The Lost Salt Gift of Blood

by Alistair Macleod

  Now this scene of winter death seems strangely out of place amidst the drunken intensity of the summer’s splendour. Like an improbable sequence of old black-and-white pictures taken once in the long ago. Taken of people it is impossible to ever know or to fully understand.

  The sun is rising above the mountains and touching the freshly washed earth. The raindrops glisten and sparkle, and the fog and mists that hang above the dirt roads of high places rise and vanish toward the sky. The bobolinks and red-winged blackbirds bounce and sing from the tips of their springing willows. Orange butterflies glide and float on the drafts of air and the chattering squirrels and chipmunks sprint along the fallen logs like busy proprietors doing morning inspection. The earth is alive, refreshed and new.

  It does not take long for the rocks above “The Little Turn of Sadness” to dry, and my car in its lowest gear grinds slowly and reluctantly up the steep incline, nearly swinging out and over the hanging ledge, then settling more steadily to the stony and almost familiar roadbed.

  For the next two miles the road continues to climb and wind along the cliff’s high ledge. In some places erosion has caused the roadside to crumble and fall into the sea. It would be impossible for two vehicles to meet and pass upon such narrowness but there is little likelihood of such an occurrence.

  Now and then upon the left I see the remains of the old stone fences and also tiny patches of still cleared land indicating where houses had once stood. The grey granite stones of their foundations are still visible, covered now with green and velvet moss. Now and then a stone flue stands with phallic reality amidst the rubble of the house that has fallen down around it. Only the strength of stone has survived the ravages of time and seasons.

  A mile from my grandmother’s house her sheep begin to appear, grazing or lying along the roadside and sometimes right in the middle of the road. They are the white-faced Cheviots that she has had for as long as I can remember and there is almost a timelessness about them. Open faced and independent they do not flock together as do the more conventional Oxfords and Suffolks. As the car approaches, the young lambs bound and scramble out of its way bleating over their shoulders to the patient, watchful ewes. The thick-shouldered rams, with their heavy, swinging scrota almost dragging on the ground, move only at the last minute and then begrudgingly. Their flickering eyes seem to say they would as soon lower their heads and charge than relinquish this stony trail which they obviously consider to be theirs.

  For decades my grandmother has been concerned about the purity and well-being of these sheep. She has worried about strange rams interbreeding and diluting her “stock.” And she has worried about young dogs wild with spring and bloodlust running them over the cliffs to sea-washed deaths. Now there is no need to worry. All the other flocks and dogs from the fallen houses have gone and it is only her sheep whose bleating cries reverberate across these high cleansed hills.

  At the road’s end I stop to slide back the poles of the old gate before the final entrance to her yard. As I bend, the blood bursts from my nostrils, splashing scarletly upon my shoes, and there is a dizzying lightness bordering on black within my head. I straighten and place my hands on the gateposts for steadiness and lift my face to the sun to reverse the blood’s thick flow. I can feel it coursing sweetly through the back of my mouth and down the darkened passages of my throat. To avoid further bending, I slide the bottom pole back by hooking my right foot underneath it and then stand and wait for the bleeding to cease. I dab at my nostrils and lips with the pieces of Kleenex that I now carry in place of standard handkerchiefs.

  The car, with its clutch disengaged, rolls easily down the small incline into the yard. There is no need to even start the motor. I close the gate watched with interest by various farm animals who are not in the least alarmed. Almost all of my grandmother’s animals are descended from livestock that has been here for a long, long time and over the years they have taken on distinctive colourings and characteristics that are all their own. They seem now the same animals that I have always known and heard described, and seen in the faded photographs of the albums of my mind. The three brown-dappled horses, rolling in the slickness of their summer fat, have an almost maroon tinge to their coats when the sun strikes them at certain angles. They have identical white stars in their foreheads and a solitary white spot the size of a large coin on their barrelled chests. They have always been called either Star or Tena. They have always held their heads high when drawing even the heaviest of loads and have been perfectly in step with each other, their hoofbeats falling in unison through the regulated choreography of their fiercely inbred generations. They have been surefooted in the snow and long-winded on the hills. They have crossed the drift ice in the blinding blizzards and galloped the cartloads of seaweed ashore across the briny rocks. For years they have refused to eat any hay except that grown upon this hilly farm; as if smelling and tasting within it their own urine, manure and sweat. As if they are part of some great ecological plan, converting themselves into hay and the hay in turn into their wine-dappled sun-strong selves.

