Medicine Walk Read online

  “Mean that much to you?” the kid asked.

  “There’s memories.”

  “Seems kinda grim.”

  “Yeah. Still.”

  “I guess.”

  The kid reached for the halter and turned the horse, and his father looked back over his shoulder while they walked to the trees, and when the view winked out he raised his chin and looked up at the sky and sighed so that the kid looked up and studied him. There was a redness in his eyes. He pulled a smoke out of the pack in his pocket and lit up and he swayed some so he pressed with his knees to steady himself and sat deeper in the saddle. The horse nickered. The kid looked forward on the trail and led them deeper into the woods and soon they could no longer hear the logging trucks on the highway and the world became the shadow and dip and roll of alpine country and they walked solemnly without speaking.

  He was strong from the farm work and used to the terrain so he walked them along at a brisk pace. By late afternoon when the sun slanted down behind the western peaks and the shadows deepened in the ravine where they walked, they’d covered five or six miles by the kid’s reckoning. They’d been following a stream for the last few hours and the trail was good. It was the top of the free-range land and the summer trek of cattle along the stream had beaten down the brush and tangle and only the scuttle of rocks made the going rough but they were smallish and the horse never complained. They’d stopped twice to water. Both times his father had asked for the bottle and taken a few swallows. He rode slumped in the saddle for the most part and a few times the kid had checked to see if he was still there, slapping at his shin until he’d grunted and shifted his shoulders about. When they came to a place where the stream eddied out into a wide pool with a shelf of flat at its edge the kid pulled the horse up and helped his father down. He sat him on a rock and tended to the horse. Then, while his father smoked, he made a fire ring from shore rocks and gathered twigs from the fall of nearby trees and fashioned a twig bundle and set it in the ring of stones and put a match to it. The bundle flared and burned hot and bright and he added limbs and branches and had a blazing fire in minutes.

  “Pretty good trick,” his father said.

  He took the fishing line from the pack and tied it to a sapling he propped in the rocks at the shore and he turned stones until he found a grub then baited a hook with it and set the line adrift on the rippling current at the head of the pool. While he was gathering wood for the fire the sapling twitched. The trout was fat and he cleaned it in three quick slices of the hunting knife at his belt and flayed it and pierced it through on a forked stick and stuck it over the fire before rerigging the line and setting it out again. He had another fish in minutes. They ate them right off the sticks, pulling the meat from the skin and flicking the bones into the fire. His father asked for the bottle once he’d eaten, and the kid handed it to him without a word and marched off back into the woods again.

  When he returned he had five stout saplings and an armful of spruce boughs. He shaved the saplings and used the strips of bark to bind them into a lean-to frame and piled the spruce boughs on before laying an armful more on the floor of it. Then he piled logs behind the fire so the heat would radiate toward the lean-to and stoked it so it was hot and helped his father into it and sat him down on the spruce boughs. He was weak and his upper arm was thin in the kid’s grip. He groaned and shifted about, trying to get comfortable, and once he’d settled he asked for the bottle again and the kid retrieved it and sat beside him and rolled a smoke.

  “Where’d ya learn all this?” his father asked.

  “What the old man didn’t teach me I taught myself.”

  “Spent a lot of time out here, I guess.”

  “Enough.”

  “Me, I never did.” He stared at the fire and took a small sip from the bottle then nestled it in the boughs at his feet. “We lived in a tent for the most part when I was a kid. Out here. Places like it. But there weren’t ever time to fish. We worked as soon as we could walk. I toted firewood around on a wagon. Had to scavenge it. Didn’t have no axe. Busted it all up by hand and sold it to the people around us.”

  “Oh yeah?” the kid said and prodded at the fire with a stick.

  “Indians. Half-breeds. Some whites were with us every now and then. Mostly breeds and Indians though. In the Peace Country. Way up north of here. Our people just followed the work but most places wouldn’t hire a skin or a breed. Not regular, least ways. Get a day here, a day there sometimes, but there was never nothing fixed. So I scavenged wood. It’s all I learned to hunt when I was kid.”

