The Cast Stone

by Harold Johnson

  The message froze to the screen, he was disconnected from the satellite. He read the message again this time in its entirety. It was a longer message with several points from someone using the name RaynCloud, to HS Second Division, a generic address. He reread the important phrase “confirmed data with original b.chance. confirmed safe passage. All payments made.”

  Stan fought the wind against the thin dish again, rearranged rocks to support it, used the built-in spectrum analyzer to find the new satellite, the civilian satellite, connected and began sending emails. Now he was the Canadian on vacation, the kayaker, the mountain climber. He stopped and blew on his fingers to warm them, unaware whether it was the keyboard that was cold or the message he was sending.

  Abraham Isaac Friesen knew he spent too much time on the computer, knew he spent too much time indoors. He should be outside, even in winter, out on the land, on the bare prairie, watching the sky for weather. But he was a landless man now, city bound, hiding. They gave his land, his farm, to a retired Homeland Security colonel. What would a warmonger know of land? Something to drop bombs on, tear up with tracks and tires, dig trenches in. Land is holy. Soil is life giving. Sift the dirt through your fingers at the beginning of a day, feel the moisture, clumpy; or feel the dry, dusty; hold it to your nose, inhale the smell, fill your body with the richness.

  Abe sensed a familiar wind at the same time the screen informed him that another message had been sent to the Spam folder. He clicked the icon. The message was from ‘JACK’, all capital letters, not the usual ‘jack sprat’ or even ‘Jackie Blue’. Abe wondered at the boldness. He read through the garble until he found the word ‘THAT’, also capitalized. He read the message only once before he sprinted his large frame to the door, remembered parka and boots. He was going out. Out into the new dangerous world where he might be found. He was going to find Monica.

  Maybe they were watching, probably not. There were seven-billion people on the planet, Abe reasoned — even with technology, they would need seven-billion people at seven-billion monitors to watch all of the people all of the time. He wasn’t afraid of the sky.

  Dougie knocked on the door to Wesley’s room, a loud pounding knock. Wesley was one of those who was difficult to wake in the morning, one of those that stumbled around groggy for the first hour of the day, grouchy, uncommunicative. Dougie had seen him close his eyes between mouthfuls of breakfast, pulled back to the sleep world, the dream world. Every morning, every transition, was difficult for Wesley. It took time for him to shift from that world to this.

  But once his eyes were open, once he was into the day, into the job, Wesley stayed with it, completely into the work. Wesley focused on whatever was in front of his eyes, whether it was the work of welding pipes together or the inside of his eyelids and stayed with it. He ignored the world around him as he worked, didn’t feel the cold or care about the wind. Dougie figured you could drop a bomb beside Wesley while he worked and as long as it did not knock him off his stool, he would keep working. He was a good employee.

  Dougie pounded on the door again, louder, harder, rattled the door in its frame. He stopped, listened, heard a groan, and someone moving. He pounded again. Once Wesley was moving, you had to keep him moving or the bed would call him back.

  “Canadian.”

  Dougie turned at the voice behind him.

  Dean held the big handgun in both hands, held it up and out, arms straight — pointed the barrel in Dougie’s face.

  “My son’s name was Ricky, Richard James Fisher, he was only twenty-years-old.”

  He wants to make a speech, Dougie realized. He wanted to listen, pay attention, hear the man out, but the black spot, the hole surrounded by blue steel stuck in front of his face grew and pulled Dougie into it.

  ‘Is this what Darren saw?’ Dougie wondered. ‘This black, is this the last thing he saw? Did he look into it, go into it?’

  Dean Fisher was talking, speechifying, slow deliberate words, words said over and over again in his mind, rehearsed, now vocalized, freed, spoken. Dougie did not hear the words, he was in the cab of his father’s truck with his older brother. He was holding the gun with the big black hole.

  “Don’t fool around with that. It might be loaded.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Dad would never leave a gun loaded.”

  “Don’t fool around with that. It might be loaded.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Dad would never leave a gun loaded.”

  “Don’t fool around with that.”

  “Don’t fool around with that.”

  Rosie came out of the bedroom, down the hall to the kitchen where her daughters were visiting. She hadn’t slept well; tossed often, or simply lay there with her eyes open. The girls were giggling as she entered, sharing a corner of the table, heads together over cups of coffee. Rosie didn’t join in. That was the first indication to Theresa and Elsie that something was wrong. They knew it was serious when Rosie said almost angrily, “Someone should go out there and chase away that woodpecker.”

  The girls looked at each other before both turned to look toward the window. The bird’s rat-a-tat barely penetrated the winterized house, audible only now while they held their breath. It was halfway up a partially dead black spruce a few metres beyond the double glass panes, ignoring them, its back turned, intent on the rough flaked bark and whatever might be beneath.

  “How long has it been hanging around?” a newly serious Theresa asked.

  “Yesterday morning.” Rosie turned on the stove to heat water for tea, stood there at a different angle and watched the black-and-white bird walk up the trunk a couple steps before it hammered a new hole.

  No one was going out to chase it away. That would not do any good. Everyone knew that. The woodpecker was simply a messenger, or perhaps a mourner, come to tell them of the impending loss, or to be with them at the time of their suffering.

