The Walker Family Vacation (Episode 2) Read online

  No quip returned, April gave her a serious face. “I know. Trust me, I know.”

  “Good,” Amanda said, a warm feeling going through her as she looked in her sister’s eyes. Little April getting grown up at thirty-five.

  8

  Amanda

  Sheila emerged from the barn wearing a cowboy hat now, still with deerskin gloves on, one hand at her side holding a hank of rope. “That everybody all set?” she said, looking through the group. There were nods and grunts of affirmation.

  There were two stable riders who would be leading the family through the trails; Sheila’s son, a husky young man in his twenties who could do with a shave and looked a lot like how you would expect a beer-drinking young Canadian man to look. The other one she suspected was the son’s wife, Sheila’s daughter-in-law.

  Earlier, Amanda had watched as all the girls got up on their horses and the son, Randy, was good with them; helping them up, adjusting their saddles for them, making sure they were comfortable, and the horses were, too. He nodded to her now, coming along on his horse from the back, up into the sunshine with April. He said, “They’re gonna have a good time. You go with Mom and your little girl, she’ll show you around the town. We’re just gonna go up into the centre of the island where its high, about half an hour through the woods, we’ll come out along the southern shore by the lake. We end up passing through town and then back up here to the homestead. The whole ride’s about an hour. Mom’ll have you back before then.”

  “Thanks, okay …” She looked around at her girls on their horses, wanting to say more …

  “We’ll take good care of them,” he assured her.

  Now he noticed the drunk laying at the front of the property for the first time. She saw his face go firm. He looked around for what to do, then looked around at the girls. He got his mother’s attention and nodded his head to the side. Sheila nodded as well. Amanda supposed they would let it be for a moment so as not to make a scene in front of customers.

  Randy’s wife brought her big horse along at a trot, passing them all and pausing at the mouth of the driveway. She rallied, “Riders up,” and ran her hand around in a circle trying to drive enthusiasm.

  Becca and Tabby took a few last pictures of one another, Stacy’s horse began to move and her daughter’s muscular body rocked on its back, head nodding from side-to-side with the sway of the beast, her expression still morose. April tugged her helmet back on and clicked the chinstrap. As her horse passed by Amanda where she stood, April said, “I’ll see you in an hour. It’ll be good.”

  Amanda watched them leave, and as the horses cleared from the mouth of the barn, she waved Bethany to join her, her little daughter jumping and hopping, happy now to be allowed down, stepping off the porch and running to her mother. She hoisted Bethany up and held her to her chest saying, “Wave bye to them, Bethy.” She and her daughter wagged their hands back and forth, Bethany singing, “Bye-ee.” At least Stacy held up a hand and gave them one simple wave over her shoulder.

  As each of the riders got their horses into the laneway they turned to look left, down on the strange man laying with his back to a wagon, head cocked on his shoulder, eyes narrow like he had died. The horses turned to the left, passing along the picket fence, heading the direction from where that man had arrived. On the right, a small enclosed carriage arrived, pulled behind a single horse. It looked archaic, like something you would see on a trip through Pennsylvania Dutch country. Four oversized spoked wheels, a black metal carriage suspended in the middle, a door on each side, windows without glass, and sitting up front on the seat, a lone woman holding the reins to a beautiful spotted grey horse, mane and tail tied in intricate braids. The horse clopped into the driveway, the girl ushering commands, short grunts, hees and yas, and a whoa, stopping the carriage between Amanda and the office.

  Sheila watched the man warily, her eyes darting to Amanda, putting off dealing with it further, and walking toward her now, saying, “We can get going, I just gotta get this sorted out,” nodding her chin to the carriage that just arrived. “She’s my farrier, come to do a couple my horses.”

  “Do them?”

  “The hoofs, check ‘em over … It’s like free vet care. Alyssa’s a veterinary student now, used to be one of my stable girls when she was little. All grown up now, off to university, but when she’s back home in the summer she still comes to see me.”

