The Americans Are Coming (32 page)

“Pretty likely! She was just sayin’ the other day that she thought it funny that you never drop in.”

“That’s for the boots,” thought Dryfly.

“I don’t know, Dry, I . . .”

“She’s got that big turkey in the oven already, Nutbeam. Gonna put extra potatoes and stuff on, too.”

“I don’t know . . . I’m . . . I’m so strange. People act funny when they see me.”

“That’s because you are strange, ya old jeezer! Get yer coat and c’mon! It must be four o’clock already and supper’s at five!”

Nutbeam put on his coat.

“The big test,” he thought. “Am I a man or a mouse?”

*

When Nutbeam and Dryfly entered Shirley Ramsey’s house, Nutbeam shut the door behind him, stood and waited. He was wearing his parka and the hood was hiding his face. He was reluctant to lift the hood and expose his ears. Shirley Ramsey stood before him. The house smelled of roasting turkey.

“’Day,” grunted Nutbeam. Although somewhat slumped, he still towered over her, so that she eyed him as one might eye a giant, with the evidence of wonder in her eyes.

“Take yer coat off,” said Shirley. “Supper’s almost ready.”

Nutbeam removed his parka in one swift movement, watching the delicate little woman to see if she would laugh or scream.

Shirley did neither.

“C’mon. Sit down by the table, Nutbeam,” said Dryfly.

Dryfly and Nutbeam sat by the table. Shirley started puttering around the stove.

“You from around here?” asked Shirley.

“No. From Maine.”

“You American?”

“I guess so.”

“We’re all Canadians around here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. ’Cept for the sports on the river. You a sport?”

“Just a man,” said Nutbeam.

Dryfly sat eyeing his boots. The boots were sitting beside the bedroom door and he was preoccupied with their presence.

Shirley checked the carrots and the potatoes to see if they were cooked. Then she removed the golden brown turkey from the oven.

“Smells good,” said Nutbeam.

“It was awful good o’ you,” said Shirley.

“Good to be here,” said Nutbeam.

“Set the table, Dryfly,” said Shirley.

Dryfly snapped out of his boot-induced trance and went to the cupboard for plates, knives and forks.

Nutbeam was beginning to relax a little. Shirley, who had been as nervous as Nutbeam, was also beginning to relax.

“He’s more funny than scarey, once ya git use to him,” she thought.

“Ain’t so bad,” thought Nutbeam. “She ain’t laughin’. I’m doin’ okay.”

“Kin I help do somethin’?” asked Nutbeam.

“Got everything just about ready,” said Shirley. “Bring them plates over here, Dry.”

When she was satisfied with the quality of the gravy, Shirley began loading the plates. She sat across from Nutbeam and the three commenced to eat.

“Don’t eat with yer fingers, Dryfly, use yer fork.”

“Ain’t got a fork. Only had two.”

“Then get a spoon.”

Dryfly went to the cupboard, got a spoon, returned to his seat by the table and dug in.

The three were hungry. Busy eating, the conversation all but died.

“Good stuff,” said Dryfly.

“Best meal I had in ages,” said Nutbeam. “There’s plenty more on the stove. Have some salt,” said Shirley.

When they could eat no more, Shirley made tea and served it in mugs, two of which had broken handles. She gave the good one to Nutbeam.

Dryfly drank his tea quickly. Dryfly was not interested in tea. He was getting restless and wanted to see if Shadrack had gotten jet boots for Christmas. Dryfly was in a dilemma. He felt he shouldn’t leave his mother and Nutbeam alone – Nutbeam was shy, his mother nervous around strangers. Dryfly considered leaving and taking Nutbeam with him, but he knew Nutbeam would not want to go to Bob Nash’s.

“Have you travelled a lot?” asked Shirley.

“No. Left Maine and come here. That’s all the travellin’ I ever did.”

“I was to Rogersville once,” said Shirley. “All French in Rogersville. Burn down the woods so’s they kin git a job fightin’ fire.”

“Sons o’ whores!” said Dry.

“Frenchmen,” said Nutbeam.

“They paint their houses funny colors,” said Shirley.

“Shit brindle,” said Dry.

“Frenchmen,” said Nutbeam.

Nutbeam eyed the crucifix and rosary beads on Shirley’s wall. “You a Cath’lic?” he asked.

“Yeah. Only Cath’lic around here,” said Shirley.

“I’m a Cath’lic,” said Nutbeam. “Ain’t been to church in years, though.”

“Me nuther,” said Shirley.

“Gotta go all the way to Blackville or Renous to church,” said Dryfly.

“John Diefenbaker’s a Baptist, ain’t he?” asked Shirley.

“Prob’ly,” said Nutbeam.

“Baptists don’t play cards,” said Shirley.

