“Maggie!”
“We were playing ghosts!” she said proudly and walked over to her mom.
Angela squatted on her haunches and brushed the wet snow from her child’s cheeks. “When you leave the yard, you’ve got to tell Mom where you are.”
Maggie nodded.
Angela stood up, shifted a drowsy Lily to her other hip, and extended her hand.
Angela stared at Olive; she’d never seen a Cree woman before. Olive stared back at Angela, looking equally fascinated.
“This is Brandi, and Monique,” Olive said and swivelled around so Angela could see her baby’s little face, cheeks squashed up against her shoulder, sliding in a pool of drool.
“She’s adorable. What a little trout,” Angela said and stared longingly at the infant. Her throat had tightened as she watched it sleep. She clenched Maggie’s hand tighter.
“This is Maggie, and Lily, and Katherine is off at school. Come over for Purity tea that I brought with me from Newfoundland.”
“I’ve never had tea from Newfoundland before. I can make some bannock.”
This afternoon at the Winter Carnival amongst a crowd of people in the bleachers, Olive smiled at Angela. Angela nodded. She wasn’t looking forward to having tea with her new neighbour. She was sad that someone with a new baby had moved in. On the one hand, befriending Brandi would keep Maggie from wandering too far, but Angela didn’t know if she could bear to be around an infant just yet.
The lights dimmed and the master of ceremonies took the stage, a thin woman, the high school principal dressed in grey dress pants and jacket, an icy blue polyester blouse, and a greying, short mushroom-shaped haircut. She gently welcomed everyone and introduced the mayor.
Mayor Spencer Cooper strode confidently across the stage and took the microphone. “Good afternoon, parents, children, citizens of Foxville. It gives me great pleasure to officially open Foxville’s first annual Winter Carnival. There will be plenty of games throughout the weekend, and of course the highlight of the carnival, the dog-sled races, which begin tomorrow. Enjoy the concert, we’ve got singing, stand-up comedy, the school choir, dramatic skits, and ribbons for the winners of the tea-boiling contest, bannock-baking contest, and the flour-packing contest. But first I’d like to say how proud I am to have been appointed the first Mayor of Foxville by the Chamber of Commerce. This is a wonderful new community where people from all over Canada have come to enjoy prosperity and the great splendour and mystery of the Canadian North. I know it took some coaxing by my wife and son to get me out of Calgary, but I’m here and I plan to stay here, and hopefully watch my son have grandchildren.”
The crowd laughed warmly.
“Come on out here, Tanya Ann and Tyger, come say hello to Foxville.” His wife Tanya Ann emerged from offstage, dressed in white, and waved graciously to the crowd. The women stared at her. The pearls on her neck shimmered in the spotlight. “And our son, Tyger.” Robert waved for Tyger to come onstage. He blinked in the spotlight and joined his parents onstage in tight blue jeans and a plaid lumberjack shirt open at the neck. “And yes, Tyger is the name on his birth certificate. So, without further adieu, the winners of our carnival games contests.” He announced the names of the winners and called each one up to receive her ribbon.
Wanda jumped up when she heard her name. “One of the first place tea-boiling team members, Wanda Fifield, is a goofy Newfie! Well, she’s good for something else besides hard work, eh?” Spencer Cooper pointed at her as she walked across the stage to collect her ribbon, laughing heartily at his own joke. Wanda was red-faced, frumpy in her oversized parka, her winter boots and grey track pants tucked inside her boots. Her short curly hair was so frizzy it stood on end with static. She hid her anger at what was expected and laughed at his joke.
“Well, I guess I can’t say how many Newfies does it take to boil tea! Only one, eh!” Spencer screamed and the crowd laughed.
Wanda scratched the pink birthmark on the left side of her forehead.
Peter laughed loudly and squeezed his eyes shut. The veins in his neck bulged.
Wanda turned red, too, but laughed along with the crowd. She was presented with the ribbon, and the microphone was pressed to her face. “Thanks a lot,” she said mockingly, her eyes crossed, fat hands on hips as she executed a little jig before she left the stage.
