by Steve Vernon
There was no more time for second thoughts. The bridge swung again and at that moment, a cable snapped under the strain, pitching the five to their knees.
David would have been torn away by the torrential force of the river, except he had a death grip on one end of the snapped cable. Lawrence was hopelessly tangled in the bridgework and bouncing like a bobbing cork in the water. Old Stewart hung onto the bridgework, harder than any barnacle. Tennyson kicked and dangled, his hands wrapped around a rope, his feet caught up in the current behind him.
“I’m going to swim for it,” young Willard called out as he let go of his grip and struck out into the Miramichi. By all reports he was the first to go. The water took him, tossed him up and under, and he washed ashore miles down the river. As far as the townsfolk could tell he had drowned just minutes after he hit the river.
David Price continued to inch along the cable, pulling him–self in as it whipped about in the river water. His heavy hip wad–ers filled with river water and threatened to drag him under. He remembered swearing to God above that if he could be saved from this mishap he would never sin again.
Meanwhile the folks on the shoreline could only stare in hor–ror as the bridge slowly tore itself apart, urged by the spring tide and the weight of the men. Some looked away in revulsion, while others tried in vain to throw rescue ropes.
The terror of the moment intensified as Tennyson’s hands lost their grip, and he was carried off by the Miramichi. There would be no wedding for this poor young man, who no doubt went to his death dreaming of his wife-to-be. Lawrence thought he saw tears in Tennyson’s eyes as his grip failed him, but it might have been nothing more than river spray.
The next to go was old Stewart, whose hand cramped up and betrayed him.
“I guess I’ll have to go now,” he was heard to say, as if he were only stepping out for a short swim.
Meanwhile, David continued to whip about in the water, drag–ging himself closer to shore. His fingers were numbed chunks of dead meat, nearly frozen by the icy tide. A pain shot through his left leg and he was afraid that the impact of hitting the river had broken it.
At that moment, he heard a quiet voice calmly calling to him.
“Take your time, David,” the voice said. “You’ve got all the time in the world.”
He swore that he knew that voice, but for the life of him, he could not place it. He kicked his heavy water-laden boots free and continued to inch his way towards the shore. He could see the fishermen now, and the screams of the onlookers urged him closer. No one was more surprised than he, when he felt his bare feet stick into the sludge of the muddy shoreline.
Now there was no one left but young Lawrence, tangled hard in the wire work of the bridge. He could not last much longer out there. The freezing river current would chill his life away.
“Oh God,” his mother called from the shoreline. “Won’t some–one try and save him?”
“I guess it’s up to me, then,” Tom Wilson, a local fisherman, said as he tried to push a dory into the water.
“You’re not alone in this,” his friend Claude said, as he took the other side of the dory.
The two of them struck out, hauling hard at the oars. They were determined to save the boy. It was a battle rowing the dory out into those waters, and it nearly took the two of them with it. They rowed the dory closer, then Claude steadied it as Tom Wilson reached out with a pair of hand pliers. Working at the bridge wiring, he nearly dropped the pliers twice, before finally managing to cut young Lawrence Price free.
As hard as cutting the wire had been, dragging Lawrence into the dory was even harder. They managed the trick, and rowed Lawrence back to the shoreline and the arms of his waiting mother and anxious family. They say he shivered for two whole days, but in the end, both David and Lawrence lived good long lives.
For days afterward folks swore they could still hear the cables of the bridge swinging wildly in the wind. Sometimes at night the local townspeople say they see three figures walking by the river towards the distant ocean. Maybe they were only shoreline hik–ers, but folks around Priceville still remember and talk about that fateful May morning.
They rebuilt the bridge with a sturdy centre pier and it’s per–fectly safe since its reconstruction. People still love to walk across the bridge, but the older townsfolk who still remember that day have probably wondered to themselves as they walk slowly across the McNamee Swinging Bridge.
