Somewhere In-Between (24 page)

She checks her email, deleting all but her sister's. Jessie, dear Jessie, her simple message thanking her for the photos, then asking if she wants to talk. Perhaps she will have a glass of wine and call her later. Listening to Ian preparing to leave for town, she mentally counts the full bottles in their cabinet. Seven bottles of red, Chianti, Pinot Noir, and Merlot, and seven bottles of white in the cooler—who cares what kind? She realizes with a start that she is constantly aware of every ounce of wine in the house. Just like an alcoholic.
If you're not careful you'll become the horrid cliché of a wino housewife.
The little voice in her head sounds too much like her mother's.

After she hears Ian's vehicle drive away, she sits and stares out of the den window. In the growing light of dawn, she watches Virgil spread hay in the pasture, and then return to the barn. Before long the barn door opens, and he comes out with his dog and heads back to his cabin.

A blush stings Julie's cheeks when he opens the cabin door. “I, uh, I brought you some potatoes,” she says holding up the paper sack. “We'll never eat half...”

She lowers the bag. “Really, I came to apologize for going inside your home the other day—with the grouse from Terri Champion. I'm sorry, I should never have, I—”

The stuttered apology dies on her lips as Virgil, appearing unsurprised at seeing her there, nods a greeting. Still wearing his jacket and hat, he steps back and ushers her inside. Relieved, she enters without hesitating, passing by so close that she can smell the earthy aroma that fills the warm air between them.

She stands waiting in the kitchen area while he closes the door, removes his jacket and hat and hangs them on metal hooks. In no hurry, he lifts the stove lid and pokes at the embers inside, as if he has forgotten her presence in his home.

“I'm sorry,” Julie repeats. “I really had no business being in here the—”

Virgil dismisses her concern with a wave of his hand, and then gestures to one of the kitchen chairs. Without waiting for her to sit down he leans over and grabs a handful of kindling from the wood box.

“I'm sorry I bothered you. I should go,” Julie says, but even to her own ears her words carry no conviction.

Virgil straightens up and meets her eyes. She reads the silent plea there and lowers herself slowly onto the indicated chair.

She places her hands in her lap, and watches him rekindle the fire. Before long a flame flickers up between the sticks of wood. He adds larger pieces and closes the lid. By the time he slides the coffee pot from the back of the stove to the front, the fire is crackling beneath the cast-iron surface.

Without warning, he disappears into the bedroom door at the back of the cabin. A moment later the sound of a door closing is followed by the metallic whine of a bathroom tap being turned on.

While she waits for Virgil to wash up, Julie slips out of her jacket and hangs it on the back of her chair. From outside comes the playful growling of the two dogs wrestling on the porch.

No longer feeling like an intruder, Julie takes a closer look at her surroundings. She checks the top of the roll-top desk, empty now of any sign of the letter that was there a few days ago. Had Virgil detected anything amiss with it?

At the far end of the room, a black violin case, which she hadn't noticed last time, leans in the corner. The thought of asking Virgil to play for her comes to mind, but she knows she will not. Not yet anyway. She will have coffee, she assumes that is what he meant by asking her to stay. For the moment she is glad to be here, relieved that Virgil was not affronted at finding her at his door, and she is willing to drink warmed-over morning dregs if that is what it takes to pass part of this day in his silent company.

She is reminded of the peaceful moments sharing coffee with him up on the landing; her mind races ahead to future visits with Virgil in the warmth of this cabin, and at that thought she is filled with a comfort that if asked to, she could not define.

The changing morning light pools on the kitchen counter and her attention is drawn to the window above the sink. Still disturbed by the dreamcatcher hanging there, she forces herself to look past it, to concentrate on the sun lighting up the western ridge, the wind skittering down the lake's surface like a shiver. And she is struck by how different her life is now, how strange, and sad, and heartbreaking, the road that has led her to this moment, sitting in this ancient cabin, in the depths of the Chilcotin, listening to the water run in another room while she waits, with calm anticipation, for the occupant to return.

