The Darkening Archipelago (37 page)

“Cole,” Nancy began as they started down the road to the harbour.

“Just don't say anything right now, Nancy. Not a word.”

They walked away, Cole a step ahead of her. They passed through the clutch of houses and storefronts that constituted town. Cole could hear the din from The Strait and felt his body reach out toward that sound in search of strong drink. They made their way to the docks.

“I should have told you I had been to the ranch,” Nancy said. Cole had stopped and was looking west at the rising moon. His hands were in his pockets and the collar of his leather coat was turned up against the chill.

“It was wrong, Cole. I'm sorry.”

Cole exhaled a stream of breath into the night through his lips, blowing hard.

“Cole —”

“Just shut up,” he said, his teeth pressed together.

“Cole, I —”

“Shut up and listen.”

He turned and she could see his eyes, the light of the moon glistening off the whites. His eyes were wide open, wild, full of rage. “You think you can come here and get into these people's lives and homes and pretend to be helping us solve the mystery, a good man, a man who spent his life serving his people, and then betray us. Betray them. Betray me.” He spoke quietly, his teeth clenched, as if he were holding back his rage with them. As if they were the only thing keeping that dark beast trapped inside of him from spilling out and running wild.

“That wasn't my intention. You called
me
, Cole. I came to help. I want to solve this murder too,” she said.

“You want the story is all you want. It's all you ever want. The story. It's all about the story.” He spat the words at her.

“It's more.”

“So why go to the ranch? Why harass my mother? My brother? What are you hoping to find? What are you trying to dig up?”

“I didn't harass anybody,” she said. “I had dinner with your mother. I had a walk with your brother. I wanted to get to know them. To get to know you.”

“That's a crock of shit and you know it, Webber. You want to get to know me, talk to me.”

She laughed and turned in a circle, her hands slapping her sides. “Talk to you? To Cole Blackwater, mister I don't want to get into it, I'm too busy brooding. I'm too busy with my own shit, so don't ask about it? You want me to talk to you? I've been talking to you for years and you're like a closed door in my face.”

“What are you trying to do? What do you want?”

“I want to know what is tearing you apart, Cole. I want to know what is eating you from the inside out.”

“Nothing is eating me,” he said, turning back to the moon.

“See! This is what I mean.
Nothing
is eating you? Look at you, Cole! You're seething. Every goddamned day you are seething. Everybody can see it. Grace sees it. Denman sees it. Sarah sees it. You're so angry at yourself, and the world, at your father, at everything, you're the only one who can't see it. You can hardly look at yourself. But no, nothing is eating
you
,” she mocked.

“So I'm an angry guy, so what? It makes me good at what I do.”

“You've been using that line for so long, Cole, I think you must
almost
believe it. Your anger doesn't make you good at what you do. It's an excuse for what you do. Beating the shit out of people. Getting the shit beaten out of you. You're so angry at yourself that you're trying to get yourself killed and you don't even know it.”

“That's just wrong, Nancy.”

“You're so angry that you're looking to kill someone, or get yourself killed.”

Cole turned on her. “You don't know what the fuck you're talking about!” he roared, and she took half a step back. “You just talk and talk and talk but you don't know a thing about me. Not a goddamned thing.”

“Then tell me.”

He took a sharp breath.

“Tell me what happened to make you so angry.”

He twisted back toward the rising moon.

“What happened in the barn?”

“Nothing. Go back to the house.”

“What happened to your father in the barn, Cole?”

“Nancy, you don't know what you're talking about.”

“Cole, what happened to your father there?”

“Nancy, you're digging a hole you can't get out of….”

“Cole, I want the truth from you. What happened?”

“Why, why do you want the truth? So you can write another story. Win another award?”

It was Nancy's turn to look at her feet. She stamped them to warm her toes. “I'm not doing this as a journalist.”

“Then what, Nancy? What?”

“As a friend, Cole. I'm doing it as a friend.”

“It's a funny way of showing it.”

“Cole, what happened to your father?”

“He was a sick man, Nancy. He was sick in the head. He shouldn't have come back from Europe after World War II. He should have died on Juno Beach. The world would have been a better place for it.”

“You and Walter would never have been.”

“The world would have missed Walt, but I don't know about me.”

“Sarah. The world would have missed her.”

“Leave Sarah out of this, Nancy.”

“What happened to your father in the barn?”

“He was such a mean bastard, Nancy. He hit my mother. Did she tell you that?”

“No. But I heard.”

“Heard? Heard where? Don't tell me. I don't want to know.” Cole shook his head. “Reporters, digging into your life … digging into your life. So you know that he beat me, too.”

“Yeah, I figured that out some time ago. I just didn't know how badly.”

“Badly,” said Cole.

“I'm sorry —”

“Save it.”

“For what?”

“For someone who cares, Nancy.”

She took a breath. “You must have hated him.”

“I hated him more than anything in this world,” Cole said. “I was just a boy, and he took all of that rage, all of that hate, out on me.”

“It's not your fault.”

“I know. I've talked to the shrinks. When I was at university in Toronto I went to see someone. They told me all that crap. Not my fault. Got to forgive. Move on. But I didn't want to forgive. I didn't want to move on.” His fists were clenched, his back still to her. She could hear his voice waver and imagined tears trickling over the scars on his cheeks.

“Cole, when you came back to Alberta four years ago, after everything fell apart in Ottawa, what happened?”

