Provider's Son (29 page)
Two nurses met him in the lobby and he told them about Johanna outside. They called for another nurse and went out into the SUV, slower than he would have liked. The baby cooed in Levi's arms and Levi looked down at him.
“I prayed to God for your mother,” Levi said. “Dont ever forget that.”
At about six o'clock in the morning Levi woke up on the couch in William Smith's small house. He was Bill's father and Jon's grandfather, but certain expressions revealed a closer resemblance to his grandson, who was asleep in one of the rooms, than his son. He had pronounced cheek bones, a broad nose, angular jaw, and his skin had a slightly redder tint than Bill's or Jon's. He was what Levi thought of as a “real Indian.” And now this “real Indian” was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee, and staring at Levi with a small grin.
“Good morning,” William said, and turned his head to the window.
“Good morning,” said Levi, shifting to a sitting position on the couch. He felt uncomfortable, like an invader. He sat there for a long time it seemed, until eventually William got up from the table and went to the porch. Levi listened to him fumbling with his clothes and putting his boots on, and going outside. Levi got up from the couch and went to the kitchen window. To his mild surprise he saw that William was carrying a rifle. He watched William as he ambled out to his white shed. Five minutes later smoke was rising from the shed chimney. And the sun began to rise over the roof.
Levi timidly got himself a cup of tea. When he had that ready he realized he could not have a cup of tea without at least a cracker to go with it. He quietly opened the cupboard and found a pack of biscuits, and a small dish of butter. Biscuits and butter always tasted better in another man's house.
Levi wondered how Johanna and her son were doing. The town was not very big after all, although William's house did seem to be somewhat on the outskirts. There looked to be nothing behind his back yard but wilderness. Yet, would Levi even be allowed to visit Johanna? Would her family be around? As he considered those questions a gunshot rang out. Levi stared out the window at the shed.
Considering everything that had happened in the last year, Jon's grandfather committing suicide would not surprise him. Nothing would.
He just rounded the corner of the shed to see William cutting the throat of the largest moose Levi had ever seen. Blood ran over his hands and into the earth until it became mud about the animal's neck and shoulders. The antlers, about five and a half feet from end to end, lay sprawled across the ground, partly dug into the grass and dirt in defeat. As big as the antlers were, however, they were flawed. One lower point was cracked off. It was possible that a competing bull had done this, or tree that got in the way, but it was more likely the work of a vehicle travelling about eighty kilometres an hour the previous night.
“You better mind yourself,” Levi said. “Is he dead?”
William gave Levi such a look of irritation that he cringed.
“Yes by,” Levi said, apologetically, “thats a big bull.”
“Yes,” William said. “My arthritis keeps me from hunting anymore, so I wasnt missing out on this. The bugger has been hanging around here for a week. But he was too brave for his own good this time. He almost seemed a bit dazed.”
“Yes by.”
Levi found himself glancing about nervously. He had poached the occasional moose in his day, and the old man seemed far too relaxed about the affair. That was until Levi remembered that legally the old man was probably allowed to kill as many moose as he wanted on the reserve. He was going to ask, but thought he might as well leave it alone.
They both stood and stared down at the massive animal before them. The sweat, shit, and blood created an odour of wildness that clung to the air.
“Will you help me clean him?” William said.
“You knows I will,” said Levi. “Want me to go get Jon?”
“Well...I dont know if he would want to.”
“Dont you be so foolish! Hed love to. Sure he told me he loves hunting. Ill go get him.”
“He loves hunting?”
Levi laughed. “You knows he do,” he said.
Before William could respond Levi was gone into the house with a big grin on his face to wake up Jon. Hauling the guts out of a thousand pound moose would be good for Jon before breakfast.
Jon was face down in the bed, his body diagonal, with the sheets pulled up over thick calves, and his feet hung over the side. Levi figured he must take at least a size thirteen.
“Jon! Get up by. I got a surprise for you!”
