Provider's Son

by Lee Stringer

  Levi didn’t see the point of arguing any further.

  “How soon do you want to leave?”

  “Any day after I give him the money.”

  “Just go to the hospital.”

  “If I go to the hospital theyll take the baby away from me. And I dont trust Damian. Im having the child in Provider. At the nursing station. Are you going to help me?”

  “Im not even in Fort Mac now. Im in Ottawa. I just told you I came here to see The Apology.”

  “I know your heart.”

  “How do you know my heart?”

  “I know you want to help me. I know youre a good man.”

  “Im sorry.”

  “You said that before.”

  “How would I even find you?”

  “Ill call you.”

  “When do you think youll have the baby?”

  “Hes due any time now.”

  “Ill...Ill see what I can do.”

  As he got off the phone Jon and Bill were heading towards him.

  “What did you think of it all?” Levi said to Jon.

  “I dont know,” Jon said, for the first time since Levi had known him.

  “We always want to believe this time will be different,” Bill said. “Even smart-asses like Jon.”

  Provider

  In Bill’s SUV they circled the strip mall parking lot which contained The Pied Piper. It was as busy as ever, with patrons stumbling out into the chilly night air, their minds numb and their wallets empty. Levi asked a few people about Johanna, but no one knew anything. She had called Levi in a frenzy, and told him she would meet him there.

  “This is pointless,” Bill said. “Shes not here.”

  They quit circling the parking lot and stopped to decide where to go next. It was then that they heard the piercing shriek of an infant. She emerged like a ghost from the darkness of the alleyway in front of them. In her arms she was carrying her bundled up leather jacket. Out of the top peeked a wet little head. Levi jumped out of the SUV and ran to her. Bill and Jon got out as well.

  “Did you just have that baby?” Levi said.

  She smiled and nodded her head with lost eyes, as if the dark alley still held some part of her. “I knew youd come,” she said. “Angels cant lie.”

  “You should get that baby and yourself to a hospital,” Bill said. “There could be complications.”

  “Im going to Provider,” she said. “Youre going to bring me there.”

  “Provider is a four hour drive from here, and half of it on a gravel forestry road,” Bill said. “Half the time that road is washed out anyway. And we just spent four hours on a plane. No way.”

  “I dont care. Im not going to no hospital. Theyll take him away from me and put him in the system. Bring me home.”

  “We cant go to Provider,” Bill said. “They cant just take your child from you because of what you do. It doesnt work that way.

  It’s a four hour drive from here anyway.”

  “If I stay here and I dont put this baby up for adoption Damian will kill me. My death will be on your hands.”

  When they turned off the highway onto the gravel road leading to Provider Bill was no longer aboard. He had gotten out at a gas station and took a cab back to the Erbacor Energy Executive Flight Center in Fort McMurray. Jon, having lost his license, could not drive, so Levi was behind the wheel. The gravel road was spotted with potholes that slowed them down. In places the shoulder was washed away and Levi prayed that this was as bad as it would get. Jon said that Erbacor had only put the road there a few years ago, and it was just a coincidence that the residents of Provider could use it to get to the highway.

  Johanna held the baby to her chest protectively, constantly staring down at the boy to see how he was doing. Levi wished he could have seen something besides the baby’s head to make sure he was healthy, but he hoped she would know that better than Jon or him. No cars passed them, and the headlights were lost in the spruce that crowded in around the tiny road.

  Keeping himself pushed against the door he slowly reached into his pocket and got his flask. Holding his wrist against the steering wheel, he began untwisting the cap. When he looked up all he could see was brown fur. The moose was so big that even though it was standing on the left side of the road Levi still had to swerve to keep its snout from crashing through the window. Even then he managed to clip its antlers, the impact sounding like a hammer punching into the top corner of the cab, just above the windshield.

  “What the fuck was that?” Jon said.

  “A moose.”