  Now standing about this yard, whisking their too-long tails and tossing their forelocks out of their eyes, they are idle and at ease. They have felt neither bridle nor harness nor shoes for years and the youngest who is close to ten has never felt them at all. He is so old now, in the years of a horse, that it is unlikely that he ever will.

  They have become almost pets waiting for my grandmother to open her door and offer them bits of apple or pieces of stale, dried bread. Yet in their deep, dark eyes and in the muscles that bunch and ripple within their shoulders their power can still be seen. They are like the eyes and muscles of certain animals at the zoo; eyes and muscles that say, Yes, we are here and we are alive and we eat our food, but we were not bred for this kind of life nor did we come from it nor is this all we are. Look closely at us and you will see.

  The brindled cows with their in-curved horns are busily grazing about the grassy knolls. Because my grandmother no longer tends them as she used to, nor uses their cream-rich milk for her butter and cheese, they too seem wasted and unused. They are followed by overgrown calves who nurse and butt at their swollen and distended udders. Some of their udders are caked and hardened and mastitis has set in. It would be close to impossible to redeem them now and they will nevermore fill to overflow the warm and brimming pails. A black hen with gold flecks around her neck is clucking to her chickens. The chickens are too young for this time of year and will not likely survive the fall.

  Entering the porch that leads to my grandmother’s house it is necessary to step down. With the passage of the years the house has sunk into the earth. The stone foundation of more than a century has worked itself deep into the soil and now all doors are forced to open inward. The porch is filled with tools and clothes and items from the past. A manual cream separator is on the left, a hand scythe hangs on the wall to the right, and beside it a wire stretcher and a meat grinder. Bits of harness and rope and cans of fence staples, nails, hammers, gunny sacks and fishing rods hang from the spikes driven deep into the wooden beams. Shapeless rain jackets, hats, gloves, and worn-out shoes and boots hang and lie cluttered in a corner.

  In the kitchen my grandmother sits at her table drinking her morning tea. She has not seen nor heard my arrival and she is staring out the window that looks upon the sea. There the gulls are curving and turning in the sparkling sun. The three black-and-white border collies raise their eyes when I enter but they do not move. They lie about the floor like tossed and familiar rugs. One is under the table, one against the wood box at the stove, and the third beside my grandmother’s chair. Unlike my grandmother, they have been aware of my approach for some time. They have recognized the sound of the motor groaning along the cliff’s edge and heard the gate poles slide and the opening of the door and the footstep on the sill. They have heard it all and felt no cause for movement or alarm. I enter now to make my presence fully known and to take my place in time.

  Turning
from the window with her teacup in her hand, my grandmother is startled to see me and also embarrassed that I have come upon her so silently and unannounced. She is becoming frightened, although she will not admit it, of the loss of her senses, and she fears the silence of the deaf and the darkness of the blind. None of this has happened to her as yet but there are clutching moments seen in her face, as now, that say such thoughts are there.

  “Oh, you are here, Calum,” she says. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  I know that she has as I have been expecting to come, lying in the bed at my parents’ house in the village below since three A.M., listening to the rain upon the roof and thinking of how slippery the rocks of the road might be. Thinking of walking the eight-mile distance in the almost unfathomable rural darkness when the rain clouds blot out the moon and stars and there is only the sound of water: the thunking of the large-dropped rain into the earth and into the splashing, invisible brooks and on the right the lapping and moaning of the sea. Knowing that I will never walk that skin-drenched journey again, any more than will my never-seen grandfather, dead now for seventy years, the biblical life span of three score years and ten.

