Day Into Night (12 page)

Cindy is paying the babysitter, a 16-year-old brunette who winks at me. The kids are tearing around the house like wind-up toys. Cindy hollers at them to settle down. They actually pause for a moment before resuming their game of tag. She sighs, collapses in a chair at the kitchen table. “I gotta find a man,” she says wearily. “A wealthy one.”

“Better call the want ads.”

“One mom,” she says. “Slightly used, but ready to please.”

“You’ll be reeling them in by the dozens.”

She chuckles sadly. “Unfortunately, they all think it’s catch and release.”

I nod, pat her hand. All day she works with dysfunctional families, violence, incest. When she gets home, she’s a domestic engineer with three kids. She’s always taking care of somebody, and by evening, she’s burned out, has a glazed look in her eye.

“Order a pizza,” I tell her. “My treat.”

She raises her hands as though offering a benediction. “My saviour.”

“Order two.” Then she’ll have leftovers.

She looks at my crutches, propped against the wall. “What happened to your foot?”

“Twisted my ankle, going for a walk in the woods.”

“Bad?”

“Not so bad. Just slap a slow-moving sticker on my back.”

“Consider it done. You home for a while?”

I think about the man in camo. “No, I gotta go south again tomorrow.”

She nods, begins to clean the kitchen, orders pizza. I head downstairs to my room next to the furnace. The townhouse is tiny but I don’t mind living in the basement. I don’t need much space; between fires in summer and travelling in winter, I’m not often home. I take a shower in the tin stall next to my room, then flop on my bed and stare at the joists and subfloor that’s my ceiling. Overhead, the patter of running children rolls like thunder. I think about the last few days.

At the top of a shelf built of plywood and rough lumber, there’s a shoebox filled with my past. I take it down, spread the contents on my bed. Newspaper clippings. An old videotape with the titles of shows Cindy has taped crossed off the label. There’s only one show on the tape now, a Crime Stoppers segment a minute long. I pop it in my ancient tape player, lay on my bed and watch. There’s a brief snippet of some scene from The Young and Restless, then the screen flickers and Mike Matchok, the RCMP spokesman for Crime Stoppers, takes centre stage. He stands stiffly in the clearing where Nina died, in front of the blackened feller-buncher, and begins to narrate.

“On or about January 12th, 1995, a person or persons unknown ...”

Like a current hit single on the radio, the words are familiar, burned into memory by sheer repetition. The Crime Stoppers program provides re-enactments, where perpetrators are played by actors, in hopes of jogging a witness’s memory. Constable Matchok provides a brief narrative of what might have happened before Nina and I arrived, while the camera zooms in to show the back of a man, dressed in nondescript parka and wool toque, glancing about furtively and then climbing onto the feller-buncher. He releases a clasp on the machine’s engine compartment, plants an indistinct shape that looks in the dim light vaguely like a pipe bomb. The man’s face is never shown, but in my mind’s eye his face is painted forest camouflage. He retreats and the scene changes. It’s morning. A Forest Service truck drives up a narrow logging road bordered on both sides by large trees, laden with snow. Clearly, there are two passengers, and my gut clenches in nervous anticipation. The truck parks next to the feller-buncher and an actor in a Forest Service uniform, playing me, says something to the passenger in the truck, then walks past the camera. There is a synthesized explosion — a bright flash of light — and men are shown running toward the feller-buncher. My real truck, windows shattered, is shown in an RCMP impound lot. Constable Matchok walks in front, wraps up the video segment with the standard plea for information, offers $2,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for this heinous act. All calls are kept strictly confidential.

Two thousand dollars. I’d offer more if I had it. I’d offer everything.

I start the tape again, watch Matchok stand in the forest. Cindy comes downstairs, knocks on my door. “The pizza is here,” she says. She comes into my room, sees what I’m watching.

“Oh, Porter —”

She sits on the edge of my bed, glances at the newspaper clippings strewn about.

“I heard about it after you left,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

I shrug, try to look calmer than I feel. The truck is driving toward the feller-buncher again. Cindy leans across the bed, grabs the remote, shuts off the tv. For a moment, the only sound is the plastic squeal of the worn tape. Then she touches a button on the vcr and that too stops.

“I saw it on the news,” she says. “It was bad, wasn’t it?”

I nod, mute. She pulls herself farther onto the bed, puts an arm around my shoulder.

