The Cast Stone

by Harold Johnson

  “School, of course.” Rose answered for her little sister.

  “All kinds of addictions, not just junkies. I’m . . . ” Theresa hesitated. “I’m more a counsellor than a guard,” she lied.

  “But are there junkies there?” Dorothy asked with the shoulder strap under her chin.

  “Not many.” Theresa really didn’t know. “Mostly it’s people who have troubles in their lives, one kind or another who get in trouble and can’t find a way out.”

  “But is it dangerous?”

  “No,” Theresa lied again. “Most of them are addicted to tobacco.” She told the truth. Enough tobacco for a cigarette sold for more inside than either marijuana or coke.

  Theresa kissed the end of her finger and pressed it to Rose’s nose before her daughter could get out of the car and run to the sitter’s.

  “Love you back, Mom.” Rose found her pack with the books and crayons for Dorothy, and a snack.

  “Hey, you girls want to go visit your grandma next weekend? I have four days off. Why don’t you take Friday off from school and we’ll go up north?”

  “You are not going to work overtime.” Dorothy’s words remained in Theresa’s head as she drove her Land Cruiser, the Land Cruiser that almost belonged to her; two more payments. She liked this truck, all-wheel drive, heavy, reliable, Toyota technology. She liked the way it handled in the corners, its four hybrid engines, one for each wheel, computerized to apply the perfect amount of torque.

  She accelerated hard at the change of the light. The truck responded with a smooth, quiet rush of power. She was reminded for a minute of the reason she had purchased it, her excitement about the cross between the rotary gas engine and an electric engine, how one fit inside the other, how she had phoned her brother Dougie to tell him about it, and his excitement.

  “So they must’ve built the armature into the rotary part of the gas engine. That means the stators must act as seals.” He figured it out in his head. “It would make one hell of a welder.”

  “I don’t know how it works, I just know it’s really easy on gas.”

  “A rotary engine has unlimited RPM. There’s no top end.” Dougie’s mind was working with this, imagining it from a thousand kilometres away.

  “It goes as fast as I want.” Theresa didn’t need details.

  “No, think about it. What you have there are three things all together. First you have a rotary gas engine, an electric generator, and an electric motor all in one unit. It’s brilliant.”

  Theresa liked it that her big brother approved. It was a good truck to take to Moccasin Lake.

  Red dropped the front quarter of the moose onto the table, slid it off his shoulder, red meat and bone. He straightened once the weight was off, stretched his tired shoulder. “This is the last of it.”

  Benji looked for space on the table for the set of ribs he held away from his body, not wanting to bloody the front of his parka, his arms tired.

  Red made space on the counter and helped Benji to lay it out. “There’s some good eating there.” He noted the layer of fat that covered the outside of the ribs.

  Lorraine put a knife to the flesh, separated gristle and bone.

  “Lots of people are going to eat good for a while.” Rosie moved the men away from the meat with her hip and shoulder, simply took up the space they occupied until they stepped back. They had no business here. This was her place, her business.

  “You men must be tired, that’s a lot of meat to pack.” Rosie was reminding them that they should go sit down now, relax, drink tea, tell stories. They should be keeping an eye on the children running around, gently teasing, scolding the more mischievous ones. There should be children here. Rosie looked away from the meat, around the room — the only child was Rachel. Three women and two men, enough people to get the work done, but there should be more, more women laughing, more men bragging, more children getting in the way, learning.

  “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” Benji got Elsie’s attention by touching her elbow. “Red made a sleigh out of the hide. We just wrapped all the meat in there, tied it with a rope and pulled — amazing how easy it dragged.”

  “Trick to that,” Red was happy to explain, to teach, “is pull in the right direction. All the hairs lay one way. You have to pull it forward.” Red felt good, tired, sore and complete. He brought home meat, he fed his friends. It was said that when Red shot his first moose he was holding his diaper up with one hand. That wasn’t quite true. He shot his first moose when he was eleven. Uncle John and Simeon had shot a moose across the bay from the village, a cow moose; they were saying that the calf was still out there. Red and three of his buddies went looking with a .22. Red saw the calf first, put a bullet between its ribs, came home a man, with that same complete, strong feeling he was feeling today.

