He walked back down the gravelled footpath to where his truck was parked in the lane and as he came close to it, Cassius sat up in the bed and looked at him. He opened the door and got in and turned on the truck. He was about to put it into gear but he didn’t. He got out again. He went around to the tailgate and lowered it and told the dog to get down. The dog hopped down and stretched and then looked at him.
Stan closed the tailgate and walked up to the passenger door and opened it.
—Get in.
The dog looked at him.
—Get in, you stubborn bastard.
The dog whined once and then sat back.
—Look. I can’t lift you any more.
It took some coaxing and patting the seat before Cassius stood back up and reared and jumped and scrabbled his way into the cab. He got up onto the seat and turned around and looked at Stan for further guidance, unaccustomed as he was to the front of the truck, but Stan only closed the door and came around and got back in the driver side and closed his own door. Then he put the truck into gear and carried on with his afternoon.
To look at the sky above the cemetery, you might think it had never been any different.
I
t was the slow onset of a summer evening when he watched the announcement on the evening news. He was sitting in a restaurant at the Pine Tree Motor Inn in Marten River. This, the first evening of his journey. He was eating a hamburger and french fries. The news came on the black-and-white television behind the counter and the newsman first said good evening and then he said Terry Fox had died that day in the early morning hours. The woman behind the counter did not stop what she was doing, cleaning silverware with a vinegar-soaked cloth. On the television a nurse at a B.C. hospital gave a statement. Then a doctor spoke and then they returned to the newsman and to other affairs. The woman behind the counter went to rub a spot off a glass cakebell.
Later that night, Pete lay in the back of his car listening to rain drum on the roof. He’d parked at the edge of a farm field and it was very dark outside, but for a purple stutter of lightning. He found he was listening for some sound or sign of something. Maybe for the radio to come on spontaneously.
Many nights, now, he lay awake. He’d very nearly suffocated, between the broken nose and the tape over his mouth. The back of his throat had filled with blood. Sometimes he had nightmares: the sledgehammer falling above him. The nightmares came and
went and he woke gagging for breath and clawing at whatever part of the sheet had fallen over his face.
But this night on the farm field outside Marten River was different. He was not disturbed at all. He just was. And maybe he was awake to consider that.
The girl said her name was Veda and she was a few years older than he was. Whatever she was travelling with was packed into a nylon World Famous knapsack with leather straps. When he first saw her, he thought she was good-looking. When he saw her close up, he saw how her fingernails were chewed down and ragged. Her legs were long and brown. She was wearing tennis shoes.
He met her in a laundromat in New Liskeard. The radiator in his car had cracked earlier. It could be repaired that day but it was going to take a few hours. He was anguished at the hole the repair made in his wallet. Then he gathered some clothes to wash. It seemed premature to be doing laundry this early into the trip. He’d only set off from home at noon yesterday.
He saw her when he came in, loading clothes into a washing machine. Then she went out of the laundromat without looking at him. Half an hour later she came back. She was carrying a big soft drink cup. The only other person in the laundromat was an old woman dozing by the front window. He’d caught a slight reek of cooking wine when he walked past her.
The girl set down her soft drink and took her clothes out of the washer and loaded them into a dryer. Then she was looking at him. He looked back down at his book. When she’d loaded the dryer she moseyed over his way, chewing on the straw in her soft drink cup. She came with casual boldness, as if they’d been familiar all along.
—It’s fucking hot outside.
—I know it, said Pete.
—Listen, can you tell me where the bus station is?
—I don’t know. I’m not from here.
—Well, isn’t that my luck.
She dragged over a plastic chair and sank down into it. She did so as if suddenly exhausted, as if she’d just climbed a hill. She sat with one leg over the armrest. Hesitantly, Pete introduced himself.
—Hi, Pete. I’m Veda.
—Veda …
—You say it like you never heard it before.
—I don’t know if I have.
—Well, my dad was a hometown kind of a guy. But my mom, she’s a woman of the world. It’s the kind of thing she knows about.
—Veda. Okay.
He liked the way her name sounded.
They made conversation for thirty minutes, waiting on their clothes and then lingering after their clothes were finished drying. She spoke a little about university in Montreal. He could tell she was making tracks from something, but what this was, he couldn’t put together yet. She’d apparently arrived in New Liskeard yesterday afternoon, when he was still on the road to Marten River. He had the sense she was out of money.
