Eighty Days to Elsewhere

by kc dyer

  “Right,” I say, fumbling for my suitcase. “Right. Thank you for that.”

  “Pure instinct,” he says, and grabs his pack before standing up. “I think we’d better get out of here.”

  My own good luck—if that’s what it was—hasn’t extended to the other passengers. By the time we all pile out and clamber over the dirty snowbank on the side of the highway, it’s obvious that several of the heartier partiers on board fared less well than I. One guy, who was last seen standing near the front, singing a karaoke version of Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” had been flipped head first into one of the metal handrails, and was likely concussed. Two other passengers smashed their heads against the window as the bus slewed side to side and have sustained cuts. And the driver has caught his leg between the wall and the gearshift, snapping it neatly—leg, not gearshift—above the ankle.

  By the time everyone has banded together to help the driver into a more comfortable position and staunch the two head wounds, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrive. The police are not on horseback but in a pretty standard-looking cruiser—lights flashing and with a little convoy of three ambulances following.

  “They got here quick,” says the driver, through pain-clenched teeth. “Only had to come from Sicamous.”

  I pretend this means something to me. Some of the passengers have moved him over to what I’m pretty sure is a luggage rack, now rigged up with pillows to make a more comfortable resting place. I’m sitting in the seat beside him, having been given the job of holding his hand.

  He closes his eyes and rests his head against the side of the bus, which makes me instantly nervous. My own exhaustion has vanished with the adrenaline rush of the crash. The combination of a few hours’ sleep and the reality of being completely unhurt myself has left me feeling almost peppy, and strangely alert. Even my stitches are no longer sore.

  “Hey—stay with me,” I say to the driver, and his eyes flutter open again. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Stu,” he says.

  “I’m Ramona,” I say, happy he’s talking again. “Is that short for Stuart?”

  “Just Stu,” he repeats. Still, he squeezes my hand, so I take that as encouragement.

  “Where are you from, Stu?”

  He looks around a little, dipping his head to peer out the window. The faintest line of light is lining the jagged edge of the mountains to the east. “Here, actually,” he says. “Craigellachie, that is.”

  “Whoa—that’s a mouthful of a name for such a tiny place,” I reply.

  He gives me a tight smile. “It’s pretty famous round these parts,” he says. “Last spike of the railroad was driven in here in 1885. Named for the home town of the Scot who was the first president of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Spike they drove into the ground was pure gold.”

  “Is that so?” I say, seeing two ambulance attendants scrambling over the snow with a handheld stretcher.

  “Yep,” says Stu. “Dug it up right after they took the picture, mind. They were Scottish, after all.”

  * * *

  —

  Once the injured are all trundled off to the nearest hospital, the rest of the stranded skiers open up the storage locker of the bus, dig out a keg of beer they’ve been ferrying to the resort, and build a bonfire in a pile of rocks that have recently come down the mountainside. One of which, it turns out, is the cause of our broken axle to begin with.

  Most of the skiers are still intoxicated enough that it takes quite a while to get a fire really going. By the time enough of a flame appears to be somewhat worrisome, a fresh set of headlights rolls up behind our broken vehicle. It is a Sicamous District school bus, driven by a local lady who swings open the front door with a flourish, and identifies herself as Delores.

  “I’m here to take you to the visitor’s center in town,” she says. “They can figure out what to do with you there.”

  “In town—meaning Craigellachie?” asks Dominic, who I’m pretty sure asks the question because he likes saying the name out loud.

  Delores barks a laugh. “Ain’t no visitor’s center in the Craig. Ain’t nothing there but broken promises, far as I can tell.”

  Unclear on what this means, but equally unwilling to ask, we all troop obediently onto Delores’s bus. The skiers line up their gear across several of the back seats, and carefully load the keg in last. As Stu was both tour guide and bus driver, none of the skiers appear to be at all clear how they’re going to get to their resort, but I don’t hear a single word of complaint. Three of the guys throw snow onto the small bonfire to smother it, and our bus lurches away, leaving the sadly broken vehicle tilted up against a dirty snowbank on the side of the highway.

