Athabasca

by Harry Kleinhuis

  “No,” Jack said more objectively, teaching his little brother. “It’s only our .22. One shot to hit them, and one more to kill them. Three wolves. Look at their tracks.” He pointed to the shadowy prints on the trail ahead. Then, taking command once again, “Come on. Dad’ll need us.”

  Jack and Cyril shuffled along as fast as they could. The trail was slightly downhill and, with the moonlight helping to show the way, they were soon up to where their dad was already skinning out the first of the wolves. Jack didn’t expect a greeting.

  Malcolm explained that he’d killed the wolves in that spot for a reason. “I knew you’d catch up to me sooner or later. I didn’t want them to get wind of you and maybe double back. They’re unpredictable that way. You can help with skinning them. Easier than dragging them back to the house.”

  “Good size and nice pelts, aren’t they?” Jack said, more by way of conversation than anything else, as he and Cyril stretched out each animal, while their dad used his knife and his skill to skin them.

  “Lot of wolves this year,” Malcolm acknowledged. “Some coyotes, too.” Then he repeated something he’d overheard in Hinton in the summer. “They say they might fetch a good price at the Edmonton auction.”

  “How come we missed you on the trail, Dad?” Cyril wanted to know.

  “You were on my old river trail. It goes by some falls near the cabin. It’s too hard breaking trail with a heavy load.”

  Jack nodded. “That’s why we came out. I knew the snow would be deep. It was slow going.”

  Cyril was already rolling up the wolf pelts. “We can help carry,” he volunteered.

  Malcolm disposed of the wolf carcasses beside the trail. “The house isn’t far now,” he said, looking up at the moon. “Jack, you carry the rifle and a bale of pelts on this tumpline. Cyril, you bring up the rear with those wolf pelts. It’ll make it easier for other wolves to track us.”

  The boys couldn’t tell whether or not their dad was smiling when he said that. Both of them kept up, whatever the load, or the distance back to the house.

  “Is it Christmas tomorrow?” was the first thing Amelia asked when the door opened.

  “I heard a gun a while back,” Rose said.

  “A Christmas bonus,” Malcolm said wryly. But, in the house, and by the light of the lamp, both Jack and Cyril could see that this time, he was smiling through his gray and bushy beard.

  “Christmas,” Malcolm decreed, looking at the calendar later that evening, “will be in two days. The day after tomorrow. I can’t leave the trap lines for too long.”

  19

  The next day was a day of preparation. Rose and Amelia seemed to be busy with the little stove and a lot of new things being cooked. Malcolm was busy outside, cleaning and stretching pelts. He said he wanted to do those things himself.

  “Well,” Jack stated, once the morning seemed to be underway, “I’ve got a trap line to check. Cyril, do you want to come?”

  That suggestion was as odd as all the other things going on around the Whyte household in the middle of winter. The trap line near the house had been Jack’s personal domain, just like his lookout by the river, from which he had watched the eagles in the summers. Only the rabbit snares closer to the house had been a combined effort by the two boys. Something they had done for years to add meat to the stew pot, and to practice skinning and looking after furs.

  For the second day in a row, Jack and Cyril tied on their snowshoes and set off for the dense woods. It had turned mild, and a trace of new snow muffled their progress along Jack’s trapping trail. Jack had cleaned up and experimented with some of the rusty traps that his dad had let him have the winter before, and now he had twenty. His trapping had become more than just experimenting. He could imagine that by the end of winter, he might have as many as a hundred mink or weasel pelts to add to the family’s income.

  After the first loop of about half the traps, the boys took a rest. Cyril stroked the fur of one of the three mink they’d taken so far.

  “Something’s happening with Dad.” Jack just came right out and said what was on his mind. It had been his reason for bringing Cyril along.

  “Yeah, he’s nice.” Cyril felt his cheek. Then he added, “No beatings and no yelling. I’d expected more than what we got when we busted the rifle.”

