Torn Away

by James Heneghan

  He wandered down to the shore to sit and watch the ocean and the gulls from a high rocky promontory, a short distance from the house. He came to this wild place often when he sought isolation. Somehow, the sight of the sea beating and frothing against the rocks made him feel at home, at the center of things, even though his home was far away; the wild hiss and draw of the surf somehow calmed him.

  Today, however, there was another figure on the beach near to the rocks. When he got closer he could see it was his Aunt Kate. She was sketching with pastel crayons. A large pad of sketch paper rested on her knees.

  “I didn’t know you were an artist,” said Declan.

  She smiled up at him. Again, he was reminded of his ma: they had the same eyes, the same easy, fond way of smiling. “I’ve always painted,” she said. “Ever since I was a child.” She tilted the seascape sketch so he could see.

  Declan studied the dark sweeping colors on the page. Then he looked at the scene before them. “Is that what you see?”

  “Today, it’s what I see.”

  “You did the paintings in the house,” said Declan, “I can see that now.”

  “I paint from some of the pastel sketches, yes. There’s a small gallery in Sechelt owned by a woman from Dublin, Moira Donaghue, who came out here about the same time we did. Moira started taking some of my stuff a few years ago. Then a gallery in Vancouver wanted some. So they keep me busy.” She sighed happily. “Ah! Every day is different here. It’s the grand country. I try to catch the different moods of the sea and the sky.”

  Declan laughed. “I was only just thinking how every day is the same, one day after another with nothing to tell them apart.”

  Kate said, “You’re dead wrong, Declan, so you are. Each day is unique—one of a kind.” She pointed. “The clouds are never the same; they move constantly, changing their shapes. The light is always different at different times of the day and the year. I like the early morning light best; it’s purer somehow, have you noticed?”

  Declan shrugged.

  Kate said, “Life is change. Clouds, light.” She looked at him slyly. “People too; they grow and change.”

  Declan said nothing to that. He remembered: Kate was a Fixer too, just like Matthew.

  “What kind of a name is Iron Eagle, anyway?”

  “A First Nation name.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I am a Native Indian. When I was baptized I was given a Christian name—Joe Summers. But many First Nation people take the old names now.”

  They were eating their lunches on the outdoor steps. The playing field was empty, but several runners were circling the track in the afternoon sunshine.

  “I don’t see many of your people at school,” said Declan.

  Joe shrugged. “They leave to hunt or fish. Some go logging.”

  “Why not you?”

  “I stay.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  Joe often frowned over a question, and took his time answering. He did so now. Declan waited.

  “I stay because I want an education,” he said at last. “I plan to study law.”

  “A lawyer.” The tone of Declan’s voice conveyed his low opinion of law and lawyers. “I thought you wanted to be a scientist.”

  Joe shook his head. “I want to help my people.” He saw the puzzlement on Declan’s face and laughed. Then he became serious again. “Like many of my people, I live on a Reservation.” He waved his arm in a wide sweep over the distant forest. “Once, all this land, as far as an eagle can see, belonged to us. It was ours to hunt and fish. But it was taken away from us. We have been fighting for many years to get it back.”

  Declan’s eyes shone with interest. “Fighting?”

  Joe nodded. “The government men listen to us, and say they will do something. But they never do.”

  “What kind of fighting?” said Declan, remembering the Indian pictures of his childhood, feathered headdresses, bows and arrows.

  “We demonstrate. We close the roads through our land. We fight in the courts.”

  Declan snorted. “Fat lot of good that kind of fighting will do!”

  “One day we will win. Justice will be done.”

  “Justice!” Declan laughed. “You think the government will give you back your land?”

  “Perhaps not all we ask. But some. Enough to make our spirits strong again.”

  “So that’s what you meant by patience! Seems to me you’ll need plenty of it. In my country, we fight for what we’re entitled to. We don’t wait for someone to hand us what is ours. We fight to drive the English out of Ireland.”

  “I know. I’ve seen pictures of Ulster, and I’ve seen how you kill each other.”

