The 53rd Parallel

by Carl Nordgren

  They were brothers. Their grandfather was the founder and chairman of Abitibi Lumber, their father was managing director.

  The pulp mill brothers had worked for the family business as jacks in their teens and early twenties. They served in the British forces during the war and when they came home they first managed logging crews and then increasingly larger parts of the business operations.

  It was still a couple of years before their grandfather intended to hand the chairman's position to their father, but it had been talked about. Their father had stated he wouldn't announce his successor until he assumed the chairman's role.

  The brothers had led the initiative to build the new experimental mill, and it wasn't easy. Their grandfather didn't like the risk involved in investing so much in what was still an experimental process that would only pay off if a future market emerged. Their father believed the idea was a good one but thought the market was still five or six years away, so he felt there was no hurry. He wanted to see his boys struggle to prove their case.

  There was a woodsman's hat sitting upside down on the table between the two brothers and a note pad next to it.

  The oldest brother, James Miller, reached for the pad.

  “I'll fold, you pick.”

  The younger brother, Stephen Miller, grabbed the pad first.

  “I picked last time, eh?”

  “Sure, you fold, I'll pick.”

  “Here's the obvious one. We need to find out as much about this Brian Burke fellow as we can.”

  Stephen wrote it down, tore off the page, folded it, and dropped it in the hat as James offered the next task.

  “Check if any of his Indians ever worked for us as jacks, if they caused any problems, with alcohol, or any safety issues, any sort of attitude problems. Just write 'Problems with Indians' and we'll know what I mean.”

  Stephen tore the page, folded it, and dropped it into the hat, then prepared to write again as his brother kept talking.

  “Which leaves the tough one, this asshole biology professor at Queens University. All he's got is conjecture and a big ego. This is starting to be more than a nuisance. Someone needs to visit him again.”

  Stephen looked up at James.

  “Do I even pretend to write that one down, or do you want to go ahead and claim it?”

  “What, you want me to go to Kingston to see if the muzzle is still in place?”

  “What if I told you I know you're already packed and ready to go.”

  “And how would you know that?”

  “Because that young Métis mistress of yours next door in Toronto sounds like paradise.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You're not going to deny it, are you?”

  “How did you find out?”

  “What should concern you is that I didn't go looking for this news, it found me.”

  Stephen picked up the hat and offered it to his brother to pick his assignment.

  “Does anyone else in the family know about her?”

  “The place where I was when this news came to me, well, let's just say it's not where the old man hangs out.”

  The Ojibway filled the sweat lodge, their hunched backs pressed into the heavy blanketed hides draped over the frame of strong, supple saplings. They sat under the tensed curve, cross-legged, knees just inches from one another.

  Dangling from the saplings used to frame the sweat lodge were strings of cowry shells and figurines carved from antlers. Four white ribbons marking the Four Directions hung down from the centered top of the lodge.

  The shallow fire pit in the center of the sweat lodge had been dug first and the lodge built around and over it. A bit of cedar bough was placed in the center of the pit and it was crackling sparks as the first bright and red-hot glowing Grandfather was laid on top of it by the pitchfork-wielding Mediwiwin who called on this Grandfather's spirit to be present with them.

  The men answered with quiet calls to familiar spirits, for their presence, for their memory, for their story, for their honor.

  The Mediwiwin brought another round stone, and another, filling the pit with glowing balls of fiercely-radiant heat and filling the lodge with the Grandfathers' spirits.

  The first sweat appeared as beads on the first brows of the men.

  After the seventh red-hot stone, the Mediwiwin sat at the door and closed the flap behind him.

  It was full dark.

  It was very hot.

  The Grandfathers' glowed red in their deepest cores.

  Simon couldn't resist; he always held his hand right at the tip of his nose to re-discover he could not see it as he felt the water rising in his body.

  The stones were glowing, then all at once they sizzled and sparkled and snapped as the Mediwiwin ladled water on them. The steam rose and quickly disappeared in the dark.

  The medicine man began a prayer chant to Gitchi Manitou.

  The dry heat was filling up with hot steam.

  Simon looked up and saw the four white ribbons glow in the dark.

  The Mediwiwin was beating the drum now, to tell Gitchi Manitou that they have come to give thanks to him, and to hear him speak his wisdoms. Then he stopped and handed the drum to his right. Albert reached out in the dark, felt for it, and took it.

  He drummed his prayers to the spirits and asked that they lead Mathew's spirit back to him again, then handed the drum to continue its journey around the circle.

  They were finishing their meal when Maureen and Kevin turned to listen to Brian.

  “If the dissenter is prepared to speak out, I don't see we have a problem. No one could proceed as planned in face of expert evidence to the contrary.”

  Kevin stood to get the whiskey bottle from the bar as Maureen answered him.

  “We don't have to look far to find examples of a British government doin' what was good for the powerful few even when it was wrong for the many whose life came from a little piece of land. An' last I checked, the British Queen is on the Canada dollar.”

  Brian held his glass for Kevin to pour him a shot.

  “I guess you're right, now that I think about sittin' there with Indian Affeckers.”

  Maureen touched Brian's arm.

