“She’s sleeping,” he said. “Dad’s in town.”
“You can’t leave the kids alone.” She glanced at the dark window of the farmhouse. “You know you can’t leave Elaine alone.”
“The kids are fine. Hannah is just about old enough to babysit. Please, I need this. I need you.” When she still looked doubtful he said, “We can see them from the window in the woodshed.” He had never made love to Gina in her home or his. Instead they found their love like teenagers, in the back of Jesse’s minivan down a grassy side road; in the bush on the reserve within the drift of autumn leaves; in Gina’s woodshed.
Jesse called to his son and daughter, “I’ll be right back. Don’t go near the river.”
Hannah ignored her father as if she hadn’t heard, but Brandon lifted his bucket to reveal the next perfect turret of his castle. He called out, “All right.” His high child voice.
Gina ran ahead of Jesse, in the gumboots she’d slipped on under her skirt. Jesse overtook her and grabbed her about the waist, and they danced their way to the shed. The smell of lodgepole pine. The axe in the corner. Jesse was already erect as he pushed her against the wall and lifted her skirt. He came quickly and, after rearranging his clothing, they both leaned against the wall near the window as he brought Gina to her own release. A Mustang drove across the bridge carrying an Indian girl dressed in a white ski suit on the hood. The girl waved at the houses as if she was a snow queen in a Christmas parade. Her boyfriend drove the car too fast for such a dangerous game. The risk, the ecstasy of early love.
Jesse heard his daughter call, “Mom!” Then louder, “Mom, stop!” Then he saw Elaine running down the road to the river.
Jesse let go of Gina and bolted from the woodshed, following his wife’s wet, bare footprints through snow and onto the bridge. The footprints stopped at the railing. There were two footprints on the top rail.
“Mom!” Hannah called, terror in her voice now. Jesse saw the ribbon of blue scarf floating downstream. Hannah had tied the scarf around her mother’s hair that morning, as her mother stared into the middle distance.
Hannah ran downriver, following the scarf as it was carried towards the lake, hoping to see her mother. But Jesse kicked off his boots and jumped into the frigid, roaring water at the narrows, thinking her body may have been caught by the clutching branches of the logjam. The current swirled him first upstream, then down into the water’s depth. He opened his eyes to see his wife below him, her clothes tangled in the many sticks that surrounded her. Her head was down, and her arms floated in the current; was she already dead? He pulled her from the debris and fought to bring her to the surface. In the struggle, his wedding band, already loose on his finger, slipped off and cartwheeled away from his reach.
Stew tried to sit up in his hospital bed, but his chest hurt and he felt weak. “Did you talk to Dennis?” he asked Hannah. “Did you ask him what we should do?”
Hannah paused, glancing at Jesse. “He told me a story,” she said to her grandfather. “He said Libby would have to travel the spirit trail to find Samuel and bring him home. But she could never come home herself.”
Stew fell back onto his pillow as he understood. “Yes, of course.” There was only one way to save Bran now. It was a relief, in its way, to step off this shore, to fall back into the water, arms outstretched, to feel everything drifting away from him as he was carried downriver on the current. He sank into his bed and drifted.
“Dad,” Jesse said. “Dad!”
Stew reached back into the hospital room, and held his son’s hand as he had when Jesse was a boy. “We had a good time,” he said, to make sure his son fully understood that despite everything, he loved him. Then he settled back into the waters and the current swept him further from this place. The room lost shape, became a white haze around him. He turned circles within it until he found himself on the river shore.
He knew what he had to do. He would find his grandson’s lost soul within the countless others making their way downstream. He would lead Bran back home, though he could never return himself.
“Grandpa?” Hannah said. “Grandpa!”
He heard his granddaughter’s voice calling, from a distance, “Nurse! We need help!” But he was already walking the river shore near Eugene’s Rock. It was snow-covered and the river was rimmed with ice. He took a tentative step onto the open water and found it held his weight. He took another step and another, in awe of the water moving beneath his bare feet. Then he looked forward, to the curve of the river at Dead Man’s Bend, to the lake beyond, and started his long journey south.
