The Western Light (14 page)

22

A MONTH LATER, AFTER I WAS BACK AT SCHOOL, I TOOK THE shortcut home. I heard the melancholy plink-plink of a harmonica drifting down from the maple trees. The harmonica was playing “Happy Trails to You.” I was wearing my Lone Ranger cowboy hat. Startled, I gazed up into the clouds of yellow leaves; and, from somewhere in the branches, a man's voice called: “Howdy, cowgirl. Can't you see me?”

I craned my neck so far back my hat fell off. “Over here, eh?” When I looked in the direction of the voice, John Pilkie was grinning at me through the maple leaves. The frost had turned the trees a deep gold and the sunlight streaming through the yellow leaves seemed to be coming from him. The effect stopped my breath, and it struck me, staring up at him in the fall sunbeams, that human goodness was an emanation of light, and that Morley's light was so big and bright it washed over all us in Madoc's Landing. Like the sun, it shone on everybody, although it moved past me so fast it barely warmed my face. Of course, Morley's light had a long way to go. It had to stretch south to Lake Ontario and north up the wild shores of Georgian Bay. There were no limits to Morley's light except this physical limits of Morley himself. John's light, like the pool of sunshine by my feet, was only big enough to light up one or two people. But weren't most of us the same? We were kind to our family, and maybe a few others. Except that John had let his circle of light dwindle to almost nothing after he set his house ablaze.

“What are you doing up there?” I called.

Leaning over the branch, he pulled back his lips. Then he stuck his thumbs in his ears and waggled his tongue at me. “Guess I'm just being my crazy old self, eh?”

I froze.
Mouse Bradford
, Hindrance hissed,
You're alone in the woods with a cold-blooded murderer
.

Above me, he coughed his low, hollow cough. “Look, Mary, you're safe, eh? Sometimes I make bad jokes, okay?” When I dared to look at him again, his face was back to normal, and he pointed through the trees at a man standing by the hospital's maple sugar shack. Jordie Coverdale saw us looking. Raising his beer can at us, he disappeared inside.

“You remember Jordie? Well, Jordie treats me better than the other guards, so I play a tune or two to keep him happy. See if you know this one.” He blew three times on his harmonica and exclaimed in a loud, shrill voice: “A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty ‘Hi-yo, Silver!' It's the Lone Ranger! Hip-hip, Hooray!” There was an answering “hip-hip, hooray” from inside the sugar shack, and the sound of Jordie laughing. I couldn't help laughing myself. When I stopped, John said: “I guess you're wondering why I'm not in Maple Ridge. Well, this is our little secret. It doesn't hurt anybody if Jordie lets me get a little air. So listen, Mary. I want you to understand something. The day Peggy and my little girl left this world was the saddest day of my life.” He cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice sounded husky, as if he'd been crying, although the light filtering through the yellow maple leaves made it hard to read his expression. “Nobody believes me, but honest to God, if I'd been in my right mind, I wouldn't have harmed a hair on Peggy's head. My hockey injury made it hard for me to think straight, eh? I'm better now and I'm asking them to review my case. Maybe your daddy will put in a good word for me. He's the only one who can talk sense into that fool running the Bug House.”

“My father thinks your concussion made you punch-drunk.”

“Well, your daddy's right. But that's enough of that. Take a look at this.”

Something small and papery fluttered to the ground. “Pick it up, Mary. It won't bite.” I wondered if he was toying with me, but I picked it up anyway. It was a photo of him gripping his stick and glaring at an unseen opponent. He wore his Detroit Red Wings sweater. “Gentleman Jack Pilkie” was written across the bottom of the picture in round, curling letters.

“The photo was taken seventeen years ago — when I was nineteen. My assist won us the Stanley Cup that year. Sometimes an assist is better than a goal. You can't score without teamwork, eh?”

It sounded like something Sal would say: that it was better to help out behind the scenes than assume the vainglorious — and I knew I was using the adjective properly — the vainglorious role of winner.

“Will you give Doc Bradford my photo and tell him I'll play for the Muskrats if he gets me a review of my case?”

I put the photo in my pocket, nodding.

“Are you going to come up here with me? Or should I come down to you?” he asked.

“You'd better stay in the tree, Mr. Pilkie.”

“Okey-dokey. I'll do what you say.” He held out an Oh Henry! chocolate bar. “Jordie gets these for me at the tuck shop. I like to give all my girls candy.”

I took his chocolate bar without letting my fingers touch his hand.

“I bet your boyfriend wouldn't take candy from me.”

“Ben's not my boyfriend.”

“Is that his name? Well, you're braver than he is. Now I'm going to tell you the story of your daddy taking out my appendix. Where will I start? The Pilkies were nobodies, Mary. Your family is town royalty on account of Doc Bradford, but people didn't notice when we left in the spring for the Light or when we came back after freeze-up. And we didn't care, either. If winter came early, I played hockey on a patch of ice behind the breakwater. Daddy Pilkie would strap pillows to his knees and play goalie so I could practise my slapshots.”

“Was it lonely at the Light?”

“My folks used to call our island ‘Little Alcatraz' so that gives you the general idea.”

“What did you eat?”