To Levi's surprise Jon awoke immediately and turned over on his back.
“A surprise.”
“Yes sir.”
“I get the feeling its not going to excite me much.”
“Why not? You dont like moose?”
“Moose?”
“Your grandfather just shot one out behind his shed. A monster of a moose too.”
“Dont you want to know how Johanna is doing? It was your idea to bring her here.”
“Nah, Im sure shes doing fine.”
“What? Youre not even going to visit her?”
“Nah. Her family will probably be there and that. I wont know what to say to them.”
“This is crazy. You go out of your way to bring her here, she nearly dies, and now youre not even going to visit her. I dont understand you man.”
“Forget about that. You going to help us clean that moose or what? I was going to help your grandfather, but Im sure youd rather help him. He needs someone to haul out the gut while he cuts down through the asshole.”
“Okay,” Jon said, his face tightening. “Give me a minute to get dressed. And Im going to see Johanna after wer finished by the way, no matter if you do or not.”
“I did what I promised. Good enough.”
Levi laughed quietly while Jon got ready in the washroom. And then images of the previous night flickered in his mind. She had almost died. Technically she had died. And he had prayed for her life. Yet, this morning, he did not feel ashamed for his weakness. Although he didn't necessarily believe that God had heard him.
Jon was doing his best to hide his nervousness, but the look on his face when he slowly approached the dead animal was enough. He stopped within ten feet of it and stared at its head.
“Its huge,” he said.
“Its a big ol bull,” Levi said.
William chuckled. “Youre going to help us clean it?”
Jon nodded, and his grandfather chuckled again.
“Alright. Lets get started.” William took a small pocket knife out of a leather holder in his belt and Levi grinned.
“There you go,” Levi said to Jon. “Take that knife now, and have at her.”
“I think I better start first,” William said. Levi stared at him, confused. William bent over the dead animal's head and started an incision. He cut from the hind leg up the side of the animal's belly to the middle of the foreleg, the knife slicing through the white membrane but never penetrating the muscle. He then got Jon to hold a hind leg while he stripped the skin from it.
“Youre not going to haul the gut out?” Levi said.
“Why would I do that?” William said.
“So you can get at everything else.”
“Watch and learn,” William said.
“Im no stranger to cleaning moose.”
“You look like a stranger to me,” William said, grinning, “but you can still help.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“See what Im doing? Do the same thing on the other side. I want to get this meat off and in the cold as quick as I can. Theres another knife in the shed, over the stove. The axe and the saw is behind the stove.”
There was already a large set of antlers over the shed door, but these antlers were even bigger. One wall of the shed was filled four layers deep with sawed-off wood. On another wall were many tools of a carpenter's trade, some of them power tools, and some of them simple hand tools. A handsaw, in particular, looked as old as William. The woodstove looked new, however, as if it had been installed only weeks before. It contained a glass window, and decorative, iron legs that seemed out of place in that simple shed. By the circle of unworn wood beneath the stove Levi assumed it had recently replaced an old oil-drum stove like his father had once owned. Over the stove was a small shelf with a skinning knife sheathed in a leather holder that had “Father's Day, 1999” engraved on the side. It had a dark wooden handle with a visibly tempered blade edge and a steel finger-hole at the end. Levi felt the wood, and stared into the dark grain. It was cherry. It had to be. On the base of the blade it said,
Robert
Bear Knives
. It was obvious the knife was not mass-produced in any Chinese factory. A hand-crafted object felt different in ones hands. The soul of the artisan, with all his love and hate, still whispered in the quiet curves and edges.
“Why isnt he using this?” Levi said to the musty silence. When he went back out William was already working on the foreleg.
“Snooping around?” William said.
“What? No by. I was just sizing up your knife. Some knife too. Where did you get it?”
“Bill gave it to me. You want to start cutting off the quarters? That knife is a lot sharper than this one.”
