by R. E. Donald
She wiped her forehead in mock relief as she put down the phone. Sheesh! Good natured as he was, seems Hunter was only prepared to be Mr. Nice Guy on his own terms. She hoped that his meeting Suzanne would tip the scales.
El grabbed a sugar doughnut from the Tim Horton's box, a weekly bribe from one of the drivers, and finished it off in three bites before she headed back out the warehouse door.
Hunter hung up the receiver feeling cheated. Some days on the road felt lonelier than others, and this was one of them. He'd been looking forward to a few minutes of friendly banter with El, but the turn the conversation had taken precluded that. He frowned at the phone, debating whether to call his daughters' number, but a kid in a black baseball cap elbowed in beside him and asked if he was finished yet. Hunter nodded and, pushing open the restaurant's outer door, headed back out to the green and silver truck.
Daylight driving was a pleasure, especially in fine weather. The green prairie wheat rippled and flowed across the fields like water, splashing up waves of reflected sunlight. The warm wind tightened the skin on Hunter's left cheek, and the smell of grass and earth eddied through the truck's open window. Occasionally a single sweet note of birdsong pierced the solid hum of his eighteen wheels. The prairie sky was as big as he'd ever seen it, blue and wide, with far away clouds scudding across the surface of the distant fields where they dipped away towards the other side of the globe. He sensed that, somehow, its vastness was good for his soul.
Late Saturday afternoon Hunter checked into a motel just outside of Calgary. It cost thirty five dollars and smelled like an ashtray, but it had a bed, a bathroom, and a place to park the truck. He showered and shaved and treated himself to a steak in a nearby restaurant. Then he wandered around a drugstore, picking up a day old Vancouver newspaper and a Tom Clancy novel. Back in his motel room, he sat on the bed to read. He couldn't get comfortable. He plumped the foam pillow behind his back against the headboard and stretched his legs out on top of the thin bedspread. The bed frame squeaked with every movement. He couldn't sit still and finally gave up trying.
He walked back up the street, past the restaurant and drugstore, past rows of closed shops and offices and empty lots, and found a licensed lounge in a small hotel. The room was dark, and loud country music blared from speakers on the ceiling. He sat down at a table near the entrance and ordered a beer. The carpet in the entranceway smelled of vomit. Every time he looked up, a blonde woman sitting at the next table was staring at him. She wore tight jeans, a sleeveless red blouse, and red high heels, and there was a tiny gold chain around her ankle. Hunter finished his beer quickly and walked the six blocks back to the hotel. He tried again to read the novel, but nodded off before he finished the first chapter.
After complimentary coffee and doughnuts, which he ate standing up in the motel's musty smelling lobby, Hunter was on the road again by seven Sunday morning. On the stretch of road past the foothills and through the Rocky Mountains, every second that navigating the hills and curves didn't require his full attention, his eyes were drawn like magnets to the peaks of the Rockies. He took a hamburger break in Revelstoke, and about four o'clock on Sunday afternoon he pulled into Ranverdan's fenced yard in northeast Kamloops.
A tall, well built man in his thirties, his thinning blond hair drawn back into a tight little pony tail, was leaning against the side of a small house trailer, smoking a cigarette. He was dressed in blue jeans, black cowboy boots, and a white cotton shirt with sleeves rolled up to display muscular forearms. His eyes were hidden behind Oakley shades. After signaling to Hunter where to park his rig, Gary Rodgers locked up the trailer and the gate, and steered Hunter to a black 4x4 Ford pickup parked on the street.
"Suzanne is waiting for us back at the office," he said. "And Big Mother Trucker wants you to call her."
Gary drove a few blocks towards the river and pulled in beside a wine colored mini-van parked in the driveway of a boxy two-story house with chocolate brown wood siding. He led Hunter through the front door and down a small hallway to the office, a converted rec room on the ground floor, and motioned to a small sofa. Sticking his head back out the door, he hollered up the stairs. "Suzanne! We're here!"
