Eleven

April 11, 1903

Coal cars bang across the river, jolting me as I take a last drag of my cigarette. It makes me think of the fellows I’d passed on their way to the mine, and how they’ll be spending the next ten hours in the dark passageways beneath the earth. I remember my conversation with Violet and I start thinking that perhaps someone snuck a match in and today there’ll be an explosion. Or maybe someone will lose a foot or an arm when a wall of rock caves in.

I rinse out my coffee pot. I have to stop thinking like that; there are lots of miners that nothing ever happens to. Why would anything happen today, or to me when I start underground? Besides, there aren’t many jobs where you can make wages of three dollars a day. And I only plan on doing it until I’ve saved enough to buy my own land.

The fancy white tent next to the woods is closed up again. Recalling the fellow who had appeared all stiff and bent the night before, I figure he must be employed at the mine. I look toward Mr. Ling Yu’s lean-to. His fire is also out and there is no sign that he is around. The trousers he’d hung over the branch to dry have blown off and are now tangled in a bush. Before I turn in, I walk over to rescue them. Crouching with the trousers draped across my arm, I call into the lean-to, “Hello in there.”

A big fellow wearing a woolen shirt and sheepskin waistcoast is returning from the direction of the river. He totes a bucket in each hand. “You’re wasting your breath,” he tells me. “You ain’t going to get an answer from in there unless you got a knack for hearing ghosts.”

I look up, not certain if he’s talking to me. “What do you mean?”

He stops walking, cocks his burly head to one side and sets the buckets down. Water sloshes onto the grass. “You mean, you don’t know?”

“Don’t know what? I just got here yesterday. I was working at the hotel all night.”

“Oh, well, then you weren’t here. That Chinaman fellow’s passed on. Found last evening cold in his tent.”

I think I must be so tired I’m not understanding him properly. “What do you mean, passed on? I saw him doing his washing around about suppertime.”

The man shrugs a little. He has no explanation himself.

I’d spoken only a few words to Ling Yu, yet all of a sudden my stomach aches. In a way, I think it’s my own fault. I should have right away given him something to eat when I’d thought of it, when I’d seen that he was in such terrible need. If I’d given him something to build his strength, he wouldn’t be dead.

“Well, now, it’s a terrible thing, son, but don’t look so glum. It’s not like it’s your fault he slit his throat. He had his troubles. Even if you’d known about them, they weren’t anything you could have fixed.”

A worse chill than anything I’d felt in the dead of winter runs over my skin. I can hardly get my voice to work. “He slit his own throat?”

The big man nods. “It wasn’t much of a choice—but I guess he thought it was the only one he had left. An Irish fellow across the camp knew his story. He’d worked on the railroad with him until they were both let go after the ground froze. This one here couldn’t get work. He wandered about asking, but no one would have him. He’d been camping in the valley for near a month now, trying to get on at the mine. I don’t know what he was living on, to tell the truth. Must have been scratching some sort of existence out of the earth. But the Irishman said what really seemed to keep him going was the thought of his wife and kin coming over. He’d been living on his own for nearly three years. His wife and two brothers were planning to come as soon as they could save the capitation tax. Well, the Irishman says he just about went out of his mind last week when he heard the government was raising the tax to five hundred dollars on every Chinaman’s head. They may as well raise it to a million, they’re about as likely to get it, the Chinaman told him. He wasn’t prone to talking much, and after that he didn’t talk again. The Irishman figures that’s what did him in. With the government wanting that much money, his wife and brothers would never be coming. And even if there was anything for him in China, he would never have been able to raise the money to go home. Not in twenty years.”

The man telling me all this waves toward the trousers in my hand. “Those belong to the dead man?”

I nod.

“You may as well keep ’em if you have the need. Others have already scavenged through his belongings and taken anything of value. I don’t think there was anything, to be sure. He didn’t even own a pair of boots. Don’t know how he ever expected to get on at the mine. There was nothing but a few utensils, that knife he used, a pipe and a tin pan.”

I can’t do much else but stare at the trousers in my hand. I have an urge to throw them into the lean-to and run. I glance toward the opening. The man with the buckets sees me looking.