  “You drop this?” Jon said, holding up the flask to Levi. Most of it had wasted over the floor, leaving a mouthful or two in the bottom. Yet, there was no judgment on Jon’s face. Levi said nothing, and took the flask from Jon’s hand. He stared at it, screwed the cap back on, then rolled down the window and threw it out. Then wished he hadn’t.

  “How do you feel?” Jon asked Johanna.

  “God told me in a dream that Levi would help me and my boy.”

  Jon said nothing.

  “I remembers when Sinead was born,” Levi said. “I didnt really know what to think of her. Where did this little person come from? I remembers thinking. I mean I knew I helped to make her, and her mother just born her, but I still didnt know where she came from. I still dont.”

  The rain gradually changed from a light drizzle to a steady downpour that rattled on top of the SUV like hundreds of drumming fingers. It washed over the windshield causing Levi to drive even slower, leaning in, his shoulder muscles aching with tension as he squinted against the patterns of water reflecting the headlights back into his eyes.

  “Im bleeding,” Johanna said. “Im bleeding.”

  Levi slowed to the shoulder of the road. “Is that normal?” he said, turning around.

  “No. I dont know.”

  Levi looked at Jon who had turned on the cab light overhead and was staring at Johanna’s crotch. He searched Jon’s face for a reaction because he could not see her well from where he was.

  “We shouldnt have done this,” Jon said. “We should have listened to Dad. Wer not halfway there yet.”

  “How much is she bleeding?” Levi said. He got out of his seat and stared down at Johanna. A dark circle had enveloped the front of her jeans.

  “Take the baby,” she said, handing him to Levi. “Im dizzy.”

  Jon held her head and laid her across the backseat.

  Levi suddenly realized that he was still holding an infant, her infant, and it scared him. He handed the baby to Jon.

  “Here, take the baby. Ill keep driving, and you dial 911.”

  “I dont know if that works here...”

  “Take the baby!” Levi said. Jon reached over and awkwardly cradled the baby into his arms. Levi began driving again, not sure if he should speed up or slow down. He would not entertain the thought that Johanna might die in the back seat, and convinced himself that her problem was a minor complication involved in any child delivery. Death could not be stalking his perimeter once again, to take down another innocent, leaving him unscathed. He focused intensely on the road, pushing out all other thoughts that kept creeping in.

  “My phone isnt working,” Jon said. “I didnt think it would on this road. Ive had trouble here before.”

  Johanna got up on her elbows and looked down at herself. “Turn on the light.”

  “No,” Jon said. “You dont need to see it. Youll be fine.”

  “Turn on the light! I feel like Im soaking.”

  Reluctantly, Jon reached up and switched on the cab light. Levi listened for reaction but there was only silence. Then, Johanna, “Oh God. Im going to die anyway.”

  Her jeans were soaked in blood, along with the seat beneath her.

  She laid back down and began to sob quietly.

  “Give him to me,” she said.

  Jon slowly lowered the baby onto her chest.

  “What do you think is wrong?” Jon asked her.

  “Im bleeding to de
ath. It happened to my aunt.”

  “No,” Levi said, “dont be so foolish. Well soon be there. Just hold on. Youll be best kind. Keep trying the phone, Jon.”

  Jon did, but it wouldn’t work. All Levi could do was drive.

  “You cant let him get lost in the system,” she said. “Promise me youll make sure my son doesnt leave Provider. Promise me Levi. You too, Jon.”

  “We dont need to promise you anything because youll be fine,” Jon said, and Levi agreed.

  “Promise me anyway,” she said, and they both promised.

  “Swear to God,” Johanna said.

  “But...what if we dont believe in God?” Jon said.

  “I swear to God,” Levi said.

  “I swear to the Universe,” Jon said.

  “Im going to call him David.”

  “Nothing wrong with that name,” Levi said, his eyes filling.

  “Its from the Bible. David and Goliath. I want my son to be brave like that.”

