Chapter 26

   

Jeen Quon!

 

 

“What’s wrong with me?” Yves asked Dino.

It was early February.  There had been a thaw and then a fresh snowfall and Yves was clearing a walk between the house and the path to town.  He had just finished eating and was feeling nervous and shaky.  His cup had actually trembled in his hand while he was drinking.

Dino stood guard as usual and as Yves leaned against his shovel the dog’s ears pricked and he sniffed the air.  Dino had been acting strangely all day, whining and staying close to Yves.  This was so unlike him that Yves feared the dog was ailing.

“Don’t tell me we’re both coming down with something.”

Now the creature began to bark and went crashing through the snow in the direction of the fort.  Yves ran for the new wheel-lock musket that leaned against the house door.

He shouted, “Close the shutters, Maman.”

Inside, Gabrielle rushed to obey.  Yves started to run up the path.  He looked over his shoulder.  His mother hovered near the open door, peering out.

“Get inside, Maman!”

Distant shouts.  But there had been no shots and the chapel bell hadn’t sounded.  At the bend in the road, three heads appeared over the rise.

His mother screamed, “Gaston!”

Papa

Gabrielle ran past Yves, tears dribbling down her face.  Gaston swung her into the air.

She cried, “How smelly you are!  Mon Dieu!”

Gaston kissed her boldly and passionately.   Unabashed, she returned the kiss while Yves looked on a wide, embarrassed grin splitting his face.  Pineesh had appeared out of nowhere.  She stared at Kosta, he at her, their bronzed faces expressionless.

Gaston put Gabrielle gently aside and came to Yves.  He put out his hand.  Yves hesitated only a fraction of a second before grasping it.  He noticed that his own was bigger.

“It’s good to see you, son.”

“Yes.”

Gabrielle rushed up and grabbed each of them by an arm.  The three walked to the house together.

 

Yves was pleased for his mother’s sake.   Gabrielle was ecstatic, alternately thrusting food upon the arrivals and interrupting their talk, worrying that they hadn’t enough ale then wondering how the trip had gone.

“What kept you so long?  Was the trading good?  What are the far western tribes like?’

Gaston had brought a grizzled old man home with him.  She took some time to notice him.  He was a bachelor from Trois Rivières who had an Ojibwa wife somewhere in the west.

He said, “I had some trouble on my trapline with a Mohawk.  I killed the bastard and then had to leave my furs in case there were others about.  I was coming to Ville Marie for help and I tell you I was damned glad to meet Gaston and Kosta on the river.  They had cached their furs, too.  It was a damn hard trek on snowshoes all the way to Mont Réal but we made good time, didn’t we, mes amis!”

It seemed that the old man, Giles Villeneuve, was a raconteur of some note. When he had said, “I don’t mind if I do,” to several mugs of ale, he quite amiably agreed to give them a story.  Raconteurs were notorious for their tall tales and Yves had always loved to listen to them.  Full of good food, with the fire roaring and the pale light of early evening blowing thorough the oiled paper windows, they gathered around the hearth.  Gabrielle sat on a bench beside Gaston, close as lovers.  Kosta, as self-contained as ever, squatted on the floor, a clay pipe clenched between his teeth.  The raconteur was perched precariously on a wooden stool.  Yves stood back in the shadows as did Pineesh.  She was quite near him and he could smell the wild, piney scent of her hair.

The old man took a swallow of ale and wiped a rather dirty hand across his mouth.  He began with the traditional opening of the taleteller, “There was once a very well-known coureur called Marcel who lived among the Huron Tribes.”  Another swig of ale.  “Once Marcel had been hunting and was on his way home.  He came to a small round lake in the woods and on the opposite shore stood a deer.  As he raised his musket to fire, a flock of geese approached the round lake.  Not wishing to waste his powder and shot, he took the musket and placed the barrel between two trees.  With all his strength, he bent it into a quarter circle.  Then he fired at the low flying geese who were about to land.  He killed all the geese and downed the deer on the opposite shore.  However, the shot came back round the circle and killed his dog who was standing by his feet.”

Gaston roared and even Kosta smiled.  Yves grinned.

“Tell us another, Raconteur,” Gabrielle begged, filling his mug once again.

Villeneuve winked at her.  “There was once a coureur. It was this same Marcel.  His sauvages had taught him how to make maple sugar, so he decided to make some for himself.  He was in the woods doing this when a bear came on the scene.  Marcel climbed into an empty hogshead intended to hold the sap.  The bear came over to examine it and Marcel, whose hands were sticky with sap, reached through the bung-hole and caught the bruin by the tail.   The bear took off dragging the hogshead and Marcel along with him.  They went for a long, bumpy ride, I tell you.  At last, the hogshead got stuck between two logs and the bear disappeared into the forest, leaving his tail behind in Marcel’s hand.”

This tale brought applause from the white listeners but Kosta and Pineesh were silent.  They didn’t approve of this laughing at Mighty Makwa.

