Fiction
From Chapter One: San Josef, October 1898
The tide rose, a confused surge of swirling backwater and troubled currents. It was a twice-daily conflict—the might of the Pacific against the sodden runoff from the forested hills and swamps of this north end of Vancouver Island. Clayton Monroe hunched in the battered rowboat and flailed with the oars as he rounded the last bend from his cabin on the bay to the upriver store. He could have walked the half mile but he hated the sucking muddy trail even more than he distrusted the capricious river. Though he had been at San Josef for nearly two months, his skill with a boat had not improved. He skittered across the current like a Jesus Bug, swinging back and forth with each heave on the oars.
Elbows resting on his bony knees, he stopped rowing for a moment and peered at the dense coastal forest of cedar, hemlock and spruce—searching one bank then the other for any sign of watchers, the feeling of eyes in the trees so fierce. Monroe twisted his old body around and glared up the river alert for that still to come, then back downstream to what lay behind him. Old habits were hard to break. At one time, he would have seen or feared something vengeful behind each tree. Now he simply thought: this is no place for a horseman. But some refuge. Good enough.
His lean face was sheltered by a wide-brimmed hat sagging in the drizzle, a tattered eagle feather stuck in the leather band. A blue neckerchief knotted around his neck collected the seeping trickles. Under his long oilskin coat he wore a grey woollen shirt tucked into threadbare corduroy pants a size too big hitched around his waist by a belt, the tongue dangling. Another hand-me-down.
He passed a marshy area covered in reeds nodding in the sea breeze. There was only a narrow fringe between the sedges and the cedars’ shadow where the land grew drier, giving way to a sliver of grass—nothing he could call a prairie or meadow. But beyond the trees was the green glint of the pasturelands reclaimed from the estuary. He saw the small figures of men toiling on the protective dyke and the floodgate.
Looking out over the tall grey-green salt hay growing on the mudflats, up the side sloughs better known to muskrat and heron, he glimpsed the scattered cabins of the colonists. Only a few showed signs of life—a faded curtain, a worn axe leaning against a woodpile. Most stood abandoned, black windows blown in like half-shut eyes squinting against the rain, the wind, the inevitable. Roofs sagging under the accumulation of moss.
Must’ve been lively when everyone was still here and believed in what they was doing, he thought. Coming this far, doing so much, getting so little. What do they call it? Utopia? A perfect society? Not likely if mankind has anything to do with it. Only ones left now are the diehards. There’s another funny word. Diehard. Nothing hard about dying. It’s the living that takes the effort. Just ask the missus and her family, or the handful still trusting in what they do. Huh—who am I to say what’s sensible. Look at me, sopping wet in this damned chip of wood on a river that don’t stay still.
He drifted and pulled past orchards gone feral, taken over by the patient tangle of salmonberry. Gardens made fertile by seaweed and manure then forsaken and forgotten. Rail fences no longer kept anything in or out, turning grey with tendrils of lichen spreading out like plates serving up a dinner of decay.
The only sound was the hissing of the rain on the river and the rumble of waves breaking on the distant beach. Overhanging branches dripped onto glossy green salal and feathery arcs of fern. When the wind from the open sea parted the mist briefly, all Monroe saw were more dark hillsides, more shards of orphaned cloud like wet smoke snaring the dead spike tops of the cedars, rising like a soul’s last breath.
Bracing his feet on the boat’s floorboard, he stretched his aching back and shoulders then grabbed the oars for a last lurch to the small wharf. At the end of the boardwalk was a building adorned with a neat red and white sign, the only blaze of colour in this grey and green valley: General Store and Post Office, Colony of Cooperative Adherents, San Josef, British Columbia. Anika and Rolf Frederickson Proprietors, Est. 1892. It didn’t seem right to him, having a woman’s name up on a sign for everyone to see unless it was a boarding house or brothel. And why wasn’t his name first? Adherents? To what? Strongest survive, the others fall by the wayside. Cooperation may’ve worked in that country they came from, but he never saw the likes of it in his life. Drops fell from his hat as Monroe shook his head.
