Elephant Bangs Train (11 page)

Nurse returned to the jar for more cream. I lay, fixed to her hip. With two fingers, then, she embraced Mickey by the throat, in a most sensitive spot. The veins bulged in his neck. With little strokes, she massaged up and down. Mickey pulsed dangerously. Nurse drew her hand away stopping us on the edge of explosion and Mickey fell backwards on my stomach, descending from his dizzy climb.

Is this it? Do they just test it out to see if it's still working, and you crawl home on your hands and knees?

'Would you help me off with my jacket, please?' asked the nurse. I pulled her jacket off obediently, touching the soft shoulders beneath her blouse. 'I don't want to get any cream on it,' she said, and then, with a smile, dipped her fingers back into the jar.

She fed Mickey Finn some more cream and instantly he grew fat and happy again, dancing in in the half-light, a whipped-cream hat cocked over one eye.

Her legs were crossed, the knees bare behind sheer stockings. We were sunk together in the soft leather couch with hips full against each other. The window was burning, four propellers were turning in space, her entire hand was closing around Mickey and I was taking off.

She stopped us on the edge. 'You'd better roll your shirt,' she said.

I tucked it quickly up around my neck, and Nurse closed her hand around Mickey again, pumping him up and down, faster and more forceful, her fingers slithering with cream, driving Mickey to maddening heights.

Up came the naked photographic ladies, laughing uncontrollably. Mickey ticked, going nuts, and then, as so often happened to my Irish grandfather's still during prohibition, there came an eruption from the cellar. Mickey's head blew off, and a white jet of homemade brew flew through the air, splashing down on my bare chest.

She pumped Mickey again and again, until the last drop was out, and my childhood was gone. Then she stood, and opening the cabinet, took out a glass slide. She ran it up my chest, scooping off the sperm for the celebrated test, enclosing it efficiently inside another slide. Then she washed Mickey Finn and tenderly dried him.

'You can get dressed now,' she said, and handed me the tube of cocoa butter. 'Don't forget to rub this in every day,' she said with a smile, and left me.

I left the Medical Arts Building, weak in the knees, but wonderfully wiser. In a single afternoon, I had shot past all my friends into a new and exciting world, and the whole deal only cost my father seven hundred dollars.

The Trap

O
UT OF THE WHIRLING SNOW
came a man wrapped so deep in fur he resembled a bear. He moved slowly along, stepping grotesquely, leaving the print of snowshoes behind him.

Pushing against the wind, he marched towards log cabin set in a grove of frozen hemlock. Smoke rose from the cabin's chimney and its frostbitten windows were bright. He walked to the door, opened it, and plunged into the warm firelight.

'So you made it,' said a man in uniform, seated at a rough oak desk.

'Yes sir,' said the man in fur, saluting. 'Constable Turner reporting.'

'I'm Lieutenant Belfast. Make yourself at home, Constable.'

Constable Turner removed his coat and hat, revealing the red jacket of the Northwest Mounted Police. Stepping to the stove, he struggled to remove his boots.

The cabin door opened again and a short potbellied man with an armload of wood stepped in. 'Cook,' said the Lieutenant, 'meet Constable Turner.'

'Howdy,' said Cook, setting down the wood' and extending his hand. 'You're new to the Mounties?'

'Yes,' said Turner.

'You'll like it,' said Cook. 'Good clean work.'

In the following weeks, Constable Turner was worked into the routine of the post. Assigned to counting caribou droppings, he prowled the snow fields each day with his notebook, determining the size of the herd. He slipped through the trees, and dreaming of gunrunners and fur smugglers, took careful measure of the steaming pellet.

At night, the glow from the cabin was the only light on Red Deer Hill. Inside a card game of quiet bids and swearing filled the evenings for Belfast and Cook, while Constable Turner lay on his bunk studying the Criminal Code.

After the other men went to sleep, he continue reading ensnarement procedure by the low lamp, until his eyes crossed with fatigue. He closed the manual, blew out the light, and looking at the dark sloping roof over his bed, counted a pattern of knotholes in the wood.
Were the other men having him on about the droppings?

Next morning, Constable Turner climbed from a cold bed on to the freezing floor.

'Bright enough day,' said Cook, rattling his pans.

