The 53rd Parallel

by Carl Nordgren

  Sitting in the auditorium, Mathew waited for the moment Geronimo was going to be captured. Just before that moment occurred, he leaned his head back and called out loud to his spirit back on the River.

  “I am Mathew Loon. I am here.”

  The children were surprised, for none knew this was coming, and then they were proud.

  Mathew stood and called again.

  “I am Mathew Loon. I am here.”

  The Jesuit brothers were stunned, and if one later realized he had been thrilled by Mathew's full-throated and deeply passionate yearning, three others stepped quickly to surround him. But before they could, Mathew called out in defiance, and as they grabbed him he assumed the exact position Geronimo had just taken on the screen as he was captured.

  The brothers dragged Mathew from the auditorium.

  After the rows of chairs were straightened again, the movie continued.

  That night, Mathew did not wake the children to tell them of Geronimo, for his cot stayed empty all night.

  It was early morning at the NOA office, just a few days later. Dutch arrived to find two men waiting to talk about arranging a trip, the same two men who, years earlier, had purchased fish from Mathew and Simon while camping on Many Tall Women Island, though since then the boys called it Moon Bread Island.

  Dutch sat behind his desk. The tall man unfolded a map across the desk top and began to outline a perimeter with his finger.

  “So this map shows Grassy Narrows Reserve is there, and down the River here is White Dog Reserve, then the Hudson Bay Post is tucked here next to Grassy, and then that's it, in this whole quadrant, except for some isolated trappers' cabins. You figure that's about right?”

  “It was until a year ago. As of last year, there's a fishing camp right here.”

  “Commercial fishermen?”

  “No, it's a couple of Irishmen, a man and a woman, and they've got a fishing camp for sport fishermen, successful businessman, eh, from the States, mostly Chicago so far, for four days or five day trips fishing the River's lakes for walleye, smallmouth bass, big pike.”

  “How big is their operation?”

  “They've got seven cabins now. Been slow this first year, but every guest I flew out was talking about returning.”

  “Seven cabins? Show me again.”

  “All around this cove here, on Rainbow Lake. He says he'll build another ten or fifteen in the next five years. I believe he'll do it.”

  Dutch noticed the disappointment on the men's faces.

  “Why's that bad?”

  The taller man was about to speak when the other interrupted.

  “How far south do they fish?”

  “I don't think they ever fish farther south than these rapids here. That's almost a half-day boat ride and then a lot of work to get above the rapids. There's about fifty yards of them. What are you fellas looking to do?”

  Again the taller man was ready to answer but was cut off. He hid his surprise when the other said, “We're checking sites for a biology field study project. We intend to study how the populations of wolves and moose relate to each other. We're out of Queens University. Most of this quadrant is a ten-mile-wide natural bowl, so it makes a wonderful study area. We're valuing minimal disturbance.”

  “I've flown over all this maybe fifty times in the past five years, so I'm your man if you're scouting the area. There's more moose and wolves, and deer and black bear and all kinds—”

  “Tell us about this fishing camp.”

  Dutch started to when the office door opened and a Western Union Canada delivery boy stepped in.

  “Morning, son.”

  “Are you Dutch Acker?”

  “That's me.”

  “They tell me I should see you if I got a telegram for Brian Burke?”

  Dutch read the envelope.

  “Excuse me a moment here, gentlemen.”

  Dutch turned to the two-way radio Maureen recently authorized NOA to purchase.

  There was a radio in the Norseman and another base station on a table in the dining hall cabin at camp.

  “Innish Cove, this is NOA. Innish Cove, this is NOA. Over.”

  Brian was at the dock helping the guides prepare their boats for a day's fishing.

  Maureen was attending the guests who were finishing their eggs and bacon and Red River cereal or enjoying last sips of coffee before they headed to the dock. She stepped away when she heard Dutch hailing them. With the radio placed close by, the guests could hear the conversation.

  “This is Innish Cove. It's Maureen, Dutch, an' another grand mornin' in Eden. Over.”

  “Morning, Maureen. I just received a telegram for Brian marked urgent. It's from Ireland, from Eamon Burke. I was wondering if he'd want me to read it for him, since I'm not scheduled to be flying in 'til tomorrow. Over.”

  “He's down at the dock. I'll go get him. I'll call you right back. Over and out.”

  Dutch asked the strangers if they would step outside for a moment, then told the delivery boy to wait there with them for it was likely there would be a reply message.

  Brian ran up onto the lodge's porch and through the door, Maureen behind him. The guests who overheard Dutch's transmission had left their last bits of breakfast behind, to provide privacy, their curiosity mixed with respect and concern.

  Maureen rested her hand on Brian's shoulder as he sat in front of the microphone and hailed the NOA office.

  “Dutch, it's Bri. Read it.”

  “It's a telegram from Eamon Burke. Marked urgent. Over.”

  “I said read it.”

  “Okay, here we go… Brian. Learned you built lodge. Stop. Two weeks to locate you. Stop. Hollywood movie being filmed in Cong. Stop. Set up meeting with John Wayne. Exclamation point. Come next two weeks. Question mark. Children are well. Stop. Send reply. Stop. Eamon Burke. Over.”