  His father shook a smoke out of the pack and lit up and smoked a moment. “Your grandparents were both half-breeds. We weren’t Métis like the French Indians are called. We were just half-breeds. Ojibway. Mixed with Scot. McJibs. That’s what they called us. No one wanted us around. Not the whites. Not the Indians. So your grandparents and them like them just followed the work and tried to make out the best they could. We camped in tents or squatted on scrubland no one wanted or in deserted cabins and sheds and such. Never no proper home.

  “When we got to the Peace it was all we could do to survive. Some of the men remembered how to do all the stuff you been doin’ but there weren’t no horses and there weren’t no time to take the chance on bringin’ down a moose or an elk. So they learned how to forget about it. Just hung around the mills waiting for work. Most times it never come.”

  The kid stood up and laid some more logs on the fire and stirred the embers around to stoke it higher. It was full dark. The horse stomped her hoofs in the bush behind the lean-to and there was the rustle of a varmint in the underbrush somewhere back of them. The creek was a glimmering silver ribbon and the kid walked over and set four hooks on a long line and baited them and anchored the line to a stone and cast it out into the current. Then he walked out of the fire’s glow and stood on a boulder looking out over the creek and the bush behind it and on up to the ragged break of the mountain against the sky.

  “So how come no one thought about just going out onto the land?” he asked without looking at his father.

  His father lay on one side, leaning on his forearm and staring at the ground. “You get beat up good enough you don’t breathe right,” he said.

  “Meaning what?”

  “I don’t know. All’s I do know is that I was ten before we made it into a town and then it was learnin’ all about how to make my way through that.”

  The kid stepped off the boulder and walked back to squat by the fire. “You paint a sad picture,” he said. “Figure you’re the only one who ever got dealt a lame hand in life?”

  “No. That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Sounds like it to me. I got dealt from the bottom of the deck myself, you know.”

  “Shit. All’s I’m tryin’ to say is that we never had the time for learnin’ about how to get by out here. None of us did. White man things was what we needed to learn if we was gonna eat regular. Indian stuff just kinda got left behind on accounta we were busy gettin’ by in that world.”

  “So I don’t get what we’re doin’ out here then.”

  His father raised the bottle and drank slowly. He set it down and scrunched around trying to get comfortable and then lit a smoke and sat staring at the fire for a while. He closed his eyes. The kid could feel him gathering himself, pulling whatever energy he had left from the day up from the depths of him and when he spoke again it was quiet so the kid had to lean forward to hear him.

  “I owe,” he said.

  “Yeah, I heard that before.”

  “I’m tired, Frank.”

  “Jesus.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the first time you ever called me by my name.”

  His father arranged his legs under him clumsily and when he found balance he leaned back and caught himself on one arm and looked at the kid and reached out with his other hand and squeezed his arm. Then he eased back on to the spruce boughs and wrapped his coat around him and closed his e
yes. He was asleep in minutes. The kid watched him, studying his face and trying to see beyond what he thought he knew of the man, the history that was etched there, the stories, the travels, and after a while all he could see were gaunt lines and hollows and the sag and fall of skin and muscle and the bone beneath it all. When his father’s breathing deepened the kid draped his mackinaw over him and walked out to check the horse and gather some bigger wood for the fire. In the forest the night sky was aglitter with the icy blue of stars and he stood in the middle of a copse of trees and arched his neck and watched them. Then he stooped and prowled around for wood he wouldn’t need to chop and thought about his father scavenging breakable wood and trundling it about for the few cents it would bring, the potatoes, carrots, or onions it would add to the pot, maybe even a rabbit if he were lucky, and he had an idea of him as a small kid, and when he stood finally with his arms full and made his way back to the camp he understood that he bore more than wood in his arms.

