All Those Drawn to Me

by Christian Petersen

  The condemned men were attended early by their spiritual advisors, Reverend Father Horris and two other priests. They proceeded to the place of execution, mounted the scaffold, and were each given the opportunity to address the townspeople assembled. Hare stood at the west end and was the last to speak.

  He said: I forgive everyone and thank everyone for their kindness … that is, the kindness pointed out to me earlier this morning by the good priests. What’s more I’d like to thank you all for coming out, for maybe rushing your breakfasts to be here, to hear my last words, and see me hang. Never imagined I’d die in the morning. … A bit chilly, don’t you find? Looking at me, as I stand here, you good people may not believe I’ve paid death much thought. But I have. I don’t deny, I did carve Constable’s face with my skinner knife. As he cried and sputtered, I laughed even ’cause it sounded funny, his voice running for its life, stronger than his body — till Archie shot him. Such a thing’s not easy to forget. Death seems a sudden quiet surprise . … It is this time, and this morning, my only chance in life to speak — too much to say — like panic in a fist fight, them or you, you got to control that shivery chill to save yourself. And it — it’s tough finding words. Don’t know many, but Ma tried to teach me. Though whatever use she had in mind, for me to make of words, was harder still to learn. What I have to say now is all that comes of her hope. It struck me in that cabin, where the posse had us trapped — the Boys, cursing in whispers, they told me to write a note for Clapperton, for they know even less than I . … I remember Ma’s voice, years ago, telling about Jonah in the belly of the giant fish, about blind Samson pulling them pillars down, and how the first beast was like a lion, and the second like a calf. Leather Bible closed soft in her hands, hands made tough in spots from work, the skin of her arms against my face was more tender. Sometimes I waked later, hearing wind, and some nights Ma’s cries. Though it was clearly her voice, it was not the voice I knew, and alone I recalled to myself how the third beast had a face as a man. Ma’s hands shiny with grease at breakfast, working under coal-oil light. Pa rolling tobacco, smoking, silent or declaring: Them wolves is killin’ the cows, and I’m gonna kill me some goddamn wolves! Though the cattle were mostly starved in the first place, as a result of Pa’s own bitter laziness. His land was too high and stony to grow much hay. Up against the iron-rusty ridges north of Kamloops. From the back porch we looked out to a scowling face of such rock, and windstorms swooped along against the cliff, bringing brief rains in spring, sometimes lickety-split out of blue sky, and more dust, hail, snow. Light, too, Ma showed me, bending, touching my hair and pointing with her arm, the light racing in those different storms. Smoke blackened the logs of the cabin inside, like Pa’s own madness, darker, crazier as seasons passed, and fit to kill me once I turned fifteen, less than four years back. … That trapper’s cabin down by Copper Slough, hid in a stand of swamp spruce where the raggedy moss hung, twisted in breezes, that’s where I met up with the Boys. Plenty of liquor to go around. Sick from it, lying swirling beneath witch trees, and far-off stars. Owls like spirits passing over. And at the edge of this dark sometimes again came Ma’s whisper: till I’d crawl after it, scrape myself in the brush, crawl through moon-white sharp swamp grass, till mud sucked my fingers at the edge of the shimmery still water. While the Boys threw knives in the cabin. Out there, far from here or any town, a secret thing grew in me, lived and wriggled like pain in my body so I feared it, yet wanted it more. And lying on my back under the powerful weight of myself, I was sure I’d die some other night in the future, and felt strange comfort. Wasn’t even true, what I was sure of. For here I stand, this morning — oh — pardon my panic, every thought brings some other and all in a rush it’s hard to sort their order out. … Days later, riding through the settlement on a stolen horse the Boys loaned me, old neighbours stared at me like a stranger. Which struck me silly then. I laughed hard, half-drunk in the saddle, sweaty from sun. And we carried on. … We rode north. It was the summer before last, before any of the murdering, we worked a stretch on a ranch near Williams Lake. This ranch was owned by a man named Doc English, called so for his way with