The Cast Stone (33 page)

“It's not a big deal unless you have AIDS.”

“Lester has AIDS?” Benji put the book down.

“Thought you knew.”

“No. I thought he was just being lazy. Red needs him to work and he keeps staying home. I thought he just had a cold.” Benji spun thoughts, rapid thoughts, a blur of experiences with Lester. Had he ever had an open wound when Lester was around? Had he ever drunk out of the same cup, shared a bottle of water? His thoughts slowed to a stop without finding anything, realized the senselessness of his fear. “Is he going to be all right?”

“Don't know.” Elsie turned to slide a chair away from the table; she wanted to sit and watch the snow fall. She never got the chance. The chair scraped against the floor. The sound woke Rachel. She had been asleep for over an hour. Wore herself out, little legs that have just learned how to walk tire easily. The little girl fell asleep on her blanket spread on the floor, across a cushion she had pulled from the couch. Elsie had found her and put her on the bed. The floor was too cold a place for little ones to sleep.

A north wind hammered down the length of Moccasin Lake, flew full force into the tiny community at the south end, brought with it any loose snow and piled it in the willows along the shore. It shaped drifts, then reshaped them, created its own abstract art forms: lines and swirls, depths and hollows — piled snow in one place for no other reason than it chose to, and in others exposed the naked black ice.

Cut by the pines around Ben's cabin, the wind lost some of its force before hitting the solid logs. It tried to find any loose chinks, a place where insulation was thin. Thwarted, it passed, without looking back where it would have seen Elsie standing in the window, her daughter held on her hip with one hand; the other against the wall, drawing strength in the middle of the storm. She was looking south toward her mother's house.

“I love you.” Benji put his arm around her waist; stood beside her, pulled her close so they stood hip-to-hip, thigh-to-thigh, rib cages pressed together.

“I love you back.” Elsie turned from the window to kiss his cheek, a gentle brush of lips against bristle.

Benji sought what Elsie was watching. All he saw was snow, swirls of it, skittering across the spaces between the trees, piling into, onto itself. He soon tired of it, could not capture whatever it was that had captured her, could not comprehend that she appreciated the power of the storm, the power of those forces that shape and form everything.

Red's truck ploughed through the drift that was forming across the driveway, cut two parallel tracks up to the house. Elsie and Benji watched as he walked, head bent away from the wind to the door.

“Want to go hunting?” he asked as soon as he was inside.

“Today?” Benji wasn't sure.

“Best time. Good wind.”

Benji looked back toward the window, at the swirls on the other side of the glass.

Elsie figured this out, saw what was happening. If Red wanted to go hunting today, there was a reason, probably a good reason.

“You should go,” she urged. “Get us some moose meat.”

“Why today?” Benji wanted to know.

“He can't smell us coming. Best hunting weather. We can walk right up to him if we do it right. Come on, I'll show you.” Red was excited, in a rush, his words as fast as his thoughts.

“You guys all need names.” Rosie scraped leftovers from a plate onto the ground. Six half-grown dogs scrambled, nosing each other aside to get at the bones and scraps. “Here Duchess, saved a piece for you.” She tossed a bit of meat aside for the mother, then stood and watched the action. If Ben was here, you guys would be in harness by now, earning your keep.” She thought about what she had just said. The words had come before the thought. If Ben were really here, then he would need harness and a sleigh. She could make harness. That was easy. She needed snaps, rings, nylon strapping, something for padding so the harness did not cut into shoulders. Six dogs, she counted, imagined freight harness, not bad, only a dozen snaps and rings, it was do-able. The sleigh, that was a different matter. Her dad used to make his own, bent birch runners, a frame tied together with rawhide or sinew. It needed to be sturdy and flexible. Someone has to remember how to make a sleigh. She couldn't think of anyone alive anymore who would know how. She remembered all of the steps. Her dad had built his inside the house; boiling water to bend the hand-hewn boards, a drawknife leaving piles of shavings on the floor. It wasn't that she had watched him build sleighs; it was that he had done it in front of her so many times that she absorbed it.

She thought it all through again. She could make harness. That was easy, a little sewing. Could she make a sleigh? The hard part would be getting the right tree. Now was a good time to cut it, winter when the sap was all drained away, the boards would be half dry to start with. Red. Yeah, Red, he could get her the wood, probably cut it into boards too. Rawhide and sinew — someone needed to kill a moose. Rosie was beginning to feel chilled. She went back into the house, now with a purpose, not to watch television.

She gave her house a thorough cleaning, not that it needed it. She needed the movement. Lester's duffle bag behind the couch was half open, the leg of a pair of jeans hung out. She stuffed it in and zipped the bag. Everything he owned was in there. Not much. She lifted it, checked its weight, was about to put it back where it had been since early summer and realized, “Lester isn't coming home.”

She stood a moment, holding the bag, half bent over. She straightened. No, he wasn't coming home. She put the bag in a closet, made room for it on the shelf, then reconsidered the sudden thought. It came to her as soon as she had touched his bag, his things. Lester was not coming back. No, that wasn't it. She had thought, Lester is not coming home. This had been his home, Lester's home. Now it wasn't anymore. But he wasn't going to die homeless. She took the bag down from the closet shelf and gently put it back behind the couch.

