In the Barren Ground

by Loreth Anne White

  “What did you say, Jamie?” Tana said, leaning forward.

  Jamie groaned, his eyelids fluttering. Another stream of drool crawled out of his mouth. “Sin, sin, Sinlina… . the hungry ones … dead ones came … Took her away to the other side … dark side …”

  She looked up, caught Crash’s eyes.

  “Like I said, they can be hallucinogenic, the mushrooms. He’ll be fine in the morning.”

  She came out, closed the cell door, and locked it. He followed her into the area that served as an office. It contained three metal desks behind a counter with a door in it. The desk closest to the counter was used by their admin clerk, Rosalie. One was clearly occupied by Tana. The other sat empty, still awaiting a new officer. At the far end of the room, set into an alcove, was a kitchenette area. Near the back, a cast-iron stove glowed with embers. Three doors led off the main office. Crash knew that through the first he’d find a passageway to the gun room, storerooms, evidence locker, and a tiny room with a bunk bed. The second door opened to stairs that climbed to the small apartment usually occupied by the station commander. The third door opened into an interview room.

  Tana shucked out of her jacket, and held for a moment onto the back of a chair.

  “I’m going to get Addy—the nurse,” he said.

  “Why were you there?”

  “What?”

  “At the Red Moose. Why were you there with a shotgun?”

  “I was in the diner when word came there was a fight, and that you’d rushed off to—” He smiled. “To stop it.”

  “So you came to save me.”

  “Came to stop the fight. I’ve seen how these things can go.”

  She held his gaze, measuring him, profiling him. She was so pale right now that her eyes looked like black holes. The cut on her cheek needed attention. She was going to have one helluva shiner come morning. He wondered what she’d seen out at the north tip of Ice Lake, how she was coping. At the same time he had no interest. Did not want to know a goddamn thing. Wanted to feel nothing. No desire to look into this station, police life, the bad feelings it gave him. Yeah, he knew he had issues. Big-shit ones. Knew also that some things you just never came back from, never healed … and that was your lot.

  “Why was TwoDove going for Caleb Peters?” she said.

  “No idea. I arrived after you did.” He hesitated, then said, “What did you mean, when you said that you knew what Jamie was going through? With Selena?”

  Her gaze locked with his a moment longer, as if she was deciding how much to tell him, just how far to let him in. And Crash knew what she was seeing. A jaded old bastard. Someone who flouted the law and sold booze to kids. Someone capable of sleeping with a fourteen-year-old girl. Distaste filled his mouth—for himself. He had to have at least fifteen years on Tana, and right now, looking into her fresh, earnest rookie face, he felt every minute of those years. And just as jaded as she was guileless.

  “Do you know if Jamie and Selena were an item—were they seeing each other?” she said.

  Her big wolfish dog, the one who looked as grizzled as Crash felt, came up to his leg and nudged him. He leaned down, scratched the animal behind the ear, feeling scars. “I dunno. Maybe.”

  “What kind of mushrooms are they?”

  “Don’t know the botanical name,” he lied. “The locals call them by a Slavey word, which means something like fighting men. Marcie Della from the diner says that warriors of old, or members of a bear hunting party, would drink the tea before going out. It’s also used in spirit quests for young boys.” He turned and made for the door. “I’ll send Addy. She can tell you more about the narcotic properties of the plants locals use. Any overdoses or poisonings tend to head her way.”

  As he opened the door to the cold, he said, without looking back at her, “Want me to bring some food? You look like you could use some.”

  She was silent. He glanced over his shoulder. Her eyes were gleaming. She wiped her mouth, and her hand was shaking. “Yeah,” she said very quietly. “Thanks.”

  He stepped out of the door and shut it behind him. Oh, fuck, you asshole. What the fuck are you doing? Outside, the wind was picking up. The foul weather was on its way.

  He crunched over frosted snow on his way to the clinic feeling as though he’d just crossed some Faustian line.

  And that he was going to be real sorry he had.

  CHAPTER 14

  “He’ll have one hell of a headache in the morning,” Addy Armstrong said as she packed up her emergency medical bag. “But it’s nothing Jamie TwoDove hasn’t seen before.”

