The Spawning Grounds (16 page)

Lightning cracked the sky directly overhead and a bolt of plasma hit the structure. Hannah felt the thunder vibrate through her bones, the bridge shake beneath her feet. Instinctively, both she and Alex crouched down on the balls of their feet, holding their heads. Brandon remained standing on the railing with his arms high, inviting the lightning to strike again, and it did, hitting the deck only yards away.
The wood burst into flame that spread to the backhoe, setting the wooden deck beneath the vehicle on fire.

“Hannah,” Jesse shouted from the road. “Get the hell out of there!” Abby barked and barked beside him but wouldn't step onto the bridge.

“We've got to go,” Alex told her, pulling on her arm.

“I'm not leaving Bran.” The backhoe was already engulfed by fire and would blow at any moment. “Please,” Hannah begged, “help me get Bran down.”

Alex nodded and stood, calling out to Brandon, “You've got to stop this now. You're not ready. This isn't the time or the place. Not on this bridge.” Brandon kept his arms extended to the sky. Lightning flashed, hitting a dead pine on the reserve side, and the tree burst into flames. “You hear me? It's not time yet.”

Brandon turned on the railing to look down at them. Hannah cried out, certain her brother was about to fall backwards into the water, but he found his footing. Alex held out his hand to the boy. “You'll know when the time is right,” he said.

At last Brandon leaned down to take Alex's hand, and Hannah and Alex hurried him off the bridge. Behind them the backhoe and bridge deck burned on, throwing up flames as tall as a man. Billows of thick black smoke filled the air with the smell of burning creosote.

Brandon's expression was stunned and his whole body shook. Once off the bridge, Brandon collapsed into his sister, and Hannah knelt with him on the gravel road, cradling him in her arms as Jesse threw his coat over his son.

Rain began to fall, a scattering at first, then a deluge that rattled against the deck of the bridge and pinged against the workers' crew cabs, and sizzled on the burning backhoe. Alex took off his own jacket and held it over both Hannah and Brandon as if this would protect them from the storm's wrath.

“You see now, don't you?” Alex said to Hannah. “Brandon
is
filled with the mystery. He brought down this storm.”

Hannah saw Jesse and Gina exchange a look. In the distance, she heard the wail of a police car heading towards them.

“I'll tell you what I see,” Jesse told Alex, wiping rain from his face. “I see my son is so fucked up he accepts anything you tell him. I can't figure out if you really believe this shit or not. What's your angle? Do you get some kind of cheap thrill from messing with his mind?”

Alex stood slowly and stepped back. Gina directed Jesse's attention to the men from the construction crew watching from their trucks. “Don't do this,” she told him. “Not now.”

Just then, the diesel tank in the backhoe blew, throwing a cloud of smoke and flame high into the grey sky. The midsection of the burning bridge collapsed into the river and the blackened husk of the backhoe shifted abruptly, coming to rest on the metal bridge supports beneath. Steam hissed as chunks of burning wood hit the water.

An RCMP cruiser pulled to the side of the road behind the construction trucks, and Gina's husband, Grant, jumped out with a grey blanket and ran through the rain towards them, the yellow band on his RCMP cap bobbing. Grant was so tall, Hannah thought, head and shoulders over the small
crowd he pushed through to get to them. She noted how his eyes lingered on Jesse and Gina, on how close they kneeled together. “Is he hurt?” he asked, looking down at Brandon.

“I don't think so,” said Gina. She had told her husband about Brandon's illness, Hannah thought. But of course she would.

“You need help getting him to the hospital?” Grant asked Jesse.

Jesse wouldn't look at him. “No, I'll take him in.”

“I've got to clear out these vehicles,” Grant said. “The fire trucks will be here soon.”

He turned first to the men of the construction crew, then to the Shuswap protestors on the far side of the burning bridge. “Do you know what caused the fire?” he asked Gina. “Was anyone here involved?”

“You mean, did one of us start that fire?” Alex said. “Christ, I can't believe you're suggesting that. We would never torch our only way home.”

