Night Town

by Cathi Bond

  “She’s too young for that,” Mom said, getting out of the car.

  A shop where the men sat, smoked and spat while tinkering with tractor engines stood to the west, an open cattle pen to the south. The men talked in the shop and the women visited in the kitchen. Mom said the men talked about matters that weren’t fit for female consumption, and the women talked about matters of no interest to men. That only made me desperately want to be outside all the more.

  A hundred or more head of cattle shifted and mooed as we crossed the yard, staring at us through the wooden slats. Frank was already at the pond pulling on his skates as Hugh approached him. Hugh was the oldest cousin and spent a lot of time with Granddad. He was tough and liked dreaming up scary dares to test our nerve. When I was ten I had to climb into the pen with a boar. When I was twelve I had to jump into a silo full of oats. I didn’t know what would come next, but there would be something.

  Hugh tapped Frank on the shoulder, likely selecting Frank to be on his team. Even though Frank was younger than the cousins, he had the best slap shot in our whole family. Hugh was smart to pick him.

  “Is that you, Laura?” Granddad bellowed as he swung out onto the back porch.

  Granddad was a tall, strong man with a stand of white hair and a sharp, bristly white beard. He wore his pants high, held there by a thick, black leather belt, and a white dress shirt rolled up just beneath his elbows.

  Since Granny had died, it fell to Mom and her sisters to take care of Granddad’s needs, and he sure had a lot of them. He was a busy cattleman who couldn’t boil water, so every weekend one or all of “the girls,” as Mom and her sisters were known, had to come and take care of the house.

  As Granddad walked towards Mom, the screen door exploded open and a scruffy brownish dog tore down the stairs and across the yard, leaping at Tedder, knocking him flat on his back, fangs snarling and snapping in his face. Terror zipped up my neck. Granddad always had mean dogs, but this one, Buster, was the worst. Dad shoved Buster off with his foot, sweeping Tedder up in his arms.

  “Dad!” Mom cried. “Why isn’t Buster tied up?”

  “What good’s a tied dog if you’ve got thieves and weasels?” Granddad asked. “How are you, Laura?” He gave her a light kiss on the cheek.

  “Honestly,” she replied, returning the kiss along with a stern look. “You should get rid of that dog.”

  Granddad just ignored her while Dad asked Tedder if he was okay. Tedder buried his head in Dad’s shoulder and held on even tighter.

  “Of course the boy’s okay,” Granddad said. “If you can’t face down a dog you’re not good for much are you?” Then he turned to me.

  “How’s my girl?” Granddad asked, giving me a good hard pinch on the cheek.

  “Fine, sir,” I replied with a smile, even though the pinch really hurt.

  “And how’s Tedder?” he asked, reaching out to give Tedder his pinch.

  But Granddad missed because Dad had walked away with Tedder still in his arms. Granddad started pinching us when we were old enough to walk. Sometimes they were hard enough to turn into welts, but being able to take them was part of being a Gillespie. Granddad always said you had to be tough to rise in God’s world and only the strong survived. Tedder hid his face in Dad’s neck. He sure didn’t look like much of a Gillespie right now.

  “Come and get your pinch, son,” Granddad said, a bit louder than he needed to.

  “We should get lunch on,” Mom said, looking towards the house, but Granddad didn’t answer. He and Dad were staring at each other.

  “He’s just a little boy,” Dad said quietly.

  “There’s no boy too young to start being a man,” Granddad replied. “Go!” he said and Buster lunged. Granddad laughed as Buster leapt and snapped, trying to bite Tedder’s foot. Dad walked away as Mom followed him, trying to keep the peace.

  “So Maddy, are you going to help your mother make me a pie?” he asked, giving a sharp whistle.

  Buster turned, trotting back to his master.

  “No, sir,” I replied, looking out towards the pond. Frank had just scored a goal. “I want to play hockey.”

  “Women shouldn’t play hockey. You need skills,” he said, following my gaze. “How’s Frank’s team doing?”

  I shrugged. All anyone seemed to care about was Frank and his sports.

  “Do you think he’s going to win another trophy?” Granddad asked, his eyes moving between the pond and the conversation Mom and Dad were having over by the car.

