by Patrick Lane
He tensed up, his hands turning into fists when he started thinking about his mother. When they moved back to Williams Lake they lived in a cabin up Soda Creek Road in a broken-down trailer. People in town said he must live in a ditch tent on a road allowance he looked so poor. One thing Cliff decided when he turned fifteen was that he’d never be a Métis. Not ever. The one good thing his father left him was skin that didn’t look Indian. He was almost white. When he left Williams Lake he swore no one was going to ever call him a half-breed again.
He wasn’t a Métis.
He was Cliff Waters.
And he had told himself he wasn’t from anywhere.
He stood quiet, staring at the bunk next to him and the skulls on the shelf above it. Reiner’s bunk. The darkness behind the holes in the curved white skulls of the bears stared back at him, their eyes full of shadows.
“Crowchild.”
He said his name just like he’d said it to Alice up at the café.
And she’d said his name back to him.
It had sounded strange to hear the word coming from her mouth. When she spoke his name it sounded beautiful.
And he said it out loud looking down at the piece of paper that told him of his birth.
“Crowchild,” he said.
His hands were steady as he folded up the birth certificate. He pushed it back inside the sock along with the letters from his mother and sister and then shoved the sock deep in his duffle.
He looked at the other stuff on his shelf, his shaving things, soap, a couple of magazines, stuff and junk. Most of it he didn’t need, didn’t want. He pushed what clothes he had lying around into the duffle bag. There wasn’t much else.
Crowchild.
His name had sounded wonderful coming from her.
There was one thing for sure, she wasn’t going to any dance.
* * *
—
ALICE HAD CLEANED and cleared everything up after Mister Harper had left the store. When he had walked out the door in the early morning she hadn’t dared move in case he returned, but he hadn’t. She could still feel the slam of the front door and his boots going down the front steps. After what seemed a long time and was only a few minutes Alice had started to work. Imma had spent two hours with her the night before making sure Alice knew how to handle the front store, the lists she had to make of everything people bought, and especially the cash box in the drawer, exactly how much money there was when she started, and how the money at the end of the day had to match exactly what she had sold.
Missus Steiner and Missus Short left with their bags of groceries. They were talking a mile a minute and they kept on talking as they went out the door. Alice stood behind the wooden counter, tired from running back and forth to the café and the cash at the front. It was late now in the morning. Each time she looked at the front door it brought back the daydream she had of Mister Harper waiting for her, the sharp tug in her hair as he pulled her back into her room, the door closing behind him, the lock clicking shut.
She pinched the skin under her wrist, the quick pain bringing her back to the goods Natalka Danko had laid out on the counter: two loaves of the last three-day-old white bread, the wax paper wrapping torn on one of them, the bread at one end dried out and curled, canned peas and beans, their labels stained, a single roll of toilet paper, a package of what looked like soft hamburger taken from the narrow walk-in freezer at the back of the store, wet rust leaking from the freezer’s hinges. As Alice wrote down the numbers of the goods, Natalka scuffed her shoes on the floor, the cheap linoleum cracking and lifting. In front of the cans was a cabbage, the skin scarred and wilted. The outer leaves were loose, the edges wrinkled and dry. Alice sat on the stool figuring it all out, writing down what things cost. She tried not to look up as Natalka began complaining.
Natalka was a small woman, but that didn’t stop her arguing. What she wanted to talk about was the cabbage. “You got that cabbage wrong,” she said to Alice, reaching out and stabbing with her forefinger at a pencilled number on the bill Alice had made. “That there should be ten cents. Once a cabbage goes brown like this one is, Imma drops the price.”
A little nervous because of Missus Danko’s insistence, Alice said, “Imma wrote in the book that cabbages are twenty cents.”
“Don’t think I don’t know that. I can read numbers upside down, you know. But there’s a different number for cabbages that’re going bad. Imma must’ve forgotten to write down what the discount was.”
Alice turned the scribbler around and pointed at a column and the word Cabbage halfway down, beside it the price written there, twenty cents, and beside the sum in brackets, for one.
