The Haweaters Read online

  © 2020, Vanessa Farnsworth

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, for any reason, by any means, without the permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by Doowah Design.

  Photo of Vanessa Farnsworth by Michael Farnsworth.

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Manitoba Arts Council for our publishing program.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: The haweaters / Vanessa Farnsworth.

  Names: Farnsworth, Vanessa, 1968- author.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200184431 | Canadiana (ebook) 2020018444X | ISBN 9781773240695

  (softcover) | ISBN 9781773240701 (epub)

  Classification: LCC PS8611.A7565 H38 2020 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

  Signature Editions

  P.O. Box 206, RPO Corydon, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3M 3S7

  www.signature-editions.com

  For my mother,

  who brought me this story

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1 - Conflagration

  Chapter 2 - Not All Stories Are True

  Chapter 3 - Some Wild Thing

  Chapter 4 - Always War, Never Peace

  Chapter 5 - Whiskey in a Jar

  Chapter 6 - No Truer Truth

  Chapter 7 - The Trees Backed Them Up

  Chapter 8 - An Unsound Philosophy

  Chapter 9 - Staring into the Darkness

  Chapter 10 - Annie Bows Her Head

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Haweater (haw-eet-ter) n. A nickname originally given to the first European settlers of northern Ontario’s Manitoulin Island who staved off starvation by eating hawthorn berries (or hawberries, as they are locally known). Now commonly refers to anyone born on the island.

  JUNE 1877

  Based on a true story.

  1

  CONFLAGRATION

  Boyd leaves the government road and wonders, not for the first time, how anything riddled with so many stumps and displaced boulders can be considered a road by anyone who has ever seen one. It’s pathetic. Hopeless. A twisted ankle or busted kneecap waiting to happen.

  Boyd is in the process of proving his own theory when he makes the daring decision to evaluate his recent life choices, beginning with today’s resolution to stumble along this bone-rattler of a road when on any other day God himself would’ve parted the skies to remind him that the only viable passage over the Manitoulin is through the freshly planted fields or along the Indian trails that snake through the bush.

  And Boyd would’ve heeded God’s reminder because normally he has sense enough to travel along one of those tried-and-true routes. Boyd is also well aware that he normally possesses the wisdom to mind his own ever-loving business, but when you’re one of a handful of lawmen on this entire godforsaken island, there are times when wisdom must bow down to duty.

  On this bright summer morning, Boyd is on official business and he feels strongly that his duty forbids him from taking any shortcuts. From approaching Bryan through his oats. From arriving like a neighbour while performing his duties as an officer of the court. His mind is firm on that until it goes blank. It does this sometimes when he sees or hears something that he cannot fully assimilate.

  Like Eleanor Bryan.

  Boyd has arrived at Bill Bryan’s homestead and he immediately spots the missus out heaving and huffing in her vegetable patch. Her hair is wild and her face is stern. She’s pitching dung from her rickety wheelbarrow onto a great stinking pile of the same and Boyd slows his pace. Partly this is because of the stench, but mostly it’s because there’s something about this woman that never fails to freeze the thoughts in his brain. This is what’s happening now.

  Boyd has learned certain things about Eleanor Bryan over the years, the most important of which is that her soul is carved from granite. He tangled with her once. He can’t rightly remember over what, but Boyd vowed then and there that it would never happen again. He would rather be trapped in a sack full of starving rats than go another round with Bryan’s she-devil of a wife. A woman that wretched goes a long way to explaining why Bill Bryan is the way he is. Stubborn. Hateful. Ancient. And Bill is the reason Boyd is here. Well, actually, Charlie is the reason Boyd is here, but to get to Charlie, Boyd must go through his father and to get to Bill, Boyd must first pass by Bryan’s wretched wife and her stinking mountain of dung. Such is the fate God dealt him today.

  Luckily, Eleanor and her dung pile are located near the side of the house that’s away from the road. Even better, it’s away from Boyd, which is just about the smallest mercy God could’ve granted, but it’s mercy just the same.

