Cool Water
Page 1
Praise for Cool Water
‘Cool Water is the story of a small town and its ordinary citizens. Nothing much happens in Juliet, Saskatchewan. But Dianne Warren’s characters struggle to maintain their dignity against powerful odds. This is powerful writing—gut-wrenching and inspiring. Its drama is quiet, but in the end you hardly know what hit you.’
— Governor General’s Literary Awards jury
‘That two people can share a house and not know they love one another; that a note in a pocket with a woman’s name on it can crack decades of trust—this is a novel about the isolation that we hold secret within ourselves; that makes us envy the true hearts of horses and dogs. This novel shivers with nervous life. It tiptoes the fine edge between joy and weeping.’
— Fred Stenson
‘Cool Water evokes a Canadian west that is, like the American southwest, timeless and powerful and hauntingly beautiful. Dianne Warren’s absolutely authentic characters, with all their loneliness and strength, will be new to you.’
— Bonnie Burnard
‘Reading Dianne Warren’s Cool Water is like drinking from a deep well after crossing the parched sand hills of the west. Leisurely and unpretentious, her prose lifts the hardscrabble town of Juliet and its people into the realm of myth.’
— Joan Clark
‘Reading Dianne Warren’s novel, I was reminded of Carol Shields and the creation of unassuming matter-of-fact characters who are, in truth, generously complicated. The writing is understated, wry, and laconic—as if the place itself could not produce any other kind of story.’
— David Bergen
‘Warmhearted, witty, original, Cool Water maintains its steady, low-key tone, even as it pulls you into its world and doesn’t let you go. It has been a long time since I loved a novel so much.’
— Sharon Butala
‘Cool Water is unforgettable.’
— The Globe and Mail
‘Warren demonstrates a finely tuned understanding of the importance of everyday life that is reminiscent of Carol Shields’ abilities to transform the quotidian into something meaningful.’
— Winnipeg Free Press
‘Most of us have never lived in Juliet. Warren makes every word she writes about the place believable. Which is good, because a strange thing has happened; this oh so ordinary good-hearted little town has become the truly exotic destination.’
— National Post
Dianne Warren
Cool Water
First published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2011
First published in Canada in 2010 by Phyllis Bruce Books, an imprint of
HarperCollins Canada
Copyright © Dianne Warren 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: info@allenandunwin.com
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available
from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 1 74237 811 4
Set in 12.5/14 pt Walbaum by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of
Harriet and Milford Taylor
Contents
The Distance
Night Travel
Happiness
Desert Dwellers
Solo
A Good Map
Change of Heart
Hurry Sundown
The Oasis
Acknowledgments
The Distance
It was the end of August, before the Perry Land and Cattle Company’s fall gather, and the ranch cowboys had too much time on their hands. They were standing around the dusty yard doing nothing more than watch the horses swat flies with their tails when the young buck, Ivan Dodge, somehow managed to convince one of the old veteran cowboys—Henry Merchant was his name—to meet his challenge of a hundred-mile horse race through the dunes and the grasslands of the Little Snake Hills. It wasn’t like Henry to act so impulsively, but Ivan Dodge was getting on his nerves with his restless strut and his mouth that never stopped yapping, even in his sleep. Henry figured he could beat him. He figured Ivan Dodge was a rabbit, fast all right, but not smart enough to win. You needed strategy to win a hundred-mile race.
The Perry cowhands got enthusiastically involved in the pre-race planning, as did the ranch manager, who saw an opportunity to build relations between the ranch and the burgeoning community of homesteaders. They decided on five in the morning as a start time and agreed on the buffalo rubbing stone just north of the settlement of Juliet as the start and finish of the race. This was close to the ranch headquarters, but also close enough to town to create some excitement and attract the local gamblers. The cowboys would each ride four horses—the first- and fourth-leg horses their own, and the middle-leg mounts selected from the ranch remuda—switching every twenty-five miles in the corners of a hundred-mile square. They each put up fifty dollars, a lot of money in those days. The challenge became known and race day settled into the consciousness of everyone for miles around Juliet. Word spread like chicken pox.
Popular support went to the elder. That was because Ivan Dodge was arrogant and needed to be brought down a peg or two. It was right that Henry Merchant win the race, and so the cowboys and the townspeople and the settlers alike bet their money on the veteran, believing in life lessons and confident that Ivan Dodge would be taught one. Only a few of the more serious gamblers bet on Ivan, suspecting that youth might just skunk experience.
The ranch cowboys and a few men from town (the ones who had bet the largest sums of money) showed up to see the riders off in the early morning, rubbing their hands to warm themselves in the cool air, building a fire in the hollow next to the buffalo rubbing stone to boil coffee in an old pot. The first-leg horses stamped and snorted, sensing excitement and ready to go, while the gamblers examined them closely for clues as to which would carry its rider to an early lead—the young cowboy’s prancy bay gelding with his wide nostrils, clean throatlatch and distinctive white markings, or the old cowboy’s leggy sorrel mare, who looked as if she might have the reach of a racehorse.
