Saltwater Cowboys

by Dayle Furlong

  Peter stood at his new barbecue and placed a dozen pork chops on the grill. Jack was lost in thought. He remembered his father’s pigpen a few miles down from Red Lake. He raised pigs and in the winter slaughtered them for a full winter’s supply of meat. John McCarthy would take his sons Bill and Jack to help him with the pigs; Bill would eagerly assist and hold their throats while John siphoned a neat cut in their necks, drained their blood, discarded the bones, and cleaned up the slicing area.

  Jack would nearly faint with fear and disgust. He’d beg Bill to do it all, and Bill always covered for him, pretending that Jack had helped. But one fall day their father had caught Jack retching in the corner of the pigpen and had chided him mercilessly. Jack shuddered with shame even now as Peter asked him to turn over the chops so he could go inside and get some salt.

  “Honey,” Angela said, “you dropped one,” and pointed to a steaming pork chop on the dirt.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said and scrambled to pick it up and threw it in the brown paper wrapping. I can’t even help Peter cook without making some stupid mistake, he thought.

  “Are you alright?” Angela asked.

  Jack reddened and stammered, “I-I’ll barbecue the best meat in the world for you.”

  “You’ll do alright. Relax,” Angela said and kept her head down as she set the picnic table.

  After dinner, they moved inside to have dessert. It was cooler, and the sun had almost set. Wanda moved effortlessly around the kitchen. She filled up the sugar bowl, snipped the plastic off the milk bag, and poured it into a small white ceramic cream dispenser. She’d purchased a new tea set from the Hudson’s Bay Company, “Pushed aside that Indian woman you bang around with, what’s her name, Olivia?” Wanda asked absently as she poured tea and spooned ice cream on new silvery-blue plates.

  “Olive,” Angela said meekly, holding Lily on her lap. Jack sat next to her with his arms crossed, staring vacantly at his plate.

  “I pushed her right aside; she was looking at my set, she wasn’t going to have it,” Wanda said and delicately placed the creamer on the table, triumphant with her spoils. She floated back into the kitchen, opened the fridge door, and took out a homemade angel food cake. “And this serving tray has a marble top. What do you think?” she asked Angela.

  “Lovely….” Angela said, her voice trailing off.

  “Just as I purchased this I ran into Tanya Ann Cooper, the mayor’s wife. She came round the corner in her fur-trimmed coat, and she stopped and we had some good chat. We played bridge last week. I’m getting better at the game. It’s not as boring as I’d thought,” Wanda said proudly.

  “We’re getting a new car,” Jack blurted out hurriedly.

  Angela looked at him sharply.

  “A Grand Marquis. I’ve been playing the stock market too,” Jack said. “I spoke with a fellow in Calgary today. You should see her, some shiny she is, she’s white, with black leather seats.”

  “We’d considered that model,” Wanda says brazenly, “but we knew we could get something better.”

  “Hey,” Peter mumbled warningly.

  “Well, we can,” Wanda protested. “I’m just being honest. I mean, if you can’t be honest with your best friends, who can you be with, right?” she said and laughed heartily. “Now, if we’re all done here, I’ll clean up.”

  Jack smiled faintly while Angela rose to help clear away the dishes.

  After supper, with the children tucked in bed, Peter invited Maureen and Steve from the cabin next door to join them at their campfire. They were both schoolteachers in town, and Steve had played on Peter’s curling team over the winter. Maureen and Steve sat with their backs to the lake, a bottle of beer in each of their laps. Angela was roasting marshmallows; Wanda was in charge of the wieners. They passed the food along when it was ready.

  “These cabins are the best in the area,” Steve said to Pete.

  “Did you see some of the others next to the marsh?” Pete said and laughed.

  Jack and Angela were silent. Angela picked at the burned skin on a marshmallow. “Who cares about all of this nonsense,” she said and slid the burned scab off entirely, revealing a steaming clump of white candy.

  The men were silent.

  “The homes on Wild Rose Avenue are grand, aren’t they?” Pete said brightly.

  “We’re buying there,” Maureen said excitedly. “Dwayne’s working on an acquisition for us.”

