by Lee Gowan
BROKEN HEAD UNION HOSPITAL
REPORT OF POST-MORTEM EXAMINATION
NAME: Doe, John
AGE: Early 20s
SEX: M
DATE AND TIME OF DEATH: Approx. January 1971
DATE AND TIME OF POST-MORTEM: 13 April 1971
EXTERNAL EXAMINATION:
The body is received dressed in parka, shirt, jeans and belt, socks and snakeskin cowboy boots.
Deceased is a well-nourished, well-built, young Native Indian man appearing consistent with the stated age and measuring 167.0 cm in length. There is no rigor mortis or post-mortem lividity.
When the clothing is stripped, the skin shows a reddish black mottling consistent with decomposition. Most of the exposed parts have been eaten by animals or birds: coyotes, magpies, crows. Perhaps other carrion. The affected areas include the entirety of the face below the hairline, which has been eaten down to the skull, and also includes the neck. The eyes as well.
All of the dermis and flesh on the lower two-thirds of the left forearm and left hand have also been consumed, leaving nothing but bones and ligaments surviving. The dermis and flesh of the right hand and fingers as well. A number of tattoos are present on the extensor aspect of the right forearm. Due to decomposition, many of these are indistinct, but one tattoo clearly shows the name “Irene.”
The torso and lower extremities otherwise appear substantially normal for a man of this approximate age and in this stage of decomposition.
No fractures or other injuries are noted on external examination. Before proceeding with further examination, photographs and fingerprints are obtained by the Broken Head City Police Identification Unit, and complete X-rays of the body are taken.
NOVEMBER 30th, 1970: NEAR BROKEN HEAD
SNOWING ALL DAY, the wind wisping and whirling past my window, dancing one of those fancy ballroom numbers I remember from the old dancehall in Greenview, those gauzy billowing silks, and the winter depositing the stuff a foot deep already over the flowerbed where the withered old blue spruce used to grow that Mary made me plant but that died in the fifties, and so of course the son and his wife decide this is a good evening to be going to town.
“Where’n bloody hell do they think they’re off to?” I ask, when I see the car back out of the garage, the headlights sweeping by me as they turn and pull that boat of a Buick out of the yard. They had not mentioned to me they were going out—had not asked my by-your-leave to keep an eye on the yard apes.
“To see a movie,” Young Sam tells me, so they’ve obviously cleared it with the nine-year-old. He is watching the end of Walt Disney. Some silly thing with a raccoon as the hero. Being that heroes are hard to come by these days, I suppose.
“What movie’d be worth goin’ out into this for?”
“Doctor Zhivago,” the small one says.
They even told him what movie.
“Doctor who?”
“Doctor Zhivago.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“Russian, I guess. They said it’s about Russians. They wouldn’t let me go.”
“Well, I should hope not. God knows why the hell they’d want to go off on a night like this to see a movie about some commie doctor.”
Their tail lights have already disappeared by the time they get to the end of the driveway.
“The Chinaman’s ancestors walked across the Bering Strait from Russia to get here,” I say, because I’ve been thinking that maybe it makes more sense than I first realized, the Chinaman wanting to bring back the buffalo. The small one does not seem to hear me, tuned in as he is to that raccoon charmer. He is sprawled out on his stomach on the floor, with his chin resting on his folded hands, staring deeply into the winking eye of that evil box.
“Why don’t we go for a drive of our own?” I say, and all of a sudden he cranes his head around, hearing in this proposal a threat to finding out whether the raccoon overcomes his adversaries and adversities and advertisements.
“Where? Can’t we wait till this is over?”
“Sure. We’ll go just as soon as the coon’s cooked. I’ll fetch Vern.”
I limp up the stairs, leaning hard on the banister, resting at the landing and then dragging myself up those last four steps that always feel like forty these days. I find the older boy in his bedroom, enduring some damned racket on his listening phones. Posters of longhaired boys scowling at me. He slips the listening phones off one ear when he sees me in the doorway, and I can hear the tinny buzzing of a demented mosquito in pursuit of some terrible love.
