by Thomas King
“Everything okay?”
“It is,” Gabriel said, and he slipped the screws into his pocket.
Even with the books, the paints, and the bedding strewn about the living room, the house felt bare and depressing.
“You know, you don’t have a refrigerator.”
“I know.”
“Or a stove.”
“I know that, too.”
“You can’t live here like this.”
“I can do whatever I please.”
Gabriel did another circuit of the easel, checking the supports, making sure the metal straps had the right amount of tension. He didn’t think that two screws would make a big difference, but he wasn’t familiar enough with easels to be sure. He didn’t want Mara to be working on a large canvas and have the painting come crashing down because of his negligence.
Gabriel patted the easel. “The last time you took this apart,” he said, “did you wind up with extra screws?”
“No.” Mara came over and pushed the easel closer to the window. “Did you wind up with extra screws?”
“Nope,” said Gabriel, “but I can see where you could.”
The house looked worse than it had before. Empty, it had had the illusion of First World possibilities. A little paint, a new kitchen, tile in the bathroom, hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, and suddenly you’d be looking at a centre spread in House & Home.
Instead, with Mara’s bedding and clothes piled on the floor, the place had the feel of a refugee camp.
“Can you take the truck back to Mr. Crisp?”
“Sure.”
Mara held out the keys. “Maybe you could put some gas in it.”
“I can do that.”
SOLDIER was waiting on the porch. Gabriel knelt down and rubbed the dog’s neck.
“You going to stay or come with me.”
The dog dropped down and flattened himself against the planks.
“She hasn’t got any food,” Gabriel told him.
Soldier ran his tongue around his muzzle.
“Zip. Zero.”
Soldier stood up and trotted to the passenger side door.
“Good choice.”
Mara came through the door. “You’re still here,” she said.
“You want me to make you a sandwich? I could go back to my trailer and find something.”
“No.”
“Egg salad?” Gabriel opened the door, and Soldier jumped in. “I make good egg salad.”
Mara’s stomach was beginning to complain. Nothing serious. Just a reminder.
“Ball joints are loose,” she said. “Brakes pull to the right.”
MARA stayed on the porch. So, here she was. Home. Against all good sense, she had come home. She went inside, lay down on the floor, and pulled the blankets around her. The sun was streaming in through the window, and there was a gentle warmth to the light.
In that moment, in her mother’s house, she was at peace. But she knew as she lay there that coming home had been the easy part.
67
GABRIEL WAS SURPRISED BY THE NUMBER OF CARS IN THE Co-op parking lot. Soldier had spent the entire trip with his head hanging out the window and now his face was covered with drool. “Okay. You get to stay here.”
The store was busy. And there was food on the shelves. More than Gabriel had noticed in the past. Eggs, flour, milk, cheese, bread, several cereals. They were all here. Even tomatoes and bananas.
Gabriel was trying to decide between Cheerios and Shredded Wheat, when he heard a voice explode behind him.
“Master Gabriel!”
Nicholas Crisp was blocking the aisle with a shopping cart.
“Stocking the galley, are ye?”
“Ran out of food.”
“A great sin that,” said Crisp, “for there’s no predicting the hour when folks might call and needs to be fed.”
“I’ve got your truck.”
“Indeed ye do.” Crisp scratched his beard, and his eyes brightened. “There’s a good story to the theft, I’ll warrant.”
“I didn’t take it. Mara borrowed it.”
“I know,” said Crisp. “I know. For she left a note informing me of her intentions.”
“She’s moving back to the reserve.”
“Yes,” said Crisp. “High time, too.”
“I’m just giving her a hand.”
Crisp took a bag of oats from the shelf. “Your mother was from here.”
Gabriel stiffened.
“Be that a secret?” said Crisp, his voice full of concern. “For I’m a poor vault with regard to such valuables.”
“You knew my mother?”
“Aye,” said Crisp, “and your sister as well. But let’s talk as we shop, for there’s hardly world enough and time for both.”
