Saltwater Cowboys (9 page)

Angela squeezed in through the wind-pressed door with Maggie on her hip, and mouthed the word “Washroom.”

Pat's face softened and he presented Jack with a key. “Well, here you are. Room number seven, to your left.”

Jack stared at him, his forehead crinkled. “But —”

“No buts about it,” Pat said and lowered his voice. “Take a room, have a hot shower and some dinner. Pay me when you get to Foxville. The mailing address is on your receipt.”

Jack hung his head in shame. He looked Pat in the eye and grabbed his hand to express his gratitude.
I don't know why he's doing this for us. He doesn't even know us, but it means so much to me — us — Angela will be so happy. Angela must never know
, Jack thought. He wouldn't let her know that his attempts at providing for her so early on in the journey to their new life had already failed.

Jack opened the door and the wind pummelled him to the ground. He got up and brushed the snow off his arms, relieved Angela hadn't seen.

“They were some nice,” Angela said, looking out the side window, waving to Pat and his wife Trudy as they pulled out of the motel parking lot, heading north to Foxville.

Jack nodded. “They're a good bunch.” He couldn't believe Pat's graciousness. He'd paid for the hotel, fed his family, and when he checked out, Pat had handed him a packed lunch, “To see you the rest of the way,” he'd said.

After they'd put the children to bed last night they'd played cards with Pat and Trudy.

“Wave a final goodbye to Pat and Trudy, girls,” Jack said and they poked their little faces against the glass of the U-Haul and waved through the steam their breath made.

They were once again driving alone on a lonely old northern Canadian highway. The motion of the car, slow and rhythmic, lulled Angela into a deep, comfortable sleep. She dreamed of this new town of Foxville, encircled by wild foxes, treacherous, sly beasts, intent on betrayal. Their sharp teeth glistened and dripped juice from their kill of flapping freshwater fish. They scratched the floor and the walls of her new home. One fox lay like a sphinx on a woman's thighs, paws on her belly, tail swishing over her breasts and eyes; it was Renee, her red clothes destroyed — shredded — by the foxes.

“Jack,” she said softly when she woke up hours later, “you can't see a blessed thing!” They were in the middle of a whiteout, inching along the highway, dragging pounds of snow with them. They couldn't see anything out the front or side windows, and the rear-view mirror revealed nothing but snow.

The children were asleep in the back, their foreheads matted and slick with sweat. The heat blasting through the vents kept them warm, despite the cold outside. The windshield wipers roared like a snowmobile as it kicked aside pounds of snow, before it retreated in defeat and skidded back across the clear glass, ready to arm-wrestle the newly fallen snow that had quickly accumulated.

Jack drove in silence. Angela sat upright in her seat, her hands crossed tightly over her belly. They drove that way for two hours before the car was pulled onto a black ice patch. Jack lost control and they skittered to a stop, bumping against a snowbank.

Angela turned to him and started to whimper. He got out and packed the ice with snow and the red yarn he tore from the head of Maggie's Raggedy Ann doll. He pulled it apart with regret, pained to know he'd wrecked her favourite doll, the one his mother had given her for her birthday in the spring. He thought of that warm spring in Brighton, so far off now, so far away from where they were today, stranded out on this highway. He tried not to think of it, the cake, the warm candles, the barbecue steaming, and the hot sizzling wieners Maggie had requested for her birthday meal. The ketchup she'd drizzled so liberally on her bun had dribbled all over her new white dress. She'd been upset, worried that her new dress would be stained. “Don't worry, my love,” he'd said, “you look just like Raggedy Ann now, all dressed in red and white.” That had cheered her up somewhat. Her finding her doll in the state it would be in by tomorrow morning was not something he looked forward to. But of course he had to do it, they needed it for traction, and the yarn was the hardiest material they had. But what kind of reason could he give to his Maggie?

He got back in the car, his face grim and wet with snow.

“Don't worry, love, I'll get us there safely,” he said. It was the last thing he'd say for the rest of the drive. He stuck to that mantra, determined to deliver on his promise and get them to Foxville safely.

The car was sucked off the road by three more ice patches, and he had to stop, pull the car from the snowbank, and manouevre the vehicle back onto the slippery road. He was exhausted and Angela was white with fear, but he didn't say a word. He focused on the road ahead.

They rounded a corner and the car's headlights illuminated a silver pole towering from the snowbank.