  Dean wasn’t thinking about his wife, Vicky, he had not thought about her in a long time. His thoughts rolled back to the Canadians who killed his son Ricky. He tried thinking about other things, tried thinking about the farm, the equipment that needed repairs before spring seeding, about the cattle. When she was there, or when he was there on the farm, they talked, said “hello,” “good morning,” “I love you.” Then he went back to the world of thoughts; in this world revenge dominated. The Canadians took his son, a cheap, dirty trick. Dean would not stoop that low. He imagined he would kill a Canadian honourably. Walk up to him, face him like a man, put the gun in his face, look into his eyes.

  He did not tell Vicky about the handgun. He was not keeping a secret, he didn’t care if she knew or not. They just never talked about things like that. She refused to leave the farm, gave Dean lists to take to town, odd spices and particular flour, specific ingredients for the constant baking, creating, cooking. He ate well when he was home, pastries to try, something new and different every supper. Strange breakfasts beyond eggs Benedict that included fruit and smoked salmon.

  Dean stayed in his mind, even when he was all the way over to Minneapolis, in the big mall, wandering from store to store with Vicky’s lists. Then he found the handgun, an American-built handgun in the Mall of America, a forty-four calibre, an American calibre, not a foreign nine-millimetre, something heavy, something steel, and solid, a gun that fit a man’s hand.

  A small box of ammunition, nothing extravagant, little cardboard box, not much bigger than a deck of playing cards really, fit into a shirt pocket easily. Now all he needed was a Canadian.

  For no reason at all Dougie suddenly thought of his mother. He stopped and looked around. Did these people ever stop shopping? The mall was busy, filling the nine-million square feet of the largest mall on earth. He tried to imagine her here. He couldn’t. Rosie simply would not stroll among the shoppers, drink coffee from a paper cup, dangle a handbag fashionably, lean over the rail and examine the plastic model of the planned phase III. He stopped trying.

  Work on the big water pipeline was going well. His four crews looked after themselves pretty much, giving him time for a leisurely trip over to Minneapolis to spend a little time and more than a little money. There was lots of work in North Dakota, but not a lot else. Dougie was enjoying his time in the Mall. Looking around, eating, drinking, he even went to the amusement park and rode the big roller coaster alone. It would have been better if his wife and daughters were with him. Easter. He imagined, Easter he would bring them down when school was out, if she could get time off work. Maybe they should ask his mother to come with them. Give her a break from the cold of Moccasin Lake. But Rosie still refused to come. He let it go.

  “I have something to do before we leave.” Monica thought of the house, the equipment, the open door to the bomb shelter. “Why don’t you wait here until I get back.”

  “Sure, no problem.” Ben relaxed into the kitchen chair.

  “I won’t be long.” She wrapped a scarf.

  “No problem.”

  “It’s this house. I have to take care of a house and . . . ”

  “No need to explain.”<
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  But she did need to explain. “It belongs to the resistance. I could take you, you could wait in the car, but even that is against the rules. If anybody saw you there I would be in trouble.”

  “I understand, No problem.” It didn’t matter to Ben how long it took to get back to Moccasin Lake. Time was his friend, it was no longer his master. There was another cup of coffee in the machine, the sun was beginning to show through the window lighting up the trees outside, spreading its copper colour across branches, across snow. He was silently saying ‘thank-you for another day’ while Monica went out the door.

  “Theresa phoned.” Elsie wrapped meat in brown waxed paper.

  “So did Dougie.” Rosie cut meat as fast as Elsie wrapped it, her knife finding its way easily around bone.

  “What did Dougie have to say?”

  “Not much, he’s in Minnesota on a break, just called to say hello. What’s your sister up to?”

  “She’s actually thinking about taking some time off work, come up for a visit.”

