by Donna Milner
“Oh,” Julie interjects, quickly. “My husband, Ian.”
“Kinda figured that,” Terri grins. “Glad to meet ya,” she says to Ian who appears at a loss for words. She turns her attention to Julie and instead of taking her outstretched hand, enfolds her in a hug. “Great to see you again, Gal.”
Releasing the startled Julie she returns to her vehicle. “Like I said I bagged some grouse this morning. Got way too many for myself.” She reaches into the back of the ATV and retrieves a fistful of birds, holding them upside down by their legs. “These fool-hens are just too stupid to run away. Half of them I took down with rocks. Much better sport than shooting ’em. Anyway, they’re good eating. Thought I’d drop a few off with you folks, if you’re so inclined.”
“I’ve never had grouse,” Julie says. “I’d love to try it.”
“Well great, I’ll just clean these up for you and then take a few over to Virgil.”
“Sorry, but you’ve missed him again,” Julie tells her. “He’s out rounding up the cattle.”
“Well, darn, I was hoping he’d offer an old friend a cup of coffee,” Terri says raising her eyebrows innocently.
Julie opens her mouth to offer the expected invitation, but Ian, who has found his voice, beats her to it.
Before going inside, Terri retrieves a plastic bucket from the back of the ATV. Hanging onto the dog, Julie watches in fascination as the woman plucks off the bird’s tiny heads as easily as separating flowers from stems. Then placing the headless carcasses upside down, she steps on either wing and in one swift motion yanks up until only a thick mound of glistening pink meat is in her hands. It’s over in moments, and she places the cleaned breasts in the pail and hands it to a stunned Ian. “Give Virgil a couple of those,” she says, cleaning up the feathers and remains from the ground. “Keep the rest for yourselves. They’re right easy to cook. Just throw them in some tinfoil with a little salt and pepper, garlic, onion and a dab of butter. Bake ’em in the oven, along with some potatoes. Mmmm!” She grins and winks at Julie. “You can thank me next time you see me.”
Inside, they sit around the table with their coffee, Ian quizzing Terri about the overland journey from her ranch to theirs. “Takes me not much more than an hour,” she tells him. “I could have come in the float-plane, the lakes are still wide open, but it’s grouse season so thought I’d take advantage of that,” she says downing the last of her coffee.
Julie pushes away from the table and slowly stands up.
Terri watches her retrieve the coffee pot. “Can’t help but notice you look a mite tender, Girl,” she says holding up her cup for a refill. “Something happen to you?”
“She went after cattle yesterday,” Ian says into his mug. “I’m not certain if she is sore from the four hours on horseback or from falling off her horse and having to ride home double with Virgil.” He glances up and meets Julie’s eyes.
Ignoring his implied question she replaces the coffee pot on the stove.
“Whew,” Terri whistles. “Four hours. That would do it. Didn’t anyone mention that you have to ease yourself into horseback riding?”
“I know now, ‘she said easing herself into her chair.’” She chuckles at her own joke but winces as she sits down.
“That must have been a first for Virgil, riding range with a woman. Excepting myself, of course.” In the silence that follows Terri glances from Ian to Julie. “Ah, well, so did you at least enjoy the ride?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. I intend to try it again as soon as my muscles and joints stop rebelling.”
“Really?” Ian says, studying the bottom of his cup. “That’s great. I just might ride along as well.”
35
Pup cocks his head and whimpers when Terri climbs onto the ATV, but he remains sitting between Ian and Julie after the quad roars away. Watching the tail lights disappear down the road, Julie experiences her own tug of regret at seeing Terri leave. Darn, I wish I’d thought to take her photograph.
“She’s quite the character, isn’t she?” Ian says. “I rather like her.”
“Yeah. Me too,” Julie says more to herself than to Ian, who has turned to go back into the house.
Hugging her sweater around her she calls out, “I’m going to get my camera.”
The pungent fragrance of sweetened hay and horsehide surrounds Julie as she enters the barn. She stands inside taking in the now familiar aroma, an aroma that, like the barn, the horses, even the hay stored in a mountain of bales outside, belongs to Virgil. She and Ian are the intruders here.
