In Search of Sam

by Kristin Butcher

  “Dani?” he says, swinging the door wide. His ice-blue eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles.

  I nod and smile back. “Yes.”

  “I’m Duncan Sheffield. It’s nice to meet you. Please come in.”

  He takes my coat and leads me into the living room. Whoa! Floor to ceiling, it’s one giant photo album.

  He gestures to a chair, so I pull my gaze away from the photo-papered walls and sit down.

  “How was your drive?” he asks.

  “Good. The roads were clear, and there wasn’t much traffic.”

  “Will you be going back today?”

  I shake my head. “No. I’ve finished my business in Kamloops, and since I live in Vancouver, this is on the way home. I’ve checked into a motel. I’ll stay there tonight,” I shrug, “or longer, depending on what you and your wife can tell me about Sam.”

  “Speaking of my wife, I should let her know you’re here. She’s making tea.” He winks. “I’ll be right back. Make yourself comfortable.”

  At home, making myself comfortable would involve stretching out on the couch with a couple of cushions under my head, the remote in my hand, and a bowl of popcorn on the table beside me. Since that’s not an option here — I don’t even see a television — I check out the plethora of photographs decorating the walls. At first, I feel guilty about it, like I’m snooping, but then I decide that’s crazy. Why would people plaster the room with photos if they didn’t want anyone looking at them?

  The photographs are mostly of people, who I assume are family — several generations worth by the look of it. I recognize Duncan Sheffield in many of them, joined often by an equally thin woman, probably his wife, and a girl, who varies in age with each picture. Though there’s something mesmerizing about these photos, as if they were windows into these people’s lives, I keep hoping to stumble upon Sam. But since the photos are in no specific order, I have no way of knowing where to look. And Sam may not be there anyway.

  I stop at a large sepia portrait of a man and woman. Judging by their clothing and the formal setting, I’m guessing the picture dates back to the early 1900s. The couple look to be in their twenties, and though they are as sombre as two people can be, I know that was the style of photos for that time, and I can’t help wondering if they became animated after their picture was taken. Did the woman smile and giggle? Did the man spin his hat on his walking stick? Did they —

  “My great-grandparents,” a woman says behind me, and I whirl around. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Stephanie Sheffield.” She offers me her hand.

  “Dani Lancaster,” I say. Though I’ve just come in from outside, the cold of her touch is startling. Even more startling are her eyes. They are like pieces of shiny coal. She smiles, and her face becomes a roadmap of lines. And suddenly she’s pretty. Her personality is written in those lines, and they say she is a compassionate, loving person — and what is prettier than that?

  “You don’t look like Sam,” she says, and I realize she’s been studying me too.

  “People say I’m like my mother.”

  She gestures to the couch. “Sit down.” Then she and her husband sit on the loveseat opposite.

  “Tea?” she asks, lifting the pot from the tray on the coffee table separating us.

  “That would be nice. Thank you.”

  She passes me a china cup decorated with flowers and trimmed with gold. It’s so delicate I can almost see through it. I set the teacup down in front of me and add sugar and lemon. Stephanie and Duncan add milk to theirs. Then we all sit back.

  It is Stephanie who begins. “I confess that when you called yesterday and told me Sam was —” she pauses and looks flustered, “— that Sam had passed away, I was shocked and upset. He lived with us from the time he was fifteen until after he graduated from high school. He could have stayed even after that, but he felt obligated to leave.”

  I frown. “Why?”

  “Social services only pays for foster care until the youth turns eighteen,” Duncan says. “So Sam felt he was putting us out.”

  “Is that why he joined the rodeo?”

  “More or less,” he says. “He worked part-time for a while and paid us board.”

  “He insisted,” Stephanie cuts in. “We didn’t want to take his money, but he was adamant about paying his way.”

  Duncan takes over again. “Sam had always loved animals, horses especially. One of his other foster homes was a farm. That’s where he learned to ride.”