— 26 —
The Wooden Horse
HANNAH WATCHED FROM the living-room window as Alex made his way up the river path to the house. The Christmas tree was still up in the corner, though its branches were now brown and needles littered the floor. She should have taken the damn thing down two weeks ago, or asked Jesse to do it, but she couldn’t find the will. She hadn’t left the house since Stew’s memorial service at the community hall. She and her dad had both been eating frozen leftovers from the reception that followed, until there was nothing left. Jesse had finally taken a trip into town that morning to buy groceries.
As Alex reached the yard, Hannah looked at herself in the mirror at the foot of the stairwell and attempted to tame her hair. She wore no makeup and looked ragged, raw. She pinched her cheeks, trying to draw colour into them, as she made her way through the dining room to the kitchen door. She opened it before Alex knocked.
He looked up, surprised, and she felt foolish, too eager. “I saw you…” she started, then stopped. He was dressed beautifully in a long wool coat. A red scarf was tucked around his neck, playing up his dark colouring. Hannah felt grubby in her sweats.
“Jesse’s not home? I saw his truck was gone.”
“He’s in town.”
“Good.” Alex glanced away, as if uncertain how to proceed.
“I saw you up at the community hall, at Grandpa’s service,” Hannah said. “I tried to find you after.”
“I took off as soon as the service ended. You were busy. I didn’t feel comfortable—”
“Surrounded by all those old white guys?” Mostly retired farmers and ranchers and their wives who had known Stew.
Alex grinned that sideways grin of his. “Maybe.” He looked to his feet, kicking snow. “I was sorry to hear about Stew, and about Bran. I hear Bran’s back home.”
“He’s sleeping.” She stepped to the side, making room for him to enter. “Come in.”
He shook his head. “I can’t stay. I just came to give you this.” He pulled a small parcel from the inside pocket of his coat, wrapped in what appeared to be very old rabbit hide. “I was going to give you this as a Christmas present, but then Stew passed away.”
Hannah opened it to find the fur inside still intact. A tiny carved horse was nestled within it, carefully rendered from wood and worn shiny from use. A child’s toy.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It belonged to Samuel. Eugene made it for him. Libby must have kept it to remember Samuel by. It was passed down through my family. Dennis gave it to me when he first told me the story about Eugene and Libby and Samuel. Given the circumstances, I think Dennis would have wanted you to have it.”
Hannah ran her thumb across the smooth, curved surface of the horse’s back. “I don’t know what to say.”
“These people really lived and died, Hannah. The story I told you is true.”
When Hannah didn’t respond, Alex said, “Well, that’s all I came to say.” He turned to leave.
“Alex, wait.” Hannah looked down at the horse in her hands as she thought of some way to make him stay. “What happened to Libby after Samuel died? She didn’t go back to Eugene.”
“No. She lived for a time with her sister, my ancestor. She lost everyone else—her parents, her grandparents, her brothers and other sisters—in that smallpox epidemic.”
Hannah looked up at Alex. “Did she get back toget
her with her lover?”
“He died, too, along with so many others. Whole communities, whole villages died.”
“But Libby survived.”
“Yes. And her sister lived, or I would have never been born.”
Hannah offered him the horse. “Then you should keep this. You have more right to it than I do.”
“No, I want you to have it. It’s important that you understand the story I told you was real.” He paused. “The danger is real.”
Hannah looked back down at the horse in her hands as she chose her words carefully. “I know Libby and Eugene had a son, that he died. The rest—”
Alex didn’t allow her to finish. “Have you seen Bran around, I mean…”
She knew what he meant: Bran’s doppelgänger, his ghost. “No, not since that day…”
That day hung there between them for an uncomfortable moment, the day they had kissed in the Robertson kitchen.
“Then there’s no turning back,” Alex said. “Bran is gone. The mystery will bring down that storm. The valley will be wiped clean.”
