The Last Cowboy

by Lee Gowan

  “You’re all right?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  There was an awkwardness in her posture, in the way she avoided his eyes, that he noticed even though he was so busy avoiding her eyes. The embrace out on the road was not really between them. Here, in the car, they were two different people. They were strangers. He didn’t even know her name.

  “Thanks. For the ride. My name’s Sam.”

  She offered her hand. “Hi, Sam. I’m Ai.”

  Despite her tiny hand, her handshake was surprisingly strong.

  “Pardon?”

  “Ai. A-I.”

  He was confused—artificial intelligence?—completely unanchored—artificial insemination?—and his confusion was reflected in the expression on her face.

  “Ai. It’s … Asian.”

  “Oh? I’ve never met anyone named that … named Ai before. Sorry, I’m still a little dazed. Pleased to meet you.”

  A laugh escaped him, a bit hysterically.

  “What’s so funny.”

  “Oh, sorry. I was just thinking that if Gwen—my wife—asks who gave me a ride, I’ll say Ai did.”

  She smiled weakly. “I’ve heard that one a few times.”

  He looked away. “Sorry.”

  She put the car in gear. “So, Elrose,” she said.

  “Yes, thanks. That’d be great.”

  She punched in the lighter and, with the same right hand, the nails painted bright red to match her lips, she took a cigarette from a package on the dashboard. “Oh. Do you mind if I smoke?”

  Perhaps five feet. Perhaps ninety pounds. Her name was Ai. What the hell was he doing here? Was he here? He noticed now the faint smell of tobacco that could not quite mask the new-car smell. “It’s your car.”

  “Not really. It’s a rental. You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “No, that’s fine. Maybe I’ll have one myself.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “No, thanks. I don’t smoke.”

  She glanced at him, her eyebrows raised speculatively.

  “It’s just that yesterday a colleague told me I should take it up. He said that’s how you meet the movers and shakers. They’re all smoking at the foot of the skyscrapers.”

  “Oh? Interesting strategy. Killing yourself for connections. Commendable.” Suddenly she looked very serious, as though regretting her dark humour, and he tried to smile to reassure her that it was okay. “What do you do?” she asked.

  “Banking. I’m a banker.”

  He could not decide whether it was her eyes or her lips that were familiar. She was dressed completely in black—looked as if she were on her way to the club where Erika’d taken him less than two days before, at the end of that other lifetime. Something popped, and they both looked: the lighter. She lit her cigarette, rolled down the window and exhaled out of the left side of her mouth into the wind. He shifted back to the right and looked out his window at the scenery. Yes, indeed, what was he doing here, and where was he going? What the hell would he do in Elrose? Make a phone call, but there was no one in Broken Head he wanted to talk to. Maybe it would be more sensible for him to head in the other direction, back to Saskatoon, and catch a flight to Toronto. He could book himself into a nice hotel, spend a few days getting his head together and formulating some kind of plan. If he talked to the right people about a position in Head Office, they’d no doubt be more than accommodating. He needed to keep in mind that there were always options. Any manager of Sam’s abilities had to see this as an opportunity.

  He could aim a gun and put a bullet hole through his brother’s forehead.

  “I didn’t know bankers wore suits like that one.”

  He jerked his head to look at her. She was staring calmly ahead at the road. “Pardon?”

  “It’s nice. I thought you were supposed to be a little more conservative than that.”

  He sighed and shrugged.

  “I like the cut.”

  Sam watched her release a long tendril of smoke from between her red lips. She glanced at him, and he could feel the weight of her eyes in his joints.

  “Me too.”

  For a few miles he watched the fence posts march by, on their long trek to happiness. She turned on the radio and started searching for a station, finally settling on country and western over golden oldies. She was not particularly attractive. That nose, too large. But there was something about her eyes. Intelligence. She was obviously very bright. Whatever it was about her, for some reason he kept imagining kissing the spot where her collarbone showed through her skin. He could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. All of this seemed too strange to be true—she couldn’t have just stopped there by chance, at that moment. It had to mean something. If anything meant anything. They were supposed to meet. Someone or something had arranged it.

