Saltwater Cowboys (19 page)

It was a Friday night after work. The sun hadn't set yet. It was beautiful as it streamed in through the windows of the Chinook Tavern, red and full, heavy on the horizon. Jack couldn't take his eyes off it, nor the peculiar light, milky and heady, that surrounded the trees, rock, and lake.

Once again he'd drive to meet Pete, they'd divvy up the cash and each pocket their share. Jack would go home and tell Angela that the beer was cold, the game on television was good, and scurry to the washroom to empty out his sports bag, take the bills from inside and stash them in his hiding place. Make note of the new amounts in his accounting ledger.

Then he would join Angela for a cup of tea, read, and fall asleep. The routine was air-tight, but Angela grew more and more suspicious each day. Jack didn't know what to think say or do, so he carried on and found solace in the lie, a strange comfort in the routine of managing stolen provisions.

“We're making a fortune,” Peter said the next week when Jack brought him the duffel bag. Peter had been waiting on the highway turnoff before the mine and the town dump, on a little dirt road outside of a culvert in the shade of a dense evergreen thicket. Peter whistled appreciatively as he ruffled lovingly through the bills.

“Is this floating your boat?” Jack asked slowly.

“No question.”

“Angela isn't …” Jack said glumly.

“She'll come round,” Peter said quickly and then softly added, “once summer's here.”

“I dunno if she will.”

“Quit talking nonsense. We've everything now. She'll come round. Maybe she's not used to all the changes. Everything's changed about how we live. But this is progress and we've gotten nothing but better,” Peter said.

“We're richer, that's all.”

“Isn't that the most important thing at this point?”

“Not according to Angela,” Jack said wearily.

“Hey, you listen here. I sweat my rear end off, hauling rock so shareholders and banks can profit. If at the end of the day this is the only way I'm gonna afford some peace and respect for my family when I emerge from burrowing in the ass of the earth, I'm gonna get me it. If I gotta skim off the top and take orders from rotten cowboys, I'm gonna do it, ain't no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Besides, I need you. You're my partner. I've doubled the haul because of your help, and I ain't giving that up.”

Jack sank wearily into the seat of Pete's car.

“Well, that's not all of it, you know that,” Peter said.

“We were kids together, the best of friends whose wives ate dinner together. Now Wanda won't even play bingo with Angela anymore,” Jack said.

“Hey, hey, now easy, boy, calm down, we aren't over yet, are we? You'll always be my buddy, and I'm never ever going to let you down, okay? You've got my word. I'll never let you down. I promise.” Pete pushed Jack's share of money toward him. Jack stared straight ahead and said nothing. He took his portion of the money and stuffed it stubbornly in his sports bag. He silently got out of the car and headed toward his trailer.

Jack and Peter had been asked to play in the men's hockey league late in the season. Peter had agreed; his curling league had wrapped up for the year and he was looking for something to do. Jack played because Peter did.

The men drew shirts to sort out teams. Peter and Jack were on the white team, Watson and Wisnoski on the red. Before the game started the ice was freshly flooded, ice ridges crested in the rounded corners against the boards, scuffed with a cross-hatching of black marks from sticks and pucks. Now the ice was shredded and snowdrifts capped the ice ridges. The hockey players scrambled about on the dull ice, each team desperate to win.

Jack sailed toward the net, the puck cupped snugly in the curve of his stick. Wisnoski was on defence. He loomed straight ahead of Jack, hunched like a gorilla in a black jersey, helmet, and thick chest padding. Jack checked him gruffly, and he sprawled on his stomach. Watson tended goal, and he fell to the ground when Jack took his shot, squeezed his knees together, and tried to catch the puck with his oversized gloves. The puck slid through Watson's armour and Jack raised his stick. Peter skated on one leg, knee high and fist pumping. The rest of the team crowded around and slapped Jack on the back. They had won the game. Jack's goal broke the tie in overtime.

In the locker room they took off their sweat-soaked jerseys and mouldy-smelling equipment and took hot showers.

“Winning team buys the losers a round,” Watson said above the noise of the lockers banging shut.

“Just one round?” Peter said and winked.

“Peter can afford to buy for all of us all night,” Wisnoski said and laughed.

“I'll drink to that,” Peter said.

Jack was offered high fives as he made his way to the showers. He beamed and winked and hooted as he gripped the extended palms that wavered in front of his face.

