The Gunner

by Paul Almond

  The sound was getting closer. Me and Earle stood waiting and watching — pretty scared. From the way Zotique was standing, he looked nervous, too. You see, after he dumped that stack of logs into the water, his job was to blow any jam with the dynamite if we couldn’t unblock it with pickpoles.

  I’d offered to do that myself, a pretty exciting task. But Joe Hayes had explained that in the spring, sometimes the dynamite froze, so it got harder to blow up. Once it froze and then thawed a bit, watch out! So unpredictable. Dynamite could even freeze at around fifty degrees. And worse, then it could have bits of liquid nitro on the surface, something you’d never see, and this would detonate the whole stick if it took any kind of blow. So I’d have to wait till I’d seen a good few break-ups before he’d let me handle it. In the end, we were all happy to leave the dynamite to Zotique.

  “Sure makes you forget all this war stuff, eh Earle?” Of course, we all read about the war every week in the Family Herald, but I wouldn’t say we paid any mind, except I did feel kinda pressed to go fight for the Empire.

  He nodded. “Five more fellas joined up last week: Earl Mackenzie, Stillman Walker and even Will Wylie — I never thought he’d go.”

  “So you thinking of going?”

  “Well, I’d be sure happy to go over and take a slug at them Huns,” Earle confessed. “But old Poppa needs me on the farm. If I go, who’s gonna help him?”

  “Me.”

  “You?” Earle gave a smile. He started to say something about how bad I was at farm work, but changed his mind: the roar of plunging waters filled with ice and logs was coming closer. “Poppa wants ya to go to university like Jack,” he went on. “How you gonna get farm work done when you’re off at Bishop’s?”

  He did have a point.

  Zotique turned and looked at us. He seemed anxious. He was a good worker, but of course, we all felt scared.

  “She’s gonna be big this year,” Earle shouted over the noise as it grew second by second.

  “Bydam, I sure t’ink so,” Zotique replied.

  That water, coming closer by the second, you never could count on what it might do next. Tumbling big lumps of ice mixed in with logs that would upend and crash. The flood itself would leap over the top of the ice sometimes and spread all over before it broke through. I took a couple of steps higher up the bank behind some tree-trunks; Earle did, too.

  Downstream, two cliffs rose up sheer where the brook had cut through. That’s why this was called the Narrows. Who knew what that wall of water would do when it plummeted down that gorge?

  But the break-up was always exciting — it marked the beginning of a new season. All up and down the Gaspe, mills would start turning again; their men would get weekly pay; families could send to Eaton’s for new spring clothes or go visit Ernie Hayes’s general store; in fact, stores up and down the Coast would get their winter accounts paid off.

  And not only that. Salmon would start climbing the brooks and rivers, offering tasty meals. And with the salmon came the rich Americans who’d go fishing up the Cascapedia and back Port Daniel River; in fact, all over the Gaspe they’d come by train to drop their bundles of money, and that would flow around, too.

  In the fields, iron harrows would smooth the ploughed acres; big seeders drug by teams of horses would plant fresh wheat, oats, and barley. Our farm tipped into the Hollow or heaved back towards the Second in uneven slopes, so our horses had to work extra hard.

  By God, she was coming closer. All three of us gripped our poles: about ten feet long with a pick at the end and a solid rig like an iron fish-hook to haul the log if it got stuck. I found myself panting and I hadn’t done nothing. Pretty damn dangerous, all this. Three years ago, one fella had got killed on this very fork. Two years before that, two fellas drowned up the Bonaventure River. Nothing more dangerous on the Coast than a log drive, that’s for sure.

  And this year, it wasn’t going to be easy, we could tell by that fast approaching thunder. The next half hour would tell the tale. After that, we’d walk downstream, checking for other logjams. You see, the brook’s level never reached this high the whole rest of the year, so we had to get all the logs down as fast as we could.

  Well, sir, round the bend she came, three, four, maybe five feet of water, breaking its way over the ice, shattering it, tumbling jagged chunks that smashed everything in their way, never mind the loose logs. Sounded just like a locomotive coming over the Iron Bridge; sometimes we’d dare each other about how close we could stand. But no one got closer than say ten feet — that huge engine pouring steam and hissing defiantly. Pretty scary.

