by Patrick Lane
Everyone has a tale to tell, but if Eddy had one it stopped for him the day he was sent away. When they released him, he entered a place without a story, for he believed there was nothing that could happen more than what already had. He caught a ride to Hope and then another in the back of a potato truck. He rode behind the tailgate under a canvas tarp all the way to Salmon Arm, the truck dropping him off and then going on to Calgary with its load of black-market spuds. He hadn’t tried to hitch a ride south from there, just walked the gravel verge or down the cut of the ditch. Near Enderby, where a cliff of stone juts up and where it’s said that years ago some squaw betrayed by a white man set fire to herself and leapt in flames to her death, he turned from the roadside and walked east into a field.
A pheasant must have cried to him from the wild alfalfa or maybe he saw a bobcat prowling for mice in some farmer’s rock pile. That might have been it. A bobcat was enough to make him turn, or a pheasant or a deer, some ten-point buck stepping out into the open following his does to water.
Whatever it was, it made Eddy cross the field and walk through the brush to where the warm Shuswap River slides between high clay banks on its way to the Fraser and the sea. He sat there under a cottonwood for a long time by that muddy water, and then he took off his clothes and walked into the river. He looked like any boy on a hot day going for a swim. He’d fished that river three years before, him and Tom. The Shuswap is slow down there below the canyon. A branch thrown in can take a long time to float around a bend.
He waded in and then he swam, not downstream, but up, as if he had to test himself against the flow. The current moved thick as oil and he pulled against it, beating with his arms and legs, his body going steadily nowhere, stopped. He seemed to measure himself there, not moving, the water passing him by, his body the only constant, bits of sticks and bark nudging against him and then moving on. A poplar fallen from some high bank rolled slowly past and he might have taken hold of it and ridden until he was gone, but he didn’t, just dove under and came up the other side of the tree trunk. He stopped swimming then, his hands raised high, his head there as if floating alone, the rest of him drowned. His arms above the water seemed to be the necks of swans, his sunburned fists their heads. Then all of him was gone.
He sank and rose, only to sink again. It was as if his body wasn’t ready to die. But it was what he wanted, a boy, just fifteen, thin like such boys are with their white, white flesh, their skinny arms and legs all strings of muscle, hard bone. He went under a dozen times and surfaced at last, his red hair blazing, streaks of mud sliding down his face, and then a leaf touched his cheek and he raised his arms and began to swim toward shore until his feet found the bottom, his chest and belly and legs appearing as he walked the slick clay to the riverbank.
He sat trembling on the slurry for a long time and then he got up naked as the day he was born and headed upriver to where he’d first gone in. When he got to the cottonwood, he pulled on his clothes, the Boyco boots with their leather laces, the straw hat he’d found a few miles back on the road.
For him the story had been told and whatever was going to happen was going to be the same as what he knew when the waters refused his offering, the river flowing above him, his eyes closed as he rose up out of the murk.
18
a blue hour, the sky a skinned parchment. Tom stared out over the fields to the mountain, the day beginning, darkness wasting in the east, morning stalking him on its bright legs. When he’d got home from Hurlbert’s, he wanted to be alone, so he sat in the truck for a while, fell asleep, and woke chilled. He’d washed at the water barrel and then gone into the house and got Marilyn out of bed, coffee bubbling in the percolator on the stove over the fire he’d lit, Mother up and sitting at the kitchen table, rolling yet another of her endless cigarettes. Now Marilyn was in the truck and he got in beside her and headed down Ranch Road, the land changing from fields to houses, a crow jabbing with its beak at something in a gutter, leaves blowing in the wind the truck left behind as they drove to where the road split. He took the west fork, avoiding town, then crossed the valley and turned north along Swan Lake. When she told him to, he stopped at a beaten mailbox on the lake side of the road about three miles past the town dump. He could see holes in the cheap tin where boys must have shot at it with their rifles as they drove by drunk in the night.
