The Haweaters Page 4

  Maybe he won’t have to. Amer rounds on his farmhand, cursing like a cornered raccoon. “For Christ’s sake, Sam. Why are you still here? Grab some tools and head down to the government road. Laban’s down there mending the gate some ingrate dismantled in the middle of the night. Not got the strength nor the wherewithal to get the job done properly by himself. You need to help him set the damage right while I work on getting our rails back. They can’t have gone far.”

  Relief floods Porter’s spine. This isn’t over, not by a long shot, but he’s survived the first crisis and hopefully he’ll survive the next. Because there will be a next as sure as there’s trout in the river.

  Sam bounds out of the barn while Amer watches him go. Then he turns to Porter, his jaw locked. Porter braces for what comes next, and what comes next is a question. “Now just how far did those rails go and in which direction? Say it clear and there’ll be no consequences.”

  Of course there will. There are consequences to everything in life, especially here, Amer makes damn sure of it. Porter wills his voice calm. “That surely does sound like the sort of question only a fool would ask if I’m being perfectly honest. But I’ll humour you just this once, sir, by telling you as plain as can be that I’ve got no earthly clue where your rails might be. My best guess is that Charlie Bryan himself possesses the gumption to undertake such a grievous stunt as you have fallen victim to.”

  It’s a lie, of course. Porter knows exactly where the rails are. They’re safe and sound where he hid them in the wee hours before dawn. But Amer doesn’t know that, not for sure, or they would be having a very different conversation right now.

  Amer is shaking his head. “Not buying it. The Bryan boy is pretty simple. He doesn’t sneak around in the dark damaging things in ways that make his enemies guess at who the villain might be. Only a coward would do a thing like that. The Bryan boy is a lot of things, but he’s no coward. No, if he wants the gate gone, he burns it to the ground or sledges it into toothpicks. Then he crows about the destruction to everyone within earshot. Haven’t heard a single peep from him about this. Not hard to figure why. This is someone else’s handiwork. The sooner you confess, the sooner we can get on with making this whole thing right.”

  On whose terms? For sure they’ll be on Amer’s and it’s equally for sure that Amer and Porter won’t see eye to eye on a suitable remedy even if Porter were fool enough to confess, which he isn’t. Stealing the rails had seemed like a good idea at the time. It seemed like an excellent way to gain an advantage over Amer, but now Porter is questioning his own intelligence. Did he really think he’d get away with it? Yes, that’s exactly what he thought.

  Porter jumps the sack forward on his shoulder, his mind groping for a dodge. “I’ll be confessing nothing, sir, as you well know, and although I’d be loath to advise you not to fixate on something you’re clearly going to fixate on anyway, I find myself wondering if it’s yet occurred to you to ask yourself why I myself would destroy a perfectly good gate that was clearly meant to keep Bryan’s cattle from your stream. It’s surely no threat to me. If there’s one thing we need around here, I should think it is more fences, not less. I’m guessing you see it the same.”

  As bluffs go, this one is pretty weak. It’s easy enough for Amer to counter, only instead he shrugs. “Not worth my time to guess. But I know it was you.”

  Is that the best he’s got? Porter would have to be defective to jump at such pitiful bait. Surely the better choice is to go down swinging. “Well, sir, as I’ve told my sons too many times over the years to rightly count, believing something isn’t enough to make it so. If a man can’t prove a thing, he surely shouldn’t be speaking like he can. I myself would’ve thought you of all people would agree. Since that’s clearly not the case, I feel I must remind you on behalf of all who remain silent that the missing gate cut across the government road and I don’t recall the magistrate granting you yourself the liberty to block that thoroughfare, unless I missed a proclamation on the matter.”

  He had not. That fence is in clear breach of the law and Amer can’t be allowed to get away with it. It’s one law for all residents, not one law for the higher-ups and a second law for the minions. Not that Amer is a higher-up – and Porter surely isn’t a minion – but that’s not the point. The point is Porter was right to take down those rails and he wasn’t the only one thinking of doing it either. He was just the one who acted.