—I’m going back to Hearst for awhile, said Veda. Going back home. It’s my dad’s place and it’ll do till things get back on track. Dude, if I had a tail, it would be between my legs. Put it that way. Anyways, where are you going, Pete?
—I’m going west.
—And how long are you going for?
—However long they’ll have me.
—Sounds like quite a move. But hey, dude. Shit like that I can respect. Anyways, if you’re going west then it seems you’d be going through Hearst on your way. Six hours from here.
—I get the feeling you’re proposing something.
—I won’t fuck with your radio.
—Okay, said Pete. You can ride with me.
They left New Liskeard early the next morning. He picked her up at the campground where she was staying. Veda packed her tent into her knapsack and got into the car.
—I’m going to say what ten billion girls have said before me. You seem like a nice guy. We get on the road, in your car, don’t turn evil on me, okay? I’ve got an eight-inch switchblade in my bra and I’ll stick you if I have to.
They had breakfast at a gas bar on the edge of town. It made him think of the Texaco. With everything that had happened, it had been necessary for him to stay on at the Texaco for some months longer than he’d intended, once he’d been able to resume working again. His last day at the Texaco had been the twenty-fifth of June. Duane had walked him to his car, smiling his townie smile.
—You take it easy out there, Pete. You’re a bit of a shit-magnet.
—I’ll do what I can. I’ll send you a postcard.
—You probably won’t.
Behind them a car was pulling onto the apron.
—One of us has to get back to work, said Duane. See? Some things never change.
They shook hands and Duane turned and sauntered back towards the pumps. There was an oil rag hanging out of his back pocket and in the other pocket was the round shape of his chew tin. A few days later, Pete was on the road.
Once he and Veda had finished breakfast and started driving, she fell asleep and she didn’t wake again until ten o’clock. She smacked her lips and looked around.
—Where are we?
—We just passed a place called Tunis.
—Tunis.
—There wasn’t much to it.
—I know it. I know Tunis.
This was pretty country, with great stretches of bush separating the villages and towns they drove through. They passed fields where the long grass was fiery with hawkweed and devil’s paintbrush.
—It’s your dad’s place in Hearst?
—Thanks for reminding me. I wasn’t thinking about anything and it was nice.
—Hey, sorry.
—Oh, don’t fret it. My dad, he’s a good guy. But, like, he’s a hometown guy. The farthest he’s ever been is Sudbury and he is A-OK with that. And Hearst, I just … Hearst is Hearst, right? One time I heard this comedian say that the thing about a small town is once you’ve seen the cannon in the park, you’ve seen all there is to see. It’ll do for a little while, until things get evened out.
—Things in Montreal?
—Yeah, in Montreal. And other places. Here, for starters.
She was tapping the side of her head.
—I hear you, said Pete.
—So this is the part where …?
—Where what? What part?
—The part where we exchange our stories.
—I was just making conversation.
—Exchange our stories and figure out what they mean. When you’re on the road, everybody you meet is going somewhere to get away from something.
—I’m not getting away from anything.
—Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Peter.
—I’m not.
—Come on, what was your issue? What did you do? Who did you lose?
He looked over at her. He looked back at the road. The last time he saw Emily, she’d been kind. She said they both knew
what was inevitable. For Christmas, she’d gotten a leather coat and she looked really good in it. For reasons he couldn’t understand, Pete resented the coat more than anything, more than any of what was said about how they had to part. She could go in peace, but if it were up to him the coat would be torn to rags.
To Veda, he said: Well, I lost my grandmother about six weeks ago. I lived with her my whole life. She died of lung cancer.
—Hey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you with my craziness or anything.
—It’s okay. You asked.
—Can I ask you something else? Do you think it means anything?
—My grandmother dying?
—Yes.
—It means about as much as the next thing.
—You’re keeping something back, aren’t you. You’ve got some information up your sleeve. That’s cool.
—Jesus. Look, are you hungry?
—I’m getting to be.
They had an early lunch in Smooth Rock Falls. Veda told him a little bit about Hearst. A logging town. Her father was a sawyer at a mill. Theirs was one of the few families in town for whom French was not their first language. She’d grown up with a lot of native kids and she spoke of a few who had taken their own lives. But she said there were worse places to have to hide out for awhile. She said Hearst had its charms.
—There’s this giant crosscut saw people take pictures of. You’ll see. You can stay for Canada Day. My dad is always happy to entertain. He doesn’t need much of an excuse.