“Mom called. They heard it down there too, wanted to see if you’re okay.”

“Tell them I’m fine.”

Cindy studies me. “You’re not fine though, are you?”

I don’t answer. For a few minutes we sit together in my dim bedroom, staring at the dead tv as though it might have a hidden message. Some people lash out when they’re upset; I turn my anger inward, against the advice of my one-time shrink — an East Indian with a Ph.D, on contract to the Forest Service to help the staff with the stress of downsizing. My stress was a little different. We spent a few 50-minute hours together. He tried but I just didn’t want to talk about it. I still don’t and Cindy knows this. She leans against me, stroking my shoulder. It makes me feel like a child and I flinch away.

She sits up, her concern clear. “What are you going to do?”

I look at the scraps of newsprint scattered over the bed. Partially visible is a picture of Nina, a driver’s licence photo like a prison mug shot. In black and white, she looks like ancient history: some file photo from the fifties. I wonder if it’ll take me that long to get over what happened. “I don’t know,” I tell Cindy. “But somehow, I’m going to stop this.”

8

IT'S SURPRISING HOW completely you come to rely on your set of wheels; like many things you really don’t appreciate them until they’re not usable. Then your relationship with your truck gets ugly. You call it names, kick the tires, pound the dash, consider shooting it. But like any grieving process, you move past denial and anger and eventually have to make up. When I was in Edmonton, I stopped at the Land Rover dealer and picked up a new starter. For the price I paid, it should have come with a trip to the UK. But at least I’d be mobile again.

The view beneath Old Faithful is familiar — rusted cross beams and greasy ball joints. Like a Harley driver, I’m intimately familiar with the workings of my vehicle. I can appreciate its underlying form — or the form under which I am lying; Zen and the art of Land Rover repair. I slide farther beneath, shield my eyes from dribbling encrustations. At the periphery of my vision, I see Carl’s boots. I’ve been telling him about my lunch with Telson.

“She saved your food?” Carl is impressed.

“Yeah. Had them put it into one of those Styrofoam trays.”

“And this is after you freaked out?” I can see his chin as he peers down through the engine compartment. “I’m starting to like this girl.”

“She’s probably gone by now,” I say. “She’s just visiting. Passing through.”

Carl chuckles. “Sure. Whatever. Any breakthroughs on the arson fires?”

“No, not really.” I search the oily grime around the void where my starter used to be, looking for any clues regarding the disappearance. Occasionally, these things just fall off. But not usually while parked. “It was just an organizational meeting. The cops have been called in and they put together a task force.”

“Really?” Carl’s voice is disembodied. “A task force?”

“Yeah. They’re pretty serious about catching this guy.”

“And you’re on this task force?”

“They still need someone to do the dirty work.” Around the ring gear housing there’s a lot of gritty gunk and I’m thinking maybe I should scrape a bit of it away before I mount the new starter. Makes for a better ground. “Can you hand me my knife. It’s under the seat, driver’s side.”

Carl’s feet vanish and a door creaks open. There’s a moment of silence, then Carl’s voice, muffled from inside the cab. “Where did you say it was?”

“In the springs. It’s a little hard to see, but it’s there.”

Scraping sounds. A drop of oil which has been defying gravity plops onto my cheek.

“I don’t see it Porter. You sure you didn’t take it out?”

At first I’m slightly annoyed with Carl for being so blind and making me drag myself out from under the truck, across an emery board of gravel. Then when I look under the seat, I’m confused. Confusion quickly gives way to anger.

“Shit — someone took it.”

Carl scratches his chin, tries to look helpful. “You sure?”

I try to remember taking the knife from under the seat, but the memory doesn’t exist. “Last time I saw it was before we went into the bar. I distinctly remember putting it under the seat.”

Carl is nodding. “What about later that night? We were pretty hammered.”

Ihadn’t thought of that.“I don’t think so.I think someone stole it.”

“Your truck was sitting in the parking lot for a while.”

“Well, shit —” The passenger-side doorlock on Old Faithful doesn’t work and anybody could have taken the knife. I grab a screwdriver and handful of wrenches and crawl under the truck again. More bad news — like some evil psychology test, the bolt holes in the starter housing don’t match the holes in the ring gear housing, no matter how hard I try. They gave me the wrong starter.

