Sport rises from his rug and brushes her leg with his tail. A hint of a breeze through the screen on this side of the house slides over her body like silk and she thinks about Nick again, imagining his hands on her skin. She misses him so much she feels the ache of it deep in her bones. If only she could see him tonight. She brushes her lips with her fingers. All she needs is one kiss.
A frisson of excitement shudders down her spine. What’s stopping her from going to him? She’ll take a chance he’s asleep on the porch and, if he’s not, she’ll toss a pebble at his window like some lovesick teenager in a movie. Eldon sleeps like the dead; if she’s back before dawn he’ll never know she’s been gone.
She opens the closet, steps into her garden shoes and slips out the screen door. Dew soaks the grass like heavy rain and her canvas shoes are soaked by the time she gets to the lane. The weak light from the yard post is no help at all in illuminating the road past the mailbox so she follows the gravel road by putting one wet foot in front of the other. There is only a sliver of moon and few stars in the deep, black sky. The ditch is alive with a chorus of crickets and indistinguishable rustlings and Caroline shivers, reminded suddenly of the roaming pack of dogs. Sport bounds to the side, pouncing at something he hears in the grass.
Sport. She’d forgotten all about him. “Home, Sport. Go home.” He whines and circles her legs. She rubs him reassuringly behind the ears. “It’s all right, boy. You have to go back.” He whines again, as if he’s telling her he disapproves of her risky plan. He trots a few steps back down the road, stops then tilts his head. “Get!” Caroline turns and continues walking. After a minute she looks back. Obediently, Sport has done as she said.
As she nears the Bilyks’ lane, a frenzied barking starts up from somewhere near Anton and Anna’s house. Caroline stops, frozen in her tracks. Why hadn’t she thought about the Bilyks’ dog? As she draws nearer, she sees him, a shadowy blur on the steps leading up to the porch, barking furiously, straining at the end of a chain. The porch light comes on, the door opens, and Anton steps out on the porch holding a rifle. Caroline leaps into a hedge lining the lane.
She hears another door slam then Nick shouts, “Duke! Easy!” And gradually the dog stops barking and, afterward, she hears the sound of raised voices.
“For Christ’s sake, there’s nothing out there,” Nick is saying.
“Like hell there isn’t,” Anton says. “It’s those damn dogs.”
“It’s likely a fox or a skunk and it’s sure to be scared off by now. Leave me the gun and go back to bed. I’ll take a walk and look things over.”
Caroline’s heart is racing; she’s lucky she wasn’t shot at or discovered by Anton, lurking in the bushes. She hears the crunch of footsteps on gravel and, through the low branches, she sees Nick standing on the lane with the gun propped on his shoulder. She is weak with relief to see him and creeps out of her hiding place. Her nightgown is soaked from the hem to her knees and spiny caragana stems are stuck in her hair.
“Caroline? Is that you? What are you doing here?” He pulls her into the warm haven of his arms. “We’re damn lucky Anton didn’t fire a shot into the dark over this way. You took an awful chance coming here.”
“Don’t be mad,” Caroline says, her voice husky from the lump pinching her throat. “I just needed to see you so badly I didn’t think of the danger.”
Nick leads her to his mother’s small house, under a sheltering maple tree on the far side of the yard, and ushers her onto the porch. A cot, washed in yellow light from a kitchen window, is set up at one end of the long veranda next to a small table. Taking her hand, Nick directs her to sit down then wraps a tattered patchwork quilt, still warm from his body, around her shoulders.
“I was at the tree every day this week,” he says. “You were never there.”
“I tried once, but you weren’t there, either. And, after that, I couldn’t get away. I might as well be chained to the porch. You’d think after two weeks of rain Eldon would have something to do but he never leaves the yard! It’s as though he’s staying home to spite me. I can’t stand the sight of him or the sound of his voice, telling me what to think and say and do every waking moment.” Crying softly, she leans into his shoulder.
He wipes the tears from her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs and brushes aside a lock of her hair. “I’ve been thinking about it … and I’ve decided I’m going to take you away.”
“Take me away? Where?”
“Alberta. Anywhere. I’ve thought it all through. We can leave right after harvest.”
