The Darkening Archipelago

by Stephen Legault

  “Cole,” Nancy took a deep breath. “Did you kill him?”

  Cole was silent. She watched his shoulders rise and fall as he drew in deep breaths of sea air. The moon was creeping across the sky now, reflecting off the water in the harbour.

  It was the spring of 2002, and Cole Blackwater was at the nadir of his existence. He had been fired from his dream job in Ottawa, caused a train wreck of immeasurable proportions in Nancy Webber’s journalism career, and lost his four-year-old daughter Sarah as his estranged wife, Jennifer Polson, moved across the country to Vancouver. The last thing in the world that Cole Blackwater had to hold onto was Sarah, and so with nothing to lose, he packed a few things in the back of his aging Toyota SR5 and drove west from Ottawa. It wasn’t until he crossed the Saskatchewan–Alberta line that it even dawned on him that when he drove through Calgary, he’d be less than two hours from the Blackwater Ranch in Alberta’s Porcupine Hills.

  Cole slipped a tape of Ian Tyson songs in the deck and sang along. “Bald eagles back in the cottonwood trees, the old brown hills are just about bare. Spring time lying all along the creek, magpies ganging up everywhere….”

  When he passed through Calgary he jerked the wheel and piloted the truck onto Deerfoot Trail, and drove it hard through rush-hour traffic to the southern end of the city where the Deer-foot shot south like an arrow toward Fort Macleod. He followed the highway to High River, where he stopped for gas and a can of pop, and then pressed on to Charleston. From there he headed west again, up into the brown Porcupine Hills, their backs clear of snow as a chinook barrelled down from the Rockies.

  I’ll just spend the night, see Mom, avoid the old man, and be on my way in the morning, he thought.

  But Cole Blackwater found that the old place was good for him, and he stayed longer. The old man kept almost entirely out of sight. Sometimes Cole would see him walk from the barn to one of the sheds, or they might pass each other at the breakfast table, but otherwise, Cole spent the time with his mother, or riding Blue, the old quarter horse, or talking late into the night when his brother would drive up from Waterton Lakes.

  At the end of the second week, Cole was out riding Blue when his father suddenly rode up beside him. Seeing him then, Cole thought Henry Blackwater looked every bit the cowboy, with his tight, checkered, pearl-button shirt under a felt-lined tan vest and dark blue Wranglers. Henry Blackwater’s sweat-stained Stetson was probably the same hat he’d been wearing for two decades, and at that peculiar angle.

  Cole could smell the booze on his breath. He knew the old man was drunk by the way he held the reins so lightly, sitting as if the horse and he shared a secret about the world that made Henry Blackwater immune to injury. Cole thought to himself, if this old fucker were to fall off his horse and hit his head on the rocks below, that would be just fine with me. The world would not miss Henry Blackwater.

  “Your mother’s pretty glad you’re here.” The old man slurred a little as he spoke.

  “It’s good to see her,” said Cole, his eyes held straight ahead, gazing at the horizon of blue peaks above the bristled Porcupine Hills.

  “Got yourself in a bit of trouble back in Ottawa, did you?”

  Cole was silent. Had his father been waiting for Cole to let his guard down before striking?

  His father spat. “Got yourself in a little too deep, didn’t you, boy?”

  Cole shifted his weight and the saddle creaked.

  “You don’t have to answer me, Cole. We both know you fucked up good this time, if you take my meaning.” The old man laughed harshly. “I should have made sure you knew right from wrong better. Should have taught you your lessons better. Should have made sure you knew how to take care of your family right.”

  Cole had been holding his breath, and he let it out with a low whistle.

  “Ain’t you going to say anything?”

  “Not to you,” said Cole, and he turned his horse around.

  The old man trotted his horse to catch up. “What the fuck were you thinking, Cole? Fucking around on your wife? Making a mess of your job? Bringing shame on your daughter? What the fuck were you thinking?”

  Cole pressed his heels into Blue and she stepped up her gait.

  “You can’t outride me, city boy. I live in the saddle. You’re just a fucking tourist here.”

  Cole looked over. The old man was grinning at Cole.

  “What made you such a hateful bastard, I wonder?” Cole finally asked.