  Even so, Boyd wouldn’t be Boyd if he could help but notice Eleanor’s forearms. With each pitch of the fork, they’re exposed like the sun at noon. It’s not decent, by anyone’s measure, to see so much of a woman’s flesh, but it would be unlike Eleanor to aim a thought at decency. She’d say it’s a luxury only the rich can afford and she’d more likely than not spit when she said it, mentally busting him upside the head.

  Boyd has been staring at Eleanor’s arms for longer than would be considered wise for anyone who is not actually an owl. An alarm goes off in the lawman’s head as he realizes the mistake his eyes have been making. He casts them skyward, earthward, then all around.

  He’s got to focus. There’ll be hell to pay if anyone spots his attention stalling on another man’s wife. The bush families will get the wrong impression. Because they always do. It’s not as if there isn’t enough hardship on this island without setting fire to the harshest of rumours each and every time the opportunity arises. The kind of rumours that must be answered by a gunshot or a beating or an “accidental” drowning.

  Boyd pivots. He looks southwest to George Amer’s homestead. There’s not a single soul visible there. No, harm won’t be coming from that direction. Nor will it be coming from the Porter place, which Boyd is facing now. He can hear the unmistakable shrieks and squawks of roughhousing children, but his eyes can’t locate a single raucous one of them. Nor can he see Porter himself, who is likely off toiling in the fields, or his ninny of a wife, who is more likely than not to be busying herself with women’s work in the kitchen or the garden or even the barn. Sure enough she’s not tending to her countless young. The woman never does, so far as Boyd can tell.

  The lawman gives his brow a reassuring rub. There’s currently no one within eyeball distance of the Bryan homestead. It’s just him and Eleanor and Eleanor’s youngest, Arthur, who is just now shuffling into view. He’s inching along a row of spinach, splashing water from a bucket in an effort to keep the tattered greens from shrivelling further. But the tyke isn’t quite strong enough to hold the bucket steady and so some of the water is belching onto the path.

  What must Arthur be now? Eight, maybe, or is the boy ten? He’s small for his age even if he is only eight. Boyd puts that down to the boiled bark and hawberries. A boy can’t build bulk on that. He won’t ever be fit for fieldwork. Boyd supposes he could make a fine preacher one day if he ever catches the spirit. He dismisses the thought. You’ve got to be born God-fearing. It’s not the sort of thing you catch later in life and it’s certainly not the sort of thing you catch from the wretched heathens this boy has been saddled with as parents.

  Boyd silently chastises himself. He needs to calm his mind and pick up his pace if he’s to say what he needs to say to Bill Bryan and be back to his own homestead in The Slash before his wife notices the lowness of the woodpile outside the kitchen door. Time is of the essence
and yet here he is dawdling over the age of a boy he’s seen barely a dozen times in all the years since the Bryans settled in Tehkummah.

  How many years? Four comes to mind. That’s probably about right.

  Eleanor raises her head and squints. She spots Boyd, who is once again loping along the road, feeling as daft as a beagle. He waves, but Eleanor doesn’t return the gesture nor does she whistle him over for her version of a neighbourly chat. Instead she points in the direction of the back field as if ordering him to vacate her presence without delay.

  That’s just as well. A blotchy green bruise covers much of Eleanor’s right forearm. It’s the reason Boyd has been staring despite what gossips might later claim. That bruise had been purple-black when Boyd first spotted it a week back. Eleanor had told him she’d acquired it slipping from the ladder on her way down from the loft, but there’s no chance that’s true. Her eyes darted every which way as she told her tale. There’s no better way to give away her own lie than that and didn’t she just know it. There was challenge in the way she looked at Boyd, as if daring him to dispute everything she’d just said, but he didn’t. There would have been no percentage in his doing so. How a man disciplines his wife is no concern for the law. It’s no concern for anyone but Bryan himself and, let’s face it, if Eleanor had been his wife, Boyd would surely have taken a strap to her as many times as was necessary to get her to behave like a proper woman. There’s no other way to get a woman such as that to develop a civil demeanour.