After showering and storing their equipment in lockers, the men cleared out and got in their cars to drive to the tavern. Peter had started the car when Jack realized he'd forgotten his skates.

“Go on, then,” Peter said and turned up the heat.

Jack opened the door to the locker room and grabbed his skates from underneath the royal blue bench. He needed to use the urinal so he headed to the back of the room. Watson and Wisnoski stood at the urinals, their backs to Jack.

“Glad you let him check you,” Watson said.

“Glad you let him score,” Wisnoski said.

“We've got to get on their good side and in on that pot of gold one way or another,” Watson said.

Jack shook his head and stifled the urge to punch them.
They'd just let me punch them at this point,
he thought, slung his skates over his shoulder, and slipped quietly out the door.

“
We need to hire more miners,” Russell Knox said as he chewed a canned ham sandwich. Bits of it stuck between his teeth and mayonnaise gathered in the corners of his mouth. “We're gonna hire a few more men from the east.”

“If they're anything like Pete and Jack, they'll outsmart us all with their investments,” Wisnoski said and laughed.

“If you believe that cock 'n' bull story about ‘investments,' you've had your head underground for far too long,” Knox said and snorted. The other miners in the lunchroom laughed as food flew from their mouths and splattered on the table.

“What?” Wisnoski asked.

“Those two aren't any better at figuring out the stock market than anyone else — they're not sitting on a golden horseshoe.”

“Well, how are they walking away from here with more than us?”

“That's the thing; it's
what
they're walking away from here with. Problem is, I can't figure out how they're doing it.”

The miners stopped talking when Jack came into the lunchroom. He opened the battered fridge door, grabbed his lunch tin, and shoved it under his dusty arm. His face softened and his hunched shoulders relaxed when he opened the lid: no nuggets today.

He took out his steak-and-cheese sandwich and cracked open a cola.

Wisnoski stared at him incredulously.
This man walks away from here with more than what I get?
Wisnoski's eyes bulged out under his flat, concave brow. Smashed under a dull, flat nose, his lips were fish-like and wide, his cheeks fleshy and round.
I'll find out what he's up to and I'll let my cousin Jonah know what's going on. This might help him make sergeant with the RCMP. He can get himself a better house and car, buy his wife fine clothes
.

The lunch-hour buzzer rang, sharp like a dry whip on stone. It prodded the men to return to work. They crumpled handfuls of clear wrap, filled with brown crumbs, smeared with yellow and white oil, bits of lettuce and tomato, and threw them in the garbage cans.

The collective creak of metal lunch tin lids was dissonant with the lunch bell. The men lagged momentarily; the comfort of food and conversation would end soon. They'd be out alone or in quiet packs, ears plugged with foam under a ceiling of black rock that sagged above their heads as they blasted and hauled ore in trucks that would run over rats for the next four hours.

Jack sighed and rose to put his lunch tin away. He wiped his hands on his mucky overalls as Wisnoski gave him a kick.

“Problem?”

“How you getting so rich, McCarthy? We want to know.”

Jack shrugged and walked quickly away.

“We'll find out what you're up to. We're not stupid.”

Driving toward the dump to pick up gold, Jack told Peter that he was worried about the suspicious miners at work.

“They've got nothing on us,” Peter said lazily.

Jack shifted uneasily in his seat.

“Relax, we're not going to get caught,” Peter said.

Jack turned away and looked out the window. The garbage truck was idling on the edge of a hill, preparing to dump a few bags.

“We can't stop now, the cowboys want more,” Peter said.

“How in the hell can we get more?” Jack asked incredulously.

“If we double our efforts, they'll give us a better price,” Peter said calmly.

“I'll get caught if I go to the washroom ten, fifteen times a day,” Jack said.

“I'm not saying go to the washroom all the time,” Peter said slyly.

Jack tilted his head to one side.

“I'll drop the ore someplace else. I'll put them in my lunch tin and we'll switch tins on break,” Peter said.

“Why? We've got more than enough. They've made double on what we've sold them so far.”

“Who the hell knows why? I don't ask questions of these fellas. I just give them what they want.”

“Well, I won't then,” Jack said defiantly, looking out the window at the rising heat waves vibrating off the rocky gravel road. The heat had come suddenly after a long, cold winter and crisp spring. May's heat had surprised the residents of Foxville. The mosquitoes were already feisty and the sun was strong; its importunate rays drenched the skin with heat. Jack scratched his arm that hung out of the window.

