Danger at the Landings for pdf.indd
Danger at
The Landings
Sequel to Ellie’s New Home & The Freezing Moon
BECKY CITRA
an
orca
young reader
GRADES 2 - 5
AGES 7 - 10
an
orca
young
reader
Max longs for adventure, but is expected to
be an obedient son and a helpful younger
brother. When his pig, Hambone, is slaugh-
tered, Max resolves to run away. Instead, he
is bundled off to stay with his stern and de-
manding uncle, the miller at The Landings.
There, adventure finally comes to Max when
he least expects it.
Becky Citra is a primary school teacher and writer who
lives on a ranch in Bridge Lake, BC, where horses,
bears and coyotes abound, and where many of the
chores have not changed much since Max’s day.
$6.95 CAN
$4.99 USA
cover art by Don Kilby
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
an
orca
young
reader
Danger at
The Landings
Becky Citra
$6.95 CAN
$4.99 USA
Orca Book Publishers
Copyright © 2002 Becky Citra
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage and retrieval system now known or to be
invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Citra, Becky
Danger at the Landings
“An Orca young reader”
ISBN 1-55143-232-3
1. Frontier and pioneer life--Canada--Juvenile fiction. I. Title.
PS8555.I87D36 2002 jC813’.54 C2002-910841-1
PZ7.C499Da 2002
Library of Congress Control Number: 2002109532
Summary: When Max is bundled off to stay with his uncle, the miller, in an Upper Canada village, the adventure he longs for comes when he least expects it.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support of
its publishing programs provided by the following agencies:
the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council
for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.
Design by Christine Toller
Cover illustration by Don Kilby
Interior illustrations by Cindy Ghent
Printed and bound in Canada
IN CANADA
IN THE UNITED STATES
Orca Book Publishers
Orca Book Publishers
PO Box 5626, Station B
PO Box 468
Victoria, BC Canada
Custer, WA USA
V8R 6S4
98240-0468
04 03 02 • 5 4 3 2 1
To my nephew Mark Kearns,
a great reader and writer,
for all his help on this book.
Chapter One
“Somebody’s coming!” I cried.
A birchbark canoe skimmed over the
gray lake. A man in the stern paddled
hard. He headed straight toward Ham-
bone and me.
Sometimes canoes from the Indian
camp came to our farm. Our friends Sarah
and Peter brought us fresh salmon and
berries. They visited with Papa and went
home with small bags of flour and sugar
and tea.
But this was not an Indian canoe. I
crouched beside Hambone and put my hand
on his bristly back.
Hambone was my pig. I took him eve-
rywhere. He was fat and pinky gray with
1
small black freckles. That morning I had
brought him to the lake to wash his back.
Afterward I scratched his belly with a stick,
which was his very favorite thing.
The canoe flew toward our farm. I could
see the man clearly now. He had a black
beard and he wore a bright red cap. My
heart thumped. A lumberman from the
logging camp!
I jumped up. I’d seen the lumbermen go
past our farm lots of times, guiding their
huge log rafts with their canoes. They had
a camp in the forest at the end of the lake.
I wanted desperately to visit them, but
Papa said a lumbercamp was no place for
a young boy. Sometimes Papa forgot that
I was almost nine years old. He treated me
like such a baby!
Kate, who lived at the farm next to ours,
told Papa, “Lumbermen are wild and they
drink something awful!” I kicked her leg to
make her stop, but it made no difference.
Papa wouldn’t budge.
Sometimes, when the lumbermen poled
2
by on their rafts, they were so close I could
see their blanket coats and colorful belts. I
could hear their voices shouting out words
in a strange language that Papa said was
French. I always waved. They waved back,
but they never stopped.
Today a lumberman was coming to our
farm!
I shifted from foot to foot while the
man slid the canoe expertly onto the grassy
shore.
“I’m Max! The boy who waves to you!”
The man leaped out of the canoe. He
thrust out his hand. “I am Pierre.” His
voice sounded funny, like a song.
I tried to look serious when I shook
Pierre’s hand. I added gravely, “And this
is Hambone.”
“Ah,” said Pierre. He inspected Hambone
carefully. “Un bon couchon.”
I frowned, and Pierre said in his funny
voice, “A good pig.”
“Yes, he is,” I said. “Very good.” We
both looked at Hambone. He looked back
3
at us with his small black eyes.