“Foxville, five kilometres,” Angela whispered as she read the road sign.

They drove over a bridge, black water frozen solid underneath suspended weeds and foliage like petrified mummies, each branch wrapped in layers, bandaged with ice. As they crept along Angela read out the names of the streets: Wild Rose Avenue, Foothill Road, Plains Street, Aspen Crescent, and Birch Road. They found the address they were looking for and pulled the car into the driveway. Jack hadn't even turned off the engine when both doors to the cab were yanked open and Peter pulled each of them one by one from the truck and bustled them inside. Wanda helped bundle the children up into fresh, warm clothes and tucked them into a mattress on the floor.

H
e woke up at five o'clock, bolted upright and clamoured for the steering wheel, calming down only when he realized where he was: on a mattress, in the living room of his life-long best friend's new mobile home in Foxville, Alberta.

He'd looked over at Angela curled up against the pillow, her T-shirt stuck under her breasts, her belly like swollen fruit, the skin yellowed, tiny capillaries in the sides stretched and visible. Jack had stared at her stomach in disbelief, scratched his head, and leaned over to gently rub her warm belly while she slept.

He made his way to the kitchen and sat at the table made of imitation oak, surrounded by four chairs with puffy vinyl-backed chairs, emblazoned with a mixed floral pattern: purple, mud brown, leaf green, and dull yellow. The chair emitted a burst of air when he sat on it, a pinched sound, an old man's tired sigh. That's how Jack had felt on his first morning in Foxville: tired and defeated, ages older than when he'd started the journey northbound.

He stood up, went to the stove, turned on the kettle, and looked out the window. The blizzard had stopped, but piled high, obliterating the town from view, was an eight-foot snowdrift. The entire trailer was wrapped in snow.

The kettle sputtered silently; filled to the brim with water, it drooled and oozed over the lip. Jack hurried over and poured himself a cup — two bags, two sugars, and two milks, strong, sweet, and milky. He drank the hot liquid gratefully, and the heat settled his cold, clattering, nervous bones.

An hour later Pete woke up and they shovelled the snow within forty-five minutes. After showering, Pete left for work, easing his truck slowly across town toward the gravel highway that led to the mine site. Jack left a house full of sleeping women to trudge through the snow to see about housing and a new Raggedy Ann doll for Maggie — he couldn't forget that.

He hadn't told Pete or Angela this, but he wanted a house. He didn't want to live in the trailer park, in one of these small, cramped, boxy homes. He wanted something bigger, prettier for Angela, with a wooden staircase and a basement for the children to play in.

In Pete's black, zip-up, one-piece snowsuit and boots two sizes too big, Jack made his way through the streets of Foxville. The town was sterile and silent. Homes were wrapped in wide snowdrifts that swept upward into stiff peaks. They looked like icebergs, immovable and tomb-like. The houses in town were tiny, one-storey, hastily erected “company homes,” mainly wooden, a few brick, but most were made with cheap aluminum, in warm shades of buttercream, white, and grey. Pete had told Jack that the mine manager, the mayor, and their wives lived in two-storey homes on top of a gentle hill on the northern edge of town. Homes that were surrounded by thick gardens with pretty white gazebos.

The miners' homes bustled with activity inside. Women were getting their families up, nursing small children in armchairs, frying bacon in big black pans.

Jack wondered where they came from. Were some of them just starting out, leaving very little behind? Or were they like him, reluctant and despondent, missing their homes more than anyone could guess?

As he walked through town, two forked roads cut through the trees; one road led toward the mine and the other dirt road toward the town dump. He could see the smoke rising from the dump and the highest point of the mineshaft, which claimed its space aggressively. The bulk of the Canadian Shield spread out behind Foxville, stretching farther north into a desolate area interspersed with bogs, very little soil, and foliage. Not like Foxville, which was filled with aspen, poplar, birch, evergreens such as white spruce and pine, and many varieties of moss and northern lichens.

To the west lay a gravel road that led out of town, which crossed over the confluence of Peace River and Lake Athabasca. It led to Fort McMurray and eventually on to Edmonton and Calgary. The southern tip of town sat on the shore of Lake Athabasca, a beautiful, rugged, sparkling blue lake full of black islands, dark, dense trees, and haggard rock that cast shadows on the moody lake.

