by Lee Gowan
Jerry Herzog turns to me. “Is this what you’re showing us after lunch.”
“I … just dreamed about it last night. I haven’t found it yet. I …”
“Don’t worry about that, Jerry,” James Aspen waves me to silence. “Ai’ll find it. That’s your name: Ai? Ai’s a locations scout. She finds the locations. That’s what Ai does. Right?”
I nod my head less than emphatically.
“And while she’s finding it, we get Carl to do the rewrite. You should start looking right away. Are you finished breakfast?”
He is just finishing my toast.
“Yes,” I say, “I should probably talk to Lance Taves about …”
Jerry Herzog is about to light a cigarette, but at the sound of the name he hurls down his lighter in disgust, and it spins on the table between James Aspen and me. “That fool! Don’t even mention his name. If you’re relying on him for anything, we’re doomed. The blind leading the …”
“No,” James Aspen cuts him off. “This young woman is not blind, Jerry. She is cursed by a sight that is all too clear. I don’t want anyone getting in her way. She can see. That’s the cross she has to bear. Do you have a video camera, Ai? Take a video camera too. Get some video when you get there. I’d like to see what you do with video.”
I nod and swallow. “Where do I get one?”
“Just go buy it. Jerry’ll cover it. Right, Jerry?”
“Yes, fine. Whatever. Get yourself a camera and keep all your receipts. We had a meeting five minutes ago with this Taves bozo, you know, Jimmy?”
“I was hungry,” James Aspen shrugs. “An appetite is a blessing. It means there’s still a spark of life in this old carcass.”
“You’re meeting with Mr. Taves? Maybe I should come with you and let him know what I’m doing. He told me I was supposed to meet with you for lunch.”
“Forget about what he told you,” the great director orders. “Just go. Just go and find that location.”
“Are you sure …?”
“Call me as soon as you’ve found it. Call me and I’ll come straight there. Don’t stop looking until you’ve found it. I swear, even if I’m back in LA. I’ll get on a plane and come straight to you. I’ll give you my number. What’s my number, Jerry?”
Jerry Herzog writes the number on a slip of paper and then drags James Aspen away. Halfway across the floor the great man looks back, and I wave hopefully, but he shows no sign of having seen me.
Dazed, I go up to my room to get my things together. My cellphone rings. I expect it to be Lance Taves, but it is my mother.
“Irene! Get to the airport right now, dear.”
“Pardon?”
“You’re father’s going. Get on a flight right now.”
“Mother. What exactly is happening?”
“You’re father’s dying, Irene. You need to get to the airport.”
“The doctor says so?”
She sobs. “I say so.”
“But what does the doctor say?”
“What do doctors know? You think I don’t know your father better than any doctor? Come now, Irene!”
She begins weeping inconsolably My head is about to explode.
“All right, Mom,” I say. “Take it easy. I’ve got to go now. I’ll see you soon.”
And I hang up, pick up my bag, and go down to the parking lot, where my rented Toyota awaits me.
JANUARY 2nd, 1971: NEAR BROKEN HEAD
“IREEENE.”
“Ireeeene.”
“Ireeeeene.”
She managed to get the old man to lie down on the seat and spread the blanket over him to protect him from the blast of wind through Luke’s open window.
“Ireeeeeeeeeene.”
“Ireeeeeeeeeeeeeeene.”
The old cowboy kept singing her name, searching for the tune, until he finally found it floating somewhere deep beneath his frozen brow. “Good night, Ireeene. Good night, Ireeene …”
He was drunk from the cold. She had seen it once before, when she was a little girl on the reserve and Erasmus Hard Sky had come back from his trapline after falling through the ice. At first her mother figured he had been drinking and she pushed a table against the door so as not to let him in the house, before she realized it was only that the winter had got inside his brain and froze up all his sense. Then she brought him in and put him into a hot bath and thawed him out so that he was almost as good as new.
