In Valhalla's Shadows

by W. D. Valgardson

  He found a pair of tweezers and picked out the thorns. It was too painful to wear jeans, so he put on another pair of shorts.

  He was going to the Emporium to see if Karla had an antibiotic ointment when Larry and Ingvar were coming back from the dock. “I seen you had a chat with the preacher,” Larry said. His tone implied that the conversation must have been of great significance.

  “I got lost,” Tom said.

  “You been in the bush,” Ingvar said, studying his face and legs.

  “Tried to take a shortcut,” Tom said. “Wasn’t a good idea. I wish I’d met Pastor Jon earlier. It would have saved me a long walk.”

  “He stopped to sell you honey,” Ingvar said. “It’s pretty hard to get away without a jar of honey.”

  “I said I’d take two jars the next time I saw him,” Tom answered. “I heard that it’s good.”

  “You know Biblio Braggi lived there before,” Larry said. “He came here selling Bibles, saw the place was empty and set up the hives. He talked to God and he talked to bees.”

  “He had good honey,” Ingvar broke in. “He took good care of his bees. He was always trying to sell you a Bible. You can’t get to heaven without a Bible on your chest when you’re in your coffin. When he left, Pastor Jon bought the place, and people who were there saw him put the bees into mourning and court them.”

  “I was there,” Larry said. “You shoulda seen it. He took strips of black cloth and wrapped them around the hives for a week, then he took them off and brought food from his table.”

  “This was at his housewarming,” Ingvar explained. “A lot of people came. He carried a bit of every kind of food out on a tray, held it in front of each hive and said, ‘Braggi is gone now. I have brought you a piece of everything I have served. It is yours to do with as you will, and I hope you will accept me as the new master of this house.’”

  “But I thought the church had been long abandoned,” Tom said.

  “Not totally abandoned,” Ingvar replied. “Braggi liked selling Bibles. He had study groups—a men’s study group and a women’s. You wanted to be in one of those groups, you needed to have a Bible.”

  “The house was lived in,” Larry said. “Braggi kept his cow in the church in the winter. You couldn’t use the church in the winter anyway. It was Pastor Jon who cleaned it out, tossed out stuff, washed everything, painted everything.”

  “You should have heard Pastor Jon,” Ingvar added. “‘Help me do God’s work.’ He shamed us all into helping, and we did it for him, not God, and maybe because if we didn’t, when a tractor or truck broke down, he wouldn’t be there to fix it.”

  “You could say that,” Larry added.

  “He’d like more people here so he can have a proper congregation. He’s got plans.”

  “More in the collection plate,” Larry said. “He wouldn’t have to fix so many cars and trucks and toasters.”

  “He’s smart,” Ingvar said.

  “Smart, smart,” Larry added. “He always prays over anything he’s fixing, doesn’t matter if it’s a cow or a tractor. He says, ‘A little prayer never hurts.’”

  The praying fixer-upper and his acolytes, Tom thought, as he watched them shamble away. A quote of his father’s came to him, but he didn’t remember where it was from: “They’ve known every sin but live in innocence.” Henry often said it about the men with whom he’d been in the army.

  When Tom got to Sarah’s, she was ironing clothes. “What?” she said when she saw his face and legs.

  “I lost your rifle.”

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “Siggi’s,” he said.

  “Are you nuts?” She went to the closet to be sure the rifle was gone. “Where’d you lose it?”

  “In the lake. I stepped in a hole and let go of it. I couldn’t hold on to it and get out. If you come with me in your skiff, I can drag for it. I marked where I lost it. Freyja was missing. There was an incident last night. I thought...” He let the sentence trail away.

  “There are lots of holes. You’re lucky to be alive. You drop a net anchor into them and it can keep going down until it’s dragged everything with it. No bottom in places. You try to drag the nets up, and they catch on the sides.”

  “I was going along the shore.” He hesitated, embarrassed, then added, “Later, things didn’t go so well. There were bears.”

