The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan - Volume Two Page 10

  “We know he could.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “He could have been the greatest pitcher this town ever saw. But a guy can’t be anything around here, “Hal said contemptuously.

  With his arms locked around his knees and the last of the twilight touching the side of his lean, brown face, he stared grimly at the glowing surface of the water. He looked lonely, yet proud of his own loneliness. Sam thought he was dreaming of cities where Phelan would be give a chance to pitch, but suddenly Hal laughed. “Well, I know what I should be,” he said sharply. “If you do, too, you’ll get moving. I hate my uncle’s guts. I’m clearing out of here at the end of the week, heading north. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, but I like the woods and the rivers. I’ll make something out of myself, all by myself. I never belonged around here, Sammy.” At the end of the week he went off without saying good-bye to anyone and the town soon forgot Hal McGibbney.

  Sam Crowther stayed at home, forced to forget about his ambitious dreams of life in strange countries. He finished high school, but he did not go to the university, for his father died, and Sam’s mother wanted him to take over the flour-and-feed store, which he did. Shortly afterward, he married Louella Chipman, whose father had come to town to manage the new grain elevator. She was a flighty little blond girl, with a timid streak. She liked church work and euchre parties, and she grew plump and pale.

  Sam lost most of his hair, wore glasses, wished he had children, and became, by the time he was forty-four, a dignified figure who had run for mayor, been defeated in a close election, and whose store was a center for political gossip.

  One summer afternoon, Sam was sitting on the stool behind his counter glancing at the city newspaper while he talked idly with young Tom Stevens, the red-headed, ambitious reporter for the town paper.

  “Look at this,” Sam said suddenly, as he looked at a story in which a woman who had been married to the celebrated naturalist, Snow Bird, now claimed that he was not an Ojibwa Indian, but a white man, an impostor. The woman said Snow Bird had divorced her ten years ago and had custody of their son, John Snow Bird. Now she claimed to be destitute. Snow Bird had a great audience and had just returned to New York from a triumphal tour of England. His beautifully written books on the wolves and the deer of the north shore of Lake Superior had been highly praised and had had a big sale.

  “A phony. Another phony,” Tom Stevens said, with the cynical satisfaction of a young newspaperman.

  “Just a minute,” Sam said slowly, staring at the picture of Snow Bird and his son.

  Snow Bird looked like a dignified, superior Mohawk or Ojibwa, with a thin, high-bridged nose and shrewd, narrow eyes. He wore his hair in two braids with a single feather. The son, who looked like his father and was about fourteen, was obviously a proud, confident boy, and he had been sent to a good private school.

  “Hey, you read this?” Tom suddenly asked, quickly looking up from his own copy of the paper. “The woman says Snow Bird came from some town around here — maybe Parry Sound or Midland — and that his real name is McKechnie.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” Sam said softly, his eyes bright with excitement. He covered the feather in the Snow Bird picture and studied the picture of the boy alone, and he whispered softly. “The woman’s got it a little wrong, Tom,” he said. “It wasn’t Parry Sound or Midland. It was right here. And the name wasn’t McKechnie. It was McGibbney.”

  “You sure?” Tom asked. “It says here Snow Bird’s New York publisher says the woman’s story’s malicious blackmail. You sure, Sam?”

  “I’m not so sure of that picture of Snow Bird,” Sam admitted, trembling, “not with the feather and long hair. And thirty years is a long time. But it’s the boy. He looks too much like Hal McGibbney.”

  “But there are no McGibbneys around here, Sam.”

  “That’s right. Hal lived here with his uncle, Henry Bryant, for about three years. Hell, we were both boys together. Bryant’s dead now, and his wife is, too, but lots of people around here remember the Bryants.”

  “If you’re right, Sam —”

  “Sure, I’m right.”

  “Look, let’s go up to the library,” Tom said, “and see what we can find out about Snow Bird.”

  Telling his wife to look after the store, Sam left with Tom Stevens. They walked along the sunlit main street and around the corner to the red brick library, where the librarian gave them three of Snow Bird’s books and a short account of his life written for a popular magazine. They sat down at the big oaken table and began to read together. The account was straightforward enough; he claimed he was born in a village near James Bay and came down to the north shore of Lake Superior when he was a boy. There was no doubt he had lived in a village called The Mission, at the mouth of the Michipicotten River, for half-breed families there remembered him. He still went back to that Algoman hill country. Most of the Indians on the north shore were Ojibwas, and he spoke their language.