  “It was easy to leave Fort McMurray,” Steve stated firmly.

  “Better wages up here,” Maureen added.

  Susie wailed from inside the cabin. “Time to do my duty,” Wanda said and ran off to feed her.

  Jack was silent as the others conversed amongst themselves. Angela glared at him, her eyes off the marshmallow over the fire, now scorched black and bubbling.

  “Watch what you’re doing,” Jack said and pointed to the end of the stick.

  “Don’t you tell me to watch what I’m doing,” Angela mumbled.

  An awkward silence ensued, broken by the sizzle and groan of a deflated marshmallow.

  “Well, that’ll conk Susie out for the night,” Wanda said and flopped down into her lawn chair. “Why the long faces?” She raised her drink. “Maureen, get out your guitar, Peter, get me the mandolin.”

  They tuned their instruments and played music all night long until morning light pierced through the gaps in the trees.

  “Everyone is asleep. I hope we can get a few hours in before the kids get up,” Jack said and crawled into bed beside Angela. He wrapped his arms around her slender waist and she moved as if offended. Jack was startled; he shrank back, coiled like a slug, as if drenched by salty water.

  She sat upright and whispered, “How are we going to pay for a new car? Why did you say that? We don’t have any stocks.”

  “I’m sorry, my love —”

  “We don’t have a lot, but we don’t need to try to keep up with them. It’s none of our business what they have. We should be happy with what we’ve got, food on the table and a roof over our heads,” she said pleadingly.

  “I just —”

  “I know things have been rough, and her things are lovely, but we can’t compete with them. We’ve got three kids, not one, and we need to take care of them.”

  “I’ll work harder.”

  “I talked to Mr. Papineau at the grocery mart the last time I was getting groceries. They need someone for a few hours on the weekend. I got an application in. It’s time I contributed.”

  “I won’t see my wife working at that store.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ve had a rough winter and you need to be with the girls. I’ll work harder, I’ll get some overtime, I’ll make things better for the lot of ye, I swear.”

  “If it’s a new car you want, let me help too.”

  “No. You won’t need to. I’ll be able to do it.

  “You’re ashamed of your wife working at the grocery store, while your best friend’s wife dresses in silk.”

  Jack lowered his head and turned away. He balled his fists up under the pillows and buried his head in the lumpy mound.

  Chapter Eleven

  Underground, Jack slipped off to the washroom on the upper stope. As he walked through the black tunnel he passed men illuminated by the lamp on his hard hat, with dirty, sweaty skin and eyes that bulged with weariness.

  Peter had told him he’d been taking the ore after a blast, chunks of it, hiding it under his hard hat, in his boots, strapping it to his thighs, and had been bringing it to the washroom on his breaks. He’d wrapped it in used paper towels and stuffed it in the garbage bins, to be removed and sent to the dump once a week, on Friday evenings. He’d never have gotten past security with it in any hiding place he could have dreamed up on his body, whether it be in his lunch tin, wrapped in his sandwich bag, stored in his Thermos, hidden in his boots, or hard hat.

  In the gritty bathroom Jack flicked on the bare bulb suspended from an iron girder, lopsided and fl
ecked with rust, and pissed in the dusty urinal. He washed his hands in a brown trickle of water. In the mirror his blue eyes were dull and puffy and his cheeks were sallow. His hands shook as he fussed with the tap. He dried his hands and threw the towel in the open bin. He pushed the crumpled towels aside. A few lumps of ore laced with thick ribbons of unrefined gold lay amongst the toilet paper rolls.

  “Christ almighty,” he whispered and whistled aloud. He imagined all that he could buy for his wife and children. Peter had agreed to share some of the ore with him if he would bring the ore to the men who took it to Calgary and assayed it for gold, then sold it on the black market.

  Jack wanted to put Angela in a nice big house, to let her cook and bake all day long if that’s what she wanted, or have Mary Kay parties with Wanda. Jack would like to dress her up in fine clothes. They could have a bigger home and get a better car.