They got going again. Sometime after Cochrane, he looked over and saw she’d kicked off her tennis shoes and leaned her seat back. Her feet were white against the brown of her legs. One of the toenails was black. As they drove, she took out a small zippered pouch and opened it and brought out the makings of a joint and rolled it.
—I’m guessing you’re one of those people who want things to mean something, she said.
—I’m not sure what you mean by that.
—I’m not so, you know, good at saying what I think. So never mind.
—No no, said Pete. Tell me.
—Well, that one thing happens and it means something. Or, let me see if I can explain this better: one thing happens because something else happened before it to make it happen.
—But doesn’t that make sense? You know, one thing leads to another. Like, I could stick my leg out and I trip you, you fall down. That’s one thing leading to the next.
—Yeah, then I get up and I bust your nose. Again, by the looks of it.
Without thinking, he touched his nose. It had reset crookedly. He was never sure how apparent it was to people who saw it.
—What was it? said Veda. Hockey?
—No.
—Anyway, that example, that’s all that is. You can’t look for a bigger plan there.
—Well, yeah. I guess there’s nothing bigger in that. Okay.
—So do you believe in God?
—Do I what?
—It’s an easy question, dude.
—I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.
—Well, that’s disappointing.
—Yeah, well, the house where I grew up, there was a lot of talk about God all the time. And not much talk about anything else. I think whatever it is I do believe is kind of based on the opposite of everything that was talked about at home, because all I could ever think about was what didn’t add up and where the holes were. And, no, that’s not me saying I don’t believe in anything at all, either. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you.
—It makes enough sense for now. Okay. You haven’t let me down as bad.
—I’m glad I got your approval. But is this something you believe in? God?
She shrugged. It was a full, exaggerated roll of the shoulders. She crossed her eyes and said: I don’t know about God but there’s always the bet.
—The bet?
—This French guy I knew, he told me about it? So basically there’s a coin toss and you got to bet on it, heads or tails—this is what he told me—and if you bet on heads, or God, you win everything. All that stuff about heaven, right? But if you bet on tails, that there isn’t any God, and you lose, you lose it all.
—This doesn’t seem like much of a bet, really. Why would you make this kind of a bet?
—Well, it goes like this. If what you stand to lose is everything, and what you can win is also everything—or, well, heaven—you have unlimited reasons to make the bet.
Veda lit the joint. She took a few hauls and handed it over to him. He toked and coughed and passed it back.
—I just don’t know if I’m convinced, said Pete. This coin toss. Anything about believing. My stepdad is a pastor and he and the people at his church have a whole lot of answers that work fine for them. But they never worked for me. It took me awhile to realize that. And you talk about just believing, well, I’m not convinced.
—Me neither. Like if God’s up there, how can everything in life be so shitty?
—I guess that’s assuming that you and me and everybody else should be happy all the time. If he’s up there, maybe that’s not what he even has in mind. Us being happy all the time.
—If.
—Yep.
—We’re about half an hour away, said Veda. This is country I know. It’s been awhile since I saw it but I know it. Anyway it’s
hot as hell. I want to go swimming first. Come on, I’ll show you a good place up here. But you got to be man enough.
—Man enough. What do you mean?
—You’ll see.
She told him to turn off the highway onto a side road. Scarcely more than a gravel trail through the bush. The side road tapered past a few properties and went on for awhile and came finally to a dead end at a railbed.
They got out of the car. Pete stretched. When he turned around he saw she was removing her shorts and her T-shirt. She was wearing a swimsuit underneath. She caught him looking. All she said was: Summertime in this country—it’s a day wasted if you don’t swim, you know?
The Adidas shorts he was wearing would do as a swimsuit. He hesitated for a moment and then took off his own T-shirt and tossed it onto the driver’s seat. The sun was hot on his shoulders and the back of his neck.
She led him down the tracks, telling him it was an abandoned line. As they walked, she brought out another skinny joint and they smoked it. A sign standing to the side of the railbed exclaimed No T
RESPASSING
in letters partly obscured by rust. They rounded a final bend and the bush receded on slabs of exposed bedrock. Up ahead was a wide blue creek and spanning the water was the bulk of an old train trestle. The girders were gaunt, all browns and blacks. It had to be forty feet from the girder framing the top of the trestle to the surface of the water.