“Jesus—you almost sound like you want that to happen.”
“No, of course not. But I think now that it may be necessary. This river has to heal itself.”
Hannah slowly wrapped the horse back in the rabbit skin. She handed it back to him. “My brother is sick. He needs medication and care. There is no mystery.”
Alex weighed the gift in his hand. “Then how do you explain what you saw?”
“Bran’s ghost? A hallucination. I was tired, upset.”
“And the storm he brought down, the one that burned the bridge?” They both looked to its remains, the broken deck that jutted out over the rapids. The burned BobCat still perched on the bridge supports beneath, where it had fallen.
“I’m not sure what I saw anymore,” Hannah said.
Alex nodded. “Okay.” He sighed as if there was nothing more he could accomplish here. “I should get going.”
Hannah followed. “Alex—”
He turned back.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish—I sometimes wish I saw the world like you do. It seems…” She hesitated. “Magical.”
Alex flushed and Hannah realized he thought she’d accused him of magical thinking, a child’s thinking. So many before her had made the same assumption about his culture. But then he said, “It is magical.”
“Can I call you?” she asked. She paused. “Maybe we could hang out?”
Alex glanced towards the reserve village. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Hannah followed his gaze. “You’re seeing someone.”
He didn’t answer.
“Is it serious?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
“We used to be friends.”
Alex pocketed Samuel’s wooden horse. “Yes, we did,” he said, turning, and this time he was the one who walked away.
— 27 —
A Bucket of Ashes
JESSE REMOVED HIS helmet and gloves and turned off the MIG welder. Lunchtime. He had skipped breakfast and was starting to feel it. He undid the buttons on the leather shirt he wore for protection and stepped out of the round, open entrance to the machine shed, to stretch and look at the winter landscape. Fog hung low over the snowy fields and obscured the hills on the other side of the river. A crow lifted from the roof and flew off, fading as it entered the low cloud.
He’d moved his equipment into his father’s old shed and set up shop here, taking on work as he could find it from the mill and local farmers, something to keep him busy in the weeks following his father’s death. He needed to keep busy. The familiar restlessness he’d experienced in bouts for most of his life had hit hard. In the evenings, he couldn’t sit still long enough to watch a television show with Hannah and had to get up to smoke a joint outside, or to make a sandwich. He’d put on ten pounds.
Now he fidgeted with the buttons on his leather shirt, wishing for a smoke, but he had promised himself he’d cut down after Hannah started giving him the evil eye. So, a sandwich then. He’d bought himself some rye and smoked meat. A good mustard. A few cans of beer.
Jesse hung up the shirt and headed towards the house without his jacket, feeling the bite of January cold on his bare arms. It was refreshing after the heat of welding. He stopped outside the kitchen door. Gina’s car was in her driveway, and Grant’s truck was gone. He thought briefly of going over to see her, as he had many times these last few weeks. But she was a married woman and she had made her wishes clear. He would only make a fool of himself. Still, she had held his hand a little too long at Stew’s memorial. She had looked into his face a little too long.
There was a smash, the sound of a dish breaking against the floor inside the house, and Jesse pushed into the kitchen to find Brandon poised to throw his mug too. A broken plate and disassembled egg sandwich was strewn across the floor.
“Whoa. What’s going on?”
Brandon turned to Jesse with the cup still in hand and pointed in his sister’s direction. “She poisons me!”
“He wouldn’t take his meds this morning.”
“She put poison in my food!”
Jesse held out both hands and walked to his son slowly, hoping to calm him. “Hannah would never poison you.”
“Actually, I ground up his pills and put them in his sandwich.”
“Shit, Hannah.”
“Well, he refused to take them.”
Jesse ran a hand through his hair. “Look, Bran, you do need to take the pills. If you don’t, you won’t get better.”
Bran gestured with the mug still in hand, sloshing coffee to the floor. “These pills make me fat and stupid. I can’t think. I don’t know myself. I don’t know what I’m doing. I sleep all the time.”
