The Witchin' Canoe Read online

  “I know that. You told me that. But, Mac, I mean, after, when you—” Linus’s eyes narrow. He’s looking at the entrance behind McGauran.

  The sudden hush in the small dark tavern causes McGauran to pause. Picking up on the tension in the room, he glances over at the three burly dockers standing at the end of the bar. They’ve stopped talking and are staring at someone behind him.

  “Good evening.”

  At the sound of that voice, that gentle voice he’d know anywhere, McGauran freezes on his stool. What on earth is Honoré doing here? This place isn’t for him. These men will have him for breakfast. He feels the resentment in the room. Hears the hushed words as Honoré’s approaches the bar, his fancy boot heels clanking against the wood panels covering the dirt floor.

  “‘Evening, sir,” Linus says, obviously a little intrigued. The French bourgeoisie never frequent this local Griffintown drinking hole. Linus wipes his hands on his service apron and shoots the men at the end of the bar a conspirator’s look, before staring back at Honoré. “What can we do you for, Lord?”

  “I’m no lord.” Honoré removes his gloves and settles himself on the stool next to McGauran’s. “And I’ll have whatever this gentleman is having, please.”

  “No, sir, you don’t want that river water.” Linus looks over at the dockers again. “We’ve got a fine bottle of brandy back here. How about it?”

  “That will do just fine, thank you.” Honoré unfastens the buttons of his elegant caped Ulster coat. “A round for everyone, of course. Please.” His voice is unsteady.

  Linus’s expression changes. Clearly, he hadn’t expected such generosity from a man of Honoré’s class. “Hear that boys, our guest here is paying for your drinks. Brandy, too. So how ‘bout that?”

  The men cheer and raise their glasses. Without further ado, Linus pours the drinks and distributes them all around the tavern. In a matter of seconds, the patrons are loud again, their voices drowning out the noise of the horse cars incessantly going by the open door. Honoré has afforded the workers a few moments of freedom and relief. And bought himself peace.

  Finally, unable to resist any longer, McGauran turns to look at him. How he’s missed that beautiful face. But what he sees in Honoré’s eyes instantly worries him. “What’s wrong?” he asks, almost mouthing the words.

  Honoré picks up his glass, and with a shaky hand, brings it up to his lips. He hesitates and then drains it all in one gulp. He quietly sets the glass down. There’s a tremor on his lips. A shadow of pain moving across his face.

  He leans into Honoré’s ear. “How did you know I’d be here?”

  “I tried a few places,” Honoré says, without looking at him.

  “What’s happened? Tell me, what’s wrong?”

  “Hey.” Linus stands at the open door, looking at something outside. “Is that your car? I’ve seen it around here before. What’s that L stand for?”

  “Latendresse.” With a grieved expression, Honoré fiddles with his empty glass.

  Linus frowns and then shoots McGauran a strange look. “Yeah, I heard of you all.”

  “We—we should go.” McGauran stands. Something is in the air. He doesn’t like it. “Come on.”

  “We? You two know each other, Mac? How come?”

  “What do you mean, you’ve heard of us?” Honoré stands as well. His usual gentle eyes are steely now, just like his uncle’s. “What are you implying? What is it that you’ve heard exactly, hm?”

  “Honoré…come on. Let’s go.”

  “No, Gaury, I want to know what he means.”

  “He doesn’t mean anything.” McGauran pulls on Honoré’s arm. “Let’s—”

  “Gaury?” Linus grimaces. “Is that what he calls you?”

  This can’t happen. “Let’s go,” McGauran nearly growls, pushing Honoré forward. “Please,” he says, more softly and close to his ear. “Don’t do this. Not here. Not now.”

  “Is this what you’ve being doing? Hanging around this little uppity French dandy, instead of courting my sister?” Linus searches his face with a confused expression. And all around, the men grow quiet. “Jesus Christ, Mac, that family makes their money off our people’s backs. Only last year, one of the Connor boys died at the lumber camp and Latendresse didn’t even pay for the boy’s pine casket. They got no religion. No respect for us. They treat us—”

  “What do you know about my family?” Honoré’s eyes widen and he gnashes his teeth. For a moment, he looks mad.

