by Connie Cook
They tried all the obvious routes. Then they tried the common back roads. But all without success.
After two hours of tension-filled and exhausting driving, Graham admitted defeat.
"Maybe Mom's found out something by now. I can't think of anywhere else he would've gone for any reason."
"Maybe something came up suddenly, and he had to go out of town for business."
"Without telling anyone?"
"Well, I dunno. He must be somewhere. And wherever he is he went there without telling anyone. Or maybe he went out of town and left a note for your mom, and she hadn't found it by the time she called us."
"Guess we'll know when we try calling her when we get home. At any rate, no sense our driving around all night. He's probably home by now, anyways, my guess is."
But once back at home, the phone call to Mrs. MacKellum left them where they'd been two hours earlier. Except more concerned.
"Nothing else we can do tonight," Graham told his mom. "If he hasn't turned up by morning, we'll have to get up a search party or something. Try not to worry about it tonight. Ruth thinks he may have had to go out of town for business."
"Did he say something to that effect to her?" Mrs. MacKellum asked eagerly.
"No, I don't think so. She just thought it might be an explanation. Any chance you might have missed a note anywhere?"
But there had been no note. Mrs. MacKellum was quite sure on that point.
"You'll call us as soon as you hear anything, won't you?" Graham asked.
"Of course, and you, too, if you hear anything."
"Of course we will. Look, Mom. You could come spend the night with us so you're not up all night worrying."
But his mother thought she'd be better off in her own home where she'd know the instant Guy came home if he came home that night.
Ruth and Graham went to bed but not to a sound sleep. After too many hours of restlessness and broken dozing, Ruth offered to get up and put on the coffee.
They threw on clothes to be ready for anything and sat at the kitchen table sipping cup after cup and discussing theories and possible plans of action until the blackness outside the window gave way to a worn, grey light and then to colourbursts as the sun coming over the Purcells pushed the clouds out of its way.
The snow had stopped. The day held the promise of beauty.
And then the phone rang.
* * *
In winter, by the time Dwight Morrow left his home fifteen miles outside of Arrowhead to drive the long stretch into town for his shift at the mill, the mornings were still velvet and starlit. By March, the black velvet was fading to grey when he left for work, but it was still dark.
That morning, his headlights caught the reflection of taillights in the ditch along the side of the road.
It might make him late for work, but the car in the ditch caused him an uneasiness that would only dissipate if he stopped to see if anyone needed help. What else could he do? After all, he wasn't the kind of man to keep driving past when someone might be in trouble.
He didn't recognize the car. (He worked for Turnbulls', not MacKellums', or he would have.)
"Hello? Hello?" he called, rapping on the driver's side window. The car was empty, he could see when he pushed the snow, clinging to the window, off by handfuls onto the ground. There didn't seem to be any visible damage to the car.
The next thing he noticed was the tracks in the snow. The new, heavy, wet snow covered over any obvious footprints, but beneath the layer of fresh snow, he could see the deep indents in the snowscape that a pair of human feet had made by breaking through the thin crust of the old snow that came halfway to his knees. Those feet had been heading in the direction of the woods.
The uneasiness in him grew rapidly. Had the car been there all night? It must have been to judge from the amount of snow on the windows. Why would anyone abandon a car in the ditch and take to the woods rather than keeping to the road where he might have had a chance of a ride back into town? Or why hadn't the unknown owner of the car made for the Morrow place? The lights of it should have been visible from the road where the car was.
He'd be late for sure now if he followed the tracks into the woods, but he didn't see what else he could do.
He plunged into the deep snow, filling his work boots and wool socks with ice crystals that seared his skin like cold fire.
The snow in his boots melted quickly as he plowed through the snow into the woods. He'd have to go back home for dry socks before he could go to work. He wasn't partial to working a full day with wet feet. He'd be late for sure. He'd better have some good reason to tell the boss. If this was all a wild goose chase ...
He was in the trees now where the snow was thinner and the ground bare in spots, except for evergreen needles. The going was easier but the tracks harder to follow. He lost them entirely for a moment on a patch of dry earth.
Then his eyes fell on the dark, humped mound, thirty or so feet ahead. Pray God it wasn't human! But he knew it was a futile prayer.
He began to run clumsily toward ... whatever it was.
As he got closer, his eyes took in more details. There was a sort of shadowy substance spreading out around the mound like spilled ink. It was impossible to tell colours in the predawn, but he knew instinctively the spilled ink would be red.
There was another dark shape against the whiteness – just a narrow, black line in the snow, partially concealed by the angle of the body (he was beginning to admit to himself that it was a body), but not so concealed that he couldn't tell what it was.
He began to feel sick and knew he didn't want to go any closer. It was obvious there was nothing he could do here. He didn't want to know who it was. The thought of going near enough to touch the thing or see the face made a sweat break out on his forehead in spite of the chill air.
The best thing to do was to go back to the house and put in a phone call to the R.C.M.P. and then to the mill to let them know why he was going to be late. If he'd even make it in to work today with the endless questioning and repeating of the story he knew he would have to do while stoic-faced constables filled out form after form. He could picture it clearly, just as he'd pictured himself examining the body and seeing the face. He'd always had a vivid imagination; that was his problem. He knew he'd replay this morning's scene over and over in his mind for months to come.
