The Americans Are Coming (31 page)

Leisurely they walked, carried their goods, talked and laughed until, as usual, they separated at the footbridge.

Crossing the bridge, heavily laden with the turkey, tobacco, linen and boots, Dryfly stopped to rest and take in the scenery. The moon was full and bright. The river, except for the airhole in front of John Kaston’s, was frozen and silent, sleeping beneath the ice and trillions of snowflakes: its blanket.

As Dryfly focused in on the airhole, he thought he could see somebody standing beside it. He was not sure if it was a person; it could have been an animal, perhaps a deer drinking from the open water. It wasn’t moving, so Dryfly couldn’t really tell if, or if not, the thing was a thing, or just an extended arm of the airhole itself, or perhaps a stake, put there to warn skaters of the thin periphery of ice.

He shrugged off his curiosity, turned and gazed downstream for a while. There, he could see Lindon Tucker’s house, its
windows reflecting the moon, but no detectable light coming from within. He could also see the sheds and barn, their symmetrical lines jutting from the snow-clad field. “Like something from a Christmas card,” he thought.

He could not see the swing, but he pictured it in his mind – the swing, Lillian Wallace, the butterfly, the summer’s day.

“All I really wanted for Christmas was Lillian Wallace,” he said to the night, turned and walked toward the warmth of home.

*

Max Kaston eyed himself in the mirror. He had a scratch on his thin and sunken right cheek. A wood chip had hurled from his axe and hit him there the previous day while he was limbing a hemlock. His right eye was puffy from the slap he received from John for the incidental oath he had sworn.

It was Christmas Eve and Max was very lonesome and depressed. Earlier in the evening, he and John had quarrelled again when John wanted him to go to church with him. Max had been tired, felt ugly and unpopular, had said, “No! I’m not going.”

When John slapped him, Max conjured up every ounce of control he could find to keep from slapping him back.

Max had seen Palidin Ramsey fight at school many years ago. The confrontation had been between Palidin and Joey Layton. Palidin had been so calm and cool and Joey had been so out of control. Joey called Palidin a coward and a fruit and Palidin hadn’t batted an eye. He just stared into Joey’s eyes, intensely enough to cause Joey to shiver with uncertainty. Joey was backing down when Palidin made his mistake. He dropped his eyes and when he did, Joey slapped him.

It would have been a victory for Joey in the eyes of all the boys watching, but Palidin did something scary, almost eerie. He immediately regained his equipoise and turned the other cheek. It so befuddled Joey that he stepped back as if shocked and ran into the school, shamed and crying like the child he was.

Instead of slapping his father back, Max tried the Palidin Ramsey trick. It infuriated John.

“Blasphemy!” yelled John, slapped Max once again and stormed off to church.

The second slap had been harder and stung, but it hadn’t neared his other eye. However, its injury to Max had been far greater than any infliction he had ever before been subjected to. It was that one last slap from his father that accomplished all that John ever set out to do – it broke Max’s spirit.

Greatly despondent in the wake of that slap that still seemed to echo throughout the room, Max eyed himself. His eyes filled and tears like rivulets coursed their way down his cheeks. His body convulsed as he released sob after sob.

“I can’t!” he sobbed. “I can’t become a preacher! Why doesn’t Dad understand?!”

One by one, the people of Brennen Siding flashed through his tormented mind. Lindon Tucker: a bachelor, uneducated, going nowhere, half out of his mind. Stan Tuney: alone, a bachelor with no ambition, nothing left to sell, nothing left to live for but lies. Dan Brennen: losing his battle to be better than everyone else, primarily because he was growing old and wisdom was telling him that he would never succeed. Bob Nash: forever in a state of unrest, contrary, never smiling. Bert Todder: who laughed at everything and everyone, perhaps the wisest of all the men in his simplicity . . . but going nowhere as well. Shadrack Nash and Dryfly Ramsey: following along to the same tune, toward the same destiny, as if it were an inalterable direction, a tradition.

“My father,” thought Max, “ . . . and me. I’m just like my father. I could’ve been a preacher if I had’ve gone to school. But I don’t want to become a preacher! I couldn’t preach to save my soul!”

Suddenly, Max threw his shoulders back as if some unknown power had taken control of him. The fatigue left him; he felt strong and capable. In the mirror, his reflection stared back at him with cold hard eyes – expressionless, the jaw set in determination. A warmth coursed through his body, the hair stood up on his neck; he thought he might even be getting an erection.