Crisp led the way, plunging up and down the aisles, as though he were navigating a ship through high seas and dangerous reefs.
“Your mother left the reserve when she was young. Some say she ran away, and there’s pocket change in that to be sure. Samaritan Bay were a cruel place for the People in those days, and Rose wished to escape the shoals of a small town. Tell me, did she succeed?”
“No.”
“No good anchorage anywhere in this world.” Crisp wrestled a large bottle of ketchup off the shelf. “All boats run against the tides.”
CRISP pushed the cart to his truck and set his groceries in the bed. “And what of yourself?” he asked, his voice soft and gentle. “Are ye moving home as well?”
Gabriel handed him the keys. “I can walk back.”
“Indeed you can,” said Crisp, “but I’ve a proposition that requires your presence. Will ye ride with me awhile and hear me out?”
“A proposition?”
“Fresh and wet it is,” said Crisp, tapping the side of his head, “and will require a league or two to dry it out.”
Gabriel couldn’t keep the smile off his face.
“Laughter being a form of consent,” said Crisp, “I’ll take it ye approve.”
“I can hardly say no.”
“Excellent,” cried Crisp. “And while we wait for things to thicken, we’ll tour the cradle of our misfortune.”
Gabriel was still smiling. “The what?”
“Let me show ye where it all began,” said Crisp, his voice suddenly old and cracked. “And where it came to an end.”
68
SONNY WALKS INTO TOWN ALONG THE BACK STREETS AND through the alleys. He sets the wire down in the shade at the edge of the Co-op parking lot and watches people go in and come out. Sonny recognizes each person, and as they disappear into the store, he whispers their names to the trees.
Peter Canakis, Carol Miller, Judy Webb.
Sonny sees Mr. Crisp go into the store. When Sonny sees Mr. Crisp, Sonny ducks down and doesn’t say a word. Best the trees don’t know about Mr. Crisp.
An old pickup pulls into the lot, and the naked guy who likes to die on Sonny’s beach gets out.
What is going on at the Co-op?
Is Sonny missing something?
Are there free samples?
Is today a holiday that Sonny has forgotten?
Sonny counts up the number of people he has seen go into the Co-op. Sixteen. So far, Sonny has seen sixteen people.
The next car that pulls into the lot is a blue van. Sonny likes blue. It’s one of his almost favourite colours. His other almost favourite colours are red, green, orange, and purple. Sonny’s two favourite colours are black and white, because they are easy to remember and because you can’t go wrong with black and white.
Sonny watches a thin man get out of the van, and before Sonny can stop himself, he says the man’s name.
Mark Vigneux.
But Vigneux’s Hardware is closed. Sonny has gone past the store many times, and the windows are always dark, and the doors are always locked. Maybe Mr. Vigneux has returned and is going to reopen the store. Sonny would like that. He remembers wandering the aisles and looking at all the tools
and the paints and the plumbing fixtures.
If the hardware store is open again, Sonny will buy a tape measure for his tool pouch, just to let Mr. Vigneux know that people care.
Right then, Leigh Taylor rides up on his bicycle. Taylor’s Butcher Shop. Organic ducks and rabbits, fresh eggs and stewing chickens. When the shop was open, Mr. Taylor had let Sonny go into the backyard to pet the animals. He especially liked to pet the baby bunnies before Mr. Taylor made them into sausage.
Mr. Taylor’s shop has been closed for a very long time, but now he’s back in town. Mr. Vigneux and Mr. Taylor have returned.
Wham-wham.
Maybe after all this time, people are coming home. Maybe they have missed their Sonny. Hammer-hammer.
Sonny is enjoying watching all the people. It’s almost like the old days, he tells the trees. Soon the tourists will come back and rent rooms at the Ocean Star Motel. Soon they’ll swim in the pool and lose things on his beach.
He steps out of his hiding place and steals across the Co-op parking lot and into the alley behind the Tin Turtle, the roll of copper wire over his shoulder. There are treasures in the darkness and wealth in secret places.
