s still a lot easier than pushing a bucksaw all day for half the money. Four cord a day . . . that’s forty, forty-five dollars every day you work. I tell ya, John, this outfit’s gonna change the whole face of lumberin’! I’ll put it on yer bill, you take it home and try it fer a few days, and if ya don’t like it, bring it back. I guarantee you won’t be sorry.”

John Kaston took the chainsaw.

*

To a salmon angler, one salmon a day is considered good fishing. To most anglers, one salmon a week is acceptable. It is not unusual for an angler to fish for a week and catch nothing at all.

But to drive all the way from New York or Boston to Brennen Siding to fish and return with nothing to show for it was looked upon with a certain amount of suspicion by left-behind wives.

“You went all the way to Canada to fish?”

“Yes, my pet.”

“So, where’s your fish?”

“I didn’t catch any, pet.”

“Sure!”

While the angler might still be having visions of the Dungarvon River in his memory, the wife was visualizing bars and whorehouses in Montreal or Quebec. An unsuccessful angler, if he was smart, would buy a salmon to take home with him, make up a tale about the struggles he’d had and keep peace in the family.

Palidin, with his magnetized hook, was catching anywhere
from two to eight salmon a day. He did not have a freezer. A dead salmon would not last long outside a freezer on an August day. Palidin had to sell his salmon or else give them away. He wanted a car. He did not want to give his salmon away. Palidin Ramsey was in business.

Palidin and George Hanley strolled down the Gordon Road discussing the business.

“I’m ketchin’ more than I can sell,” said Palidin. “There’s just not enough sports around here. I need to be sellin’ in Blackville, Upper Blackville, Renous, all over the place.”

“Sellin’ salmon’s against the law. Aren’t you scared of gettin’ caught?”

“I’ll be careful. What I need is a car.”

“How much money ya got now?”

“Seventy-eight dollars. I’d have a hundred if I hadn’t bought that rod and reel. If I had a couple of hundred, I could buy an old car good enough to get me to Blackville now and again to sell. But I don’t have enough money, that’s the problem.”

“Maybe you could borrow a car.”

“Nobody’d ever lend me a car!”

“I kin get one. I kin git Dad’s.”

“Ya think?”

“Prob’ly. But I’d have to have a cut in the money. You buy me a rod out of the seventy-five dollars and I’ll help ya with the fishin’, too. We kin be partners.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Palidin, but Palidin was already liking the idea. “I don’t have much choice,” he thought. “If he can get a car, I’ll make him a partner.”

David Kaston, Max’s older brother, and a girl he was dating from Gordon passed Palidin and George on the road. When they had passed by several yards, Palidin and George turned to watch after them.

“Nice bum,” said

“She’s not bad either,” agreed Palidin.

*

Nutbeam was changing, too.

With encouragement from Shadrack and Dryfly, Nutbeam started practising his trumpet playing again.

“Who cares if they hear me,” he said to himself. “I’m not breaking any laws. If they find me out and Graig Allen runs me off his land, I’ll move somewhere else. I’d like to have a bigger camp, anyway.”

Nutbeam put the trumpet to his lips and unleashed a blast that put the fear of the devil in the hearts of everyone in Brennen Siding . . . except for Shadrack and Dryfly, that is.

Shadrack and Dryfly thought it was the funniest thing they ever heard. They found themselves going to Bernie Hanley’s store every night for no other reason than to hear the stories and surmisals.

“I knew that thing was gonna show up again,” said Stan Tuney. “I knowd as soon as I saw them tracks in the woods. Hoof tracks, they were!”

“I think meself, now, as the feller says, meself now, I think it’s a jeezless fox,” said Lindon Tucker.

“Some fox!” said Shadrack. “Weren’t no fox we saw in that woods four year ago!”

“Well, just for certain, what did you boys see back in that woods?” asked Bernie Hanley from behind the counter.

“Was awful dark,” said Shadrack, “but I do remember seeing a set o’ horns like a cow’s.”

“And it was as big as a moose, but shaped more like a cat,” said Dryfly. “What’s a panther look like, anyway?”

