The Badger Riot (5 page)

Jennie, Vern and Ralph attended the Catholic school, while Tom Hillier went to the Protestant. Consequently, although she'd known Tom all her life, Jennie didn't really
know
him. The Hilliers lived at least a mile or two from the Sullivans, in on Halls Bay Road, the highway going toward Springdale. Tom's father was the station master, while Jennie's Pap was drive boss. Although they lived in the same small town and the Sullivans and the Hilliers said hello if they passed each other on the street, they never mixed or visited each other, or had anything in common. Religion dominated all social events, friendships, courtships, and business. Catholic youngsters tended to play with Catholics and Protestant youngsters with Protestants.

Tom's family was Pentecostal. The Pentecostals had built a big church, the biggest one in Badger, at the end of Church Road. Many Anglicans had converted and Tom's parents were among them. Later, when the highway went through to Millertown and Buchans, this church would sit at a crossroads, a crossroads that would come to bear the stamp of history.

As teenagers, Tom and Jennie used to see each other around and she always felt drawn toward him, perhaps because he was so big and tall, perhaps because of the way he loped around in those big black boots, or perhaps because of his kind grey eyes, that seemed to stray to Jennie whenever they were near each other. Jennie told herself there was no use in pining after a Protestant who lived in on Halls Bay Road, and Tom thought there was no use of him wanting a Catholic girl who lived Up the Track.

All along, the Sullivans and the Crawfords kept hoping that Jennie and Vern would marry when they grew up. Two Catholics, no cross-religion marriage; the families loved the thought of it.

Well, I tried
, Jennie thought.
God knows I really tried to like Vern, but there was something shifty and slick about him. The first time he
tried to kiss me his lips were so wet and his mouth so full of spit that I nearly threw up
.

And another time, at a teenage dance when she was sixteen, growing tall and large and Vern staying short and small, he had the friggin' nerve to say, “You're getting too big to put my arms around, Jennie. You needs to go on diet.”

She had smacked him hard for that remark and wouldn't speak to him for months.
Dumb-arse
, she thought savagely.
He didn't even have a clue why I smacked him. Sacred Heart! Some guys are some stunned!

But it was hard for her not to keep noticing Tom Hillier. First of all, as he grew tall Jennie had to look up at him. Sometimes she made a point of “accidentally” standing near him if they were hanging out by the train station or standing in line at the chip stand where a paper cone of hot chips cost ten cents. One evening he bought one for her.

“Here,” he said shyly, “have one on me.”

It made Jennie's heart do a flip when he looked down at her. She took it. She would've taken a cone full of coal at that moment, so glad was she that it had come from Tom's hands.

But besides his height, Jennie saw that Tom was a good-hearted person. He'd go out of his way for anyone. Jennie used to stray over to the field by the River to see him play a game of rounders with the boys. She knew that Tom noticed her, but she pretended not to see him, in the fashion of girls and women when they are attracted to someone, but not being too forward about it.

One evening, as she stood on the sidelines, Jennie was concentrating on Tom as he loped across the field when, not paying attention to who was hitting the ball, something smacked her in the head. Jennie knew no more.

When she came around, the first thing she saw was a pair of grey eyes looking into hers. They were Tom Hillier's and he had his arm under her shoulders. The crowd had gathered around, everyone offering their advice.

“Geez, Jennie maid, you coulda been killed.”

“Didn't you see the friggin' ball?”

“Keep her still, don't move her.”

“Here's my handkerchief. I wetted it in the River. Put it on her forehead.”

Tom told them all to move back a bit and asked Jennie if she could stand up. Oooh, she was so dizzy. She fell against him, discovering, even in her dizziness, that her head just fit into the curve of his chest. “I'm going to take her home, guys. Go on back to your game without me,” he yelled. With that he lifted Jennie effortlessly into his arms and walked across the road.

The players drifted back to the field, all except Phonse, who tagged along saying, “If Jennie arrives home in that state without me, Mam will give me the sharp edge of her tongue for not looking after me sister.”

Jennie, whose head was swimming from the crack of the heavy leather ball, thought she had died and gone to heaven. Nestled in Tom's strong arms, leaning against his chest, she could hear the thudding of his heart as he walked. Every now and then he would look down at her and she could feel his breath on her cheek. When they arrived, Mam was in a fuss. She settled Jennie on the daybed and got a cold face cloth for the bump on her temple. Tom and Phonse stood by uncertainly.

“Well, young Tom Hillier,” said Mam, as she surveyed him, “you've grown into quite a big boy.” Bridey was no fool. She'd seen the way Tom had been looking at Jennie as he walked in the door with her, and the way her daughter's eyes were looking up into his. But Tom was a Protestant. This would not do, not do at all.

“I'm almost seventeen now, Mrs. Sullivan,” Tom answered.

“Well, thanks for helping Jennie home today, but it weren't necessary.” She turned to her son. “I s'pose you could've done it yourself, Phonse, and not have taken Tom away from his game.”

“Aw, Mam, she's me sister. I wudn't going to lug her all the way up the track. Besides, she's too heavy for me, sure.”

Tom said, “It was no trouble at all for me, missus.”

Mam looked at him and heaved a sigh. “No, I don't suppose it was.”

Throughout the conversation Jennie kept her eyes closed. She knew it was because Tom was Protestant that Mam was behaving like this. If Ralph or Vern had helped her home, she'd be getting a glass of syrup and a bit of cake for them. She didn't offer Tom anything. And that wasn't like her mother.

“I'd better go,” Tom said. “Take care of yourself, Jennie.”

She opened her eyes. The room was spinning a bit. “Tom, thanks for helping me.”

