It was noon by the time they arrived at Curly’s. He had seen them coming and had the coffee pot on and a big pot of beans warming up on his stove. Curly was named accordingly. Although he wore his black hair tightly braided, Bert and Ernie could see that it was indeed curly as was his short-cut beard. Curly’s complexion was even darker than most of the Indians they had seen since arriving in Canada, so if it wasn’t for his curly hair, they would have thought he was one of them. Curly welcomed them with a smile as he and Roland began unloading his supplies.
Bert and Ernie just sat on the porch until Roland called out to them, “Get the hell over here and lend a hand.” After they finished, Curly invited them all in for lunch. Roland’s wife, Bea, who was a large woman with a dour countenance and looked like she could beat off a bear with nothing but a broom, thanked Curly, then suggested that since it was such a lovely day, they should have their lunch out on the porch.
She had brought him some buns from the bakery in Glory to have with the beans, but she needed a plate to put them on. She looked at the brothers expectantly, but once again, neither made a move, so she gruffly suggested that one of them go in the shack and help Curly fetch some dishes. Then she looked at her husband and muttered something about, “Damned hopeless dandies.” Roland nodded in agreement. They were both beginning to think they had hired on a couple of slackers, but it was too late in the day to take them back to town.
When Bert entered the shack, he understood why Bea hadn’t wanted to eat inside. There was a strong unpleasant smell of dust, body odour and something Bert couldn’t identify. It was just a one room shack and only had one small, very dirty window, so even though it was a sunny day, it took a few minutes for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then, when he was able to distinguish items, he could see a table cluttered with tools and other odds and ends and three chairs. Curly, who was lifting a big pot off the stove, nodded in the direction of a shelf that was on the wall and said, “You’ll find the plates an’ the spoons up there, an’ I reckon we’ll be needin’ two more chairs, if ya don’t mind,” and he left with the pot.
Bert managed to find the spoons but no plates, only a stack of what looked to be large bowls made of tin and coated with badly chipped blue enamel. He picked up six of them and was about to leave when he thought he saw something move on the bed in the corner of the room. Thinking Curly may have a wife and that she was sleeping, he was going to tip toe out when, whoever was in the bed, lifted his or her head, and emitted a deep throaty “Woof,” then flopped back on the pillow and never moved again. Now Bert knew what the other smell was—Curly’s big old hound dog. He also noted that there was an opening, not far from the bed. On closer inspection, he realized that there was a barn attached to the back of the shack, and inside the barn, a horse and a goat were staring back at him.
Bert never let on there was anything unusual when he told Ernie to go in and bring out another chair, but he enjoyed seeing the shocked expression on his brother’s face when he came out of the cabin. He was quite pale, and like Bert, had almost lost his appetite. They only took a small amount of the beans, but surprisingly they both found them so tasty that they went back for seconds. Curly had baked them in his oven the night before and warmed them up when he saw Roland’s wagon approaching. When the meal was over, there were only enough beans left in the pot for Curly’s dinner, so Bea apologized. Curly grinned and then lied when he said he was glad they ate so much because he would have the shits for a week if they hadn’t.
While they were having their lunch, Curly asked the brothers what they thought of Canada. Bert said he felt a sense of freedom that he had never experienced before, and if he ever did decide to return to England, it would be just for a short visit. Ernie agreed that he too enjoyed the wide-open spaces, but he missed England as well, and he wasn’t sure which country he would choose to settle down in. Then he asked Curly where he had come from.
Curly laughed and said, “I’d like to know the answer to that myself. I remember living in a wigwam with an Ojibwe family, or what some would call a Chippewa family, when I was just a tad bigger than a papoose. I remember one big boy who always punched me when nobody was looking, but everyone else treated me real good. I reckon they thought I was an idiot when I couldn’t understand what they were saying and they couldn’t understand me, so they took pity on me. Then, by the time I was about six, I was talkin’ Anishinabe, almost as good as the other kids. That’s when they came and took us away.”
Bert, thrilled to finally make the acquaintance of an Indian, was dying to know if Curly had hunted buffalo or done a war dance wearing a feather bonnet, but he didn’t want to pry, so he just said, “Who took you away, Curly?”
Curly spat out on the ground and replied that it was the damn government and the bloody church. Looking at Ernie, he added “Roland tells me you’re a preacher.”
Ernie confessed that he wasn’t a real preacher, and that he had only preached when he was on the ship because there wasn’t a preacher aboard.