Jesse nodded. “Side effects. Just give it some time. If these don’t work, then we’ll talk to the doctor about switching meds.” Jesse took another wary step forward, thinking of Elaine when she got like this. She had been like a wild animal, impossible to reason with. She had hit him once. “You’ve got to be patient. The pills will make you feel better, over time.”
Bran’s eyes shifted back and forth as if he were trying to follow Jesse’s words and failing. Then he dropped his mug and held his head. “You imprison me! You keep me in this house. I go nowhere. I need to get out.”
He turned and strode towards the kitchen door, and when Jesse blocked that exit, he turned heel and headed for the dining room, intent on leaving the house by the front door. Hannah stepped in front of him. “Let me go!” he cried.
“You can’t leave the house,” she said.
“Let me out!”
He pushed Hannah and, when she wouldn’t budge, he swept the dishes drying on the rack to the floor. Jesse attempted to stop him, but Brandon pulled free again and again, grabbing and flinging whatever he could reach: the salt and pepper shakers, the box of baking soda Stew had always had at the ready on the stove to put out grease fires. Hannah jumped to the side as Bran overturned the old table and chairs and sent her lunch flying. Ceramic shards and food spun across the floor in all directions. Jesse finally got a grip on his son from behind, wrapping him in a hug as Brandon tired. “Let me go!” Bran cried. “Let me go!”
Bran struggled in Jesse’s arms, then suddenly became shaky, too weak to stand. Jesse leaned him against the wall and let him go, and the boy slid down and sat on the floor. Bran rolled his head back and forth, anguished. “Let me go!”
Jesse squatted beside his son. “Bran, look at me.” He held his son’s shoulders but Bran yanked himself away.
“Don’t touch me!”
Jesse held up both hands. “Fine, but you need to listen to me.” He tried looking Bran in the eye, but Bran wouldn’t meet his gaze. “You feel this way because you haven’t taken your pills. Either you take the meds willingly, or I will take you back to that hospital, where the staff will force you to take them. You understand me? That means injections, needles.”
<
br /> “I hate these needles,” Bran said. “I hate this hospital.”
“Then take the damn pills.”
Bran finally stopped rolling his head back and forth and nodded. Hannah offered him the pills and a glass of water and Bran took them. Both Jesse and Hannah watched him swallow.
“Open your mouth,” Jesse told him.
Bran glared past Jesse, at the upturned table behind him, but opened his mouth. Jesse pulled back Bran’s lip with his finger to make sure the pills were gone and Bran bit him.
“Fuck!” Jesse jumped up, nursing the finger. The imprint of Bran’s teeth on his skin. His son had drawn blood.
Hannah stepped forward, putting herself between Jesse and Bran. “Can you stand?” she asked her brother.
He nodded, glancing at Jesse as if he now feared him. Hannah helped him up. “I’ll tuck him into bed,” she said to Jesse.
Hannah spoke to Bran in a low, soothing voice as she guided him upstairs to his bedroom, taking control from her father as Gina once had when Elaine first fell ill. Jesse felt the same mix of gratitude and annoyance towards his daughter now as he had felt then towards Gina.
Jesse cradled his finger as he surveyed the damage. He turned the table upright and set the chairs back in place, but left the rest of the chaos scattered across the floor. Hannah could damn well deal with it.
He pulled down his stash from the top of the kitchen cupboard and rolled a joint at the kitchen table. He lit it and breathed in deeply as he heard Hannah thump downstairs. “He’s already asleep,” she said as she entered the kitchen. “Do you hear how he talks?”
Jesse nodded. The distinctive, clipped accent of those who had grown up on the reserve. “So he spent too much time around Alex.”
“Alex doesn’t talk like that. Bran sounds like he’s learning English all over again.”
“Schizophrenics often struggle to communicate. Or don’t talk at all.” Later in her illness, Elaine had sat in that captain’s chair for hours, days, weeks, never saying anything at all, even in response to a direct question. “At least he is talking now. He hasn’t in weeks.”
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