Sweetland (11 page)

“She’s lying down,” Jesse said. “Won’t get up out of it.”

Sweetland turned off the taps, shook the water from his hands and forearms, wiped them down with a cup towel. He’d have to burn the clothes he was wearing, he figured. “You’re not playing poker over there, I hope.”

“Angry Birds,” Jesse said.

“Well,” Sweetland said. “That’s all right, I spose.”

What was it about the youngster? It was his seriousness, maybe, that made him seem distant. He was doggedly loyal and affectionate in a standoffish way that a body could confuse for the opposite of affection and loyalty. He had a cat’s self-centred indifference to the world as others saw it, a cat’s inscrutable motivations. He took odd notions, running off now and again for no obvious reason, disappearing up on the mash or hiding out at the lighthouse or as far as the Priddles’ cabin in the valley. He never tried to explain himself after the fact or was incapable of it. He couldn’t be trusted altogether because you couldn’t guess with any certainty what he was thinking.

When Sweetland moved back into the cove from the keeper’s house, he spent most of his evenings at Pilgrim’s, eating his supper there and watching an hour or two of television with Jesse.
America’s Funniest Home Videos. Wipeout. Two and a Half Men
. Then Jesse would begin the first of the many elaborate stages required to get him to bed. Clara and Wince took turns saying their good-nights and bringing the boy a glass of water and adjusting the pillows to his satisfaction, and then he’d call for Sweetland. Lying in the dark with Jesse to answer endless questions about hockey and fishing and wrestling, about the saucy rooster Sweetland killed when it went after Ruthie, about the boatload of Sri Lankans he’d happened on near Burnt Head.

It was impossible to say what Jesse made of these stories, why he returned to them so obsessively, insisting they be told in the same manner each time. He seemed to be constantly checking the world at large against the one in his head, making sure they were one and the same. Though at night, in his bedroom, it seemed just another ploy to delay
the inevitable. Jesse clinging to wakefulness like a drowning man, rousing himself out of near sleep to ask one more thing.

Tell me about the coat, he would say.

What coat? Sweetland asked.

The one you and Hollis wore.

I don’t know if I remembers much about it.

You had to go out and check the nets in the morning before school.

You want to tell the story?

No, Jesse said. You tell it.

All right, Sweetland said.

Up before light, the two of them. Putting a bit of fire in the stove, the house cold as stone. A cup of tea and fried capelin and they went along to the stagehead, climbed down into the punt and set the oars. They had to sell the skiff with the inboard after their father died and it was an hour’s rowing out to the nets, longer if the wind was southerly. Only the one decent coat between them, their father’s old jacket kept on a hook in the porch. Neither of them big enough to fill it out on their own, sitting side by side with one arm each in the sleeves, coming back on the oars. Uncle Clar telling them how they looked like a fat little two-headed man on his way to check his herring nets.

Why did you have to share a coat? Jesse asked.

It was hard times after Father died. Just me and Hollis to look after the fish. Hollis wouldn’t as old as you when all that was going on.

Jesse was quiet a moment and then he said, You was with Hollis when he drowned.

That’s enough of that now.

But Hollis says—

I heard enough of what your imaginary friend says about it all.

He’s not imaginary, Jesse said in the same flat tone.

Well I’m not talking to him either way. You want another story or not?

Clara usually had to call an end to the interrogation, her silhouette at the bedroom door. Last one, she’d say and then stand there to make
sure Jesse didn’t sneak in another. But occasionally Sweetland outlasted the boy and he lay a few minutes longer, letting the spell of sleep settle in before he moved. Jesse’s face blank but animate, a living thing. The last of Sweetland’s blood beside him. The smell of woodsmoke in his hair. The untainted sweetness of a child’s breath.

Uncle Moses, Jesse whispered one evening. He had turned to face the wall, a sure sign he was about to go under, and Sweetland leaned in close to hear him. I have a secret to tell you, Jesse whispered. Sweetland raised his head, listening, and he waited there a good while before he realized the boy was sound asleep.

He doubted Jesse even remembered the announcement of a secret about to be shared, but some childish part of Sweetland’s mind was still expectant in his presence. As if a riddle at the heart of things was about to be revealed. He was like the world itself, Sweetland thought, a well you would never see the bottom of, that might swallow you whole if you weren’t careful.

