Travelling Light Read online

  The soup had a burnt flavour, a bit like the smell at branding but not nearly so strong. “Hell smells like branding,” Lyle had once said.

  Jerry picked up his bowl and was about to drink the rest of his soup when his mother noticed. “Jaroslaw! I don’t make soup so you can drink it like Coca-Cola!”

  Jerry picked up his spoon and at the same instant heard the sound of a car turning into the yard. “Cunninghams are here,” he announced.

  His father, a compact, wiry man with dirty blond hair and sideburns — his nickname in high school had been Jimmy, short for Jimmy Dean — went to peer out the window.

  Jack Cunningham was an old rodeo cowboy who came in spring to help with branding and stayed on for the summer work. He had a wife and four kids. They stayed from May through October in a cabin on the riverbank quarter. Lyle, Jack’s son, claimed that they wintered in the Rockies, camping with Indians on the Kootenay Plains. He said that Indians had taught him to change himself into an animal and that once he’d been a timber wolf, dragging kids and hunters back to his cave.

  Jerry’s father took his hat and stiff new jacket from the peg and reached outside for his boots.

  “She’ll want to come in and use the flush toilet,” said his mother, wiping her hands on her apron. “Tell her she can use the privy behind the barn.”

  “Coming, Jerry?” said his father.

  Jerry leapt up from the table and grabbed his jacket.

  “I don’t want him making friends with that Lyle again,” his mother said. “And wait! Hold your horses, mister. Finish your soup.”

  The car was stopped in front of the corrals. It seemed to be riding low on its springs. Jack Cunningham leaned against one fender. The car was streaked with mud and the windows were rolled up tight. Mrs. Cunningham sat in the front seat, wearing a kerchief over her hair and a red nylon windbreaker. She rapped on the windshield and Jerry’s father tipped his hat.

  While the men lit cigarettes Jerry peered into the back seat. The twins, Sheryl and Sharlene, were sitting next to the windows, big, waxy-looking blonde girls wearing eyeshadow. One of them made a face at him. Lyle and Wayne were squeezed between their sisters, sitting very still. Both boys were small for their ages, and small-boned. Lyle held a yellow mongrel pup on his knee and pretended not to notice Jerry. Both boys’ heads had been shaved.

  The year before, Lyle had tried walking a perfectly straight line across the ranch: across the pastures, over the fences, through the plowed fields. He made Jerry follow him and wouldn’t allow them any detours. If a tree stood in their path they’d have to climb up and over it rather than step aside a few inches. He’d insisted they climb straight over the barbed-wire fences instead of looking for a good spot to crawl under. Jerry had torn his jeans and cut his hands painfully trying to get over a stretch of tight, taut wire.

  Wayne’s eyes followed Jerry but Lyle was still pretending not to see him. Their fathers’ voices droned on. The dog nosed up to lick Lyle’s chin and Lyle began scratching its ears. One of the girls grabbed his wrist and tried to press it back on the seat. They struggled for a moment, then Lyle punched her thigh. The dog started yapping and Mrs. Cunningham twisted around in the front seat and slapped the girl, catching her on the side of the head.

  “When my mother was a girl in Pincher,” Lyle had said, “at the beer parlour, she just about killed a soldier. Nearly broke his head with a beer bottle.”

  Lyle sat back in the seat, hugging the dog and grinning.

  Jerry stepped away and went to stand behind his father, who had one foot on the bumper. He and Jack were looking out across the corrals to the cattle grazing in the home quarter.

  “Find any work over the winter?” his father was saying.

  “Packers in Calgary. Then we went to her brother’s at Pincher.”

  “How is Mrs. Cunningham feeling these days?”

  Jack licked his lips and tossed the butt of his cigarette into the mud.

  “She’s fine. Everything’s all right with her.”

  “I’ll come down later and bring you some things.”

  “We’ll need a cash advance.”

  “That’s all right,” said Jerry’s father. “What were you doing down at Pincher?”

  “Breaking horses. Almost broke me.”

  His father laughed. “You’re an old cowboy — you’ve just about broke it all anyway. Go down to the cabin, clean it up, get settled. I’d like to start branding tomorrow.”