That’s what Dad says.
And he’s right.
As Sonny searches the empty lots and rummages behind the vacant buildings, he finds an old harrow disc half-buried in the ground. Near the Petro-Canada station, he discovers four lengths of rebar, along with a plastic hubcap that looks like a shield.
The hubcap is quite light, but the harrow disc is heavy, the rebar long and awkward, and Sonny finds it difficult to carry everything at once.
Who will help Sonny?
Sonny holds his hands up to the heavens.
Who will help Sonny in his hour of need?
Then Sonny has an idea. He holds the hubcap parallel to the ground and flings it towards the beach. It sails off, glistening in the sun, floating on the breeze. He hefts the rebar as though it were a spear, and tosses each piece as far as he can. The harrow disc he carries.
Fling the hubcap. Toss the rebar. Carry the disc.
Fling the hubcap. Toss the rebar. Carry the disc.
Sonny is certain that the people at the Co-op would enjoy this game, especially the part with the rebar.
Fling the hubcap. Toss the rebar. Carry the disc.
Fling the hubcap. Toss the rebar. Carry the disc.
Until he finally reaches the tower.
Sonny takes the copper wire off his shoulder and sits down in the sand. He has just begun unrolling the wire and laying each strand next to the rebar when he catches sight of something in the distance, gliding above the swell of the ocean.
A bird.
Sonny can’t believe his eyes. He jumps up and rushes into the surf.
A solitary bird, small and fast on the wing. A bird where there had been no bird the day before. Or the day before that. Not since That One Bad Day.
Sonny will have to hurry now. The tower must be finished. The beacon must be lit. And then everything will be as it was before, everything will be as it was in the beginning.
69
DORIAN CAME OUT OF THE ELEVATOR IN FULL STRIDE. WINTER hurried to keep up.
“Tell me.”
“Athabasca, Khan, Quinn,” said Winter, reducing the conversation to code.
“My wife wants a divorce.”
“The situation in Alberta has worsened.”
“She’s staying in Orlando. Says we’ve grown apart, says she needs to find herself.”
“PR is putting a television campaign together that highlights North America’s continuing need for energy and Domidion’s commitment to a healthy environment.”
“Needs to find herself? Who talks like that?” Dorian stopped in the corridor and turned back to Winter. “Are you married?”
“No, sir.”
“Very astute. Why buy the cow? Right?”
Winter was an excellent assistant, and Dorian had chosen her himself, but there were times when he would have preferred a man in the position.
“Sorry. Inappropriate.”
“The fish kill is massive,” said Winter. “There are dead animals as well—fox, raccoon, deer, moose, bear, coyote—along the banks of the river for seventy-five kilometres downstream from the breach.”
Dorian continued down the hall.
“And we have reports of human casualties.”
“Casualties?”
“Eight confirmed. An additional thirty-five in hospital. Those figures are expected to rise.”
“Christ. What’s the stock doing?”
Winter checked her tablet. “Down nine points.”
“The woman has no sense of timing.”
“Khan?”
“No.” Dorian sat down in his chair as though he were trying to hammer a nail through steel. “Olivia. The stock is in the shitter, and she wants a divorce? Now she wants a divorce?”
Dorian could feel the sweat beginning to form on his upper lip. He closed his eyes, and there was his pack of wild dogs with Goofy in the lead, chasing Olivia around the Epcot Center.
“Anything on Quinn?”
“The mother and sister,” said Winter. “When they left Lethbridge, they went to a place called Samaritan Bay.”
“Samaritan Bay?”
“It’s a small town on the coast of British Columbia.”
The tremor was unexpected. It started in his fingers, and Dorian had to press his hand down hard on the desk to hold it in place.
“Unfortunately,” said Winter, “there is no record of any Quinns in that town or the immediate area.”
“Keep looking.”
DORIAN waited until Winter was at the elevators before he fished the bottle from his pocket.