  “Oh, have you, now!” said Declan angrily. “Well, first of all, we call it the North of Ireland, or the Six Counties. Only the Prods call it Ulster, because England has six of the nine Counties of the true Ulster. Second, the IRA is fighting for justice too! But they don’t have your so-called patience—I call it cowardice—to wait another hundred years for the English to give us what is ours!”

  Joe crushed his lunch bag in a quivering fist, and stood up. “You are calling me a coward?”

  Declan stood to face him, glaring.

  The school bell rang. It was the end of the lunch period.

  Declan sighed. “No, Joe. I didn’t mean to call you that.”

  November was gone. The kitchen calendar turned at last to the wild stare of the eagle, and now the crayoned square, December 31, stood out as a crimson promise of freedom. Declan felt strong. Only one more month and he would be home!

  Matthew asked Declan to help him with the fishing early one morning when the gulls were flocking offshore over the herring shoals.

  There was only room for two in the boat. “Who usually goes out with you?” said Declan.

  “Ana. She’s a good fisherman. Sometimes I go alone.”

  Matthew rowed the boat and showed Declan how to use the herring rake, a long, thin pole full of sharp bristling nails, by sweeping it down into the water beside the boat and lifting it high, full of wriggling herring. They filled three buckets to the brim with herring in less than fifteen minutes.

  “Why do you need so many herring?” said Declan.

  “Bait for salmon.” Matthew sat down and pulled on the oars. “And I thought I might try some on the seal pup. Mash ‘em up. We’ve been feeding it milk and vitamins, but there’s not much improvement so far.”

  Declan said nothing.

  Matthew stopped rowing to show Declan how to place the hooks and lower a line for the salmon that were feeding underneath the shoal.

  There was no wind. Declan’s jeans were covered in herring scales, his hands and sleeves too. He sat upright in the prow, holding the rod in two hands, waiting for a coho salmon to strike his herring bait. And when it did, his heart leaped with the salmon.

  When they got back with their catch, Ana said, “Declan caught the coho?”

  Matthew almost smiled. “He’s not bad.”

  Ana grinned at Declan and winked.

  Kate invented a special formula which they fed three times a day to the seal pup. Ana called it a fish shake. Kate mixed herrings, water, milk powder, vitamins, and cod liver oil in the blender. Declan became interested and began to enjoy helping with the feeding. He could not rid himself, however, of the thought that he was participating as another Fixer, and this always bothered him.

  Kate poured some of the formula into a baby bottle, but the pup refused to drink it, pulling its head away and wailing like a baby. Matthew hit on the idea of pushing a plastic tube down its throat while Declan, Thomas and Ana held its head, and Matthew poured the fish shake a few drops at a time down the tube. Declan noticed that the pup’s body was warm; why did he expect it to be cold? he wondered.

  After a week, the pup became used to the tube, swallowing it hungrily, and they were able to increase the amount of food.

  Ana was delighted. “It’s going to live!” she said to
Declan. “I knew we could save it.”

  “We save it!” cried Thomas, excited.

  “I wouldn’t have given twopence for its chances,” admitted Declan.

  “What shall we call it?” said Ana. “We can’t keep saying it; it should have a name.”

  “Is it a girl seal or a boy seal?” said Declan.

  Ana had to admit she didn’t know. “We’ll ask Matthew.”

  Matthew said he thought it was a boy.

  “What about Harper Harbor Seal,” suggested Declan, “Harper for short.”

  Thomas giggled. “Harper! Harper!”

  “Harper it is,” said Ana.

  Chapter Twenty

  Declan and Joe stood on the clam shell beach near the mouth of the river. Behind them, houses of weathered cedar straggled in random array along the river bench. Smoked and dried salmon hung on racks under orange tarpaulin shelters. Behind Joe’s village, snowcapped mountains reared high above the dark line of fir and spruce.

  Joe pointed toward the river mouth where it emptied into the sea. “Do you see? The far side of the sandbar.”

  Declan looked. He saw a ridge of rocks near the far shore, but that was all.