Jack’s mouth hung open. Angela shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
Wanda returned to their corner and sat back down on the bleachers without saying a word. She averted her eyes. She’d show them all someday, she knew it. She knew what Peter was capable of, and she knew that they’d hurt his pride and humiliated his wife. She felt empty and lonely but knew it would only be a matter of time before Peter was back on track. He always won, no matter the opponent.
After a moment Wanda looked at Angela and Jack and smiled shyly. Her face was aflame with red blotches, her eyes low. Her orange sweater smelled like cooking grease from the bannock she’d eaten. She wiped her buttery fingers on her fraying ski jacket then hid her fingers in her pockets.
Toward the end of the evening the mayor introduced Olive St. James. The crowd clapped as Mayor Cooper was shepherded from the stage.
Olive sat on a wooden stool in a green dress, her long black hair parted in the middle. A feather at the back of her head, tucked into a buckskin headpiece, was covered with cranberry red beads. She strummed her acoustic guitar as her husky voice filled the room.
Sun sets at the end of the highway,
You know I plan to stay.
I have a mind to stay all my life,
Alberta you’re home to me.
In my dark December, you’re the shining northern lights.
You’re the aurora, you bring magic to the night.
In a world as dark as this one, you shine like a star.
I could run away my love, you know I’d never really get too far.
My heart is a compass
Pointing north straight and true,
I’ve seen the north my love,
But now I’m making a home with you.
I’ll stay with you for happiness, for the joy that you bring,
I’ll stay with you forever, you inspire me to sing.
“Stupid squaw,” someone hissed. Angela watched her new neighbour sing and was moved by her talent, and pained by what she heard the people around her saying.
Chapter Eight
Wild wolves howled every evening after sunset, irascible, lamenting wails that pawed at Jack’s nerves. It frightened him as he lay awake, as did other things at night. Guilt was a bull that raged around his mind, egged on by a red flag of anger. How could all of this be happening to us? How could I have let her down?
He heard a sudden howl close to the mobile home and turned to Angela. Her black hair was in a snarl, clumped around the collar of a pink housecoat littered with crumpled tissue paper.
“What’s that noise?”
She didn’t respond, fixated on a natural health magazine that was discussing the link between industrial toxins and miscarriage. Her mother had called today. Jack had overheard them on the phone, Lillian shouting at her, placing the blame on the move, the mine, and the man she was married to. He had grown quiet as he listened. He knew that Lillian would pierce the dream-like bubble that surrounded Angela — the one that kept her absent and silent. She’d been engrossed in thoughts of the past lately, and they had kept her from the present. Daydreams so palpable Jack had witnessed her staring out the window and talking to herself. After Lillian punctured this bubble Angela simply wilted and gave up, retreated to her bedroom for the day and came out only to heat a simple meal of canned ravioli for the children.
Jack sighed and got up. The living room was dark. He crossed to the kitchen and pulled back the ochre polyester curtains.
The new neighbour’s white dog was tied to a tree in the patch of wood behind the trailer. They had moved in a week or so ago. Jack hadn’t noticed anyone going to see, walk, or feed the dog. After the
last snowfall, there weren’t any new footprints in the snow and no walking trails plowed into the two-foot deep piles. Jack was worried; the dog’s ribs were bumpy, visible through flat dull white fur, its eyes wild as it stared madly at a world that kept its owners warm and fed while it was left cold and alone. The dog shivered. Its thin hind legs were weak as withered yellowed blades of grass, its nose and tongue slack, pink, and dry.
Jack promised himself he would do something about the dog.
When Jack came home from work the next day, supper wasn’t ready. The girls were sharing a large bag of salt-and-vinegar chips. White crumbs lay in clumps on the carpet. They sat transfixed by the Rainbow Brite cartoon on the television. Angela slumbered in the bedroom, the curtains drawn, the bed rumpled and unmade, the cloistered air stale and yeasty. Lily was asleep in her crib.
Jack drew back the curtains to see two sets of delicate tracks in the snow that folded in on themselves like tents, supported by the densely packed snow underneath. The girls had walked on the hardened ice all the way through the backyard, straight to the dog, and had headed back again.
