Empire of Wild

by Cherie Dimaline

  And there he was, Mr. Lying-Ass Heiser, grinning for the camera from his spot tucked in beside a broad-shouldered man in a grey suit who was shaking hands with a shorter man in a ribbon shirt. She imagined him with paws tucked into his shiny brogues, fur covering his straight back.

  “My, what big teeth you have,” she said aloud.

  She crumpled the newspaper with hands stiff from gripping the steering wheel across county lines, around the Bay and into Precambrian rock. She crunched and folded until it was an uneven ball and threw it, in a perfect arc, into the metal garbage bin.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She’d left Zeus back home, and he had spent the evening sending her angry texts. His messages crowded her screen and, when she refused to open them, pinged intermittently. She’d read the bulk of them after she’d placed her order, guilt making it impossible to text him back. But no matter what Ajean said, and no matter how much she loved the kid, she couldn’t bring him on this trip. Her desperation was wearing out her frantic hope and she didn’t want Zeus to see that.

  She ground her cigarette butt under a heel and exhaled, pulling her keys out of her pocket. It was time to get back on the road.

  * * *

  By eleven o’clock, she’d made it past Sturgeon Falls to the town called Rice Creek, population 784, the last location they’d been able to track on Ivy’s Facebook. There hadn’t been any online updates since.

  There was one motel in town, a throwback to the 1960s with Magic Fingers beds that ate your quarters and rattled your teeth, orange carpets that smelled like mould and industrial cleaner, and a small, round, empty swimming pool out front.

  The registry was an actual paper ledger. Printing the date beside her signature, she asked the clerk, “Sir, do you happen to know if there is a church revival mission in town? Maybe even staying here?”

  The man at the desk, who must have always been the man at the desk, had a long, Yosemite Sam style moustache of pure silver. His head was haloed by long wisps of white hair that he may have tried to push over his bald dome at some point earlier in the day. His Wrangler jeans sagged so far off his flat ass, the full upper half of his grey long johns were visible. Luckily they were in good repair, with newer plaid patches over earlier striped ones.

  He paused so long Joan thought he hadn’t heard the question. She was opening her mouth to repeat herself when he said, “No, no. It’s all mining guys right now. Someone came in here from the local church and told me to expect some revival people to book in soon, but I haven’t seen any of them fellas yet. Good thing I didn’t hold any rooms for them.” He shuffled to the desk behind him and passed a dangling hand over the surface, scattering papers like he was setting up for a game of memory. Then he selected a blue pamphlet and carried it back to the counter.

  “These fellas.” He put it on the counter in front of Joan. A glowing cross. MNR.

  “So they haven’t shown up, then?”

  The man regarded the pamphlet, then the counter for a while. At last, he seemed to catch himself drifting and reached under the counter for a small envelope with shaky numbers—104—written across the front in thick black marker.

  “Your keys.” He held it out.

  Joan took the envelope and drove the Jeep around the side of the building and parked in front of room 104, which was in the middle of a long, low wing. Every other space was taken by newer model F-150s and a couple of Cadillac SUVs. Her brother was right: looked like the pay for jobs in the mines was pretty decent these days.

  As she got out of the car, she heard laughter and the high twang and low bass of country music. She turned to see a small bar, hanging like a comma off the end of the motel wing. Outside, a small group of men stood smoking. A long, narrow sign in neon tube letters spelled out The Drunk Tank over double doors painted to look like saloon shutters.

  She was slamming the back hatch closed, her bag by her feet, when she heard her phone ding. Zeus again, she thought, heaping more abuse on her solo mission. But it wasn’t a text; this time it was an email.

  It was from Resource Development Specialists—Heiser’s company. The subject line read simply For Joan. There was a JPEG attached. Should she open it? What the hell would he be sending her? Maybe it was a virus. Sure, Joan, that’s the extent of his evil-doing. He’s going to give you a computer virus.

