The Witchin’ Canoe

Chapter 2: Widow Leary’s Tale

Chapter 2: Widow Leary’s Tale

Standing over a pot of warm water, McGauran leans in closer to the cracked mirror he nailed to the wall above the wood-burning stove. He’s already nicked his chin twice, and wants to toss the water, blade, and everything else out the window, but he needs to look his best today, so the orange stubble is coming off. As he presses the blade’s edge to his upper lip, he catches the look in his dark brown eyes, and once again, doubt weakens his resolve.

What if Gédéon Latendresse, that ruthless French Canadian notary and businessman, throws him off his property today for showing up at his fancy house without a proper appointment?

McGauran rinses the blade, thinking over his options. He has to try to better their financial situation. There’s no way he’s spending another winter breaking ice for the city. And with the wages he’s been earning at the Saint-Gabriel locks this summer, he’ll be swimming in debt before August.

No, he’ll have to convince the notary that he’s capable of toughing it out in the woods for six months. The last time he worked for Latendresse, he was too young, and hadn’t done so well, coming short of the quota. It was because of that whole…incident with that young lumberjack. It had confused, and yes, thrilled him, but influenced his work. He’ll never let that happen again. Nobody knows about what he did with the young man out there, anyway. Well, except for Father Hayes. He should have never confessed to it! He was a fool to think the priest would absolve him of that sin. Why did he go and do something so reckless?

In a great show of noise, Widow Leary’s boys come running up the stairs and into the room, hollering and bickering, but when they see McGauran standing there in his braces and shirtsleeves, they both turn quiet, eyes growing big as chestnuts.

In the mirror, the sunlight throws copper streaks across McGauran’s dark red hair and he wonders what the boys think of his presence in their home. Some folks say hair as deep a shade of red as his is the mark of the Devil. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting some schooling today?” he asks the boys. It’s Monday after all, and the Leary brothers are but eight and ten, too young to be working. They still have a year or two left of school before their mother sends them off to the nail or shoe factories. In ten years, these two boys will be hardened men already. Suddenly, he feels an ache in his heart. He wishes he could change their fate. But he can barely manage his own.

“No school today,” one of them says. “Sister Hairy-Chin is dead.” He’s obviously the bravest one. The youngest. His eyes are like two blue marbles, and smart, too. “Ma says you’re living with us now. That we’re giving you charity.”

McGauran flinches at the word. Charity? No, he intends on paying his share of rent. But as he’s going to answer the little brat, Widow Leary walks in, carrying a load of rags and a pail of water. “Out you go!” she yells, her commanding voice booming through the dusty, cluttered room. “Don’t wanna see your faces until sundown! And don’t go any further than the Victoria Square, and don’t go into the Langlois house. They’ve been quarantined! Don’t go near the stables either!”

“But we’re hungry,” the older boy says. “Real—”

“What are you complaining about?” She gives McGauran a quick and troubled look, but then her expression hardens again. “You two had enough lard and molasses this morning to last you until next Lent, now off you go, you hear?”

That’s a lie. They all shared some bread and a bit of pork spread. He’s going to have to ask John Baldwin for more credit at the store. At a hundred percent interest.

Whining like starved puppies, the boys scramble out of the room, their thin beef soles slapping the stairs all the way down to the street. McGauran wishes he had a few royal banknotes in his pocket to treat the boys to a fancy dinner in the city.

Widow Leary drops the pail on the stove, knocking over his tin pot, spilling foamy water. “I have work to do, Mac,” she says, shoving her large figure between the stove and him. “These here rags ain’t gonna wash themselves. Now gimme your face, so I can finish the job and you’ll be out of my way.” She grabs his chin and lifts his face to the light. “Only a few patches left.” Her round and pleasant face is gleaming with sweat and her large bosom heaves under her corset. She wears the same brown dress she’s worn for days. It’s stained and stiff in some places. No lace at the collar. No bustle at the back.

McGauran tries to escape. “I can shave my own face.”

“Hush now.” She snatches the blade out of his hand. “I used to shave my Fergus’s face, God rest his soul.” With care and efficiency, she begins to shave his left cheek and then the spot he missed on his chin. Brown curls frame her face, sticking to her pink skin. “Now you go out there today and no more loafing. You bring me back some rent money, you hear?” Her breath smells of rum. He can’t judge her for it. She does what she can to get through her days. She’s all alone in the world. Barely getting by on church charity. “I’ll talk to that sinning landlord as soon as he comes by to collect the rent and you and your mother will be back in your home before la Fête-Dieu.”

“Yes, ma’am, but see, that’s in a few weeks.”

“I’ll call the health office on him. Why should we live like horses?” She blows a breath up into her hair. “Eight dollars a month and with no…” She clears her throat, obviously too proper to say the words. Water-closet.

They all share an outdoor privy in the courtyard. They have no running water. Meanwhile, up the hill, the rich folk are living it up. How many deaths in the Golden Square Mile? He suspects not very many.

