Strum Page 4
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For a moment he had lost consciousness and when it returned, the ache over his right ear was excruciating. He looked out through half-opened eyes and saw only a brilliantly clear azure sky. He was rocking gently from side to side and realized then that he was still in the canoe and flat on the small of his back. He rose to a sitting position carefully and felt the throb in his head increase, and the buzzing in his ear amplified. He looked behind him and saw the small pool of blood on the floor of the canoe between the camp gear and the precious cargo where his head had just been cradled. With his right hand he felt the fleshy wound of the gash and the extensive swelling on the side of his head and knew that he had been hit by something large and very heavy.
He dipped his hand into the cold glacial water and washed off the blood, then took a drink from his cupped hand. It cleared his head a bit and brought the reality of the situation to the fore. He removed a bandana from around his neck and dipped it in the water to clean his wound, then tied the scarf tightly around his head to ensure the bleeding was stopped. He looked around him to get his bearings. To his amazement the canoe was still attached to the large log, which now swirled aimlessly in a wide slow-churning eddy formed by a shallow inlet carved into the open expanse of the river. The long tether that connected it to the canoe disappeared into the water for a few long seconds before it re-emerged again in a straight taut line and forced the canoe to mimic its movements like a caboose curving languorously far behind its long snaking drive-train. Bernard could not recall what had caused his black-out. The last thing he remembered was nearing what looked like a significant fall in the widening creek and paddling furiously to keep up with the rushing log to ensure the rope would not cause the canoe to be flung like a slingshot over the drop.
He had dipped the paddle into the white-water on his left-hand side in order to steer the boat wide of an upcoming boulder when next thing he knew, his forward passage was suddenly stopped short. Although he was unaware of it, he was knocked sideways and then rolled face down, wedged tightly under the seating planks and scattered haphazardly in amongst the damp gear on the floor of the boat. The canoe continued its precipitous journey, cruising unpiloted over the falls. The front end of the boat rose like a timber tidal wave as the back of it spun around in the jostling currents of the slipping water. The boat splashed down miraculously in a cataclysmic but upright position, its seismic contortions causing his unconscious forehead to come into jarring contact with the side of the seating plank and bringing him conversely into a slow consciousness just as the widened river abruptly ceased its angry gyrations.
Bernard came to in the calm of the swirling eddy and wondered for a moment whether he was in heaven. But the sky was a natural blue and tufted with the familiar clouds of an earth-bound atmosphere. He remembered his vow to believe in an Almighty Spirit and took a moment to close his eyes and thank whoever or whatever it was that guided him to safety. It might have been a low-lying branch swiping his head as he looked in the opposite direction, but he remembered that the river’s edge had been some distance away so it would have had to be a tree growing in the middle of the river, which was unlikely, or a rock fatefully dropped by an eagle or osprey onto his head as if it was target practice. A large rock from a raptor’s beak was even more unlikely and basically unheard of. The other possibility was divine intervention. He would never know, but for what it was worth he was still alive, albeit with absolutely no recollection of how he managed the waterfall without losing the cargo, or how the boat and log were able to ford the rapids unmanned and find safe passage into the wide calm inlet.
He was uncertain how much farther or for how long he needed to continue downriver before he could find an outlet reasonably accessible to the road. Once launched, the precipitating log pulled him in the canoe at a frighteningly rapid speed. He figured he had traveled at that speed for nearly three hours before the accident occurred. He had no idea after that of how long he had floated unconscious downriver. By the position of the sun it was afternoon and he could be anywhere between the headwaters of Peregrine Creek and the junction of the Salmon River.
He scanned the horizon for landmarks. There were no mountain tops to give geographic proximity, just a sea of green — luxuriant waves of emerald, jade, viridian, khaki, olive, lime — washed across the landscape in infinitely watering-down layers one behind the other on both banks of the river and beyond them. The unstoppable lateral movement of water downstream shunted him into an illusory sense of progression in the opposing direction although his canoe was at a virtual standstill in the slow churning of the eddy. Then he saw it in the corner of his eye — a silvery flash, a flicker in the water that could only mean one thing. Finally it heaved itself fully out of the water for a fleeting second, long enough for him to see that the fish was real. His best guess was that the rapids had brought him into the Salmon River and he was now only a short distance north of the old camp town.
