We also feared it.
After the wall, the river calmed again and booms were strung out, chained end to end. We were not fooled by the calm. Down below was a bottomless place with tough roots twining through mud. Where weeds and bushes snared logs and where bodies drifted after they’d been tossed through rapids. Our paperboy had drowned in these rapids. Two winters ago, one of the girls who lived in the rooms behind Le Loup’s store had also drowned. Both bodies had been found down below, stuffed under the booms.
It was Lyd who’d spied the hooks on a rainy day when we were taking turns with our friends climbing the ladder rungs and jumping from the attic platform to the barn floor below.It was shortly after we’d moved—after Father had bought the house from Duffy. Lyd had found the hooks buried in dust behind an old storm door. Bulging pieces of iron with three great curves attached to a braided rope.
“Bodies!” Lyd was the one who dared the rest of us to do what she would not do herself but she commanded our attention because she was the eldest. I had just jumped to the boards and my leg-bones were wobbling from the impact. I climbed back up and heard her drop into her scaring voice. “Grappling hooks for bodies,” she said quickly. “Bodies all stiff and water-bloated. The men drag the bottom to hook a shoulder or a leg. They lower the hooks from rowboats and make a huge splash.” Her arms dropped iron through a black surface of river we all knew and imagined. “One man rows, two at the end of the boat drag.”
How did she know this? Father hadn’t told her because, later, he refused to talk about the hooks when we asked. But he set his mouth grimly and went with the men when they came to the back door after break-up, in the spring. It turned out that everyone in St. Pierre knew that the village grappling hooks were kept in Duffy’s old barn.
After that, one of our summer games while swimming in the river with our friends became “Dead Body.” Someone would dip beneath the surface and remember. Would rise with cheeks puffed and shriek, “Dead body below! Dead body!” Our legs ran thickly through water and we scraped knees and feet in the race for shore. Each of us had seen the bloated features of the waterlogged, had felt the hand of the drowned tighten around an ankle; each of us knew that wherever we might place a foot we would step on a body with swollen sealed eyes.
In fact, we never swam down below, by the booms. Our only swimming was in the cove in front of the house, shallow and quiet with its own current but safely above the rapids. It was where we had learned to dog-paddle. It was where Mother viewed the river as a danger that could sweep away her children’s limp rag bodies into its current. She had never learned to swim and sat on shore on a towel, wearing shorts, a blouse buttoned down the front, the tails of it tied in a knot at her waist. She stayed there, sunning her legs, crooking a finger at us when we waded out too far. Standing up and hollering when we pretended not to see.
It was the first week of July and our parents announced that they were having a corn roast. Not at the usual site on broad shale in front of the house but following the bank up onto the high flat part of the cliff where there were twelve white pines, grown tall and full with their bundles of soft needles. Quite naturally, we’d always called the place the Pines. It was halfway to the wall. Below the cliff were the first whitecaps, the place where true fast water began. The river was still high from spring run-off but the change of current could be seen from this very spot.
Eddie had left for Ontario as soon as school was out, and was now at Grampa King’s farm. Lyd and I had been helping Father and Duffy and Roy, from the club, collect driftwood and the smallest stray logs along shore. We pretended to find logs that were not branded, and dragged them onto the rocks to dry.
The men did not have their own
After the wall, the river calmed again and booms were strung out, chained end to end. We were not fooled by the calm. Down below was a bottomless place with tough roots twining through mud. Where weeds and bushes snared logs and where bodies drifted after they’d been tossed through rapids. Our paperboy had drowned in these rapids. Two winters ago, one of the girls who lived in the rooms behind Le Loup’s store had also drowned. Both bodies had been found down below, stuffed under the booms.
It was Lyd who’d spied the hooks on a rainy day when we were taking turns with our friends climbing the ladder rungs and jumping from the attic platform to the barn floor below.It was shortly after we’d moved—after Father had bought the house from Duffy. Lyd had found the hooks buried in dust behind an old storm door. Bulging pieces of iron with three great curves attached to a braided rope.
“Bodies!” Lyd was the one who dared the rest of us to do what she would not do herself but she commanded our attention because she was the eldest. I had just jumped to the boards and my leg-bones were wobbling from the impact. I climbed back up and heard her drop into her scaring voice. “Grappling hooks for bodies,” she said quickly. “Bodies all stiff and water-bloated. The men drag the bottom to hook a shoulder or a leg. They lower the hooks from rowboats and make a huge splash.” Her arms dropped iron through a black surface of river we all knew and imagined. “One man rows, two at the end of the boat drag.”
How did she know this? Father hadn’t told her because, later, he refused to talk about the hooks when we asked. But he set his mouth grimly and went with the men when they came to the back door after break-up, in the spring. It turned out that everyone in St. Pierre knew that the village grappling hooks were kept in Duffy’s old barn.
After that, one of our summer games while swimming in the river with our friends became “Dead Body.” Someone would dip beneath the surface and remember. Would rise with cheeks puffed and shriek, “Dead body below! Dead body!” Our legs ran thickly through water and we scraped knees and feet in the race for shore. Each of us had seen the bloated features of the waterlogged, had felt the hand of the drowned tighten around an ankle; each of us knew that wherever we might place a foot we would step on a body with swollen sealed eyes.
In fact, we never swam down below, by the booms. Our only swimming was in the cove in front of the house, shallow and quiet with its own current but safely above the rapids. It was where we had learned to dog-paddle. It was where Mother viewed the river as a danger that could sweep away her children’s limp rag bodies into its current. She had never learned to swim and sat on shore on a towel, wearing shorts, a blouse buttoned down the front, the tails of it tied in a knot at her waist. She stayed there, sunning her legs, crooking a finger at us when we waded out too far. Standing up and hollering when we pretended not to see.
It was the first week of July and our parents announced that they were having a corn roast. Not at the usual site on broad shale in front of the house but following the bank up onto the high flat part of the cliff where there were twelve white pines, grown tall and full with their bundles of soft needles. Quite naturally, we’d always called the place the Pines. It was halfway to the wall. Below the cliff were the first whitecaps, the place where true fast water began. The river was still high from spring run-off but the change of current could be seen from this very spot.
Eddie had left for Ontario as soon as school was out, and was now at Grampa King’s farm. Lyd and I had been helping Father and Duffy and Roy, from the club, collect driftwood and the smallest stray logs along shore. We pretended to find logs that were not branded, and dragged them onto the rocks to dry.
The men did not have their own
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