“Don’t worry, lad. The Mounted Police were out and he’s been taken away. It was cleaned up best they could. Maybe someone who doesn’t care what happened in there will move in.” He bends to pick up his buckets. “By the way, my name’s Evan Kostos. I’m just down the river, closer to the mountain, if you’re in need of anything.”

I thank him. He nods and moves away. I drape the dead man’s trousers over the branch I’d seen him hang them on the previous day. I don’t know what else to do but try and get some sleep. Inside my patchwork tent I spread out my old bedroll on top of a piece of tarp. I lie there for a long time listening to the snap of fires, the distant hammering of the mine machinery, a horse nicker, and the rise and fall of a dozen different voices. I turn on my stomach and reach for my buck knife stowed in the rucksack my head is lying on.

Feeling the coolness of the bone handle in my palm, I must have drifted off, because the next thing I remember I’m struggling to get it from the grip of Albert Brooks. I was dreaming I was back in my loft, where I’d come across him rooting through my belongings.

I wake up to the smell of dinners cooking and a darkening sky.

The valley is a busy place in the evening. Once the men return from their work, they set about gathering wood and water to cook their suppers. Those who have spent their day swinging a pick or loading coal sit on the ground with their boots off, eating from their tin plates. A fine dusting of coal still clings to their temples or beneath their chins, giving them the appearance of being in the shadows. Throughout the valley, the coughing and hacking of men clearing their lungs of the poisonous stuff is a common sound. After they finish their evening meals, they talk and smoke quietly among themselves, or they pull on their boots again and head for the saloons.

Outside my own tent, I poke up my fire. While I wait for my supper to warm, I look over the scene of weary, slow-moving men. The oilcloth covering Ling Yu’s lean-to is gone—someone must have decided it would be useful. The trousers I’d hung over the branch have also been claimed. A fellow is now bundling the remaining branches for firewood.

I am still watching him when I hear footsteps come up behind me. I turn around. My neighbor from the white tent is approaching my campfire. Now that he’s close up, I can see that, although he is only a few years older than me, he’s taller and certainly more sound. He wears a corduroy cap, denim trousers and a heavy canvas overcoat.

“Good evening,” I say, feeling just about naked in my thin set of clothes next to his warm ones.

He tips his cap. “Good evening to you, mate. It’s a fine one, isn’t it? What’s your name?”

I don’t say anything right away. Instead, I just gape at him and grin. After three years, I can hardly believe it! I’ve met up with someone nearly my own age with a voice the same as my own. The only thing that could have made me happier would have been if it was my brother Jack. I grasp his hand and shake it, more enthusiastically than I suppose the circumstances require. “It’s Charlie. Charlie Sutherland.” I don’t even think to fib about it. Why would I lie when I’m practically talking to kin?

“Hello, Charlie. My name’s James Tuttle. I must say, it’s rather nice to meet another chap born within the sound of the Bow bells.”

“Yes, it is,” I agree, laughing. “It most surely is.”

James smiles again before nodding toward the man toting away the bundle of branches. “It’s an awful shame about that Chinaman, don’t you think? A chap like that, coming out here to an unknown place, determined to make a living no matter how harsh the land. I bet it never entered his mind that it wasn’t the land he’d have to most worry about. Anyway, makes a fellow really think about what’s important in life. So, what are you doing here in Frank?”

“I’m looking for work. I’m on my own and I’m planning to eventually set down roots. I’m hoping to get on at the mine.”

James nods. “Like most of the men camped in this valley. I’m working there myself. They’ve been shuffling me around, putting me where I’m most needed: oiling tubs, loading timber and cleaning lamps. The last few days I’ve been working as a duster. I’ve been with them two months and I expect I’ll stay about two more.”

I can hear my supper sizzling and spitting away in the pan. It’s going to burn if I don’t attend to it. I have to be leaving for the hotel in less than an hour. James has already eaten, but when I ask, he says he would be most obliged to join me for a cup of coffee. Once the water boils, it occurs to me that I only own one cup. I offer it to James, but he insists I keep it. I’m the one who’s going to be needing a good strong swig of coffee if I’m to be working all night. He goes back to his tent for his own.

