Who by Fire

by Fred Stenson

“He’s always pale,” Ella said. “I’m going to take him to the doctor.”

  Tom had an urge to argue and did not know why.

  “I’ll wait a week, then,” she said, as if he had spoken against her.

  He quickly finished the sandwich and drank off the last of the tea. When he took his dishes to the sink, he saw cups and bread plates already there.

  “You had company.”

  “Lance Evert from the plant. I phoned and asked for Alf Dietz but he sent Lance.”

  “Did he have anything to say?”

  “Not really. Just that they were trying this and that.”

  “That’s helpful.”

  “You can phone them yourself. Be as forceful as you please.”

  Tom put on his coveralls, parka, moccasins, and overalls. When the stinging air hit him, he was glad, even though it tasted of the burning pit. Lately every conversation with Ella went like that: shooting off into sourness over nothing. He could say it was not her fault, when she’d been up half the night with a sick boy, but why was it never anyone else’s head she bit off? She had patience with the kids but none for him.

  He started across to the one-ton, and King, the black Lab, came trotting from his doghouse. Together they would go to the bale pile. King would dive under every bale Tom lifted, hoping for a mouse. When the load was on, they would head for the sweeter air of the Lower Place, where the cows would be crowded in the nearest corner bawling for relief.

  Weeks later, Tom and Ella were outside doing chores in the morning dark. There had been stink again, and Billy woke up twice during the night. Tom’s usual chores were to water and feed the pigs, but today he grabbed a bucket and followed Ella to the barn. They sat on their three-legged stools, heads in the flanks of the cows, and roared milk against the metal until both buckets had a halo of froth. The cow-smelling warmth was comfort, and, though they did not speak—or because they did not—there was a feeling of well-being between them. This was what it had been like, Tom remembered, before the plant came. They had been living with the plant for so short a time but it had changed everything.

  The light before dawn came while they were in the barn. Ella said there was something funny about the hired man’s shack, something about the walls, but he could not see it and thought she must be wrong. Later, when she was making pancakes, Tom scratched ice off the window so he could look at the shack again. Just then, the first ray of sunlight shot across the yard, and he saw it clearly. The walls, which Kees had painted white last summer, were streaked yellow and green. With the leftover paint, Kees had done the trim on the chophouse, and every length of trim was the same mess. As Ella came toward Tom, drying her hands on the tea towel, he said, “Look at this, for Jesus sake.”

  “Tom, I’ve asked you to stop that.”

  “Well look for yourself.”

  Ella stared for a while, then said, “I’ll phone later.”

  “Eat your breakfast first.”

  “I said later, didn’t I?”

  Then Jeannie and Billy were in the room, and went to look out where Tom had scratched off the frost. Jeannie started to cry, which she almost never did, and that touched off Billy, who didn’t even know what he was looking at. Tom shouted, “Stop crying! Both of you!” and the way they looked at him, and Ella looked at him, filled him with such shame he left the house. He went to his shop and sat in the banded light from the cracked windows, smoking away the hunger that gnawed in his stomach.

  For Ella the week was a nightmare from which she could not wake. Billy simply would not get well. For two nights after the night the paint had discoloured, he slept through but was so tired in the morning she had to pick him up and carry him to breakfast. Then he fell back asleep over his cereal, the spoon falling out of his limp hand to the linoleum.

  Ella did not phone about the paint for several days. She wanted Lance Evert in her kitchen again, but was afraid that, if he came, she would break into sobs before him. Finally she admitted to Tom that she hadn’t made the call, and he surprised her by going straight to the wall and making it himself. He seemed to be talking to Dietz and said something about replacement paint. The idea that it would probably be Lance who brought the paint lifted her up higher than she’d been in days.

  But Lance’s car did not come into the yard that day. It was another bad morning when he did appear. She opened the door before he knocked. He had two one-gallon paint cans by their wire handles. King wasn’t barking which meant Tom and he were off somewhere with the old truck. Lance asked where he should put the cans.

