Bingo. Sol tilted his head. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
Bart looked around the caboose, cluttered with the detritus of prairie history—hand tools pinned to the walls, a yoke, yellowed certificates behind scratched glass. “Yeah. Jack Lewis lived up by the Megeath crossing, I think, if we’re talking about the same person. You should ask one of the old guys.”
“Who do I call?” Sol asked, crumpling the paper napkin onto the plate.
Bart wasn’t playing that game; he seemed suddenly protective. Sol had gotten the kid’s back up. Great. “I’ll ask around. Check with me in a few days.” He paused, judgment in the blue eyes. “Don’t leave it longer, though. I’m back to school next week, and this place’ll be closed up until May.”
Reluctantly, Sol told the kid his name, said he’d check back later on in the week. He glanced at his watch. No time to look up-rail for DJ, not that and make it back in time for his shift. Sticking around the extra night to check out the Ogallala library and Brule had been a complete waste of time; he’d have been better off going home and continuing his search from there.
He paid with cash, tried to give Bart an accommodating smile, but it came out wrong and Sol wondered if the kid would really ask around on his behalf. Bart gave him the number of the phone on the wall that seemed to serve both the coffee shop and the historical society. There’s no answering machine, Bart told him, so just keep trying.
It’s coming here, Sol realized as he pulled away from Brule, heading directly to the interstate, no time for railroad-hugging backroads any more. That ghost is coming in this direction and God help anyone in its way.
He wondered if he’d had a phone with him, if he would have called home. Just pick up on impulse and wiggle out of his shift, make an excuse to Robbie, simply stay here and gnaw this bone. And he wondered, as he sometimes did, if not having a phone was his way of staying in touch, instead of its opposite. It meant he always came home, because he had to.
That night, Baz could put it off no longer. He’d been out of contact over Christmas and even though Sol wasn’t exactly freaking Santa when it came to seasonal festivities, there were limits to how long Baz could maintain radio silence, considering the last time he’d seen his brother, Sol had been unconscious in a motel room. Baz didn’t know if Sol would be worried about him, it was hard to tell sometimes what would worry Sol, but Baz knew Robbie would be concerned.
He wasn’t wrong in that; Robbie sounded relieved beyond measure when she heard his voice, asked him how his Christmas was, if he was going to be playing somewhere close by for New Years.
Baz wasn’t sure he could lie to his brother, which was part of the reason he hadn’t phoned. Then Robbie told him that Sol wasn’t there, hadn’t checked in with her for almost three whole days, not since he’d gone to work on Saturday morning, pulling a double. And when Robbie asked Baz where the hell he’d been for the last two weeks, Baz knew he wouldn’t have been able to lie to Sol, so it was just as well that his brother wasn’t home.
Better for Baz, anyway.
Robbie’s voice sounded both tight and worn, fed up and a little giddy. “You know,” she said, after he’d explained that he was heading for Minneapolis, “you Sarrazin guys should form your own club, call it Assholes Anonymous.”
“I know, Robbie, we’re not exactly reliable material.”
“Well, you, you’re a musician, no surprise,” he heard dishes clattering in the background, “and your dad was like a friggin’ ninja when it came to dropping in and out whenever it pleased him.” Running water. The house would be spotless, Baz knew, household chores one of the few things in Robbie’s control. “But Sol? I never thought he was like you two.” The water stopped and Baz braced himself. “But you know? Saturday, he tells me not to wait up. I’m pretty sure he’s gone back to Nebraska. Is he seeing someone else, Baz? Some cowgirl rodeo starlet? You’d tell me, right? I deserve to know.”
Baz, phone in hand, pacing the small motel room, window to bathroom door, back again, sighed. “Robbie, sweetheart, that is one thing you don’t have to worry about.” And Baz knew it to be true. “He’s crazy about you. He’s just not good at showing it, you know that. And nobody else would put up him, anyway. He’s just—” Worried that you’ll think he’s mental if he tells you about what he sees. About what he can do.
“He’s just a secretive asshole who saves all the heroics for work.” There was silence on both ends, because Baz couldn’t agree without being a traitor, and couldn’t deny without being a liar. The dog barked and then whined, then barked again—Robbie must have thrown him something. “I got him a phone for Christmas.”