The low-ceilinged room was paneled in dark wood and had a rusty brown carpet, but was made bright by a large, spotless window revealing the South Thompson river, its lushly treed flood plain, and the sandy sage covered hills beyond. The office was tidy and spacious and comfortable. There was a big yellow teddy bear perched on the arm of the sofa and a coloring book with crayons spread out on the carpet. As he sat down, Hunter picked up a polka dot baseball cap from the sofa and placed it at a rakish angle over one of the teddy bear's button eyes.
A slight young woman with long brunette hair entered the room and smiled at him as she made her way over to the desk. She wore faded jeans, canvas shoes, and an oversized sweatshirt of robin's egg blue that made her look tiny and fragile. Her eyes looked tired, inflamed against the pallid skin of her face.
"Okay," she said as she shuffled through some papers, "El told me how much to make the check out for, but you should look at the numbers first. We decided that Ranverdan should just pay you direct. Watson isn't going to take anything on it, so it's less hassle this way."
Hunter approached the desk. She met his eyes, then dropped her gaze to the sheet of paper she held extended to him. He accepted it without looking at it. "Suzanne, " he said. He waited until she raised her eyes again. "My sincere condolences. Your father was an exceptional man. He'll truly be missed."
Suzanne blinked rapidly, nodded and tried to smile. Just then a racket of thumping and squealing descended the stairs in the hallway, and seconds later two blonde little girls giggled and jostled their way across the room towards their mother.
"Can Veri and me have a popsicle, Mom? Dad says it's okay. Can we?" The oldest was about five and she was the one doing the talking. The other, who looked about three, got suddenly quiet when she saw Hunter, and pulling on her lower lip, inched sideways and wrapped her other arm around her mother's legs.
"Will Daddy get it for you?" When the girls nodded vigorously, she said "Okay, then" and gave them a little shove towards the door. "But use a Kleenex," she called after them. "Watch the drips!"
Hunter smiled as he watched them scamper away. "Nice kids," he said. "I had two girls, very much like those two, but now they're young adults. Closer to your age." He shook his head. "Time goes by so fast." He remembered holding one small sticky hand in each of his, stooping a little to pilot his tiny family and their popsicles from the concession stand to where their mother waited on the beach near Dundarave pier. "You wish life could just stand still for a while."
They were both lost momentarily in their thoughts, then Suzanne reached for a pen and started to write out the check. "How do I make it out? El keeps calling you 'Hunter', but the paperwork says 'J.H. Rayne'. Is that a mistake?" She looked up at him, and he noticed again how tired her eyes were.
"Hunter's my given name. It's J. Hunter Rayne." He scanned the numbers on the paper she had given him. There was nothing listed to cover a flight back to Vancouver. Damn that Elspeth! She'd done it to him again.
"This looks ... uh ... fine." He nodded, conceding defeat. "Just fine."
CHAPTER 4
– – – – FOUR
The man on the Harley was well aware that he was exceeding the speed limit – hell! he'd doubled it! – and didn't need a cop to remind him of the fact. And he sure as hell didn't intend to pay a fuckin' fine for it either! He checked his left side mirror, watched the RCMP cruiser's brake lights brighten and fade as the cop realized he couldn't make a U-turn on the narrow road. Good ... no! ... oh, shit! The cop's flashers went on, and his brakes lit up again. He must've decided to stop traffic and make the turn, maneuvering his cruiser across both lanes between the big ditches. The biker saw that the road in front of him was clear, and opened up the throttle. If he could just get off this fuckin' country road, away from the open fields and into an
area with trees and houses to hide his bike from view before the cop closed the gap.
The Harley responded – ah, what a sweet little mother she was! – and the flashing red and blue receded momentarily behind him, until he was forced to slow on the approach to an intersection. Right or left? He didn't know this street. What was he heading for? A dead end or a clean escape route? Ri-i-i-i ... no ... hard LEFT! He swerved with a split second to spare in front of an oncoming pickup, which fishtailed wildly, horn blaring. The biker grinned and sneaked another look in the mirror. The driver of the pickup had stopped right in the intersection and was standing on his running board, shaking his fist above the roof of the cab. The cop had to come to a full stop until the pickup was out of the way. The biker laughed into the wind and sped on.