  “Well, he did sort of yell at me a bit. Like I should have known better.” Jack looked over through the trees, making sure that they really were alone, but making it look like he was checking on the weather. Then he looked at Cyril, gauging his reaction. “But all of this, this last year, is strange. It’s like he’s planning something.”

  “Yeah, he wants us to leave the bush.” Cyril almost laughed at what had seemed so obvious. “He wants us to move to Edmonton. It’s supposed to be a hundred times bigger than Hinton or Brûlé.” To Cyril, that was like the promise of going to the biggest general store in the world, and with counters full of candy.

  “But why?” Jack persisted. “And why did we come out here in the first place?”

  “Depression, I guess,” Cyril answered, as if that covered everything.

  “But Dad said Edmonton,” Jack stated. “Why would we move to a big city? Why not to Whitecourt? Wasn’t that where Mom and Dad were from?”

  “Do we still have relatives there?” Cyril asked. “Mom never talks about them. Not to me, anyway. Maybe to Amelia.”

  “Maybe they left, too. Our relatives from Whitecourt, I mean.” Jack wasn’t sure that Cyril understood what he was trying to say. Maybe you had to be a man to think like a man. Jack wondered if Cyril would always seem like a boy to him—the little brother he had to look after.

  They were both getting cold. The damp raw wind indicated there woud be a snowstorm soon.

  “Let’s check the other traps,” Jack suggested. “If there aren’t too many, we’ll wait until we get home before we skin them.”

  Cyril was already on his feet, on the trail, and looking back. “This way?” he asked.

  Jack nodded. “Yeah.” Having said what he had, he began to wonder how accurate his observations of their dad had been. The load on his mind had not become any lighter by sharing it. Not yet, anyway.

  Jack wished it was summer. Sitting up on the bluffs at his special spot, he had always found it so easy to understand things while watching his eagles. Finding answers to things with other people always seemed so difficult. Maybe it was because the eagles didn’t talk. They just made you look up and dream.

  By the time Jack and Cyril headed home, the snow had started. They’d added two more mink and a marten to their day’s haul.

  “You’ll have no trouble making more stretchers for the extra pelts you’re bringing in,” Malcolm said, nodding to the boards the boys had been sawing and stockpiling. He’d spent the day dealing with pelts and furs.

  Jack nodded his response. He and Cyril had also talked about the kinds of things they might make out of the extra boards once the scow was built.

  They continued working in silence until dark and the call to supper.

  Christmas Eve, or anything associated with Christmas, was foreign to the Whyte children. It was something else they had left behind in Brûlé, swallowed up by the Depression. It was an extravagance they could not afford, or to which they no longer had access. Christmas was something done in churches and by people. Christmas was the sort of thing you had to be reminded of by a calendar.

  When Malcolm Whyte had circled that red number on the last set of squares labeled December, Christmas became real again. It was an event to be anticipated and for which they all, to varying degrees, prepared.

  On Christmas Eve, after a supper of grouse, and boiled pudding for dessert, the boys hung cedar boughs around the house to make it smell nice. And then, in the glow of the coal oil lamp, Rose read the Christmas story from the small black Bible the church had given them when she and Malc
olm had been married. The front page had their names and dates, and on the next page, Rose had added the full names of Jack, Cyril, and Amelia, and when and where they had been born.

  It was still dark on Christmas morning, when Jack and Cyril raced through their routines at the outhouse and with the wood pile. The snow was beginning to let up, but the air still felt mild for a winter day.

  “What happens on a Christmas morning?” Cyril asked his older brother who, he assumed, would have some memories about such things.

  “It used to be Santa Claus and presents, from what I remember,” Jack said. “At least, it used to be for the little kids.” Then he shrugged. “But we’re way off in the bush. It hasn’t ever been a Santa Claus kind of place.”

  “Mom did a lot of cooking, though, didn’t she,” Cyril stated. “That should make things kind of special.”

  Something special wafted through the door as soon as they opened it, with their arms full of the day’s supply of firewood.