“I’ll seeee youuu in my dreeeeeeeeams …”
Luke switched on the radio—let the old man have his song, Irene scolded him with a glance into the reflection of his eyes in the rear-view—and the old man looked around, confused, trying to see who was singing. It was Charley Pride, giving his advice about kissing an angel good morning somewhere down in Nashville, but the old man could only see as far as the cracked green upholstery on the back of the Studebaker’s front seat.
“Angelllll?” he asked Irene.
Luke’s dirty old sweatshirt was lying on the floor, so she rolled it up and put it behind the cowboy’s head for a pillow. That way he wouldn’t bump against the door handle when they hit a rut. He was human. There was no doubt about that now, which was a considerable relief. When she’d gone back to find him and saw him standing on the side of the road, staring into the ditch, she began to worry that he might be some sort of monster—some sort of abominable snowman who could freeze you with his touch. The tips of his fingers were blue. She pulled the blanket up under his chin to cover the hand, as much to hide it from her sight as to thaw it. Though he could feel nothing, it hurt her to look at those blue fingers. He shifted his head sideways like an owl, studying her from this new perspective.
“You … an In-jun … I-rene?”
It emerged syllable by syllable, so that she could almost see the words and their connotations forming in his mind as they teetered off his clumsy tongue. She considered the question. The answer was simple enough: it was the question she needed to get to the bottom of.
“Yeah,” Luke answered before she could. “You’re in a car fulla Injuns. You’ve been saved by the redskins, Cowboy. A whole tribe of rampaging redskins, out on the warpath, taking back the world for the Blackfoot. Whaddaya thinka that?”
The old cowboy looked at Irene, confused, but apparently not particularly frightened, only wondering where the words were coming from since her lips weren’t moving. She couldn’t help but smile, and when he saw the smile his mouth made its own slow curl.
“You’re … an an-gel … I-rene.”
Luke glanced at her in the mirror, and she warned him to bite down hard on his tongue by showing her tongue and doing it.
“I’m no angel,” she told the cowboy. “You’re not dead. We’re taking you to the hospital, and you’ll be all right once they thaw you out.”
He looked around him—at all he could see of the Studebaker’s green interior. “I’ve died. Gone to Injun heaven.”
Luke laughed harshly. “That’s right. You’re in the happy hunting ground.” He rolled up his window. Irene looked ahead to see why. The wind was dropping. The road had appeared before them, still hazy through drifting snow, but visible for thirty or forty feet at times. Luke grinned at her. “Maybe we’ll survive after all.”
She nodded and looked down at the old man, who stared up at her in silent wonder.
“The storm’s dying,” she told him.
“The storm’s dyin’,” he said.
In a few minutes they reached the highway, and despite the limited visibility Luke accelerated as he turned into their lane. Irene had to hold the old man from rolling off the seat. The mysterious force on his body made him look around for the source.
“Slow down,” Irene scolded Luke.
Either in response to her words or to the feel of her hands on his shoulders, the old man grinned a wide peaceful grin that showed his crooked yellow teeth, and closed his eyes.
He must not sleep. She remembered Erasmus Hard Sky saying that he’d felt like going to sleep
out in a blanket of snow, but he wouldn’t give in, just kept telling himself stories about the warm world of some southern country and yelling out loud about how he’d walk all the way to that land of gentle breezes, and when he got there he’d bow down and worship their gods and eat the fruit that fell from the trees and sleep with the beautiful women and tell all his stories of the cold country he’d come from, even though they’d never believe a word. He shouted out all his most wonderful and terrible desires in order to keep himself awake, and that’s what saved him.
Irene lightly slapped the cowboy’s cheek, and his eyes blinked open, looking slightly annoyed with her.
“How’d you get lost out in this weather without a jacket?”
She could see him working through her words in his mind, watching her lips even after they were still.
“Lost? Weren’t lost. Just went for a walk. Went off in the cold. Way your old Injuns used to do. Once their families were through with ’em. You know?”
She nodded uncertainly. “That was the Eskimos. I think.”