“Imma said I have to follow what’s on here or else.”
“I don’t care what it says in a book. It’s ten cents when it’s old like this one here. You change what you wrote down.”
“But I can’t,” said Alice. “She’ll be mad if I let you have it for that.”
“Imma will be madder if she thinks you’re out to cheat me over a cabbage that’s almost not even worth eating. I wouldn’t be buying it at all if Martyn didn’t tell me he had to have haloopse for dinner. Look at that old cabbage.” She reached across the counter and prodded it with the same finger she’d poked the scribbler with. “It’s not even worth five cents, let alone twenty. Anywhere else they’d throw it away.”
“I don’t know what to do, Missus Danko. Missus Rotmensen, she’s going to look at everything I write down.” She held up the scribbler. “She’ll add up the money when she gets back. She’ll count the cabbages. She’ll know.”
“Never mind that. I’ll talk to her come Monday,” said Natalka. She rapped her knuckles on the edge of the counter. “Just do it.”
Alice didn’t know what to say. She was almost crying. If she changed the price Imma would find out. Or worse, Missus Danko would tell her and either way Alice would be in trouble. Tears startled in her eyes and she hated them for being there. Each time she cried in front of people she swore she’d never cry again and now they were there again. It was like the early tears at the school when she was little. She’d been so afraid back then. But why was she crying now?
“I can’t, I can’t,” Alice said. “She’ll find out and then I’ll get it from Mister Rotmensen.”
As she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand the bell over the door clanged and Ernie Reiner came in. When he heard them arguing he came over and stood behind Natalka Danko.
Alice tried not to look at him as he swung his head from side to side as if looking for someone or something. “Where’s the girl who makes me my grilled cheese sandwich, eh? I don’t see her nowhere,” he said. “Where is she?”
“It’s me,” Alice said, on her guard, knowing Reiner was going to make something from what Natalka was arguing about. “I’m here,” she said. “You’re looking right at me.”
Ernie swung his head around again, pretending he couldn’t see her. “Where’s that Indian girl?”
She looked first at Natalka and then at Ernie. Alice wasn’t confused. She knew what Ernie was doing and like always she didn’t like it. His teasing caused trouble, mostly because he never knew when to stop. And too, it was the way Ernie looked at her. It was just like Mister Harper had that morning when he unlocked her. There were other men too who did that, but Ernie was the worst. There was always something dirty behind what he said. But she couldn’t walk away. She had to deal with Missus Danko and then maybe she could go to the back and get whatever Ernie wanted to eat or drink. She hoped the coffee wasn’t too burned from sitting on the stove.
“You know I’m right here, Mister Reiner,” she said as she tried to get him to stop. “You can see me, can’t you? I got to do this here before I can make you a sandwich. I got to look after this stuff up front here and back at the counter too while they’re away. You go sit down and I’ll be right there.”
Ernie ignored her and reached out and tugged at the bib of Natalka’s purple babushka lying on her
back, her head wobbling. “How come you got that girl crying?”
“I’m not crying,” said Alice.
“You were,” Ernie said. “I can always tell when a woman’s been crying. You just look at their eyes.”
“You never mind, you,” Natalka said, bridling as she twisted her head to get him to let go of her babushka. “It’s none of your business if she cries or not. She’s a stupid Indian is all.”
Natalka glared sideways at Ernie as she reached out and pulled the cabbage toward her. It rolled off the edge of the counter into the open canvas bag she had ready, the bag and the cabbage in it thumping onto the floor, her shoulder jerking at the pull of the handles. “I’m taking this here cabbage,” she said. “No charge. And I’ll be talking to Imma, you can count on that. Now you add up the rest.”
“But that’s stealing,” Alice said.
“That’s for sure,” said Ernie. “Anyway, you can’t hardly carry it, you’re so little.”
“I got me a buggy out the door. I don’t need to carry it.”
“Aren’t you a little old to be pushing a baby buggy?” he said.
“Please stop,” said Alice.