He went to the fridge and leaned into the cool. “You want something else to eat,” he asked.

“Can we go see the cow?”

“I had enough of cows for one day.”

“You don’t have any cows.”

“I got to eat something,” he said. “And then I got some work to do in the shed.”

“I’d rather go see the cow.”

“Well go see the bloody cow then,” Sweetland said.

He was at the table saw ripping a length of two-by-six to replace the sill in the shed’s side door when Glad Vatcher came to see him. He shut down the machine, ran his hand along the cut. Waited for the younger man to say something.

“You had a night, I hear,” Gladstone said finally.

“Tried to send Loveless over to get you,” Sweetland said. “Was your bull caused all the trouble to begin with.”

Glad smiled down at his boots. A faint odour of animal coming off him where he stood in the open doorway. “I tried to talk him out of it,” he said. “Offered to buy the cow off him, to save him the trouble.”

“You might as well talk to his little dog as talk sense to Loveless.”

“He come to see me just now. Cow’s laid down and he can’t get her up out of it.”

“You have a look at her?”

“Poked my head in,” he said. “You had some job getting that calf clear from the looks of things.”

“Like trying to pull a tooth.”

“Loveless wants we should try to get the cow on her feet.”

“I had enough of that animal for one day.”

Glad let a smile prick at the corners of his mouth, but wouldn’t look at Sweetland direct. “There’s no one over there to help but youngsters and old men,” he said.

Sweetland took a broom from the corner and swept up the spray of sawdust. It was their first conversation since Glad decided to take the package, against everything Sweetland had ever heard him say on the matter. Glad had a finger in every enterprise in Chance Cove, a position he inherited from his father. He and his wife ran the cove’s only store, shipped in fishing equipment and outboards and building materials, sold fresh lamb in the spring and beef in the fall. The resettlement talk never amounted to more than talk before Glad signed on. It was hard to blame the man, given the state of things on the island, but Sweetland blamed him regardless.

“I spose it’s a waste of time trying to get her up,” he said.

“Likely it is,” Glad said. “Still,” he said.

“Loveless got any rope over there?”

“I’d say Sara had just about anything a man could need, we minds to look for it.”

Sweetland took his coat off a hook by the door and they walked over together without speaking, stood just inside the barn entrance to let their eyes adjust to the dim. A crowd gathered at the far end near the cow. Every youngster in school had come to the barn during the dinner break and not a one was going back while the animal was down. Most of the men in the cove were there as well, including some who hadn’t spoken a civil word to Sweetland in months. Loveless holding court, both his arms going as he talked.

“He haven’t had this much attention since Sara died,” Glad Vatcher said.

Loveless was pointing at Sweetland as they walked over. “Sawed up the calf,” he heard Loveless say, “like a bit of old driftwood.”

Sweetland glanced around at the assembly, to see what they had to work with. Duke and Hayward, Reet Verge in her pink hoodie, Ned Priddle, a handful of others. Glad was the only adult under the age of fifty, the rest nursing one chronic infirmity or other. All the young folk off at jobs on the rigs or into St. John’s or somewhere on the mainland.

The cow was down against the wall, panting shallowly and staring blind at the barnboards. “She won’t have any life in them legs,” Glad said. “She’s going to be dead weight to get up.”

“You think we can lever her?”

“Might be. Get under her front and back. Move her off the wall. Maybe pass a rope underneath.”

They puttered around collecting two-by-fours and concrete blocks and rope and setting the materials in place. There was an old dory propped in the stall nearest the entrance, a plank-board pig of a boat that Loveless had built half a lifetime ago, and they dragged that behind the animal to use as a fulcrum. The cow lying there oblivious, like some biblical queen being attended by servants. They leashed a rope around her neck and put three men apiece at the levers shoved under her front and hindquarters. Counted to three and raised the cow a meagre foot off the ground before she canted off the two-by-fours
and folded heavily back into place, the men scrabbling to keep their feet as she fell.

