The Cast Stone

by Harold Johnson

“Yeah, it’s in the policy.”

  “But the Americans say this isn’t a war, it’s an annexation, justified in international law as a protective measure.”

  “Don’t matter what spin the politicians put on it; any right thinking court in Canada will determine what happened to your car was an act of war. Fighting an insurgency is an act of war, I’m sure.”

  “Insurgency.” Roger’s voice remained flat, questioning.

  “Well, yeah, an insurgency is classified as an act of war.” The inspector was beginning to feel threatened, remembered his training on psychopathy. Cold emotionless, kill you as soon as look at you. Roger was too calm. He should be upset.

  Roger remained rational. “An insurgency is when people try to overthrow a legitimate government, right?”

  “Uh-huh.” The inspector held the clipboard, maybe he could defend himself with it.

  “A resistance is when people fight off an invasion, right.”

  “Uh-huh.” Agree with him and maybe he won’t do anything.

  “So what do we have here, an insurgency or a resistance?”

  The inspector shrugged. He didn’t know.

  Roger stayed still, calm, the car really didn’t matter. Insurance, no insurance, fix the flats, buy some glass, maybe even duct tape up the holes, drive it out of here, what the hell, didn’t matter. And this guy here with the clipboard, he didn’t know shit, not even worth talking to anymore, just a dummy, doing a dummy job, not thinking, not questioning, didn’t even know if he was living through a revolution, an uprising, or a resistance. Didn’t matter they were all likely incidents of war to him. Did he even know what war was? Probably not. War is when an old lady cries because a tree was cut down; that’s what war is.

  Monica was not at home. Ben rang the buzzer of apartment 607, waited in the glass case cubical, stood in front of the panel array of names, numbers and buttons and wondered whether he had the right address. He checked the slip of paper again. No this was right. 607- 212 4th Avenue South, Saskatoon. He rang the buzzer again before he went back to his truck to wait, looked skyward as he hurried the few yards between the front doors of the apartment building and the street.

  Monica sat on the floor with her back against the wall, something about drinking wine and sitting on the floor that seemed right, brought back memories of university, memories that had laughter at their core. This was different, sitting here because they didn’t want to be seen through the windows. She leaned as she passed the bottle over to Ed Trembley and he leaned away from the adjacent wall to take it, tilt it, glug it, once, twice, spilt some in his eagerness. He put it down between his outstretched legs, wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “So, was it the full council that decided, or what?”

  “Pretty near, there were a few not there, Sakej and Emily are out of town, but most of them agreed. There was definitely quorum, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “No, I don’t doubt council. Whatever they said, that’s fine with me.” His hand on the long neck of the bottle, he lifted it from the floor, held it there. “I’m a soldier, whatever I’m told.” He raised it, glugged it again once, and passed it back to Monica.

  “Me too, Ed, whatever council says.” She sipped at the bottle, looked at the label, a plain white paste-on, a prairie picture and a cherry bush with oversized berries. “I don’t believe that people would put their name on a bottle anymore.”

  “Paul Reiseman makes good wine, always has, why not show that he’s proud of it.”

  “It’s not bad.” Monica sipped again, lips to bottle, a kiss of a sip.

  “Four-year-old chokecherry.” Ed leaned his weight into the wall, rested his head against the plasterboard. “Tests out at 18 percent.”

  “You can tell.” Monica’s head buzzed, her belly warmed, she kissed the end of the bottle again before passing it back.

  “So, you were up north you said. How was that?”

  “Not bad, I like it up there, like there’s no war going on, trees, lakes, that sort of stuff, and the people, they just keep doing what they always do.” She did not want to tell Ed about her son, not that it was a private thing, she could share private things. It was because having an adult son would make her seem old, and Monica did not want to be old, she wanted to be a university student again, sitting on the floor drinking wine from the bottle.

  “You went to see Ben Robe. How’s he getting along?” Ed needed this visit, needed someone in this barren house besides himself and the prisoners downstairs, needed a fellow human.