  He’d watched her last night before bed as she put cream on her feet, filing the callouses on her heels with a big silver block. She wouldn’t have to look after other people’s children anymore; she wouldn’t have to suffer at the mercy of other people’s moods and demands. She could hire a housekeeper if she wanted to. I’ll leave this place someday too. I’ll make sure I have enough stowed away, I’ll make sure I don’t spend it all so we can leave here in a few years, go back home, buy a big house in Brighton, open a hunting and fishing lodge for the tourists. My kids can go to Memorial University, become teachers and lawyers, Jack thought.

  At that moment the heavy aluminum door opened dully and a miner Jack didn’t know walked in.

  “What the hell are you doing?” the man asked.

  “Lost my wedding ring,” Jack said and laughed loudly. He rose to his feet and covered the ore in the pile of dirty toilet paper rags.

  Bobbi smiled as Jack took his place beside her on the stope. The shift boss had scheduled them together on the same days this month, which suited Bobbi; she’d grown tired of working nights. She couldn’t help but be hopeful. He looks so handsome, she thought, watching him out of the corner of her eye. His black hair was sticking out from underneath his hard hat and his sea-blue eyes were serious as he worked. He had the cutest overbite, plum-coloured lips, and a pointy, protruding Adam’s apple that wobbled when he spoke. He was skinny and lanky — fitting for someone with Irish blood — and sexy in an unusual way. His hip rested in the crook of his twisted leg, and his dishevelled jeans wound around his thin calves. She’d put on orange blossom cologne this morning, hoping he would notice. If only I wasn’t so dirty down here, he might — “Jack?” she said suddenly and faced him. “I was wondering if —”

  “Not now,” he said sharply and turned away from her.

  Something’s going on, she thought, and she went reluctantly back to work, peering over her shoulder every few minutes to watch him, wondering.

  Jack was late coming off his shift. Bobbi stopped him at security.

  “You can’t ignore me forever,” she said brazenly.

  Jack shrugged and didn’t say a word, kept his eyes on the gravel. She slunk to the back of the crowd and shook her head in frustration. As he approached Peter’s truck he saw Watson and Wisnoski crowded around the truck, placing bets on the crew’s hockey pool. Peter was collecting the money.

  “The Flames talk a good game but Montreal will flatten them in the eleventh hour,” Peter said.

  “Here comes hop-along,” Wisnoski said and gestured to Jack.

  “With a crooked leg like that, you wouldn’t want him on your offence,” Watson said.

  “Curved just like a hockey stick he is, and as skinny as one too,” Wisnoski said and laughed.

  Jack scowled and gave Wisnoski the finger.

  The men laughed and Watson coughed up a phlegmy hock.

  “Those investments you are making, any chance of getting in on them?” Watson asked.

  “Tell you what, let’s see who has the best instincts in the hockey pool, then we’ll talk,” Peter said and winked. He pulled out of the parking lot and drove toward home. Jack was silent.

  “Cold?” Peter asked.

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong?” Peter asked.

  Jack reddened. He didn’t want to say. He shifted in his seat and slung his arm over the back of the seat in an effort to appear relaxed.

  “You’re going to let those two jackasses in on it?”

  “I need help,” Peter said.

  Jack couldn’t believe he’d let those two get involved. Who were they anyway? A bunch of loudmouth goons with curdled brains. How could Peter trust them? He didn’t know them from squat. They were strangers, and who knew who they’d tell, their wives, their friends, drinking buddies — or worse, other strangers they’d just met while drinking at the bar, people they wanted to impress over one too many beers.

  No, this required something these men didn’t have: loyalty. This was what Jack had in spades. It was in the cards. Jack had to help him, he knew it, or Peter would get caught. Get caught by the police or get caught up with strangers — that would be worse. It would mean they’d all prosper and Jack would be left behind. He didn’t want to be left behind. The sight of that ore was mesmerizing; it acted on him like a drink. Jack wanted what it promised.

  “I’ll help you,” Jack said.

  “I knew you’d come round.”

  “When can I start?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  After work the next evening, Jack’s hand trembled at the wheel of Peter’s car. One shaky hand tumbled over the other as he turned the wheel carefully around the last curve in the road before he pulled into the Chinook Tavern’s parking lot.