  I got behind a big birch that I could hang onto if the waters overflowed and tried to sweep me down. Earle stood his ground; he’d probably done the break-up six or seven times. Zotique too, he never moved, though I knew he was just as scared.

  And then, fast — it seemed so fast — didn’t she come storming past? Jagged ice-chunks beating against logs that see-sawed back and forth, bouncing up and down, crashing through the ice no matter how thick. What a roar! Who’d think such a little brook — fed, sure, by lots of streams up above — could turn into this ferocious beast? Frightened the life out of me.

  Please no logjam, I prayed — that’s what caused the trouble. They always jammed at the Narrows. But not yet. The rush of water came barrelling past, sweeping logs, old roots, flotsam and jetsam, all of it thrashing like wild sea monsters struggling to escape.

  Zotique knocked out one picket holding his pile of logs. When he came around on the slippery bank to knock out the second he lost his footing, and at the same time a log in the maelstrom lifted up and struck him. Down he went.

  Me and Earle ran forward, but Zotique grabbed at a sapling as he swept down. Before we got there, he’d managed to scramble out. He shook himself, and waved. Behind him, his pile of logs fell into the waters and churned off on their frenzied journey to Joe’s mill.

  Once I got over the fright, that initial shock as the whole break-up came thundering past, I found it could be almost enjoyable. We stood back and watched lumps of ice spinning among the logs, some of which upended when they caught on buried rocks. Darn dangerous if you didn’t watch out.

  And then it happened. One log jammed between two trees farther down.

  Earle and I exchanged looks, and started on the run with our pickpoles. That log caught another two besides, getting them stuck, too. Quick, before it got worse! I’d gotten there first and hauled hard on the log to twist her out, but more logs jammed. I jumped forward.

  “Careful Eric! Don’t get too close!” hollered Earle. “You gotta watch it. Keep back!”

  It felt good when he acted like an older brother, but that jam had to be broke. I worked with my pickpole, but maybe I wasn’t careful enough.

  “Eric!” Earle hauled me back roughly.

  The jam was building and with it the water. Nothing for it but dynamite.

  Zotique ran to grab a stick, which he brought forward.

  “Better use two!” Earle yelled.

  Zotique got the second, stuck it in his pocket, and came to the edge. He stopped, took a second to stare at the jam.

  Quite an art to break a logjam. You’ve got to know where to put that stick of dynamite. You can’t just toss it on top. You’ve gotta get out there in the middle of the brook onto the logs themselves and stick it in somewhere, then run the fuse back so that when it blows, it will shake them all free.

  So we watched Zotique, who by now was pretty good at this, grab his shorter peavey as a kind of lever to balance him and begin to leap across the logs. Of course, they ducked under water with his weight, but he stepped lightly over, one after another, with them rolling, and got out onto the jam itself. I was gripping my pickpole so tight my fingers hurt. I tried to relax as I watched him clamber up — you never knew when a log might roll or the whole jam give way and finish you off.

  Earle and I couldn’t peel our eyes away. I offered up a prayer: “Good Lord, don’t let that happen!” His fam
ily out at the shacks: they’d starve to death if anything happened to Zotique, his father François being such a lazy bastard.

  Holding the wick, Zotique searched for a place to stick his dynamite, found it, turned to check his way back. He waved, bent, shoved the stick into a hole and tried to push it well down into the logs. But then he tapped it with his peavey to drive it in and up she blew! And Zotique with it.

  That was some explosion!

  The logs lifted into the air, and right then and there Zotique was smashed into the water. He bobbed back up to the surface, still alive, floundering among the tumbling logs. I saw him reach out for the bank, but another bloody great log struck him on the head. That was it.

  We turned and ran for the trail past the bluffs of the Narrows. But we both knew he was finished.

  When we got to the other side, no sign of the body. I was real shook up. I mean, I wasn’t so close to him, but a fella like him, well, I just hadn’t seen anyone killed. Hit me real hard.