horses. He loved horses. He talked mostly to me, it seemed, as the Boys would often not answer when talked to. Doc seemed to me a fair man, though most mindful of his own share of what’s fair, as any smart man is. So this was our job, he said, to build some Russell fence across his land because Doc believed certain folks were not recognizing what was his, or what was theirs. And we dragged Jack pines with our ponies, and slung these poles together in teepees with wire, and it went on and on, and we talked some as we worked till we figured out this work would never end if we gave in to it, goddamn it, how we hated building fence. Put in nine days, asked Doc for our pay. This decision of ours did not seem to shock Doc English. But he had something more to say. ’Cause he’d seen Archie ride, knew Archie could ride a grizzly if you’d ever get a saddle on one, so he asked: Son, how would you like to make this much money again, but only in a few minutes? See, Doc had a running horse, which he wanted to race, a wonder of a horse it was too. What the hell, says Archie. Then we left the ranch, we took what money we had, got good and drunk in town. A couple of days before the race Doc met up with me and Archie, asked us over to the eating house. He bought us a meal. He told us about the miracle horse, how its bloodline came directly from Persia, how it seemed to fly more than run. From his talk, I saw the life of this horse was the precious free part of Doc’s life also. Then a pretty girl brought us some stew and biscuits. And she brought a silence over our table. Archie asked her, and she said her name was Martha. Though she spoke quiet, leaning slightly over the table, I clearly heard her voice and it put a sort of spell on me, like music. Archie was bold as ever. I worried she thought us rude, because I desired to talk with her afterward, alone. She was uncommonly pretty, her hair dark as coffee, with eyes to match and her mouth had a strong kind look. … Anyhow, what Doc didn’t know yet was that Archie had also parleyed with McDougall, owner of the other horse to run. Archie figured to take money from them both, you see. This did not seem altogether a wise plan, in my mind. However, I stayed quiet, while Doc and Archie talked over the race. I watched Martha while she served other tables. My notions were foolish, but tender. If Archie tried any evil with her, I swore I’d kill him. So we ate, and Doc rambled on, till finally Archie went out back to piss. And while he was gone Doc turned more serious, looked straight at me and said I seemed awful quiet. Martha stopped at our table with the coffee pot and as she poured it in our mugs I wanted to thank her, but my breath locked in my chest, and I could not. After she walked away, Doc, he stared deeper into my eyes, and though I said nothing I believe it was then he guessed mean nature was at work. … We camped outside town and waited two days till the race. Never did talk with Martha. She was fine, too fine for me, I knew, and I felt a bit lost, much more alone then like a scared young ’un. And I began to see how, riding with the Boys, I’d left someplace, and now could not go back. Like a rank horse that breaks loose or leaps a fence, but then wonders where he’s going, now that he’s on his own. What did I want? It seemed already too late for my answer to make any difference, so there came a tiny hint of doom in my mind. … The morning of the race was sunny as any I’ve seen and the beautiful horses were nervous and snorting, for they knew something was up, and that they were at the centre of it. Doc was cheery, even a bit loud, telling folks again how the bloodline of his horse came direct from Persia, and how it’d run so fast that anyone who rode it had better tie their own belt to the saddle horn or risk gettin’ left behind. It was true enough that the colt was an awful fine creature. Its coat was dapple dun, with coal-black mane and tail, a white star was on its forehead, and its face made you think it had a mind least as good as your own, like it was some kind of horse out of the Bible. Lots of people gathered for the race. It was a clean morning full with excitement. And I remember that I briefly wished to have been there, as others seemed to be, without many burdens on my soul, free from the
