Blackstrap Hawco (34 page)

IV

resettlement

the sun on the clean snow set the valley aglow, assaulted his eyes as blackstrap hawco ran toward the white pasture at the side of his house, climbing the fence, one leg, then the other, tumbling over into the stretch of snow separating their yard from the butlers', he raced clumsily through the sticky snow, then fell face first, hands bracing himself, he remained still and breathed into the warmness between his skin and the cold ground, he thought of junior, deep in the ground, deep, deep in the frozen earth, the way he had been beneath the ocean, but now beneath the earth, not moving, he thought the hot tears he was holding back might pour at any moment and melt the field of snow, junior a hero, it made him stronger and sadder, that junior was a hero, his big brother, a hero, he focused only on that, bravery, but it was bad, too, wrong, he lifted his head and stared back toward the house, his father shovelling the snow away, scraping every speck of white from the front walk and then trudging around the house to the back door, shovelling there,

blackstrap noticed his father's slight limp, on cold days like these, the limp became pronounced and he thought of the story of how his father broke his leg on the trapline and set it himself, waited for it to heal, then walked out on his own, walked out in a blinding storm and appeared in their house the very night that blackstrap was born, the story reassured him, gave a special magic to his birth, stories towered above his father, not like others who spoke words, but did nothing, like in school, all the words from other places that had nothing to do with him, he leapt up from the snow and raced back toward the house, over their fence, one leg, the other, falling, up on his feet again, he stopped, thought he should stay clear of his father, watched him, shovelling steadily, he went a little nearer, testing, his father not even seeing him, until blackstrap said: ‘i'll do it,' woollen mitten held out,

‘is done,' jacob replied sharply, without looking up,

blackstrap moved his foot back from where his father was vigorously shovelling, sweat on his father's forehead, angry, he wanted to help, but his father would not allow him, he watched his father's face fighting against something, jacob's lips turning tight and bloodless,

‘jacob,' a voice behind him, jacob straightened at once and glared toward the voice, saw that it was their neighbour, lloyd butler, a portly man in cap and suspenders, stood on the path with a beagle not far behind him, the mutt sniffing at the ground in quick sloppy circles,

‘i jus 'erd,' said lloyd,

jacob nodded in acceptance and continued shovelling,

‘we all be move'n in da spring,' lloyd went on,

‘move'n?' blackstrap said,

jacob would not look at his son, resettlement, no control over it, no say about being hauled off his land, his roots, this terrible wonderful place so close to the ocean, he had heard through rumours where they were going, a place called cutland junction, closer to a hospital and bigger schools and with better roads, he had been there three or four times before and knew one man from up that way; the man who used to deliver the coal, isaac tuttle,

‘move'n where?' blackstrap asked his father,

‘g'wan inside,' jacob barked, without looking at the boy, blackstrap glanced at lloyd butler who was showing his sad face as the boy moved near the back door, but did not enter, instead, he raced down the hill, toward the water, then up the rocky headland with rugged stunted spruce he sometimes grabbed hold of for support, along the snow-covered goat's path with patches of brown grass bent above the surface, striding up, securing his footing, then having to bend forward, to grab, steeper and steeper, and slower, but never slipping once, toward the top, up over the lip, where, in the summer, he found the bones of small dead animals brought up there by the gulls or crows, it was a pure white headland now, blazing like the uncovering of one enormous bone bleached by the sun,

blackstrap stared back at his house, far below, the fenced yard, the wholeness of his house set beside their small barn, and the shed where the nets were hung to dry, the other houses, spaced apart and rising up
from the valley, he counted them, ten, more houses up over the hill, toward the school and church, but he could not see them, he pulled off his green and white woollen mittens and watched the steam rise from his hands, wafting about like vapour in the windless air,