“Let’s go for a drive,” I say.
“Tonight?”
“Why not tonight? Or are ya doin’ somethin’ so important ya just can’t get away?”
He blows a bubble with the gum he’s chewing, and it pops and sticks to the few wispy hairs growing on his upper lip.
“Where we goin’?”
“On an adventure. Or don’t ya like adventures?” He doesn’t answer, attempting to clean the gum out of his poor excuse for a moustache. “I should give you some snoose to chew. It’s better than that stuff.”
“Shouldn’t we be takin’ the horses if it’s an adventure?”
“We should. But I’m gettin’ soft. And I doubt if I’d get Young Sam to come at all if we was goin’ on horseback.”
“He’s comin’ too?”
“He is. I’ll be lookin’ to you to keep him in line.”
He smiles, gnawing hard on that knob of pink sugar. Just give them power over somebody else, and they’ll follow you off the edge of the earth.
“Okay. I’ll be there in a minute.”
In the end, it takes more like forty, and even longer than that to get the two of them dressed so they won’t freeze to death. They’ll wear running shoes to their funerals, just in case they need to make a dash for it. Meanwhile, I get the old Colt from where I keep it in the basement, and fill the magazine with shells. No point in taking any extras. Would just be a waste of powder.
When I finally get them out the door, the truck is not plugged in, and so needs to be jumped off one of the batteries charging in the garage. Vern handles it ably enough, while the small one sits next to me complaining that he’s already cold.
“You’re cold now. Just think if you’d bin wearin’ them runnin’ shoes.”
“It’s not my feet that’s cold.”
“No. ’Cause you’re not wearin’ runnin’ shoes.”
The new battery cranks her, and I get her going, but she stalls out when I put her in gear, so Vern has to jump her again, and this time I sit and wait until the heater stops blowing cold, and at last we’re off like rotten eggs.
The visibility’s not too bad. When you can see.
Doctor Zhivago, for Christ’s pitiful sake.
“Yep. The Injuns walked right over the Bering Sea to get here from Russia. Like I say, they woulda bin the Chinaman’s ancestors. That’s not how he got here, though. His grandpa probably came to work on the railroad, and when they tried to send him back, he mighta bin one of them that hid in those tunnels under Moose Jaw. Them tunnels Al Capone’s spozed’ve hid out in.”
“Tunnels?” the small one says, and his brother gives him a miserable look, maybe trying to show him he’s boss, or maybe trying to tell him not to show too much interest or he might have to listen to the end of the story.
“Yeah. They lived down in tunnels so the police wouldn’t find ’em and send ’em home. Had ladies of the evenin’ and gamblin’ dens down there too. Chinamen are gamblin’ fools. You didn’t know that?”
The small one shakes his head, his eyes opened wide. Looks like a barn owl. “Did you ever go down in the tunnels, Grandpa?” he asks, and his brother glares at him again.
“No. Not me. I didn’t have to go that far east to find trouble.”
The way I have it figured, the Chinamen are coming for me. Not that I’m looking for protection. I don’t even want to talk about this here Trudeau, who admits he’s a communist, but I have to say I wouldn�
�t give you a dime more for those fancy-pants politicians down in Washington who claim they’re keen on fighting the spread of communism. Bullshit. They’re all communists. I mean, all they want to do is save the world for their own sort of communilizing, don’t they? I say, to hell with civilization. In a way, I have more respect for the Chinamen, who come by their communism honestly, than I have for the bastards who tell me they’re my friends and then tell me the way I should be wiping my hindquarters. Or, more likely, they tell me that I should be hiring some friend of theirs to wipe my hindquarters for me, ’cause it’s only their friends who know the proper way it’s got to be done. I mean, at least the Chinamen grew into civilization naturally. There got to be so many of them that they couldn’t very well help but live on top of one another. What excuse do we have over here?
So I’m not surprised they’re coming over here looking for land when they used all theirs up. I might even likely do the same if I were in their position. They’re the civilized ones, and they’re gonna civilize us and, who knows, maybe when they’re done we’ll be better off.