  She clicked and watched as the file downloaded and an image popped up on the screen. She stared at the lit square, trying to stack and restack the colours and lines so what she was seeing made the kind of sense she could live with. She needed it to be different, so her heart could continue to pump.

  Holding her breath, Joan carried her bag to her room and unlocked the door. She turned on the lights, closed the door behind her, put on the safety latch and then set her bag down on the bed. She let the air in her lungs go, took another breath and held that one too. She raised her phone to look at the picture again. There was a buzzing in her ears, angry and steady. She sat on the bed and then, exhaling, slid all the way to the floor, her phone falling out of her hand onto the rug beside her.

  The muffled music from the bar, the laughter of the smokers, the crunch of the gravel, the roar of cars on the highway—all of it filled her ears like salt water she might drown in.

  The photo was taken at night, the colours grainy and the edges too dark for specifics. There were a dozen ways you could look at each shape. Trees on all sides threw shadows like the bars of a cage. But really, there was only one conclusion. In the centre, on the ground, was her husband, stretched out on a sleeping bag beside a small fire, with a blonde woman on his chest.

  She put both hands on her forehead and rocked, softly knocking her skull on the bed frame. She had to get up, now, or she’d never get up again.

  * * *

  It was busy in the Drunk Tank. Joan couldn’t find a seat, so she leaned against the bar, shot the first vodka and sipped the second. Then someone noticed she was an actual woman and offered her his stool. Even though she was clearly distressed and monosyllabic, it took him almost twenty minutes to take the hint that she was in no mood for a chat.

  After he moved off, she ordered a third round and set her phone on the bar, the image centred on her screen.

  She wanted someone to explain this away, to tell her it wasn’t what it looked like. But who? Not-Victor acted like he didn’t know who the fuck she was. No way was she showing Zeus, or Ajean, who would just rant on about tricky wolves and trickier Europeans. For the first time since she saw him again at Walmart, Joan was angry. So angry she wasn’t sure she wanted to save him. Hell, if Victor called her right now, she wasn’t sure she’d even pick him up from the Greyhound station.

  She clicked her screen off and swivelled around on her stool to survey the room. Anything for a distraction.

  The bar was a sausage party. There were easily four men for every woman, and some of the women looked like the kind you paid for. There was a stage for a live band, a small dance floor and high, round tables packed with drinkers. The place was lit with a hundred different neon signs hung on the walls. Every beer company she knew and some she’d never heard of; open and closed signs; puns; rudimentary pictures drawn in neon of beer mugs, women, pool triangles and sticks. There was no need for more illumination, except for the spotlights on the stage and two small lamps behind the bar so the bartender could check IDs and make change. Everyone in the place looked frighteningly cubist and excitingly attractive in the neon glow.

  She rubbed the lighter in her pocket, flipping it lengthwise a few times. She checked her purse. No smokes. Fuck. She got up and went outside. There were two choices: a group of three men and two women who were well beyond tipsy and having some sort of flirt party, or a single guy in a cowboy hat. She went for the cowboy.

  “Hey, sorry to bother you.” She motioned to his lit cigarette with her chin. “Can I buy one off you?”

  “How could I say no?” He pulled a pack out of his front pocket and handed it to her. She tried to give him a loonie and
he waved it off.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  He offered her a light, but she used her own.

  “So, why are you hanging out in the finest establishment in town tonight?” he asked.

  “Oh, just the usual bullshit.” Her bullshit was anything but the usual. But right now she wanted to smoke and she wanted to be mad.

  “Well, I am happy to be your nicotine dealer for the evening. I’m Gerald.”

  “Joan.” They stuck their cigarettes in between their lips and shook hands.

  “What’s with the hat?” she said.

  He tipped the brim with a finger, just like she imagined he would. “Homesick, I guess. I’m from Alberta. Setting up this new project out here for a few months.”

  “People in Alberta actually wear cowboy hats?”

  “Only the good-looking ones.”

  She surprised herself with a laugh. And oh, laughing felt good. They smoked in silence for a few minutes. Then he flicked his butt into the parking lot and it hit the ground with a tiny explosion of orange sparks. “I need a drink. You need one, Joan?”