He met her eyes and they looked at each other for a long moment. He smiled, and then gave her a wink and bounded out over the front step. Despite her pounding head, Jennie couldn't help but smile too. She knew there'd be other meetings – without Mam.

Rod Anderson received a letter from his Uncle Aaron advising him to be ready to join him on the gulf ferry, the SS
Caribou,
on the first of July. He showed the letter to his father.

“So Rod, my son, I'm not going to ask you if you wants to go, 'cause I know you do. All I'm going to say is you're all I have left now. The woods contractor job is a good one and you could get used to it, you know.”

Rod felt his heart sink at his father's words. Ever since Melvin had died, he'd known that this day was coming. He'd just refused to believe it. Who could blame his poor father? How could he leave him? The old man was looking at him, beseeching.

“Yes Pop, I know you need me. I'll stay with you.”

That night he dreamed again. He was at the seashore; the tide was going out, and out, and out. As it did, tall spruce trees grew up where the sand was. When he awoke, Rod lay still, thinking bitterly that if there was ever a dream that was significant, this was it. He could see the pattern of the days and years to come. He was dreading it. Hating it.

That summer Rod started in the woods with his father. He had written his grade eleven exams, passed tolerably well, and his father thought it was good enough for him to manage the contracting business. It was more than
he'd
started with, he said. Rod was now a man, seventeen years old, and working as a full-time logger.

As they worked side by side, Rod watched his father closely to see
where he cut corners to increase his profits. The only way Rod could make sense of it was that a woods contractor was like being a private businessman in that you had some control over your expenses. But that wasn't quite right either, because in another way, the A.N.D. Company was in command of the operation to the extent that sometimes the contractor felt as though he was no different from the loggers.

The Anderson camp, considered a prime spot, was closest to Badger: across the River and in through the forest on a woods road about twenty-five miles up on Sandy Lake. The camp held a crew of forty men who were fed whatever was available in foodstuffs, by a cook and cookee. White navy beans were the staple food: boiled, baked or fried. This, coupled with white bread, strong tea and molasses buns, day after day, breakfast and supper, was far from being nourishing, even though it filled their bellies. All the camps were the same. The Company kept everything on a tight rein.

The bunks were infested with bedbugs and lice. The only heat came from a converted oil drum. The men had only cold water to wash in. Most never washed at all. It was 1933 and camp life had not come forward in the almost thirty years that the A.N.D. Company had been harvesting pulpwood.

Eli and Rod Anderson had never seen anything different. Woods camps were expected to provide only the barest essentials. The men didn't come in to them to work as loggers expecting luxuries and fine accommodations. They never considered change, and for sure the Company didn't.

One evening, in early summer, Rod took his fishing pole and went over to Drum's Pond, not far from the camp. Trout were a good supplement to the beans diet, but it was hard to get free time to sit by a pond and fish. He cast out his line and sat quietly gazing at the still pond water, so different from the ocean that was always alive with motion. Sometimes Rod even envied the River, making its way unhindered to the sea, while he was forever stuck inland among the trees. Such foolish thoughts only depressed him, but sometimes he got so caught up in his own private misery and anger that he couldn't help himself.
Rod glanced to his left and noticed a man sitting no more than three feet away. It was Peter Drum. Rod had not heard him come up, but that didn't surprise him. He knew the Indians moved through the forest like shadows. He had grown up knowing the Mi'kmaq people. Many of them were trappers and guides; some were loggers.

The old man took out his pipe and filled it with tobacco, all the while watching Rod.

“Good evening, sir,” Rod ventured.

Peter struck a match, applied the flame to the tobacco, and puffed until the pipe was lit. “Do you smoke, young man?”

“Uh . . . no, not very much.”

“Would you like to draw on my pipe? I would be honoured if you would.”

Rod was embarrassed. What could he say without sounding rude? He took the pipe and drew in tentatively, expecting it to be horrible tasting.

It wasn't. Rod felt pleasantly surprised. He took another draw, deeper into his lungs. Time slowed down.
What does the old Indian have in this tobacco?
He looked at Peter Drum through the haze of smoke. The old man was smiling.

“Sleep now, young man. I am giving you a spirit guide. When you awaken, it will be the first sound you hear. Let it guide you and soothe you through rough times.”

It seemed to Rod that it was Melvin sitting on the bank next to him. Melvin, whole and well. “Rod,” he said, “you are thinking that being in the logging camp is the worst thing that could've happened to you. But it's not. In a few years the ship that you would've gone to sea on, the
Caribou,
will sink. You're not meant to go that way, brother. Do your best with father. I'll be around. You'll know when you hear this sound.”

Rod came awake suddenly. He was alone on the bank. His fishing pole had fallen over the bank into the water. There was no Indian and no pipe. The lonely, echoing call of a loon came over the pond, sounding near and far away at the same time, as loon trills do.

Maybe the loon was his spirit guide, sent to him by his brother. When he was younger, he'd heard the Mi'kmaq boys talk about spirit guides in animal form. They said it could be the bear, otter, fox, crow, hawk or other beings in the animal world. Who was to say that the loon wasn't there for Rod?

He certainly would never tell anyone about this experience. Every white person he knew would laugh at him and he'd never live it down. Serious sober Rod believing in such things? Never.

Rod kept the incident close to his heart. Whether it was all a dream or not, it comforted him, just as the Indian man had said it would. Over the years, when the going got rough, when Rod thought he couldn't stand another minute of life in the woods camp, he would slip off alone, to a pond or to the River and listen for the call of the loon. Most times it would come, sounding lonely and lost. But Rod privately considered it a connection with his long-dead brother and it helped him continue on with his life.