  “Ben? Ben will be all right I suppose. Took the news a little rough. He’s probably never seen himself as part of the resistance, at risk.”

  “He’ll get used to it. Everybody’s at risk.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.” She reached out, indicating the bottle. “Don’t know what he’s likely to do. He was pretty quiet.” She raised the bottle. “But that’s the way Ben is, doesn’t ever say too much, so you never know exactly what he’s thinking.” She drank.

  “How much does he know?”

  “Next to nothing.”

  “Then what are we worried about? It’s not like Abe. Now if Abe talks, a lot of people are on the line. If they take in Ben, no big deal right.”

  “Except that Ben could be a power, if we used him right. The man is brilliant. Have you ever heard him speak?”

  “Naw.” Ed shook his head and a lock of yellow brown hair fell across his forehead.

  “He can move you with his words. A natural orator of the old Cree tradition. A magic voice.”

  “I guess I’ve never heard an Indian give a speech.”

  “Did you know . . . ” Monica found the space she was looking for, she was a student again. “Commissioner Morris when he came out West . . . ”

  “Who?” Ed leaned away from the wall; he was either inattentive or having trouble with his hearing.

  “Alexander Morris, the treaty commissioner, you know, the Indian Treaties 1874, Treaty Four, Treaty Six up at Fort Carlton and Fort Pitt.”

  “Okay.” Ed was on track.

  “Well, he was so impressed by the ability of the Cree to make speeches that he tried to copy them. That’s why some people think the words, ‘as long as the grass grows, the river flows and the sun shines,’ were used. Morris was trying to sound like a great Cree orator. Don’t know if he ever pulled it off. But that’s where that stuff comes from.”

  “Doesn’t do them much good now, does it?” He was thinking of grass and rivers as he leaned back.

  “Maybe not. Ben taught us that the words weren’t as important as the spirit of the Treaties. Maybe something there. But that isn’t where I was going with this. Now Ben has that gift, that ability to move you with his voice. If we had him in the resistance, or even out of the resistance but speaking for us. He could move mountains for us.”

  “And so, will he or what?”

  “Will he what?”

  “Be our speaker, move those political mountains for us.”

  Monica did not have an answer; she looked through the glass of the wine bottle, held it up to the light, slightly lower than half. Half full or half empty? She drank, more than a sip, a full mouthful, but not a glug.

  “I think,” she leaned out extending the bottle toward Ed. “I think that if we work it right, Ben might come onside, bring his voice and his knowledge and . . . ” she nodded to herself, “and his wisdom. The man has something to offer. A good place for him might be on council.”

  “Ever think we need more soldiers on council and less old politicians?”

  “Council makes the hard decisions. They need both. They need to have thinkers and doers. Council is not afraid to act. Sometimes we get frustrated because they seem to take forever, but when it’s crunch time, they act. Like this morning, they heard Betsy’s petition, thought about it, discussed among themselves and agreed to put Abe’s name on the list of people we would agree to exchange for those two downstairs. I didn’t see any delay, or inability to act.”

  “Like
I said before, whatever council tells me to do, that’s fine with me. But you try staying in this house for three weeks. I was happy as hell to get out for that bit of action yesterday. It was like a holiday. Fireworks and everything.”

  “And it was council that planned that out. Every detail of it.”

  “Well they didn’t plan for that crazy woman who was trying to take the chain saw away from me.” Ed laughed, a tiny laugh at the thought.

  “Yeah.” Monica smiled. “You owe the resistance one chainsaw, don’t you?”

  “They can deduct it from my pay.” Ed laughed louder, a real laugh. Nothing from nothing leaves nothing. He sang the words to an old song. “Wish we had music.”

  “Yeah.” Monica nodded. Music would go good with the wine. “Why not, I mean this place is supposed to look like a normal house isn’t it, not draw attention. A little music is normal you’d think. So long as it isn’t loud and blaring and someone calls the cops, right?”

  “There’s a radio on the alarm clock.” Ed pulled his legs under himself, used the wall to help stand up.

  “An old rock and roll station. Not that new stuff, and definitely not country.” Monica tasted the wine. “Something mindless.” she added as Ed walked past.