“Grant knows that,” said Gina.

“I just need to know what happened,” Grant said. “How did the fire start?”

“Lightning struck the bridge, set the deck on fire,” Jesse said.

Grant turned to his wife for confirmation. “Lightning,” Gina said. “We were lucky no one was killed.”

“An act of God,” Alex told Gina. “Maybe that's exactly what it was.” But Gina wouldn't look at him or respond.

“Okay, better get Bran out of here,” Grant said. “I've got to get these men to move their trucks.”

Together with Jesse, Hannah wrapped the blanket around Brandon and helped him up.

“I'll get him dressed and come into town with you,” Hannah said.

“Maybe it's best if you stay home.”

“No, I'm going with you.”

“Hannah, I really think you need to sit this one out.”

“Dad.”

“I don't want you there,” Jesse said. “I need to talk to the doctor without—” He paused. “Without your interference.” He pointed at Alex. “And you stay away from Brandon. Stay clear of my house.”

Jesse glanced at Hannah before ushering Brandon back to the farm. She stayed where she was and watched him lead her brother away. They reached the Robertson gate just as two fire trucks screamed past. A few minutes later Jesse led Bran, now dressed, out of the house. He got him into the truck and drove up the hill, past the community hall and out of sight.

Hannah stood alongside Alex as the firefighters prepped the trucks and then hosed the bridge deck. Despite the rain and their efforts, the fire burned on for some time, ash and debris lifting on the wind and floating back down on them like feathers.

On the reserve side a crowd had gathered to mourn the burning bridge. Hannah saw one of her father's old girlfriends among them, a woman named Fern. She was in her late twenties now and had put on weight. Hannah understood from what Alex had told her that Fern had a son in
kindergarten who'd been fathered by one of the white millworkers. A few years earlier, she could just as easily have had Jesse's child, a sister or brother to Hannah. Fern glanced at Hannah and away, as if Hannah were just another white girl across the river.

As the firefighters continued to battle the smouldering blaze, Alex took Hannah by the hand and led her back home, the dog trailing them. She was shivering. They were both wet through.

In the kitchen, Alex put on the kettle, then stripped off his wet shirt and hung it and his jacket to dry on a kitchen chair over the furnace vent. Bare-chested, he turned to Hannah and relieved her of her soaked jean jacket and started to pull up her equally wet T-shirt. Embarrassed, she resisted. He took her face in both his hands. “Let me help you,” he said, repeating what Libby's lover had said to her. Hannah complied, holding up her hands as he pulled the shirt from her. He unfastened her bra before slipping it off her shoulders. She covered herself as he hung her wet garments on a chair. Then he took her in his arms and rubbed her back with his warm hands. Here was a moment she had long imagined: Alex's arms around her, the feel of his bare chest against hers. And yet all she could think of was her brother standing on that railing.

“What did I see out there, Alex? Did Bran really bring down that storm?”

“You tell me,” he said.

She had seen Brandon raise his arms and witnessed the lightning flash as if in response to his request. She had seen her brother—or this spirit within him—embrace that storm as if it were a part of his nature, his power.

She turned her head to look out at the burning bridge and there, outside the window, Brandon watched them. Hannah startled, withdrawing from Alex, covering herself. “Bran?” But as soon as she said his name, her brother vanished.

“Bran's at the hospital, with your dad.”

“He was at the window.” Hannah grabbed her wet T-shirt and held it against her breasts as she peered outside, but there was no sign of her brother.

Alex joined her at the window. “You saw his ghost?”

“I don't know.” The vision of her brother had been as fleeting as the dark scurry of a mouse half-glimpsed. Had she seen something or not? As with a mouse, chances were she had. Hannah shivered.

“Come here.”

Alex pulled her close and kissed her, but Hannah stepped back. “I can't do this right now,” she said. She pushed her fingers through her nest of hair. “I feel like I'm going crazy.”

“You're not.” Alex held both her shoulders and stooped a little so she'd look at him. “You're starting to see, that's all.”

