THE TRICKSTER

by Muriel Gray

  “I don’t care if it’s space patrol. Get him in here.”

  “It’s happening.”

  Craig fingered a dumb plaster figure on Hawk’s desk that held two broken pencils and a thin felt-tip. It was a squat little man with crossed eyes, a lolling tongue and a bare belly and a sign below him, mimicking a carving in stone, read, WORLD’S GREATEST DAD.

  Craig looked at it like it would bite him, then got up and went back into his office.

  Agnes Root was not dressed for the cold. Her cashmere sweater was letting the wind cut right through to her thin, white body, and she cursed herself for being too lazy to go to the staff room and fetch her coat before she came outside. She stamped around on the top step, holding Billy’s hand, and peering through the small crowd of parents to try and make out Katie Hunt.

  “See her yet, Billy?”

  The boy shook his head, but he was looking at his feet. Miss Root looked down at the top of his head, encased in a cute hat with a blue and yellow pom-pom, and wondered what she was going to say to his mom. Maybe this was mad. None of her business. But she couldn’t let it pass, in case—well, in case something happened and she’d done nothing.

  A woman was striding across the snowy yard toward them, smiling at first, then the smile fading as she grew nearer and saw her son’s head bowed.

  “Mrs. Hunt?”

  “That’s right. Hi, Billy! How’s it hanging?” She bent down to his level and put her gloved hand under his chin to bring his face to hers. He dropped Agnes Root’s hand and threw his arms around her neck. Katie looked up at the young teacher. “Has something happened?”

  “No. Not really, Mrs. Hunt. I just wanted to have a word with you. Do you have time to come inside for a moment?”

  “Of course.”

  Katie picked Billy up in her arms and followed her into the school. The sounds and smells of schools were the same as hospitals, Katie thought. As Agnes Root walked ahead of them along the corridor, her low heels made a clicking noise on the tiles that echoed off the hard walls, and added their small contribution to the din made by shrieking children leaving the building.

  They turned into the glass-doored classroom, and Agnes Root made a gesture for Katie to sit down at one of only three adult-sized chairs in the room. Katie put Billy down and he rubbed his eyes like a tired baby. Miss Root bent down to him.

  “Billy. Why don’t you go look and see if the gerbils are OK for a minute while I talk to your mom?”

  He looked uncertain. Katie touched his cheek. “We’ll be here, lamb. Go on.”

  He looked at Katie to see if that was true, then turned and left the room. They listened to his boots squeaking along the corridor to where the gerbils were imprisoned in their glass cage.

  Katie concentrated on looking calmly at this younger woman, although her heart was already sinking in anticipation of more bad news. She still felt like shit. That turn she’d had in the museum had upset her more than it should have, and every time she thought of the weird conversation she’d had with her visitor, she felt sick. Katie had the sick but strong feeling that she’d somehow betrayed her family today. Crazy. Plain crazy. She had nearly fainted up there on the balcony, and even when she was pregnant she had never fainted. Did Sam have something catching? Sam. There was still the hard nugget of worry about Sam.

  It had been a bad day, all right, but she had thought it couldn’t get worse. What was Billy’s teacher waiting to tell her?

  “I’m Agnes Root, Mrs. Hunt.”

  “Yeah. I know, Agnes. We met at the PTA.”

  “Of course. Sorry.”

  “What’s up with Billy?”

  “Right. Probably nothing. But I just wanted to tell you he’d been unusually withdrawn all day, and more important, I wanted to show you this.”

  She leaned over her desk, picked up a big sheet of paper and handed it to Katie.

  “We did science and painting today. I wanted them to paint rainbows and prisms. This is Billy’s.”

  Katie took off her gloves and accepted the paper from Agnes Root. She held it in front of her in silence, and her mouth opened slightly.

  There was a triangular shape in the center of the picture, just like the one on the board behind Miss Root’s desk. The picture was familiar. Katie still had that ancient Pink Floyd album, Dark Side of the Moon, that Tom gave her years ago, the one with the cover that had a beam of white going into a triangle and coming out as a rainbow. Hippy stuff, but Billy liked that cover. This was the same. Except that a rainbow was going into this triangle, and bursting out the other side was a snaking, scribbled, nightmarish gash of black that filled the rest of the page and had been so savagely applied to the paper it had torn it near the triangle. Katie swallowed. Beneath the horrible painting was Billy’s scrawled writing: “Dad.”