The reaction came from the ultimate of negative thoughts – suicide. But the ensuing effects were nothing he’d ever before anticipated. As if in a trance, he walked to the coatrack, donned his jacket and headed for the river. He was still in the same state when he found himself staring at the airhole. The water rushed, black and cold from beneath the ice on which he stood.

He did not know why he stopped when he did. His full intention had been to walk into it. It was as if he had to size up the eerie, hooded figure of death – and the choice was still his: jump, or remain and fight.

The moon danced on the troubled surface of the water; the wind, stronger here on the river, slapped at his clothing. The cold, exhilarating Dungarvon air and water were having their effects on him, too. If something irrational and demonic had touched him back in the house, the great outdoors was trying to reverse the trance. There were the moon and the stars; the river and the forest, seen through the crystal-clear moonlit air. There were the farms with their lights glowing warmly within; he could see Lindon Tucker’s from the river in front of John Kaston’s, and the bridge. There was somebody walking on the bridge.

Max suddenly realized that he was outside, at night, alone. There he was, by himself, on the river at night and not afraid. He looked around as if he’d never seen the night before. It was not all that dark. He always thought the night was black and formidable, that it was occupied with wraiths and evil spirits that blended with the darkness.

But he was standing in a quite different world – one of beauty and serenity – where the stars and moon enchanted the land and all that lived there.

The figure on the bridge walked leisurely along, stopped for a moment, then continued on at a slightly faster pace.

Max shifted his attention to a red, glowing planet, northeast of the moon, its light distorted and exaggerated as it shone through his cloud-like breath.

“Jump, or remain and fight,” he whispered.

And then, echoing across the forest from the direction of
Todder Brook came the sound of a lone trumpet being played, so far off, so clear in the still night.

Nutbeam, basking in the glow of his rum and generosity, was celebrating still. He was playing “Silent Night” for all of Brennen Siding to hear.

“Stand and fight,” said Max, turned and walked slowly home, enjoying his newlyfound world.

*

On Christmas morning, Dryfly awakened to the smell of onions frying. Shirley had already risen and was frying some strips of venison, onions and eggs. Dryfly rose, dressed and went to the kitchen.

“Mornin’,” said Shirley. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” said Dryfly.

“Cold mornin’, must be thirty below. Fire feels good,” said Shirley.

Dryfly went to the stove and stood soaking up the heat. “Sure does,” he said.

“I’m cookin’ us up a great big feed, Dry.”

“I see that. Sure smells great. Would ya like your present?”

“You got me a present, Dry?”

“’Tweren’t much. Didn’ have much money.”

“You didn’ have to buy me nothin’, Dry.”

Dryfly went to his bedroom and returned with a gift, crudely wrapped in brown paper.

Shirley unwrapped the rectangular mirror with the white plastic frame.

“It’s beautiful, Dry! It’s the prettiest mirror I ever saw! It must’ve cost a lotta money, Dry.”

“Wasn’t much.”

“It’s the best Christmas present I ever got, Dry! Thanks! Thanks a whole lot.”

“Ya like it?”

“I love it! I’ll throw that old thing away and hang this new one up so’s you and me kin see how good-looking we are, Dry,” said Shirley with a toothless grin.

Dryfly was happy and smiled, too.

“I have a gift for you, too, Dry.”

“Yeah?”

“It ain’t much,” said Shirley, passing Dryfly a small package wrapped in brown paper.

Dryfly ripped the paper off a pair of grey woollen mitts.

“Nice mitts, Mom! Thanks a lot! They fit, too.”

“Good. I thought you might need them this winter doin’ your snarin’, or trappin’, or whatever.”

Dryfly had a slight twinge of disappointment. He did not get the guitar strings. He knew, however, that the mitts were more important.

“You’re right, Mom, ya can’t do nothin’ without good mitts,” he said.

“Glad they fit,” said Shirley.

“I got something else for ya, Mom.”

“More?”

“Not from me. From Nutbeam.”

“From Nutbeam?”

“Yeah. He got ya somethin’ for Christmas.”

“But why?”

“Don’t know. Nice lad. Got me and Shad stuff, too.”