  Still, we had to hurry downstream a good ways. At another logjam, Earle decided to stay and break that up, but I went on ahead to look for any signs of poor Zotique. I kept praying, even out loud: “Don’t let him die... Good Lord, please let me find him, alive and well.”

  No luck. When I finally got home I alerted everyone, tears in my eyes, darn it, like a baby. The next day, you wouldn’t believe it, practically the whole community turned out to search that brook. Never mind he lived in them shacks, he was a young fella and his death certainly got everyone worked up. I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one.

  Yes, they did find the body, and yes, for his funeral, St. Paul’s church was packed. One young fella, his whole life before him, taken up into the arms of Our Lord, well it had such an impact on all of us. Nothing worse.

  I wish I could say that afterwards the community rallied around the families in the shacks, but apart from a collection taken up after the funeral, and some folk giving extra food, there was still this invisible line dividing us and them.

  Poor Zotique. What would his family do now? And his cousin Raine? No war for me, I could see that. She would need me now more than ever.

  Chapter Four

  Autumn 1915

  We all bowed our heads as Old Poppa intoned, “God bless us and what’s provided for us. Amen.”

  “And let us remember the soul of the dear lad who was killed in the spring break-up —” Momma added.

  “— Zotique,” I said.

  “Zotique,” my mother concluded. “May the Lord cradle his soul in His loving arms forever.”

  We opened our eyes and started to eat. I was worried that the mention of her cousin might upset Raine, although here we were in September, months afterwards. Old Poppa was at the head of the table, Earle and I sat behind against the partition, with Lillian and Raine across from us and at the end, Old Momma in her usual place by the kitchen. Momma had cooked a special dinner for me because that next day, I was leaving for Bishop’s University.

  My wanting to invite Raine sure caused some dissension. “Whatever d’you want that child here for?” Momma had asked me last week. She looked at me with those sharp blue eyes that could see through anything. “It’s all very well to take her snacks now and then; no harm in giving charity to poor families, no matter what Poppa says. But you two is not gettin’ serious, I hope.”

  “No, Momma, absolutely not. But ya know, it must be a terble hard life back there in them shacks. Now that Zotique is gone, I don’t know how they’ll manage.”

  “Doesn’t Tuffield work at the mill? And what about that brother of his, the lame one. Surely he could get a job?”

  “François is lazy as all get out. But why can’t Raine just have one meal with us? It’s my last night after all.”

  Once Momma had agreed, I had the rest of the family to deal with. Earle made jokes, and then asked, “What are ya gonna do now, ask her to marry ya?” I could tell he was kind of scared of that idea. Well, I reassured him, and thankfully, Momma said she would deal with Poppa. Like the rest of Shigawake, he was not so well inclined to a bunch of lazy idlers who kept having children with no means to support them.

  Lillian, having had a baby, was another matter. She had been getting warmer towards Raine and the side-hill people. Sometimes when she drove the horses for us during haymaking along the brow of the Hollow, Lillian would look across and say, “Poor folk... Poor Raine.” Then she’d mumble, “Mind you, I’ve heard of some awful goings-on over in them shacks.”

  “Just gossip, you know how folk are, any chance to spread a bad word.” We ate for a while in silence. Momma had made spareribs for us out of a porker we killed the week before. B’ys, it was good. My favourite meal. We only killed pigs in the fall; Will Hayes would come in and butcher them good. And our vegetables! Everyone agreed Momma’s flower garden was a sight to behold, but up there on the hill, you should’a seen what we planted for the winter: almost an acre of potatoes and lots of turnips, carrots and beans. I looked across at Raine and could tell she’d never seen so much food: loaves of puffy white bread, jars of molasses, and for dessert, Momma had sent away for two cans of peaches, which cost thirty-eight cents, a huge extravagance. You see, with our own wheat, we never bought a sack of flour, pricey enough at four dollars; our money mainly went on tea, thirty cents a pound.

  “Help yourself, Raine, go to it!” Poppa said. “Then when we’re finished, maybe Momma will make up a little something fer ya to take back to your family.”

