The Stubborn Season. Lauren B. Davis
wait for you,” Margaret said.
“As you like, my dear.” He kissed her cheek. She smiled up at him, just as she should. He waved at Irene and told himself it would be just a short, quick walk, and his two girls would be fine together.
He lifted the latch on the back gate, stepped out into the alley and started toward Carlton Street. The Rupert was not open for business on a Sunday, but there was always a place or two in Cabbagetown where if a man knew the right people he could get something with which to wet his whistle.
A week later, Irene had a nightmare. She was in the yard of a house where she shouldn’t be, although she’d lived there once. It was an empty white house, filled with the kind of silence that made you think someone waited behind the door to jump out at you. She had to get out before anybody caught her, and she started to run up a great snow hill. She hadn’t taken more than five or six steps when the crust broke and she plunged into a hole. She stopped, but could feel nothing below her but soft snow that could give at any moment. Her hands were trapped at her sides, and the daylight, the lip of the hole, was such a long way above her head. Someone was out there and she called softly, afraid if she filled her lungs to scream that she would push the snow aside and tumble down into the middle of the earth, or else the snow would fall in and she would suffocate. She whispered a thin, “Help me!” A face appeared at the top of the hole, silhouetted against the unforgiving blue sky. It was her father’s face, yet she was not reassured, for she couldn’t tell from the look on his face if he had any interest in rescuing her.
She woke up crying, but she did not cry out. It was the first time she had not called for her parents after a nightmare. Soon she fell asleep again, and when she woke to the morning sound of sparrows in the hedge, she had no recollection of the dream.
1930
Just outside of Estevan, David runs alongside the moving train. His feet slip and twist on the gravel. He hears a voice hollering and looks up. A face, and hands reach out for him, and with a final burst of speed, muscles nearly snapping, he grabs for them and jumps. For a moment he dangles, legs dangerously near the churning wheels, and then, with a rasp of wood along stomach, he is in the car.
"Come on, young fella, you're all right now." The man is maybe thirty, maybe fifty, his face stamped with sleeplessness and hunger. He wears a cap low over his eyes and a lumber jacket that smells of wood smoke and long wear.
The boxcar is clotted with shadows, and his eyes will not adjust. He feels blind and a little dizzy. He lies gasping on the wooden boards, hugging his pack, too winded to say thank you.
"First time?" says the man after a few minutes.
He nods, swallowing hard. The man’s voice is low and sounds kind.
“You gotta grab the ladder, boy, don’t try and jump in an open door. You’ll slip that way; lose a leg if you’re not careful. What's your name?"
He tells him and as he does his voice cracks.
Laughter comes from a pitch-dark space in the corner. He turns toward it, but can make out only a blacker shadow within the first one.
"Christ, how old are you?" This voice does not sound as kind.
"Old enough to take care of myself."
"Sure you are, son," says the man who'd hauled him through the door. He holds out his hand. "My name's Jim. That's Fred in the back there. We travel together. You just leave home?"
The hurt of it is still inside him. He had not told his father he was leaving. Could not bear seeing how his parting would add to the old man’s worries, seeing new lines corrode his vein-threaded cheeks. His father spoke so little these days, just raked his fingers through his whitened beard, looked at the sky, rubbed earth between his fingers and shook his head. But staying meant worries, too. With Toba and the new baby and no money to build another room. Jacob had now found a girl and would marry in the autumn. His father could move to the loft, but the boy would have to move to the barn. He’d told his brothers of his plans, and they promised to give his letter to their father after he was gone. He would be back, he vowed, and with some money in his pocket. He’d hire out as a hand for the season and return in fall, in time for harvest. Isaac squinted up into the cloudless, rainless blue and then spit on the ground. His brothers said there was nothing out there, shuffled their big feet in the dirt, but didn’t try to stop him. They knew a bad year was coming. They knew they might be hard pressed to feed all these mouths. And they understood the road-lust. They’d never gone farther than Estevan, and he could see his own restlessness mirrored in their eyes.
“Yeah, left a couple of days ago.” He shakes the man's hand. The grate of callus against callus.
"Where's home?"
"Not far from here."
“Farmer?”
He says he was, and the man nods as though this explains everything. They are from Winnipeg themselves, they say, and warn him there is no work to be found in the cities.
"I'm gonna find work," says the boy, and the man in the shadows laughs again.
"Ain't we all," he mutters.
"Never mind Fred. He's just out of sorts ’cause we ain't eaten much lately."
"I got a loaf of bread in my pack."
"We'd be obliged," says Jim.
The man named Fred steps out of the shadows. He is bigger than he'd seemed and his face is covered with pockmarks. One arm of his jacket is pinned up and empty. He stands too close and makes David uncomfortable. He can smell the sweetish, unwashed scent of him.
"I'd say you're no more than fourteen, boy," he says. "Young and pretty."
"Leave him alone, Fred. He's just a kid."
Jim puts his arm around David's shoulder and says, "Let's just take a look at what all you've got in there, son." Then he takes hold of the pack. For a second they are both holding it, then Jim's arm grows tighter around his shoulder and the man begins to turn him toward the open door. The train has picked up speed and the ground is a blur.
"Nothing in here can be that important, now, can it?" Jim says, and Fred moves to the boy’s other side.
He lets go. The two men kneel down and rummage in the knapsack.
"Well, looky here," says Fred. "Mama put a right nice parcel together. Cheese and bread and clean shorts and all. Bet she even told you to keep your money in your boot, now, didn't she?"
"That true, son?" says Jim.
Jim holds him down while Fred strips off his boots.
"My, my, my," says Jim. "There's five dollars here. We can't let you walk around with that in your boot. You might get a blister."
Fred laughs and bites into a hunk of cheese.
"You bastards," David hisses.
"Ah, now he don't like us anymore. And after you helped him up into the car and all. That's gratitude for ya."
"Guess you won't want to stay, then," says Jim.
The train comes to a bend and there is a long slope outside the door. As it slows down a little, they push him out. He lands on his shoulder and rolls. As he scrambles upright, tears streaming down his face, they throw out the half-empty pack and his boots.
He wants to go home then, but knows he will not. He knows this is the way the world is. He understands there will be many more moments like this one, when he will be aching for his brothers and for his own bed and the hay-sweet smell of the barn and the sound of the dog barking and the feel of his father’s hand on the back of his neck and the lull of his father saying a blessing over the bread.
It begins to drizzle.
He limps down the line and picks up his boots and pack. He wipes the tears away with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of