The Snow Falcon (35 page)

232

a

“How long is it since Jamie has spoken?” he asked as she refilled his glass.

“Ever since his dad died. I guess you know all about that. It was an accident; it happened around a year and a half ago.”

“I heard something about it. Tom Waters mentioned it.”

She went back to her pots. It seemed that there was a break in the flow of conversation, as if he were leaving it to her to decide if she wanted to tell him more. “According to the psychologist Jamie was seeing,” she said at last, “he’s blotting out what happened. Not talking is a way of avoiding having to face it. He was with David that day. I guess the shock was too much for a kid his age.”

“He’s still seeing a psychologist?”

“Not right now. We’re kind of taking a break.” She let a moment pass. “You know, I haven’t seen him so excited about anything for a long time as he is about is about Cully. I can’t tell you how it felt to see his face when he got home today. He looked as if he had a million-watt lightbulb behind his eyes. I wish there was something more I could do to thank you.”

“You don’t have to,” Michael said. “Besides, to tell the truth, I like having him around.”

She wondered about that, whether she ought to seize his remark as an opening. “It must get lonely over there,” she said, not quite achieving the casual tone she’d tried for. She gave a nervous little laugh. “I mean, I know how it must have felt coming back here … I mean, with all the talk …” She trailed off uncertainly. “Listen, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“It’s okay. You’re right, it does get a little lonesome at times.”

“Can I ask you something?”

He hesitated, looking wary, but then nodded. “Okay.”

“Why did you come back here?”

He sipped at his wine, avoiding her eye, and she could tell he was thinking about how to answer her. “I had nowhere else to go,” he said eventually.

She felt rebuffed, and a flush of heat rose to her face. It was a pat answer that obviously had nothing to do with his real reasons, reasons he obviously didn’t want to talk about. “I’m sorry. It’s really none of my business, is it? Listen, I’m going to get Jamie upstairs. Just relax, and we’ll eat when I come down. Make yourself at home.” She left the room before he could say anything.

Once she had Jamie in bed, she told him he could read for a while; then she went into the bathroom. She splashed water on her face and dried off, staring at her reflection. She didn’t know why she felt the way she did, nervous and awkward, why she’d felt the need to hurry from the kitchen. When she went back down, she took a breath and smiled as she walked into the kitchen. He was standing by the window, looking at her copper pots hanging from the ceiling.

“Okay. It’s just a casserole,” she said, downplaying her efforts. “But there’s plenty of it, so I hope you’re feeling hungry.”

“It smells good.”

They sat down to eat, their conversation more stilted than before, as if they were both uncomfortable with the situation. Eventually, he put down his cutlery.

“Look, I didn’t mean to cut you off earlier. I’m not used to talking about myself.”

“That’s okay. I understand.”

“No, it’s not okay. You asked me why I came back here, and the truth is, the things that landed me in jail started here, when I was a kid. I thought coming back here might help me to understand some of them, and myself, and maybe help me to put it all behind me.”

Susan thought about that for a second. “And is it working?”

He frowned, toying with his glass. “I don’t know.”

She decided to take a chance, now that he was sort of opening up. “Can I ask you something else?”

He half smiled. “Sure.”

“What were you thinking about when I came in the room earlier? You were looking at those copper pots, and you had this funny kind of expression, I don’t know, maybe wistful or something.”

He shrugged, smiling again. “It’s nothing, really. I was just thinking about how the light gleamed in them, kind of deep and soft. Warm. I always thought of copper pans like that, as a homey thing.” He gestured about the kitchen. “This room is like that.”

She wondered what he was comparing it to—maybe the hospital he’d been in, or prison, or the house where he lived now. He had a far-off look in his eye, as if he was thinking of something else. He finished his meal and put down his fork.

“The food was terrific. Thank you.”

She’d hardly noticed her own, eating without tasting. “There’s more.”

2)4

a

“Thanks, but I’m full, really.”

