Saltwater Cowboys (18 page)

She sat upright and whispered, “How are we going to pay for a new car? Why did you say that? We don't have any stocks.”

“I'm sorry, my love —”

“We don't have a lot, but we don't need to try to keep up with them. It's none of our business what they have. We should be happy with what we've got, food on the table and a roof over our heads,” she said pleadingly.

“I just —”

“I know things have been rough, and her things are lovely, but we can't compete with them. We've got three kids, not one, and we need to take care of them.”

“I'll work harder.”

“I talked to Mr. Papineau at the grocery mart the last time I was getting groceries. They need someone for a few hours on the weekend. I got an application in. It's time I contributed.”

“I won't see my wife working at that store.”

“Why not?”

“Because you've had a rough winter and you need to be with the girls. I'll work harder, I'll get some overtime, I'll make things better for the lot of ye, I swear.”

“If it's a new car you want, let me help too.”

“No. You won't need to. I'll be able to do it.

“You're ashamed of your wife working at the grocery store, while your best friend's wife dresses in silk.”

Jack lowered his head and turned away. He balled his fists up under the pillows and buried his head in the lumpy mound.

U
nderground, Jack slipped off to the washroom on the upper stope. As he walked through the black tunnel he passed men illuminated by the lamp on his hard hat, with dirty, sweaty skin and eyes that bulged with weariness.

Peter had told him he'd been taking the ore after a blast, chunks of it, hiding it under his hard hat, in his boots, strapping it to his thighs, and had been bringing it to the washroom on his breaks. He'd wrapped it in used paper towels and stuffed it in the garbage bins, to be removed and sent to the dump once a week, on Friday evenings. He'd never have gotten past security with it in any hiding place he could have dreamed up on his body, whether it be in his lunch tin, wrapped in his sandwich bag, stored in his Thermos, hidden in his boots, or hard hat.

In the gritty bathroom Jack flicked on the bare bulb suspended from an iron girder, lopsided and flecked with rust, and pissed in the dusty urinal. He washed his hands in a brown trickle of water. In the mirror his blue eyes were dull and puffy and his cheeks were sallow. His hands shook as he fussed with the tap. He dried his hands and threw the towel in the open bin. He pushed the crumpled towels aside. A few lumps of ore laced with thick ribbons of unrefined gold lay amongst the toilet paper rolls.

“Christ almighty,” he whispered and whistled aloud. He imagined all that he could buy for his wife and children. Peter had agreed to share some of the ore with him if he would bring the ore to the men who took it to Calgary and assayed it for gold, then sold it on the black market.

Jack wanted to put Angela in a nice big house, to let her cook and bake all day long if that's what she wanted, or have Mary Kay parties with Wanda. Jack would like to dress her up in fine clothes. They could have a bigger home and get a better car.

He'd watched her last night before bed as she put cream on her feet, filing the callouses on her heels with a big silver block. She wouldn't have to look after other people's children anymore; she wouldn't have to suffer at the mercy of other people's moods and demands. She could hire a housekeeper if she wanted to.
I'll leave this place someday too. I'll make sure I have enough stowed away, I'll make sure I don't spend it all so we can leave here in a few years, go back home, buy a big house in Brighton, open a hunting and fishing lodge for the tourists. My kids can go to Memorial University, become teachers and lawyers
, Jack thought.

At that moment the heavy aluminum door opened dully and a miner Jack didn't know walked in.

“What the hell are you doing?” the man asked.

“Lost my wedding ring,” Jack said and laughed loudly. He rose to his feet and covered the ore in the pile of dirty toilet paper rags.

Bobbi smiled as Jack took his place beside her on the stope. The shift boss had scheduled them together on the same days this month, which suited Bobbi; she'd grown tired of working nights. She couldn't help but be hopeful.
He looks so handsome
, she thought, watching him out of the corner of her eye. His black hair was sticking out from underneath his hard hat and his sea-blue eyes were serious as he worked. He had the cutest overbite, plum-coloured lips, and a pointy, protruding Adam's apple that wobbled when he spoke. He was skinny and lanky — fitting for someone with Irish blood — and sexy in an unusual way. His hip rested in the crook of his twisted leg, and his dishevelled jeans wound around his thin calves. She'd put on orange blossom cologne this morning, hoping he would notice.
If only I wasn't so dirty down here, he might —
“Jack?” she said suddenly and faced him. “I was wondering if —”

“Not now,” he said sharply and turned away from her.

Something's going on
, she thought, and she went reluctantly back to work, peering over her shoulder every few minutes to watch him, wondering.

