Winter Shadows (18 page)

“Don’t forget to bring the boy for Christmas dinner, Mr. Kilgour. There will be lots of meat then.”

He looked at me. “He’d rather eat at home. He is shy.”

“The world is changing. Minty must be more social. I will expect both of you.”

He sketched an exaggerated bow. “Yes
, okiskinwahamâkêw.”

Remembering his harsh words to me last night, I snapped, “You call me teacher as if it is an insult. I must get going. My ovens will be eating wood for no good purpose.”

“My mother will also be smoldering.” He laughed, perhaps more at me than at his little joke. “I’ll cut more wood for you later. I’m looking forward to cake and shortbread.”

“If I ever get to it,” I said. “I’ve got choir practice tonight. I didn’t expect to stop and waste time like this.” I turned and walked out of the hut toward the hill
.

“Beatrice!” I glared back at him. “Miss Alexander,” he added, dropping his hands at his sides as if in defeat. “I am sorry I upset you last night. I can be too aggressive in my views, I know that. To hurt you was not my intention, but hurt you I did. I am a rat, but a humbled, pathetic, whimpering rat.” He put one hand on his heart, trying to look pitiable
.

Despite his gross exaggerations, or perhaps because of them, though I knew he was sincere, I said, “Must you always play the buffoon? I have no time for this!”

I gathered my skirts together and plowed my way back up to where Tupper and my carriole waited. I was checking the eggs were still intact when something hit me from behind, spraying the carriole with snow. I whirled around
.

Duncan Kilgour was laughing so hard, he was holding his sides. Then he pulled off his fur hat and flapped it at me. “Your face…” he sputtered, then let out a loud guffaw
.

I was taught by one of the supreme snowball makers – my papa – so mine was in hand and quickly packed before Kilgour even noticed. It hit him square between the eyes. He fell like a toppling tree, straight onto his back, where he lay still
.

“That should teach you!” I cried
.

He didn’t move
.

I called again
.

He lay as still as a dead fish
.

“Mr. Kilgour?”

No movement
.

“Duncan Kilgour, don’t play the fool.” One of his legs twitched, then went still
.

Had I knocked him out with one round? The top of the snow was warmed from the sun, so it was easy to pack into a hard ball. To be fair, Duncan had packed his lightly, so it easily broke against me
.

There was a red welt on his forehead. He didn’t seem to be breathing. With growing fear, I leaned closer. “Mr. Kilgour? Duncan?” His laughing eyes popped open and his arms and legs moved in a swishing motion, creating a snow angel. His beard and wild hair were floured with white. I kicked him in the side with my useless moccasins. His hand snaked out, grabbed my foot, and I landed sideways in the snow. He was laughing with such abandon that I finally gave in and joined him in the whole ridiculousness of it all
.

“Look up at the sky, Beatrice!” he cried. “It’s the color of sapphires!”

I lay back in the snow. Not a cloud to be seen. The sky was a jewel of perfect clarity. I made a snow angel to commemorate its beauty
.

A shadow fell over me. Duncan held one hand out to help me up. At that same moment, my spirit girl appeared beside him, wearing a red hat, mittens, and a dark green coat of shiny material. She was smiling as if she knew something I didn’t
.

Before Duncan moved in front of her, I waved. And she waved right back
.

T
hick lazy snowflakes continued to fall, white butterflies whisking past the truck, making everything a muted white, green, and brown blur. Martin’s wipers thunked back and forth.

“So what happened?” He was looking straight ahead.

“Not a good morning in my house, that’s all.”

“That happens.”

I took a deep breath. “Outside looks like one of those watercolor Christmas cards my mom liked to send – all misty and soft.”

I must have sounded shaky, because he said, “Not looking forward to this Christmas, huh?”

That was so totally connected to how I felt, I was stunned into silence. He parked in front of Pelly’s and put his arm along the back of the seat. “Big fight with Jean?”

“Something like that. I’m okay.”