  Bethany hugged herself to her mother as the three of them walked to the office. Bethany got close to her mother’s ear and whispered, “Mommy, I have to pee pee.”

  “Oh, okay, Bethy.” She looked around and saw nothing obvious, no public restrooms. Ahead, the young woman dismounted from the carriage, hopping down and tying the horse off to a post planted in the ground. She was young, in her early twenties, another horse girl of substantial bulk, but very capable looking, this one with a pretty face, her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and dressed in the customary flannel shirt and jeans and boots.

  “Hey, Sheila?” Amanda said in a low voice before they got to the carriage, touching her arm. “You don’t have a bathroom around here, do you?” she asked, nudging her head toward Bethany.

  “A bathroom? Yeah, sure. Just go in through the office, then go behind the counter to the right, you’ll see a hall. Follow that and the door you see straight ahead is a bathroom.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” Sheila said, “give me a minute anyway to get Alyssa straightened out, and bring the carriage around for a ride.”

  Amanda told her that was great, hefted heavy Bethany higher, encouraging her to squeeze her little legs around her waist a bit better. Bethany was getting a tad heavy to be carried all the time, but she still liked it so much. The youngest of their group, she seemed to cherish being the baby and all its trappings. And though Amanda had grown tired of all the chores of motherhood, late-coming surprise Bethany fostered strong maternal instinct from her.

  “Let’s find you a potty,” she said, pulling open the squeaky front door and heading into the office.

  9

  Amanda

  The stable’s office looked like it had been the home’s living room or dining room at one time, long ago. What started as a home with a barn maybe a hundred years past had become a home and business somewhere along the way, and over passing years multiple buildings added onto one another on a small plot of land that must be bursting at its borders now.

  Amanda set Bethany down before opening the swinging half door and they entered the private area behind the counter. A lone desk pushed under a window teemed with paperwork; an old beige computer monitor the size of a microwave sat festooned with pink and yellow Post-it notes. The trashcan overflowed, books and binders and folders sat haphazardly on the shelves; all signs of an understaffed seasonal business in the midst of its thin money-making window.

  Bethany hooked right on her, heading down the hall to the bathroom on her own with a skip to her step that brought no more speed to her gait but plenty of noisy thumps, while she sang, “This way, mommy …”

  “I’m coming,” she said, pulling her attention from a cork-board pinned with notices and bills and clippings from the paper. Beth got ahead and Amanda reminded her, “Quiet, please, Bethany, keep your feet quiet.”

  “Sorry,” she whispered, slowing, her stomps abating.

  The hall was narrow older construction, the floors and walls a glossy dark-stained pine, a dull path leading a stripe through the center of the floor from frequent travel. The walls were decorated with family photos and ribbons and more newspaper articles, the ones here set in simple frames.

  A young slender and bright faced teen sat atop a horse in one, the headline reading, MICHIMAC TEEN TAKES TOP PRIZE. Below the photo the caption read: Sheila Lavallée, 17, sitting on her pride, Mickey Kool, rode her way through the barrels to top spot at the Ogden Fall Classic Barrel Blast. Island-born Sheila tells us she will do Michimac proud next year at Calgary.

  “Huh,” Amanda said, ra
ising her eyebrows and nodding.

  “Mommy, come on, I gotta go,” Bethany pleaded from the end of the hall.

  “It’s the door at the end, baby,” she said, resuming her path.

  There were only two doors in the long hallway, one at the very end, conveniently marked with a gold metallic sign reading washroom in rounded arial. The other door on the left had a sign reading private. Bethany stumbled her way to the door at the end and reached to take the brass knob in both hands and wrestled to open it.

  “You got it, baby,” she said, halfway down the hall now.

  The knob clicked and clunked, gave way, and Bethany’s weight pushed the door inward, her tumbling into the dark after it. Bethany grunted and giggled, then moaned with fright … Though she was in the dark bathroom, one hand remained gripped on the knob. “It’s dark,” she whined, her voice pinched with tension.

  Amanda quickened her pace, seeing Beth’s hand on the knob, her body hidden, her daughter always frightened of the dark.