God, she was persistent, Baz would give her that. “And?”
“And, it’s sitting here on the kitchen table, just where he left it.”
“Well, at least he didn’t lose it. Or break it.”
“Yeah, well, it’s the last phone I’m giving him.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Baz offered, knowing it was foolhardy in the extreme, given what else he had to say to Sol: Listen, Sol. Maman, she killed herself, I’ve found our sister, she could really use your help in the ghosts-are-making-me-nuts department, and by the way, could you please use the phone your girlfriend got you for Christmas?
“If you can find him,” Robbie grumbled over the clatter of cutlery.
Baz wondered if Sol would be at the same motel in North Platte. Something up in Nebraska was worrying Sol, that was evident, something that had caught their father’s attention, too. Maybe the same something that had killed their father. Which meant that it had to do with a mean ghost, a dangerous one. You could tell when Sol was worked up about something that was dead, but not necessarily when he was concerned about a living, breathing person. One of Sol’s faults, Baz knew.
Robbie sighed when Baz didn’t answer her. “He’s working tonight. He never misses a shift, so I’d try to get hold of him through the health center.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Baz agreed wincing. “I’ve got news for him. He’ll be interested.” And that was one way of putting it.
SEVEN
PLAY BY EAR
If Lutie didn’t think the Sarrazins were all hopelessly nuts by now, Baz was fairly certain she would shortly. They’d left CFB Shilo at dawn, and now it was three in the afternoon, New Year’s Eve; they’d made damn fine time to be in Minneapolis so early.
Evidence of the Sarrazin hard-scrabble lifestyle was rampant: Baz had no car, no license and no apparent job. He had no education to speak of. Their father, also of no fixed address, had just been killed in a train yard, and hadn’t been able to hold down anything approaching regular employment since being released from prison for manslaughter six years prior. The most stable member of the family was currently incommunicado, hunting ghosts in rural Nebraska and she didn’t want to meet him anyway.
Baz could tell, for example, that his sister was appalled at the wretchedly maintained turn-of-the-century house—Jean-Guy Landry wasn’t exactly a meticulous guy, a shortcoming exacerbated by an apparent desire to collect scrap metal in various forms. This, Lutie’s face said exquisitely, is where my father lived?
Baz hunched over in his coat, hands deep in the pockets, leaning against the peeling door frame as he raised a knuckle to knock. “Dad only stayed here when he was in town. Otherwise, he’d kinda—” and he shrugged, unable to explain.
“Kinda what?” Lutie asked, and Baz was saved from answering by Landry pulling open the door, holding a borderline psychotic mastiff by a studded collar. Lutie, in her pristine white down coat, jumped back about a foot.
“Hé, man, ça va?” Landry said, and Baz was momentarily distracted by the gun tucked into Landry’s waistband. The man was also missing his front teeth and eyed Lutie with undisguised interest.
“Jean-Guy,” Baz said, taking off his hat.
“What the hell kinda haircut is that? Goddamn, Aurie shoulda taught you better. For a beau goss, you are some weird-lookin’.” Landry pulled the dog back,
slobber lashing his thigh. “Who’s this?”
Baz raised a shoulder, unwilling to draw Lutie close to this life, suddenly questioning the upside of this visit. “This is Luetta,” Baz said. “You heard what happened, I guess. With Aurie and the train.”
Landry nodded. “I heard, and I’m sorry about that. Sol takin’ care of it? Makin’ sure everything’s in order? He should.” Being careful with his words, of course, if with this one thing only.
“I dunno,” Baz answered truthfully. “He don’t tell me much.”
They were let in, but Baz didn’t take off his coat and saw that Lutie was following suit. Besides, the house was scarcely warm, smelled of old newspaper and dog. As he passed by Landry, he dropped his voice. “Can you save the gun, cher? She’s Canadian. You’re gonna scare her.” They were offered something to drink, but Baz turned it down for both of them.
“I thought I’d get Aurie’s things out of your way, if that’s okay.”