4
THE
MONCTON WITCH
MONCTON
Moncton is the second largest city in the province of New Brunswick — it ought to be chockablock full of ghost stories and so it is. Monctonians in the know will tell you of the Capitol Theatre, the site of the city’s only recorded death of a firefighter in the line of duty. On March 6, 1926, a raging fire took the life of Alexander H. Lindsay, who became the theatre’s infamous resident ghost. Theatre staff will tell you that they’ve often seen the shape of someone moving behind the ticket booth after everyone else has left. Noises have been heard, and the smell of smoke sometimes per–vades certain areas of the theatre, but the ghost is dutifully quiet during any performance. Some folks will tell you that it is the ghost of a little girl who was also killed in the fire, but I’m not so sure about that. I imagine you’d have to ask the ghost the next time you see it.
However, we aren’t here to talk about theatre ghosts.
The city of Moncton was named after Robert Monckton, the British military commander who captured nearby Fort Beauséjour in 1755 and went on to oversee the infamous and ruthless depor–tation of the Acadians. The missing letter k was dropped in 1786 due to a typing error directly attributed to an overworked clerk. Don’t you love bureaucracy in action?
If you ask around town for ghost stories, folks will tell you the story of Rebecca Lutes, the Moncton witch. Others will tell you that Rebecca Lutes was just a farm girl who died of tuberculosis back in 1876. That’s not the way I heard it, however. Let me tell you the tale as it came to me.
Pull up a rock and give a listen, would you?
It was an evil time in Moncton, New Brunswick. A plague of consumption was sweeping the area, claiming lives wherever it touched. Crops were bad and unexplained fires razed more than a few barns and farmhouses. Farm animals were stolen and slaughtered. Strange lights were seen dancing in the dark night sky, and rumours of demonic rituals were whispered about town. All of this pointed to the work of a witch and certain members of the town set out to find a handy scapegoat.
No one is quite sure just how the trail of evidence led to young Rebecca Lutes, but a mob of concerned citizens dragged her out of her home one night, forced her into the woods, and hung her from a tall, old poplar tree. Afterwards, convinced that they had done what was right, they buried her face down at the foot of the tree, so that if by some devilish power her body should return to life, she could claw down to that hot cellar that old Satan keeps burning for folks who like to dabble in magic.
“That’ll fix her,” they swore.
Apparently that simple burial wasn’t enough for some deter–mined witch hunters, who thought further and stronger measures of protection were called for when dealing with such arcane power.
“She’s too powerful a sorceress,” they claimed. “She’ll find her way back to us, even if she has to dig herself clear to China.”
So the witch hunters decided that the best way to protect them–selves from Rebecca Lutes was to pour a large slab of concrete directly over her grave. That way, they figured, she’d be sealed up tight and would bother them no longer.
So how did Rebecca Lutes die? Official records list one Rebecca Lutes as indeed living in a farmhouse on this very road and dying on the date in question, January 2, 1876; however, her cause of death is listed as consumption.
A mysterious concrete slab can be found along the Gorge Road, just before you arrive at a local rock quarry and an aban–doned cement and culvert company, but another explanation has been given
for this. The Lutes’s farm was apparently sold after Rebecca’s death, and the new owner was unhappy to discover that provincial statutes declared that the gravesite became the responsibility of whoever purchased the land beside it. So, the story goes, the farmer poured the slab over the grave and fenced off the site to prevent possible vandalism, and damage to his farm equipment if he inadvertently ploughed over the slab. In later years, he moved on. The farm fell into disuse and the outbuild–ings and farmhouse were condemned and torn down.
The legend of Rebecca Lutes sprung up in the minds of local teenagers who swear that the gravesite is haunted by the spirit of a jet black cat with red fiery eyes —presumably Rebecca’s famil–iar. Strange bloodstains have been found on the cement only to vanish shortly afterward. Eerie lights are seen and mournful sounds are heard up this road, and passersby will tell you that they feel a distinct and uneasy chill as they walk past the concrete slab by night.
So was Rebecca really a witch or was she just a simple farm girl whose memory unjustly suffers from modern-day teenagers’ restless imaginations? The storyteller in me has already made his decision, but I’ll keep that verdict buried under a yard or two of freshly poured concrete for now.