He nodded, and we walked toward the restaurant.

“Aren’t we going over to your place?” I looked toward the blue house with its screened veranda tucked
behind a row of pines, about a hundred feet away.

“I always check in at lunch when my parents are away.”

The restaurant was half full. Four young women were serving behind the wide counter. The place was covered with blinking, red-nosed, Santa-laughing, elf-grinning, silver-tasseled, Happy-Christmasy kitsch.

A couple of boys from our homeroom were standing at the counter, salting their fries – preppy types from the new development, dressed in expensive ski jackets and designer jeans.

“Hey, Martin,” called the taller one, “you hanging out with that crazy girl from school? I was on that bus. Gus made us push it out. I ruined a new pair of shoes. Be careful, that stunned chick might decide you’re going to run over Robin Hood and his trusty steed with that wiener truck of yours! You could end up bouncing down the bank straight into the river!”

“Robin Hood? How’d you come up with Robin Hood?” his friend asked.

The tall jerk ignored him. “Hey, it’s Cass, right? You on dope or something, Cass?”

“You’re the only dope I’ve ever seen around here lately!” I said.

His friend punched his arm and laughed. With a sneer, Tall Jerk started putting ketchup on his hot dog.

So the school was still talking about it. I felt sick. Martin took my elbow and steered me toward the tables on the other side of the room. “Don’t pay them any
attention. They’re bottom-feeders. I gotta check in with Donna. I’ll find you a place to sit.”

“Hey, there, Martin!” an old man called from one of the booths whose window faced the parking lot. He was small and wiry with thick white hair. In the booth with him were two other men and a plump woman, her straight gray hair caught up in a barrette. They were drinking coffee and sharing big Styrofoam tubs of fries. They waved us over.

The snow was falling so thick now, you could hardly see the cars outside.

“That’s my great-aunt Betty,” Martin said, moving me toward the table. “The guy talking is her boyfriend, Walter. He owns a market farm. Won’t sell it, even though his family wants big bucks off land developers. They’re with their usual Sunday morning guys. We call them the Grease Monkeys – but never to their faces – because they’re all wrinkled and they eat tubs and tubs of fries.”

“Hi, Auntie Betty, Walter, Ted, Bill. This is Cass.”

Bill, saggy-eyed and heavy-jawed, said, “You’re getting to be quite the lad there, Martin. Didn’t I just see you with another girl last week at that corner table?” He waited for a reaction, like all tattletales do.

“Don’t tease him, Bill,” said Martin’s aunt, but she was smiling. She blinked at me with interest.

“Cass is my project partner in English class,” Martin explained.

I waved one arm like a windshield wiper. “Hi. That’s me. Project partner.”

“Well, she’s an angel, this one, ain’t she?” said the one called Ted, who had wild eyebrows and a “ski” nose. “All that fluffy red hair like a halo floatin’ in the air, eyes as blue as blue.”

“Sit down, you two!” Walter ordered. “We got plenty of chips.” He slid over in the booth, shoving Bill along with him. The table was piled with mitts, hats, and scarves, all smelling of damp wool.

“We’re not staying,” said Martin. “School stuff to do. Just checking in with Donna.”

Bill looked at me closely. “Aren’t you the gal whose dad married Jean Dennett? Didn’t your mom –” Walter nudged him. “Yeah, well, I met your dad a while back. Nice fella. Glad to hear about him and Jean. She’s good people, is Jean. Worked hard on her dad’s farm, I’ll say that for her. Ex-husband weren’t worth half of her. A mean drunk.”

My jaw dropped. “Really?”

“She could’ve been in the symphony or taught music in a big school,” Walter said, “but her dad needed her after her mom died. So she came back from Winnipeg and worked for him. Then she met that Sean. Glad she got out of that mess.”

Martin’s great-aunt nodded. “Yep. She’s well away from there, all right.”

It was like hearing about someone I didn’t even know.
Her husband was a drunk? Had he been mean to Daisy, too?
I couldn’t take it in.