Jack was late coming off his shift. Bobbi stopped him at security.

“You can't ignore me forever,” she said brazenly.

Jack shrugged and didn't say a word, kept his eyes on the gravel. She slunk to the back of the crowd and shook her head in frustration. As he approached Peter's truck he saw Watson and Wisnoski crowded around the truck, placing bets on the crew's hockey pool. Peter was collecting the money.

“The Flames talk a good game but Montreal will flatten them in the eleventh hour,” Peter said.

“Here comes hop-along,” Wisnoski said and gestured to Jack.

“With a crooked leg like that, you wouldn't want him on your offence,” Watson said.

“Curved just like a hockey stick he is, and as skinny as one too,” Wisnoski said and laughed.

Jack scowled and gave Wisnoski the finger.

The men laughed and Watson coughed up a phlegmy hock.

“Those investments you are making, any chance of getting in on them?” Watson asked.

“Tell you what, let's see who has the best instincts in the hockey pool, then we'll talk,” Peter said and winked. He pulled out of the parking lot and drove toward home. Jack was silent.

“Cold?” Peter asked.

“No.”

“What's wrong?” Peter asked.

Jack reddened. He didn't want to say. He shifted in his seat and slung his arm over the back of the seat in an effort to appear relaxed.

“You're going to let those two jackasses in on it?”

“I need help,” Peter said.

Jack couldn't believe he'd let those two get involved. Who were they anyway? A bunch of loudmouth goons with curdled brains. How could Peter trust them? He didn't know them from squat. They were strangers, and who knew who they'd tell, their wives, their friends, drinking buddies — or worse, other strangers they'd just met while drinking at the bar, people they wanted to impress over one too many beers.

No, this required something these men didn't have: loyalty. This was what Jack had in spades. It was in the cards. Jack had to help him, he knew it, or Peter would get caught. Get caught by the police or get caught up with strangers — that would be worse. It would mean they'd all prosper and Jack would be left behind. He didn't want to be left behind. The sight of that ore was mesmerizing; it acted on him like a drink. Jack wanted what it promised.

“I'll help you,” Jack said.

“I knew you'd come round.”

“When can I start?”

“Tomorrow night.”

After work the next evening, Jack's hand trembled at the wheel of Peter's car. One shaky hand tumbled over the other as he turned the wheel carefully around the last curve in the road before he pulled into the Chinook Tavern's parking lot.

It was a chilly spring night. Condensation and vapour was thick around bare black trees, curling around tailpipes and the wheels of parked cars. Yet Jack was sweating. He was tense and agitated; his back stiffened at the slightest noise. He parked the car and wiped the sweat from his neck with the back of his hand. He grabbed the duffel bag beside him and walked into the tavern.

Locals drank quietly as they played cards and watched the hockey game. The waitress leaned lazily over the counter, the tavern's drinking glasses polished and stacked behind her. She fussed with her top; the elastic midriff had ridden up over her change-apron. She tucked it under the drawstring and poured a beer for a skinny man with white hair, a large red bulbous nose, and shaky hands, scabbed with eczema.

Jack had been told to sit at a table close to the door and to put the duffel bag under his feet. The “partners” would sit beside him, have a beer, and when Jack was ready to leave, he'd take their bag instead of his. Simple.

Two men opened the door and the scent of sweet pine filled the room. Jack wrapped his foot protectively around the duffel bag on the floor at the edge of the table. It was the explosives salesmen from Calgary, the cowboys who had beaten up Pete.
Those bastards, they're not going to take this from me now, not here, not now. I'll kill them if I have to, I'll wrap the bag around their heads and suffocate them.
He trembled at the sight of the tall, burly, callous men in their steel-toed leather boots and rawhide hats, fighters, turf-mongers, vigilante mercenaries for the cause of Alberta the sacred, elsewhere the profane.

And then Jack noticed it clasped in the hands of the second cowboy: a grey-and-white duffel bag.

“Christ almighty,” Jack whispered and gulped.

He wanted to kick the duffel bag under the table leg, hide the fact that he was the one they were looking for, he was the one they were to do business with. Jack scrambled to his feet and considered running to his car, driving back to Pete's, giving him the duffel bag, and letting him deal with this. Walking away from it all without a cent taken, but it was too late; they'd seen the bag.

One of the men stood behind Jack and put a hand on his shoulder. “What's your hurry. You haven't even drunk your beer.” They both sat next to Jack and hollered at the waitress.