  “How about on that building?” She pointed to Kees’s shack. Lance stood round shouldered. “I’m joking. Bring them in and set them in the porch.”

  “The paint that’s on there is lead based. That’s why it discoloured. This paint has no lead. It should be fine.”

  She had made herself a pot of tea and it was steeped on the table. She poured him a cup and offered cream, which he took. She sat on the edge of her chair, her hands in the apron over her lap. She knew she looked like hell, probably had a cinch of worry in between her eyebrows. Hadn’t even looked in a mirror this morning.

  Lance asked where Billy was, and she said he was lying down in the living room.

  “Have you taken him to the doctor?”

  “Yes, we went yesterday. They took blood. The doctor thinks it’s a problem with his blood but won’t say until the test comes back.”

  A silence spread.

  “I’m afraid they won’t find anything, and this will go on and on.” She raked a hand back through her hair, and that made her think again about what Lance was seeing. Her hair had not been washed for a week. Her hands were sore and red from the cold and the morning’s milking. “Can’t you stop it? This stink?”

  “Is it still as bad? We’ve found a couple of sources and dealt with them.”

  “When Mr. Dietz came here the first time, I asked him why he didn’t shut the plant down—if it doesn’t work properly. He said it would take a long time to start up again. I want you to tell Mr. Dietz, and Mr. Comstock—and yourself—that I don’t care how long it takes your plant to start up again or what it costs you in time and money. I don’t think it’s a good enough reason to take a child who was perfectly healthy and make him sick.”

  “I’ll tell them,” said Lance.

  She realized she had no more to say, that she had been hoping he would have a solution, or some encouragement at least. But now she felt this empty silence was all there would ever be between them. She had wanted badly for him to come, but now she wanted him gone.

  “That’s all I have to say.”

  “I don’t like that I have nothing to tell you,” said Lance. “I hate that this is so hard on you and Billy. And your daughters.”

  “The girls are the lucky ones. They go off to school and breathe clean air.”

  Billy appeared beside Ella’s chair. He was ghost pale, but smiled when Lance looked at him.

  Lance reached and touched Billy’s shoulder with a fingertip. The boy ran off. He had his red hand-knitted slippers on. He ran a couple of steps and slid. His feet hit the wood sill of the door into the next room. He pretended to stumble.

  “I want you to know that I care about you and your family,” Lance said, staring after the boy. “I’m not just pretending. If there’s anything I can do to help, I will.”

  Ella could not stop looking at Lance, until Billy came back again. He was carrying the little blue box, and he raised it toward Lance’s face and lifted off the lid at the last moment. Inside on the bed of cotton were half a dozen birds’ eggs, holes poked in the ends, blown empty.

  “Nice, Billy. Did you find these yourself?”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s his father’s collection, from when he was a boy.” Ella slipped an arm around Billy’s slender waist, drew him to her. Billy put the lid back on, ducked out of Ella’s arm, and ran and slid away.

  Because she felt so tired and empty, Ella let herself stare more at the prett
y clean-shaven face before her. Finally, he was embarrassed and looked away.

  “I’ll go, then,” he said and rose. It took every bit of resistance she had not to ask him to have another cup of tea, another scone. She would not let herself get up from her chair until the rustle and thump of parka and boots had stopped and the outside door had squeezed closed. Then she watched him get in his car, start the motor, and leave.

  Bertha Kenhardt had called the meeting. Tom and two other local men sat in her varnish-smelling living room, a place heavy with antiques that her dead husband had bought at auctions. Vic Sebald and Johnny Court were on the couch, Tom in the armchair. Bertha perched on a spool-back chair that she’d dragged from the kitchen. Her legs, in stockings the colour of calamine lotion, were folded underneath.

  Back when Bertha had asked them to keep journals about the gas, Tom had thought she lived too far away to be getting much of it. Now he knew better. The rotten-egg smell was strong, and his eyes stung.