  * * *

  —

  Turns out that shock absorbers are not really a priority to the Sicamous School District. It’s a fifteen-minute bounce-fest to the visitor’s center, and I’m relieved when we pull into the parking lot at last. Dawn is breaking, and, according to the sign, the visitor’s center doesn’t usually open until nine. But Delores has worked some magic, and as we all pile out of the school bus, a car squeals into the parking lot, and a pair of giggling girls who look about fifteen jump out. One of them is still wearing plaid pajama pants.

  They might look young and giggly, but between the two of them, they open up the small cafe in the visitor’s center, and within twenty minutes everyone inside has a warm drink and a granola bar in front of them. The least inebriated of the skiers has been on the phone, and in short order organizes the group a lift up to a local ski hill called Silver Star. There’s a loud cheer at this news, but when Dom pulls out his own phone it turns out to be not so great for us.

  Silver Star is in the wrong direction. Also? Neither of us can ski.

  * * *

  —

  The sweet smell of baking dough fills the visitor’s center as the last of the skiers pile onto their bus. The silence inside is suddenly so profound, it feels awkward. I chance a sideways glance at Dominic, but he’s staring toward the kitchen, drawn, I imagine, by the irresistible aroma. I’ve learned that if something smells good, he’s usually in the thick of it.

  We haven’t really exchanged more than a word or two since the chaos of uniting Sumaya with her family. I must have slept for at least five or six hours before the ignominious end to our bus trip, but the adrenaline rush of the crash has drained away, leaving me feeling a little sick and a lot worried.

  All along—or at least, all along since the train ride in India—my plan has been to see Sumaya safely to her auntie, and then make a beeline straight for New York. Of course, it made perfect sense to work with Dominic to ensure Sumaya’s safety, but . . .

  The job with ExLibris is still on the line.

  I blink my eyes to find Dom is staring right at me. I’m not sure how long I was zoned out for, and suddenly it’s awkward again.

  “No bus,” he says. “No train. As far as I can tell, that leaves only one option.”

  I glance out through the glass doorway. The parking lot outside, while still surrounded with substantial dust-covered snowbanks, is clear of cars. Not even a taxi to be seen.

  Dom stands up and shoulders his pack. “Time for the thumb,” he says.

  I collect my suitcase and follow him outside, not sure what else to do. In spite of my mercenary feelings of the moment before, the last thing I want is to hitch a ride on this lonely mountain highway by myself.

  “I’ve—uh—never actually hitchhiked before,” I mutter as I scurry across the parking lot after him. I still can’t hope to match his long-legged stride.

  He smiles over one shoulder. “This trip has held a lot of firsts for both of us.”

  There’s a long merge lane leading both to and from the visitor’s center, but the vehicles shooting past on the highway are going full speed. Most of them appear to be long-haul trucks—sixteen
wheels or more—and none of them appear to be stopping. The wind whipping in the wake of each truck is icy, and the shock to my system feels profound. Ten days ago I was melting in India, and somehow this Canadian April cold feels deeper than anything I’ve ever experienced in New York.

  “You’re shaking,” Dom says in my ear. “Stand behind me—I’ll be the wind break.”

  “Pretty skinny for a wind break,” I say, but I do tuck myself in behind him.

  He turns his back to the road and grins down at me. “Generally, I prefer the term slender,” he says, “or better yet, buff. But seeing as I’m pretty sure I’ve lost at least fifteen pounds on this trip, I’ll try not to feel too hurt.”

  This makes me laugh. “Trust me when I say I would never feel hurt to be called skinny. I think maybe it’s a girl thing.”

  He shrugs into his second strap. “No one would ever call you skinny,” he says, hunching his shoulders against the wind backwash from a passing tanker. “You’re more . . .”

  “Thanks a lot,” I mutter as he pauses. “More what?”

