Since Tomorrow

by Morgan Nyberg

  “There’s no place like that.” The bruise on the right side of her face where Langley’s man had hit her had faded to yellow. The scab of the split was dark across her cheekbone. There were now also three long red scratches on the other cheek from her tussle with Langley.

  Will put his poncho and sandals on and got his bow and slung his bag of arrows over a shoulder by its long twine. Then he took a potato and went out. It was a cloudy forenoon. He walked to the barns. When Beauty saw him coming she stretched her head over the spaced two-by-fours of her fence and snorted. Two frosty plumes shot from her nostrils. Will stroked her neck and leaned his face close, to get the horse smell, but she nodded him aside. She wanted what was in his hand. He let her take the potato. Then he turned south, toward the burbs.

  He crossed the limp winter stubble of the hay field that ran along the old road. He crossed the road itself, and the black soil of a carrot patch where a few rotten carrots were scattered. He passed a couple of foundations, inside which squash vines and leaves were turning to earth. He entered the expanse of scrub that ran for miles to the South Arm.

  He passed the toilet bowl and the pile of drywall gypsum near the place where he had fought with Shaughnessy and where he had shot the rabbit. There was a thick mossy log, too rotten for anyone to burn. He sat on it. Today there were no coyotes yipping. The only sound was a breeze moving through the blackberry vines and through the bare twigs of salmonberry and thimbleberry and huckleberry.

  Will set his bow and his arrows on the ground and lay back on the log. He watched the uneven layer of cloud crawl from the southwest. He pulled out a handful of moss and studied it. A small brown worm was wriggling among the roots. He inhaled the smell of the decayed log. He dropped the moss and closed his eyes and lay there listening to the breeze and feeling the way it touched his cheek. He opened his eyes when he heard twigs snapping. Then he heard a man’s voice.

  About a hundred feet away someone was moving through the brush. Will lay still. He reached down and grasped his bow. He rolled off the log and crouched behind it. Over the log he could see the indistinct form of a man passing through the brush. The man had something draped over his shoulder. He was headed toward the farm.

  The man muttered as he walked, in a deep but quiet voice “That’s it, Langley. You think you can give me all the dirty work? Well, I’ve had it. You touch me again and I’ll break your neck. You little rat. You little rat, Langley. You think I won’t? Just try me. Just try me, you little rat.” In spite of the brush, Will could tell that the man was enormous. He disappeared in the scrub, and his muttering faded.

  Will lay on his back on the ground, hidden by the log. He fitted an arrow to the bowstring. He waited. After a few minutes he rose to his knees and peered over the log. He was about to stand, when he again heard a twig crack. He crouched down again and saw the man pass back in the direction he had come from. He was moving fast, no longer muttering, but making a lot of noise as he crashed through the brush. He did not appear to be carrying anything now.

  Will ran toward the farm. His steps were light and precise. He did not make a sound. As he came to the carrot patch it started to rain. He crossed the old road. Just at the top edge of the hay field, where it sloped up to the road, he found the body. The woman was lying on her back with her arms thrown out to the side. She was naked, and her throat had been cut. On her neck and chest there was dried blood that the rain could not wash off.

  Will stared. He was unable to move or even to blink. Finally he managed to close his eyes and turn away. He wavered on his feet and reached out for support, but there was nothing there to hold on to. He dropped his bow and knelt, panting, with his head down and both hands flat on the ground. After a minute he retrieved his bow and rose and began walking toward the domicile, but when he had gone nine or ten steps he had to throw up.

  Wing slid off the back of the two-wheeled cart. He was holding a folded throw of rabbit skins. He joined Frost, who had walked up the slope of the hayfield. Frost said “It’s Mitchell’s woman, isn’t it? From your place.”

  Wing said “Yes, it’s Willow. She’s the mother of the baby. Little Pigeon.”

  As they tucked the throw around the body Frost said “I’ll tell Mitchell.”

  Wing said “No, that’s up to me.”

