The 53rd Parallel

by Carl Nordgren

  “My dreams. Your plans.” Brian nodded to where the Ojibway were gathered. “An' now Mister Joe Loon.”

  They returned to the circle and listened to the magical songs and musical conjuring until Dutch told them they had to leave to beat nightfall.

  Chapter 17

  A New Year

  It was New Year's morning, 1950. Maureen had just settled at a table in the diner at the Hotel Kenora. Since Brian and Maureen had been living at the hotel for the winter they had eaten in the diner every day, sometimes two meals a day. Her favorite waitress with the friendly tobacco tip approached with a menu and the makings for a pot of tea.

  “Happy New Year.”

  “Happy New Year. Bri been down yet?”

  “I've been here since we opened this morning, and I haven't seen him. There haven't been many, for that matter. Must have been lots of New Year's Eve partying going on.”

  “Brian was buyin' his share at the hotel pub, sorry, bar.”

  “You two have earned a celebration.”

  “An' we hadn't yet celebrated, not really. Not like last night, anyway. It took so long to get that land deal done that once we signed it, we felt so far behind, we just doubled our efforts preparin' for buildin' in the spring.”

  “So last night was the full razzle dazzle?”

  “I'm not sure what I'm agreeing to if I say yes.”

  “Here he comes. I know it's going to be a Happy New Year for the two of you—you deserve it. Good morning, Brian. What can I get you?”

  Brian sat down, heavy and tired, and he growled, “I hain't hungry. Tea's fine.”

  The waitress left.

  “Someone's startin' the new year off regrettin' his razzle dazzle.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “Seems to me I should be the aggrieved party this mornin'.”

  “Yeah, I knew you'd have that all worked out that way.”

  “Was yourself made the unwanted advances.”

  Brian was able to stare blankly at her smiling face.

  “Unwanted? You've been wantin' my advances for weeks, for months even, an' there's no denyin' what I'm sayin'.”

  “You ready to get married?”

  “No.”

  “An' that's been my answer every time you've knocked on my bedroom door at midnight askin' for a kiss.”

  “So then quit leadin' me there. Please just quit leadin' me there.”

  “Leadin' you?”

  “You know what I'm talkin' about. I can see the smile in your eyes each time you see it's workin' on me that way.”

  “You just need to be told what you're lookin' at. It's me showin' you all the reasons you should ask me to marry you.”

  “Yes, it's clear by now that's your view of things, that I won't understand a situation 'less you've told me what I'm lookin' at.”

  The waitress returned with a cup for Brian, and while Maureen began to prepare his tea for him, she gave him a hard look.

  “The minute you're truly believin' I am manipulatin' you to my advantage is when I sell you my stake an' I'm out of here. So unless you're ready to trigger that now, you can't even be makin' fun that way. I need to be boss when I need to be boss. Same for me as for yourself in that regard. That's the partnership we both agreed to.”

  Brian mumbled, “Sure, but then what you were doin' to me last night had nothin' to do with our business.”

  Maureen pushed his cup into his hands.

  “Brian, try this out, just for now. Imagine for just a moment that we can live any life we want here. That Ireland is past.”

  “An' you consider we don't need to make a common decision on that one. You can decide one thing about that, me another.”

  “Can't you imagine Joe Loon tellin' you to let go of your misery if it's what's keepin' you from acceptin' the gifts Gitchi Manitou is offerin'?”

  Brian hit the table with his fist, rattling his cup so that tea sloshed over the edge, rattling the cup again when he stood.

  “An' you're sayin' our partnership is business only so I'm sayin' you got nothin' to say about me an' me children.”

  He turned and left the room. When the waitress checked with Maureen, she ordered two eggs, bacon, and toast.

  It was well into the summer. Above the beach at Innish Cove, spread along the flat table of forest, three work crews were felling trees.

  The string of long, cold winters had continued and the ice hadn't gone from the River until early May. Then the spring was the wettest in memory, raining day after day, so Brian and Maureen and Joe Loon and the men of his village got a slow start building cabins. Brian and Joe Loon struck alternate chops with their axes against one tree. Albert and Mathew chopped another. Two Ojibway men stepped back from the third and called out as the tree began to fall.

  Maureen and Simon worked behind them, Maureen with a hand ax chopping away branches from felled trees, and Simon with an ax shaping the ends of the logs.

  The first cabin was built, and another half dozen trees had been felled and stripped in the small clearings their work created. Three tents and two birch bark wigwams were set up in the middle of the clearing above the beach.

  Albert called out his warning, and they all looked up and stepped back as another tree crashed to the forest floor.

  Maureen found herself standing close to Simon.

  “My ancestors in Ireland lived like the Keewatin Ojibway live here in your forests. It was long ago, but my people had our tribal time. We were called the Celts.”

  “Celts were Indians?”

  “Celts were Indians. When the Brits came, they thought Celts were the Indians. They took the land they wanted an' treated the whole island like it was their private reserve.”

  “Celts did battle with the Brits? To defend their land?”

  “Some still do.”