  “That's it?”

  “That's it. Over.”

  “Read it again.”

  “He's talking about John Wayne the actor? Over.”

  “I guess, he must be—”

  Maureen interrupted.

  “Hey, Dutch, is the telegram boy still there? Over.”

  “He's just outside my door. Over.”

  “Tell him to hold close, we'll have a reply. Brian'll call you right back. Over an' out.”

  “I'll be here. Over and out.”

  Maureen leaned to hug Brian.

  “My goodness, Brian. How grand!”

  “An' I'm gonna see my children.”

  “You're gonna see your children. When will you go?”

  “Last night you were complainin' about those six empty days between these guests leavin' an' the next guests arrivin'. We'll leave when these guests go, yeah.”

  “I'm not goin'. Someone has to stay behind an' take care.”

  “Sure you can come. No one needs you here as much as I need you there. We can site the number eight cabin before we leave, an' Albert can get it built while we're gone. I need you with me when I meet them Hollywood people an' all.”

  “I'm not goin'. This should be about you an' your children.”

  “From start to finish an' that's why I need you most of all. I want 'em to meet you, an' I want you to help me see the smart moves to be makin' with 'em.”

  “I'd be a distraction.”

  “Come on, let's go home.”

  “This is my home… An' our guests are gatherin' at the dock, an' if you're not there soon they'll be thinkin' the telegram was bad news. You need to go cheer 'em up.”

  The next day Dutch flew the two lumbermen—still posing as field biologists—over the fishing camp to position it for them. Then he banked wide and easy to follow the River south. There was a canoe tied to the top of the Norseman's right pontoon, and camping supplies were piled in the rear of the plane. The taller man sat in back, the other was in the co-pilot's chair.

  “The River flows north, and there's hardly nothing but wilderness between us all the way up to Hudson's Bay… North seems the
direction most of their fishing parties head. I can't imagine Brian's guides would ever go any farther south than that far shore just ahead because, well, you'll see when we get there, those rapids on your map, they make a pretty formidable border.”

  The plane flew over the rapids and continued south, down the River, as the man made notes on his map.

  The Norseman taxied away from the shore where Dutch had helped the two men untie their canoe and unload their gear. The men started right in to erecting their tent.

  The tall man had a furrowed brow.

  “Why does the board think we have to lie about what we're doing here?”

  “It's not really a lie since I always wanted to manage a field study.”

  “I know you. We've been doing this work together for more than ten years. You've never lied before and wouldn't now unless you were told to.”

  “The way it's supposed to work is they'll just see it as a coincidence if they think about it at all.”

  “See what as a coincidence?”

  “Where once there was our field biology camp, now they're building a pulp mill.”

  “So what if we can get away with it. I'm asking why hide it in the first place?”

  “Because they're in no hurry to announce their plans.”

  “You're just telling me what I know. Tell me what's behind it.”

  “They're inviting me into some of those board meetings, with all the family, and I have heard them talking at length about their rationale for keeping this mill quiet for as long as possible. What they say, it makes sense to me, but I'm not the person to explain it to you, in any case. It's the sons running this one, the two brothers. It's their project, and I know I shouldn't say any more.”

  “Let me ask you this. We're not out here as pawns in the brothers' games, are we, just going through their paces for the Indian Affairs reports?”

  “We're here because in our permit applications we emphasis the special care we would take protecting the Ojibway's sacred places. There's a burial ground back in there and a hilltop where they do that fasting and meditating-for-a-vision thing they do.”

  “Do we know where?”

  “We have some indications, so you and I need to nail down the exact coordinates. We do want to avoid these sites, if we can.”

  Since early morning Simon had paddled Nigig from the stern with Albert paddling from the bow. A bundle lay on the floor of the canoe between them.

  They crossed two lakes to approach the great rock wall on the water's edge.

  Simon began a song as they glided up to the wall to slowly drift around its broad face. As they approached the place where the pictographs began on the rock wall face the bundle moved and Mathew sat up.

  Mathew had returned home from the residential school with the other children. The deep cuts and angry welts on his back and legs were still visible and angered his people. But it was the emptiness in his eyes that frightened them.

  The canoe followed the characters and designs across the wall. There were dozens of images of spirits, and clans arriving, and great hunts, and all the animals of these forests, and all the fish of the River.

  As Nigig continued, they came upon This Man painting a new image on the rock. His canoe bobbed slowly against the wall as This Man painted Simon praying for his vision.

  They were quiet, the water lapping and the light playing on the face of the rock.

  Mathew followed the ancient story told of Father Bear in the paintings as Simon spoke to Albert.

  “Some say I have waited for too long.”

  “That is what some say. There is always someone who will say that.”

  “Others say I have my vision. That Grandfather's dreams have become my vision.”

  “Soon you will know if this is so.”

  As they passed, their canoe gently bumped This Man's canoe in the soft chop.

  “I am afraid my vision will carry me away from Grandfather's dream.”