“He’ll never let me go.” Caroline can’t even look at him. He looks so hopeful.
“We’ll run if we have to, go somewhere he’ll never find us.”
“He won’t stop looking until he does.”
“Then we’ll keep moving.” He tips up her chin and kisses her. “We’re going to be together and no one is going to stop us. I love you, Caroline, more than you know.”
His words stir a need like blue flames in her belly. “I love you, too,” she whispers, surrendering, finally, to the voicing of this undeniable truth. She unties the satin ribbon at her neck and slips her thin nightgown from her shoulders while Nick peels off his shirt. Her hands roam over the smooth, hot skin on his back while he enters her gently, rocking in a measured, patient way. He takes her to a sweet and glorious place Eldon has never shown her and she surrenders, again, to a pleasure she never knew existed before him. Nick is close to release himself; she can tell by his shuddering breath, but, this time, she doesn’t want him to leave her. “Stay,” she urges.
“Are you sure?” Nick groans. She holds her hands tight to the small of his back.
“I want every part of you inside me,” she whispers, and he arches his back and moans.
Afterward, she lies folded in his arms, motionless, unable to move, the only sound in the cooling night air the rustle of leaves on the maple.
“Caroline? Are you awake?”
She murmurs and snuggles deeper into the shelter of his arms.
“Baby, you have to go.” He reaches for her discarded nightgown and picks his jeans off the floor. After they dress, Nick draws her into one last embrace.
“When will I see you again?”
“How about Thursday?” Caroline sits on the cot and ties her shoes. “I’ll try to be at the tree at ten o’clock.”
Nick walks her along the lane and down the road until they are almost at Caroline’s lane, then kisses her one last time before letting her go.
As Caroline heads down the lane, a night creature on the hunt cuts through the damp air above her with a ponderous flap of wings so close Caroline feels the hair stir on her head.
In the distance, a singular, ear-splitting gunshot shatters the still night air. Someone is shooting, quite likely at the wandering pack of dogs. Sport bounds down the lane, his coat a dull silver in the scanty moonlight. Rounding behind her, he nudges the back of her knee with his nose, urging her on.
“I know, boy. It was risky. But all this sneaking around will come to an end soon enough.”
The porch light glows like a beacon over the screen door. Caroline gives Sport a quick rub then slips inside.
OCTOBER
Caroline has just measured the coffee and put it to brew when she notices an envelope with Susan’s sprawling handwriting sitting on the kitchen table next to Eldon’s newspaper. She tears it open and sits down to read.
September 21, 1957
Dear Caroline,
I’m sorry I was so evasive when you phoned but I couldn’t be sure my neighbour wasn’t standing in her door, eavesdropping on our conversation. I suppose you’re curious about John, so here goes. I caught a glimpse of him on campus one day at the start of the semester. He looked terrible, pale and gaunt, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a perverse sort of pleasure seeing him like that. Needless to say, I dropped his class and enrolled in another. Etta was waiting for me outside class one day and we went to the cafeteria for tea. S
he told me that before classes began she met with John’s wife (a very sweet girl, she said, and nothing like the sort of harridan she expected) and told her about the lengthy affair she and John had been having. She also told her John was involved with a second girl, although she didn’t mention me by name. Etta didn’t know what came of her revelation, but I can’t imagine it’s good.
I’m better now. I’m so glad you and Alice convinced me to face up to John and carry on with school. How are you? Dad told me harvest has been on hold because of the rain. I hope you were able to get finished. Thank you again for being such a good friend and being there for me when I was home. You and Alice are the dearest friends anyone could ask for. I won’t be home for Thanksgiving, but plan to make it back sometime before Christmas. Hope to see you then.
Yours,
Susan
Caroline tucks the letter back into the envelope, tears stinging her eyes as she thinks about Susan, and she blinks them away when Eldon comes into the kitchen, pulling his suspenders over his shoulders.
“I see you found your letter. It was hidden between the pages of the classified ads. I didn’t notice it there until last night when I was reading the paper.”
