Two Secrets

Allen Markle

Two Secrets

There had been little reason for the coach to encourage this team to lay a beating on the opposition tonight. He has simply said a few words to that effect and then stepped out of the dressing room. Time to suit up, so everyone opened duffel bags and began extracting equipment. It immediately became apparent that the baking soda liberally dumped in the bag on sweaty gear wasn’t working as advertised.

“Jesus, man!! What died in there? I may have to move.”

“Move then. I’m not that fond of yer damn alspice!

Some other snide remark was being hurled as the offended neighbor gathered his gear and moved further along the bench. But the comment went without retort because my attention had been captured by the conversation of two other team-mates nearby.

“It was in jars under the stream bank” one said. “My old man thinks it was preserved meat and fish. No telling where it came from. Or how long it’s been there.”

“Did you open it up and try it?” The lad asking that question was notorious for the amount of food he could put away.

“Hell no! It could be poison! It’ll go to the dump. Maybe you can find it there and try it.”

“Very funny. Maybe I’ll just let that number 14 run right over you tonight. Teach you some respect for us big guys.”

There was more being said, but in my mind, that exchange had taken me back twelve years. To when I was six or seven and had become aware of a secret.

……………………………..

Great boiling clouds of dust swirled behind the truck as it turned off Brunel Road, passed the dump and onto Britannia Road. Some of the dust roiled under the canvas canopy, in around the two of us riding in the back. Everything on each side of the road sported a grey-white coating of dust. It boiled up after each passing vehicle. Then it settled on grass, leaves, branches. It settled everywhere. 

With shirts pulled over our mouths and eyes tightly closed, the ride was to be endured but we knew it would thankfully be over soon. A half mile up the road the truck swung in a driveway and up to an old garage. The building was sided with black paper with a few of the securing laths broken or missing. The big padlock on the door though was new and solid. 

We were out from the back of the truck in an instant, me helping Gary down. Both coughing and brushing off the clothes which we had been instructed to “not get filthy”. The aproned woman in the garden looked up from her thinning of vegetables, picking potato bugs or performing some garden chore. The work that was necessary if you wanted to make things grow. The summers’ produce would be stored in the root-cellar or a back room and used during the coming winter.

“Where’s Grampa?” I shouted as Gary was already being tended to by Mom. He was complaining about the dust and she was apologising for it.

“He’s up on the ridge behind the spring. But you wait here for him. Oh pshaw!” The first statement and I had all the information I needed and was off. Across the road and through the alders fringed in dust, then along the path leading down to the spring. The rest of what Gramma had said was meant well, but too late. The ‘Oh pshaw’ just meant she knew it had been too late.

Once on the path the dust diminished behind the roadside screen of trees and leaves. The trail was plain and less dust coated since people passed here frequently going for water. A blue enamel cup hung from a branch nearby and a small stream trickled away to the west. An old shovel was stuck into a heap of dirt and sediment. Both the shovel and muck had been dumped there when the spring was scooped out to keep the hole deep and wide enough. Deep and wide so you could dip a water pail.

 It had been hot and dry lately and the stream was diminished but steady. Its’ borders were green and lush with sedges and grass. The ubiquitous carpet of violets found in such places, having long since bloomed and seeded, stood forlornly holding empty seed cups.  A reminder that they had done well and would do so again… next spring. Along here the soil dried somewhat and was where Grampa and I would come in April or May. To dig leeks and preserve them as future condiments. Those were some strong onions and not for everyone.

The path then cut through some hazel-brush and alder. Once free of the understory growth it swung uphill through open hardwood. Through the oak, birch, maple and beech, and out on top of a low ridge. Light filtered through the leaves and the air was still and hot. The path was totally dry now and free of any tracks that could indicate that Grampa had passed this way.

But I knew the trail, having been along here with grampa when gathering roots and herbs. Gold thread, cohosh, colts’ foot and wintergreen were all used as ‘medicinals’.  Some could also be blended with sugar and yeast in the making of root beer. This was not to be confused with what I could buy in town in a bottle as soda-pop. This root beer I was told, was ‘purely medicinal’. Late some evenings when I had become tired and maybe a bit whiney and with the adults still into visiting, Grampa would ask. “Maybe you would like some warm tea with a little root beer?”

The drink would be prepared and afterward I would have little recall of the rest of the evening or the trip home. But I loved the root-beer. I liked the way it was sweet and peppery. The way it hissed in the back of the throat and left a little heat after you swallowed.

Once over the ridge the trail wandered downhill to a small pond where the beavers kept a solid dam. We had come a few times to catch some trout. Never anything large, but brook trout. The gold standard of fishing.

