by W. D. Wilson
We went as far as the road would take us. Will’s old man let Annabel out, and the dog came and put some weight on my shins. I scratched her behind her ears. Then Will’s old man removed the shotgun from its rack. —Because Duncan Jones was armed, he told me. I guess, as the saying goes, it’s better to have what you need than need what you have.
Will’s old man figured Duncan Jones wasn’t a threat to anyone but himself, and maybe some of the poor animals who wandered between his irons. If a guy was going to go postal, he just went – that’s what he told me. Guys like Duncan, guys off the deep end, could be scooped back to shore with some gentle persuasion. When Will’s old man said gentle he made quotes in the air with his one free hand. John Crease: the kind of guy everyone wants as a dad up until the point they do something stupid.
—You talked to Will at all? he said, holding a branch so it wouldn’t whip me in the teeth.
—A bit, yeah, I said.
—He say anything?
—Anything about what?
—About anything, Mitch, Will’s old man said, and let a little sigh follow the last word, and I felt pretty dumb right then, and then pretty terrified, because I might have to lie.
—He said you guys were fighting.
—We’re not fighting, Will’s old man said. He scowled at me, giving off all that menace as if he might just punch me right then and there. Not that he would punch me. Still, he looked like he might.
—Well, not talking, I said.
He scratched the nape of his neck. —He mention what his plans are?
—No.
—He doesn’t want to do a master’s degree, but the Force’ll pay for it.
—Man, that’s free money, I said, uneasily.
—He could stay in Victoria. The Force will pay for it, his old man said. —Maybe I could get transferred there.
We got going again. I was worried he’d know I’d omitted the truth.
In general, that summer, the forest wasn’t in great shape. The place smelled like woodsmoke instead of pine needles and nectar and the air was dry enough for it to tickle your throat if you breathed too deep. I don’t know a whole lot about ecology, but to my mind soil shouldn’t be grey and it shouldn’t powder your fingers like chalk. People said the hot spring and mild winter had caused more mountain meltwater than ever, but everything – the low, bent dogwoods, the knee-high bushes, even the falling pinecones that my head was like a magnet for – was parched, papery, brown.
Eventually Annabel perked up, and Will’s old man tightened his grip on the shotgun. The dog veered off the path and bolted between the trees, not running, but fast enough that the two of us had to hustle. We must’ve been nearing the summit, where people camped all the time. As we bushed on through, I couldn’t see ten feet forward, but Annabel’s clumsy traipsing was enough to guide us. Will’s old man held the shotgun in front of him, at an angle, and he used his elbows to ease branches and debris out of his way.
After another minute of fighting through the woods, the tree cover fell aside and the forest opened up into a glade with a great, wide panorama of the valley and the Purcells off on the horizon, white-capped like the teeth of the earth. The sky blazed like a chimney, but I don’t know if that was from the fires or the afternoon sun gunning light through the haze. Six years earlier the same thing had happened, and most of the Interior got burned. A lot of people lost their homes. Invermere, and most of the Kootenays, had the Purcells as a shield, but if the fires wanted to scale the mountains, the fires would. It was pretty awe-inspiring, all that destruction, all that power.
Then Will’s old man said my name in a slow, sober way that made me not want to turn around, not want to see whatever it was he’d discovered, because I’m not like Will’s old man or even Will – I can’t block things out like they can, I don’t have the stomach for it. Most people don’t, even though most people – at least most guys – like to say they do. But there’s no way to test it. You just have to end up staring something awful in the face, and maybe not even something physically awful. Everyone regrets things, and to be a cop, I think, you need to be able to face that regret full on, or else it’ll ruin you. Will’s old man always said the job eats up your humanity. I still don’t know what to tell him in response.