  Enough. Boyd fixes his eyes on the terrain in front of him. He can feel Eleanor’s eyes on him, but pretends not to notice as he trudges past Bryan’s slapdash of a shanty, surprised, as always, to see it still standing. What a tragedy it is. There are more cracks than wood to that miserable excuse for a shelter. By rights it should’ve collapsed that first harsh winter on the island and been replaced by something sturdier. That’s the usual way of things. Bill Bryan should’ve at least made the attempt, but he did no such thing. As a result, there’s been no end to the suffering that has befallen his loved ones, if they can even rightly be called that.

  Again, enough. We are all, every last one of us, at the mercy of the choices we make. Boyd has been thinking a lot about this lately and not just because he chose, like a fool, to risk a maiming by trudging along such a laughable excuse for a road. No, it’s the conversation he’s moments away from having with Bill Bryan that may very well end up being the day’s greatest folly.

  Boyd sharpens his mind as he tromps through the stump-pocked field of oats. His destination is in no way in doubt. He can hear the huffing and grunting of labour just beyond the rise. There’s a snort followed by a thump, then the unmistakable jangling of chains. Boyd doesn’t need to guess what Bill Bryan is up to. It’s what they’re all up to when they aren’t tending their crops: clearing the land of endless brush and boulders and trees in an effort to open up enough farmable ground to grow their grain, pasture their animals and, more importantly, fulfill the requirements set out by the land agent to qualify for the patent on their land.

  It’s not enough they paid good money for it. No, not on this island. Here you also have to clear a ridiculous number of acres in addition to paying the purchase price and you have to do it within a Christly brief number of years or the very same people who sold you the land will hand you your hat as they pass your homestead on to the next sucker down the line with no credit for your labours and no recognition for being the first to plant crops in unproven ground. There will be nothing left but aching bones and a discombobulated spirit and a stain on a man’s character that will never fully fade even if he lives to be a thousand. It’s a fool’s bargain if ever there was one.

  If only the bush families had known then what they all know now: that it’s back-breaking work to clear this land. It’s difficult enough for a young man but, at Bryan’s age, it must seem less like a chore and more like a torment. Boyd almost feels sorry for the old man, but then he finds Bryan and his teenaged son Charlie working along the property line and those feelings fade. It’s duty that brings him here, not camaraderie.

  Boyd glances around. Rocks of all sizes and colours have been piled into small mountains along the beginnings of a snake fence that will one day separate this property from George Amer’s. For now it stretches along not even half the necessary distance, leaving plenty of space for livestock to travel freely between the two properties. There’s no end to the headaches that’s caused and no end to the headaches it’s going to cause either.

  Boyd halts amongst the tangle of felled trees and ragged stumps, telling himself that it’s best not to advance just yet. The Bryan men have a pair of oxen chained to a stump and Charlie is applying a switch to the haunch of the dominant beast. The air fills with snapping and cracking and pop, pop, popping and a low rumble registers in Boyd’s feet. Old Man Bryan, who is facing the opposite direction from Boyd, calmly steps away from the stump’s unpredictable bulk, which is stuttering free of the heavy clay. Soon the worst of the task is complete and the stump lies exposed like a giant, calcified spider.

  Boyd decides that now is a good time to announce himself. “A hundred down, a thousand left to go, my friend.”

  Bryan’s shoulders tighten and he turns to face the lawman with a hard look on his face. Charlie stops switching the ox and also turns, his look even harder.

  Charlie. Now there’s a lesson in patience. Boyd would’ve preferred to encounter Bryan alone. It takes little enough to set Charlie off and you can never tell what the trigger will be. Sometimes it’s a simple statement of fact misconstrued in such a way as the speaker could never have imagined. At other times, a smile is all it takes. Even knowing this, Boyd tries to force one onto his lips. The expressions that greet him leave Boyd to conclude that the Bryans take his attempt as some sort of a dare. He wasn’t honestly expecting otherwise.