  Jerry and his father watched the car slowly turn around, then drive cautiously out of the yard, riding low on its flattened springs. His father always said Jack was no good at operating machinery — the swather, a grain truck, even his own old beater car. Jack Cunningham was a horseman pure and simple, Jerry’s father said, an old Alberta cowboy, last of the breed.

  For supper that night Jerry’s mother served them tongue, mashed potatoes, and beets, and rhubarb pie for dessert. There was nothing on the radio but classical music. Jerry’s father, drumming his fingers on the table, said, “I might take a little run to the cabin and see if they’re settling in. Want to come along?”

  “No, thank you very much,” his mother replied. “It always depresses me.”

  “Jack’s not so bad,” said his father, “but she gets worse every year. I don’t know how they’d keep going if they didn’t come here.”

  After a moment his mother said, “You’ll bring them some food and blankets. Jaroslaw should go along with you and help.”

  The idea of going to the Cunninghams’ in the dark made Jerry nervous but if he said he wanted to stay at home his mother might think he was feeling sick and make him take a dose of medicine.

  When the dishes were cleared, she began packing boxes with canned food and frozen bread. “One week’s wages advance, but not more,” she told his father. “They’ll only spend it at the beer parlour in Caroline.”

  Jerry’s father loved to drive his new red pickup with his left wrist hung over the wheel and his right arm across the seat back. The truck still had the sweet smell of new but it rattled on the washboard road. There was a full moon in the sky. Jerry’s father suddenly reached down and switched off the headlights. They both laughed and Jerry watched the truck’s moonshadow skipping along the roadside.

  The old log cabin was surrounded by big spruce trees and defunct machinery — a buck rake, a Cockshutt thresher, a flywheel John Deere tractor — all of it junk. The summer before, Lyle had told Jerry he’d seen the devil sitting like an old farmer on top of the Cockshutt. The belts had been whirring, the knives clattering, the pickup teeth going round and round.

  Jerry’s father honked and in a moment Lyle stepped out onto the sagging porch.

  “We’ve brought some supplies,” Jerry’s father called. “Come down and give us a hand.”

  Lyle helped them lift the cardboard boxes out of the truck.

  “Where’s your dad?” Jerry’s father said.

  “Went into town.”

  They carried the boxes inside. Mrs. Cunningham was sitting at the table in the kitchen. She was younger and smaller than Jerry’s mother, with green eyes set wide apart. Her hair was messy.

  “Well, aren’t we glad to see you!” she said.

  “Where’s Jack?” said his father. “Where are the girls?”

  “Gone to town. We nearly didn’t make it this year. That car was making such a noise we didn’t think it’d do the trip.”

  Jerry disliked the sweet, dirty air inside the cabin. There was no electricity. His father’s skin looked mustard yellow in the light of the kerosene lamps.

  “Where’s your other boy?”

  “Wayne’s sick. We put him to bed early. He’s asleep. He’s my baby,” said Mrs. Cunningham.

  She stood up and fetched two Cokes from the icebox. Jerry’s mother did not allow Cokes. “You take these and go play somewhere,” Mrs.
Cunningham told Lyle. “Go play in the barn. Be nice to your guest.” She reached to tousle Jerry’s hair, then turned to his father. “You sit right down here for a visit. Give me a cigarette.”

  “You can sit in the truck and play the radio,” his father told Jerry, “while I visit with Mrs. Cunningham.”

  “I want to go home,” he whined, putting down his Coke. The dirty light threw their shadows on the wall, which made the room seem even more crowded.

  “You go outside like I said.”

  Mrs. Cunningham took a cigarette from his father’s pack. “You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”

  His father struck a match for her. Lyle held the screen door open. Jerry picked up his Coke and walked out and Lyle followed him and let the door flap shut with a bang.

  “Lyle, be nice,” Mrs. Cunningham called.

  The spruce trees were whispering in the breeze. Even the white moon looked hot. The old machines in the yard, with their rotted rubber belts and smell of rust, looked like ghosts of themselves, or huge insects.

  “Why don’t we sit in my dad’s truck?” Jerry said as Lyle walked towards the barn. “Keys are inside. We can listen to the radio.”