  “That so?” Sarah said, raising her eyebrows and tipping her head to the side. “Quite a few bears?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “More bears than I’ve seen in my entire life. Siggi was feeding them dog food.”

  “Six thousand a month, they cost,” Sarah said. “At least that’s what I’ve been told. You guys talk?”

  “He says he might be Angel’s father.”

  She’d forgotten about the iron until the smell of scorched cloth made her jerk it away. She’d been ironing a shirt. The shape of the iron was clearly visible. She held it up and said, “I’ll wear it under a sweater.”

  “If I can’t drag your rifle up and make it good as new, I’ll get you another one.”

  “Before deer hunting season,” she said. She was scraping the burn with her thumbnail, trying to see if the charred top part would come off. “Could be,” she said, going back to his earlier statement. “Possibly. Probably. He and Wanda were pretty hot about fifteen years ago. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Sort of like a person I know.”

  “He’s prolific. He gets around.”

  “I heard you went swimming after midnight. Skinny-dipping.”

  “It was dark,” he said.

  “If you sit on a sandbar in water up to your waist and there’s moonlight, what you’re doing from the waist up is public. Good thing you’re not a member of the royal family. Your pictures would be all over the front pages of the newspapers.”

  “He has a bear called Bruno who likes peanut butter sandwiches.”

  “He wrestles with Bruno. Friendly like. No claws. It’s sort of like they’re dancing. He puts his head in Bruno’s mouth. Bruno likes riding in the back of his truck. Siggi brings him to town for ice cream cones. He likes strawberry.”

  For a moment Tom felt confused. He wasn’t sure whether it was Siggi or Bruno who liked strawberry ice cream, then decided it must be Bruno. “He shouldn’t do that. He’s supporting two kids.”

  “Two? Is that all? I think it’s more.”

  “Oh, God,” Tom said and put his head in his hands.

  “What are you Oh, Godding about? You’ve got two kids. You could have one with Freyja. You quit chasing her all over the place and hook up with someone else and you could have four kids with three women just like that. Good thing you don’t drink much. You could have half a dozen whoopsies in no time. Siggi had four women pregnant at one time when he was twenty. Back when he first had his band, the girls were taking their underpants off and throwing them onto the stage.”

  “Four at once?”

  “Variety is the spice of life. Didn’t you know? He’s just lucky that Wanda never could get her act together enough to sue him. That would have made five we know of.”

  “It might not be him.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Anyway, that was later. When he was supposed to be grown up. He helps Ben out if he needs work done. When Siggi’s not working or going to National Rifle Association meetings in Idaho with his Freeman friends to make plans for creating a city where everyone has to carry a weapon. Their motto is Life is war.”

  “He should have joined the army and gone to Afghanistan. If he thinks war is so great, he should try the real thing.”

  “He tried. They wouldn’t take him. He’s got a hockey injury. Somebody high-sticked him.”

  “What about Angel?”

  “You can’t bring back the dead. Done’s done.” She picked up another shirt by the tails and snapped it lik
e a whip, then fitted it over the end of the ironing board.

  “Justice.” He coughed out the word. “What about justice?”

  The iron looked too small, like a toy in her large hands with their swollen knuckles. She drove the iron back and forth in a sharp motion.

  “Justice? Who gets justice? People don’t get justice. They get the law. You start getting the cops involved, and they start poking around in people’s lives, and people end up having to go to court, having to pay fines, maybe spend time in jail. How is anybody’s life in Valhalla made any better? If Siggi gets hauled away for growing marijuana, does it make things better for the kids he’s supporting? Who benefits?”

  “What can be done about Freyja?”

  “Tell her to give him back his house.”

  “He needs to pay her back the money he borrowed from her.”