He rose with her as she started to clear the table, and though she told him to relax, he insisted. He helped her prepare dessert, a fruit salad for which she whipped up a little cream. While she did that, he made coffee. As they moved around the work space together, they brushed against each other, and she could smell his cologne. Her heart was beating a little too fast, she thought, and there was a slight tension in the air, or was it her? He seemed relaxed enough, maintaining his slight reserve.

Over coffee, she told him about David, about how she’d come to be in Little River. “It was never what I planned,” she finished up. Talking about David made her feel a vague unease, and her eye went to his picture, pinned to the bulletin board on the wall. Michael followed her look. “Did you know him?” she asked, realizing suddenly that they were around the same age and would have gone to school together.

“Not really,” he answered.

A silence fell over them, each reflective, and when he finished his coffee and said he ought to be going, in a way she was relieved. She felt suddenly like being alone. On the porch, he thanked her for the meal.

“Anytime,” she said, and closed the door.

WHEN HE GOT back to his house, Michael sat on the porch, nursing a whiskey and thinking about how much Susan’s kitchen had reminded him of what he’d missed in his life over the past few years. A home. A family. But it also brought darker thoughts to mind. Once he’d had those things, and it had ended with him waving a gun while his family cowered in terror. He stared up at the sky, at the deep black infinite space lit with distant stars, and felt its emptiness surround him, felt no more significant than a speck of dust.

ELLIS LEFT HIS TRUCK OUT OF SIGHT, back in the trees, and walked the last half mile or so to where Michael’s Nissan was pulled off the road. By the time he reached it, he was wheezing and breathless. He had a headache that made him wince and a thirst he couldn’t quench. When he’d stopped at the gas station earlier to buy a packet of aspirin, he’d grabbed a can of Coke; now he wished he’d bought a couple more while he was at it. He’d chewed half a dozen of the aspirin while he drove, washing them down with the Coke, but they hadn’t done him much good. Now he was sweating inside his parka, and every so often he felt as if his stomach were rising up into his throat. He leaned against the Nissan to get his breath, spat into the snow, and swore softly.

He looked toward the ridge: Somers and the Baker kid were out there. He couldn’t tell what they were doing until he looked through his glasses, and then he could see the falcon. It was flying around in a high, wide circle, then coming in toward Somers, who was swinging something on a line. After watching for a while, Ellis dropped the glasses. He guessed that whatever they were doing they’d be there for a while, and he started back toward his truck.

A WEEK EARLIER Ellis had woke with a hangover thinking about what Coop had said the night before: “What I’d do is go get the damn bird back.” Those had been his exact words. Ellis was trying to figure out if he’d heard him right—and if he had, then what the

236

a

hell was going on? He thought he must have got it wrong somehow, but the more he thought about it, the more he knew he hadn’t. One thing was for sure: Coop sure as hell wasn’t doing him any favors because they were such great buddies or anything. He must have had his own reasons for saying what he did, but Ellis couldn’t think what the hell they might be.

He was considering it that morning while the kids were getting ready for school, and he was so absorbed he didn’t even hear them leave. Rachel came back into kitchen and put on some fresh coffee, then asked him if he was planning on going to the yard.

“Yeah,” he said. She was standing at the counter, watching him.

“What’re you thinking?” she asked.

He couldn’t tell her about Coop, of course, so he said it was just work. She didn’t say anything, just watched him steadily over the rim of her cup. He wondered if she’d been up again in the night, smoking cigarettes in the dark, thinking about whatever was on her mind.

It worried him when she became thoughtful these days. Sometimes he felt like he didn’t exist, like she was off someplace in her mind. She was a lot smarter than he was, he knew that. She probably thought that if she hadn’t married him, she could have done something better with her life than get saddled with kids and a whole lot of bills to worry about. But no. He knew how much she loved those kids. She’d do just about anything for them.

She turned away, saying she had to get ready for work, and he watched her wash up the breakfast dishes. She was wearing a robe over her nightgown, and when she moved, the material stretched over her hips. It had been a long time since they’d lain together on the big bed upstairs. That was one place where things had always felt right for them, no matter what else was going on.