She looked over, the edge of her top sticking out again from her change apron, revealing her spotty back. Her jeans clung tightly to her skin. Red-and-gold piping, plump and vein-like, snaked its way down the sides of her denims. “Beers, huh?” she yelled.

The men grunted.

She opened frosty bottles with a flick of the wrist and brought them to the table, lugging them by their necks like limp chickens.

Jack picked up his glass of beer and gulped it. It was horrible, the frothy yellow liquid sour like bog-water. As he swallowed the last mouthful, white foam slid down the side of the glass.

He watched her, the men, the empty glass, and the duffel bags at their feet. The cowboys bantered between themselves and paid no attention to Jack.
Do it, do it now,
he thought and reached for the duffel bag closest to the cowboys' feet.

He picked it up and walked to the door.

“Hey, where the hell do you think you're going?”

He stopped.

“You didn't pay for your beer,” the waitress snarled.

“Oh,” Jack said quietly, his voice breaking as he reached for a five-dollar bill in his back pocket. It was damp with sweat. She hurried over and snatched it out of his hand.

The cowboys glared at him. He reddened deeply and fumbled with the doorknob. He yanked the door open and the cool air pooled around his legs and torso. He drove back to town, passing ptarmigan and jackrabbits on the road. His headlights caught the glint of a fox's eye. The wild animals were hungry in the spring, coming out of the forest, brazenly crossing the road, hunting their prey, mice, snakes, and insects. His throbbing heart was deafening with its insistent thump, hot blood painful as it pulsed at the back of his skull.

He pulled into the parking lot of the Civic Centre to pick up Peter after his curling game. He cut the motor and hauled at the zipper of the duffel bag. Inside were brown and russet stacks of tidy one-hundred-dollar bills.

When he returned home, he found Angela in the bedroom. He knelt at her bedside, reached into the flimsy pocket of his faded gravel-white jeans, and pulled out a wad of bills. Angela stared at the bills and her heart sank.

“Where did you get all that money?”

“It's why I had to go meet Pete,” he lied and ruffled the money in front of her face. “And there's more,” he murmured and cupped her head into his chest. “We'll start again, get a nicer home and grow a garden. It'll be just like Brighton. You'll be able to have more children.”

She wrestled herself free from his embrace and scowled at him.

“Where did you get this money?”

He put a warm hand on her belly. The wedding ring on his finger snagged a loose thread on her old green turtleneck. She brushed his hand away; several threads unravelled and left a gash in the fabric over her abdomen. She stared at the hole and her eyes grew moist. Jack placed the money in her hand and held it there. She passed the money back, whispered his name, and watched him walk away. She stood there and cried, rubbing her hand over her abdomen.
How dare he
, she thought,
how dare he make it about that?
She felt betrayed, as if she didn't know him at all, and that from here on in, whatever she wanted wouldn't matter.

Jack was woken up that night by the mournful howl of the dog next door. He threw back the knobby wool quilt, grabbed his old jeans, and crept to the kitchen. He took a cold leftover steak from the fridge and shoved on his boots; the still cold late-May air pinched his exposed skin as the aluminum door slammed shut behind him.

Crisp dew on soil cracked under the weight of his feet. The dog thumped its tail listlessly as Jack approached, its head down passively, broken and begging. Jack threw the steak and the dog gobbled it quickly then pawed and nipped at the bone. It dug out the marrow and the brown and grainy bits got stuck to its nose.

Jack yanked off the choke chain and pulled the dog forward on its neck, its hind legs slipping on the frozen dew. It broke free at last and the silver choke chain wilted. The loops fell through one another to form a straight line that hung limply in Jack's hand.

The dog bolted and ran toward the forest at the back of the house. Jack watched it scamper away, its weak knees knocking and trembling with fatigue as it struggled through the slippery foliage. Jack let the choke chain fall to the ground and kicked away the bone.
I should have done that a long time ago
, he thought and exhaled loudly.

As the sun peeped out over the horizon, pockets of golden light buttered the clouds and warm rays travelled across his chest.

They stood in front of Jack for a moment and then sat down. Jack drained his glass of beer and grabbed the bag on the right. He kicked the bag on the left closer to the seated cowboys. The square-faced one with shoulders like crates tipped his hat. Jack pinched his eyebrows together and scowled at them. The smaller one snickered, his thin lips curling.

Jack had done this twice a month since early spring. He wondered if anyone had noticed their routine, probably not — all too drunk, too settled into their own drinking routines to notice anything odd about anyone else's behaviour in a bar.