Blood and Salt (39 page)

“I’m not saying it’ll be easy,” Frank went on. “But if we stick together, if we don’t let Shawcross break us...I think we have a chance.”

“Och, that’s good,” Angus said, “and I hate to even say this, but what if it doesnae work out?”
There was a long silence.

Finally Moses stood up. “If it doesn’t work out, they’ll fire whoever they think started it all. I guess that’d be me and Frank.”

“I can’t afford to get fired,”
Angus said.
“I’m running a few head of cattle in the hills, but I’m not making much.”

Moses agreed. “Nobody can afford to get fired.” He looked around the room. “Taras? Are you in favour of the union?”

I was startled. I’d only come to listen, and because Moses wanted me to. But they all seemed to be waiting, and I took my time, but I stood up too.

“I don’t know,”
I said. “In the old country, you can’t have anything like this. But here in Canada... Maybe a union is good.”

Just then the door burst open and three Mounties, led by Reg Statler, came in, moving fast. And they came right for
me,
and Statler grabbed my arm.

“Taras Kalyna,” he said, “you are under arrest for seditious behaviour under the War Measures Act.” He spoke in a loud voice, but I didn’t think he believed what he was saying.

“And for suspicion of being an Austrian spy,” he added.

I told him, “I’m not a spy! You know I’m not.” I’d been reporting
to this Mountie Statler once a month since the last fall. I was sure he’d never suspected me of anything at all.

When I spoke, he hesitated a moment and I thought he looked ashamed.

“Officer, this is a peaceful meeting,” Moses
said. “Nothing to do with sedition or spies.”

“This man is an Austrian citizen. He’s spreading seditious propaganda.” Statler said this in a loud voice. I thought he was trying to convince himself.

“Mr. Kalyna was invited to the meeting –” Frank Elder said, but the policemen ignored him. “He came to listen!”

“Take him away,” Statler said. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“No! Wait!” Moses shouted.

“I’m not a spy!” I yelled, but they dragged and shoved me out the door.

“All right,
”
Tymko says, “I see why you didn’t want to tell us. It’s miserable, all right. Do you feel any better yet?”

“Not that I can notice. I’ll let you know if that changes.”

“That was rotten luck,”
Yuriy says. “You weren’t even trying to start a union.”

“Doesn’t matter,”
Tymko says. “When the boss wants to get rid of you, he can always come up with something.”

“But why would he want to get rid of me? He liked me at first. He could have been killed or crippled by that horse if I hadn’t helped him.”

“Bosses don’t feel gratitude,”
Tymko says.

“He did at first. He gave me a job. Even though Stover didn’t want him to.”

Taras thinks about that day, and the few other times he talked with the boss. The day he asked for time off to look for someone. An odd question from Shawcross.

“One day he noticed the pendant I was wearing. He asked me where I got it. I never thought about it till now, but why would he care?”

“The one you made?” Myro asks.

“That’s right.
And I made Halya one just like it.”

“Did he see hers somehow?”
Yuriy wonders. “Did he meet Halya somewhere?”

“How could he?” And yet, why would Shawcross ask about the pendant? Why would he get that look on his face like he was hatching something?

A scene unfolds in his mind. Shawcross talking to Reg Statler. Kalyna’s an Austrian, he says. I know, Statler says, he reports to me every month. And Shawcross says, Why hasn’t the fellow been arrested? And Statler says, There’s no reason to. He hasn’t done anything.

Taras imagines the boss thinking: So Taras hasn’t done anything. If he does, though, look out. Shawcross will make sure Statler does his duty. More than his duty. And then he somehow finds out about the union meeting.

He remembers something else. “The day the war broke out, I saw Halya going into the train station with an older lady. An English lady.”

“Going somewhere on the train,” Myro says. “I wonder why.”

Taras remembers
Viktor’s gloating face outside the police building. “Viktor said Halya had gone some place I’d never find her. He said she was going to school and she was going to marry an Englishman.”

“Could the English lady be your boss’s mother?” Myro asks. “And Shawcross the Englishman she was supposed to marry?”

“How could they have even met?” Taras asks. It seems too fantastic to be true.

“But why would they send her away to school?”
Yuriy wonders. “I know! To make her more English. More
white,
eh?”

“Where would boss people find an English lady school?” Tymko asks. “That’s what we need to figure out.”

“A school like that would have to be in a big city,”
Yuriy says. “I don’t think they have
pahna
schools in every little town.”

“The most likely places are Winnipeg or Edmonton,” Myro says. “I don’t know Winnipeg, but I’m from Edmonton and there’s a school for young ladies there. Private school. People pay to send their daughters there.”

“Sounds like boss business to me.”
Tymko’s eyebrows rise into his thoughtful owl look. “I bet Halya’s in Edmonton.”

“That’s in Alberta, right?”
Taras says. “It can’t be so far away.”

“Ten, twelve hours on the train,” Myro says. “They make a lot of stops.”

“I could write her a letter.”
Taras feels his heart pounding.

“Would she do well in school, do you think?” Tymko asks.

“Oh yes. Halya loves to read. She’s very smart.”

CHAPTER 26

The People’s Voice

May, 1915

Halya climbs
a steep, dark staircase one slow step at time. She’s out of chances, having already failed to get every job in the newspaper advertisements that she could possibly pretend to be qualified for.
The people at the top of the stairs haven’t even advertised. But they are the people she’d like to work for.
She’s only just realized that. She’d been standing outside, head down, and feeling she’d reached some kind of end. She’d happened to look up and seen a sign on a door she hadn’t noticed was there.