In the half dark, he swung the canoe around to a forty-five-degree angle to the embankment of the river, struck his oar into the pebbled sand, and heaved aching legs and a drenched body over the side of the boat. Landing uncertainly, he pulled the heavy craft onto the shore, and with the very last vestiges of strength beached the battered canoe and secured it with several large rocks he hauled one by one into the canoe. It made a substantial pile that acted as an anchor for the boat, which was tethered to the floating log intermittently straining against the fraying rope.
The darkening sky gave little light to his efforts and when the ominous clouds issued their first distant roll of thunder, he felt it come up through his feet. The lightning flash in the corner of his eye sent a chill through his body. He had never felt so fatigued in his twenty-three years, and his bones felt as splintered as the oar he had earlier struck into the ground. Instinctively he ran to the boat and removed the layers of tarp, clothing, and camp gear to uncover the guitar case that was still tightly wrapped in the sleeping bag. It was relatively dry considering the sodden condition of the canoe floor. He was relieved to find the case had managed to repel the river’s waters, even as the canoe itself had not.
He rolled all the contents he could carry into the large tarp and dragged it several yards up the sandy embankment to higher ground. The line of trees thickened as he advanced into the forest edge and there he found bone-dry pine needles under the enormous spreading boughs of an old spruce. When the rain finally descended, it was filtered to a fine mist through fifty feet of interlaced and cascading branches. The danger of bears advancing on him in the dark of night now presented him with a gruesome challenge; rather than ponder it, he immediately began searching with his torch for well-placed tree branches well above head height that he could throw tarp ropes over to create a large hammock for his provisions. For himself he planned to climb the large tree and settle into it for the night. It would not be the most comfortable bed, but after such an extended battle with the river it would be a tragedy to succumb now to the grip of a hungry, aggravated, and post-hibernation black bear.
In the morning, Bernard was thankful to find he had not fallen out of his elevated perch nor had the provisions and gear been raided. Everything was in its place, including the black case which was wedged beside him in the intricate web of structural branches that made up his crib. The scent of freshly crushed pine needles filled his nostrils and made his stomach rumble with hunger, but he was content to lie back in his high-set loft and review in his mind the events and outcome of the previous day. He drifted back into sleep again and awoke two hours later to the screech of a goshawk in the near distance.
Eventually forcing himself to climb down the tree, he inspected the log and the boat, and was much relieved to find the anchored boat still moored on the riverbank and the tethered log lapping now on the water’s edge. On its precipitous ride downriver the log had been stripped of most of the longer low-lying branches. The relatively green upper twigs and branches howev
er still clung tenaciously to the body of the sectioned timber and it was these that reached out of the water like the frail flailing arms of a drowning swimmer. This image made the young man suddenly sympathetic to his cumbersome and exhaustingly weighty burden.
Over a quick spare breakfast of oranges and sodden arrowroot biscuits, he calculated the time and distance required to retrieve his truck and return to the site. Having traveled yesterday for approximately three hours at a relatively moderate speed downstream from the junction of Peregrine Creek along the Salmon River, he calculated that he must be within striking distance of Solpetrière. Heading west through the forest with only the guitar case, sleeping bag, and his torch, he reckoned he would eventually run into the road that ran parallel to the river and with luck might be able to flag down a truck driver who would give him a lift to his own. When he had the log rolled and winched onto the pebbled beach out of the reach of the water, he set about planning a system of physical landmarks to guide a vehicle to the site.
He followed a circuitous path determined by the distance between trees which he believed a truck could pass through. With his pocket knife he cut low twigs and branches and laid them in an obvious cross directly on the path. Three hours later the forest opened into an expansive clearing and emptied the traveler onto the man-made route.
