Juliet in August (9 page)

As he approaches the farmyard, he looks for signs that someone is about, but he sees no one. It's too early to arrive at the door.
The school then
, Lee thinks. Although the windows are now boarded up and it's been demoted into a grain bin, there's still a good well in the schoolyard. When they get there, he'll give the horse a drink and let him graze for a while before he sees if Tyler can spare the time to take him home.

The Lindstroms' collie dog comes to the end of the approach and barks once, then lies down with his head on his paws and watches in a bored way, as though it is not all that unusual to see a horse and rider across the road.

“Good boy,” Lee says to the dog.

The horse's ears rotate as though he thinks Lee is talking to him.

“You're a good boy, too,” Lee says.

The sound of his own voice is disconcerting, jolting him back to the reality of who he is and what he does every day. Now that there's light in the sky, everything seems normal again. He can hardly remember what possessed him just hours ago.

HAPPINESS

 

The Cat

Hank Trass is dozing in the warm cab of his truck with his mouth wide open and his head jammed into the corner between the passenger seat and the window, which is rolled up against the mosquitoes. His cowboy hat is beside him on the seat, his take-out coffee spilled on the floor at his feet where he'd accidentally kicked it over. The day before, he'd traveled to a town just west of Winnipeg to pick up a used stock trailer he'd found on the Internet, but then he hadn't bought the trailer after all because it was covered in rust that suspiciously had not been evident in the pictures the owner had sent. Then Hank's truck had broken down and he'd waited several hours for a mechanic to get him on the road again, and he'd tried to make it home by driving all night, but caught himself nodding off and ended up grabbing a few hours' sleep in the campground just east of Juliet. Hank knows from past experience that when he starts to fall asleep at the wheel, he'd better pull over, pronto. He rolled his truck once while trying to drive through a sleepy spell with the window down, gulping air to keep himself awake. It hadn't worked. He'd totaled the truck, but somehow emerged with only a few bruises.

When he pulled into the campground, he'd planned to sleep for only an hour or so, but the sun wakes him and when he looks at his watch he realizes he's slept for a good four hours. He can hear the steady sound of semitrailers passing on the highway a quarter mile to the south. His neck is so stiff, he can hardly turn it. His wife, Lynn, is always trying to get him to do exercises—she herself does yoga that she learned from a DVD—and for once, in desperation, he thinks it might possibly do some good. He opens the truck door and wills his uncooperative body to unfold itself and step out into the early morning. The campground, pretty much empty, is just an open field with a half dozen barbecue stands and picnic tables, a water tap, and a pair of pit toilets. In the campsite next to his is a little red car with two mountain bikes on top. A young couple is sleeping in a pup tent with the front door unzipped and the top halves of their bodies out in the open air. Their hides must be tougher than his, Hank thinks, to sleep like that with a swarm of mosquitoes at them all night. Across the field next to the fence is a truck towing a small stock trailer just like the one he'd looked at in Manitoba only not quite as rusty, with several bales of hay in a rack on top. Another pup tent is pitched by a picnic table a few hundred feet from the rig. If there were a horse in the trailer he'd know why the tent was so far away from it, having spent more than a few nights next to a horse making a racket, but the trailer door is wide open and there's no sign of a horse tied inside or out.

Hank visits the nearest toilet without checking to see if it says
GENTS
or
LADIES
on the door, then goes to the tap and splashes cold water on his face. The act of bending to the stream of water is painful, and then straightening up again is even worse, so he tries to picture some of the stretching exercises Lynn has shown him, thinking he can't get back in the truck until he's limbered up a little. There's one she calls
the cat
, he recalls, where she gets down on her hands and knees and arches her back and then lets it sink toward the floor. Well, he's not getting down on his hands and knees—he'd never make it up—so he improvises and does the exercise standing on his feet, bent forward at the waist. The stretch feels surprisingly good. He remembers Lynn doing something else, standing against the wall and sliding down and then up again, so he does this against the cab of the truck. The down part is easy enough, but to get back up he has to push himself with his hands on his thighs. Still, this one feels pretty good, too. He won't let Lynn know, but maybe he'll find a way to do this once in a while when she's not looking.

He closes his eyes, puts his hands on his hips, and turns his head slowly, one way and then the other. Each time he manages to turn it a little farther. When he opens his eyes, he sees the girl in the pup tent watching him. He thinks he must make an amusing picture to a young girl like that—a rickety old cowboy trying to stretch out his aching body, what hair he has left on his head sticking out all over. He reaches up to smooth it down and then gets his hat off the seat of the cab and puts it on. When he looks toward the tent again, the girl and her friend have moved inside. He sees the tent flaps being pulled together by a male hand with some kind of colorful woven bracelet on the wrist.

