Fraser On Potato Mountain

A Chilcotin Mystery
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-1-894694-87-2
Verlag: Granville Island Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 438 Seiten

On Thanksgiving of '58, rancher Bordy Hanlon is gunned down in his living room. His adopted son, Noah, is charged with his murder. Stan Hewitt, an alcoholic lawyer from Williams Lake, defends the young man before a white jury and later before a Native circle of elders. On Potato Mountain is not only a tale of love and mystery, but is also a story of a remarkable land and its people.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fraser, Bruce

Leseproben

BORDY
It was July in the record-hot summer of 1937. The crowd at the Anahim Lake stampede grounds was betting that Dean Hanlon couldn’t stay on Tornado, a black bronco that was red of eye and mean of spirit. Dean’s son, Bordy, was minding the gate for his father, and in the stands whites and Natives from the full reach of the Plateau watched Dean adjust his stirrups, settle on the horse, and grip and re-grip his leathered right hand under the rope around the horse’s withers. The bronco pawed and fidgeted in the chute, testing its muscle, anxious to buck the annoyance from its back. In the ring, Antoine stood next to the fence, waiting for his boss to charge out of the chute. Stan Hewitt, in the stands near the chutes, sipped on a mickey of Walker’s Special Old and thought that his client, who owned a good part of the Tatlayoko Valley, shouldn’t be risking his neck riding broncos when there were pressing legal matters to deal with; matters that had brought Stan to the far corner of the Chilcotin from his law office in Williams Lake. In this country where men were judged by how they handled horses or were handled by them, it meant something to wear the champion’s silver buckle. Between father and son, who competed against each other in everything, it meant bragging rights for the next year. Now they were going at it like always. Bordy laughed at his old man. “Careful, Dean! He has a double-kick that’ll knock the breath out of your miserable hide.” A rodeo veteran, Dean spat chaw juice on the ground trampled by the bronco’s hooves and snarled at Bordy. “This horse is going to win me the title. Just mind the gate and keep your trap shut!” When Dean was ready, he signalled the timekeeper with his left hand. The bell rang. The gate swung open. Tornado sprang out of the chute. Dean’s head was thrown back as he shouted to Bordy, “I’ll beat you this time, you son of a bitch!” Tornado crow-hopped across the ring, shaking the cowboy with each jackhammer jump. Dean dug his spurs into the horse’s flanks and batted it on its head with his Stetson. Tornado’s next move was the double-kick, but Dean came out on top. Again the bronco tried the double-kick, and again the veteran rider bested the animal. But Tornado was just warming up for his signature move, a fast clockwise spin that made even the judges feel dizzy, but still Dean Hanlon hung on. No rider had lasted this long on the bronco, and the crowd knew it. They shouted their encouragement; everyone except Bordy, who was cheering for the horse. If Dean could hang on until the bell, Bordy would lose, and Bordy could tell by the set of Dean’s jaw that no horse would unseat him today. The mounted pickup man moved closer as the seconds wound down. When the bell sounded to end the ride, he moved in and wrapped his free arm around Dean’s waist and hauled him off the horse. But Dean made no attempt to grab onto the pickup’s saddle, as would be expected. Tornado had a few more kicks left, and as he bucked riderless, Dean’s dead weight slipped from the pickup’s grasp and slowly slid to the ground. Stan, who had had too many sips from his mickey, rose unsteadily from his seat. Bordy and Antoine ran into the ring and knelt beside Dean. They both heard Dean’s last words to his only son—“Don’t piss away the ranch”—as the judges’ decision crackled over the loudspeaker: “The winner and grand champion of the Bucking Bronco contest is Dean Hanlon!” Antoine shook his head, unknotted the red bandana around his neck and placed it over Dean’s face. Bordy looked up from his father and swore at the sun beating down on the arena. It was then that the crowd realized Dean was dead. It was shocked into silence by witnessing a man’s death and at his son’s apparent public grief. Stan saw it differently. He saw Bordy’s expression not as grief, but as frustration that his father had beaten him for the last time with no chance of a rematch. Stan wouldn’t be talking about those legal matters to the owner of the Bar 5 Ranch after all: Dr. Hay pronounced Dean officially dead-on-arrival at the Williams Lake Hospital. The cause of death was a massive heart attack. The funeral was held on the shores of Tatlayoko Lake. It was a sparse gathering, partly because Dean had bought out many of the neighbouring ranchers who couldn’t survive the Depression and partly because of old grudges and range disputes. Besides