The Badger Riot (27 page)

“Yes, I know you're right. I know you are, but it burns me up inside to see such a two-faced crowd. I agreed with Landon Ladd, and I knew he was on the right track with what he was doing. But now it's all over. The loggers won't get to keep their union, thanks to Joey Smallwood.”

“I understand what you're saying, Alf. And I trust you to know what is right. I'm just asking you to keep your family in mind.”

Alf turned from the stove and limped back across the kitchen. “I think about them poor buggers out on the picket lines with no legal union to back them up. 'Tis terrible times, Mary. Terrible times.”

Their second son, Thomas, thumped down over the stairs. “Dad, let's have a game of checkers.”

“Yes, all right, my son, you go in the dining room and lay out the board.”

As he turned to follow Thomas, Alf said to Mary in a low voice, “Bloody Joey controls Newfoundland like an emperor and I think he sees that control slipping away like his rubber boot and his chocolate factory slipped away.” He shook his finger at Mary. “Mark my words. This is the beginning of Joey Smallwood's downfall.”

Richard was scheduled for a day off when he got the call to go down to the drill hall. He called his partner, Bob Parsons. Yes, he said, he had to go too. Richard said he'd pick him up.

There were about twenty of them. The assistant chief was there and Sergeant Abernathy was with him. Richard and his father always maintained a strictly professional relationship at work. To Richard he was Sergeant Levi Abernathy. To Levi, his foster son was Constable Richard Fagan.

That evening, in the drafty old drill hall, Papa's craggy face looked drawn and worried. He looked at Richard and shook his head slightly. The assistant chief announced that he would wait awhile for a few more men.

Bob, always restless, said, “I'm going to get a Coke and have a smoke. You want to come along?”

Richard shook his head. He was feeling worse by the minute. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, fearful that they would be following the larger contingent out to Central Newfoundland.

In all, there were twenty-four men. The assistant chief told them they were going on a secret mission and no one was to know where they would be. No civilian clothes; just uniforms. They would be immediately taken to a train coach that was waiting off on a siding at the station.

Someone spoke up. “Where are we headed, sir?”

“You'll know when you get there, Constable.”

At the last moment, Bill Moss and another officer rushed into the drill hall, apologizing for being late. Their arrival brought the unit up to twenty-six men.

Sergeant Abernathy helped the officers to get ready, making sure that they all had their badges, nightsticks – which the constables called batons – and their winter gear. He spoke to Richard. “You're going to Central Newfoundland. Orders have come down from the Justice Department. It's just to help the RCMP keep the peace during the loggers' strike. Badger hasn't been mentioned, just Grand Falls. But I think it might well be Badger, based on what Ruth has told us. It would be a good idea to stay away from Rod and anyone else you know.”

Richard agreed, not surprised by the news. “Look after Audrey and the girls,” he told him. “I don't know what you're going to tell her and her mother.”

“I can't tell them anything, my son,” his father answered. “There won't be much to it. Don't worry. Likely they won't even need you men and you'll all be sent home again in a couple of days.”

The officers boarded the private train coach in the darkness. It was soon coupled to a diesel locomotive that set off across the Avalon, off the isthmus, non-stop. No conductor punching tickets or yelling, “Whitbourne next station!” Just twenty-six men sent into the unknown, uncertain where they would end up.

A few of the members got together in one end of the coach to play poker. Richard was too depressed and anxious to do anything but sit hunched in his seat, eyes closed, pretending to sleep. He was remembering again. His mind going back to when he had married Audrey.

Richard had never thought it would ever happen, but it had. After Audrey and he were engaged, Rod and Ruth came in from Badger for a visit. The woodsman and his wife from around the bay and the St. John's police sergeant and his townie missus became friends, starting with Richard and Audrey as their common ground.

They had been married in March of 1955 in Corpus Christi
Church on Waterford Bridge Road. Richard was in his dress uniform, the same blue that he wore when they met at the Garden Party. Many of his fellow officers were there. Audrey was beautiful in the traditional white. They had a reception in the parish hall.

Audrey had become pregnant soon after their marriage, and by 1957 they had two little girls. Richard's adopted parents became doting grandparents. The young Fagan family made a few trips out to Badger, sometimes with the Abernathys in tow. In a short time Levi learned more about the woods operations than Richard ever would. He met other contractors and company officials; that was Levi's' way. He could talk to anyone. Back in St. John's, that was what made him a good policeman.

People of the town came to know Richard and the Abernathys on sight. Richard hadn't formed any friendships, but Alf Elliott, the telegraph operator, and several other people would say, “How ya getting' on, Richard?” when they met. Sometimes Richard would go over to the field to play ball with Rod's neighbour and friend, Bill Hatcher, and his two rowdy boys, Walt and Harold, and big, tall Tom Hillier. Through them Richard met Ralph Drum.

During one of the Badger visits, Ralph said that his old grandfather wanted to talk to Richard. Richard said that he was sure that his father, Levi, would like to meet Ralph's grandfather too. But Ralph said no, Grandfather just wanted to see him alone.

“It's you he'd like to see, Richard. I'm sorry. Just you,” Ralph said.

“How strange,” Richard answered. “I didn't know he even knew who I was.”

“He said that he saw you over by the River one time, getting aboard the scow.” They walked over to the Drum house. “My grandfather is getting ready to die, Richard. Our people always know when their time has come upon them. We think he is over one hundred years old, although there's no birth certificate to prove it.”

How strange,
Richard thought.
How does a person get ready to die and how do the Mi'kmaq people know when their time is coming?