  “I do. Unless you can just hook me up to a Grey Goose IV out here.”

  He looked at her with mock surprise. “Jesus, I better hit the ATM if it’s going to be that kind of night.”

  * * *

  An hour later they had commandeered one of the high-top tables and were leaning in to talk over the three-piece band. Joan had danced, and now her T-shirt was stuck to her sweaty back. That felt good too.

  Gerald was telling her about the mine. “I mean, the work isn’t always glamorous, but I do get to stay in awesome places like this.”

  Joan found she had to ask. “Hey, have you seen any church people around here?” The drinks had loosened her up but hadn’t yet shut down the obsessive part of her brain.

  “Church people? Well, my guess is you wouldn’t run into them at the Drunk Tank.”

  She sipped her beer. There was sure to be a hangover tomorrow. “True. This place is only for champions like us.”

  “Are you a church-going woman, Joan?”

  “Me?” She laughed. “No fucking way. I’m just looking for someone travelling with some missionaries. Hey, you think they only do it in the missionary position?”

  The band finished up its unrecognizably slow rendition of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and launched into something a hell of a lot faster.

  Gerald slammed his empty onto the table. “Oh my god. We have to dance to this. Come on.” He held out his hand to her.

  “What the hell song is this?” She screwed up her face, trying to decipher it.

  He closed his eyes and started singing along. “There’s a man going ‘round, takin’ names…”

  Johnny Cash. Yes indeed, she did have to dance to this. Zeus would approve. On the full dance floor, Gerald put a hand on her lower back and pulled her in close, holding her other hand out and up.

  “Oh shit, are we gonna do this cowboy style?”

  “Almost. I won’t make you line dance.”

  She’d forgotten the feel of being held, of being pushed and pulled in a small space with nothing else to be concerned about. The band was horrible and the crowd was the kind of drunk that made people clumsy and sure of themselves at the same time, and this man was a stranger, but near the end of the song, out of weariness or gratitude, she laid her head on his damp chest, which felt odd and comforting at the same time. He pulled her tighter so she was held there, then he picked the steps, he cleared the way. And she allowed it. As if it were safe to allow a man control even for a second. She knew better, but she was so tired. So fucking tired.

  Back at the table, they stood close, the heat of him reaching her skin. At one point, while discussing the merits of mullets in the work of natural selection, he put a hand on her hip. She let it stay, as experiment. And it did cause a tightening in her crotch—a feeling she forgot existed outside the context of Victor. She waited for it to make her sad, the same way she cried after masturbating. But it didn’t. Anger is a strong temporary blocker and she was still very angry.

  Why not kiss someone? Let someone kiss the hell out of you? Why the fuck not. Just to make it even.

  Gerald leaned down. If she turned and tipped her face up a bit, they would be kissing. Anyone looking at them—him leaning in so close to her face, a hand on her hip, asserting possession—would think a kiss was inevitable.

  Fuck, her head spun. And suddenly she had so many tears her face hurt and she didn’t have the strength to let go of them. This was not what she wanted. This man wasn’t Victor.

  She had to get rid of Gerald for a minute so she could breathe. “Can you grab me another beer?” He stared at her for a moment, but then he nodded.

  She pushed her hair out of her face and muttered a heartfelt Fuck as he walked away.

  She watched him at the bar. He was good-looking, that much she gave him. Brown hair, smooth skin, great build from a lifetime of labour and taking care of himself. But he was not Victor. Even if Victor was fucking Cecile. Even if he couldn’t remember Joan. Even if he was lost to her forever. Even then, she didn’t want anyone else. She snapped an elastic she’d forgotten she’d stuck around her wrist and tied up her hair in a low ponytail. Back to work, Joan.

  Gerald returned with two sweating bottles of light beer, put them down on the table, then tried to move back into his cozy spot up against her. She stepped out of reach and he moved toward her again. She moved once more and this time he stopped where he was. It took him a minute, but he settled at a safe distance, noticeably sulking.

