The Americans Are Coming Read online

  Sniff-sniff. “I probably should flash my tail. There’s definitely something at the foot of that tree up there. I’ll circle around and see if I can get a better look at it.”

  The deer crunched its way to an easterly point where it could better see Nutbeam. “It’s a human, all right,” said the deer. “I guess I’d better flash and dash.”

  When the deer leaped, Nutbeam swiftly shouldered his rifle and pulled the trigger.

  A gigantic bell went BOING in the deer’s head; the legs buckled, the deer collapsed.

  *

  “Where ya goin’?” asked Elva Nash.

  “To Bernie Hanley’s store.”

  “Got some money?”

  “Dad gave me five dollars.”

  “Don’t spend it all foolish.”

  “See ya later, Mom,” said Shad and stepped into the cool November evening. He was feeling good and stepping high; he had a sense of direction; it was Saturday night and he was bound for Blackville.

  “I’m in with the in crowd! I go where the in crowd goes. I’m in with the in crowd, and I know what the in crowd knows!” sang Shad, loud, arrogantly.

  Shad was not doing great in school; he had a lot of catching up to do. His higher-than-average intelligence and mild interest was helping him along, however, and things were improving.

  He would not pass at Christmas, but would probably grade in the spring.

  His relationship with Bob and Elva was improving, too. It had required a simple solution; stay out of their presence as often as possible.

  As he was crossing the river on the footbridge, he noticed that the river was frozen almost completely in. There was but one hole in the ice, about twenty feet long and ten feet wide. It was six o’clock and nearly dark, and the hole appeared black, cold and forbidding in the blue-grey light.

  “An air hole,” thought Shad. “Could stay there all winter. Dangerous thing, an air hole.” Shad was remembering a story about somebody who had walked into an air hole while crossing on the ice on a dark night. There was another story, too, about a child who had skated into one.

  Shad made a mental note that the air hole was located just above Dr. MacDowell’s cabin, in front of John Kaston’s place. “I might be skating there later on in the winter,” he thought.

  Shad stopped on the center abutment for a minute to take in the twilit scenery. The river frozen had a new beauty to it – a ribbon of ice dividing farms and forests.

  “I’d like to build a cabin on the river down in front of home sometime,” he thought. “Of course, Dad’ll probably sell the shore to a rich American. He could do with a thousand or two.”

  “See ya next spring, old river,” he said. “See ya when you’re thawed out again.”

  *

  Eleven men and boys stood around Bernie Hanley’s store, eating chocolate bars and drinking Orange Crush.

  “Soon be gettin’ snow,” said Dan Brennen.

  “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Gonna snow for sure, Dan, yeah. Looks like snow tonight, I noticed, yeah, Dan old boy,” said Lindon Tucker.

  “Kinda warm, though,” said Bernie Hanley. “Might come in rain.”

  “Rain, yeah. That’s true, yeah. Might come in rain, I was thinkin’ too. That’s right, yeah, Bernie, could come in rain.”

  “How was Fredericton, Lindon?” asked Bert Todder.

  “Quite a place, quite a place. Lotsa women, lotsa women. Lived right there on Pine Street, yeah. Went to the hotel one night, yeah, so I did, one night, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Hotel, yeah. Quite a place!”

  “Women ain’t much good, if ya can’t get yer hands on them,” chuckled Dan Brennen. “Did ya get your hands on them, Lindon?”

  “Got me hands on them all right! No trouble there! Ha, ha, ha, ha! Got me hands on them all right, Dan old boy. There’s, there’s, there’s, there’s no trouble passin’ the hand on them ladies!”

  All the men laughed. For the moment, Lindon was the center of attention. Everyone knew how Lindon would act when confronted with a female and didn’t believe a word he was saying. Lindon was always good for a laugh.

  “Everyone should be livin’ in Fredericton,” said Lindon. “Lotsa women, lotsa women. I, I, I, I, I met up with some kinda fancy woman, I, I, I, so I did. Earrings on, smokin’ a big long tailor-made cigarette. Fancy lady, she was. Met ’er at the hotel, I did, yeah, so I did. Got a room. Got a room right there in the hotel, so we did.”

  “Did ya put the lad to ’er?” asked Stan Tuney.