Another intersection, both sides now concealed by alder and cottonwood, heavy with the brilliant greens of spring. This time he chose the right. He rode like stink, looking for a chance to turn left before the cop reached the corner. Aha! Here it was. He careened to the left, his rear wheel skidding and catching the unpaved shoulder, sending a spray of gravel into the ditch. Past one driveway, two, three. Shit! A dead end! Nothing but heavy bush. What now? Did he have time to backtrack, get back onto the last road and disappear down another side street before the cop could spot him? He didn't think so, but he had nowhere else to go so he turned around, the sole of his left boot connecting soundly with the asphalt.
The second house he'd passed was set well back from the street. Its dirt driveway ran between the ramshackle house and some outbuildings adjacent to a small corral. He swerved into the driveway, hoping that no one was home. Rounding one of the outbuildings, almost too fast, the biker saw a small enclosure fenced with solid weathered planks about six feet high. He rode right up to it, undid the latch, and swung the gate wide. As soon as the Harley lurched through the opening he killed the motor and leaped off the bike to close the gate. The falling bike caught him behind the left knee and brought him down. What the ... !? The kick stand had sunk into fuckin' deep mud! The chrome of his poor sweet chopper was half submerged in fuckin' black mud! The biker struggled to his feet, swung the gate closed, and scrambled up to drape himself over the top of the fence. With much struggling and kicking, he managed to reach down the far side and close the outside latch, then launched himself back to the ground just as he heard the cruiser's siren reach its peak. Slipping in the mud, he lay where he fell, listening, straining to hear the movements of the police cruiser over his own panting breaths.
He wouldn't have been here if it hadn't been for that fuckin' boss of his last night. Fuckin' EX boss, he corrected himself. Saturday night in Surrey, always a few assholes looking for trouble and he, Dan Sorenson, had been ready for them, as befitted a bouncer at the King George Inn. He'd turfed at least six guys by midnight, and was feeling pretty pumped. It was a great job! He'd flash the Harley tattoo on his left biceps and the black cobra on his right forearm, backed up by his six foot three, two hundred and forty pound physique, and most dickheads got suitably respectful and left quietly. There were usually one or two a night he had to push around, and that was okay, too. In fact, that was even more fun.
But maybe last night he'd been a little too pumped. It seemed like a righteous thing to do at the time, but he shouldn't've thrown that drunken asshole through the stained glass partition. The venerable image of old King George (it wasn't really King George, it looked more like the King of Clubs) had shattered into a thousand orange and red and yellow pieces. So his fuckin' asshole boss had paid him out and told him not to come back. And then of course he'd gotten drunk (the first time he'd fallen off the wagon in three years), and then Simone had cried about it this morning like he knew she would, and that had made him feel fuckin' awful, and that had made him want to ride the thunder, and that was why he had been speeding through the Surrey countryside on 176th Street this fine Sunday afternoon.
The siren travelled west to east, then east to west, and now was receding into the distance. If he could lay low for an hour or so, he'd be home free.
So, thanks to his fuckin' ex boss, here he was ... belly down in some kind of stinking mud ... he heard a snuffling sound and felt warm breath, then a vigorous nuzzling at his neck.
Pigs! Fuckin' PIGS!
"I won't expect to hear back from my friend at the Kamloops detachment until tomorrow afternoon," said Hunter. "At that time, I should be able to get the results of the preliminary investigation for you, at least."
They sat around a table on the back patio at Suzanne and Gary's house. Gary had barbecued a couple of sirloins, and Suzanne had brought baked potatoes, green beans and a tossed salad from the kitchen. The little girls had been fed earlier, and now played boisterously on a lawn strewn with colorful plastic toys. Conversation during dinner had been sparse, the sense of bereavement hanging in the air between them like smoke.
"What are you planning to do tomorrow morning?" asked Suzanne. When Hunter shrugged, she turned to Gary. "Why don't you take Hunter riding? You've been trying to get me to go with you for months." She turned back to Hunter. "If you used to be a Mountie, you must be able to ride, right? Gary's got connections at a dude ranch up in the hills above Kamloops Lake."
