Saltwater Cowboys (22 page)

A montage ran through her mind: Jack when he first arrived, how timid and shy he was, his friend Peter getting swindled, then beaten up — the severe changes in Jack's mood, his self-absorption, his giddiness yet nervousness this spring.
Me. I thought it had something to do with me — you foolish girl — he probably never thought twice about me after last winter. I thought he was worrying about us and his wife, when it's all been about this. The torment and the worry I saw him go through — and the smug bastard he's become lately — it's all been about this. Stealing gold? Oh my god.

After a dreadful morning on the stope she walked wearily to the lunchroom. She'd been numb with shock. Numb with anger and overwhelmed by too much truth. Too much had been revealed, and she couldn't pretend anymore.

In the lunchroom, she noticed his lunch tin was out of the fridge. Knox, Wisnoski, and Watson were eating and talking hockey. She barely heard them. Someone made a snide remark about her legs and shouted that they “wanted some” from her. Normally she ignored them, decrepit lot that they were, but today she turned around slowly and faced them with a sardonic smile. She spoke slowly and deliberately.

“You want some, eh?”

One of the men whistled.

“Well, I've got some for you. Some news to share. Something that's worth its weight in gold,” she said and straddled a chair backwards beside Wisnoski. She swallowed what was in her nose, spat it up on the concrete, wiped her hand roughly across her mouth, and told them what she'd seen in Jack's lunch tin.

After work Jack waved to the cowboy as he pulled up in the parking lot. He wiped the salt from his seat, a plate of fried chicken and chips from the tavern snack bar on his lap. He'd been waiting outside the tavern for an hour.

“We had a late sales conference at the mine,” the cowboy said.

Jack grunted and pushed the duffel bag through the window.

The cowboy handed him the bag of money. “Join us for a beer before we head back to the city?”

“Nah, gottta get home to the wife.”

“Smells good, that fried chicken. My daddy was a chicken farmer in Strathmore. I used to snap the heads off the chickens when I was a kid then we'd fire them up with a blowtorch or set them ablaze with a magnifying glass,” he said and laughed through his greenish buck teeth.

Jack nodded and cowered behind the wheel of his new car. He drove home faster than ever, all the while checking his rear-view mirror for the cowboy who liked to kill chickens.

I took too much; I'm going to get caught! No, not too much. I've only taken three-four-five nuggets; they'll never be missed.
In the dream that woke Peter up, the heavy ore was strapped to his boots, thighs, and hard hat. It had pulled his feet downward into a black hole. He'd forgotten to tie himself to the safety belt and he could see himself falling. He woke up startled, his mouth dry and the back of his neck wet.

Wanda snored beside him, soft spurts of quiet exhalations, a contented, gentle sound, a warm mammal coasting on easy waters.

He needed air. He got up and threw on the new pair of jeans that Wanda had bought for him. They were too fashionable; he craved his old Levi's. She'd thrown them out. He yearned for them; soft and comfortable around the waist, with threadbare areas in the knees and pockets, they were what he knew, they were what he always wore. He waddled to the door, picking denim out of his rear as he wriggled inside the too-tight material.

He left the house through the back door, almost tripping over Wanda's gigantic backyard flowerpots. She'd subscribed to a decorating magazine and these were suggested items to give “backyard charm” it had said, and Wanda wanted plenty of people to envy and admire her yard and think she had charm.

The night was warm, the sun still red and low. A grey oyster colour seemed to drench the fringes of the horizon. The town was quiet. It must have been close to midnight. Peter wandered the length of town and found himself back at the foot of the trailer court in an hour. Angela was seated at the edge of a mossy hill that overlooked a sand dune succession that led to the forest.

“Out awful late?” he said and winced as he climbed the hill in those tight jeans.

Angela smiled. “Couldn't sleep.”

“Me neither.”

He sat beside her and they stared at the forest scrub, lost in thought.

“I'm sorry about the baby.”

“Sorry you got beat up.”

“Those were a rough few months.”

Angela woefully turned to him. “What's been going on?”

He stammered evasively.