What he’d found was a decapitated stag’s head, impaled on a tripod of sticks, its antlers sawed off and its open mouth stuffed to bulging with milkweed. It was a gruesome thing to look at, and then, looking at it, to smell – the eggy stink of gore and flies and that way animal guts stain your skin orange. The creature’s eyes lolled into its head, probably where they went as it bled out. Its mouth had been forced open – I could tell by the rigid muscles in its cheek. It was like staring all dead things in the face.
Will’s old man had taken off his sunglasses and hooked them in the collar of his shirt. The creases around his eyes bunched up, especially in the fatty bit above the cheekbone. He loved animals so much. Annabel inched forward to sniff the stag’s head, but even she seemed unnerved, or at least as unnerved as dogs get. Will’s old man let the shotgun’s muzzle touch the dry dirt, and with his free hand he pinched his temple, the bridge of his nose. —I’m sorry, Mitchell, he said.
—No.
He waved his hand at me – just the wrist, just like Will. —I’ll call this in, he said, and pulled his shoulders back and straightened, cashing in on one last energy reserve.
And then a rifle blast cracked through the air.
It was close, so close, and as loud as a treefall or a lightning strike or a backblasting car with no muffler. I felt the concussion of it, the whoomp of air, and then Will’s old man clamped one massive hand on my shirt. He heaved me to the ground. I landed wrist-first, on my knees, felt the impact spike all the way to my shoulder. Will’s old man yelled something, I don’t remember what. The bushes were all shuffling, and the trees, and the dry grass shimmered in the air as if we were in some part of the Old West. Will’s old man levelled the shotgun, pressed the stock to the meat of his shoulder. His whole upper body leaned forward, one foot braced, knees bent and calves quivering in anticipation of the firearm’s kick. His face was stone solid. His eyes squinched to bead points. He breathed slow, even, as if the adrenalin hadn’t touched him. And he’d flattened me, effortlessly. People actually fought with that man.
A second shot barked from the forest, but there was no flash, no sound of impact. It was a warning, a scare tactic; maybe no bullets were being fired at us. Will’s old man hauled me to my feet and we bolted for the tree line, and then, without words, jogged down the path with Annabel taking point. Will’s old man breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth in double-exhales, sweat pearling at his temples and on the ridges above his eyes. He looked like he was clenching his teeth. Somewhere during the run his sunglasses had shaken loose from the collar of his shirt.
—Fuck sakes, he said when we reached the car. Sweat had turned the neck of his shirt grey, and his cheeks were flushed red, burning. He pressed both of his fists to his lumbar, knuckles first, and he sucked a steadying breath, as if to ignore a great discomfort. Then he opened the rear door and leaned on it while Annabel clambered inside.
—You can’t even help anyone anymore, he said.
He’d misjudged the situation and was probably hating himself for it, would be slow in forgiving himself. That’s how things went, how they always had: he held grudges for a long, long time, and he could just as easily hold one against himself. He eased the door shut, making sure Annabel’s tail was clear of the latch, and then he put his hands on the top of the squad car, spoke right at me: —It’s like nothing you can do will change a thing.
He therraped his fingers on the roof. After a moment of that, of me looking anywhere but at him while his fingers thrummed, he pushed away from the car and lowered himself in. Annabel loosed a low, throttling whine from her throat. I’m not sure if Will’s old man wanted me to say anything, or what I could possibly have told him to make things okay, but not a
day passes when I don’t wish I had gathered the nerve to try.
IT ISN’T EASY TO sleep after getting shot at. Take that from someone who knows.
Will’s old man stopped at the foot of my driveway and the two of us sat in the idling car and stared at the lights and the windows of my house, listening to the radio play who cares what. He stuck his fingers through the ringwire grate that separated us from Annabel, and the beast set about licking them. We hadn’t said a whole bunch on the way home. Will’s old man had reports to file, questions to answer – the Force might be in touch, he’d told me. It was the time of night when everything turns the same shade of grey. The dying hour, I’d heard it called.
—If you see Will, don’t tell him what went on, he said.