Landry scratched under his cap. “Go right ahead. You know the room. You need a box or something?”
Baz said yes, and a box was procured, one that had held some industrial sized paper towels according to the print on the side. Baz knew their father wouldn’t have much worth carting away; the box was probably more than big enough.
Landry said he needed to feed the dog, and as Baz turned to go up the stairs, the old Cajun pulled out the gun dramatically, and made a show of putting it in a drawer where it ‘would be safe’. Well, that’ll set Lutie’s mind at ease. Baz lost no time shoving Lutie up the stairs, seeing all this with an outsider’s eye and knowing that it didn’t even approach normal.
“So, you stay here when you’re in town?” she asked, the question floating up into the dim stairwell.
Baz laughed. “Sweet mother of God, no. I got better places to crash than this.”
At the top of the stairs, Baz rattled the knob of the first door to the left, found it open, and went in, knowing this was as much of a home as his father had kept since leaving Louisiana: a single mattress bed, neatly made, a clutter of what could only be defined loosely as junk on top of a dresser, and a closetful of workshirts. In the corner, a worn fiddle in its case, known and loved since Baz was a baby. Thank God, he thought.
Aside from the fiddle, which was the real reason Baz had bothered to come, none of the stuff was really worth taking, but Baz thought his brother would probably like one or two of the shirts—the two men were of a size—and perhaps some of the other things on the dresser that Baz couldn’t identify. He thought they might be some sort of medicine bags, and Sol would likely throw them out, calling them bayou poisons, but he might not.
Lutie stood in the corner, watching with big eyes, and Baz smiled at her, tried to ease her mind. Generally speaking, he was good at that. He had expertly negotiated the rough waters of the McGregor household—the Major had been dubious about Lutie’s change of route back to Toronto, but Karen had put her hand on the Major’s shoulder and he’d touched her fingers with his and that had been that.
“It’s not much, I know.” He examined some jeans, but thought that Sol would have better taste, or at least Robbie would. Robbie would wonder about these wretched things, would probably throw them in the trash when Sol turned his back.
“No,” Lutie said quietly, hand drifting over the piles of paper in the corner—old magazines and newspapers. “No, it’s okay.”
Landry had already said that he’d sell Aurie’s truck, sitting in the North Platte police impound lot. It wasn’t worth much anyway and Baz told him to keep the money, that it would at least cover the back rent. There was no bank account, no credit cards. Aurie did everything by cash and barter, always had. If he had an off-shore account in the Grand Caymans, his children would never know about it.
They were going to drive through the night, leave Minneapolis and spend New Years on the road. Lutie would drop Baz off in Des Moines, Iowa, from where she would head east; a little out of her way, but not by much. Baz had said that he’d go west after that, no need to worry about him. He’d already fielded a phone call from the guitarist of a band he’d played with last year, wondering if he’d like to join them on a western tour, starting with a gig tonight in Rochester. Baz had asked the vintage of the tour van, was told mid-80s, and declined. He wasn’t that desperate, not yet. Hell, he could even phone up that Minneapolitan alt-country trio that had scouted him in September and see if they needed—there was a box under the bed.
Baz grabbed it with one hand and hauled it out; it was light, thin cardboard, had contained Nikes at some point. Baz looked up at Lutie, crouched on the floor beside him.
“What do you think?” she asked.
Baz shrugged. “Aucune idée,” he replied. He opened the lid. There, inside, was the wallet that the police hadn’t been able to find down by the tracks. It had over a thousand dollars in small bills inside it, and a number of fake IDs. None of this was entirely unusual; if Aurie had worked a construction job lately, he would have had a cash payout, and the IDs were part of avoiding taxes and police checks, Baz knew.
He held the wallet out to Lutie, who shook her head: too personal maybe, too close. Baz set it on the threadbare carpet between them, examined the remaining box contents: a book holding down a square of paper; a matchbox.
The matchbox fit easily in Baz’s hand and he only hesitated a moment before opening it. God alone knew what his father might keep inside: a dried finger, a baby’s caul, a priest’s toenail clippings. Instead, Baz found a small square of folded white cotton. With Lutie’s eyes on him, he unfolded it on the palm of his left hand, revealing a small circle of thin pale gold. A woman’s wedding band, and Baz felt his breath stick in his chest at an odd angle, jagged like it cut.
