THE ICE BOUND RIVER
Description of Story
A Canadian story about Quebec in the 1930s. Frontier-type setting with characters from broken families who find unity and belonging when they are brought together on the deep woods frontier.
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THE ICE BOUND RIVER
The Scotsman cracked the whip near the horses’ heads and they put on a spurt.
“Hue....Yah Yah...Allez-y.....allez-y ... my wee lassies”
He wanted to get to the river without undue delay. Get back to his beloved woods. His sleigh was heavy with supplies and he knew that the ice would only last for another day or so. At length the road from Chute Nairne sloped down the south bank to the frozen river and McKenzie eased the horses slowly onto the white surface, covered already with menacing cracks. His years crossing the Riviere Malbaie told him he would indeed make it across. In the mid section he felt some slight movement of the ice and he smiled as the horses sensed danger and slowed. He cracked the whip again and they hurried on. Soon they were clambering up the far bank on the north side, breathing heavily under the load of the sleigh. He hauled back on the reins and stopped the sleigh for a moment letting the horses recover. Half an hour more and they would be home and warm in their stable. McKenzie pushed his big white fur hat back, lit his pipe again and the forest air showed a faint blue trail of smoke entwined around the lower limbs of the trees in the moonlight as horses and driver swung round the bends in the last few miles of narrow track, till they reached McKenzie’s place just upslope on a low rise south of the frozen Lac Noir.
Jacques opened one eye and saw nothing but darkness. He was cold, very cold. It felt like being in a coffin - his left arm couldn’t move. “Espece de cauchemar....oh my God where am I?” his dizzy brain stuggled with the question. His arm was imprisoned by some heavy weight. Bringing his other arm across in the darkness he struggled to free the immobilized arm, ripping his fur coat in the yanking movement. Free at last he felt in front of his face - the darkness had the smell and rough oily texture of a tarpaulin. Pushing it until it revealed the daylight he could see he was lyng in the back of a big sleigh, buried by boxes of supplies and equipment: a small cast-iron stove which had imprisoned his arm, a big bundle of steel wire in loops, a heap of bags of flour, tanks of kerosene, sacks of beans, various smaller tools, a steel pail of nails, and another of screws of various sizes.
Kicking off the tarp and pushing aside the nail pail and flour bags, Jacques put one thigh gingerly over the edge of the sleigh and tumbled down onto the snow beneath the sleigh runners. It was packed hard and criss-crossed with sleigh tracks and horses hoofprints. The bright red sleigh was in a clearing surrounded by thick woods. Maples and then birch and finally hemlocks around the clearing formed an impenetrable forest deep with drifted snow except for two or three narrow foot tracks, one into the hemlocks uphill, another towards the frozen lake in the distance, and another which seemed to lead to two wooden crosses. The crowded trees were punctuated here and there with small sheds of sawn timber, some even of rough logs, and stables for two horses and a cabane a sucre. To one side was a sawn timber cabin with a huge pile of firewood logs outside.
The young man climbed unsteadily to his feet, straightened his toque, and tried to focus his mind. He had no idea how or why he had got here. The last thing he remembered was celebrating the beginning of spring, March 1st, drinking in the tavern with fiddles, concertinas and bagpipes and wild dancing - last evening in Clermont. All the draveurs were in the tavern celebrating the start of the work season. And he could dimly recall coming out of the tavern feeling lost, dancing and staggering, first forwards, heading for the steps of the sidewalk, then backwards as he fell into one of the big sleighs parked outside in the street, the horses starting slightly, then quietly continuing munching their nosebags, tossing them up and back to get the last oats.
The cold morning thrust its way into his half-asleep mind now as he reached behind him and rubbed the bruise on his back where he had fallen. To Jacques, Clermont, as it was called now, had changed for the worse. Years ago there had been little cafes and old houses where friends hung out. They were being changed into bigger more modern hotels and apartments. It had always been Chute Nairne - a small town on the north bank of the St Lawrence where the road from Malbaie met the southbound forest trail from the Saguenay valley. Heavy sleighs were a common sight in Clermont before break-up, where traders made a last effort to cross the frozen Riviere Malbaie. These days the town was busier and less friendly and they spoke more English. As the forest spun round him, even he realized Clermont hadn’t changed as much as this - there were no shops, no taverns, no windows with bright lights. But there was faint music of sorts. His head throbbed with a hangover. He’d been buried again by booze, but now wished he was dead, his head ached so badly.
“Allo - o- o??......Ohe! ....Ohe! “ he shouted in a sort of yodel with cupped hands. His breath clouded in front of his eyes as his voice echoed slightly from the few buildings but otherwise mostly disappeared into the thick echoless forest. The brisk March air opened his lungs and cleared the last of the tavern’s smoke from his nose, “Ohe ! Ohe! “ His breath hung silent in front of his eyes.
He stumbled half asleep towards the cabin with the firewood logs, shouting in a loud voice again, “Allo??” Moving closer, the faint music grew louder. Jacques rapped at the door and there was no response so he pushed it slightly open and peeped inside. In the corner of the room, next to the stove, with his back to Jacques, a man was cooking breakfast - eggs, bacon, and pancakes with sirop d’erable. The smell made Jacques’ hangover worse.
The cook couldn’t hear the young man’s call because of the loud music coming from the big horn of a wind-up gramophone, blasting out the opera La Traviata. He stood solidly in front of the blackened, cracked stove. He was broad shouldered, not particularly tall, perhaps about fifty years old. A big white fur hat hid most of his head, and as he cooked only an unlit pipe poked out, clenched in his lips. Dressed in furs with shaggy brown hair going grey at the sides, he reminded Jacques of a small bear.