“Don't try to fool me. I've been watching you, and you don't see or hear anything else besides the wheels spinning in your head. Plans of glory, or money, or whatever it is that's got you so wrapped up in yourself. You're not the same person I grew up with. All you do is flash money around. What good has money done except make you want more? It's a pit as bottomless and dark as the mine you work in, and now that you've left everyone for that pit and all its promises, you're gone. It's taken you away from us. I know I've no right to say anything, I'm not Wanda, but I can see no good come of it, and you can't even see further than your fistful of cash.”

“I'm providing. There's light — happiness and pride — shining from my wife's face for the first time in a long time.”

“Even the light underground eventually gets filled, Peter, with leftover rock, throwaways and disposables, and whatever you've got going on. Guaranteed you are disposable.”

“I —”

“All of us are going to go down with you, you know that, don't you?”

He slumped forward and buried his forehead and temples in balled fists.

“Fix this. There's still time,” she said urgently and walked toward her trailer.

That Monday at work Jack entered the underground lunchroom last; he'd had a box of defective blasting dynamite to tend to and reported it to Russell Knox, who had blamed Jack for not being careful enough. Duties in the warehouse complete, he stumbled in the lunchroom. The light was blinding, men's voices, rough and irritating, talking about sports, fishing, or their cars. He grabbed his lunch tin from the fridge, sat down heavily on a chair at the end of the table, empty seats on either side of him, and unclasped the hinges and swung open the creaky lid. More nuggets were nestled atop his sandwich. He closed the lid quickly.

Watson watched him quietly, his mouth full of a Klick and lettuce sandwich. “Something rotten in your lunch tin?” he said and smiled smugly.

“Pack off, for Jesus's sake,” Jack said.

“Touchy,” Watson said and laughed.

Jack ran out of the room, lunch tin under his arm, and headed to the washroom. It was dark in every corner and crevice. Rats stumbled alongside him, heavy machinery wailed. The light on his hard hat went out.
Where's the light? Where the hell is the light?
Walls, hard studs, and support beams cut and slashed his fingertips and palms as he felt his way along. He counted his steps toward the washroom. His hands were bloody. His fingers slipped on the doorknob. He grappled with it again and the door creaked open. The light bulb suspended above sent out a weak swell of light. Jack sighed and stumbled in. He put the lunch tin on the little bench and let warm water run over his cuts. It stung. He'd add salt if he had some to keep the wound sterile and his blood fresh. It was too late, dirt had gotten deep under his skin and he could see the black lines under the folds of skin. Mine muck, thick black, dirty as sin, full of chemicals and toxins. Jack desperately washed his hands, reared back toward his lunch tin, kicked it over, and the nuggets flew. His can of pop swelled and the top was punctured. Brown, bubbly liquid hissed out of the small nip in the aluminum.

“Oh, Christ!” he roared. He leaned over to pick up a nugget and hurled it at the mirror, to watch cracked glass splinter and collapse on itself, spilling into the sink. “Goddamn fool's gold. Gold stolen by fools,” he whispered contemptuously. “You're more trouble than you're worth, aren't you?” He leaned over the sink and cried. He heard the heavy clump of work boots and the dull rattle of a miner's belt and scurried around the room after picking up the gold and throwing it in the trash. He watched the nuggets sink under piles of crumpled wet paper towels. They disappeared quickly, nestling comfortably like eggs in a brown nest.

The next morning Wanda screamed for Peter's attention.

“Peter!” she yelled. “This outfit looks terrible!”

Peter put down his glass of Canadian Club.

After talking with Angela last week, he had hid for hours in the dark basement of his brand new house. He didn't know if he could face the outside world; all he wanted to do was be alone. He'd built a bar with plush brown leather bar stools and installed brown maple veneer cabinets with glass doors and mirrored tiles speckled with golden flecks on the wall beside it. He liked being here, alone, away from everyone, including Jack, especially away from Wanda and her whining, demands, and schemes to inspire envy in others. Just last week she'd bragged to Darlene, the clerk at Papineau's Grocery Store, about the remodelling. Darlene had silently checked out her items, dirt under her chipped fingernails.

So Peter stayed downstairs, counted his money, and dreamed of the possibilities.