  “Did you men bring your journals?”

  Vic and Johnny held up scribblers. Tom just had loose sheets in his lap. Bertha’s own document was in a three-ring binder. She flopped it open.

  “What I’ll do is pick a date when I had a problem here at home. Then I would like you men to read what you have written for that date.

  “February twenty-third,” she began. “I woke up in the night because I had a severe headache. The smell of rotten egg was very strong, and I was frightened. I went outside and checked my dogs and cats. I could not see that they were affected. Also the gas outside seemed to be dissipating better than it did in the house. I opened my windows, even though it was very cold, and that seemed to help.”

  Johnny read next. Alice had woken him up that night to tell him the baby was hot and sick. He drove them to her mother’s place in town.

  Vic said he had nothing written down, so they must have been okay that night.

  What Tom had to read was that Kees had been sick and came pounding on the house door.

  “Are you saying the hired man had a problem but you did not?” Bertha asked.

  “The hired man’s shack is pretty breezy. Whatever is outside gets inside. Our house is a little tighter.”

  “Maybe that’s it,” said Bertha. “Maybe I need to have someone putty my windows.”

  Tom was feeling impatient. Did Bertha mean for them to go through every day of their diaries? “Bertha,” he said, “I was hoping we’d discuss what we’re going to do.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Tell us what you think, Tom. You clearly have an opinion.”

  “I think we need to work on a letter to the government. I was hoping you might write it and we could sign it.”

  “If there is to be a letter, it would be best if I wrote it.”

  “I’m not getting this,” Vic said. “A letter to who about what?”

  Tom had thought this through. “A letter in which we describe the trouble we’re having and how it connects to the plant. I don’t think our MLA will help. He’s too concerned with staying in good with the premier. I was thinking we could send it to Ormond Cardwell.”

  “You can’t complain to someone else’s MLA, can you?” said Johnny. “Why not send it to Manning? Go to the top.”

  “Clearly,” said Bertha, “it should go to the health minister. That’s Mr. Onge. I’ll make a carbon copy and send that to Mr. Sturgeous, the MLA for Haultain.”

  “We should pass the letter around to everyone who’s affected here,” said Vic. “More signatures, the better.”

  “Paul Gersten should sign, that’s for sure,” said Tom. “He gets more gas than we do. And Hughie McGrady. I can take the letter to those two.”

  “Gertie Gersten,” said Bertha, staring coldly at Tom. “All the wives should sign. Your Ella should certainly sign.”

  “What about Don Harbeg?” asked Vic.

  “I don’t know,” said Tom.

  “Why not?”

  “He works at the plant.”

  “So you don’t trust him.”

  “Oh hell. Ask him, then. If he doesn’t want to sign, he doesn’t have to. But as soon as he hears about it, the plant will know.”

  “Can we get started on the letter?” said Bertha.

  Each man stated his family’s complaints. Bertha translated aloud while she wrote. It was amazing how she could take what each of them said and turn it into her kind of language on the fly. It was better the way she said things.

  As Tom was getting ready to go, Bertha said to him, “I assumed Ella would be coming today.”

  “Ella doesn’t like to leave Billy right now. He’s been sick.”

  “Because of the plant?”

  “They’re testing his blood.”

  “She could have brought him too.”

  “He’s sicker than that.”

  “You take this to her.” Bertha gave him a pie covered in wax paper.

  Sitting with his truck running, Tom pulled out his makings bag and rolled a smoke. He had not been allowed to smoke in Bertha’s house. Vic and Johnny idled their trucks for a minute and left, each man waving, but Tom sat rooted. Why have you kept Ella from coming? Make sure you let Ella sign the letter.

  For a few seconds, Tom thought of going back inside. He imagined telling Bertha Kenhardt, straight out, that he was not a tyrant in his marriage. If she didn’t believe him about Ella and Billy, she should phone Ella and ask. Then he heard in his mind what that would sound like, and was glad to have said nothing.