In a moment she’s reached the landing and stands before an office door. On its glass panel, a sign reads:
The People’s Voice,
Western Canada’s Ukrainian Newspaper. Below, it says, “Nestor Mintenko, Editor. Zenon Andrychuk, Reporter.” Hunger and fear knot her stomach, and she hopes the sponge bath in her room this morning has done its job. She hesitates a moment, then knocks and goes inside.

Two men sit typing
.
The older one, a stocky guy of about fifty, looks as if he’s seen it all. He must be Nestor Mintenko. The second is a thinner, scholarly looking man in his early thirties: Zenon. Halya sees him looking at her with interest. She’s wearing a plain navy blue dress; yes, one of Louisa’s, but she can’t worry about that now. Her hair is neatly braided around her head. She tries to make her face look both interested and hopeful, but she’s afraid they’ll see the desperation underneath.

“Dobre dehn. Ya Halya Dubrovsky.”

Zenon smiles encouragingly.

“I wondered if you had any work.
”
There, she’s said it.

“Sorry, kid, we can barely pay ourselves,” Nestor says. He looks like a person of natural kindness and compassion who feels he must appear firm, even brusque.

“I can read and write Ukrainian...also English.” I’m one of you, a Ukrainian, she wants to say. How can you just turn away?

“I’m afraid –” Zenon says.

She doesn’t have to search for the words, they come out like rapid gunfire. “I can type sixty-five words a minute, and I’m very accurate. I can write clear, grammatical letters in both languages.” They look unmoved. What else can she tell them? “I’ve studied the poetry of Taras Shevchenko and the novels of Jane Austen.” That’s better. Having mentioned these two touchstones, she feels on firmer ground.

Nestor, unfortunately, looks like he’s trying not to laugh, but Zenon...she thinks he may be intrigued.

“It
would
be helpful...” he says with a slight smile.

Nestor shakes his head. “We can’t afford –”

There’s no turning back. Miss Greeley’s money’s gone. “I’m very interested in writing.”

“We do all the writing here,” Nestor says.

“I can spell very well... My typing is extremely...” Oh, she’s told them that.

“My handwriting, did I mention? My handwriting is clear and legible. I received a prize in my class for Composition. My essay... about the novels of Charles Dickens...”

The men exchange a look. Shevchenko, Austen
and
Dickens? they must be thinking. How often does a person with those qualifications walk up their dank stairway? Hope makes her heart race. She sees Nestor’s brief shrug. A real smile breaks over Zenon’s face.

“Look,” Nestor says, “I can’t afford to hire you full time. But I have an uncle who runs a café. I think he needs someone.
You could work there maybe four nights a week. And, say, three afternoons a week for us. How does that sound?”

Like heaven, she wants to say. “It sounds very good.
When may I begin?”

Nestor telephones his uncle and Halya can see that everything is being agreed to. He gives her a piece of paper with the address she should go to and settles the details of hours and pay at the paper. It’s not much, but with evenings at the café, it will keep her. And she’ll be working on a newspaper. A Ukrainian newspaper.

For the first time she admits that coming to Canada has allowed her to have a new life. She is a woman with employment. Moments ago she was adrift on dangerous, open seas. Now she’s landed on a small, dry island with kind people. Her father wouldn’t like them, but that only
speaks in their favour.
And every day she’ll be able to speak her language. Maybe some time they’ll let her write for the paper. Sooner or later they’ll need help with something or one of them will be sick, not that she wants them to be sick, but that’ll be her chance.

Nestor tells her she’ll be starting at the café this very evening. Suppers will be provided in addition to her pay. She hopes they won’t see how hungry she is. She hopes they’ll feed her before she has to start. After that, she can work as long as she has to.

CHAPTER 27

Absolutely splendid

July, 1916

One day
hikers from the Alpine Club of Canada arrive at Castle Mountain camp on their way up to a place called Ptarmigan Lake. The commandant assigns Yuriy and another man to help them clear trails. Yuriy comes back afterwards with a strange smile on his face.

“I have seen beyond this place,” he says. “These fellows, they think there’s nothing better than climbing mountains. They’re in love with mountains. They kept saying, ‘Smell that air. Every-thing’s so fresh.’ One of them gave me a drink of whiskey from a silver flask.”

The others pretend not to believe him.

“No, really, and they shared their lunch with me when they saw the stuff I had. Roast beef sandwiches! And little fishes out of a jar.”

His face glows as if he’d partaken of the loaves and fishes in the Bible.

“You were like a man lost in the desert,” Tymko says. “Such men see illusions. No doubt you had the same gristle and onion sandwiches we did. It only seemed like roast beef.”

“Gristle
and
onions?
That’s a new low.”

“Well, I
say
gristle, but who knows what it was. The onions were real, though.”

Yuriy smiles, then turns quiet. “I could see so far. I felt like I could walk right out of here if I wanted. It was so beautiful it made the backs of my knees ache.”

“That was fear of heights,” Ihor says. “All you flatlanders have it.”

“Believe what you like. When this is all over, I’m going to come back one day and climb that son of a bitch.”
Yuriy jerks his head toward Castle’s summit.

This statement creates complete belief about the little fishes among the other men. Until now each has vowed that once free he will never set foot anywhere near here again.

A week later
it’s sunny but not too hot and the hikers are back, this time to climb Castle. Sergeant Lake is going too, and has asked for Yuriy and Taras to come along. The plan is to climb as far as the treeline, tidying the trail as they go. Of course it’s the internees who’ll be doing the work, Taras thinks bitterly. All right, maybe Sergeant Lake also wanted to give them a day away from camp, but Taras resents the idea that they can be lent out to the commandant’s cronies. He does want a break, though, so he keeps his resentment to himself.