  “I knew a David,” Levi said. “He faced down something even worse than Goliath.” He couldn’t tell her that the David he knew had been defeated in the end.

  “I want him to grow up in Provider. Provider is a good place. Good people with big souls.”

  “He will,” Levi said.

  She got Jon to lean in close, and whispered something in his ear.

  Twenty minutes later Johanna’s heart stopped beating. She simply stopped talking, slipped into a coma, and a few minutes later stopped breathing.

  Jon handed the infant to Levi and began CPR. Levi was still driving and staring into the rain. He began rocking the infant in his arms, like he had with Sinead.

  “We should be there by now!” Jon shouted as he pushed on Johanna’s diaphragm. There was thick snap, like a stick being broken inside a blanket.

  “Shit!” Jon said, his voice panicked. “I think I broke her rib.”

  “Are you doing it right?”

  “As far as I can remember. One, two, three...speed up! We should be there by now.”

  Levi pushed the pedal to the floor and the SUV bounced over the hole-ridden road.

  Levi began to pray:

  You didnt answer my prayers with David, but Im asking you again, please God dont let this young woman die. Her name is Johanna. Please dont let her die.

  “We should have listened to Dad,” Jon said, and breathed into Johanna’s mouth.

  Then the baby began to cry, and it quickly turned into angry shrieks. Levi was convinced the boy was sensing his mother’s departure, the disconnection of the one person who would value him above all others. Levi was about to stop the vehicle and try to sooth the baby himself when streetlights appeared in the distance. In that same instant the baby stopped crying.

  “Wer here.”

  There was no hospital, but a one level, brick building that was the nursing station. With the baby still in his arms Levi pulled in as close to the doors as possible. He jumped out and ran inside while Jon continued CPR, keeping the blood circulating through Johanna’s body and oxygen flowing to her brain.

  Two nurses met him in the lobby and he told them about Johanna outside. They called for another nurse and went out into the SUV, slower than he would have liked. The baby cooed in Levi’s arms and Levi looked down at him.

  “I prayed to God for your mother,” Levi said. “Dont ever forget that.”

  Nature’s Bounty

  At about six o’clock in the morning Levi woke up on the couch in William Smith’s small house. He was Bill’s father and Jon’s grandfather, but certain expressions revealed a closer resemblance to his grandson, who was asleep in one of the rooms, than his son. He had pronounced cheek bones, a broad nose, angular jaw, and his skin had a slightly redder tint than Bill’s or Jon’s. He was what Levi thought of as a “real Indian.” And now this “real Indian” was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee, and staring at Levi with a small grin.

  “Good morning,” William said, and turned his head to the window.

  “Good morning,” said Levi, shifting to a sitting position on the couch. He felt uncomfortable, like an invader. He sat there for a long time it seemed, until eventually William got up from the table and went to the porch. Levi listened to him fumbling with his clothes and putting his boots on, and going outside. Levi got up from the couch and went to the kitchen window. To his mild surprise he saw that William was carrying a rifle. He watched William as he ambled out to his white shed. Five minutes later smoke was rising from the shed chimney. And the sun began to rise over the roof.

  Levi timidly got himself a cup of tea. When he had that ready he realized he could not have a cup of tea without at least a cracker to go with it. He quietly opened the cupboard and found a pack of biscuits, and a small dish of butter. Biscuits and butter always tasted better in another man’s house.

  Levi wondered how Johanna and her son were doing. The town was not very big after all, although William’s house did seem to be somewhat on the outskirts. There looked to be nothing behind his back yard but wilderness. Yet, would Levi even be allowed to visit Johanna? Would her family be around? As he considered those questions a gunshot rang out. Levi stared out the window at the shed.

  Considering everything that had happened in the last year, Jon’s grandfather committing suicide would not surprise him. Nothing would.