She throws the blade in the pot and shoves a rough towelette into his hands. “Look at you,” she says, eyeing him over as though he were a slab of expensive meat. “You’re a big fine man with strength and wits to spare. Remember we Irish come from fine stock. Our men built all those steamers and trains, and think of your father who put together that big old bridge for the Queen.” She gently slaps his face. “Don’t break your mother’s heart. She’s already lost two babies and a husband. Get out there and swallow that shameful pride of yours she’s been telling me all about.”

McGauran wipes his face with the towel and grabs the tin pot. So his mother and the widow are already sharing stories. “I intend on making some good money this winter.”

Widow Leary is hard at work, dumping rags in the simmering water on the stove. “What do you plan on doing? A man can’t live on selling soap alone. And I don’t have enough meat scraps to get you going again.”

Before the flood ruined his product, he was making his own soap with leftovers, then selling it around Saint-Anne’s ward. Some men laughed at him, but he got his mother through the winter, didn’t he?

Uneasy, McGauran steps away, but where can he go in this place? There’s no other room for him to be. The two bedrooms are taken up by the widow, her sons, and his mother. He sleeps on a cot in the main room which serves as her kitchen and workshop. Every hour of the day and part of the nights, the neighborhood women are cooking, cleaning, mending clothes, commiserating, and praying. There’s nowhere for him to sit and think. Never mind anything else. He’s been reduced to cleaning himself in the canal at dawn. But that water will make him sick.

“Well, answer me, boy,” she says, her hands disappearing into the hot water. “What’s your big idea?”

“I’m gonna go to Gatineau.” He clears his throat, gazing around at the soot-black walls. The room depresses him. No furniture, but a greasy table and eight mismatched chairs. A wooden stove. A few side tables holding dirty gas lamps full of dead bugs. A thin brownish rug. He can almost smell the disease in here.

“The shanties?” Widow Leary scrubs harder, her cheeks reddening from the effort. “You’re fit for Saint-Jean de Dieu, if you think that’s proper work for a man. Living with a crew of stinking bodies, hacking wood all day, and catching lice. Surviving on hard bread and—”

“Rum. And don’t be sending me off to the asylum just yet.” He winks and leans his shoulder on the wall, near the picture of Christ with his golden hair and tender blue eyes. The only decoration in the room. “Or at least, not until I’ve paid off my debt to you.”

She’s holding back a laugh, her rounded shoulders shaking a little. “Oh, to think your saint of a mother named you after a priest.” She shakes a dripping finger at him. “Get outta here before I ruin these rags.”

“Thank you for taking such good care of my mother,” he says, more seriously, before stepping away to his mother’s room.

“Oh, don’t you thank me for doing God’s will,” she singsongs behind him, her Irish brogue coming through. “But wait a minute, young man. Haven’t you been going around the parish, up and down these streets, talking about workers’ rights and now you’re joining up with a sawmill?”

McGauran shoots her a look over his shoulder. “Never said so. Gonna be one of Gédéon Latendresse’s men. Gonna go out to his house today and ask him for a job.”

Her eyes widen and she quickly crosses herself.

“What is it?”

She shivers exaggeratedly. “That man is hexed. That whole family is.”

He tries not to laugh. “Now, Mrs. Leary, you don’t believe in all those old tales, do you?”

“Oh, this isn’t an old tale, Mac.” She lowers her voice, as though someone could be listening. “It’s a true story. True as I stand here.” Again, she crosses herself. “Folks say Gédéon Latendresse was a bad seed. Nothing like his brother George junior. Now listen here, Gédéon fell in love with his brother’s fiancée, a girl from south of the border, believe it or not. Some fine American lady. Talk about coveting, huh? The boys’ father, George senior, was afraid the two brothers would kill each other over the girl, so he sent Gédéon up to the logging camps to teach his sinning son a lesson and make sure George junior could marry his gal without incident. Now, this is where it gets interesting, Mac.” She pauses, for effect he supposes. “At the camp, Gédéon received a letter from a friend, telling him the wedding was planned for New Year’s Day, after the traditional father’s blessing and all. Oh, well, now, Big Baptiste, that French Canadian with the limp, he was there at the shanties that night, and he swears that Gédéon turned into a lunatic and made a pact with the Devil so he could get to the girl before the morning and try to change her mind.” Mrs. Leary lowers her voice until he can barely hear her. “He rode the witchin’ canoe. From the lumber camps. It was on New Year’s Eve. Landed right here in Montreal. Oh, I think, twenty years ago.”

He’s heard this tale before. Something about a flying canoe. A spell. The Devil. Lonely lumberjacks wanting to come home for a night. La chasse galerie, the French call it.

She grabs his arm. “Listen,” she says, pushing something into his coat pocket. “Folks say Gédéon cheated that night. Broke one of the rules. And now the Devil’s come back for his due. You’ll need this if you go into that house.”

He feels for her gift inside his pocket. Beads. It’s her rosary. “All right,” he sputters, not knowing what else to say. Superstitions. All of it.

“They’re all a bunch of devil-worshipers, that’s what they are.” Widow Leary stares out the dirty window pane by the stove. “Oh, and the worst kind, too.” She scrunches her face. “French Canadian bourgeoisie.”