  “You know him well, then?” Tana said, watching closely from the door of the cell, for Addy’s safety, in case Jamie TwoDove woke up and went ballistic again. Addy was the public health nurse for Twin Rivers. Tana had met her briefly at the small welcome barbecue Chief Dupp Peters and the local band councilors had held upon her arrival. Apart from a local admin assistant, Addy worked alone in the clinic, and lived behind it. A local volunteer filled in on Addy’s days off, but she was always on call while she was in Twin Rivers. When she left for her several-weeks-long vacation, a temp nurse was sent to fill in. A doctor flew in for a period once a month. So did a social worker. A dentist and psychologist less often.

  Addy gave a half shrug and came to her feet. “When you’re the only medical service in town, you tend to get to know pretty much everyone quite intimately.” Tana stepped back, allowing Addy to exit. She locked the cell door behind Addy, and the nurse followed her into the office.

  “It’s a little tough,” Addy said, preempting Tana’s next questions. “In a closed community like this, there’s a very fine line between patient confidentiality, friendship, other considerations. But it is there, and my patients trust me—they all know I won’t cross that line.”

  Tana got her drift. The nurse wasn’t going to just freely offer up Jamie TwoDove’s medical or drug-use history. But if TwoDove had been arrested before, or had a criminal record, that would be in the police database. She’d follow that up in the morning, as well as file her report on the wolf attack.

  “How about you?” Addy said, meeting Tana’s eyes. “Shall I sew up those gashes of yours now? Crash said that you also took a head butt to the stomach at the Red Moose.”

  Anxiety tightened Tana’s jaw. “I … yeah. I—”

  “Shall we go through to the little bunk room?” Addy said with a smile, but her eyes revealed that she was reading something deeper in Tana’s hesitation. “There’s good lighting in there. I’ve done this a few times.” She smiled again.

  “Ah, yeah. Sure.” Tana led the way down the hall, and into the small room with a cot. Her dogs followed.

  “You guys stay out here,” she ordered. Tails sagged. Toyon flopped down in the passage with a groan. Maximus just stood there.

  Tana showed Addy into the room, and partially closed the door so that Max and Toyon could still see in.

  “If you sit on the bunk there,” Addy said, placing her kit on the narrow desk, “I can just angle this light over like this.” She drew closer a halogen desk lamp with a swing arm. Tana took a seat.

  “How are you holding up otherwise?” She had a kind face. Soft eyes—a pretty hazel color. Tana felt edgy. Trapped. Her pulse began to race.

  “Good,” she said.

  Addy glanced at her face, then her attention shifted to the makeshift bandage Tana had bound around her palm. “Let me look at that first.”

  Tana held out her hand, and Addy unwrapped it. She cleaned the wound with sharp-scented disinfectant that stung. Using forceps she pulled out a small shard of glass.

  “This one’s not bad at all. The challenge will be in keeping it clean and dry,” she said as she re-bandaged it.

  Drawing the lamp even closer, she said, “Move up a little, yes, that’s it.” She grinned. “I’ve been wanting to practice my plastic surgery skills for a while now.”

  “Great,” said Tana.

  Addy laughed. “It’s going to leave
a bit of a scar—I’ll do my best—but you can always get it cleaned up later by a surgeon.” She got to work cleaning and stitching Tana’s cheek. “Four. That should do it. The stitches will dissolve. Want to see my handiwork in the mirror?” She sat back, a questioning look in her eyes.

  “God, no. But thank you.”

  She continued to hold Tana’s gaze. Tana started to go hot all over her body as she took her own measure of Addy Armstrong in return. The woman was blonde, pretty. Late forties, Tana guessed. She knew that Addy was single, and she wondered what had brought this woman north. And why she stayed. Whether she could trust her with her own personal and medical issues. But she’d been pushed up to the edge now. She had to start somewhere. Normal people did this all the time, so why was she so afraid? It was voicing it, telling it to the world, that made her scared. It was the shame it would bring. The questions that would come. She’d wanted to hold off as long as she could until she felt her new job out here was a bit more stable.

  It was everything but.