“Some do,” said Dryfly, “Shad does.”

“Shadrack Nash ain’t nothin’,” said Shirley. “Devil’s gonna get him.”

“Devil’s already got ’im,” said Nutbeam smiling.

Nutbeam had big lips that fringed a big mouth. When Nutbeam smiled, it was like opening up a piano’s keyboard. It seemed he had forty-two-thousand-and-one teeth. Nutbeam’s mouth was so big that one would not have difficulty envisioning his face disappearing when he yawned. Nutbeam, when he smiled, looked like the sun with floppy ears. When Nutbeam smiled, Shirley Ramsey thought he looked incredibly funny and smiled also. When Shirley Ramsey smiled, which was rare, there wasn’t a tooth to be seen. Nutbeam found Shirley’s toothless smile amusing and his smile grew even broader. When Nutbeam’s smile broadened, so did Shirley’s. When Shirley’s smile broadened, Nutbeam chuckled. When Nutbeam chuckled, Shirley chuckled also. When Shirley chuckled, Nutbeam chuckled a chuckle that turned to laughter. When Nutbeam laughed, Shirley laughed. The harder Shirley laughed, the harder Nut-beam laughed. Nutbeam was the funniest looking man Shirley had ever seen, and seeing him giggle and laugh – the distorted huge mouth, the big nose, the squinted eyes, the big ears flopping as his head bobbed – was, indeed, a hilarious thing to see. Shirley laughed hysterically, as if she hadn’t laughed for forty-two-thousand-and-one years. The more laughter that sprung from Shirley’s toothless mouth, the harder Nutbeam laughed. Things were getting out of hand. Dryfly, accustomed as he was to both Nutbeam’s and Shirley’s features, saw nothing unusual at all and couldn’t quite understand all the laughter. Surely Nutbeam’s comment about the devil already having Shad was not that funny. Yet, Dryfly had never seen his mother or Nutbeam so out of control ever before. It was good to hear, like music to his ears. Dryfly laughed too. “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” repeated itself forty-two-thousand-and-one times, stopped for a brief breather, then continued for forty-two-thousand-and-one more times. The laughter shattered all the fear, crushed the shyness, unlocked forty-two-thousand-and-two inhibitionsand broke the ice. The laughter engulfed Nutbeam with a sense of
warmth and love and well-being. He had never been happier. He loved Shirley with all his heart. Shirley Ramsey thought that Nutbeam was the funniest, handsomest, most wonderful man she’d seen in her entire life.

Bob Nash, Dan Brennen, Bert Todder, John Kaston, Stan Tuney and Lindon Tucker all stood around in Bernie Hanley’s store, talking to Bernie, eating oranges and drinking Sussex Ginger Ale.

It was April, and all the men except for John and Bernie were discussing their current jobs, guiding American sportsmen.

Most of them had spent a great deal of the winter looking forward to the day they could go guiding; to the day when the ice had finally cleared from the river; to the day when they could put their canoes in the river and attach their outboard motors; to the day when they could watch and listen to the first spring birds nesting and frolicking about; but now that the day had come, they felt they should complain.

“Boys, it was some cold out there on the river today!” said Dan. “The eyes frosted right up on me fishin’ rod.”

“Them old sports don’t seem to mind it, though, do they?” put in Bob Nash.

“Me? I’d hardly be bothered carrying one o’ them old black salmon from the river,” lied Stan Tuney.

“Them lads like them though,” said Dan. “Pay good money to fish them! Set out there on the river in the wind and rain and like ’er great. I wouldn’ eat a black salmon if I was starvin’ to death!”

No one in Brennen Siding would admit to eating the spring, sea-bound, spawned-out salmon, except for Shirley Ramsey. Black salmon, as they were called, was poor people’s food.

“Them Amuricans like ’em, though, yeah. Yeah. Like ’er great, they do, so they do, yeah. Eat anything at all, them lads,” agreed Lindon Tucker.

“’Pon me soul, yeah, that’s true. They’ll eat anything ya set
in front o’ them. I saw a lad eatin’ a steak the other day that couldn’ been cooked anymore than five or ten minutes. The blood was runnin’ right out of it!” said Bert Todder.

“Make ya sick!” said Stan Tuney, who, like everybody else in Brennen Siding, did not like rare meat.

“Yeah, that’s right, yeah. Eat anything at all, so they will, yeah,” said Lindon.

“That old lad I’m guidin’ didn’ wanna quit tonight till pretty near dark,” said Bert.

“And they’ll work yas on Sundays, too!” said John Kaston. “Sinners. Sinners. That’s all they are.”