  “It’s been a long time.” Rosie paused, thought about it. “At least four years,” she remembered, “maybe more.” Her memory wasn’t sure. “When’s she coming?”

  “Next weekend. Bringing the girls.” Elsie smiled.

  Rosie smiled too. “They’re getting big.”

  “When was the last time you saw them?”

  “When I went with Lester to the hospital. I stayed with them.”

  “You mean you babysat for her.” Elsie remembered how it was when she visited her sister, left alone with the girls while Theresa worked.

  “I spent lots of time with my granddaughters.” Rosie’s answer was definite, final.

  Elsie respected her mother’s tone, accepted the bare truth of the statement. “Well, it’ll be good to see them again.” She acquiesced, then changed the subject. “How’s Lester?”

  “Not good.”

  “Going back to see him?”

  “Maybe.” Rosie thought for a second. “Yeah, maybe I’ll go back with Theresa.” She wasn’t sure. Something was coming, she listened for it, then turned to Elsie, “Maybe you should go and clean up the house. I think Ben might be coming home today.”

  “No big deal.” Ben examined the truck. “Nobody was hurt?” He looked to Benji.

  “No, like I said, we were both at the tree.” Benji did not want to be here. He wanted to be anywhere else, but he stood straight. “I am really sorry, Dad.” He said the words, words he’d rehearsed over and over. They didn’t come out the way he thought they would, the way he practised them. These words were filled with hurt, the practiced words were empty, probably why he tried over and over to make them right. Standing here in front of his father, beside the smashed truck, the son, the son who tried to do good, here the son spoke from the heart and the words came out naked, honest.

  “No big deal, we’ll get another one.” Ben heard more than the words, he heard the meaning.

  “And the boat dad, I got the parts for the motor. Red said he’d help put them in.”

  Ben shrugged. “Lots of time for that.” He looked around, spring was a long way off. “How have you made out?”

  “What with?”

  “Everything else.”

  Benji thought for a second, spun his thoughts through time back toward Ben’s arrest. “Elsie?” he asked thinking of the important things.

  “Sure, how’re things with Elsie?”

  “Good, things are good with Elsie, and Rachel, and Rosie, and Red. Everything has been good, Dad.”

  “Good.” There was nothing more to say. “Let’s go eat some of that moose you shot.”

  “I didn’t shoot it. Red shot it.”

  “Don’t matter, let’s go eat it.” Ben’s hunger was for more than meat, he wanted to be inside with his son, with Rosie, with Rachel, with Elsie, with Red, with Lorraine, with Monica, with people, with laughter.

  One of the reasons, maybe the main reason, that Theresa avoided coming back to Moccasin Lake was because here she often ran into people who recognized her from work, from the other side of the reinforced glass. She was never sure how to make the adjustment from institutional to social. The contact often ended in uncomfortable silence, sometimes bitter silence.

  Rosie was happy to have both her daughters in the house, and her three granddaughters. They filled it with sounds, little girls squealing, shrieking. She had forgotten that little girls made that sound at every surprise, at dogs, at babies, at each other. It was a warm sound. She was happy to hear her daughter’s visit, the chatter and laughter, to hear Theresa remind her girls to keep the volume down, just a little, so that adults could hear themselves think. When Rachel was not trying to climb onto every lap, especially her grandma’s, she was chasing her cousins who were happy to be caught, to pick her up and carry her, feet dangling, to kiss her, give her baby smooches. “She’s so heavy, Mom.” And plop her down.

  It should all be perfect. Ben was home next door. There was fresh meat in the house. Winter was not harsh, the way she remembered it could be. Yet something nagged at her, some old dark dread she could not name. Dougie should be here, then it would be perfect.

  She fell silent, looked often into her teacup that she held in both hands, listened to her daughters visit, Theresa’s serious voice.

  “I didn’t know you were living with his son.”

  “About seven months now.”

  “What’s he like? The truth now, you’re talking to your big sister here.”