I know I will, ’cause I’ll be deader than an honest politician.
“I’m cold. Where’re we going, anyway?” the small one asks, just as we’re approaching the approach.
“Oh, listen to the baby cryin’,” Vern says.
“I’m not a baby. I’m cold.”
“You’re always cold.”
“I just wanna know where we’re going.”
“Grandpa told you, we’re goin’ on an adventure.”
“But I wanna know what the adventure is.”
“We’re goin’ in here,” I tell them, pointing off across the field towards the yard light we can see every now and then winking through the whiteout.
“In here? We’ll get stuck,” Vern says. “Why do you wanna go through here?” Finally curious enough that he wants to know the end of the story.
“Well, I’m figurin’ it would be best to sneak up on him,” I says.
“Who?” the small one says.
“The Chinaman. You figure he’s got Nitro down in a tunnel?”
The small one looks at Vern.
“There you go,” says Vern, and he starts to smile a big smile, “We’re goin’ to save Nitro.”
“But Mr. Chong doesn’t have Nitro.”
“Whaddayou know about it?” Vern says.
“Dad said so!”
“Well, we’ll find old Nitro wherever he is, won’t we?” I tell him.
“I’m cold,” the small one says.
I pull off the road and through the approach and down the trail along the edge of the field, but damned if John hasn’t started a rock pile where there never was one when I was picking the rock in this field, and damned if that hasn’t already caught a drift, and damned if we don’t get stuck.
I spin the tires until the rubber burns. Smells a bit like hell, I imagine. Guess I’ll find out soon enough. Vern and the small one get in the box, bouncing up and down for all they’re worth, but there’s not enough flesh on them to make a difference. Should have a bag of sand in there for these sort of occasions, but John can’t even be trusted to equip his beloved pickup properly. Should have brought the horses. Never yet seen a horse stuck. If it weren’t for this bloody leg, you can bet I wouldn’t be riding this rusty hunk of metal. And now the leg’s gonna have to suffer the consequences anyway. Such are the fruits of compromise.
“Told ya we’d get stuck,” Vern says, after I give up and shut off the engine and step out of the truck.
“You want a prize?” I reach into the cab, haul the .22 off the gun rack and hand it to him. “There ya go. First in your class.” He looks at the rifle in his hands as though he’s never seen one before, and then he looks up at me with the same sort of dizziness in his eyes. “I’ll need ya to cover me,” I tell him.
I reach inside my jacket, take the Colt out of my belt and bring it out where they can lay their eyes on it. Vern’s head makes a slow kind of nod, like his yes is about to freeze up, but then he starts to smile again. He’s a happy boy, I’ll say that for him.
“Cover your what?” the small one says.
“My sorry ass.”
I can see the wheels turning, and I think I can smell more rubber burning, but the small one decides to leave the dog lying. “Are we gonna ask Mr. Chong to give us a ride home?” he asks instead.
“I thought you were gonna ride Nitro home.”
His brow wrinkles, his glasses foggy from the blowing snow and his nose leaking southward towards his mouth. “Is Nitro really at Mr. Chong’s?” he asks Vern, and we both wait for an answer, but Vern only shrugs. “How would I know? Maybe.”
“I thought …”
“Shut up,” Vern says. “Who cares what you think?”
“What did you think?” I ask him.
“I’m cold.” The small one decides to change the subject one more time, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “I’ll wait in the truck.”
“You’re such a chicken,” Vern says.
“I’m gonna wait in the truck.” He starts to get back in the cab.
“You’ll likely freeze to death there. I guess you’d better come with us. I need ya to watch Vern. Make sure he don’t grow any feathers and fly south.”
“Like hell,” Vern says, and I give the small one a little cuff for encouragement and head out of the shelter of the truck and into that howling wind, off towards the house, hobbling on my stick through the snowbanks, and by the time we get a hundred yards my leg might as well be lit on fire.
