One

March 22, 1903

I burrow deeper into my straw tick. Drifting between sleep and wakefulness, I pull the tangle of rags tight beneath my chin, feeling chilled to my very toes. Suddenly I open my eyes. It strikes me there’s no glow coming from the room below me, and the smell of dying ashes hangs heavy in the air. The old mantelpiece clock strains—warning its intention to strike. It tolls out seven long chimes. Blimey! I sit bolt upright. They’ll whip me for lying in so late and letting the fire go out! I listen closer, but I don’t hear anybody moving in the cabin below. If I’m quick, I still might have a chance to get the fire stoked before anyone discovers it’s out.

The wind has blown a fine layer of snow through the cracks in the roof during the night. I throw my rags off and, shivering, dust snow from my hair. I’m already wearing both jumpers I own, as well as the jacket the home provided me. Quick as I can, I pull on my second pair of britches, nearly to the middle of my calves now, and, willing my fingers to quit trembling, I button them up.

I don’t weigh a lot for my age. This is because the Brooks brothers don’t feed me much more than scraps: peelings, bread crusts and porridge so thin it can be drunk from a cup. Still, the ladder complains as I start to make my way down. I wince. The last thing I want is to advertise my late appearance. But I still don’t hear anyone stirring, so I continue to climb down to the main floor from the loft.

It’s unusually quiet—there’s no snoring coming from the back of the cabin. This reminds me that Buck Brooks stayed the night in Macleod. Albert’s all I need worry about, but I’m not much comforted by the thought because I know from experience that Albert is the one I have to most worry about. Of the two of them, he requires the least excuse to reach for the buggy whip. I stoke wood into the fire and poke it back to life. All the time I look over my shoulder in case Albert should be creeping up on me, waiting to lick me for being so late. Once the fire is snapping, I steal just a moment to rub my hands together to take off the chill.

The fire grows brighter, illuminating the further corners of the cabin. I creep quiet as I can to Albert’s bed and reach beneath it for the chamber pot. It’s my chore to empty the foul pots in the morning. In the dim light, I can’t see Albert for his mound of bedclothes. I think again how silent he is. He likes his whiskey, and when he finally passes out, most of the night he gurgles and snorts like a man drowning in his own drink.

I step into my shoes where I’d left them parked by the door. They’re beat up quite badly now; a few months back I’d split the ends to give my toes a place to go. As far as I can figure, I’m about sixteen—it could be I’m even nearer to seventeen. Not a boy anymore, but a lad. I’m still thin, like I said, not filled out, but that hasn’t stopped me from sprouting upward. I’ve never owned a pair of overshoes, so before I leave the cabin I tie strips of gunny sack around the bare part of my legs to protect them from the bite of snow.

I can’t see through the window panes for hoarfrost, and I have to tug hard to free the cabin door. For nearly two weeks, the temperature has hovered about twenty-five degrees below zero and everything is frozen, off-kilter and rigid. I swear I won’t ever get used to a place so sullen and cold.

Standing on the stoop, I gaze at the clouds of ice crystals hanging low in the early morning sky. With my first breath, the hairs in my nose freeze instantly. I pinch the bridge to warm it up, then step off the stoop into six inches of powdery new snow. Carrying the tin chamber pot, I plunge forward toward the outhouse.

I’m not ten feet from the stoop when my foot runs aground on something unfamiliar and I stumble. I manage to keep my balance, but what’s in the pot splashes into the snow. In the thin morning light, I stare at the snow and the yellow patch where the liquid is trickling into it. Something black lies beneath. I rub the spot with my foot. It’s a boot—I recognize it as belonging to Albert Brooks.

At first, I don’t think much of it. It could be the boot became stuck in the snow, and Old Man Brooks in his drunkenness continued walking and left it there. But on closer inspection it appears to stick out at an odd angle. Something makes me brush more snow away. A leg clad in denim is attached to the boot. I squat on my haunches, set the chamber pot aside and brusquely brush snow off the lump in front of me. I jump back, thinking I’m seeing things, when Albert Brooks’s back appears. I stand up, turn away and try to blink my mind blank. I turn back. The apparition hasn’t changed.