  Amer hoists a sledgehammer. “Was the only way to prevent Bryan’s cattle from drinking from my creek. Not subsidizing his operation with my water, not after all he’s done to provoke me. If you were in my place, you’d have done the same.”

  Porter blinks at that one. How is he not in Amer’s place? “Bryan’s cattle have been on my land plenty enough by anyone’s reckoning. I’d even go so far as to say they’ve surely been on all our land more than they’ve been on his own. That being as it may, you, sir, don’t have the right to fence off a road that’s clearly meant for the use of us all. Does it really sit straight in your mind that I or anyone else around here should grovel for your permission to travel down a public road?”

  Porter already knows the answer to his question. Amer not only thinks it, he finds ways to coerce every man in Tehkummah into his debt so they feel obliged to ask his permission to walk along a public road or cut down a tree. That’s how he operates. Like a natural-born villain.

  Amer guffaws. He tosses the sledgehammer towards the barn door and returns to the workbench for an axe, inspecting the integrity of its blade by slamming it into a block of wood. “No lock on it. Easy enough to open by any creature with hands. That would appear to include you.”

  Dunderhead. “You can’t rightly think that’s my point, sir. I’ll say this once just so we’re clear as can be: You yourself don’t own the government road and you yourself are not at liberty to put a gate across it, so far as I know. If you think to put up another one it’s fair to say that it too will surely go missing. You best heed me on that.”

  A smile creeps across Amer’s lips and Porter immediately regrets what he’s said. He has given away his own game by pushing things a sliver too far and doesn’t Amer know it. He grabs a maul and a couple of wedges, shaking them at Porter. “So you admit to the removal of the first?”

  Not on your life. “No, sir, I admit to nothing, so don’t go making yourself look a fool by thinking I do, you hear me?”

  Amer’s smile grows wider, exposing what’s left of his crooked yellow teeth. “So then you won’t mind if I search your land for the missing rails. Not likely to find something that isn’t there.”

  That’s a farce. “If you were in possession of your fair portion of brains, you would surely know that you’ll be searching no thing of mine, sir. I’ve heard it said by some that you yourself were once the law in Owen Sound and I’m willing to grant that’s the honest truth of the matter, but you’re no such thing here so far as I’m aware. No, sir, if you yourself are so sure I pinched those rails – if you’re absolutely convinced – then make your case to someone who’s a true lawman on this island. It should be easy enough to find such a man as that. I surely did see Boyd heading up to Bryan’s place not more than an hour past. If you see fit to hurry, you should have no trouble catching him up on the trail back to The Slash.”

  Amer looks puzzled. Pulling a flask from his pocket, he strolls over to the barn door. “What’s Boyd doing up there, I wonder?”

  That’s clogging his brain. Porter should’ve mentioned Boyd sooner and saved himself a whole bunch of bother. “Well, sir, he’s your own man, or so everyone says, so surely you should be showing some ever-loving sense by asking him yourself why he was where he was instead of asking the likes of me. In the meantime, heed my warning: Don’t you go anywhere near my wife again without my stated permission or there’ll surely be buckets of blood with your name on them.”

  That was admittedly a stupid thing to say. It’s the verb
al equivalent of spitting in Amer’s face, but it felt good to say it until Amer started contemplating him like a problem in need of solving. The brute takes a swig from his flask. “Meaning?”

  Isn’t it obvious? “You know full well what I mean. There are no earthly circumstances under which you could truthfully mistake my Eliza for that Bryan woman, so don’t you go provoking me further by pretending there could possibly be.”

  Amer nods slowly. “Not sure why you’re thinking I’d confuse the two women. They look nothing alike.”

  As if any of this is about looks. “I should think you’d be a far sight smarter than to attempt playing dumb with me on this matter. There are surely plenty of men around here who’d like to see you dead, and I’m warning you, sir, you don’t want to be adding my name to the bottom of a very long list.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Fact enough.”