  Beauty watched them coming as they lugged the body toward the cart. She shuffled a little and looked fearful.

  The moon was full in a cloudless sky. Frost stood hidden by a squared-off stack of concrete blocks, watching Brandon. Among the “inventory” there was a messy pile of reinforcing bar. From this pile Brandon was trying to pull out some straight pieces. The metal made only a little noise as he slid three lengths free. He placed these on his shoulder and headed south. He walked at a steady pace and in a straight line. Frost watched him in the bright moonlight. He waited until Brandon had gone about seventy-five yards before following him.

  Crossing the old road Brandon began to sing, but not loudly. Frost could only make out some of the words. ...song I wrote... and, as Brandon reached the carrot patch, Don’t worry. Be happy.

  Frost crouched at the edge of the road, hidden by the slope leading up to it. He saw two men waiting for Brandon in the carrot patch. One of them took the rebar from him. The other one handed him something. Frost heard their voices, but they were too far away for him to understand what they were saying. The two men headed off with the farm’s rebar, and Brandon started back toward the domicile.

  Frost saw that Brandon was going to cross the road a ways from his own position. He lay on his back. He looked up at the stars and for a few seconds his face lost a little of its tension.

  Brandon crossed the road, singing, ...if you worry you make it double.... He had a bottle now. He took a swig from it and sang some more. When Brandon reached the far edge of the hay field, Frost stood and started after him, toward home. But at the bottom of the slope, he stopped.

  He had seen something. Farther along the road, a few yards to the east, among some bushes that had grown up through the asphalt, there was a pale shape. Frost walked toward it. He stepped carefully over the broken lumps of pavement. Not far to the south the coyotes had started up.

  Frost looked down at the naked body of a man lying on his back. His eyes - the one blue, the other green - were open. But if Frost thought he could see the colour of Steveston’s eyes he was imagining it. The moonlight was nowhere near that powerful.

  Noor ran past the domicile and on toward the graveyard. Frost stopped digging and watched her approach. He was up to his knees in the hole. There was a pile of fresh earth on one side. Steveston lay a few feet away on the other side, wrapped in a shroud of blue polyethylene. Beyond Steveston there was another hole and another pile of dirt and the wrapped body of Willow.

  Noor leaned on her knees and stared down at the grass, panting. Frost said “Not there?”

  Noor shook her head. “Unless he’s hiding.”

  “If he’s hiding we won’t find him. You already checked at Fundy’s.”

  She nodded.

  “And he’s not in the domicile.”

  She shook her head.

  “The workshop? The clinic? The barns?”

  She did not bother to signify the negative. Having caught her breath a little she stood upright. For a few seconds Frost studied her damaged face and the weariness and anxiety marked upon it. He said “Go up on the bridge and get King. Tell them I said it’s all right.” He looked down and placed his foot on the blade of the shovel and forced it into the soft earth.

  When she brought King back the hole was up to Frost’s thighs. He climbed out of it. For a few moments he simply stared down at the dog, who wagged his tail and bounced a little on his front Paws. Frost knelt in front of the dog and whispered endearments. He ran King’s ears through his hands. He put his cheek against King’s face. Then he stood. He looked in one direction and then another, as if bewildered. He said “Where’s Will?” and kept looking around. Noor did the same. King became al
ert. His ears stood erect.

  Frost called “Will? Will, where are you?”

  Noor called “Will? Will?”

  King darted off toward the foot of the bridge. But after twenty feet he stopped. Then he darted toward the burbs, but again he stopped. Frost and Noor started moving aimlessly in a mock search, still calling for Will. King joined them. He put his nose to the ground and trotted in quick zigzags. He stopped near the domicile and sniffed at one spot for a few seconds. Then he wagged his tail and turned back the way he had come. He did not lift his nose from the ground.

  Noor followed him toward the point where the River Trail crossed under the bridge. Frost watched her and the dog go off in search of his grandson. Then he stepped back into the grave and took hold of the shovel again.

