View from the Hill

My partner Will, who was born and raised in Ontario, is quite enthusiastic about the off-beat culture of this new ‘country’ we’ve come to inhabit. He’s taken to the traditions, the music and the way of life like a duck in a drought takes to water. But sometimes the language gets the better of him, and sometimes the resulting confusion gets the better of us both.

Yesterday, for example, Will rang up to introduce himself to a neighbour from whom we hoped to purchase some hay bales to skirt our cabin for the winter. Judging by his side of the conversation, the negotiations seemed to be going well.

“Oh, that’s perfect then…What’s a good time for you?…Er, okay, that’s fine, we’ll drop by tomorrow around then.”

He rang off to announce triumphantly that he had secured the hay at the most reasonable price of $1.00 per bale and that we were off to pick it up the next evening.

Now, it seemed a bit odd that the job was scheduled for the evening. Unlike the city, there are no street lights, and around here work is done during the daylight hours. But we just supposed that the fellow had other business during the day, and if we had to work in darkness, we would somehow deal with it.

But it nagged at me. It just didn’t seem right somehow. This was simply not the way of things here. Nonetheless, the next evening we set off in the pitch darkness to pick up our hay. On the way there I was struck by a sudden thought.

“So tell me,” I said, “what exactly did this guy say to you on the phone? Did he actually use the word ‘evening’?

“Yes,” says Will, “He said to come tonight.”

“But did he say ‘evening’?

“Well, he said to come by after dinner.”

I started to laugh. Here in Newfoundland they do not eat lunch and dinner, they eat dinner and supper. We were on our way to pick up hay from a fellow who had been expecting us to show up in the afternoon.

Since we were already on the road, we continued on to the farm, but with some trepidation at meeting this stranger who had wasted precious daylight hours waiting around for us to show.

We needn’t have worried. Newfoundlanders are a laid-back lot who mightily appreciate a good laugh. In fact, when we explained how the misunderstanding had come about, our newfound neighbour was so greatly amused that he dropped the price of the hay to fifty cents a bale.

We’ll be picking them up tomorrow…after dinner.

It’s early morning on Freedom Hill. The sun is just rising, the sky is clear and the heavy frost glistens on the grass, a cold but enchanted world. The air is still for a change, the only sounds the soft crackling of the fire and the steady thumping of the axe as the day’s firewood is chopped in the still, early silence of the new day. These are natural and comforting sounds, the kind of sounds that speak of home and hearth, the kind of sounds that make you feel as if all is well with the world.

It is a tableau that makes you want to breathe the sharp, clean day deep into your lungs and spread your arms in worship and gladness, where the forest beckons you to wander amidst its towering giants, immersing yourself in the slowly awakening woods, absorbing and being absorbed by the raw, life-inspiring beauty and peace of the natural world.

But then another, less homey sound shatters the scene and splinters the primal magic of the morning. The reverie is lost as a gunshot rings out over the wildwood, waking the forest abruptly and putting an end to a fragile and rare moment. The world hangs motionless for an interminable few seconds, as do I in midstride, and then the birds flare up from the trees as another shot echoes, signalling another end.

There is nothing surreal about the stalker with the gun, and I have images of the frightened, wounded, dying beast pleading with its eyes as the hunter finishes it off with savage glee, his own heart racing with another, less empathic emotion than my own. I have a moment of savagery myself then, wanting to turn the hunter into the hunted to see how he likes the feeling of surprise and terror, to watch his eyes as he stares, helpless, down the length of his own, unnatural death.

But there is nothing I can do to change this reality, nothing I can do to prevent my neighbour’s killing for the sheer joy of it, nothing I can do reverse the moment, to bring back the magic or the life that has been lost.

I dare not venture out now; it is not safe to walk with nature this day, and so I turn my steps toward the house once more with a heavier heart, carrying there the sad, burdening truth that escapes the shooter—that man will win…and lose…in the end.