A Man in a Distant Field

by Theresa Kishkan

  Declan thanked them and then they began to gather up their belongings. Alex told Declan that the men would be returning in the next few days to take the new canoe back to the reservation in order to finish it. They’d use sandstone to abrade the surface, then dogfish oil to preserve it. They’d paint a design on each side of the bow. He used his foot to scatter the ashes of the beach fire.

  The trip back was quick as the wind was behind them. Declan felt in unison with the three men as they paddled down the coast, coming into his bay with the tide. Argos barked from the shore, excited to see him. He climbed out of the canoe and turned to thank the men for taking him with them but they were already on their way. Charles raised a paddle in farewell. Declan watched them until they’d disappeared with the sun, the falling notes of a loon bringing the day to a close.

  Rose appeared the next morning, clutching a book which had been sent to her by a far-off uncle. “Mr. O’Malley, only look! A book of my own!”

  She held out a book, Tales From Shakespeare, to show him. Her mother’s brother, in Montreal, had sent it to her as a late birthday gift. Her mother told her that she might bring it to show Declan but then she must come quickly back as there was washing to fold from the line.

  “Ah, Rose, those are wonderful stories. I had that book in my little school in Ireland and I’m thinking ye will like them as much as the scholars in Bundorragha did. Have ye read any at all then?”

  “My mother told me I would like one about an island and a shipwreck. We started that as soon as the parcel arrived but haven’t finished it yet. But just look at the pictures, Mr. O’Malley!” She held out the book to Declan and pointed to a picture of Ariel pinching Caliban; Declan recognized the style of Arthur Rackham. He noted that there were a number of colour plates in the book and knew each one would delight Rose, helping to form her understanding of the old stories within. He handed the book back to her.

  “How is Tom’s arm, Rose? Has it healed at all?”

  “My father was angry at my mother for taking him to the doctor. He said she was making a sissy of him. But then he saw the splint, and the special sling the doctor gave Tom. He said Tom could have some time away from chores but that only meant the rest of us had to do more. But then I saw him with Tom in his lap, helping him to flex his fingers as the doctor told Mum he must do, and he didn’t say anything else about sissies.”

  She was holding her book as though it was a small living animal, stroking the binding of blue-green cloth, and tracing her finger over the gold titles, the border surrounding the cover. It occurred to Declan that it was her only book. A world had opened for her with reading, he thought as he watched her run back to her home across the marsh. He had seen this in other children, of course, but this girl, in this place, seemed to be opening a door of the world for him, too. Her joy in the stories, her curiosity, the transparency of her emotional responses—these were serving to coax his heart back to life. At times it was unbearably painful to be in the company of a girl similar in age to his own daughters. What might they have become, in the fullness of time, with their love of music, birds, their patriotism forming against the backdrop of violence? He and Eilis had wanted them to be bold, to know their hearts, their own place in the family, the community, their country as it emerged, as it must do, from behind the shadow of British oppression. Each recollection carried with it the fierce pain of loss and the bottomless depth of his love for them. He hummed a little of an air Grainne had loved, a planxty for Mrs. Judge, and felt awash on the shore of a foreign land. Which he was, to be sure. Even the Scottish fishermen over near Whiskey Slough, who sometimes spoke a Gaelic not too far removed from what he knew, belonged to this place because of the boats they’d built and skippered and the children they’d sired; strong boats and sons alike a rugged connective tissue. Whereas he might be a name in a story, a momentary pause while the teller explained what was known of him, where he had lived, the cut of his boat. He thought of the pieces that Grainne played, composed to remember the harpist’s sojourns in houses around Ireland, for the wives of prosperous men, and the men themselves—George Barbazon, O’Reilly, Doctor John Stafford, immortalized for prescribing a cure for depression which included whiskey. Grainne went through a phase of just playing the melody, the single lines of music, which was how the score was printed. But as she became more proficient, she could not help but double some notes, simply at first, then embellished, decorated counterpoint, arpeggios which improvised upon the melody. The ringing of the strings was encouraged and damped. He could not get Mrs. Judge out of his mind, humming the opening; its sweetness brought him briefly home.