Her camera is still hanging where Virgil left it just inside the door. She unhooks it and leaves, disappointed to find the barn empty. On the way back to the house she thinks about Ian’s declaration that he might come along riding next time she goes and is uncertain how she feels about that. No, not uncertain, confused, because a large part of her hopes it was just talk. It makes no difference, anyway; it will be a few days before her aching body is in any shape to mount a horse again. Walking seems to help though. She decides that later she will hike over to Virgil’s and deliver the grouse meat.
She cleans the kitchen, and separates the bird breasts into freezer bags while Ian works in his office. When she is certain he is immersed in his files, she takes one of the bags and, leaving the dog in the mudroom, steps outside. Hurrying across the yard she glances over at the corral but sees no sign of either Virgil or the black gelding.
Along his driveway flocks of spotted thrushes rise from the mountain ash trees, dropping red berries to the ground as they scatter. Now that most of the leaves have fallen, Julie is struck by how different the forest surrounding the cabin looks, how raked and park-like the ground between the trees appears. For the first time she notices the colourful little birdhouses decorating many of the poplar and birch trees.
Behind the cabin, Vigil’s pickup truck is parked in its regular spot. The cabin windows are dark and Julie senses before she steps onto the front porch that it’s empty. Still she knocks on the door. Hearing no movement inside, she steps over to the front window and peers in, past the dreamcatcher hanging on the other side of the glass.
Confirming her belief that Virgil is not home, she goes back to the door and tries the knob. It turns easily. She hesitates for a moment, then decides that there’s no harm in taking the grouse inside and leaving them in the sink for him.
A musk-filled scent fills her nostrils the moment she pushes the door open, the same unique masculine fragrance of spicy sweat and woodsmoke she had breathed in while riding behind Virgil yesterday.
She steps inside and, closing the door, slowly surveys the interior.
A hulking wood cookstove takes up most of the wall near the door, its cast-iron top still radiating warmth. An old copper boiler, filled with split kindling and wood, rests next to it. In the kitchen area to her right, afternoon sunlight streams in through the window above the sink. It spills across the counter, casting a yellow light on the chrome table and chairs. An antique oak roll-top desk fits snugly between the end of the cabinets and the built-in bookshelves that line the wall all the way to the far corner. In the shadows a brown leather couch, its overstuffed armrests shiny with wear, faces a cabinet television that looks too ancient to work. A braided area rug covers the plank board floor. Through an open door at the other end of the room, an iron bed, made up with a patchwork quilt tucked military tight at the corners, is visible.
Impressed with the unexpected orderliness of this bachelor home, Julie smiles. She goes over to the sink and turns on the cold water. While she waits for it to fill, she surveys the spotless counters, the clean dishes stacked in orderly fashion in the open overhead cabinets.
Even the glass window above the sink is streak-free. Her attention suddenly focuses on the dreamcatcher hanging there. Abruptly she shuts off the tap and tosses the plastic bag of grouse meat into the cold water. She leans forward to take a closer look, and a shiver runs down her spine. The woven spider-web-like circle looks like—no
it is identical to—the one that used to hang over Darla’s bed. The one that was supposed to keep her from harm. The one that Julie had tossed into the trash the day of her funeral.
36
Levi gave it to me. It was to catch any evil spirits that tried to enter my dreams while I slept. At the same time he told me that my totem, my spirit guide, was the bear, ‘the healer’ in his culture. I thought that was pretty cool. And even though I saw no reason to believe that the childhood legends Levi grew up with were any more realistic than those in my Big Book of Children’s Bible Stories, which Gram, who really knew how to put a downer on a kid’s sixth birthday, gave me, I liked the idea that he wanted to protect me.
He gave one to Kajul Sandhu too, so it really wasn’t any big deal, except he told her that her spirit guide was the deer. I have to admit that I was a little jealous of the idea that he saw her as a beautiful deer and me as a burly old bear. But then, it was me who he kissed in the end.
