by Mel Bossa
The Witchin’ Canoe
By Mel Bossa
Published by JMS Books LLC
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2019 Mel Bossa
ISBN 9781634867894
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
This is my interpretation of an old lumberjack folktale popularized in 1891 by Honoré Beaugrand, founder of the French Canadian newspaper La Patrie and mayor of Montreal in 1886. His tale La Chasse Galerie still captures the imagination of readers today. As for the two lovers in my own tale, they are inspired by Quebec's most tragic and beloved poet, Emile Nelligan, Emile, the sensitive and troubled son of a rough-edged Irishman and a French Canadian lady, was often divided between two loyalties. In 1899, he was interned for madness. He was nineteen years old. This is my modest homage to him.
* * * *
The Witchin’ Canoe
By Mel Bossa
Chapter 1: Montreal 1886, The Flood
Chapter 2: Widow Leary’s Tale
Chapter 3: Charmed
Chapter 4: Bernard’s Warning
Chapter 5: An Invitation
Chapter 6: Maggie’s Fit
Chapter 7: Communion
Chapter 8: Resonance
Chapter 9: Indiscretions
Chapter 10: A Kiss in a Black Carriage
Chapter 11: Spring, Downward
Chapter 12: Breaking Tradition
Chapter 13: Whispers and Ladies of the Night
Chapter 14: A Stormy Sonata
Chapter 15: Cleansing the Stain
Chapter 16: Gédéon Leaves for Porcupine Country
Chapter 17: Donations
Chapter 18: The Ninth Hour
Chapter 19: A Disturbance in the Night
Chapter 20: Correspondence
Chapter 21: Melancholia
Chapter 22: Empty Throne
Chapter 23: A Train, a Threat, and Hidden Heartaches
Chapter 24: The Cambuse
Chapter 25: The Sand Begins to Trickle Through the Hourglass
Chapter 26: Visitations
Chapter 27: The White Lady
Chapter 28: Nevermore
Chapter 29: The Ferryman
Chapter 30: La Chasse Galerie
Chapter 31: Expiation
Chapter 32: The Tender Prince
Chapter 33: Blessed Are the Ones…
Chapter 1: Montreal 1886, The Flood
McGauran didn’t get much rest last night, and though he tries to stay awake, the gentle rocking of the canoe is slowly putting him to sleep. For a moment, he surrenders to the weariness, and with his eyes closed, imagines he’s somewhere out west, beyond the great plains, in a log cabin he built with his own two hands, instead of drifting down this flooded street in the human swamp they call Griffintown: The city beneath the hill.
“Watch it there, O’Dowd,” Linus warns him with a smile in his voice. “Paddling works better with your peepers open. And by the way, you got arms the size of tree trunks, so why am I doing all the work here?”
“Sorry about that.” McGauran quickly resumes his paddling. A few feet away, around Prince Street, he spots old man Waits perched up on a rotten caboose, playing the fiddle like it’s Christmas Eve. In Saint-Anne’s ward, even a flood is cause for celebration. It means a couple of days off work—a break from the grinding monotony.
With the warmer spring weather melting the ice, the Saint-Lawrence River swelled over its banks, bringing devastation into their neighborhood. Some say this is the worst flood the city has ever known. Folks have been up all night, resting only during Sunday mass, and the moment Father Hayes gave the parishioners his blessing, everyone hurried out of church to organize the cleaning crews.
McGauran glances down into the water but looks away from the waste and filth drifting by. Outdoors privies have overflowed and people are going to get sick again. Thousands have already died in this supposed land of hope. Ten years ago, typhoid fever took his infant brother and sister. Then last year, he lost his father to the Red Death. And though his mother barely escaped the smallpox outbreak, she still refuses to be vaccinated, as most of the folks around here do.
Under his brown derby hat, Linus’s freckled face turns grim. “I don’t think my baby sister’s gonna make it to her first birthday. Poor thing. She doesn’t even have a mother to nurse her.”
McGauran doesn’t know what to say. He’s never been good with words. What he could do for Linus’s baby sister, he did this morning. After church, he offered to take Linus to the O’Donnells’ for some of that disinfecting powder his mother says is supposed to keep sickness away from a home. Chloride of lime, they call it.
“Hey, by the way, GT is hiring again,” Linus says, changing the subject. “I can put in a good word for you. I have some clout there now, ‘cause of my uncle’s promotion. I’m sure they’d be willing to forget what you did last year.”
“No, Linus, don’t even ask him. It’s not worth it. Don’t associate your name with mine. You got all those brothers and sisters to feed.” McGauran paddles harder. “Just forget it. Don’t make things worse for yourself.” Last August, he got involved in a violent strike out by the canal. So since then, jobs don’t come easy around town. Anyway, he doesn’t want to work for the Grand Trunk railroad company. Can’t stand to be indoors all day, hunched over a machine for hours on end, building pieces for a train he’ll probably never ride. “I’m thinking of going off to the lumber camps this winter.”
