No Good Brother

by Tyler Keevil

  Jake, well, he just went and told her the truth, straight up: that we’d stolen the horse to pay back a debt (leaving out the complicated backstory) and that if anybody found out we’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble. Sam put down her fork, and then took hold of it again.

  ‘But that won’t happen, right?’

  It was a good question. Maria, she just laughed forlornly and reached for her pack of menthols and muttered something about it already having happened, and when Jake started to argue (in his usual adamant and overly convincing way) she reminded him about the footage, which – up until then – had only been a sort of vague and unreal threat to us.

  Jake chewed thoughtfully on his cornflakes, and said, ‘I got to see this footage.’

  Sam asked, ‘What footage?’

  Maria said it was all online, but that we could watch it on her laptop. She brought that out, and we moved our chairs around to her side of the table to get a better view. Just before she opened the first clip, she hesitated and said, ‘Sam – you shouldn’t know about this.’

  ‘I’ll just look it up myself, after.’

  It was hard to argue with that. Maria sucked on her cigarette and sighed smoke and, after a moment, opened the first clip: the CCTV footage from the stables. There we were – scrambling around on screen in black-and-white, wearing bandanas. We looked like a couple of bandits in an old silent film. It even had that same jerky and stilted feel, since the security cameras recorded at a low frame-rate. When it got to the part where I lassoed Shenzao and got yanked off my feet, Jake turned away, trying and failing not to laugh uproariously.

  ‘Real funny,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry, man.’

  ‘Laugh it up, Jake,’ Maria said. ‘The next one’s funny, too.’

  The second clip was part of a newscast, from CityTV in Vancouver. The presenter – a sallow-faced old codger in a charcoal suit – related the details of the crime at the stables in this morbid, ominous tone. Then they cut to surveillance footage taken at the gas station. A guy stood at the till, handing over bills. The high angle and low-resolution partially made his features look different, but I still recognized him, quite readily, as Jake.

  ‘How many hits do these have?’ Jake asked.

  ‘Hundreds of thousands, and counting.’

  Sam whistled. ‘You guys are famous.’

  ‘Jake is,’ Maria said.

  He shook his head, pointing out that they hadn’t identified him yet.

  ‘Maybe they won’t,’ Sam said, hopefully.

  ‘If they do,’ Maria said, ‘Pat is going to flip.’

  I nodded. ‘Somebody could connect us to him – the cops or the Triads.’

  Jake yawned, deliberately, just to prove how unshaken he was by the whole thing.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘at least nobody knows where we are.’

  I didn’t say it, but I was thinking: they sure as hell will when the hen party debacle comes to light.

  Maria said, ‘Whether they ID you or not, Pat won’t be happy about the attention.’

  Jake said, ‘Who cares what he’s happy about?’

  ‘You don’t know him.’

  ‘Not as well as you, clearly.’

  In the ensuing silence, Sam, who’d been listening alertly, said, ‘He’s not a nice man.’

  She opened a new mini-box of Fruit Loops and dumped them in her bowl. We’d used up all the milk so she had to eat them dry. Me? I went back to chewing my Shreddies, which by that point had gone all soggy and unappetizing, in that way they do.

  Jake said, ‘I know that, kid. I know that. But we did a job for him and he owes us money so I’m going to make sure we get paid.’

  ‘You’re still set on that?’ I asked.

  ‘I ain’t leaving, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Jake,’ Maria said, closing the lid of the laptop, ‘if it goes wrong it could be real bad.’

  ‘Let me handle that. Hell. I just want to talk to him.’

  ‘The last time you talked to him,’ I said, ‘you threatened to kill him.’

  Maria looked at Jake. She sipped her coffee and took a drag of her cigarette and then tapped ash into one of the empty cereal boxes. She looked pale and nervy. Sam had stopped eating to listen.

  Maria said, ‘You told him that?’

  ‘He threatened Tim.’

  He pushed his cereal box aside and got his cigarettes and lit up, too. I almost said something then, about the two of them smoking in front of Sam. What a couple of parents.

  ‘Jesus Jake,’ Maria said. ‘You got some death wish.’

