Chasing Painted Horses

by Drew Hayden Taylor

  THE NEXT MORNING on their way to school and then standing around in the schoolyard, Ralph and Shelley and William did not see Danielle. At recess they could not find her, and at lunch hour, the same. It seemed that once again, she had disappeared.

  “I haven’t seen her anywhere,” William said as he and Ralph met up with Shelley at lunch hour.

  “Me neither. I’m worried,” said Shelley.

  “So am I,” admitted Ralph.

  “Being worried ain’t gonna do anything. Let’s go find her.” This time, it was William’s suggestion. And it was a good one.

  Eagerly, Ralph expressed a thought. “Should we check out the camp fort?”

  Shelley shook her head. “Yeah, we can try there. But maybe you guys are over-thinking this.”

  “We are?” William didn’t understand the concept of over-thinking this or anything.

  “Maybe she’s at home. Kids have been known to stay at home. Maybe she’s just sick or something. If she’s not there, we can go and check out the camp fort. Eliminate the obvious first.” Ralph did not like the idea of going back to the trailer at the end of Twin Pine Lane where Danielle’s mother and Arthur were.

  “Let’s go,” said William, more to himself than anybody else. For a second, Ralph balked at the idea. His sister was older and William was tougher. Both were better suited to tangling with these particular drunken and fearsome dragons. The other two were half a dozen strides gone before Ralph found himself following them. As frightened as he was, the thought of being useless, of not mattering, of not being one of the good guys and letting bad things tell him what he could and couldn’t do, galvanized him. He followed his sister and friend into the discomfort of the unknown and unpredictable.

  Leaving the schoolyard behind, they ran down towards Twin Pine Lane. Except for when they took the sobbing Danielle home a few weeks earlier, Shelley and Ralph had rarely ever skipped school before. William had, of course, but only when it was absolutely necessary. They were all becoming uneasily aware that the world had different priorities than the ones they had for themselves. Learning about the root causes of the First World War just did not hold a candle to whatever might be happening to their friend Danielle. As they got closer to their goal, the trio slowed down. Concerned about encountering Hazel and Arthur, not knowing what condition or mood they might be in, the three children circled around the trailer to its back, not exactly sure how to proceed. As driven as they were, this was seriously new territory for them.

  Not a one of them wanted to knock on the pale green door. Once again, they were so close but so far. Somewhere on the inside of that weathered aluminum panelling was their friend, who just might be in trouble. William tapped Ralph on the shoulder and pointed. At the back of the trailer, framed by her bedroom window, was Danielle, looking out at a world that did not seem to want her. There was a faraway look in her eyes, and even though she seemed to be gazing towards the forest, they were all sure she didn’t see it. Danielle also didn’t seem to see them.

  One by one, they all crept out of the woods, coincidently in sequence of height. One by one, they stood under her window, looking around nervously, then up to her. Ralph whispered loudly upwards, “Danielle.”

  She didn’t move. The snow-filled world they were currently standing in still did not command her attention.

  He tried again. “Danielle!”

  In response to Ralph’s louder yell, the little girl was jolted out of her daydreaming. Looking down, she saw the trio beneath her, amidst an old stone-ringed firepit and two cast-off rubber tires.

  At first it seemed like Danielle was having trouble correlating the world inside her bedroom and her friends outside of it. These were disparate images that did not appear together in her limited experience. It took another second for her to fully understand that her new friends were in her backyard, looking up at her. Reluctantly, she opened the window, still not convinced she was seeing what she was actually seeing.

  “Why weren’t you at school today?” asked Shelley, trying to keep her voice down.

  “I wasn’t allowed,” Danielle whispered back, adding a nervous glance over her shoulder.

  “Why weren’t you allowed? You didn’t do anything.”

  She gave a sad shrug. “Some woman came for a visit yesterday. Now I’m in trouble. Now we’re moving.”

  Uh-oh, thought Ralph. “Moving where?”

  “Toronto, I think. My mom’s boyfriend may have a job there.”

  It was William’s turn to ask a question. “When?”

  “Today.”

  Shelley’s breath evaporated. “Today?! So soon?!”

  “Yeah. ‘Before some other bitch sticks their fucking nose in our business.’ That’s what my mother said. Seems like a lot of other people have been asking about me, and my mom doesn’t like it.”

  All three had heard swearing like that before; in fact, in William’s house he’d heard a lot worse before breakfast. Still, it was completely incongruous to hear it coming out of Danielle’s tiny mouth. Shelley and Ralph had become painfully aware once again that, by knocking on the door and asking for her, they might have contributed to Danielle’s unfortunate situation.

  There was an odd silence as her words registered. Then Danielle spoke again. “I was just looking at these trees again. I’m going to miss them. My father put a swing up on that one, so long ago. The branch rotted off and the whole thing fell last spring.”

  William was the only one who looked over his shoulder at the tree. If she stayed, he would put up another one for her, he was sure of that.

  Ralph took a step closer to the trailer. He was now standing directly under Danielle’s window. “Danielle, we tried to help. Honest we did.”