  “That all ties in,” Sam said eagerly. “He showed up in that north country when he was a boy; after he was a kid around here.” Then he picked up a Snow Bird book about the pursuit of deer by a wolf.

  “Come on, Sam. Let’s go,” Tom said.

  “Imagine a kid from around here writing stuff like this, and having such a life, a philosopher, too,” Sam said in a melancholy tone. “I remember when Hal and I used to sit at the end of the dock talking about the kind of lives we were going to lead when we grew up. Yeah, and we always went up to the park together to watch the ball games.” He smiled a little. “There was a pitcher around here named Loppy Phelan. We made him our hero. We used to talk about him all the time. I wonder if Hal ever thinks about Loppy now?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Hal always knew what he wanted,” Sam said, tapping the book, “and it looks as if he headed right for it.” A far-away look came into his eyes. “I had crazy dreams, too. I used to talk to him about going to Brazil or Mexico. Well, here I am, stuck here.”

  Tom walked as far as the store with Sam, and then he left and began to make inquiries about the Bryant family and a boy named Hal McGibbney. Then he wrote the story, and it appeared next day in the local paper. It was a clever story with pictures of Sam and Snow Bird and an account of the days when the two boys used to follow the fortunes of the ball team and celebrate Loppy Phelan’s greatness as a pitcher. “I Wonder If Snow Bird Ever Thinks Of Loppy Phelan Now” was the heading for the story, which delighted the town when it appeared. It was picked up by the news services and reprinted all over the continent.

  “I don’t like all this, Tom. In fact, I wish I hadn’t shot my mouth off to you,” Sam said when Tom came into his store three days later. “I’ve got nothing but admiration for what Hal McGibbney has done with his life.”

  “Take it easy,” Tom said. “I thought you’d like to have a look at these clippings.” In New York, Snow Bird’s publisher had issued a statement, dismissing Sam Crowther as an obvious exhibitionist seeking local notoriety. Snow Bird’s statement was briefer. “I was never in Collingwood,” he said. “I never played baseball. I never heard of this man Sam Crowther.”

  “What else can the man say?” Sam asked. “He can’t say now that I told the truth.” But his pride was hurt. “I mean he might have said I was only mistaken.”

  His neighbors agreed. “Sam’s no liar,” they insisted when they read what Snow Bird had said. “If he made a mistake he’ll admit it later on. Nobody should laugh at him.” But when they came to the store they smiled indulgently. This sympathetic respect exasperated him. His wife’s fear of what would happen disgusted him. “You’ll get us into terrible trouble,” she cried, wringing her hands, her moist and startled blue eyes shining with anger. All her life she had been uneasy about anything that might cause gossip about her. “You’ll have us dragged into court, and we’ll lose everything.”

  A week later, an attractive young woman in a brown gabardine suit came into Sam’s store at three in the af
ternoon and said she was Miss James from the Montreal Star.

  “I’m sorry, Miss James,” Sam said gruffly. “I’m through making a fool of myself in the newspaper.”

  “But you told the truth, didn’t you, Mr. Crowther?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “After checking around here, that’s the way I figure it,” Miss James said. She had a casual manner. “You’ve got a fine reputation, Mr. Crowther. So we’re convinced Snow Bird is a phony.”

  “Just a minute,” Sam said sharply. “The man who wrote the beautiful stuff he wrote is no phony.”

  “So he’s a real Indian?”

  “No. Like I said, he’s Hal McGibbney.”

  “Snow Bird,” she said, smiling, “is in Montreal next Saturday night.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said.

  “Why not come to Montreal, Mr. Crowther? My paper will pay your expenses. It’s in the public interest.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, confused. He felt he had cheapened himself, yet he had a wondering admiration for the man he believed he had known as a boy.

  “Look here,” he began carefully, “you have to agree to get him off to one side and not say anything more than, ‘Mr. Crowther believes he knew you a few years ago.’”

  “Okay, swell,” Miss James said. “I’ll get the tickets.”

  She fled because Sam’s wife, who had been listening, suddenly rushed in, crying, “What kind of a fool are you?”