Again, Jacques rapped loudly on the door, pushing it open, and McKenzie turned in surprise. Jacques vaguely recognized the big white hat from the celebration the night before, and its wearer puffing on his pipe with a cloud of blue smoke around his head while telling some wild Highland tale with lots of whoops and shouts. To the celebrating listeners it had been only half-understandable, for his English had been embroidered with a heavy Scottish accent and his French was broken. To Jacques, he was a bit of a puzzle - his story-telling seemed oddly controlled, for in that room full of merry-making Quebecois and draveurs so renowned for their dancing, he was the only one who was not drunk. In Jacques’ hazy recollection the Scotsman hadn’t been drinking at all during the evening celebration, nor had he seemed inclined to dance. It felt like he was trying hard to wrestle with some half-buried unpleasant memory, and pretending to enjoy his wild tales of Scotland while all the Quebecois reeled and jigged to their music. He didn’t seem to belong in the tavern or the town.
Mckenzie, unhearing because of the opera music, started suddenly at the sight of Jacques and lifted the pickup arm from the revolving Traviata in open-mouthed amazement. “Who on earth are ye laddie? What ar-r-re ye doin’ here? Where........? ...er....er Que veux-tu gamin??..”
Visitors were a rare occurrence in the cabin - practically never - and he did not recognize this tall thin young man as being anyone he ever met at all.
“Who arr-r-e ye laddie? Where in heaven’s name have you come from? What do you want? How did you manage to find my wee place her-r-r-re in the woods? The Scotsman rolled the r in ‘here’for extra emphasis . “Are ye lost lad?”
Jacques felt nauseous at the smell of breakfast.
“Je suis perdu ...J’etais dans le gros traineau........er” He switched to English for McKenzie, jerking his head backwards at the sleigh outside.... “ Wh - where am I?”
“Ma parole !! You were sleeping in my sleigh? I dinna understand ye.... What were ye doing sleeping there?”
“Sais pas. I dunno, I can’t remember.”
“Well you weren’t in my sleigh last night when I got back here, so you must have climbed into it here in the yard during the night .....”
“Mais non.....No.....” the young man spoke more or less to himself trying to focus his memory, “J’etais ..... I was in Clermont in the tavern last night .. . . and I remember now, I staggered out of there into the street and was heading for the steps up to Paradis’s place to see if he was still open and maybe had a bed for the night. My usual place was closed - it was so late. . . . .” It was starting to crystallize in his mind now.
“Aye, aye, the blacksmith Paradis...I was in Chute Nairne myself last night and left the sleigh outside all right. You musta fallen in my sleigh right there in the street in Chute.....I mean Clermont......fallen r-rright into my sleigh. You musta crawled under-r-r the tarpaulin outa the cold wind”
“Mais oui, bien sur....Yeah, I musta been under the tarp”
“Yes, them pails o’ nails from Paradis. I just tossed them on top of the tarpaulin.....”
McKenzie spoke slowly, trying to recall his activities in Clermont. Yes, he had left the tavern, gone to Johnny McKay’s and collected his money for his carvings, then picked up a gallon of nails and two big coils of wire at the blacksmith’s Paradis.
“That’s why I couldn’t move this morning - the boxes were so heavy”
“Aye laddie, a forty pound pail of nails is a heavy beast,” he turned the eggs out onto the plate without bursting the yolks, ”...especially if you’ve been drinking too much,” he added with emphasis, catching the young man’s eye. His raised eyebrow and eyes drilling into the young man’s face showed his intolerance of the weakness.
“Ce sont pas tes oignons !” Jacques muttered angrily.
McKenzie dropped the eyebrow and looked back at the sizzling frying pan. “Well laddie, sit down before you faint from cold and hunger.... ha’e some breakfast. Viens Viens..”
The very thought of eating turned Jacques’ stomach, but he settled for some black coffee. He moved a chair and dropped in to it - and looked around at the immaculate organization of the cabin as he sipped the hot liquid. Spotless floor, scrubbed benches, washed dishes, clean windows, and food smelling as if it were a café. The coffee cleared his hazy mind.
McKenzie ate rapidly like a hungry animal, then got to his feet and announced, “Well I gotta work now - brush and feed the horses after last night.....” He washed the plates and pans, straightened his fur hat and hitched on a broad leather belt with a huge knife and half a dozen loop pockets for tools. “And what are ye going to do now?” McKenzie walked slowly to the door and out into the yard.
“Faut que j'parte maintenant. I suppose I’d better get on the road and start getting back to Clermont. C'est loin?” he called after the figure with the white hat
“Laddie you’ll ha’e a long walk….for ye won’t get a ride oot here. Clermont ‘s a good 25 miles south south east ....That’s only an old Indian track that leads pretty much only to here and ye won’t get far wearing that woolly toque.....ye’ll need a real hat or you’ll never get any distance at all - the noroua off the Malbaie will cut ye like a knife ...look in that cabin there and take one of the fur hats you see.”
“Ça vaut le coup,” Jacques shrugged, and came out wearing a thick wolfskin hat with earflaps.
“– and then there’s the river - you won’t be crossing it as easily as I did last night - she’s a- goin’ now, let me warn you.”
McKenzie started to unload the sleigh and get his tools ready for work, “Can ye help me unload, laddie?”
They carried the stuff to different cabins and Jacques was a little surprised that as well as stables and huts to hold trapping equipment, they turned out to be workshops and warehouses, Some held piles of newly-made carvings, toy doll houses, wooden animals, puzzles, marketry pictures and ornate furniture. The work of a woodsman was alien to him. For that matter, so was any sort of steady work. He’d spent his thirty odd years hanging around bars and rooming houses in Clermont. He picked up a toy train from the pile, and fingering it reminded him of his own childhood when his mother was alive and there were such toys at home. Jacque’s puzzled eyes squinted around the cabin and at McKenzie.