Luke laughed and began to sing, “Let’s rub noses, just like the Eski-moses …”
The old man’s face was full of wonder. “You an angel, Irene?”
She shook her head slowly, soothing him with her eyes the way she’d learned to do with her younger brothers and sisters when she was putting them to bed. But why was she doing that? She didn’t want to put him to sleep. “Your family loves you. God loves you.”
He pondered her words a while. “I have thought much … on God lately, Irene … and I suspect He does not approve of me.” She shook her head, but he was beginning to gain better control of his tongue, and he must have remembered he had much to say to an angel on the subject of God. “I’m not such a bad man. I have my good points. I wanted Him to know I am not afraid of Him, and so I walked out into the cold to meet Him. I didn’t wanna be a burden to my son any longer. John thought I was a burden, and I wanted to take that load from his shoulders. Carried enougha them my own day, but that don’t mean I wanna be one myself. Are you an angel, Irene?”
He reached out from under the blanket and touched Irene’s face with his blue fingertips. She let him, though a chill ran down her spine.
“They’ll be worried, your family will. They’ll be looking for you.”
“Oh, no, my girl. They’ll be glad to be done with me.”
“You’re wrong there. They’ll fix you up at the hospital, and your family will be happy to have you home.”
“No, no. They’ll be happy all right. They’ll find my death the greatest gift I ever gave them. And I gave them my land. Truth is, my son hates me. I can’t blame him. I killed his son. I killed my own grandson. I killed Young Sam. Led him off in the blizzard like a dumb animal to the slaughter. I killed Young Sam. I killed Young Sam.”
The old cowboy’s eyes turned inwards, so that you could see him seeing the face of the child in his mind.
“He’s out there today? The boy was with you?”
“I killed him, Irene. Didn’t do it on purpose. I led him out into a blizzard and lost him. I killed Young Sam.”
It was plain from his tone that he was pleading with her to forgive him. She was his angel. Irene placed her warm hand on the frozen skin of his forehead, and he blinked wildly.
“He’ll be all right. Everything’s all right.”
“I only wanted to teach him things. He has my name. There’s some things I know I thought he needed to know. His head was mostly empty. I only wanted to make him smarter. And tougher. Don’t you figure that’s something God would understand?”
“Yes. God understands. Jesus forgives. Jesus loves you. He loves you and me. And Luke. And your grandson. And everyone. Everything’s okay. Your grandson’s gonna be okay. Did he get lost somewhere around that farm where we found you?”
“He sacrificed His son. That’s what the preachers say. You think He’d understand?”
“Your grandson’s fine. Everything’ll be fine. There’s nothing to worry about. He’s probably already with your family. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
Which is when the lights started flashing, and the siren wailed.
“Oh, shit,” said Luke. “Now we’re fucked.”
He slowed down and stopped, and Irene watched through the drifting snow as the cruiser stopped behind them, both officers studying her face through the rear window. While the one sitting in the passenger seat talked on the radio, the driver got out and started walking towards them. The old cowboy reached his hand up so that the light touched his skin—watched the blue and then the red flash and disappear on his greyish blue hand.
Irene rolled down the window and stuck her head out. The officer stopped and touched his holster.
“We found a man out wandering around without a jacket. He’s in bad shape. We need to get him to a hospital. There’s a boy lost out there too.”
The officer slowly approached her window and looked inside at the old cowboy, then at Luke, and finally at her.
“We found him in the blizzard this way,” she said again, not sure if he’d heard her over the wind. “We gotta get him to a hospital. There’s a boy out there too.”
The officer was not that much older than Luke. He studied her with his pale blue eyes. “You saw a boy with him?”
“No. But he mentioned a boy. He said he lost him in the blizzard.”
She looked at the old man as though she hoped he’d confirm this, but he was still staring at his own blue fingers. The officer turned and looked out across the ditch, as though the boy might be standing in the field, watching them. Then he turned back. “Follow me,” he blurted, and he ran back to his car.
Luke was staring at her. “What did he say?’
“He said to follow him.”