  It was Friday, Billy’s most frustrating day. Though the girls likely did not miss him at all, Billy missed them badly when they were at school. It became worse as Monday marched toward Friday.

  By afternoon, Ella could no longer placate him with games of fish. He had been harping about one of the barn cats that had recently had kittens, so she dressed him in his antique snowsuit (his father’s when he was a boy) and led him to the barn. She would not let him climb to the hayloft but went up herself. She walked around heavily so Billy would hear the creaking and believe she had done a proper search. But while she was up there, Billy called that he’d found the cat family in a manger. The kittens were old enough to run away but did not. They were in a daze of kneading and suckling.

  Then came a loud noise in the north end of the barn, and the cat ran with a kitten in her mouth. In half a minute they were all gone from the pocket of straw.

  Billy slammed his hands on the polished rail just as Lance Evert’s head appeared over the box-stall gate. Billy plunged out the small door in the gate’s bottom, pushing Lance’s legs out of the way. Lance looked after him, confused.

  “Never mind,” Ella said. “You scared some kittens.”

  But there was more on Lance’s face than that.

  “Oh, Lord, what now?”

  “We’ve had an accident at the plant, caused by a bad leak. Alf Dietz says you should evacuate.”

  Ella pulled off her glove and wrapped the bare hand around the back of her neck. She was so angry suddenly she could hardly look at him. At the same time, she felt herself begin to cry. He opened the gate and entered the stall; stepped toward her with his hand raised, wanting to console. She lifted her own hand like a stop sign.

  “I don’t know how much more of this I can stand,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Of course you are. But you can’t do anything. What do you mean by accident?”

  “There are valves where the pipeline from the field enters the plant. A side-pipe to a pressure gauge there must have cracked. The gauge blew off.”

  “What’s that got to do with us?”

  “One of our men went in the shack when he heard liquid hitting the roof. He tried to pinch the pipe shut and he was gassed.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Our safety man got him going again. I was there.”

  “You’re saying the gas could be coming here.”

  “You should get out.”

  “Have you been to Gerstens’?”

&
nbsp; “I’ll go there next.”

  “Don’t stare at me. Go!”

  He turned to leave, but she grabbed his arm, pulled him back around, and kissed his mouth. Then she pushed him hard away.

  Billy was on his way back as Lance ran past him. “Why is Mr. Evert running?”

  “He has to tell Mrs. Gersten something. And we need to go to town, right now.”

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “I’m not laughing, honey. Let’s go.”

  4

  Ryder Farm, 1961

  TWO DAYS AND NIGHTS in her mother’s house, with crucifixes above each doorway and statues of Mary and Joseph in front of the dresser mirror where she slept, pulled Ella back from the reckless feeling. It reminded her that what she had done was a sin. In her mother’s house, swathed and almost smothered in the smells of her childhood, she could not imagine doing any such thing again. A moment of madness brought on by fear and sorrow. That was all.

  It was two more days until Tom felt the stink had tapered off enough that it made sense for Ella and the children to return home. They had been back only one day and a night when a blizzard tore into the farm from the north. The windbreaks on that side were younger, and the wind and snow poured through and tossed up drifts around the house almost to the eaves. The municipality did not send any ploughs before the storm stopped, and by then the girls had not been to school for three days. Tom was having to feed his feedlot calves black hay from the roof of their bedding shed. His mood was just as black as the hay when he described how it made them cough. Like big dogs barking.

  It was when the roads were finally cleared that Lance Evert called. Ella was playing cowboys and Indians with Billy, using a bunched-up rug for hills around the fort. Lance was awkward on the phone and could not seem to come to the point. He was bursting with whatever it was he could not say. It sounded like he had something to give her, and Ella was made nervous thinking what that might be.

  “Is there something wrong at the plant?” she asked.

  “Not now, no.”

  “I have food on the stove,” she lied.

  “I have some news. Something’s going to happen in a few weeks that I’d like to tell you about. I was wondering if I could come down.”