  Let’s try this again. “That late winter did none of us any favours. It’d be nice to get some rainfall in the coming weeks, otherwise I allow it’ll be rough harvest.”

  Bryan snorts and ratchets himself up to his full height. The old man has aged a lot in the four years Boyd has known him. His unruly grey-white hair and patchy beard contribute to this impression. What a sad wreck of a man he’s become. His voice, when he finally speaks, is gravel. “As you say. Though I believe we’ve pulled a hell of a lot more than a hundred stumps this past month alone. Not the sort of thing a man loses count of.”

  Bryan rubs his hands down the front of trousers fashioned from repurposed flour sacks. They’re held together by so many patches and mends there’s little left of the original sack cloth.

  Bryan swats a cloud of flies away from his face and continues. “Still got corn to go in. Insurance crop. Not two years since we filled our fields with legumes. Glad to see the last of them. Only so many beans a man can sell or eat. Amazing what you learn when you got no choice but to learn it.”

  Boyd chuckles, but quickly realizes the old man has meant this as a complaint. He straightens his face. “I reckon the soil’s improving then.”

  Bryan nods. “Enough for oats. Maybe even wheat next year. We’ll see. Trying not to hope too high. Land’s so cursed it could be Irish. Not seen anything like it in this here country. For sure it wasn’t like this down in Erin nor anywhere else south of the lake. Collingwood. Owen Sound. Milton. All farmable soil so far as I know.”

  Charlie grunts and shakes his head, but offers no comment. Instead he switches the oxen towards the burn pile, leaving Boyd and his father to wonder at the object of his contempt. All of life, would be Boyd’s guess, as he watches the freshly liberated stump lurching and twisting behind the burly oxen. Boyd half-hopes the hulking stump catches a ridge and spins, crushing Charlie’s spine or breaking his leg.

  That thought isn’t in the least bit helpful.

  Boyd pokes meaningfully at the dirt with the toe of his boot. He already knows the truth of what Bryan is saying. This
land is so burnt out that not five days after a rain, the cracks start settling in. There’s no worse soil than that. It’s so hard it can break a plough blade without the help of rocks or roots and that makes it no good for growing anything but heartache. Boyd knows it just as Bryan does, but acknowledging that would take this conversation somewhere Boyd doesn’t want it to go. He tries to switch tracks. “Maybe not cursed, but certainly aiming in that direction. I dare say it’s like that all over the Manitoulin. It’s a mixed bag of problems any direction you look. Some men have got clay, others swamp. You’ve got no choice but to dash ahead with whatever God has given you. I reckon there’s no other way on this island. Just do me the favour of letting me know when your potatoes are of harvestable size. I could use double what I got from you last year.”

  Bryan plucks a tobacco pouch and pipe from his shirt pocket, then pauses as if translating what Boyd has said into a language he can understand. He nods and stuffs a pinch of tobacco into his pipe, then offers up his stubbornly delayed response. “Spoken like a true Irishman.”

  Boyd doesn’t dare chuckle this time. Instead he watches as the ox-dragged stump tears up the ground something fierce. At least that stretch of ground will be easier to plough. This thought reminds Boyd that his own crops need tending. He leans towards Bryan. “We should really be talking in private. There are things that need saying in full, official things that are best not overheard by those not speaking nor being spoken to.”

  Boyd nods in Charlie’s direction for emphasis. Old Man Bryan says nothing while he finishes stuffing the pipe’s bowl and lifts its stem to his lips. He strikes his knife blade against the flint just once before the edge of the cloth fires. Boyd is impressed.

  Bryan is not. “I hear you, though your caution is unnecessary. Tell you that in the interest of truth.” Bryan presses the flickering orange fabric to the bowl and takes several quick puffs before nodding. “But I’ll never have it said I denied a man a request I was capable of granting, even one that seems as unreasonable as this.”