She's glad Ian is in town, that there's no likelihood that he will show up looking for her today. For some reason she doesn't want to share this time, this space, with him. She suspects he feels the same way about his visits with Virgil. She tries to imagine him sitting here on those days he comes to collect Virgil's rent. Does he notice the things she does? The violin in the corner? The grand collection of books? Does he ever wonder about the photographs on the wall, about Virgil's life, his family? And had he ever noticed the dreamcatcher in the window before she mentioned it? No, she thinks, he wouldn't have, or if he had he would never admit, even to himself, that it was like the one that hung over their daughter's bed. Something in her believes, that like her, Ian wants this place to remain separate, free of reminders of their other life, a place of refuge from memory. Perhaps that's why the sight of the talisman hanging above Virgil's sink bothers her so. She tells herself she is being silly. Ian is right, why wouldn't there be other dreamcatchers like it, many perhaps. Still she wishes it was not there.

She turns to the sound of the door opening at the back of the cabin. Virgil emerges from the bedroom and comes into the kitchen wearing a fresh shirt and smelling of Irish Spring. His close-cropped hair glistens with dampness, emphasizing the pewter-grey at his temples.

He smiles slightly at the sight of her, as if relieved to find her still there, then looks quickly away and concentrates on checking the fire. When he is satisfied, he goes over to the cupboard, takes out a mug—
one mug, not two?
—and places it on the table along with a bowl of sugar and a teaspoon.

Pleased that he remembers how she takes her coffee, and grateful for something to do with her hands, Julie cups the empty mug while she waits for him to pour. After he does so he fills a glass of water for himself and joins her at the table. The water surprises her, given how evident it was that he enjoyed his coffee on the landing, bringing two Thermoses with him each day.

The warmed-over coffee is as strong as she expected. She reaches for the sugar bowl again. At the same moment, anticipating her reaction, Virgil slides the bowl closer and their hands touch. At the feel of his flesh, she stops and stares down at his fingers. Without thought, she gently brushes his deformed knuckles with the tip of her fingers. He pulls away slowly, leaving her hand hovering in mid-air over the table, picks up his glass and studies the bottom of it.

Astounded at her lapse of judgement, Julie stands and walks over to the roll-top desk. Keeping her back to Virgil, she concentrates on the portraits. She will leave, she tells herself, the moment she has recovered from this faux pas, she will leave.

After a while she clears her throat. “Family?” she asks, indicating the large studio photograph of his younger self, then glancing over her shoulder.

He nods.

She points to the woman sitting in front of him in the portrait. “Your mother?”

A nod.

“And sister?”

Another nod.

“They're lovely,” she murmurs, studying the display once again. Minutes pass with the only sound in the room the growing fire.

“Is this your father?” she asks touching the small sepia snapshot.

Glancing back for his response, she catches him—his glass held motionless mid-way to his mouth—watching her. Has she trespassed that badly? But he nods once again.

“A handsome man,” she says looking away. She wants to ask him about the people in the other photographs, but wonders if perhaps she has pressed too far. And yet a part of her senses that he has something on his mind. Is it her imagination? Does he have something he wants to say to her? Or does he feel she is pushing the boundaries and only indulging her because he is a tenant on their land? She decides to keep the one-sided conversation going and chance one more question. She leans closer to a photograph of an older First Nations couple and a younger woman with a smiling toddler on her hip. “And these people?”she asks.

Behind her Virgil's chair scrapes across the floor. She senses his approach and spins around so suddenly she almost bumps into him when he reaches past her to pull out the desk drawer. Startled by his closeness, she moves away quickly, grabs her jacket from the back of the chair and heads for the door. “I've got to go,” she mumbles. “Thanks for the coffee.” She reaches the door without looking back.

“Wait!” The single mechanical sounding word, stops Julie in her tracks. Her hand drops from the door knob. Turning slowly to face Virgil she immediately recognizes the device he has taken from the drawer and pressed to his throat. She can see from his expression, the weariness about his eyes, that, like her father, he is loath to use the Electrolarynx. Yet the fact that he is willing to do so, is a testament to the urgency of whatever it is that has forced him to do so.