Marilyn got out and stood by the ditch, looking down the hill at the beat-up aluminum trailer, which sat up on blocks beside a grove of alders and cottonwoods. In front was a wooden deck with a ramp leading down. There were no signs of life, but for a heat haze rising in a wavering plume from the chimney. They got out of the truck and as he came around, Marilyn put her hand out and stopped him.
Don’t you want me to go down there with you?
You just remember to come back and get me, she said. Leaning up, she kissed him on the lips, her mouth warm. She turned from him then and walked down the hill on the rough hump between the ruts to the trailer. Tom stood and watched her as she went up the ramp to the plank stoop. She glanced over her shoulder at him, then opened the door, and went inside.
He got behind the wheel again and headed back past the dump, far ahead of him the onion dome of the Ukrainian church at the edge of town, the smoke from the mill out by the lake wilting into the sky. When he got close, bits of sawdust smut from the fire already started in the burner whirled in front of him, ash blowing in through the open window.
He pulled into the yard and parked in the shade of an elm, away from the other cars and trucks down by the office, men standing around, a few of them stealing a quick drink of coffee from their thermoses. The early workers would have arrived a half-hour before, the fires burning fiercely now, diesels thumping in the power shed. Tom made a fist, his fingers stiff. He held his injured hand to his face, gazing at it as if it was some foreign object, a thing attached to him by accident. He knew the wound was infected, but that wasn’t unusual, splinters, cuts, a nail, any and all had flared and healed in the past. The infection would subside. He thought of Marilyn seeing to him, the coolness of her hands when she bandaged his palm.
No one in his family went to doctors and he wasn’t about to change. Only once could he remember anyone going to the hospital. It was the time Father had cut his foot open with an axe when he’d been splitting wood out by the shed, the axe glancing off a buried knot, slicing him open just below his ankle. He’d come into the house with a boot full of blood. Tom had been a kid back then, but he remembered Father undoing the bandage when he got back from town and showing him and Eddy the stitches running like a zipper across the top of his foot. His father had cursed the doctor for charging him five dollars, calling him a quack, saying he could’ve done as good a job stitching it with waxed thread and a darning needle from Mother’s sewing basket. Eddy had broken his arm once, but father had set it himself. He’d told Eddy his bones were green sticks inside, and Mother had helped hold Eddy down when Father had straightened the arm, Eddy screaming in anger and pain. Father bound the arm with two slats of cedar, tying it there with binder twine and wrapping the whole thing in cloth he took from the kitchen. The only time you need a doctor is when he tells you you’re dead, Father had told them both. That’s when you don’t have to pay him!
Tom saw Chooksa and the Cruikshank brothers going around the corner of the mill, Wlad following slow on their trail, and a cluster of men walking with heads bent, up onto the mill floor. Then Carl pulled into the yard and parked beside him. They both got out and stood at the tailgate of Tom’s truck, leaning back as Carl rolled himself a cigarette, the paper twirling in one hand, a roll Tom knew he was proud of. A few shreds of tobacco hung from the ends and Carl tucked these in with a wooden match, then struck it on the rusty edge of the bumper and lit his smoke.
How’s that hand of yours?
Coming along, said Tom.
You don’t look good. You okay?
Tom was about to answer, but the warning whistle blew and they straightened up and put on
their hard hats, Carl shrugging as the mill came to life, the headrig saws howling as they cut into the first log, the edger starting its chatter, the many belts beginning their whines. He walked with Carl across the yard, the last whistle choking on the dust, Carl turning left toward the forklift parked by the machine shed. Tom went down the side of the mill to the sorting yard and crossed to the chains, Chooksa and the others standing there as they watched the drop hole for the first lumber to begin pouring from the mill.
Harry had phoned the mill from Hurlbert’s place an hour before quitting time and left a message at the office with Charlie Openshaw, the bookkeeper. Charlie brought the note out to the sorting yard and passed it up to Tom, Charlie’s neat hand telling him to meet Eddy at Wayne’s place at six o’clock. Tom didn’t know why Eddy wanted him there, but it didn’t sound good. He finished up the shift and drove to town. He had an hour to kill, time enough to get a sandwich and soup before going to Wayne’s house.