Hank's stomach growls and he checks the time once again. The early-morning regulars will be arriving at the Oasis for breakfast just about now. Lynn will be there, baking the pies she's become famous for, serving breakfast, keeping her sharp eye on the time so she can start phoning if whatever high school girl she's got working for her today doesn't show up when she's supposed to. Lynn has turned out to be a shrewd and successful businesswoman. When she bought the restaurant six years ago, Hank wasn't convinced it was a good idea, but he's convinced now. He's had to do without his best hand thanks to Lynn's entrepreneurial success, but he gets by with the help of neighbors like young Lee Torgeson, and when he has to, he hires a local kid to drive a tractor for him.

Just as Hank is about to get in his truck and hit the road, he sees a red-haired woman in bright pink pajama bottoms, an oversized T-shirt, and bright green running shoes, walking into the campground along the access road. He watches her with interest as she approaches, wondering where in the world she might have come from. As she gets closer he sees that she is not young—approaching sixty if she's a day—and the red hair is definitely a bottle job.

“Morning,” Hank says when she gets close enough to hear.

She stops and looks down at her pajama bottoms.

“Don't worry,” she says. “I haven't escaped from anywhere.” She walks over to Hank's truck and asks, “You haven't by any chance seen a gray Arab horse?”

“Ah,” Hank says, looking over at the trailer with its open door.

“Yeah,” she says. “He's done a runner. I guess I forgot to latch the door. Idiot. Me I mean, not the horse.”

“I haven't seen a horse,” says Hank. “It was dark when I pulled in, so I can't say whether there was one about then or not.”

“He shows up pretty good in the moonlight.”

Hank shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says. “Where're you from?” He's already noted the Manitoba plates on her rig.

“I'm not really from anywhere at the moment. Kind of between places. Damn it anyway. Should have pitched my tent closer, but I wanted to get some sleep. He bangs around in there like a bull in a pipe factory. Well, I guess I'll talk to the locals. I can't think what else to do.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Hank says. “You could put in a call to the Mounties. And there's a restaurant up the road a ways. The Oasis. Maybe tack a notice on the billboard.”

“Damn it all to hell,” she says.

“Arab horse, you say. You know we've got the sand hills to the west. Maybe he'll head thataway, do some hobnobbing with the camels there.” When she doesn't respond, Hank says, “More likely he'll stick to where the grass is good.”

He can tell she's not really listening to him. She's staring at the trailer, her mind on her problem, thinking about her horse making tracks and
how much trouble
this day is going to be.

“That horse has been nothing but a bother,” she says. Then she points to the Coleman stove sitting on the picnic table by her tent. She asks Hank if he wants some coffee. She can make coffee in a hurry, she says.

He should get home, but a fresh coffee would really hit the spot. “I'll take you up on that,” he says.

They walk across the campground, and Hank settles himself at her picnic table while she scoops coffee into the basket of a stainless steel percolator and fills the pot with water from a plastic jug. He can see from here that the crew cab of her truck is filled with household items (he can make out a lampshade) and the box is loaded with suitcases, plastic storage bins, a bicycle, and what could be a La-Z-Boy recliner wrapped in plastic. She's obviously not just out on a weekend horse camping trip.

“So where're you off to?” he asks casually.

“I'm supposed to be moving to Peace River. Ever been there?”

“Nope,” Hank says.

“Neither have I. My daughter lives there. She took her father's side in the divorce, decided she hated me, and went to live with him. No contact at all. This was years ago. Then out of the blue she calls me and suggests we meet for the weekend in Edmonton, and now here I am, moving to Peace River. Funny how your life can change, just like that. Not sure how it will work out, but we'll see. She's got two kids I didn't know about. Both boys, just a year apart. My grandchildren. Hard to believe.”

“That's quite a story,” Hank says.

“Yeah. Just hope it works out. Nothing to lose, I guess. Other than the damned horse. I've got pictures.” She goes to her tent and comes back with an envelope containing school pictures. Two smiling boys with missing front teeth.

“Good-looking little rascals,” Hank says.

She nods and returns the pictures to the envelope.

Hank finds himself scanning the horizon. It's possible the horse is close by, but more than likely he's spooked himself with his freedom and gone for a good run. Hank hopes he hasn't run into wire, or found a pile of grain in a field.

“The horse is going to Peace River with you?” he asks.