  Joe laughed. “You will see when we get closer. Get in.” He waited until Declan was kneeling in the front of the canoe, then he pushed off and leaped in. “Grab your paddle.”

  The current was weak. They paddled past the sandbar to the middle of the river where the current grew stronger and stronger until the canoe was moving swiftly toward the river mouth. Joe steered in the direction of the rocks.

  Declan stared ahead, his heart racing with excitement. Now he could see it, a narrow corridor of white water boiling through two walls of rock. Declan swore silently. He was a fool to have listened to Joe. They would never make it through that narrow channel in a canoe! The frail craft would break into a thousand pieces, and they would be thrown into the churning river and hurled against the sharp black rocks.

  They moved closer. “Paddle!” Joe screamed over the roar of the torrent. Declan paddled. The nose of the canoe swung straight. They were in the dark corridor. The canoe leaped and bucked in the frothing foam like a frightened horse. Declan was terrified. The walls of rock on both sides were but inches away. He could see daylight ahead where the rock walls ended, but they would never make it. Joe was screaming something, but Declan, deafened by the roar of the river, soaked by the spray, and certain he was about to die, could think only of his drowned, battered body being swept out to sea, never to be found.

  The front of the canoe lurched up, then down, scraped the side of the rock, lurched again, and catapulted out of the foaming crevice into the wide river mouth. They were through! The noise was behind them now. The canoe slowed as the river joined with the sea.

  Declan turned. Joe was laughing. “Wasn’t that . . . wasn’t that . . . wild!”

  Declan could not speak. His heart was like a drum in his chest.

  Joe let out a whoop of joy.

  They turned and paddled back in the slow-moving current near the village shore. Ana had an important part in the school Christmas play.

  “Last year we did ‘Scrooge,’” she said to them all one evening.

  “You were the Ghost of Christmas Past,” said Kate. “I helped Ana make the costume,” she explained to Declan.

  Ana said, “This year we’re doing ‘Amahl and the Night Visitors.’”

  “Ah, yes, the story of the little crippled boy,” said Kate. “We saw it in Dublin one time, remember, Matthew? The year Mountbatten was killed by a bomb, and his young grandson, and another boy?”

  Matthew looked up from his book. “Nineteen-seventy-nine. The same year we saw the Pope. The first time a Pope ever visited Ireland.”

  “Ah, the Pope was lovely,” said Kate with a sigh. “I’ll never forget him. ‘On my knees I beg of you to turn away from the paths of violence,’ he said.”

  Matthew frowned. “In those words?”

  “Those very words,” said Kate. She turned to Declan. “A third of Ireland’s population went to see him in Dublin at Phoenix Park. Ah! The excitement! We saw him again in Drogheda, and followed him to Galway. The Galway racetrack, of all places! Matthew and I shivering in our sleeping bags all Saturday night behind the paddock. Then Sunday morning, you never saw so many people in one place in all your life! And the fine day for it. Your ma couldn’t come because of the baby.” She laughed. “You, Declan! You were that baby! It was almost October, and you only the month old. Ah! The lovely baby you were!” To Matthew, she said, “I can’t believe it’s thirteen years gone since! But it was all lovely, every bit . . . “

  “Kate!” said Ana impatiently.

  “We’re ready, child. Aren’t we all waiting for ye?” She appealed to Matthew and Declan, who grinned, but said nothing.

  “It’s an opera in one act,” said Ana, as she gave them each a copy of the libretto. “I have the part of the mother. It’s a big part. So I need . . . “

  “It’s lovely you getting the part of the mother,” said Kate, “but I’m not surprised one bit; you sing like a nightingale, doesn’t she, Matthew, doesn’t Ana sing like a nightingale?”

  “ . . . I need . . . “ said Ana.

  “She does, right enough,” agreed Matthew, nodding.

  “I need you all to help me learn it. Declan, you are the crippled boy. Your name is Amahl. You hop about on a crutch. Matthew, you’re Melchior, one of the wise kings—would you please put your book away? Kate, you’re the second wise king, Balthazar—could you please stop thinking about the Pope? Thomas, you’re the third wise king. Your name is Kaspar and you’re quite deaf, so mostly you sing ‘Eh?’ whenever anyone sings anything to you. Don’t worry; I’ll give you a sign.”