  “Any word from Yellowknife on backup?” Addy said.

  “Not yet. I’ll be putting in another call tomorrow.”

  “You sure you’re holding up okay?” she said, again.

  “Yeah. Yeah, fine.”

  “How about that punch to the stomach? You hurt anywhere else?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Addy blinked.

  “I … yeah, I took a blow to my stomach. It was more on the side, though. I think it mostly got my duty belt. I … I’m worried about … about …”

  “The baby. Of course you are.”

  Tana’s eyes burned.

  “Come, let’s get that vest and weapons belt off you, and lie you down.”

  Tana removed her gear. She set her gun belt on the desk. “You want my shirt off?”

  “Just unbuttoned is fine, and you can pull up your thermals. If you can undo your pants, lower them around your hips.”

  Tana did as instructed, lay back on the bunk, closed her eyes. Her heart thumped. Addy washed her hands again in the small basin in the room, warmed them, then palpated Tana’s belly, working slowly, her face a study of concentration. Tana closed her eyes, unsure what to allow herself to feel. Relief that she was finally in the capable hands of someone? Anxiety about Addy’s silence, and what the nurse might be detecting with her hands? Clearly this mother thing was not going to be a cakewalk—she couldn’t even handle the pregnancy like a grownup.

  “How far along?” Addy said, feeling Tana’s pulse, watching her watch.

  “About nineteen weeks. I haven’t told anyone from work,” she said. “Yet.” She cleared her throat.

  “You had any checkups so far?”

  Tana cleared her throat again. “Just … at the hospital when … when I was going to get the abortion.”

  Addy’s eyes met hers. Silence swelled in the room.

  “I was going to get rid of it. And then I chickened out, changed my mind. Changed everything and came here. I want to start over.”

  Addy’s eyes started to glisten. She nodded, her mouth going tight. She held Tana’s hand for a moment, then said, “Let me help you, okay?”

  Tana stared at her.

  You can’t do everything alone, Tana, my child. You need to let people help you. Man is not strong without tribe …

  For a moment Tana couldn’t talk. Then she nodded, and whispered, “Thanks.”

  Turning to her medical bag, Addy removed a narrow, wooden trumpet-like instrument. “Pinard stethoscope,” she said. “To hear the baby’s heart. I’ve got a few pregnant women in the area at the moment, so I travel prepared. Traditional midwives actually prefer this to a scan,” she said, placing her hand on Tana’s belly, and feeling the baby’s location again. “It means the baby is not exposed to long periods of ultrasound.” She placed one side of the stethoscope against Tana’s taut skin and lowered her ear to the other end of the scope. “The wood gives good acoustics, too,” Addy said softly. “I find it better than the metal or plastic ones.”

  She listened intently, then repositioned the stethoscope, and listened again. Nerves crackled through Tana.

  “Is it okay?” Her voice came out thick.

  Addy sat up. She grinned. “That’s a happy baby.”

  Tana couldn’t breathe, or swallow. Moisture swam into her eyes and blurred her vision. Her baby. It was real. It had a heartbeat. It was happy.

  She managed to swallow. “Thanks.”

  “You can get dressed now.”

  Tana sat up and dropped her feet over the side of the bed. She started buttoning up her shirt.

  “Rate of growth seems good for twenty weeks, judging by fundal height—the fact your uterus has reached your umbilicus, and the lie is normal. One fetus,” she said as she packed up her bag. “You felt baby move yet?”

  Tana’s hands stilled on her buttons. “I … I don’t think so,” she said.

  “You should be able to detect your baby’s first movements, called ‘quickening,’ between weeks sixteen and twenty-five of your pregnancy. But if this is your first, you might not feel anything until closer to twenty-five weeks. Sometimes it can feel like butterflies,” she said with a soft smile that made her eyes look oddly sad. “Or it can be like nervous muscle twitches, or a rolling, tumbling motion, not unlike an upset tummy.”

  Tana snorted. “That I’ve had. Bad nausea. Trouble keeping food down.”

  “It should pass. That, and feeling like you’re on an emotional roller coaster.”