“Why don't we try?” Peter asked.

“I dunno, Pete. But we should get out of here. The driver is looking at us.”

“The garbage truck will be gone soon.”

“What if he asks us why we're here?”

The garbage truck hovered over the edge of the cliff. Black leaves from rotten broccoli stems flapped in the metal hinges as a soup of garbage streamed out.

Peter's foot tapped the floor of his new four-by-four. “We'll tell them we're here looking for old bicycle parts.”

When the garbage truck backed away, they got out of the vehicle. Jack was overheated and nervous; he undid his plaid shirt and loosened the collar. Peter hurried down the hill and dove into the sewer of garbage bags.

They fumbled through the bags until they found the corporate logo.

They heard the echoes of the reverberating siren from the garbage truck as it backed onto the edge of the cliff once more.

Jack yelled at Peter to move, but Peter looked up and kept digging. He stuffed nuggets in the leg of his boots and in a secret padded flap in his work suit. Jack ran toward him and tripped over rotting cardboard boxes.

Peter looked up again as the sludge of garbage poured over him. His eyes popped as he scampered for more nuggets.

As the garbage truck pulled away, Jack regained his balance and stared at the spot where Peter had been buried alive. He waited. Nothing emerged from the mountain. Jack stood still. The weight of the nuggets in his boots felt as heavy as tungsten.

Then he dove in to look for Pete.

As he dug through the waste, tears and snot clotted in his eyes and nose. He wormed his way through the glut and came out the other side.
I can't find him. He's been buried alive
.

Peter stood in front of him grinning like an excited pup. “We got a big load today.”

“You could have been killed,” Jack said.

“Nah, a little garbage ain't gonna kill me.”

Jack wiped the rot from his pants and Peter hauled him off the slippery pile of plastic garbage bags and food.

“I don't want to die for this,” Jack said.

“Die? Now, don't get excited.”

“You're risking everything for that ore.”

“Well, it's mine now; I'm sure as hell not going to let it get buried — again,” Peter said.

Jack strode ahead, pummelling his thighs with his fists as he walked toward the four-by-four.

“The sun's up now, let's go and get something to eat,” Peter said and smiled as he backed the truck onto the dirt road.

The beer bottles were piling up on Jack and Peter's table at the Chinook Tavern. The final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and it looked like the Calgary Flames were going to be defeated by the Montreal Canadiens. Watson and Wisnoski sat sour-faced as they watched their team lose.

“Bad enough they've outfoxed everyone, now they're taking the hockey pool money too,” Watson said.

Peter sat a few chairs away, beamed, and raised his beer bottle to bump against Jack's. They'd both bet on Montreal and were watching the pending victory with glee.

“Score!” Peter yelled and raised his fist.

Montreal won the cup, four games to one. Jack and Peter stood and bear-hugged, slapped each other on the back, and jumped round and round in small circles.

“Sit down, thieves,” Watson yelled.

“Eh?” Peter said and turned around slowly.

“You heard me,” Watson said brazenly.

Peter eyed them without blinking. Jack sunk lower in his seat and his eye started to twitch.

“You've got nothing on me,” Peter said slowly.

Watson grunted while Wisnoski sneered knowingly.

“I'd advise you to stay out of my face,” Peter said, “if you know what's good for you.”

Wanda watched her husband at the end of the table over their Sunday morning custard ritual, yellow bits of it stuck in the corners of his mouth, a yellow stain rimming his lips.

“Good custard, sweetheart?” she asked.

Peter grunted his approval.

The early Sunday morning sun passed through the buttercream-coloured curtains. “It'll be warm today?”

Peter grunted again and nodded.

Wanda smiled thinly. Her pink lips trembled as she delicately spooned the sweet, warm treat into her mouth. She sat primly with her back straight in a white housecoat, her hair tied up with a simple white elastic. “Take a walk with me later?”

“Can't. Watching the ball game,” Peter said.

“Oh. I see,” she said and crossed her feet at the ankles and rose higher in her seat. She quickly spooned the last bit of custard in her mouth. She gulped and cleared the table. “What would you like for supper tonight?”

“Don't know,” Peter said.

“I'll cook something nice, maybe invite Jack and Angela?”

“Oh no,” Peter groaned, “not those two, with their glum faces.”

“They're jealous about the cottage, that's all.”

