The Last Woman (31 page)

One night, after a particularly strained disagreement, Richard went for a walk and found himself in a bar where a member of the government team had also washed up. He was the junior counsel, not long out of law school, a prematurely stooped young man who grinned narrowly to himself and seemed consumed by some private resentment. At first, they conscientiously avoided any talk of the trial. But then, after a drunken pause, the young man said,
“I’m afraid your Indians are going to get screwed again.”

“Oh yes?” Richard said. Nervous at being seen to linger with his opponent, he was on the verge of leaving.

“Got screwed once. How much land did the bands in the region give up – an area the size of France? For what, five bucks a year – and a flag for the chief? I think that lady said it all.”

“You’re persuaded by the diary then –” For Glyn Thomas had come across a diary written by the wife of one of the treaty officials, and Richard had entered it as evidence. In it, she had confided she did not believe the various bands assembled at Sault Ste. Marie fully understood what they were signing away at the treaty ceremonies. “Not enough has been explained to them,” she wrote. “They smile and nod and seem to be under the impression this is a friendship treaty.” Richard had entered the diary as part of his attack on the treaty process: a second line of defence in case their argument about not signing the treaty failed. Several Crown witnesses, all male, had questioned the woman’s judgment and character.

“What we believe isn’t the point. What anyone believes. The truth’s not the point, is it? Not in there. Winning is the point.” They went on drinking. The young man was shaking his head, as if he regretted the state of things. Richard pitied him – so cynical, so early. “Pine Island didn’t properly sign the treaty,” the lawyer went on. “We know it, you know it. But there’s a name on the treaty over Pine Island and that’s all that matters. A name on paper. This whole civilization is built on paper. My friend, you’re screwed.”

When Richard got back to the room, Billy was lying on his bed watching TV. He scarcely looked up when Richard came in. Richard was laughing. “Just had a conference with the enemy,” he said, and he described his conversation in the bar. “The smug little bastard says we’re in the right. He also says we’re going to lose.” Richard shook his head; he couldn’t take any of it seriously.

Over on the bed, Billy had already turned back to his program.

After an eight-month run, the trial ended in June, and Judge Wannamaker retired to consider his decision, to be announced the following October. Billy went up to Silver Lake. Richard returned to full-time practice in Black Falls, a great relief to Doug Parsons and the firm’s other junior lawyers, who had had to cover in his absence. After the drama of
Pine Island versus the Crown
, he found
Smith versus Smith
less than compelling. Dividing assets, handing out Kleenex, drawing up boilerplate wills, he recalled the panelled courtroom, the beaded garments, the energizing awareness he was fighting for a good cause, in the public eye.

He began to miss Billy; for all they had been at loggerheads, their “trial by fire” had deepened their friendship, he felt. When he thought of Billy, alone up at Silver, a pleasant, nostalgic pang went through him. He was grateful to his friend for introducing him to the mysteries of another culture. At dinner parties, he would regale people
with stories of Pine Island; his pièce de résistance was the tale of hunting with Billy. He didn’t hide the fact that he had spoiled the hunt that day; his faux pas became part of his tribute to “those wonderful people” who had seen fit to show the blundering white man their ways.

Then October arrived. Two days before the decision was to be announced, Billy came to dinner at their house in Black Falls. If he seemed less stressed, he was still taciturn, picking at his food and taking less part than usual in the conversation. When Richard finally went off to bed, he left his wife and their friend at the table. The next morning, Ann had come down with a heavy cold. Richard and Billy drove south without her.

The courtroom was nearly full. There were reporters, curious members of the public, some senior civil servants, three lawyers representing the federal government, and a sizable contingent from Pine Island. Seated once again behind the familiar oak table, wearing freshly laundered robes, Richard waited anxiously for the arrival of the judge. Billy was sitting just behind him, and from time to time Richard would turn to pass on some information about who was here, or a comment one of the other lawyers had made to him. Finding Billy unresponsive, however, he soon gave this up.

When Judge Wannamaker appeared, the court rose together. Then the judge climbed the steps to his seat and spoke a few introductory words, raising a little laughter when, referring to the traditional clothing, he remarked with mock sternness that he hoped that never again would
his courtroom resemble a Hudson’s Bay store. Then he put on his glasses and began to read his judgment. Richard listened carefully, but although he heard the words well enough, something in his understanding was blocked, and he was slow to grasp what was happening. In any case, it was not immediately clear that they had lost. At first the words seemed neutral, capable of leading to any number of conclusions. But then certain phrases began to fall, and an overall tendency began to assert itself.
Failed to prove. The preponderance of the evidence. A distinct and characteristic lack of authority. Evident in the poor quality of certain expert witnesses
.

As the voice droned on, Richard found himself staring bleakly at the crest mounted behind the judge’s head.

After the court was dismissed, Richard turned to see Billy pushing through the crowd toward a side door, leaving Richard to face the reporters on his own. It was nearly an hour and a half before he could escape the courthouse, and when he got back to the hotel room, Billy was not there. Richard called Ann to give her the news of the verdict, and he was still talking to her when Billy arrived, looking dishevelled. She asked him to put Billy on and for a few minutes as they talked, Richard went on studying the judgment. “Listen,” he told Billy, after he’d hung up, “Listen to this tripe.” Pacing, Richard read out a particularly egregious passage. “Complete rubbish!” he cried. “Wannamaker’s made three mistakes in law right there. This has got appeal written all over it.”