  His expression changes into something I can’t really read. “I was going to say lush,” he says, his voice barely carrying over the highway noise. “But maybe . . .” His eyes narrow. “Too descriptive?”

  I have to work hard to keep my own face neutral. No one has ever used the word lush to describe me before, and I’m completely at a loss. Is it a code word for curvy? I mean, I’ve always felt that curvy was a code word for fat, invented by women with more self-regard than I can usually muster. “I—I can live with lush,” I finally stammer.

  He looks relieved, and I stand in the meager shelter of his skinny windbreak and bask in the possible compliment for maybe a full minute.

  In that time, six trucks pass us, and with each gust, we get pushed a little further down the road. As the seventh hurtles by, Dom drops his thumb.

  “I might be too brown for this neighborhood,” he mutters. “Lotta white faces behind those steering wheels.”

  I roll my eyes. “Delores was brown,” I remind him.

  “And she stopped for us too,” he says. “Anyway, she’s native. Lighter brown than I am.”

  I stare at him critically. There’s no doubt he’s picked up quite a tan on his face and arms from our time in the Middle East and India.

  “That’s not going to make a difference,” I scoff. “Anyway, I’m tanned too.”

  He laughs out loud at this, but doesn’t answer.

  “What? So, yeah, my sunburn’s faded, but I’m still a lot darker than I usually am at this time of year.”

  “Romy,” he says quietly. “After going all this way together, you still think anyone mistakes my skin color for a tan?” He glances down at his watch. “Sixteen semis have passed us in the last five minutes. Thirteen of them slowed down, and then sped up again. You do the math.”

  I sigh. “No, I guess not. I just thought Canadians were less racist.”

  He smirks at this. “Where’d you hear that?”

  I open my mouth, when a long line of pickup trucks appears on the highway, and we have to scamper back to the side of the road as they pull into the parking lot.

  “Not sure,” I mutter. “Maybe we’ll have better luck with pickups?”

  Scooping up my suitcase, I start walking back toward the visitor’s center.

  chapter fifty-nine

  IMAGE: Rocky Mountain Morning

  IG: Romy_K [Sicamous, Canada, April 25]

  #Convoy #ManyNations

  9101

  The trucks—in a dozen colors, shapes, and states of repair—turn out to be a sort of convoy, and have come almost the same route that we have. Several of the trucks bear “Protect the Inlet” and “No Pipelines” signs. We return to the cafe in the visitor’s center, and sit down at a table next to a garrulous gentleman seated with a woman and a tiny child. When I ask the family group about the signs, we learn the drivers and passengers number about thirty, in total, and are heading to Calgary, which, when it comes to oil and gas, is apparently like the Houston of Canada. Most of the members of this group come from coastal native communities, and are on the road to protest the latest pipeline approval.

  “The suits down in Calgary, eh? They make the decisions on land they’ve never walked on. Most of ’em have never seen the places they run the pipes across. And they don’t want to give us a say in the process.”

  “Do you think you can make a difference?” I ask, but he shrugs.

  “Don’t matter. I mean—whether we get through to them or not, we still gotta try, right?”

  When Dominic sticks out a hand and introduces himself, we learn Ernie George is from one of the coastal Salish nations.

  Dominic looks fascinated. “You all from the same Indian tribe?” he asks, gesturing around the room. Ernie winces.

  “There’s a few families here from my band, but there are six different First Nations represented already,” he says proudly. “When we set out, we were hopin’ to pick up more, but—life’s complicated, y’know?”

  Ernie squints his eyes at Dominic through the steam rising from his coffee. “You American, brother?”

  Dominic smiles and spreads his hands wide. “I guess it shows, huh?”

  Ernie shakes his head. “Plenty of black and mixed-race Canadians,” he says, digging into a plate of eggs and bacon. “My cousin Shanna’s married to a Haitian fella, down in Toronto. Nah, it’s not your looks, it’s what I hear. You use words like tribes and Indians, but up north here we’re more inclined to nations and bands, eh? Yeah, we call ourselves Indian, but that’s our choice. You got words like that yourself, I understand? Words that don’t sound so great when someone outside the family tosses ’em around?”