  “Are you goin' to call 'em that from now on?”

  “It's who they are.”

  Twice during the sweat-lodge ceremony there was a brief pause to refresh. Both times the Mediwiwin opened the flap and the men all leaned forward to stretch their backs and to breathe deeply the cool air that rushed in.

  At the second pause, Simon studied Mathew's face in the bit of light and smiled when Mathew looked at him.

  Joe Loon was speaking to Albert.

  “Maureen will take Simon Fobister to this place where the dissenter is found. This time my son Big Brian will stay here.”

  “I will tell Big Brian you must speak to him.”

  No smart play had presented itself, so Maureen and Kevin still hadn't huddled for even the briefest private moment by the time Brian declared his night was over. He took one lantern and Kevin another, and they walked through the trees on a path just being worn.

  Except for the lanterns, the stars were the only light. They could hear the soft lapping water on shore, the insects' buzz and chirp and hum.

  Maureen followed behind Brian, Kevin followed behind her.

  They were nearly to Kevin's cabin when Albert and Simon stepped from the darkness. Albert told Brian that his father Joe Loon had invited him to his wigwam for a council fire. When Kevin heard that, he smiled.

  “Your father?”

  “I told you on the plane Joe Loon's people see me as a father to Simon. I've been honored to be called Joe Loon's son as well, an' Albert's brother.”

  “You certainly have gone native, haven't you? A feather would look good in your hair, Maureen.”

  “We show the respect they show us is all it really is. Where will you be when I return, Lady Girl?”

  “I'll be in my cabin, waitin' for ya.”

>   “Good night, Kevin.”

  “Good night.”

  They left Kevin at his door. Brian handed the lantern to Simon so he could use it to lead Maureen to her cabin, and then Albert and Brian followed him through the dark trees past empty cabins, along the beach, past the dock, and over a slight rise to the Ojibway village camp at the edge of the forest.

  All of the people—the men and women, their children and the elders—sat around the fire where the Grandfathers had been prepared. The fire was burning low, steady for a long night. Some sang and others laughed at the stories the Mediwiwin told.

  Old George taught a young boy a drum beat his grandfather had taught him when he was a boy.

  Mathew watched Simon lead Brian and Albert into Joe Loon's wigwam and followed.

  Maureen lit her lantern before Simon left with his. She placed in on the floor next to her while she retrieved the pistol. She tucked the loaded gun in her jacket pocket, left the lantern on the table at her window, and stepped out into the dark night. She moved slowly while her eyes adjusted, then stepped gracefully towards the bright light coming from Kevin's lantern, shining through his cabin window.

  When she drew close she called out, but softly.

  “Kevin?”

  He was waiting for her.

  “I'm here.”

  “Kill your lamp.”

  A deep darkness enveloped them as she slipped into his cabin. They stood just inside his door, feeling close yet barely able to see each other, their expressions hidden.

  “And so, Lady Girl, the question I have to ask is how much of our money is left?”

  “Your money?”

  “IRA money. The money Russell gave you.”

  “I told you, I never met up with Russell.”

  “I believed you when you first said it. Most did. But after you disappeared, then showed up here, hiding—”

  “If I was hidin', would Brian have gone to Cong to tell everyone what we are doin' here?”

  “And so you are building a fishing lodge, and an airline it seems, and these sorts of businesses, well, they take capital. Lots of it. Perhaps twenty or 30 or even as much as 50,000 pounds? So unless you can convince the others by showing us the source of that capital, and we know it didn't come from Brian, and I know it didn't come from your family, so unless you can show them where it came from, they will conclude it's their money you're using.”

  “We haven't invested anywhere close to 50,000 pounds to build this place.”

  “That's great news. So you are saying most of our money is still available.”

  Maureen looked out the window to check on Brian's return.

  “Can I still count on you as a friend?”

  “I have always looked out after you, Lady Girl. I've put myself at risk to come now. If you want my support to continue, you have to tell me right now where the money came from to build this camp. Surely you can see that's necessary.”

  “Brian was right when he said it wouldn't take much money to get this built. We didn't have to buy the land, we wanted to, but they would only lease it to us, an' I negotiated a very favorable payment for the first five years of the lease… An' with the Indians providin' knowledge and muscle, the cabins mostly come from the forest.”

  Maureen had circled Kevin a bit to position herself so the cabin's window opened out in the direction of the Ojibway camp, and she kept an eye cocked to the dark for a returning lantern. As Kevin turned with her the previously shadowed moonlight revealed more of their faces.

  “What is Brian going to tell me when I ask him about the source of the money you've invested in your airline? In all those motors and boats, and the appliances in the kitchen? They didn't come from the forest.”

  Maureen didn't answer.

  “Because when my huntin' party arrives, that's what they're huntin' for, the answer to that question.”

  They stood in the quiet and the dark.

  Brian knew the ceremony Joe Loon performed to bring together in his wigwam the clan elders, the spirits of their ancestors, the spirits of the animals, and the Great Creator. He took the pipe handed to him by Old George, raised it to the Four Sacred Points, took a puff, and then held the pipe so smoke rolled over his face.