“You’re a big guy, Mac, but that’s rough work.” Linus shakes his head. “Worse than the docks.”
“The docks aren’t that bad,” he lies. He hates the steamboats, the noise, the dumb routine of lifting and lugging. He always feels like a beast of burden down there. “And, Linus, you don’t even work for GT. You pour liquor for a living, remember?”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Linus retorts with a playful smirk, his green eyes lighting up. “I tend to men’s spirits with spirits.” Ever since he and Linus were kids, Linus has always known how to find humor in their common misery.
McGauran can’t help smiling a little and the smile feels strange on his face. He’s been in a bad mood for weeks. Sickness, death, rioting, and political upheaval are all the city has to offer him. He says a quick silent prayer. Lord, get me out of here. Help me. Show me how to get out of here.
As they maneuver through the traffic of various canoes, makeshift boats, and people, McGauran notices the Callaghans floating by on wooden planks they’ve roped together. The Callaghans live in a side street by the Darling Foundry, in a rickety old house the city keeps threatening to tear down. The luck of t
he Irish.
Right.
He takes pity on them. “Sir,” he calls out, as they approach his house, “you can have my canoe. I don’t need it anymore. It’ll be easier for you to get around.”
Immediately, the old man and his young son jump off their planks and trudge through the water to reach the canoe. The river water is thigh high in some places. The Callaghans thank and bless him profusely, and after Linus and McGauran have climbed out of the canoe, the old man and his son paddle off in it, promising to return the boat by sundown. But McGauran doesn’t mind parting with it. Last week, he found the old canoe propped up on a crooked fence. After a few days, no one had claimed it, so he lugged the boat to his courtyard, thinking he’d probably need it around flood season. Turns out he was wise. Maybe his luck is changing, after all.
When they’ve reached the red brick duplex they share on Young Street, Linus turn to him and tips his hat. “McGauran O’Dowd, you gave them your boat. And you call me a bleeding heart.”
He shrugs. “It’s Sunday, so I figured I’d do something nice, right?”
“Yeah, well, it’s gonna take a little more than a canoe to get you into Heaven,” Linus teases him with a grin.
“Amen.” McGauran pushes the door open into the narrow staircase leading up to Widow Leary’s home where he and his mother are boarding.
“Hey, Mac, my sister asked about you again,” Linus says in a casual tone, though his eyes say more. “Rose and me can chaperon. We could take a stroll. Liza would fancy that a lot. She’s been sewing a new dress all week. You know…she’s been downhearted since our Ma passed.”
Uneasy, McGauran pauses in the doorway. The whole neighborhood is conspiring to fix he and Liza Brogan up. Especially his mother and Linus. Ever since Liza turned eighteen last winter, people have been asking about his intentions. “Well…I’ll see if I can get away,” he says, entering the staircase before Linus can add anything else.
He remembers Father Hayes’s sermon this morning. The priest believes the small pox outbreak and flood are a punishment to the men for all the loafing, brawling, and drinking they’ve been doing in the last year. But he could have sworn Father Hayes was looking directly at him while he delivered his long oration on the importance of resisting the Devil’s temptations.
Time is running out. He’s twenty years old. He needs to get out of this city before the year is done, or he’ll be a married man come New Year’s Day, making Liza Brogan one unhappy and…unsatisfied bride.
Then everyone will know what he is.
Chapter 2: Widow Leary’s Tale
Standing over a pot of warm water, McGauran leans in closer to the cracked mirror he nailed to the wall above the wood-burning stove. He’s already nicked his chin twice, and wants to toss the water, blade, and everything else out the window, but he needs to look his best today, so the orange stubble is coming off. As he presses the blade’s edge to his upper lip, he catches the look in his dark brown eyes, and once again, doubt weakens his resolve.
What if Gédéon Latendresse, that ruthless French Canadian notary and businessman, throws him off his property today for showing up at his fancy house without a proper appointment?
McGauran rinses the blade, thinking over his options. He has to try to better their financial situation. There’s no way he’s spending another winter breaking ice for the city. And with the wages he’s been earning at the Saint-Gabriel locks this summer, he’ll be swimming in debt before August.
No, he’ll have to convince the notary that he’s capable of toughing it out in the woods for six months. The last time he worked for Latendresse, he was too young, and hadn’t done so well, coming short of the quota. It was because of that whole…incident with that young lumberjack. It had confused, and yes, thrilled him, but influenced his work. He’ll never let that happen again. Nobody knows about what he did with the young man out there, anyway. Well, except for Father Hayes. He should have never confessed to it! He was a fool to think the priest would absolve him of that sin. Why did he go and do something so reckless?
In a great show of noise, Widow Leary’s boys come running up the stairs and into the room, hollering and bickering, but when they see McGauran standing there in his braces and shirtsleeves, they both turn quiet, eyes growing big as chestnuts.
