by Tyler Keevil
‘I sure ain’t leaving it.’
He motioned with the neck of his guitar around the room. Now that his stuff was all packed up, the only things left were empty beer cans and the chipped teacups and an old toothbrush on the sink. Other than the backpack loaded with tools for the job, all we had was that battered suitcase, his guitar, and my duffel bag from the boat.
‘Funny to think this is all we’ve got,’ I said. ‘Two bags and a guitar.’
He frowned, plucking repeatedly at the new string, and made an adjustment.
‘That ain’t all.’
‘What else, then?’
‘We got each other, asshole.’
‘I wasn’t talking about that.’
‘Just remember it.’
‘I ain’t likely to forget.’
He was still working on the guitar when the call came. As the phone rang, it also vibrated and shuddered atop the table, creeping towards Jake like a black cockroach. Jake looked at me and there was nothing to say or do, so he leaned forward over his guitar to pick it up and answer. He said, ‘Yeah?’ and then listened and said, ‘Okay,’ and then hung up and tossed it to me and kept tuning his guitar. It was reassuring to see him treat it so lightly, and even though I knew it was largely put on I appreciated it all the same. When he finally finished with the guitar he strummed it once and patted the body like a drum. All set.
He said, ‘It’s down at Burrard View Park.’
Chapter Thirteen
Burrard View Park is this public park near Penticton and Wall Street, in a residential district that comes right down to the railway yard, overlooking the inlet. We drove there in Jake’s truck, with me riding shotgun and all of our gear in the flatbed: duffel bag, suitcase, guitar, backpack, and of course the bolt-cutters. We had no trouble finding the vehicle, since at that time of night it was the only one in the parking lot: an extended transit van, a Ram ProMaster, with no windows in the back. It didn’t necessarily look like the kind of vehicle you would transport a horse in, and I guess that was the point.
‘That’s it,’ Jake said, pulling up beside it.
We got out and walked twice around the van, inspecting it in the dark. I don’t know what we were looking for. I guess we were inspecting its very reality – as if it might not even be a real van, as if the whole escapade would be revealed as a charade.
‘What about your truck?’ I asked.
‘I’ll park it up the street.’
While he did that, I unlocked the back doors. The interior was empty except for a few pieces of rope, and straps with come-alongs. It looked as if it might have been a moving van at one time. A loading ramp lay flat on the floor, near the bumper. I shut the doors and put our luggage and Jake’s guitar up front, under the seats.
A few minutes later, Jake came back, smoking and whistling. From across the lot he lobbed the keys to me. They flashed in the streetlights and hit me in the chest, hard, landing at my feet. I scooped them up.
‘Why do I have to drive?’ I asked.
‘Because if we get pulled over, it won’t be an ex-con at the wheel.’
I couldn’t really argue with that.
The van’s steering alignment was off (it dragged to the right) and the shocks were shot to hell, so that the chassis continually bounced and shuddered. Years previously, I’d driven a similar van with those same flaws, when I’d worked for an auto-supply company, delivering car parts. Jake and I had both done that job, actually. I’d put in a good word for him and at first we’d even done some of the early morning deliveries together. But after Jake was given his own van, he started driving around idly, hanging out with Maria, and ignoring his duties. So they fired him, and then they fired me, for vouching for him. I got fired by association.
My memories of that job made the drive we had to do in a similar van seem more normal than it was. It felt as if we’d done something like this before: Jake yawning beside me, the two of us weary and surly, the radio tuned to a late-night sports station. We could have been heading down to load up a supply of brake pads and disks, not steal a racehorse.
It was about half an hour to Castle Meadow from there. We trundled along Oak Street, hung a left on Marine Drive, and followed Macdonald Street down to the entrance. Instead of turning in we drove past the gates, which were shut, and carried on another fifty yards, towards what looked to be a golf course. I spun the van around and pulled over onto the gravel at the roadside. From there we had a good view of the stables and clubhouse.
‘Kill the engine,’ he told me.
