United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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driven on a stinging wind from the north west. It took him nearly eight hours to cross the portage and come back. He could hardly climb down from the cab for stiffness, and his teeth were chattering from the bone-piercing wind and cold. It was more than forty below. The ’Breed took one sleigh and pulled out. It was all that he could manage in the dark along the twist¬ ing trail. The Kid had just begun to warm up and doze in the caboose a couple of hours later when he heard the cat coming back. He tried at first to pretend that it was a dream but the clacking tracks and the headlights penciling through the light snow and the wind made it certain. He cursed with a boy’s inex¬ perience, repeating the same words several times. The cat came along side of the caboose and Stopped. When the ’Breed came in he was just putting on his parka. The cat was still running, just outside the door. Its throttle was wide open. “What’s wrong?” “A runner broke.” He was sullen and his scar was almost purple from the cold. The frost on his parka hood began to melt; the fur clung wetly to his face. “How did you do it?” “Dunno. Maybe a rock I guess.” “Well why the hell don’t you idle that thing down!” The ’Breed looked at him for a few seconds, ex¬ pressionless, debating what to do. Finally he went out and pushed the throttle in. Joe was making coffee. “Get your coat on; we’re going.” The sleigh was about halfway across the portage. The snow stopped falling before they reached it and the stars had come out from behind the clouds.. The exhaust smoke of the cat hung in a blue ribbon where the light of the rear lamp was reflected up from the snowy trail between the pines. There was room for only two in the box, the ’Breed rode on the drawbar and hung on with aching hands. It was the kind of cold that bites through three pairs of mitts. It took them maybe an hour an d a half to fix the sleigh. Joe talked on hopelessly. The ’Breed and the Kid were quiet. They were just about finished when the Kid hit him. It was an accident, the wrench slipped in his hand and the end of it slapped against the ’Breed’s nose. It was a heavy blow and in the frost the skin came away with the cold wrench. He stood up, speaking slowly with a heavy accent with his hand against his face. “Damn stupid Kid, don’t know nothing.” He lowered his hand as though to put on his mitt, then took a wild open-handed swing at the Kid’s head. He missed. “Try that again and I’ll break your greasy neck!” “Who?” “Me!” The Kid knew better than to start a fight. He still had a long way to go and whether he won or lost the ’Breed would be ugly. The ’Breed muttered something in Cree a nd turned away. Joe was still leaning against the sleigh, coughing and spitting. The ’Breed picked up the wrench and began to tighten the bolt. The Kid watched him for a minute. “Make sure it’s tight.” He didn’t answer. Afterwards Joe took the swing. The other two walked back down the portage. The snow was not packed enough to make very good walking and it was dark. Neither spoke during the whole walk. When they got back to the caboose there was a skim of ice on the coffee Joe had been making. With stops and trouble it was early on the morning of the fifth day when they finally hauled the caboose across and prepared to hook the train for the rest of the trip up the river. The ’Breed broke another sleigh runner on the same rock. The Kid knew that it was on purpose but he said nothing. This morning things seemed a little better. He knew it could have been worse. They hadn’t upset any sleighs and everything was still in shape. The weather was a little milder. The sun was shining on the trees and the glaring snow. They were at the end of the portage, just getting rigged up to move on when it happened. The ’Breed was driving the cat. He bunted one of the sleighs up behind the other with the dozer and waited for the Kid to fasten its draw chains, then backed away to push in the next. He left the motor screaming all the time. He bunted in the second sleigh and stopped. The Kid stepped in front of it and bent over to fasten the chains. His parka hood bothered him, he straightened up and pushed the hood back from his face. The ’Breed was fumbling with the gear shift, changing to reverse. The engine was wide open, belching its smoke high into the air. The Kid seemed to notice it as he pushed back his hood. He stood there, looking at the big ’Breed over the top of the sleigh. He had an open face, almost a child’s face, and everything showed on it. He was mad now. “Idle down!” he yelled, but the ’Breed didn’t seem to hear, or if he did he didn’t let on. He shouted again. The ’Breed looked up and let out the clutch with a jerk. Reverse is right beside high on the shift lever. It wasn’t in reverse. The cat rared ahead. Its tracks kicked back a little snow as it hit the sleigh. Then they both slammed ahead and stopped with a jerk as the frost-coated runners bit into the snow once more. The Kid was between the sleighs. For a second or two he looked surprised, like a boy that has cut his finger on a new knife, and then he passed out. The ’Breed jumped off the cat and ran ahead to the small space between the sleighs. Joe had been standing beside them when it happened. He moved back to the cat as fast as he could, almost running. He climbed on, brought it around and pushed the second sleigh back. The Kid slumped between them. His face was twisted and smeared with a trickle of blood. Even then he had stopped breathing. He lay crumpled on the trampled snow between the sleighs. The ’Breed made no move to come closer. Joe knelt beside him but he could see that it was too late. For a long time there was silence. The cat idled in the background. The ’Breed waited for Joe to speak. Finally he gave up and broke the silence himself. 13