5
CLUTCH
AND CLAW
WOLF POINT
New Brunswick’s forests hold an awful lot of secrets. The woods are full of life and death as green shoots push up through the ground cover of dead branches, pine needles, and rotted leaves. More bone–yard than forest, never are you closer to the secrets of life and death than when you travel these winding paths through the woods. The wind is a whisper gossip–ing with the trees. Listen hard when you travel alone in the woodland. There’s just no telling what you’ll hear.
The Bay of Fundy stabs upwards into the Maritimes, slicing a watery barrier between Nova Scotia and New Bruns-wick. As it approaches Westmoreland County the bay is split in two by one long peninsula, forming Shepody Bay on the side closest to New Brunswick and Cumberland Basin on the Nova Scotia side.
The waters here are anything but calm, surging upwards to create the world famous tidal bore of the Petitcodiac River. I have seen this bore, and to my overactive storyteller’s imagination it looked as if a sea serpent was speeding straight up the river, cut–ting a wild, strong wake behind itself.
On the shores of Shepody Bay a little cape juts out into the surge of the Atlantic Ocean. This cape is called Wolf Point, and though you won’t find it on too many maps, the local folk may be able to point you to it. They will warn you of the quicksand and boggy terrain that abounds in that part of the countryside. Some folks believe this dangerous terrain is caused by the Fundy tides working their way through underwater passages, while other folks will talk of darker doings.
Let me take you back to the days of the American Revolution. Britain was on the tail end of a defeat and the Loyalists, who remained faithful to the monarchy and the British Empire, were in retreat. They travelled up to the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, seeking shelter and hoping to find a little peace.
One of these Loyalists, whom we shall call Miles, landed in a small skiff upon the shores of Wolf Point. He was accompanied by a trusted servant, Dougal, who had chosen to follow Miles to this new country rather than remain in America. Miles, like a lot of Loyalists, had to flee on very short notice. He carried his cash in a moneybelt tucked beneath his shirt.
Miles purchased a horse from a local farmer and rested near the shoreline, trying to gather his thoughts. Along with nearly fifty thousand fellow stubborn lovers of the crown, he had fled his home of New York following the end of the American Revolution and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. He had left everything behind, taking only what he could carry. It was a scary situation and he was doing his best to cope. He decided to make camp beside a twisted apple tree and a cool running stream.
“Prepare a meal,” he told Dougal. “We’ll rest here for now before travelling inland.”
Dougal was a little tired of his master’s constant orders, and he was weary from the long journey as well. Still, he had served this man for ten long years. He went to the bags and got out the provi–sions they’d brought, following his master’s command.
Old habits die hard.
Except fate stepped in. Dougal, tired from the journey, stum–bled as he was bringing Miles his meal and spilled the food upon the ground.
“You clumsy cur,” Miles cursed. He was a proud man, upset that he’d been reduced to such circumstances. Pride leads to anger —and you know what comes next.
Miles beat Dougal again and again with his riding crop. Dougal lost his temper and grabbed hold of a winter-fallen branch of an apple tree. He beat Miles into the dirt, taking out the years of frustration caused by his obedience in one mad act of violence. A poorly swung blow crumpled Miles’s skull like an overripe water–melon. Miles fell to the ground and didn’t stir.
Dougal stared down at Miles. Fear clutched him in its tight, bony grip. He hadn’t meant to kill the man. He had just lost his temper and found it too late. He knelt and attempted to scoop out a hasty grave, using the end of the bloodstained apple-wood branch as a makeshift shovel. It’s hard work rooting in the dirt with a stick. It took a good half-hour to make any kind of impres–sion in the ground.
Finally the grave was dug. Dougal stood, grunting as he straight–ened his back. He still didn’t know what he could do. He was safe enough, he supposed. His master had fled New York in the safety of the night without telling anyone where he was bound. There was no record of him ever living here in New Brunswick. How can you murder a man who wasn’t ever there?
