The Badger Riot

by J. A. Ricketts

  “Traffic came to a halt. There were sirens and whistles, police cars and an ambulance. I watched them load my mother on a stretcher and put her in the ambulance as I screamed for her not to leave me. A policeman hauled me up and asked me to show him where I lived. I was confused but managed to say Mundy Pond. I knew that. He took me over there and I pointed out the house.

  “We went in. Father still wasn’t there. My brothers were curled up together on the cold bed. I jumped up and curled with them, trembling and crying, seeking comfort from them. The policeman told them that their mother was in an accident. I remember how scared we were, huddled together, trying to be brave.

  “The police sent in the welfare officers and they took us off to foster homes. I suppose they found Father in some beer parlour and told him, but I never knew. I never saw him again. They took Mother to St. Clare’s Hospital. Her spine was broken, they said.

  “My brothers were scattered here and there. No Mount Cashel for them this time. A couple of them were adopted on the mainland and I never saw them again. I was put with a real fine couple – the Abernathys – who gave me good warm clothes, a nice clean bed and lots of good, wholesome food. It was like heaven to me.

  “I never went back to Mundy Pond again. I saw my mother a few years later. Father was dead by that time. Poor Mother. She was crippled and pitiful. Such a hard life. They put her in a boarding home on Brazil Square, and there she lived out her last few years.”

  When Richard had finished his tale, he’d felt empty and light, light enough to float up over the cemetery and out over Quidi Vidi. All his worry and anguish was laid before Audrey to accept or not accept.

  Sensible, wonderful Audrey had taken his arm. “Come on, Richard. We have a wedding to plan.”

  The police special stopped at daylight. The contingent of Constabulary officers disembarked into the cold sulphur-tainted air of Grand Falls, so different from that of St. John’s with its fog and drizzle. The RCMP were there to usher them to buses before news of their arrival would spread.

  The Grand Falls Armoury was cold, echoing, and devoid of comfort. Richard was physically sick with dread. He frequently had to visit the armoury washroom. Sometime during that day the thought came to him that the old Mi’kmaq man really might have been able to foretell the future and this is what he’d meant by not being able to stop time. Maybe he’d foreseen that Richard would soon be caught up in something over which he had no control. From the moment the Constabulary group had been called together in St. John’s, Richard had felt that he was rolling along on a river of time and going so fast that there was no stopping it.

  The constables stayed most of the day at the armoury, eventually being billeted out. Patrols were organized, and the Newfoundland Constabulary officers were dispatched to Badger where Constable Richard Fagan’s wife had grown up, where his in-laws lived, where he had made a few friends, and where none of them knew that he was there. He was afraid that he’d meet Rod or Ralph, Alf or the Hatchers. What would they say to each other? Pulling his cap firmly down to his eyebrows and turning up his collar, he prayed no one would recognize him.

  When Joey Smallwood decertified the loggers’ union in early March, the strikers felt that the tide of opinion had truly turned against them. During the last two weeks of February, Joey had been on the radio almost every day. People began to believe him when he accused the IWA of being communists and white slave traders. Only the loggers, the strikers, knew the truth.

  On instructions from Landon Ladd and his executive, the call went out to men from the west coast and to every bay in Newfoundland, to come to Badger to support the cause. This kept Ralph pretty busy. Somehow, he had become the accommodations man. The union rented another vacant house for the men to stay in, but it still wasn’t enough. Many of the Badger loggers let the out-oftowners sleep on their floors, wrapped in quilts.

  Jennie and Tom were always together as they worked for the union’s cause. Jennie was a superb organizer. Just the sight of her lugging a ten-gallon pot of steaming hot soup out to the picket line, followed by other women with ladles, bowls, buns and tea, was for Ralph a wonderful sight.

  He sometimes went all day without thinking of her. Then, they’d meet somewhere. On the picket line or in someone’s house. He’d look furtively at her rosy cheeks, her bright hair, her robust frame, and his heart would jump in his chest as it had done for twenty years.