  A few notes only. That’s all it took. He followed the planxty air, its sweet, plangent notes, back to the house on the stony hill near Delphi.A cabin only, but four-square and tidy. The west room with its fireplace and marriage bed. The scullery where the hens hurried when the door was open to peck at the clean-swept floor until Eilis noticed them and scurried them out with the goose-wing she used as a duster. The weather outside with all its humours: soft rain and strong winds, hail, clear blue skies with a few white clouds scudding across as if in a hurry, mists that enveloped the entire mountain and all its valleys and slopes, rubbing out the grazing sheep and moorcocks. The beloved hills were quilted with stone walls, coarse durable stitches anchoring forage to the rocks beneath. A heart could be lodged in a cleft of rock among the gorse and tough grasses and never know itself to be lost, gazing to the purple of wild rhododendron denoting streams, bog earth. A boreen tramped over by generations of O’Malleys would be imprinted with the shape of their boots like an inky thumb pressed onto paper. Here, the smoke from the chimney at World’s End was indistinguishable from the smoke of the Neils, the MacIsaacs. What lasted were the cedar stakes in the mud, a blade of worked slate.

  A month earlier, Declan had fished for a day near Moore Point and he had gone into shore for a look-see. Once he’d got his bearings, he found he had pulled his boat up onto a rocky peninsula sheltering a small bay white with clamshells. The tide was low, and he walked over to the other side of the bay where he saw orange flowers in bloom. Looking at what remained as the tide receded, he could see a pattern of stones on the bottom of the bay. Half-circles, layered upon one another, making bowls that he could see held water as the tide moved out. When he had looked long enough, he became convinced it was a way of trapping fish, and a clever way at that. The tide might wash in feed and, with it, hungry fish; drifting out, it would leave the fish trapped in the half-circles of stones where they could easily be scooped out. The mid-dens of shells told him this was a beach used for a long time. Clams, obviously, fish, oysters nestled against the rocky peninsula. Looking up, he’d seen the platforms of sticks created by eagles for nesting their young, and turning he saw the remains of fire-circles, little piles of slate chips. He began to understand that the landscape could be read like a book, if you knew the alphabet. No gammas or epsilons, no deltas or omegas, but stones ingeniously placed to create bowls on the ocean floor, stakes pounded into estuary bottoms to hold lattices made of sticks and cordage, graceful hammer stones, and knives for slicing open the belly of a fish. Picking one of the orange flowers, a lily it looked like, he’d tucked it into a pocket for Mrs. Neil to identify.

  A Columbia lily, she’d told him, a plant with bulbous roots which the Indians had eaten, along with another plant often growing nearby, a nodding brown-stippled flower called a chocolate lily, or rice-root, for the numerous bulbils producing the flowers. The Indians would dry them, steam them in pits like potatoes, and eat them with fish grease. She’d said her children always thought the flowers smelled of Christmas oranges, and putting his nose to the flower, he had thought it must be so, remembering the rare occasion such a fruit had come to Delphi. He’d asked Mrs. Neil about the bay at Moore Point and she’d said it was a campsite used annually by the Indians, although she supposed that would change with the number of settlers moving to that part of the coast.

  She was a woman who woul
d be remembered in the stories of this area, he thought. Kind, resourceful, a mother of children who had never known another place and who had eaten food grown from its soil. She had lost one child shortly after its birth and had buried it beyond her house in a little enclosure of pickets, wild roses growing around the grave. That was a thing to anchor a woman to a place, he supposed. A woman would want to nurture a child, even after its death, remember its birthday, croon a lullaby to the seeding grasses. He’d read of tribes who buried dead children around their cooking fires so they wouldn’t get cold. A woman would understand that, he thought, even if she might not do it herself.

  One morning when he woke, he was startled to hear voices right outside the cabin. He peered out the window and saw Alex, Charles, and Albert sitting on the stones with a newly painted canoe drawn up onto the beach. He quickly pulled on a shirt and went out to greet them.

  The canoe was beautiful. They had fashioned thwarts of clean, new cedar boards, and painted the prow with a stylized serpent, its tail curving elegantly down towards the keel. Declan marvelled again that this vessel had been contained within one of the big trees growing near the work site and that these men had purposefully and expertly brought it to life.