a stare out over the water, the deep blue horizon to his left that settled along the paler blue line of sky, and in the centre of his vision the back of bell isle, the ragged straight-down cut of long narrow land, an island off the coast of an island, with its iron ore riches, set offshore only for the purpose of tempting his brother away from them, junior had been dead for five months, and his mother with a baby soon on the way, and now they were moving, he would have to leave his friends: paddy murphy, tommy bishop, harold butler, benjamin taylor, he would not even be able to race up the headland again to look out over the place that had caused his family such hardship and grief,

a change in his heart, like the way the wind turned, no longer toward but away,

good riddance,

 

entirely not, junior hawco, unaware enough to ask: what order to events, when he steps from the room it scrambles, before and after one and the same, never again permitted to touch the certainty of this:

the priest's words: ‘the earth moved and a line was divided and one of our native sons was swallowed up,' silence, a sob, a cough, a rustle of clothing, tears, as the community sat still in pews,

‘jacob hawco junior was a fine young man, a sensitive and an intelligent young man who cherished life, a brother, a son, a friend who was appreciated by all, a young man who cared for those of us fortunate enough to know him, always willing to lend a hand, who went out of his way to help the elderly and spend time with them, to listen to their stories, an altar boy who, for years, served up here with me in this very church, and then, as he grew in years, a man who set out to seek his fortune, finding work to do his part for his loving family, a man who knew his obligations, and now…a man who valued life to such a degree that he could not see it destroyed, who gave his own life to save another, in death, junior hawco remains the man who adored life, junior hawco,
a man of faith and action, now becomes one more commendable thing to us: a hero for all eternity,'

emily hawco heard the priest's speech repeated in her dreams, her son in the wreckage of confusion that blocked his progression back to her, it was all a mistake, junior smiled at her, it was someone else who had been killed, mom, i was only gone away for a while, mistaken identity, junior smiled boyishly, his eyes gleaming with such clarity, always the perfect child, he sat at their kitchen table, patiently explained the misunderstanding while eating a slice of homemade bread and molasses, hungry, devouring the bread, it was all so easy, so foolish, how can i be dead, mom, he said in that voice she craved to hear again, i wasn't even there, i was away, just to look at him, to marvel at his face,

i miss junior,

waking to the darkness, emily listened while the voice from her dream faded, a presence beside her, junior, older than ever, her fingers reaching out, no, jacob's face, breath from his lips, she stared at his shut eyes, hoping that it might still be junior, finding his way home, but it was not, and she rose to her feet, as though to move away from the bed would be to leave behind the muted panic and calamity that was fixed there for her to rest with,

‘oh, god,' she whispered, choking on a sob, seeing, by the faint moonlight swelling through the window, her breath lingering in the air, her eyes on jacob's sleeping form, his body beneath the blankets, his thick fingers on the pillow, the desperation of winter, the chill, why her son, why such coldness, such darkness and deadening of spirit, why not him, jacob, the one who would not die,

she had been told that junior saved a man, a man named shab reardon, and had lost his own life in the doing, her thoughts were inflicted with images of the deed, the accident, the underground quake along the faultline that ran directly toward bareneed, this man, shab reardon, one of the miners had told jacob that shab hadn't even taken the time to pay his respects at junior's funeral, jacob had cursed the man, raging around the back yard, kicking things over in the small barn, cursing at the injustice,

‘'e's a mean, 'orrible man,' maude butler had told emily, and junior had saved him, ‘a drunk 'n da worst sort 'o bully,' it was so much like junior
to do such a thing, emily thought, why so much like him, tears flooding her eyes, if shab reardon had been a judge or a senator junior would probably have thought twice about being so brave, no, it wouldn't have mattered to him,