  “Pancakes!” Amelia announced. “And with special preserves. It took us a whole day to pick berries to make this jam. And there’s other stuff for later. But that’s a surprise.”

  Near the end of their pancake breakfast, Malcolm excused himself. Rose smiled mysteriously. She knew that his idea about Christmas had had its origins during the summer. Malcolm came back shortly, looking a bit like Santa Claus. At least, he had his bushy beard, which was now mostly gray, and he had a sack.

  “It’s a good thing those bobcats of Amelia’s like living out in the shed, and like hunting mice,” he said, adding to the mystery of the event.

  “What is it?” was the loud and demanding question of all three Whyte children. Children, because in that instant, they all really were children. Even Jack. And they all had grins of anticipation to prove it.

  “This,” Malcolm said, with as much ceremony and fanfare as the little house had ever seen, “this is for all of us.” He pulled out a tin and handed it to Rose and Amelia.

  “Dried fruit,” Rose said, almost reverently. “Apricots, raisins, and prunes.”

  “And what are these?” Amelia asked, holding up a ring of wrinkled things held together with a wooden-looking lace of some sort.

  “Figs,” Malcolm explained. “The man at the store said they came all the way from Greece.”

  The boys were mystified. Rose said, “We haven’t had fruit of any kind for years. Not since we moved out here.” Then, in response to Amelia’s pleading gaze, she said, “You can each have five raisins to see if you like them.”

  “It’s like candy if you suck on them one at a time,” Cyril commented after experimenting.

  Malcolm smiled and nodded. Then he dove back into his sack. “For the two of you,” he said, handing Rose and Amelia a brown paper package.

  Rose held the package while Amelia pulled on the twine to untie the knot.

  “The wife at the Hinton store helped. She said there’s enough there to make two dresses,” Malcolm said, as Rose and Amelia unfolded some printed calico cloth. “There’s also enough buttons and things.”

  The boys looked on, not knowing what to say, but obviously hoping that the Santa Claus sack might hold something for them, too. They held their breath, as Malcolm dove back in and fished around in the bottom of the burlap bag.

  “Here,” he said, thrusting another brown paper package their way.

  They cut the twine and unfolded the wrapping as if it were a competition.

  “Real pants! Jeans,” Jack said, examining the blue denim.

  “And belts!” Cyril added, retrieving the leather contraptions from where they had landed on the floor.

  “Well,” Malcolm said, “you can’t go into town next summer in old worn-out coveralls, can you?”

  There was a flurry of arms and legs, as Jack and Cyril both stepped into the first real pants either of them could remember. They rolled up the cuffs, cinched up the belts, and proclaimed that in a few months, they would fit perfectly.

  They all said a big thank you to Santa.

  Amelia said, “But what did you get, Dad?”

  “A lot of pleasure,” Malcolm said, and smiled at all of them. “A lot of pleasure.”

  The children reverted to being exactly that—children—and acted like they were years younger than they were. On a mild Christmas Day, they made snowmen, had snowball fights, and tried to pack down some snow to make it icy enough for a long slide. At times, it sounded like their numbers had multiplied.

  Malcolm watched for a while. Hearing their laughter made him wonder if such things could be maintained for a whole year. He looked at the sky and hoped for a cold day the next morning, to make his walk back to the trap lines a little easier.

  There was one more surprise in the burlap sack. After a dinner of venison and some of the dried fruit, boiled in a spicy syrup to make it look like the fruit it might at one time have been, Malcolm produced a small box that contained little black wooden tiles with dots, called dominoes.

  They spent the evening learning how to play that game, arguing about the rules, and laughing when someone was lucky enough to win.

  They’d already read the Christmas story the night before and, even though Amelia said she’d like to hear it again, Rose read them something called the chapter about love. She said that the minister had read it at their wedding. She’d kept a bookmark in just that spot. On it she’d written, “Charity never faileth—Love never ends.”