  As she walked along the overgrown railroad bridge, toward the end, where the swing span stood forever open she said “Oh no. Oh god no.” King already stood at the end, peering down into the river. She came beside the dog. Below, the grey-green mass of the river slid past. She and King looked down to where the water eddied around a concrete abutment. She said “Oh Will.” Then she sat among the unhealthy clumps of grass and cried. Her sobs were like yells. It sounded as if she were trying to sob her insides out, and it sounded as if she would never stop.

  But when King looked over the edge of the railroad bridge and wagged his tail she did stop. On another abutment further back along the bridge Will stood a few feet above the water. He was holding on to a sloping cross-brace with one hand and was leaning out and looking up at her. His poncho and jeans were dry. His face was empty and remote. He started climbing back up on the angled cross-braces.

  44

  Above, up on Frost’s Bridge the guards leaned on the railing, looking down at the graveyard. The plastic on the many grave markers winked in the sun. It was noon on a warm day of false spring, and Daniel Charlie was not wearing a poncho. Noor and Will and King got there from the railroad bridge as he was driving the first grave marker into the ground. He was kneeling. With one hand he was holding a six-inch chunk of two-by-four against the plastic-covered cross-piece. He was hitting that chunk with another three-foot length he held in his other hand. When he had finished he stood. The marker was set at one end of an open hole. The word carved on it said Willow.

  He picked up the second marker and glanced at Noor and Will, who stood back behind Kingsway and Night and Salmon, with King sitting at Will’s feet. Daniel Charlie knelt by the second grave and drove in the second marker. He dropped a little dirt into each grave and picked up his spear and his bow and his arrows and sword and went and touched Noor on the shoulder and laid his hand for a second on Will’s head. A crumb of the grave dirt caught in Will’s hair. Then Daniel Charlie headed back to the bridge.

  As Daniel Charlie left, Tyrell arrived. He set his weapons down and stood next to Frost, who was looking down into Steveston’s grave. Tyrell said nothing.

  Of Wing’s crew there was only Wing himself and Mitchell. The rest of his men could be seen lined at the distant railing of Fundy’s Bridge. Wing stood on one side of Willow’s grave and Mitchell on the other. Mitchell was weeping. His son, Skytrain, and his baby girl were not there. The old man from Fundy’s crew had come over, in his patched suit. His name was Moses. He had a bible.

  Wing went to the head of the grave and stood above the marker. He did not lift his head or raise his voice. He said “Willow was born on my farm around the time of the quake. Her father run off" - he glanced at the other grave - “like Steveston done. Her mother died the same year my Sarah died. Me and my crew, we all brung her up together. She was a sweet girl. She liked to sing. She asked me to teach her the old songs. Rock and roll.” He paused and seemed to be lost in remembering. He opened his mouth two or three times, as if to sing. Then he stepped away from the grave.

  Moses went to the head of the grave. He had a bad limp. His white hair hung over his shoulders, and his white beard stubble was growing out. When he opened his bible he had to grab a section of pages that came loose. He placed the loose pages back in position. He found the place in the book he wanted. He looked up from the text and said “For God so loved the world, that he gave....”

  Mitchell said “No.”

  There was silence. The grass rustled in a breeze. The river murmured, and a crow called on the other side. Moses glared at Mitchell. In his eyes and in the set of his mouth there was a stony fury. Standing at the grave of his woman, with his wet cheeks, Mitchell glared back. Moses closed the book and held it clasped in both hands and for a few seconds closed his eyes and bowed his head. Then he turned his back and limped quickly away westward toward Fundy’s.

  Tyrell cleared his throat. He looked up, but at no one, staring slightly over all their heads. He said “He was younger than me, but we were friends. Best friends. We fought a good bit, but that was because we were friends and could get away with it. He hit me in the face one Christmas with a bottle of hooch. Steveston.” Tyrell shook his head, as if the grave at his feet had to be a mistake. He had his hat off. His tight grey curls were cropped close and tidy. The beard was whorls of silver against his chocolate skin. The eye patch had grown dark and grubby from his life on the bridge. He looked very tired. His voice was croaky and had lost much of its boom.