“They’re a big cat,” said Bert Todder, “but I never heard tell o’ one with horns – you, Bernie?”

“Ain’t never been a cat with horns,” said Bernie Hanley.

“It’s a wonder you boys weren’t tore to pieces,” said John Kaston.

“I had the rifle, and was about thirty feet away from ’im. Pulled the old gun up and let him have it from thirty feet away. Aimed right for its forward shoulders and let ’er drift. The thing
just swung and looked at me as if I was stupid, turned and struck ’er down through the woods,” said Shadrack.

“Just seemed to be floatin’,” said Dryfly. “Never made a sound.”

“Father Murdock blessed the Whooper’s grave and it was never heard after. Maybe if I went back in the woods and prayed, the thing would take off out of here,” said John Kaston.

“You ain’t a priest,” said Bernie Hanley.

“No, you’re right! I ain’t a priest, I’m a good Christian Baptist and that’s a lot better than any priest!”

“Prayin’ would work just great,” said Bert Todder, “but you’re forgettin’ one thing. We ain’t got a grave, or none that we know of, anyway.”

“I was out listenin’ to it last night,” said Bernie Hanley. “Almost sounded like the thing was tryin’ to sing, or some-thin’.”

“Jist sorta sings, so it does,” said Lindon Tucker. “Heard it meself, yeah. Jist sorta sings, like.”

“Ya know what a crowd o’ lads should do? We should load our rifles and go back there and hunt the devil down,” said Dan Brennen. “Fill ’im full o’ lead.”

“That’s what a lad should do, Dan old boy. Fill ’im full o’ lead, that’s what I say. Gun the bugger down, yeah.”

“You’re movin’ to Fredericton pretty soon, ain’t ya Lindon?” asked Stan Tuney.

“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah! Movin’ in the fall, I think, yeah. Takin’ off in the fall, takin’ off in the fall.”

“Ya can’t shoot the devil,” said John Kaston. “The good Lord is the only medicine for the devil.”

“Young Shadrack scared ’im off with one shot,” said Bernie Hanley. “Never came back for four years.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” said Dryfly, recognizing the potential problem for Nutbeam. “I wouldn’t go back in that woods again! That bullet didn’t hurt ’im one bit.”

“But it scared him off,” put in Bert Todder.

“And you lads were just a couple o’ young lads,” added Stan Tuney.

Shad also saw that things might be getting out of hand.

“That’s the thing,” said Shadrack. “We was jist kids back then and didn’ know no better. We were lucky, that’s all! Knowin’ what I know now, I wouldn’ take a million dollars for goin’ into that woods!”

“Well, I say, somethin’s gotta be done!” said John Kaston, “and ya don’t need a grave to pray! The power o’ the Lord is infinite! I’ll go back there with the Lord by my side, and smite that demon. You lads ever think o’ prayin’?” It was a rare occasion when John Kaston wouldn’t take the opportunity to preach. “Just trust in the Lord and it won’t matter if it is the devil back there! Yea, though we walk through the valley o’ death, we fear no evil, the Bible says!”

“I’ll go back, but I ain’t takin’ no Bible,” said Bert Todder. “I’m takin’ the .38-55.”

“I’ll go too, but I’ll have to close the store early,” said Bernie Hanley.

“I’ll take the Bible. That’s the only weapon I need,” said John Kaston.

“I’ll take me shotgun,” said Stan Tuney. Stan Tuney didn’t think his shotgun would stand up against the devil, but he had no intention of missing out on anything like this. This would be an adventure to lie about for the rest of his life.

“You lads wouldn’t go back there tonight, would ya?” asked Dryfly.

“Too late now. We’ll go tomorrow night,” said Bernie. “We’ll meet here at . . . let’s say, nine o’clock.” Bernie Hanley very much wanted everybody to meet at his store. The gathering would mean a fairly substantial sale of oranges and ginger ale.