“If my daddy didn't catch any bass, we ate seagull eggs, tinned vegetables, and bacon. Mother Pilkie had to clean the bacon with vinegar to rid it of mould. But no more questions until I finish my story.”

The Tale of John Pilkie's Appendix

 

“The night in question I was seven years old and feeling poorly. Daddy Pilkie said I couldn't go to bed. My daddy's assistant, Ralphie Bowman, was taking a weekend off and my daddy wanted me to take Ralphie's place. We still had the old coal-oil beacon, so every four hours we had to charge the engines and crank up the weights that turned the Light. Daddy Pilkie said the chores would make a man of me, but I was bound and determined to remain a boy.

“That Friday in November, I woke up in the middle of the night. The wind was howling, and the waves were pounding my bedroom wall. Pretty soon, the west wall and the windows were iced up solid. The force from the waves hitting the house pushed my bed across the floor so it hit the opposite wall. This always happened in a high wind. You can still see the tracks my bed carved in the floor.”

“I saw the marks,” I exclaimed. “Sal said the dog made them.”

“Did she, now? Well, bless her heart. Sal's wrong. My bed made those marks and Mother Pilkie was forever painting them over. But imagine how scared we were. Aside from the coal beacon burning inside the lantern gallery, you couldn't see another light on the Bay. The government dock was taking a battering and the waves froze solid when they hit the wooden boards of our house. The sound was terrifying, eh? Like the noise of unset concrete hitting something solid. Ordinarily, a storm wouldn't bother my old man. He'd say, ‘Let her rip. It can't hurt us now.' “But that night he wasn't saying anything of the kind, because I was wailing like a banshee. I wouldn't stop no matter how much he swore at me. So Mother Pilkie made Daddy Pilkie call Doc Bradford on the ship-to-shore radio. She knew something worse than the flu was going on. When my daddy tapped the right side of my belly button, I yelped, and Doc Bradford said it sounded like appendicitis. He told my daddy to bring me to town and my daddy told Doc Bradford there was no way he could bring me in, so Doc Bradford said that my daddy would have to operate on me at the Light. He promised to walk my daddy through it, step by step, and said everything would go like clockwork.

“My daddy started sharpening the butcher knife on Mother Pilkie's whetstone. I began to cry. I was just a little tyke, and I thought Daddy Pilkie meant to kill me. Mother Pilkie stroked my forehead and said she would take a teeny drop of Seagram's Rye, if I would too. Mother Pilkie didn't drink, so I knew this was serious and I drank so much whisky I was drunk as a skunk by the time Daddy Pilkie lay me down on the kitchen table. I can still see it — white Formica top with black trim, government-issue, that type of thing. I promised Doc Bradford I'd be brave, but when Daddy Pilkie yanked off my pyjama bottoms I shook all over. The next thing I knew my daddy stuffed a leather belt in my mouth and tried to tie me to the table. I broke free and ran outside. It was blowing so hard I nearly fell over. I had to hold on to the railing with one hand and my side with the other. Somehow I made it to the Light. Inside, I locked the door and started up the stairs to the gallery. I didn't get very far because my stomach hurt like the dickens. I sat in the dark, listening to the weights hit the wall as if some giant was smacking the lighthouse. I always hated the thudding sound, and that night the thud-thud-thud was so loud, I didn't hear Daddy Pilkie outside jigging the lock. But in walked my daddy waving a knife, and I passed out. Afterwards, Mother Pilkie said the kitchen floor looked like Daddy Pilkie had gutted a bass. Are you okay, Mary?”

“Yes,” I said in a small voice. The idea of being cut open like a fish had me squeezing my legs together in case I wet my pants. “I woke up to the noise of a plane. The coast guard decided to come when Doc Bradford told them I was only seven. I guess they felt sorry for me, being so young and sick way out there. By that time, the waves had shrunk to rollers, so Daddy Pilkie rowed me out to the seaplane. I don't remember flying to Madoc's Landing or Doc Bradford waiting for me on the town dock. His operation saved my life, because I was doing poorly again. But you know what? It wasn't my daddy who took out my appendix. Mother Pilkie did the job with her kitchen knife, because my daddy lost his nerve. Doc Bradford told Mother Pilkie it was up to her. You wouldn't think Doc Bradford could talk her into it, but he did. He said the appendix lies right next to the skin so it would be easy to cut it out.

“Afterwards, Mother Pilkie claimed that your daddy on the ship-to-shore radio was like the voice of God come to deliver us Pilkies from our troubles. So there! It was your daddy and Mother Pilkie who saved me. What do you think of that?”

“Big Louie says nobody gives women credit for things.”

John didn't laugh. “Well, she's right. Look, thanks for listening. One of these days, you'll tell me how you got polio. Sharing our stories will make us friends for life. Oh-oh, do you see what I see?”

Jordie Coverdale came out of the sugar shack and pointed up the trail. John jumped down from the tree and loped off into the sugar bush without saying goodbye. It was what you do, if you're in a hurry; leave without saying goodbye. I expected it of Morley, but I didn't expect it of John — although he had no choice. Jordie motioned for me to go. Without another word, I hurried away down the trail, dragging Hindrance behind me.