Ivan and Henry discussed the route, and Henry said, “I’ve got people in the corners to make sure you ride the whole hundred, so don’t go taking no shortcuts,” which made Ivan smirk and say, “I wouldn’t be worrying about me, old man. I doubt those rickety bones can even sit a horse for a hundred miles.” The two cowboys said, Ha, we’ll just see, back and forth, we’ll see about that, won’t we. Ivan Dodge was wearing a new pair of fringed leather chaps with silver conchas and the old cowboy couldn’t help but make fun of his fancy outfit. When they mounted up and loped off as their pocket watches marked five, they were still exchanging barbs about the young cowboy’s sense of direction (famously bad) and the old cowboy’s bones (famously stiff), which added to the entertainment. The gamblers were in high spirits, and
they told and retold the best retorts to newcomers as they arrived wanting details about the start of the race.
The day took on the atmosphere of a summer fair. Spectators congregated at the three change stations, but by far the largest crowd gathered at the buffalo stone, which was the finish as well as the start of the race. Town families walked the short distance to the stone, and farmers and their wives and children came horseback or in wagons from all directions, by road or cross-country. They brought picnics. A fiddler showed up—no one seemed to know him—and he played jigs and folk songs to entertain the women and children. The local newspaperman took pictures, although he wasn’t much interested in the farmers and their families and wished he could ride with the two cowboys and capture the race as it unfolded. Like the gamblers, all he could do was wait for the finish.
The two riders went north from the stone, past the Torgeson homestead, past the Swan Valley Cemetery with its one lonely marker for Herbert Swan, the first settler in the area to die. Then along a soft dirt road for twenty miles, all the way to the Lindstrom place and the new schoolhouse, the first change station. A good well in the schoolyard, but no time for much of a break. West into the sand hills, the sun just beginning to climb in the eastern sky. Up the first big dune to the top, sharp-edged ridges breaking away like crusted snow, rivers of sand cascading down. To the west, a wilderness, endless miles of sand and grass. No fences, no farms at all until you come to the Varga homestead, the second change station, where the Varga brothers and their families have begun construction of a Catholic church so the visiting priest will have a proper place to conduct the mass. Fresh horses waiting by the newly laid stone foundation, a drink from another good well, the warm smell of sweat and leather, and then south again into the heat of the day. No active dunes now, just low rolling hills, August brown and stabbed with the blue-green of sage, muted colours sliding by under the horses’ long-trotting strides, the mercury at its peak for the day, the air so hot it’s hard to breathe, heat waves blurring the land ahead.
Then relief. Down a sandy cutbank into a coulee, deer scattering, a doe and her twins separated in the excitement. At the bottom, a spring-fed creek, an oasis of sorts shaded by willow and poplar trees. Such respite from the sun, the temptation strong to wait here until later in the day, but after a brief stop, back up into the heat and a stretch of good flat land. Farms cropping up again on this stretch, small clapboard houses and newly erected pasture fences, newly patented wire gates to open and close, and then the east west rail line where someone has planted a Union Jack and people are waiting for the last change of horses.
Twenty-five miles to go in the blistering sun, straight east through open grassland. Soft rolling hills, an endless graveyard of bleached cattle bones, sober reminders of the previous winter storms. The rise and fall of landscape, the monotony of up and down, twenty-five miles going on and on and feeling like the whole hundred all over again. Until finally, the creek that winds toward Juliet. Water for man and horse, then up out of the draw, the pace quickening with the sense that the finish line is not far now. The horse’s head high, a trot turning into a lope and then a hard gallop for the buffalo rubbing stone and the waiting crowd of onlookers.
Most of whom quit cheering when they saw it was the young buck galloping toward them, whooping and waving his hat, his horse lathered and foaming. They’d bet on the wrong cowboy.
And then their jaws truly dropped when they saw he was riding the same bay horse that he’d set out on.
Impossible, they said.
The horsemen among the spectators looked carefully for signs that this was, in fact, a different horse. As the young cowboy cooled him out, they examined his markings— a star, a snip and one white foot—and concluded that he certainly looked like Ivan’s first-leg horse. Then one of the spectators from the first change station rode in and verified Ivan’s claim that, after giving the bay a brief rest, the young cowboy had carried on, leaving his fresh horse behind. This spectator also brought the news that Henry Merchant’s first horse had thrown a shoe and with it a piece of his hoof a fair distance short of the change station, and Henry had lost precious time walking.