John Kaston was not paying much attention to what was being said. He was preoccupied with his new religion. He had applied and gotten accepted to a sub-denominational school in Fredericton and was due to begin a six-week course that would make him a preacher. All he had to do was leave the Baptist church, accept Jesus as his own personal saviour and prove that he could read and speak clearly enough to be understood. He had already purchased a new suit, tie and shoes and had presented his twelve-hundred-dollar cheque, the initiation fee, to the master of the school.

It was a drastic step for him. He would’ve settled for Max becoming a preacher, but when Max sold a freight car of pulp and headed for St. Catharines, Ontario, in March, John was left with no alternative. The worst thing that could happen was to fail the course, and he was told that nobody with twelve hundred dollars in his pocket and the Holy Ghost by his side had ever failed.

“I caught about a ten-pounder this mornin’,” said Bert Todder, “so thin and weak, hardly kicked at all when I pulled him into the boat. Give it to Shirley Ramsey, I did. Dropped it off on me way here tonight.”

“That Nutbeam lad there, was he?” asked Bernie Hanley.

“That’s what I was goin’ to tell ya,” said Bert. “He was settin’ right back, him and Shirley, jist the two o’ them. He’s there half the time. Great lookin’ couple, they are. You ain’t careful, Lindon, you’re gonna lose yer woman.”

“Ain’t my woman, so she ain’t! No, no, don’t need that fer a woman!”

“Tee, hee, hee, sob, snort, sniff!”

“I heard, now, I ain’t sayin’ who told me, but I heard that Shirley and that lad was thinkin’ ’bout gittin’ married,” put in Stan Tuney. Stan hadn’t actually heard it, but he had thought it so much, and had seen Nutbeam crossing the field so often that he actually believed he had heard it.

“Boys! A man would have to be awful hard up for a woman, wouldn’ he?!” said Dan Brennen.

“Oh, I don’t know . . . she might be pretty nice in the morning,” said Bert Todder. “If I was you, Lindon, I wouldn’ let her slip away so easy. She’d be a good woman for you, Lindon. Tee, hee, hee, sob, snort, sniff!”

“You could take her fer walks every night in the gravel pit, Lindon,” said Dan Brennen.

“Don’t need no Shirley Ramsey, I don’t! I kin tell ya that right now, don’t need no Shirley Ramsey. Got meself a little lady in Fredericton, so I have. Me little vodker drinker.”

“Oh, but that Shirley’d be pretty nice, Lindon. All dressed right up, goin’ fer walks in the pit, cookin’ ya up a nice black salmon every night fer supper. Tee, hee, hee, sob, snort, sniff!”

“She’s still young enough to have two or three young lads for ya, Lindon,” laughed Stan Tuney.

“I think Lindon might’ve had a crack at ’er already. That Dryfly kinda looks like Lindon, don’t ya think boys?”

“He ain’t mine,” said Lindon, his face beginning to colour a bit. “He, he, he, he, ain’t mine. Might be yours, might be yours, Bert. Ain’t my young lad!”

The men could hear the temper rising in Lindon’s voice and knew they had carried the joke far enough. Lindon was simple-minded and no one wanted to find out what he’d do if pushed too far. The topic changed.

They talked about cars, gold in the Yukon, the price of pulp . . . periodically, Bert Todder allowed that it was time he went home, but as usual, he was the last to leave.

*

When Dryfly Ramsey and Lillian Wallace met in late June, they did not run toward each other in slow motion across a field of daisies and clover, with open arms.

Dryfly figured that Lillian would be starting her summer holidays any time after the middle of June, and he was checking the Cabbage Island Salmon Club twice a day in anticipation of her return. He missed her arrival. She came late at night. They met on the Tuney Brook bridge the next afternoon.

Her presence startled him. Ten feet apart, they stood motionless, staring as if afraid, their hearts pounding.

“Hello, Dryfly,” said Lillian.

“Hi. How are you?” Dryfly’s voice seemed timid and weak.

“I’m back . . . .” Lillian smiled.

“I’m . . . I’m glad to see ya.”

“How have you been?”

“Good. You?”

“Fine.”

Dryfly had dreamed of this moment countless times, had always thought he’d embrace her, kiss her, tell her how he’d spent a year dreaming of how beautiful she looked, smelled, was, and how much he loved her. But now, although he wanted to, he couldn’t. He thought she might think him forward, presumptuous. After all, she was a rich American and not some backwoods hussy like the kind Shad Nash courted. This was Lillian Wallace. This was the most wonderful girl in the whole world. He was not sure what to do. He felt shy.

Lillian, too, felt confused. She had often thought of Dryfly, but she’d had a busy year; had gone to school, travelled on holidays, dated other boys – Rick. But here stood Dryfly Ramsey, and there was something about him, not his looks; he was thin, had a long nose, hair parted in the middle; not his expensive boots, and yet (perhaps she saw the adoration in his eyes) there was something attractive about him.