The Man Who Killed

by Fraser Nixon

  SATURDAY

  NO NEED FOR nightmares: the night itself was enough. After a fitful, frightened sleep I woke to dull grey light. Wind in the trees, the shifting of leaves. A raven croaking an unreadable augury. Blackbirds shackled with silver manacles in the Tower of London kept God’s anointed on the throne of Britain. My fatigue had overcome the cocaine and terror to leave me still and dead underground. The gun was fused to my hand by pinesap, my arms and legs cold and cramped.

  I crawled out of my hole. The wind had obscured my path through the forest with anonymous leaves. The sky overhead was a ceiling of cloud the colour of oyster shell. And here I’d slurped them down only yesterday at the Derby. Now where was I? The light was too diffuse to make out east and the rising sun. Must orient myself. Be careful. Don’t walk into a tracking party. They could’ve found my hat and counted heads. Or had Jack fought them back? Jesus, Jack. He was in the first truck when the firing started. Who was it? American Treasury agents or local law? Customs, Mounties, provincial police? No dogs, as yet. My fear was a living thing and got me ticking. If it wasn’t police it might be much worse. A rival crew. They’d leave my body for the wolves. Bad, very bad.

  Jack had said the crossing into New York State was near to Indian land. I might’ve already slipped over the border in my flight. Who knows, I could even run into a Vermont sheriff in these woods. There were also the natives themselves, an unhappy bunch. It wasn’t too late in the history of this continent to be scalped.

  I checked my Webley, my money, and my papers. All sound. Try not to make one. Unbuttoned trousers and emptied bladder. Twisting and sliding tendons across vertebrae cracked my neck. Roughly I welshcombed my hair and picked up a stone to suck on and stimulate saliva, combatting thirst. My flask was gone. Finger marks on the pewter could be dusted by police and used to tie me to last night’s slaughter. It was impossible to doubt but that it’d been an all-out disaster. Goddammit. Yesterday morning I’d cursed the rotten bed at my rooming house and now I was worse than an animal in the wild. Now would be a grand time for a drink of that terrible Scotch. Might’ve been useful to trade firewater with local tribesmen for a canoe out. Back in the old days Jacques Cartier had beaten the bush in this neck of the woods, brewing spruce beer as an antiscorbutic to keep his teeth. He’d made it home and so would I. As the day’s light grew brighter I walked the direction I best believed was north. To cheer myself I sang very quietly, whatever came into my head: “Three, three the rivals, two, two the lily-white boys, dressed all in green-o, but one is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.”

  Through stands of maples shedding rusty leaves, slender pines, and clean white birches I stole my careful way. My gun was in my hand and I halted at every birdcall. Presently I came to a creek, perhaps the one I’d splashed through during my flight. With dark mud I washed my hands of the sticky pitch and after spitting out the stone drank clear cold water. When I cleaned my face specks of the truck driver’s blood washed downstream.

  Following the creek led nowhere; it twisted on itself and petered out into a rank fen. Choosing an easy way I crept along through the undergrowth. Daylight grew stronger. In this manner I continued another hour or so until I smelled faint woodsmoke and heard metal on wood. With care I moved to the edge of a clearing.

  A cabin sat alone with smoke trickling out a tin chimney. It was a ramshackle affair of unpainted boards, tarpaper, and crooked grey shingles. Staying upwind as best I might so as not to alert any possible dogs I slowly quit the tree cover, the gun now back in my belt under a buttoned coat but ready. Ready.

  From the corner of the shack I spied on an old man with wedge and axe working away at a chunk of maple. Behind him a truck: my ticket out. No wires strung away from the shack and that meant no telephone, no chance for anyone to alert authorities. Play it easy with this rustic. Just a ride to the nearest town. As I watched the old man he took out a rag and wiped his leathery face. Gently and so as not to startle him I came out into the open and spoke: “Hey there.”

  He turned to look at me but said nothing.

  “Bonjour,” I said.

  Naught. He balled the rag up and stuffed it in his overall pouch.

  “Je cherche la route à la ville. Looking for the road to town. Savvy?”