“This is my work lad, woodcarving.”
McKenzie grunted good luck to him and returned to his work, a little relieved at the departure of the young man. A hasty swill of cold water on the face and Jacques muttered his adieu et bonne chance, and set off across the packed snow of the narrow track - and his tall slim figure gradually disappeared from view as the dense network of tree trunks and branches swallowed him up.
Around midday McKenzie stopped turning wooden goblets at his lathe, but left the machine running, for the fly wheel was better moving than stopped and started. He removed his cold pipe and reached for his coffee and flapjacks. Just then the young man’s figure re-emerged through the net of trees. McKenzie eating in the workshop with his machines running again heard nothing of Jacque’s approach.
Pushing open the door of the workshop, the young Quebecois yelled above the machine noise, “Alors mon vieux you were right - I couldn’t see anyone on that road, even where it joins the other road running west”
The Scot raised his head in half surprise, half annoyance, “ Aye, I told you so.”
“Well how will I get back to Clermont?”
“Well laddie, T'as rien compris ! Laisse-moi t'expliquer. I’m sorry to tell ye that you can’t. Not until in about eight or nine months months when I will be going back to Clermont for supplies and to sell me carvings and furniture... I only go into town once a year for supplies and sell me car-r-r-vings, and that’s when the river is frozen and I can cross it”
“It’s not possible to walk to town ?”
“Not in this warm spring weather boy. It’s over twenty five miles and when we crossed last night the ice was moving.....the Riviere Malbaie is no longer frozen solid. It can’t be crossed. It’s too wide and has a fast current – and it’s too cold and and it would be foolish to attempt to swim - and I’m afraid I don’t have any boats.”
“Yeah...wide is right.... I saw it only an hour ago and it was wide open water and flowing fast all right. So I am stuck here? “
“Afraid so laddie...at least till freeze up in November. There’s no way across the Malbaie...the only ferry used to be twenty miles upstream and there was no real track to that. It was just across rough country through the woods...took about two days even in the sleigh on snow-covered ground, but at least four or five days in summer on horseback. Even if the ferry is still running I can’t afford to let my horse go for your ride. I need both horses for work - chopping down trees and hauling them here to the cabins.”
Jacques’ head was clearing now after his two-hours in the cold on the Clermont road. His stomach was starting to crave drink, “Have you a drink here - juste un p’tit pick-me-up of rum?”
The craving in his guts reminded him of working for a while in the timber mill in Chute - but he was always late for work and got fired for being drunk. Then he had found jobs in the lumber camps upriver, where they didn’t mind if you drank, so for years he just drifted and drank. His mother had died when he was six and father had disappeared some place, and ever since he’d left the orphanage at thirteen, he’d never really worked steadily at anything....just enough to get money for drink. Falling asleep in one bunkhouse or other, he would find himself thinking back to a special girl in Clermont. She and her mother had laid on a party for his thirtieth birthday. He had asked her to marry him but she’d refused because of his drinking. He’d gone on a month-long binge then.
“Sorry laddie,” replied the Scot rather stiffly and proudly, “I’m a Presbyterian from Aberdeen, and I myself never touch the stuff.”
The young man was brought back from his daydream. He’d never heard the word “Presbyterian” but guessed it meant some special group of Scots, and just allowed the topic to die. The point was that there was nothing to drink hereabouts which would suit his taste. He sipped a little more coffee and asked casually about the sheds and cabins. McKenzie explained that he and his family had been living here a long time, that his wife was from Saguenay. She and their daughter had died some ten years ago.
“An accident of some kind?” the young man offered sympathetically.
“ My wife was only forty five and our daughter twenty two . They got sick one summer, complaining of light too bright in their eyes, then they both gradually got worse . I couldn’t get the Chute doctor till freeze-up, by which time they were . . . gone. I put them both to rest in the woods with wooden crosses and headpieces. We all loved the woods. I just couldn’t leave them alone here, so I stayed on and worked as I had always worked. When I got to Chute that December the doctor told me they had probably developed meningitis. It was common enough out in the bush.” The Scotsman’s voice was sad but resigned. Jacques sipped his coffee thoughtfully.
“The thing I missed most was her singing, she used to love to sing those operas all the time. When she was gone the silence was the worst thing. . . ,” McKenzie seemed to be talking to himself, thinking out loud, as he turned back to his lathe.
Weeks went by in the remote yard and the weather warmed. April became May. They trapped bigger game, rabbits and deer, and ate well. They worked well together and they learned to get along. McKenzie started to accept the Quebecois’ sense of fun and enjoyment. The younger man started to mentally accept the predicted nine months of isolation. They occasionally fought and argued when the lack of rum really troubled him, but gradually Jacques overcame the nagging need for it, and his complaints ceased. Jacques discovered in himself a natural talent for working with wood, and after a few weeks became well trained as an assistant woodsman and woodcarver. McKenzie showed him the tricks of handling timber and took great pleasure in showing him how to handle tools and shape the wood lovingly into goblets or toy ships. Jacques tried to copy the tricks and countless times split the wood on the last cut. Again and again the older man patiently replaced the broken splintered wood with another block and would guide Jacques’ fingers to exactly the right cutting pressure or filing shape. The love of wood – its smell, its feel, its sound – were soaked up by the young man, like a forest soaks up the rain.
Waking daily to McKenzie calling, “Reveille-toi, paresseux!”, he learned the habits of rising early and working, something he had never done in his life. McKenzie made a bunk for him in the workshop where all the living took place. It was the warmest and biggest cabin. With hard work in the fresh air and regular meals and no rum, he became fitter and stronger. He also quickly developed into a good hunter and trapper and a reliable provider. He let his common sense start to develop. It was as if all these talents had been latent and held back by his weakness for rum. He straightened his back and was consequently taller. His shoulders broadened, and his horseriding and tree-felling skills improved. His muscles grew harder and stronger. He always hauled in the biggest trunks and let the older man watch.
