Slow Curve on the Coquihalla

by R. E. Donald

  "Next week," he said, "we'll do a little transaction right here, same time, same place. I'll explain it all when we get inside."

  Yahoo! thought Sorry, and offered Frank one of his tailor-made cigarettes.

  CHAPTER 27

  – – – – TWENTY-SEVEN

  Suzanne knew she should be doing something else. She knew she should be phoning around – to current customers, past customers, manufacturers in the industrial directories, or even just companies listed in the Yellow Pages – trying to find more business, trying to find even just one load for Gary, for today. But she couldn't. She couldn't seem to find the drive, or the courage, or the heart – whatever it was that it took to make a business grow. Instead, she stood at the back window, watching the river and thinking about death.

  It was hard to accept that there was nothing left of her mother and father, that when their physical bodies had died, their personalities and their accumulated knowledge and their lifetime of memories had ceased to exist, completely and irrevocably. She intuitively believed that something of them yet survived. A spirit. A soul. Some form of consciousness. She wondered if they knew what she was thinking. "Show me a sign," she whispered. "Please, show me a sign."

  The river continued to make its way towards the Pacific Ocean, its surface textured with swirling pock marks of current and wrinkles of light. A light breeze ruffled the big willow, a fountain of gold and green in the bright sunlight, and a crow landed on the clothes-line post, then flapped its way to the neighbour's fence and hopped along the top rail until it was out of her sight. Suzanne sighed. It would be easier, perhaps, if she believed that there was no chance her mom and dad existed any more in any way, that their beings had disappeared like last winter's snow. Bad analogy, she decided. Last winter's snow had seeped into the ground and become part of the river, evaporated into the air, rained onto the fields, become part of millions of living cells, remained part of an endless cycle. Perhaps, then, their beings had been extinguished like a candle flame. Gone. Vanished. Never to return. If she believed that, she wouldn't have to worry about whether or not what she was doing needed their approval, or might cause them pain.

  She heard a car door slam and seconds later the front door opened, loosing two giggling whirlwinds into the room. The two little girls chased each other around the sofa and made their noisy, roundabout way to Suzanne, where they started to chase each other around her legs. "Whoa, there!" she said. "Settle down, you little monkeys!" To Gary, she said, "My goodness, they're wound up. What have you been doing?"

  Gary grinned. "We went to the big kids school and they got to play on the big swings and the jungle jim. Didn't you, you little goofballs?"

  "Mom. Daddy says we can go ride the ponies again," said Joli, getting serious. "When, Daddy? Tomorrow?" she said, looking up at her father.

  "Not tomorrow. I said we'd have to ask Mom, remember?"

  "Can we, Mom? Can we? Please, can we?"

  Veri's contribution was a wide-eyed, "Po-o-oh-nies!" She looked up at Suzanne with a goofy grin, hopping up and down.

  "Maybe."

  "Goodi-i-i-e!"

  "Only maybe," cautioned Suzanne. "Now go upstairs and wash your hands, get ready for lunch." It took a little more discussion, but eventually the girls stampeded out of the office. Suzanne turned to Gary.

  "That's not fair," she said.

  Gary snorted. "You know what's not fair? It's not fair that I haven't had a load since Monday, that's what's not fair. You find something?"

  Suzanne turned back to the window. "Not yet."

  "Did you call El?"

  "I told you ... "

  "Fuck what you told me! You can't keep this business going if you don't have work for your drivers. You hire on some guy you don't even know to replace Pete, because you don't want me doing the Waicom, and even though you're still short one truck and two drivers, you can't find enough loads to keep me working. What gives? What the hell gives?"

  Suzanne shrugged, looking back over her shoulder at him. "I think some of the customers have stopped calling us. I know Dad used to call people to ask for loads, but I ... I'm not sure who I should talk to, what I should say ... " Her voice trailed off and she turned back to the river.