  He moved with his axe but only to lean it against the chopping block.

  “Lost,” he said.

  “That’s right. You mind pointing out the road to town?”

  From the sole word he probably wasn’t French. A Yankee perhaps, or an Indian. There was a slight slur in his speech. For myself, I’d be damned nonplussed to see a stranger in a ruined suit walk out of the bush. This ancient in front of me was pretty nonchalant. It gave me a notion. If he was inured to wanderers in these woods it was because he’d seen them before. Ours wasn’t the first convoy that’d headed south on this route. The Chevrolet parked out back looked new and the man hadn’t paid for it splitting timber. Motioning towards the truck I said: “Maybe you give me a lift, eh? And something to eat. Go on in. I’ll chop that wood. Got any grub?”

  “Flapjacks.”

  “Good deal. I finish here, we go for a ride.”

  And with that I casually unbuttoned my coat, revealing the weapon. He kept his eyes on mine and I saw a faint flicker. The oldtimer knew. This was an act of will on my part. Had no mind to hurt or kill him, but would do what was needed in order to get out of here, even if it meant manual labour. At last he broke away and moved to the screen door. I followed to verify that he had no shotgun; I didn’t care for the prospect of buckshot in my back. He shuffled through the door to a potbellied stove and started mixing flour, buttermilk, and an egg while I watched. As the man poured out circles of batter on the skillet I went and made short work of the wood and came back with an armful for the grate. The geezer flipped the cakes. I sat at an oilcloth-covered table. He brought me a plate and a cup of coffee and sat down.

  “You hear any fireworks last night?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Ayah. You have any syrup?”

  The old man reached for a can of molasses and I almost laughed. Here we were in the heart of sugar maple country and all he had was black glue from Jamaica. As I chewed, my backcountry chef sat mute, his black eyes downcast, a beat-down broken figure. I was thoroughly exhausted and didn’t like him nearby while I ate. Strange sensation, cowing someone, making them fear you. Prerogative of the whiteman. This fellow looked at least part Mohawk, last of the braves mayhap.

  “Why don’t you wind up that buggy of yours and I’ll get out of your hair. How’s that sound, grandpa?” I asked.

  With nary a word nor glance he pushed away to put on a blue Mackinaw jacket and a flat cap. I turned the fork around the plate and swilled coffee, yenning for tobacco. Nothing doing until I’d left this wigwam far behind. From outside came the sound of an engine starting. I hurried out to see the codger behind the wheel and climbed in beside him. My devil’s luck. Out of a disaster some advantage. Try not to get shot out here. Let them kill you in town, if they must.

  We turned around and drove along a cracked path, then out onto a gravel road. The country was flat and grey now, treeless farmland of blank fields bordered by long wire fences. Were I alone and walking these parts I’d stand out powerfully. End up dead in a ditch. A fluttering of my pulse restored anxious fear. There could be lookouts, a dragnet. Get to a train and bolt yourself in the lavatory.

  “What’s the closest town with a station?” I shouted over the motor.

  “Napierville.”

  So, still in Quebec, grâce de Dieu. Maybe this oldtimer could drive me all the way back to the city. He kept his gnarled hands on the wheel and stared at the uncoiling road. If I’d been smarter or crueller I’d’ve tied him up and stolen his truck. This was no time for pity. Remember what happened to your last chauffeur.

  The sky cleared, hard fields stretching nowhere. After awhile I made out a dark line on the horizon. Getting closer it became a freight, headed the way I wa
nted. A decision.

  “See that?” I pointed. “You pull up at a crossroad. If it’s slow enough you can let me off and go on home.”

  The old man cleared his throat and spat out the open window. As he shifted gears his hand shook with a mild palsy, either St. Vitus’s dance or fear of the armed stranger barking orders. Keep him in your thrall. We braked at the tracks. The train was moving at a walking pace. Without another word I leapt out and ran up the grade to grasp a ladder, hauling myself up. The boxcar’s door was closed so I climbed up to the roof. As the train retreated I watched the old man reverse his Chevrolet and power away.