The youngest child, little Veri, began to scream. Hunter winced involuntarily. Gary and Suzanne both leaped to their feet, but Gary motioned his wife to sit down. "I'll take them upstairs," he said. "You keep Hunter company." He picked up the little girl and tossed her in the air. "Bath time!" he said. "You, too, Jolie!" Both girls were giggling as he carried them, one squirming under each arm, into the house.
Hunter volunteered to help Suzanne with the dishes, and to his surprise she asked him to wash. Their automatic dishwasher needed repairs, she said. Hunter approached the unfamiliar task with care and concentration.
"How're things with the business?" Wrist deep in suds, Hunter turned his head to watch Suzanne wipe the countertop. She looked so young, her small-boned hands so fragile.
"El's been a lifesaver," said Suzanne. "She's covering us with her own guys to make up the runs we can't handle. Suddenly we're short a truck and two drivers, what with Gary being pulled off the road, and Dad…" She wiped hard at something Hunter couldn't see. Her hair swung forward to hide her face. "She's doing it at cost, too. I don't know how to thank her."
"El was very fond of your Dad. She wants to help." Hunter paused as he ran water to rinse the soap suds off a glass. "Anything I can do?"
"Aren't you going riding with Gary tomorrow?"
"We don't have to go. I'd feel guilty about taking Gary's time. He's staying home because of you, after all. You know what I mean?"
Suzanne dried a glass, polishing it slowly with the towel. "I guess the truth of it is, things might go smoother for me if Gary spends some time with you tomorrow. He doesn't know much about running the office, and for now, it seems more work to teach him things than to do them myself." She still held the glass, but stared out the window into the twilight. "The kids and I have our set little routine.
"I guess I get comfort from sticking to the routine, you know? It makes me feel like I'm carrying on ... for Dad. It makes me feel he's still close, you know? And I need that right now." She put down the glass and started fingering the hem of the towel, waiting for Hunter to put more dishes in the drainer. "I wasn't always real close to Mom and Dad. For a long time, I thought I was smarter than they were." She snorted softly. "I have regrets, I guess. Some kind of guilt I have to deal with, maybe. Although I feel I cheated myself as much as them, those years I was away and figured I didn't have time for them ... it must've hurt. Being a parent now myself, I can imagine how it must feel." She grabbed a handful of cutlery and started massaging it with the towel. "Kids are stupid. At least, I was." She looked up at him.
"I don't know why I'm telling you this. You must be one of those good listeners that people talk about," she said with a sheepish smile.
"Well, I have been called that." He smiled. "You learn more from list
ening than from talking. Besides, I can never think of much to say." He wondered if his daughters would ever feel like they didn't have time for him, or maybe they felt that way already. Suzanne seemed like such a nice girl. She seemed so much like his own nice girls.
Gary came back from putting the kids to bed. "They need kisses, Mommy," he said, and nuzzled Suzanne's neck making playful smacking noises. She ducked out of his reach and left the room. "So you and me are on for a ride tomorrow morning, Hunter? I'll pick you up at eight."
"Do you think Suzanne's coping alright?" Hunter asked. Gary had made a right turn off of Highway 97 past Savona and was driving the pickup along a narrow two-lane road that snaked up into the sandy hills. Hunter knew that the brave face Suzanne allowed him to see might be very different from the one she showed to Gary when they were alone.
Gary grimaced. "She's taking it pretty hard, I think. I wish I could comfort her somehow, but she kind of shuts me out. Maybe I just don't know what to say." Hunter wasn't sure, but he thought there was a trace of bitterness in Gary's voice.
"That happens. Grief is a very private thing for some people." He fixed his eyes on a small plane that was following the course of the unseen river to the south. "It's like a private conversation with ... well, with her father. You or I feel like we're butting in on it. And not welcome."
"That's exactly what it feels like! But – dammit! – I just hate to see her hurting like that!"
The road dipped and twisted, and the truck whined as Gary geared it down to second. Grass and scrub trees were giving way to low clumps of plantain and white clover. The sand colored slopes that rose on either side of the roadbed were dotted with sagebrush.