  Lyle ignored him. Finishing his Coke, he flipped the bottle into tall grass that hid rusty coils of barbed wire and some old tires. Pulling a flashlight from his pocket, Lyle tugged the barn door open and shone the beam inside and upwards. A criss-cross of rafters and cables threw shadows on the roof, which was stuttered with holes large and small. Inside the barn smelled of old straw. Tools that hadn’t been used for years — baling hooks, scythes, branding irons — hung on one wall.

  Lyle pulled the barn door closed behind them. Playing the beam against a wall, he closed his fingers slowly over it so that it looked like a black giant’s hand reaching down to get them. It was something Jerry had done with his own flashlight, plenty of times. Lyle put the light in his mouth and his cheeks glowed red. Then he took it out. “I got this flashlight off a kid at Pincher.”

  “Probably robbed it,” Jerry said.

  Lyle played the beam around the barn. “Want to go fishing tomorrow? I can get us a million worms.”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday. We go to church.”

  Lyle switched off the flashlight.

  “Put it on,” said Jerry.

  “Come fishing.”

  “Nope,” said Jerry. “Turn on the light.”

  Instead he could see Lyle stick the flashlight into his pocket. Clapping his hands, he took a step closer to Jerry. “You’re a little puss, aren’t you. What happens if I pull your tail?”

  “You’re crazy,” Jerry said.

  Lyle froze, then cocked his head as if he’d heard something. “Shh. Listen.”

  “What?”

  Lyle raised both arms and started walking like a robot, holding his arms out stiffly, making a whirring noise. He stopped when his knuckles bumped into the wall. His fingernails scratched at the wood. He took hold of the shaft of a branding iron and lifted it from the wall. Turning around, he started staggering towards Jerry, like a sleepwalker, like a robot, like a vampire. He was holding the branding iron like a war club. Jerry took one step backwards, then another. Lyle kept tottering towards him. Jerry hurriedly slid the door open and went outside. Guided by the moon and the yellow light from the cabin windows, he headed for his father’s truck. He was nearly there when the cabin door opened, throwing a splash of yellow light across the yard, and his father stepped out.

  “What’s the matter, seen a ghost?” His father looked at Jerry, then held open his arms, and Jerry ran to him and let his father pick him up.

  Mrs. Cunningham’s voice called from inside, “Don’t you think I’m any good?”

  His father told Jerry, “I shouldn’t have brought you here.” His father set him down, then held his hand as they walked towards the truck.

  “Don’t you think I’m worth it?” the woman yelled.

  “Don’t pay no attention, Jer.”

  His father had him climb in first, then he got in and shut the door. She was still yelling as they backed out to the road.

  “Don’t say nothing to your ma, chief,” Jerry’s father said. “No need to get her upset.”

  His mother was afraid of germs the Cunninghams brought from Pincher and the stockyards. She phoned the school to make sure Lyle and his sisters would be scrubbed, deloused, and vaccinated by the school nurse, but none of them turned up at school. On Saturday Jerry’s father drove to town and came back with a rifle, a single-shot .22, which he presented to Jerry along with a box of ammunition. The little bullets were cold and greasy, the size of gumdrops, and when Jerry shook them, he heard grains of powder rattling inside the brass cartridges.

  After lunch Jerry took his rifle and went off hunting gophers in the meadow. An hour later Lyle appeared. He said the Alberta Stockmen’s Association paid a nickel apiece for gopher tails and offered to help collect the bounty by clipping off the tails.

  “I don’t need help,” said Jerry. He held the rifle casually over his shoulder, the way he’d seen his father and other ranchers hold their rifles. He and Lyle were standing in the meadow. Wind was blowing waves through the high grass.

  Lyle disappeared and returned half an hour later with a pair of rusty shears and a brown paper grocery sack. “You can do all the killing,” he promised. “I’ll just cut off the tails.”

  In the afternoon’s dry green heat they moved through the meadows. Jerry did all the shooting. The little bullets slithered through the high grass. By mid-afternoon they had six gopher tails in the paper sack, which was seeping rust-­coloured gopher blood. They were down to the last five bullets.