  Thomas looked confused. While Ana went on giving instructions to Matthew and Declan, Kate took Thomas aside and patiently explained to him what he was expected to do. When she was finished, Thomas was grinning happily. “Eh! Eh! Eh!” he said.

  “Not yet, Thomas,” said Ana. “Ready everyone? Now don’t forget to sing your part when it comes your turn. Don’t worry about how it sounds.”

  “Who sings the parts of the shepherds who watch their flocks by night?” asked Declan who had been looking ahead in his libretto.

  “Mr. Hetherington has a special chorus of shepherds, but we could all do it together,” said Ana.

  Kate played the piano. They began unsteadily, amid much laughter, but once over the first couple of pages, became caught up in the story. Whenever there was the slightest pause in the singing Thomas rushed in with his “Eh? Eh? Eh?” Which added to the noisy confusion.

  Kate had a good voice, and sang confidently as she led on the piano.

  Matthew sounded like a foghorn.

  Declan was not altogether sure he liked being a crippled boy.

  Finally, they reached the end of the opera. Amahl left his home to join the three wise kings on their journey to the Christ Child in Bethlehem and they all sang together the shepherds’ hymn of peace.

  Kate said, “Ah! That was lovely, so it was.”

  Ana gave orders for a regular practice every evening after dinner.

  Matthew had scavenged a child’s discarded swimming pool for Harper’s swimming needs, but the pup had come along so well after several weeks of fish shakes that Matthew thought he might now be ready to return to the sea.

  “He doesn’t look quite ready to me,” said Ana. “What do you say, Declan?” She smiled her slightly tilted smile and gave him a wink.

  Declan shook his head at Matthew. “Needs another week or two, I’d say.” He knew how attached Ana had become to the pup, and if he were honest, he would have to admit he was now fond of him too; Harper had become a pet, splashing his tail and flippers in the water, and barking with excitement whenever he saw them coming to play with him.

  Matthew said, “You think so? Then it might be a good idea to feed him some live fish.”

  Ana agreed. “Then he’ll know what to eat w
hen he goes back home to the sea. Good idea, Matthew.”

  So Harper stayed with them a while longer, his fish shakes now supplemented with live herring from the bait tanks at Pender. Ana could not bear to feed the live fish to Harper, so Declan had to do it while she watched. “What a pity one animal must die so another can live,” she said. “God sure created a strange world.”

  “You’re right, Ana. None of it makes sense. Sometimes I think God is crazy.”

  Ana said, “Bite your tongue!”

  “No worse than you saying He’s strange!”

  “I didn’t say God is strange. All I meant was, who says a seal is more important than a herring? Huh? They’re both animals, they’re both alive, right? Look at the way we kill and eat animals! Who says a human is more important than a pig or a calf or a lamb?”

  Harper gobbled the herrings enthusiastically one after another, his shiny nose and whiskers reaching for the next even before the last had been swallowed.

  “Well, Harper has no worries about the question,” said Declan, emptying the last of the bucket into the happy pup’s wide open mouth.

  Whenever Ana had to stay at school and rehearse for the school play, Kate asked Declan if he wouldn’t mind staying to walk Ana home along the dark road.

  Ana wanted to take his arm. “Makes me feel like a real sister,” she explained.

  “You’re not my sister, Ana. You’re not even my cousin.” He kept his arm straight so she couldn’t hold on to it.

  Ana was quiet for a while, then she recovered and chattered about some of the funny rehearsal mistakes: John Basinger, who played the part of the page and whose duty it was to carry the train of each of the wise kings as they entered Amahl’s humble cottage, had pulled too hard on Kaspar’s train, and Kent Niamin, who played the part of Kaspar and whose mother’s heavy brocade curtain material was pinned uncertainly around his thin hips, was left standing in his Jockey shorts.