by Leo McKay
In the half-light, with his back to the dark sky in the west, his father’s face is unreadable.
“Let’s go,” Ennis says, and they turn back to the car.
They look west now, out over the trees and down the first hundred metres of the trail they’re going to ski. It’s still dark enough that the snow acts as a light source, illuminating the ground beneath trees. The snow covers the trees thickly, but in the places where patches of evergreen needles are visible, they appear black in contrast to the snow.
Ziv notices some emotion on his father’s face. His eyes are glistening and Ziv wonders if he is about to cry. With a mittened hand, his father digs the blue wax out of the snow and begins rubbing his skis with it.
When the skis are waxed and ready, they clip the toes of their boots to the bindings.
Ziv hangs back and lets his father lead. He follows, nestling his skis into the grooves his father has made. It will take a few moments to adjust to the exact grip the wax has on the snow. His kicks are unsteady and off-balance. He is unable to pick up his heels. He looks ahead at his father in disbelief. His big shoulders are squared out, the arms working the poles like pistons. He looks frail somehow, despite his competence.
As light creeps into the sky, Ziv becomes more aware of the snow-laden trees around him. A few branches have cracked under their burdens, but most are arched gracefully in unaccustomed directions. Big spruces and firs stand over him, on either side of the trail. Under the weight of snow they bend toward the ground. Two white spruces, squared off on opposite sides of the trail, appear to be bowing to each other. The tips of their branches reach out across a lifetime’s distance toward the other, ready to shake hands or embrace. Even evergreens are dormant in the winter, Ziv knows, not dead but the next thing to it. After the coldness of a dark season, one that seems to go on forever, they manage somehow to rekindle, within themselves, a life.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For first-hand details about underground mining, I leaned heavily on Shaun Comish’s incredible The Westray Tragedy: A Miner’s Story (Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, 1993. ISBN 1-895686-26-1), which I recommend every Canadian read.
For salient wisdom from the point of view of miners themselves, Judith Hoegg Ryan’s Coal In Our Blood: 200 years of coal mining in Nova Scotia’s Pictou County (Formac Publishing Company, Halifax, 1992. ISBN 0-88780-215-x) was indispensable.
For political and economic insight into the Westray case, Calculated Risk: Greed, Politics, and the Westray Tragedy by Dean Jobb (Nimbus Publishing, Halifax, 1994. ISBN 1-55109-070-8) was a valuable source.
For general background information on mining in Pictou County, The Pictonian Colliers by James M. Cameron (The Nova Scotia Museum, Halifax, 1974) is the old standby.
Finally, The Westray Story: A Predicable Path to Disaster: Report of the Westray Mine Public Inquiry, Justice K. Peter Richard, Commissioner (Province of Nova Scotia, 1997. ISBN 0-88871-465-3), is a lucid, accessible, heart-rending account of the whole fiasco.
I wish to thank the following:
Ellen Seligman, my editor, for pushing me and this book to be the most we could be. Denise Bukowski, my agent, for getting excited and doing something about it. Kathy, Joel, Mairi, and Laura, for letting me disappear into the red room. Mum and Pop, for a warm bed, some peace and quiet, and high-calorie meals. Friends, colleagues, and family members, for providing encouragement, writing space, coffee, babysitting, whatever. Students, past and present, for keeping me honest and reacquainting me with the beginner’s eye. Dale Saunders, for accounting acumen and patience.
Leo McKay Jr.’s fiction debut was a collection of short stories, Like This, which became a finalist for The Giller Prize. His stories have been published in many Canadian literary magazines, and he is a former editor of PRISM international. Twenty-Six is his first novel. McKay teaches high school in Truro, Nova Scotia, and lives with his wife and three children in the nearby village of Maitland. He is at work on his next book of fiction.