—You got it, Mr. Crease, I said, and climbed out of the squad car. He waited for me to get inside before driving off – thirty-eight percent of all assaults happen while people fumble for their keys. I had a missed call from Ash and another from Will, but neither left any messages. I didn’t call them back because the last thing I needed to hear was that Will had drilled through another plumbing line or blown up the breaker panel or cut off his own hand with a tigersaw.
Andie had ordered pizza and left them on the coffee table and hit the rack early, so I ate straight from the box, turned on the TV and listened to a repeat of some Liberal politician touting the slogan It Can’t Hurt to Try. I didn’t exactly care to hear about the war or the economy. All I could think about was the gunshot and Will’s old man pushing me to the ground. It was like I could taste the sulphur, somehow, or the smell of cordite, but of course I’m imagining that. Still, it got my heart racing. I don’t know how anyone faced those kinds of situations days out and days out. That doesn’t make me a coward. That makes me normal. The line between being brave and being stupid is thinnest at both ends, or so the saying goes.
I checked in on my wife. She had our hot water bottle hugged to her chest and some of the liquid had spilled across her and probably made the evening heat bearable. Then I grabbed a yoke of three Kokanees from the fridge and headed for the beach. About everybody I know likes the beach at night, and even though the sign says it closes at ten, the cops won’t kick you off if you don’t cause a ruckus. One time, when me and Andie were first dating, I brought her there and spelled out her name with tea lights in the sand. It seemed like a good idea until a motorboat made a wave that put them out all at once, but maybe that was pretty cool itself. Later, a cop named Berninger found us and gave a sharp tsk, but we weren’t causing a ruckus.
I cut along a dirt path that brought me around the rim of the gully, not because it’d get me to the lake any quicker but because I’d pass by my new house, still in its skin-and-bone state. I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t make me proud, that house. Just seeing it gave me a tingle in my chest, in that spot right above the gut. Three thousand square feet, a good size for a family. My dad helped pay for it – said he owed me, from when I helped him build his own home, putting in sixteen-hour days for two bucks an hour, way back when I was thirteen. He slapped a sweaty cheque in my palm, for a wedding present. Twenty-five thousand dollars.
I thought I’d drink one of the beers on the porch, since that way I could stuff the other two in my pockets and be less conspicuous if I bumped into a cop. Not that they’d take them away. But when my house came into view I saw flashlights on the upper floor, zipping around as if searching the nooks and crannies. Fucking thieves. Probably the hicks – the same rednecks I’d been fighting since grade seven.
If I went in solo I wouldn’t stand a chance. Usually I’d go get Will and we’d take a beating and hopefully dish one out, but I had no idea where he was, even if I figured it’d be with Ash, and she lived across town anyway. I couldn’t even call the cops, hadn’t brought my cellphone. Right then, I felt like an idiot kid again, like when I was thirteen years old without a place to go in the world. That time, I’d ended up going to Will’s old man, which, as I watched those lights in my house, in the house I’d built and paid for from scratch, was the only place I could think to go.
He lived a couple streets down. It was twelve fifty-two when I reached his yard, and I knew he drifted asleep way earlier than that, on the couch, watching whatever movie happened to be playing on satellite. I knocked once and heard rustling, the unmistakable thump of their tomcat hitting the carpet, and then Will’s old man peered through the slatted living room blinds, scowled like only he can, and came to the door.
—What is it, Mitch? he said. He wore grey Nike sweatpants and a T-shirt with a picture of two bears in bandanas eating human bones. The caption read: Don’t Write Cheques Your Body Can’t Cash.
—Sorry, Mr. Crease, sorry to wake you.
—Couldn’t sleep anyway.
—I saw lights at my house.
—Lights? he said, and when he did it sounded so stupid, even to me.
—Like, flashlights, I said.
—You think there’s someone up there?
—I got my tools in the basement.
—What’re they worth?
—I don’t know.