Curly wasn’t impressed, and said, “Well, sir, that may be, but just don’t go doin’ any preachin’ round me. The bible and the whippin’ stick go together as far as I’m concerned.”
Ernie was about to protest and perhaps try to convince Curly that it wasn’t God who put him in the school and whipped him, but when he looked at the Arnetts he couldn’t tell if they agreed with Curly or not, so he kept his thoughts to himself.
Curly went on to tell how it only took a few weeks in the residential school before he understood English again, but he didn’t let on to the teachers so he could help the other kids by acting as a translator. They had to have their hair cut short and when the teachers cut Curly’s braids off and saw his curls, they were surprised. He said that the treatment there was horrible. They didn’t get enough to eat and what food they did get wasn’t worth feeding to the pigs.
He recalled the day when two small boys were about to be punished for saying they were hungry. He became so angry that he didn’t realize he was shouting at the teachers in English until he saw the shocked look on their faces. The two little ones were let go while Curly was hauled off to the priest’s office where he was sure he’d be whipped to death. However, the priest, figuring that Curly must have been taken by the Chippewa when he was a little child, arranged to have him live with a white family so he could be brought up in a Christian home.
Curly, who suddenly realized how much he had been talking, was embarrassed. He looked at Roland and said, “Sorry, boss, I’m sure you’ll be wantin’ to get along home, so I’d better stop my gabbin’.”
Bea Arnett never had time for anything but farm chores and housework until her three boys grew up, married, and had their own wives to look after them, but now she had time to enjoy a hobby, and she chose writing. She had always thought that Curly might be part African but had never asked him. She had heard of the residential schools but had no idea about the suffering that went on there. It was just the sort of thing she was looking for to write about, and she had no intention of leaving until he finished telling his story. She made the excuse that she would like a cup of coffee before they left, and while she was drinking it, she asked him what happened after he left the school.
“Well, the next thing I knew, I was living in Regina with a family called Murphy. They had two other kids, and although they weren’t mean to me, they always treated me like an outsider. The Murphys insisted I attend church, but I could still picture the poor kids in that school, and it made me feel sick to listen to sermons about goodness and mercy when I knew how little of it was being shown to them.
“When I was fifteen, I ran away and went up north to look for my Chippewa family. I managed to find them, and although they seemed happy to have me back, I didn’t fit in there either, so after a few years I left and worked my way down south. I was pretty handy at breakin’ horses an’ mendin’ fences so had no trouble finding work an’ I spent the next five years goin’ from one ranch to another. I never got on to livin’ in bunkhouses though, but when I started to work for you,” he said, nodding to Roland, “and you let me fix up this shack and live here with my animals, for the first time in my life, I felt that I belonged.
“I was told that a Chippewa brave found me sitting beside an overturned wagon and a man and a woman who had been shot. They were both dead and the woman was white, and the man had very dark skin. He figured I must have been hiding and the killer didn’t see me. Then, because he was afraid he would be blamed for the murder, he brought me back to the reserve.”
“Did you ever find out who your parents were?” Bea asked.
“One thing I learned while I lived with the Murphy’s was that it wasn’t any Indians that killed my folks. It was some white men who were mad because my mother married a black man. The Murphys said they prayed that she would be forgiven and didn’t say they blamed the men who shot her. Some black folks, who came here from down south, have the last name of Washington, so I decided to go by that name instead of Murphy, at least until I find out what my father’s real name was.”
“Do you ever go back to the reserve?” Bert asked.
“No, but I think I will soon. Boss has given me permission to add another room onto this shack, and when that’s done, I think I’ll go to the reservation an’ find a wife. Would you like to go with me?”
“I should say so, and if I get any time off, I shall come and help you build that room.” Ernie was a little envious. He was sure he could do some good if he went to a reservation by converting the wild Indians into the Christian faith. Ernie was a man of good intentions, but he had little understanding of what the native tribes needed.
After they fed and watered the horses, they said goodbye and were once more on their way. They had only gone a short distance when they stopped, and Roland pointed to what looked like a stand of trees in the distance. It was an unusual sight after riding all day and seeing nothing higher than a bush, and it appeared like a desert mirage to Bert and Ernie. When Roland said that was the ranch house, they finally began to grasp the magnitude of this wonderful country called Canada.