  The little girl smiled sadly at Ralph. “I know. Thank you. I think you were the only one who could really see my Horse, he wanted to meet you, but …” Suddenly her head swivelled around, and the loud, angry voice of Hazel Gaadaw could be heard.

  Instinctively, the Thomas and Williams group ran to hide. William hid around the corner at the end of the trailer, while Ralph jumped behind a snow bank. Shelley found the comfort of a large tree to conceal herself, the one Danielle’s father had put the swing on so long ago. Though hidden safely, they all peeked, seeing Danielle suddenly disappear and Hazel’s head jut out of her daughter’s window, curious to find what her daughter was either looking at or talking to. Her hair in a rough, greying bun, Hazel noticed nothing of particular interest to her in the backyard. Angrily, she closed the window with a loud thud. Still hiding, the three friends waited a few minutes, hoping Danielle would appear again, but she didn’t.

  On their way back to school, a dark cloud hung over them, darker than the cloudy winter sky. William broke the silence. “What should we do?”

  “I don’t know,” said Shelley.

  “I think we’ve done everything we could. And it wasn’t good enough.”

  Of the three, Ralph looked the most dejected.

  “This isn’t right.” Perhaps it was William who summed up their last few days the best. Neither of the other two could argue. Silence was their only comment. They slowly made their way back to school, despondent and defeated.

  Later that afternoon, after school had let out, all three were standing by the swing set wondering if there was anything more they could do when they saw Arthur’s beat-up pickup truck driving down the reserve’s main road. The back was loaded with boxes, bits of furniture, and black plastic garbage bags obviously stuffed with clothes and pillows. Danielle was sitting squashed in the back of the cab. She looked out at them with a resigned expression. The vehicle was moving, the windows were dirty, and there was a fair distance between her and them, but it appeared to all three that she had a black eye. Three sets of eyes locked on her as the pickup approached. The little girl put her hand up to the side window for a brief moment. When she took it down, it left an i
mprint on the frosty window. All three later agreed that it looked like the same image of her hand on the side of the camp fort Horse. The pickup passed them and turned a corner. Danielle slid out of view.

  Continuing its journey out of the village and the children’s lives, the truck disappeared over the big hill at the edge of the reserve. Seconds and minutes passed, yet they stood there, continuing to watch the crest of the hill. They didn’t really expect her to reappear, but they didn’t know what else to do. They were frozen to the spot. Even when the four o’clock school bell rang, they didn’t move. They were each lost in their own thoughts.

  Ralph was torn up over their inability to do anything. It was a sense of frustration or of impotence — their failure to accomplish something no matter how hard they tried. There are fewer things sadder than a child realizing how unjust the world can be. He took a deep breath, his body telling him he hadn’t drawn one for too long. The boy hated the feeling of not being able to do anything. Of not being able to make a difference. Somehow, someway, he or his sister or William should have been able to do something. Someday, he thought, he would become somebody who might be able to do things. To help people like Danielle.

  All the ten-year-old boy could do was stand in front of his school in the dark Canadian winter cold. Staring at an empty road. Twelve years later, Ralph Thomas would receive his shield and weapon.

  Beside him, Shelley’s heart was breaking. Every fibre in her body wanted to run after the truck and beat the two adults senseless, then take the little girl home and make the world a better place for her. The image of Danielle, her eye black and swollen, watching her as she was driven slowly by would haunt her for a very long time. She too could do nothing about it. There had to be better answers in the world. She didn’t hear herself cry. Why does the world have to be that cruel?

  Across the road was the daycare. Every day on her way to school, Shelley passed the fence and building that housed the next generation of Otter Lake people. Three dozen children, most of them related to her, played and learned in the building. Was there another Danielle in there? Somebody who needed a hug? A little girl or boy who needed a better champion than a twelve-year-old girl could be? It pained the young girl to think that. Eighteen years later, Shelley Thomas would find herself sitting in an office with a sign on its door that would read Executive Director, Otter Lake Day Care.

  It was William who had the most visceral reaction. He stood on the packed snow, watching the weathered pickup drive by, his fists tightly clenched. In that little girl, he saw the worst in himself. When and if a book was written about that girl’s sad and sorry life, he knew that he would have contributed a few unpleasant pages. And he was ashamed. So ashamed and angry he clenched his fists tighter. So tight his nails cut into the flesh of his palms, making them begin to bleed. But he was oblivious to it.

  Since the event in the classroom, William had hoped to redeem his actions, not just to the little girl but to himself. It’s been said we make our own hell, and for many like the Williams boy, knowing what you are capable of is frequently the most damning.

  Other thoughts crowded his head. Maybe all his brothers and his sister and his parents didn’t hate him after all. Two years ago, he’d been down by the shore of Otter Lake jumping from frozen snow and ice mound to frozen snow and ice mound, even though his father had told him repeatedly to stay away from the shoreline due to the unstable nature of the melting spring ice. And, as is occasionally true, sometimes fathers do know more than their children. As predicted, William went through the weakened ice and landed chest deep in the still remarkably frigid water. He felt a cold that felt burning hot. In a state of both physical and emotional shock, he literally froze.