  “Having to put up with good-for-nothing pricks like you all my life,” his father growled.

  “If we’re lucky,” said Cole ruefully, “we won’t have to put up with you for too much longer.”

  “I’m going to outlive you all,” his father said. He spat again and turned his horse away from Cole. It was Cole’s turn to catch up to his father. His vision blurred, and his hands trembled on the reins. From a distance it might appear as though father and son were out for a ride together.

  Suddenly overcome with the rage he had been holding at bay these past two weeks, Cole spoke: “The best thing you could do for the world is to just go on living your hateful life. Grow old and suffer. The longer you suffer, the better.” Cole’s words came out in an enraged growl. “And then, when you finally die, I’m going to stand over you and spit down your fucking throat.”

  Cole turned away and galloped back to the barn. He unsaddled Blue and gave her a handful of alfalfa cubes and brushed her down. He saw his father sitting on his horse in the pasture, waiting for Cole to leave the barn before bringing in his own mount. Cole’s heart was still beating hard when he entered the house. His face was stitched with anger, his hands trembled.

  ”What is it, dear?” his mother asked as he stepped from the mud room into the kitchen.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You were out riding. Is something wrong?”

  “Nope, everything is okay.” He stepped to her and bent to kiss her on the forehead.

  “Did you have words with your father? I saw him bring in the bay after you left the barn.”

  Cole exhaled. “Why is he so goddamned angry, Mom?”

  His mother said quickly, “It’s the war, dear.”

  “That was fifty years ago. It’s time to move on!”

  “Truth is, dear, he was like that before he went overseas. That just made it worse.”

  Cole shook his head and poured himself a glass of water. He drank it, his hands still unsteady.

  “He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s just an angry old man.

  He doesn’t mean to hurt any of us.”

  Cole looked up from his water. His mother turned away.

  “What do you mean, hurt any of us?”

  “Nothing at all. Let’s have a cup of tea, and I have a pie just out of the oven.”

  “Does he hurt you, Mom?”

  “Come, dear, let’s forget all this talk. It’s just fine.”

  “Does he hit you?”

  Dorothy Blackwater dried her hands on her apron. “It’s really nothing.”

  Cole felt his vision begin to narrow, the rush of anger flowing through him like acid in his veins. He caught his breath. “Does Walter know?”

  “Oh, good heavens, no. Please, Cole. It’s nothing. He just gets all worked up sometimes and forgets himself.”

  “He used to beat me, Mom.”

  Dorothy Blackwater looked down at her shoes.

  “For years. Did you know that?”

  Cole could see the tears running down her face.

  “And now he’s beating you.”

  “It’s not that bad. It’s nothing really. I do things that upset him is all.” She moved toward him, but Cole Blackwater could no longer see her. His world had collapsed around him and his vision narrowed so that all he could see was a path through the mud room and out the back door into the yard.

  He crossed the yard walking hard and fast, his hands balled into fists at his sides. He tore open the gate and kicked open the wooden door to the stables beneath
the barn with his foot. The door splintered and broke at the hinges, crashing against the wall.

  The room was dark. He heard the horses breathing.

  Cole walked the length of the stables but his father wasn’t there. He stood in the darkness of the room, the only light coming from a small window that was so dirty it was opaque. Then he heard booted feet above him.

  He ran the length of the stables and out the door. He tore open the gate again, wrenching it back against its hinges. He half-walked, half-ran to the front of the barn where the double doors stood at the top of a gentle grade. He was breathing hard. He reached for the latch and threw open the door, and the light of day fell across the floor of the barn, sending dust motes dancing in the pale light.

  His father was standing at the centre of the boxing ring. He held a shotgun in his hands.

  “Looking for me, son?” His voice sounded hollow in the barn.

  Cole stood in the open door, backlit and exposed. All other sounds seemed to disappear — the birds that chattered in the bushes around the barn, the sound of the wind, the barking of the two border collies on the back step — and all Cole Blackwater could hear was his own furious heart thumping in his ears.

  “What do you say, son, want to go a round?” The old man stooped and picked something up from the floor.

  Cole stepped forward.

  The old man moved the shotgun to his left hand, holding it midway down the barrel.