A needle of worry poked at me. “He is
my pig, but Papa named him,” I said. “He
named him Hambone so I won’t forget.
Papa says Hambone is not a pet like our
dog, Star, or our cat, Pirate. Papa says we’re
raising Hambone so we’ll have a nice fat
pig to butcher.”
I lowered my voice. “Papa wants to eat
Hambone!”
Suddenly my face felt hot. Pierre would
think I was a baby too! But Pierre looked
horrified. He rubbed behind Hambone’s
ear and Hambone squeaked joyfully. That
was Hambone’s second favorite thing. I
wondered how Pierre knew.
Then I remembered my manners. “Can
I help you?”
Pierre straightened. He held out a bat-
tered tin cup. “I need some fire.”
Fire! I must have looked surprised be-
cause Pierre laughed. “The rain last night.”
He made a whooshing noise. “Right on our
campfire. Out!”
4
I laughed too. “That rain almost got
Papa and me!” I said.
Yesterday Papa ploughed our new field.
All day the plough creaked behind the
tired horses. I walked behind and picked
rocks. Papa had just put Billy and George
in the barn and shut the door when black
clouds filled the sky and the rain poured
down.
I grinned at Pierre. “Come with me!”
Papa and Ellie and I lived in a log
cabin on our farm. It was a fine cabin
with big windows, a huge stone fireplace
and three rooms. Books filled up two
whole shelves. Once a man walked ten
miles through the bush just to see our
books.
Papa and El ie and I had sailed to Canada
on a huge ship more than two years before.
It had taken Papa all that time to build our
farm in the wilderness. Now we had two
cleared fields, a vegetable garden, a barn
for our cow, Nettie, and the horses Billy
and George, and lots of stumps. I never
5
minded the stumps, but Ellie hated them.
Every spring she planted beans and pump-
kins so they didn’t show as much.
When I complained to Papa that I never
had time for adventures, Papa laughed and
said, “Coming to Canada was a great big
adventure!”
“But, Papa,” I protested. “That was so
long ago I can hardly remember!”
We had a fine farm, and I hoped Pierre
thought
so too as he walked beside me. He
whistled a happy tune as we followed the
path from the lake to our cabin.
Star was sleeping on the porch. He stood
up, hair bristling, and growled.
“Pierre is a friend,” I said firmly.
Star flopped back on his tummy
and watched Pierre through half open
eyes. I could hear Ellie and Kate chatter-
ing through the open door. They fell si-
lent when we entered. Ellie and Kate had
been peeling and drying apples all
morning. The cabin smelled sweet and
delicious. Strings of pale apple rings stretched
6
from one end of the room to the other, drying
in front of the big stone fireplace. Our
cat, Pirate, crouched on the floor, his
eyes on the apples, his tail twitching.
“This is Pierre,” I announced proudly.
“He needs some fire.”
Ellie and Kate stared at us. I almost gig-
gled because they looked like fish with their
mouths hanging open. Then El ie smoothed
her apron and said, “Of course.”
Pierre ducked under the string of ap-
ples. He picked up two chips of wood
and carefully lifted a hot coal out of
the fireplace. He dropped it into his tin
cup.I wished Ellie would invite Pierre to
stay for tea. I stared hard at her, but she
didn’t. And, for once, the cat had Kate’s
tongue.
“Merci,” said Pierre. “Thank you.” He
smiled and his white teeth flashed in his
brown face.
Kate gave a small squeak.
“Merci,” I said boldly. I snatched a
7
handful of apple rings from the table and
dashed after Pierre, out of the cabin and
back to his canoe.
Hambone was rolling in a patch of mud
by the lake. We both laughed at him, and
then Pierre climbed in his canoe. He set his
tin cup with the hot coal on the bottom.
“Good bye, Max. Good bye, Hambone.” He
paddled away from the shore with strong
strokes.
El ie hol ered from the cabin door, “Max!
Max! You come back here right now!”
I sighed heavily. Ellie was the bossiest
sister in Upper Canada.
“Max! I need you!”
She and Kate probably had a thousand
nosy questions to ask me about Pierre.
Or a million boring chores to make me
do.I pretended not to hear.
Pierre’s canoe disappeared around the
point. I sighed enviously. No one told
Pierre what to do. No one made him do
boring chores. He was free to have all the
8
adventures he wanted.
I decided right then that when I grew up
I would be a lumberman like Pierre.
