The Americans Are Coming Page 11

  “A deal, yeah.”

  They drank to the deal.

  “You’ll be buildin’ a camp?” asked Lindon.

  “Yes.”

  “You might be needin’ someone to look after yer place when yer not here, if ye know what I mean, someone to look after the place?”

  “Yes, by God, Lindon old buddy, maybe I will!”

  “Well, sir, I’d do it for ya, so I would. I’m just yer man! I’d do it for ya. Wouldin’ mind. I’m right there. Right handy, so I am.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” said Bill Wallace, then thought, “And so is this Lester Burns fellow whom I’d like to convince to sell.”

  *

  “Gotta have a leak,” said Shadrack. “Comin’, Dry?”

  “Yep. Could do with one meself.”

  Dryfly put his guitar down and followed Shadrack around to the back of the cabin. This was the fourth time they excused themselves and went to the place where Dryfly had hidden the pickle bottle and cigarettes.

  “Startin’ to rain,” said Dryfly, “We’d better put these cigarettes in our pockets.”

  “Yeah, but don’t make a mistake and smoke one while we’re inside. Here, have a drink.”

  Both boys took substantial slugs of the concoction in the pickle bottle. Both boys were feeling a little woozy and starting to lose their inhibitions. The pickle bottle was only half full.

  “Good stuff, eh?”

  “Let’s get back. I’m gettin’ wet.”

  “Who gives a jesus! I don’t care if I git wet! You care if you get wet, Dryfly? A little water wouldn’ hurt you, Dryfly! Here, have one more little slug.”

  “Hem! Ahem! Don’t know if I can handle much more of that!”

  “I can handl’er. I’ll drink’er if you can’t, by God!”

  “C’mon, let’s get back.”

  “You gonna play us another song?”

  “Shhhure, why not!”

  Back on the veranda, Dryfly picked up his guitar.

  “We should go inside,” said Lillian. “The rain’s starting to come in here.”

  “Very best with me, darlin’!” said Shadrack. “Sure! Let’s go in,” said Dryfly.

  Inside the teenagers found Lindon Tucker and Bill Wallace feeling very happy. Shad and Dry were also feeling very happy. Lillian Wallace, although she wasn’t drinking, was picking up on the good time vibrations and was also having fun. A celebration was commencing to brew.

  “Ah! Boys! Come in, come in! I see you have a guitar! Let’s have another drink, Lindon!”

  Lindon Tucker was grinning from ear to ear. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said. “A little drink wouldn’ do us any harm!”

  “Sing for us, boy. Sing us a song!” said Bill.

  Dry sat on the sofa and strummed a G chord. “What would you like to hear?” he asked.

  “Anything you know is fine with me.”

  Dryfly strummed the G chord once again.

  Roses are blooming

  Come back to me darlin’

  Come back to me darlin’

  And never more roam . . .

  Dryfly sang loud and clear and strummed smoothly. Dryfly was giving his first performance in front of an audience. He sang, “Roses are Blooming,”“Beautiful, Beautiful Brown Eyes,”

  “The Cat Came Back,” and “Hannah Won’t You Open the Door.” Everyone listened and everyone enjoyed.

  Much later, Bill Wallace said, “You know, back home in Stockbridge, there’s this hotel. The Red Lion, it’s called. I know the manager. You’d go over well there, Dryfly. I could arrange to get you a booking.”

  “A booking.”

  “Sure! You could entertain there. You could come down and stay with us for a week and entertain at the Red Lion.”

  “No, I ain’t good enough to do that.”

  “Yes you are, my boy! There’s a bunch o’ young people playing there all the time that aren’t any better than you are. In fact, you’re better than most of them.”

  Bill Wallace, though intoxicated, was serious. He liked Dryfly’s singing, he liked Dryfly’s guitar playing, and he liked Dryfly. “He parts his hair in the middle . . . not like all these Elvis Presley freaks. And I could get him a booking.”

  Dryfly thought of the Red Lion many times, but that was all. He was too shy, too backward, and loved the Dungarvon River too much to leave it for a week.

  In Stockbridge, Massachusetts, people like Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez were starting to get bookings at the Red Lion.