  “I came as soon as I could,” I say. “As soon as I thought the cliff would be dry enough for the car to climb.”

  “Oh yes,” she says. “Would you like some tea? The kettle has just finished boiling.”

  “Yes, all right, I will get it myself,” I say as I move about her familiar kitchen, digging into the old square tea can which drifted ashore from one of the long-ago wrecked vessels carrying the precious cargo from Ceylon. I gather the tea into my fist and drop it into the teapot and add the water from the steaming kettle.

  “They will not be here for a while,” she says, “not likely until the afternoon.”

  She seats herself more comfortably at the end of the table.

  “Get yourself some biscuits from out of the tin. I made them early this morning. Give some to the dogs.”

  Obediently I go to another tin and take out four biscuits. They are still warm to the touch. I butter one for myself and toss one to each of the lying, watchful dogs. They catch them while they are still in the air, then flick out their long, pink tongues for any crumbs that may have fallen on the floor. The floor remains as spotless as before, as if the action had never happened. Like footsteps in the water, I think. No trace remains behind.

  I sit opposite my grandmother at the other end of the table and look with her out across the azure sea. The sun is higher now and the mists have all burned off. It is the kind of day that at one time would have allowed us to see Prince Edward Island. On a clear day you can see Prince Edward Island, we would say. Not “forever,” just Prince Edward Island. Now it does not seem to matter.

  Today is the first day of the rest of your life, comes to my mind. The slogan from the many “modern” posters, desk mottoes, greeting cards, book marks, record jackets, bumper stickers, and graffiti walls. I raise the teacup to my lips, half hopeful it might burn me more fiercely into life.

  “Why do you drink your tea like that?” asks my grandmother. “You will burn yourself. One would think you had never drunk tea before.”

  “It is all right,” I say. “I was only trying something.”

  We sit for a long time, quietly sipping our tea and looking through the window. We do not say what is on our minds nor make inquiries of each other. We are resting and appearing normal, almost as athletes quietly conserving our energy for the game that lies some hours down our road. The bees buzz from the lilacs at the base of the house and bounce drunkenly against the window. The barn swallows with their delicately forked tails flash their orange breasts and dart and swoop after invisible insects. The dogs lie silently, moving only their eyes, conserving their strength as well. We are drowsy and waiting in the summer’s heat.

  I have come to see my grandmother on this day almost as the double agent of the spy movies. I have come somehow hoping that I might find a way of understanding and of coming to terms with death; yet deep down I know that I will find only the intensity of life and that I am, after all, but twenty-six, and in the eyes of others, in the youngness of my years.

  My grandmother gets up and goes for her violin which hangs on a peg inside her bedroom door. It is a very old violin and came from the Scotland of her ancestors, from the crumbled foundations that now dot and haunt Lochaber’s shores. She plays two Gaelic airs – Gun Bhris Mo Chridh’ On Dh ’Fhalbh Thu (My Heart Is Broken Since Thy Departure) and Cha Till Mi Tuille (Never More Shall I Return or MacCrimmon’s Lament). Her hands have suffered stiffness and the lonely laments waver and hesitate as do the trembling fingers upon the four taut strings. She is very moved by the ancient music and there are tears within her eyes.

  On the night of this day and on this afternoon as well, two of her grandchildren and one great-grandchild will gyrate and play the music of their time; the music of the early 1970’s. They are at other destinations on that other road that leads into the larger world. One is in Las Vegas and two on Toronto’s Yonge Street strip. They swivel and stomp beneath kaleidoscopic lights, stepping nimbly over the cords that bind their instruments to the high-powered amplifiers. Their long hair floats and swirls about their shoulders and their hard-driving booted heels are as insistent as their rhythms. Here in the quietness of Rankin’s Point, at another road’s end, the body out of which they came and to which they owe their lives has trouble controlling the last quavering notes of Never More Shall I Return.