  8

  HE REMEMBERED THE FIRST TIME HE SAW HIM. He must have been five, near on to six. It was dusk. Summer. The hens were roosting and he was tacking up an extra skein of wire at the base of the hutch. There’d been a fox or a weasel taking hens. They’d lost three already and the old man was angered by it. So the kid had asked how they could fix it. It was a small task and the old man wasn’t prone to babying. Instead, he listened when the kid asked questions and he took time to show him how to do things. Then, rather than hover over his shoulder, he left the kid to whichever chore he’d shown interest in. If he needed a hand or the chore needed fixing once he was done, the old man would help him through it so he could learn. But for the jobs themselves, he was left to work. So the kid was hunkered down at the base of the hen hutch busy with arranging the wire. He’d dug down a good foot or so and set the wire in the ground before covering it and getting to the task of tacking staples around the upper section to the wood frame. He liked the hens. He liked their bobbing, pecking scurry and the old lady sort of attitude they took about their roosts. He liked eggs too, so it didn’t feel like a chore to him.

  He was aware of the man before he saw him. When he turned his head there was the shadowed outline of a man in the doorway. The kid never moved. He squinted against the light and then turned back to the hutch.

  “Varmint?” the man said.

  “Yeah. Got three hens already,” the kid said.

  “Shame. You could shoot it.”

  “Have to be up all night waitin’.”

  “Suppose. You all right there?”

  “I just got to tack up this wire.”

  “See you up to the house then.”

  The kid focused on the frame and tapped in a staple. When he turned his head again the man was gone. When he had the wire up he headed for the house with his tools.

  He heard them as soon as he entered. Man talk. Deep, rumbled voices that had no pitch or sway, just a long rollout of words that left him knowing that what they discussed had weight to it. The kid put the smaller tools on the metal toolbox by the back door and hung the wire snips and the hammer on hooks set in a peg board nailed to the mudroom wall. He banged the hammer some when he hung it and then stomped his feet on the rubber mat to let them know he was there and the talk dropped off then started in again as he hung his jacket.

  They sat at the kitchen table. The old man eyed him as he walked to the refrigerator. He was pouring whisky into mugs. When the kid turned with a glass of milk the old man nodded to him and he pulled a chair up to the table and sat.

  “This here’s Eldon,” the old man told him.

  “Sir,” the kid said and nodded. He spat on his hand, slid it along the thigh of his pants to dry it and then reached it out across the table.

  Eldon shook hands with him. “You get that wire hung good?”

  “That varmint’ll let me know how good I done.”

  Eldon laughed. “Ain’t that a fact,” he said. “Them varmints are a smart bunch.”

  “Not near as smart as me.”

  The old man reached out and rubbed his hair. The kid beamed at him. The three of them sat through a moment of silence and the kid looked back and forth at the men and sipped at his milk.

  “You look up Seth Minor like I told ya?” the old man asked.

  Eldon swallowed some of the whisky and sat back in his chair with his hands folded around the mug. They were pale and the kid could see the blue veins clearly like tiny rivers through his skin. He fished a smoke out of the chest pocket of his shirt and fumbled with a lighter. When he got it going he took a draw and then exhaled across the table and the kid had to wave the cloud of smoke away from his face. Eldon coughed and shot back another hit of the whisky. “I did,” he said finally. “It never amounted to much. Seasonal is all.”

  “It’s a season,” the old man said. “You get four seasonals, you get a year.”

  “Sure. Easy enough for you to say. Ain’t much call for bush-trained men no more. The tree toppers and the trucks took away the work.”

  “They still got call for fallers.”

  “Had to pawn the saw,” Eldon said and coughed again.

  The old man shook his head and took a sip from his mug. “Man don’t put his tools in hock,” he said.

  Eldon stared hard at him. The kid could see red veins in his eyes and a pale yellow cloud behind them. “Yeah, well, seasonal jobs’ll put you places you didn’t plan on.”

  “Gonna blame it on the work, are ya?”

  “Shit luck,” Eldon said. “All’s I’m saying.”

  “We don’t cuss around here.” The old man tilted his head toward the kid.