  Agnes Root was watching Katie’s face. “I wondered if there was a problem at home.”

  Katie could hardly speak. She croaked her words. “A problem?”

  The teacher shifted in her seat. “Well, any… difficulties perhaps with Billy’s relationship with his father.”

  Katie was still staring at the hateful painting, unable to believe it came from her son’s hand. The same hand that had painted his parents as bright, colorful stick figures with smiley faces and a sun constantly at their shoulder. The same hand that had written an essay that had made Katie and Sam blush, when it revealed that his mom and dad were always kissing and his mom went all weird when his dad kissed her slow. That little hand was the one that had drawn this abomination. Dear God. What was going on in his head? Katie looked up at Agnes, fighting for control.

  “No. Not that I know of.”

  The young woman was scanning her face for a lie. “It’s just that this looks like the work of quite a disturbed child, Mrs. Hunt. He won’t talk to me about it. I thought you might be able to tell me something that would explain it.”

  Katie replied in a cold voice. “I’m afraid not. But thank you for your concern.” She stood up unsteadily. “May I keep this?”

  Agnes Root stood. “I’m sorry. No.”

  Katie nodded and handed it back. The young woman rolled it up and held it to her chest. “Where are the gerbils, Agnes?”

  “Second on the left. Follow the smell.”

  “Thank you.”

  She turned to go. Katie stopped at the door and looked back. “He has dreams, you know. They’re just dreams.”

  It was Agnes Root’s turn to nod, and it seemed to satisfy Katie as she left the room and went to fetch her dark artist.

  Agnes let out a whistling breath. She’d met Billy’s father at the PTA. She’d remembered him for two reasons. The first was that the Hunts were friends with Gerry and Ann and she was curious to see who her boss counted as chums. The second was that Sam Hunt was a number-one lay if ever she saw it, a man so delicious it made her clench her buttocks at the thought of him. But an Indian lay. And everyone knew what Indians did to their kids, didn’t they? She unrolled the painting and looked at it again. Katie Hunt’s face had so clearly signaled a lie, she would have been more discreet taking out a billboard.

  Agnes Root thumbed the edges and decided that if she was right, no matter what it took, Mr. Gorgeous was going to be a very sorry Indian. Very sorry, indeed.

  Ski restaurant lines cracked Sam up. Were people really that dumb that they didn’t know to unclip their ski boots? They clattered along like robots, stiff-legged and walking like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, spilling everything they had on their trays before they got anywhere near the register.

  He grabbed his Coke and went to the register. Neil was behind it.

  “Could be better.”

  “The cops grill you too?”

  “Sure.”

  “Gruesome as fuck, man, but it’s kinda exciting. Wonder if they’ll get the mother.”

  “Wonder.”

  Neil leaned across the counter, twisting in his seat, and inserting a cocktail stick in between his neat white teeth.

&nbs
p; “You know how Mike found the mess? Said there were no footprints in the snow. Can you get that?”

  Sam stared at him. “How would Mike notice something like that… like, why is he looking in the snow?”

  Neil leaned back with his arms out. “Jeez. Come on, Sam. First thing Patrol check is the footprints around a casualty. You should know that. In case the injured party had a companion that wandered off, got into trouble, needs help, da dum, da dum, da dum.”

  Sam gripped his Coke. “And there were none?”

  “Zilcho. Just the kid’s ski tracks, and some deer prints.”

  Sam’s lips were parted, and he felt his heart knocking. “Deer prints?”

  “Prints from a deer. Deer prints. Four-legged fuck with hooves. You probably got one in the family.”

  Sam snapped out of it. “Yeah, yeah. Right. So Mike told you this?”

  “Nah. He’s all to pieces. He told Baz. Baz told me.”

  “Right.”

  “Hey, Sam. It’s a riot talking to you, man. Not!”