  He handed the pipe to Albert.

  Sitting across from the men, Simon and Mathew listened to Albert explain Joe Loon's reasons for Simon and Maureen to take the next leg of this journey to learn about the threat to the River. This Man sat down behind Joe Loon and Albert.

  “It is Maureen who told us what the words on the paper mean. She will be best at speaking to the man who wrote these words. The man named Dissenter.”

  Mathew sat with his head rested on Simon's shoulder. In a quiet moment, Mathew spoke softly.

  “My spirit calls to me now. It is far away so I do not hear everything it is saying. But it offers us a warning. We must be careful. Danger comes closer. ”

  Maureen took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, then spoke.

  “Russell was a broken man when I saw him. He was wrapped in sadness. He was failin', the trip was failin', an' there was such a disappointment to him—I reckon it's what killed him. That's how it looked to me, an' I was the last countryman to see him alive, if you haven't realized that yet. He had concluded he had no chance gettin' the Nazis interested in attackin' the Brits in the North, an' I watched as he begged them for money. Gettin' British pounds wasn't provin' to be easy with the war ragin', that was the excuse they told him.”

  “You were the last to be with Russell.”

  “We can't ever tell anyone, Kevin, but he said he felt we were defeated.”

  “But he did give you some money to bring back to Ireland.”

  “He had a satchel with some pound notes in it, an' it was so few he seemed embarrassed to hand it to me.”

  “How much?”

  “It sure wasn't 50,000. It was barely 2,000 pounds, an' when he gave it to me his last words were for me to hide it for him, an' to deny it existed, to deny we'd even met, that was his idea, until he came an' he got it from me himself, so.”

  “You should have told us this when you learned he died.”

  “When first you told me, well, I wasn't sure he was dead. No one had seen his body. An' until I was sure, I needed to be true to his directive. Then I went to every meetin' point we used, for months, for years, lookin' an' not findin' any of you. So then who should I have given the money to? If anyone's claim at that point was strongest, it was the Nazis.”

  “So even if you're given all the doubt on all your points, even if you can convince them the IRA abandoned you just as you say, and you were left with the money, then what? They'll take one look at this place and be quite pleased to conclude there had to be more money than you're saying, and that IRA has the prevailing claim on it all. A claim on all that money, and a claim on all that money has created.”

  “Innish Cove must be left untouched by this.”

  “Does Brian know?”

  “Of course not… How can you help me, Kevin? What can you tell me that gives me a view to the right move?”

  “It's the reason I came, to do just that. To find that move that helps make the IRA stronger and to keep you safe.”

  “Keep me safe? The IRA doesn't go after the New World. It's one of the first lessons you taught me, Kev. We keep Irish eyes smilin' in Boston so their money keeps flowin' to the boys in Dublin by makin' certain no whiff of actual bloody violence ever threatens the New Worlds. If Clan na Gael have to stare killin' in the face, they'll stop payin' for it.”

  “Some lessons that were true when I taught you aren't seen the same by many now. There's splintering left and right, and one of the new organizations is nearly as strong as us and claiming to be the real IRA. Hagan and Malone, they just left us to join them, and so have a couple of Hagan's toughs. It's mostly new lads, and those who fought in the war, and I have to say that war changed them, for they think differently about using physical force.”

  “That glow up in the tr
ees, if that spreads, it's Brian's lantern crestin' the rise. We got just a minute. Let me show you this.”

  She removed the pistol from her jacket.

  “It's loaded.”

  “You brought a loaded pistol.”

  “You're a good teacher.” She handed it to him. “I've started stockpilin' pistols an' rifles. And plenty of ammunition, rememberin' times the boys had guns but no bullets.”

  “An interesting element to add to the discussions. Guns are always an achievement. How do we get them back home?”

  The light was moving towards the guest cabins.

  “That's Brian for sure. I haven't figured transport yet, beyond the notion that if I got them on a fishin' boat out of Nova Scotia, I'll bet you could figure out how to link up an' get them home. But understand this, Kevin. I'm prepared to send you guns or I'm prepared to use them on anyone who comes to this place intendin' to harm its existence in any way.”

  “I believe you.”

  “I may be leavin' in the mornin' for a few days. One of us needs to visit the dissenter an' it's best if I go.”

  “We'll try to find a moment in the morning before you do.”

  Maureen gave Kevin a familiar touch and navigated back to her cabin by the lantern in her window.

  Brian knocked on her cabin door and burst in, filled with the joy he found whenever he was with his new family.

  “When you an' Joe Loon…”

  The lantern was on the table, but the room was empty.

  “I'm in the bedroom.”

  Brian continued to the bedroom door.

  “When you both have the same idea about what it is I should do next…”

  In the candle's glow he saw Maureen stretched out on the bed in a white cotton nightgown, cut deep at the bosom, and open.

  “I'll bet you know what you should do next.”

  “An' we have more 'an just a few minutes.”

  “So let's take our time.”

  “Are we workin' our way to that heroic feck you keep promisin' me, or is it makin' love we're after?”

  “The heroic feck'll be me weddin' gift, an' thanks for askin'.”