Levi was not the first boy I ever kissed. Hey, I was sixteen years old, what does anyone expect? Mom was the blindest one of all about that kind of stuff. Because she was so late taking an interest in the opposite sex, she just assumed I was like her. I guess compared to some girls I was, but still I was curious far sooner than she was. I was twelve when I started to wonder what it would feel like to have a boy’s lips touch mine. I decided to find out that summer when I went to visit Gram in Vancouver. But she was way more suspicious than Mom ever was. When I started spending more time with the boy who lived at the end of her street, Larry Young, a freckled-faced redhead who was the same age, and just as curious as I was, she made sure we were never alone together. Instead of allowing me to go to the beach on the bus with him and his friends she insisted on driving us. She said it was because she hardly ever got to do things like that with my mom when she was young, so she was going to get all the time in with me she could. But she wasn’t fooling anyone. While we swam and sunned ourselves on the beaches of English Bay, she would sit on a nearby log, or on a folding chair, wearing her floppy hat and caftan, pretending to read a book while keeping watch from behind her frog-eye sunglasses.
Sooner or later, though, she had to go to the bathroom. The first chance we had we pulled the blanket over our heads and fumbled around in the tented light until we found each other’s mouths. I still remember how startled I was by the metallic taste of Larry’s wet lips and tongue. I wasn’t quite sure I liked it. Before I had a chance to try it again, the blanket was torn away, swirling sand up in our faces as it flew off.
Gram never made a big deal about it, I’ll say that for her, it was almost as if she expected it, and that was why she came back so quickly. She said nothing to Mom. I didn’t know why. At the time I suspected it was so she could have something on me. But after that, whenever anyone mentioned the beach, or blankets, or anything that would remind us of that day, she would flash me a wink. And then when I shaved one side of my head, while Mom was trying so hard not to say anything, Gram told me I looked perfectly lovely. I realized then that somehow she enjoyed sharing our little secrets, having our little alliance that excluded Mom. I thought it was just a silly game, but now I see that it was more than that. I see how much her relationship with Mom hurt her, and how determined she was to not let that happen with me.
They are so hard on each other, Mom and Gram. It’s as if some dreamcatcher-like web in their minds filters out their spirit of love for each other. They don’t know how to talk to each other anymore. If they did, maybe Gram would tell Mom the same thing she told me after that day at the beach. A little kiss is no big hairy deal.
37
The blood pounds in Julie’s ears as she examines the dreamcatcher hanging in the window. Her imagination must be playing tricks on her. It cannot be. But it is. The rawhide-wrapped circle is identical to the one that had hung above Darla’s bed—with the same burgundy beads woven into the same spider-web pattern. And, just like the one Levi Johnny gave to her daughter, black crow feathers dangle from the bottom of the circle.
She turns away, the questions buzzing through her head. How likely is it that there are two so similar? Had someone rescued the one she had discarded? If so, how had it found its way here, into Virgil’s window? She shakes her head. This is just crazy thinking. She grabs a dishtowel from the counter. While she dries her hands she lets her gaze search the room again, for what she doesn’t know.
Focusing on the wall above the roll-top desk, she replaces the towel then goes over to examine the display of photographs hanging there. She is drawn to one in which two soldiers, obviously twins with identical expressions of mock seriousness, are standing in front of an old house trailer. Each has an arm around the shoulders of the teenage boy standing between them holding a violin and bow. Virgil? She looks closer, checking the boy’s hands but sees no sign of deformity.
She compares the three young faces in the picture to the man’s in the small sepia snapshot next to it. The yellowed hues are faded and a map of criss-cross wrinkles mar the old photograph, giving evidence that it has been pieced and glued back together, but anyone can see that the African-American cowboy leaning against a corral fence is related to, probably father to, the twin soldiers. And the cowboy’s sparkling grin reaching across the years is identical to the young boy’s.
