Saltwater Cowboys (20 page)

Jack carefully placed a red bow around the black wine box. He wanted to surprise Angela. She was scrubbing the floors; he could hear her making her way down the hall, wringing out the mop every few swipes. She rounded the corner. She wore a baby-blue kerchief. Her eyes were downcast, her bottom lip sticking out, her brow creased, lost in her work. She had on her maternity jogging pants, which dropped down the sides of her rounded belly. The stretch marks shot up over her belly button and spongy fat roll. They were busting with purple like a cluster of clamped veins. The track pants were split on the seam over her left ankle and the curled edges were soaked with water and hairballs.

“What the hell is that?” she asked.

“Gifts. For you,” Jack said smugly.

Angela walked over to the pile of gifts, lugging the bucket of dirty water with her. The mop dragged strands of wool and clumped hair across the linoleum. She picked up the bucket and threw the dirty water in the sink, a ripping sound as it sloshed against the pots and pans. The drain, fully gorged on water and suds, made a sucking noise as it swept the last bits of dirt down its mouth. Angela knocked the display of gift boxes into the moist bucket, brought them to the corner and dumped them into the empty garbage can. She wiped her hands over the pile and shook them free of water.

“There's no need of that,” Jack said angrily.

“Don't buy me another blessed thing,” Angela said and walked down the wet hall. She banged the bathroom door shut behind her.

Jack had grown soused with it. The pleasure of it all, the numbing effect — the way it could blot out the noise of the world, the mechanical noises underground and the noisy people underground. Watson and Wisnoski clamoured for an alliance with him, their envy covered up by false friendliness now that he had stuck by Peter and had prospered. He loved the way it helped him forget what he'd done to Angela, because no one could argue that he wasn't providing.

He went to her again, a week later. She was vacuuming. She roughly ran the Electrolux machine over the brown carpet. The suction sounded like a small automobile engine and the dirt and lint bounced up inside like small pebbles hitting a car's underside on a gravel road.

He could barely hear over the din, and when he motioned for her to turn it off, she didn't. She turned her back and thrust the machine's square head under the coffee table, the brown and white snakeskin-patterned hose in a circle at her feet.

“I'm going to get us a new vehicle,” he said.

He'd been to the car lot and picked out a blue Chevy Cavalier. They needed a new car; their old Chevette was rusting out on the bottom. He didn't feel guilty about this. Everyone deserved a new car. What did it matter if he got this one a little earlier than he would have otherwise? He wasn't going in for the luxury vehicles like Pete. He wasn't that obnoxious, no, just a simple man providing his family with the bare necessities.

He waited for her to respond. She wheeled the fat sausage of a vacuum to the other side of the room, lifted the plaid skirt off the sofa, and plunged in after the dust.

“I've been looking at houses. How about a duplex on Peter's street?”

She turned the vacuum up to a higher speed. The noise was electric and whiny.

Jack gave up. It was no use talking to her when she was like this. He was just about to leave the room when she turned off the machine.

“You are so far gone, I just don't know what to do anymore.”

“Do nothing, trust me.”

“I want you to stop all of this,” she said firmly.

Jack's mouth tightened and he held his head high. He didn't want to. Even if he wanted to, he didn't know if he could. Who were those cowboys anyway? Peter had told him they were affiliated with some pretty tough crowd coming out of Calgary, with dirty fingers in every form of laundering. Who knew what they would do if let down. Besides, he wasn't about to stop. It was all too easy, and it gave him a sense of identity he never knew existed.

She gave a derisive snort, turned her back, revved up the machine, and bluntly banged it up against the panel board walls as Jack left the room.

At the end of his shift the next day Jack threw his daily nuggets of ore into the garbage bag in the men's dry. Olive's husband Eugene came in to change the garbage bags. He was chubby and moved like a scoop truck.

“How are ya?” he asked Jack.

“Best kind,” Jack said, nodding.

Eugene lifted the garbage bags out of the cans and tied the tops. He hoisted them two at a time over his shoulder. The bottom fell out of the bag and the ore fell to the ground.