“It was like I had never been away. It was like the twenty years had never happened. He didn't hit me. He was an old man. He knew better. But he didn't need to. All he needed to say was a few words. He knew how to stick the knife in and turn it.”

“Cole,” Nancy took a deep breath. “Did you kill him?”

Cole was silent. She watched his shoulders rise and fall as he drew in deep breaths of sea air. The moon was creeping across the sky now, reflecting off the water in the harbour.

It was the spring of 2002, and Cole Blackwater was at the nadir of his existence. He had been fired from his dream job in Ottawa, caused a train wreck of immeasurable proportions in Nancy Webber's journalism career, and lost his four-year-old daughter Sarah as his estranged wife, Jennifer Polson, moved across the country to Vancouver. The last thing in the world that Cole Blackwater had to hold onto was Sarah, and so with nothing to lose, he packed a few things in the back of his aging Toyota SR5 and drove west from Ottawa. It wasn't until he crossed the Saskatchewan–Alberta line that it even dawned on him that when he drove through Calgary, he'd be less than two hours from the Blackwater Ranch in Alberta's Porcupine Hills.

Cole slipped a tape of Ian Tyson songs in the deck and sang along. “Bald eagles back in the cottonwood trees, the old brown hills are just about bare. Spring time lying all along the creek, magpies ganging up everywhere….”

When he passed through Calgary he jerked the wheel and piloted the truck onto Deerfoot Trail, and drove it hard through rush-hour traffic to the southern end of the city where the Deer-foot shot south like an arrow toward Fort Macleod. He followed the highway to High River, where he stopped for gas and a can of pop, and then pressed on to Charleston. From there he headed west again, up into the brown Porcupine Hills, their backs clear of snow as a chinook barrelled down from the Rockies.

I'll just spend the night, see Mom, avoid the old man, and be on my way in the morning, he thought.

But Cole Blackwater found that the old place was good for him, and he stayed longer. The old man kept almost entirely out of sight. Sometimes Cole would see him walk from the barn to one of the sheds, or they might pass each other at the breakfast table, but otherwise, Cole spent the time with his mother, or riding Blue, the old quarter horse, or talking late into the night when his brother would drive up from Waterton Lakes.

At the end of the second week, Cole was out riding Blue when his father suddenly rode up beside him. Seeing him then, Cole thought Henry Blackwater looked every bit the cowboy, with his tight, checkered, pearl-button shirt under a felt-lined tan vest and dark blue Wranglers. Henry Blackwater's sweat-stained Stetson was probably the same hat he'd been wearing for two decades, and at that peculiar angle.

Cole could smell the booze on his breath. He knew the old man was drunk by the way he held the reins so lightly, sitting as if the horse and he shared a secret about the world that made Henry Blackwater immune to injury. Cole thought to himself, if this old fucker were to fall off his horse and hit his head on the rocks below, that would be just fine with me. The world would not miss Henry Blackwater.

“Your mother's pretty glad you're here.” The old man slurred a little as he spoke.

“It's good to see her,” said Cole, his eyes held straight ahead, gazing at the horizon of blue peaks above the bristled Porcupine Hills.

“Got yourself in a bit of trouble back in Ottawa, did you?”

Cole was silent. Had his father been waiting for Cole to let his guard down before striking?

His father spat. “Got yourself in a little too deep, didn't you, boy?”

Cole shifted his weight and the saddle creaked.

“You don't have to answer me, Cole. We both know you fucked up good this time, if you take my meaning.” The old man laughed harshly. “I should have made sure you knew right from wrong better. Should have taught you your lessons better. Should have made sure you knew how to take care of your family right.”

Cole had been holding his breath, and he let it out with a low whistle.

“Ain't you going to say anything?”

“Not to you,” said Cole, and he turned his horse around.

The old man trotted his horse to catch up. “What the fuck were you thinking, Cole? Fucking around on your wife? Making a mess of your job? Bringing shame on your daughter? What the fuck were you thinking?”

Cole pressed his heels into Blue and she stepped up her gait.

“You can't outride me, city boy. I live in the saddle. You're just a fucking tourist here.”

Cole looked over. The old man was grinning at Cole.

“What made you such a hateful bastard, I wonder?” Cole finally asked.

“Having to put up with good-for-nothing pricks like you all my life,” his father growled.

“If we're lucky,” said Cole ruefully, “we won't have to put up with
you
for too much longer.”

“I'm going to outlive you all,” his father said. He spat again and turned his horse away from Cole. It was Cole's turn to catch up to his father. His vision blurred, and his hands trembled on the reins. From a distance it might appear as though father and son were out for a ride together.

Suddenly overcome with the rage he had been holding at bay these past two weeks, Cole spoke: “The best thing you could do for the world is to just go on living your hateful life. Grow old and suffer. The longer you suffer, the better.” Cole's words came out in an enraged growl. “And then, when you finally die, I'm going to stand over you and spit down your fucking throat.”

Cole turned away and galloped back to the barn. He unsaddled Blue and gave her a handful of alfalfa cubes and brushed her down. He saw his father sitting on his horse in the pasture, waiting for Cole to leave the barn before bringing in his own mount. Cole's heart was still beating hard when he entered the house. His face was stitched with anger, his hands trembled.

”What is it, dear?” his mother asked as he stepped from the mud room into the kitchen.

“It's nothing.”

“You were out riding. Is something wrong?”

“Nope, everything is okay.” He stepped to her and bent to kiss her on the forehead.