  The first two cabins were small but still took days to build for Brian and Maureen learned that the men were great workers when working but that they were in no hurry. They deeply enjoyed the labor, and their delight and the easy mastery of the skills needed fascinated Brian and Maureen. But often their greater interest was in talking, or watching the children playing at the camp, or taking a canoe out to work their nets, or they disappeared for days scouting new trap lines for the winter.

  So it was days later that the third cabin was built, twice the size of the first two, and the day it was completed Simon led Maureen away from the work and into the forests. They hiked the steps of the forested slope to a high ridge above Innish Cove. Before they reached the top of the ridge, they found a flat shelf covered in a low sweep of blueberry bushes displaying white and pale pink blossoms so thick a special harvest was promised. As a breeze swept through, first blossoms fell. When Maureen examined the bushes more closely, she found the first small buds of young green fruit, some just beginning to darken to blue. She knew Simon was studying her study of the plants.

  “It's that the practical is also beautiful. That's what always made God a loving Creator to my way of viewin' it.”

  “Gitchi Manitou gives many gifts to my people.”

  “He gave the Celts plenty. You need to do a better job protectin' yours than the Celts did protecting ours.”

  “Joe Loon says Big Brian is here to help protect this place. Gitchi Manitou sent dreams to Big Brian to lead him to us. This is what Joe Loon says. Because I am the grandson of Joe Loon, I believe this as well.”

  “Because I am Joe Loon's friend, I will believe this as well.”

  Kevin leaned against the bar as he talked with the owner of the Donegal pub where he'd met Brian so long ago. The publican told Kevin that there were a couple of stories told about the woman he was looking for, but she had not been seen for three years, maybe four. She had been a regular for a short while, Kevin learned, with the big man from Cong.

  “One story says they got married, another that he beat a man senseless who later died so he's hidin' in London.”

  Brian sat in the middle of Joe Loon's frei
ght canoe, Albert in the bow, Joe Loon in the stern, all three with fishing poles jigging steep underwater shelves twenty yards off the rocky point that separated two quiet bays.

  This Man stood knee-deep in the water, just around the point, a fish spear cocked above his ear. This Man was as motionless as the Great Blue Heron standing next to him, posed for common purpose, poised to the same intent.

  Joe Loon and Albert were showing Brian that a day of fishing the River and its lakes with guests would best begin jigging or trolling for walleyes in the morning, and that the guests' lunch should be fixed on shore and built around filleting and frying the morning's catch.

  Brian put his fishing pole aside to take a letter from his back pocket just as Albert reeled in another walleye. Albert removed the hook from the fat, flapping fish and Brian asked him if the hunters from Wiishkoonsing would come again in the winter.

  “I was hopin' I could give you this letter to give to the hunters you guide.”

  Albert told Joe Loon of Brian's request. Joe Loon answered and Albert reported back to Brian.

  “Yaway, that is a good idea. You are writing to ask them to tell their friends about this fishing camp.”

  “Yes. That's right. Good guess.”

  “No, I did not guess. Joe Loon told me.”

  “What a clever man.”

  “Last night he told me of his dream that the hunters from Wiishkoonsing would come fish the River and stay in our cabins.”

  Dutch's Norseman landed and he taxied into the cove and over to the beach. There was a boat tied to the pontoon struts. Four cabins were completed and the walls were nearly done for a fifth, another of the smaller cabins. The men were happy to break from their labor and some stood in the water as others balanced on the pontoon to untie the brand new sixteen-foot fishing boat and lower it into the water. Then they unloaded a ten horsepower Johnson outboard from the plane.

  Brian told Albert this was the boat and motor he planned to use the next summer. Each boat would be outfitted to carry two fishermen and their guide.

  “What I'd like you an' Joe Loon to do is drive this boat up an' down the River the rest of the summer. I will buy five more of these boats for next summer if you tell me it is a good one.”

  A large movie camera on a tripod was set up next to the ancient and rough-hewn stone cross that split the village of Cong's quiet main street. The camera operator waved Kevin away when he stepped into his shot of the street. Kevin stepped aside, and then approached the camera man.

  “Do you know where I might find Brian Burke? He's a big fellow, perhaps he's 30.”

  “Can't help ya there, buddy. I'm from the States, from Los Angeles, California. I'm just scouting some locations for a movie we're planning on shooting here next year. Sounds like you folks'll be hosting John Wayne in your little village.”

  “John Wayne? He's a cowboy actor.”

  “He's playing a son of Ireland in this one. This is one of the locations they're interested in.”

  Kevin knew an old Fenian radical living in Carrick, the village just to the west of Cong, and he traveled there next. After they spoke of old times and common friends, they turned to current events.

  “I wasn't bettin' against your revival now, Kevin, but I wouldn't have placed a wager for you neither. First we're too friendly wit da feckin' Communists, an' then you go make a deal wit da feckin' Nazis an' those are big mistakes to overcome.”

  “I wasn't sure we'd make it back. And we've got Reds and Fascists among us still, no doubt. But some from before have come together to start charting a new course, and there's some good new blood coming in.”

  “I don't think I'm able to join you this time round, Kev.”

  “You'd be welcome to name your tune if you did, Seamus. You've done your part and some bit more. But I am in need of someone to be me eyes and ears, especially in Cong, so if not you, do you know of someone I should be talking to?”