23

I WALKED THE REST OF THE WAY HOME, THINKING HARD. MOUSE Bradford, you have just had a heart-to-heart with the hockey killer. Have you no common sense? But wasn't it the best story you ever heard? And doesn't it make you jealous to think of John getting Morley's attention for a whole night?

Walking in our front door, I took a giddy, self-important breath. I don't care what Hindrance says, I told myself.
John chose you to be his messenger
. I retrieved one of Morley's medical textbooks and looked up the definition of appendicitis. It was called a lumen, a worm-like growth at the opening of the large intestine. (“Lumen” is definitely a Morley word.) If it wasn't taken out lickety-split, an infected lumen could kill you. I hated thinking about worm-like growths in our bodies, waiting to hurt us, but if I had been at the Western Light instead of John, no one could have persuaded me to lie down on the table and let myself be cut open. I would have jumped out the window first.

FROM MORLEY'S DRESSER, I BORROWED a snapshot of my father as a college hockey player and compared it with the photo of John standing by himself on a rink gripping his hockey stick. His smile was wide and reckless and his Red Wings sweater with the famous winged insignia appeared brand new, like his skates. His shiny black hair fell over his left eye, and he looked lonesome, and menacing. “I will score the next goal,” he seemed to be saying, “And may the Lord help and protect you, if you stand in my way.”

In his photo, Morley stood with his teammates. He wore a frayed shirt, because he gave his good wool sweater to Dr. Shulman, whose father was even poorer than Morley's dad, Duke Bradford. The photograph showed Morley in his prime, and my father did look young and brainy, with his kind, sad eyes, and his hair parted in the middle of his forehead, making two black wings. The young men standing with my father were dressed in different sweaters and pairs of padded shorts. Morley's university had no money for sports uniforms, so the players had to come up with their own outfits.

I put Morley's photograph back and stuck the photo that John gave me under my sweater.

I SAT DOWN BREATHLESSLY AT the place Sal had set for me, and smiled at Morley who was coming in for dinner. The late night edition of
The Telegram
with the stock listing on its pink pages was under his arm. Unfortunately, Morley wore his Other Worldly Stare (i.e., the lofted eyebrows that meant somebody was seriously ill). I felt terrible for him having a patient at death's door, but I was counting on John's photograph to get Morley's attention back on the living. Morley lowered himself into his chair, his eyes flicking over to the telephone that Sal had set down next to his placemat. Now my aunt breezed in carrying a volume of poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

“I have something important to say,” I announced.

“Go ahead, kid. Spill the beans,” Little Louie said.

“I — I — saw — somebody my father knows —”

Morley yawned as if he hadn't heard me, and I found myself clinging to the arms of my chair. Slowly but surely, my body was growing lighter. Soon I would be as weightless as a cloud drifting across a mountain face. Then, per usual, the phone rang. My father picked up the receiver with his long-fingered surgeon's hands that could poke around in a boy's stomach without killing him. “Oh, it's black, is it? Have you been taking iron pills? No. It should be yellowish-brown and shaped like a banana. You'd better come and see me this week.”

My aunt giggled and, for a second, I forgot John's photograph and giggled too. Morley put down the phone and trained his kind, sad eyes on Sal, striding in with our mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes were Morley's favourite and mine, too, and this serving bore my aunt's signature: a pinch of paprika and fork marks that marched like ski tracks up the snowy peaks. Morley and I preferred my aunt's potatoes, because she whipped them with an electric beater and applied extra dollops of butter and cream. Sal beat them by hand with a big fork, using only a drop or two of milk.

“Dr. Bradford, Mary has something to tell us,” my aunt said.

“Pardon, Louisa?”

“Tell us, Mary,” my aunt commanded.

“I saw John Pilkie today. He was in the old sugar bush.”

“That's enough, Lady Jane,” Sal said, setting down the mashed potatoes.

“I'm not telling tales!” I took out the photo of John in his Detroit hockey sweater and showed it to Morley. “John told me to give you this. He says he'll play for your hockey team if you help him get a review of his case.”

Morley grabbed the photo and brought it close to his face. “He wants to play hockey again, does he?” The snapshot had pressed a button inside my father, springing him to life.

“Shouldn't we call the police?” my aunt asked.

My father met my aunt's gaze. “Louisa, everything's going to be fine. Pilkie doesn't leave the grounds. He does chores with that Coverdale fellow, but the other prisoners have complained so Rob is putting an end to it.”

“Dr. Shulman is pretty lenient, isn't he?” my aunt said. Morley nodded and began gulping down her potatoes. I waited for him to tell us how Dr. Shulman was going to stop John from doing what he wanted, but Morley kept bolting down his food, his eyes on his plate. The phone rang again and Morley picked it up. “Who is it this time?” my aunt asked. “Cap Lefroy,” my father said. He stood up, tucking John's photo into his vest pocket.

“Thanks for the photo, Mary!” he called on his way out the door.

I couldn't believe my ears. My father was pleased with me. And there was something else. Morley coached the Madoc's Landing Muskrats, because he was too old to play hockey himself and John was smart enough to know just how much hockey mattered to a man like my father.