  *

  The lightning flashed and the thunder boomed and rumbled. There was so much static on the radio that Shirley Ramsey not only turned it off but unplugged it as well. Shirley Ramsey was very afraid of thunderstorms. She sat in the kitchen, smoking and fingering her rosary beads. Palidin was back in his room. Shirley hoped Dryfly was not on the river. “Water draws lightning,” she thought.

  Nutbeam, on the other hand, was not at all afraid of the storm. He liked it. It added excitement to his life. Nutbeam found the warm summer rain refreshing and often showered himself in it. Nutbeam was standing outside of Shirley Ramsey’s window. He had gone to Shirley Ramsey’s house to listen to the radio, but had lost all interest in listening when he saw Shirley Ramsey remove her clothes to take a bath.

  He moved closer, so that he was actually spying through the window a few inches from the glass. Nutbeam found Shirley Ramsey very exciting.

  “The most beautiful woman I ever saw in my life,” he whispered tohimself.

  eight

  Palidin Ramsey sat on his bed reading an Outdoor Life magazine he’d borrowed from George Hanley. He was reading an article on the Atlantic salmon and was very much interested. “The Atlantic salmon,” the article stated, “lay their eggs in the upper reaches of the fresh water rivers such as the Cains, the Renous and the Dungarvon. When the young have grown to about a pound in weight and are called ‘smolt,’ they take a little journey. They swim a couple of thousand miles to dine in the ocean waters off the coast of Greenland. When they’ve stuffed themselves to satisfaction, they head back to their place of birth to start another generation. They lay their eggs behind the same rock, or in the same bed where they themselves were conceived.”

  The questions asked in the article were, “How do salmon find their way to Greenland and back? How do they recognize the same old rock, or the same old bed where they themselves were born?

  “Four thousand miles through the dark ocean waters to return to the same nest, on the same river! Why? Why not some other river, or at least some other rock?” One of the article’s contributing scientists theorized that salmon may have the ability to sense magnetic forces, that they follow magnetic fields from magnetic rock to magnetic rock, from magnetic coast to magnetic coast. “Salmon do tend to follow coastlines and even riverbanks,” stated the scientist.

  Magnetic was the magic word that started Palidin’s quick mind to work. Lately Palidin had been thinking that voices, the echoes, were drawn back magnetically. Perhaps one’s voice is thrown from a hillside by antimagnetic forces. Perhaps the ear is the magnetic force that attracts it home again. Perhaps magnetic forces account for the homing instinct in all creatures, for instance, the Monarch butterfly, the swallow . . . and the salmon.

  Palidin had learned at a very early age how to stroke metal with metal for the purpose of creating magnets. “If salmon are attracted to magnets,” thought Palidin, “why wouldn’t a magnetic hook work better than just your everyday, ordinary hook?”

  Palidin decided to pay a visit to George Hanley.

  Palidin found George sitting in the shade of the barn, smoking a cigarette. George always went behind the barn to smoke.

  “How’s she goin’, Pal?” greeted George. “What’s up?”

  “Was thinkin’ I might go fishin’. Was wonderin’ if ya had any hooks.”

  “Not me, no. There’s some in the store, I think.”

  “Thought maybe you could steal me a couple.”

  “Shouldn’ be
any trouble. Where ya goin’ fishin’?”

  “I dunno. Someplace where it’s good.”

  “Trout or salmon?”

  “Salmon.”

  “Ya need flyhooks and a rod n’ reel to fish salmon.”

  “Thought I might borrow Shad Nash’s outfit. You sure ya need flyhooks for fishing salmon?”

  “Yep. That’s what everybody’s usin’.”

  “Ya think you could steal me a flyhook?”

  “It’s hard to say. Flyhooks are a lot more costly than bait-hooks. Why don’t you just go trout fishin’ back the brook?”

  “Because I have an idea about catching salmon.”

  “What idea?”

  “Get me a flyhook and I’ll tell ya.”

  “What makes you think the idea is worth it?”

  “I don’t. I have to experiment.”

  “Well, I might be able to get you one flyhook. What kind do you want?”

  “It don’t matter. I don’t know one from the other.”