The gamblers gave the win to Ivan Dodge and accepted their loss. The newspaperman made his notes about the race (won in a time of 12 hours and 32 minutes), the weather (seasonably hot) and the young cowboy’s sensational mount (purchased from Mister Herbert Legere of Medicine Hat and said to have Arab blood), and took a front-page photograph of Ivan and his horse, prancing as though he was ready for another twenty-five miles, which was good, because they still had to get home to the ranch headquarters five miles to the southwest.
The ranch hands were mostly disgusted and tired of spending the day among farm families with noisy children and plow dirt under their fingernails, and they drifted into town in search of new excitement. Most of the towns-people—the implement dealers and hotel owners and railroad men—went home for supper, except for the few serious gamblers who had won money and were now happy to stick around and shoot the breeze with Ivan Dodge, who was telling the story of his heroic race over and over, and couldn’t wait for Henry Merchant to come into view so he could rub the old cowboy’s nose in his loss. A couple of the men had flasks with them and when the farm women noticed, they moved their picnics and their families away from the buffalo stone and the bad influence of the gamblers. They knew that their husbands had bet good money too, but they pretended not to know.
The children were tired and cranky at the end of a long hot day. The fiddler was still there and he was trying to play for them, but his tunes had taken a sad turn, as though he were lamenting something lost—his homeland perhaps. When one little boy put his hands over his ears and began to cry, the young but forthright Mrs. Sigurd Torgeson handed the fiddler a pie plate of cold chicken and boiled eggs and dill pickles, and firmly tried to say in a mix of Norwegian and newly acquired English that everyone had heard enough fiddle music for one day. She noticed that the fiddler’s hair was unkempt and his clothes were not all that clean, and she wondered why she hadn’t noticed that earlier, and why the mothers had let him near their children in the first place.
A malaise settled over the farm families, one that they didn’t quite understand. They weren’t sure why they were waiting. They ate their picnics quietly, feeling strangely depressed about Henry Merchant’s absence. They kept looking to the west, watching for a horse and rider to come into view. They wanted to see Henry Merchant cross the finish line, as though doing so would punctuate a disappointing day with something good. After they’d finished eating and he still hadn’t arrived, they concluded that he’d given up and gone home to the ranch, that there was nothing to do but pack their picnic things and leave. They said their goodbyes and headed off in various directions to homesteads that suddenly felt lonely and tentative. They were, all of them, sombre, not because of money lost, but because they’d been so certain. This was a determined lot who wanted badly to believe in the future. It was disconcerting to be wrong.
Eventually, it became known that the old cowboy’s race was pretty much a lost cause from the time his first horse threw the shoe. He’d failed to make up the time on the second and third legs, and on the fourth his best horse, pushed beyond what his usually sensible rider knew was wise, quit on him. When the horse stretched out and released a stream of urine the colour of coffee, the old hand knew the race was over.
Into the evening, the young cowboy sat on the buffalo rubbing stone and smoked cigarettes and talked to the few people who remained—the newspaperman and the three or four others who were still there—and finally he said, “Well, boys, I don’t suppose there’s any point waiting much longer. It’s past old Merchant’s bedtime and I imagine he’s sound asleep somewhere. Either that, or he’s up and died.” He guffawed in a way that annoyed even his new fans, and then he mounted his horse and rode back the way he’d come. His own body felt a little worse for wear when he climbed into the saddle, but of course he kept that to himself. He
felt let down that he hadn’t had the chance to rib Henry Merchant in public; that had been the whole point. He thought about riding into town to find the other ranch hands and then realized he didn’t want to see them. He tried to reason why that was and grew dejected when he figured out it was because they really hadn’t wanted him to win.
Just as he was about to turn south and head for home, he saw Henry’s bow-legged hobble coming toward him in the dusky light. The young cowboy waited, having planned something smart to say, but thrown off guard because Henry was without his horse.
“Tied up on me” is all Henry said when they met.
The two of them turned south toward the Perry ranch, the excitement over and the challenge won or lost, depending on whose perspective you were looking from.
By now it was almost dark. The two cowboys walked together for a ways without talking, young Ivan still horseback, not thinking that Henry might want to change places with him after his long walk, and then Ivan grew impatient with the slow pace and said he was going to ride on ahead.
“Well, I guess I won,” he said. He couldn’t help himself.
The old cowboy stopped and took off his worn Stetson hat and shook sand from the brim and then gave his head a good scratch before putting the hat back on.
“I guess you did at that,” Henry said.
“I won good.”
“You did.”
“Fair and square.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Henry. “Fair’s got nothing to do with it.”
“How’s that?”
“You needed to be taught a lesson and you weren’t.”
“Who’s the one with a million-dollar horse?” asked Ivan. Then he added, as though the idea had just come to him, “I could make money with this horse.”
“He’s got distance,” said the old hand, “I’ll give you that. But he’s about as cowy as a housecat.”