  It was a chilly spring night. Condensation and vapour was thick around bare black trees, curling around tailpipes and the wheels of parked cars. Yet Jack was sweating. He was tense and agitated; his back stiffened at the slightest noise. He parked the car and wiped the sweat from his neck with the back of his hand. He grabbed the duffel bag beside him and walked into the tavern.

  Locals drank quietly as they played cards and watched the hockey game. The waitress leaned lazily over the counter, the tavern’s drinking glasses polished and stacked behind her. She fussed with her top; the elastic midriff had ridden up over her change-apron. She tucked it under the drawstring and poured a beer for a skinny man with white hair, a large red bulbous nose, and shaky hands, scabbed with eczema.

  Jack had been told to sit at a table close to the door and to put the duffel bag under his feet. The “partners” would sit beside him, have a beer, and when Jack was ready to leave, he’d take their bag instead of his. Simple.

  Two men opened the door and the scent of sweet pine filled the room. Jack wrapped his foot protectively around the duffel bag on the floor at the edge of the table. It was the explosives salesmen from Calgary, the cowboys who had beaten up Pete. Those bastards, they’re not going to take this from me now, not here, not now. I’ll kill them if I have to, I’ll wrap the bag around their heads and suffocate them. He trembled at the sight of the tall, burly, callous men in their steel-toed leather boots and rawhide hats, fighters, turf-mongers, vigilante mercenaries for the cause of Alberta the sacred, elsewhere the profane.

  And then Jack noticed it clasped in the hands of the second cowboy: a grey-and-white duffel bag.

  “Christ almighty,” Jack whispered and gulped.

  He wanted to kick the duffel bag under the table leg, hide the fact that he was the one they were looking for, he was the one they were to do business with. Jack scrambled to his feet and considered running to his car, driving back to Pete’s, giving him the duffel bag, and letting him deal with this. Walking away from it all without a cent taken, but it was too late; they’d seen the bag.

  One of the men stood behind Jack and put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s your hurry. You haven’t even drunk your beer.” They both sat next to Jack and hollered at the waitress.

  She looked over, the edge of her top sticking out again from her change apron, revealing her spotty
back. Her jeans clung tightly to her skin. Red-and-gold piping, plump and vein-like, snaked its way down the sides of her denims. “Beers, huh?” she yelled.

  The men grunted.

  She opened frosty bottles with a flick of the wrist and brought them to the table, lugging them by their necks like limp chickens.

  Jack picked up his glass of beer and gulped it. It was horrible, the frothy yellow liquid sour like bog-water. As he swallowed the last mouthful, white foam slid down the side of the glass.

  He watched her, the men, the empty glass, and the duffel bags at their feet. The cowboys bantered between themselves and paid no attention to Jack. Do it, do it now, he thought and reached for the duffel bag closest to the cowboys’ feet.

  He picked it up and walked to the door.

  “Hey, where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  He stopped.

  “You didn’t pay for your beer,” the waitress snarled.

  “Oh,” Jack said quietly, his voice breaking as he reached for a five-dollar bill in his back pocket. It was damp with sweat. She hurried over and snatched it out of his hand.

  The cowboys glared at him. He reddened deeply and fumbled with the doorknob. He yanked the door open and the cool air pooled around his legs and torso. He drove back to town, passing ptarmigan and jackrabbits on the road. His headlights caught the glint of a fox’s eye. The wild animals were hungry in the spring, coming out of the forest, brazenly crossing the road, hunting their prey, mice, snakes, and insects. His throbbing heart was deafening with its insistent thump, hot blood painful as it pulsed at the back of his skull.

  He pulled into the parking lot of the Civic Centre to pick up Peter after his curling game. He cut the motor and hauled at the zipper of the duffel bag. Inside were brown and russet stacks of tidy one-hundred-dollar bills.

  When he returned home, he found Angela in the bedroom. He knelt at her bedside, reached into the flimsy pocket of his faded gravel-white jeans, and pulled out a wad of bills. Angela stared at the bills and her heart sank.