  "What are you going to do? Just let the customers drop away one by one until there's nobody left and the company's not worth shit? I know your dad used to talk to El, a couple of times a day at least, to see if she had anything she couldn't handle and vice versa. That might be a good place to start." She heard him pick up the phone and punch in a number. "Hello, El? Suzanne wants to talk to you," he said. "Hang on."

  "Here," he called, his hand over the mouthpiece, "El's on the line. You talk to her."

  Suzanne hesitated.

  "I said, talk to her!"

  She walked over, her face like stone, and grabbed the receiver from his hand. "Hello," she said. A Reba McIntyre song was playing in her ear. She was on hold. "Go feed the kids," she told Gary, her face still expressionless, and turned her back to him.

  Outside, the gold of the willow faded as a cloud obscured the sun.

  Hunter called and left a message for Cal Burmeister with the linehaul dispatcher at Norco Transport. It said, "Hunter Rayne would like to talk to you about the night of May 24th. Please call him collect on his cellular phone" and the number.

  The dispatcher, who had a voice like coarse sandpaper, said he didn't expect to hear from Cal again until the end of the day, or maybe even the following morning. "He picked up a load of produce this morning in the Coachella Valley, and he's on his way back to Calgary. So long as there's no problems, he won't call in more'n once a day." Hunter thanked him and hung up.

  By four o'clock on Thursday he was on the way to Calgary himself, carrying a clean, palletized load. The several hundred cartons he picked up in Vancouver were of various sizes, shapes and weights, and contained cans, jars, bottles and bags of non-perishable grocery items imported from the Orient. The load had an easy delivery deadline of Friday afternoon, so he considered investing some time in trying to make contact with Murphy's girlfriend, Kitty, in Cherry Creek. However, after the rather sour note their last meeting had ended on, he didn't want to set it up through Murphy, and he wasn't quite sure how to find her.

  He thought about it as he cruised up the smooth stretch of highway just past Abbotsford, heading east towards Mount Cheam and her sisters, whose rugged green-black humps were humbled by the white pyramid of their regal American brother, Mt. Baker, some thirty miles to the south. He used his cellular to call Suzanne, and she found Miss Kitty's number after flipping through the pages of her father's address book. Her full name was Katherine Dunn.

  At Hope, Hunter steered onto the Coquihalla. He felt no need to be "discreet", and it was an easier drive than the older two-lane Fraser Canyon route, with fewer twists and turns, and plenty of passing lanes so there was less chance of getting stuck behind a dawdling motor home. He intended to drive through the canyon some time soon, though, by car. It was a more interesting route, and allowed some great views of the Fraser River's tortuous rapids.

  He hadn't used the Canyon highway since the Coquihalla opened in 1986, and was curious to see what changes the little towns along it had made since then in an effort to attract tourists. It was hard to believe that during the gold rush of 1858, little Yale was the biggest town west of Chicago and north of San Francisco. And tiny Spuzzum was once the site of a Cariboo Wagon Road toll station. Maybe the girls would enjoy taking the trip. They could ride across the Hell's Gate rapids on the air tram, and have lunch at the Salmon House near Boston Bar. It was one of those things he'd always meant to do, next time through.

  But a man could suddenly run out of next times. Some time soon, he told himself again with a sad smile.

  He stopped at Merritt for a Dairy Queen hamburger and a large Coke. He sat outside on a stone bench at a stone table, enjoying the feel of the warm dry air on his skin after a few hours in air conditioned isolation. It was late afternoon, and a
lthough its rays had lost some of their sting, the sun was still hours away from the western horizon. The sleeves of his blue cotton shirt were rolled up to above his elbows, and he'd undone an extra button at the neck. The breeze carried no coolness, just the smell of french fries and the sound of children's voices from the table next to him. He wiped his hands one more time on his jeans before he took the cellular phone out of his pocket and called the number Suzanne had given him.

  The voice that answered was clear and friendly. Hunter introduced himself, then said, "Did Stan Murphy tell you about me?" The woman couldn't recall.