  Lyle said he knew a new game to play but they needed Wayne, who was back at the cabin, tied to a rope so he wouldn’t wander.

  “What kind of game?” Jerry asked suspiciously.

  “Wait here, I’ll go get him,” said Lyle. He started off towards the cabin and Jerry sat down on a log by the riverbank. After half an hour Lyle hadn’t returned and Jerry began firing at the river. He skipped four bullets off the water’s surface and was loading the fifth when he saw Lyle leading Wayne through the high grass. Lyle carried a spade over his shoulder.

  “Don’t waste ammo,” Lyle yelled. He came to where Jerry was sitting and grabbed the rifle before Jerry could stop him.

  “Follow me,” Lyle commanded, sliding down the bank and wading out into the river without taking off his boots.

  Jerry and Wayne followed, fording together, Jerry holding the little boy’s hand. They struggled up the slippery bank, which had been muddied by cattle, and followed Lyle into a stand of aspens on the other side. Lyle was carrying the rifle and the spade and shouting, “Hup-two-three-four, hup-two-three!” The high grass was thickened with wild roses, corn silk, devil’s paintbrush.

  Lyle yelled, “Halt!” and propped the rifle against a tree. “First we’ll make him dig his grave. Wayne, start digging!”

  Wayne squatted down and began scratching at the ground with his fingers.

  “You give him a hand,” Lyle said to Jerry, holding out the spade. When Jerry didn’t move, Lyle slung the rifle over his shoulder and started kicking the spade himself, breaking up grassy clods, shovelling out gravelly soil underneath and piling it alongside the hole.

  “Give me my rifle,” Jerry said.

  “Not when I’m under orders. I’m a soldier. I got to do what they say.”

  The hole was four feet long, not much more than a foot wide, and a foot deep. The earth was mounded neatly beside. Lyle threw down the shovel, pulled off his belt, and used it to tie Wayne to the trunk of an aspen tree. Taking a bandana from his pocket, he tied a blindfold over his brother’s eyes.

  “What are you doing?” said Jerry.

  “Executing the prisoner.” Lyle worked the rifle bolt, pushing in the last cartridge, and began stepping
backwards, counting off his steps.

  Wayne giggled and whispered, “Lyle? Lyle?”

  Lyle wrapped the sling tight around his forearm, settled the butt into his shoulder, and lay his cheek against the stock. “Ready,” he called. “Aim.”

  It was happening so fast Jerry felt dizzy. It didn’t seem real. It was like watching a cartoon.

  “Fire!”

  The shot cracked out. A splinter of wood sparked off the tree trunk a couple of inches above Wayne’s head. Lyle worked back the bolt, ejecting the spent .22 cartridge. Jerry could smell gunpowder. He walked up to the tree and untied the little boy, then pulled the blindfold off. Wayne grinned and blinked. There was a white scar on the tree where the bullet had torn off a scrap of bark. There was a white gob of spit in the corner of Wayne’s mouth.

  Lyle grabbed his brother by the arm. Jerry seized hold of the rifle barrel and, after a moment of silent contest, Lyle relinquished it. He led Wayne over to the hole and made him lie down in it. Wayne lay still while Lyle spilled some handfuls of dirt over him. Wayne giggled, happy he was still included in the game. Then Lyle began scooping dirt in a frenzy, using both hands, like a dog burying a bone. Wayne shut his eyes and still didn’t try to get up. He was still smiling.

  “Give me a hand!” Lyle said.

  “Stop it,” Jerry said weakly.

  Lyle picked up the shovel and scraped in more dirt. The little boy was being buried but he didn’t say anything or try to stand up.

  “You can carry the rifle,” Jerry said, “but you better stop.”

  Lyle ignored him.

  Not knowing what else to do, Jerry started walking away through the quaking aspens. He soon came to the river. He could still hear the shovel at work. He hesitated, looked back, then, wading into the river, started splashing across. After pulling himself up the slippery bank he kept going across the hayfield. After stumbling through the deep ditch, he climbed up onto the graded gravel section road. He could see the cluster of dark spruce around the Cunninghams’ cabin and started walking in that direction. His boots and socks were wet and felt squishy.