Jacque’s growing skill as a woodsman rapidly allowed McKenzie to send him alone into the forest to find and haul back different trees for different purposes. Making religious statues and model ships needed maple. Toys for children to play with needed hemlock; wall plaques needed birch. The skills of McKenzie were those of an experienced woodsman who was an expert in his craft and Jacques learned these old fashioned but time-tested ways well. He mastered the many skills of a woodsman in a remarkably short space of time. He was a natural - from chopping down a good tree and hauling it in undamaged, to trimming it to reach the good wood, to sawing, carving and the multitude of finer operations involving small nails and screws, to filing and sanding and polishing. Gradually he stopped asking the names and purpose of tools. . . ce truc, ce machin-la? The tools became extensions of his fingers.
They set up the new cast iron stove...the old one had developed a crack. Spent evenings playing cards around its wamth, and listening to La Traviata. “It was my wife’s favourite piece of music,” McKenzie explained. One day in summer they went to the nearby Lac Noir and examined the half-built boat and jetty McKenzie had started when his family was still alive. “Trouble was I never had enough time to go out with them on the lake even if it was finished.” Feeling sorry for the older man, Jacques offered to help finish it....but only in winter of course because of the mosquitos. That evening McKenzie lit his pipe with real tobacco and the two men swapped reminiscences of their lives, and Jacques sang little Quebecois folk songs. “Oh how I wish they were here now and I could listen to Louisa and Anna – they used to sing the same songs you have there Jacques - I never understood them in French but they were a beautiful part of the evening sometimes....but not often enough, - I was always too busy working...” his voiced trailed off. He gazed into space for a long time.“She loved to dance and I was never much good at it, never made any effort really.....” He puffed on the pipe, which was now dead cold.
Next morning they set about doing some cleaning of the cabins, neglected somewhat by the workload of the summer. Jacques knew nothing of cooking and cleaning and washing clothes. He had always regarded all such work as women’s work. Neatness in housekeeping seemed to be a somewhat effeminate trait, rather than a system to ensure order and efficiency in his work schedule. He had never had any idea of how to preserve food from summer through the winter. But little by little McKenzie taught him the techniques of preparing meat for preservation, jerking beef, and making jam from fruit as autumn turned to winter and the snow started to fly.
The old man liked teaching his skills to the Quebecois, just as surely as the young man enjoyed learning. Without being conscious of it, each had replaced the lost family of the other. The nearest recognition was one evening after supper when the Scotsman muttered awkwardly but sincerely, “I’ll tell you something, my boy - I’ve never been so happy or at peace in my mind for a very long time.” The other half smiled and grunted assent.
Now and again the Scotsman needed to go off and find trees for special purposes in the deep woods and left Jacques alone to work all day. The young man occasionally strolled out to the two graves and looked thoughtfully at the beautifully carved angels and the inscription “My beloved Louisa 1883 -1928 and daughter Anna 1906- 1928 “, and couldn’t help imagining the happiness of the older man in the years before the tragedy. As he looked into the different cabins and huts, he was particularly touched by the empty cabin still with its carefully made-up beds in place, undisturbed and packed with lovingly preserved patchwork quilts and frilly gingham curtains . This was obviously the actual family home lived in by the three of them years ago in happier times. Plainly the old man’s life was still here in this group of cabins in the woods.
He stared long at the old photos of three much younger people - McKenzie, Louisa and Anna. Leaving that cabin permanently closed, McKenzie had taken to sleeping and living in the big workshop. It was big enough for the double activity of living and working, and it was easier to heat than two cabins. And he did not have the constant reminder of gingham and patchwork.
One cool sunny day in September Jacques went off into the forest to get a new load of mature birch. He felled three good tunks and started to tie them for hauling. Using his horses to assemble the pile of trunks, he lost his grip on the reins for a moment, and the top trunk rolled down onto his leg and crushed it badly, leaving him half buried under branches and leaves. Crippled and trapped he tried uselessly to pull himself from the wreckage, and then lay exhausted in agonising pain as the sun began to set. Using his axe with difficulty Jacques hacked off two small limbs of the felled trees. He turned the butt of the axe and bashed the two limbs in between two trunks so that they eased the pressure from his leg. Managing to scrape the trailing reins of one horse towards him, he started to tie the leather to the hacked-off limbs to allow the horse to pull if he could persuade her, but the animal stumbled away from him and grazed a little on the undergrowth nearby. No amount of coaxing could bring her back to his aid. The sun sank slowly and it grew colder. The wolves started to howl and the horses started to become restless.
In his workshop, McKenzie waited several hours for Jacques’ return, then began to worry and went searching for him with lamp and rifle. He followed the recent tracks easily and then as darkness swallowed up the tracks, he closed in, hurrying now, on the fearful whinnying of Jacques’ tethered horses. He finally burst upon the felled trees and the injured man. The Quebecois was too weak to talk or move, but it was clear what had happened and McKenzie acted quickly. He shot off a few rounds to scare away the hungry wolves, then calmed the horses and harnessed them to lift the trunk off Jacques’ leg without any further pain. It only needed a few inches, because Jacques’ efforts with the axe had already raised the timber three inches off the ground. Hauling out the limp frame of the young man, and tying him flat on one of the trunks, McKenzie clutched his chest with a sudden pain, which he’d had sometimes in the past. He stopped to catch breath and then whistled up the horses and they slowly dragged the trunk back to the cabins in the clearing.
