No, I said.

Did I know any of his places?

Well, I said. He often goes up back of Creignish Mountain, around the old Shimon Angus place.

No, somebody said. That's too far. He went on foot. He'll be out somewhere around Sugar Camp or Queensville.

So that's where we spent Saturday.

"I never really took it serious, until I got here," he says. "Jesus, the commotion. Cars and trucks lined up along the road. The house full of people. The old lady in control. Poor Aunt Mary in pretty bad shape. I think that was the end of Grandpa, that night."

Tramping through the woods all day Saturday, I couldn't help thinking of the girl in Long Point. Figuring the next time I'd know what to do. There was a regular Saturday dance down near Port Hood. At Neilie MacDonald's. Should have made a date to go to that. All the time suspecting this was a waste of time. Nothing could have happened to electric man. Sandy the Lineman. A frigging Indian in the woods. Shot in his big thick head in the war and survived that. Could take on any four people and they wouldn't lay a hand on him. Probably holed up somewhere with a crock. But also with a rifle. What if he broke his own rule about hunting and drinking? Then the Swede's wife crept into my mind. And I kept seeing him getting into that big car. Maybe they just took off. For Halifax. Or Sweden. Who knows? The old man always made the world seem small. So maybe that was it. They were gone. And we were wasting all this time. Time better used making plans for tonight and the one from Long Point. And wasting the time of all these people. Pulp mill guys. Linemen. Mounties. Christ Jesus. Knowing that all these people would add the futile stupid search to the rest of the stories about Sandy the Stickman. The Fugitive. It was embarrassing, seeing all the people who were spending their Saturday trudging around the woods. Half the fucking Legion here. We'd pay for it. Bastard. Leaving me to face this.

Then you'd think about Kennedy. Everybody talking about that.

Of course the real reason we were wasting our time was because we were looking in the wrong place.

It was other hunters who found him. Two fellows from Louisdale who didn't even know about the search that was under way down near Queensville. They were hunting up back of Creignish Mountain, a couple of miles to the northeast, at Ceiteag Alasdair's.

It was Sunday.

"Everything changed then."

"I guess so," I say, pouring a little more rum into my cup.

"Where were you when you heard?" he asks.

"I think everybody was at Mass when they found him."

The priest prayed for him and Kennedy together even though we didn't know Pa was dead. Hearing their names together, I felt panic. Wanted to jump out and shout at Father Hughie: What the fuck do you think you're doing?

"We got in late from Halifax. We had to stop in Antigonish, tell the priest we were taking his car down here. Then when we get out here, herself meets me on the doorstep. Says they found him. Fuuuck."

Ceiteag Alasdair. An old woman from another time. Stamped her name and character on a patch of woods up in the mountains. By natural selection, her name had overwhelmed the memory of any man who might ever have been part of her life. There were women like that. Henrietta Maclnnis. Her descendants were known as Henny's, no matter who their fathers were. Ciorstaidh Maclntyre. Her descendants were known as the Ciorsti's. No matter who their fathers were. And Ceiteag Alasdair. Talk about women's liberation. They're like spruce trees, women like that. Indestructible.

All that was left of Ceiteag's life was a small cellar, crowded by bushes that bore lush berries in the summer but exposed in the winter, at least until the snow came and filled it up. It was lined with careful fieldstones. About ten feet square and you'd hardly notice it. Until you were into it.

That's what they figured. He came along not paying attention. Fell in. Rifle went off. Boom.

You'd never have expected something like that could happen to Sandy Gillis. A veteran of the war. Slogged all the way through France. Battle of the Scheldt. Lots of action in Holland. An experienced hunter. Like an Indian, he was. But then you'd never have expected him to take a flask with him hunting either. He loved a dram, but never when he was hunting. Drinking and guns don't mix, he always told me, and that is what they were all saying at the wake. But there it was, beside him. The little brown paper bag with the empty bottle inside. A pint. Golden Diamond. The receipt said Thursday evening. You could still get a pint of rum for about $2.50 then.

The other thing they were saying was that it was completely unlike Sandy Gillis to have had a bullet in the chamber, unless of course he saw something. Was getting ready to shoot. In any event, they figured he fell in, landed on a rock in the bottom of the old cellar, the rifle under him. The force of the fall broke the stock, right at the hand grip, caused the thing to fire. The bullet went in under his chin and right out the top. A frigging mess.

"When I came home for the long weekend in October, Thanks-giving, everything seemed just fine," he says.

"It was."

"Ma told me they went to the masquerade dance in Glendale."

"They won a prize."

"That should have been a sign."

"Of what? "I say.

"Uncharacteristic behaviour. A sign of trouble."

"Don't get started," I say.

"No point avoiding it."

"Just don't."

"John, the evidence was there. He even broke off the rifle-stock so it would fit between his lap and his chin-"

"It was an accident."

"Christ, I can't believe this."

"I'm just not going to discuss it with you."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Because I already know what you think," I say finally. Getting my chance. Hanging on to myself. "I already fucking know what you think. Myself and the whole goddamned world."

"Ahhhh Jeesus," he says. Sounding just like my old man. Getting up, clattering the chair. Walking impatiently over to the sink. Leaning, looking like he's going to throw up. Then turning.

"I wrote that with respect. Get it? Respect. For Uncle Sandy. Okay?"

Now he's leaning on the table.