The nearby stream seemed to laugh at his predicament.
“It wasn’t my fault!” Dougal shouted. “He drove me to it.”
Then he shoved his master’s body into the grave, kicking him in because he couldn’t bear to touch the corpse. He scooped what dirt he could over the body and scattered dead branches and leaves and pine needles overtop, kicking them into a mound.
And that’s when Dougal remembered the gold.
How could he be so foolish? All that money lying there, wrapped around the gut of a dead man. It was such a waste to leave all that gold for the digging of the bears and the churning of the worms.
Dougal knelt down slowly, as if in prayer. He reached toward the makeshift grave, pawing the dirt aside. Gently now, bit by bit. A grave was a sacred place, he told himself. You can’t be rooting at it like a sow at slop.
And then, just as he touched the bag of gold, feeling the hard edges of the coins pressing against the soft leather sack, Miles rose up from the grave, grabbing at Dougal’s extended hands. Dougal shrieked and drew back, snatching up the branch and beating Miles back down. Then he rose to his feet and leapt onto the waiting horse, which was prancing nervously at the sound of the battle. The horse took off, very nearly braining Dougal with an overhanging pine bough.
Dougal fled, leaving the gold behind with his master. There was no way on this good green earth that Dougal would dare try his hand at that gravesite again. The gold could stay there and rot for all he cared.
Years later, Dougal could still feel his master’s dying grip upon his wrists. He didn’t sleep well and he took to drink when–ever he could scrape up enough to pay for it. Sometimes he stole the needed beverage. Sometimes he stole from others in order to get the money he needed to buy a jug or two of numb–ing amnesia.
Eventually he was caught at his petty thieving and sentenced to jail. While he was in there he talked with far too many eager listeners, telling whoever would listen his tale of woe. He told his audience of the murder and the apple tree and the laughing little stream that ran by Wolf Point.
“It was all his fault,” Dougal would tell them. “I’m not a violent man. I wouldn’t raise a hand to save my life. He drove me to it. He’s the reason I’m lying here rotting in prison. He’s laying there still —him and all that gold just waiting for me to drop de
ad.”
“Well, why should we keep him waiting?” Lambert Rogers asked. Lambert was a hard man who had grown up the hard way and he’d never seen the need to pass up an opportunity that offered itself to him as readily as this.
He strangled Dougal in his sleep. True to his word, Dougal did not raise a hand to save his own life. Lambert was pleased. He knew that Dougal had told many of the prisoners about bury–ing Miles along with his gold, but he figured that most of them wouldn’t have listened as closely as he had. People talk a lot in prison. There’s not much else you can do with your time.
A year later, Lambert was released. His sentence was served and no one who mattered knew that he had killed Dougal. Murder in prison back in those days was nearly as common as idle talk.
Lambert rounded up a crew of three trusty friends and they rode out to Wolf Point on stolen horses. It took the four of them most of a summer to track down Dougal’s apple tree and stream, but Lambert knew it when he saw it.
“This is it,” he said. “This is where the gold lies.”
They stepped down from their horses, crushing dead branches and dried pine needles and rotted leaves beneath their boots. They knelt and they dug like dogs in the dirt.
“Deeper,” Lambert said. “We’re almost there.”
For just an instant of time, Lambert swore that he saw a tat–tered muslin sack and the taunting glint of gold. He reached for it and two bony hands pushed out of the dirt and caught him fast.
His partners ran off into the night, leaving Lambert there in the darkness beneath the twisted apple tree, screaming his lungs raw. They did not stop running until they had reached the town, and they sat and drank in the rear of a local tavern, staring off into the shadowed corners of the room, not daring to meet each other’s stare.
Nobody ever heard of Lambert again. For all I know, he’s out there still, now a skeleton himself, the pieces fallen and scattered, his wrist bones caught fast by a pair of long bony hands reaching out of the dirt. Perhaps the apple tree has found new life in the decay beneath its grasping twisted roots, and the stream rambles on, not caring a whit for the doings of men, laughing to itself in the cool summer breeze.