As he approached the centre of town, the russet oxidized-iron Civic Centre dominated the space. It contained the school, library, council chambers, and all of the small businesses in town: the pharmacy, Hudson's Bay Company, The Coyote Diner, the post office, and a two-hundred-seat cinema. It housed several multi-purpose rooms that were converted into churches on a Sunday (every denomination in town got its hour and a half), the small clinic and hospital, the grocery mart, bank, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment.

It was an open-concept building separated by ramps and winding corridors built out of pine on lightly stained brown tile floors. Bright, round, exposed lights hung from high ceilings. There were plenty of common areas to sit in and socialize — and a wooden grizzly bear sculpture in the centre of the shopping area.

Jack hauled open the door at the Civic Centre. It opened slowly and swept back a ridge of snow. He stamped his boots together to push off the snow, patted the snow off his arms, and took off his black ski mask. He noticed the door to the Chamber of Commerce and went inside.

He was greeted by a realtor named Dwayne. The tall, broad-shouldered man, with a full round belly squashed tightly in the waist of faded denims, cinched with a Western cowboy belt buckle, sold him a mobile home. The leather from his cowboy boots, imported from Texas he said, chafed his thin, squat legs as they jiggled while Jack signed the mortgage. Grey, curly hair poked out of the white open-collared shirt. A solitary curl looped over his wide forehead, the rest of his hair slicked back greasily. He must have been an attractive young man, but he'd grown old early. Wealth and hard work had etched a certain trenchancy on his face, leaving him sagacious and smug, unconquerable.

Jack sat at Dwayne's desk and stared at the real estate documents. He was afraid to pick up the pen. They needed to leave Pete's. They needed to find their own home, but Jack didn't want to call this place home. If they purchased the mobile home there would be less chance of leaving. This would become home, permanently.

“All set?” Dwayne asked.

Jack nodded to Dwayne's secretary as she presented Jack with a pen.

“Go on, my love, the missus will be pleased,” she said. She was a miner's wife from Springdale.

Dwayne smiled. He was happy. New faces appeared on the streets every day, all of them rural dwellers, most of them from Newfoundland. He'd hired his assistant because she was from Newfoundland; he barely understood her due to her brogue, but he'd heard she'd work for next to nothing, and she did, in on time every morning, sharp-minded, efficient, and the last to leave at night. All of them would be looking for new homes. Houses were much too expensive for them, though. The duplexes would go to management at the mine, and businesspeople in town, not to blasters, drillers, and muckers.

Jack couldn't help but feel like he'd failed. He knew Angela wouldn't like a mobile home, not after what they lived in back home, he knew that she — like him — would rather have another house. He thought of Doctor Nelson. He thought of the children and Angela. He took the pen from Dwayne's secretary and signed the documents.

“You did the right thing,” the secretary said.

“Your place will be ready in a month,” Dwayne said.

“Month?” Jack asked.

“Yes, I mentioned that initially,” Dwayne said and cocked his head to one side.

Jack hadn't been listening. “Right,” he said and stood up slowly to limply shake hands.

Later that night, Jack couldn't bring himself to tell the truth. “The mobile home will be ready for us early next week,” he told everyone, hung his head, scuffed his weak foot, and placed the doll he'd found for Maggie underneath her pillow in the little tent the children shared. He fell asleep soon after. He started work in the morning.

O
n the first day of work at his new job, Jack sat in the cavernous grey room, surrounded by wheezing pipes and clanking boilers, sweating and cramped inside his fresh yellow rubber work suit. His feet were numb inside heavy work boots. His hands were cold and clammy and rested on the table in front of him, flat and frozen with fear. A clean hard hat sat on his head, free of scuff marks, the plastic band clasped tightly. He stared straight ahead as if a new recruit in the army, not daring to look at any of the other men.

Twelve other men sat around a splintered wooden table, training day for new members of the crew, each of them avoiding eye contact. They would leave this room and join their crews, Jack to the blasting crew, the man beside him to engineering, the other to his right would head for the geology department. Men from all over Canada sat around the table: men from Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. There was a man from the Philippines and one black man from South Africa. Those men were the quietest, almost as if they weren't really there, as if their summons to this corner of the earth was not simply a choice for a better life. They had been lured by the promise of money — bait that kept them squirming and worming their way through the rock — but an acceptance of punishment, an exile from their homeland, a fall from grace into the low bowels of the cold, cruel, unforgiving Canadian north.