I worm my way out from under the truck, brush dirt from the orange fire coveralls Carl’s lent me. I rest the new starter on the edge of the engine compartment, stare gloomily into Old Faithful’s greasy bowels. I’ll have to take the bus to Edmonton again, bring the starter as a carry-on. Maybe I’ll meet Travis the salesman, sell him the starter. Hell, sell him the truck so he does-n’t have to take the bus. Cut my losses.

“Doesn’t fit?” asks Carl.

I shake my head, repack the clean but useless component in its box.

“There’s a guy out of town collects Land Rovers,” says Carl. “He might have a starter.”

“Really. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“His stuff is pretty old —”

“So is mine.”

On the trip out of town, Carl pulls a box of crackers from under his seat. Some people keep tools down there; others keep knives. Carl stores food — like a squirrel. At least it’s fairly secure — I don’t think I’d steal anything edible from among the dust and crap that inevitably collects under a truck seat, particularly a Forest Service truck seat. But today I’m hungry and the crackers look fairly well preserved. We munch as we head for Land Rover Heaven. “Just to let you know,” says Carl. “This guy is a Jehovah’s Witness. You might end up with more than a starter. You might end up saved.”

“He can save my Land Rover.”

We’re both dressed in fire coveralls, like we’re working together again.

“I hear they have another big one,” Carl says. “Up by Slave Lake.”

“Really.” Any big fire is a hot topic of discussion. “How big?”

“Grew to three thousand acres overnight.”

I think of our buddy Red Flag. No one called me. “Lightning caused?”

Carl nods. When the weather gets hot, there always seems to be a lightning-caused fire somewhere near Slave Lake. There’s a lot of muskeg up there, covered with volatile dense black spruce. It’s like dropping a match in dry grass. Even if it’s not really dry, a lightning strike can smoulder in the moss until the fuel around it is ready to burn.

“What do they have on it?”

“The Electra and the Ducks. Coupla crews.”

“What about you guys?” I ask. “You have any action?”

Carl shrugs. “Nothing much. A little camper fire. But our turn is coming.”

We ride in companionable silence for a few minutes. Carl glances at my ankle, wrapped in a tensor bandage. “How did you do that?” he asks, no doubt wondering how I made it back to town without my bike the other day. I hesitate, then tell him the story about my walk through the bush, seeing the man in camo. The interrogation. It’s the Reader’s Digest condensed version and Carl is quiet for a few minutes, leaning forward over his steering wheel. “You think that was him?”he asks. “You think it was the Lorax?”

“Maybe.” I’m unexpectedly reluctant to agree. “Could’ve been a hunter.”

Carl nods, chewing his lip. “There’s another week of spring bear yet.”

We’re both watching the trees at the edge of the road. Dense evergreens. The Lorax could be out here and we’d never see him. I shiver, try to shake off a feeling that I’m being watched. I’m suddenly desperate for conversation about anything normal.

“So, Carl, you seeing anyone in town?”

“Why?” he asks. “You available?” His chuckle is a little forced and I get the impression my old friend is very lonely. “The gene pool here is kind of crowded,” he says. “What about you? You gonna see this girl from the bar again?”

It sounds so romantic — the girl from the bar.

“I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“You should,” he says. “Get on with things. You’re becoming a monk.”

We’re both quiet for a while. We never talk about Nina, not directly anyway. When we used to work together in Fort Termination, I think Carl had a bit of a thing for her. She was in the office a fair bit, helping out in the radio room or with the filing.

“Here we are,” says Carl. “Get ready for the sales pitch.”

Land Rover Heaven is about 20 miles from town, on a large acreage next to the Curtain River. The mailbox, handmade from a section of tree trunk, says Ryerson. The driveway is a narrow lane, pinched together by dense spruce, so the house remains invisible until you’re at the front door. The house is old but well maintained. Chickens free range. So do kids. A half-dozen children play on a metal swing set and come running to the Forest Service truck when we stop.

“Are you a forest ranger?” asks a carrot-haired little boy as I get out.

“That would be the other fellow,” I tell them, and Carl is mobbed.

“Is your dad home?” Carl has a panicky look in his eye. I think he’s childphobic.

A screen door creaks and a tall, balding man in overalls steps out. He looks a little like a character from Little House on the Prairie, but around here that’s not unusual. We’re in redneck cottage country, where nostalgia is the uniform. Wear a suit in the city all day, then come home and assume another identity. The original back-to-the-landers realized that self-sufficiency was too much work and returned to the city. But their middle-aged kids have grown weary of the city and returned to the land. Cosmetically at least. It’s a natural process, like the rabbit or grouse cycle.