“Mr. Brooks!” I roll the body of the old drunk over. His blue eyes, frozen open, fix on the navy sky. The handkerchief knotted about his neck is stiff, and his grizzled beard flops to his chest, a heavy chunk of ice. I’ve never seen anyone so dead and so completely frozen. “So that’s why I didn’t hear you snoring,” I say aloud.

I don’t jump up and down or start shrieking. It’s not that I’m cold-hearted. Even Albert—if he was somehow watching—wouldn’t be surprised at how little sadness I have at finding him dead. He must have known that he and Buck had whipped anything akin to affection I might have developed for them right out of me. Neither of them had shown a soft spot toward me in the nearly three years I’d been in Macleod.

I’d heard of fellows getting turned around in a whiteout; blizzards can whip up fast, confusing a person’s sense of direction. I’d heard stories of men returning from tending their animals, found frozen to death within yards of their cabin door. And those were sober ones. It could have been that, or it could have been Albert died of a stopped heart.

The tears begin welling up, blurring the hard lines of Albert’s corpse. But they’re not prompted by his passing so much as the thought of how helpless I feel at being stuck in this lonesome place. Then a worse thought comes to me. I think of Buck, and my mind freezes along with everything else. Buck will come home in a few hours and find his brother dead! He’ll think I’m responsible. It doesn’t matter if Albert got caught in a blizzard or how he met his end. I was here alone with him, and Buck won’t give me a chance to explain.

Thinking through things as quick as I can, I determine the best thing to do is observe from a hiding place how Buck reacts. Depending on his reaction, I’ll make up my mind what to do from there. I brush the rest of the snow from Albert’s body so Buck can flat out see him on the way to the cabin. His left hand still clutches the whiskey bottle he couldn’t let go of, even in death.

I then return to the cabin, where I pocket my copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress as well as the buck knife I’d come across in the dirt outside the Winnipeg Home. I’m already wearing every piece of clothing I own, but I’ll be needing something to eat.

It’s not easy being a thief when it isn’t natural in you. I’d long ago discovered that. But the circumstances don’t leave me much choice. I find a bit of cheese, half a loaf of bread and a tin of beef in the pantry. I wrap them in the flour sacks I’d stitched together for bedclothes. With the sky brightening around me, I dart toward the barn. On the way, I brush over my footprints with a spruce branch so my tracks don’t distract Buck from Albert’s body. When this is done, I climb the rickety ladder into the hayloft. From here I can lay low and look out the small square window into the yard.

It’s nearly two hours before I hear the clip-clop of the dapple grays. Buck is coming up the trail in the cutter. I stay crouched, lying still in the straw as he stables the horses below me in the barn. He curses when he finds there’s no fresh water to give the animals. With what’s happened, I’ve neglected to do my chores. It’s up to me to break the ice, get the pump working each morning and tote water to the livestock. I feel bad for a moment, not on account of Buck, but for the cattle and pigs that depend on me and are down there waiting expectantly in their pens.

After hearing Buck leave the barn, I watch him come into view through the window. He makes his way toward the cabin. His woolly head turns, noting something isn’t right. I can sense his puzzlement—he’s angry noticing the chores aren’t done. He stops walking altogether, his black eyes riveted on the chimney. There’s no smoke rising out of it, because my fire has died down again. Buck starts up again, walking quicker the more furious he gets with me. He comes upon Albert’s body in the snow.

His holler echoes in the frigid air, and I’m sure every farmer within fifty miles has heard it. He bends down and starts clawing and smacking Albert—attempting to raise his brother, until he realizes that Albert’s just lying there taking it, with no intention of fighting back. Buck finally stands up. “Charlie Sutherland!”