He drowned himself in alcohol to assuage the guilt — a guilt he'd never let Jack know he was experiencing. He'd wake up in the middle of the night, dreaming of flashing red lights, always the flashing red lights or the eyes of a hungry fox caught in the headlights with a fish between its lips or blood-red berry stains on its paws.

When he woke up in the middle of the night like that he disturbed Wanda. She worried about him, and he would tell her that he had to get up to check for prowlers, intruders, raccoons, or skunks in the back yard. No need to worry, he'd be back to bed soon. But he always stopped for a drink in the basement — most nights never returning, and Wanda would find him asleep on the sofa, alone in the basement, drink spilled at his side.

He climbed the stairs.

“Is this dress the best one for the mayor's barbecue?” she asked and smoothed the skirt of her floral yellow-and-blue cotton dress.

She wanted the best, and he'd given it to her. They lived among the richest families in town — the province, for that matter — on the best street, in the best house, and she was one of the best-dressed wives. He'd become the best thief in town, the best liar, and the best cheat.

“It's lovely.”

“Peter, lay off the booze today, okay?” She swooped down to pick up Susie and smoothed the girl's sprinkle of hair. Peter reached for Wanda's wide bare back. Soft and supple, it warmed his hand as he touched it tenderly. As his nimble fingers caught the zipper and pulled it up, the wilted fabric around her lower back rose and unfurled like blooming petals.

“I have something to take care of tonight,” he said slowly.

“It's Mayor Cooper's birthday party.”

“Just a little thing. It'll only take a few minutes.”

“Join us for dessert?”

“Okay,” he said and burped.

“I wonder where all of your manners have gone, Peter Fifield. I truly do,” she said and picked up Susie to dress her in her finest bonnet, booties, and dress.

“An RCMP car drove by the house,” Peter said as they sat in the truck outside the Chinook Tavern. Matted mosquitoes dried from late summer's heat were scattered on the windshield.

“When?” Jack asked and inhaled sharply.

“Thursday. Wanda put Susie to bed, drew back the curtains, and he was parked outside.”

“Do you think they know anything?” Jack whispered.

“No. They don't know, but they suspect something,” Peter said and the fistful of money in his hand shook.

“We've got to stop,” Jack said.

“No, we don't. We'll just live quietly for a while. Not spend as much,” Peter said and his eyes glazed over as he opened the duffel bag.

“I don't think they've paid us the right amount for our last shipment,” Peter said as he counted the money. “The cowboys are ripping us off. My cut isn't enough,” he added as he counted it for the third time. He licked his fingers as he counted the bills yet again.

“See? We are missing a few hundred. I knew they would cheat us,” Peter said.

“We've got to stop. The police drove by your house. They know something,” Jack said.

Peter kept counting.

“Are you listening to me?” Jack asked wearily.

Jack ran his fingers through his hair, got out of the four-by-four, and drove home.

As he drove home his breath came in short gasps.
How am I going to get out of this? I don't know what to say to them so we can get away. I'll tell Angela, I'll tell her everything. She'll know what to do, of course she will. She'll know how to handle Peter, and she'll even know how to handle those crooked cowboys. She'll scare the bejeezus out of them, for chrissakes
.
I'll tell her all about the money, how much we've got and what I plan to do with it. She'll know what to do, she'll know exactly what to do.

When Jack arrived home Angela yelled at him. “You're more interested in curling and evenings out with the boys at the bar than spending a quiet evening at home with your children.”

Jack nodded in silent agreement and wandered to the bedroom with his sports bag.

He heard her get in the shower. He checked on his daughters; they were asleep. Half-eaten hot dogs with ketchup stains were still on the sides of their plates, fat chunks of fried potato beside them, half-empty milk glasses with greasy half-moon lip marks on the side piled on the kitchen counter.

Jack made his way to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the unmade bed, Angela's pink silky pajamas on the floor, her pink slippers with the ball of fuzz on the toe discarded by the closet. Her curling iron smelled of burnt hair. It sat on the vanity with bottles of gummy hairspray, glossy and sticky, next to it. The room was a mixture of scents: the sugary smell of her in the air, the musky smell of him in the pillows, and the earthy smell of them in the sheets.