August Gale by Barbara Walsh Page A

fence to defend himself. His teeth bared, Jocko leaped toward Tommy’s face. Terrified, the boy struck the dog with the sharp end of the picket, unintentionally poking the animal’s eye out.
    The sight of his bleeding and injured pet had outraged McGettigan, who demanded swift retribution from the local constable. “Give the boy whatever punishment the law can!” he ordered. A few days later, Lizzie and the local women watched from their kitchen windows as the sixteen-year-old youth huddled in the back of the constable’s horse cart, destined, the poor lad, for the nearby jail in Burin town. Lizzie whispered prayers as Tommy shivered in his oilskins, his only shield from the winter wind. Confused and cold, the boy would serve his two-month sentence without a clue of what prompted his confinement.
    Aye, Jocko could terrorize whomever he liked , Lizzie knew, until the dog turned on the priest. Not long after Tommy served his jail time, Lizzie remembered McGettigan’s eyes, black with rage, as he dragged Jocko outside and shouted: “I want this dog drowned tonight!” She ran through the woods to fetch the priest’s handyman in the winter cold. Her heart pounding and her breath visible before her, she knocked on Billy Baker’s door. In short gasps, she explained how Jocko had bit McGettigan’s ankle after the priest tried to kick the dog’s bone from its mouth.
    A longtime caretaker for the parsonage, Baker knew there was no sense in trying to convince the priest that Jocko’s demise could wait till daylight. When McGettigan made up his mind, no one but the Lord himself could change it. The handyman nodded to Lizzie and turned to grab his coat. From her attic window, Lizzie watched as the priest and Baker motored into the middle of the bay. Jocko, a water dog always eager for a boat ride, sat in the bow with a rope around his neck, the far end of the line wound around a large rock. McGettigan held Jocko’s bone in his hand and Baker would later recount the priest’s words as the reverend tossed the dog’s treat into the deepest waters of the harbor: “Go fetch it, Jocko!”
    No, the unruly animal didn’t terrorize anyone after that night , Lizzie thought. As she continued scrubbing dirt from the sink full of potatoes, the summer sun blazed red in the sky. A fine night it ’twas. Too bad his holiness was not enjoying the brilliant sunset. Himself always talking appreciating the gifts from the Lord, yet the priest was all but blind to the smell of the sea and the glimmer on the harbor bay . Lizzie knew the priest had settled in the parlor to begin his nightly bout of brooding. She heard the consistent creak of the rocking chair, a certain clue as to how the evening would play out. He’s in there alone again with his dark thoughts . Soon he would be pouring himself a glass of rum, and then she knew the night would slip away from him in a haze of liquor and smoke. Perhaps he would write some of his poetry for a bit, or read one of his books penned by that Shakespeare character he rambled on about. Lizzie knew he pined for his high-society crowd, his family, and the friends he had left behind in St. John’s. There were certainly no fine restaurants, bookstores, or high-browed plays for McGettigan to attend in Marystown. The best he could count on were the local school performances and the ceili dances at St. Gabriel’s Hall. Still, the local fishermen had little to say to the priest besides “How ye getting on, Father?” There were few folk educated past sixth grade aside from some of the local merchants, Dr. Harris, and the constable.
    Of course, then there was Capt’n Paddy, whom the priest had grown close to. The pair of them got on famously despite Mr. Paddy’s scant years of school learning. But whatever the skipper lacked in books smarts, he made up for with his brawn and fearsome talent at sea. McGettigan dined at