Bordy and Stan, there was Dean’s daughter, Clara, a few remaining ranching families who hoped that a miracle would happen before the bank foreclosed on their places, and a handful of ranch hands—both whites and Natives—including the Paul family, headed by Antoine. The only ranch worker who appeared sad about Dean’s passing was Lady. The blue heeler cattle dog couldn’t understand why Dean wasn’t saddled up and punching cows; her barking could be heard from the locked barn. Bordy was acting strangely. It occurred to Stan that Bordy had lost his sparring partner. He was subdued and had nothing to say about the loss of his father. When the procession walked up to the graveyard from the house, his limp from an old hip injury seemed more pronounced. Even though the older Hanlon was a lapsed Catholic, Father Dumont—the Oblate missionary whose parish was the Chilcotin—read his last rites before he was buried in the family plot, which was circled by a white picket fence on a knoll overlooking the lake. Stan was called on to pay a tribute to Dean when the mourners gathered in the parlour of the ranch house for refreshments. He remembered not to drink anything before speaking, and kept his words short so he could get to his first drink of the day as soon as possible. He cleared his dry throat, grasped a glass of whisky in his right hand and began. “Dean was a Chilcotin pioneer who had a stump ranch on the shores of this windy lake. He learned early on from his Indian neighbours”—and here Stan nodded to Antoine—“that this land gave a man nothing for free. He worked himself and his family hard to wrest a living from the dirt”—and here Stan turned to Bordy and Clara—“and with their help he built the Bar 5 to an eight hundred–head cattle operation. He was a good client and a man of his word. We will remember him with respect. Raise your glasses and drink a toast to his memory.” As the mourners raised their glasses, a half-dozen cars pulled into the ranch yard and people piled out, whooping it up and bringing their party into the house. They were Bordy’s friends from Williams Lake, bolstered by strays they had picked up on the road. They were late for the funeral but in time for the free food and drink, and they partied all night. Two days after the funeral, Bordy was in Stan’s office. For the first time, Stan sized up the son as a man separate from his father. Here was the tree itself, he thought, and not the branch. He saw a swarthy, powerful, handsome man in his thirties. His curly black hair glowed with grease and he smelled of cheap aftershave. He was wearing a grey Western-styled suit and a matching grey Stetson, which drew attention to his luminous hazel eyes. Bordy had a reputation as a ladies’ man, and Stan had heard the stories about husbands firing shotguns in the night at Bordy’s retreating behind. There was never a dance in the Chilcotin that didn’t feature his fun-loving smile. Bordy had worked on the ranch for his father since he was a child and knew how to raise cattle and ready them for market, but Dean had done all the business with the bankers, with the advice of Stan Hewitt. In legal circles, Stan—when he was sober—was known as a careful man who could have had a brilliant career in Vancouver as a criminal lawyer, but for the double-martini lunches that sometimes affected his afternoon judgement. His firm had fired him and he had decided to take his talents to Williams Lake, where they would be better appreciated. His wife had taken one look at her new surroundings and sued for divorce on the grounds of cruelty. Stan was now in his forties, and his continuing attempts to go dry often ended up with him in the drunk tank. Between bouts, however, he proved his early promise as a barrister and was eagerly sought after by clients throughout the interior plateau. It appeared that Bordy had got over his grieving for his father—his only parent, since his Scottish mother Jean Somerville had died when he was in his teens. Many had asked why Bordy had put up with the older Hanlon, who was a tough, one-syllable rancher. Stan knew the real answer: it was lying on his desk, and here was Bordy, dressed up like a businessman to hear the news. “Have a seat, Bordy.” Stan motioned to the client’s chair. “That was one hell of a way to go.” “He was a performer,” Bordy said, pushing his Stetson to the back of his head and smiling. “You’re taking his death well.” Bordy tilted back in his chair. “I’ve got over it. The important thing now is that will lying on your desk. You know I worked like three ranch hands at the Bar 5 because I was promised the ranch.” “I figured that.” “So? What’s the answer?” Stan took his time opening the will, enjoying the impatient anticipation of the young rancher. Finally, he cleared his throat. “This will says—as clearly as I could draft it— that you inherit everything from the ploughshares to the two thousand deeded acres and miles of Crown Leased Land.” Bordy took off his hat and wiped the August sweat off his brow and face with a blue polka-dot...