  "I'm a friend of Randy Danyluk's. Randy's daughter has asked me to do some investigating, talk to people he knew in order to address some unanswered questions about her father's death. I understand that you and Stan saw a lot of Randy, socially, and I was wondering if I might drop by to discuss ... the situation." Although he'd tried to sound casual, he could tell that his "on official police business" voice had broken through.

  "Are you with the police?"

  "No, Miss Dunn, not anymore. This is strictly unofficial. I'm a friend of Stan's, and had meant to get him to introduce me to you. I do apologize for calling you out of the blue like this."

  She told him she'd be home for the evening, gave him directions to the house, and said he was welcome to drop by for a visit. "I liked Randy very much. He used to talk about his daughter and his little granddaughters so much that I almost feel like I know them. This must be very hard on Suzanne, and I'd be happy to help." Somewhat doubtfully, she added, "If I can."

  Hunter began to look forward to meeting her. She sounded like a real lady, this Miss Kitty of Cherry Creek.

  Hunter looked back over his shoulder at The Blue Knight. It was parked on the side of the asphalt road, and he'd left its parking lights on as a precaution. Although the sun had not yet set, the shadows were deepening. He'd have a bit of a hike from the main road, she'd told him, on a narrow unpaved driveway to reach her house. Turning around a forty eight foot trailer in her yard would definitely be a problem. He enjoyed the walk, inhaling deeply the dry smells of sage, pine and warm earth. Bees buzzed in patches of white clover and around the nodding lavender heads of mountain daisies beside the road.

  He spotted the neat little house, not much more than a cabin, about a hundred and fifty yards ahead of him through a stand of scrubby whitebark pines. Its wooden siding was painted a soft, pleasing yellow, and the door and window frames were white. Sitting at right angles to the house, a small garage with an attached lean-to shed sported the same cheerful paint. Half barrels of flowering plants were placed at the corners of the house, and he saw that the sandy ground around each of them was dark with spilled water.

  A little black Scottie came tearing around the far corner of the house, his unbroken barking sounding like the ignition of a stubborn old car. The dog came to an abrupt halt, standing its ground about ten feet away from Hunter, engine still turning over and over without catching. Around the same corner came a woman wearing long shorts and a scoop necked sleeveless blouse, and carrying a big aluminum watering can.

  "JoJo! Settle down. That's enough out of you."

  The Scottie looked inquiringly at his mistress, then turned back towards Hunter. He barked again, but his stub of a tail began to wag tentatively. Hunter bent down and held out a hand for the dog to sniff. Formalities over, the Scottie's tail began to wag so furiously that its rear end began to seesaw. Hunter scratched the dog's ears as he watched the woman approach.

  "Hunter, I presume," she said, putting down the watering can and extending her hand.

  They strolled to the south side of the house and Hunter admired Kitty's two raised beds of vegetable seedlings and her little fiberglass greenhouse while she finished watering her plants and explained how she'd had rich topsoil trucked in when she first built the beds. "It gave me quite an advantage over my neighbours," she said with a smile, "until they followed my example and built their own raised beds. You never walk on them, you see, so the soil doesn't get packed down and the roots can grow deeper. That means you can set plants closer together in the row. Easier on the back, too."

  The watering done, she invited him to sit on her screened back porch while she went inside the house to get some iced tea. The porch faced the setting sun, and looked out over a collection of gentle brown hills dusted with various greens. The greens sharpened in the yellow light of the slanting sun, but dulled almost to grey wherever the early shadows lay. It was a peaceful place.

  They traded polite remarks for several minutes before Hunter felt comfortable about asking questions. "I understand that Randy used to visit you and Stan here now and then, and that you sometimes spoke with Randy on the telephone. Did he ever say anything to you that indicated he was worried about someone or something related to his business?" Hunter had planned his opening carefully in order not to let on that he was checking up on Murphy.

  Kitty Dunn placed her glass on the arm of her adirondack chair and seemed to be considering it thoughtfully. Hunter studied her out of the corner of his eye. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, and had the boxy matronly figure that many women that age seem to get without being noticeably overweight. Her face was pleasantly full and smooth, sagging just a little on either side of her chin and at her throat. Her hair was a pale blond, cut short like a man's just above her neck, but a mass of feminine curls from her forehead to the level of her ears. She was squinting from the sun.