  My perch provided a wide vista about midway along the ’cars. I resolved to stay wary and keep my eye out for railway bulls or brakemen. The freight picked up speed. I rocked along and lay flat to lower my profile and watch the clouds above break apart. For several hours we swayed forward, the train passing Podunk towns and lonely crossings, heading inexorably north. Superstitious, I crossed my fingers. Sometimes it would slow and halt in that baffling way of all trains, only to eventually lurch alive and groan on. The wind turned easterly but then would box the compass and send sooty engine smoke over me. It whipped leaves along the hard-packed earth and bent double spurts of yellow grass hanks tangled with rubbish. I turned to look ahead and was rewarded. Montreal. The rough hump of the mountain sat stark and Cyclopean against the surrounding plains.

  We chugged through Brossard and I pressed my luck to the Victoria Bridge crossing. We shuddered onto the Eighth Wonder of the World, as it was once known. From my viewpoint, for a fleeting moment, I commanded it all: the river underneath with boats working the seaward current, the train en route to the smoking yards, the city huddled and steaming in the pale fall sunshine. My heart lifted and despite the danger I felt a thrill. This would never have happened without Jack. My eyes smarted but I blamed it on smoke and too soon we were slowing to nothing. The freight readied to stop and be shunted or broken apart so I gripped Fortune’s forelock and slipped down the ladder to the oil-soaked ground. A rich reek of creosote greeted me as I stepped over rails to bracken and shrubs bordering the tracks. I heard a hoarse shout behind me: “Hey, you!”

  I ducked through a hole in the fence past a mangled “No Trespassing” sign to a city street, low brick buildings, and urchins playing stickball. I strode along, looking for a corner store, a tavern, and a tram stop, in that precise order. It was short work to find all three on Sebastopol. At Lucky’s I bought a fifteen of Buckinghams for a pair of dimes and an afternoon Herald for two coppers. Across the street a tavern advertised clean glasses. It was well past the yardarm, near three in the afternoon, and for all my efforts and the miles I’d travelled I deserved a drink.

  After quickly draining one Export I ordered another and went through the ’paper. The Tories were looking for a new leader. Prime Minister Mackenzie King was headed to the Imperial Conference in London. Edison believed that there was life after death. Relics from the Franklin Expedition had been discovered in the high Arctic, deep in the Northwest Territories. Babe Ruth would be in town tomorrow, tickets starting at four bits. Nothing about a gunfight in the woods along the American border. I doubted that the morning Star or Gazette had reported anything; it’d been far too late to meet their deadlines. The French afternoon ’paper was similarly uninformative, devoted almost entirely to a headless torso found in Repentigny.

  No news was bad news. This pointed to the worst option: the ambush had been a business vendetta. Jack and myself were betrayed and I wasn’t safe, not by a long chalk. If he’d been snared they would murder him but first turn the screws. Names of colleagues and accomplices. Jack knew where I lived, how I moved about. I was a loose end. I’d be tied up in a shroud.

  Unless Jack had been killed in the fusillade. I shuddered. He’d told me to give him a week on the outside if anything went wrong. A week was too long and ninety-odd dollars and change would leave me with only enough for a ticket out. No. The danger was real, and my mouth went dry.

  The next beer came lukewarm. The ’tender gave me the evil eye. Turning to the fight pages I smoked, drank, and thought, feeling a total wreck. Split the difference and give Jack three days to resurrect himself. Three days underground. First order of importance: new lodgings. Felt myself nodding over my cups and killed the ale. When the barkeep came again I paid and asked for a spool of twine, which he foraged for with an ill grace. I went to the jakes and wrapped the Webley in newspaper and tied it so the package looked like meat from the butcher’s. I went out to the street.

  Across the way a carbuncle of people waited for a streetcar and when the trolley crashed to a stop I joined them in getting on. We went over the canal and I jumped out at Peel. There was a bathhouse nearby with a tailor’s attached where I could have my suit mended while I made my toilette. After that I’d find a new place to stay. It wasn’t advisable to return to my old flop, considering. I’d only left behind several textbooks, a Gladstone bag with a change of clothes, and my overcoat. No, Goddammit, something else: a tintype of Laura and myself on College Street, hidden between the pages of The Mauve Decade.