Martin caught sight of a small woman behind the
cash counter with a red poinsettia stuck into the base of her ponytail. “Be right back. Sorry, Cass.”

His aunt waved him away. “She’ll stay here ‘til you’re done, Martin.”

“I’m fine,” I said, squeezing in next to Betty.

“Haven’t seen you in Pelly’s before, Cass,” Betty said. “But I’ve been to your place a few times. You were at school, though.” She looked at me hard. “I met your Mom, Fiona, at the WI. I liked her a lot. She was funny.”

“Yeah, she was. But I don’t remember you.”

The creeps took a table way on the other side of the room. I breathed easier.

“Fiona and I had lunch a few times,” she said. “We hit it off. But then she got really sick again. Last time I saw her … let’s see … was when three of us brought some meals over for you and your dad. That’s right. You were there, but you were focused on your mom. I wish I got to know Fiona better. I helped out with her care with the WI near the end, but there was no time for small talk, you know?”

“Well, Jean is glad Mom’s not around anymore.” I tried to make it sound light, but failed.

The men sipped their coffee and fidgeted. Then Bill said he had to get going, followed by Ted. Walter stayed. He picked up a crumpled newspaper and looked at it intently.

Betty didn’t comment on Jean. “I know your house, well,” she said. “I used to play there when I was little. My mom was old Bart Andrews’s housekeeper. I was glad to hear your mom and dad were fixing it up. Man, that
house was filled with weird vibes sometimes. I felt it even as a kid. Did some research on it when I got older.”

I sat forward. “You did? Ever hear of an Alexander family living there?”

“I did. The book I read about the area indicated that Gordon Alexander was an important local builder before he got hurt in an accident. About 1920, there was a fire in the rectory where the records were kept, and a lot of the really old papers were lost, including most of the Alexander family records. The files about the building of the church were kept, though, in the church office. His accident is mentioned in there.”

Walter put down his paper. “My family’s been here since 1840. Most of our records came through that fire. I got them all photocopied, but my family doesn’t seem interested. They only want to sell the place off.” He sounded more hurt than angry.

“What did you finally learn about the Alexander family?” I asked Betty.

Martin came back and sat beside Walter. “I got staffing problems again.”

His great-aunt held up her hand. “He had a wife from England,” she said to me.

“Anne Alexander?” I prompted.

“Could be. I’d have to check that. Gordon’s mother was a Swampy Cree woman named Aggathas who married a Scot named Alexander. I speak that Cree dialect pretty well. My own grandmother came from Norway House. I lived with her for a long time when I
was a kid, ’cause I was sick a lot. The name Aggathas probably comes from the Swampy Cree for
âkathâs
, which means ‘English,’ maybe because she married a man who spoke English.”

“And her son had a daughter?” I asked.

“Yes. Gordon and his wife had one daughter, but the wife died young. I think the child’s name was Beatrice.”

“Wow,” I whispered.

“The person who wrote this book claimed that the Gordon Alexander who lived at Old Maples probably was the same Gordon Alexander who became one of the first members of the Council of Assiniboia, set up to control the whole Red River settlement at the forks. This fellow was what they now call an Anglo or English Métis, but the thing is, his wife was still alive in the 1860s.”

I blurted out, “I can explain – it was his second wife. Her name was Ivy. His first wife was Anne. She was English and died about 1849. Later on, he married Ivy Comper. She was Scottish, and after her first husband died in Scotland – his last name was Kilgour – she married a farmer from here called Comper. She already had a son, Duncan, in Scotland, who came here when he was older. I wish I knew what happened to him because –”

They were all staring at me.
Oh, oh. Too much information
. Martin’s frown was deep. I was sure my face matched the color of my hair. “Sorry. Don’t know what I’m saying. I can’t prove any of it. I was sick and had some weird dreams. I’m getting them all mixed up with
the real history of the house. I’m sorry.… I-I’d really like to see that book, though.”