  Cole prepared himself for the blast, felt his body tense. He wondered if he would be able to dive for cover like they did in the movies, and tried to see if the old man had his old single-shot 12-gauge or the newer Remington model that held five shells and could be fired quickly. It might make the difference.

  Cole moved reflexively as his father raised the barrel of the gun, but the old man held it awkwardly in his left hand. Cole watched as he pressed the barrel to his own chin and, with his right hand, swung a long piece of metal down — Cole could see now that it was a branding iron — and put the hook on the end of it in the trigger hard. It suddenly dawned on Cole what was going on.

  “Wait!” Cole yelled. The sound of his voice, and the choice of his words, surprised both men. “Wait,” he said again, more quietly.

  His father just stood at the centre of the boxing ring, motionless, the barrel of the gun still pressed against his chin.

  Cole took a deep breath. A moment ago he had been prepared to kill this man. To kill his own father, for what he had done to him, and for what he had done to his mother. Now he lacked certainty. His head was flooded with emotion, and Cole fought to see what he should do next. “Just wait,” he said a third time.

  “Wait for what?” Henry Blackwater said, his own voice suddenly lacking conviction. He sounded small in the open barn.

  “Just stop,” Cole said, and stepped forward.

  “For what? To grow old? Give you that satisfaction?” The old man shifted awkwardly in the ring.

  “Put the gun down.”

  Henry Blackwater’s arms tensed.

  “Pop, wait.”

  Henry Blackwater stood, his hands tightening and untightening, the shotgun pressing into his chin.

  “It doesn’t have to end like this.”

  “How’s it going to end, then? Hey?”

  Cole felt a bead of sweat trickle down his chest. He was breathing hard in the close air of the barn. The light that spilled from the front doors and across the boxing ring was flecked with dust motes. “You’ve done some pretty awful things.” He saw the old man’s hand tighten on the branding iron. “But you can come clean, Pop.”

  “You fixing to get religious on me, son?”

  “I was just a boy….”

  Cole watched the emotions sweep over his father’s face like the shadows of clouds passing over the foothills. “I never knew what to do with you,” he finally said. Cole could see his father trembling, and wondered at the sensitivity of the trigger. Sensitive enough, he thought.

  Cole felt the bile rising in his throat. “Why were you so angry?” he stammered. The old man tensed, but Cole now saw doubt in Henry Blackwater’s grim expression. Cole took a step forward. The sagging ropes of the ring still stood between his father and himself, and he would have to step up onto the mat to get to his father. And Cole was still far from certain that the gun wouldn’t be turned on him if he did.

  “I done some terrible things. And your mother —”

  “We can work it out. Put down the gun.”

  “I’m done with this shit,” Henry said, shaking his head, pressing his eyes shut.

  “Pop, we all make mistakes. We can walk back from them. We can —”

  “I never could seem to make you learn, boy.” Henry Blackwater closed his eyes.

  “I did learn, Pop, I did. Look at Sarah.”

  “Sarah doesn’t even know who I am.”

  “She does.”

  “She doesn’t. And it doesn’t matter,” his father said, lost in his own thoughts.

  “It does matter.”

  Henry Blackwater opened his eyes. Cole could not see them in the dim light, but he imagined them ringed with redness and cast with regret. Henry shook his head and emitted a half-laugh through a clenched jaw. “Fuck, you was a disappointment to me, boy.”

  “I’m sorry, Pop. I messed up.”

  The blast was deafening. Cole’s body recoiled at the roar. His face turned away, but not before watching the old man’s head jerk back as if on a chain, his face disappearing, a Jackson Pollock spray of blood leaping from where his grinning jaw used to be and raining down on the canvas floor, splattering across the hay behind the boxing ring.

  The shotgun and branding iron clattered to the mat.

  The body collapsed to the canvas with a final thud.

  Overhead a dozen mourning doves exploded into flight from the eves of the barn.

  Cole stood at the end of the dock, the moon above him, his hands still clenched at his sides.

  “Cole, there was nothing you could have done.”

  He turned to her. There were no tears staining his face. His eyes burned. “It’s not so simple, Nancy. Part of me was trying to stop him, and the other part of me was so pissed off that I didn’t get to pull that trigger myself! When I went into that barn, I was going to kill him with my own two hands.” Cole held them up in front of his face as if seeing them in a new light. “I don’t know what makes me angrier: that I couldn’t save him, or that I couldn’t kill him.”