  Sam knew she would never understand or care that he had dreamed of a different kind of life. “I am going to Montreal, Lou. That’s settled,” he said quietly.

  Sam wore his good blue serge suit. It was a pleasant trip. Miss James was an amusing girl. After cocktails and dinner at the hotel, they took a taxi to the building where Snow Bird was lecturing, and when Snow Bird came on to the stage, Sam put on his glasses and leaned forward, trembling. Snow Bird, thin and frail and suffering from tuberculosis, was wearing a white dinner jacket and braided hair with a single feather. He had a grave, unaffected dignity.

  He talked of a journey he had made in the winter to the country around James Bay and a battle he had witnessed between a lynx and a bear in the twilight.

  “I’m not fooled by the look of him,” Sam thought stubbornly as he leaned forward, trying to see something that would remind him surely of the boy he had known. But gradually he forgot where he was and his resentment disappeared and his feeling of admiration seemed to come out of a pride in his own youth. When Snow Bird finished and the applause died down and some went to the platform to have Snow Bird autograph books, Miss James said, “Come on, Mr. Crowther, we’ll speak to him.”

  “Please remember, Miss James,” Sam said while they were waiting, “we’ll just mention my name. We’ll leave it up to him. If he says I’m mistaken, all right. I think he’ll want to have a talk with me.”

  Then Snow Bird came toward them. “Snow Bird,” Miss James said, trying not to sound too eager. “I’m from the Montreal Star. This is Sam Crowther, a friend of yours, I believe.”

  “Really,” Snow Bird said gravely. He looked at Sam, and the muscles around his narrow eyes twitched. He looked steadily at Sam for a long time and then he smiled with an unassailable dignity. “I don’t know Mr. Crowther,” he said.

  “He’s from Collingwood,” Miss James said quickly. Snow Bird’s unruffled dignity had upset her; she felt like a flustered young girl being brushed aside. She forgot her promise to Sam: “Mr. Crowther was sure you had been boys together, played baseball, and that you both used to talk a lot about a great pitcher named Loppy Phelan.”

  “Does he think so?” Snow Bird asked.

  “Maybe I was mistaken,” Sam said quickly, searching for some little flicker of recognition. “It’s easy to make a mistake,” Sam said, nodding. “I thought if we could have a little talk . . .”

  People were edging closer, trying to hear every word, including the black-haired boy in the expensive suit who was Snow Bird’s son. “Yes, we know about you, Mr. Crowther,” he whispered bitterly. “I know you’re out to destroy my father. You are just a cheap liar.”

  “Wait a minute, son,” Sam began, but the hatred in the boy’s eyes made him feel soiled and ashamed. He turned to Miss James, who was watching, bright-eyed, and then he abruptly fled from the hall and along the street and down the hill to his hotel, where he packed his bag and caught the night train for home.

  But the story of his furtive flight was written faithfully by Miss James. In time, it appeared in the town paper, and Sam’s wife cried when she read it. “Oh, you fool, Sam,” she moaned. “They’ll never ask you to run for mayor again around here. Now we’re the laughingstock of the town.”

  Grabbing his hat, he hurried along the main street to the town paper, and he tried to explain it all to Tom Stevens. “It was the boy that upset me,” he began. “He had such faith in his father.”

  When he saw that Tom hardly believed him, his heart filled with bitterness. “Look, Tom. Print this, have it printed all over the world. The man is a phony. A first-rate phony.”

  He said this again and again to customers who came to his store. At first they listened, but then he became a bore. When he saw that he had lost all dignity, he suddenly stopped talking about Snow Bird. He hid his bitterness but nursed it in his heart. He began to read the New York papers, particularly the book sections. All that autumn and on through the winter, as if he were pursuing the man, when he came across an item about Snow Bird he cut it out and pasted it in a scrapbook he kept in a locked trunk in his cellar.

  In the spring, Snow Bird’s New York publishers wrote Sam a dignified letter in which they pointed out that his story, told and retold by malicious gossips, had gravely damaged not only a man’s reputation but a very valuable publishing property. They had made inquiries about him and were convinced he was a reputable and esteemed citizen in his community, unlike Snow Bird’s former wife, who was simply a grasping, disgruntled, vindictive woman. As an honorable citizen would he not, therefore, be generous enough to state formally that he had made a mistake, and in that way undo some of the damage done to a man who had never harmed him?

