McConnell House

1936 Part 1

Lukas was going crazy.

“It's Walter! He brought them here. I knew I couldn't trust that Jew loving commie. Why did you bring them here Harry? This is all your fault.”

Harry couldn't answer to defend himself. He was dead in the corner of the small farmhouse, shot up multiple times. He had been standing by the kitchen window, which faced the dirt road that led to Luka's farmhouse, when the first shots were fired. Poor Harry didn't know what hit him, his back had been to the window. One moment we were in the kitchen, arguing what we should do next, then Harry was thrown across the room by a burst of bullets from the window.

Me and Lukas hit the floor as the firing continued, destroying everything in the kitchen, from cupboards, to plates to windows. I was screaming as glass was raining down on me, but I couldn't even hear my own voice over the gun fire. The opposite wall from the window was full of bullet holes.

After what seemed an eternity, the firing finally stopped. That didn’t reassure me or Lukas to get back up. I figured they ran out of bullets, and were reloading. Why tempt fate and test the truth of it?   We could of stayed like that for hours, but finally a voice shouted from outside.

“We know you’re in there Lukas. You and your gang come out, with your hands high.” The voice yelled.

“That fucking Walter. He’s led them straight to us. I should of offed him when I had a chance. This is your fault Harry, yours!” Lukas raged.

“Harry’s not answering you Lukas, looks like he won’t be answering anyone for a long time.” I said. Harry wasn’t moving, a puddle of blood was forming around him. That left just me, Lukas, and Joe.

Lukas wasn’t listening to anyone but the whirlwind in his head, “I’ll kill that son of a bitch. Wait until I get my hands around his throat. That commie slime will beg for death when I’m through with him. You shouldn’t have led them here Harry. I knew I should have turned them all away. But you’re family.”

“You have to the count of ten, and then we are coming in there, guns a blazing.” The voice outside yelled. “1…2…”

I wondered how I got into this situation. All I wanted was to be treated like a man again, three meals a day, to take pride in my work, to be a free man. Instead I spent the last year on the run, the dogs of Bennett on my heels the whole time.

We finally had reached Harry's cousin two weeks after escaping Regina. It took longer then expected, way longer in fact, but we had to dodge RCMP patrols the whole time. We heard rumours that after the riot, the trekkers were allowed to either return home or back to B.C. to the relief camps, but Walter didn't believe it. He preached on his stump and got us to believe Bennett and the RCMP planted those rumours to bring trekkers out of hiding, then they would arrest us and send us north. At the time I believed him, everything we worked for had just shattered, so all of us were paranoid. If he had told us Bennett was the Devil and the RCMP were demons from hell, we would have believed him.

Now it seems foolish to me, why would the RCMP or Prime Minister Bennett even care about a few strays. They got their way, the trekkers either went back to B.C. or another work relief camp, or went home. It was a temporary victory for Bennett though.

He had named the On-to-Ottawa movement communist agitators, their goal to bring down democracy in Canada. People saw through that. The trek had massive support from the beginning, and indeed the Relief Camp Workers’ Union, which organized us, was affiliated with the Communist Party. That didn’t matter to the public. The trekkers were normal Canadians. They were fathers, brothers, and sons. To go against them, was to go against your own family.