  “It’s all mindless.”

  The music filtered through the floor, muffled, undecipherable, but clearly music. Rick Fisher heard it, reached a foot out in the dark and nudged Wally. Wally wasn’t doing so good, maybe if he woke up, the music would help. Wally stirred.

  “Music.” Rick whispered.

  “Oh.” Wally answered and stayed still.

  Rick hoped he was listening.

  The music became clear as Ed put the radio on the floor upstairs. It sounded better to Rick and Wally in the basement than what Monica and Ed were hearing. The wood of the floor filtered out the tin sound of the speaker, added bass, added quality.

  Rolling Stones. Rick recognized “Street Fighting Man.” Leaned his head back against the post and listened. What an absolute blessing music could bring. Rick closed his eyes and let it fill him, lift him. He was in his truck again, blasting down the gravel road from town with Clarice, the windows were down and her hair was flipping around her face and she was tapping on the armrest between them to the music. He wanted to take her hand but he needed both of his on the steering wheel. He was showing off how fast he could drive, and the rush of the truck, and the spray of the gravel, and the pounding of the music and Clarice was laughing, and the sun was shining and he wasn’t tied to a post in a dark basement. Ricky went home and the draft notice never came in the mail. Mom and Dad were home, and the grass was green again and the cows were fat and the Rolling Stones were on tour again. He would take Clarice in the truck and they would drive over to Minneapolis and go to the concert, and he would never put on a uniform, or learn to use a gun.

  The sun was setting straight down 22nd Street West, into Ben’s eyes. He flipped down the visor, peered under it, hoped he would be able to see the streetlights in the glare. No telling when Monica might get home, try again in the morning. He turned the truck into the parking area of the Westwind Motel — out of the sun, out of the glare, he could see again and in a few minutes he would be under the cover of the motel roof, away from the sky that was watching him. A night of television and clean, sterile sheets, something different, wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe a T-bone steak in that Montana’s restaurant that seemed almost deserted. Maybe they should change the name. But that might seem unpatriotic, or insurgent even.

  The screwdriver slipped in the notch of the wood screw again. Rosie looked at the rounded end of the Robertson driver, wore out, not of very good quality to begin with, it was all that she had to work with. She reapplied it, put pressure on it and managed another half turn on the screw before it slipped again. Bit by tiny bit, she tightened the hinge on the screen door. Where were the men when things needed fixing?

  Lester was out, hadn’t been around for a couple days, maybe he found work, doubtful, but maybe. Benji, well could she have asked him even if he and Elsie were there? Probably not. It was too soon in their relationship to begin to consider him a son-in-law.

  She stood and tried the door. It swung loosely on the hinge, didn’t fit the frame. The hinge lifted as the door shut. The wood frame was rotted, the screw holes worn too large. She opened the door again to look at the frame, three-quarter inch, probably spruce plank, maybe she could find one, somewhere. She could not afford to buy it, damn shame, lumber coming out of the country all over, pulp wood, fibreboard plant over by the highway and nothing in the community to build with.

  Even if she had the right board, even if she could get a new one, she didn’t have the tools to shape it, a mitre saw would be nice, she didn’t even have a chisel to counterset the hinge. For a moment, just a moment, she missed Lawrence’s shop, not the farm, not the prairie, just the shop with the tools hung on a pegboard. Wondered where he was? Drunk somewhere, unable to sober up; definitely not the man she had married, not nearly, maybe not a man at all, not anymore.

  Sadness tried to fill her; she pushed it away. No, she was not going there; that was where Lawrence was, unable to forget, unable to forgive himself. The sadness tried again, brought an image with it this time. Lawrence on the lower step, Darren in his arms, and Darren’s head; warped, not right and the blood on Lawrence’s shirt. Dougie standing beside the truck, could not come close, could not face his mother, their mother.

