Saltwater Cowboys (16 page)

She didn't know what she'd do without Olive. For a few weeks after Christmas, Olive had approached Angela's house next door eagerly, knocking politely — she'd show up at least twice a week — looking to share an hour of companionship and the cup of tea Angela had promised. Angela consistently ignored her, wanting to be alone. Then one morning Olive simply barged in, threw back the curtains in the bedroom, lifted Lily out of her crib, changed her dirty diaper, and set Maggie in the bath. She propped Angela up on her pillow, pushed the hair away from her face, and spoon-fed her some hot homemade soup.

“Listen,” Olive had said, “you've lost one, but you still have three that you will lose if this keeps up.”

“You don't know what this feels like.”

“I've been there myself. I know what you are going through.”

“I don't want to get out of bed. I can't face this.”

“Fine then,” Olive said, “I'll call Children's Services. Imagine that? An Indian woman like me calling on a white woman? That'll be the first.”

“Fine, I'll go for walk with you just the once,” Angela said.

When they'd set out that first day, Angela had cried during the whole walk. “My legs hurt,” she said. “I can't do this. Why are you making me do this?” She was whiny as a child.

Olive did very little to coddle her new friend as they trudged through the snow day after day, the children strapped to sleds behind them.

Olive stood at her kitchen stove and stirred the moose-meat stew. It smelled like the muskiest thing imaginable, the fervid scent of charcoal embers, earthy, and smoky.

“Eh, you ever eat moose meat?” she asked Angela.

“Yes, sure, my love, lots of times, it's some good,” Angela answered mechanically.

“Eh, this might put some colour in your cheeks, put the white back under your shady eyelids, eh?” Olive said with a chuckle.

Angela blinked, squeezed back the tears, and looked at Olive, full of sorrow.

“You worry too much,” Olive said softly and placed a bowl of hot stew in front of her, potatoes and dumplings drowning in thick sauce. “This should soothe your stomach, eh?”

“Have you ever been with anyone else besides your husband?” Angela asked abruptly, staring above Olive's head, eyes glazed and stern.

Olive sat down at the table, her back erect. She stirred her stew with her left hand, in her right hand a thick chunk of bannock, which she dipped and nibbled at.

“What a strange question,” she said and laughed. “My husband,” she began slowly, “went trapping one fall, outside of Brochet. He was gone for two weeks. I was a hard drinker back then, before I had the babies, eh! We had a boozing night at the hotel, my girlfriends and I, and we met some prospectors from America. There was one, tall and blond.”

“Did you ever tell your husband?”

“Nope. And I won't, neither.”

“Why did you —”

“Curiosity, I guess, that's all. I'd never been with a white man, thought there'd be some difference, but there's none. It's not like it's different with a white or Indian man,” Olive said and snickered loudly. “I always thought it would be different, you know, with all the fighting my people and your people get up to, all the insults and the brawls at the bars. And then here comes this blond, blue-eyed man, who I was raised to think was evil, and he tells me the same thing. ‘My parents called you savages,' he told me once over a beer at the bar. For a few weeks, while my husband was away, and for the few weeks, he was prospecting,” she said and laughed again, “he was my best friend. We talked all day and all night, we learned so much about each other. I had the time of my life, and on his last night in town we slept together. We were just curious, I guess, but we should have stayed friends because the sex didn't really mean anything, not like it did with my husband, and when my husband came back to town, I knew he was my family, and no one could ever change that. There's a big difference. I love my husband. I felt close to this man, and in some way sex entered the picture, but we shouldn't have done it. It changed our friendship for sure.”

“I think Jack's been with someone else,” Angela finally blurted out.

Olive put a hand over her mouth.

“I know he's been with someone else,” Angela said and let her spoon sink into the thick stew gravy. “I saw the way a blonde woman looked at him during the winter carnival.” She started to cry.

“Hey, here,” Olive said and handed her a dishtowel full of holes and torn threads which hung off the sides. Angela wiped her face with it.

“He's worried all the time, wondering if I know. I can smell it on him, and it's my fault,” Angela whimpered, the cloth bunched in her tiny clamped fist.

“How is it your fault, eh?” Olive asked. “It probably just happened.”

“It happened alright, after my miscarriage, I'm sure of it. It happened after my body did that,” she hissed and balled the cloth like an angry cat, clawing at it.

“Not true,” Olive whispered. “You've got to snap out of it.”

“He's going to leave me for her.”

