Pig: A Thriller (13 page)

“You like hockey?” Magda asked.

Snow stood up and the bones in his backbone cracked like dominoes being slapped on the table. “No,” he answered. “I used to like hockey. It’s kind of like sex before marriage. It used to be fun. Now, it’s just one more damn thing to take your pants off for.”

“What else do you think is too much trouble to take your pants off for? I mean besides sex and hockey?”

Snow shrugged. “Pretty much everything,” he admitted. He reached into his pocket and slathered on a layer of Chap Stick to keep his lips moist. Magda watched him with interest. Vanilla with a hint of black cherry and some lanolin. There was something better than pork lard to be found here.

“What are these?” she asked, tugging at the box of Coffee Crisp bars Snow kept under his cot. “Do you mind?”

Snow sneezed from the dust rising up from the box. “Why not.”

Magda leaned down and helped herself to one of the golden wrappers. It was the start of a lifelong relationship. The confection proved to become a very popular item at the deficit exchange club. In future, Magda would have Snow order them for her by the carton.

             
“Quick! What was the last thing you were thinking about after you sneezed?” Magda demanded.

             
“What?”

             
“Before you sneezed. What were you thinking about?

             
“Why?”

             
“It is a sign from your guardian angel. At the  moment you sneeze, you have to pay attention to what you were thinking about. Do it, and the thought will come true.”

“Really? I was thinking you were just about to leave. Now, make it come true.”

Snow had lied. What he had been thinking was that he didn’t mind having Magda here to talk to at all.

Some people learn from books, some listen to their mothers and some are just fucking born geniuses (genii?). Some learn from their mistakes. Snow fell into none of the above categories. He had to leave the ranch before he learned there was more to life than heifers, mosquitoes, country music and fried bologna.

Or hockey.

Ask any American and they can tell you exactly where they were on November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time. That, of course, is when President Kennedy was assassinated.  For Canadians, the equivalent day is September 28, 1972, the day the Canadian hockey dream almost died.  Far more than Confederation in 1867, the defining date of when Canada came together as a country is 1972.

That Canada, the birthplace of hockey, was the best in the world at the game was taken as a given not only on the ranch but throughout the country, despite the fact that the Soviet Union had won the last nine World Hockey Championships. There was always the excuse that Canada couldn’t use its best players because they were professionals and not eligible for international competition. Then, in 1972, at the height of the Cold War, the two countries agreed to play an eight-game series to decide who was the best once and for all. The Soviets were not expected to give the Canadians any kind of challenge;  Canada expected to win eight games to zero. And yet, after five games, the Canadian record was 1-3-1, with only three games left, all on Soviet ice. The Canadians would have to sweep the next three games to win the series, something that now seemed impossible. But that’s exactly what they did.

Any Canadian who is old enough can tell you exactly what he or she was doing on that date when Paul Henderson scored the winning 6-5 goal at 19:26 of the final period of the eighth game, just thirty four seconds from defeat. In retrospect, the win seemed divine. Henderson wasn’t even supposed to be on the ice. Never more than a journeyman player, once again sitting on the bench as a reserve, he suddenly stood up and, without the coach’s permission, waved star forward Peter Mahovlich off the ice. Later, he would explain that he just somehow knew that he was supposed to score the winning goal. Sitting in his basement thirty miles from Buffalo Jump, the young Snow was so excited he jumped up off the chesterfield and punched a hole in the ceiling with his raised fist. His father would make him pay for and repair the damage himself. Snow didn’t care. He spent the rest of the day racing around the rumpus room with a yardstick and a marble pretending he was Henderson with a stick and puck. Snow had found his game, something to replace his mother. Some thing to live for until some one came along.

Once, on the ranch, in the middle of the night, it rained. The next day, Snow skipped his chores for a game of pick-up hockey on the slough with the Hutterite neighbours. Halfway through the game the puck skipped over the snow piled around the edges to simulate boards onto a nearby stream. The other kids joined him and they took the game from the rink to the open fields. They skated for miles, following the game where it took them, no longer confined to the cramped boards of the arena. It was never-ending, almost surreal.

“You know,” Snow told Magda. “I think that was the first time I realized that there was hope after my mother was gone. And now I won’t even take off my pants to play."

             
“No, that’s not it,” challenged Magda. “There’s something more. Something you’re not telling me.”

Not something. Someone. Snow had spent a lifetime alone, but not necessarily lonely, keeping things close to his chest. It wasn’t easy to start opening up now.

Jillian Barrows lived on a ranch a few range roads over from the Nastiuks. The Nastiuks and the Barrows had arrived in the New World on different parts of the same ship. The Barrows enjoyed the high life above deck, enjoying the balls and social life, their grand piano and personal effects afforded better space below decks than the Nastiuks were given in the cargo hold. While the  Barrows were deeded their land by Royal Decree, the Nastiuks worked their way through a series of increasingly speculative and dangerous jobs, until they eventually became homesteaders, pioneers, granted title only after they  had managed to clear ten acres of the land and erect a residence. The Barrows first residence was made of mortar and brick, the Nastiuks’ from sod and buffalo skins. One was to the other as Velveeta is to Brie.

Didn’t matter. The two of them – Jillian and Snow -- hit it off, both the only children on large ranches where their parents were too busy to care who their offspring passed the days with. They grew up making tree forts in the willows down by the headwaters of the Oldman, riding to school together on a single mount, branding and calving and castrating during the seasons, giggling and tickling out in the high grass where no one could see them sunbathing topless.