  He dimly recalled hearing the front door of his house burst open with a bang and his father run down the hill to the lake. Jumping into the water, breaking through the ice himself, the man pulled William out of the water and dragged him up to the house, where he was warmed. At the time, the only thing the young boy had remembered was the spanking and scolding he got that night for doing something so incredibly stupid. Now, however, he realized that was the only time he’d ever seen his father, a large Native man with an immense belly and short legs, run. His body wasn’t built for speed, yet the man had seen his son fall through the weak spring ice and he had run down to the lake, jumped in himself, and saved his son. Now William realized his father would never have let him drown in that lake if there was anything he could do about it. And he remembered behind held close, the man’s big arms around him as his father took him up the hill into the warmth of the house.

  And there was that time last year, at a nearby hockey arena, two white kids had roughed him up in the boys’ washroom. Crying at home, he’d told his brothers about it, and they’d teased him for being a girl, so weak and defenceless. But two days later, at that same arena, he’d noticed those same white kids stayed far away from him, looking at him with a certain kind of fear. It didn’t take long for William to realize his brothers must have had a rather aggressive word with those two boys. Two minor tormentors in his life had definitely done something to protect him against other possible dangers. He wasn’t as alone as he thought. Nor was he as alone as Danielle was in that pickup.

  At this point, having watched Danielle disappear into the distance, William was transformed into one of the rarest creations. In the blink of an eye, William Williams became a bully who would bully bullies. While hardly the super-hero type, William knew that he might not be able to change the world, but there were little things he could do to make it somewhat better. For him, that included keeping an eye on those who were in a position of power and used it to torment those who were weaker or different. It wasn’t a calling or a question of morality, it just became part of his personality. It was something he did because it needed to be done.

  William didn’t have Ralph’s uniform or Shelley’s job, he merely had his conviction. And that was good enough for him.

  Lost in her own world, Shelley looked down to her new boots, a little more scuffed now. They were the same colour as Danielle’s jacket. That’s when she first noticed the little droplets of blood dripping onto the pale snow directly below William’s ten-year-old trembling hands. Pulled out of her own reverie, she took out a napkin she had in her pocket and grabbed William’s right hand. She had to use all her strength to pry his fingers open and wrap his palm in the napkin. Luckily she always carried tissues with her and found another for his left hand. He was barely conscious of what she was doing, only at the last minute looking at the blood on his hands. He looked confused, unable to process what he was seeing. Then, noticing her hands holding his, he gazed into her face. They saw each other’s pain.

  Ralph saw this happening and noticed a certain amount of caring as his sister did her best to halt the bleeding. Shelley closed William’s hands around the napkins. Then, in the silence of the dark and cold afternoon, they went back to the Thomas house, where the rest of the day would wind down with all three lost in their own thoughts. Largely silent. No play. Just a lot of wondering what they could have done differently.

  Outside, it began to snow, and soon the tire tracks left by Arthur’s pickup would be lost to the elements. Like so many other things.

  LYING ON AN aged motel mattress in a nameless truck stop just across the Manitoba border, Tye was watching television. For reasons unknown, he kept looking at the large blank wall adjacent to his bed, half expecting to see something either on it or peering out at him. On television was some inane American sitcom that once, he might have found funny. Now he was watching it without watching it. His thoughts were completely detached from what was spitting out of the television. He missed his family. Tye always did when he travelled, but he had left just yesterday and the deep longing usually didn’t kick in for four or five days. To save money, he and Liz had worked out a plan of talking every two days to catch up. They weren’t due to chat until the following night.
r />   Tye dialled the Otter Lake phone number. It rang three times before Liz answered. “Hey, it’s me. I was just missing you and thought I would call early. Is everything okay?” He could hear Liz taking a deep breath. That was not good.

  “Something’s wrong with the kids.” Instantly Tye swung his feet off the mattress and onto the floor, hand tightening on the receiver.

  “Are they okay? What happened?”

  “They’re fine, Tye. They’re just sad.”

  “Sad? About what?”

  Liz took another deep breath. Tye could imagine her sitting on the stool beside the phone. “Danielle is gone.”

  “What do you mean she’s gone? Like lost?” Tye was getting a sick feeling in his stomach. He did not like the direction this conversation was going.

  “No. Hazel and her boyfriend and Danielle just disappeared. The kids said they saw them driving out of the village in that old pickup of what’s-his-name …”

  “Arthur …,” Tye answered absent-mindedly.

  “They just drove away. Disappeared. Marilyn is guilt-ridden. She’s beside herself. She contacted a bunch of CAS officials about this, and they’re going to look into it.”

  There was that phrase again. It promised so much but usually delivered so little.

  Liz continued, the worry evident in her voice, “But since technically her mother and Arthur haven’t done anything wrong to this point, she’s unsure how seriously they will assess the situation.”

  Tye could hear the slight quiver in her voice that made itself known when she was stressed.

  “And what about the kids?”

  “It’s hard to get anything out of them. I think they feel guilty.”

  Puzzled, Tye tugged at the collar of his T-shirt, which announced a 1995 Tragically Hip tour. “Okay, I’m getting a little lost here. What do they feel guilty about? They didn’t do anything.”