  “Put the lad to’er, all right! Ho! No I didn’! No! No! No, I suppose I didn’t put it to ’er none! Ha, ha! Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Put it to ’er, I did! Right there in the hotel room. Drunk a whole bottle o’ this stuff she called vodker. There wasn’t a drop left in the mornin’! Woke up and I was all alone, yep. Jist as well, though. Jist as well.”

  “Was she good?”

  “Ha, ha, ha! Good! I guess she was good! Ho! No she wasn’t! Ho! The very best, so she was!”

  “Did ya see Graig Allen while you was over there?” asked John Kaston, who was getting somewhat annoyed with all the dirty talk.

  “Never saw Graig, no. No, I never saw Graig. Right there, too, but I never saw him. Been over there for years, Graig has. Workin’ at the cotton mill, I think. Someone said Graig was at the cotton mill.”

  “Never comes back, does he?” said Bob Nash. “Sold his land to Dr. MacDowell and never cried crack till he hit Fredericton. Never came back.”

  “A man should go and see him, you know,” said Dan Brennen.

  “Ya’ll never guess who I saw on the bridge the other mornin’,” said Lindon Tucker.

  “Graig?”

  “No, no, no, no, not Graig, no. Walkin’ cross the bridge I was. Saw that Nutbeam fella. Nutbeam. Nutbeam, know who I mean? Nutbeam. Met him on the bridge.”

  “What’d he say? What’d he say?”

  “Just said g’day. G’day, he said. Just said g’day.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, ‘G’day, Nutbeam, old Nutbeam, old boy,’ I said. He never said nothin’, jist kept walkin’. He’s got the biggest ears, look o’ here, I ever saw in my life! Ya never saw the like o’ them! Big as that pound cake there! Homeliest man ya ever want to meet!”

  “I heard, now,” lied Stan Tuney, “that he don’t cook one thing he eats! Use to being up north someplace. They don’t cook their meat in the Yukon, you know.”

  “How do ya know he don’t cook his food?” asked Shadrack. “Well, if he don’t cook his meat he might be from the Yukon, who knows?”

  “I heard everything that sticks out on ’im is a foot long,” said Bert Todder, “his ears, nose, everything.”

  “His tool would just look like a young pig with no ears,” put in Dan Brennen.

  “That’s what that Albert Johnson was suppose to look like,” said Stan Tuney. “Albert Johnson was from up north, ya know. Shot all them Mounties! I wouldn’ be surprised if that’s who he is!”

  “They captured Albert Johnson, didn’ they?” asked Bert Todder.

  “They never knew for sure,” said Stan Tuney. “They thought they got ’im, but they never knew for sure.”

  “Homeliest man I ever saw,” said Lindon Tucker. “Just said g’day, was all he said.”

  “You ever hear from yer boy, George, Bernie?” asked Bert Todder.

  “Got a letter from ’im yesterday,” said Bernie Hanley.

  “News from Palidin,” thought Dryfly, perking up to listen.

  “Said he was workin’ in a bakery. Place called Richmond Hill.”

  “Thought he went to Toronto,” said Bert.

  “No, no, Richmond Hill. Young Palidin, now, is workin’ in Toronto, though. Got ’imself a job workin’ with a newspaper, deliverin’ papers or somethin’.”

  “And George is workin’ in a bakery! Boys! Sounds like a pretty good job to me! I bet ya he’s makin’ good money, too!” said Bert.

  “They’ll be back,” said Bernie. �
�Ya couldn’ keep that young Palidin away from the river! Best fisherman I ever saw, Palidin was.”

  “He could ketch ’em when nobody else could,” said Bob Nash. “He use to borry that old rod o’ Shad’s and bring us up a salmon every other day.”

  “I bought about ten from him,” said Bernie.

  “How ya s’pose he did it?” asked Dan Brennen. “I fished all one day and never saw a thing. Young Palidin came over the hill, made two casts and bang, got a ten-pounder.”

  “He seemed to just know how to do it,” said Bert Todder. “He’ll be back,” said Bernie Hanley. “You’d never get them young lads to stay away from the river for any length o’ time.”

  *

  Shadrack and Dryfly left the store and stepped into the dark, windy November evening. It was Saturday night and Shadrack was getting restless.

  “There’s nothin’ to do around here,” said Shad. “I’m bored.”

  “We could take a walk to Gordon,” suggested Dryfly. “Might be some girls around.”

  “No girls in Gordon. Blackville’s the place to go. There’s about three hundred girls in Blackville school and they all hang around the canteen on Saturday nights. Why don’t we see if we can hitch a ride to Blackville, Dry?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I don’t know anyone in Blackville, Shad.”