  Amer nods slowly. “You going to tell me who’s on the list or do I have to guess?”

  Like he even needs to. “Since you ask, I hear Charlie Bryan’s got himself a pistol and has been practising murder at the northerly end of his land. The maples have surely got the worst of it, so far as I know, but what I find most interesting, sir, is his willingness to waste a raft of lead on defenceless trees when, as you yourself well know, his family has precious little to call their own.”

  Amer says nothing, but he doesn’t look surprised. Porter is disappointed. He would’ve liked to see his neighbour choke a little or sputter or gasp. Maybe this will do it: “I should think that if you yourself wanted to stop people whispering gossip about you and Eleanor Bryan, paying Charlie’s fine for thumping your son wasn’t the best plan you could’ve come up with. It’s got people seeing scandal in your direction and there’s nothing that makes words flow freer than that, as you must well know.”

  Amer gives a lazy shrug. “Had nothing to do with Mrs. Bryan. Her boy beat Laban. I brought charges against him for the doing of it, as was my right. Had I known at the time that the cause of the fight was my horses straying into Bryan’s fields, I would’ve settled the matter without the law. But Laban can sometimes be slow to admit the truth. No end to the trouble that causes.”

  That’s a dirty lie. It had something to do with Eleanor, Porter can feel it, and Amer’s denial only serves to fuel Porter’s desire to find out what. “That’s not what people are saying, as you yourself can surely imagine. No, sir, it’s all around the bush that you’ve got some loyalty to Eleanor Bryan that the rest of us know squat about. You may be able to hide a lot of things, but you surely can’t hide that.”

  Amer takes another swig, then waves his flask dismissively. “Wrong track entirely.”

  Not likely. Porter cuts off the flow of grain. “May I remind you, sir, that I myself have a clear view of Bryan’s homestead from my land? I see every soul that comes and goes there and you spending all that time alone with a woman who isn’t your wife causes the kind of talk that’s not easily stopped. You surely don’t want that talk getting back to Bryan and you even more surely don’t want it getting back to Charlie, assuming it hasn’t already, and I’ll here now guess that it may have.”

  That gets Amer’s attention. His goat too. Amer roars. “Villain! What lies have you been spreading this time?”

  Porter mimics Amer’s lazy shrug. “Well, sir, since you ask, I’ve not said nothing to no one, although I surely can’t help but wonder why Charlie is suddenly carrying a pistol when just this past spring he had to return the shotgun he borrowed from Sloan. It makes no earthly sense that the boy can’t afford a long gun to put food on the table, but somehow he can afford a pistol. There must surely be a reason and you speaking private to his mother could be it.”

  Porter scores a direct hit with that one, just as he knew he would.

  Amer’s face hardens. “You don’t know the half of what you’re talking about.”

  That’s true, Porter doesn’t, but he senses he’s getting close. “That’s my point exactly. I surely don’t know half of what I’m talking about but if I were to know the truth of all this – and I mean the whole truth, not the paltry fragment you’ve offered up so far – I’d surely be able to set people straight and stop those wagging tongues once and for all.”

  Amer curses under his breath. “So I’m to believe you’d do that for me?”

  Porter is simultaneously shaking his head and suppressing a smirk. “No, sir, you’re to believe I’d do it to make sure no further harm comes to Mrs. Bryan, as I should think an intelligent man such as yourself would’ve already guessed.”

  A series of complex emotions plays across Amer’s face. “Thought you and Bryan were on friendly terms. Makes what you’re saying now seem like a betrayal.”

  Like anyone could be friends with a man like Bryan. “Bryan’s all right when he’s sober, but I’ve seen him drunk enough to know that when whiskey loosens his fists, they land on whatever target is closest and no one is closer to Bryan himself than his wife. That’s fact enough.”

  “And yet you stand aside as if nothing’s amiss.”