‘junior,' she whispered, the word cut to silence, she wiped at her eyes and sniffed, then quietly trod toward her stool positioned before her mother's three-mirror vanity, sitting, she watched her ghostly reflection sink into view, wondering about her ugly life, the pain in her heart and stomach that compounded to gather torment in her entire body, raising a hand to her forehead, she weakened further,

a deep breath, junior's final letter to her rested beside her bottle of white shoulders that he had brought on his last visit, her mother's comb and brush set on the doily, the photograph of her mother and father in england, their old house, a stately manor, she raised junior's letter in both of her hands and read about the people of bell isle, the sad people that junior was taken with, drew into his heart and loved as kin,

a tear dropped and landed with a gentle flicking sound, puckering the paper in a starburst shape, she glanced at the dark mirror, the vague shadow of jacob in bed, the sound of his breathing, he rolled over, settled, not sensing her absence, she knew that junior must have loved this man, in death, she found the need for honesty, not truth – truth always belonged to someone else – but honesty was needed now, with junior's death, she found no need to lie to herself any longer,

but why such a horrible man, why would her kind, gentle-minded son do such a thing, why love such a horrible man,

her fingers holding the letter, junior's long delicate fingers in the casket, all that they could find of him, all that remained after the cave-in, and then the explosion, dynamite set off by an overturned lantern, his four fingers arranged on the lacy pillow, loose, but in the shape of a hand, she had spaced them herself, set them apart by exact distances, as calculated from memory,

V

not what is wanted to be known of shab

shab reardon called to one of the workhorses, making a noise with his lips and whistling at once, stepping nearer the wooden stables built into a recess off the main corridor of iron ore rock, a cavern of black tinged purple and red with the ragged walls chipped away as though under the tools of a sculptor, he moved along the horse's length, nudged its head with his shoulder, then grabbed the long nose and steadied it between his elbow and side, holding on as the horse tried to jerk its head upwards, shab bore down against the rising force, his face smiling into the animal's eyes, as though in friendly yet challenging recognition, one front tooth missing and the muscles in his arms as thick as fence posts, in the wrong body, junior thought,

shab cradled the horse's head in place while its hooves shuffled back and forward,

junior felt this a sight inextricably linked to love, an image to put into slow words in the dark, telling his lovers in later years, this kindness toward his other, watching junior while shab released his hold on the horse and laughed, ‘atta b'y,' rubbing the horse and reaching into his pocket for a fresh carrot plucked from the earth on the way to work,

‘best 'a kind, right,' he said to the horse, feeding it the carrot from the open palm of his hand, then smoothly rubbing its throat, ‘some 'orses, buddy,' he winked at junior, ‘down 'ere dey never see da light o' day, blind when dey go up, born in 'ere, dead in 'ere,' shab seeming proud of that, ‘nut'n more ta it den dat,'

‘yes,' was all junior could manage, tired and burnt around the edges, his ability to summon the usual choice string of words eluded him, shab watched junior, smiling in friendship, chuckling, waiting for such a comment,

‘you aw'right, or wha', buddy,'

‘yeah,'

shab came away from the horse and slapped his arm around junior's shoulders, squeezing with his big hand and leading him from the stable and into the rushing scraping sounds of ore being shovelled into the cars, of men spitting and blowing snot from their nostrils in the hollow, tunnelled resonant echo of sound,

‘let's 'av a mug up,' shab insisted, pulling junior along,

‘i forgot my lunch,'

‘da's awright, b'y, you can 'av me own, christ, ya worries too much,' junior glanced at shab's grinning face, an utterly different man when sober, harmless, almost boyish, lost, an orphan, junior had heard, growing up without father or mother, knowing nothing of how to get along, responsibility, only drinking to make his way clear of himself, to prove himself other than himself, drinking until every last cent of his wages was spent, pissed away and proud of it, nothing but a poisoned mind,
lucky man
, junior thought,

‘i got a drop 'a tea in me t'ermos,' shab nodded down at his lunch box, ‘gertie's young one gets it fer me, finest kind, right, being tended to like a king,' he winked at junior, ‘lard over everyt'ing,'

junior watched the gouged contours of the black and red rock, perceiving the sloppy geometrical texture of the clawed edges with a startling vividness, he breathed breath that knew of seclusion, limited oxygen, he was far underground, far beneath the ocean itself, sixteen hundred feet of earth above him, plus the weight of the sea, its true depth unknown, bearing down, tension in the centre of him, the land knowing, keeping count,