A little before six he drove to the east hill, the side streets stuttering by the truck window, a woman in a hat and gloves out walking alone, a man with a newspaper, the paths and walks on the hill mostly quiet as he passed by the Calvary Temple with its tilted signboard telling him: The Second Coming Is Nigh. He passed the houses where the old rich used to live and pulled around back of Wayne’s beside Eddy’s car and got out. The Studebaker’s engine was still ticking. Eddy must have just arrived. Lilacs leaned away from the fieldstone foundation, dried seed husks hanging like broken rattles from the ends of their spindly branches. Mother had told him long ago lilacs were death flowers, blooming as they did in the bite of spring, the smell of them thick with the same scent old women had, a musky smell that clogged the nose.
Tom wiped sweat from his face with his sleeve and went down the steps, the door in front of him partly open, the cellar-way at his feet littered with twigs and leaves. The day at the mill had been a long one, the fever he seemed to have not helping, his head full of too many things. He went inside. In front of him was the blanket with the Longhorn skull stitched into it hanging in the doorway to Wayne’s room. Tom remembered it from when he and Eddy were kids and used to go over and trade comics with Wayne. His father had bought the blanket for him in Texas years ago. Tom and Eddy had hated him for having it. They’d believed back then that Texas was where the real cowboys lived, their movie stars, their comic book heroes, Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, Lash LaRue.
He could hear Wayne’s voice, plaintive, asking Eddy why he was there. He pulled the blanket to the side and stared into Wayne’s cluttered nest.
Hi, Tom, Eddy said, not looking up. He was sitting on a wooden chair, staring at Wayne whose back was to Tom. Beside Eddy were shelves propped up with bricks and on them a collection of boiled animal skulls, coyote and rabbit, deer, bear, eagles, hawks, and sparrows. There’s every kind of sickness in here, Eddy said, leaning over and picking up a hawk’s skull. Who’d kill a bird just to boil its bones?
It’s a peregrine falcon’s, said Wayne. Be careful, those birds are really rare.
Eddy dropped it on the floor by his chair, the fragile bone bouncing on the cement, a fragment of skull breaking from the rim of the eye socket. And people think there are worse horrors than you.
Tom looked around and noticed a shelf above the bed with three Mason jars full of milky fluid. Wayne had bragged to him a few years ago that he’d saved every ounce of jism he’d ever come except the first, but Tom hadn’t believed him. He was angry at himself that his brother had brought him to this room. Being there was trouble piled on troubles.
What’re we doing, Eddy?
We’re talking to Wayne, he said.
I can see that, but I think we should go.
In a little while, Eddy said.
Wayne’s eyes flickered nervously in the air between Eddy and Tom. How’s it going, Tom? Wayne said. He was standing now by the scratched coffee table. An overflowing aluminum ashtray in the shape of California sat on it surrounded by a cluster of empty beer bottles and glasses. Among the spill were Classic Comics and Sunbathing magazines, and by the ashtray an upside down, worn-out copy of Grace Metalious’s Peyton Place, bulging with turned-down pages. Bits of notepaper were lined up in a cleared corner where Wayne had been doing his accounts. He’d shown Tom once how he kept track of every penny he’d ever spent. His life was contained precisely in columns of numbers with tiny notations scribbled in the margins, details of which café he’d had coffee in, the stores where he’d bought his shoes and shirts, his cigarettes, his Brylcreem. He had a record of nickels and dimes going back to school days. Wayne picked up an empty whiskey bottle and held it to the light. I’ll just go up and get another, he said.
Sitting here makes me want to throw up, Eddy said. Wayne scuttled out of the room.
We’re here for a reason, Eddy said to Tom.
Wayne doesn’t matter.
He matters to me now, Eddy said. The thing is, Wayne does whatever he’s told, no matter what it leads to. He’s interfered with me and that means he’s interfered with all of us. You’re part of it, too.