  It’s not his place to do a damn thing about Bryan’s behaviour, nor is it Amer’s. The difference is, Porter knows that. He slings the last empty sack over his shoulder and joins his son in pigtailing the tops of the full sacks of flour. “Lifting a finger in that direction would be a fool’s errand, as surely you know or at least you ought to. There isn’t a man around these here parts who couldn’t rightly tell you, sir, that Bryan only drinks when things are going poorly, which surely makes him no different than most other men on this island. The truth of the matter is the man himself just needs a few good crops under his belt and then the drinking will surely stop and the situation will improve. There’s not a doubt in my mind, sir, that Eleanor just needs to keep out of harm’s way until then.”

  Porter isn’t sure why he’s justifying himself to this man and is about to say as much when Amer thrusts a verbal blade. “No such thing as a good crop here. Surely you’ve learned that much. Only a fool would make the mistake of thinking this island is farmable. You don’t strike me as a fool.”

  Porter arches his brow and points to the sacks of grain. “This island is farmable.”

  “Some of it. The swampy bits, I’ll give you that. Enough to keep a family fed if a man puts the whole of his spine into it. But this island doesn’t have what it takes to grow crops on a commercial scale. You’ve got to diversify if you want to survive up here. Bryan doesn’t understand that, but I’m thinking maybe you do.”

  Is that a compliment? The look on Amer’s face suggests it might be, so then why does Porter feel like he’s catching the back of Amer’s hand? “Well, sir, I believe what I understand is that you yourself surely don’t belong on this island.”

  Amer looks gut-punched, but quickly gathers his wits. “And where do I belong?”

  “Back where you came from, I should think.”

  An eight-year-old couldn’t have said it better. Porter cusses himself for sounding like a child, but he’s right. Amer doesn’t belong here. Porter does and so do his sons, and their sons, all the way down the line. Amer has no line. He just has Laban, and what a disappointment that boy would be to any father.

  “You feel strongly about that?”

  Porter stands tall. “Yes, sir, I feel strongly about everything I say. Maybe just this once you should try to see the truth as it stands. Do you really think people around here don’t know that you’ve been buying up north lots so that you can illegally lumber when you’re supposed to be farming? Because they surely do even if not one of them feels at liberty to tell you as much to your face.”

  Amer takes one last swig from his flask, then returns it to his pocket. He strolls over to his workbench as if time is a commodity he’ll never run short on. “What does it matter what people know? Not buying anything the law doesn’t allow for.”

  “That’s not str
ictly speaking true and we both of us know it. A rumour has been going around that you, sir, continue to sit on Owen Sound’s town council, and don’t bother to deny the truth of it. That one fact is sure to cause you a problem since a man has to be a permanent resident of the Manitoulin in order to gain a patent on any land here. I’d think the land agent might be keen to know that you have yourself a conflict and there are many around here who have a good mind to tell him.”

  Amer plucks something off his workbench and sticks it in his pocket. Porter can’t see what it is, but he’s guessing it’s sharp. It’s best he keep his guard up and his wits alive.

  Amer pivots. “Not all stories are true.”

  Porter cuts some twine, his knife held firm. “And not all stories are lies neither. I myself am willing to bet that Bryan himself is right now telling Boyd all about the logs you’ve been illegally selling to Lyon. I can’t see him holding back with a weapon as sharp as that and I’m thinking you can’t neither.”

  Amer snorts. “You bloody hypocrite. You’re doing the same as me.”

  Porter is surprised by the accusation. He thought he’d been clever in covering his tracks. “You don’t know that.”

  “Got Lyon’s word on it. Guessing the man knows his business.”

  Porter watches his son wrestle a sack of flour out to the waiting cart. He considers not replying, but Amer would surely take that as an admission of guilt. He might as well concede. “Well, sir, Lyon shouldn’t be telling you my business. I’m surely going to have to have a serious word with that man about what he shouldn’t be saying and who he shouldn’t be saying it to. There’s a whole raft of trouble that can come to a man who speaks what shouldn’t be spoken.”