  We’d been walking down the sidewalk last year, early September, when a shill outside a camera shop snapped a photograph and handed me a card. I’d had no mementos of her. She’d never written me a letter, never compromised herself in any way. What’s to compromise? I’d asked, we haven’t done anything scandalous. Only ever with extreme reluctance would Laura meet me and only after continued persistence on my part. I didn’t see it then, how little she cared. I’d returned to the studio a few days later for the developed print.

  In the photograph she wore a silvery sable fur and a cloche hat like Theda Bara. I was in my three-piece suit, since pawned, and spats. She’d turned to the camera with a look of withering contempt, an expression I’d get to know too damn well. By Thanksgiving it was all over between us, such as it’d been. Burned to the ground. As a solace I began my other pursuit at the hospital. Incredible what a mere year wrought. Who was responsible for my fate? I’d thought that I was myself, until I fell in love.

  At the bathhouse they issued me a towel and the key for a locker. I undressed, stored the package with the gun, and had the porter send my suit, shirt, and collar next door. In the hot room a burly lazar slept and an old bird peered at a wilted Police Gazette through steamed-over spectacles. I sweated out every atom of cordite, cocaine, and booze and then went for a cold plunge. Refreshed, I prepared to leave; my suit came back in decent trim with a note apologizing for not being able to remove tree sap from an elbow. I tipped a quarter in gratitude that there hadn’t been any brain or bone in the wash.

  SATURDAY NIGHT IN the metropolis. Neon signs came to life on St. Catherine Street, syncopating light and music, red, green, and blue splashing in time with hot jazz from gramophones. I floated along with a suppertime crowd in the direction of Phillips Square. A vendor roasted chestnuts. Morgan’s department store was closed. Pigeons landed and shat on the head of the Roi Pacificateur behind me. Taking it as an augury I ambled to the Hotel Edward VII.

  Hanging in the lobby was a portrait of the dead Emperor in his admiral’s rig.

  “Who’s that, the Kaiser?” I asked through my nose like a Yankee.

  The clerk pulled a face as I forged a signature in the register and forked over a dollar for the night. I went up to the fourth floor and entered a clean, bare room. After the day’s efforts some rest was prescribed me. Propped a chair under the door handle, unwrapped the Webley, took off my boots, and stretched out on the bed, the gun at hand. After dozing and mumbling and fading away a sudden fastball struck the pillow next to my face. Hypnic jerk. I started up and rubbed my eyes clear, then went and doused my head in cold water. Quarter to nine by the clock on the dresser; for our King the time at Sandringham was set a half-hour earlier than Greenwich Mean for the pheasant shooting. Jack had said quarter past nine every evening at the Dominion and this was the first night.

  By the time I returned to its dirt
y streets the city was really starting to enjoy itself. Past the railway terminal on Dorchester smoke rose from the wide cut in the earth where trains marshalled below the street, readying themselves to scream north through the tunnel under the mountain. Stopping at an Imperial Tobacconist I bought Juicy Fruit and chewed it, crackling bubbles between my molars. At right was the largest building in the Empire, more massive than St. Paul’s or Canterbury Cathedral, the wedding-cake Sun Insurance behemoth. It anchored Dominion Square and had next to it the small tavern where Jack said he’d leave word if anything went wrong. How little he’d known.

  I pushed my way into the crowded saloon and stepped up to the bar. Men were jawing politics or sport. Next to me a chap with a tin of Puck at his elbow gobbed tobacco into a spittoon at his feet between freshening gulps of beer, a disgusting choreography. I added chewing gum to the bucket of brown slime, bought a quart of Export, and retired, my back to a wall where I could watch the door. From scarlet faces came shouted scraps of talk.

  “Redmen’ll top the Argos one-legged this year...”

  “Bennett can’t make more of a mess of Ottawa than that straw man Meighen...”

  “Went to her sister’s and won’t come to the door when I call...”