  “That is the lament of the MacCrimmons,” she says when she has finished. “Your grandfather was part MacCrimmon. They were the greatest musicians in the Scottish Highlands. There is a cairn erected to their memory on the Isle of Skye. Your uncles saw it during the war.”

  “Yes, I know,” I say. “You’ve told me.”

  “The MacCrimmons were said to be given two gifts,” she says, “the gift of music and the gift of foreseeing their own deaths. Those gifts are supposed to follow in all their bloodlines. They are not gifts of the ordinary world.”

  High on the rafters of the barn that stands outside, my grandfather had written in the blackest of ink the following statement: “We are the children of our own despair, of Skye and Rum and Barra and Tiree.” No one knows why he wrote it or when, and even the “how” gives cause for puzzlement. In that time before ballpoint pens or even fountain pens, did he climb such heights holding an ink bottle in one hand and a straight nibbed pen in the other? And what is the significance of ancestral islands long left and never seen? Blown over now by Atlantic winds and touched by scudding foam. What does it mean to all of us that he died as he did? And had he not, how would our grandmother’s life have been different and the lives of her children and even mine as I have known it and still feel it as I sit here on this day?

  I can know my grandfather only through recreated images of his life and death. Images of the frozen snow and the hot blood turned to crust upon it; blood, hot and sweet with rum and instantly converted like the sweet and boiling maple sap upon the winter’s snow.

  I would like to realize and understand now my grandmother’s perception of death in all its vast diversity. For even the fixedness of death and the accidents that are its agents have changed throughout the years of her many-sequenced life. Three of her brothers, as young men, perished in the accidental ways that grew out of their lives – lives that were as intensely physical as the deaths that marked their end. One as a young man in the summer sun when the brown-dappled horses bolted and he fell into the teeth of a mowing machine. A second in a storm at sea when the vessel sank while plying its way across the straits to Newfoundland. A third frozen upon the lunar ice fields of early March when the sealing ship became separated from its men in a sudden obliterating blizzard.

  How lonely now and distant these lives and deaths of my grandmother’s early life. And how different from the lives and deaths of the three sons she has outlived. Men who left the crying gulls and hanging cliffs of Rankin’s Point to take the ro
ad into the larger world and there to fashion careers and lives that would never have been theirs on this tiny sea-washed farm. Careers that were as modern and as affluent as the deaths that marked their termination. Real estate brokers and vice-presidents of grocery chains and buyers for haberdashery firms seldom die in the daily routines of the working lives that they have chosen. The pencil and the telephone replace the broken, dangling reins and the marlinespike and the sealing club; and the adjusted thermostats and the methodic Muzak produce a regulated urban order far removed from the uncertainty of the elements and the unpredictability of suddenly frightened animals.

  None of these men died at their work or directly from it, yet die they did in deaths that seem even more bizarre and Grecianly ironic than those of the previous generation. One of them choked on a piece of steak in an expensive Montreal restaurant. A second died at Pompano Beach from too much of the sun he had gone to find. The third died while jogging through the streets of Mississauga at five A.M. Yet perhaps death by affluence is but the same in the end as that achieved through physical labour and perhaps it is only because I now have no choice of either that first one and then the other seems desperately more frightening.

  Outside the window the blackbirds and cowbirds hop with familiarity around the brindle cows. They call out their raucous comments to one another and sometimes perch boldly upon the cattle’s spines. A single, white-tailed hawk glides silently back and forth, sometimes above the land and then beyond the cliff’s edge out toward the sea. His shadow slides beneath him across the summer grass but is not reflected within the deep, blue water. It is as if the mirror were perhaps too profound. He does not go far out to sea but circles and climbs and returns across the land; silent and graceful, holding his wings with rigid and controlled beauty, he bears with eloquence the message of his gifted life.