“You be quiet,” Natalka told her. She turned to Ernie. “I told you this’s none of your business. This Indian here’s trying to cheat me.”
“No, I’m not,” said Alice. She held the scribbler up to Reiner. “Look,” she said. “It says cabbages, twenty cents for one. It says so right here.”
Natalka Danko pushed the scribbler aside. “Just forget that book of yours. How much is all this other stuff?” she said, pointing at the goods on the counter.
“If you’re not paying for that cabbage, then I think you better put it back where you took it from,” said Ernie.
Indignant, flaring like a defiant hummingbird, Natalka said: “This’s between me and this Indian girl here. You keep out of it.”
Ernie bent down and with one hand took the cabbage out of her bag, Natalka jerking at the rope handle, telling him to leave her cabbage alone. He lifted it high above his shoulder, a grey ball in the cup of his hand. “You’re either buying this or you’re not,” he said. When she didn’t reply, he lowered the cabbage to the counter and rolled it into some piled-up cans, knocking them over. Alice jumped back.
“Well,” said Natalka Danko, her breath coming hard. “I’ll just see what my Martyn says about this. He’s not going to like not getting his cabbage rolls. He asked for haloopse tonight.”
Ernie looked on solemn as Natalka told Alice to charge her for the cabbage.
“You put the full amount down and you draw a circle around the twenty cents you’re writing there,” she said. “You can bet I’ll be talking about this to Imma first thing Monday morning.”
Alice stared at her pencil stub, the scribbler back on the counter. Her hand shook as she wrote, her pencil scribbling on air.
The front door opened and Cliff walked in. He’d been standing in the porch and heard the last exchange between Ernie and Natalka. He stopped and looked at Alice. “Are you all right?” he said.
“I’m okay, Mister Waters. Really,” Alice said as Cliff turned to Ernie. She could see the anger in his eyes.
“Tell her what she owes,” said Cliff, his shoulder bumping Ernie to the side.
“Watch it,” Ernie said to Cliff, and then he laughed and stepped back from the counter. He raised his open hands. “No trouble, no problem,” he said.
Cliff ignored him as he smiled at Alice. “After you’re done with Missus Danko you can make me that grilled cheese sandwich like you always do, Alice.” Cliff could see her name felt good to her when he said it. “And maybe this time you can fry up a little crispy bacon and put it in there.”
“Me too,” said Ernie.
“You boys,” said Natalka, almost spitting it out. “I’ll be telling Martyn about you.”
“We’ll be right here if he needs us,” said Cliff, stepping around her. He walked down the aisle, Ernie behind him stumbling on a curled-up bit of worn linoleum as he tried to match him step for step. When they got to the back of the store Ernie sat down on the stool at the end of the counter by the wall. As he did, Cliff stepped around the lunch counter, pulled a Coke, and popped the cap on the edge of the cooler.
“Hey,” said Ernie, “how about getting me one.”
Cliff just looked at him as he took a drink from his bottle.
“I bet you wouldn’t mind having a slice of her to go with that Coke,” Ernie said. “Maybe tonight at the dance you can try some. I hear Claude’s letting her go.”
Cliff took three long steps, reached over, and grabbed Reiner’s shirt, pulling him halfway across the counter. “Shut your fucking mouth, Ernie.”
Ernie stood up and grabbed Cliff’s wrist, twisting away from him. “Leave off,” he said. “I got enough trouble without you grabbing me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind.”
“Anyway,” said Cliff. “You can just shut up about her.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Ernie. “What’s your problem? She’s just an Indian.”
“She ain’t just that,” Cliff said. “She’s a nice girl.”
“I was only talking.”
“Yeah, I know,” Cliff said. “It’s what you do.”
“Jesus, you’d think you liked her or something,” Ernie said as he sat back down.
“Yeah, well,” said Cliff, turning away.
“What?”
“She’s not just an Indian, you know. She’s one of the Toosey people,” Cliff said as he saw Alice coming from the front. When he saw her he came around the counter and took a seat near the middle where Alice made the lunch sandwiches.
