Broken Bones. Gina McMurchy-Barber
have such a colourful way of putting things, Peggy. But actually I don’t look at it that way. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you realize that not everyone who does a bad thing is a bad person. Now I agree there needs to be a consequence for those who vandalize sites or break the law in any way, but I tend to want to punish the act or the behaviour and not the person.”
“Oh, please! That’s such a grown-up response. Don’t you ever want to take a person like that and pull out all their nose hairs?”
Eddy laughed. “Well, Peggy, like I said, things are never as cut and dried as they seem. For example, take the man who steals to feed his starving children.”
“Eddy, we were talking about people who vandalize sites and stuff.”
“Yes, well, when it comes to the individual responsible for vandalizing the old Pioneer Cemetery in Golden, I’m going to reserve my opinion until I know more about the whole matter.” Eddy laughed when I shook my head. “You know, this isn’t the first time that cemetery was vandalized.”
That made me sit up. “Yeah, I kind of remember now that Aunt Norma wrote something about that, but I don’t know the whole story.”
“Right, well, a long time ago the town’s only homeless guy, old Billy Pearson, got thirsty one day — and not for milk, if you know what I mean. Billy didn’t have any money, but it so happened he was one of the few people who knew about the abandoned Pioneer Cemetery. He found one of the graves and dug down until he came to the casket, smashed in the top, and removed the skull. Then he took it to the pub, set it on the bar, and asked, ‘Will this get me a beer or two?’ Well, the bartender gave him a beer just to keep him busy until he could get the RCMP to come.”
“Did they put Billy in jail or fine him?”
“Aw, no … Billy was a simple-minded old fellow, a real character. He was the kind of guy everyone in a small town looked out for. He was charged with a misdemeanour and made to promise he’d never do it again, that’s all.”
I had to scratch my head at that one. I mean, where I came from, digging up someone’s grave was a crime.
“Unfortunately, a while later, some teens found the old cemetery, too, and made a real mess of things. The town decided they’d better get some help, so a crew of archaeologists came and excavated a large portion of the cemetery.”
I was in the middle of figuring out what I wanted to say to those subhuman teenagers when Eddy let out a yell that made me nearly jump out the window.
“Yahoo! It’s the Last Spike!”
I stared at her and wondered if her tightly wound hair had cut off the circulation to her brain.
“Sorry if I startled you. It’s just that we’re coming up to one of the neatest little pieces of Canadian history. I’ll show you.”
We pulled off the highway and entered a parking lot with a sign that read: WELCOME TO LAST SPIKE PROVINCIAL PARK, CRAIGELLACHIE, B.C. For the next twenty minutes Eddy told me the history of the building of the railway across Canada.
“It was an amazing accomplishment,” she explained. “It took thousands of labourers to build it — men who came from Italy, England, Ireland, United States, and China. Unfortunately, a lot of people suffered because of the railway, too. The Chinese were exploited and paid only half of what the Europeans got. The First Nations were forced to give up land. And the thousands of men who lost their lives or limbs were never compensated for their sacrifices.”
I remembered seeing a picture in social studies of the day they hammered in the Last Spike and completed Canada’s first cross-country railway — the Canadian Pacific. What I never understood was why they let some old guy named Donald A. Smith be the one to go down in history by driving in that Last Spike, especially when it took tens of thousands of men fifteen years to build the railway.
We stayed at Last Spike Park until we finished off our sandwiches and apple slices. Then we were back on the road again. It wasn’t long before the light began to fade. As it got darker, stars appeared. At first there were just a few, but soon there were thousands … maybe millions of them. The only time I’d seen anything remotely like it was at the Vancouver Planetarium where Harold, the big star projector, lit up the domed ceiling to make it look like a night sky. When you lived in the city, you only got to see the brightest stars, those few still visible despite the harsh light pollution coming from office towers, street lamps, and the orangey glow of greenhouses growing tomatoes in the winter. But no matter how many stars were in the night sky it always made me feel mushy knowing they were the same ones my ancestors had looked at, or the early pioneers before them, and even farther back, the first people who walked this land. It gave me a buzz to think how we’d all followed those same stars, wishing on them, sleeping under them. I scooched down in my seat and rested my head against the window so I could peer up at that night sky as we peeled down that black highway.
It must have been at least midnight when we finally pulled into Golden. By then my butt was numb and my eyes were blurry. Eddy found Aunt Norma’s house pretty easily, probably because it was right next to the police station. When I got to the front door, there weren’t any lights on, only a note. I pulled it down and read it by the truck headlights.
Hi, kiddo,
Welcome to Golden. I’m over at the newspaper office working on some last-minute news for the Saturday paper. I shouldn’t be too long. Just come in and make yourself at home. We’ll get caught up when I get back.
Love,
Aunt Norma
P.S. The door isn’t locked — never is! In fact, the only places that get locked around here are the bank and the jail.
I turned the knob and pushed the squeaky door open, but nearly jumped off the landing when something sleek and black bolted out and skimmed past my leg. “Licorice! You startled me.” I was pretty sure my aunt’s cat didn’t give two hoots about how I felt, though he did stop to give me a second glance before darting into the night.
My hand fumbled around the wall, searching for the light switch. When I finally flicked it on, I looked over the room and wasn’t sure where I should step or put my backpack. Unlike Aunt Margaret’s house, which was so clean and orderly you were afraid to sit down, Aunt Norma’s place was a disaster. Mugs and newspapers were all over the coffee table, and balled-up socks, more newspapers, a cribbage board, and a box of crackers occupied the sofa. I glanced into the kitchen where dishes were piled by the sink. And there was no way to miss the musky smell that must have been cat poop mixed with kitty litter.
“I feel at home already,” I pronounced, smiling.
Eddy raised her eyebrows and grinned back. “Yeah, me, too! Are you okay being here alone until your aunt gets home?”
I nodded.
“Okay, well, then I think I’m going to get on over to Mary’s Motel. I’m feeling like a zombie. I’ll give you a call in the morning — make that late morning!”
I watched her drive off and closed the door.
The first thing was to make a place to sit down. I moved some of the stuff off the sofa and put it on top of all the other things on the coffee table. I thought maybe I’d watch some TV until Aunt Norma came home, but after hunting around for it I finally figured out that there wasn’t one. Instead the rooms were filled with neat stacks of books. They were heaped in the corner and on top of the dining room table, and along one entire wall shelves were crammed with them. The other thing I noticed was all the yellow Post-it Notes stuck randomly everywhere. I read some: “Check out what make of vehicle Brenner drives.” “Council meeting Friday — bring camera.” “Shopping list — cat food, dish soap, frozen corn, maple syrup.” “Peggy coming Friday — get milk.” She had weird quotes, too, like: “‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’ — Shakespeare.”
With no TV to watch and much too tired to read, I curled up at one end of the sofa next to some old