Hambone pushed against my leg. I
rubbed his ears and fed him pieces of
apple. His tongue felt rough and warm
on my hand.
Pierre had said that Hambone was a
good pig. I struggled for the French word.
A bon something.
“You’re a bon pig, Hambone,” I whis-
pered with a glimmer of hope. After
all, Papa hadn’t talked about butchering
Hambone for a long time. A very long
time.
My worry melted away.
Papa must have changed his mind.
9
Chapter Two
“I can’t eat,” I said, pushing my bowl of
porridge away.
“Too excited,” said Papa.
He gave Ellie a strange look. Ellie and
Papa had been giving each other funny
looks for a whole week. They talked in
whispers, and changed the subject when
I came close. What were they planning?
It was too early to be thinking about
Christmas; besides, they looked worried,
not happy.
Today, Kate’s father, Mr. McDougall,
was going to The Landings, and he was tak-
ing me and two sacks of wheat: one sack
from our farm and one sack of his own.
He was taking the wheat to the gristmill,
where my Uncle Stuart would grind it into
10
flour for our bread.
Uncle Stuart was Papa’s oldest brother.
He came to Canada two years before us.
Papa said he mostly wandered around for
a while, and then he finally settled down
and built the gristmill.
It was a long way from our farm, past
our lake, along a river and almost all the
way down another lake that Papa called
Big Lake. Before Uncle Stuart built the
gristmill, there was nothing there but for-
est. A year later, The Landings had sprung
up. Ellie had been with Papa twice, but
not me. She told me there were lots of
cabins and a blacksmith and a sawmill.
Best of all, there was a store with pep-
permint candy!
I was afraid of Uncle Stuart, who was
gruff and not at all like Papa, but I desper-
ately wanted to see The Landings.
I stood glued to the window, watching
the lake. Papa had said that the road was
so muddy that Mr. McDougall and I would
travel by canoe.
11
“He’s coming!” I shouted. Then my heart
sank. Mr. McDougall sat in the stern, and
in the bow perched Mrs. McDougall, her
shawl wrapped tightly around her.
“There won’t be room for me,” I wailed.
“Mrs. McDougall is helping me today,”
said Ellie. Again she and Papa traded that
secret look. Then she added brightly, “And
look Max, here come Jeremy and Kate run-
ning down the trail!”
Had the whole McDougall family come
just to see me off ? I felt very important as
Papa settled me in the canoe between the
sacks of grain.
“You are in charge of the wheat, Max,”
said Papa in his serious voice. “Our winter’s
bread is in these sacks.”
“Yes, Papa,” I answered.
“Right, then,” said Mr. McDougall. He
was a big, broad-shouldered man with a
black beard. “We’ll be back by night if the
weather holds.”
Papa and Mr. McDougal studied the sky.
It was a clear blue November sky with a few
12
drifting white clouds. A fresh cool breeze
ruffled the water. Papa winked at me. Mr.
McDougall was always gloomy about the
weather, but today looked perfect.
Mr. McDougall paddled away from the
shore with long hard strokes. The water
streamed from the bow of the canoe in
silver lines. Star ran up and down the grassy
bank, barking and scaring up a flock of
black ducks that paddled noisily across
the water.
Papa and El ie and the McDougal s stood
on the shore and waved. I waved back un-
til they were tiny dots. From the lake, our
cabin and barn looked so small.
For a long time I watched the bags of
wheat careful y, as if they might leap out of
the canoe. I trailed my fingers in the water,
making myself count to twenty before I
yanked them out, frozen.
I tried not to squirm, but my foot had
fallen asleep where it was scrunched un-
der me. I wiggled into a new position and
studied the shoreline. We were the first
13
family to build a farm on the lake, but
now I counted three more farms, brown
quilt patches cut out of the dark green
forest. My stomach rumbled with hunger.
I thought longingly of the boiled potato
and salt pork that Ellie had wrapped care-
fully and tucked in my lap before we left.
Was it too early to eat?
“Listen Max. You can hear the river
now,” said Mr. McDougall. “We’ll have
lunch after the portage.”
The portage! Papa had told me about
that. The river between our lake and Big
Lake was too narrow and fast for the ca-
noe. Everything had to be carried along an
old Indian trail. A sick feeling grew in my
stomach. Mr. McDougall was used to big
strong boys. His son Jeremy was almost