  Then the police were there, in her kitchen asking questions, and Lawrence could not stop crying, wiping snot and tears on his sleeve, how it happened, how the handgun was in the glovebox of the truck, for no reason, no damn reason other than Lawrence liked handguns, big handguns, 44 Magnum and a 45 Smith and Wesson upstairs in their bedroom. He was going to be charged with unsafe storage of a firearm. That’s it. The police had done their job. Wrote up a charge, left the paper on the table. They had to charge him with something. The death of his oldest son, his pride, was not murder, an accidental shooting and the police fulfilled their duty, took notes, a statement from Dougie and left.

  Dougie’s statement to the police, was not to the police. He looked at his mother as he spoke. “Darren said, don’t play with that. It might be loaded. And I said ‘don’t be stupid. Dad would never leave a loaded gun in the glovebox’, and I pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger just to prove it.”

  Then Rosie had three children, not four. Lawrence never saw that, he never counted the kids. He never stopped and said “this is what I have left.” He didn’t know how to bury a relative, mourn for one year, cut your hair and then let the dead go, don’t cry for them all the time, that just keeps their spirits around, keeps them from going to the Otherside to be with their relatives over there. Maybe if Lawrence had cut his hair. No don’t go there. Don’t try to reshape the past. That’s what he’s still doing. Saying what if, what if, what if, and drinking and crying. It was poor Lawrence. He didn’t even have the strength to get mad about it. Poor Lawrence.

  Rosie heard that he still gets up early in the morning, five AM but now it’s to go out and wander the streets of Prince Albert looking for bottles and cans, until he has enough from the dumpsters and alleys behind the schools and other sure places where people don’t bother to recycle, until he has enough to buy his daily ration of rotten grape. Why was it that they made such a big thing about alcohol consumption these days and they still sold that shit in the liquor stores, rot gut wine, cheap, rancid, and twenty percent alcohol?

  She put the screwdriver back in the kitchen drawer, the drawer where things collected, things that did not have their own place, shut it with her hip and shut Lawrence and the prairie and the farm and that brief other life, shut them and would not go there, stay there. Wonder how Dougie was doing? Maybe she should give him a call now that Elsie had got the phone reconnected, find out how he’s making out with his welding business.

  “I’m glad you phoned mom. I was going to give you a call, but we’ve been busy like you would
not believe.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Lined up a contract, a big one. Four units.”

  “But you only have two.”

  “I know, that’s what’s been keeping me busy, tryin’ to find two more welders big enough for this job.”

  “Well that’s good, that’s good my boy, tell me about this job.”

  “North Dakota, Mom. North Dakota, can you believe it. Big pipeline, and I mean a big pipeline, this job is good for at least three years.”

  “So, you’re moving.” Worry crept into her voice.

  “No, no don’t worry, Mom, I’d never run off on you.” Dougie laughed into the phone. “Marie and the girls are staying here. I’ll be gone quite a bit at first, setting things up, but it shouldn’t be long and all I’ll be doing is supervising.” He laughed again “and collecting those big fat pay cheques.”

  “Good for you, my boy, good for you. I knew you’d do good. You always liked playing with your dad’s welder,” Rosie caught herself, “and hey, look at you now. So what kind of pipeline is this, gas, oil, or what.”

  “Water. A great big pipeline all the way from Lake Winnipeg to Texas and the best part is that I don’t need pressure tickets. Not like a gas pipeline, where they’re super fussy. No this is high volume pipe, big diameter. And I mean big Mom, you can drive a truck down the inside of this pipe. Those must be some thirsty Texans.”

  Lester shovelled grain from the back of the pickup into the fermenting pot. This was something he understood, a bit bigger scale, but not that much different than jailhouse brew — yeast, sugar, and something to rot. Farmers were happy to get rid of poor quality grain, stuff that wasn’t worth putting on a train and, besides, brewers paid in cash.

  Lester stopped, leaned on the shovel for a moment before rolling back the blue tarpaulin to reveal more musty grain. He tired easy. Out of shape, that’s all. Just out of shape. Maybe he could find a set of weights and work out, get back that muscle he used to have, muscle that rippled under a tight tee-shirt and warned others not to mess with Lester Bigeye.