The Badger Riot (30 page)

The local loggers recognized Vern. They knew what he was doing. Swearing and shoving, they tried to block the taxi, but the Mounties formed a cordon and stopped them. The crowd closed in behind the car as it inched along. At this point there was no turning back.

Cursing, Vern gritted his teeth and lit up another Camel. Goddamn smoking is going to kill me, he thought. And I have the piles too. They say it's a taxi driver's complaint, from sitting too much. I think I got them from sitting in the snow up in Millertown, loaded
drunk and laughing my fool head off at the boys and the moose. My sore arse feels like I'm sittin' on a bunch of hot grapes. All Millie had in the house to smear on them was Vaseline. I used it; put a big dollop on me tender rectum, but all that done was leave a big round grease spot on the seat of my pants. Well, to hell with it. You can't have all sunshine and roses. But right now – right now – I'm in enough misery with my sore arse to take on the whole fuckin' IWA. Let the Mounties look after the fellas trying to kill me. By the Christ, they can't stop Vern Crawford. I'm going to get to Millertown
.

He released the clutch and continued on up Church Road past the United Church, past the Roman Catholic Church, past McDonald's Uptown Store, past houses of people he had known all of his life.

The inside of the taxi was smoky and stank of sweat, the kind that men sweat when they're scared. Vern had smelled it before. It smelled acidic and metallic at the same time. Sharp to the nose.

I'm afraid to slacken the window,
he thought as he inched along.
Someone might try to poke me eye out with a stick or something.
Just up ahead, he could see a cluster of loggers.
Jesus. The goddamn picket line must be two hundred strong! They knowed I was comin'. Someone ratted on me. My God, there are spies everywhere these days.

He stopped the taxi at the junction of Church Road and the Buchans Highway. On his right was the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church; on the left, homes and gardens. The snowbanks were high, crowded with women and children. He couldn't go ahead and he couldn't go back. What to do?

He spied Jennie Hillier out in front of them all. There she stood, legs apart, hands on her hips, big bosom thrust forward.
Holy fuck. That woman!
he thought.
What an armful! She must be nearly six foot. I dare say I'd have married her if she hadn't walloped me so hard that time when I told her to go on a diet. What man wants a woman who can beat him up?

“Get the hell off the road, Vern!” He heard Jennie screech so loud that he could hear her over the roar of the crowd, even with the car windows rolled up.

The angry loggers surrounded the Chrysler with its cargo of scabs. Ralph Drum was out in front of the picket line blocking Vern's way. He rapped on the window. Vern screwed it down an inch or two. “Well you son of a bitch. What did I tell you about running scabs? I told you that you'd be the sorriest bastard that ever walked.” Ralph's face had that fierce look that he had used on him before.
Frightens the shit out of me every time I see it,
Vern thought.

At a nod from Ralph, the loggers began pounding on the bonnet of the taxi with their sticks.
The sonsabitches have cracked the bloody windshield! That's the second windshield this month.
One of the guys in the back seat moaned that he wanted to throw up. Another prayed to God to get him safely back to his wife and kids. He promised God that he'd never leave them again. Buddy in the front seat was holding his crotch and whined that he shouldn't have drank them beers 'cause now he was sure he was gonna piss hisself.

Vern had almost decided to go for broke – put her in gear and crash through the picketers – when twenty big, furious men, Tom Hillier among them, physically grabbed the car. They all reached down and took hold of the undercarriage. Vern's mind and his car were caught in slow motion.
They got her off the ground! Bloody bastards! They'll ruin my car! Oh Christ Almighty!

Up, up, and around. For a few seconds the car was airborne. Then it dropped on its four wheels. Something cracked.
Goddamn it!
Vern's mind screamed.
That probably broke the shock plates!
Muffler and exhaust pipe clunked against the road. Shocks and springs complained loudly. The undercarriage squeaked and trembled. A tire went flat, inner tube and all, with a loud bang.

Vern clutched the steering wheel so hard that he felt his knuckles crack. Buddy banged his head on the dash and the smell of his hot urine mixed with the already pungent air of stress and sweat inside the car. The guy in the back puked. The sour smell of his vomit added to the other odours. The third man was silent. Perhaps he had fainted.

Vern's abused, darling Chrysler was now facing away from the Buchans Highway and the route to Millertown. As he looked back
down Church Road he could see black-coated Constabulary officers marching up toward him and the loggers.

Ralph Drum rapped on the window again. They used to be friends before this strike. They'd go rabbit catching and canoeing together.
Perhaps we will again, if this is ever over,
thought Vern. But right now he couldn't imagine setting another rabbit snare with Ralph, or with anyone else, for that matter.

“Had enough, Vern? If you haven't, we can demolish the god-damn car.” Ralph's fierce eyes glared over the top of the window. The picketers crowded around the car, their sticks raised to wallop it again.

Vern was frantic. If he lost his taxi, he might well end up back in the lumberwoods, his worst nightmare. He had to escape.

“Christ Almighty, Ralph, I think buddy in the back there is having a heart attack or something. Listen to him moaning. Goddammit, Ralph, I promise never to run another scab if you let me go.”

Ralph looked at the frightened men in the car. “All right, you cowardly weasel, go on. Take the side road; there's no one over there to stop you. I'm saving your scrawny neck, but you don't deserve it.”

Ralph's attention turned and focused on the marching police column that was almost upon them. Vern saw the men lining up across the road, sticks at the ready. He seized the opportunity and put the gas to the floor. The Chrysler, his faithful, crippled darling, skidded on three wheels onto the side road heading toward the Exploits River and the big hill. It would take him down to the A.N.D. Company property. Like a stream of urine, his taxi left behind a trail of gasoline leaking from a hole in her gas tank.