  “Come on out, Bethy,” she urged.

  “I can’t find the light, Mommy,” Beth said fearfully.

  “Hold on, Beth, I got it,” Amanda said, getting to the crack in the door, taking the knob from her daughter’s hand and opening it wider, the hall light flooding the bathroom with dull dim, showing it empty and small; just a toilet, pedestal sink, a square mirror framed above it. “I got it,” she said again, her hand sweeping above where Beth’s reached and flipping the switch, transforming everything into bright yellow.

  As Amanda got the door closed, Bethany pushed down her fruit punch underwear printed with pineapples, watermelon, and bananas, then stumbled to the toilet with them hooped around her ankles.

  “Somebody really has to go,” Amanda laughed, knocking the toilet seat up against the tank.

  “Gah, I really do,” Bethany blurted, hiking up the skirt of her shirt dress and hopping up. Almost immediately came the sound of narrow tinkling.

  While her daughter peed in the toilet, her little ballerina shoes kicking back and forth, Amanda stood at the sink and looked at her reflection. Shook her hair out, ran her fingers through it, got close and looked at her face. Slightest lines showing up now, just the corners of her eyes and two fine ones on either side of her lips from her smiling. Turning forty wasn’t for weaklings. Her friend Rhonda from yoga had urged her to go with her to a new spot in town that tattooed your eyebrows and gave you a shot of Botox all in one quick little trip. Didn’t think she was there yet, and while she sat with Rhonda while she had it done, the thing that frightened her most was that while she didn’t feel the need to do it now, it would be something she would always be thinking about. Looking at Rhonda getting that shot in her face, thinking it was silly, but knowing it was just a matter that she didn’t need it yet. But the important part was: yet. It was all downhill from here.

  Next to her, a cracking empty echo in the bowl, Bethany letting off a toot.

  They looked at each other, Bethany’s legs stopped kicking and she sucked her lips in her mouth to stifle a smile. Slowly, one tugged at the corner of Amanda’s mouth. The tinkling faded to droplets and sprinkles, one quick jag of a renewed stream and then she stopped. “Okay,” Bethany said.

  “You don’t have to poop?”

  Bethany frowned, said, “No, I don’t.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” she said, hopping off the bowl.

  Amanda let her finish, pull up her underwear and flush the toilet. And then a tug of her own came, a little ticklish pull on her own bladder.

  “Wash your hands, Bethany,” she said. Unzipped her own shorts and pushed them down to sit on the toilet. She peed while Bethany cleaned.

  Amanda flushed the toilet, Bethany, drying her hands, looked at her speculatively. “You don’t have to poop?”

  “No, I don’t,” Amanda laughed.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure,” she laughed again, lifting Bethany up and sitting her butt down on the lip of the sink. Bethany kicked her legs on either side of Amanda’s hips while she washed her hands behind Bethany’s back. “Can I dry my hands on your dress?”

  “No!”

  “It’s so convenient …”

  “Don’t, Mommy,” Bethany said twisting around trying to look behind her.

  “I won’t,” she said.

  “This is my favorite dress.”

  “Hand me a towel, Bethy,” she asked her, kissing her forehead.

  Bethany reached behind, tugged out four or five sheets of stiff brown paper and handed them to her. Amanda dried her hands, balled the papers up and threw them into the wastebasket on top of Bethany’s. “Let’s go,” she said, and took Bethany’s hand and opened the door.

  When they stepped in the hall they saw him, the man from outside. Standing straight ahead in the office, blocking off their exit, tall yet stooped, his side to them, dumbly looking at the same cork board that had stalled Amanda. Bethany’s hand gripped her mother’s tightly.

  10

  Hunt

  “No, I don’t want to do that,” Wooly said, waving the idea off, acting nonchalant, but a tightness in his voice giving away a certain measurement of fear.

  “Yeah, you do. Get up.”