  “He’s trying to raise the money. Things haven’t gone well. He just ran his business himself, but then things went wrong and he needed help. Those Freemen liked his embassy, so they moved in. One of them used to live here, moved to Edmonton, heard Siggi was having problems. He brought his two friends with him. It just used to be Siggi and the guys he worked with. The Freemen have changed all that.”

  “You’re defending him.”

  “I’m not defending him. I’m just explaining the way things are. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.” She attacked the shirt furiously, jerking it this way and that.

  Tom nearly blurted out what Freyja had told him about how Thomas Moose had died. He caught himself just in time.

  “You were going to say something,” Sarah said.

  “Bees,” Tom replied. “Ingvar and Larry told me about Pastor Jon feeding the bees.”

  Sarah looked disgusted, sighed. “When Pastor Jon was young, he went to England for a few years. He had a country parish. He learned a lot of foolish things from the locals. I’m surprised he didn’t take up witchcraft. He’s addled. Thank goodness he didn’t go to the southern US. He’d be yelling, ‘Hosanna!’ and holding up poisonous snakes.”

  Sarah grabbed a hanger and draped the ironed shirt over it. “You might not be able to get the rifle back,” she said, picking up another shirt. “Those holes in the limestone can go more than a hundred feet. Who knows what’s at the bottom? You never know which way they erode. A diver from the city tried to go down one. It narrowed and there was no way he could get back up. Good thing he had a rope tied to his feet or he’d have died head down.”

  “It’s worth a try,” he said. “You put a ball of small hooks on a weight, drag it on the bottom. There’s the strap holders, there’s the trigger guard. The hooks could catch on the bolt.”

  “Ask Ben if you can borrow his canoe. Go on a calm day. You’re sure you know where the hole is?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I marked it. I’ll go as soon as I can. I don’t want a storm to come and the hole to fill up with sand.”

  “You go to Asta Palsson’s. Her husband died a while ago. He had a three-oh-three. I’ve never heard she sold it. She can use the money. It’s the house with the rooster weather vane. You give me that. You find my rifle, I’ll swap you back. You need a rifle for hunting season.”

  “There’s no way I could get out of that hole with the rifle. I’m sorry. I feel terrible about this.”

  “I said you could borrow it. Lending things has risks.”

  “With any luck that hole is shallow.”

  He reached into his pocket, took out the six shells and put them on the table. “These got wet, but they’re fine.” He was going to leave but stopped and said, “I heard that it was McAra who found the tobacco tin of gold coins.”

  Sarah sighed and set down the iron. “I curse the day that happened,” she said, and her voice was touched with anger and sorrow. “We thought it was wonderful at the time, but it didn’t turn out wonderful. McAra got completely paranoid about the coins. He didn’t want to declare them as income to the government. He was afraid to leave the tin in the house when we went away trapping and hunting. He took it everywhere with him.”

  “People knew that?”

  “How could they not know it?”

  “He had it on him the day he disappeared?”

  “He never turned up, and the gold never turned up.”

  “The sleigh and the dog’s body turned up.”

  “The dog’s skull had a bloody big hole in it. Probably a shotgun slug.”

  “Did anyone come to investigate?

  She nodded. “Disappeared. No body. A hole in the ice. He’d never have gone there. That spot never freezes to any depth because of the current. He knew that.” She crossed her arms, closed her eyes and sighed. “Have they told you I shot him?”

  “Implied.”

  “Implied? Did someone imply that he ran off with some rich broad from Odin? If he did, he’s never been in touch with any of his sons.”

  “I knew of a case where a rich man fell in love with a poorer man’s wife. He offered her everything. He could afford everything. But he said that she could never again have any contact with her husband or children.”

  “Did she stick with it?”

  “Yes. Money does strange things to people.”

  “It does,” she agreed.

  He went to Freyja’s. Her Jeep was parked at the back of the house. When she answered the door, he asked, “Where have you been?”