  He just rounded the corner of the shed to see William cutting the throat of the largest moose Levi had ever seen. Blood ran over his hands and into the earth until it became mud about the animal’s neck and shoulders. The antlers, about five and a half feet from end to end, lay sprawled across the ground, partly dug into the grass and dirt in defeat. As big as the antlers were, however, they were flawed. One lower point was cracked off. It was possible that a competing bull had done this, or tree that got in the way, but it was more likely the work of a vehicle travelling about eighty kilometres an hour the previous night.

  “You better mind yourself,” Levi said. “Is he dead?”

  William gave Levi such a look of irritation that he cringed.

  “Yes by,” Levi said, apologetically, “thats a big bull.”

  “Yes,” William said. “My arthritis keeps me from hunting anymore, so I wasnt missing out on this. The bugger has been hanging around here for a week. But he was too brave for his own good this time. He almost seemed a bit dazed.”

  “Yes by.”

  Levi found himself glancing about nervously. He had poached the occasional moose in his day, and the old man seemed far too relaxed about the affair. That was until Levi remembered that legally the old man was probably allowed to kill as many moose as he wanted on the reserve. He was going to ask, but thought he might as well leave it alone.

  They both stood and stared down at the massive animal before them. The sweat, shit, and blood created an odour of wildness that clung to the air.

  “Will you help me clean him?” William said.

  “You knows I will,” said Levi. “Want me to go get Jon?”

  “Well...I dont know if he would want to.”

  “Dont you be so foolish! Hed love to. Sure he told me he loves hunting. Ill go get him.”

  “He loves hunting?”

  Levi laughed. “You knows he do,” he said.

  Before William could respond Levi was gone into the house with a big grin on his face to wake up Jon. Hauling the guts out of a thousand pound moose would be good for Jon before breakfast.

  Jon was face down in the bed, his body diagonal, with the sheets pulled up over thick calves, and his feet hung over the side. Levi figured he must take at least a size thirteen.

  “Jon! Get up by. I got a surprise for you!”

  To Levi’s surprise Jon awoke immediately and turned over on his back.

  “A surprise.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I get the feeling its not going to excite me much.”

  “Why not? You dont like moose?”

  “Moose?”

  “Your grandfather just
shot one out behind his shed. A monster of a moose too.”

  “Dont you want to know how Johanna is doing? It was your idea to bring her here.”

  “Nah, Im sure shes doing fine.”

  “What? Youre not even going to visit her?”

  “Nah. Her family will probably be there and that. I wont know what to say to them.”

  “This is crazy. You go out of your way to bring her here, she nearly dies, and now youre not even going to visit her. I dont understand you man.”

  “Forget about that. You going to help us clean that moose or what? I was going to help your grandfather, but Im sure youd rather help him. He needs someone to haul out the gut while he cuts down through the asshole.”

  “Okay,” Jon said, his face tightening. “Give me a minute to get dressed. And Im going to see Johanna after wer finished by the way, no matter if you do or not.”

  “I did what I promised. Good enough.”

  Levi laughed quietly while Jon got ready in the washroom. And then images of the previous night flickered in his mind. She had almost died. Technically she had died. And he had prayed for her life. Yet, this morning, he did not feel ashamed for his weakness. Although he didn’t necessarily believe that God had heard him.

  Jon was doing his best to hide his nervousness, but the look on his face when he slowly approached the dead animal was enough. He stopped within ten feet of it and stared at its head.

  “Its huge,” he said.

  “Its a big ol bull,” Levi said.

  William chuckled. “Youre going to help us clean it?”

  Jon nodded, and his grandfather chuckled again.

  “Alright. Lets get started.” William took a small pocket knife out of a leather holder in his belt and Levi grinned.

  “There you go,” Levi said to Jon. “Take that knife now, and have at her.”

  “I think I better start first,” William said. Levi stared at him, confused. William bent over the dead animal’s head and started an incision. He cut from the hind leg up the side of the animal’s belly to the middle of the foreleg, the knife slicing through the white membrane but never penetrating the muscle. He then got Jon to hold a hind leg while he stripped the skin from it.