Caroline gets out a pan and adds a sliver of butter, considering the possibility he’s kept the letter from her by hiding it himself; it’s been at least two weeks since it must have arrived and it’s unlikely the letter wiggled in between the back pages of the Co-operator by itself.
You’re not the only one capable of deception, she thinks. She’s hidden her own letters — ones she’s written and addressed to Susan and Alice explaining the reasons she’s leaving and begging for the girls’ forgiveness — in an old trunk in the attic. They are stamped and ready to post tomorrow before she and Nick leave for Alberta.
“What’s new with Susan?” asks Eldon, tapping his foot against the leg of the table as Caroline scurries between the stove and the table, setting the plates while keeping an eye on his egg sizzling in the pan. “I hope I don’t have to haul you all the way out to the Wawryks’ to see her again. She should be in better spirits by now, you’d think,” he says sarcastically.
“She’s back in school so you don’t need to concern yourself,” says Caroline curtly and pours him a cup of steaming coffee. Eldon complained both times Caroline asked him to drive her to Susan’s in August, acting as though doing her that small favour was a major imposition on his busy life. “She missed coming home for Thanksgiving but she’ll be here this weekend so we’re planning to meet at Alice’s on Saturday afternoon,” she adds.
The lie tumbles out as easily as the rest of the stories she’s made up since she met Nick; the truth is she’s not likely to see Alice and Susan again for a very long time, if ever, and it pains her to abandon her two best friends in the world. She’s leaving tomorrow at midnight, meeting Nick a mile down the road where he’ll be waiting in his truck in the moonlight. It should be her father she’ll miss most, but she won’t; she’ll never forgive him for tricking her into trading her freedom for a piece of land. He’s bound to be furious when he finds out she’s run off and he’s sure to take Eldon’s side, although she can’t help but wonder how civil they’ll be to one another when it comes to discussing the fate of Beulah’s land.
She fretted for days about leaving Sport behind, imagining him cowering under the table when Eldon discovers her betrayal. When she told Nick, he insisted they take the dog along. She threw her arms around his neck, both crying and laughing with joy, picturing Sport on the open road with his head out the truck window, ears flying in the wind, the three of them together heading off to a life she never would have dreamed possible six short months ago.
“Bert and I are bringing the cows and calves in from the north pasture this afternoon. Can you make an early lunch?” Eldon asks.
“Of course,” Caroline answers quickly. “What time?” She’s planning to meet Nick one final time at the tree this afternoon to go over the last-minute details and she’s relieved to know Eldon will be out of the yard.
She has an hour before she has to meet Nick so she digs her battered old suitcase out of the attic and stops at the bathroom for a damp cloth to wipe off the dust. In the mirrored medicine chest over the sink she catches sight of herself — her untamed hair, the ripe flush on her cheeks — and she tells herself it’s true what Betty Cornforth said: she does appear to be glowing. She is running water over the cloth, looking at the calendar tacked next to the mirror, when another thought nudges into the edge of her mind. It occurs to her that her monthly hasn’t yet arrived, and she’s never been late. Heaven knows, she’s been jumpy as a wet cat since she and Nick put their plan in motion, all that nervous tension, worrying that somehow Eldon or Elvina would read her guilty mind and their plot would be discovered. But could it be? She falls to her knees, rifling through the trash basket for the torn-off calendar page for September. There they are; bold black F’s marking her most fertile days, and the night she spent with Nick on the porch is among them. Could it really be? Her knees are too weak to stand as a tremor of hope threads its way through her and she folds up September with its magical F’s and slips it into her breast pocket to show Nick.
A gust of wind snatches the door and whips it out of Caroline’s hand as she steps out on the porch. Yesterday, leaves in hues of ochre and crimson and copper still dressed the trees, but the blustery north wind has stripped the branches bare during the night and fallen leaves skitter like mice across the yard. There is a light dusting of snow in the clefts left behind in the flower bed where she’s pulled out the bachelor’s buttons and love-in-the-mist and there is a sharp bite to the air. She goes back inside and digs deep in the closet for mitts and a knitted hat before she sets out, her head bent to the wind.