  Sam smiled weakly, saluted and walked away. No prints. Shit. Why did that make him feel cold? He had planned to take his Coke and get back out to the snow fence he was fixing, but now he wanted to sit down and think. In fact, he needed to sit down. He wandered over to the packed seating area to search out a space.

  Sam was having trouble finding a seat. Any gaps he spotted had the old hat-and-glove reserved sign on them when he approached. Pissed him off, that trick. Sit down, take off anything that comes off and lay it on all the seats around you. Sorry, seat taken. No room. Didn’t you see the goggles? He tried a few more spaces, then with a sigh backed away from a clothing-strewn bench and walked around to the window area, from where he could see the whole seating plan of the restaurant.

  It was real busy. A weekday like a weekend, not even lunchtime and nearly the end of the day. Murder was obviously good for business. He scanned the crowd for a gap, his eyes skimming the bobbing heads.

  It was like a jagged fingernail catching in fabric, the way his eyes went back to that face in the crowd. No reason to single it out, and no reason to notice it. But Sam Hunt was now standing staring at the blond man sitting halfway along a bench who was returning and holding his gaze as if there were a solid column of steel between them connecting their eyes.

  The clattering of boots and cutlery, the babble of conversation, the whooshing rush of the cappuccino machine, were all one vicious, buzzing white noise in Sam’s ears as those eyes held him. His breathing was canceled and his hand was dripping with the Coke that was being forced from its crushed waxed cup as Sam’s fingers involuntarily closed around it into a fist.

  “Hey, buddy! Your soda!”

  A man at the end of the nearest table was leaning out and tugging at Sam’s jacket as the drink cascaded down his arm and dripped into its own pool on the floor. But the voice only reached Sam in a dream. His consciousness was so thick with the presence of that other being, he was impervious to the man’s concern.

  Sam Hunt knew what he was looking at. Lots of bits of him tried to tell him that he didn’t. His eyes told him he was merely looking at a stranger who was staring right back at him.

  But Sam Hunt knew.

  His everyday senses that said look out for the dog crap on the sidewalk, careful with that boiling pan, put your hat flaps down or you’ll lose your ears, those senses could tell him what they wanted. They were all wrong.

  He knew.

  The guy who cared about wasting good Coke was shaking his head at his wife as Sam let the crushed cup fall and bounce away, splattering the rest of its contents on the tiled floor.

  Sam’s arms hung limply by his sides, as useless as the rest of his body, caught as it was in the radar of that obdurate gaze. He had never felt so alone. There were at least a hundred people in that barn of a room, but they could have been chocolate bunnies in ski-suits for all the comfort they were affording him right now. No one was going to rush at that man and pull him to the ground with a football tackle. No one was going to raise the alarm with a yell and empty the restaurant. No one. Because it was just a guy in a black coat sitting at a table. That’s all.

  Four bodies pushed past him and broke the invisible beam. For about five or six seconds those pale blue eyes were blocked from Sam Hunt’s view by woolen hats, anoraks and the sullen, slack-jawed faces of Canadian youth. Sam suddenly discovered he had the power to take air into his lungs again. He gasped in a shuddering breath, turned and ran.

  Neil looked up from a tray of omelettes and mineral water to see his customers scattering as if about to be mowed down by a buffalo, and the buffalo looked like Sam Hunt. The big crazy guy was careering through the crowds like his shorts were on fire, and Neil watched him, open-mouthed, until he crashed out of the restaurant through the wooden swing doors, leaving a group of indignant people in his wake who shouted “Hey!” and brushed their arms as if his rough contact had left them marked. Neil shook his head, shifted the cocktail stick to the other side of his mouth and went back to adding up food.

  Sam put his hand over his mouth and closed his eyes. What was he running from? A face in the crowd. He let his legs buckle and he slumped down to the snow on his knees as if in prayer.

  Weeks ago there used to be a Sam Hunt who’d just be tapping in the last post of that snow fence, looking forward to going home and hugging his kids and crushing his wife in his arms. He’d probably have jawed with the guys on the night-trail groomers’ team for a time, then picked up some groceries on the way home if it was his turn for the car. And there might be steak and spinach salad for dinner. Katie would have books to read after they’d pigged out on cheesecake, and he might just watch a hockey game on TV or muck around with Billy and Jess before bed. That was what it used to be like. It wouldn’t make a feature on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, but it was heaven. So where was he now, that Sam Hunt?