Struggling into the cabin and collapsing on the floor, to catch breath McKenzie took a small bottle off the shelf and swigged down a good dose of a black medicine. He turned to the leg. Although a bad crushing had made it all but unusable, Jacques’ right leg was carefully fixed with splints. Since there would be no doctor till freeze-up in November the leg would surely become permanently crooked and weak. Jacques needed McKenzie’s help constantly for about a month and a half, and then managed to get on his feet and start work again, slowly but crippled. But he was no longer the solid worker he had been. For the moment, smaller work with lathe and file was easy enough but he couldn’t manage any sawing at all. McKenzie became an indispensible helper in the young man’s work routine. As September became October and then November the leg healed, not perfectly but good enough for independent heavy work. Jacques could get about but only slowly.
By mid-November the ice-crust on the Riviere Malbaie was thickened to about five inches. At last it was freeze-up and time for the long planned journey to town to sell carvings. But McKenzie’s pain was a trouble and he couldn’t move much, and knew that he wasn’t going to make it to town in the sleigh. He told Jacques he would have to go with the horses and sleigh back to Clermont alone and sell their carvings to Johnny McKay, “ C'est pasqu'on est frères que je te fais confiance “.
After a moment’s reflection he added, “No I reckon you can keep most of the money you get .......because you earned it my boy....you’ve learned t o be a good carpenter. .. .. and I owe you a great deal, son. I will be fine here. Don’t worry. I can still hunt and trap for my dinner. He laughed heartily. You just come back here when you’re ready...” He held up his hand in a signal that he wanted no debate.
Jacques protested that he wanted to stay with McKenzie and that they could go to town together later in the winter. Over the summer working closely together like father and son, Jacques had grown to respect and like him, and now he worried about the chest pain and whether the older man could manage alone. Despite the protests McKenzie insisted he go, “No. no, this pain isn’t going to improve, I won’t be going to Clermont any more. The ice will be safe now on the river...Make sure you get a good price for the car-r-r-vings. You tell Johnny McKay that your working with me and he’ll gi’ ye a fair price. Ye better get loaded up and mind ye don’t overtire the horses. Now God speed and bless ye Jacques. I’m going to miss ye”
The carvings would sell at a good price to Johnny McKay, the small dealer in Clermont, who would then ship them to Quebec City for sale in the bigger shops there. He loaded the sleigh and then for two entire days Jacques sawed an enormous pile of timber so that the Scot could work on them and produce carvings for months.
The two woodsmen inspected the sleigh with its tarp-covered mountain of carvings and toys. The horses were anxious to get started before dark. They tossed their heads with anticipation of the trip. Inwardly McKenzie feared that his weak heart meant Jacques was now on his own and free to return to a life of drinking, and would rapidly and recklessly drink away all the money from the sales of carvings and never return.
Almost reading his mind, Jacques called out, “Don’t worry I’ll be back soon and we’ll have supplies for the winter, and I’ll get you some more medicine and some tobacco as well...hahaha.” Jacques laughed heartily and dismissively but was sincere in his intentions - for his absence would be only a few days at most and then he would be back.
McKenzie slapped the horses gently, “Allez, à bientôt ! A un de ces quat'...” The Scot waved with a sense of resignation as Jacques spoke encouragingly to the horses and then reined them expertly into the sleigh tracks and headed for the Clermont road. McKenzie soon lost sight of the red sleigh as the road twisted through the trees, and he turned back to his workshop.
Bouncing along the narrow snow-covered track, his leg hurting with the bigger bumps, Jacques had time to think at length about his life in the woods, and how he had changed. He felt a new self-respect and walked tall now, even with his limp, and he liked his new self. He whipped up the horses and raced down the riverbank to the frozen Malbaie, across the ridges of ice - now quite solid as McKenzie had predicted, though still moving in some places - and in no time was pulling up the other bank and on the road to Clermont, where he was looking forward to selling their carvings and also to meeting with some of his old friends.
Johnny McKay paid him a handsome sum, and was keen to hear all the news of his old pal.
Jacques spent a small amount of the cash from the sales on supplies, and intended to return across the Riviere Malbaie that same day before dark, but the sun was already setting and rather than risk the river crossing in the dark he decided to go in the morning.
He could use the evening to meet friends.
One friend in particular that he wanted to see was his one-time girlfriend, Celine. Her face had followed him in his dreams every day and night for months. . . He loved her smooth skin, long blonde hair and inviting full lips. She had been always been so kind to him when no one else would let him near their homes. It was more than friendship, he knew. Her mother too had to be thanked for all her kindness over the years for which he had never ever shown gratitude. Many times they had picked him out of the snow dead-drunk and given him a meal and a bunk for the night in their two roomed place above a shoe shop..
Jacques crossed the main street of town and slipped, staggered down an alley off the next side street . The snow had drifted quite deep here and few people had made any tracks. He knocked quietly at the wooden door next to the shoe shop, expecting to see a familiar warm smile. Jacques was met with the sad and worried face of Celine, but she was still as lovely as he remembered. The clear skin pale and drawn with worry, and her hair in sad need of care told a troubled tale. Her brown eyes opened wide in surprise and gladness, and instinctively she gripped his arms tight.
“ Ça fait un bail ! Oh, Jacques where have you been? We was worried that you was froze to the death in some snow bank...How you are Jacques? You’re looking very well .....Oh, it’s so good to see you, we missed you so much. She squeezed his arm tighter,”Come on up and see maman - she not much well – she upstairs in bed”
“What’s the matter with her, Celine? And you, my sweet, what’s happened to you both?” He answered in English out of habitual use with McKenzie, as she half-pulled him up the wooden stairs.
“Oh, you’ll see for yourself in deux p’tites secondes, come on in,” she led his arm eagerly forward and hung back herself.