In the cabin he had inherited on the bay, there was a small book, The Cooperative Commonwealth by Laurence Gronlund, a Dane who had immigrated to America in 1867. Monroe glanced through it but found little to hold his interest. Still, he realized the book outlined what kept the people at San Josef.
The boat bumped against the landing and he stumbled onto the rain-slickened boards to tie the frayed rope with fingers stiff from the oars. Straightening with a groan, by habit he glanced around again for any movement in the mist, but there was none, except for the listless rise of smoke from the store chimney. Nothing seemed out of place, nothing to arouse wariness. Safe for another day to add to his sixty-some years. The thought pleased him and brought a slight smile to his face.
Satisfied, he walked up the wobbling gangplank and stepped through the door. Water ran off his oilskin coat and made dark puddles on the floor as he stopped to look around the interior. The store was small, dimly lit by the flickering yellow flames of several coal-oil lamps burning even now at this late afternoon in October.
Three men lounging on ladderback wooden chairs around the stove glanced up and gave cautious nods in his direction then returned to their conversation, Danish words singing between them. The lanky red-haired storekeeper stood to greet the newcomer.
“Ja, Mr. Monroe. You have a good trip up the river?” He took the pipe from his mouth and pointed outside with the well-chewed stem.
Monroe did not reply immediately, distracted by the conversation of the other men. They should speak English here in America, he thought. And then remembered where he was and the damp haven it provided.
“How do, Mr. Frederickson. Came for grub, whiskey and bullets.” His drawl was strong and as noticeable as the red sign on the storefront.
Frederickson stuffed his pipe in the pocket of his shirt and turned to the shadows lying deep behind barrels of dried food. Above them were shelves reaching to the high tin ceiling. Most were empty, but some held a few goods—sacks of sugar, cinnamon tins, cornstarch, laundry soap, glycerin, gunpowder and shotgun shells, rye whiskey, pouches of tobacco, boxes of nails, dark bottles of stove polish and brown wrapping paper—things the settlers could not fashion for themselves. Many of the labels were faded and peeling.
“Maybe you want a little warm-up first? Maybe I join you.”
Monroe nodded and moved to a table near the welcome heat of the stove. “Yeah, I need something for these old bones. Seems like the whole sky is down my neck. How do you ever get used to this rain?”
Frederickson smiled. “Skin is waterproof.” He bent under the counter to fetch a bottle of rye and two glasses that he carried to the table. Monroe reached out a mottled hand, filled his glass, tossed it back with a practised shudder and poured another. He felt the liquor slip down his throat and nuzzle into his belly. He watched Frederickson throw a quick look toward the back of the store, then take his own glass and move to the window, seemingly fascinated by the torrent of rain pouring from the eaves and bouncing off the boardwalk.
Frederickson sighed and then turned to gather the few items Monroe had requested. He moved as if time was of no consequence and he had little to occupy himself other than a glance now and then at the rain.
Monroe sat staring at the amber liquid. His sodden clothes began to steam from the stove’s heat and he felt prickly. On the table he noticed some month-old newspapers. Ever hopeful, he wondered if they contained any news of his old comrades: did they suffer the same nightmares or had any found their own San Josef sanctuary?
He reached into his jacket for a small leather-bound notebook wrapped in oilcloth and opened it to a dog-eared page with a list of names.
Frank Bartholomew, Sedalia, Missouri. Deceased
Jesse W. King, Flat Rock, Tennessee. Unknown
Lucas Fisher, Hartsburg, Missouri. Federal Prison
Carter J. Osborne, somewhere in Texas. Hanged by the neck
Allan Heatherington, Rooks County, Kansas. Diphtheria
On it went: dead, disappeared, lynched, shot, whereabouts unknown. One by one, drifting away like the debris carried by the currents of the river. He pulled a stubby pencil from his pocket and began to scratch a line through those he knew were gone. Each man left his memory as the pencil scored out his name.