The police car pulled out and passed them, it’s lights still flashing. No siren. Luke looked back at her as though he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
“Follow him!”
Luke put the car in gear. “We’re fucked,” he said.
The old man had started to shake.
“Don’t worry,” said Irene. “Everything’ll be all right. The police are taking us to the hospital. Did you lose the boy somewhere around that farm where we found you?”
But the old cowboy’s teeth were chattering so hard he couldn’t have answered if he’d wanted.
“We’re fucked,” Luke said.
JUNE 29th, 2000: SOUTH OF SASKATOON, NORTH OF BROKEN HEAD
“I WANT an immediate separation,” Gwen said. “And then I want a divorce.”
She shifted her eyes from the highway to Sam, as if to judge by his face the exact twist of her words. “I’ve already talked to a lawyer.”
Sam had no idea how to reply. His mouth opened, but nothing emerged, not even a breath. He looked at his hands in his lap, resting on his seatbelt, and there was the ring they had picked out together that rainy day in Vancouver over fourteen years ago. A simple gold band. He darted his eyes her way and saw her naked finger on the steering wheel. She was waiting for his response. Any response seemed inadequate. The sound of his own breathing seemed inadequate. The way he twined his fingers and pressed his palms together seemed inadequate.
Perhaps this was just another of Gwen’s threats. Except that there was something different in her look and in her voice: a calmness that was not a part of the Gwen he had known. They hadn’t been fighting the way they usually were when she announced the end of their marriage. And the lawyer. She’d never actually mentioned a lawyer before, except to challenge him to call one. Plenty of consideration had gone into her little speech, and he had heard that consideration in her controlled delivery, but still Sam could not help but feel that she had looked at him and known his indiscretion and decided right there and then that she would not put up with him for another second. He was too late to save his life.
In the field next to the highway a million sunflowers swayed in the wind. They had not yet begun to flower. When the sunflowers were behind
them, there was wheat. Then, on the other side of a hedge of caragana, more durum wheat. It was still green, but in a month or more, if it was the same durum his father grew, it would be brilliant orange, shimmering black. Black whiskers sprouting around the orange heads—whiskers too small to make out from a car speeding by at seventy-five miles per hour—would give the orange a shading like a five o’clock shadow. If it rained.
The railway tracks ran parallel with the highway, hidden here and there by stands of chokecherries. Or were they buffalo berries? A sign with a curved arrow, a grey wooden grain bin in the middle of a field. Next to a deserted farmhouse, a topless windmill, the remains of its workings hanging limply. Natural gas markers and microwave towers. Miles and miles and miles of barbed wire.
An hour had passed and they were almost to Rosetown when Gwen spoke again. “Say something, for Christ’s sake.”
Sam sighed, shook his head, opened his mouth and managed to make a few sounds. “I don’t … I don’t know what to say.”
“We need to discuss this.”
There was obviously a script he wasn’t following: she had already had this discussion inside her head, playing through what she would tell him and how she would respond to his possible responses. Silence was not a possibility she had considered, but silence was exactly what the situation called for. Words were primitive, grotesque. Any sentence he considered forming was simply a pitiful attempt to drown out the voice inside his head that was telling him he was lost.
He was in Saskatchewan. The evidence was all around him. He was the passenger in a car heading for a home that had long ago slipped away, even if he’d been avoiding the acknowledgment of its absence for just as long.
No, that wasn’t true. Until two days ago he might have saved their lives together, but now he had no footing to support any argument for their existence. He was an adulterer. Play with fire, his mother and father had warned him. “Remember that time we burned down the barn?”
Gwen looked at him as if he were crazy. It had been Vern and he who had burned down the barn. He hadn’t even known Gwen yet. He was talking about something that had happened years before he’d ever imagined winning or losing Gwen. Vern and he liked to pretend they were cowboys. They built a campfire out of straw, just an imaginary campfire, but imaginary hadn’t been enough for Vern, so they’d gone to the house and stolen a pack of Old Sam’s matches. Vern was already stealing his tobacco.