I been thinking about going up to Toronto, Duke said when Little Sweetland was in sight. Next spring sometime.
You talk to Ange about it?
Duke was recently married, just long enough for his wife to have the one child and be two months toward having a second.
Not yet, no.
What do you think she’ll think of it?
Probably she’ll be happy to be clear of me awhile.
Yes, Sweetland said. I finds women likes nothing better than being left alone to look after two young ones.
Duke stared across at him.
I’m only saying.
Well shut up out of it, for chrissakes, Duke said. And a moment later he said, You should come with me.
Sweetland shook his head. I hates fucken old Toronto, he said.
Fucken old Toronto pays a buck fifty an hour. Never going to make that kind of money at the fish.
They were swinging out around the cliffs of Little Sweetland, a cloud of mist like a shroud over the east end of the island.
It’s Effie keeping you home, is it? Duke said.
We idn’t married, Sweetland said.
Duke watched him a second. Jesus, he said, I’m gut foundered.
Sweetland looked up to the headlands and, sure enough, there were a handful of figures standing in the fog, their massive shadows motionless on the cliff edge.
Look up there, he said.
Where?
On the headland there.
Can’t see a thing.
Just watch, Sweetland said.
And a moment later the shadowy creatures turned and moved off into the grey.
Jesus, what a size they are.
You think they’re fit to eat? Duke asked.
They looks to me like they’d be tougher than the hobs of hell, Sweetland said, even if you managed to get them on a plate.
Duke shrugged. I don’t mind chewing, he said.
Sweetland eased off the throttle outside the entrance to Tilt Cove, turned into the calmer water.
It’s a big frigging island, Duke.
We’ll just go for a stroll, he said. See what we can see.
They walked up out of the cove, following the old path to the pond on the high ground above the harbour, their woollen socks squelching in their boots.
Be hard to get a clear shot in this weather, Sweetland said.
They’re big as barns. Pilgrim could probably pick one off.
The trail went through a trough of scrub spruce, not a single tree the height of Duke, but the branches crowding the path held tufts of hair pulled from the bison hides as the animals walked past. An hour to reach the headlands and nothing to see there but buffalo pies, some still steaming in the cold air.
They can’t be far, Duke whispered.
They could be halfway to Hibb’s Hole for all you knows.
They skirted the cliffs to the east end of the island, walking until they risked not getting back to the boat before dark. They hadn’t eaten since morning and Sweetland could hear Duke’s stomach grumbling as they cut across the island, the rolling echo like a distant thunderstorm. They walked down into the cove, along the side of one of the few houses still standing, the door long gone, the windowpanes beaten out by weather. Gotta take a leak, Sweetland said, and he turned to the wall out of the wind, let loose against the shale foundation while Duke waited two paces ahead.
This was the Dolimounts’ place, Duke said idly. He was facing away from Sweetland, watching the cove. Jim Dolimount? he said. Married to Eunice?
Sweetland staring into the gloom as he pissed, nearly dark inside. The kitchen empty of furniture, the wallpaper stained and peeling. The floor littered with what looked to Sweetland to be buffalo patties, the animals using the building as a shelter to get out of the weather. He leaned to look through into the living room and his water went dry.
They had nine youngsters, Duke was saying, before Eunice had the hysterectomy into St. John’s.
Duke, Sweetland whispered. He was tucking himself in but never glanced away, afraid the creature would disappear if he did. He reached for the rifle where he’d leaned it against the house, nosed the barrel into the frame to let it rest on the sill. The animal shifted on its feet, the hooves against the wood floor drumming in the hollow space.
What in the Jesus was that? Duke asked just as Sweetland fired. The rifle shot echoed in the empty room like a cannon, knocking the last pane of glass from the window. Duke was shouting but Sweetland couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears.
They tried to haul the buffalo out of the house before they dressed it, but there was no way to get the dead animal through the doorway. Duke brought up a storm lamp from the boat and they butchered the buffalo where it lay, the stink mushrooming in the enclosed space. They carried the quarters down to the water, the thigh bones like a stick over their shoulders, the massive parcel of meat lying pelt side down against their backs. Duke wanted to leave the rest of the carcass where it was but Sweetland wouldn’t have it.
Those wildlife officers is out here two or three times a season, he said. I don’t want anyone coming around Sweetland looking for poachers.
They dragged the head and spine across the threshold and down to the shoreline, throwing it into a fathom of water. They gathered up the shin bones and the mess of the internal organs in the bloody cloak of the pelt and tossed that into the cove as well, but for the heart and liver that they wrapped in a square of cloth and tucked away in Duke’s pack. Sluiced the blood and offal out the door of the house with buckets of water. They crouched in the landwash then to clean the blood off their hands and forearms in the bitter cold of the ocean.
Dark now the once, Duke said. Maybe we should overnight here.
Sweetland shook his head. Darker the better, he said, given what we’re carting.
I hope it don’t taste like bear meat.
Sweetland glanced across at the man beside him. When have you ever tasted bear?
I haven’t, he said. Just don’t think I’d like it.
Duke stood and dried his arms on the wet sweater under his jacket, the burnished wedding ring glinting in the day’s last light.
Maybe I’ll come with you, Sweetland said then. Up to the mainland.
Duke watched him a few seconds, still drying his arms. I thought you hated fucken old Toronto?
Buck fifty an hour, like you says.
Sweetland couldn’t say what possessed him to make that decision, any more than he could explain why he’d called the government man to take the package when he did. There was no saying how things might have turned out if he’d stayed at home instead of going to Toronto. But it all went sideways there on Little Sweetland, the buffalo’s blood still under his nails, his hands numb with the ocean’s cold.
A life was no goddamn thing in the end, he thought. Bits and pieces of make-believe cobbled together to look halfways human, like some stick-and-rag doll meant to scare crows out of the garden. No goddamn thing at all.
~ ~ ~
THREE MONTHS AFTER the Sri Lankans passed through Chance Cove, the Reverend announced he was leaving Sweetland for another parish. Telling the congregation during a Sunday morning service.
This will come as a shock to you, he said, and I apologize for that.
He and his wife were shipping out within the month, moving to a church closer to her parents, who were aged and ailing and had no one else to watch out to them. Half the women were in tears to hear it. Digging crumpled tissues from dress sleeves to dab at their rheumy eyes. Sweetland glancing at Ruthie where she sat with Pilgrim, one row ahead of him. Stone-faced. As though the news was no surprise to her.
Ruthie’s pregnancy was just beginning to show by then and it was an endless source of amusement in the cove. It had taken the blind man that long to find his way into his wife’s drawers, people said. Pilgrim had finally figured out which lock his key was meant for. Men stood him drinks at the Fisherman’s Hall. Thought you was going to be firing blanks your whole life, they said. Must have been one of them dark fellas off the lifeboat, they said, Ruthie must have took special care of them. Those reporters was out here, they said, she charmed the pants off them.