“Let me help you,” Jack said quickly and squatted over the ore on his haunches.

“Get changed and go home. This is my job,” Eugene said and shooed Jack away.

Jack rose and shuffled the ore under a crumpled chip bag. He couldn't let Eugene find it.

If he found the ore, Jack didn't know what he'd do. Would he tell? Would they have to cut him in on the deal too? No way, there was no way Jack would do that. He didn't want to get caught and he didn't want to share.

He made his way to the end of the room in a state of blistering panic. When he saw the fuse box tucked in the corner above a row of lockers, he had a desperate idea. He opened the small silver door and threw back the light switch. He could hear a collective groan from the men in the shower stalls as the lights went out.

“I've got it,” Eugene yelled.

Jack only had a minute. He flicked on the lamp on his hard hat and made his way back to the pile of garbage. He nodded to Eugene as he headed toward the fuse box with a penlight poised by his temple. Jack quickly gathered the ore, put it in his pockets, and jumped to his feet when the lights came on row by row over his head. He quickly went back to his locker, stashed the ore inside his work socks, and balled them up, one cuff inside the other.

After a shower and shave, he got dressed and carried his belongings out the door with the herd of men finishing their shift. At security he dumped his socks full of ore in the tin garbage can. They fell on top of sandwich bags and crusts, wax paper, plastic baggies, and the day's discarded newspaper quietly.

“Spare us your stinky socks,” a security guard yelled out and laughed.

Jack winked and waved. A
nd no one the wiser
, he thought as he bounded triumphantly toward Peter's truck.

At church that Sunday morning the parishioners came toward them in droves, people Angela had never met before: young families with infants lulled to sleep and slung over their mothers' shoulders; older families with teenage boys who hadn't sat still during the Mass; teenage girls who'd spent the hour raking their hair with their fingers and applying pink sheer lip gloss with cheap plastic hand-held mirrors; and young single miners, pried away out of guilt from the bunkhouses to attend the Sunday Mass in the multi-purpose room, shamed by their mothers back in the towns they came from.

They came in droves to thank Peter and Jack, to shake their hands, to pat the youngsters on the heads, or to meet and smile at a bewildered Angela.

“No need to thank us,” Peter said.

“We're only doing what's best for the community,” Jack said.

Wanda stood proudly beside Peter, her hand locked firmly in his, preening over Susie as the townsfolk came and went.

“Building us an indoor pool and a bowling alley is beyond generous,” a young miner's wife said as she smoothed the fabric from her cotton dress over her pregnant belly.

“We can't thank you enough,” her husband said.

The priest stood at the end of the queue of well-wishers. He offered his hands to Jack and gave a blessing over the children.

“Your donation will help us build our own house of worship,” he said. “The parish can't thank you enough.”

Angela felt all her faith in everything — her husband, her marriage, her friends — freeze and break at that moment. She suddenly realized that her mother was right; she had warned her long ago about Jack McCarthy. Had Angela listened? No, she'd persisted stubbornly, determined to prove her mother wrong. Bent on showing Lillian that love was all she needed and wanted and that Jack could provide that. Here she was standing beside this phony of a man, smiling and shaking hands with people who looked up to him and thought he was doing them good. She felt sick to her stomach.

“You maggot,” she hissed and hauled the children out the door with her.

He'd grown so comfortable with what they were doing. Taking from the mine became part of his daily routine, a mindless habit. He'd felt strong and sure of himself, proud even of his philanthropic efforts, and now here he was again doubting himself. She made him feel this way, awkward and stupid and wrong.

Early this Saturday morning he'd woken up to the sound of the crows outside, satiny, black, beady-eyed nuisances with that awful caw. They'd gotten at the garbage. The silver lids from the cans were wheeling down the road, caught on the wind. Jack had chased after them and banged the lids together to keep the crows from the ripped-open garage bags. A few crows were hidden in the plastic. He'd always wondered why crows were so black, hardly camouflaged by the snow and ice and woolly grey sky of a Canadian winter, or the lush green of a northern summer, but now he knew why they were black — so they could slip in and crawl amongst garbage bags unnoticed.