She looks around the yard, wondering where Sport could be, but there is no sign of him, no sign of life at all except for sparrows tittering on the hydro wire and a few daring hens strutting about near the coop. “Sport! Here, boy,” she calls and he doesn’t come bounding up like he usually does. Thinking it odd, she resumes her brisk pace.
Nick is not there when she gets to the tree. She waits for an hour, her toes numb in her shoes, and she wishes Sport were curled up next to her, his warm body cutting the wind. She can’t imagine where Nick could be. He had a couple of errands to run that should have taken an hour — clearing the scant bit of money out of his bank account and leaving the title to Carl Morgan’s land with Fred Dunbar, the lawyer in town. Last week he loaded up and delivered six of his best heifers to a farmer from Locklin, pocketing the cash to hold them over until he secured a job and they found somewhere to live. He would send his mother a letter once they were settled; his face twisted with anguish when he told Caroline he couldn’t yet bring himself to tell her why he was turning his back on the farm and the family. He would send Fred Dunbar a letter, too, permitting Anton to sell his land and the rest of his stock. Nick reassured her that Anton would send the money on and never disclose their whereabouts to Eldon, no matter how much he threatened. Caroline can only imagine the ill will between them when Eldon discovers Anton’s complicity in their plan.
Caroline finally grows tired of waiting and heads home. Their plans are clear enough; she will meet Nick on the road at midnight tomorrow. Her news about the baby will have to wait until they’re headed west. Maybe she’ll wait to tell him until they’re settled in bed at the first motel. She can’t wait to see his face, the delight and joy in his eyes when he learns he’s going to be a father.
Feathers, like hundreds of tiny, rustling flags of surrender, are strewn around the yard amid the bodies of battered, bloodied hens when Caroline gets home. Some are still alive, squawking pitifully, dragging torn wings along the blood-soaked ground. Eldon’s truck is parked near the chicken coop, the door wide open, and Caroline runs across the yard to find him inside the fence, wringing the fragile neck of each dying bird before throwing it onto a pile.
“Where the hell have you been?” he shouts when
he sees her.
“I … I went for a walk,” she stammers.
“Where’d you walk? All the way to town? Couldn’t you hear the racket of this bloody slaughter? Wait until I get my hands on your fucking dog!”
“What do you mean?” She assumed the destruction in the yard was the work of the stealthy pack, gone now after they’d had their fill of chasing and killing.
“Just what I said,” Eldon snaps. “It was Sport and half a dozen others, with a shepherd like Bilyk’s at the head of the pack. I saw them tear out of the yard when I drove up.”
“It can’t be,” Caroline cries. “He would never do something like this. He’s never bothered the hens, never shown any interest in them at all.”
“He would and he did. I saw him myself. Dropped the bird like it was a burning stick when he saw me jump out of the truck.”
“I don’t believe you! Sport! Come, boy. Sport?” She looks helplessly around the yard, expecting to see him bounding toward her from the other side of the barn.
“He ran off with the others,” Eldon says. “He’ll be damn sorry, too, when and if he ever comes home. There’ll be a bullet with his name on it, waiting for him.” He strides away, leaving her with the carnage. Already, blue-black flies buzz around the dead birds and a pair of turkey vultures circle in the sky. She cannot bring herself to lay her hands on the flopping birds so she finds a sledgehammer in Eldon’s shop and drags it out to the yard. A screaming hen with a severed foot looks up at her with a beseeching eye before she lifts the hammer and swings. Raw, ripe blood spatters her white canvas shoes.
Her mind is numb, a frozen wasteland, as she goes about her task, silencing the birds one by one. She cannot believe Sport had a part in this. He isn’t accustomed to other dogs and he must have been surprised when they showed up, barking at them at first, trying to act fierce and in charge before following after them, sniffing and circling, as they roamed about the yard. The gate to the chicken fence was open and a few hens were out, she’d seen them herself before she left. When the dogs flushed the other hens out of the pen and started to chase them, Sport was likely to follow along, thinking it a game, gambolling next to the others, nipping and yapping, with no ill intent. He couldn’t have known what the dogs were going to do. It was a one-time mistake; she must convince Eldon of that.
A Strange Kind of Comfort Page 18