  On the radio, Steve Earle started pounding his guitar. She tapped her left black suede leather boot on the floor mat and lit another cigarette.

  “So, what do you do, Ai?”

  “I work in the film industry. I’m a locations manager.”

  “A … what?”

  “I handle the locations for shooting. Right now, I’m working on a James Aspen film.”

  “James Aspen?”

  “Yeah. He’s filming in Saskatchewan. A western.”

  “Really? You’re kidding. Here?”

  “Yeah. Here in Saskatchewan.”

  “Really? James Aspen in Saskatchewan. I hadn’t heard anything about that. And you know him?”

  “I met him for the first time this morning.”

  “You met James Aspen this morning? In Saskatchewan! What’s he like?”

  She shrugged. “Well … he’s very old.”

  “I guess he would be. I loved Frozen World. Bogart was really good in that. That’s one of my favourite films of all time.”

  “It’s pretty amazing.”

  “And The Shoe Dropped. When I saw that the first time, I couldn’t talk about anything else for a week. Gwen finally told me …”

  He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Have you seen That Golden Sky?” Ai asked him.

  “No. Never. I’m not a big fan of westerns. Is it good?”

  She tapped the ash off her cigarette. “It’s one of my father’s favourite films.”

  Sam nodded. She took another drag. The smoke spiked out her nostrils. He studied the world out the window through a brilliant new filter: they were driving into a James Aspen film. Those were James Aspen fence posts.

  “What sort of locations are you looking for?”

  His beautiful home, he was thinking, though as soon as he’d thought it he couldn’t avoid the possibility it was no longer his, even though that’s exactly what he was trying to avoid in his raw-nerved excitement at the fact that James Aspen, the great director, had suddenly touched a finger to his broken life. His house wouldn’t likely work in a western anyway. He was fairly sure she’d said it was a western. The woman had a strange, uncomfortable look on her face.

  “Well, who knows, maybe you can help me,” she said. “Do you know any old barns? Really old?”

  “How old?”

  “Nineteenth century.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t think so.” She glanced at him regretfully. “And I’m looking for one other very specific location right now. A prairie road—just a trail really—that you can see running forever. You know, right to the horizon.” She pointed at the highway ahead of them as an example. “But then, all of a sudden, it’s intersected by a big hole … or something. So that someone who was driving down it would just drive in without seeing it.”

  Sam nodded. “Oh, yeah. I know where you mean.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. I know the place.”

  She turned and stared at him, her mouth slightly open, her brown eyes blinking. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, it’s … well, it’s a long story, but I rem
ember, when I was a kid, seeing the place you’re talking about. Somebody was driving down this trail, going pretty fast and—my brother took me there once—you could see the trail running all the way to the horizon, and then he drove right off a cliff.”

  An image formed in his mind of Vern in the truck, driving so fast that Sam had to clutch the door handle on the corners. Look out world, ’cause I’ve got a license to fly! The cliff was one of Vern’s favourite places. He loved the idea of that guy driving off into the sky. Vern was his hero that year, for a while, when he’d first got his licence, and he liked to show off to Sam by taking him for drives and exploring the countryside. Maybe Vern had always been his hero. Sam glanced at the woman and saw that she was waiting for him to continue.

  “It’s weird because—well, have you noticed that all the roads here are on a grid? Every two miles there’s a road allowance.” He pointed out the window at the crossroad up ahead and she nodded, though she looked more than a little confused. “And if you’re driving down the trail I’m talking about, it looks like it runs all the way to the horizon, but all of a sudden, at the creek, before you’d see it coming if you were going very fast, the trail runs out. The valley’s very narrow right there, and it’s a sheer hundred-foot drop. But as you approach the cliff, you can still see the trail continuing on the grid on the other side of the valley. So this guy was going so fast he never saw the valley. And he drove right off the cliff. The car’s still there.”

