Cool Water

Praise for Cool Water

‘
Cool Water
is the story of a small town and its ordinary citizens. Nothing much happens in Juliet, Saskatchewan. But Dianne Warren's characters struggle to maintain their dignity against powerful odds. This is powerful writing—gut-wrenching and inspiring. Its drama is quiet, but in the end you hardly know what hit you.'

— Governor General's Literary Awards jury

‘That two people can share a house and not know they love one another; that a note in a pocket with a woman's name on it can crack decades of trust—this is a novel about the isolation that we hold secret within ourselves; that makes us envy the true hearts of horses and dogs. This novel shivers with nervous life. It tiptoes the fine edge between joy and weeping.'

— Fred Stenson

‘
Cool Water
evokes a Canadian west that is, like the American southwest, timeless and powerful and hauntingly beautiful. Dianne Warren's absolutely authentic characters, with all their loneliness and strength, will be new to you.'

— Bonnie Burnard

‘Reading Dianne Warren's
Cool Water
is like drinking from a deep well after crossing the parched sand hills of the west. Leisurely and unpretentious, her prose lifts the hardscrabble town of Juliet and its people into the realm of myth.'

— Joan Clark

‘Reading Dianne Warren's novel, I was reminded of Carol Shields and the creation of unassuming matter-of-fact characters who are, in truth, generously complicated. The writing is understated, wry, and laconic—as if the place itself could not produce any other kind of story.'

— David Bergen

‘Warmhearted, witty, original,
Cool Water
maintains its steady, low-key tone, even as it pulls you into its world and doesn't let you go. It has been a long time since I loved a novel so much.'

— Sharon Butala

‘
Cool Water
is unforgettable.'

—
The Globe and Mail

‘Warren demonstrates a finely tuned understanding of the importance of everyday life that is reminiscent of Carol Shields' abilities to transform the quotidian into something meaningful.'

—
Winnipeg Free Press

‘Most of us have never lived in Juliet. Warren makes every word she writes about the place believable. Which is good, because a strange thing has happened; this oh so ordinary good-hearted little town has become the truly exotic destination.'

—
National Post

Dianne Warren
Cool Water

First published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2011
First published in Canada in 2010 by Phyllis Bruce Books, an imprint of
HarperCollins Canada

Copyright © Dianne Warren 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian
Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London

83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone:   (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax:       (61 2) 9906 2218
Email:    [email protected]
Web:     
www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available
from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74237 811 4

Set in 12.5/14 pt Walbaum by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In memory of
Harriet and Milford Taylor

Contents

The Distance

Night Travel

Happiness

Desert Dwellers

Solo

A Good Map

Change of Heart

Hurry Sundown

The Oasis

Acknowledgments

The Distance

I
t was the end of August, before the Perry Land and Cattle Company's fall gather, and the ranch cowboys had too much time on their hands. They were standing around the dusty yard doing nothing more than watch the horses swat flies with their tails when the young buck, Ivan Dodge, somehow managed to convince one of the old veteran cowboys—Henry Merchant was his name—to meet his challenge of a hundred-mile horse race through the dunes and the grasslands of the Little Snake Hills. It wasn't like Henry to act so impulsively, but Ivan Dodge was getting on his nerves with his restless strut and his mouth that never stopped yapping, even in his sleep. Henry figured he could beat him. He figured Ivan Dodge was a rabbit, fast all right, but not smart enough to win. You needed strategy to win a hundred-mile race.

The Perry cowhands got enthusiastically involved in the pre-race planning, as did the ranch manager, who saw an opportunity to build relations between the ranch and the burgeoning community of homesteaders. They decided on five in the morning as a start time and agreed on the buffalo rubbing stone just north of the settlement of Juliet as the start and finish of the race. This was close to the ranch headquarters, but also close enough to town to create some excitement and attract the local gamblers. The cowboys would each ride four horses—the first- and fourth-leg horses their own, and the middle-leg mounts selected from the ranch remuda—switching every twenty-five miles in the corners of a hundred-mile square. They each put up fifty dollars, a lot of money in those days. The challenge became known and race day settled into the consciousness of everyone for miles around Juliet. Word spread like chicken pox.