  “Where have you been?” she replied. “Good God! What happened to your face? And your legs? You’re covered in scratches. I drove to Stefansson’s fish camp. They hire a lot of fishermen during the fall and winter. They stock stuff for their fishermen and always have stock left over. Inga had something we want. I stayed to visit.” He followed her into the kitchen.

  “Bears,” he said. “You didn’t say Siggi feeds bears.”

  “He’s nuts,” Freyja said. “He has this thing about bears. He figures they’ll keep the Mounties away from his marijuana crop.” She stared at him. “You were at Siggi’s?”

  “I didn’t see your car here and I thought...”

  “You went to rescue me?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Superman,” she said. “Batman. Which are you?”

  “Dudley Do-Right,” he said.

  “What did you learn?”

  “He loves bears.”

  “He must have been in a good mood. In a bad mood, he’d have smeared you with peanut butter and honey and set you loose among them.”

  “You fell in love with him.”

  “He can be incredibly charming. He’s good-looking. He’s crazy enough to be exciting. At certain stages of women’s lives, they like bad boys. If they’re lucky, they survive it. They get their head together and they marry a banker or a dentist. A sensible, sane, dependable guy, the kind of guy who will be a good father to their children.”

  He stood there sort of stunned, not quite sure what to make of the conversation. Then Freyja, remembering that she was holding a package of condoms, said, “Do you want to try these out, or not?”

  Her bedroom, with its bed covered in brightly coloured pillows, ruffled shams, the tidiness of it all, intimidated him, so he took her hand and led her to the spare bedroom with its subfloor and futon. She started to protest, but he pointed to his legs and said he didn’t want to get blood all over her good sheets.

  They made love too quickly, and his lovemaking was darkened by fear that whatever had destroyed his desire and his ability to have sex would suddenly reappear, and he’d be left stranded on an island of humiliation.

  They were on the verge of falling asleep when the phone rang. Freyja picked it up. She listened for a while and then said, “The next time I see him, I’ll tell him. All right. You know what’s best. You’re the expert. No, he shouldn’t have tried to tell you what to do.”

  “Siggi,” she said after she hung up. “He’s
at the emporium buying Bruno an ice cream. He says to tell you it’s a deal. If the tomato crop is good, he’ll pay his bills and he’ll start making payments on the money he owes me.”

  “Siggi!” He rolled onto his side to face her. “He tried to kill me.”

  “He’s impulsive. If you don’t tell him what to do, he usually comes around. He can’t stand people giving him orders. You’ve got to let him think things are his idea. He’s got claustrophobia. He’d go insane in solitary. That’s why he’s afraid of prison. What did you say to him?”

  “I explained his responsibilities.”

  “Are you going to turn him in?”

  “If his crop doesn’t work out, he’s done. He can’t stay in the embassy or Valhalla forever. If his creditors lose faith in his ability to repay them, he’s done. Maybe not today or tomorrow but soon. They’ll kill him as an example. You won’t get your money back. You’ll end up with a house you can’t unload. Your savings will not be returned.”

  “Kiss me,” she said and pressed herself against him.

  “How’s he going to ship it?”

  “You don’t want to know,” she said. “If your friend Travis and his buddies decide to give you the third degree, you don’t want to let anything slip.”

  “What’s he got in his underground grow op besides marijuana? Methamphetamine, shatter, cocaine, hash?”

  “He didn’t when I was with him. But he was being pressured. His suppliers wanted him to sell whatever they had, and his customers wanted him to provide it.”

  “He’s got a cement mixer, but that one’s too big. Did he have a small one, the kind you can pick up and carry down a set of stairs? Fentanyl producers are using cement mixers to mix the powder and coat the pills. Did he have pill presses?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You were underground, saw the operation?”

  “There were a lot of plants. What does it matter? I wasn’t growing. It wasn’t my op.”

  “You helped finance it.”

  Freyja went rigid and pulled away from him. “I financed it?”

  “You loaned him the money to keep the operation going.”