“You don't know that. It could just be a one-time thing, like the one I had. I never would have left my husband; do you think I'm crazy enough to have done that? Nope. I love him, I did even then. Jack loves you, I know it, I can see it. Don't let what could just have been a silly drinking mistake ruin your marriage.”

Angela's eyes darted back and forth, but she saw very little. She was tied up in knots, confused, so she pulled the threads free from the ripped cloth and clasped it between palms like a stone she wanted to hurl.

The next day, while their husbands were at work, Angela and Olive sat in the waiting room, Monique asleep in Olive's arms, Lily and Susie next to Angela, playing with green and yellow blocks, Maggie and Brandi with a book.

“It shouldn't be too long now.”

“No, I guess not.”

The nurse appeared in the doorway, a lumpy mustard cardigan over her white uniform.

When she called Angela's name, Angela rose and quickly followed her into the examining room.

“Nothing yet,” the nurse said. “You're not pregnant. Lab results show no abnormalities. Keep trying,” she said cheerfully and patted Angela on the arm.

Angela's face fell as she shuffled back out of the room and scooped Lily up in her arms. Lily immediately whined, sensing her mother's frustration.

Olive followed quietly behind. She watched her friend's face compassionately and held her baby tightly as they walked toward Olive's old pick-up truck. A robin pattered along a small twig extending from a balsam poplar, its belly swelling.

“She'll have babies soon,” Angela said glumly.

Olive turned on an AM talk radio station. The guests were discussing why poor people always had to have so many children. She quickly turned it off as Angela sighed and shook her head.

T
he spring thaw quietly stole away the mounds of snow on the ground, water wound down drainpipes, froze mid-drip, and formed large daggers of ice with bases so thick children called them horses' legs and cracked them with lumpy snowballs. The adults called them
piñata
s of the north, the prize for cracking them the glint of the newly freed sunbeam, which had been blocked behind thick translucent ice. The danger wasn't a sickly stomach from ingesting an abundance of sweet treats, but the threat of blood spilled from the slice of the hapless icicles.

Rivulets of water cascaded over snowbanks. Gravel and rock punctured the snow. Patches of vertical grass struggled through the thin ice that rested over it like egg whites. The sun had started to rise earlier and the air smelled as fresh as a honeydew melon.

On a bright Saturday morning in March, Jack drove through town with Katie and Maggie buckled in beside him. They'd packed a lunch of tuna sandwiches and hot sugary tea in a glass pickle jar wrapped in a wool sock.

They passed the civic centre and took the only road out of town, which crossed Peace River and led toward the garbage dump. Katie and Maggie'd had a hard time sleeping last night, they were so excited by the prospect of going to the town garbage dump. “We'll see so many black bears,” Katie had said. “They're coming out of hibernation, and the first thing they'll do is look for food at the dump.”

Jack volunteered to drive them so they could park at a safe distance and watch the black bears and their cubs forage for food. Angela had allowed it — he hadn't a clue how Katie had talked her into letting them go — but wanted them back home in three hours.

She was still overprotective but was beginning to come round.
At least she's not lying in bed all day and all night anymore
, he thought gratefully.

Jack pulled onto a muddy dirt road. He drove carefully so he wouldn't flick loose rocks onto the windshield. Birch tree branches, purple and asphyxiated, ran their thin stems across the windshield. Jack drove over potholes and the girls bounced in the seat beside him, Katie on a pile of cushions and Maggie on several folded-up towels, warmed over the heater before they left that morning. They turned onto the wide-open and barren landfill site, the ground black and rocky, bloated with bags, gorged with garbage.

They sat still and took turns drinking out of the wide-mouthed jar. Then Katie spotted movement in the island of waste. Something was rummaging through an industrial waste bag.

“I think it's a bear!” she shouted.

Jack squinted tightly through a sunbeam and looked skeptically at the hunched figure. “That's a man,” he told Katie as the figure raised his head to grab a new bag.

There amongst the garbage bags, kitchen waste, broken headboards, battered cribs, rusted high chairs, and old tires crouched Peter Fifield. His brow was knotted, the muscles around his mouth tight and downcast, his eyes erratic, moving busily as if following the trajectory of a fly. Jack couldn't imagine what Peter was doing here alone on a Saturday morning. His chest tightened. He must be in such bad shape financially that he was looking for furniture or clothing.

“Don't worry, girls, we'll see a bear. Lock the doors, don't get out. Dad will be back in a few minutes.”