“Hurry it up, you old fuck. Against the wall.”

Ben did not hurry any more than he had before. This was routine. Against the wall, hands spread on the cinder block. That's all he has, Ben thought. All he has is that I am older than him.

Even the shove between the shoulder blades was routine now. The hands patting, feeling through the coveralls, striking; chest, belly, thighs, ankles, looking for a shank, contraband, drugs. An excuse to hit, even with an open hand, is still an excuse to hit, to demean, punish, force a hand into the crotch, grab, exercise power.

Ben turned his head, looked over his right shoulder. She stood aside, watching the male guard, the one without hair and a belly that pushed against the black shirt, with the hands that hit when he searched. Her face tried to hide what she felt; a brown face, frozen, flat, cold. It was trying to say, “I am doing my job.” But it wasn't. It mumbled something else, something quiet. How did she feel? Ben wondered. Collaborator. Her hands were on her belt, the right one near the holster with the pepper spray. “I am doing my job.” Her feet were spread, ready, her back straight, her neck straight, her eyes straight, the crease that ran down the front of her legs, straight, stiff, starched. Everything said “I am doing my job” except the eyes. The black, intelligent eyes said something else, they said “I am doing my job, but I don't like it. I don't like to see old people pushed around. I especially don't like to see old natives, Elders treated without respect.”

There was no real strength in the hands that hit. These were the hands of a man who never had to work, never used an axe or a shovel; maybe at one time they lifted weights in a gym, but today the memory of the steel bar was distant. Ben noted the feel of the hands the same as he noted the belly. It was not a belly that bulged. The male guard did not know that it was noticeable. He thought it was hidden under the black shirt, covered. Mostly it was, but the shirt touched the roundness just above the wide belt. Ben imagined a puppy with worms, its weakness exposed by a round hard belly.

She walked at Ben's left, he walked on the right with his hand constantly on Ben's shoulder, steering, commanding. A buzzer sounded a long second before the steel door slid noisily to the right, clanged when it was fully open. The hand shoved, pushed Ben through the door that he was ready to walk through on his own. The strength of the push did not come from the arm. It came from the man's waist. Ben noted, stored the memory. The guard with the belly used his weight to compensate for his lack of muscle, a dangerous practice; weight needs balance, unbalanced weight can be toppled. She had balance. Ben watched her feet, watched her walk beside him, watched how she stepped, set her feet down toe first, then rest on the heel. She also had strength, more than muscle. She had the strength to stand still and watch a bully push an old man around; even though it went against everything she had ever learned.

She opened the door to John Penner's office. Ben walked through. The male guard did not push, did not put his hand between Ben's shoulder blades. Ben noted that the bully in him was too much of a coward to act in front of a superior. The door shut behind him with a thump. Wood makes a different sound than steel. The office was slightly different. Ben looked around. The desk, bare, was in the same spot, as was the chair he would sit in. The difference was on the wall. A single framed diploma now hung on the panelling. University of California, Berkeley, Bachelor's degree in psychology. Penner saw Ben read it.

“Yes, Ben. I went into the den of Satan and took that away as a trophy. I matched wits with the liberals and in the end they were forced to concede that God might exist.”

“Berkeley is a noteworthy school.”

“Berkeley is the home of Satan. He walks those halls and his minions bow and grovel. It is the ultimate denial of the holy.”

“So why did you go there?”

“Like I said. I went into his den and walked out with a trophy.”

“Psychology.”

“A degree in the art of denial. Know your enemies, Ben, always know your enemies more than you know your friends. Don't put any trust in that piece of paper, my friend. I assure you I am not who it says I am. The only reason it is up there is because someone in this organization has succumbed to the liberals' propaganda that we are not qualified, and now we have been reminded in a memo to nail our credentials to the wall.”

John Penner has a superior, Ben thought, as he took the familiar chair.

“Something you asked the other day got me thinking.” John leaned his elbows on the desk and stared into Ben's face, looking, always watching for the opening, waiting for Ben's face to betray him. It didn't. Ben waited.

“You asked me how many trees are in the Bible.”

“So, How many are there?”

“Quite a few. Of course the ones that jump immediately to mind are the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life in Genesis, that, and of course we refer to Jesus being hung from a tree, but I was amazed at the number of references to fruit trees, fig trees, the tree that is pleasant to the sight, people sitting under trees, cedar trees, the tree that Moses threw into the water of Marah so that the people could drink.” John leaned harder into the back of his chair, felt the metal dig into his shoulder blades, enjoyed the discomfort. This was not going to be comfortable. He flipped over a single sheet of paper, turned it scribble side up on the desk and read: “Psalms 96:12. Let the field be joyful,
and
all that
is
therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice. Isaiah 14:8. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee,
and
the cedars of Lebanon,
saying
, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.”

Ben noted that John did not use his memory.

John continued. “Isaiah 55:12. And all the trees of the field shall clap
their
hands. Chronicles 16:33. Then shall the trees of the wood sing out at the presence of the Lord.”

He turned the sheet of paper over and continued, “The burning bush of course was a tree. So, I see what it was you were getting at Ben.”