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he went on making his cigarette. The Kid jumped off the sleigh, climbed quickly into the cat and cut the throttle back. The diesel slowed to a steady rattle. “Don’t you know enough to slow it down when you get off?” The ’Breed looked at him and said nothing. He was beginning to dislike the Kid. He had too much to say, and he gave too many stupid orders. Likely didn’t know much either. He fished in his pocket for a match. He had driven cat-swing before, three times now, maybe as much as the Kid. “Get the funnel.” He brought the funnel which sat between two of the fuel barrels. He was banging the snow out of it with the palm of his hand as he walked back to the cat. “And clean the snow out of it. We don’t want any fuel trouble. Especially with the kind of drivers I’ve got.” He finished in a tone just loud enough for the ’Breed to overhear him. Joe came out of the shack. He was coughing in the cold air. He called it asthma. He watched the snow sifting down through the headlights of the cat. He didn’t want to know that he had T.B. Nothing could be done for it anyway. And he didn’t want to leave and go to a hospital. He shivered in the light breeze. “It’s a bad night.” No one paid any attention. “It’s not a good night for travelling.” He was standing on the sheltered side of the cat. His voice was rough when he raised it over the noise of the motor. “It’s a bad night,” he repeated. “Yeah,” the Kid said. Actually it was a pretty good night. “I drive all night for you Joe, you pay me your wages.” The ’Breeds voice conveyed nothing. Joe cursed inwardly. Even the ’Breed knew that he was frightened. And it would go on for maybe ten days yet. Maybe even more if they had trouble. He closed his eyes a moment and forgot about it. Maybe something would happen. “I’ll drive it,” he said. “Just kind of cold, that’s ■all. And my asthma bothering me.” The ’Breed and the Kid paid no attention to him. “Damn miserable thing.” Still they paid no attention. He coughed again, self-consciously. The cat was fueled and greased and back ahead of the train. The Kid and the ’Breed disappeared toward the caboose. The cat bumped into gear and moved out into the snow and the night. Its lights faded out a few yards ahead. There was no trail, only the lake, and somewhere ahead a couple of islands to go between and then a portage. He knew the road well; he had been across it often. The tracks rattled monotonously and the engine drummed and throbbed under the canvas. The little tractor heaved itself over the hard-packed drifts and ridges of the ice and fell heavily on the front of its tracks, jolting and jarring its way along. The cold and the darkness and the snow were everywhere, a blue-black, white- flecked emptiness that moved backward past the lights. The cat seemed not to move ahead at all, but to rest like a cork bobbing on the ripples of snow. He began to count the hours and minutes until his shift was through. He had long since learned not to live from day to day; it was not enough. He lived now from bellyfull to bellyempty, the same as the natives. Only they weren’t alone as he was. And the feeble hatred that had once been so strong and which had grown weaker year by year was directed tonight at the cold, the snow, the cat, and at the ’Breed who knew that he was afraid. The sleighs swayed through the snow and the miles fell behind. He wished he was back in his cabin with his squaw. She probably despised him the same as the others and she smelled of fish and stale sweat and dirty clothing; he had never been able to get used to that, the smell of her. But at least she was there. The wind shifted until it was almost directly on his face. He sank lower in the seat. He couldn’t see so well slouched down. He wondered if the others were asleep in the caboose. For more than two days they crept along with a steady persistence that ate away at the monotonous distance. It snowed almost continually, and the portages grew heavier and heavier. Cracks and pressure ridges in the ice were covered with a thick shroud so that every hour the chance of breaking through was greater. As Joe faced the endless, meaningless white that spread away on all sides, he could feel only the black, gurgling water underneath. He grew sullen and spoke only when the Kid or the ’Breed asked him a question. The Kid was afraid of losing the swing. And he was never confident with either of the others driving. His sharp words only fanned the growing hatred of the ’Breed. The Kid chewed him out for letting snow get into the fuel even when it was unavoidable. And if there was nothing to be found for which to blame him, he would invent something. He grew more accustomed to him and at the same time to picking on him. And even then, after so many warnings, the ’Breed refused to slow the motor when he stopped. When the Kid stopped the cat the throttle and the clutch moved together, and the motor died from a throaty roar to an easy rattle even as the tracks stopped moving. It grated on him to hear the uneven roar of an engine running empty at full throttle. It was a small thing to the ’Breed but not to him. And Joe stuck with the Kid and looked down on the ’Breed, even made a fool of him when the Kid was around. But he was afraid of him. It was on the evening of the third day that the real trouble began. There was a long portage, twelve or thirteen miles through the bush from the end of a chain of lakes across the gravel ridges and the rocks and down into a valley to a river which would eventually lead them to their destination. It had been snowing for two days and with what had fallen earlier more than three feet of it lay soft and loose along the portage, hiding the rocks and stumps. They reached the shoreline of the lake just as the sun set. The Kid took the cat himself and started across to clear the way with the dozer. He left the sleighs and the caboose behind. There was a little snow falling, small flakes no bigger than a pinhead 12

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“He dead I guess?” Joe nodded; he could remember the Kid just be¬ fore it happened and the look on his face before he passed out. The ’Breed was big, and there was no white man around any more. He would be the boss now, not Joe. “It was accident. You saw that. It was accident, eh ” His voice didn’t change. Joe looked up at him. There was no-one to oppose him now, the Kid was gone. It was no use fighting. He had tried it and failed. Anyway it was too late to fight. And he remembered the white men at the trading post laughing in his face because he was no longer a man in their eyes. He rose slowly and coughed. He leaned against the side of the sleigh and looked at the ’Breed. “Yeah,” he said, “Yeah, it was an accident. These things happen.” Something that approached a smile flickered on the ’Breed’s face, then he turned and walked toward the cat. ASYLUM By Marianne Forsyth The only difference Between the patient and the staff Is the keys. The jangle of a mind insane The jangle of keys To lock it away from me. “Hey nurse, can I go out? just for a minute?” “Not just now Later.” In a year or ten years, Or they will carry you up from the basement And wash you, and pad you, and ship you out In a box. You’ll get out, later. I lock my brother in. I am my brother’s keeper, His gaoler. He could not live in this world we made, So by himself he made another. He is a strange Thing now, Different, and frightening. What could I do but lock him away? I will hide from the judgement Of my being that he is — By locking him away. And I would stumble Through the nightmare he fled from And hurt myself on the broken edges And take my soul in the street and fight To get away from him, Only for this — It’s dark in the nightmare And empty and without meaning And I’m not sure where I am And which way is away. Am I over there? 14