  “Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Wait here.”

  In less than five minutes, George returned with a fly called Blue Charm and handed it to Palidin. George was always giving Palidin things. George Hanley and Palidin Ramsey were good friends.

  “Want to play in the hay?” asked George, gesturing to the inside of the barn.

  “I was thinking about you last night,” said Palidin.

  *

  Dryfly found himself pacing restlessly. He couldn’t quite figure out what was happening to him, but he knew that something strange was in the making. For the tenth time he found himself pondering the facts. “She spent a lotta the night talkin’ to me and hardly spoke at all to Shad. True, they walked all the way here for me guiddar, but they didn’ take long in doin’ it. They couldn’ do nothin’ in that short o’ time. Shad didn’ seem to know what he was doin’. He got drunk, too, and puked off the veranda. Almost didn’t make it. Shad drank a lot more than I did. No wonder he got drunk. Lillian was prob’ly makin’ fun o’ us, but . . . she seemed to like me.”

  On the way to the Cabbage Island Salmon Club, Dryfly picked a daisy. “Mom says all women like flowers,” he thought. “Mom says she carried daisies when she married Buck.”

  As Dryfly neared the cabin where Lillian Wallace was staying, he found himself thinking that maybe he had arrived too early. “It’s still mornin’, she might not even be out of bed.” He didn’t knock on the door but sat on the veranda to wait and watch the river. He heard robins and chickadees and crows. He could see the river and the forest. He could smell the morning, fresh, radiant in the sun, cleansed to sweetness by the recent rain.

  “Good morning, Dryfly,” greeted Lillian from behind the screen door. “Am I a sleepy head, or are you early?”

  “The train goes at eleven o’clock. You said you had a letter to mail and I thought . . .”

  “Oh, yes. I haven’t finished it yet. Would you like some orange juice?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll bring it out to you.” In a moment Lillian reappeared with two glasses of orange juice, handed one to Dryfly and sat at the table. She was wearing a blue and white checked blouse, blue shorts and sandals.

  “I picked you a daisy,” said Dryfly, handing her the flower.

  “Oh, how nice! Thank you! How thoughtful of you!”

  Dryfly was feeling a little bit embarrassed about giving her the flower, but he was glad that he had given it to her. Lillian put the daisy in her hair. She had just taken her morning shower; fresh, clean and radiant, she complemented the morning itself. Dryfly could not take his eyes off her.

  “Did you have a good time last night?” she asked, waving at the mosquitoes and blackflies that were already commencing to seek out her sweetness.

  “Yeah,” said Dryfly.

  “My father really enjoyed your singing. It would be nice if you could come down and play at the Red Lion.”

  “You never know, I might.”

  “Have you seen Shadrack this morning?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Ouch!” Lillian slapped a mosquito that was feasting on her thigh. “The bugs are terrible! Don’t they bother you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Only sometimes? I think they’re out to devour me. How do you put up with the things?”

  Dryfly wanted to tell her what Palidin had told him: that insects were very tiny; that insects had tiny eyes that restricted their vision to but a couple of feet; that insects were attracted to smell and body heat and that, by waving and slapping and getting excited, one was only attracting more of them.

  “They don’t bother me that much,” he said.

  There was a can of repellent sitting on the table. Picking it up, Lillian said, “They sure bother me!”

  Lillian sprayed her legs and arms. She sprayed some into the palm of her hand, then rubbed the back of her neck and face; she closed her eyes and sprayed her hair, and then she sprayed the air about her.

  “Your father gone fishin’?” asked Dryfly.

  “He and Mr. Tucker went to Newcastle to see a lawyer. My father’s buying some property.”

  “From Lindon?”

  “It’s right on the river. Dad tells me it’s beautiful.”

  “Good salmon pool there,” commented Dryfly. “Only one left around here.”

  “What happened to the others?” asked Lillian.

  “Oh, they’re still there, but us lads can’t fish in them.”

  “But why?”

  “Lads from Fredericton and the States and stuff own them. They don’t want us lads fishin’ in their pools . . . ketch all the fish.”

  “But there’s got to be plenty for everyone, isn’t there?”