I did, and we sat in the dark and the quiet and the cold. Jake checked his watch and said it would probably be another half hour. He rolled down his window to smoke. I had parked next to a willow tree and you could hear it swishing in the breeze and – beyond it – the sound of traffic over on the highway, faint and steady as a river. The air smelled of fertilizer and manure and nothing felt out of the ordinary to me.
When Jake was done smoking he unzipped the bag and got out our balaclavas. We both tried to put them on, but they didn’t fit: we couldn’t even pull them over our foreheads.
‘Damn,’ Jake said. ‘I must have grabbed kids’ sizes.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘Don’t panic, Poncho.’
He reached under the seat, to open his suitcase. After rooting around in it for a bit, he came up with Sandy’s red bandana, and a second one, a blue one, for me. We tied these over our faces, just below the eyes, so that they hung down in a triangle that covered our features.
‘How do I look?’ he asked.
‘Like a real horse thief. Like a goddamned desperado.’
Jake guffawed, making his bandana flap, and punched my shoulder.
‘Poncho and Lefty ride again.’
‘Jesus Christ, Jake,’ I said.
Wearing our bandanas, we sat and watched the clubhouse. A few vehicles were still parked out front, and Jake explained they belonged to the cleaners and bar staff. After ten minutes, a little red hatchback started up and pulled out, followed shortly after by a maroon sedan. Neither had been the guard’s vehicle. Jake said it was a Jeep, and would be next. But then nothing happened. A screech owl shrieked, way off, and a plane slid across the sky, and we were still waiting.
I said, ‘Goddamn stupid, trying to get her across the border.’
‘The Delaneys have a ranch down there, near Olympia.’
It was maybe two hundred miles, and a straightforward drive. It would have been fine, as a destination, aside from it being in a completely different country.
‘If the border guards search the van, we’re done.’
‘They won’t search it.’
‘I’d sure search a vehicle like this, driven by two suspicious characters.’
‘The Delaneys have a guard on the payroll. For their drug runs.’
‘At what border crossing?’
‘Aldergrove. But don’t worry about that – worry about the job in hand.’
‘One of us better do some worrying, or we ain’t gonna make it further than Langley.’
As it turned out, that was pretty much true.
In the parking lot, an engine started up and headlights came on.
‘That’ll be him,’ Jake said, and pulled on his gloves. I did the same. We watched the vehicle come down the drive: a Jeep, like Jake had said. He got that much right. The driver waited for the security gate to swing inward, and then turned out and away from us, towards the city. The taillights dwindled to dots, and I started our engine.
‘How do you feel?’ I asked him.
‘Surprisingly optimistic,’ he said.
I suppose that was part of it: why he thought the plan would actually work. Jake, despite his record, was inherently innocent. And because of that – because he didn’t feel guilty, or like a criminal – he figured we would get away with it. It’s always been like that, with him.
By the time we reached the drive, the security gates had closed. Jake slipped out and punched in the key-co
de. The gates swung inward again, smooth and silent, and we passed through. We rolled down the gravel drive, as we’d done the other day, but instead of parking in front of the stables we circled around behind. Jake directed me over to a big garage door, then told me to turn the van around and back it up – so that our rear bumper was towards the door.
Beside the garage door was a regular door and that was how we gained access, using the keys Jake had for doing his morning cleaning work. The stables felt completely different at night: no grooms or stable hands, no movement or activity, no light or noise, aside from the faint rustle of nervous horses, disturbed by our presence. Jake flipped a switch to the left of the door, turning on a series of lights strung from the ceiling beams. The bulbs were bare and clear and the curled elements within seemed to hang suspended in mid-air, like glow-worms. A pungent animal stench filled the space, coalescing in the cold like mist, almost tangible.
The alley between the stalls looked empty and exposed. We walked down it, our footsteps muffled by the covering of hay on the floor. Each of the stalls had a sliding door with a box-sash window built into the upper half. From one of them a horse’s snout emerged, the nostrils flaring – as if trying to smell us. We walked past, and Jake led us back to the stall we’d visited that morning. Inside it was dark, but through the window I could see a large white shape, faint but distinct, hovering amid the shadows. The horse stood very still and must have been asleep though at the time I didn’t know that. I’ve been reading up on horses since and most of the time they sleep on their feet, because they’re prey animals and don’t feel comfortable lying down.