I knew where the old man would likely be because we had sat there together many times. Putting our baskets down near one of the many blow-downs. Then sit with our backs against the log so you could feel the heat from it warm your shoulders. Grampa would sit quiet and get out his tobacco. Daily Mail with red rooster papers, and proceed to artfully construct a ‘rollie’. A big wooden match would be sparked up to light the cigarette. The cigarette lit, then the match was snuffed out and stuck deep in the ground, burned end down. Then we’d just sit quiet while the old man smoked. I always knew that adults had a certain place for each specific item, to be used and returned and easily found the next time. I watched as Grampa returned each item to its’ place.

We never really talked that much unless Grampa had something he felt I should know or I might have a question. Generally, we just quietly sat and enjoyed each other’s company ……. and watched for the deer.

Today though Grampa had the rifle across his lap and though curious, I knew better than to ask. I just positioned myself so that between us, we could watch the long expanse of open hardwood running from the ridge. The land sloped downhill to the pond and out toward the marshy land a quarter mile further. The gun, a single shot .25 calibre rim fire Stevens, was generally standing between the sideboard and the wall in the living room of the old house. I had encountered a load of hostility once when I had brought it out. 

We sat there, spied on by a whiskey jack and some chickadees. High in the trees a cicada’s song rose and died as the afternoon began to lose some of its heat. At some point I noticed that Grampa was staying extra still and peering intently at something a bit over to the right.  I turned slightly that way and got a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I cautiously turned a bit more and drew a grunt from Grampa. But now I could see them too.

“Grampa. Two deer!” I whispered. A nudge in my back told me to be quiet. So, we both just sat and watched as the animals slowly browsed along below us, cropping some twig ends and scraping for tubers and such on the ground. Once the animals had moved so that I couldn’t see them very well, I had wanted to move a bit more, but Grampa whispered “No”.

Very softly I was told, “You go and tell Nora I’ll be up for tea. Be quiet and keep the tree between you and the animals. Away with you now!” 

I was off. Totally aware of where the log was, the path was, and the deer were. I didn’t need to look back. I had questions, but apparently now was not the time. I moved away quickly and quietly. Then faster along the path and out of the hardwoods, through the alders to the stream, up the bank to the dusty road and across it to the house.

Nora, my grama, was informed that she was to make some tea and everyone else got to hear about the deer. No one seemed that interested. I was informed that I had to go and clean out the chicken coop. Later, if there was still time I could hoe the beets, but had to be careful to not chop them up. No one seemed that interested in Grampa and the deer. Except me.

I never really remembered hearing a shot.

Years later I would hear from people who had known my Grampa, that he had been notorious for poaching the odd venison. People along the road would relate, how with a good smudge lit and maybe just a bit of chicken manure smoldering to mask the odor of a steaming meat pot, the night in the old house would be dedicated to the preserving of venison. Curtains would be pulled tight and the lamps turned low. 

‘Pot meat’ I knew, was meat or fish preserved in sealers and then stored away for future meals. Generally, it was the meat on the table when our family stayed at my grandparent’s place for supper. Every bit of flesh had been carved from the carcase, cooked and ‘done down’ in jars. People had their own individual recipes for pot meat and it was said that some had ways of preserving everything but grunts and squeals. Once the job was done the meat would keep a long time. 

There were a lot of jars used to preserve an entire deer, and that presented a problem. Having neighbours ‘mention’ hearing a shot to the wrong person could bring a game warden. Having a house full of potted meat could get you a fine and the meat could be taken and lost as well.

All those jars had to be scattered and hidden. The swamps and creeks were good places to cache them. Cold water streams may cover over with snow or get a fringe of ice along the edges, but they won’t freeze to the bottom. They are ready- made coolers. Swampy land too doesn’t freeze hard because all the decomposing matter generates heat and keeps the frozen layer thin. Even just buried in the ground is safe under a blanket of snow.  The old adage that ’snow won’t lay on frozen ground’ is an adage because it’s true. Ground frozen before the snow comes will thaw once covered and insulated by the white stuff.

That night at home I had been told to not mention being on the ridge that afternoon with grampa. That the event was best not mentioned. It should be kept as a secret, and I promised. But really there were two secrets. And one, only I was privy to. For although I had never heard a shot nor seen a dead deer, I knew now that there had been both. I had heard adults talk about poaching. The events of the day, seeing the gun and deer, then being sent back to the house with the request for Nora to make tea. It all just confirmed to me what had happened. I had been sent back so I wouldn’t see too much. And I was to keep it all a secret and not tell what I knew.

But I really did know what had happened. Even little people can follow the clues when the path is so plain.That was my secret! 

                                             ………………………

But the jars these two were talking about had never been retrieved; either the location had been forgotten or Grampa had passed away before they were recovered.

Before I could wonder more the buzzer sounded and a referees’ whistle shrilled at the dressing room door.

“Let’s go.” Everyone was up, pulling on gloves, rattling sticks, wishing each other luck, filing out the door and surging onto the arena floor. The roar from the crowd in stark contrast to the quiet of that hardwood ridge, all those years ago.