  Tana waited for Addy to ask about the dad. To her credit, she did not. She asked nothing more. And the relief was profound. She liked this woman. She liked that Addy had made clear the fine line she walked in this community, and that she did not cross that boundary.

  “You don’t have kids?” Tana said, reaching for her gun belt.

  Addy’s hands stilled for a second, so briefly Tana might have missed it if she hadn’t been watching for it from the moment she’d noticed the sadness in the nurse’s eyes.

  “No.” Addy zipped up her bag, paused, then met Tana’s gaze directly. “I was like you once. I went to that abortion clinic in Yellowknife. Except, unlike you, I didn’t walk out.” She took a deep breath. “I’m glad you did. I live in regret of my decision. I’d hate that for anyone else.”

  Tana blinked. She opened her mouth to say something but no words formed.

  “You should come see me at the clinic, as soon as you feel ready. We can arrange for a proper ultrasound, if you like. And later we can talk about where and how you want to have your baby. Most women fly to the hospital in Yellowknife. Some prefer a local midwife. But if you go that route, the health authority prefers if you sign some paperwork, but we can talk about all that when the time draws closer.” Addy gathered up her gear, hesitated once more. “You said you hadn’t told anyone.”

  “Not yet.”

  “So, you haven’t put in for maternity leave.”

  “No. I … need to prove I can handle this job first. I need this job.”

  “Take it easy out there, Tana,” she said softly. “Fights at the Red Moose … you might be compelled to take a kick, or a bullet, but you’ve got another life to think about now. A little civilian life. The sooner you put in for maternity leave, the sooner you can get—”

  “On to desk duty?”

  Addy inhaled. “That’s not what I—”

  “It is what you meant.”

  “You need backup. That’s what. You need a full complement of staff here, so that you don’t have to be the one running in to physically break up a brawl at the Red Moose. Or be camping out all night at a wolf mauling.” She held Tana’s eyes. “It’s not easy on a woman—anyone—at the best of times. I know what I’m talking about. My mom was a cop. She died in the line of duty when I was ten.” She paused. “Be there for your baby, Tana.”

  Crash entered the office with two cartons of hot soup and freshly baked bannock.

  Service at the diner had been slow. Half the Red
Moose patrons had ended up there after Viktor, the saloon owner, had come around and cleared them all out. They were huddled around tables drinking coffee, eating bowls of chili, and doing a postmortem of the whole fight.

  The station office was empty, the door to the passage open. Crash heard voices coming from there. He entered the passage. Tana’s dogs were lying outside the little spare bunk room. He was about to call out that he had takeout, when he heard Addy’s voice.

  “You haven’t put in for maternity leave.”

  Crash stilled in his tracks, a carton in each hand, wanting to leave but suddenly unable to tear himself away from the conversation that followed.

  “… My mom was a cop. She died in the line of duty when I was ten. Be there for your baby, Tana.”

  A memory noosed him. He felt hot. Her dogs looked up at him, thumped their tails. Panic kicked through Crash. He mouthed, “Shhh,” to the dogs, and backed out of the passage carefully, his pulse racing.

  He scanned quickly around the office for a place to set down the takeout. Spare desk. He left both cartons there. His appetite was gone. Maybe Addy was hungry—she could have his soup.

  He exited quickly through the main door, shut it quietly behind him. He paused a moment, breathing the cold air in deep. What in the hell was wrong with him?

  He dug his hands into his pockets, trotted down the stairs, and headed down the snowy street under the green glow of the sky.

  But a voice whispered in his head, It’s too late, O’Halloran. You crossed the threshold already … you gave a shit … and now look what she’s doing to you …

  Had he even had a choice? From the moment she’d come knocking?

  From shadows across the street the Watcher huddles deep inside a jacket. Cold increases. So does the wind. Crash O’Halloran suddenly exits the police station. For a moment O’Halloran stands outside the building, as if indecisive about something. The Watcher studies him, thinking. Then O’Halloran suddenly seems to shuck whatever is worrying him, digs hands deep into his pockets, and strides with purpose down the street.

  The Watcher saw him take the food cartons inside, but he was out too quickly to have eaten any himself. Which means it was a gift. For the cop woman.