  "Randy never confided in me," she said. "I wish he had." Her eyes searched Hunter's face, perhaps for some sign of sympathy or for some promise of confidentiality. Whatever she was looking for, she must have found it, for she sighed resignedly, dropped her eyes to the hands clasped in her lap, and began to speak.

  "I'd known Stan Murphy for several months before he invited his boss over to dinner. By then, Stan and I were engaged in a stable sort of relationship. You see, at my age, a woman stops expecting love, and learns to be content with a convenient and comfortable ... arrangement. It suited me that Stan was on the road more often than not. I had a man to cook for now and then, which is an activity that gives me great pleasure, and a strong pair of shoulders to do some of the heavy work around the place. As for him, he appreciated a warm cuddle and a hot meal whenever he was in town. He says he loves me, and maybe he really thinks he does." Her voice trailed off on the last sentence, and she lifted her eyes to the brown hills.

  "Yes, it suited me well. Over the years, I'd gotten used to being alone, and I like having my own home without the clutter of a full-time husband. Set in my ways, I guess," she said with a smile. "And then Stan introduced me to Randy." Her smile faded, and she gazed silently at something beyond the hills for what seemed like a long time.

  "You know ... I can't believe I'm telling you this. I've never spoken of it to anyone. Ever." She looked him in the eyes.

  He nodded, a faint smile on his lips.

  "Randy and I ... we ... I believe it was something special, something truly precious. Randy and I communicated it – our feelings – by looks, never by words, really. I believe that we truly loved each other." She smiled sadly. "You probably think I'm crazy."

  He shook his head.

  "It's true. No, neither of us ever came out and said so, not to each other or to anyone else. Sometimes you don't have to talk about it. You just know." She closed her eyes and swallowed.

  Tipping his glass slowly so the ice wouldn't rattle, Hunter sipped quietly at the iced tea. It tasted strongly of lemon.

  "Neither of us would have said anything to Stan," she continued, "nor ever done anything at all about it as long as he was still around. Hurting Stan would have, I don't know, cheapened it somehow. I used to pray that Stan would find another woman and break it off with me. I imagined that Randy was waiting for the same thing. We were both very patient." She smiled again, her sad gentle smile. "Looking back, perhaps unwisely so. Suddenly ... and tragically .... we ran out of time. Before we'd even had a chance to spend a single evening alo
ne."

  "I'm sorry," Hunter said. It was easy to imagine Randy Danyluk and Kitty Dunn living out their golden years in warm kindredship, puttering around the little homestead and sharing a thousand sunsets on this very porch in deep and modest joy. They were both silent for a moment, and Hunter felt the familiar heavy weight of hopeless regret deep in his chest.

  "Do you think that Stan ever guessed?" Hunter asked gently.

  Kitty nodded mutely.

  The hills on the horizon glowed like bubbles of molten metal beneath a sky ranging from gold to rose to blue when he bid her goodnight and left her sitting on the porch. From beneath Kitty's chair, the mournful eyes of the Scottie watched him ease the screen door shut. Murphy hadn't told her about Randy's death until after the funeral, she said.

  She would have been there to say goodbye, if only she had known.

  Hunter planned on driving as far as Revelstoke before he stopped for the required eight hours off duty. After seven hours in the bunk, he could go for a walk to stretch his legs, have a good breakfast, and be on the road again shortly after nine, which would put him into the customer's yard in Calgary well before two in the afternoon. He drove through the lowering dusk from Cherry Creek to Kamloops, tinkering in his mind with the nuts and bolts of his conversation with Kitty.

  Murphy was a jealous man, especially when he'd been drinking. It was seldom a problem, because they spent most of their time together at her home. "If I liked going out, I'd live in the city," she'd said matter-of-factly. He never mentioned Kitty's platonic relationship with Randy, but more and more frequently, after Randy had left from one of his visits, Murphy would be in a foul mood.