The first vehicle on the deserted loggers’ road was a tractor that ambled along more than an hour and a half later. At his wave, the driver stopped to enquire if he needed a lift. The chatty old farmer was more than happy for a bit of company, and Bernard was able to understand him even if he did not respond in kind, and so he delivered the young man directly to the door of his waiting truck. It was only after jumping in and turning the key in the ignition that the younger man discovered the battery had worn itself out waiting for his return. The farmer reversed his tractor and pulled alongside Bernard’s truck.
“Guess you’ll need a bit more of a ride. Or maybe we can recharge your batteries with this old tractor?” the man asked. “No cables?” he continued when the young man shook his head sadly and gestured the lack of cables.
“Never mind. Hop in. I’ll take you wherever you need to go. I was headed out to Scotstown for parts. This old thing has never broken down and she can take the distances better than my pick-up truck.”
The farmer initially thought he misunderstood when the young man indicated that he needed to return to the forest to retrieve a large heavy boat. But with the help of a pen and paper, he soon understood Bernard’s dilemma and to his own surprise agreed to help the stranded hitchhiker. During the slow and steadfast reverse trip, Bernard learned that Sean Gascoigne’s family had owned a dairy farm in the area since the 1840s. His mother was a Scotswoman and his father French, but they were raised Presbyterian and “free from the debilitating guilt” of the Catholic Church. His father was one of the few Frenchmen in Québec Province who encouraged his children to pray to Jesus instead of the Madonna, and had a distinct disdain for priests.
“My father’s family, you know, settled in Solpetrière only a few years before the scandal. They had given very generously toward the building of that church. Do you know about the church?” The younger man nodded his head and gestured that he had slept there.
“You slept there?” the farmer asked incredulously, facing his passenger. “But no one’s lived there since about 1890 or so. It’s become an absolute ghost town. I’ve heard it’s been reclaimed by the forest. But I’ve never been there, so it’s only what I have heard. The canton is about to demolish it and resell the land to hoteliers.”
The young man’s eyes widened at the thought of a hotel on the site of the church. He was glad that he had retrieved the guitar when he did.
“I suppose you’ve heard about what happened to the priest?” the farmer continued. With this bit of information the young man shook his head. “No? Well, it’s an old rumor now so I suppose it might be just one of those tall tales designed to scare little children and keep them away from ruins. They say the priest who built that church had a young Iroquois murdered when he found out his niece was carrying his child. The Indian died of gunshot wounds to the stomach. This devastated the niece so much she stabbed her uncle in the heart, right inside the church. No one knows what happened to the niece, or the child.”
His eyes now widened with disbelief. Could his dream have been wrong? There was much love and tenderness, he recalled, and the music was only sad, not sinister. “I don’t believe it,” Bernard said suddenly, surprised to feel the vibration of his own expressed voice in his head. The farmer turned in surprise to look at his previously silent travel companion.
“That’s all right, mon ami,” he replied. “I don’t believe it either.”
They continued in silence for a fair while until they reached the spot where Bernard knew he had exited at a natural opening in the forest. The tractor made a sharp right turn and treaded a circuitous path into the woodland following the young man’s lead, jogging on foot several yards in front of the machine and fossicking for crossed landmarks like cairns on a snowy trail, while the older man maneuvered the tractor like the expert farmhand he was. The tractor made light work of retrieving the log and canoe and both were loaded onto the machine with an ease he could not have imagined earlier. The young man continued to Scotstown with his rescuer to retrieve the tractor parts and battery jumper cables, and dropped into the local mill to have the log cut into manageable lengths. The two men bid farewell, and Bernard was on his way back to St.-Gérard arriving just at nightfall at his cabin by the lake in the full glare of the wolf’s moon and under the luminescent cloak of the Milky Way. In the clear night sky the stars appeared like a million points of enlightenment and he was certain that old Sean Gascoigne was an angel sent to him by his guardian spirits. Divine intervention had again placed the right tool at his disposal at just the right time.
