The River Burns (49 page)
Authors: Trevor Ferguson
All those whose hands were placed upon this structureâthey will grip his hammer, too. Loggers, both good friends and strangers, who performed the initial and arduous task of clearing the river of old timber, their hands clasped his. And Denny thanked those who gave countless hours of time and effort, tree huggers, and crazy Skootch himself, in and out of jail, who coughed up cash and supplied additional labour and agreed to truncate the baseball schedule so that men were free to donate more hours on the bridge. Chances are, whoever broke into Mrs. McCracken's house, adolescents probably, grew up a bit and worked on the bridge, too, even to demonstrate that they were sorry. Perhaps not, but Denny hoped so, and thanked them anyway. Quietly, privately, he thanked other workingmen and -women and businesspeople and just plain folks who claimed no particular affiliation to one industry or another, whose desire was nothing more than to participate in forming an object of grace, of singular perpetual beauty, to seize a chance to create something in the company of their neighbours with their hands and their hearts and through an affection for one another and through a sense of abiding love.
“I doubt that I can even lift that hammer,” Denny whispers, although his son and his father, who hear him, do not know the reference, and he does not explain himself, so deeply is he immersed in his reverie, “without their help.”
His whole torso an ache, he returns back to the silence on the rooftop of the bridge and that strange, unfathomable majesty. Denny will never know, few do, who starts up, but one lone hammer does break their code to commence its labour, a gradual, rhythmic, decisive crack and
twiing! twiing!
and a crack and
th'wonk!
and then it begins on the next nail
twiing!
and each man and woman, proud to be upon the rooftop on this night, galvanized by the light of the moon and by the river and by the company they keep, by their work and by the hammer's defiant song, crawl back into position, and take up a nail, and grip a hammer, and in the old-fashioned way begin to pound.
Twiing! Twiing! Th'wonk!
Across the bridge, then, under the soft moonlight and shimmer of constellations reflected upon the turbulent waters below, every darkened form, in bright, holy rhythm, starts to pound, and pound, pledged to undo what had been done, to begin, inexorably, again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
O
ut of the blue one day I received a commission, for which I am now particularly grateful, from the magazine
L'Actualité
, to be among ten writers who would each visit and describe with some intimacy a different region of Quebec. I chose the town of Wakefield, and the communal piece went on to earn a National Magazine Gold Award. In my investigation of the town, I was given a personal tour of the Wakefield Mill Inn by its owner, Robert Milling, from whom much history was gleaned, useful for the article initially and subsequently the novel. Weekend stays at a local cottage in the company of Dr. Robert Dorion helped deepen my knowledge of the area and added local stories, as did returning to regional provincial parks in my tent. The second iteration of this material came as a short story, which was never submitted anywhere except to students to whom I was teaching creative writing at Concordia University. I learned from their comments but kept the story squirreled away. Next, the tale travelled on to become the genesis for a film script, and the author is thankful to SODEC and Telefilm Canada for their funding and to the director Leo Bélanger and editor Shea Lowry for their insight. That effort had to be abandoned, as the story was growing out of its earlier forms more rapidly than it could be contained, demanding to be born as a novel. So here it is.
I extend my deepest thanks to Bruce Westwood and Carolyn Forde of Westwood Creative Artists, to Kevin Hanson, Alison Clarke, and the full crew at Simon & Schuster, Toronto, to production editor Linda Sawicki and her team in New York, and to Barbara Berson for her vigorous and thoughtful edit.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
T
revor Ferguson is the author of seven novels under his own name and another three under his pseudonym, John Farrow. One of his novels became a feature film,
The Timekeeper
. Four of his plays have been produced, including an off-Broadway engagement; one seen by more than 22,000 patrons in a single run. He teaches creative writing at Concordia University and lives with his wife in Hudson, Quebec.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
Also by Trevor Ferguson
High Water Chants
Onyx John
The Kinkajou
The True Life Adventures of Sparrow Drinkwater
The Fire Line
The Timekeeper
AS JOHN FARROW
City of Ice
Ice Lake
River City
DRAMA
Long, Long, Short, Long
Beach House, Burnt Sienna
Barnacle Wood
Zarathustra Said Some Things, No?
FILM
The Timekeeper
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Simon & Schuster Canada edition April 2014
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Designed by Aline C. Pace
Cover design by PGB
Cover photograph of covered bridge © SeanPavonePhoto
Author photo © R. A. Ferguson
ISBN 978-1-4767-5184-9
ISBN 978-1-4767-2641-0 (ebook)