Dryfly had hidden the can of tobacco, the turkey and the cloth in the living room where he hoped Shirley wouldn’t find it. He went and got them and gave them to her.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, fingering the black cloth with the red roses on it, “ . . . and the turkey . . . and . . . and tobacco

. . . why, Dry?”

“Don’t know. Nice lad. Give me a pair of boots.”

Dryfly had left his boots in the bedroom. He retrieved them for Shirley to see.

Shirley eyed the boots that Dryfly set before her. “They must have cost a fortune!” she said. “I know. Nice lad.”

“Is that where you go all the time, Dry?”

“Yeah. Me and Nutbeam and Shad is good friends. Nice lad to do that, eh?”

“I just can’t figure out why, Dry! Did he leave the deer and them partridge, too?”

“I think so. He never said.”

“Strange, eh?”

“Nice lad.”

“If we keep all these presents, we’ll have to give him something, won’t we?”

“Didn’ know he’d got them till yesterday. We ain’t got no money to get him presents anyway.”

“Do you think we should keep them, then?”

“Don’t know. Nice boots.”

“He lives all alone, don’t he?”

“Yeah. Has a little camp.”

“Maybe we could invite him over for supper or somethin’.”

“Ya think?”

“He’s not crazy, or somethin’, is he?”

“Kinda homely to look at. Doubt if he’d come.”

“Why? Is he shy?”

“Don’t like people much. People laugh at ’im.”

Shirley sighed. “Know how he feels,” she said.

“He’s a real nice lad, though, Mom.”

“After breakfast, you go talk to him, Dry. Supper’s the least we kin give ’im.”

Shirley Ramsey was uncertain of what the outcome might be in having this mysterious, but obviously kind, generous and sensitive man in for supper, but she was willing to take the chance. Shirley Ramsey had the Christmas spirit. She wanted to give and share. Shirley saw a can of tobacco here, boots there, venison in the frying pan, the cloth and the turkey on the table.

*

Dryfly Ramsey, as much as he wanted to, did not wear his new boots to Nutbea’s camp. “Walkin’ in the snow would ruin them,” he decided.

After the brisk walk through the bright, frosty afternoon, he knocked on Nutbeam’s door.

“Come in,” he heard Nutbeam say, “the door’s unlatched.”

Dryfly opened the door and stepped into the camp, kicking the snow from his feet as he crossed the threshold.

“No more latching the door,” greeted Nutbeam. “Only ones that comes is you and Shad, anyway. I’ve always kept that door latched, but no more, Dryfly. You kin step right in here any time you like!”

“Cold day,” said Dryfly. “Been out?”

“Was out and fed some moose birds earlier. They’re around every day lately.”

“Yeah, I saw one back the trail.”

“What brings you back here on Christmas Day?”

“Mom says thanks for the cloth. She wants you to come and have supper with us,” said Dryfly.

To Nutbeam, Dryfly could have just announced him a lottery winner. His heart quickened, butterflies took to flight in his stomach; he felt scared. Never in his wildest fantasies had he thought this dream would come true. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought that this fantasy would become a reality.

“She wants me to come for supper?” asked Nutbeam, afraid he had misunderstood.

“Got that great big turkey. Someone has to eat it,” said Dryfly.

Nutbeam stood and ran his fingers through his hair. Decisions had to be made. “Should I, or shouldn’t I go? What would I say? How would I act?”

“Dryfly . . . I don’t know . . . I don’t know if I can.”

“Why? You ain’t scared o’ Mom, are ya?”

“Well . . . I don’t know . . . I don’t . . . I never talked to a woman before!”

“Mom’s not a woman . . . I mean, Mom’s just Mom.” Scrambled remnants of forty-two-thousand-and-one dreams unfolded before Nutbeam. He saw himself walking through the forest on moonlit nights, dreaming of having Shirley Ramsey by his side. He saw himself standing at the edge of darkness watching Shirley Ramsey listening to Kid Baker sing. He saw himself shooting a deer, thinking that with each bit of venison consumed, Shirley Ramsey would be, indeed, consuming a
portion of his good will for her. He saw dreams of holding her, whispering “Rest, Shirley, take it easy” into her ear.

“What did she say?” asked Nutbeam.

“She just said go get Nutbeam for supper.” Nutbeam was beginning to pace and Dryfly could see that he was beside himself. “I think she likes you, Nutbeam. Mentions you every once in a while. She’s been wanting to meet ya, I think.”

“Then she wants me for sure?”