  Eight-year-old Dorothy figured it out, saw her mother, her grandmother, and her aunt silently, fearfully staring out the window, saw the bird, knew from the adult’s expressions or lack of expression that this was serious. “Get the hell out of here!” she yelled and banged against the glass. “My Grandma doesn’t want you to come around no more.”

  The bird turned as it dropped from the tree, spread its wings and in a flurry of flapping gained a bit of altitude before it was out of sight.

  “Watch your language young lady.” Theresa’s scolding didn’t have any edge to it.

  “It’s okay, my girl.” Rosie felt relief at the little girl’s action, something lifted, maybe only for a while, but in this moment it was a good feeling. She readied the teapot, brought down a package of cookies from the cupboard and joined her daughters at the table to wait for the water to boil.

  “Here, my girl, cookies for breakfast,” she called Dorothy to her lap.

  Elsie, Theresa, Darren, and their mom were with Dougie, a flat tire, no spare, on a dirt road in the winter. “Here Dougie, you wear my mitts. I have warm pockets,” Theresa the Saint’s pockets were not any warmer than his.

  “Keep your knife at twenty degrees to the stone,” his father showed him, pulled the skinning knife across the new Arkansas stone.

  Elsie squealing, her arms so tight around his neck that he had trouble breathing as he ran, his little sister clamped to his back, spindly arms and spindly legs and shrieking in his ear.

  “My son. You took my son. That was all I had. You took all that I had.” Dean Fisher’s voice came from behind the black hole, brought Dougie back to the motel on the edge of a little prairie town, to the door, to the morning. “He had a mother, a good mother . . . ”

  Dougie looked into the black hole and left again. He was with his mother. Rosie hugging him. “You have to be strong now, my boy,” whispering into his ear, “don’t let this ruin things for you. Darren was going to have a good life. You have to live it for him now. Make sure that it’s good.”

  This was going to be the end of that good life. The crying American was going to p
ull the trigger any second and Dougie was going to be with Darren. Would anyone come and put flowers on his grave, the way he put flowers on Darren’s grave every May 11th. One day each year he let himself feel sorrow, made a pilgrimage to that little cemetery, cleaned up around the mound that marked where they put his brother’s body, sat for a while and told him about the things that happened in the last year. “I have another daughter. Mom is still in Moccasin Lake. Theresa has a new job.”

  The door to the motel room opened. “I’m up,” Wesley sighed. He didn’t open his eyes completely until Dean shifted the handgun away from Dougie and pointed it directly at him. “What the . . . ” was all he had time to say before Dougie hit Dean. His fist arced in a roundhouse swing that ended in a solid collision just below Dean’s left ear, crumpled him into silence on the cement walkway. Dougie kicked the handgun away; felt a moment of hate as his boot connected with it.

  Ben waited. He sat in the black leather armchair with his thoughts. What brought him to the old man’s house this morning? It really didn’t matter which forces were at play; ancestors talking, tugging, he was where he should be.

  The room slowly lit as the sun cleared the horizon, found the east windows. Ben pulled himself from the armchair, turned off the light. While he was up, he made another pot of coffee, a little stronger than the last, stood around the kitchen for a while, reading the things magnetized to the fridge door, waiting for the brewer to finish its work. When it was done, he took his cup back into the living room, quietly finding the armchair again, and waited.

  Midmorning Leroy stirred, pulled himself determinedly into a sitting position, forced old muscles to do his bidding. “How’s it over here?” he asked.

  “Quiet.”

  “Same over there, lots of people just waiting around.” He scratched an itch at the side of his neck. “There’s something on that cabinet,” he pointed with his chin toward an oak and glass cupboard.

  Ben stood and walked over, looking.

  “It’s a card, should have flowers on it.”

  Ben moved things around, a birthday card, held it up.

  “That’s not it. It’s just a card, doesn’t open up.”

  He moved a few more things; a power bill, a little book of Saskatchewan birds, found a yellowed card printed on one side, began to read. “I haven’t seen this in quite a while.”

  “That’s it. Bring it over.”

  Ben handed Leroy the card.

  “Yeah, this is it,” Leroy read the first few lines. “This is the truth. Want truth, Ben? Right here,” he shook the card in Ben’s direction. “I met the person who brought this.” He handed it to Ben.

  Ben leaned back, turned the paper toward the light and read it through. Leroy waited for him to finish, to lower it. “Me too,” the old man sagged on the couch.

  “You too, what?”

  “I was expecting something in Cree, maybe a song, a death song or something. Then I meet this person. Can’t tell if it’s a man or woman over there, and they tell me that there is the truth, brought it for everybody, that’s why it’s in English.”

  Ben looked at the card again, read it in new light. “Most people have forgotten this.”

  “Then it’s up to you to remember.” Leroy noted Ben’s expression. “What? Don’t think you can?”

  “Well, my memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  “That’s because you don’t exercise it. When was the last time you memorized something?”

  Ben couldn’t remember, shook his head.

  “Memory is just like anything else. Gotta exercise it or it gets lazy. Used to be in school they made us memorize all kinds of stuff; the times table, days in history, when Columbus came here, poems. When was the last time you recited a poem to a woman, Ben?” Leroy smiled.