And he'd be lucky if they accepted his explanation for his absence at the mill. He was beginning to picture the trouble that might follow if they didn't. Why did things like this happen to him? Things always happened to him. Maybe nothing quite like this before, but other things had happened to him. He was just unluckier than the rest of humankind, he supposed.
* * *
A merciful Providence equipped the human body with a physical reaction that brings a blessed, instant numbness to pains that are too great to be endured immediately. Of course, it could be wondered (and often has been wondered) why a merciful Providence would allow the human body (or the human soul) to endure pains that are too great to be endured. But the astonishing truth is that pains too great to be endured are endured regularly. Perhaps only a merciful Providence knows how much pain can be endured by having endured it; the rest of us would draw the line well back from where the merciful Providence draws it. But then, the rest of us don't see things from the perspective of the merciful Providence.
* * *
Mrs. MacKellum was in shock. Ruth had been in shock before, and she recognized the signs. She understood that her mother-in-law was walking through the day in a trance-like state that would have to evaporate eventually but, for now, was keeping unwelcome thoughts and feelings at bay by erasing all thoughts and feelings.
The car had been identified by its license plate (and by the personal knowledge of the officers who were acquainted with Guy MacKellum's car). But the body had to be formally identified.
Graham's shock was beginning to wear off. He'd seen the duty of identifying the body as his; certainly not someth
ing that could be asked of his mother.
The acid of that experience had corroded through the initial shock, though it in turn was leaving another wave of shock in the place of the initial one.
The first days would be spent in varying types and degrees of shock, Ruth knew. It was the days after the first ones that she was dreading.
She wouldn't feel things quite the same as the other two, but then she wasn't as personally affected. Her role was just to be there for Graham and his mother. Whatever good that would do. Maybe it would do some. She didn't know.
"Have some more tea," she urged on her mother-in-law. She'd made it good and hot and strong and sweet as those were the requirements for tea in treating shock cases. Or so it seemed from all the books Ruth had read.
A little something stronger than tea to slip into it would have done more good probably, but Mrs. MacKellum would have refused the tea if it contained anything stronger than tea. Even shock wouldn't have compromised her principles.
"Do you think you could eat anything? It might do you good. You haven't had anything all day."
"No, I can't. I really can't," Mrs. MacKellum cried out as though eating at a time like this would also compromise her principles.
"Graham, if I made you a sandwich would you eat it?" Ruth tried her husband next.
Graham said, no, not to bother, but when she put a sandwich in front of him he downed it without noticing.
While Mrs. MacKellum's tea grew cold in her cup and Graham munched absentmindedly on the sandwich, they discussed the tragedy endlessly, saying the same things over and over.
"It must have been a hunting accident," Mrs. MacKellum said again.
Neither Graham nor Ruth knew what to say when she offered the hunting-accident theory.
Graham said nothing, but Ruth couldn't keep still.
"In March?" she said.
Graham gave her a look intended to keep her still. If his mother wanted to believe in a hunting accident, why couldn't his wife let her? Whatever helped at a time like this.
"I don't understand it," Mrs. MacKellum continued. She hadn't heard Ruth. "Why would he go hunting? He hadn't hunted in years and years. Not since he started up the mill. I forgot he even had that old rifle. I didn't even notice it was missing until ... until this morning ... after the R.C.M.P. called. He must've come back to the house yesterday while I was doing the marketing and picked it up. He must've decided on the spur of the moment to go hunting."
"But when he was found, wasn't he wearing the suit he had on at work?" Ruth asked Graham.
Graham gave her another angry look and said nothing.
"That's what I just can't understand," Mrs. MacKellum repeated. "I just can't understand it. None of it makes sense. It must have been a sudden whim to go hunting."
Ruth bit her tongue. She wasn't starting out very well in her "just-being-there-for-Graham-and-his-mother in-their-loss" role.
"Pat and Earl should be here in an hour or two," Mrs. MacKellum said to no one in particular. Pat and Earl's progress on the road was updated regularly every half hour as Mrs. MacKellum kept an eye on the clock.
"Your tea's cold. I'll make a fresh pot," Ruth said. She'd never felt so helpless.
* * *
At one o' clock, the doorbell rang. Ruth went to answer it. It was her mother-in-law's house, but the least she could do was field concerned callers. She knew it wouldn't be Pat and Earl. They'd arrived just minutes ago.
She couldn't imagine how word had leaked out already. The police wouldn't have released any details yet, and the family had been told that the man who had found the body hadn't been near enough to know who it was. Yet word must have leaked out somehow. Unless it was just a neighbour popping over to borrow an inopportune cup of sugar.
It was Hank Harvey, the bookkeeper for MacKellum Milling, and his face was more serious than was its usual wont. He was normally phlegmatic in the extreme.
"Is Guy here yet? I don't see his car," Hank said.
"You haven't heard, then," Ruth said. It was a statement, not a question. It was obvious he hadn't heard.
"Heard what?"