They made a dozen other attempts, changing the size and number of levers, their angles and fulcrums and positions, Loveless pacing uselessly on the periphery and calling, “Don’t hurt her, b’ys, don’t hurt her.” They finally managed to sneak a rope under her girth before she dropped back to the ground. Nailed a block and tackle to the rafters and Glad Vatcher and Pilgrim and every youngster in the barn set to the line. Between the levers and the pulley they raised the creature’s frame high enough she could scrabble feebly with her front legs, her weight full on the rope. The big head lolling, her breathing so attenuated they had to set her back for fear she might suffocate.

Two hours they’d been at her by then and they were all beat to a snot, their boots and pants fouled with cow shit and the previous night’s gore. They stood around the cow, catching their breath, wiping sweat off their faces.

“She don’t want to get up,” Loveless said.

“We could jimmy up a sling maybe,” Glad offered. “Let that hold her, see if she finds her legs.”

“A bit of sailcloth or canvas would do it,” Sweetland said.

It was another hour of jiggery at that, raising the cow and working the improvised sling under her torso, hanging the works from three ropes slung over the rafters.

“She looks like she’s wearing a goddamned diaper,” Duke said when they were done.

Glad Vatcher made a helpless motion with his hand. “We’re going to have to leave her there awhile,” he said to Loveless. “You’ll want to massage those legs, see if you can get some life into them.”

Loveless nodded uncertainly, terrified of the animal. They left him to the work, the rest of the crowd meandering toward the door.

“I got some homebrew over to the house,” Sweetland said when they were out in the fresh air. He turned to Glad Vatcher. “You’re welcome
for a glass,” he said, and Glad tipped his head to one side, considering.

“All right,” he said.

Duke followed them over, and Pilgrim with Jesse hanging onto his arm.

Sweetland brought half a dozen bottles out of the pantry, poured them off one at a time into a plastic measuring cup, being careful to leave the gravelly sediment in the bottle. Passed around glasses of the brew. He handed Jesse half a glass and raised a finger to his lips, tipping his head toward Pilgrim. He opened the laptop and pushed it to where Jesse was sitting.

“Haven’t had a down cow to deal with,” Glad said, “since I was a youngster.”

Sweetland laughed. “Not hard to tell we was out of practice.”

“We should have looked it up on the Google,” Duke said.

“Not
the
Google,” Jesse said. “Just Google.”

“Well whatever the hell it is. Bet you there’s something on there about lifting cows.”

“Every Jesus thing is on there,” Sweetland admitted.

“I don’t give her much of a chance,” Glad said. “She’s a hell of a mess.”

They sat with that a moment before Duke said, “When do you start moving your animals off the island?”

“We was planning to bring them over September month. Winter them in St. Alban’s, at the brother-in-law’s place.”

“Taking them across on the ferry?”

“Going to have to hire a boat somewhere I expect.”

“What’ll that cost, a hundred grand?”

“Ha,” Sweetland said darkly.

Glad looked down at his shoes. “More than we can afford if the financial side haven’t been settled up by then. But we’re going regardless. The wife’s got her heart set on it.” He finished his beer in one draft and stood up. “She’ll have supper on,” he said.

After Glad shut the door behind him, Pilgrim pointed in the general
direction of Duke’s seat. “It’s too bad you can’t learn to cut hair with that fucken mouth of yours.”

“I was only asking,” Duke said.

Sweetland went off to the pantry after more beer.

“I never thought Glad Vatcher would take the package,” Pilgrim said.

“Glad Vatcher can kiss my arse,” Sweetland called from the next room.

“It was his missus talked him into it,” Duke said. “Wanted to be handier to her crowd in St. Alban’s.”

“His missus can kiss my arse too,” he shouted.

He was half-cut by the time he’d finished his fifth beer and still hours of light left to the day. Everyone gone off to their suppers and he sat in the quiet, rolling the empty glass back and forth between the palms of his hands. Feeling sorry for himself, he supposed.

He sat at the laptop, trolled around the handful of sites he knew. Typed in a Google search on
cow lifting
. Five and a half million results. The Upsi-Daisy Cow Lifter. Harnesses, slings, cranes, buckets, hoists. An infinite library of information and none of it any practical use to them. A window they could peer through to watch the modern world unfold in its myriad variations, while only the smallest, strangest fragments washed ashore on the island.