  Two days after Smallwood decertified the IWA, Ralph went over to meet the train. Fifty men were coming in from Trinity Bay. It took him until daylight to get them all bedded down. This brought the union supporters up to three hundred. The streets of Badger were crawling with men, who stood in clusters around the fire barrels, smoking, talking and watching for scabs. Landon Ladd had ordered no violence. They obeyed him, but it was hard. They were all discouraged and disheartened.

  Once again, late in the night, Bill Hatcher snuck over to Rod Anderson’s house after the police had gone back to their barracks in Grand Falls. Perhaps they’d been afraid to spend a night in Badger. Bill was a bundle of nerves and there was sweat on his forehead. Rod could see that this strike was getting to be too much for his friend, as it was for many others as well. His hand was shaking as he drank the drop of rum that Rod poured for him.

  “Rod b’y, I think tomorrow is going to be the big day.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Can’t say too much, you know.” Bill held out his glass for another tot.

  “There’s a lot of talk going on. We’re coming out in force, that’s all I can tell you. And that goddamn Joey Smallwood will be sorry for the day he sent in the Constabulary. We’ll show them that the loggers ain’t afraid. Men are saying that perhaps we’ll spill a drop of blood while we’re at it. That’ll drive the sonsabitches back to St. John’s.”

  “Christ, Bill, them’s hard words, b’y. You should watch what you’re saying. Don’t go gettin’ yourself in trouble.” Rod thought of Bill’s wife and family. He thought about other strikers who had families depending on them. What was happening to everyone?

  “Rod, Rod. Listen.” Bill gulped his tot of rum. “’Tis not only me that’s saying it, b’y. Others are saying it too. The men have been gathering all day. Most of them are at the end of their rope. We got nothin’ left to lose now. A few of them have had a drop to drink and there’s bragging going on about killing a fuckin’ policeman.”

  “Bill, ’tis late. Go on home. Don’t go back down with those guys tonight. Whatever comes tomorrow . . . well, whatever comes, comes. Just don’t get yourself hurt.”

  After Bill left, Rod locked his door and lay down on the daybed, where he tossed and turned all night. It was most likely only bragging from the guys who were drinking. How in the name of God could a bunch of loggers, with no weapons, hope to kill a policeman? Foolishness, he decided. But still he couldn’t sleep.

  24

  On the tenth of March, the principal of the amalgamated school, Mr. Summers, told the students that there would be no classes in the afternoon. He said that all of the children should be at home where they would be safe. There was a lot of violence in the air and children shouldn’t be exposed to it.

  The Protestant girls walked across the back road and through the fence by the Catholic School, which had already been closed the week before. Everyone was on their way home with their school books, but few had any intention of staying home. There was too much going on for that. Along the way, the girls met other youngsters, including Amanda Elliott’s brother, David, his friend Harold, and Madeline’s brother, Bernie. The boys were excited. They’d heard a rumour that there would be a load of scabs going through to Millertown and the strikers were going to block the road. Bernie said that he’d heard the police were going to break it up, and a bunch of the boys were heading up the road to watch.

  When Amanda walked into the house, her mother was feeding her baby brother, Alvin.

  “Hi Mom.”

  “Amanda, you’re home early. Where are your brot
hers?” her mother asked anxiously.

  “Mr. Summers closed the school and told us to go home and stay home. He told us that it’s dangerous out on the streets right now, but we all think he’s being a fuddy-duddy. David and Thomas are gone up the road with some other boys. You know what they’re like; if there’s anything going on with the picket lines, they want to be there.”

  “Oh dear.” Her mother spooned more food into the baby’s mouth and deftly swiped the spoon across his chin to pick up the excess. “Your father was home for his dinner and he said to make sure that the boys stayed in the house when they came home after school. All morning there’s been policemen walking up and down the street. Perhaps you should go and find them and tell them they have to come home.”