  “And work,” Stefanie grumbles. “Those people worked him so hard. They had several foster children and they treated them all like slaves. Instead of hiring help, they took in foster kids. That way they had free labour and got paid besides. It makes me so angry when I think how that couple used those children. As if they hadn’t had a hard enough life as it was.”

  Duncan pats his wife’s hand. “Don’t get yourself all worked up, Steph. It wasn’t as bad as all that. Yes, the kids had gruelling chores, but they weren’t abused. And Sam came away with a good work ethic as well as the skills that would lead him to his life’s career.”

  Stephanie clucks her tongue. “You are being too kind, Duncan.”

  “Have you always taken in foster children?” I ask.

  Stephanie shakes her head. “Sam was our only one. He went to school with our daughter. We had met him at a few school functions, and so when Debbie, our daughter, told us Sam’s foster family was sending him back to social services, we volunteered to take him in. Never once did he make us sorry.”

  “Do you know anything about his background — the foster families he stayed with before, or his birth parents?”

  Duncan answers. “We know of the foster family who owned the farm, but they no longer live in the area. I don’t know where they moved. Other than that, all we have is the information Social Services provided when Sam came to us. He was a foundling left on a doorstep in Farrow. That’s a small community not far from here.”

  “Do you know the name of the people he was left with?”

  Stephanie and Duncan exchange glances. “According to social services, it was an elderly couple,” Duncan says. “But they died a long time ago.”

  Though I nod, I feel my hopes plummeting. Another dead end. And I was so hoping I would find a clue here. I look around the room. “Do you —” I lick my lips and start again. “I probably shouldn’t ask this, but you have so many photographs. Do you . . . do you have any of Sam that I could have?”

  Again, Stephanie and Duncan exchange glances. “I’m sorry, Dani,” Stephanie says. “I’ve been so caught up in my own loss that I haven’t thought about how you must feel.” She gets up, lifts a photograph from the wall, and offers it to me. “Sam and our daughter, Debbie,” she says. “It was taken at a baseball tournament. Sam’s team was in the provincial championship.”

  I gaze at the photograph. It’s Sam, all right, though a much younger version. Not the middle-aged cowboy I knew but a teenage baseball player. And though it doesn’t matter, I ask, “Did he win?”

  Chapter Eight

  The Sheffields are nice people, and I appreciate that they met with me and told me what Sam was like as a teenager. I’m grateful for the photograph too, of course, but as far as information that will help me find Sam’s birth mother, they told me nothing — except the name of the town where he was left as a baby.

  So it’s back to Google.

  “Farrow is a small unincorporated village located in the Nicola Valley region of British Columbia about 40 kilometres southeast of Merritt,” I read aloud. “It dates back to the gold rush of the 1860s, when prospectors trickling out of the Kootenays reportedly discovered gold in a stream there. This brought more gold seekers, and when deposits of silver, copper, and coal were also discovered, mining potential provided a basis for settlement. Farrow was named after the first mining company to stake a claim. The installation of a feeder line to the Kettle Valley Railway in nearby Brookmere provided a means of
transporting the mined minerals to major centres and as a result the town grew.

  “During its boom years, the village boasted a drugstore, bank, church, and hotel, as well as an assortment of small stores and other businesses. Around 1950, Farrow’s population peaked at nearly 2,000.

  “In recent years the village has dwindled to a handful of residents, rendering it little more than a ghost town. Located less than a mile east of Highway 5, Farrow is accessible via a gravel road.”

  I put down the phone, sag against my chair, and sigh. Sure, I could drive to Farrow. But what’s the point if there’s no one there to answer my questions?

  I try to look on the bright side. It would be just as hard — maybe harder — to get answers if I were somewhere like Toronto. Then there would be too many people. Besides, it’s not like Farrow is totally deserted. People still live there — a few, anyway. And the ones who have stayed are probably the diehards, the people who have a history with the place — the ones who might be able to answer my questions.

  What have I got to lose?

  I check out of the motel and inhale the sunny spring morning all the way to my toes before sliding into my little Honda.