Why would the girls have gone by themselves to the snippy, half-mad, neglected dog? Where was Angela — why hadn’t she stopped them? Jack sighed and stood still, looking out the kitchen window, the curtains resting between his fingers, the starchy cheap polyester fabric rough and prickly, and wondered what he’d do with his wife.
In the bedroom the bedside alarm clock was unplugged. Angela was asleep in her old green cords, a knobby old black turtleneck limp around her wrists and throat. She looked dirty, her hair greasy at the crown, dry and knotty at the frayed ends, and shiny smears of butter and crumbs on her mouth.
Jack glared at her, shuddering at the blue-black and yellow rings under her eyes. He’ll let her sleep, because it seemed as though she hadn’t slept in weeks. Lately he’d woken up every night to find her pacing, huddling in corners, while the dog howled outside, gnashing its teeth, helpless and hoping for its freedom, before the howls finally dissolved into whimpers as it collapsed into sleep. Far off in the forest he could hear the wolves.
In the kitchen he started to make supper. As he wiped Maggie’s chocolate-smeared face with one hand and opened the fridge door with the other, he noticed two hamburger patties missing from the four he had taken out of the freezer to thaw for tonight’s supper. They’d fed the dog the raw beef he’d set out for supper, he realized.
Suddenly there was an urgent knock on the front door. It sounded like flint in a man’s hand, pummelling wood. Jack moved Maggie aside. “Angela? Can you come help with dinner, please?” he yelled and opened the door awkwardly. Frost spilled in quickly and tumbled over itself like billowing cumulus clouds. Jack shivered.
“Yes?” he said as he stared at the face of his neighbour.
Barry McMillan tipped his sooty, crumpled baseball hat at Jack and met his neighbour’s soft, blue, worried eyes with his beady, red-rimmed ones.
“McCarthy? You feeding my dog?”
“Yeah,” Jack answered.
“We don’t want that old dog anymore, so don’t feed it, alright?”
“Put it down.”
“Don’t tell me what to do McCarthy, or I’ll —”
“I’ll keep away from the dog,” Jack said wearily and bit his lip.
After McMillan left, Jack opened the fridge door, removed the cold red meat, and slammed his fist on the stove.
Late December. The trailer was in full holiday regalia. Doorframes were decorated with homemade red velvet ribbons. Green plastic holly centrepieces on tabletops were filled with red and white stubby candles. Stencils of Santa Claus sat in an ornate sleigh, and fat snowmen were sprayed on windowpanes with simulated snow from a can bought at the Hudson’s Bay Company. A small evergreen stood in the corner of the living room. There was fresh popcorn on white cotton thread loosely wound around the lopsided branches. The children were very proud of their decorations.
Angela and Jack were hosting a Christmas party. Many of their neighbours and a few new friends from work were there. Peter was preoccupied and sat hunched over in the corner. He’d borrowed money from Jack for Christmas expenses, and he felt sick and nervous about it. He felt needy, dependent, and a burden. He’d watched the traditional Newfoundland Christmas mummering spectacle with a wry smile. His head throbbed, and last night hadn’t been able to sleep; all he could think about was how much money he’d lost, what they were going to do, and how to ask Jack for more.
Wanda, fed up with worry, danced and laughed all evening. Homesick, she’d told Angela, covering up for him with lies earlier in the week while they were shopping for the party. That was the problem. “He misses the boys at the mine back home, I’m sure of it. He wouldn’t say so, but I know my Peter.”
Angela had given her a hollow smile.
In her kitchen, the party in full swing, Angela rolled the instant sugar cookie dough between palms until the dry dough blistered and flaked.
“Easy there,” Wanda said as she poured amber rum in the eggnog. “You’re overdoing it.”
Angela glared at her and put down the cookie dough. “Fine then, do it yourself.”
Wanda lowered her head and finished the cookies silently. She pranced around Angela’s kitchen, shepherding the children, calling to them in a singsong voice as she sprinkled cinnamon on their hot milk, baking cookies, preparing salads, and baking a chicken. Angela drifted toward a corner and stared blankly at the party unfolding before her. All she could see were shadows of people as they moved through the room ladling eggnog and eating sugar cookies.