  Her eyes were open very wide, and she was looking at him.

  Sam checked the road.

  The elevators of Elrose had poked into view a couple of miles ahead.

  “Can you take me there?” she asked.

  She wanted him to take her there.

  “Well, sure, I guess.” He felt himself sweating, despite the air conditioning, and brushed his forehead with his fingertips. “Actually, to tell you the truth, I don’t know exactly where it is. But I’m sure we can find it.”

  “You said you were there?”

  “When I was a kid. My brother took me there. He was older. He already had his driver’s licence. He knows where it is.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does your brother still live here?”

  “Yeah. He does. He lives … just up the road from where I live.”

  “Could we go and talk to him?”

  He drew his handkerchief out of his breast pocket and dabbed his forehead. “Ummm …”

  He imagined Gwen’s face twisted in some kind of agony or ecstasy. “It’s for this movie? For the James Aspen film?”

  “That’s right.”

  Sam nodded. They were reaching Elrose, and she slowed, and a moment later Elrose was gone and they were continuing south. He saw Humphrey Bogart in one of Aspen’s films from way back in the fifties, and he saw Humphrey Bogart driving a stagecoach off a cliff, and he imagined driving into his brother’s yard with this woman.

  “Well, the thing is, I’m not so sure I want to talk to my brother right now.” He could see by her look that the woman did not know what to make of this, but she waited. “My brother’s been sleeping with my wife. That’s why she left me out here.”

  The woman abruptly laughed, then looked horribly embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

  Sam smiled, and shrugged to show her it was okay. “Well, for the sake of art, I’ll just have to take you there, won’t I?”

  NOVEMBER 30th, 1970: NEAR BROKEN HEAD

  I’M AT THE WINDOW of my cage, staring into the sad reflected eyes of my dark twin, because it’s blacker than Toby’s ass outside and the teenager with the pretty uniform left the light on when they gave up on the interrogation and I can’t be bothered to pull myself out of this bloody chair and switch it off. I may never get up again. Though it would be more pleasant to sit in the dark and watch the shapes of things moving out there in the night. The snow’s still blowing.

  I told him to arrest John. I explained to him how he had murdered a horse. I was patient. Listened to his dumb questions and did my best to answer them. Tried my best to make him understand. Looked him in the eye. Tried my best not to make him feel like the young fool in the silly uniform that he and I both know he is. But this murdering of horses, of course, is not a crime in a civilized world. Beating a horse is a crime, but killing one is a job. No experience necessary.

  I can hear the pretty uniform in the next room now, turning on his terrifying authority, interrogating the boys. The genuine third degree. “And your grandpa was pointing the gun at Mr. Chong?”

  Silence. The clock on the old stove clicks like a mad thing. Three clicks per second, I’d imagine. It’s always done that. I once tried putting cork pads under the corners to dampen the vibration, but it didn’t work worth a damn. I imagine that when the world ends it will be set off by the eventual explosion of that stove.

  It’s the longest I’ve ever heard either of them boys go without wagging their tongues.

  “We need to know what you saw, boys. You’re not going to get into any trouble for telling the truth. Nobody’s blaming you for what happened. I think your parents want you to tell us the whole story.”

  “That’s right, Vern. Tell them what happened.”

  My son, the horse killer, back from his Russian movie, helping them shine the light in his own boys’ eyes.

  “Was your grandpa pointing the gun at Mr. Chong?”

  “I don’t think so.” It’s the older one. “I think he was just worried about the dog bitin’ him.” Vern. Named after her old man. Vern of the wispy moustachio, whose new cowboy boots cost him more than I used to make on a dozen cows. He knew exactly what happened to Nitro right from the start, but he strung me along, watching me make a fool of myself. “I think he was … just excited. He thought his horse was there. He wasn’t actually pointin’ his gun, but he shot to scare the dog, and Mr. Chong thought he was pointin’ the gun at him, so he jumped on the ground.”