  As if to drive the point home, a horn sounded in the yard – making us all jump. For a second, because of what we’d been talking about, I actually thought the Delaneys had arrived early. But Sam hopped up and said, ‘That’s Mr Jenkins, with his delivery.’

  She ran over and started putting her jacket on. She paused with one arm in the sleeve to look back at me and Jake. ‘Do you guys want to help? There’s a lot of hay and feed.’

  It must have been comical: how we leapt up, scrambling to get our things on, falling over each other to reach the door first, telling her of course we’d help, anything she needed. In his rush, Jake even put his boots on the wrong feet. And in my rush I clipped my hip on the doorframe, adding to my ever-growing list of pains, humiliations, bruises, and injuries.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Mr Jenkins had parked his truck down by the stables: a battered Ranger hooked up to a tow-trailer, laden with hay and sacks of feed. He waited next to the trailer with his arms crossed, regarding us as we came up. He struck me as looking very American: a big, beefy old-timer, with a jelly-bowl belly and lanky white hair tucked under his Miller Lite cap.

  He smiled at Sam and said, ‘You got friends, Samantha.’

  ‘My mom’s friends from Vancouver.’

  He nodded at us, curtly, but didn’t offer to shake or even introduce himself.

  ‘How do you want to run this, boss?’ he asked her.

  Sam suggested that Jenkins and I toss the bales down, while she and Jake carried them on into the stables. That suited me fine, on account of my bum leg, and I suspected that Sam had done that deliberately: out of consideration for me.

  Jenkins climbed on up into the back of his trailer and I followed, with more than a little difficulty. The hay was divided into cube-shaped bales, lashed together by nylon cord. He had a spare pair of leather work gloves that he lent me. Our job was easy enough: just picking the bales up together, shuffling to the edge of the trailer, and tossing them on down. From there Sam helped Jake haul them inside. They weren’t heavy so much as awkward.

  Between each bale we had a bit of a wait, but at first the old guy didn’t seem all that disposed to shooting the breeze with me.

  During one such respite, I said, ‘Nice of you to help Sam out like this.’

  ‘She don’t need my help. She’s a competent young lady.’

  ‘I just meant you bringing the supplies and all.’

  ‘Your friend pays me for it.’

  ‘What friend is that?’

  ‘The head honcho.’

  ‘Delaney? He ain’t no friend to me, or my brother.’

  He peered at me, curious, and looked like he was going to say something, but Jake and Sam were coming back – laughing about some joke he’d made – and old Jenkins and I hefted the next bale down for them. It landed with a whump, sending up a cloud of hay dust.

  After they’d carried it away, Jenkins said, ‘Just figured you were with them, like all the other yahoos who come through here.’

  ‘We’re old friends of Sam’s mother – we went to school together.’

  ‘Ah.’

  After that he warmed, some. He told me he had a farm on the other side of Elma. He had a few horses himself – just for recreational purposes – and also grew wheat and kept a few dairy cows. He said he came out at least once a week, and more if he was able, not just to make deliveries but to check on Sam.

  �
�Ain’t no place for a girl of that age,’ he said.

  ‘They’re a rough crowd, all right.’

  He just shook his head, as if that didn’t begin to cover it.

  When we finished unloading the hay, we did the same for the feed: big sacks of tiny pellets that you mashed up with water, apparently. The old guy went about our simple task in a slow and deliberate and thorough manner, and his demeanour reminded me of Albert. The thought of him, and Tracy, and the state in which I’d left their boat, caused something in me to shrivel and wilt, to the extent I reacted in a physical way.

  ‘You all right?’ Jenkins asked.

  ‘Just hurting some, from an injury I picked up.’

  ‘Take a breather, if you like.’

  ‘No – the work helps.’

  He accepted that, even though it didn’t make much sense. By the time we finished unloading the feed it was past noon. We lingered around his trailer, jawing a little about the weather (the morning mist had cleared, but snow was predicted for tomorrow) while Sam lounged on the tailgate, swinging her legs. Then Jenkins took a glance at his watch, and said, ‘Guess I better mosey.’