A burly miner was telling a joke. “A surveyor, engineer, and miner were sent into a room, one at a time with a pool table and five balls on it to see what they would do in five minutes. The surveyor came out and he had all five balls in a perfectly straight line. The engineer came out and had the balls in the shape of an atom. The miner came out and only three balls were left, one was broken and one was in his pocket to take home.” A few of the men laughed while the rest sat quietly like children on the first day of school, no friendships formed or alliances bartered for, each wondering who the bully and his teammates would be. Jack feared this unknown force, feared it more than the explosives he would soon detonate. He had no backbone for that, no clue how to stand up for himself. He'd always left it to Peter to watch out for him, and now here, amongst all these strangers, he'd have to learn pretty quick.

“Gentleman,” said Rick Bowers, the health and safety officer. He stood in front of the room in a grey work suit, a pair of new safety glasses over his warm grey eyes. Jack grunted in assent like everyone else at the table and didn't smile and nod or wink as he'd like to, in friendship and familiarity. He felt shy and uncertain this morning with not a familiar face in sight.

“Good morning, and welcome to Noraldo Operating Corporation. As you remember from my letter, today we're going to do some basic workplace safety training. Each of you please fill out these forms,” he said and circulated several papers throughout the room. “Now —”

“Sorry I'm late,” a woman at the doorway said.

“Excuse me?” Rick said. “Are you where you're supposed to be? Administration is one floor down,” he said helpfully, warm eyes twinkling.

“I'm a miner,” she said and extended her hand. “I'm Bobbi Lake, I'm here for training.”

Some of the other miners sneered. She reddened brightly and sat down stiffly, her head held high. She was pretty, with long blonde curly hair, creamy white skin, a small nose, and hard, tough, flinty blue-grey eyes. She had big hands, a solid jaw, and hefty shoulders. Splotches of scarlet colour were in her cheeks.

“Where is your uniform?” Rick asked gruffly.

“I couldn't find the woman's dry, so I left it in the lunchroom.”

“There is no woman's dry. You'll have to use the women's washroom in the administrative department.”

The miners glared at her with hard faces. It was pretty clear to Jack who would be the first to be bullied.

After the morning-long training session, they hustled out to go to their separate crews. Jack wandered through the plant. On the way to the ground floor, he passed administration. A young athletic-looking man in a grey suit, with copper-coloured hair and big brown eyes, led a group of plump women in floral dresses and big droopy glasses through the workings of what looked like a new financial data machine. It was huge, cumbersome, and bulky. Jack couldn't stand those machines. To him they were like big chunks of stubborn rock themselves, full of data that was as precious as gold itself, but he yearned to run from those number machines, to blast them all to bits.

As Bobbi walked with the crew, she was completely unresponsive. Her gaze was cemented forward. She was unsmiling and stiff, a soldier protecting her rich yet vulnerable territory.

The foreman stood at the bottom of the stairs and called out names. He led the men to their appropriate places. When Jack's name was called, he approached the blasting crew foreman, Russell Knox, a burly red-haired Ontarian, who, Jack was told later, had led a blasting crew in the abominable pre-Cambrian shield and wrenched more gold free from those boulders than any other blasting crew since. He was tough, commanded respect, yet he had a high-pitched nasal voice. Jack stifled a laugh at the sound of it. Russell eyed him savagely. Jack clamped his jaw shut and his smile withered.

Jack joined the crew ready to load the skip-cage. The other men were steeling themselves for the descent into the black, rough, rocky earth. To spend the day in the hole in the ground that would swallow them whole and spit them out, hands dirty, nostrils and lungs full of dirt, skin paler than a freshly peeled potato at the end of the day. Their pockets would be full of the fruits of the ore, the kind that made a certain few rich and others even filthier with the dirt of wealth, while the men who worked it simply got filthy, tired, and resentful. Resentful that it was you and not that handsome, tanned, copper-haired gentleman from Finance who was going underground, risking everything, taking a deep breath before full descent, knowing that this could be your last taste of fresh air if something went wrong underground.

Crowded into the skip-cage, pushed up against four other men — and one tough-faced woman — Jack wondered if they would look after one another, watch each other's backs the way they had back home. He peered up at the last bit of light from aboveground and held his breath. He savoured the last bite of clean air before he had to inhale air forced in from ash-encased piping and hoped they would be a good team of drillers, blasters, and muckers. He could only imagine what could go wrong if they weren't attentive to this exacting process. This process as told to him by his trainers and other miners, a language handed down through generations of men who'd given their lives to the work.