“What do you mean, Toosey? What’s that?”
“People who live up the Chilcotin nearby Williams Lake. It’s where I come from too.”
“You come from up there?”
“What’d I just say,” said Cliff.
“I never heard of those people,” said Ernie.
“Yeah, well, you’ve heard one of them now. And you can leave off talking about her like you do.”
“Toosey, eh? That’s a funny thing to call someone.”
“Just shut it, Ernie,” Cliff said as Alice came down the counter.
Alice stopped at the sink and washed her hands, wringing them out on her apron.
“You take off,” Cliff said to Reiner.
“What?”
“I got things to talk to Alice about.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” said Ernie. “Hey,” he said to Alice.
“Do you want something, Mister Reiner?”
“Bugger off,” said Cliff.
When Reiner was gone Cliff leaned forward, his hands wrapped around the coffee she placed in front of him. “Crowchild,” he said.
Alice pressed back against the sandwich counter, her hands clasped together.
“We’re from the same place, you and me,” Cliff said. “They stole you from the Stampede at Williams Lake when you were just a little kid. We’ve talked about that. What I want to tell you is I’m taking you back there.”
“Where?” Alice said. Her hands rose to her throat.
“To the Cariboo, the Chilcotin country,” Cliff said. “That’s where you come from. You’re not going to live in a locked-up wooden cage no more.” He put his hand out, cupped palm up at the edge of the counter. Alice put out her hand as if to touch him and then didn’t, her hand in the air between them.
“Never mind them,” Cliff said.
“I’m afraid.”
“I’m the same as you,” said Cliff. “Say my name.”
She took a step and placed her hand on his. “Cliff,” she whispered.
“No,” he said, his voice soft. “Say my name.”
There was nothing in the air between them. Not a sound anywhere. Alice felt the silence all over her body.
“Crowchild,” she said.
JASWANT’S TIDY CABIN WAS STUCK back up against the wall of fir and hem
lock, one old cedar leaning almost against it, long low branches sweeping across the roof, moss growing on the shakes under its pans of needles. A glacial stone the size of a truck box, huge and grey, was lying in the grass, the wall mottled with red and yellow lichens. Along the front of the cabin was a covered porch running the length of it, a purple couch pushed back beside the screen door, the worn cushions sunk on broken springs where mice had found homes. There was a cracked window by the door and beneath its sill a long box with dry pansies in it, yellow leaves reaching on thin stalks into the still air. A rocking chair, its curved runners bound by rounds of black wire and electrician’s tape to hold them together, sat by the couch in an angled blade of the sun.
In the chair was Jaswant’s woman, slowly rocking. On the purple couch close by was Gerda Dunkle, in her arms the baby, her naked legs protruding from a twist of worn yellow cotton. The baby’s legs hung bent from the mother’s arm, the feet looking like tiny corn kernels that had been left in the sun too long and withered away. Gerda Dunkle was singing what seemed to Art a lullaby, her voice so small it seemed hardly to exist at all. As she sang she rocked the child gently in the cup of her shawl. As he listened she began to repeat one of the lines of the lullaby over and over as if somehow she had become stuck in the song.
Art Kenning stood at the edge of the road, his first-aid kit hanging from his fist, his eyes closed, his body turned toward them. He strained toward the woman’s song as it began again to weave itself through its endless repetitions. He had been there on the verge of the narrow road for what he realized was a long time because he had begun to murmur along with her the iterant harmony, together their voices an impossible duet, the woman’s singing a kind of prayer and his whispered harmony a kind of wish he accepted without thought.
The opium he had used back in his cabin had begun its first quiet leaving, soft tendrils slipping away along the blood vessels in his arms and legs, thin velvet ropes undoing in him, letting him go. He could feel the vanishing and knew soon the world would come back in all its terrible clarities, its cramps and sweat, but not yet. Now there was only the song of the woman as she cradled her baby. Art knew he was there because he had the penicillin. If what the baby had was some kind of bowel or blood infection then it might help.