  This time he shook my hand, and Jake’s too.

  He said to Sam, ‘You gonna take care of these two?’

  ‘I’ll keep them out of trouble, Mr Jenkins.’

  ‘Atta girl.’

  He clambered into his cab, and looked back out his window at me.

  ‘And you – you gonna take care of her?’

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He just honked and started away, his trailer rattling over the ruts and potholes in the road.

  On the days Mr Jenkins made his delivery, Sam had a set routine that included mucking out the stalls, cleaning the stables, distributing fresh hay, and feeding the animals. So after he left we set right to that. Jake, he knew the drill on account of his job at Castle Meadow, and even though it was all new to me I took to that kind of work from my time on the boat. Sam acted as foreman, assigning us each a series of stalls and guiding us through the steps. First, open the door, making friendly with the occupant. Next, rake the good hay to one side, and shovel out the bottom layer of stinky muck. Lastly, scatter in some fresh hay before spreading it all around. It was pleasantly straightforward, and for me such labours have a meditative quality: the loss of worry and concern as you sink into the physical.

  ‘How’s it coming in there, Poncho?’ Sam asked me, poking her head above the gate. I’d started on my second stall, scraping spadefuls of manure into a black plastic bucket.

  ‘I’m winning, I think.’

  ‘Throw down a little more hay, will you? It’s looking a little scant.’

  ‘You got it boss.’

  Across the stable Jake got to work on Shenzao’s stall. He’d forgiven her, apparently, for bucking him that morning. He chatted away to her, telling her she probably thought she’d gotten rid of us, but lo and behold – here we were again.

  Halfway through the afternoon, Maria brought down a late lunch for us: peanut butter sandwiches and Snickers bars, along with orange juice for Sam, and a couple of Pabst for Jake and me. Maria was still wearing her bathrobe but she’d pulled this big winter coat over it, which was quite the sight. She joined us while we ate, and afterwards lingered by the doors for a time, watching us work.

  ‘What a team,’ she said. ‘You ought to hire yourselves out.’

  ‘Would go a little faster,’ Jake said, ‘with one more hand.’

  ‘Like hell,’ she said. ‘Besides, somebody’s got to get dinner ready.’

  ‘What’s dinner?’

  ‘Frozen pizza.’

  Jake made some joke about that taking a heck of a lot of preparation, but Maria was already shuffling back up to the house. Sam stopped in the middle of sweeping the alleyway, leaning on her broom and breathing heavy as she watched her mother withdraw to the house.

  Then she clocked me observing her, and smiled in a way that struck me as too mature for a girl of nine – as if she wanted to let me know she was okay with it, with the way it all was.

  She asked, ‘You guys are staying another night, right?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, automatically. ‘Then heading out tomorrow.’

  Jake, who had his head down, grimly shovelling away, said, ‘We’ll be staying till Thursday, when the Delaneys get here, and we get paid. Don’t you worry about that.’

  He was still set on that, apparently. I didn’t think Jake gave a hoot about the money – the money just served as an excuse – but I’d once seen my brother punch a wall till he broke his hand (and the wall) simply to prove a point to Maria, and that self-same stubbornness had taken hold of him now. He refused to turn-tail and run, and if I wanted to change his mind I only had two days to do it.

  By the time we finished cleaning the stables, and feeding all the horses, the sun had dropped behind the mountains and the temperature dropped with it. We came trudging up the drive, wearily satisfied by the simple pleasure of work, and working together. The sky behind the house glowed indigo, and the first few stars pin-pricked the opposite horizon, standing out sharp and bright above the surrounding mountains.

  ‘Man,’ Jake said, ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.’

  ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘that was my joke.’

  ‘You crackers,’ Sam said.

  We trotted up to the porch, and I caught a faint whiff of something burning. Behind the windows, the interior of the house looked a little hazy and a column of black smoke was spilling out from the door, which had been left ajar.

  ‘Jake,’ I said, and started to hurry.

