LITMIR.BIZ

      We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing program.

      Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.

       J. Kirk Howard, President

      Printed and bound in Canada.

      To Maurice Poteet

      1

      VICTORIA

      HE WAS AN AMERICAN INDIAN KNOWN to his friends as Cowboy. He’d picked up the nickname one night when spotted tramping along the railroad, his lanky body silhouetted by the setting sun, wrapped in a long duster whose folds brushed against his leather boots. His friends were called Karate Kid, Donald Big-Arms, and Judith, who had a pale complexion, a generous pout, and a spry knee. They were the muskeg musketeers and Cowboy was their superman. They were a united clan, though I never fully understood their relationship. They all were at least cousins I think. Those from the encampment, and those from the cabin on the road to the reservoir. They were a progeny in full expansion, already carrying the next revenge of the cradles on its shoulders.

      I had been parachuted into the region as a clerk, and was now holed up in my quarters, feet drawn back on the bedspread, stroking the cover of a book oozing wisdom. I was willingly adjusting to their image of me as a young academic who’d come north; a portrait they used to place me conveniently in their gallery of human types.

      After a few days, when I said I was going for a stroll, Benoît and the Old Man exchanged knowing looks. This derogation of their iron rule was seen as a snub, a giving of the finger to the venerable buildings vocation as an impregnable fortress. It was an implicit breech of contract which meant I immediately ceased being one of them.

      Benoît gravely walked me down the aisle. The Outfitters’ general store was impenetrable, incorruptible, obsessed with security. In a region where fractures and break-ins often replaced polite phrases, a simple lock didn’t cut it. Benoît and the Old Man had explained this early on and seemed proud of their system. Sliding the heavy metal bar across the double flap, Benoît pushed the door open for me. The old trading post closed in on itself with a grating sound as the bar immediately resumed its position. The surrounding night stretched out beneath my feet.

      The generator’s rumbling filled the darkness like a sustained groan. Above me, blending its scattered notes with the myriad stars mottling the black velvet, a fugitive constellation of birds, back from its migration, was setting the stage for my meeting with Cowboy.

      I was completely still. Head tilted skywards, back arched to the breaking point, shoulders nearly parallel to the ground, I scanned the heavens, focusing only on the fantastic pulsing mass of things. Suddenly, a tired and bitter call, both hoarse and aggressive, pierced the dark sky. I turned towards the lamppost which stood near the gas pumps, holding the chaos beyond its milky halo. Four low-flying geese skirted along the fringe of the vast aureola. They banked, obeying their leader’s shrill entreaties, tracing a perfect circle above me, as I stood immobile, feet planted at the points of a compass. Having completed the figure, their instinct drew them farther away in tight formation, large and powerful in the distance.

      I came back to earth. Before me stood the restaurant, already closed at this hour, and the deserted train station, a survivor of the golden age of Canadian railways. It was covered with grey paint, and had gummy white lintels. The scent of tar wafted over the area. I walked down the embankment that had stood between the station and me, and sat on the platform, stirring ballasts with my foot. A sheet-metal warehouse shimmered across the tracks, intercepting and echoing the generators drone. I stood there for a while, looking around as though awaiting someone.

      Three of them were walking along the rails, just like in a Leone film. At first, I only managed to see their long shadows gliding towards me on the ground. A lantern stood watch on the stations pediment, splashing my back with its creeping glimmer. They soon spotted me and came to sit nearby, hardly looking at me sideways.

      The first one was tall, thin, and nimble, with an expression that was cunning and distressed. He wore a tracksuit, a sort of kimono that made him look like a comical judoka, a poor impersonation of Bruce Lee coming out of a B-movie brawl

      The second was strongly built, though a little portly. His features tensed and relaxed at every moment and his massive fists swung before him like pendulums. Donald Big-Arms was naive and rather simple, something those around him acknowledged without too much contempt. He’d sporadically burst out with heartfelt and astonished laughter.

      The face of the third was perfectly round. His lofty cheekbones and Buddha eyes stood out amid impeccable features able to change any ill-timed feeling into a harmless wrinkle. I was amazed by his stiffness, but immediately understood the reason when he turned around: a tape-covered handle jutted from his sweatshirt collar, behind his head, like an artificial extension of his spine, or as though a Damoclean sword had split his head.

      A smile eclipsed the rest of his face, detaching itself like a quarter moon. His eyes caught mine and, slowly raising his right hand to the back of his neck, he pulled out a gleaming machete and held it up. His contemplation reminded me of those Mexican peasants who wander through coconut plantations on the Pacific coast, and who, with a ritual sense refined by centuries of suffering and subservience, leave their dear machete on the bus’s running board with apparent regret before taking their seat.

      Cowboy silently handed me his weapon. Grasping it carefully, I performed a few clumsy manoeuvres under his approving gaze. At times, the three Indians traded short sentences, as unintelligible to my ear as the hoarse honking of the geese. We exchanged succinct thoughts, without words, while the generators angry roar highlighted the piercing silence.

      Hovering over the platform of this isolated station, like the whisper of an implicit pact between us, was a secret agreement which the machete

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