“You think that strange?” Old Villeneuve chortled.  “Wait until you hear what happened to me when I went hunting on a lake very near here.”

“We must hear it,” Gabrielle trilled.  Her face was vividly beautiful in the firelight.  Yves saw his father watching her, hunger in his eyes, and felt a strange pang.

If he loves he so much, why doesn’t he stay at home!

“I had used up all my ammunition,” the raconteur was saying, “and was returning to the fort.  Suddenly I saw a whole flock of ducks swimming about on a small lake.  I put aside my gun and waded into the water.  When I got deep enough, I immersed myself and swam under cover of some waterlily.  I dived beneath the ducks and grabbed the legs of the first, pulled him under and tied him to my belt.  I repeated this until I had almost all the ducks.  However, I was too greedy.  I took one duck too many and found myself being slowly lifted up in the air and carried far out over the Ste. Laurent.  My ducks were flying!  I passed over Ville Marie and heard the chapel bell ringing for Mass.   I was not only to be kidnapped by ducks but I was to offend my Maker my missing Mass!”

Yves saw Pineesh smile in anticipation.

“I reached down and wring the neck of a duck..  I was lowered a few feet as the others struggled to carry me.  One by one, I wring the necks of the ducks, each time going lower and at the same time manoeuvring them over the fort.  With the last duck, I was just over the chapel and I killed the bird and landed safely on the chapel steps just in time for Mass. ”

Yves laughed with the rest but he was again feeling strangely.  At one point, the floor seemed to tremble beneath his feet and he put away his mug. Either he was going to be sick or he’s had enough ale.  The clock on the mantle showed five-thirty.  It was time to feed Dino and put him out to guard the house for the night.  He found the dog crouched beneath a bench, hugging the wall.

“What’s the matter with you, Dino!  Come out of there!”

There was a great rushing, rumbling noise.  It swept loud and louder toward them and around the house eaves. Was it a wind?  Was he drunk?  He looked at the others.  All stared at the walls and at each other.  The noise grew.  Gaston jumped up, took a step toward the door.  The noise was now deafening.  His father was shouting something but the other sound was everywhere.  The floor began to move, to pitch and sway like a ship’s deck at sea.  Yves tried to get to the door but the floor raised to meet him, slapping against the soles of his moccasins.  Suddenly it jerked away and he went down on one knee. Furniture toppled.  Crockery crashed.  The room shook and heaved.  The clock dropped from the mantle and he saw Kosta dive to save his mother as she fell toward the fire.  He looked for Pineesh.  She was on her knees, scrambling for the door.

She screamed, “Jeen Quon!  Jeen Qoun!”

Kosta had Gabrielle, was carrying her somehow while the room cavorted crazily.  The rafter moaned in agony.  Yves could hear wood shrieking, splitting.  The old man had plunged from his stool and sat, mouth agape, ale spilled over him.  Yves scuttled to him, got him by the arm and dragged him to the doorway.

They were outside. Gabrielle had sunk to her knees in the snow.  She was praying.  Yves’s stomach lurched and his head was giddy.  Dino was squealing, all tangled in his legs.  He set the old man on a snowdrift.  Around them the ground swelled and quivered.  He watched as the walls of the house bent in upon themselves.  The racket was so loud now that he could hear nothing else.  He watched in helpless fascination as the roof tilted madly.  The chimney toppled.  The walls caved in and logs tumbled like matchsticks.

He looked for his father.  Gaston had foolishly begun to climb the shade oak near the house to see beyond the clearing.  Massive as it was, it nevertheless whipped back and forth and Gaston clung to its trunk like he had to the ship’s mast during the tempest which had harried his trip to New France .

He was shouting.  “The forest!  The trees!  They’re falling!”

“Damn the forest, you idiot!” Yves moaned.  “You’ll be killed!”  He fought the pitching earth and managed to crawl to the dancing tree trunk.

“Papa!” he shrieked.  “Get down out of there!”

Gaston either didn’t hear or ignored him.  He was staring mesmerized toward the fort and the river.  Gabrielle screamed.  Yves glanced back.  She was still kneeling in the snow, her arms outstretched toward his father.  He saw the horror on her face.

If anything should happen to Papa …

Gritting his teeth, he essayed the impossible task of climbing the tree, clinging desperately at its efforts to shake him off.  It seemed hours, but he at last reached Gaston. With one big hand he held to a thick, writhing branch and with the other he grabbed his father’s leg.

“Papa, come down!”

Gaston turned, looked at him.  His eyes were blank; suddenly they filled with fear as he stared down and beyond Yves.  Yves looked below.  His mother was kneeling at the foot of the tree, her arms around the trunk.

“Gabrielle!” Gaston shouted.  “Get away!”  But his words whipped into the screaming wind.

There was a great rending crack and the oak toppled.

“Jump!” Yves cried desperately as he launched himself into the air, landing among the debris of the house.  He felt a sickening pain in his ankle and then a whack to his forehead.  His world turned black.  Tiny, pulsating stars rushed at him.  Then he knew no more.