  Makes sense to me.

  “And he left right away when you explained to him that the horse wasn’t there?”

  It’s the other cop speaking: the older one, Officer Johnson, who was a private when I used to go for drinks in Chief Bailey’s office.

  “Yeah. Right away. He just wanted to know where Nitro was.”

  Bailey used to call him “John’s Son.” Tease him when he came into his office by offering him whiskey in the middle of the afternoon. John’s Son would just shake his head and say he had too much to do.

  “Why didn’t you tell your grandfather that his horse wasn’t there?”

  Damned fine question.

  “We did.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him right away? Before he got to the barn?”

  “Dad told me not to.”

  Damned fine answer.

  “I just … It was just …” My son John begins his confession with the usual heeings and hawings. “He’s right. Vern’s tellin’ the truth. It’s my fault. I shoulda told Dad, but I knew he was goin’ to overreact, and I guess I didn’t want to face that yet. I’m responsible.”

  That’s it. You’ve got your man. Lock him up.

  “Grandpa was just excited,” Vern says. “He didn’t mean to …”

  “I understand that, Vern. But do you understand that that doesn’t make it right to point a gun at anybody?”

  “He didn’t. He just shot it to scare the dog ’cause it was gonna bite him.”

  “But he shouldn’t even have been carrying a gun.”

  The boy doesn’t answer, or not so I can hear anyway.

  They want to take away my gun. Won’t be long before they do that to everybody, so that they’re the only ones who have them. Them and the crooks. The boy ought to ask Officer John’s Son if he’s ever pointed his gun at anybody, and what was the right and the wrong of that particular calamity. The way I heard it was he once shot a man in the back of the head while the man was leaving the scene of an attempted robbery. One strange thing, though, was that it was the office
r’s own bedroom the man was leaving, by way of the window, and the only thing missing from the bedroom was every stitch of the officer’s wife’s clothing. Leastways, her clothes were there, but his wife wasn’t wearing them at the particular time of the shooting. I guess Officer John’s Son must’ve prevented the man from stealing them.

  “Why don’t you stop pesterin’ those poor boys and arrest me,” I call out. That quiets things down in the kitchen.

  I do feel ready to go, just so long as I don’t have to walk. Let them haul me out of here and throw me in a cell and keep me there for the rest of my life. Couldn’t be any worse than sitting staring out this window. Better still, let’s get the whole disappointment over with. I’d be glad to have them march me out in the yard and give me a final smoke and tie me to a stake and put a blindfold on me so that the row of men with long rifles wouldn’t have to look me in the eye when they shot me through the heart. I’d even be glad to sit down in one of them electrified chairs and be the final smoke. I imagine it would feel quite pleasant. My ass is still a little chilly at the moment.

  Just don’t put any itchy rope around my neck. That seems to me to be an altogether undignified way to make your final turn. Hanging there with your toes pointing at hell like a bloody ballerina.

  Thinking about that firing squad has given me a craving for a puff or two, so I roll one and light it up.

  Ahhh, life’s little pleasures. All I need now’s a cattle prod to the testicles.

  They lowered their voices when I called out to them, but I can hear something again, so they must want me to listen.

  “Are you takin’ him in?” the son’s asking, and you can make out the hope in his voice. Think of what he’d save on groceries.

  “No, we don’t need to do that. Mr. Chong’s pretty upset, obviously, but we managed to convince him not to deal with this as … an official matter.”

  Is that so? We’re not gonna make it official. No, let’s keep it unofficial, like the death of your wife’s friend. But that was official, wasn’t it? That was an interrupted robbery attempt. What we have here is an altogether different matter. This evening’s little charade never happened at all. Makes you wonder whether there’s any point getting up in the morning when you go to all the trouble of pointing a gun at somebody and then find out that it didn’t even happen. It’s the sort of world where a horse could just disappear without anybody giving a good goddamn.