Pacing up and down, he continued his evisceration of the judgment. Wannamaker had ignored what had been established in the Calder case, he said. He’d dismissed their entire genealogical argument in one sentence, though it had taken a week to present and had been backed by one of the finest historians in the country. Richard was in full flight now. Not even in court had he spoken so passionately, with such conviction and clear sense of the truth. Billy made no comment but continued to sit on the edge of the bed, his gaze locked in space. “Hey, cheer up,” Richard said, swatting him on the shoulder with the binder.

When Billy did eventually speak, it was as if to himself. “I should have fired you months ago.”

“What? Oh fuck off – we’re just getting started.”

“You lost,” Billy said. His glance brought Richard up short. “They ran circles around you out there. Every strategy we agreed on – how to question a witness, where to lay the emphasis, what to bring forward next – you’d ignore it.”

“I was thinking on my feet, you have to out there.” Richard held up the binder. “Believe me, in the long run this is going to be good for us –”

“Do you really think you know what’s good for us? It’s all a big game to you of win or lose. Either way you’re still cock of the walk – look at you, going on like we’ve
won
. No one can tell you anything. Nothing can get you down.” Billy shook his head. “You’re not serious –”

Blood pounded in Richard’s head. Planting himself before Billy, he made his defence in a voice he could no
longer control. It kept rising in pitch, an odd, angry, pleading thing he seemed to hear from a distance. “I haven’t had a penny for this. I’ve given months and months to it. Because I believed in it. And I’m not
serious
?”

Billy just stared at him with contempt. Richard found his suitcase, fumbled the last of his clothes into it, caught up his briefcase, and left the room.

Over the decade that followed, Richard came to the conclusion that he had been lured off track by the case, by his assumption of Billy’s friendship, by his naive ideas about helping the country’s native people – drawn into something that was
not really him
. He returned to his practice with renewed dedication. He got involved in politics. With Ann’s encouragement, he changed his way of dressing, giving up his cheap off-the-racks in favour of tailored suits he bought in Toronto. He replaced Monday-night pickup hockey and joined the best club in Black Falls, cultivating connections with the wealthy and powerful. His manner became more weighted, his speech more considered and precise, and in the end, for the most part, he was satisfied he had claimed his place among the serious men.

B
illy sits in his outhouse, intent on a fading newspaper photo Matt had tacked to the wall years ago. Like a great grey tube of steel, the body of a monstrous sturgeon has washed up on the shores of a lake. Its eyes have been pecked out, giving it a spectral look, but its long, plated body remains intact. A girl of fifteen or sixteen, wearing baggy shorts and a plaid shirt, poses beside it. She looks happy – happy to be having her picture taken, happy to be young. Billy is entranced by this young woman, and envious of her. She probably doesn’t care about the great fish, doesn’t care that sturgeon of this size will probably never be seen again; but she holds the future as effortlessly as she holds the sunshine falling on her pretty face.

Voices float from the direction of his house. The querying twang of his screened door. “Don’t think he’s here,” a boy says. The scuff of shoes. More talk. Then silence. He waits several minutes before emerging.

He rounds the corner of his house to find Jimmy and Dwayne sitting on his front steps. They see him immediately, so he has no choice but to approach them. Since his binge of three days ago, he’s continued to avoid people; it’s as if his old skin has been stripped and he hasn’t grown a new one yet, hasn’t the means to deflect their curiosity, to defend the weak shoots of healing inside him. As he stands talking to the boys, he keeps eyeing the object in Jimmy’s hands. “Mom found it,” Jimmy says, holding it out – Billy’s old ball mitt. Black leather laced with yellowish thong, the maker’s name fading on the heel. He slides his hand into the cool interior and pounds his fist in the deep pocket, sensing, for a moment, the sweetness of certain evenings on the old diamond. The crack of the bat and him already ranging left, into the path of the skipping grounder –

He thrusts the glove at Jimmy.

“Here. It’s yours.”

Looking puzzled, the boy takes the glove.

“Jimmy was thinking we could play catch,” Dwayne says, his voice seeming to come from somewhere outside him.

“Sure,” Billy says. But he goes up the steps and into his house, shutting the door behind him.

Some time later, peering out a window, he sees them sitting on the ground, in the shade. Dwayne has the glove now and is tossing a ball into it with his free hand. Clearly,
they are waiting for him to come out. He pulls back. Minutes go by. The pump in the sink lets another drop fall, into the brimming basin. Outside (he looks again), the white ball flies up, falls, disappears into the mitt. He is trapped.

He is not aware of deciding anything. He simply turns to the door with a sense of surrender, of yielding to an action that is not entirely his own, and walks out of the house and down the steps, toward the boys, who, in the shade of the cedars, have the stillness, now, of stones.

They make a triangle, Billy near the house, Dwayne by the woodpile, Jimmy with his back to the lake. Dwayne cocks his arm and throws hard at Billy, who watches the ball spinning, growing larger, coming straight at his head, yet he cannot move. He can sense the old ballplayer stirring, the old instincts, but there is a heavy weight in him, a sense of unreality. Then, with a life of their own, his hands fly up and the ball stings into his palms.

The next day, he roots in the shed until he finds Matt’s weed-whacker – one of the old-fashioned, manual kind with a rippled blade attached to a metal shaft topped by a wooden handle. He spends an hour trying to raise an edge, without much success, then carries it down the road to the ball diamond. Beyond the rusted, leaning backstop, the entire field is overrun with weeds: chicory, plantain, fireweed, monstrous mulleins sticking up like spears. Ten years before, grass had spread toward a white-washed
fence. Now sections of the fence have gone down before the wave of vegetation, under the somnolent, forbidding gaze of the bush.