“Either of you bring your jackknife?” I ask, when I’m stopped to rest it, and the small one reaches into his pocket and brings his out to offer me, the stag-handled one I got him for Christmas last year. His hand’s shaking a wee bit, maybe from the cold, but more likely he’s fixing to pee his pants.
“You hold on to it for me. I think we might need it to cut off my leg.”
And then I laugh to show him there’s nothing to be so serious about. Not that it seems to make much difference. I know I shouldn’t have brought him, but like I say, there’s things he’s never gonna learn if he don’t learn them from me. Vern seems to be enjoying himself, but you can see he’s pretending it’s all some kind of stupid game of make-believe. He thinks he’s smarter than me. The slow-minded ones always do.
When we get up close to the yard, I tell them to get down, and we crawl over and have a look at the situation from below the bottom strand of barbed wire. Always an interesting perspective. There’s a blue glow flickering in the window, like some blue flame might be burning in some Chinese ritual.
“What in hell do ya spoze is makin’ that light?” I ask.
“Colour television,” says Vern.
I look at him. “Well, I’ll be damned. I expect you might be right.”
He nods. The small one’s eyes are about as big as the opening of a spittoon, and it looks like he might be about ready to start crying, so I figure it’s time to get a move on and so I roll under the fence with my walking stick and manage to get up to my feet and hop off across the yard towards the barn, doing somewhere between a snail’s and a skunk’s pace. Just as I get to the barn and figure I’m in without a hitch, a dog starts barking from inside the house.
The place is so bloody dark I can’t see to the business end of my eyeballs. I stumble around a bit, trying to remember the lay of the land, but I haven’t been in this barn since McAllister owned it, and I used to meet Lucy, his wife, out here for a little round of hide-the-salami on salty summer evenings when McAllister went to town to pour beer on the fire in his belly. Those were the days. Or, more precisely speaking, the nights, though it never seemed as dark back then. Maybe I was only seeing through my fingertips. But I am beginning to be able to make out the shape of things. Something tells me there’s been more than a couple loads of manure cleaned out of here since Lucy packed off and moved to British Columbia, at any rate.
Meanwhile, that dog’s still barking in the house, and then
I hear the door open and him coming for me. I take the gun out of my belt. It takes that yappy thing no more than five seconds to get here, which surprises me when I see its legs aren’t much longer than a snake’s. The thing’s bouncing around like it’s wound a few turns past the legal limit, and I’m waving the gun at the fool thing and warning it to shut up, but doggy doesn’t seem to appreciate the jeopardy of its situation. Just my luck to meet an animal who’s never been properly introduced to a fire-stick. Not that his owner doesn’t have one, ’cause a few seconds later he comes running in the door carrying a .22 rifle, and I figure that he’s bound to be as blind as I was when I came in here, and two against one ain’t a bit fair, so I fire once in the air and the dog turns and yelps away faster than he appeared.
Dog, meet gun.
“Who’s there?” the Chinaman squeals, and starts whirling around like a top losing its bottom.
“Drop the rifle and get on the floor,” I yell, and the Chinaman instantly obliges. In fact, he’s so good at it you’d almost think he’d done it before.
I stand still, waiting to see what he’ll do next, and he raises his head.
“Get your noggin down!”
Once again he obliges. I walk over and grab the .22. “Thank you muchly,” I say. “Now, tell me, where’ve you put my horse?”
He starts to raise his head, but thinks better of it. “Mr. McMahon?” he says.
“Pleased to meet you. I’ll have you over to my place next week, and we’ll discuss the price of buffalo, but right now I’d like to get my horse back.”
He squirms around a bit. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says. “I don’t have your horse. Your horse isn’t here. This is all a terrible mistake, Mr. McMahon. You’re going to regret this, Mr. McMahon. Your son is not going to be pleased about this.”
My backup comes in the door, Vern carrying the rifle high, and the small one following, looking pretty much like the dog did when he left, but he must be relatively braver, or at least more curious, considering he’s heading the opposite direction. They stand back in the shadows, apparently waiting for a proper invitation to join the party.