He extends an immense knuckly hand. “Pete Ryerson.”

The hand is calloused and scarred. No wonder he looks so authentic — he’s a real hillbilly. I pay more attention, notice a tire swing near the house and a company truck in the driveway. Like everyone else around here, he works for Curtain River Forest Products.

“Can I help you fellers?”

“I heard you might have some old Land Rovers. I’m looking for a starter.”

“Yeah —” He scratches his neck. “I got a few of them.”

No sales pitch today. He points toward a dilapidated barn. Farther back and barely visible behind a rank growth of weeds I see the familiar blocky lines of several Older Faithfuls. We amble in that direction, followed by giggling children. Ryerson shoos

them away, like chickens.

“You kids git on back now.”

The kids scatter and we climb over a corral fence. The ground behind the barn slopes toward a beaver pond which has partially submerged three of a dozen old Land Rovers. Some of the trucks are gutted but several are relatively complete. I’ll have to remember this place.

“I’m looking for a ’63.”

“Take your pick,” says Ryerson.

I begin to scavenge, wrenches in hand, walking gingerly — I’ve discarded the crutches, determined to get by on painkillers and willpower. Most of the vehicles have flat tires, which will make crawling beneath them a bit interesting. Ryerson sits on a fender, watches as I peer beneath the old wrecks. “Damn beavers,” he says. “A guy can’t win against the little buggers. Tear open the dam and they fix it by morning. I’ll have to shoot them, then get that guy to blow the dams again.”

“What guy?” I’m curious about anyone who travels around blowing up things.

Ryerson thinks for a moment. He’s not like any of the jws I’ve run into before, preaching about the day of judgment. Maybe he’s in the Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program. “Can’t remember his name,” he says. “But he drives an old hopped-up piece of shit Chevy, rusted to hell and as many colours as the rainbow.”

I get an apprehensive tingle — it’s the truck that followed me on my bike ride.

“You’re sure you don’t remember his name?”

Ryerson shrugs.

At the edge of the pond, half submerged, is a Land Rover with a starter. I work from the front, pull weeds out of the way and worm beneath the old clunker into a world of dirt and decaying grease that smells like an old garage. Rusty cross beams press above my nose. Bolts give way reluctantly and I skin my knuckles but win in the end and inch myself from beneath the wreck, hair matted with dirt and flakes of rust.

“What do I owe you?”

Ryerson considers. “Fifty bucks.”

A born haggler, I’m shocked. “Fifty bucks? That come with a warranty?”

“Take it or leave it. If it don’t work, come get another one.”

So much for haggling. I drop the starter in the back of Carl’s truck, wipe my hands on my coveralls, settle accounts. On the way back to town Carl proposes a detour. He needs to drop off a few pails of drinking water at the lookout tower, check on Gabe and his hair collection. I can retrieve my stashed mountain bike.

At the tower, Carl is in a bad mood. Peterson was supposed to clean out his accumulated junk but there are still boxes everywhere. Offers of warm lemonade do little to sooth Carl. He speaks in short, clipped sentences.

“I told you to get rid of this stuff,”he says. “Two weeks ago.This isn’t the Smithsonian.”

Peterson looks at me as if I might be an ally. I wait outside, gaze across the valley at the cutblocks. The man in camo had to have come from somewhere. Rachet should have checked the roads in the area for parked vehicles. It would have been easy to run a few licence plate numbers, come up with a name, check if the owner had a hunting licence. They caught Al Capone on tax evasion, Charles Ng on shoplifting.

My mountain bike is just where I left it and I hoist it into the battered box of Carl’s green Forest Service truck. We ride in silence down the tower road. Carl reaches for the box of crackers, offers me some. As we munch, I think about Ronald Hess. About Rachet trying to establish a connection.

“Carl, did you ever meet Ronald Hess when we were up in Fort Termination?”

Carl looks at me, shakes his head. “No. Why?”

“No reason. Just wondering how he fits in.”

Carl gears down as we approach the main road, comes to a halt at the edge of the grade.His long,aquiline face is troubled.“I don’t think he does, Porter. He was just in the wrong place.”

I nod, swallow a lump in my throat. He knows what I’m thinking.

“Just like Nina,” he says softly. “Bad timing.”