  Buster sat at Granddad’s feet. I reached out my hand to pet him. Maybe that would get Granddad’s attention. The hair on the back of Buster’s neck bristled. My heart jumped, but Granddad was still watching Frank. I put my hand on Buster’s head.

  “Hello, boy.”

  Buster’s tail dropped as my hand touched his coarse fur. It was gritty, and his eyes were as yellow as his teeth. He let out a low growl. I wanted to step back, but instead I gave him a scratch. Buster’s head whipped up and he gave me a sharp nip. I yelped but didn’t cry. Now Granddad looked.

  “Why did you go and do that?” he asked. “Silly girl. You don’t have the good sense that God gave a billy goat.”

  Mom and Dad were still talking by the car and didn’t notice. The skin on my hand was raised and bruised but there was no blood.

  “Go into the kitchen and get Anne to put some ice on it,” Granddad said, walking away without another look.

  My hand hurt. He wasn’t proud of me –he was mad, and I was only trying to show him how brave I was.

  “Hi,” I said, dropping my coat on the captain’s chair by the kitchen door. All the female relatives turned to say hello, but none of them stopped working. A pair of twins, dressed in matching tartan jumpers with bright red socks and black patent leather shoes, looked miserable. They were on potato detail. Coils of peel lay on the table like garter snakes. I showed Aunt Anne the bite.

  Aunt Anne was Mom’s oldest sister. She was short and wiry with curly red hair, the silliest giggle you ever heard, and always wore crisp, white shirts and dark slacks. Aunt Anne was a registered nurse who lived in Toronto with a roommate. She said she couldn’t marry because her patients were her family, but Dad told me that no man wanted a woman who worked and wore the pants.

  “Oh Madeline Anne,” Aunt Anne sighed, walking to the ice box to pull out an aluminum tray. “You know better than to play with Buster.”

  “But he tried to bite Tedder,” I protested.

  “All the more reason you shouldn’t be petting him,” Aunt Anne said, setting my hand in a bowl full of ice and water. “No wonder you worry your parents sick.”

  Mom and Dad didn’t have anything to worry about. I was as tough as Granddad. I could see him through the window standing at the edge of the pond watching the hockey game. Granddad was only wearing a shirt. His pants rippled in the wind and his hands were cupped around his mouth like a megaphone cheering the boys on. Buster sat in the snow beside him. My fingers were going numb from the ice. The door opened as a gust of frigid air roared through the kitchen.

  Mom stood there in her coat. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your daughter,” Aunt Anne replied, flicking her head in my direction.

  Mom saw my hand in the bowl of ice. “What have you done to your hand?”

  “Buster bit me,” I said.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake,” Mom said, hanging her coat on the hook. “You’re going to be the death of me.” Tying on her apron she opened the fridge, removing a yellow bowl filled with brown eggs. “We’d better get a move on. The men will be wanting their meal.”

  We all sat around the table while Granddad said Grace.

  “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.”

  I opened my eyes halfway through to see who else was peeking. A couple of the boys were stealing Mom’s devilled eggs while everyone else prayed. Frank’s eyes were shut tight.

  Hugh was down at the end, sitting next to Granddad �
��a spitting image: tall and broad, with strong arms and clear blue eyes. He looked up, caught my gaze and held it. The twins giggled until their mother cleared her throat.

  When Granddad said “Amen” we all dove into the meal. Dishes clattered and everyone chattered, even the kids, until we were told to be “seen and not heard.” We sat there quietly for a moment, but then we started up again. Family lunches were riotous events. The boys talked sports while Granddad lectured Hugh on cattle futures. Dad and Aunt Anne shared something about a new antibiotic. They were practically best friends, always talking about new medicines and advances in surgical technique. I dumped a spoonful of peas on Tedder’s plate, laughing as he stuck one up his nose. I looked up to see if Granddad was laughing too, but only saw Hugh staring at me again with a funny smile. I wanted him to like me, so I smiled back.

  I was under the blankets reading by flashlight, when the door creaked open. I flicked off the light. Another flashlight beam began to squiggle across the ceiling as footsteps softly padded across the floor towards the bed. I stayed perfectly still.