'Plenty of sun,' said Constable Turner. 'Spot a turd ten miles away.' He went out of the cabin towards the woodpile in the rear. Crossing the yard, he heard the distant barking of dogs. Looking down Red Deer Hill, he saw a dog team coming out of the fir trees below.

'Mail sled,' said Cook, joining him on the hillside.

'
Bonjour, messieurs
,' said the postman, a natty little Frenchman. Carrying his pouch into the cabin, he presented Lieutenant Belfast with the correspondence from the post in Regina. Belfast slowly and carefully went through the month's orders.

'Constable Turner,' he said, getting up and walking to the large wall map of the territory.

'Yes sir,' said Turner, crossing quickly to his side.

'There's a man in trouble here,' said the Lieutenant, pointing to a northwest spot on the map. 'You'll leave tomorrow and take him to the hospital in Edmonton.'

'Yes sir.'

'You might take a look at this.' Lieutenant Belfast handed Turner a wrinkled letter, written in a thin unsteady hand:

20 Sept 1909

Deer sir a trapper name John live up snake lake an is craze for some year might send a man afor He kill someone I saw
him summer an he think he a moose I am miner W Nettlebrew

Turner spent the day prowling restlessly around his laid-out pack, adding and eliminating, finally settling the great bundle in the corner by his bed. He spent the evening by the oil lamp studying the trail map, and traced his 120-mile route carefully with red ink.

With the first grey light of dawn, he was outside preparing the dog team. He slipped the lead dog into the harness, then the rest of the dogs in pairs, seven in all, yapping happily.

'Here's your grub,' said Cook, handing him a filled knapsack, which Constable Turner tied in with his own large travel pack.

Lieutenant Belfast handed him the long sled whip. 'Take care of yourself, Constable.'

'Thank you, sir.' Turner saluted, cracked the whip, and before he could say
mush
! the eager dogs were on their way. Along Red Deer Hill they ran, and then down; Constable Turner looked quickly back over his shoulder but the cabin was already out of sight.

By the time the sun was noon high, he was beyond the woods he knew, breaking new trail with map and compass, northwest towards Snake Lake. 'Mush, mush!' he cried, whipping the air. The snow flew and Constable Turner's dreams fluttered in brilliant crystal designs, converging into the shape of glistening medals, falling on his jacket.

At dusk he searched along the ridge of a hill for a campsite, settling finally by a large rock in the side of the hill, out of the driving wind. The sun had gone and the bitter cold of the north came on, penetrating through the several layers of his uniform, deep into his bones.

He took dry wood from his pack and built a fire against the rock wall. Laying a frying pan on the flame, he thawed out the dogs' dinner of frozen fish. His own dinner followed—warm beef and scorched potato. He heated snow in his cup, turning it to water and then to tea into which he dunked one of Cook's biscuits.

Dinner ended, the dogs huddled closer to him, chins on paws, ears back, eyes glistening in the firelight. He took a shovel from his pack and dug a hole in the snow. When the hole was large enough for his entire body, he unrolled his sleeping bag into it. Slipping into the bag, he scooped a blanket of snow over himself and lay down. The wind blew over his grave bed. He turned his face into the sleeping bag and the dogs crept closer. The fire collapsed, went to embers, to ashes, and disappeared beneath lightly falling snow.

Four days he mushed over rolling timberland and on the fifth day came to a low-lying basin of scrub pine. A frozen body of water ran through it, winding like a snake. Above the treetops, he saw smoke curling in the sky.

Constable Turner tied the dogs to a tree, and removing his rifle from the pack, went forward, along the icy waterway, blending in with the scenery, now a rock, now a tree. The snow was new and made no sound beneath his boots. He followed the snaking lake to its tail. Beyond it, the woods cleared, and in the clearing was a small cabin.

Circling the cabin, he came up behind it, next to a large storage shed. He crawled through the snow towards the shed, coming up quietly against its back wall. The door of the shed was open.

He stepped through the doorway. His leg brushed a taut rope, which suddenly gave way. A blur passed over him. He tried to leap away, but was struck on the head and fell to the ground, as a large wire cage slammed down around him, forcing him to his knees. He tried to lift the cage. It was weighted from above, with heavy sacks.

'Snaffled,' said Constable Turner, struggling to cock his rifle.