  “Honoré, no.” He tries to pull him to the door again. “Enough, pl—”

  “My father never abused any of his workers! He was a generous man and you’d have been lucky to lick his boots!” Honoré jerks himself free of his hold and bolts through the open door, into the street. “Allez au diable!”

  The Devil take you.

  For a moment, McGauran stands there, dumb and mute. Then he comes to his senses and grabs Honoré’s gloves on the bar and steps back to the door, keeping his eyes on Linus. “He’s right, you know,” he says. “You don’t know anything about his family. Only what people tell you.”

  “Yeah?” Linus shakes his head and looks around at the men. “All I know is, he sure ain’t one of us. Question is, are you, Gaury?”

  “Don’t be an ignorant fool. We have enough of those in the quarter.” McGauran exists the tavern and immediately scans the darkening neighborhood for Honoré’s carriage. He walks off, heading for McGill Street, and quickly spots the coach rolling away. “Wait!” he calls out. “Durocher!” He runs and catches up to the car, jogging alongside the perch bench. “Please, stop.”

  Durocher won’t look down at him. His hard eyes are half hidden under his hat. “Monsieur Latendresse ordered me to keep driving, no matter what.”

  “Honoré!” He manages to knock on the glass window of the cabin, running beside the coach that’s picking up speed. “Let me in, please.” Then he hears Honoré’s voice calling out a few French words to the coachman, and the carriage slows down, before coming to a full stop at the corner of Duke Street. The horses neigh a little, and Durocher leans back on his bench with a stern face.

  McGauran doesn’t waste a moment. He pops the cabin door open and looks in. “You forgot your nice gloves.”

  Honoré sniffles a little and a weak smile appears on his otherwise sad face. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your friends.”

  “Embarrassed me?” He climbs in, and after he’s shut the door, slides in close to Honoré. “I’m the one who’s embarrassed.” Seeing Honoré now, he realizes how pointless and foolish his idea was. To think he could lessen the pain of their upcoming separation by staying away only hurt them both. He hesitates and puts his hand over Honoré’s hand. “I wanted to come see you, but I was trying to make it easier on us.” He blows out a sharp breath. “I shouldn’t have stayed away.”

  Honoré seems on the verge of bursting into tears. Suddenly, he pushes his face into McGauran’s shoulder.

  “What is it? Honoré?”

  “My father is dead,” he says in a flat voice, sitting up and looking at the black curtained window.

  McGauran waits for more, unable to find the right words.

  “Maggie found him. I can still hear her blood curdling screams. She hasn’t come out of Fredeline’s room.”

  “What happened?” he asks, taking Honoré’s hand.

  “He choked. On his own tongue. During the night.” He squeezes McGauran’s hand. “All alone, Gaury. All alone. I wasn’t there for—”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “He tried to speak to me the other day. He tried to tell me something. Do you think it was that he loved me? That he was proud of me?”

  “Come here. Just come here.” He pulls Honoré into his arms. Now he hates himself for wasting the last month. For leaving Honoré so alone. He holds him tighter, until the spasms and tears subside. “Look at me.”

  “No, I can’t. I’m too ashamed.”

  “No, no, please. Loo
k at me.” He lifts Honoré’s face up. “To know you, you, your sweet, generous, brilliant you, is to love you, Honoré. And your father stayed alive all these years, held on for so long in the state that he was in, only to have another day with you near. To hear your vibrant music in the house. To set his eyes on you when you sat in that chair confiding in him. My God, Honoré, he knew you more than any father could ever know his son. You held nothing back.” McGauran pauses, his own words waking a dull pain inside him. “That’s more than my mother will ever know me.”

  Honoré has grown quiet.

  He touches his cheek. “And I’ll be back for you. But I need you to promise me that you’ll have faith in me. Don’t give your uncle what he wants. Don’t let the loneliness break you. Don’t let him send you away.” He takes Honoré’s hand and makes his long fingers into a fist. “While I’m far from you, I want you to keep your heart like this. Shut tight. Do you understand?”

  Honoré looks down at his fist inside McGauran’s hand. “And what am I holding onto?”