Rooting around in the garbage reminded him of what he was doing with Peter. He was suddenly pensive. It was Angela, wary and vexed, her sleeplessness — rings under her eyes rivalling the black in the crows' feathers. Her utter unwillingness to enjoy even the tiniest bit of what he brought home tarnished his enjoyment of it.

He felt a quick stab of guilt. A dark shell clamped around his heart. But it was too late today. Today was the day they were celebrating Katie and Maggie's birthdays. Born two years apart in the first week of June.

He'd hired a company from Edmonton to help with the party. They'd brought clowns and face paint for the kids, decorated the trailer in pink balloons and streamers, and they'd even brought a cotton candy machine.

Angela was in the kitchen making sandwiches. He heard her opening tins of tuna. He smelled the peeled boiled eggs. The girls were already running around, overexcited; he could hear rubber from the balloons rubbing against dresses and scratching against their hair. This party had cost him a pretty penny. This company had never gone outside of Edmonton, so they charged him travel and accommodation and a spending allowance for the clowns. He thought this would make the girls happy.

An hour later Olive and her children arrived. She presented Angela with a flat box wrapped in newspaper. Angela graciously took the parcel and offered Olive cherry Kool-Aid.

“How's everything?”

“It's a good day, feeling festive,” Angela said and smiled dimly.

Barry, the next-door neighbour, arrived with his son Jason. The boy whined and cried when Angela offered him a sandwich. He clung to his father's leg and Barry pushed him away. Barry was impatient with him, speaking through clenched teeth as if he were choking on his inclination to scream at the boy.

“I hear you're getting a new car,” Barry said.

“Should be getting her next week,” Jack said.

Barry sniffed around Jack like a mangy pup himself, eager for castoffs.

“My friend runs the car lot. You looking for a house too?”

“Afraid so, buddy, you'll have new neighbours soon, I figure,” Jack said and winked.

The door opened and Peter and Wanda trundled in.

“We can't stay long,” Wanda said.

“That's too bad,” Angela said and gave Wanda a quick hug. She nodded to Peter, who gave her a quick flick of the eyebrows. The silence between Peter and Angela was strong — the ease with which they ignored one another was graceful.

“Playing bridge today?” Angela asked.

Wanda nodded and presented the girls with two large boxes wrapped in pink paper. There were large white bows on each present. The girls reached up to hold Susie's hand.

“Don't touch her new dress,” Wanda said, and she flicked at the hem of Susie's white cotton dress, brushing away the dirt she imagined was there.

A few minutes later, the girls unwrapped Olive's present — a used Scrabble game with missing pieces. Wanda put her hand over her mouth, coughed, and smiled smugly at Angela, who turned red, embarrassed for her friend.

“We're off then,” Wanda said brightly.

“So soon?” Angela said.

“Stay for cake,” Jack said.

“What odds, let's stay,” Peter said.

Wanda stopped him with a sharp look.

“We better get going,” he mumbled and followed his wife out the door.

“You wouldn't see Wanda turning down cake back home,” Angela said.

Jack hung his head. The children were getting older and they were drifting apart from their friends; everything was changing. A part of him wanted to cling to the old days and wanted his life here to be like their life back home. He wanted the children to stay young, their friends to have remained close, and most importantly he wanted to come clean and be free from the muck of that first bite he took from the pot of gold they'd scavenged and pillaged from the mine. But it was too late for that. He was too deep in a bottomless pit to come up for air.

An hour later the cake had been cut and served and the gifts unwrapped. Cherry Kool-Aid stains had dried and faded along the children's upper lips and it was time for everyone to go home.

“I've found a way to get more,” Peter said.

Jack twitched nervously, chewing on a slice of leftover birthday cake in Peter's truck as they prepared to go home after their shift.

“A millwright friend of mine can help us get more. We can get a whole lot more than what we've been taking from underground.”

“How?” Jack asked.

“He'll siphon off a section from one of the conveyor belts in the mill; he'll build a hidden pipe and divert some of the processed ore.”