In the mirror, the sunlight throws copper streaks across McGauran’s dark red hair and he wonders what the boys think of his presence in their home. Some folks say hair as deep a shade of red as his is the mark of the Devil. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting some schooling today?” he asks the boys. It’s Monday after all, and the Leary brothers are but eight and ten, too young to be working. They still have a year or two left of school before their mother sends them off to the nail or shoe factories. In ten years, these two boys will be hardened men already. Suddenly, he feels an ache in his heart. He wishes he could change their fate. But he can barely manage his own.
“No school today,” one of them says. “Sister Hairy-Chin is dead.” He’s obviously the bravest one. The youngest. His eyes are like two blue marbles, and smart, too. “Ma says you’re living with us now. That we’re giving you charity.”
McGauran flinches at the word. Charity? No, he intends on paying his share of rent. But as he’s going to answer the little brat, Widow Leary walks in, carrying a load of rags and a pail of water. “Out you go!” she yells, her commanding voice booming through the dusty, cluttered room. “Don’t wanna see your faces until sundown! And don’t go any further than the Victoria Square, and don’t go into the Langlois house. They’ve been quarantined! Don’t go near the stables either!”
“But we’re hungry,” the older boy says. “Real—”
“What are you complaining about?” She gives McGauran a quick and troubled look, but then her expression hardens again. “You two had enough lard and molasses this morning to last you until next Lent, now off you go, you hear?”
That’s a lie. They all shared some bread and a bit of pork spread. He’s going to have to ask John Baldwin for more credit at the store. At a hundred percent interest.
Whining like starved puppies, the boys scramble out of the room, their thin beef soles slapping the stairs all the way down to the street. McGauran wishes he had a few royal banknotes in his pocket to treat the boys to a fancy dinner in the city.
Widow Leary drops the pail on the stove, knocking over his tin pot, spilling foamy water. “I have work to do, Mac,” she says, shoving her large figure between the stove and him. “These here rags ain’t gonna wash themselves. Now gimme your face, so I can finish the job and you’ll be out of my way.” She grabs his chin and lifts his face to the light. “Only a few patches left.” Her round and pleasant face is gleaming with sweat and her large bosom heaves under her corset. She wears the same brown dress she’s worn for days. It’s stained and stiff in some places. No lace at the collar. No bustle at the back.
McGauran tries to escape. “I can shave my own face.”
“Hush now.” She snatches the blade out of his hand. “I used to shave my Fergus’s face, God rest his soul.” With care and efficiency, she begins to shave his left cheek and then the spot he missed on his chin. Brown curls frame her face, sticking to her pink skin. “Now you go out there today and no more loafing. You bring me back some rent money, you hear?” Her breath smells of rum. He can’t judge her for it. She does what she can to get through her days. She’s all alone in the world. Barely getting by on church charity. “I’ll talk to that sinning landlord as soon as he comes by to collect the rent and you and your mother will be back in your home before la Fête-Dieu.”
“Yes, ma’am, but see, that’s in a few weeks.”
“I’ll call the health office on him. Why should we live like horses?” She blows a breath up into her hair. “Eight dollars a month and with no…” She clears her throat, obviously too proper to say the words. Water-closet.
They all share an outdoor privy in the courtyard. They have no running water. Meanwhile, up the hill, the ric
h folk are living it up. How many deaths in the Golden Square Mile? He suspects not very many.
She throws the blade in the pot and shoves a rough towelette into his hands. “Look at you,” she says, eyeing him over as though he were a slab of expensive meat. “You’re a big fine man with strength and wits to spare. Remember we Irish come from fine stock. Our men built all those steamers and trains, and think of your father who put together that big old bridge for the Queen.” She gently slaps his face. “Don’t break your mother’s heart. She’s already lost two babies and a husband. Get out there and swallow that shameful pride of yours she’s been telling me all about.”
McGauran wipes his face with the towel and grabs the tin pot. So his mother and the widow are already sharing stories. “I intend on making some good money this winter.”
Widow Leary is hard at work, dumping rags in the simmering water on the stove. “What do you plan on doing? A man can’t live on selling soap alone. And I don’t have enough meat scraps to get you going again.”
Before the flood ruined his product, he was making his own soap with leftovers, then selling it around Saint-Anne’s ward. Some men laughed at him, but he got his mother through the winter, didn’t he?
Uneasy, McGauran steps away, but where can he go in this place? There’s no other room for him to be. The two bedrooms are taken up by the widow, her sons, and his mother. He sleeps on a cot in the main room which serves as her kitchen and workshop. Every hour of the day and part of the nights, the neighborhood women are cooking, cleaning, mending clothes, commiserating, and praying. There’s nowhere for him to sit and think. Never mind anything else. He’s been reduced to cleaning himself in the canal at dawn. But that water will make him sick.
“Well, answer me, boy,” she says, her hands disappearing into the hot water. “What’s your big idea?”
“I’m gonna go to Gatineau.” He clears his throat, gazing around at the soot-black walls. The room depresses him. No furniture, but a greasy table and eight mismatched chairs. A wooden stove. A few side tables holding dirty gas lamps full of dead bugs. A thin brownish rug. He can almost smell the disease in here.