  “Like his dad — ” She paused, thought about it — modified it. “Almost.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, he’s a thinker, likes to think things out, and he does. He’s learning how to live here. Like going hunting, and he’s had a net in for most of the winter until Mom told him she was getting tired of eating fish.”

  “How long have you and Ben been friends?” Theresa drew her mother back into the visit.

  “Forever,” Rosie came back slowly.

  “You never talked about him. I had no idea who he was when they brought him in.”

  “If you had come home more.” Rosie immediately wished she had not said it. “It’s okay, my girl, I’m happy you’re home.” She took the sting out of the words as best she could, touched her daughter’s arm, soothed the flesh with her fingers. “Ben and I were friends when we were kids, then he moved back about three years ago.”

  “Yeah, I got that much. But why didn’t you ever talk about him?” Theresa was unstung. “You talked about absolutely everything else over the years.”

  “Must’ve missed some things.” Rosie did not want to talk about pictures of a pedophiliac priest, not then, not now.

  “What’s with you Mom?” Elsie wasn’t sure how to take an untalkative mother.

  “Tired, I guess,” Rosie lied.

  Ben lay on his bed, his own bed, for the first time in almost five months. It felt good, sleep was looking for him, circling the cabin, drawing on his will to stay awake. He went to his routine place, his prayer before leaving the world, the place where he said thank you. But first he remembered the day, the thing he was giving thanks for, from waking up on Monica’s couch, to the ride home and the welcome. Poor Benji, he felt so bad about the damage to the truck and the boat. Elsie, was obviously uncomfortable with Ben being home again. It had been her house, her nest; now she wasn’t sure. Something needed to be done. She and Benji were living as man and wife in a one-room house with an old man. Maybe a partition to give privacy. He let it go. That was for tomorrow.

  He remembered Rosie’s laugh, loud, from the belly. That in itself was worth coming home for. But, he heard something else in the sound. The laugh was the same. He let it repeat itself in his mind, let it fill him again. Rosie laughed easily, always, but today it sounded like she was trying, even forcing the laugh.

  Ben let himself move forward, remembered Theresa, that was her name. She became more of a human with a name. And she was Rosie’s daughter, a relative of sorts. Ben
remembered Theresa’s face when she first recognized him, a will not to show emotion, or surprise, or to even acknowledge the recognition. “Nice to meet you, sir.” She stretched out her hand to him when her mother introduced them. No need for anyone other than them to know they had met before, had a history together. It was best that they start a new relationship, a human relationship away from concrete, cinderblock, and reinforced glass. He remembered the feel of her hand, strong in his, and warm. Here, among relatives, they could be persons, they could be the person their hearts chose to be, not the person dictated by the uniform or the orange coveralls.

  He remembered Monica, the long visit on the drive back north. Monica wanted so much to be academic, to discuss ideas. Mostly he listened, let her create paradigms, problems within the paradigm, and propose solutions. He was not convinced. His heart was not in the discussion. He played along, enjoyed the sound of a human voice for the sake of the sound. He remembered the hug she gave him before she left, felt her arms around him again, noted that he was hugged last, after she hugged her son and her daughter-in-law, not quick, polite, proper little hugs. Monica’s hugs were long, endearing. She was learning.

  Sleep pulled at Ben. He whispered into the dark “Thank you for today, Grandfather.” Pulled the blankets a little higher, shifted the pillow so that it cushioned his head, eased the ache there, and let himself drift away.

  Dougie liked this time of day, wondered if he got it from his mother or his father. His father probably. He remembered him on the farm, in the good days, before Darren, up early, before the sun, at first light, out on the tractor, coming home for breakfast after he put in a couple of hours of work. His father knew something about work, something about sunrises, something about the land and how it breathed again at first light, a long, deep inhalation. Dougie was not on a tractor or even in his truck. He stood in front of the little South Dakota nowhere motel with a coffee brewed moments before in his room. Good coffee, strong, black, sweet, the wonder of a simple French press and an electric kettle.