He aimed the rifle at the doorway of the shed and held steady as he could, bent over as he was with his head towards the ground.
Performing the duties required of me as a member of the Northwest Mounted Police
. He heard the cabin door open and footsteps flopping in the snow towards the shed.
Without fear, favour, or affection of or towards any person
.

The footsteps stopped. The wall of the shed was filled with knotholes, through which the sun streamed. He ran his eyes over the wall.

The footsteps flopped away. Constable Turner lowered his rifle. 'I'll have to break this birdcage to bits,' he said, and kicked and shouldered the cage, ramming it with all his might, but the wire did not yield.

The afternoon passed slowly and Constable Turner spent it curled in a ball. Darkness fell and he remained in a huddle. The floor of the shed was frozen earth. The walls were hung with animal skins. The wire of the cage was so finely woven he was unable to pass a finger through it. He took pad and pencil from his jacket.

29 Nov 1909

Found trapper. Snaffled in fox pen.

Formulating plan.

The night wrapped him in. His limbs rattled and his teeth chattered uncontrollably. His nose ached as if it had been struck by a hammer.

Sleep came and he fought against it, for sleep was deep cold. Teeth and eyes of animals came out of the dark moonlit walls. Terror surrounded him for a moment and then it passed, and he spent the night dumbly dreaming.

As pale streaks of morning light came across the floor of the shed, Turner was in a crouch, watching the door and the hill, where the grey light was advancing.

He heard the cabin door open. Across the newly-frosted ground came the crunch of boots. 'Hello!' shouted Turner, with a voice like cracking ice. 'A team of dogs is tied up at the far end of the lake!'

The footsteps crunched away. Later came the barking of the dogs. Their rough voices grew louder until they were in the snow directly outside Turner's shed. Finally, he heard their satisfied chomping on food.

'Hello!' he called. 'I am Constable Turner of the Northwest Mounted Police!'

The dogs growled, tearing at their food. Turner banged against the cage with his fist. 'I am from the Post on Red Deer Hill, outside Saskatoon!'

An odd, gravelled voice came through the wall of the shed:

'Horn soup!'

Then the footsteps crunched through the snow, back to the cabin. Constable Turner sat, staring out the door, his neck bent, and listened to the morning. A rabbit crossed the doorway, looked in for a moment, and hopped away. The sun went along, over the trees, over the shed.

Night came again and the cold moved deeper into him, like icewater in his veins. The snow owl hooted. The trees gleamed in the moonlight. The wind came through the open door, howling around him. His dream was grey and lonely. He ran across the moonlit snow. Yonder were the Caribou Mountains.

An iron sound split the air. Turner sat up, looked around. It was morning. The cage was lifted. His rifle was gone. A shadow stood over him, and a gun barrel gleamed.

'Section 105 of the Criminal Code,' said Constable Turner, standing stiffly. 'Pointing a firearm at a law enforcement officer.'

'Soup's on,' said the cracked gravel voice, and the shadow walked out of the shed.

Constable Turner followed numbly through the snow, into the cabin. The cabin held stove, bed, table, chairs. A frying pan sizzled on the stove. The trapper was a small grey-bearded old man with bowed legs, gnarled hands, and a walrus moustache.

'You're under arrest,' said Constable Turner.

'Set down,' said the trapper, and turning to the stove, emptied the contents of the frying pan into two plates.

Constable Turner ate slowly. The trapper sat across from him, shovelling food into a toothless mouth. In a rocking chair near the stove sat an old hound, fat, sleeping. The rocker moved gently back and forth with the dog's breathing.

'I'm sorry,' said Turner, when dinner was ended, 'but my orders are to take you into Edmonton.'

'I knew a feller went to Edmonton,' said the trapper, and getting up, walked to his bed table and opened a cigar box. He handed a faded blue envelope to Turner. It was postmarked Edmonton, 1898.

Turner opened the envelope and removed a single sheet of paper. On it was written, in painfully twisted letters, the words:
Made it O.K. Partner Chonkey
.

'Partner Chonkey,' said the old man, putting the letter back in the cigar box. 'Took our fur to Edmonton five-six year ago. Ain't seen his hide since.'

The trapper cleared the table. His shotgun was leaning against a chair.
Get the jump
. Turner weighed the move carefully in his mind. The old man was splashing water in a basin.
No. Can't jump a man while he's doing your dishes
.