There’s nothing unusual in Buck using both my names. They always refer to me as Charlie Sutherland—it’s “Charlie Sutherland, where have you got to?! Charlie Sutherland, have you cleaned the pig pen yet? Charlie Sutherland, you haven’t got time to go to school, and don’t let us catch you sneakin’ off neither. We didn’t take you in and house and feed you so’s you could just goof off.” It’s never just Charlie. It’s as if I’m a breed of something, and unless they use both my names I won’t be a breed anymore, but a regular human being.

“Charlie Sutherland! What have you done to Albert?!”

Buck is wheezing as he hollers, twisting and turning, working himself into a frightful frenzy. His temples swell up the way they always do when he gets himself in a rage. I lower my head in case, in his jerking around, his eyes sweep up to the window in the hayloft.

“You finally gone and done it to Albert! I saw it coming in you, you filthy cur!”

I know as soon as I hear him blaming me like that—I have to get out of here as quick as possible. Before Buck starts scouring the farm.

I peek out the window again. Buck is struggling to move Albert’s body, trying to get hold of him beneath the arms. He can’t budge him—the corpse is unwieldy and too heavy for him to haul anywhere by himself. Buck turns and marches toward the barn. I duck. He can’t know I’m in the hayloft! I wait. My heart is thumping so loud I’m sure Buck will hear it, if he doesn’t see me first. But he doesn’t say a word when he enters the barn. All I can hear is his crying and snuffling as he rummages around looking for something. He must have found what he’s after because he leaves again. Cautiously, I lift myself up on my elbows and peer out the window. Buck pulls a wooden sled over to where Albert is laid out. He bends, and after lifting the top half of the body onto the sled, he hauls Albert’s corpse toward the cabin. The weight of the body and the boots dragging out behind it leave two channels in the snow. After wrestling Albert into the cabin, Buck closes the door.

I have very little time. I clamber down the ladder faster than a chicken skittering from a hatchet. I tear out the barn door and race down the road with my bundle of rags hung on my shoulder like a rucksack. I’m soon breathing heavily. Cold air rushes into my lungs, and I imagine them freezing solid and me not being able to draw in another breath. I have an idea that I’ll run to Tillie’s. If I can get her alone, I can explain what’s happened. If she can’t help me, I know she’ll at least help me figure out what to do. Tillie Carson lives five miles down Willow Creek. She’s the one person who’s shown me any kindness since I arrived in Macleod.

Despite the new layer of snow, the trail is passable, since Buck’s just run over it. Still, I muck in my footsteps with the horses’ hoofprints so my path won’t be clear. I’m chilled through to my core by the time Carsons’ chimney comes into view. The sight and smell of wood smoke is welcoming, and it gets stronger as I near Tillie’s farm. I hide around the corner of the barn at first, my eyes scuttling over the yard like a common thief ’s. But there’s no one working outside, and my fingers and toes are so cold they’ve turned into fleshy lumps. They do nothing but get in my way as I try to adjust my makeshift rucksack. It’s hard to be sure if your mind is sharp enough to make important decisions when you can’t even get your body parts to do what you want. If I’m to come up with a decent plan for what to do next, I’ve got to get myself warmed up.

As silently as I can, I open the barn door. For a moment, I listen. Except for the pawing and whinnying of the Carsons’ horses, I don’t hear any voices. I creep into the building, tiptoeing past two milk cows in their stalls and around the haymow—a big hump of loose hay piled in the center of the floor. I duck into the room where the feed grain is stored. The ceiling is much lower here than in the rest of the barn. Walls, almost to the rafters, divide the room into four large bins filled waist-deep with grain. Jumping into the first bin, I splash oats over my legs and arms until I’m immersed right up to my neck. The dust I rouse floats in streaks of sunlight, and husks fly about, clinging to my hair. Slowly, a slight tingling comes back into my fingers and toes.