  Amanda told her mom not to worry. Nothing was going to happen in little old Badger. Hadn’t they lived there all their lives? Amanda, a sensitive child, felt that their bodies and souls were in tune with the rhythms of the rivers, the deep vastness of the forests. Nothing could ever happen to change them. Her mom, busy with running a household, caring for a young baby, didn’t have time to think about rivers and forests. All she wanted was for her children to be safe.

  Amanda grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table and went outside. Madeline Sullivan was just coming out of her gate. “Come on, Amanda,” she called. “Let’s go. Everyone is heading up by the Pentecostal Church. There’s supposed to be something happening up there.”

  Together the two girls went across to Church Road. There they saw dozens of people, young and old – loggers, women, children – heading toward the junction of Church Road and the Buchans Highway. There were police wagons parked off to the side and many police standing around. They didn’t attempt to stop the curious residents as they streamed past and up toward the intersection.

  Amanda and Madeline joined with the crowd and climbed up on the snowbanks to get a good view. Danger was the last thing on their minds. It would be many years before they would understand things like greedy foreign pulp and paper companies, corrupt governments, international trade unions, and mob violence that could quickly spiral out of control.

  Nine-year-old Melanie Crawford knew that all was not as it should be in Badger. There was something going on with the adults, but she wasn’t sure what. Her mom and dad, usually happy with each other, now raised their voices and argued.

  Melanie was in grade four at the Catholic School, where her father, Vern Crawford, had gone before her. Her life centred around herself and her friends – whether or not to wear her hair in braids, like her mom wanted, or wear it down straight; how many dolls she owned and would she get more; but most of all the little dog that she’d received for her birthday.

  For as long as she could remember, her dad had driven the town taxi. Sometimes he’d take his wife and little daughter to Windsor and Grand Falls to go shopping. They always went to the Cozy Chat Café and had a lunch. Chips and a hamburger with a Coke was a big treat.

  Mostly, though, her dad was away. He spent long hours in his taxi. Melanie’s mom said he was making money for them to have a nice house and good food. When he came home, the house was full of fun and laughter. He always brought her something, a special surprise, like the time he made a trip into St. John’s. He was gone almost three days, and when he came back he brought Melanie a real doll’s carriage with a baby doll in it, complete with her own nursing bottle. Dad also brought her mom a new red sweater.

  Her little brown dog, Cocoa, had been a present from her dad for her ninth birthday. He said he got it from a man in Baie Verte. Melanie wasn’t sure where that was – not for certain. In grade four, the Sister was getting them to draw a map of Newfoundland and put places on it. So far, they had marked Badger, Grand Falls, Corner Brook and St. John’s – little red circles that they drew with their coloured pencils. The Exploits River they drew in blue from almost the middle of the map to the sea, which was coloured blue as well.

  Melanie’s school was closed, but the amalgamated school let out at lunchtime on March 10 and Melanie was there waiting for her friend Jean, who had a blue wooden slide. Melanie loved it. She still had to make do with her old coaster that she’d had for three years, though she was sure that her dad would eventually come home with a new one, when he got time. The small hill behind the school, snow-covered and smoothed by countless coasters, slides, toboggans and pieces of canvas, beckoned to the two little girls.

  Melanie forgot all about lunch, forgot all about her mom in her eagerness to go sliding.

  The afternoon passed quickly. Bump, bump, bump down the little hill, along by the side of the school, and then across the road to the fences. Some of the older children went up on the big hill, coasted down onto the little hill, over it, and down across the road. But you had to be good to do that, and in at least grade seven or eight.

  Gradually, the rest of the children drifted off home, Melanie’s friend Jean going with them. Melanie’s new pink wristwatch – Dad had got it over in Corner Brook – said four o’clock. In another hour it would be getting dark. The little girl realized it was time for her to go home too.

  Born and raised in the small Newfoundland town, allowed to roam freely since she was five, Melanie had no qualms about walking down School Road, across Church Road, over the railway tracks and onward to her house near the high road bridge. She’d walked home from school almost every day since grade one. All of the children walked. There was no bus and few cars. Walking was a way of life.