Ralph paused and looked intently at Richard as if searching his face for something. “Richard, I never question my grandfather, but
I have to warn you that he has some unusual thoughts. When he asked me to get you, he said that you have “the Blood.” That's Grandfather's words, not mine. Do you have any idea how that may be so?”

Richard looked at him dumbly. “What blood?”

“Beothuk blood, Richard. Grandfather can recognize it. And he values it highly.”

They came to the house. The wizened old man was sitting propped up in a chair with pillows and quilts near the kitchen stove. The skin on his bald head and his gnarled old hands were the colour of strong-steeped tea, but his eyes were as sharp, black and alert as his grandson Ralph's.

“Sit, my son,” he croaked. “Allow me to tell you some history.” Ralph pushed a stool forward and Richard sat.

As Richard and Ralph listened, the old man spoke of a time when there was no paper mill and no railway; when the land along the River was thick with sixty-foot pine trees. He told them about Hodges Hill and the pearls that guarded the interior and about the Mi'kmaq people and the Beothuk. Ralph was used to his grandfather's stories, but to Richard, another world was coming to life.

Richard couldn't hold in his curiosity any longer. “Excuse me Mr. Drum, but if you don't mind, I would like to know why you asked to speak with me. Ralph said that you think I have what he called the Blood. If that's so, how did I get it?”

The old man cackled. “Surprised, are you? Many Newfoundland people carry the Blood. It came to you through your mother, my son. She, who is long dead, left you a legacy.”

At the thought of his poor mother, emotion welled up inside Richard. Good God! How did this old man know about his biological mother?

“Her people came from the bottom of Trinity Bay. Yes?”

“Uh . . . yes sir, I think they were from somewhere around Blaketown.”

“Just so, my son. Beothuk land until the white man took it from them.”

Then old man Drum said, “Ralph, my boy, I never told you this before, so now I'll tell you and this young man together so both of you can carry it into the future. White men think the Beothuk race was wiped out. They weren't. They removed themselves to another time.”

Ralph frowned. What was Grandfather trying to say?

“After they put the railway through, fellas told stories of trains appearing and disappearing, their lights cutting through the night. After it happened many times, they came to be called ghost trains.” The old man lay back against the pillows and closed his eyes.

Ralph said, “Yes, Grandfather, I have heard stories about the ghost trains, on the Gaff Topsails especially.”

Richard was spellbound.
What a story,
he thought. He was sorry that his father was not there to hear it.

Grandfather opened his eyes again. “Gaff Topsails is a huge plateau where time is different – where the world thins out. Nothing that happens in time is ever lost. It still exists. The trains that men see are leaking through the thinness. When the Beothuk realized that they could no longer live in this place the white man wanted so badly, they gathered themselves together and went to the high plateau of the Gaff.”

He looked at them with his bright black eyes. “Do you believe what I am telling you?”

Amazed, Richard and Ralph nodded in unison. Neither spoke.

“Up on the Gaff, they waited for the right moment, and then, the few that were left walked through the thinness into another time – perhaps back to a time when they were happy and prosperous on this island.”

“My God, Grandfather,” Ralph exclaimed. “How'd you know that?”

“So my father, Michael, said, and so his mother, the Beothuk woman, told him. She wanted to go too but he wouldn't let her.” He closed his eyes again. “I am tired now. Let me shake your hand, young policeman from St. John's.”

Richard held out his hand and Grandfather grasped it. “Time is
like a river, my son. Long ago, the Beothuk couldn't stop it and you won't be able to either. Keep that in mind when your time arrives.”

Richard was overwhelmed by his visit with the old Indian man. He truly didn't know what to make of it.

Ralph told Richard that the next time he was out for a visit he'd take him in to Hodges Hill or even up to the Gaff. Richard thanked him and said he'd look forward to that. He knew nothing about hiking or trekking in through rough country. He'd never been any farther west than Badger, so he'd never experienced the high plateau that they called the Topsails. Ralph said, “Don't worry, b'y, we'll make a woodsman out of you in no time.” Richard wasn't sure if he should be apprehensive or not.

Ralph played the fiddle, as did Levi, so they sometimes got together at the Andersons', where Rod would join in with his harmonica. Alf Elliott would come by too with his accordion if he wasn't busy with his photography. It made for a pleasant way to pass the evening and, slowly, Levi and Richard became part of the fabric that wove the town of Badger together.

Richard liked to go into the American Bargain Store owned by the Plotskys, who knew the Wilanskys in St. John's and their famous store on Water Street. Richard asked Mr. Plotsky why he chose to run a business here in Badger, when he could be in St. John's. Leonard Plotsky replied that he'd been born in Badger; it was his home.

“Hey Dickie! Wake up.” Bob Parsons plunked himself down in the seat beside him, laughing maniacally. He was waving a fistful of money. “Get a look at this, boy. Forty dollars! I whipped their asses. No one plays poker better than I do.”

Richard peered down to the end of the coach. Several of the members were shaking their fists at Bob and yelling obscenities.

“Uh . . . what time is it?” It was still pitch-black outside the windows.

“'Tis about four in the morning. I don't know where we are. I think I'll have a nap too, now that I've got all their money.” He tipped his cap down over his eyes.

Richard stared through the train window in the blackness of the night. After awhile his eyes got used to it and he could see a house here and there with the light on over the door. The train swept past a small station. He could barely make out the white painted sign.
NORRIS ARM
. Not long now, he thought. There was a thin light in the sky. Somewhere he'd read that it was called the false dawn. False. The word made him remember the most painful memory of all.