  Smiling to himself, Sam wrote to the publisher, saying that his own reputation had been gravely damaged in his own home town.

  Then, in the early summer, Snow Bird collapsed on Madison Avenue in New York, and his picture was in the paper. They said he did not have the temperament of a man who could stand the long confinement of sanatorium treatment for tuberculosis. Sam Crowther read about it in his store in Collingwood with a strange mixture of sadness, excitement, and a feeling that he was being cheated.

  A week later, Sam got another letter from the New York publisher. Snow Bird was dying of tuberculosis pneumonia, the publisher wrote. His nurse had reported that several times during the night fever, he had mumbled the name, “Sam Crowther.” The publisher pointed out that the unhappy question of Snow Bird’s identity had been revived, and that they believed he wanted to clear his name for the sake of his son, John Snow Bird. Would Mr. Crowther be good enough to come to New York at their expense . . . ?

  Sam arrived in New York on a Friday morning when it was raining and was met by Mr. Gilbey, a gray, polite man. “We might as well go right to the hospital,” he said. “The poor fellow. It’s only a matter of days. Maybe hours.”

  In the taxi, the publisher was fascinated by the grim, stubborn expression on Sam’s face, and he began to feel unhappy as they entered the hospital and went along the corridor to Snow Bird’s room. A nurse at the door whispered, “We’ve given him a sedative that eases the cough, Mr. Gilbey. He may fall into a sleep.”

  Before he had a chance to look at Snow Bird on the bed, Sam saw the black-haired boy get up from a chair by the window.

  “Mr. Crowther, I believe you’ve met Snow Bird’s son,” the publisher said gently.

  “Yes,” Sam said, turning away.

  “Snow Bird,” the publisher called, as they moved closer to the bed. “Snow Bird, this is Sam Crowther
. We thought you wanted to see him.”

  “Sam Crowther,” Snow Bird repeated in a hoarse whisper. There was the flicker of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “Sam Crowther,” he whispered again. Then, with that name on his lips he seemed to drift to the edge of sleep or dreaming recollection. Sam, shaken, wanted to cry out and compel his recognition. The boy, standing tensely at the foot of the bed, suddenly cried, “Why did you come down on us? Why did you want to persecute us, Mr. Crowther?”

  “What?” Sam asked. He saw Snow Bird open his eyes, watching the boy anxiously. “No matter what you say,” the boy whispered, “there are things you can’t take away from us. My father has the Indian blood. I know he has it. Isn’t that right, Dad?”

  Snow Bird, his eyes on Sam, whispered so faintly that his words were a blur of sound, “Yes — and Loppy Phelan had the double shoot.”

  “I couldn’t quite make that out,” the publisher said. “I heard, ‘yes,’ but what was the rest?”

  “He said ‘yes’ Mr. Crowther, and you heard him,” the boy insisted.

  “Yes,” Sam agreed. But he was shocked. He saw young Hal McGibbney sitting on the stumps of the dock that evening many years ago, talking about their pitcher, Loppy Phelan, and he heard himself say: “Hal, maybe he didn’t really have that double shoot!” Sam turned to the boy as if he was going to explain, but he could not. He rubbed the back of his neck slowly with his right hand. Then he went closer to the bed, to the man who called himself Snow Bird, whose eyes were now closed.

  “Mr. Crowther,” the publisher said hesitantly, “so little was said — I mean, can you be satisfied in your own mind?”

  “Yes, I’m satisfied,” Sam said simply. But then the sudden pain of regret about the way his own life had gone bewildered him. Sam shook his head and hurried out of the room, nursing his terrible loneliness.

  Ellen

  Old Mr. Mason had always longed with a desperate earnestness that his daughter, Ellen, should be happy. She had lived alone with him since she had been a little girl. Years ago his wife, after a long time of bickering and secret bitterness over his failure to get along in business, had left him, left him to a long monotony of steady working days and evenings at home, listening to music from the gramophone or waiting for election time so that he could go to meetings. He had hoped for a bright joyousness in Ellen’s life, and whenever he heard her laugh and saw how independently she walked along the street, and felt her cool reticence, he was sure she would be content. Ellen was a small girl with little hands and feet, blue eyes set far apart and a wide forehead and a face that tapered to her chin. She wore her clothes with grace and natural assurance.