  “Let’s go, Gloria,” I say as I turn the key in the ignition. “Gloria” is the name I’ve given the lady in my GPS. “I hope you’ve had your coffee, because we need to have a good day.” Then it dawns on me that I’m talking to my GPS just like Sam used to talk to his truck. At first it startles me, but then I think of it as another thread binding us together, and the idea pleases me.

  I have the highway more or less to myself. It’s the grey season, that bleak time of year after winter has released its stranglehold but before spring has had a chance to kick in, and though the fir trees are green and the sky is blue, everything else is grey. The rock embankments, the grass, the distant hills — everything. It’s as if the world is coated with a dull film and Mother Nature needs to hose it away to make everything fresh and new.

  Along the highway are point of interest signs indicating station stops along the old Kettle Valley Rail Line. These are names of characters from Shakespearean plays. Apparently one of the engineers had a passion for the Bard. According to the map, the turnoff for Farrow is just south of the marker for Juliet, so as soon as I pass it — even though I trust Gloria to tell me where to turn — I slow down and keep my eyes peeled for the exit.

  “Keep left,” Gloria directs me and then adds, “In 450 metres, turn left.”

  “Gotcha,” I say, spotting the left turn lane ahead. I check my rear-view mirror, put on my turn signal, and change lanes.

  As I wait for the oncoming traffic to go by, I squint at the sign tacked to a post at the entrance to the road — a barn board someone has written on. The white paint is so cracked and faded, I can barely make out the letters. I’m pretty sure they spell “Farrow,” but maybe that’s because it’s what I expect to be there.

  The article on the Internet said the road was gravel. It is — in some places anyway. In other parts the gravel is long gone, and what passes for a road is a collection of potholes and ruts that bounce me past an orchard of gnarled old fruit trees, a dilapidated barn that’s leaning so much I could blow it over and a sign warning visitors not to drink the water.

  Gloria seems to be weathering the bumpy ride better than I am because her voice is as steady and cheerful as ever when she announces, “In 100 metres, destination on right.” Then a few seconds later, “Destination on right.”

  I slow to a crawl and peer out the passenger window. There’s another sign, just as ancient as the one at the highway, but at least I can read this one. Welcome to Farrow. I glance around. Okay, I’ll bite. Where?

  I move on, rolling slowly over the rutted road like a rowboat in a stormy sea. Straight ahead is a crossroad, and it’s paved. Main Street, according to the signpost. I glance both ways. There’s not a car in sight. Buildings line the sides of the road, but they’re in pretty rough shape. Most are boarded up, and the ones that aren’t look like they should be. The place is totally deserted. Or is it? Half a block away, I see a dog. It pads from my side of the road to the other and scratches at the door of a white storefront. Almost immediately, the door opens and an elderly man shuffles out. He pats the dog and the two make their way to a patch of sun farther down the sidewalk. The man lowers himself into a chair and starts to rock. The dog curls up beside him.

  I ease my car onto Main Street, cover the half block, and park. As I step onto the street, I can feel the man watching me. When I cross the road, the dog lifts its head.

  I smile. “Good morning.”

  The man nods but says nothing. The dog starts to get up, but when the man strokes its back, it grumbles and settles down again.

  The man shades his eyes and squints at me. “Lose your way?” he says. “We don’t get many visitors here in Farrow. Do we, Ralphie?”

  The dog’s tail thumps the sidewalk.

  “Actually, I’m looking for someone,” I tell him.

  “You don’t say. And who might that be? I know most everybody hereabouts. Down to Brookmere too.” He gestures to an overturned milk crate. “Set yourself down and tell me who you’re lookin’ for. Is it the Moyers? They get the most company. Mind you, none of ’em stays long. But then nobody does. Farrow’s not exactly New York City, if you know what I mean.” He grins, and a gold tooth glints in the sunlight. “It used to be a sight more lively back in the old days, but when the mine shut down — and the railway too — there was nothing to keep folks here. Too bad, cuz it’s a nice little town.”