  “It’s been a very long time, if ever. I don’t remember.”

  They both laughed.

  “What’s the use of having a life if you don’t remember it? You memorize that.” He indicated the card in Ben’s hand. “It’ll be good exercise for you.” Leroy slouched back down, wrestled a moment with the pillow again and again closed his eyes.

  Ben stayed in the leather armchair and waited, but now he had something to keep his mind busy. He read the card over and over, stopped and stared out the window, his lips involuntarily moving over words forced through a resisting neuron net.

  At eleven-thirty, Leroy’s granddaughter came over and made lunch, heated a can of soup and put together a plate of sandwiches. “For when he wakes up,” she was putting her coat back on. “He sleeps lots now, it’s good he has some company. Tell him I’ll be back to make him supper,” and she was out the door, back to her own young life and the things that were important to her.

  Leroy woke once more that day, early afternoon he stirred, this time he didn’t try to sit up, looked around the room, gave Ben a weak smile. “You’ll be all right,” he assured, “you’ll do good. Know how I know?” There was a hint of mischief in his voice.

  Ben leaned forward for the answer.

  “There’s a little guy standing beside you,” Leroy almost whispered.

  Ben looked.

  “The other side. Can’t see him, can you?” Leroy let his eyelids fall.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know, maybe he’s your grandson.” Leroy took a breath. “Keeps looking up at you,” he let the breath go, “like he’s trying to decide. Do I want you for my grandpa or what?” He sagged deeper into the couch, shuddered and drew in a breath that rasped deep in his chest. Ben leaned forward, listened. Leroy’s breathing was irregular, noisy. Ben got up, limped over and sat on the floor beside the couch. But, Leroy had no more words for him. He stopped breathing. Ben thought maybe this was the end when Leroy drew in another rasping gasp, let it out, opened his eyes staring into nothingness, his mouth moving around voiceless words. The end was without any twitch or movement. The old man drew one last shallow breath and when he let it out, he left with it.

  Lester made it to the funeral. He looked sickly but he was standing. Rosie stood with her daughters and granddaughters. Ben was an honorary pallbearer. He was expected to be up close to the grave, just back of the bishop who was taking bishop’s privilege to make a long speech before they lowered the ornate casket into the ground. Ben looked over at Rosie, remembered what she said last night at the wake. “I always wanted to have a child with you, Ben. But, we’re going to have something better, we’re going to have a grandchild together.” He thought about Benji’s mother. How would Monica take being a grandmother. He hoped she would take it well.

  The bishop finished speaking, stepped back from the grave and aside to let Ben come forward.

  Ben stood at the edge of the sandy hole. He spoke softly. Even people close by had trouble hearing him as he recited the faded words on the yellow card in his shirt pocket. He still did not completely trust his memory. “Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.” Ben was aware of his voice and how it carried over the snow-covered ground and was swallowed up by the trees. He put more volume to it, “Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit . . . ” Ben’s gaze fell from the large gathering of people down to the casket. He recited as much to Leroy as to them. “Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness”

  Betsy stood straight, faced her end, she would not go whimpering and crying. There was no out from here. Everything catches up to you in time, and Betsy’s time had come. She knew it was coming, had known it for years, had made friends with it over and over again. “I only followed counci
l’s instructions,” she answered again.

  “You set up the thing with Ed Trembley.” Monica held the weight of the pistol in the large fatigue jacket pocket.

  “On council’s instructions.”

  Abe Friesen felt the rough bark of the “walking” stick in his right hand, remembered the night he crept back to his farm to cut it down from one of the maples, a memento from the land, the land that was to have kept him in his old age. “You weren’t at the gathering of thinkers,” he accused.

  Betsy did not answer, stood silent.

  Abe waited, lifted the walking stick from the floor, held it in both hands.

  “You knew the risks.” Only her eyes and her mouth moved as she spoke, her eyes on the heavy length of branch in Abe’s hand.

  “I lost my farm. I went to prison.”

  “And I got you out.”

  Abe felt the urge to swing the maple branch, to smash, to hurt.

  “How did you do that, Betsy?” Monica stepped slightly closer, between Abe and the woman who had once been her friend. “How was it that you could negotiate with the bastards? Tell me that.”

  “I think you figured it out.”

  Monica had her answer. “Yeah, we figured it out, figured out why you weren’t in the house in Lac La Biche.”

  The accusation hit like a punch to Betsy’s stomach. She involuntarily stepped back one full step.

  Monica knew the force of her words from the sudden glare in Betsy’s eyes. “We made you a hero because of that. The survivor of Lac La Biche is just a bitch.”

  Betsy had no answer, no explanation, no rationalization. She had walked away from the house with the men who laughed and joked and teased, young men who wanted to be revolutionary heroes. She had walked away, and in all the next years she kept walking back. The story about the falling star in the daylight and the vaporized hole was just a story. She sat in the restaurant after the agent left. Sat and drank coffee and waited until the blast four blocks away rattled the windows. Then she simply drove off and never looked back, never even ordered the chicken she volunteered to go get.