“Well why dont you use it?”
“Im used to this one. Had it a long time.”
Levi shrugged and looked at Jon. He was a little squeamish, but not as freaked out as Levi had hoped. There was after all, no slicing of the stomach from the anus to the rib cage, with the intestines bubbling out, filled with feces, and soaked in blood. No, there was only the furless body of the moose, covered in white, fatty tissue. William had to stop occasionally because of his arthritis, and Jon was concerned, but the old man pressed on, determined to finish the job.
The knife Bill gave his father cut through the skin so easily that Levi had to watch that it didn't cut a hole in the fur or slip through the body and penetrate the stomach. He wasn't used to keeping the pelt of a moose, but he liked the idea. As clumsy as he was compared to William there was something that seemed more natural about cleaning this way.
Levi remembered his first moose. He had been nineteen and already well versed in killing small game, but to see an animal five times the size of himself hit the ground was an adrenaline rush unmatched before or since. But pulling the trigger is the easy part. When he began helping his father cut the animal open and remove the organs he was still so excited that he barely registered the brutality of it. That was until his father told him to saw the ends of the legs off. His father grabbed a foreleg and held it up. Levi put the saw to it, and froze.
“Whats wrong?” his father said.
“I cant...”
“We just hauled the gut out of him, but you cant saw a leg off?” his father said, laughing.
Levi put the saw up again, but he still couldn't do it. The moose was dead, but it didn't look or feel or smell like it. It was so warm in fact heat emanated from the cavity like an oven, condensation wafting from the split sternum up into the cool fall air.
His father yanked the saw out of Levi's hands and began sawing off the legs as if they were nothing but birch. It was then, when the animal lay there, his head still attached, but no longer able to walk, that Levi understood the consequences of his actions. Organs are hidden. It is the body which gives an animal meaning. The antlers are the bull's crown, but his legs are the carriage of his grace. So they were destroying this animal, humiliating it, even in death. His chest swelled up with pity for the moose and for himself, but he pushed it back down.
Fortunately that feeling didn't last anyway. When that first eighty pound quarter was strapped to his back he felt nothing but pride. And a mile later, exhaustion.
After the moose was quartered and put in bags, William asked his grandson, “Wheres your father?”
“Working. We brought Johanna Bear here last night. She had a little boy.”
William was quiet for a moment before he spoke, “Johanna Bear. Roberts daughter? I thought she ran away?”
“She did. We brought her back.”
“Good. And she had a boy?”
“She did.”
“He saved her life,” Levi said, nodding to Jon, and only just fully realizing it himself.
“Her mother died,” William said.
“She asked Levi to bring her here. After she pissed in his face one night.”
William laughed, and looked at Levi. “Why did you do it?”
“Because she asked me.”
“I asked you to help me clean this moose, but I didnt have to piss in your face.”
“Hes still waiting for it,” Jon said, and they all laughed.
“We should take a roast off one of those quarters and stick it in the oven,” William said. “While its still fresh.”
Levi was going to mention how an old bull like this usually didn't taste good, but he didn't want to spoil the triumph the old man felt in knocking down probably his last moose, or at least one this huge.
To get a few things they needed for supper, Jon and Levi drove to
Martha's Convenience
. Looking about the reserve Levi couldn't really relate it to the small town he grew up in. For one thing, none of the houses were perched at the side of cliffs or hills. It reminded him more of the parks in central Newfoundland, or the town of Terra Nova.
“Hey there stranger,” the middle-aged lady said when they entered the tiny store.
“How are you?” Jon asked, as he went to look for a bag of onions.
“Same old thing around here,” she said, taking a sideways glance at Levi, and then ignoring him. “I saw you on TV. Great job. Made you look even more handsome than you are. You turn after your father.”
“If you say so,” Jon shouted from the back corner of the store.
“Onions,” the lady said, as Jon thumped them on the counter. “When did you get in town?”