icy tip of worry digging inside me. For Ma often told me how our Time is a gift and in me had started a fear I was wasting what was given me. But, for causes I can’t explain, I was more scared to accept it. So on any track I might take, fear stalked me, and I truly wished that somehow I could escape from it. … Doc was a man who could sort things out. Folks said he’d crossed the frontier, nearly been scalped, had been through worse fixes than most people dream of. While he employed us, on a couple afternoons when work was done for the day, he told stories — he told one about the Oregon Trail, which he travelled as a boy, one day he and his pa had stayed behind the wagon train, to go pick berries for pie, and they was seen by a war party and got chased, it was godawful-hell-for-leather for miles, till the wagons came in sight, and even then one of them braves put an arrow into the gut of Doc’s pony, and the thing died right out from under him. Oh he liked to talk, how some men do, and he had many other stories. Some that weren’t so exciting at the time — but I dearly wish I could recall them now only to add to my own, and to make you listen longer. … Anyhow, during the two days prior to the horse race he had asked particular people in the settlement a few questions, and pretty quick figured out Archie’s secret greedy plan. McDougall and his pals were snickering into their fists, and so Doc let them enjoy the joke for a bit. Finally the man in charge of the race shouted out that it was time. Archie swung into the saddle. The sun shone down, rich as new money. The blessed horse from Persia pranced, every step closer to the starting line, all set to run. The horse knew Doc, of course, and it stood calm when Doc approached it. It appeared Doc was gonna give a bit of last-second advice. Then he reached up, took a hold of Archie’s shirt, yanked him right out of the saddle and dropped him on the ground. Young scoundrel! he hollered, You’ll ride no horse of mine! But now came the thing Doc didn’t know, or McDougall either most likely, and that was Archie’s hidden derringer out from his pants aimed straight at Doc’s gut. There was a moment of awful quiet, or only half a moment maybe, with the stubby silver barrel shining — before another man struck down his arm. Others fell on Archie, and took the gun away. During this confusion the horse jumped a few steps to the side. And I looked away from the men fighting and yelling, to the beautiful horse. I wished mightily that I could climb up on that horse and escape the sorrowful puzzle my days had become. For if it’s true Time is a gift, mine was not altogether pleasant — and I ask that fact be noted beside my name in the Book of Life. Sure, all people are born on this Earth, and maybe that itself is a kind of gift, but we’re not all born to the same world, and cruel differences on Earth between the worlds of men can make our Time here a heavy gift to bear, so it seems to me. This idea has not only rushed into my head this morning, as you might think and maybe snicker, when I confess I’m inclined to speak every strange and no-account idea I ever had to delay the stretching of my neck — my silence — the quiet surprise. No! … Oh, my memory rushed back to the morning of the race, to the sight of the miracle horse in the sunlight, his dun coat shining, his noble head and eyes and bloodline from Persia. And if only I had that horse and fine Martha, my heart cried to my mind, I could get away! For once to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, and be nourished there and safe from the face of the serpent. I swore if ever I were free in that way I would accept the gift of Time, the life given me. I recall Ma’s hand on my hair, her bending close to me, her arm pointing to light in the storms along the ridge, her voice. … As it was, because of Archie’s sneaky plan, the townspeople turned unfriendly and ran the Boys and me clean out of that town. Further down the trail, we heard that Doc’s horse had easily won that race. This news did not surprise me, but caused some pain in my heart because I remembered fine Martha, and the dun colt dancing in sunlight. I have not forgotten, though many times I’ve wished to, have even told my mind not to think of it. I remember all these moments I speak of. And if different lives, different times, were put before me now to choose, like gifts on a table, ’course I would choose the finest and never the fearsome sort I’ve had. … I cannot speak for you all, and don’t claim to. Only for myself. … Hanging is a kindness that’s somewhat hard for me to understand, and harder to thank you for and smile. But I’m grateful to you for hearing me out this morning, my only chance to speak, while I await the last surprise. … Ah, surely there’s plenty more to say. … If you give me only another minute I will think of it. …