Sometimes when he’d been lying between her legs, he’d look down at her face as he moved inside her. Her eyes would be closed, her mouth a little bit open so he could see the tips of her teeth, and she’d be kind of smiling in a way that made him think of some sleek cat that had found itself a warm place to lie after a big bowl of cream. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d had sex, the last time the old springs had creaked underneath them and she’d slid a pillow under her butt to raise up her hips.

He got up and stood behind her at the sink, and she knew he was

there. He felt her stiffen, but she just went on with what she was doing. He wanted to reach around her waist and hold her, but in the end he didn’t touch her. When he left, he called out that he would be late. But he didn’t know if she’d answered him.

The day after that, Red Parker had said he needed someone to help him with a load he was taking to Calgary. Red had asked Ellis if he wanted to make a few bucks if the yard wasn’t busy, and not being in a position to refuse, Ellis had gone along for the ride. As it turned out, they’d been gone a week; Red had picked up some work while they were in Calgary, and they’d taken a couple of days to get back. Ellis had spent the last of the money he’d made in a cowboy bar in Williams Lake, though he couldn’t remember much about the night except for a couple of women who’d sat at their table drinking with him and Red until the money had run out. Soon as they knew that, those girls had been up and gone in a snap.

Now that he was back again, and broke, Ellis had turned his thoughts again to Michael Somers and the falcon.

WHEN HE GOT back down to the road into town, Ellis turned off when he reached the Somers place. He took his time looking around, since he knew he wouldn’t be disturbed. Out back in the woodshed, a perch had been rigged up. Judging from the white splashing on the ground, Ellis guessed that this was where Somers kept the falcon. He noted that there was no lock on the door. While he was there, he had a look around the rest of the house, climbing up on the porch and peering in the windows. The rooms he could see had a kind of un-lived-in look. The furniture was old, and everything was in place as if somebody had walked out years ago and never come back.

When he’d seen enough, Ellis got back into his truck and headed to the yard. He made a call to Prince George and waited until Tusker picked up the phone.

“This is Pete Ellis,” he said.

“I’m busy, Ellis, you’ll have to call later.”

He could sense that the son of a bitch was about to hang up on him and said quickly, “If you don’t want that gyr falcon, I guess I can sell it to somebody else.”

2} 8

There was a short silence while Tusker thought about it. “Are we talking about the falcon you were going to bring me weeks ago, Ellis? Is that still the same bird?”

Ellis allowed that Tusker was entitled to be a little doubtful after the way things had turned out, but he guessed that if Tusker wasn’t interested, he really would have hung up.

“This time I’ve got it.”

Another pause. “You actually have, Ellis? Because you know I’ve got better things to do than this. I already made myself look stupid to a client once. I don’t want to do that again.”

“I said I had it, didn’t I?” Ellis said.

“All right, then. It’s definitely a gyr?”

Ellis didn’t even respond to that. “So, are we talking about the same kind of money?” he asked instead.

“Fifteen hundred.”

“We agreed on two thousand.”

“That was then,” Tusker said. “I incurred expenses.”

Ellis gripped the phone hard until his knuckles were white. People like Tusker were always jostling for an edge, always looking to make an extra buck out of somebody else’s work. He wondered what kind of expenses Tusker had that amounted to five hundred bucks. Maybe a phone call or two.

“Fuck you,” Ellis said.

“Wait a minute.”

“What?”

There was a pause, then Tusker said reluctantly, “I guess I could make it seventeen hundred.” Ellis thought about it, and Tusker added quickly, “You put me to a lot of trouble last time, Ellis.”

Ellis gritted his teeth and thought, What the hell. He agreed to deliver the falcon the following day.

It was strange, though, when he thought about it. The money wasn’t going to change his life, he knew that. It was going to take more than seventeen hundred bucks just to pay off the bank loans. But it wasn’t about just the money anymore; maybe it never had been. It was about doing something right for once in his damn life. It was about proving something to Rachel. He could still take her out, they could have dinner somewhere and they would talk and maybe somehow they’d get back to where they’d started from. He was pretty sure everything would work out if they could just do that.