  Albert found the painting he had made of Mathew running with a leaping deer soon after his son was born.

  “Were you afraid, Uncle?”

  “The first night the spirits did not come. I was alone. My prayers were empty. That night my heart cried with my fear. The next night the spirits came to comfort me.”

  “I am ready for my new life to begin.”

  Mathew turned from the drawings to his father.

  “Simon's new life will bring my spirit back to me.”

  Tommy was called to Father John's office after supper and was surprised to see his uncle Eamon waiting there as well.

  “Is it Patrick?”

  “He's fine, so's everyone else. How about yerself?”

  Once Tommy's fears were relieved, his suspicion carried anger.

  “So he's built his fishing lodge, and you've decided all is forgiven.”

  “Your father is returnin' to Cong next week for just a couple of days. To do some business for his lodge. It's not wrong to want him to succeed.”

  “He can't return without your permission.”

  “I've invited him.”

  “You've invited him? What did Katie say?”

  “She said 'Keep him away from Patrick.'”

  “I'll be there.”

  “You want to see him?”

  “No, but I need to help Katie protect Patrick.”

  “Tommy. Your da—”

  “We don't call him that.”

  “Your father, he misses ya, Tommy. He asked me if I thought you might see him so he could apologize.”

  “Why is it that as soon as you find out he's buildin' his lodge, you want to act like everything's all right? You want to play the Quiet Man there, too?”

  Father John spoke sternly, “Thomas Anthony Burke. You're to obey the Commandments and show the proper respect.”

  “Sure, Father. Course, no one knows better than you how I have prayed to find forgiveness for Brian Burke.”

  Father John nodded his head. “I've prayed with you at times of great despair. And more than once, so yes, I know.”

  “And I've confessed to you the source of that despair… It comes when your prayers go unanswered.”

  Chapter 21

  On the River

  Brian drove the boat and Maureen sat just in front of him, facing him. They called out over the engine's roar as the wind whipped her hair in an ever-changing frame about her face.

  “I don't just want you there, I need you there.”

  “It seems like somethin' a wife would do. Don't know if it's somethin' a business partner should do.”

  “Come on now, Lady Girl, who's business partners? We've never just been business partners.”

  “So what are we then?”

  “We're a couple traveled far from where we started out, livin' a grand adventure an' makin' our way together, yeah.”

  “A couple?”

  “A couple that needs each other, an' that's for sure now, isn't it? A couple that does things for each other to take care of each other. Everyone thinks we're lovers.”

  “I've kept you out of my bed.”

  “An' I never say different to anyone. I would tell you I love you is what I meant by that 'cept I know you want more.”

  “An' isn't that how we wound up so far from where we started? We're both ever after wantin' more.”

  Brian throttled back as he approached the shore lunch spot. The guests were surprised and delighted to see them coming. Brian had told their guides, Albert and Old George, that they intended to drop by, so they had added extra supplies to their shore lunch boxes and filleted and fried extra fish.

  Brian grabbed a half bottle of brandy before he left, and when he and Maureen arrived at the shore lunch, he invited all the guests to take a bit with their coffee as they talked about his trip to Cong to meet the Hollywood stars.

  “I'll put John Wayne himself in Cabin Three, that's the one you and Tom are in, Phil. An' Maureen will take a picture of him standin' in front and send you a copy. We'll name it John's Cabin
an' you'll be able to tell your boys back home ol' John Wayne slept in your bed.”

  “When's he coming?”

  “We haven't nailed that down yet. It seems by the time they finish with their movie our season will be over, so I'm guessin' it will be next year.”

  “You have family in Ireland?”

  “Well, there's my cousin, who is makin' the introductions, an' he's been takin' care of the children until I get things such that I can bring 'em over.”

  One of the guests turned to Maureen. “You have children? You must miss them.”

  “Oh, no, they're Brian's children. We're not married, we're just business partners.”

  The lumbermen traveled upstream, farther south, their canoe's three horsepower Viking outboard making slow progress against the strong current in this section of the River channel. The River soon opened broad and shallow as the bottom of a wide bowl and the forests slowly sloped up on both sides of the River in a slow and easy rise to distant ridges. The forest was fir and spruce and pine with groves of birch and waves of maple.

  The men passed smaller channels of the River and many streams, some large enough to float logs to the main channel.

  The tall man was at the throttle, the other was making notes and looking at maps. The tall man wouldn't stop pressing for openness.

  “It's as if God just laid this out for us. He cupped these trees in his hands and said here, here's the easiest place you'll ever find to cut trees to make paper. And when that paper is needed for all those new jobs in all those growing companies in Toronto and Minneapolis and Chicago, supporting all those families growing happy and growing healthy since they won the war against evil, well, you tell me what anyone could say against that?”

  “I don't enjoy having to repeat it to you, and I can tell you don't like hearing it, so maybe this can be the last time. I am invited now into some meetings you aren't asked to attend, and I have been told some things in those meeting that you haven't been told, and if that's what's bothering you, all I can say is—that's just too bad.”

  “Of course that's not it. The way I have always looked at it is the more time spent in meetings, the less time spent out here.”