  “Yeah . . . I don’t know. I don’t fish much anyway. Most of the people around here fish with a net.”

  “But that’s against the law, isn’t it?”

  Dryfly shrugged. “If you want salmon, that’s how ya gotta get ’em if ya don’t have a pool to fish in.”

  “Don’t people get caught by the wardens?”

  “Sometimes. Hardly ever.”

  “Well, my father will let you fish in his pool, Dryfly. Don’t you worry about that.”

  “Not worried. I hardly ever fish anyway.”

  “Dad wants to build a cottage next year.”

  “That’s good. You’ll be able to come up more often.”

  “I guess so. I’d really like to see the property sometime.”

  “I know where it is.”

  “Is it far from here?”

  “The other side o’ the river. Just cross the bridge and down the other side a little bit. See that house down there on the hill?”

  Dryfly pointed at the paintless house, barn, woodshed, outdoor toilet, pigpen, toolshed, binder shed, henhouse and well-house that sat on the hill, across and downstream a half a mile or so.

  “Could we get over there to see it?”

  “No trouble. Cross the bridge and down the path. Wanna go?”

  “Sure. I’d love to.”

  Dryfly and Lillian left the Cabbage Island Salmon Club and went over the hill to the river. They followed a riverside path upstream for several hundred yards until they came to the footbridge.

  The footbridge consisted of four steel cables that spanned the river, two on top and two on the bottom. The sides and the bottom were held together by fencing wire. The two bottom cables were crossed with four-foot lengths of two-by-four lumber. Three strips of six-inch board were nailed to the two-by-fours, giving the bridge an eighteen-inch walking space. The cables were connected to pillars of stone and concrete on either side of the river and were stabilized in the middle of the river by a similar abutment. The bridge had to be high to escape the spring torrents and ice flows, so there were stairs of about thirty steps leading to the top of each riverside abutment. The bridge was sturdy enough to hold the weight of, perhaps, a thousand men, but it looked shaky and tended to bounce and sway when walked upon. For Lillian, walking the bridge was
a new experience and scary business. She doubted its durability. When she got to the middle abutment she stopped to gather herself.

  The morning breeze, cooled by the rains of the previous night, played in her hair and brought gooseflesh out on her arms and legs. Lillian eyed the river, the forested hills in the distance, the little farms, a swooping osprey in the cloudless sky. Dryfly eyed Lillian, her golden hair, her smooth tanned skin, her big blue eyes.

  “You scared walkin’ the bridge?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s a new experience,” she said. “It’s kind of shaky.”

  “Hold the devil himself.”

  “Yes, but will it hold two devils?” laughed Lillian.

  “In a thunderstorm one night, a lad got beat to death on one of these things,” said Dryfly. “Up the river. Above Gordon. The wind came up, started the cables flappin’ and beat him to death. You can bang these top cables together hard enough to cut you in two with a little help. It’ll bounce, too, and damn near throw you off of it.”

  “Must be scary.”

  “Scary enough. See right down there on the bend? There’s a hole down there. You can drop an anchor from a twenty-foot rope and it’ll hang straight down. Corpse’s Hole it’s called, ’cause that’s where they always find the bodies of anyone that’s drowned. There’s a whirlpool there and the bodies just go round and round. Mom says it’s prob’ly haunted. Old Bill Tuney said he heard a ghost there one time.”

  “A ghost? What did the ghost sound like? What did he say?”

  “Don’t know. He never said, I don’t think. He’s dead now. Whoopin’ prob’ly.”

  Dryfly looked at Lillian and felt a little bit ashamed; felt he was perhaps sounding like a superstitious old woman, that his choice of topic was perhaps too morbid a thing to have been discussing with a young lady.

  Lillian was eyeing Corpse’s Hole thoughtfully. “This whole river seems haunted,” she said. “Did you and Shadrack really see the whooper?”

  “I . . . I . . . no.”

  “I didn’t think so. Shadrack lies a lot, doesn’t he?”

  “He doesn’t mean to lie. He just always does it. And we did hear the thing . . . right in the woods beside us. We were just little kids and ran home.”

  Lillian turned to face Dryfly. Dryfly turned away to watch the river.