Lucror.
Why did all medications have such bizarre and unfathomable names? Pantoprazole. Creon. Allopurinol. Prednisone. Levothyroxine. Why couldn’t the major pharmaceuticals just match the name to the function?
Happy. Sleepy. Calm. Horny.
Dorian swallowed the pill and then went back to his computer. He brought up VisitOrlando.com and spent the next while scrolling through the gallery.
All the houses in the photographs were buff or tan, earth colours with some pastels thrown in for contrast. Everywhere he looked, there were swimming pools and tennis courts, with people in golf shirts and shorts, sandals, straw hats, and dark glasses, everyone basted with suntan lotion and bug spray.
Boredom and anonymity.
What did Olivia see in the place? Dorian was sure that Q hadn’t run off to Florida, but all things considered, if the man had wanted to disappear and not be found, Orlando had much to recommend it.
70
“MASTER DOG ALWAYS SITS IN FRONT,” CRISP EXPLAINED, AS he eased the truck out of the Co-op parking lot. “He’d be better served in back where there’s more sky and wind and room to roam, but he’ll have none of it.”
Gabriel tried to find a comfortable position between Crisp and Soldier. The dog had his head out the window again, and Gabriel had to lean forward to avoid the blowback.
“Says he don’t want to miss none of the conversations.” At the intersection, Crisp turned the truck away from the town. “A day it was, much like today. That’s how it all began.”
Soldier quickly pulled his head in and began humming.
“Right you are, Master Dog,” shouted Crisp over the wind. “I’ve messed the story up again, for she don’t start on a day like this at all. She starts as life herself starts. In the water.”
Soldier settled against Gabriel’s shoulder.
“Aye,” said Crisp. “It’s somewhat nervous in the prologue, with a happy middle and a tragic ending. Do ye know your Jacobean drama?”
“No.”
“Everyone dies in the last act,” said Crisp. “That’s all ye needs know.”
Soldier’s ears came up.
“Yes, yes,” said Crisp. “I’m easily distracted. What I want to say is that it began on a day such as this. And it bega
n in the ocean. I’d gone for my swim, and I went too far. I let my pride rule my prudence. There it is. The fatal flaw.”
Crisp passed the Ocean Star Motel and turned into the hills.
“So, there I was, with the edge of the land but a thin line floating on the belly of the sea, when a spasm catches me, cramps me hard and quick, and down I go.”
Soldier raised his head and began a low keening.
“But, up I come,” cried Crisp, “for I’ve the strength of giants. Yet, truth be told, I’m in dire straits for me legs were chain spliced and sheep shanked. And then, when I think that all is lost, I touches something in the water and something touches me. At first, I think it’s a stub of a log torn loose from the land by a storm, and I grabs it like a baby might grab a breast.”
Soldier dropped his head onto Gabriel’s lap, and the keening turns to a soft whimper.
“But it weren’t a log. No, not a log at all. It were Master Dog, adrift in the great salty, same as me. And that’s how it was done. The two of us hurrying on the other with encouragements and threats, him stroking and me floating for a while, and then me pulling for dear life while he reposed on my back like a child in a cradle. All that morning and afternoon we argued with the colossus, until she turned around and tossed us ashore, shipwrecked and busted.”
“You found Soldier in the ocean?”
“And he found me,” said Crisp. “It were a mutual discovery, with credit enough for both.”
The road narrowed and steepened. As it wound into the mountains, Gabriel caught glimpses of a stream in a deep canyon.
“There.” Crisp steered the truck into an opening on the shoulder. “There is where it began.”
Crisp opened the door, and Soldier leaped out, ran howling to the edge of the chasm.
“One day was all it took.”
Gabriel walked to where Soldier was waiting and looked over the edge.
“It’s the rare man what gets to see the results of his genius.”
Below, Gabriel could see the path of destruction that followed the stream, could see the grey and brittle silence that rose up the sides of the canyon in all directions.