“Bran said he was awake now. He had been asleep before—everyone was asleep—but now he was awake.”

“Yes, exactly. He sees the world like it really is.”

“I'm not Bran,” she said.

Alex studied her face. “Hannah, you're not going to end up like your mom.”

Hannah hugged herself and Alex let go. “I need you to leave,” she said. When he looked hurt, she added, “I just need some time alone, Alex. It's been a bizarre day.”

“Yeah, sure.”

He slid on his wet jacket, holding his T-shirt balled up in one hand. As he left the house, Hannah called after him. “Alex, I'm sorry.”

He paused before he shut the door, but didn't look at her.

BRANDON PACED BETWEEN
the window and his hospital bed, back and forth, back and forth.

“Like a caged animal,” Jesse said. He and Hannah stood with their backs against the wall near the door, away from Brandon, as he clearly didn't want them near. There were no beds available in the small psychiatric ward, so Brandon had been placed in this single room on another floor. The door was locked so he would not escape, and he was under a suicide watch.

Brandon wore only the hospital gown the nurses had inflicted on him, which revealed his bare ass when he turned. He wouldn't put on underwear and had kicked off his slippers. When the nurse had brought him lunch, he had eaten with his hands, smearing the food across his face.

“That's not Bran,” Hannah told her father.

“When your mother took sick, I thought some other personality had taken her over too.”

Hannah bit her thumbnail and then shook her head. “That's not him. He told us there was something inside him. He warned us. Alex warned us.”

Jesse didn't rise to the bait of Alex's name. “There were times your mother dragged me down into her world, when I started to believe the things she told me, to worry about my own sanity.”

“You didn't see what I saw on that bridge.”

“I saw a naked kid in the thick of a lightning storm, about to jump. Bran could have died, Hannah.” Like your mother, Jesse thought but didn't say. Hannah would be thinking the same thing.

“He wasn't trying to kill himself.” She hesitated. “He really did bring down that storm.”

Jesse turned to face her, resting his shoulder on the wall. “Hannah, schizophrenics often think they can control the weather.”

“I know, but I also know what I saw. All this is playing out just like Alex said it would.”

“You need to stay away from Alex and his bullshit.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

They both watched Brandon pace for a time, then Hannah said, “I'm going downstairs to see Grandpa.” She knocked for the nurse to open the door.

“I'll meet you there as soon as I've talked to Bran's doctor.”

As the nurse opened the door, he said, “Hannah, wait.” She stopped, holding the door between them.

“How much do you remember about what your mother went through? You should try. It may help you understand Bran.”

“I remember that Mom died and you left us there, with her body.”

“Dad was with you.”

She shook her head as if he had completely missed the point before closing the door behind her.

She had a right to be angry, of course. He knew it. The day Elaine died, it was snowing just as it was this day. He had stepped outside through those hospital doors into falling snow and raised his hands and face to it as Elaine so often had in the early years of their marriage, before he had begun to leave her. Her small hands catching snowflakes, her shining face, her eyelashes gathering snow; snow melting on her tongue. Before her illness, she was a woman who made a celebration of such simple pleasures. If Elaine had survived that terrible day, he would have bundled her up and carried her into the snow, and everything would have been all right. She would have forgiven him for his many betrayals and forgotten his absences during her illness, the evenings he couldn't bring himself to sit by her side, to hold her. He would have waltzed with her in the snow the way they had in the backyard of the farm in the first winter of their marriage.

Instead Jesse had stood alone in the swirling snow outside the hospital, as his young son and daughter cried in their grandfather's arms by their mother's dead body in that intensive care room. He couldn't hold Hannah; he knew she
wouldn't let him, not after his betrayal with a girl named Fern, with Gina, with others she also clearly knew about. So he had walked out into that first flurry of the winter alone, hoping for his wife's forgiveness, her blessing of snow.