  Melanie took her time. She was thirsty, so as she meandered along she patiently chewed off the little snowballs that were stuck to her green woollen mitts. So absorbed was she in this exercise that she didn’t hear the loud shouts up ahead of her.

  At the intersection of School Road and Church Road she saw many people hurrying along. She wondered briefly what they were doing, but grown-up things didn’t really interest her. She kept to the side of the road and continued until she reached the town hall.

  The crowd was thicker there, and she saw many policemen. No one was paying any attention to her. Men were shouting. They even had sticks. The police had sticks too. Melanie stopped near the town hall, uncertain where to go. For the first time, a small curl of fear started to form in the bottom of her belly.

  It was then that she saw Dad’s taxi. “Dad!” she shouted. “Dad, wait for me!”

  But her dad didn’t hear her. He was driving up the street and he was surrounded by the men with sticks. The police were pushing them back so her dad could get through.

  Melanie ran after him. She had to catch Dad. Among the crowd there were women and other children, but Melanie was blind to them. She had to get to her dad. When he knew she was there, he’d take her in his car. She’d be safe then. Perhaps he’d have a chocolate bar. She sure was hungry.

  On she went, as fast as her little legs could go, dodging between the legs of the grown-ups, looking neither left or right, focusing on Dad’s tail lights. The lights disappeared, blotted out by the bodies of the crowd around her. Still she pressed on until she came to the place where many policemen stood, wearing long black coats. Melanie saw some boys – that nice boy, David Elliott, among them – skirt around the police and climb the snowbank on the side of the road. She followed them.

  Small and nimble, she made good progress along the top of the bank. The view was better too; there were no adults blocking her. She saw Dad’s taxi – finally. He was stopped and many men were gathered around his car.

  Melanie didn’t stop to consider if something might be wrong. She was just nine years old. She merely wanted to get to Dad’s taxi, get in with him, and check the glove compartment to see if he had a chocolate bar.

  For a scab-runner like Vern Crawford, getting around Badger during the strike wasn’t an easy matter. The centre of town, near the railway station, the area around Plotsky’s Store, Coleman’s, and the post office looked like a war zone: overturned cars, a bus on its side,

  and fire barrels with loggers clustered around them for wa
rmth. Media people were everywhere, searching for the big story that their instinct told them was to be found here: the Evening Telegram, the Daily News; even, someone said, a reporter down from the mainland, the Toronto Star. Picketers patrolled the streets, some of them armed with birch sticks. Police patrolled too, always in twos, never alone.

  On this day Vern had more scabs to deliver to Millertown. Scabs were getting scarce by this time. Because they weren’t regular loggers, they didn’t last long up in the camps. After two or three weeks, they’d quit and scravel off home. The recruiter from the Company told Vern to scout down around Windsor and see if he could pick up a few guys who were doing nothing. Well, that trip got one, the guy in the front seat. The two men in back were hitchhikers that Vern picked up as he was coming back from Windsor. They stuck out their thumbs and Vern had them. Trying to get home to Springdale, they said. To hell with that, thought Vern. They’re coming with me. Three men – thirty dollars.

  He was confident that he’d have no problems getting to Millertown. Then he crossed the main railway crossing in the centre of Badger and noticed more strikers and police. What’s on the go? he wondered to himself, not wanting to say it out loud and upset his skittish scabs. It’ll take me some spell to drive from the tracks up Church Road and onto Buchans Road. I knew I should’ve waited until later. Perhaps I might have attempted the railway tracks again. Too eager. Too eager. Millie says that I’m always letting the almighty dollar rule me.

  The local loggers recognized Vern. They knew what he was doing. Swearing and shoving, they tried to block the taxi, but the Mounties formed a cordon and stopped them. The crowd closed in behind the car as it inched along. At this point there was no turning back.