  “Steveston used to work with the Parts Gang until he got fed up with them and come to live on Frost’s farm. So he was good at fixin stuff and buildin stuff. Zahra was Frost’s daughter, and Steveston was Zahra’s man. And he was Noor’s dad and Will’s dad. He was good to his kids. He liked to laugh and horse around. He liked to go off down the river and talk to the squatters and take them stuff and fix stuff for them. Yeah. Steveston. My good friend.” He shook his head again. “Then Zahra died and he pretty much came apart. He was into the hooch quite a bit. And he wasn’t so nice to people. But nobody blamed him, ’cause he lost Zahra, and we thought he’d get over it in a while. Like most of us do.”

  Tyrell was quiet for a minute as he looked down into the hole. “But then one day he was gone. And now he’s come back. I’m glad he’s come back. But I’m not glad he’s come back like this. Most of us here knew Steveston. We won’t forget him. And we won’t forget who done this.” He dropped a handful of dirt into each grave and put his hat on and picked up his bow and spear and arrows and sword and hurried back toward the bridge.

  A belly of thick cloud had slid over the sun. The day had cooled, and the wind had picked up. Jessica stepped around a few of those gathered in the graveyard. She came forward and stood beside Frost.

  She said “One time, Steveston rigged up the big potato wagon so that as soon as Frost hitched up Beauty and tried to pull it, all four wheels come off.”

  Someone guffawed. Old Ryan. Frost nodded solemnly.

  “Another time, he built a jack-in-the box out of boards and a spring and a toy snake he traded for at the market. He put it in Brittany’s room. Deas said he heard her scream all the way out at Little Bridge.”

  Old Joshua laughed and said to Brittany, who stood near him “I remember. That’s when you stopped growin’.”

  Brittany said “I stopped growin’ when I was ten.”

  “No, I remember – you were shootin’ up like a weed until the jack-in-the-box.”

  “Idiot.”

  Jessica went on “It’s an awful time. It’s been awful for a long time, but now it’s even worse. It’s worse than I’ve ever seen it since I come to this farm. Willow and Steveston murdered. It’s harder for Frost and me and the rest of us old ones, because we remember when it wasn’t awful. We remember when things were so different from the way they are now you can’t even imagine it. I don’t just mean cars and planes and electricity. We remember when there was law, and everybody lived by the law and got along. Not like this awful time.”

  She was more than six feet tall and broad-shouldered and had a heavy and powerful face. The tanned skin was dark against the white hair that framed it. She scanned every face. She said “We’re going to make a
better time. We are. That’s what this farm is about. So we’re not going to stop thinking about what happened to Steveston. I know we all would like to, but we’re not going to. We’re going to keep thinking about what happened to him so’s we never forget what’s got to change. We’re going to make sure Steveston and Willow didn’t die for nothing. Like Tyrell said, Steveston’s come back. He’s come back and he’s put this awful time right in our faces. He’s come back to help us do what we got to do.” She stepped back from the grave. It was silent for some time. A few spits of rain fell.

  Frost said “In the days when there was law Steveston would have been called my son-in-law.”

  Noor was finally crying, but not loudly. She was wearing Robson’s vest. Will did not cry. His face was blank and empty. He looked down at the ground and put his thumb in his mouth.

  Frost said “The woman of this man who lies here learned to walk on a boat anchored near a city called Valparaiso. I wanted to take her into the city so she could practise her walking on a real sidewalk, and also so we could get some food. But we could hear the sound of gunshots all day long and all night long, so we were scared to go into Valparaiso or into any of the other cities we passed. So Zahra practised her walking on deserted beaches. And I found food in villages where every person was dead – not dead from gunshots but dead from something else.

  “My woman, Susan – wife was the word we used in those days – she died on that same boat not far south of here. We were sailing along a coast covered in forest. There were eagles in the sky. There were seals in the water. Here grave is… Well, you all know where it is.