  Charles came forward with a paddle. “We made you this, for your help, and for you to use when you come out with us.” He handed the paddle to Declan.

  It was cedar, nicely shaped and finished, and it had the same raven painted on its surface as the burial canoe had on its prow.

  “They are clever fellows, the ravens, and we noticed you liked it when we spoke to them.”

  Declan didn’t know what to say. He thanked them with a catch in his throat. He could smell the canoe, the spiciness of cedar and salt and smoke. They invited him to go with them for the day, out to one of the village sites. He couldn’t think of any reason not to go when his heart longed to be in the big canoe, his arms pulling in unison with theirs.

  There was a brisk wind and some scattered rain clouds, although the sun came out between them with a welcome warmth. Declan sat on the middle thwart, finding the right position for his paddle. Out to open water, then north, past the canoe’s work site, past the mouth of Sakinaw Creek and its ancient middens, past the logging camp on Nelson Island with its congregation of ravens watching (for sorrow, for joy, how many for belonging?), and then they were gliding into the shallow waters surrounding a small, grassy island.

  “My mother has asked for some kinnikinick,” said Alex, “and this has always been a good place for it.”

  Declan wondered what kinnikinick was.

  “Look all around you,” was Alex’s reply.

  The island was covered in a low-growing plant, like heather, with flowers like small pink urns. It resembled a plant that grew in Ireland, he thought, a plant that produced berries and brilliant red leaves in the fall.

  “Shhh ...” whispered Charles, and listening, they could hear the low hum of bees foraging in the little flowers.

  Moving carefully among the bees, the Indian men cut lengths of leafy stems, trying to leave the flowers for the bees, and so that they could turn to berries, once pollinated. When Declan asked what Lucy wanted the plant for, the men laughed. “Tobacco, eh,” said Alex. “She thinks the store stuff is too expensive so she mixes it with this. She says it was good for her mother and it will be just as good for her. Later she’ll pick the berries and dry them for winter.”

  Leaving the island, Declan could see that they were entering an inlet with a tall mountain to one side and rocky headlands on the other. But tucked in a bay on their starboard side was a tiny village. A dock, some cabins clustered close to the shore, smoke blooming from the chimneys. “Whites call it Egmont, but our name is Sq’elawt’x. Means ‘sword fern,’” said Alex. “We’re going over to the reserve on the other side of the inlet. Name of that place is Cetx’anax, or ‘bear’s bum. ’We want to show my old uncle the canoe.”

  Some small children were gathered on the beach as the canoe glided to the shore. It was quiet in the village. A couple of dogs play-fought on the boardwalk, and it sounded like someone was splitting firewood, a crisp chop, then a rattle as the logs broke apart. Alex had said only a few families continued to live there, most of them caring for elderly relatives who wouldn’t move. A very old man sat in front of one of the log cabins. As he got up and slowly walked towards them, Declan could see that his back was bent and his head twisted to one side. But as he got closer, Declan noticed how bright and alive his eyes were. They took in the canoe first, a smile forming on his mouth, then glanced at Declan. He nodded a time or two and quietly said some words in another language.

  “My uncle speaks no English,” explained Alex, “but he is telling you that you’re welcome here. He thinks the canoe is very fine and wonders if you helped with it. He sees you have a paddle of your own.”

  “Thank him for welcoming me but tell him that the canoe is all your own work.”

  The men conducted a conversation in their own tongue, softly, looking towards Declan occasionally and gesturing towards the canoe. The uncle, helped by two children, crossed the pebbly beach to examine the craft. He asked a few questions which Declan thought must have had to do with the steaming because he held his hands across the widest part of the canoe, murmuring and nodding at the responses from his nephew and great-nephews. After a few minutes, the uncle turned and led the men to his cabin where an ancient woman came out with mugs of tea. She smiled profusely and indicated dry stumps where they should seat themselves.