Shadrack and Dryfly knew that these men were cunning hunters and trappers – that they had, in a manner of speaking, been living in the woods all their lives and knew it like the backs of their hands. There was a very good possibility that if these men went back Todder Brook, they would find Nutbeam. Nutbeam was squatting on Graig Allen’s property, and although he was somewhat more outgoing than he used to be, he still wanted his location kept secret.
Shadrack and Dryfly slipped away from the crowd and headed for the river.

“What are we gonna do?” asked Dryfly.

“I dunno. Tell Nutbeam to quit playin’ for awhile, I guess,” said Shadrack.

“Listen . . . I can hear him now.”

BLAT, BLAT, BLAT, BARMP-BARMP! Nutbeam was practicing “The Blue Canadian Rockies,” but one would have to stretch the imagination considerably to recognize it.

Although the sound of the trumpet may have been injecting fear and bewilderment into the hearts of everyone else in Brennen Siding, to Shadrack and Dryfly it was what the ear-torturing grunts of an accordion might be to an Italian, or what the monotonously unbearable drone of the bagpipes might be to a Scotsman. It inspired in them a certain nostalgia – the music that brought back the memory of their greatest childhood adventure. It was spooky and mysterious, the substance of childhood curiosity.

“I don’t want to see him quit playin’,” said Shadrack. “It gives him something to do.”

“Me either. I kind of like ’im. These lads around here would never let it rest.”

“They ain’t got much to think about, that’s for sure.”

“It’s kinda our fault,” said Dryfly. “We’re gonna have to do somethin’.”

“Let me think for a minute,” said Shad. “We’re gonna have to do something, you’re right there.”

*

That night the frost paid Brennen Siding a visit and crystallized a million dewdrops. The dewdrops had been eyeing the northern lights when the frost struck and many of them were holding a flash within. Like tiny prisms, they shone from blades of grass and cucumber leaves, on Shirley Ramsey’s geranium and Dan Brennen’s tomato plants, on Helen MacDonald’s dahlias and Judge Martin’s weathervane, on spider webs and all the tombstones, except for one, behind the little Baptist
church. On the tombstone that did not sparkle, Clara Tucker’s, sat Palidin Ramsey. Clara Tucker had died of gangrene. The gangrene had started in her toe.

The northern lights soughed like the wind and merged to the zenith as if drawn by celestial magnets.

Palidin could vaguely remember Bill Tuney. Bill Tuney smoked a pipe all his adult life, and his lower lip had weakened from the stress and hung loosely from stained teeth. He had been a lumberman and a guide; he had loved and been loved; had built a home and raised a family. Bill Tuney had liked molasses in his tea.

“Bill Tuney liked molasses in his tea,” thought Palidin. “Right now, people still remember Bill Tuney, but in twenty years, they’ll only remember that he liked molasses in his tea. In fifty years, this tombstone will be all that is left. Bill Tuney will have left, memory and all.”

The house that Bill Tuney built would never become a museum. The barn was falling down already. His son would never become famous or do anything to be remembered for. Stan Tuney did not even like molasses in his tea.

Palidin Ramsey wondered if he, himself, would pass in the same way, unremembered like Bill Tuney and everybody else in the graveyard . . . his brother Bonzie.

“Bonzie was a great little lad,” thought Palidin. “Bonzie might have become somebody, had he lived.”

Palidin could hear the murmur of the northern lights. He tilted his head back a bit to listen better.

“The cycle,” he thought, “like rain, like water, like magnets, like northern lights, like echoes, bouncing back and forth through time and space. Sometimes you hear it only once; sometimes the echo returns half a dozen times before it escapes into space. But they come back, they always come back. From which star do I hear the hoof fall? Rain falls on Earth to rise again. It falls on me to rise again to fall on God rain, magnets, northern lights, hooves, sandals . . .”

Palidin decided that he would like to watch the Dungarvon River for a while. He slid from the tombstone and headed for the footbridge. He walked to the center abutment and eyed
the dark forest, the sparkling fields, the azure above and the reflections below. The foam-speckled water slid smoothly under the bridge.

“Fish farts,” he thought. “Bert Todder will be remembered for naming them fish farts.”