Then Wayne was back with a bottle of Seagram’s 83 and three glasses, one of them chipped and cracked. He set them down and poured drinks, passing a full glass to Eddy and the cracked one to Tom. Wayne sat then on the edge of his unmade bed, lifted his whiskey, and took a drink, gulping. Jeez, Eddy, you’re not looking too good. You neither, Tom. What’d you do to your hand? When Tom didn’t answer, Wayne said: So, you seen anyone around?
Tom took a sip of his drink. I don’t know, he said. How’s Joe?
Wayne’s face twitched into a smile. What do you mean? He put his glass down and folded his hands together, tucking them into his crotch. He started to giggle, not looking at either one of them. He was staring at a spot somewhere in the middle of the room. Eddy looked only at the pool of amber circling in his glass.
Oh yeah, I saw Joe down at the café. He said the bullet went through Lester’s shoulder high up and didn’t touch the bone. Joe told me Lester Coombs went back to the coast. Hey, are you going to the dog fights Saturday out at Carl Janek’s? He reached for the Seagram’s bottle and held it out to Eddy. When Eddy didn’t reach back, Wayne went over and refilled Eddy’s glass, then sat back down.
Eddy looked at him and said: So Billy’s big-time friend is gone.
That’s what Joe said. His glass tipped, spilling whiskey on his knee. The whole time Lester Coombs was here he stayed at the Day’s End Motel, the one past the willows where the old lake steamer is docked. Remember that time we were there? Those girls? What were their names?
You were never there with me, said Eddy. I’d never have let you come.
Eddy always said Wayne’s weaknesses disgusted him. To him, Wayne was a rat dancing on a piece of shiplap back of a chicken house, full of brag when he was the only rat in the world, but craven when a hawk or bobcat came along. He ran to ground fast. Wayne always hung around the edges of the crowd, but he wasn’t one of the tribe.
Wayne looked from Eddy to Tom and back again. Jesus Christ, Eddy.
Eddy put his glass on the floor beside the chair, stretched out his legs, and tried to cross them at the ankles, but his foot seemed too heavy to lift and he gave up and let his legs sprawl. He kept on staring at Wayne.
That old man you told Harry about wasn’t there, just like you said.
Wayne nodded, hopeful, trying to understand what was happening to him.
Eddy reached into the flap pocket of his shirt and took out a fifty-dollar bill, flattening it on his pant leg. That old man left a note though. It said he wanted you to have this.
Wayne reached over, one arm leaning on the coffee table, but Eddy didn’t give the bill to him. Wayne sat back, confused. Why would the old guy want me to have that? he said. I don’t even know him.
Your guess is as good as mine, said Eddy.
Wayne looked like he was going to cry.
And say someone told Sergeant Stanley about that old man’s house out on Priest Val
ley Road. You know, the place you told Harry about.
Wayne pushed his hands through his greasy hair and peered down, his eyes strained as if he were searching for something. He picked up a used toothpick burred at one end, and started poking at his teeth.
Say someone did, said Eddy, for whatever reason.
Did what?
Eddy lifted up his glass off the floor and held it loose with a finger and thumb, turning it under the single bulb hanging from the ceiling on a twisted cord. Gave the rumour to the police, he said. A fly as big as his knuckle blundered against the light and caromed off, its buzz taking it, stunned, to the table where it sat, stroking its blunt eyes.
It wasn’t me, Wayne blurted. Wayne looked at Tom, pleading with his whole face, but could find no help for him there. Tom slid down the wall and perched on his haunches. I told Harry about the house, sure, Wayne said, but that’s all Joe asked me to do. The toothpick was stuck between his eye tooth and a molar, a wisp of tattered wood.
Eddy just grinned at him and tucked the fifty-dollar bill into his shirt pocket. He shifted his hip, reached behind him, and pulled from his belt the pistol he’d taken from Lester Coombs.
Is that Lester’s pistol? Wayne said. He giggled again, looking to Tom for support as if he’d made some kind of joke. As if, to him, the three of them were in it together, all of them knowing about the old man’s house and what had happened there.
Eddy pointed the pistol at Wayne and told him to go outside.
They went up the steps from the basement, Wayne walking backward in front of the pointed gun.