  “Us…”

  “And you’ll be back? You swear it?”

  “Nothing will keep me from it.” He runs his thumb across Honoré’s wet cheek, gathering a tear.

  “You’ll write to me?”

  “Every week.”

  “Bernard is gone. And Fredeline and Maggie keep whispering about leaving, too. I’ll be so alone. Your letters will keep me alive, McGauran.”

  “Please, just hold on for six months. Please. We need the money if we’re gonna leave. Your uncle won’t let you near your accounts. When I get back, I’ll have enough for my mother’s rent and train tickets.”

  “I know, Gaury, I know.” Honoré sighs. “I think I can stand it, but only if you write to me. You will?”

  “I told you, yes.” He pulls him closer. “Yes, Honoré, yes.”

  In the darkness of the cabin, their kiss is desperate, nearly frantic.

  Then Durocher coughs and Honoré pulls back. McGauran feels sick to his stomach. Tears well up in his eyes. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. But he tries anyway. “I have to go…”

  Honoré is stronger than he is. Because he doesn’t hide his pain, his tears. “Tell me you love me,” he pleads, crying harder.

  He opens the cabin door and looks out. Then turns his face to Honoré. “I love you. I’ll think of you every day. Every night. I promise. And I’ll come back for you. I swear it on my soul.” He quickly steps out of the carriage, shutting the door before Honoré can see how weak and broken he truly feels.

  When the coach begins to move, the horses leading it away, McGauran stands in the street, watching the carriage through the blur of his tears.

  He knows then—if he should never touch Honoré’s warm hand again, it will only be because one of them is dead.

  Chapter 23: A Train, a Threat, and Hidden Heartaches

  The Bonaventure station is crowded, too loud for his wound-up nerves, so McGauran stays out of everyone’s way, standing near a column with his documents and ticket in hand, his old tattered stitched-up bag at his feet. Once in a while, he glances around at the other guys, Gédéon’s men, but most of them are too busy saying goodbye to their families to pay him any attention, and though he feels alone, he wouldn’t let his mother accompany him to the station. Instead, this morning, they hugged in Widow Leary’s kitchen and she cried into his reefer coat. She told him how happy she was he’s going back to work, finally returning to the right path. Yes, it seems they were all praying for his soul in the last months. Asking God to make him see the light—begging the Almighty to keep him away from that rich boy, as they refer to Honoré.

  He asked Honoré to be strong, and now he wonders if he won’t be the one to go mad without him. Their secret love gives him hope for the future. All he needs is money, two train tickets for the west coast and Honoré at his side.

  He’s going to get through this. He has it in him to do it.

  It’s close to noon. Close to departing time. And now his hands begin to sweat. His throat feels hot and dry. Until this moment, he hadn’t allowed himself to think about what he was getting himself into, where he was going and what the risks were to his health, but every man must chance something to win something.

  He looks around, and Simon, a French Canadian and the crew’s cook, smiles at him. McGauran nods and tries to smile back. Simon is surrounded by his children and wife. He counts five little heads. That’s a burden he doesn’t have and never will.

  When he first arrived at the Grand Trunk station on foot, he introduced himself to the crew. They’re a smaller team than he’d thought. Eleven men in total, counting himself. Gédéon’s wood-burning business is a sideline, it seems, but a profitable one nonetheless.

  Before McGauran left, John Baldwin promised he’d clear his new credit at the store if he brought his son Jimmy back all in one piece. The kid is barely seventeen and obviously anxious and ill-prepared. McGauran swore he’d keep an eye on him, but out there, in those woods, he won’t have much time to be the boy’s guardian.

  Six months. He can do six months. He will do it.

  “Look alive,” Gene Sullivan shouts. Gene is the crew’s foreman. A huge guy with a rough manner, a bushy mustache, and dark curly hair—a man who’s been logging timber for nearly as many years as McGauran has been on this earth. Gene and his brother Frank always travel together. McGauran needs to stay on these two’s good side. “Boss man is here,” Gene warns with his tobacco pipe hanging out his mouth.