Popular support went to the elder. That was because Ivan Dodge was arrogant and needed to be brought down a peg or two. It was
right
that Henry Merchant win the race, and so the cowboys and the townspeople and the settlers alike bet their money on the veteran, believing in life lessons and confident that Ivan Dodge would be taught one. Only a few of the more serious gamblers bet on Ivan, suspecting that youth might just skunk experience.

The ranch cowboys and a few men from town (the ones who had bet the largest sums of money) showed up to see the riders off in the early morning, rubbing their hands to warm themselves in the cool air, building a fire in the hollow next to the buffalo rubbing stone to boil coffee in an old pot. The first-leg horses stamped and snorted, sensing excitement and ready to go, while the gamblers examined them closely for clues as to which would carry its rider to an early lead—the young cowboy's prancy bay gelding with his wide nostrils, clean throatlatch and distinctive white markings, or the old cowboy's leggy sorrel mare, who looked as if she might have the reach of a racehorse.

Ivan and Henry discussed the route, and Henry said, “I've got people in the corners to make sure you ride the whole hundred, so don't go taking no shortcuts,” which made Ivan smirk and say, “I wouldn't be worrying about me, old man. I doubt those rickety bones can even sit a horse for a hundred miles.” The two cowboys said,
Ha, we'll just see,
back and forth,
we'll see about that, won't we.
Ivan Dodge was wearing a new pair of fringed leather chaps with silver conchas and the old cowboy couldn't help but make fun of his fancy outfit. When they mounted up and loped off as their pocket watches marked five, they were still exchanging barbs about the young cowboy's sense of direction (famously bad) and the old cowboy's bones (famously stiff), which added to the entertainment. The gamblers were in high spirits, and they told and retold the best retorts to newcomers as they arrived wanting details about the start of the race.

The day took on the atmosphere of a summer fair. Spectators congregated at the three change stations, but by far the largest crowd gathered at the buffalo stone, which was the finish as well as the start of the race. Town families walked the short distance to the stone, and farmers and their wives and children came horseback or in wagons from all directions, by road or cross-country. They brought picnics. A fiddler showed up—no one seemed to know him—and he played jigs and folk songs to entertain the women and children. The local newspaperman took pictures, although he wasn't much interested in the farmers and their families and wished he could ride with the two cowboys and capture the race as it unfolded. Like the gamblers, all he could do was wait for the finish.

The two riders went north from the stone, past the Torgeson homestead, past the Swan Valley Cemetery with its one lonely marker for Herbert Swan, the first settler in the area to die. Then along a soft dirt road for twenty miles, all the way to the Lindstrom place and the new schoolhouse, the first change station. A good well in the schoolyard, but no time for much of a break. West into the sand hills, the sun just beginning to climb in the eastern sky. Up the first big dune to the top, sharp-edged ridges breaking away like crusted snow, rivers of sand cascading down. To the west, a wilderness, endless miles of sand and grass. No fences, no farms at all until you come to the Varga homestead, the second change station, where the Varga brothers and their families have begun construction of a Catholic church so the visiting priest will have a proper place to conduct the mass. Fresh horses waiting by the newly laid stone foundation, a drink from another good well, the warm smell of sweat and leather, and then south again into the heat of the day. No active dunes now, just low rolling hills, August brown and stabbed with the blue-green of sage, muted colours sliding by under the horses' long-trotting strides, the mercury at its peak for the day, the air so hot it's hard to breathe, heat waves blurring the land ahead.

Then relief. Down a sandy cutbank into a coulee, deer scattering, a doe and her twins separated in the excitement. At the bottom, a spring-fed creek, an oasis of sorts shaded by willow and poplar trees. Such respite from the sun, the temptation strong to wait here until later in the day, but after a brief stop, back up into the heat and a stretch of good flat land. Farms cropping up again on this stretch, small clapboard houses and newly erected pasture fences, newly patented wire gates to open and close, and then the east west rail line where someone has planted a Union Jack and people are waiting for the last change of horses.

Twenty-five miles to go in the blistering sun, straight east through open grassland. Soft rolling hills, an endless graveyard of bleached cattle bones, sober reminders of the previous winter storms. The rise and fall of landscape, the monotony of up and down, twenty-five miles going on and on and feeling like the whole hundred all over again. Until finally, the creek that winds toward Juliet. Water for man and horse, then up out of the draw, the pace quickening with the sense that the finish line is not far now. The horse's head high, a trot turning into a lope and then a hard gallop for the buffalo rubbing stone and the waiting crowd of onlookers.