  The Hangman then adjusted the ropes, commencing with Hare; the signal was given by the Sheriff, and the doomed men fell.

  Tents of Flame

  Emma’s eyes are silver. As a boy, nose to nose with her, I discovered that deeper in those eyes are silk strands of teal and fuchsia. Abalone shell always reminds me of them.

  She taught me to swim, to ride bareback with only my own belt around the nose of a horse and guide it up the trail while also clutching a fishing rod, later to drink gin with Kool-Aid, to read, and to trust.

  Her mother is a kind, committed schoolteacher, of normal proportions. Her father is a giant, and a cowboy. Anton Scherfig was never partial to being in town, unless he had good reason. Quesnel is a small town, at least it was when Emma and I were kids. Though it has always boasted plenty of cowboys,

  Anton is by far the biggest one, the only one with a head like a grizzly, with silver eyes and a bushy gold beard, so he must put up with some attention from folks. Summer tourists have never seen a man that size before, so they stop and gawk. He owns a ranch out at the far edge of the Nazko country, near the Itcha Mountains, and that’s where he stays most of the time. Mrs. Scherfig and Emma have always lived most of the year in Quesnel.

  Anton did come to town recently, for the wedding.

  Emma and I went to school together. And I remember us at play in her mother’s basement one day after school. The game she had designed was a commingling of Doctor and your standard Hide-and-Go-Seek; looking back now, it seems like a fitting preface for the twists and turns in our lives in the years that followed.

  This particular afternoon I sought Emma in the crowded cellar, the furnace room, through a thicket of stored furniture, trunks and boxes, before I figured out where she had to be: in the battered antique wardrobe. Its stillness spoke to me. I crept up and eased open the door. Inside there was an enormous carnivore-hide coat. And visible down beneath the coat were Emma’s clenched, quiet, bare pink toes. Holding my breath, I snuck inside as well. She squealed! We tumbled out, wrapped together in the belly of the old wolf, two naked pups, female and male, full of virginal joy, breathing cedar and leather, coarse pelt tickling us crazy.

  By tragic stroke, our grade eight French instructor passed away one Christmas. She had not been our favourite teacher, but her death was a shock. We were saddled with guilt, and this interfered with our studies for a time. We agreed though that Monsieur Pierce, the young replacement, was cool for a teacher.

  By grade nine Emma was pretty much in charge of my destiny. She released me from a lot of needless worry about choosing any normal or sensible career. Together in the high school library at lunchtime, we dreamed of a post-industrial pantisocracy, and shared the hope of one day owning goats. Social structures like marriages and mortgages, of course, we would not waste our time on. Grey-crested hippies were still plentiful around Quesnel in those days. We envied their goats. The old Hudson’s Bay post on Front Street served as a coffee house. On Saturday nights we sometimes sat together on the back step, to listen to the folk music and the applause of the faithful.

  Changes in her body charged me with desire, and heated worries. Our teenage years brought on the new trials that felt unique unto ourselves.

  One weekend during the summer after grade eleven Emma convinced me to accompany her out to her dad’s ranch. Now, because he so rarely came to town, I had never met her father prior to this. And I’d met no other giants either.

  “Remember not to stare at him,” was the last thing my mom said, when she dropped me off at Emma’s house in town.
/>   We sang ourselves out west in her mother’s Jeep.

  Anton Scherfig had the emotions of a regular father. But he could lift stuck cows from the mud, catch enough rain in his hands to fill a soup pot, shout the length of the Blackwater River, laugh like thunder, rope clouds. A full-sized guitar fit like a ping-pong paddle in his fingers.

  Two other people lived with Anton that summer: Esther Billyboy, and her brother Danny. They all shared the house, which had high walls of vertical pine logs, to allow Anton room to move. Chores were split three ways. That’s all I know of their arrangement, that it appeared fair.

  We drove into the ranch yard and were drawn, as if in the current of a twister, to any unholy commotion in the main corral.

  Anton was astride a monster coal bull. Both were bellowing. The bull twisted end for end, bursting with muscle. Earth shook, cracked, steamed with black loam dust. The hard flesh of the two writhed and tangled. At the nearest allowable perimeter Danny Billyboy ran around and around the flailing hooves, his long hair like a raven’s wings in the haze, his grin a blaze of spirit.

  Made me dizzy just to watch.

  Esther stood with her feet on the lowest fence rail, her forearms and breasts resting upon the top one, shoulders leaning over forward. The look on her face suggested that she was long used to this sort of deviltry, yet never had determined the reason for it.

  That furious Angus was bound for the big time, the Williams Lake Stampede. Anton was giving it a last-minute lesson.

  When he caught sign of his dear daughter the giant waved his outsized Stetson and hollered, “HIYA EMMY!!”

  Knocked me nearly off the fence.

  That night Emma wanted to engage in real sex, for the first time, out on the ranch.

  “Are you kidding?” I whimpered, fearful.