  “I do, Dry. I know lotsa lads.”

  “I don’t think so, Shad. We’d never get a ride, anyway.” Since Shadrack started to school in Blackville, Dryfly was seeing a great change in him. Shadrack was beginning to speak differently, to use words like algebra, math, classroom, corridor, cafeteria, and other words that Dryfly had no comprehension of. Shadrack was making new friends at school, too, and often spoke of Gary Perkins, Polly Saunders and David Carlyle. “That Mary Wilson’s a cool chick,” or “That Don Monroe’s a cool cat,” Shad would say, and Dryfly would be left feeling totally alienated.

  Shadrack stayed over a couple of nights with a new friend called Peter Bower. Peter Bower’s parents possessed a television that Shad and Peter watched as much and as often as they could. This new apparatus was inspiring Shadrack to use terms and words like “River Boat, Darin McGavin, Rin-tin-tin, Time for Juniors, Jim Bowie and The Last of the Mohicans.”

  With school, homework and visits to Peter Bower’s house to watch television occupying much of Shadrack’s time, Dryfly was finding himself alone more and more. It seemed that the duo were drifting apart.

  “We could go to the canteen and get a wiener and chip,” said Shad.

  “A what?”

  “Wieners and french fries.”

  “Cost a lotta money, wouldn’ it?”

  “I got a few bucks. C’mon Dry, let’s go.”

  “An awful long ways. What if we got way down there and can’t find a way home?”

  “We’ll walk. Dad said he use to walk it all the time. It’s only ten or twelve miles.”

  “Well, all right,” said Dryfly. “I’ll go, if we can catch a ride.” Dryfly had conceded for adventure’s sake, but he was hoping there’d be no Blackville-bound traffic on the Gordon road.

  They had waited on the road in front of Bernie Hanley’s store for an hour when Ally Dunphy showed up. Ally Dunphy had hunted the deep forests of Dungarvon until it was too dark to see. On his way home to Blackville, in his 1958 Ford, Ally stopped at Bernie Hanley’s store for a snack. When he was getting back into his car, a red-haired lad approached him.

  “You goin’ to Blackville?” asked the lad.

  “Sure am.”

  “Kin me and Dryfly get a ride with you?”

  “Sure can.”

  In thirty minutes, Shadrack and Dryfly found themselves standing in front of LeBlanc’s Canteen in Blackville.

  *

  With the coming of the chainsaw, more money and cars, came the necessity to improve the byroads. Shirley Ramsey sold a hundred and sixty dollars worth of gravel during the summer of l962. Cars and gravelled roads made Blackville a center of commerce and entertainment for all the surrounding settlements. Blackville, being more accessible, became a meeting place. Every weekend, young people would crowd on the backs of pickup trucks, or in old cars and head for Blackville. Sometimes there’d be a movie to go to, sometimes a dance, but mostly the teenagers would just walk up and down the street from one take-out restaurant (canteen) to another. There were three canteens in Blackville. No more than five hundred yards separated one from the others.

  “What do we do now?” asked Dryfly.

  “Let’s walk down to the other canteen,” said Shad.

  When they arrived at the second canteen, Shad suggested that they check out the third. From the third, they walked back to the second, stood around for a few minutes, then walked back to LeBlanc’s. They had done everything there was to do in Blackville, except eat. Shadrack and Dryfly completed the social itinerary for Friday night in Blackville by ordering a paper dish full of french fries and three wieners each.

  They were just finishing their snack when Peter Bower showed up with Jim MacNeil, Gary Perkins and David Carlyle.

  “G’day, Shadrack. How’s she goin’?”

  “The very best, Peter.”

  “Who are you?” asked Peter.

  “Dryfly Ramsey,” answered Dryfly.

  “Dryfly Ramsey! Any relation to Shirley Ramsey?” asked Peter. One of the other boys chuckled.

  “Me mother,” said Dryfly.

  The boys all glanced at each other and grinned.

  “What brings you guys out of the woods?” asked David Carlyle.

  “Come to chase the chicks,” said Shadrack. “What happened to your hair, Dryfly?” asked Jim MacNeil. Dryfly scanned the four Blackville boys in their clean black pants, the expensive jackets with the collars turned up, the black jetboots, the trucker’s wallets chained to their belts, jutting from their hip pockets, the rings, wrist-watches and the well-groomed Elvis Presley haircuts.