“Maman, look who’s come to visit….it’s Jacques”
The old lady’s delirious eyes opened in amazement and she too was obviously glad to see him and opened her arms wide for a hug. Jacques took her bodily in his arms and squeezed her gently, “ How are you......maman...?” Her reply was weak and he laid her back down and tucked in the bed cover - she relaxed in mid sentence from her weakness. Close to her ear, the young man softly sang a verse of an old Quebec folk song he knew she liked, and she mumbled something and fell asleep holding his hand.
As the old lady fell back to sleep, they went to the other room where the coffee pot was heating. Celine explained. “ A couple of weeks ago, maman fell sick real quick like, with an infection in her chest - and it was getting worse. She was much ill and needed medicines and the doctor, but we not could afford neither. I has been trying to get her strength back with those old Indian herbs, and some of my vegetable soup. But I’m afraid she is getting weaker, oh Jacques, I just don’t know what to do.” In an instant, Jacques could see that they needed his help and he had to stay. He couldn’t go back to the woods that night or the next day. He knew what he had left from the carvings cash could bring the doctor and medicines. Jacques didn’t hesitate for a moment.
“Celine, take this money right now and find the doctor and buy the medicine he tells you to get. This is really McKenzie’s cash buying your medicines but I’m sure he’d want me to do this, J’en suis certain. . . I am sure.”
“Oh, I can’t to give the thanks to you enough- it’s a blessing - un miracle - Jacques, both from you and him....who is this McKenzie my sweet? Oh tell me later- I’m going to run like the wind - straight away.”
She pulled on her fur boots and heavy woolen shawl, and was down the stairs and out of the door in a second, jumping in and out of Jacques’ deep footsteps in the alley snow.
The young man cleaned up the place a little and chopped a load of firewood out in the alley. Then he warmed up some soup - chicken and vegetables. She was back in an hour with the doctor, and anxiously sat down at the mother’s side. The doctor listened to her breathing and gave her small tests of lungs and heart, and pronounced that if they had left it any longer then pneumonia would have been likely; but now the medicine and some good food would be a great help towards the cure.
“This damp cold room is gonna be no help with the pneumonia, let me tell you. It’s probably why the infection started so fast,” warned the doctor as he rose to leave.
Celine dutifully poured out a spoon of medicine, raised her mother and put it into her lips. And then there was a bowl of Jacques’ soup. Her mother felt a bit better just from the attention she was getting. The doctor grunted with satisfaction, closed his black bag and left with a warning to call him again if she needed him. Then they sat together as the mother dozed off again.
While they shared the soup and some coffee, there was silence. Too much had happened to even start explaining so the pair simply sat close together.
He got up and went to the coffee pot. She looked at his uneven steps.
“Mon dieu, you cannot to walk with no limp, why? Was you drunk and fell badly?” Deep in her heart Celine had always loved Jacques and wanted to marry him but had feared his drunkenness. Celine’s own father had been a draveur and was killed years before in a lumbering woods accident when he was drunk. And she had even warned Jacques many times that his passion for rum would get him killed like her own dad. He had always ignored her.
“No, Celine, it was in a work accident in the woods… I will tell you.”
She gazed into the flames over the burning logs and spoke quietly, “Tell me, why do you speak English to me all the time now Jacques?
“Because of working all the time with McKenzie. He speaks very poor French.”
“McKenzie again? Who is he Jacques?”
“I have worked day and night with him for about nine months...he has taught me so much, Celine, I can’t even begin to tell you ....”
As he describd the long tale of the red sleigh and his work in the woods and the broken leg, she only half-listened for she could see the evidence with her own eyes. And she slowly appraised his weather-beaten face, his toughened muscular shoulders. She could see that Jacques was now sober and a lot fitter - doing all the woodsman’s work he was talking about with such excitement. And he obviously knew how to cook and clean around the house. As she gazed, she hardly realized she was in a happier mood than she had been for many months. Maman was feeling better and looked to be starting on the road to recovery. And in some vague inexpressible way, Celine was proud of the progress Jacques had clearly made.
His stay stretched, and over the next few weeks Jacques was very helpful to Celine and her mother. He knew he owed them a great debt for their past years of care, and he was determined to make it up. He found a job in one of the local lumber mills where his carpentry was in demand - the work was very hard but the pay was good. He replaced the spent medicine money very soon. The mill boss told him it was a long time since he’d seen work of such quality - Jacques seemed to know instinctively which planks were suited for what work, and how much the price should be. The drawback was that the work was unsteady, and he could be laid off at a day’s notice. However, it was ok for the moment.
It was no surprise to the recovering mother when Celine and Jacques told her they’d decided to get married in December. All the neighbours and everyone at the mill were delighted. However, they had to avoid the weeks of Advent in such a very catholic town, so it was just after Christmas when they were wed in the new parish church in Clermont. They lived in her mother’s rooms. Over the winter with the medicines and warm fires, and extra food Jacques and Celine were delighted as mother got much better by March, when the spring weather softened the land and the trees began to show early buds coated in hoarfrost. But by the time she’d fully recovered it was past break-up on the river. Jacques now wouldn’t be able to return to McKenzie to pay him his carvings money till freeze-up again next winter. He told Celine and her mother many stories about the Scot and his good influence and training, and said many times how he missed the old woodsman a lot and wanted very much to pay him his carvings money and simply see him again. Celine wanted more and more to meet this woodsman and thank him for changing her Jacques for the better.
As the spring gave way to summer the mill closed but Jacques picked up work in town, emptying rubbish, sweeping out abbatoirs, digging ditches, cleaning out public toilets etc. Celine too was working - producing their first baby. By December the little boy was three months old, and they decided to travel north and visit McKenzie just after Christmas. It would be a wonderful surprise for him. Dressing warmly, and sheltered in the big covered sleigh, and with a small blue cutter in tow and an extra horse trotting behind, the pair set off for Lac Noir. They could leave the big sleigh for McKenzie and still get back to Clermont on the small cutter. It was a four-hour sleigh ride there and four hours back, with a cold north wind, so they prepared well. The three muffled figures set off slowly whipping up the horses for the long trip. The clouds suggested heavy snow, so they wasted no time.