“My Lord, Ernie, owning a farm in this country is like owning a country!” Bert exclaimed. After they had resumed travelling, Ernie leaned over and quietly asked Bert if he thought Roland would provide them with accommodation. Although the brothers had mentioned that they looked forward to sleeping under the stars, neither meant it literally. Bert said he had overheard Mr. Arnett telling someone that he paid his help thirty-five dollars a month and that included room and board. He said he also heard that was five dollars more than most ranchers paid.
“And according to Curly, it sounded like all the hired help are usually housed in bunkhouses. I expect we shall be expected to take turns cooking and doing the washing up though. Andre did warn us that we could expect to be roughing it if we wanted to be cowboys.”
“From what I’ve heard,” Ernie replied, “most of their meals consist of beans and stew, and I should think we can manage that. I imagine it shall be tantamount to the camp-out we enjoyed with old Fletch, our Sunday school teacher, when we were young lads.”
“I don’t think it shall be like that at all. When I went camping with Mr. Fletcher, he had all our meals prepared for us and we only spent one night in a cottage a mile from home. It is kind of you to try to assure me, but actually, I am looking forward to this roughing it thing. I think it should prove to be a jolly good experience.”
Arnett’s ranch house was an impressive looking three storey building, with a porch around all but one side, and it appeared to be newly painted in white, with green trim. Surprisingly, there were bright flower beds on each side of the porch steps, and although they were not as healthy looking as the flowers in the English gardens that Bert recalled, they did add warmth to the structure. A stand of shelterbelt trees and shrubs surrounded the sides of the house adding shade and there were a few trees among the outbuildings that were scattered around the property.
Later, Bert learned that the trees, shrubs and other plants had come from an experimental farm in Indian Head where they had developed different species that could survive in the severe Saskatchewan climate. Bert and Ernie were beginning to understand what was expected of them, so they both jumped off the wagon as soon as Arnett pulled up to the front of the house so they could help Bea Arnett down and begin unloading the wagon. Bea was impressed and muttered what almost sounded like a thank you.
Two men came from one of the buildings, one, a bald chubby man, who wore a huge white apron over his clothes and a man three inches over six feet, who looked as though he had just stepped out of the shower. The term gangly came to Bert’s mind as he watched him walk across the yard in a loose-jointed manner. His red hair came down to his shoulders in wet ringlets, and his face appeared to be permanently sunburned, unlike the other deep tanned cowboys Bert had seen.
Mr. Arnett met them both with a handshake and then the fellow in the apron went over to Bea and they began looking over a list she had. Roland addressed the other man, “How’d things go, Red?’
“Pretty damn good up until this afternoon boss, then I couldn’t get that damnable tractor to move. The clutch just seized up again like it did with you last Monday. I was goin’ to hitch Buttercup and Misty to the hay press an’ keep goin’ but it was getting’ dark and I thought you’d be home soon, an’ you could have look at er.”
“Damn it to hell! That salesman won’t be by here for another week. I don’t know bugger all about machinery.”
Ernie couldn’t help but interrupt, “Pardon me, boss, but we are both machinists, perhaps we could be of some help.”
For the first time since they arrived, Roland realized they were there. He introduced them to Red but ignored Ernie’s offer saying that Red would show them where to bunk and around the premises. “I’m sure Cookie will have some grub left over from dinner and you boys can get settled. I need you to ride out to the west pasture with Aaron and Jack tomorrow. I want a count of all the young calves. Tell Cookie you need a lunch, and Red, make sure they have water and anything else they need, okay? Oh yeah, they need saddles. Give ‘em those two we took off those no-good son of bitches. Now, you two grab your gear off the wagon and go on with Red here.”
Red grinned as he nodded to the brothers, and said, “I’ll see they get settled, boss, but first they can help me carry your stuff in the house. After that we’ll take the wagon over to the cookhouse and help Cookie unload his.”
When they had all of Cookie’s supplies in the cookhouse, they sat down to a plate of stew and dumplings. Ernie made friends with Cookie when he said that if all his meals were as tasty, he wouldn’t mind if they never had anything else. When they finished eating, Red told them to gather up their belongings and he’d show them where they would be bunking. There were two bunkhouses, one for the Red and Cookie who had worked at the ranch for years and were proven to be steadfast and trustworthy, and the other for the men who would probably just stay as long as it took them to earn enough to get them to their next stop. Bert and Ernie fit into this category, although, when Red saw Bert’s violin case, he was tempted to give them beds in his bunkhouse, being especially fond of fiddle music.