  That made us all look at Poppa with big eyes — not like him at all. But Raine was now growing up a bit, and though not pretty, she had a certain strength of character he would find attractive. And speaking for myself, I couldn’t help liking her.

  “Now, Raine, have you managed to find a bit of work?” Lillian asked, passing her the gravy.

  “Yes, ma’am. I work a bit at Mr. Hayes’s store. But I never been to no school, so they had to teach me figures and all. I think maybe I got him cheated out of a few cents when I started.” We all grinned. “But he’s taken time to show me, and now he says I’m just as good as anyone else. I only work on weekends though, ma’am.”

  “Call me Lillian, Raine. I may be older than you, but I’m not as old as Momma!”

  “Yes ma’am,” Raine blurted again, and then laughed at her own mistake. As we all did. It kind of broke the ice.

  ***

  As we climbed the hill behind the house, Raine allowed as how it was the best supper she’d ever eaten. I felt pleased. High above us, the stars were out in all their brilliance and a nearly full moon poured a solid path of pewter sparkles over the bay. Soon it would sail higher and light our way back. I had told everyone I’d walk Raine home, only the polite thing to do, even though Earle smothered a smile under his napkin.

  We got to the brow of a hill and stopped to look down on the Coast road below our large farmhouse. The next house over were my cousins, James and Selina Byers with two children. Next over to that was another cousin, Gavin, grandson of my Uncle John Garrett Alford who’d been given the land by Grandfather James, but who had passed on long before I was born. His wife Phemmie (Euphemia) and three teenage kids worked that farm, too. At the front of their property stood the little Temperance Hall, built by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union but now used as a church by the Presbyterians. And to the East off beyond the Hollow, we could see the spire of St. Paul’s that Poppa had helped build fifty years ago. We stood for a while, and I put my arm around her waist. Soon she leaned her head on my shoulder.

  What a place! I wondered how I could ever leave it. But I knew that schooling, if a fella was lucky enough to get it, was important. Maybe if I got an education, I could sweep her outta those shacks and raise a family. But then, wasn’t fighting more honourable? My grandfather, as a sailor, had sure thought so. Jack was over there now, too. The Empire needed every young man in this great fight for civilization. And I had an idea that Poppa expected me to join up, too, if the darned war kept on. Quite a dilemma
.

  Silence descended. Over beyond cousin Gavin’s, a dog began barking. And beyond that, we heard a horse and buggy trotting along. It was still early and the road was busy. As we stood there, the couple passed below and silence fell again like a halo. Overhead, the last seagull cried out, and in the distance I felt sure I could hear the waves breaking against the red cliffs.

  What a place to be born into! What a place to grow up in! What a place to earn a living, farming, or even teaching...

  Raine turned to go and I followed her.

  As we came to the Mill Road, Raine said, “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “Me?”

  She nodded. “Remember you took me to a place last Christmas back by the cabin you said you was gonna build this autumn?”

  “I’ll never forget that.”

  “Well, I got a place now. I got it ready. Just for us. No one knows where it is. I hid it real good.”

  A place just for us? She was going to show me her secret hideaway. My heart soared.

  We got to the bottom of the Mill Road and walked across the open Hollow where the cattle grazed. At one end near the millpond where it was nice and muddy, we had a rail pasture for our old sows.

  We crossed the log bridge and she led me along her side of the brook for a good way, wending through the bushes in silence. Because it was night, you couldn’t hear no birds, but we passed near an owl that kept up its hooting.

  “What’s it like, this university of yours?” Raine asked. “What do you do there? I bet there’ll be lots of girls.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t think too many girls go to college,” I replied. “But I imagine a good many more than you see here in Shigawake. I don’t know much about it, except that my brother Jack went, and said he loved it. He played rugby, he studied, he skated on the St. Francis River, he met all sorts of interesting people. I think I’m going to enjoy myself.” I didn’t add that, even so, I felt a bit of a wastrel, not going to fight — the pull was still there. I even heard myself admitting: “You know, I still worry that I should maybe join up.”