Faster Than Wind
Faster Than Wind
Steve Pitt
Copyright © Steve Pitt, 2009
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Editor: Michael Carroll
Design: Courtney Horner
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Pitt, Steve, 1954-
Faster than wind: a novel / by Steve Pitt.
ISBN 978-1-55002-837-9
I. Title.
1 2 3 4 5 13 12 11 10 09
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The
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To Jean and Bertie,
may there always be a warm sun over your heads
and a fair wind on your beam wherever you are
Acknowledgements
For details about iceboat construction and racing, I am deeply indebted to John Sperr of the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club; John Summers, chief curator of the Antique Boat Museum, Clayton, New York; Erich Schloemer, president of Midwest Rowing Ltd.; Deb Whitehorse, Four Lakes Ice Yacht Club in Wisconsin; and Richard Gerrard, registrar of Collections and Conservation Centre, Museum Services, City of Toronto. For sailing jargon, I thank my colleagues at the Saint James Town Sailing Club and apologize in advance for all the mistakes I likely made. For details about the CCM Russell automobile, I thank the Reverend Doug Wright of the United Church of Canada.
1 Donnybrook at the Market
December 24, 1906
“Paper!”
“Porcupines!”
“Paper!”
“Rabbits! Quail and porcupines!”
“Paper!”
“Grouse, wild geese, ducks, swans, quail, moose, venison, and ... porcupines!”
I lowered my newspaper and looked behind me. “Has anyone ever actually bought a Christmas porcupine?” I asked Mr. Crane.
His long nose immediately swivelled and pointed directly at me like a spear. “I’m not out here hollering for my health!” he said, nearly breaking my eardrums.
Mr. Crane must have been doing something right for his health. He had been hawking wild game from the same stall in Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market for sixty years. Barely five feet tall, he always stood ramrod straight, chest puffed out like the stuffed wild turkey perched on the roof of his stall. When he talked even to people two feet away, his voice almost knocked their hats off. His gruffness scared most of the other newspaper boys, but Mr. Crane and I got along fine. I never interfered with his customers, and at the end of the day I handed him all my unsold newspapers to wrap his meats in. Some days, in return, he gave me a small piece of meat to take home to my mother. On other days he offered good advice. Today was an advice day.
“Run, Bertie!” his voice boomed like a starting pistol.
My feet were moving even before I saw the freckle-faced tide closing in on me from three directions. It was the Kellys, a gang of East Side toughs who wanted to hurt me very much.
There were seven daily newspapers in Toronto. Each had their own army of newsboys. If you knew how to hustle and had a good location, there was money to be made. Unfortunately, if you knew how to hurt and intimidate newspaper boys, there was even more money to grab. The Kellys did the latter. If any kid tried to sell newspapers on the East Side of the city, the Kelly Gang surrounded him and demanded half his money. If he refused, they beat him up and took all his money. Although I was small for a fifteen-year-old, I figured I could beat almost any Kelly in a one-on-one fight except their leader Sean, alias “Himself,” who was huge for sixteen. But the Kellys never fought one-on-one. And as Sean always bragged with a smile, “You fight one Kelly, you’re fighting all the Kellys.”
Today it looked as if I was going to fight all of them. For the past three weeks I hadn’t been paying my “rent.” It wasn’t just a silly principle thing. I really needed the money.
I turned right and saw five Kellys surging toward me with their fists clenched. I turned left and spotted five more. Straight in front were at least ten with Himself leading the attack.
With Mr. Crane’s stall to my back, I was completely trapped. There was nothing to do but stand still and wait for the pounding to start. But then that “funny thing” happened again.
My brain liked to think it was the boss, but whenever my body got in trouble my hands and feet took over without asking. This had happened several times in my life already. For example, when I was six years old, a huge, angry dog charged me after it escaped from a dog catcher’s wagon. My mind completely froze, but my hands, without my brain having the simplest clue what they were up to, calmly raised the umbrella I was carrying for my mother and aimed it point first at the stampeding animal like a rifle. Just as the mad mutt was about to sink its teeth into me, my right thumb released the spring catch that held the umbrella shut. The contraption flew open with a loud snap, and the dog ran yelping down the street with its tail between its legs. The dog catcher managed to huff out “Quick thinking, son!” as he chased the canine. Smart thinking? My brain had nothing to do with it. It was all in the hands.
But today I was facing something much worse than a mad dog. It was Sean Kelly. With my brain “watching” in disbelief, my hands suddenly dropped my newspapers and reached behind me. I felt something soft and furry. When I glanced down, I had a dead porcupine in each hand. I was holding each one by a front leg so that their long, bushy tails nearly touched the ground by my feet.