  Nancy stood next to him. She looked at him, but he didn’t turn toward her. “You’re going to need some help, Cole.”

  Finally he looked down at her. The moonlight caught the sheen of her jet black hair. Her eyes were luminous. “It’s a little late for that,” he said.

  “No, it’s not.”

  He turned away. “I need some time here,” he said.

  “Okay. I’m going to walk back up to the bluff house.”

  “I’ll be up a little later.”

  “Cole, don’t do anything stupid.”

  He said nothing.

  “Okay, well, I’ll see you.”

  He didn’t turn to watch her go.

  Cole Blackwater stood on the dock under the gaze of the moon, the quiet waters of the protected harbour gently lapping against the pilings. He gave Nancy five minutes, then he walked directly to The Strait. The magnetic pull of the bar was unavoidable. As he walked into the crowded room, he felt his body relax, the promise of a warming glass of Irish whiskey only moments away. He was not so distracted by its lure, however, that he forgot his precautionary scan. A bar full of men, he thought. How dull. But there was no sign of Dan Campbell, for which he was almost sorry. Cole shouldered his way to the bar and ordered a Jameson, neat. He pulled a wad of bills and detritus from his pocket, extracted a twenty from the mess, and flattened it on the table. He drank the first shot by throwing it against the back of his throat, his eyes burning, his gut accepting the hard liquor with no choice. He pushed his glass back to the barten
der, who poured him another shot, and Cole asked for a beer back.

  Cole did not see the man rise from the table in the far right hand corner, away from the bar, and walk down a long, dark hallway to the pay phone near the washrooms.

  Feeling the heat of the booze in his belly and the commotion of the busy bar around him, Cole sank into a slouch. All the fire within him slowly leached into the plank floor below. All at once he felt wordlessly tired. He thought maybe he’d just drink himself asleep right then and there. He drank the second Jameson and started in on the beer, his fifth of the night. It felt cool and light on his whiskey-burned throat, and he drank half of it before putting the glass down. He looked around him, the faces and voices of strangers floating lightly in and out of focus. He raised the glass again and turned from the scene. Thoughts started to rise in his addled brain and he pushed them back, sequestering them, with years of dedicated practice, to a room securely barred and bolted.

  Cole finished the beer and ordered another whiskey and another beer. The bartender poured, took his money, and attended to another customer.

  Time passed in a slow-motion arc, then Cole’s pockets were empty, save for the lint and a small wrench used for bicycles. When he asked if he could start a tab, the bartender told him he didn’t give anybody credit. Bad policy in a place like Port Lostcoast, he explained. Cole straightened up and looked for a clock. It was past midnight now. He staggered down the corridor to the washroom, stood at the urinal, splashed piss on his shoes, caught his shirt in his zipper, and staggered out the back door.

  That was what saved his life.

  Cole was halfway from The Strait to the gravel road that wound up the hillside to the bluff house when he heard a voice behind him. His senses jarred to life. He managed to turn slightly and get an arm up as the fish club struck the side of his face. He felt his cheek explode, felt the hot flush of blood across his face, and the moonlit night momentarily brightened like day. He stumbled backwards, tripping on a rock and falling hard on his side, the wind sucked from his lungs.

  “Get the fuck up,” he heard Dan Campbell growl. Cole managed to put his hands down to protect his belly as Campbell kicked him hard with a booted foot. The air was pushed from his lungs again as his diaphragm contracted in self-defense, and he thought he might pass out then and there. Cole could hear at least two other men laugh. The blood ran down his cheek and onto the dirt. Cole shook his head and gasped for breath. Campbell tried to kick him again, but Cole managed to lurch and tackle his leg as it connected with his gut, and Campbell went down hard on his back. Cole punched him as hard as he could in the groin, and Dan Campbell roared, “You motherfucker!” Campbell swung the fish club down but Cole blocked it with his left forearm and, lying on Campbell’s legs, drove his fist as hard as he could into Dan’s groin a second time. Campbell gasped for breath and turned sideways to vomit in the dirt.