He scratched the nape of his neck, his whole arm moving in a circle above his head, looking old in a way I couldn’t pin down. Maybe that ratty T-shirt made him seem frail, who knows. He blew a long, tired sigh out his nose and opened the door enough for me to step through. —Let me get some pants, he said, and waved me in. As he walked away I saw one arm bent at his hip, fist pressed to lumbar, and he shuffled his feet as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. Operational police work is a young man’s job – that’s what he always told Will. It’s a career with an expiry date.
He came downstairs in jeans and socks and sandals, with his handcuff key chain in one palm, and he flipped the keys in the air and caught them without looking – a trick him and Will perfected years ago when they did judo together. He jerked his chin at the door. To the west, you could trace the outline of the Purcells – silhouettes against the dark tungsten sky. Will’s old man tugged the door shut, and then he turned and faced those mountains, his chin raised and his eyes squinted, as if staring something down.
—We’re going on evac warning, he said, but not in a way that invited me to comment. He did his cop’s shrug. Then he stretched, probably to ease a knot in his lumbar, and I imagined those muscles of his untangling like galley ropes. I stood a full head taller than him but it felt like looking up.
The street lamps are far and few between in Invermere. We walked in darkness. Only the spill from living rooms and porch lights lit our way. Will and me used to hike around Invermere’s dead streets at night, when the air smelled like paving salt and pine needles and lake. Since Will left I didn’t have so much time to just walk around doing nothing, and even less since I got married. I suppose that’s the way things go. Part of me wondered if Will’s old man might not mind walking in the dark.
My house wasn’t far off – in the daylight by now it’d have been in sight, or at least the roof would’ve.
—Is Will going to marry your sister? Will’s old man said.
—He is? I said, coming to a stop.
—No, I’m wondering.
—What’d he say?
—He never said.
—Well, they’ve been sleeping together for like ten years.
—Jesus, Mitch, Will’s old man said, this look on his face as if to say what the hell, as if he might headbutt me. Then a beam of light flashed around my house’s second floor and Will’s old man snapped his eyes away to look at it. He ran his tongue along his teeth. —Don’t you keep your tools locked up in the basement?
—Yeah.
—Wonder what we’re gonna find, he said with a little grin.
We kept on. Part of me hoped to find rednecks there so me and Will’s old man could beat them pulpy, maybe smack them with his elbows – the hardest impact point on the lower arm. I have a history with the rednecks. Will’s old man used to bitch about the justice system, until he got worried me and Will would t
urn into vigilantes. He might not have been unjustified in that fear – the two of us got in our fair share of scraps, and our dads had to spring us out. Will never got special treatment for being a cop’s son.
—The kid, Duncan, Will’s old man said all of a sudden. —He tried to kill himself, this evening.
—Why?
Will’s old man stopped again, at the foot of the driveway. —That’s what I like about you, Mitch. Everybody else asks how.
—Thanks, I said, but I’m not really sure what he was getting at.
—Know a girl named Vic Crane?
—Her dad’s an electrician.
He rubbed the back of his neck. —Well, she saved his life, he said, and did his cop’s shrug, and that was that. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and I looked right at it. Those hands of his – I’ve never seen any part of anybody that took such a beating. Once you break a knuckle, he always said, you will break it again.
—Don’t let Will throw his life away.
—Okay, I said.
—You’re a good friend, Mitch.
My house had no doors installed yet. Will’s old man used his cellphone to light our way over the empty wire spools and other stuff that could make a racket. For an old guy, he glided around.
When we reached the stairwell he raised a finger to his lips and we listened in the darkness. I heard a squeaking sound, like a rusty teeter-totter. Will’s old man cocked his head, bent his arms to half-guards – ready, I guess, in case one of us got jumped. All me and Will kept on the second floor was drywall and bags of fibreglass insulation – pink plastic packages big as couch cushions. I used to know a guy who stuffed his boots with that insulation.