  “Why?” he pleaded, his eyebrows raising in the middle, and yet he rose off his boulder.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Hunt said to Craig, but he was ignored. The other two boys grinned and watched with malicious interest as Wooly took a few steps to face Craig, who stood with his feet apart, hips turned away, hands cocked up in fists around his jaw.

  “Square up,” Craig said.

  Wooly stood with his hands at his side, mouth buttoned up and chin dimpled, asked again: “Why?”

  “For your own good,” Craig said, mid-sentence lashing out and slapping Wooly’s cheek with his fingers.

  “Aw, come on,” Hunt sighed.

  The blow didn’t make much of a sound, intended more to make Wooly flinch, which he did, whisking his head back with a twisted expression and stepping away.

  “Put your hands up,” Craig said. “Don’t make me come after you.

  “Don’t,” Wooly whined, but now his hands came up in an unenthusiastic boxing stance.

  “Good,” Craig said, then kicked Wooly hard inside his thigh, above the knee, Wooly grunting and collapsing on his knees.

  “Don’t be a fucking asshole,” Hunt said, rising up off his own boulder now. Steve and the other one looked at him with menace. “You guys are fucking assholes,” he said to them and they laughed.

  Steve said, “Relax.”

  Craig took a step toward Wooly and held out a hand to help him up. “That works, eh?” he said. “You can kick your banana-boy like that.”

  Wooly’s face pinched in a scowl meant to ward them off and to prevent errant tears from emerging. He stood, eschewing Craig’s proffered hand and standing on his own. He turned his back and returned to his boulder.

  “Don’t turn your back,” Craig said and kicked his ample ass with the toe of his sneaker.

  Wooly turned to swat it but missed, instead just looking angry and afraid, grimacing at them balefully, his hands cocked at his sides.

  “Relax, tiger,” Craig said, laughing. “I’m trying to help you.”

  “Don’t fucking kick me,” Wooly said.

  “You kick that guy where I kicked you he could black out. Artery runs up the leg there and you can shock it, disrupt the blood flow or whatever.”

  “I didn’t black out,” Wooly said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m being gentle, sunshine. Come back here.”

  Hunt said, “He’s not going to fight that guy.”

  Craig said to Wooly: “You don’t, you’ll regret it.”

  “Just leave me—”

  Craig’s hand darted out again, now poking Wooly under the chin with the tips of four fingers. Wooly clutched his throat dramatically, coughing and staggering back. Even Hunt knew he was feigning.

  “Oh, come o
n,” Craig said.

  When Hunt looked to Steve and JoJo, throwing his hands up to indicate how senseless and juvenile this was, he saw movement at the guardrail. In the parking lot, a man moved from left to right, just his head and shoulders visible, the man wearing a huge black hat.

  “What the fuck?” he said, making the other two boys turn around and watch behind them.

  Another man appeared, wearing a similar hat, and together they stumbled closer to the guardrail and seemed to be looking down the hill toward them.

  Steve said, “The British are coming, the British are coming,” and JoJo laughed.

  Hunt turned to Craig and said, “We’re busted. We better hide those beers,” in an effort to derail his game of domination. Craig turned to look up at the two men moving at the top of the hill and Wooly leaped forward and punched him in the kidney as hard as he could.

  Craig crumpled and hollered, clutching his side. Wooly hooked an arm around his neck and tried to pull him backward to the ground but Craig twisted out of the grip, pulling Wooly down with him and ending up on top. Wooly lashed out with his arms but Craig got a hold of his neck and returned the favor, getting his chest pressed to Wooly’s back and pulling his head back in the crook of his arm, spitting, “You dumb fuck—why’d you hit me so hard?”

  Wooly choked and spit and when Hunt stepped forward to pull Craig off, the other two stepped in and stopped him.

  “Let him go,” Hunt yelled.

  “Check it out,” Steve laughed, and Hunt turned to see the two men lurching down the hill drunkenly. They both wore old re-enactment army uniforms; black pants and boots, red coats with tails, white belts crossed in an X across their chests. The black hats they wore were tall and straight, a golden crest in the center. One of them carried a rifle.