Peter nodded and wondered how to keep his distance from them. Jack made him feel guilty. That was the last thing he needed. He wondered if Jack was going to be able to pull it off.
He's not like me, I can get away with almost anything
, he thought.
Jack is spineless and weak. A sensitive boy, he was, not much different now than when we'd learned how to ride our bikes
. Jack would fall off in defeat, then cry and run off to hug and hide behind his mother's knees.

He looked at his wife and could see how desperate to fit in she was. He wanted to obtain that security for her. How much he wanted to give her for her constant love and support as she followed him faithfully through everything.

“I'd like a drink,” he said.

“It's not even noon yet,” Wanda said.

He pointed to the cupboard and she weakly pulled herself up, tightened the belt on her housecoat, and patted her face. She wearily shuffled across the kitchen and reached numbly for the bottle of Canadian Club. She automatically poured him a full glass. She wiped a tear from her eye as she made her way back to the table to hand him the drink. She'd stopped looking at him and found solace in the light that came through the curtains. It was bright and lazy, filled with particles that seemed comfortable going nowhere, at ease being meaningless and the random order of their floating trajectory.

He could sense that Wanda wanted to wipe it all up, clean the air of the dust. She'd dust and invest all her energy into the air quality of her home, the presentation of her furniture, and try to ignore that which sat in the corner, her husband ruminating, consuming grand shots of whiskey, if only in the hopes of quieting his guilt.

“Honey, the baseball game?”

Peter grunted.

Wanda helped lift him up out of his chair. She put down the drink and held his hand as they walked slowly to the living room. They passed a row of family photos on the wall: Susie's first birthday, a young, clear-eyed Wanda and a sparkly-eyed Peter at their wedding, an assortment of family photos at Christmastime and successive anniversaries. The final few were of a fattened Wanda and a subdued Peter with hollow eyes.

Jack wove his way through the children's wear department at the Hudson's Bay Company. Yellow tops and shorts sets, pink shirts, lilac-spotted bathing suits, and peach dresses cluttered the aisles. He grabbed a few outfits and threw them in the cart, one for Katie, one for Maggie, another for Lily.

He pulled the wire cart behind him. Its wheels dragged on the carpet and got tangled up in outfits that had fallen from hangers and clogged the aisles. At the till the clerk's eyes widened at the sight of the pile of clothes. “Ten per cent interest rate for items purchased on credit.”

“I don't need credit,” Jack said and staggered from side to side as he reached for his wallet. He'd been drinking by himself this morning and his thoughts were blotted by rum. He rummaged through his black wallet and pulled out a fistful of loose cash.

Jack lovingly felt the soft cotton and let the fabric tumble over his fingers as he placed each garment on the white countertop. His babies would be cool, clean, and comfortable this summer. A summer in the north, he was told by the Albertans, would be hot, dry, and full of mosquitoes. Nippers, he'd heard Knox call them as they each were handed a complimentary can of insect repellant by security on their way home last week.

When he arrived home after shopping he scattered the white boxes with the Hudson Bay Company rainbow-striped logo over the rust-coloured shag rug. Inside each box a piece of clothing, each textile a square of fulfillment. The children grabbed at the fabric and held pieces against their torsos, exclaiming about the colour of this one, the daisies and daffodils decorating another, how this yellow one matched Katie's hair, or how the blue made Maggie's eyes look sharper. Lily, pristine in her white cotton dress, tumbled around the room and tripped over boxes, tissue paper gathering at her feet, wispy white folds that snaked around her ankles.

Jack sat on the sofa, arms splayed behind him. Angela rose from the floor and stood with her back to them all. He wanted her to turn around and smile at him, to feel proud of him, because in that smile was Jack's everything, worth more to him than the nuggets hidden deep in their closet underneath the Hudson's Bay Company rainbow-striped quilt, buried beneath the floorboards.

Later that week Jack went shopping again. He piled the gift boxes up, one on top of the other on the kitchen counter. The irregular stack resembled an inuksuk. The box with the champagne nestled in crimson satin stood upright, the small bottle of Opium perfume — “All women love this fragrance,” the saleswoman at the Bay had said — laid crosswise on its side, and the square box with the saltwater pearls — much more expensive than freshwater pearls, he was told, because dozens of pearls can grow in a single mussel, while only one beautiful pearl can grow per oyster in a saltwater pearl — capped the gift-box sculpture.