He removes the photograph that she was asking about from the wall and walks over to hand it to her. Accepting it warily, she studies the faces of the older couple, and the young woman with a baby on her hip. Her eyes dart back up to Virgil, just as he presses the voice box to his throat and his words crack the hollow silence.

“The boy needs you.”

And recognition of the smiling dimple-faced toddler dawns on her.

Virgil Blue is the Keeper of the Grandfather Rocks. An honour passed down from his uncle.

Yesterday, after his failed attempt to avoid today's sweat lodge ceremony, Virgil brought the stones to his old friend on the banks of the Chilco River. Old Alphonse glanced up from the firepit he was tending when the pickup truck, tires crunching on gravel, came to a slow stop in the dying light of the day.

After the sacred stones were unloaded the two men sat before the orange glow of the growing fire, their lips unmoving as they spoke in a long forgotten language that needed no voice.

You come too late, my friend. I cannot heal you.

I come on behalf of the boy, to ask you to help me guide him on his vision quest.

I will take the journey with him.

I promised his mother I would be at his side.

It is not safe for you.

It is less so for the boy.

At any other time, preparing for a sweat, delivering the Grandfather Rocks, fire-tested and free from evil spirits within, would have been a time of celebration. A time to look inward, a time to heal. But Virgil fears his young cousin is too weakened by grief for this vision quest. Yet he knows the boy is determined, and he will attempt it on his own if Virgil refuses to guide him.

This morning the sun has not yet risen. Stars still shine between the clouds scudding across a moonless sky as he and the boy arrive on the riverbank. The sweat lodge is ready. Its willow frame is covered with a mixture of ragged-edged animal hides and colourful blankets. Barely taller than the five-foot-high domed structure, Old Alphonse works outside. A deerskin jacket hanging loose from his thin shoulders, he pushes a blunt-nose shovel into the firepit. With a strength that belies his years, he retrieves a large stone from the hot coals, turns slowly and then crouching low carries the searing hot rock through the flapped opening into the lodge.

He reappears from the darkened interior, and Virgil helps him transfer more stones inside. Then all three of them take armloads of wood from the pile next to the firepit and stack them on top of the remaining stones, filling the hole to its rock-rimmed edges. While they work tiny snowflakes appear, only to melt among the sparks lifting from the fire.

When they are finished, the old man stands before the boy. He searches his face. Their breath crystallizes on the air between them. Then, in a voice low and unhurried, Old Alphonse asks if the boy has fasted, if he has kept his body free from alcohol and caffeine for this ceremony. The youth answers with a nod, at the same time holding up his offering of a pouch of tobacco. A sinewy hand accepts, and the pouch disappears into a jacket pocket.

Virgil offers no tobacco, the expected custom. He knows too well the harm years of it have done to his own body. Instead, cradled across his palms, he holds up a polished walking stick. The staff, which he has made from a single mountain ash root, straightened and strengthened in water baths, is as long as his old friend is tall.

Both Elders remain motionless, their faces betraying nothing. Glistening specks of snow become fat flakes that drift aimlessly between them as they hold each other's gaze. In the river below, ice- blue glacier water washes over a thousand centuries of sculpted stones. Finally Old Alphonse accepts the walking stick. Placing it on a tarp laid out on the ground, he begins to undress.

Following his lead, Virgil and Levi remove their own clothing. Once they are stripped down, the old man, wearing nothing more than a breechcloth, pushes his silver-grey braids onto his back and leans over the fire. He holds a twisted bundle of twigs into the embers at the edge of the firepit until it begins to smoke. Circling the boy first and then Virgil, he passes the smouldering sage up, down, and around their naked torsos, while a sing-song chant rises from deep in his throat. Virgil repeats the ritual for him. Before entering the lodge, they each drink from the buckets of water placed outside the low opening.

As they crawl inside, sage and cedar boughs crunch beneath their hands and knees, filling the sweltering air inside the lodge with the heavy Chilcotin scent.