When he returns, he pours his coffee and squats on the ground across from me. “Tell me about yourself, Charlie? How did you get here? To the territories, I mean. Where have you been?”

“Until mid-March I was working on the Brooks brothers’ farm north of Macleod.”

“No, before that. Where is your family? When did you come over?”

“My parents are dead and I don’t know what became of my sisters and brother. I come from Dr. Barnardo’s Home.” And while James sips his coffee, and I finish preparing my supper, I tell him my story as far back as I can remember. It’s interrupted only when I sit down and take some time to chew. Or sometimes James stops me with a question: Do I have any idea where Jack might be? Was Drunken Alice any sort of kin? Why would the Brooks brothers treat me like that?

“So, are you still on the run?” he asks when I’m finished. “I mean, do you really think the Mounted Police would take Buck Brooks at his word? He sounds like a terrible scoundrel to me.” “I don’t know if they’d believe him about me killing Albert, but they could make me go back to work for him on the farm. I’m legally obliged to do it too. So if it’s all the same to you, I wouldn’t mind if you kept my story to yourself.”

James laughs. “You have my word, sir. You know, Charlie—you and me, we have a lot in common. Besides both being from London. Dr. Barnardo is my benefactor as well. I was given up as an infant. Given in to the castle at Hawkhurst. I lived in three foster homes. Last year, Mr. Blackmore, at the Home, told me I’d been selected to go to Manitoba. He said I was a good candidate to be working the land. I’ve spent the past eight months at the Industrial Farm in Russell, where they teach all about farming. I’m on my way now to work my own homestead.” James smiles proudly as he pats his coat pocket. “I’ve been to the Dominion Land Office and I’ve got the deed to my own land right here. It’s west of a village called St. Albert.”

“Well, my heartiest congratulations,” I say, offering him my hand. “Born into poor circumstances without a family to lead you, you are now to be a gentleman farmer in the territories. I am mighty pleased for you, James.”

And I am pleased for him. I’m also now tremendously hopeful. If he has managed it, coming from circumstances not too different from my own, perhaps one of these days I’ll save enough to accomplish it too.

“Thank you. I am pleased as well. I’m working at the mine for the money to buy a horse and provisions. I have a small amount saved, and I plan on staying until the end of May. I’ll spend the summer breaking sod. When winter comes around again, I’ll try and get back on at the mine, or maybe on a road construction crew.” James gets to his feet. “Anyway, mate, I must let you go to work.” He takes a last swig of coffee. “Tomorrow, Charlie, I have the day free. Perhaps after you get some sleep we could go for a hike. They say it’s a fine view from the top of Turtle Mountain, and I have yet to see it. What do you say we tackle it?”

I say I’d like that very much.

It’s Saturday night and the hotels and saloons are full up. Besides the regulars—the miners, loggers, railroad and construction crews—farmers and lonely homesteaders crowd into the Imperial Hotel. A fiddle dance at McIntyre’s Hall is drawing crowds as well.

I make my way past four ladies gathered on the boardwalk outside the hotel. They are the fancy type, waiting to conduct their business once the fellows have their fill of liquor. They coo and chuckle while making arrangements to meet customers in the small shuttered cottages on the fringe of town. I jump when my own rump is pinched by the one known as Rose May. She bats her eyelashes when I turn around.

For the next three hours I don’t have time to even scratch an itch. I’m serving and cleaning up, steadily. With a day off coming to them, the men aren’t so careful about how much they’re drinking or how sloppy they’re becoming. The fiddle music starts up in McIntyre’s Hall down Dominion Avenue, and the sound of stomping feet and wild dancing spills into the street.

Once the bar closes, I go down to the laundry, where I find Violet in a cranky mood. She has three children with the chicken pox at home, and in the past twenty-four hours she’s had less than thirty minutes of sleep. She whacks away at the sheets like she has it in for them—plunging and paddling them with all the strength in her porky arms. She says she isn’t in much of a mood to talk, although every now and again she does say something that lets me know what’s going through her mind. Mostly she seems to be considering how she’s supposed to get everything done that needs doing. It’s becoming too much and she’s getting tuckered out, working at the hotel at night and tending her children during the day. When is she supposed to get her bread baked or her chores done? When is she supposed to get her sleep? Each of these questions is followed with a good hearty whack at the sheets with the paddle.