She turns her attention to a larger photograph, a studio portrait in which a middle-aged First Nations woman and a teenage girl are sitting on a bench. Standing behind them, with a hand on each of their shoulders, is a younger version of Virgil Blue. Although Virgil’s copper skin is a shade darker, he has the same handsome face, the same high cheekbones, aquiline nose and wide-set amber eyes as the woman. The young girl does not.
The startling combination of blue eyes, fair skin and dark hair reminds Julie so much of Darla that it takes her breath away for a moment.
Replacing the photograph Julie glances down at the open roll-top desk. Like the rest of the cabin, the oak desk is neatly organized. Envelopes, rolls of stamps, pens and pencils, are stored in the small cubbyholes. Neat stacks of yellow-lined notepads fill the top ledge. Nothing unnecessary litters the dust-free desktop, except for an envelope lying on top of a handwritten letter. Curious, Julie allows herself a glimpse of the exposed salutation,
With Love,
Melody.
Feeling like the intruder that she is, she hesitates for only a moment before picking up the envelope to uncover the rest of the page.
... I hope you are paying attention to the presidential campaign. Do you remember what you said the night you left? I do, word for word. You swore that you ‘would not return until the day a man of colour was elected president of these United States.’
In our mother’s memory, I intend to hold you to that oath, my brother. And when that day comes, as I am certain it will, you and I will visit her resting-place together.
An odd sense of relief rushes through Julie with the realization that the letter writer, Melody, is Virgil’s sister. She shakes her head. God, what has gotten into me? Stop. Enough of this.
A sudden commotion outside causes her to drop the envelope. She swings around at the sound of Pup scratching and whining at the door. A heartbeat later a shadow flits across the window and familiar footsteps pound across the porch.
38
Ian doesn’t bother to hide his irritation when Julie opens the cabin door.
“What’s going on?” he demands, grabbing at Pup’s collar.
“Nothing. I just brought the grouse over.” She slips outside, closing the door behind her.
“I had no idea you’d left.” Ian says, letting go of the straining dog as Julie bends down to calm him. “He was going crazy in the mudroom; when I opened the door he bolted down the road.” He straightens up and looks past her. “Is he home?”
“Virgil? No.”
“And you went inside. Julie, that’s not right. It’s the man’s home. Neither you, nor I, have the right to go in when he isn’t here.”
The impatienc
e in his voice startles her. She stops petting the dog and looks up at him. For an entire year now, his patience with her, their patience with each other, has bordered on indulgent and a part of her is almost relieved to see him lose his.
“Yes of course,” she says, standing up. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have.”
Ian opens his mouth, then whatever he was about to say is lost as he closes it, turns and walks away.
“Come, Pup,” Julie says and follows, anxious now to get away before Virgil returns and finds them there. Once she catches up to Ian at the end of the driveway she has to hurry to keep up with his long stride. As they near the ranch house she asks, “Have you ever noticed the dreamcatcher in his cabin window?”
“What?”
“The dreamcatcher hanging above Virgil’s kitchen sink. It’s identical to the one Levi gave Darla.”
Ian misses a step, then staring straight ahead, continues walking, the muscles in his jaw working.
“Really,” she continues, breathlessly. “It’s exactly the same, right down to the black feathers hanging from the bottom.”
“So what? They must make thousands of those things to sell to tourists in town. They’re everywhere.”
“Yes, but what are the odds that there are two so similar... I even thought for a moment that it was Darla’s—”
Ian halts in his tracks. “Don’t.” The word is a low growl in his throat.
“Don’t what?” Julie stops short, takes a quick step back and looks up at his determined profile. “Don’t say our daughter’s name out loud?”
He turns to her, his face a mask of sorrow. “Don’t do this. Don’t make everything about...” frustrated he holds up a hand. “Just stop. We have to put it behind us. Jesus Christ, Julie, you have to find some closure. Find a way to let go.”
She opens her mouth in protest, but nothing comes out. Let go? If she hears that line, or the word closure, one more time she will scream. What does it mean anyway? Closure? Let go? Of what? A wound that will never heal? Watching his retreating back she whispers, “I can’t.”