  Eldon flicked a look at him too. “Cuss’ll say it plain sometimes.”

  “Plain says it plain around here.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Your house and all,” Eldon said. He tipped back his mug and swallowed and then held it out to the old man, who shook his head, sighed, and plopped a shot into it. Eldon tilted his head at it and the old man poured more. “But it’s all gonna pan out. Got me on at the mill regular. Got in a couple months already and I figure the goose is hanging pretty high.”

  “That goose’s been hung before,” the old man said.

  “Different friggin’ goose,” Eldon said and laughed. “Frig’s no cuss word, is it?”

  “Not so’s I’d notice, I suppose.”

  “Good friggin’ thing then,” Eldon said. His face was ruddy now and he smiled more. He looked at the kid and winked.

  The old man got up and began to rattle around at the stove and the kid and Eldon took turns looking at each other without speaking. There was the smell of stew, peppery and tangy with garlic and onions, and the old man set biscuits to warm in the oven. Eldon reached over and snuck the bottle across the table while the kid watched and poured himself a large dollop. He held a finger to his lips and winked again and the kid wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He just sat there and watched while Eldon drank off more of the whisky and settled back in his chair and flopped one leg over the other and smoked and exhaled clouds at the ceiling.

  They ate. The men mostly talked about the farm. When he was finished the kid gathered all the plates and cleared the table. Eldon was the only one with the whisky now. The old man sipped at black tea. The kid washed the dishes and set everything back in the cupboard. He caught Eldon staring at him every now and then but there were never any words. The looks felt odd, like there were words hung off them, but Eldon never said a thing to him. When he was finished he said good night and went to his bedroom, where he coloured in a book until he was tired enough to get into bed. He heard the rumble of their talk. He thought he heard a sob and the old man’s voice rise some then it got quieter but he could still hear them talking.

  “Who is he?” the kid asked while they were milking in the morning. Eldon slept on the couch near the woodstove. The kid had looked at him when he got up. His arms and legs were flung wide and his head was tilted back with his mouth wide open.

  The old man pulled at the co
w’s teats and the kid watched his shoulders work. “Someone I known years ago,” he said without looking back at him. “Different fella now but I knew him good at one time. Least I thought I did.”

  “He smells funny,” the kid said.

  “He’s been rinsed through pretty good.”

  “With that whisky?” the kid asked.

  “Yes, sir. Some men take to it. I never did.”

  “Why not? Does it do bad things?”

  The old man looked at him over his shoulder. “Keeps varmints away,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “Savvy what a varmint is?”

  “Yeah,” the kid said. “Pests. Things you don’t want around.”

  “Well, whisky keeps things away that some people don’t want around neither. Like dreams, recollections, wishes, other people sometimes.” The old man turned on the stool and set the milk pail down on the floor between his feet. “Things get busted sometimes. When they happen in the world you can fix ’em most times. But when they happen inside a person they’re harder to mend. Eldon got broke up pretty bad inside,” he said.

  The old man shook his head and wiped at his face with one hand. “It’s a tough thing. Hard to watch. Hard to hear. But folks need hearing out sometimes, Frank. That’s why I let him come here.”

  “He seems sad.”

  “Pretty much. Sad’s not a bad thing unless it gets a hold of you and won’t let go.”

  “He sleeps funny,” the kid said.

  “Chasin’ varmints, I suppose,” the old man said.

  He was gone by the time they finished the chores. All that remained was the smell of old booze, stale tobacco smoke, and a sheaf of bills in a glass jar on the stove. The old man stood in the doorway staring at it, rubbing at his chin whiskers.

  It was almost a year before he saw him again. He was herding cows back from the open range beyond the ridge. When they broke through the trees at the field’s edge there was a dull blur of orange at the head of the lane. The closer he got the more the blur took on the shape of an old pickup. The cows took to the scent of home and trotted toward the barn. The lot of them aimed for the open gate that led to the back paddock. He rode in slow and walked the horse past the truck.