"Then, why are you ... (what she was about to say sounded harsh) ... I mean, what brings you here today, then?"
"Heard what? Did Guy tell you ... or wha'd'you mean? Wha'd'y'mean, 'heard'? What've you heard? Yesterday, Guy asked me to meet him here today to discuss something with his family. He didn't want to be the one ... but it looks like you've heard it already."
"Guy ... he was found. In the woods."
"Wha'd'y' mean 'found'? You mean ... ? Was he ...?"
"He was dead. Shot. He had his old hunting rifle with him."
"Oh, no! No, no, no! Not that!" Hank said. Ruth pulled a chair out for him. He looked like he needed one.
"You'd better come in and see the family. Maybe you can shed some light on it," Ruth told him.
"No, no! Not today. Eventually. I'll have to eventually, but now's not the time."
Graham had come up behind Ruth and heard the latter part of the conversation.
"Come on in, Hank. Please. I think you should tell us whatever you came to tell us. Whatever it is, we deserve to know the truth," he said.
Then Ruth noticed the file folder in Hank's hands.
"You should know, Graham. You'll have to know. And sooner would be better than later. But I don't want your mother to know it yet. Not just yet, at any rate. She doesn't need two blows in a row," Hank said.
"What is it, Hank? I've got to know."
"Well, I'd better come in and sit down then, Graham."
"Tea, Hank? It's good and hot and strong. Take it with plenty of sugar, and it's supposed to be good for shock," Ruth said.
How she wished there was something more constructive to be done than offer around tea!
"No thanks, Ruth. I'm fine. I'm not a tea-drinker."
"Coffee then?"
"No, nothing thanks. I'll just tell Graham what I came to say, and I'll be on my way and leave you folks to yourselves."
Ruth sank into a chair to hear what Hank had come to say, too. She supposed she wouldn't be deemed as frail at this moment as Graham's mother.
"I'll cut to the chase, Graham. You're going to lose the mill. You'll have to liquidate your father's assets. Your dad was on the point of doing so when he ... I guess he couldn't face it."
"I thought that was what you were going to tell me. But what I can't understand is why? The mill was turning a tidy profit. I know it was. To me, it looked like the business had never done so well. And lumber prices were good. It doesn't make sense. There wasn't anything crooked going on, was there?"
If Hank found the implications of that last suggestion insulting, he ignored them.
"It's all here in this file," he said. "I didn't know about its existence till a few months ago. Your dad started playing the markets. There were some bad investments ... It's hard to know exactly what happened, really. I mean, I know what's all down in black and white as far as the investments your dad started making and where the money started leaking out. But what I don't know is why. He seemed to get into the same mentality a gambler gets into at the poker table; it's the closest I can come to telling you what happened. When he started losing, he just started getting in deeper and deeper, throwing good money after bad. But the thing we'll never know, I guess, is why he started playing the markets in the first place."
"Wha'd'you mean?" Graham demanded. "Was there something wrong about what he did? Are you suggesting he embezzled or something?"
"No, no, nothing like that. It was his money to invest. He owned the mill, after all. But the money he was investing was money that needed to go back into the mill. He started borrowing to pay expenses. The creditors ... I mean, there's just ... well, there's not enough left to float the business and pay off its debt."
"How much is 'not enough'? How much is left?" Graham asked quietly.
"There's, well, there's not enough."
"You mean there's nothing left."
&n
bsp; Hank didn't answer.
"What will Mom live on?"
"There's something else you have to consider, Graham. It won't touch you. I mean, not directly. You were technically only an employee. Your assets are safe. But the bank owns this house. Your dad mortgaged this house and sank that money into the mill, trying to regain the money he'd already sunk."
"Well, I'll have to buy it back for Mom."
"If you can. You could try to get a loan. I know you're only renting the house you're in. You have some collateral?"
"Yes, we own land. Twenty-five acres. And a house on it," Ruth put in. "We can sell it outright if that's easier. Maybe that would be better than getting a loan."
"No. You've never wanted to part with that land," Graham said. "We can put it up as collateral, and I can work and pay off the loan in time. We shouldn't sell your land."
"It's not my land, Graham. It's our land. And maybe it's time to sell it."
"It's not time," Graham said shortly. "We need it as collateral. Maybe I'd even be able to buy back the sawmill."
"You might have a tough time getting a loan of that size," Hank said cautiously. He didn't want to articulate the idea that Graham may be seen by the banks as a bad risk, being the son of the man who had just lost the mill. After all, none of it was Graham's doing.
"It explains why Dad was reluctant to make me a partner this year. He kept telling me, 'next year, next year.' " Graham said, his mind off on another tack.
"What I can't understand is how the whole thing snowballed the way it did. I can't understand your dad starting out to make bad investments. He was a shrewd business man. And he wasn't a gambling man, either. It was completely out of character. I was floored when he told me he was in trouble."
"The whole world's gone crazy overnight from my point of view. If you have any more revelations for me, bring 'em on." Graham's laugh was bitter. "I'm getting used to 'em. I don't think anything will surprise me ever again."
"I don't know how to ask you this, Graham, but was it possible your dad maybe had some kind of mental illness or emotional illness?"