Over a year had passed in the clearing south of Lac Noir. The snows had come and gone and been replaced by the flowers and berries of spring and summer . The cabins were filled to capacity with toy ships and animals, wall plaques, carved religious figures, and rosary beads. Then the snows had come again, so heavy they almost buried the two crosses in the woods. McKenzie figured that Jacques had spent the money and gone back to his drinking when he didn’t return in November of the previous year. But it wasn’t the loss of the money - the old man was lonely and sad. All the same McKenzie had just about survived with his trapping and fishing, listening to his beloved opera - and thanks to the plentiful store of tree trunks built up by Jacques before he went, of course woodcarving - and storing it up for eventual sale. He missed the young Quebecois like the son he never had.
Still, he was going to celebrate the new year as he always did with a bigger fire and some special stew and La Traviata. Outside, he gathered a pile of logs to build up the stove fire. As he stooped a murmuring slight pain the chest slowed him. The heart had been a problem...lack of medicines...loneliness. Once in early November McKenzie got excited that a sleigh had come down the track, perhaps bringing medicine for him, but it was only one of the Indians taking the trail as a short cut because the other ways were blocked. He sat down thinking hard after that. If Jacques was drunk again he would surely end up frozen in some ditch....and at the back of his mind McKenzie wondered how he too would survive another winter, for he could no longer trap quite as easily. But he had been alone before and knew how to survive. Single handed, he had fought off wolves, and even a bear once when Anna was young. And his stamina had always been an asset here in the woods. But he stopped and wondered if he really did still have those abilities now he was ten years older. His balance was going these days, and he had fallen with dizziness a few time recently, after the pain in the heart came back.
The clouds had mercifully held off their threatened snow, and after four freezing hours, the two sleighs pulled in to the yard and the sound of La Traviata came to their ears. Jacques half-yelled, half-laughed out loud and grinned at Celine’s puzzled look about the music, as he tied off the reins and jumped down, wincing with knee pain, and made straight for the workshop. McKenzie, deafened by the music, was as usual surprised by his sudden arrival. Turning as the door opened and let more daylight into the workshop, he yelled out in joy, “Ça fait un bail ! Mon fils t’es enfin arrive.....!!”
Jacques chortled, “And how have you been with your chest pain? And with no tobacco, Hein? Hahaha !!”
They threw fur-clad arms around each other and yelled questions without waiting for answers.
“It’s a long time, my boy. . . . What have you been doing mon fils?”
“Did you make some more sirop?. . . Have you done lots of carving? Show me what you’ve been doing while I was away. I’ll bet you were drunk most of the time.. !” And they both guffawed at the ridiculous idea. They threw arms around each other again and again till Jacques said, “Wait a moment till I bring in Celine - I want you to meet her.”
“And who is Celine mon fils, ?” with eyebrows raised and a grin from ear to ear
“My wife!!” he laughingly and happily yelled, and they stepped outside to see the smiling young woman holding her baby bundled up under the cover of the sleigh.
While McKenzie walked slowly and shyly over to the sleigh, Jacques limped quickly to his wife and reached up and took her by the waist as she jumped to the snowy ground, then collected the tiny baby from the basket on the seat. All three of them went into the workshop with the baby - which was the warmest place. McKenzie turned off La Traviata, and they laughed and introduced themselves. Amid all the laughing and hugging and cooing at the baby, and exchanging memories and suchlike, McKenzie discovered that he actually had known Celine’s mother on and off as an acquaintance many years ago, though he had never seen Celine since she was a small girl.
“The woods is huge.....but it’s a damn small world!!” they all chorused, laughing and hugging endlessly, until the baby began to cry with the noise. And they all stopped suddenly, smiling but feeling guilty for alarming the sleeping baby.
“And I’ve brought you some medicine and more important, papa, some real tobacco for your pipe - hahaha!” whispered Jacques hoarsely.
“Ah thank god - my pipe has been cold for so long - haha!” And the Scotsman filled his pipe and puffed a huge cloud of blue smoke as he poured three cups of hot coffee, and they gathered round the new stove.
Unable to brush smiles off their faces they slowly calmed down and Celine started to feed the baby, who promply fell back to sleep with a gurgle. They sipped their coffee and enjoyed the stove’s warmth.
McKenzie half talking to himself, thinking out loud, muttered “No, the ride back will be too long for the baby.” He seemed to be arguing with himself. “The cold north winds from the Hautes Gorges of the Riviere Malbaie are making the weather unpleasant. No, I really think you should stay for a few days. There is lots of room here.”
As good as his word, McKenzie threw on his coat and went out to open up the other cabins, and start the stoves in them, and the Scot felt somehow happy to have opened up the long- closed cabins where he and his wife had lived. As if life had been poured back into the clearing in the woods and had been soaked up into the very windows, doors, and cupboards of the cabins.
He came back excited and flushed with satisfaction, and poured a little more coffee for himself. Sitting down again in the workshop with Celine and the baby, Jacques took the moment to explain to McKenzie his plan for the return journey. The small cutter was to take them back to Clermont when they returned to Celine’s mother in a few days, leaving the two bigger horses and the big sleigh for McKenzie to work with of course .
“But Jacques my boy, I surely cannot use the horses and sleigh because of my chest, do ye no’ see son? So you may have all three animals, laddie.” The young man thought for a moment and nodded his head slowly in recognition of the obvious situation which he simply had not foreseen.