Jake made a clicking sound with his tongue, and the horse shook her head. She came forward and put her nose up to the bars. Her nostrils and mouth were pale pink, and I could smell her breath: oaty and somewhat sweet.
‘Atta girl,’ Jake said. ‘It’s just me.’
He stroked her nose and she seemed to tolerate that.
‘She knows you.’
‘I’ve been making nice with her.’
He opened his backpack. In addition to the cutting tools he’d brought a bunch of bananas. One of them was already loaded up with Sedaline, a horse sedative that comes in a gel paste. Not enough to knock the old girl out, but enough to relax her a little. He removed the peel and held the banana between the bars. Her nostrils flared – testing its scent – and then her lips pushed out and puckered and enveloped the fruit. She munched it lazily.
‘How long before it takes effect?’
‘A few minutes.’
‘So long as she doesn’t pass out.’
‘I asked around and measured the dose.’
The stall door was held shut by a sliding deadbolt, secured with a hefty brass padlock. It was quite the lock: the kind of thing you’d see on a pirate chest. Jake dropped the bag and held out a hand for the bolt-cutters and I passed them to him. Pulling the handles wide, he aligned the jaws and scissor-pinched down on the lock. His upper body trembled with effort for a moment, and then the handles of the bolt-cutters came together: he’d sliced clean through. He twisted the lock and tugged it out of the deadbolt.
‘That was easy,’ I said.
‘Told you.’
Before opening the door to the stall, we checked on the horse again. She had backed into the corner. He clicked and made soothing sounds but this time she didn’t come forward. Our bolt-cutting shenanigans must have spooked her. Jake started talking to her as he slid the deadbolt across. He repeated her name a few times and told her what we were doing.
‘I’m just going to open this here door now,’ he said. ‘We’re gonna get you on out of here.’
He said it as if we were saving her from a life of imprisonment.
When he slid open the stall door, I tensed up: I half expected the horse to charge out, like you see at the rodeo, kicking and neighing and bucking. But none of that happened. She just stood very still, looking as spooky and beautiful as an alabaster sculpture. Yet alive, and real: you could see the steam of her breath. I got the sense that she didn’t know what to make of any of this and in that respect she and I were in the same boat. On a peg next to the door hung a leather halter and reins. Jake gathered those up and we stepped inside the stall.
I suppose it wasn’t entirely farfetched to believe we could walk in there and halter the horse and guide her down to the van without any trouble – though in retrospect it seems more than a little naïve. At the time I knew so little about horses that I was trusting Jake to handle that part of it. He seemed competent in that regard. Or confident, at least.
But then, Jake’s never lacked for confidence.
Before that moment, I had never been close to a horse. I could feel this great animal warmth radiating from her. Her coat was sleek as mink and in the dark I couldn’t see the individual hairs: it looked as if she’d been dipped in white paint. She seemed placid, but that was deception on her part, for when Jake tried to fit the halter she simply flicked her head – knocking it aside – and trotted past us into the alleyway. She didn’t bolt. Rather, she cantered in a frisky circle, her hooves thumping the hay-covered concrete. Upon finishing this, she stopped and eyeballed us, sidelong, as if to imply: like hell I’m going to let you two fools halter me.
‘Well,’ Jake said.
‘We should have shut the gate.’
‘I thought she might panic. I didn’t want to be stuck in here if she started kicking us.’
‘I didn’t know she could kick us.’
‘She’s a horse, idiot.’
‘I’m the idiot.’
‘Just shut up a minute, will you? I’m thinking.’
‘Now you’re thinking.’
The horse stamped impatiently, as if daring us to try again.
‘You got the bag?’ Jake asked.
‘I got the bag.’
‘Dig out another banana, will you?’