I’ve just got the feeling back when I hear horses on the trail. A voice hollers out, bringing the team to a stop. A door slams and more voices; I guess it’s Mr. Carson greeting a visitor. I can’t decipher what’s being said except that the visitor is talking and shouting faster than most can listen. A terrible worry strikes me, and I sneak out of the oat bin and over to a crack where the light shines through the boards in the barn wall. I peer out. Just as I feared, it’s Buck Brooks. He’s ranting about what’s happened, trying to get through to Mr. Carson about his misfortune. Mr. Carson is having a hard time making sense of what he’s saying, although the words “cold-blooded murderer” and “filthy low-down Home boy” are coming out loud and clear. Mr. Carson tries to get him to speak slower. Eventually, all the racket brings Mrs. Carson, Tillie, her brother, Jesse, and their farmhand, John, to the door.

“Charlie?” I hear Mrs. Carson say, not believing. “Charlie murdered Albert? Oh, Buck, that can’t be right.”

When I hear that, I want to run right across the barnyard and hug her. But I know that would be a mistake because it would still be my word against Buck’s. And Buck isn’t about to call his poor dead brother a mean old drunkard who was so dumb-headed he wandered blind into a blizzard in the middle of the night. Even though everybody knows he’d be perfectly capable, and they wouldn’t be overwhelmed with surprise.

But Buck has another purpose that others aren’t likely to know. It’s an easy way for him to get rid of me without paying my wages. The Brooks brothers were supposed to begin paying me a wage for my labors once I turned fourteen, but I haven’t seen one penny in those two years. By accusing me of murder, Buck could get rid of me and the debt he owes me. He could then go and get himself another boy from the Home, one who isn’t worn out and starved half to death. The Home is sure to be obliging once he convinces them they’d saddled him with a convict the first time around.

I have to put it out of my mind until I can get Tillie alone.

Mr. Carson and Jesse climb onto the cutter next to Buck—I guess they’re off to take a firsthand look at Albert. Tillie, her mother, and John return to the cabin. I sit down on the straw next to the crack in the boards where I can keep an eye on things. It’s warm enough in the barn with the heat from the two cows. Four workhorses are also stabled along the wall across from me.

About an hour later I hear the cabin door open again. I peer through the crack to see John standing on the stoop, adjusting the flaps of his cap over his ears. He strolls into the yard, where he grabs a pitchfork from where it leans against the woodpile. He continues up toward the barn. I glance quickly around for a hiding place. I could easily disappear beneath the haymow, but, considering he’s carrying a pitchfork, I reason that might be a poor choice. I sneak over to where the plow and other implements are stored and crouch behind them. Moments later the door opens, and with the sun behind him, John’s shadow stretches across the floor. This makes him look about a hundred feet tall. But he’s really only a chap of regular height, thick through the chest, with the hair on his face trimmed into muttonchops. Raising the pitchfork, he walks over to the haymow, where he spears a great wad of hay. My stomach takes a tumble just watching him drive into it. John carries the pitchfork full of hay over to the cows. He then proceeds to feed the horses—filling their buckets with oats and splashing fresh water into their troughs.

Sounds carry a long way in the cold air, and I notice John’s head turn at the same time as I hear the return of Buck’s cutter. It draws into the farmyard, and again I hear people emerge from the cabin. John leaves the barn to meet them.

“It’s true!” Jesse explodes with the news. “Mr. Brooks—he’s dead, alright!”

“Jesse.” Mr. Carson attempts to hush his boy.

But Jesse isn’t much more than twelve and can’t restrain himself. “Dead and lying in the cabin, stiffer than the table he’s laid across!”

Mr. Carson repeats Jesse’s name, quite sharply this time. I can’t hear what’s said next—it sounds rather like the cooing of the doves in the rafters above me—but I gather it must be Mrs. Carson extending her sympathies to Buck.

“Yes, well, thank you, ma’am. But what’s important now is to get the little bastard that done this.”

This is immediately followed by a small, familiar cracking sound. I scramble back to the crack in the boards. Sure enough, Buck is loading his Winchester, preparing to hunt me down.