Saltus. Tara Gereaux

      Nightwood Editions

      P.O. Box 1779

      Gibsons, bc v0n 1v0

      Canada

       www.nightwoodeditions.com

      Cover design: Angela Yen

      Typesetting: Shed Simas / Onça Design

      Nightwood Editions acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the bc Arts Council.

      This book has been produced on 100% post-consumer recycled, ancient-forest-free paper, processed chlorine-free and printed with vegetable-based dyes.

      Printed and bound in Canada.

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Title: Saltus / Tara Gereaux.

      Names: Gereaux, Tara, 1975- author.

      Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020035311X | Canadiana (ebook) 20200353128 | ISBN 9780889714007 (softcover) | ISBN 9780889714014 (HTML)

      Classification: LCC PS8613.E734 S25 2021 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

      for gavin and jack

      my own two superheroes

      Preface

      Saltus is a fictional account of a real event that happened in my hometown. When it happened, I had been living outside the province for several years, but it still rocked me. I was stunned by the harrowing act of desperation and by all the factors that may have led to such a decision. I was also fixated on the people in town who may have been involved. As years passed, I continued to think about this, and about my own experiences growing up in that town and hanging out in that hotel. I started to wonder how such an event might have impacted the lives of the people involved and the decisions they might make. How would it reverberate? This is how the story began.

      Embarking on writing this novel forced me to think about how to tell it. Although it’s fiction, it is based on real events and that makes it delicate and complex. I made the decision early on not to write from Erin’s point of view. Erin’s story (and that of the real-life Erin) is a different one than my experiences as a cisgender writer, and outside of the perspectives I wanted to explore. I recognize this creates a silence or gap within the novel. Although Erin’s direct point of view is not included, her character is very much present. To ensure that I captured and represented her experiences appropriately, I worked with a sensitivity reader who also grew up in a small town on the prairies and related to Erin’s situation.

      I also recognize that the experience at the story’s centre remains a very real issue today. Limited access to gender-affirming health and medical care for trans and gender-diverse individuals, especially those living in rural and remote areas, continues to be a problem. In light of these considerations, I am committed to donating 10 per cent of the author’s proceeds from sales of this book to a local or regional non-profit agency or agencies that provide gender-affirming supports and services to transgender and gender-diverse individuals.

      While this novel was inspired by a real event and has grown out of my own experiences growing up in that same small town, the characters are entirely fictional. They also use language and terms that are not appropriate in today’s world, but that are intended to reflect the mindset of some people in that time and place.

      Prologue

      June 1992

       Beauville, Manitoba

      The cattle are all that’s noticeable on the landscape. The darkness is still so rich it mutes everything else around them and they stand in stark contrast. Scattered on the other side of the fence, some of them lie on the ground, others stand in small groups, clusters here and there. Massive and imposing. Even the calves at just over three months old already weigh two hundred pounds. The sheer size of them makes Al feel compact, contained. Like he takes up no more space than he’s supposed to.

      Earlier, before the hint of dawn and hours before he was scheduled to arrive, Al left his motel room in Beauville and drove out here to Sherman’s farm. Took the grid roads that line the property until he found the herd.

      He climbs out of his truck and stands near the fence. The animals turn their heads and sniff. Their tails twitch perceptibly. The calves are the first to lose interest in him, but the cows continue to eye him, alert, as all mothers would be when strangers are near their young. Al stands tall but relaxed and doesn’t make eye contact, letting them be in control. He stays a long time. Long enough for them to get a sense of him, learn his smell and decide he’s not a threat. When calm finally returns to the herd and the cows are comfortable with him, Al returns to his truck and heads up to Sherman’s house to wait for the workday to start.

      The sun now up and the day warming quickly, Al watches the youngest hired hand, the one who’s here specifically to learn from him. The kid was cocksure and smug before, swaggered around the pen in boots far too flashy. But now he’s fallen silent and obedient as he waits for instruction.

      Al kneels on the ground beside the calf, recumbent on its side. Its back end is held by Sherman, and its head by another hired hand. Al feels the heat from the calf through his knees, which rest along the animal’s lower vertebrae. He pats the calf’s front leg, massaging it, then bends it gently at the joint and tucks it against the calf’s body.

      “Here,” he says to the kid, “hold it like this.”

      The kid crouches down and does what he’s told.

      “That’ll prevent him from escaping. Not too tight,” Al tells him. “You want to hold him, not hurt him.”

      The calf’s breath is short and shallow. Al runs his hands down the calf’s side, a few smooth strokes. Its back leg kicks twice and then stops. Intention is everything, but that’s not something Al can teach easily. So much can’t be explained.

      Al washes his hands in the nearby bucket of chlorhexidine, then reaches into the bottom of the bucket for the knife, the one his father gave him when he was a kid himself. The only one he’s ever used. He steadies himself on his knees, still touching the calf. It’s important to maintain physical contact. That’s more important than anything he might say. He leans over slightly and takes the scrotum in his left hand and, ensuring the testicles are up high and not in the lower part of the sac, slices straight across the bottom. Once the scrotum opens, he gently squeezes out a testicle and pulls on the membrane to reveal the spermatic cord. With the knife at a slight angle,