6

THE
JORDAN FALLS
FORERUNNER

JORDAN FALLS

Storytelling isn’t like writing. You’ve got to put a little more of yourself into it when you’re sitting there staring at your audience across the flicker of a campfire or into the glare of stage lights. So I hope you’ll forgive me if I talk a little of my own life now.

I was raised in the woods of Northern Ontario, high in the shield country, about twenty miles north of Sudbury in a little town called Capreol. My mom and dad had married a little too early and went their separate ways, and my brother Dan and I were raised by our grandparents. Dan is still out there in Capreol, working for the CNR. My mom went back home to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and Dad eventually moved out west to Blairmore, Alberta. Being a working man, Dad had little time to travel, and neither did I.

I can count the number of days my father and I had any chance to speak with each other. He once travelled to Nova Scotia for two weeks to come see me. We talked as best we could, shared a beer or two, and tried to make up for the years that had been left behind.

He was a lonely man, I think, but happy nonetheless. He’d found a good woman who put up with his lonely ways. He became the president of the Blairmore Legion and was responsible for the building of a brand new legion hall.

He died at age fifty-eight of a sudden heart attack. I received the telephone call late at night. “Your dad’s had a heart attack,” Lila said. I remember thinking how my grandfather had lived through three such heart attacks. “He’ll have to slow down,” I said. Only it was a little late for that. The old reaper had already slowed Dad down for good.

I flew out to Blairmore to see him one last time. I touched his cheek in the coffin, cold and ruddy from a life spent working outdoors.

The night before my dad died I dreamed of him. In my dream we were sitting in the living room I’d grown up in and we were watching an old western on the television. We talked and got along, as if time had not passed. And then he turned to me and said, “I’ll be going now.”

I do not talk of this much, but that is how it happened. A night later I stood in my kitchen receiving the hardest telephone call I’ve ever had to take. Was it a coincidence? Maybe, but I tend to believe that my father’s spirit came to me in my dream to make peace and to tell me to hang onto my memories of him in any way I could.

In the winter of 1888, a great blizzard ravaged the eastern coast of the United States and the Maritimes, dumping over four feet of snow and paralyzing transportation, yet there were far more chilling events about to transpire.

In the tiny village of Jordan Falls, just outside of Shelburne, Ephraim Doane awoke in his bedroom, screaming as if the devil were at his very door.

“Abandon ship!” he called out, sitting upright in his bed, terrifying his young wife Mabel.

She rose and made them a cup of tea, allowing Ephraim to catch his breath.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’ve had a terrible dream.”

Now Mabel was descended from a long line of highland women, and she knew enough about the power of dreams. Spirits talked to you in dreams, and gods and devils walked hand in hand through the mist-ridden foothills of sleep.

“Tell me about it,” she said to him.

“We were out at sea in the midst of a terrible gale. The ship was heel-toeing like a step dancer’s boot. I looked out into the roiled-up waters and saw your eyes looking at me, and then somewhere high above my head I heard the mainmast snap and fall.”

Mabel sat and sipped her tea. She knew what a forerunner was. To dream of death in such a way meant death was certainly headed straight for you.

“You must stay home,” she told him. “Nothing but bad luck will come of such a dream.”

Ephraim Doane was a stubborn Nova Scotian man, and Mabel knew that arguing with him was about as productive as ordering the wind to rest from its constant blowing.

“There’s fish out there for the catching,” Ephraim said, “and these bills won’t be paying themselves.”

“Well then, wear this,” Mabel said, pulling her grandmother’s silver crucifix from her neck.

“I can’t take this,” Ephraim said. “It belonged to your grand-mother.”

“Bring it back to me, then,” Mabel fiercely said, clasping the tiny silver cross about her husband’s neck.

So the next morning before the crows had even gotten out of bed, Ephraim Doane pulled on his two pairs of socks and his gum rubber boots and made the journey down to the pier. His ship sailed that morning, heading for the fishing grounds, but Mabel refused to watch it sail away.

There’s a stillness that seems to hush the very air just before a big storm rushes in on the sea or the shore. You can feel it as the sky seems to hold its breath in dread of what is about to come.

On board Ephraim’s ship, the captain warned, “Batten the hatches and make fast all lines. There’s a heavy guster coming in hard and strong.”

The watchful crew had already begun setting about the necessary preparations. It was good to hear their instinctive certainty confirmed by the captain’s unmistakable orders. When all of the preparations had been tended to and all of the loose hatches made fast and the lines tied and retied there was nothing left to do but to hold on tight and see if the ship could outlive the blow.

Ephraim wasn’t worried. He’d been a sailor and fisherman his whole life and he had long ago sworn on the Southern Cross that he’d be buried on the dry land. Yet the other night’s dream kept bothering him. It haunted him so much that when he heard the mainmast snap he looked straight up, hoping beyond hope that he was still swimming in the depths of his nightmare.

All hands went down with the ship. The December waters in the Atlantic are cold enough to freeze the very blood in a man’s veins. The storm took everyone; not a single survivor remained.

Back on land, Mabel had no such doubts. She knew what a forerunner meant. Just as soon as Ephraim left that morning, she cried for a full half hour. Then, deciding that her husband would suffer through more than his share of salt water and sorrow, she busied herself brushing off his best jacket and pants and preparing for the bad news she felt certain would come.

Three days and three nights passed without a sign of Ephraim’s vessel. Everyone in the town presumed that the ship had sunk without a trace. Such events were common in coastal towns.

On the fourth morning they found him washed ashore, still clinging to all that remained of the mainmast. Tucked in his fro-zen hands was Mabel’s silver crucifix.

He’d come home to his wife, as he’d promised, bringing her crucifix home, as he’d likewise promised, and he was buried on dry land as he’d sworn so long ago upon the stars of the Southern Cross.