  There had been rain clouds with watery sun, but now the sun shone full. There was a smell of fish, not unpleasant, but as though drying or smoking. Gazing around the village, Declan decided that the small sheds with smoke filtering out between the siding boards must be smokehouses. Further down the shore, a woman was raking for clams, putting them into an open-work basket beside her on the stones. There were no gardens, but bushes growing around the cabins were laden with blossoms that would soon become berries, given the fervent activity of hummingbirds in sunshine. He heard ravens chuckling unseen in the stands of big trees, their throaty voices adding to the mild din of dogs wrestling and a few children throwing pebbles to the water. The low voices and the rhythmic chopping conspired to make him sleepy. Putting his emptied mug on the ground beside his stump, he leaned back against the warm logs of the cabin and closed his eyes.

  He was walking the boreen from Delphi, down through Tawnyinlough and Lettereeragh where the track accompanied the Bundorragha River to its marriage with Killary Harbour. Birdsong was sweet in the hedges, and off to the west, the Mweel Rea Mountains still had a crown of snow on their peaks. Shadows made the mountainsides a velvet of purple and dun. Willows along the riverside rippled silver in the breeze and trout rose to the surface of the water for the long-legged flies. A magpie was squawking in a hazel, one for sorrow, two for joy. He thought he could hear the second one but woke with a start, realizing it was a raven.

  The men were indicating it was time to leave. Alex carried a basket of smoked fish down to the canoe and placed it carefully under his thwart. They eased the canoe through the shallows and stroked out of the bay, lifting their paddles in farewell.

  Declan thought they’d head back, but the men guided the canoe in the direction of a group of islands emerging out of spray. The current beneath the keel was strong and paddling was easier.

  “Skookumchuck,” called Charles from the front thwart. “Tides meeting from Hunechin side and Jervis side. We won’t go through. Just wanted to show you.”

  It was quite a sight, the convergence of two powerful tides, the force of their meeting creating spreading whirlpools. Albert told Declan a canoe had been taken by one of the whirlpools, sucked under, and its passengers, two young men, never seen again, although the canoe eventually found its way to shore a mile or two down the inlet. Charles pointed out the rising heads of sea lions in the tumult of water, saying they fed there regularly, pursuing schools of eulachon or herring through the rapids. Two
of the animals came close to the canoe so that Declan could see that their faces were dog-like, smooth. Their bodies were massive, joyous, as they plunged into the quick-moving water, their tails coming as something of a surprise after their faces. You expected legs, not flippers and a fishy tail. Declan said this to the men and they laughed.

  “Our people hunted them with harpoons and cedar floats, each family with its own special type. The chiefs would wear their bristles in their headdresses. Not much of that anymore, though,” explained Alex.

  They were quiet on their way back to Oyster Bay. The sun had been covered again by cloud and big, cold raindrops fell. Alex reached into the basket and handed each man a piece of smoked fish. They slowed the canoe and took a moment to eat what seemed to Declan like the very essence of the place in which he had found himself—the fish tasted of woodsmoke and salt and itself, of course, the flank of a salmon caught in one of the Indian gillnets or weirs, and carefully prepared to provide nourishment and solace in the dark months. Passing the island where they’d gathered the kinnikinick, he could see the mountains of the mainland, wreathed in cloud and crowned, like Mweel Rea in his brief dream, with snow. He felt desperately homesick, of a sudden, but he didn’t know which home he was missing: the cabin at World’s End where his loyal dog waited or the burned husk in the shadows of the Sheefry Hills where no one kept a fire going or a bit of dinner warm for his return.

  Chapter Eight

  The poem was leading him on a merry dance. So many false starts for the homecoming, so many obstacles. There was abundant weather in the poem, elemental forces that affected the sea, and affected also the characters. He was not pursuing it from beginning to end but entering parts almost at random and hoping for the poetry to speak to him. Sometimes it took him by the coattails, as when he read of Elpenor’s burial, shook him like a cloud of rain until all the tears inside him had been released and he was cleansed by the accompanying wind. Other parts, as when Odysseus encountered his mother in Hades’ kingdom, were deep wells of sorrow that swallowed him up. His translations showed him the poem from the inside out, how words connected to other words made a framework, a structure, how each image provided a layer or element to the structure, how it echoed and rang as images reappeared, changed slightly by weather or circumstance.