Hannah found her grandfather seated at his wheelchair by the window, studying his old, wrinkled hands as if confused by them. Outside, the delicate snowflakes of the first snowfall floated down. “What should I do?” he asked her as she sat on the bed. “I don't know what to do.”

When Hannah didn't respond, Stew looked again at his hands. On an arm above Stew's bed, the television Jesse had just rented for him flickered with the volume muted. Hannah stared at it, not taking anything in, as she decided whether to tell Stew about Brandon or not. She knew Jesse wouldn't. Jesse would tell Stew that Brandon was at home, that he was fine.

“Grandpa? Grandpa, look at me.”

Stew turned his rheumy blue eyes on her. He seemed so much more vulnerable without his glasses.

“We should talk about Bran.”

“Brandon!” Stew cried, suddenly agitated. He started pulling at the tray on his wheelchair.

A woman went by the open door with the book trolley. She stopped to glance in the room and, taking in Stew's confused mental state and Hannah's panic, moved on.

Hannah hugged her grandfather to calm him, to prevent further outbursts. “Bran is all right. He's fine.”

Stew shook his head. Even in his drug-induced confusion, he knew she was lying. “He's lost,” he said. “We've got to find him.”

Hannah rocked her grandfather and shushed him, afraid the nurse would sedate him again if he didn't calm. “Everything's fine,” she said, hating that she now sounded like a babysitter comforting a child. She turned up the television volume to distract her grandfather and watched the news with him for a time as she held him, her mind on Brandon in the ward above.

After a time, Stew seemed to relax, and Hannah sat back on the bed beside him.

“You look different,” he said.

Hannah smoothed the curls in place around her shoulders. “Just my hair,” she said. She had worn it down, rather than in her usual ponytail.

“No, something else.” He peered at her. “You in love?”

Hannah shook her head, even as she felt the flush rise to her face.

“Huh,” Stew said. “Good. You need something of your own right now. It's that Indian, isn't it? Dennis's grandson.
Coyote
.”

Hannah smiled despite herself.

Stew grinned as if that was the funniest thing. Then his expression became serious as he took Hannah's hand. “Maybe he can help us then. He can help Bran.”

“Maybe.” Hannah said. “He told me a story, a story Dennis told you, about the salmon boy. He thought the mystery had taken possession of Mom, was trying to work through her.”

“Yes, yes! That same mystery has Brandon.”

“Did Dennis say how to get rid of it?”

“Oh, Dennis tried. He sat with Elaine for hours—while Jesse was on night shift—travelling the ‘spirit trail,' as he called it, to find her soul, to bring it back. I thought it was all bullshit, of course. But what the hell? What if Elaine
was
possessed? What if Dennis could bring Elaine home to us? I figured it was worth a shot. And anyway, Dennis brought me over a bottle of Lamb's. The least I could do was indulge him. Jesus, I'd give anything for a glass of rum.” He leaned forward as he lowered his voice. “Can you slip in a bottle?”

“I take it Dennis couldn't find Mom.”

Stew sat back in his wheelchair. “He found her all right. He said that part was easy. Her ghost was hanging around, stuck here. But he couldn't lead her back inside her body because that thing was already there and it wasn't about to leave. Dennis said he had an idea about how to get it out of Elaine, but by that time I'd had enough of his witch doctor stuff and told him to get the hell out.”

“But the mystery did leave. It took Mom back to the river.”

“Yes, eventually.”

Stew put a hand on her arm. “You've got to find a way to get that thing out of Bran before the same thing happens to him. Bran's soul is hanging around too. I've seen him.
Maybe if that thing is gone, he can find his way back in. You've got to get it to leave.”

“How do I do that?”

“Dennis would know,” he said. He squeezed Hannah's arm with surprising strength as he pressed his request on her. “Ask Dennis.”

“Dennis Moses is gone, Grandpa. He died a long time ago.”

“Oh!” Stew cried. “Then what should we do? I don't know what to do.”

Hannah realized that her grandfather had been asking the same question she had come to ask of him: he was looking for a way to save Brandon. He was looking for a way out of all this.