  Who was this frightened man on his knees in the snow? Frightened of death by brain tumor. Frightened by cops who thought he was a killer. Frightened by a look he saw behind his wife’s beautiful eyes. And now frightened by a face in the crowd. No. Not frightened. Terrified.

  He got to his feet like a newborn calf, and knew he had to get home. Fuck the snow fence, fuck the job, he had to get home.

  A look around told him the snowmobile he’d come up on was gone. Dean had gone for more orange netting. If he went down using the chairs it would take him the best part of an hour, and that calculation relied on the chairs still running at halfway, which at this hour was doubtful.

  No problem. He’d ski down. Five miles of trail, but he could do it in less than fifteen minutes. He knew his crappy old black boots were in the patrol hut behind the restaurant, and there were dozens of skis in there that could have their bindings tweaked to fit.

  It was windy back there. The asshole architect of the monstrous concrete building had created a pretty effective micro-climate between its ugly back side and the patrol hut.

  Regardless of which direction the prevailing wind blew from, the space between the two structures screamed with its own private whirlwind, throwing eddies of sugar-fine snow into the air, and piled the small hut’s door high with drifts. Sam put his shoulder to it and barged in. The warmth of the room was soothing as he closed the door behind him and scanned the box shelves for his boots. It was a tiny hut. It didn’t take long to spot his boots. They were shot to pieces, lying sad and neglected beside someone’s pair of metallic turquoise Rossignols he’d coveted but couldn’t afford last season. Sam rescued them from their shame and sized up the assorted skis at his back. He found a pair of 210s that fitted the boots like a dream, and sat down on the long leather-padded seat to get his Sorels off. It was that physical act of sitting down that interrupted the anesthetic of his practical mode with a mental tap on the shoulder.

  Hey, Sam! A face in the crowd. Remember? Sam sat forward, one boot off, and held his head in his hands. It had been a hard-learned skill, that trick of keeping memory at bay
. He was good at it. But after so long being denied access, it flooded his senses like a dam bursting, and he fought with his eyes screwed tightly closed to keep Eden out of his head.

  Too late.

  “Was you afraid?” Eden had asked him that day, in a voice that didn’t mock, but was genuine in its curiosity. Fifteen-year-old boys want to be big and tough and grand, and Sam had ached to say no, Grandpappy, I wasn’t afraid. But you couldn’t lie to Eden. Eden could smell a lie before you’d formed it.

  “Yes.”

  “What of?”

  “It didn’t sound like it was Calvin talking.”

  “It wasn’t. You know that.”

  Sam had looked at his feet. A pair of plastic track shoes, with the big toe of the left one worn all the way through to the canvas, encased his long feet. He kicked at a loose corner of the linoleum with it. “Uh-huh.”

  “So who was it be talkin’? Look at me, boy.”

  Sam had looked up at his grandfather, sitting back in his big chair, gripping the arms like it was going to take him someplace.

  “I guess it was the Thunder Spirit.”

  Eden looked at Sam for a long time, then turned his attention to gazing through the window as though his tall, dirty, half-starved grandson had ceased to be of interest. Sam waited. He knew he was not forgotten. Eden was either thinking, or remembering.

  They sat in silence for a minute, until Eden spoke again. “You build a lodge with Calvin, you does all the right things to purify yourself, and you be bringing the spirits to speak with you. But you just be guessing it was the Thunder Spirit?”

  Sam looked at him through his long dark lashes. “I know it was.”

  Eden nodded.

  “You knows a whole heap, boy. Beats me why you always be tellin’ yourself it ain’t so.”

  Sam had shrugged, sulky like a child. Eden let go of the arms of the chair and crossed his gnarled hands on his lap.

  “This here thing be real important I goin’ to tell you, and you best listen hard. Hear?”

  It was Sam’s turn to nod. Eden stared into Sam’s eyes with that fearsome, inky black gaze, until he saw something there that satisfied him his grandson would listen. “You and me and Calvin, and some others who be all around the place but we don’t knows them, we be the ones who can see it’s him when he comes playin’ around.”