Of course I have no answer when she glances up from the boiling pot looking for one, sweat gathering on her brow.

Sunday morning and it’s quiet as a churchyard as I step onto the street. The smells and echoes of Saturday night still hang in the air. Only those tending animals are up and about. I take a turn to visit Cody at McDonald’s Livery before I head to the eastern flats.

I grab a currycomb and spend a little time giving him a grooming. I know stabling him at a proper livery is an expense and luxury I can hardly afford. Few fellows who pitch a tent in the camp even own a horse, and those who do just let them graze freely, hobbling them at night. But those horses are mostly old hacks or screws, worthless to anyone but their owners, who depend on them to get about the territories as they look for work. West Coast Cody, on the other hand, is worth a lot, and I can’t risk losing him. Once I finish brushing him, I take him for a ride along the wagon trail.

The cottages along Alberta Avenue are quiet—the miners get to spend a morning with their families. I stop to have a morning smoke with Francis Rochette, who asks how I’m getting on.

“Not too badly,” I tell him. We lean against the wall of the stable, watching the sky turn from rose to pink. I consider the events that have occurred since he sent me off with the tarps. “Except for Mr. Ling Yu—the Chinaman who killed himself. That was a terrible affair.”

“A Chinaman killed himself?”

I can’t believe he hasn’t heard. He isn’t that far away from the campsite as the crow flies. “Yes,” I say. “He couldn’t stand the loneliness. You didn’t hear?”

Francis draws on his smoke, lets a ring drift off into the sky and grinds the heel of his boot into the earth. “Charlie, most of us outside—we don’t hear much of what goes on in the camp. The fact is, those fellows you’re tenting with in the valley move about as often as the wind changes directions. They don’t fit in with the town folk because most of the time they don’t speak the language, and they like to stick to their own customs and ways. That doesn’t usually sit well with those who are already established. Many prefer to pretend that those from a foreign land, and without a permanent home, don’t really exist.”

“How do they work together then? If they all talk different languages, how are they able to work side by side in the mine? Or on the railroad crews?”

Francis thinks about this. “Each man knows his own job. There’s not much need for talking while they’re working. Not if they know what they’re doing, and many have worked in mines or on construction crews before they came to the West. Besides, the company bosses like it that way.”

“Why?”

“Because if the fellows can’t talk, they can’t complain. They can’t get together and bellyache about their poor wages and their dangerous work conditions. They can’t discuss their pitiful housing or how they have to go into debt for all the extras like blankets and their own tools. If they can’t get together on things, they won’t discover they all feel mistreated. That way, they’ll keep going on the way they are and they won’t go on strike.”

Francis seems to have those in charge of running things all figured out. I tell him I don’t think it can go on like that forever; some day those fellows will have to talk.

I give him a hand feeding the pit horses. There are more than fifty, and every one is good-tempered and sure-footed. They have to be in order to work in the mine.

“You know, Charlie, you’re awfully good with these horses,” Francis tells me. “If you’re trying to get work at the mine, you might suggest to Mr. Ash that you’d like to be a driver. Each horse has its own. You’re responsible for his watering and grooming, as well as things like keeping his tack cleaned and oiled so he doesn’t get harness sores. I’d be happy to recommend you.”

I tell him I’d be grateful for that. I leave the mine livery, ride past Thornley’s Shoe Shop and McVeigh’s construction camp, where only a few men are camped. Off in the distance I can see Graham’s Dairy Farm. Just past the farm, I know old Andy Grissack will be on his way to check his traps. The early morning mist is beginning to rise and burn off, so I turn and head back in the direction of Frank. Once Cody is stabled, I return to my camp to get some sleep.

It’s around noon when I wake up. I have a new neighbor—he pitched a tent while I was sleeping. He’s taken the space Mr. Ling Yu had occupied before he’d taken his life. Niko the Finn, he calls himself. Niko is about thirty years old and stocky, with a moustache the size of a boot brush. He probably spotted the open space and thought himself lucky to find a snug spot near both water and trees.