  “Cong? Nothin' has happened there worth notin' in two hundred years. Whatcha after?”

  “A fellow who once lived there, Brian Burke.”

  “Sure, I know of him, and his cousin, Eamon. There was some trouble between them a few years back, and Brian was driven away, so I been told.”

  “Well, I'd like to find him. We think he may be able to lead us to someone we'd be very interested in talking to.”

  “There is a young fella I know, not much more 'an a boy, but his da knows some of me secrets an' has whispered his lad has a natural Fenian view.”

  “Can you put me in touch with him?”

  “He's the local hurlin' hero. Marvelous midfielder. There's a match at our local pitch tomorrow. Can you stay 'til then?”

  “Can you put me up?”

  “Like it was the old times.”

  The Norseman was tied to the brand-new dock that carried ten yards out into Innish Cove from the beach. Six log cabins had been built among the trees above the beach, a small log shed sat on the shore near the foot of the dock where supplies would be kept, and another small log building sat on a rocky ledge above the cove to serve as an ice house. Brian and Maureen stood on the dock with Joe Loon and Albert and Old George. Dutch was completing his pre-flight check. Simon and Mathew loaded Brian and Maureen's duffle bags into the plane's cargo door.

  Brian shook Albert's hand. “It will be a happy day when I am standin' here with you again come spring.”

  “Joe Loon says he is honored you have asked him to be your number one guide.”

  “I will always give Joe Loon the number one guests.”

  “He says you must always place the most difficult white man in his boat.”

  Chapter 18

  Cutting Ice

  It was the middle of the third harsh Ontario winter. Albert broke a trail in the deep snow for Joe Loon, Old George, Louis Assiniboine, Simon, and Mathew as they snowshoed the deeply drifted snow that blanketed the River's frozen lake. Old George and Louis pulled small sleds carrying supplies. Axes and saws were tied on top of one bundle of blankets and cook gear; shovels and a pick and a kerosene lantern were tied on top of the other. They had been laying traps at opportune places along the way, and two traps were still part of their load. Louis stepped up to take Albert's place, and they continually changed duties to keep their steady pace.

  Just before the early dusk turned to full nightfall, they arrived at the cabins they had built with Big Brian during the summer. They trudged up to the largest cabin, dug the snow away from the front of the door, and entered. Before they left the cabins at the end of the summer they had stocked this one with firewood, and Brian had Dutch fly in a load of canned goods. As soon as they arrived, Simon began building a fire in the stove and they heated beans and slices of canned ham.

  After they ate, they built pallets of furs and blankets around the stove to sleep. Joe Loon settled in next to Albert. The lantern had been blown out, the room was dark, and in the darkest corner This Man sat with a blanket over his shoulders.

  When Joe Loon spoke it was of a recent sadness to all lying in darkness.

  “We must remember last spring. We must always remember that the sons of Adam Angeconeb did not come back from the white man's school.”

  This Man began a soft lament.

  “We must not forget these two boys were beaten to death by a white man wearing the sign of Jesus the Christ. With a stick in his hand he beat these two boys until the Great Creator released them from their pain.”

  “I have been told their mother still mourns for them with her tears each night.”

  “The mother and father did not find out their sons were dead until the other children returned to Grassy Narrows from the school. Their sons were not with them. That is when they were told they were dead.”

  “Adam Angeconbeb is drinking all the whiskey. He has joined the people who sit by the side of the streets in Kenora and cry of their loss.”

  “The children knew what had happened to their sons because these brothers were beaten many times. They saw much
bleeding from deep cuts on their backs and their legs.”

  “I have been told they were forced to watch these brothers get beaten.”

  “That is why none of our children will go to the white man's school.”

  “Before the ice leaves they will come looking for our children in the winter cabins. They must not find them.”

  They were quiet for some time, considering how they would protect the children from those who would carry them away to the white man's school.

  After a while Mathew asked, “Grandfather. Even though I did not receive a vision, is it true I am no longer a child?”

  “Without a vision you are a man who will decide his own fate.”

  Their solicitor was reading a file. Brian and Maureen sat across the room from each other, reviewing copies of the incorporation document that would launch their float plane airline. They had been discussing how much of Northwest Ontario Airline Dutch should own. The general plan was to buy Dutch's plane from him at a fair price and guarantee him a salary equal to his best year's profit, along with an owners' interest in the business. They were working on his fair equity share of NOA.

  The solicitor's assistant appeared at the door, knocking for his attention.

  “Sir, Mr. Taylor says he needs you right now on the Dryden Pulp contract.”

  “Sorry folks, we've been trying to wrestle this one down for days now, our largest client and all, they're buying out a competitor, it's a big deal. I'll be just a moment, you carry on reviewing the contracts.” And he was out the door.

  NOA was created out of Maureen's vision. She had recruited Dutch's enthusiastic agreement that together they could expand the company many times larger than he would be able to on his own, and once he admitted to himself that he would rather be a pilot than a businessman, he listened closely.

  Maureen's other recruitment ideas were taking much more time than she ever imagined, and when she finished reading the agreements she reached out her leg and nudged Brian with her foot.