“She left it,” Lutie said after a moment, but she didn’t look at him. “She must have left it when we…”
Baz remembered. He remembered way too much.
He held it out to her, but Lutie shook her head, so he wrapped the ring, put it back into its box, and slid it shut. He held the box for a moment longer, wondered what they should do with it. They didn’t have to make a decision, not yet, and Sol should be part of any of it. Which meant telling Sol. Baz would cross that bridge when he came to it. Gently, he set the matchbox beside the book, felt shaky.
The book came from the Houma Public Library, according to the stamp on the inside cover, years overdue; it was in French and it seemed to be poetry. Baz flipped through it, looking for anything tucked inside the pages, but there was nothing.
Not poetry, he realized, reading the title. Song lyrics.
Along many of the margins, in Aurie’s tight scrawl, were notes in pencil and in pen, in English and in French. Notations, difficult to figure out: Works well, only when needed, celle-là est bonne, ce n’est pas utile. It reminded Baz of a recipe book, edited and tested and commented upon. He shook his head.
Aurèle Sarrazin had been an odd guy, something that Baz had always admired. Aurie had disliked all kinds of authority, from the courts to their home-room teachers. The truth was that Aurie hadn’t socialized all that much, and usually only with Louisiana ex-pats, scattered like seeds across the Midwest, guys like Jean-Guy. Baz and Sol had agreed about not having a funeral, but for different reasons: Baz suspected no one would come, and Sol, the opposite. He’d said that he didn’t want to see any of ‘Aurie’s coonass friends’.
Lutie picked up the piece of paper, which turned out to be a photo. She stared at it, and Baz wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe for the first time since he’d met her less than a week ago, she might cry. He didn’t try to take the photo, he simply crabbed round behind her, looked over her shoulder.
It must have been taken in the early 80s, although at first he thought maybe the photo was of Sol and someone else, some pretty girl with severe brows disappearing into a fringe of honey-blonde hair, eyes dark-lashed and enormous. It looked to be a summer day some place with windswept trees and land sloping away to far ocean. There was action in the
background—a striped tent, an old van with its side door up—a casse-croûte advertising Pogos, frites and poutine.
It wasn’t Sol, of course, it was Aurie, so young and unworn that Baz had to blink twice in rapid succession to make sense of it. Dark hair worn longer than Sol did, same scruffy beard and sardonic smile, suggestion of dimples lost somewhere in the beard. A faded red t-shirt advertising a Terrebonne excavation company. His tanned and muscular arm around the blonde, dark dancing eyes directed at her and only her.
Mireille looked directly at the camera, and whoever the photographer had been couldn’t make her smile. She had a lanyard around her neck, and a tag of some sort. She could have been eighteen or maybe twenty, but not much more than that.
“Is that—” Lutie asked, finger tapping Aurie’s face.
“Yeah, that’s Dad,” Baz said softly. “I haven’t seen this photo before. I have another one of M’man, from when I was a kid, before we left Louisiana. I didn’t know about this one.”
“It was taken in New Brunswick, I think. Look—” and she pointed out the lanyard, the writing on it. “Some festival, I guess.” She turned it over. On the back, in faded ballpoint blue, was written ‘Caraquet N.-B. 1980’. It wasn’t his father’s almost illegible hand, it was flowing, slanted to the right.
Baz held one side of the photo and Lutie the other and Baz wondered if their father had ever thought that they would be here one day, looking at this image, together. He doubted it.
“Funny,” Lutie whispered. “Maman didn’t talk about him at all, or you guys. She cried a lot, though, when she thought I was asleep.” She looked up and tears had spilled silently down her cheeks. “You know she had a ghost, right? You know that.”
Baz nodded, once, dry throat. Lutie didn’t remember, maybe, that she’d been the one to reveal that to him, years and years ago.
“She got mad at that ghost, sometimes. Said that she had given it all up for nothing.”
“Did the ghost answer back?” It wasn’t an idle question.
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