"So it hurt you. So it scandalized the countryside. But it was pretty close to the truth. The truth that Uncle Sandy was a good, honourable man. No matter what went on with the Swede's wife. No matter what happened out at Ceiteag's."

"It's all bullshit," I say. Quietly. The way Uncle Jack would have.

"Right," he says. "Fine. You think what you want."

4.

We had a wake at the house. For three days. Had to take the window out of the living room to get the coffin in. The kitchen and the old pantry were packed with women the whole time. People all over the place, telling stories. Stayed around the clock. And every couple of hours, gathering in the living room, flickering with candles. Kneeling in front of that closed and silent mahogany box. Saying the rosary, over and over.

And people watching the Kennedy things on TV. The body coming back to Washington. The big hearse through the lined streets.

"They were almost the same age," Ma said. Her face white and still.

"They had the exact same birthday. Him and our Sandy."

Isn't that something.

And them both wounded in the war.

You think.

And the little fellow's name is John too.

I never thought of that.

You know, Mary looked a lot like Jackie when she was younger. She still does. Mary won't be single long. Will you, Mary?

She could smile.

Uncle Jack was home from Newfoundland. Lots who came were his friends. Miners. With big thick sloped shoulders, coming in slowly, the way miners walk. Carefully. From always walking in the dark.

"Sorry for your trouble," they'd say, thick hands gentle and slow.

"Yes," Jack would say.

"And where are you now?"

"Tilt Cove."

"And is there much going on?"

"Going to be some new stuff in the spring. Talking about a second shaft."

"I suppose they'll be looking for people."

"Get in touch with me after."

"Anybody with you from here?"

"The Beaton boys from West Mabou. Charlie Angus from Loch Lomond. Philip MacPhail. From River Denys."

"Charlie Angus?"

"Yeah, he's there. Same as ever."

"And poor Philip."

"Okay. Good of you to come."

"Jesus. Sorry for your trouble."

"I know."

Uncle Jack was drinking vodka most of the time. I found six pints of it buried in the dresser drawer where I kept my underwear. Once when I came into my room he was sitting on my bed drinking out of one of the bottles.

I sat down beside him.

We just sat there.

The last evening, the night before the funeral, the Swede came with his wife. The house got very quiet. A lot of the men there worked at the mill. He was dressed in a suit coming in. Herself was wearing a navy blue long coat and she had a red silky scarf at the neck. Pinned by a little tulip brooch. And a little navy hat on. She didn't look at all like any other time I'd seen her. She looked plain. The hair looked dull and damp. There were bluish crescents below her eyes. No lipstick. And she looked unbelievably sad.

They talked briefly to Ma. Shook my hand. Her eyes were scanning my face, and we nodded at each other. I was remembering the other times I'd seen that face, with its smile and mysterious signals. Ma was overly polite to them. As if the bishop had docked.

Then they went down to the living room together, arm in arm. And they stood there in front of the coffin. Not kneeling or blessing themselves or anything. Just standing there. I was watching from behind. She was hanging on to her husband's arm. Her head actually turned toward his shoulder as if she was going to lean her face into it.

Then they turned and came out. They put their names in the visitors' book and on their way by they stopped in front of us and shook hands again. I noticed that Sandgren took Ma's hand between both of his and he said to her with a little bit of an accent, "He was a good man, Mr. Gillis."

Ma nodded but she was staring at the Swede's wife, trying to say something, or hold something back.

The Swede's wife said: "I come from Holland. My home was Zutphen. Your poor husband. When we spoke. He told me there are people here. Van Zutphens. I hope to meet them. One day."

Ma said, "My husband was there. In the war."

"Yes," the Swede's wife said. "I knew. I remember the Canadians. I was a girl. But I remember." Her cheeks were pink and the eyes flashed, and I think her quick sorrow bumped Ma a little off balance because she then took the Swede's wife's hand and said simply, "I'm glad you came."

"Maybe we can talk sometime," the Swede's wife said.

"Maybe," Ma replied.

"My name is Annie," she said. "Annie van Ryk."

"Yes," said Ma. "It was nice meeting you."

Like it was all over.

There was a wet streak from the corner of the Swede's wife's eye. She turned to her husband and quietly said, "We should go now."

Squint was eyeballing them both, sitting at the kitchen table where I'm sitting now, an odd twist to his face. As they were leaving, he was saying to nobody in particular, out of the side of his mouth: "Good thing the fuamhair wasn't here for that."

Here's what Millie told me years later, sitting in my car on top of Creignish Mountain, looking out over St. Georges Bay.

How sometime in the early summer of 1963 the Swede's wife arrived at her parents' farm over near Dundee, on the shores of the west bay of the Bras d'Or lakes. Had a big visit with the old people. Talking Dutch. Millie doesn't speak Dutch even though she was born over there and learned it first. She gave it up when she started school. Resented all the reminders: You people don't know how good you've got it here; you don't know what hunger is; you don't know what being occupied by monsters was like; never mind you were little, you didn't know; we protected you.

After the woman left they told Millie she was somebody from home. That she grew up in a place that had been liberated by Canadians; met some of them; boys from Nova Scotia; one named Gillis; was just curious.

Millie said: "I remember my father saying he told her, 'Good luck. Half the people here seem to be named Gillis. Or MacDonald.' Poppa figured she'd had a crush on somebody named that, in the war. You don't think it could have been?"

I can remember the sorrow that moved through me then, toward the fire ditch. But feeling none of the relief he'd promised.