Jack stepped out of the truck, closed the door gently, and picked his way through the garbage. A tomato soup can grazed his ankle and left a thick red clump of scum on his jeans. He waded through diapers, cracked wooden spoons, and crumpled balls of foil wrap.

“Peter?”

Peter jumped and covered himself with two garbage bags.

“Come out, it's only me.”

Peter emerged from the pile of garbage.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Peter answered sternly.

“Nothing?” Jack said and laughed. “You're out here on a Saturday morning by yourself, rooting through the trash, and it's nothing?”

“Leave me alone,” Peter hissed.

“What are you looking for? Peter, I can help you, we've got all kinds of kids' clothes we can give Wanda for Susie. We've got an extra stroller, you don't have to pick —”

“Please, go home,” Peter said through clenched his teeth. He tightened a fist.

“I'm not leaving you here by yourself —”

Pete raised the sooty fist and smacked Jack in the nose. Jack fell back into the plastic bags. One ripped open and covered him with paper towels, dirty cleaning rags, and flattened cardboard boxes with the logo of Noraldo Operating Corporation emblazoned on all sides.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Jack plugged his nostril with one hand and clawed his way out of the boxes with the other.

“You better not tell a soul that I was here.”

“What are you up to?” Jack asked as a lump fell from Pete's pocket. It was a small black chunk of ore laced with gold.

They stared silently at the beautiful lump of raw currency.

Suddenly they heard a flurry of honks from the car's horn. The girls were jumping up and down in the cab and pointing behind Jack and Peter. A big fat black bear stood on its hind legs, its fur matted and unclean, large paws swiping at the air, its snout twitching as it inched toward them.

They scrambled to their feet, slipped on the slimy garbage bags and slid on soiled diapers and rotten food. Peter stopped to gather the fallen ore.

“Are you nuts? Move,” Jack yelled.

As they reached their vehicles the bear fell to his four legs and ambled languidly, its big haunches waddling, toward a pile of rotting food.

Peter clutched the nuggets of ore to his chest.

A week later Peter called Jack. “I'm coming over,” he said briskly.

Jack hung up and stood at the window, watching for his friend, oblivious to the children playing or Angela humming. Spring had lightened Angela's mood somewhat; these days she was less irritable. She'd started baking, planning for summer picnics, and scouring the Sears catalogue for outfits for the girls.

All week, Jack had grown more and more worried about Peter and what he'd seen him doing at the dumpsite.

Since then he'd avoided Peter, feeling awkward about his situation and powerless at not being able to help as much as he'd wanted to. So he'd pretended to be out shovelling the driveway when his friend called. For the last few days he'd leave the mine site as early as he could to board the white bus with the rest of the miners, avoiding a ride home with Pete.

Jack heard a car pull into the driveway and looked out the living room window. “Jesus,” he whispered.

“What do you think?” Pete asked as they stood in front of a shiny new cherry-red four-by-four.

“Is it yours?”

Pete pointed to the tires, ran his palms across the trunk, popped the hood, and displayed the engine. “When they repossessed the first one, I had my mind fixed on getting a sports car, but then I thought to myself, the terrain around here —”

“How did you —”

“Let's take this for a drive.”

Angela came to the front window with Lily on her hip. Lily's little face was smeared with chocolate from a crumbling brownie. Angela watched him pull the new car out of the driveway, his head cocked to one side. Lily flapped her wrist like a fish on a hook, waving goodbye.

“What did you tell Wanda?”

“I told her not to ask any questions. To trust me.”

Jack's brow tightened in a V-shape. “And she does?”

“We lost everything. We could have been homeless.”

“I wouldn't have let that happen to you.”

“I thought you had enough problems of your own.”

Jack fought the urge to punch him in his grubby gob. He had every right to focus on his wife; she was falling apart too. “So I'm part of the reason you decided to take ore from work?”

“You didn't have my back. I had to do something,” Peter said.

“It was a bad time for us,” Jack said firmly.

“Well, that's all in the past. It'll be good times from now on.”

The two men lapsed into silence as they drove through Foxville. A few of the miners on their crew waved and gave them the thumbs up, smiling appreciatively at Pete's new vehicle.

“Angela asked me about the car,” Jack said on Monday after work. They were going out to The Coyote Dinner for a family dinner — Peter and Wanda's treat for helping out with short-term loans and for watching Susie.

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her I supposed your father sent money.”

Peter laughed. “A retired miner, sending money. She didn't believe a word of it, did she?”