  “Point taken,” Dominic says. “Apologies.”

  “Those words been hurled at us for generations, too, man. My father is a proud member of the Squamish Nation. And his father before him. My mum’s family hail from Nuu-chah-nulth over on the island. Our federation don’t see a border—we got brothers down the coast to Seattle too. You gotta understand, we been here a long time. A long time. The coast has been our home for eons before the settlers came. Many nations—many voices. And you know what? We ain’t no legend. We’re still here. We still matter.”

  The woman beside him, with braided hair reaching below her waist, is called Estelle.

  “We lift our voices whenever we can,” she adds. “The government is paying lip service to consultation with our nations. Which is why we’re heading to Calgary.”

  When Ernie pushes his plate away, Dom leans forward again.

  “We’re looking for a ride to the city,” he says quietly. “I confess we’re ignorant of your fight, but we’re willing to listen, and help, if we can.”

  Ernie grunts, and I realize he’s laughing. “Can you pitch in for the gas?” he says. “Kicks my ass to be payin’ money to the dudes we’re heading down to protest, but if we don’t get there tomorrow, we’ll miss our chance.”

  “He’s a fantastic cook too,” I tell Ernie. “You can put him to work.”

  And so it is, after Dom and I each fuel up one of the convoy vehicles with our ExLibris cards, we secure seats in the pipeline protest convoy. I climb into the rear seat of Ernie’s truck, and Dom slides in beside me, after tossing our luggage into the back.

  Ernie drives, and beside him sits Estelle, and Frankie; Estelle being Frankie’s mother. She’s a thirtysomething native—First Nations—woman, with a shy smile and, I discover later, a degree in environmental studies from the University of Victoria. Frankie’s not quite five, and she spends most of the drive playing on an ancient Game Boy.

  The truck is noisy and has terrible suspension, so conversation is difficult. I pass the time staring out at the passing mountains, which leave the ones we saw outside Vancouver in the dust. These are the Rockies, and they soar above
us, their snowy tops stretching to impossible heights against the bluest of skies. The further we travel, the steeper the cliffs that tower both above us and—as the truck begins to labor—below. After a while, I have to avert my eyes from the narrow verge of the road, where only a little snowy gravel and the flimsiest of wire fences separates us from a plunge into the abyss.

  The mountains that soar above us are mammoth and snow covered, and yet strangely nothing at all like the Alps. I stare upward, trying to put my finger on the difference. The Alps were so tall and pointy, but while a trifle less jagged, the Rockies seem even taller. They are certainly snowier.

  We are still laboring upward when Ernie suddenly slams on the brakes. The truck slews sideways a bit before stopping, and—while it’s not a full-out scream—I can’t stop the little squeak of fear that escapes me. A spray of gravel shoots off the cliff into thin air.

  Peering over Frankie’s dark head, I see a row of wooly, bug-eyed faces placidly gazing back at us through the windscreen.

  “Are those—goats?” I ask. The largest of the animals has the weirdest horns I have ever seen—two full sets, protruding out of his head so they point front and back at the same time.

  The other two look far more sedate, with horns curling around their heads, like they’ve tucked them neatly behind their ears.

  Ernie chuckles. “Sheep,” he says succinctly. “Bighorns. Think they own the road, the bastards.”

  Frankie is delighted by the creatures, and insists on climbing out of her car seat and baa-ing at the sheep while Ernie pauses for a smoke break. I scurry over to the thin verge on the inside of the road, against the mountainside, only to discover my phone is dead.

  Worse, I remember last plugging it in on the ski bus.

  When I confess this to Dominic, he shrugs, passes me his charge cord, and even sweet-talks Frankie into letting me plug in for a while. There’s no Wi-Fi to access in this mountain wilderness, but my phone is recharged enough to take pictures, and for now, that’s all that matters.