  “Maddy.”

  The twins stood at the end of the bed in identical housecoats, holding flashlights under their chins. Matching demons.

  “You have to come with us,” they whispered.

  Hugh. I sat up. It was time to face another dare.

  Following the twins, I silently padded down the staircase, through the darkened house and out the back door. Moonlight lit the path that led to the barn. Granddad always locked Buster up with the cattle, so nobody knew we were out of the house. We ran over the snow and ice, staying close to the ground, then up the graveled rise where the tractors drove hay into the barn. Panting, I placed my palms on the big barn doors. The twins stood on either side. I heard voices as we pushed open the heavy doors. Then the light went out and the voices stopped. I was terrified.

  The twins’ flashlight beams danced around the barn. An old cutter rested at the back, covered in dust and feed bags. Hay bales, stacked like building blocks, covered the walls all the way up to the mow. One of the boy cousins sat on a bale near the top. Another was perched on a bale near the bottom. They’d thrown Granddad’s big barn coats over their pajamas and were smoking cigarettes. It was dangerous to smoke in a barn, but the boys didn’t care. It wasn’t as dangerous as if Granddad caught them. The twins tittered, shining beams of light into one another’s faces. They were having fun, but they looked scared too. Then a spooky laugh echoed down, followed by a flap of wings, as birds struck the rafters. Crows, angry at being disturbed, began to caw and swoop.

  I looked up through the gloom to the oak beams that supported the mows. Something large shifted in the centre of the middle one. It was too big to be a cat. My stomach jumped. What was it? A flashlight shone a rotating circle of light, getting wider and wider until it struck Hugh. He was sitting in the centre of the beam, a rifle across his lap, smoking a cigarette. Twenty feet high in the air, with nothing but the bare boards below to break his fall. Another crow cawed, a black shape flying high into the rafters and swooping down towards the ground.

  “Are you ready?” Hugh asked. “Or are you chicken?”

  The boys made clucking noises and the twins giggled like mad.

  “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  A cold draft cut through my housecoat making me shiver.

  “You’re twelve now,” Hugh said, flicking the cigarette down onto the floor, the ember glowing red. “Get up here.”

  It was a hard climb in slippers. When one of the boys behind me pulled at the hem of my housecoat I let out a kick. I’d always been afraid of heights, but climbing into the pitch black, watching the twins getting smaller and smaller was only making things worse. Shaking, I forced my eyes to focus on the rung in front me until I reached the top and stepped into the soft straw. Hugh’s giant shadow spread across the ceiling. He stood, rifle loose in one hand, the other beckoning me to step out on the beam. He didn’t waver, just as steady and sure as if he was standing on the ground.

  “Come out,” he ordered.

  I started across the hay. The boys kept clucking, “Chicken, chicken!” The twins joined the chorus down below. More crows sat in the rafters, shifting black shapes, cawing into the night.

  The beam didn’t look so wide and sturdy from up in the mow. It was more like a rigid tightrope. Shaking, I looked down. The twins stared up, their mouths gaping as wide as the chickens they fed every day. I remembered a hired man had fallen from here once and broken his back, never to walk again, and suddenly I didn’t want to go out on the beam. Hugh rammed his free hand into his pocket. He was tall and strong like Granddad. I looked into his eyes and stopped thinking about the floor. This was about courage. This was about being a Gillespie.

  My legs wobbled. Even my feet were shaking. I wanted to get down on my hands and knees and belly across like a snake, but I didn’t. I opened my arms wide for balance and willed myself out onto the beam. Ahead of me, Hugh set the rifle down on the rafter, then slowly walked backwards towards the safety of the other side. His eyes never left me. A few steps later, I stood over the gun, out in the centre, all alone.

  “Pick it up,” Hugh said.

  I was shaking so hard I was sure he could see it, could feel my trembling through the beam. But I bent over and saw the planked floor below me suddenly fly up and almost hit me in the face as I tilted towards it. Then, feeling the cool metal of the muzzle, I grabbed the rifle, clasped it to my chest and stood upright.