Jacques didn’t know what to do to help the Scot, but said, ”I cannot simply leave you here alone. . . God knows, anything can happen and if you are alone, no one will get here for about a year. You must come to town with us and I will find a room for you my old friend.” He glanced at his wife and she quickly nodded assent. “And I can always find work in town - it’s hard but it pays pretty good. And we’ll all be together.” McKenzie fell silent. Deep in thought he began to shake his head, slowly and without a word, and puffed on his pipe.
In the morning, worries about the future were for the moment pushed aside and they started to enjoy the visit. In those two days their easy happiness started to become obvious. The medicine began to ease the chest problem somewhat.
Celine was very proud and happy to see Jacques working with McKenzie. She had never seen Jacques with his own father ever since he had been a little boy, and she knew instinctively the young man missed not having a father. Celine liked the old Scotsman’s strict tee-total ways and wished her own father had been like that. Jacques just seemed made for the role of provider and helper for the old man.
The baby made a lot of noise in the otherwise tranquil clearing and his needs produced a disorganised feel to the cabins, but the Scotsman was quite happy with it. His thoughts went back to when his own Anna had been small and he had made toys for her and the squeals of delight would fill the woods. He was younger then and jumped from log to log to amuse her etc He sighed as his thoughts flowed on. How empty it would be after these three left again for Chute. Here somehow was his second chance for a family in the woods and he was crippled and couldn’t grab the chance. It was a cruel irony.
However, at McKenzie’s suggestion, they decided to stay two more days. After supper one evening McKenzie took Jacques to one side and said, “I’ve been thinking over what you said about me moving into town.....you were telling me the work in town was unpleasant....Listen my boy, did you ever think it might be better if you and Celine moved out here. We have everything we need, and it’s very comfortable. What do you think? Why not talk it over with Celine?”
“Why, it never even dawned on me papa, because Celine’s mum has been so unwell and unable to look herself.…we just couldn’t leave her alone there. Even if I wanted to, and it sounds a very attractive idea, I’m sure Celine would not agree.”
In their own cabin that night Jacques sang a soft verse or two of his folk songs and the baby fell asleep quickly in Celine’s arms. Then he and Celine discussed McKenzie’s idea. The young man enthusiastically described how his work here in the woods would bring them more money and a steady income for many years, a better prospect than working at the mill, where he might be laid off again when work was slack and then having to rely upon odd jobs in dirty places etc. Celine admitted that she felt that the cabins were so much warmer and more comfortable and suited to them than the two rooms in Clermont. Celine thought it was a perfect idea - except that her mother would be left alone in town. And the rooms she lived in were just rented and if she were alone the landlord would put her out. With herself and Jacques living there the landlord would be more wary of trouble if he tried to put her out.
When Jacques told McKenzie the next day about Celine’s worries, and he saw the situation clearly, the Scot straight away withdrew his suggestion of staying on in the woods. “Ye must go back to Chute, laddie, they need you. You must go tomorrow, aye !”
They talked a lot more about the situation until Celine was long asleep. What to do to help Celine’s mother? Her damp rooms were going to be a future health hazard. How could she look after herself without Celine and Jacques? How to get the huge pile of woodcarvings to market? Without money McKenzie could not but food, tools, medicine. The frozen river had to be used when it was available, and there were long warm spells when they were isolated. How to get supplies of medicine when they ran out every winter ? It was not possible to buy five years of medicine…it would not keep well on shelves in the cabins. That darned river had been the reason for his loss of his Louisa and Anna years ago. And now it looked like it was going to be the reason for the loss of McKenzie as well. Jacques finally had a suggestion and hashed it out with McKenzie....then early in the morning Jacques hitched up the horses and the cutter and went back to town before his wife woke up.
Celine woke from her late nap with the baby, and found the Scotsman in his workshop, and asked rather worriedly, “Where has Jacques gone, papa?”
“He has a surprise to give you, ma p’tite and has gone in the cutter to Chute to get it,” he chuckled mischievously and turned his eyebrows into a funny shape for the baby. “ . . . he will be back before
dark, don’t worry. Then we will celebrate the New Year with my stew and a roaring fire, oui?” He smiled mysteriously and with delight.
Just before sundown, the bells of the cutter could be heard, and soon the small blue shape was skidding into the clearing with Jacques laughing loudly at his wife’s surprised face. The cutter tarpaulin was flung back and Celine’s mother was helped down into the woodworker’s yard to see her daughter and grandson’s new home. Whoops of delight filled the cool air, and they hugged and chattered, asking questions too fast for anyone to answer. They again had a loud meeting with lots of laughing, hugging, and smoking. And the baby cried in alarm and they all fell silent in smiling shame again. They all talked about it being “just to visit for a week or so, like a bit of a holiday.”
McKenzie and Celine’s mother instantly smiled and shook their heads in remembrance of their friendship years before. They spent the next several hours and days reminiscing about the old times in Chute. How the town was so different these days - less friendly and more English. It was bigger, more prosperous, but dirtier and noisier too. And whenever the conversation turned to her going back to town, it started to become more and more obvious that nobody wanted her to go back to chute - she should stay here with her only daughter and only grandson. And so, by general agreement Jacques was instructed to return to Clermont before the spring break-up on the Malbaie, collect her few belongings, and close up the rooms at her request.
The woods were particularly lovely that summer, offering this new large family all its wild berries and roots; and they made jam and they pickled vegetables. It was a happiness none of them had experienced for such a long time. McKenzie and Celine were inseparable, him showing her tricks with a deck of cards or making small trinkets, and her making him pies and singing a few lines from one of Jacques’ songs. Jacques made a cradle and high chair and toys for the baby. After a few months the two woodsmen had built an extra cabin with new ornate hand-made furniture. This was for the old man and Celine’s mother, who had by now decided to get married in November as soon as the Malbaie froze up and they could all cross safely and get in to Clermont for the wedding at the new parish church.
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