“Presumably,” the woman says, “although it's all a bit of folly on my part. My daughter lives on a farm up there at Peace River, one of those hippie farms. I asked her if her kids had a pony—all kids want a pony, right?—and she said no, they don't have any animals except a budgie. She's a single parent, not much disposable income. So I'm on the highway passing the auction mart a few weeks ago and I see a sign that says ‘Horse Auction.' So I stop, just to look. Just to see how much ponies cost. And there's a guy there buying up a whole bunch of horses, and the man next to me tells me the guy's a meat buyer. The horse in the sale ring at the time was this pretty gray horse that had such a gentle look to it and the meat buyer started to bid and I couldn't stand it. Up went my hand. So that's it. I bought my grandkids a pony. Only I have no idea if he's a kids' horse. I've never ridden a horse in my life.”

The coffee is percolating away on the Coleman and Hank thinks the woman is lucky she hasn't been hurt, hauling a horse around with no experience at all. And the daughter is likely not going to be all that happy when her mother shows up with a trailer full of horse trouble, not to mention a money pit, and once the kids see the horse it's going to be hard to say no, but Hank keeps quiet, none of his business.

“My status as a mother is still pretty tentative. You go a little crazy when you get a call from the daughter you thought was gone from your life forever. And grandchildren . . . well, whoever would have guessed?” She pauses, then says, “She needs help with the kids. She wouldn't have called me if she didn't need help.”

The coffee is ready and she pours Hank a cup and hands him a tin of milk. “Hope you don't take sugar,” she says. She gets a tray of doughnuts from her cooler, but Hank turns them down. He knows Lynn will have something for him, and he should really drink up and be on his way. He takes a gulp of the coffee and burns his throat.

“Have you got kids?” she asks.

Hank nods. “Two daughters. Grown up and gone to the city. No grandkids. Working on their careers, I suppose.”

“So you think I should get in touch with the police about this horse, do you?”

“That's what I'd do,” Hank says. “And talk to the locals, like you said. That can't hurt.”

At that moment, the girl from the pup tent crawls out, pulling her jeans up over her tanned legs. The boy's hand reaches out and grabs her by the ankle, and she shrieks and dances away. Hank turns his head, embarrassed. “Oh to be young, eh?” he says.

“Younger and smarter,” the woman says. “But those two things don't tend to go together.”

Hank finishes his coffee and says he'd best be going. “I should have been home yesterday,” he says. “I might find myself in the doghouse.” He winks. He's not sure why. Old habit. The woman raises an eyebrow, but Hank doesn't elaborate. The story of his truck breakdown isn't as interesting as what she might be thinking. He asks if she's got a contact number just in case he sees or hears something, and she heads over to her truck for a piece of paper. He watches her comical pink rear end as she leans across the seat and retrieves her purse. She writes on a scrap of paper and hands it to him, then slips her pen and the photos of her grandchildren into her purse and zips it shut.

“My cell number,” she says.

He glances at her name—Joni—and the number, and shoves the paper in his back pocket. He warns her that cell phone coverage comes and goes in this country, and then he wishes her luck with her move to Peace River and finding her horse, and gets in his truck to make his way back to the highway.

It's another cloudless morning, the usual breeze from the west already hot, and he decides he'll pick up hay bales from the ditches today. There wasn't much to hay this year, but he'd been taught by his father to accept whatever nature offered because next year she might not offer anything at all. Maybe he'll call young Torgeson and see if he could use a hand. Hank hasn't checked on him in a while, and Lynn will have some baking she'll send with him. She has a soft spot for Lee, and they both figure the kid must get lonely there on his own.
He's not like you were at that age,
Lynn has pointed out to Hank a couple of times, still able to make him feel guilty after all these years.

Ten minutes later, he passes the bullet-riddled sign
WELCOME TO JULIET
—
POPULATION 1,011
, and pulls onto the Oasis approach. He can just taste the slice of blueberry pie he'll have for breakfast, unless Lynn gets on a healthy rant and makes him have something else, like bran flakes or oatmeal. A Greyhound bus is in the parking lot, ready to pull out, and Hank notices that one of its cargo flaps is still open. He honks to the driver, trying to catch his attention, but it's too late. The bus pulls away and a cardboard box tumbles to the parking lot. It bursts as it hits the pavement, and paper—hundreds of small pieces of bright yellow paper—are caught by the bus's tailwind and blown outward and upward, all over the parking lot. One of them slaps itself to his windshield and he sees that it's a flyer. He can read what it says:
THE END IS NEAR
. It gives a date, which is, indeed, just around the corner. He watches the Greyhound bus through the flurry of paper to see if anything else falls out, anything that he should retrieve and take inside for the next bus that comes through, but nothing does, so he parks and turns off the engine. He gets out and pulls the flyer from his windshield. He examines it for more information, but there is none. As far as Hank can tell, it's just an announcement, a headline. No advice on what to do.