“What’s wrong with ya, woman?” Jack asked as he whirled in the room, a glass of rum in hand.
She glared at him without a word.
“Come dance with me, wife.”
She rolled her eyes and clamped her hands under her arms. “No, Jack, leave me alone,” she said as he hauled her to her feet.
He smiled at her, his eyes glassy and red-rimmed. “Dance with me, my love.”
She pushed him away and her wily arms smacked him on the neck. She shuffled into the bedroom and fell on the bed. He followed her.
“It’s a party, try and have some fun.”
“I can’t.”
“Then why did you want to throw a party?”
“I dunno,” she said and whimpered. “I thought I could handle it.”
Jack watched her softly and moved beside her on the bed. “Oh, my love —”
“Don’t touch me,” she whispered. “I want to be left alone,” and she kicked him off the bed. Jack tightened his grip on his glass as he reddened and moved slowly away.
What the hell is wrong with her? Why is she still so upset? We’ll try again, there’s no need for her to act like it’s the end of the world. It isn’t, he thought. She’s putting us through hell.
In the hallway outside, Peter homed in on Jack and hovered close to his chest.
“Listen, I don’t got enough for Christmas and January’s mortgage. Can you give me a bit more? I’ll pay you back in the New Year. Wanda will get a job, I’ll call home, whatever it takes,” Peter said and peered shame-faced out from under the rim of his ball cap.
“Not now. I’ve got enough problems of my own,” Jack said.
“Some friend,” Peter said stiffly and walked silently down the hall.
“We’ll talk later, okay?”
“Never mind,” Peter said sharply.
Jack watched him slink away and shook his head. Just like Peter not to even see how this had all affected Angela. All he’s worried about is his own hide. Money for Christmas, what does that mean? Money for booze is more like it. It’s not like Susie needs the contents of the toy store to enjoy her second Christmas. Jack turned his back to Peter and guzzled his drink. He held the cold glass against his throbbing temple and cursed Angela under his breath.
“This is where the larger bills go, underneath the till, see?” Darlene said as she counted the money. She licked her thumb every so often to sort t
he pile. Her short, dark brown hair, parted in the middle and feathered at the sides with a flap in the back, hung on her shoulders like the pelt of a small curled animal. She wore a hot pink sweater and electric blue leggings that matched her creamy makeup; she was as plump as an Arctic chickadee, her chest and stomach puffed out roundly. Her small neck and tiny, innocent black eyes were buried in a wide grin. Her teeth, as conspicuous as a protruding beak, were the focal point of her warm and inviting face. They were exposed often since she liked to laugh a lot, big deep, bellowing honks that caused people to stop and stare.
Darlene had been training Wanda at the grocery store. Wanda had taken the job in the first week of January. Today she’d accepted an overtime shift. She’d started at eight-thirty this morning and was about to begin the evening cashier’s shift. Customers were few, the shelves were relatively empty, and the bakery had started selling cakes, doughnuts, and white bread rolls at half-price. Wanda looked forward to picking up and taking home a small iced cake for Susie.
A cart full of groceries nudged up against the till. Darlene bent down and loaded the conveyer belt with groceries. Wanda pushed the pedal to move the groceries down the aisle. She looked up to see Angela balancing Susie on one arm and pushing the cart forward with the other.
“Oh, my love, hello,” Wanda said heartily.
Susie dropped a can of condensed milk on the newly waxed floor. “Angela, how has she been today?”
“Oh, best kind, Wanda. She hasn’t given me any trouble at all,” Angela said and wiped Lily’s nose
Angela looked after Susie while Wanda was at work. Shortly after Christmas Peter and Wanda had told Angela that they’d lost all of their money. Peter, despondent and shamed, refused to take any more loans from Jack. He was full of promises that he’d find a way to pay back what he’d already borrowed. Angela didn’t want them to suffer and had opened her house to Susie. She would watch her, just until they got on their feet again.
Saltwater Cowboys Page 14