  They listened to the band massacre “Love In an Elevator” by Aerosmith—or was it “Carry on Wayward Son” by Kansas, who could be sure? She noticed him noticing the blondes who sashayed by their table, bumping into him or each other, all tipsy-clumsy cute. He smiled his appreciation at them, even tipped that fucking hat. Well, that didn’t take long. Also, who the hell orders Miller Lite when there’s Labatt 50?

  Just as she was thinking about getting out of there, he leaned toward her again. “So tell me. Who is it exactly you’re looking for?”

  “My husband.”

  “Ahh. I see. And does he know you’re looking for him?”

  “He does.”

  “So if he’s expecting you, how come you don’t know when they’ll be here?”

  “Things are complicated, Gerald. And also none of your business.”

  “True.” He took a long pull on his beer. “Well, maybe some of the guys from work will have an idea.” He used the neck of his bottle to point around the room before taking another swig. “There’s always one of those mission tent things popping up on projects.”

  “For the workers?”

  “Nah, for the local communities, Indians mostly, I guess. But it’s also kinda for the workers. Makes our jobs easier.” He finished off the bottle and pushed it away from him. “We call them the clearing houses.”

  She let that Indians slide for now.

  “How’s that?” She sipped her beer, regretting now how alcohol made her dull, made them all dull. The whole bar was a cutlery drawer full of spoons, not a tine or a blade in sight.

  “You know all these projects have to go through approvals, right?” he said.

  Why would she know that? But, “Yeah.”

  “The only real threat to a project—to our jobs—are the Indians. They’re the ones with the goddamned rights, I guess. Always protesting and hauling us into court.”

  Okay, clearly he had no idea Joan was Native. Maybe he thought she was some hot Italian mama or fiery Latina, both of which she had been mistaken for by douchebags in bars.

  “It’s the ones who have traplines or who do ceremony out on the land.” He actually put air quotes around ceremony. “Those traditional Indians, they put up the biggest fight. They can stall work for years. But when the missions come through?” He snapped his fingers. “They’re too busy praying to protest. The missions are good at changing the way people see shit.
Course it helps if you can hook one or two of the powerful ones—chiefs and whatnot, especially the ones willing to take the company cheque and give speeches about moving on with things, doing things like actually working.” He laughed and shook his head. “Mission tents are an important part of mining, of any project really—mining, forestry, pipelines. That’s what’s going in up here next, a pipeline conversion. Maybe that’s why your guy is coming to this shithole.”

  “Missions are part of the project?”

  “Yup. The only thing more effective than an Indian priest is a kid preacher. They have those down in the States now. Craziest thing.” He reached for his bottle, then remembered it was empty.

  “Holy fuck.”

  “Exactly.” He laughed so hard all his teeth shone in the glare of a hundred neon lights.

  She saw the Reverend Wolff then for what he was, leading the people like some kind of Anishnaabe pied piper. Heiser’s role made sense too. He was a rogarou, and the rogarou is doomed to eat the people, to wander the roads leading us into temptation. It made sense, then, that he was also filling the church tent.

  The image of Victor and Cecile in the woods came back to her and rage bubbled under her skin. The idea of Victor and the rogarou tearing the people from the inside out, fucking up whole communities, made her ball her hands into fists. And then there was this dickhole, still laughing at his own racist commentary. She watched his eyes squint, his mouth open wide, the glare of his overdone veneers. And she pulled back and punched him right in that fucking mouth.

  He bent in two, his empty bottle crashing to the sticky floor.

  She yelled into the top of his hat like it was a microphone: “We’re not from India, jackass.”

  Then she turned and hauled ass out of there, not stopping until the door of her room was locked, with her safely on the inside.

  * * *

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” she whispered to herself in the empty of her room, water filling her eyes. “Everything is okay. Victor isn’t Victor. He can’t cheat on me because it isn’t him right now. He’s crazy, I am not.”