  We barrelled in there. The smoke was coming from the microwave and convection oven – leaking from around the seal – and a cloud of it whirlpooled on the ceiling. The little oven beeped at us repeatedly: either an alarm or a timer. Jake and I flew into a real panic, shouting Maria’s name and racing around the kitchen. I grabbed the microwave plug and yanked it out of its socket, and Jake used a tea towel to flip down the door. Smoke whooshed out, making us cough. On the rack inside sat a pizza, black and hard as a hockey puck.

  Coming in behind us, Sam looked around, and said irately, ‘Aw, hell.’

  She propped open the front door, then went to the windows and opened those, too. The smoke trickled out and fresh, wintery air swept in to replace it.

  ‘Where’s your mom?’ Jake asked.

  ‘In here,’ Sam called.

  Maria lay on the sofa, snoring. On the table next to her lolled a lowball glass, empty and upended, and a vial of something. As we came in Sam took up the vial and tucked it in her pocket, trying to hide it from us, or protect her mother, or both. That really got to me.

  ‘She’s just drunk again,’ Sam said blandly, and turned on the TV.

  The big flatscreen on the wall jolted to life. Jake and I exchanged a look. Then we went back into the kitchen and tried to clean out the convection oven, but it was a mess – the cheese had melted right into the rotating glass plate, which I’d never seen before. We carried it out onto the porch. It was still smoking and smouldering.

  Back inside, we joined Sam on the sofa. Jake sat next to Maria and propped her head up on a cushion. An old musical came on – the one about seven brides, and seven brothers – and we just sat there watching that. Since pizzas, clearly, were out of the question, Sam got us a few bags of tortilla chips and a couple of packs of Mr. Noodle. She showed Jake and I how to eat it raw, sprinkling the spice-mix right inside the bag.

  ‘This is actually pretty good,’ I said.

  ‘Told you,’ Sam said.

  At one point, Maria stirred. She looked up and saw Jake sitting over her.

  ‘I made pizza,’ she said, hopefully.

  ‘I know,’ he said, putting a hand on her forehead. ‘It was great.’

  She sighed and turned towards him, angling her head against his belly. ‘We need to talk, Jake. We really need to sit down and have a talk, me and you.’

  ‘Mañana,’ he said.

  On-screen, the
brothers were now having some kind of massive brawl, for reasons I couldn’t quite figure out. I didn’t pay much attention. I paid more attention to Sam, actually, who was watching her mother and Jake. She looked far more shocked by their behaviour, by that turn towards tenderness, than she’d been by the smoke and burning pizza.

  I suppose it might be tempting to judge Maria harshly for her conduct, but that would be a mistake. It all has to be viewed in the context of the moment, and part of the reason for our being there at the ranch (I believe now) was so she could show us the nature of her current life, and Sam’s situation. So she wasn’t putting on a brave face, or trying to hide the cracks and fractures in the façade of her life: if anything she wanted to display them. In addition, even if we were partly there by her design, I can’t imagine it was easy for her to cope with the pressures of our presence, and the collision of her past and present, her then and now.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The next day, Sam and I went into town. Jake got it in his head that he wanted to cook us a ‘real meal’ (that was the term he used) for dinner that night. Maria pointed out the obvious obstacles to this – we no longer even had a microwave, for one thing – and told him again that it would be best if he and I left today, before the Delaneys arrived tomorrow.

  ‘A barbecue,’ Jake said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘What we need is a barbecue. I can cook us up some steaks and potatoes, and whisky-grilled back ribs.’

  ‘That sounds awesome,’ Sam said, clapping excitedly.

  We had all slept on the sofas, and were still sitting on them – having had coffee and breakfast cereal without really moving.

  ‘Timmy,’ Maria said, ‘would you tell him, please?’

  ‘We can’t stay another night, man,’ I said.

  ‘Who wants to make the food run?’ Jake asked.

  Maria sighed and sat up, fastening her robe around her with the belt at the waist. ‘I need to go into town anyway, to get my prescription. I guess I could pick some things up at Everybody’s.’ She paused, and looked at me significantly. ‘Unless someone else wants to?’

  It wasn’t exactly subtle, but I guess we didn’t have time for subtlety.