‘You reckon she’ll fall for that?’
‘You got any better ideas?’
‘I don’t have any ideas.’
‘Then get out a banana.’
I did. I peeled it halfway, and ventured into the alley, holding the banana out like a pistol, sort of waggling it in a way that I hoped was tempting. But my hand was trembling. My nerves were starting to show. Containing your nerves is easy when things are running fine as cream gravy. Not so when it’s all turning into a bag of nails. I didn’t know how long we had before the guard came back, or somebody else showed up, and our preposterous plot was revealed as the shambolic and desperate and ill-conceived act that it undoubtedly was.
‘Here girl,’ I said, and made kissing sounds.
Jake crept up beside me, holding the halter ready, like a cape he intended to drape over her. She cocked her head, bird-like, to observe our next move. That was the first time I got a real sense of her personality. She looked at the banana, and the halter, and us, and then snorted and skipped off down the alley. She was in no real hurry but she definitely wasn’t dawdling, either. Her hoofbeats sounded loud and incriminating in the confined space, echoing off the walls and ceiling, like a whole herd of horses instead of just one.
‘Come on,’ Jake said.
We both sprinted after her. Seeing that, she slowed her pace to let us catch up, but once we got within a few feet she took off again – just playing with us. She ran all the way to the end of the alley, stopped, and turned around. She stared at us and we stared at her. She shook her head, as if to scatter away flies. That could have been the Sedaline kicking in.
‘You stay here,’ Jake said. ‘I’ll drive her around.’
The alleys formed a rough rectangle, around the perimeter of the stable.
‘What do I do when she comes at me?’
‘Just get in her way.’ He dug a rope out of the bag. It had a loop on one end, but the knot was already loose and slipping apart. ‘Toss this around her neck if you can.’
‘What kind of bowline is that?’
‘Tie a better one then, Tonto.’
&
nbsp; I traded the banana for the rope and hefted it up, to show him I would. Jake headed down the alley. As he got near Shenzao, she whinnied and took off again, around the corner. I lost sight of them, then. I tied a proper bowline – a running bowline – and held the rest of the rope coiled in my left hand, with the lasso dangling in my right, feeling the roughness of the nylon through my glove. I stood with my legs apart. At the end of the hall I could see one of the CCTV cameras. Jake had said nobody monitored them: they recorded the footage as a precaution. But when they found Shenzao gone they’d be checking the footage all right, and I figured they’d have a real show to see, now. I just didn’t know how much of a show.
I heard her coming, and saw her dance around the corner, shaking her mane and high-stepping like a real show-stopper. Jake was jogging behind her – no longer trying to catch or calm her but just herding her towards me. When she caught sight of me she drew up, about twenty yards away. She pivoted and saw Jake behind her and spun back to face me again. I stood up real tall. I thought maybe it was like when you confront a bear in the woods. You have to show them dominance. I had to show that animal who was boss.
‘All right, girl,’ I said. ‘Bring it.’
And she did. She came cantering towards me, veering to one side in a bid to barge past me. I held out the rope and draped it around her neck, light as a lei. I remember feeling proud of that. And then she just jerked me clean off my feet. It happened sharp and sudden, like doing a dock-start on water-skis. I floated along behind her and came down hard on the concrete and got dragged through the hay and mud and horse manure. I would have let go but I actually couldn’t: the rope was wrapped around my wrist, burning the skin. I started hollering and kicking, calling out for help. This went on for some time and was more than a little mortifying.
Eventually she slowed to a trot, stopped, and looked back, no doubt confused by my idiocy. I lay there, still tangled up in the rope, clinging to it like a lifeline. She wheeled her big body around and lowered her snout, so that the nostrils were hovering directly above me. She snorted in disdain, spraying snot across my face. And she sat down, just like that, which isn’t the kind of behaviour you normally see in a horse, but by that point she must have been feeling the effects of the Sedaline, and had probably decided all the fun had gone out of her little game, and that we, in our ineptitude, weren’t worth any further expenditure of energy.