Jack shook his head. He was already worn out from all of this foolishness. He'd been up all night on Saturday wondering how Peter had been taking ore from the mine: how much and for how long — and worse, why hadn't Jack himself noticed that anything was going on? Why had he misinterpreted Peter's silence to mean that everything was all right, and that his crisis had been solved?
Some friend
, he thought.

On Sunday evening, Angela had pestered him constantly, demanded to know what — and she knew something — was going on. She sprang to life when she wanted to find something out. Her eyes gleamed and she wouldn't rest. Her fascination with Peter's sudden financial turnaround trumped her despair about the miscarriage. It was as if Peter and Wanda were lost children to her, and in their attempts at filling the void in their bank account, it filled the void in her life. She had a purpose: to find out what they were up to and somehow redeem them, to restore order. Jack thought it was all a way for her to make things go back to the way they were before Peter became small and defeated, before his re-emergence as a plundering shark.

“Have you made enough yet to pay back your debts?” Jack asked.

“Almost,” Peter said casually.

“Stop then, alright?”

Peter shook his head. “There's a lot we can take.”

“We?”

“I need your help.”

“No way,” Jack said and squirmed out of the booth, red vinyl squeaking as he slung both legs into the aisle. “I won't get involved in this.”

“You said you've got my back.”

“No —”

At that moment, Wanda, Angela, and the children walked into the diner. Jack hurried to greet them, kissed each of their cheeks and looked at Angela urgently, wanting to leave as quickly as he could. Over dinner Peter was showy and loud. He cracked jokes about his clumsy thumbs — as big as a hammer, people often said — and how they curled around the hamburger like beef tongues. Wanda laughed as he moved his fingers like sloppy tongues and made them speak with a silly strong bay accent. Susie kicked her feet. Angela rolled her eyes and kicked Jack under the table. Jack smiled weakly from one face to another, unsure of what to do.

A bald, robust man tapped Peter on the shoulder. “You mind keeping it down?”

“Sure, no problem, buddy,” Peter said and continued to make noise.

“Those stupid Newfies are so loud,” his wife said, her short red hair bold against ivory skin. She sipped at her strawberry shake and frowned toward their table.

“Don't —” Angela whispered as Wanda drew herself up from the table, placed her fat fists on her hips, and stood in front of them. “Don't you ever call us stupid again or I'll —”

“What?” the man said. “Throw gravel at us from that sad street you live on?”

Wanda's mouth fell open and her cheeks turned purple.

Jack and Peter stood up and calmly and quietly shepherded the family out of the restaurant.

This is the only street in town with unpaved roads
, Angela thought. She decided that she would write a letter to the town council and ask all the neighbours to sign it, demanding that the road be paved. All that they were given was this dirt road connecting the mobile homes, an inchworm of a road, full of potholes and water. It was dull, drab, and depressing.

A clump of hardened sand lay on her front lawn, which would need to be seeded in a few weeks when the frost ceased. It was a barren, desolate clump of sod that had been dumped in front of the unkempt trailer park. She sighed heavily and pictured spring in Brighton: the forsythias, tulips, daffodils, and the fresh green dandelion they'd pick from the garden to boil up with potatoes and salty beef. The fresh cucumbers and beets they'd pick from the little plot of fertile black dirt in the backyard. On days like this she missed it terribly.

In this trailer park she felt as if she lived in an army barracks. In the homes of foot soldiers, the ones of low rank, members of the “reserve,” the ones hired when the company was desperate. If they fell in battle, they wouldn't be missed. Wanda and Peter's place down the street would be deserted the first chance they got, she thought, what with Peter's mysterious windfall. She snorted. They'd get promoted, obtain rank, and leave this dingy part of town.

Beside Angela's home was Olive's trailer. In one window she had sheets, old Hudson's Bay Company material, red, green, blue, and yellow stripes on the edges, thumb-tacked up for curtains, on the other window a pale pink sheet full of holes and tiny white rosebud stencils peppered throughout. Both of the makeshift curtains were cinched in the middle with a frayed cloth measuring tape.

Jack's car and Peter's new cherry red four-by-four pulled into Jack's driveway. They all heard a loud bang and the child next door screamed.
That's all he does
, Angela thought,
is scream
. The dog whimpered, still mercilessly chained to the tree, its tongue hanging out dryly. Angela was repulsed by her neighbour's treatment of the dog yet proud of her children for secretly feeding it once a week.
They should just let it go, set it free; that's what a real man would do, not let it starve like some dependent monster surrounded by its own waste
, she thought as her nose crinkled at the mounds of dusty, dry, white, and pink feces that surrounded the chained prisoner.