  At the sound of those words, McGauran scans the carriages lined up by the station. When he spots that golden L, he nearly betrays himself. Is Honoré with his uncle? Will he get the chance to see his beautiful face one last time before he leaves? Could he even stand it?

  Durocher opens the cabin door and Gédéon climbs out. Clad in an elegant black Chesterfield and fashionable silk derby hat, he walks briskly up to the platform, to his men. He doesn’t even look his way. McGauran tries not to stare at the carriage, but anyway, there’s no use in looking—he knows the cabin is empty. For a moment, he hesitates. Should he accost Durocher? Ask him how Honoré is today?

  “Mac…” He turns to find Liza standing a little off from the crowd of men, dressed in the dark bustled skirt and frilled blouse she usually wears to church. But it’s Tuesday. She’s alone and signals for him to come closer. She has a package in her gloved hands.

  “Uh, hello,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound too nervous. He hasn’t seen her brother Linus since that incident at the tavern last week. “What are you doing here? And all alone? What will people say?”

  Her hat is heavily decorated with feathers and ribbons, and under its brim, her face is tense. “I wanted to give you this,” she says, in an unsure voice. “And say good luck and all.”

  He fiddles with his cap, adjusting it away from his eyes. “You didn’t have to.”

  Liza hands him the package. “It’s salted pork and some mittens I made.”

  “You—you made them?” Now he really doesn’t know what to say. He can’t keep her waiting and hoping. “Listen, uh, Liza, I, well, there’s some—”

  “You’re a free thinker,” she sputters quickly, “I seen the way you go about all on your own. You like to be by yourself. I understand that. I—I’m like that, too.” She blushes. “I suppose I’d be if I could, I mean. But I got all those brothers and sisters to worry ‘bout, and see, I’m fixin’ to start somethin’. You know—a life. With a husband.” She stops and shakes her head, looking away.

  “You’re gonna make some man real happy.” He hears Gédéon calling him. “I have to go now.”

  “Some man?” The look she gives him is full of hurt and questions. “Mac?”

  Gédéon is getting impatient, shouting his name.

  “That man isn’t me, Liza,” he blurts out, wishing they had more time to soften this goodbye. He pushes the package back into her open hands. “I’m sorry. I wish you the best. I really do.” He grabs his bag and hurries away.

>   When he’s reached Gédéon and the men, he glances over his shoulder, but Liza is gone. She left the package on the ground. He swallows the lump in his throat and tries to concentrate on what Gédéon is explaining. Will she ever forgive him? If only he could have told her that it wasn’t her fault. That if his nature allowed it, he’d have married her without any reservations.

  “O’Dowd.” Gédéon tips his head to a quieter spot on the platform. “I want to talk to you. In private.”

  He follows his boss away from the crowd.

  “Listen, I don’t have time to choose my words wisely.” Gédéon is clearly furious, holding his temper in check. “First of all, I saw you sitting in the cathedral’s back pews at my brother’s funeral. Everyone saw you. You have some nerve showing up there.”

  “I needed to see how Honoré was doing.” He remembers how dashing Honoré had looked that day standing at the front of the grandiose Notre-Dame Cathedral. Everyone’s eyes had been on him. But when Honoré had sobbed over his father’s open casket, no one had reached out to comfort him. At that moment, it had taken every ounce of McGauran’s self-control not to run up to the altar and steal Honoré away. “How is he?” he asks, knowing Gédéon won’t answer him.

  “Look, you’re only here, on this team, because my nephew threatened to throw his life away and desert our home if I didn’t promise to keep you on.”

  “Wait, is he all right? You haven’t bled him or forced him to take that pill, have you?”

  “Shut up, O’Dowd. I warn you.” Gédéon throws his hand up to halt his speech. “I have no patience for you. For your kind. Not only are you beneath my nephew and you know it, but you’d steal his future from him, everything we Latendresse men have worked to bequeath him, and all in the name of this sick, deviant, thing you dare call love?”

  He has no words. No defense. He can only stand there, holding on to his conviction, the conviction that what he feels for Honoré is sacred and can’t be judged by mere men. Men such as Gédéon. Profiteers. Men who make the rules of a game he refuses to play.