  Until now, Dryfly had forgotten that he wasn’t very well dressed and that his hair was parted in the middle.

  Shadrack scanned Dryfly and saw, maybe for the first time, what the other boys were seeing – the straight brown hair parted in the middle, the ragged jeans that Shad himself had given to him, the mackinaw coat, the black rubber boots with the red soles, the long nose. Shadrack was even more conscious of Dryfly’s appearance than was Dryfly, and wished he hadn’t brought him along. He had wanted Dryfly for company, in case he had to walk the twelve miles home, alone. He hadn’t anticipated that Dryfly might jeopardize whatever chance he might have of being in with the in crowd.

  “Where ya get the boots, Dryfly?” asked Gary Perkins, making no attempt whatsoever to hide the mockery in his voice.

  Shadrack eyed the grinning Blackville boys and knew he would have to make a decision – go with the in crowd, or be out with Dryfly Ramsey. He decided to try and play it down the middle. He grinned, but not for mockery’s sake. He grinned to try and keep it light.

  Shy and very uncomfortable, Dryfly blushed and looked down at himself. The discomfort grew as he compared his own clothes to the others. He said nothing. He wanted to go home to Brennen Siding.

  “How’s your mother?” asked Peter Bower, nudging David Carlyle and winking at Gary Perkins. Peter Bower, for the moment, was the leader of the pack.

  Dryfly wondered how the Blackville boys knew his mother. He didn’t know that the byword “Shirley Ramsey” had leaked into Blackville.

  People in Blackville took their children on Sunday drives past Shirley’s, pointed and said, “Look, kids! There’s Shirley Ramsey’s house.” The kids would all look at the epitome of local poverty: the sagging, paintless house, the dirt lawn, the car tires on each side of the driveway culvert. Ogling arrows of curiosity, they might think, “Shirley Ramsey . . . the woman who invented the culvert ends.”

  “Shirley Ramsey’s boy, boys!” laughed Jim MacNeil. “Great boots, Dryfly!”

  Shad made a stab at changing the subject. “What’s goin’ on, boys?” he
asked.

  “There’s a dance at the public hall,” said Peter Bower. “Goin’?”

  “I don’t know, might.”

  “Ya might as well. That’s where the chicks are.”

  “I dunno,” said Shad, shrugging, eyeing Dryfly.

  “C’mon, Shad! Get with it!” said David Carlyle.

  “Polly was askin’ about ya, Shad.”

  “Was she?”

  “She’ll be at the dance, Shad.”

  “S’pose?”

  “Saw her down the road.”

  “C’mon, Shad.”

  Shad continued to eye Dryfly. “Dryfly is gonna have to learn to handle it,” he thought.

  “Great! Let’s go,” said Shad.

  Dryfly wasn’t invited, but he had nothing else to do, so he followed the others. He walked behind, ashamed of his clothing and his hair, still wishing he was home. Dryfly did not like Blackville and he did not like the boys in the in crowd. “At least by walking behind, they don’t make fun of me,” he thought.

  When they got to the public hall, they lined up at the ticket booth and, one by one, paid to enter. From the stage within came the harmony of Lyman MacFee and the Cornpoppers, singing, “Wake Up Little Susie.” When it was Shad’s turn to pay, he turned to Dryfly, said, “I ain’t got enough money for both of us, Dryfly. Why don’t you try to sneak in?”

  “I’ll get caught,” said Dryfly.

  “No you won’t. Just wait till nobody’s watchin’. You can do it!”

  A lump had suddenly developed in the back of Dryfly’s throat. He was being abandoned. He swallowed the lump.

  “I’ll wait out here,” he said.

  Shad shrugged and followed the Blackville boys into the hall, leaving Dryfly alone on the steps.

  Dryfly waited on the steps of the public hall for what seemed like a very long time. Men and women came and went, but few paid much notice to Dryfly, and Dryfly hoped it would remain that way. As a matter of fact, Dryfly wanted to hide. “How could Shad do this to me! Some friend!”

  By the time an hour had passed, Dryfly was feeling very cold in the damp night air. He was also bored and a little bit afraid. Some men had gathered around on the steps to drink some wine and Dryfly sensed that trouble was brewing.

  Some fellow by the name of Kelly was displeased for some reason or other with a fellow named Benny Crawford.