2
Isabelle (Forcalquier), 1880–1881
At Le Havre, the captain waited impatiently at the dock for the loading of the émigré passengers, cargo, and mail packets. He was setting sail for Liverpool shortly, where the majority of these passengers would embark on the great transatlantic Allan Line Steamer ship to the port of Québec. From there some would carry on further to Montréal, Ontario, New Hampshire or Maine; some would remain in the old fort town. Ten-year-old Isabelle and her uncle were traveling by coach to his small parish in Solpetrière, slightly more than a camp at the base of Mont-Mégantic. But she would not know that yet, not until the two weeks of her sailing trip would bring her to the start of a very bumpy ride. The girl picked up the heavy leather trunk with all of her thin body straining at its great weight. Inside were her life’s meager treasures and the items of necessity for a girl of ten on a journey to the New World. Although she could barely manage, she kept the trunk close, fearful that it would be lost from her on the long journey. A plain brown pinafore fell to below her stockinged knees, ending well short of the scuffed brown leather boots strapped meticulously in worn but polished metal buckles.
Above her, the tall lean figure of her uncle in a cassock and cloak of heavy black wool stood on the ship’s loading area calmly issuing muffled instructions to the milling wharf-hands, rough ageless yet worn-out men with dirty beards and thick fingers who hefted the large trunks over their shoulders as if they were sacks of goose down or sawdust. The young girl looked upward toward the imposing priest whom she had met only a fortnight earlier and observed him closely. Regardless of time or place he was immaculately dressed in black from head to toe, the white clerical collar the only exception. Everyone’s attention led directly back to this impressive man of the cloth, and those around him ultimately found obedience and cooperation where otherwise there may have been idleness or neglect.
In an ad hoc but coordinated fashion, the coterie of rough men carried the trunks up the latticed loading ramp and piled them neatly to one side in the ship’s vast cargo hold. Wi
thout a word, the last case was hoisted into its place with the others in the pile and the last wharf-hand rambled down the plank nonchalantly toward the young girl. On reaching her he gently leaned forward and took the girl’s trunk from her effortlessly with one calloused and leathery hand.
“I’d like to keep this with me if at all possible, sir,” she cried with urgency, her small hand not letting go of the heavy case even as it nearly dragged her along as the man pulled it to him.
“Whatever you say, Miss,” he replied, releasing the case and with the same hand reaching out to steady the girl as she nearly tumbled over with the weight of the valise back in her possession. With a small bow of his damp head he enquired, “Where would you like it placed?”
“That’s all right. I’ll carry it myself,” she retorted, turning her back on the man and straining to drag the case behind her.
“Careful you don’t hurt yourself there, Mademoiselle!” he called out, one eyebrow raised in amusement. He watched her move away awkwardly with the worn brown valise, forcing slow progress down the side of the sailing ship to the passengers’ entry. The girl’s small body, a slanting starfish as the free arm swung up to balance the other one, strained to the breaking point. The weight of the books she had carefully packed in the case the night before nearly caused Isabelle to wish she had left them behind. With all the resolve she could muster, she urged the bag toward the entrance, but in the end acceded to the unperturbed wharfie’s assistance when the access ramp up to the ship’s opening proved too much.
Sitting alone now in her small cabin aboard the ship, she pondered the two long weeks of the ship’s journey to her new home, still considered the “New World” by residents of modern Europe. And, although a revolution of progressive industry and new scientific methods was taking hold in Europe, people’s lives were not abruptly improved as they had been promised. In the cities, and even in provincial France where she had lived, Canada held a promise of freedom and a fresh start. Tales of fur-trappers and timber merchants making fortunes in the wilderness of that wild frontier became modern legend. The French government encouraged their patriots to continue to emigrate to British-controlled Québec in order to redress the balance of French-British presence there since the turning of the tides in 1763, after the Seven Years’ War.