  Hugh grinned. I grinned back. I’d done it. I’d shown him. Then his hand shot out and he released a handful of corn up into the air. Golden kernels struck my legs and head and suddenly the crows, dozens of crows, swooped hungrily down from the rafters, rushing at me, searching for food. Hugh threw another shower of corn. An enormous black shape flew past, so close I could see the red in the centre of its eye. My free hand rushed instinctively to protect my face. A bird flapped against my housecoat. The boys yelled for me to shoot. I brought the rifle to my shoulder. We’d all learned how to fire a gun. The rifle cracked. There was a bang down below, followed by a series of angry shouts, but nothing registered. I just stood in the middle of the beam firing shot after shot into the black, hearing nothing, feeling nothing but the rush of pure adrenaline.

  “Maddy!”

  It was Mom. I stopped and looked down, disoriented. Her face was ghost white. Everyone else was there too, all the adults, dressed in their pajamas, sharply shaking off sleep. Aunt Anne was rigid. Hugh was nearly at the bottom of the ladder. Dad shoved him out of the way and started climbing. Granddad yelled something about there being hell to pay. My foot slipped. The rifle fell and with a bang it hit the floor. Everyone scattered.

  “Stay steady!” Granddad ordered. The crows cawed.

  “Drop to your knees and straddle the beam,” Dad said. “I’ll come and get you.”

  I kneeled down, putting my hands in front of me, and grasped the beam, dropping one leg and then the other. Safe.

  Hugh stared at me. The other cousins too. I could see it in their faces. I’d gotten them all in trouble. Slowly, I stood back up.

  “Maddy!” Dad yelled. “Stay down!”

  A crow swept by, catching my housecoat with the tip of its wing. Swaying, one foot shot out while my arms wheeled. Granddad opened his arms.

  “Jump!” he called.

  “Stay put!” Dad yelled.

  “Jump!” Granddad called again, moving right beneath me, his arms held wide and high. “I’ll catch you.”

  Of course he would. I leapt. Granddad scooped me out of the air moments before I hit the ground as easily as a bag of seed or a bale of hay. The roughness of his white bristle scratched my cheek.

  “Were you scared?” he asked, setting me down.

  “No, sir.”

  “That’s a good girl.”

  “Thank you, Dad,” Mom said, her hand gently stroking my face. All the adults’ faces looked tight and stricken. All except Granddad, who smiled and gave me a ha
rd pinch.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, glancing around.

  One of the aunts snorted.

  “You should be sorry,” Aunt Anne said, her hands clasping and unclasping. “If you were mine I’d spank you within an inch of your life.”

  The boy cousins were dragged out the door and the twins weren’t spared any humiliation either –they were spanked right there on the spot. I heard a thump behind me. It was Dad. He was so upset I thought I was going to get it, but instead, he pulled me to him and held me fast. Then he stared at Granddad, who glared right back.

  “Nobody got hurt,” Granddad said.

  “This time,” Dad replied. He turned to Mom.

  “Get the boys.”

  “Oh, Teddy,” she replied.

  “We’re going home.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” Aunt Anne said.

  “Get the boys,” Dad repeated.

  I’d never seen my father so angry. Mom and Aunt Anne ran ahead while Dad grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the barn. When I looked back, Granddad was shaking his fist at Hugh. Was Hugh going to get the belt?

  We crossed the yard towards the Oldsmobile as Mom and Aunt Anne ran up the stairs and into the house. The lights flicked on: downstairs, then upstairs, spilling out into the yard.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Dad asked, as I got into the car.

  I nodded my head. “I’m sorry,” I said again. He closed the door. I rolled down the window.

  Granddad and Hugh walked out of the barn. Hugh’s face was red and he was trembling. Whatever Granddad had said to him was obviously worse than the belt. Everyone had gathered around the car but nobody looked at us.

  The bottoms of Dad’s pajamas were dirty with mud and snow, while the wind clipped through his hair.

  “You know I’d never drop her,” Granddad said.

  “She could have been killed,” Dad replied. His voice was firm, but his hands shook.

  Mom emerged on the veranda holding a sleeping Tedder. Frank was behind, rubbing his eyes, looking confused. Aunt Anne followed with blankets and pillows, clothes, boots and coats. Dad and Granddad just stood there glaring at one another, not saying a word.