  I glance around skeptically.

  “Oh, I know it don’t look like much, but there’s nothin’ that a hammer and nails and a lick of paint couldn’t fix. It ain’t looks that make a place anyway; it’s the people.”

  I nod and sit on the milk crate. “So how many people live here?”

  He screws up his face in thought. “On a good day, one hundred fifty maybe. If Bobby and Linda Matlock are bickering, Linda will be gone to stayin’ with her sister in Kelowna, and then there just be one hundred forty-nine. Mostly it’s older folk like me, cuz we don’t need jobs. We got our pensions. The younger folk who live here — they stay cuz they can’t afford anything else. Property’s cheap. Some of them inherited land too. They all work somewhere else though — mostly Merritt.”

  I nod again and point towards the rutted road. “When I was driving in, I saw a sign that said there was no drinking water. How do you manage?”

  “We truck water in. Use that for drinking, and use stream and well water for most everything else. The water situation is fixable too, but Farrow folk can’t afford to do anything, and the government jus’ wants to forget we’re here. The faster the town dies out, the happier they’ll be. There ain’t nothing we can do about it either. Nobody but us cares, and one hundred fifty people — one hundred forty-nine if Linda Matlock’s off sulking — can’t make much noise.”

  As I think about what the man has said, I turn my face to the warm morning sun and open myself to my surroundings. Though I’m in downtown Farrow and the highway is less than a mile away, I feel swallowed up by nature. It’s the same feeling I used to get sitting in the meadow at Sam’s place.

  The man interrupts my thoughts. “So who is it you’ve come to see?”

  Suddenly I remember that I don’t know the name of the old couple who took Sam in. Perhaps he took their last name. “Swan?” I answer hesitantly.

  He scratches his head and frowns. “You don’t know?”

  “Not for sure. What I do know is that they were an older couple in the 1970s and they would have had a little boy living with them.”

  The man’s face clears. “Well, why didn’t you say so? Here I was thinkin’ you were lookin’ for someone by that name now, and there just ain’t no one. You’re talkin’ about old John and Hannah Swan. Good people, them two. Real good people. O’ course, they’re long dead now — buried in the local cemetery — but, yeah, they lived here their whole lives.
And, if I recollect rightly, their niece’s son lived with them for a few years. Then one day he was gone. Never did find out what happened there.”

  Another dead end. I sigh and stand up. “Thanks,” I say.

  “What’d you want with John and Hannah anyway?” he asks.

  I shrug. “That little boy was my father. He was left on the Swans’ doorstep when he was a baby. I was hoping that coming here might lead me to his birth mother.”

  The man’s eyebrows shoot up. “Well, I’ll be jiggered. Just shows you what a body don’t know. I was a lot younger then. The Swans woulda been my parents’ age. I didn’t know them real well except to say hello, but I know where they lived. I could give you directions, if you’d like.”

  I know I’m grasping at straws, but that’s all I’ve got. “I would like that very much,” I say.

  Chapter Nine

  I feel like I’m standing in a minefield after the war. The remains of basements scar the scraggly field like ragged concrete craters and the ground is littered with tree stumps, shards of glass, rusty nails, and chunks of rotting wood. I carefully pick my way around the debris.

  I shouldn’t be walking here. The area is surrounded by a chain link fence that sports an intimidating padlock and a big KEEP OUT sign. But since one panel has been ripped away, offering an alternate entrance, I use it.

  The old man said the area was earmarked for a housing development in the 1980s, but the project never got off the ground. After buying out the homeowners and tearing down the houses, the developer ran out of money, and the government claimed the property for unpaid taxes.

  I don’t even know which basement belonged to John and Hannah Swan. I wander from crater to crater, peering into them, hoping to see something that is Sam. But except for algae, puddles of stagnant water, and crushed drink cans, the basements are empty. I want to believe that when I come to the right foundation, it will speak to me.

  But it doesn’t, and the reality is disheartening.