  The next morning, Malcolm quietly slipped away while it was still dark. It was cold, as he had wanted.

  20

  It was winter. It was cold and white, and often the smoke from the chimney went straight up, indicating just how cold January and February could be in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in northern Alberta. Jack and Cyril were glad to be working at the logs most days. The sawing kept them warm and occupied. Filing the saw gave them an excuse to sit close to the fire every second evening. The evening in between was used to play the domino game. Rose said they would wear out the tiles before winter was over. Although she laughed when she said it.

  Jack’s longer trap lines and snares also became a job for both boys. It helped lighten the load if Cyril was along to carry things. It also made Rose more confident about their safety. There were more wolves and coyotes, and their only gun was with Malcolm at his trap lines.

  Out on their trap lines, Jack and Cyril could talk privately—something that had never seemed all that important before. They were boys; they were brothers. Growing up, they had talked, fought, and played like other boys. But things change when you get older.

  “I heard Dad say I could have been free,” Jack told Cyril.

  They were near the end of the first big loop on Jack’s trap line. They’d just pulled a mink out of a trap, baited it, and reset it.

  Cyril looked at the trap, the mink, and then at Jack. “What are you talking about?” he asked, not understanding what Jack might have had in common with a dead mink, or what their dad might have been talking about.

  “No, nothing about traps,” Jack frowned and looked serious. “Although, I guess I felt kind of trapped and was trying to get untangled and away from it all.”

  “Is this about last summer when you ran away?” Cyril could understand that. He was a boy. He’d run away more than once. Those were the times when he’d had the biggest beatings. He could still hear the smack of the belt, and feel it, too.

  “Did Dad beat you last summer for running away? I know he was pretty mad when he went to look for you. You took his canoe. But you had a broken arm, didn’t you?”

  “No!” Jack said, cutting him off. “It’s not as simple as that.” He wondered if he could put into words what he was thinking. Maybe Cyril was still too much of a boy.

  They were walking to the next trap. Walking slowly enough so they could talk and still hear one another. At a bend in the trail, J
ack said, “Dad almost drowned when he came for me. You know, when there was that big flood?”

  “Shit.” Cyril said it slowly. It always seemed to be the most significant word he used for anything important. “You never told us that! We all thought that your broken arm was the big thing. That, and the flood.”

  “Just shut up and listen. And don’t talk about this to Mom.” Jack had stopped and turned to face Cyril. It was all or nothing. He’d already said something; he had to continue. “Dad told me that if he’d drowned or died . . . ” Jack paused. “Then I would have been free. He wouldn’t have been able to force me to come back here.”

  “Shit, what happened, anyway?” Cyril’s eyes were wide at hearing such a story, such a secret. “Did you have to throw a rope out to him?”

  “No! It was the big canoe. He got tangled in the bowline. The water was rising. Shit! All that doesn’t matter! He nearly drowned. Okay?” Jack was shouting as he remembered it all. He was remembering the feeling of nearly drowning himself, and he could not put those memories into words so Cyril might understand. There was too much to describe. Cyril couldn’t understand. He hadn’t been there.

  Jack was crying with exasperation and the memory of it. But most of all, he was crying because he had to share the biggest secret of his life. And, in telling it, break the bond of knowing that it had existed between his father and him alone.

  He breathed deeply. “I think Dad wanted to die,” Jack sad quietly. “I think that at times he may still want to die because, when he dies, then we’ll all be free. You know, the rest of us.”

  Cyril was crying now, too. But in disbelief. He looked down at the trapped, the dead, the frozen mink he had been carrying. “How do you die?” he asked slowly.

  “You have an accident, I guess. Or an accident happens to you.”

  “You mean, like with me and the rifle?” Cyril wondered out loud, wiping at his eyes and remembering. “Is that why Dad was mad about the rifle?”

  “I don’t know. I think he was mad that you got hurt. Or maybe he was mad at the rifle. He told me once that they didn’t work too good in the war. Soldiers got hurt with them when they weren’t careful.”