The scabs were in shock. The guy who was saying his prayers muttered that no job was worth this. Buddy who was full of stinky piss said he wished he'd stayed home with his stepmudder, bad as she was. The poor devil in the back who threw up was moaning. Perhaps he really was having a heart attack.

As for Vern, he didn't care. He just wanted them out of his car.
It would take a month to get rid of the stink of piss and vomit. Perhaps she was done for; perhaps there was too much damage to the undercarriage.

He met no one on his way down to the A.N.D. Company office. The big action was going on up by the church. Vern hustled the men out.

The vomit fellow whined, “You can't leave us here like this. The strikers will kill us before daylight.”

Vern answered, “I don't care what happens to you. Just fuck off.” He left them on the step shaking in their boots, hanging onto each other for support, wondering where to hide.

The Chrysler limped home. Vern's house was empty. He figured Millie was up there on the snowbanks with the rest of Badger. Where was Melanie? Was she up there too? He knew things were getting pretty ugly up there. Who would know better than he would? Hadn't he just left it?

The thought of his little nine-year-old daughter in the midst of a riot galvanized Vern into action. He had to go back up there.
I'll walk up the back way,
he thought.
I'll make it look like I am just another bystander.

His abused Chrysler was in the driveway. As Vern passed her on his way to find his precious daughter and his wife, the car seemed to moan at him. Vern felt like moaning too. It had been one bitch of a day.

On this day Pastor Damian Genge's mind wasn't on his usual preoccupation – a rich congregation posting in his home city – as he peeked from the corner of his church window that overlooked the intersection of Church Road and the Buchans Highway.

He smoothed back his glossy black hair with shaky fingers. He was terrified. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this. Even though he felt that he had a calling, he also thought that he had certain other characteristics that helped him preach the Good Word. He often practiced in front of the mirror, flashing his even white teeth and using his intense brown eyes to appear to be looking deeply into a person's soul. He knew he was good at making the glorious prayer words undulate off his tongue like sonorous drum rolls. Sometimes he knew how an actor must feel, as he watched people respond to what he considered his magnetism.

Badger was his trial-by-fire posting, but he'd never expected there to be this much fire in his life.

Below the window of his church were more than two hundred men – loggers, in brigs and logans, rough woollen sweaters and stocking caps – all caught up in the violently escalating hysteria that had gripped them and the townspeople alike.

Many of them were his parishioners. His eyes picked them out as he scanned the scene below. There was Jennie Hillier on the snowbank, screaming and shaking her fist. Bright red hair, tall, handsome and outspoken, the woman was foremost in everything.

At prayer meetings, she was the first to stand up and proclaim her faith in God. She had put herself in charge of the Women's Mission, collecting and rolling pennies from the other ladies and directing the proceeds overseas to missionaries in Africa. She was also the only woman on the community council. Pastor Damian hadn't been a bit surprised when he heard she was running the women's side of the picket lines. In his mind, Jennie was capable of whatever she took on. There was something about her that intrigued him. But then, he'd always felt a bond with strong women – the slight masculinity in them, he supposed, made them safe to be with because they didn't expect anything from him, things he wasn't able to give.

Only about one third of the men gathered at the crossroads that evening were actual Badger residents. The town was overflowing with strangers from places like Bonne Bay, Lewisporte, Seal Cove, Springdale and Roberts Arm, places Damian had heard of but never visited. But evangelical arms reached long into outport Newfoundland and he had seen some of the strangers at his Sunday services. These men brought their beliefs with them as they rallied to support the loggers' union.

Standing at the front of the men was Jennie's husband, Big Tom Hillier, stick in hand. The Mi'kmaq man, Ralph Drum, and his brothers and cousins stood beside him. Several other Badger men clustered around them.

Damian thought about how the men had asked him if they could stow their birch billets in the church porch. Confronted in the middle of the night by determined brawny loggers, he never even considered saying no. The slim birch sticks, all of them exactly eighteen inches long, were specially cut by the strikers to defend themselves should the need arise. And now it seemed the need to use them
had
arisen.

Something was astir. A beige taxi came slowly up the road and was stopped by the picketers. Damian could see Vern Crawford at the wheel. The pastor wasn't well-acquainted with Vern, a Catholic, but he'd heard rumours that Vern moved scabs around in his scruffy-looking car.

The strikers were attacking the vehicle! Damian cried out, his eyes fixed on the scene below.
Blessed Jesus, have mercy.
He began to pray. The men lifted the car and turned it around! He could see the scared white faces of the men inside. On the outside were the determined, set faces of the loggers as they battered the windshield of the car with their sticks and fists.

Oh my Lord, no, no . . . how has this come to pass?

Ralph Drum, near the front of the group, seemed to have his attention diverted from the taxi by something that was happening back down Church Road. Damian watched as Vern seized his chance and slithered away on the side road toward the River.

The strikers formed a solid line across the road, their billets at the ready. Pressing his face against the glass and looking to the left, Pastor Genge could see down Church Road. Black-coated police were marching toward the picket line.

As he gazed down at the scene below, Damian wondered if God was looking through his eyes. Had God created mankind to hate each other in this way? Whose side was God taking in a time when everyone was taking sides? Or did God allow man leeway to chose? Was there a lesson here for him to learn? He prayed fervently for guidance, for his own safety and for the safety of his flock.

Cecil Nippard huddled deep into the collar of his jacket as he stood on the steps of the A.N.D. Company office. He was shivering, partly with fright and partly because of the stain down the front of his brigs. He was glad that the sun had gone down. In the darkness no one would see that he had wet his pants.