The Englishman’s Boy

breastwork. In the trees farther down the slope, he could see fine ground-mist unwinding skeins of white yarn. All around him men lay completely swaddled in blankets, even their heads were covered. It had been a bad night. Even in the midst of a swarm of mosquitoes Evans had allowed no smudges to be lit for fear of giving away their position. All night men and horses had suffered torment, the horses having the worst of it. The Englishman’s boy had listened to them stamping their hooves in frustration, the wild, hissing rustle of their whisking tails. After four or five hours, they had begun to groan hollowly, a deep, sonorous, dumb complaint against their misery. When the Englishman’s boy crawled out of his bedroll and went to his mount, he could see its eyes rolling wildly and flashing in the darkness. A comforting hand run down its neck came away wet with blood.

He did what he could. After he saddled the gelding he took the two blankets of his bedroll, wrapped one around the horse’s neck, draped the other over its hindquarters. Then he lay back down on the ground in his clothes.

He might have slept as much as an hour. Leaning now against the wind-toppled timbers of the natural barricade, he could feel how puffy his face was, his left eye almost swollen closed by the insect bites.

Someone was hacking and spitting behind him, someone else muttering. The wolfers were rousing themselves. He smelled match sulphur and pipe tobacco.

Soon they were back on the flat, where Hardwick had instructed them to await him. One hour, two hours passed; they acquired a discouraged and sullen air, like a school party abandoned in strange surroundings by their teacher.

Then someone shouted. Hardwick was coming.

Hardwick had not seen any of their horses in the Assiniboine camp. They would spend Sunday at Abe Farwell’s post.

20

From Chance’s quarter all is silence. I am beginning to wonder if I haven’t blown a golden opportunity, spilled the milk. The problem is I don’t know because I can’t get in touch with him. That is the frustrating thing, the uncertainty. Two nights ago I drove up to his house in the hills intending to beard the lion in his den, but when I got there I found the iron gate to his grounds was locked. Although I thought about it, I knew it would be too ridiculous to leave the car in the road and grapple my way over the gate to get into the property. Given my leg, probably it was impossible.

Yesterday I called his office again and asked to speak to him. After a brief interlude during which I could hear papers being shuffled on a desk, the receptionist said, “Your name is not on the list of people from whom Mr. Chance will accept calls.”

“You tell him Harry Vincent is on the line. He’ll take my call.”

“Mr. Chance is occupied. I’ll put you through to Mr. Fitzsimmons.”

“I have nothing to say to Mr. Fitzsimmons. I wish to speak to Mr. Chance.”

“That is impossible. Perhaps you would care to leave a message?”

“Here’s my message. Give him two names. Harry Vincent and Shorty McAdoo. If I were you, I’d see that he gets them.”

I sat down to wait for Chance to return my call. He didn’t; Fitz did. He was ready to skin me alive.

“What did Mr. Chance tell you? Keep it fucking confidential. And you, you asshole, you throw McAdoo’s name at a receptionist.”

“I thought it might catch his attention. Nothing else has lately.”

“Don’t go thinking. You ain’t paid to think. You’re paid to do what you’re fucking told. And another thing. When Dorothy tells you Mr. Chance is unavailable, understand what that means. It means you are to get the fuck off the telephone – Mr. Chance doesn’t have time for you.”

“Or maybe it means you gave Dorothy orders not to put my calls through. I heard mention of a list. What’s the list about, Fitz?”

Fitzsimmons ignored this. “And where do you get off telling Dorothy you don’t want to talk to me? That’s an insult. You’re an insulting little prick, Vincent. For one-fifty a week, you talk to me. You got that?” He paused. “I tried to tell him you was an insufficient man. Insufficient in every way. But he had one of his -” he searched melodramatically for the word “- one of his intuitions about you. But you don’t produce results, do you?”

“Who’s complaining? Mr. Chance? Or you?”

“Maybe both of us.”

“You make it sound as if the two of you are one and the same thing.”

“Near enough.”

“Then how about if I submit a letter of resignation? See if it makes Mr. Chance as happy as it would obviously make you.”

I could hear him breathing ominously into the mouthpiece of the phone. His delay in answering made me think it hadn’t been a bad tactic to call his bluff. Very quietly, each word weighted with emphasis, he said, “No, you ain’t going to quit.”

“Why’s that, Fitz?” I asked, feeling I had gained the upper hand.

“Because it’s inconvenient for you to quit. That’s why you ain’t going to do it.”

“Inconvenient for who? You?”

“Maybe inconvenient for your ma in that expensive nuthouse. She wouldn’t like it in one of them state-run hospitals. I know. I had a cousin worked in one. The stories he used to tell.”

How did he know about my mother? It frightened me. Then I got angry. “Don’t go putting my mother in your gob-shite Irish mouth, Fitz! Do you hear me?”

All he did was laugh his rasping, gravel-grinding laugh. Transmitted over telephone wires it was even more terrifyingly expressionless than delivered in person, in the flesh. “Or what?” he said. “What you going to do, Vincent? You’re all yap, like one of them little lap dogs. A little pussy-warmer pup, that’s what you are. Yap, yap, yap. Don’t make me sick. You ain’t going to quit on us because we ain’t going to let you. Besides, think about Ma Vincent. Think about your Jew girl friend.”

“Think what about Rachel?”

“Those Jewish dollies don’t like boys without a nickel to their name. You heard it here first.”

I spoke very carefully. “Don’t think that Mr. Chance isn’t going to hear about this.”

“You bet. I’m going to tell him.”

“Don’t leave anything out. I don’t intend to. Be sure to pass on your remarks about my mother and Miss Gold.”

“What’s this? Hurt feelings? He don’t give a fuck for your feelings.”

“Are you sure? Maybe I read him better than you do. We’ve talked. Maybe about things beyond your comprehension, Fitz. He seems a civilized man. Are you sure he doesn’t give a fuck for my feelings?”

“I’ll tell you what he gives a fuck about. In order of importance. Him. Me. Because I can be trusted to look out for his interests. When I am told to keep my mouth shut about a man named Shorty McAdoo, I keep it shut. When you are told to collect information about Indians and suchlike from that selfsame McAdoo, you don’t. Whose feelings is he going to worry about? You give him nothing. I wipe my ass with your nothing, Vincent.”

“There’s a reason I’ve got nothing yet. That’s what I want to explain to Mr. Chance.”

“Fuck the explaining. Do your job. I get paid to look after his interests. So do you. Same locomotive pulls us. So let’s get behind it. Let’s get going where the locomotive wants to go.”

“I’d be pleased to, Fitz. But I want to make sure I’m hooked behind the right locomotive. Because I haven’t seen it for some time. Too many bends in the track.”

“Ever hear of being too smart for your own good, Vincent?”

“There’s many a man who might imagine he’s the locomotive when he isn’t. Just like there’s many a man with his hand in his shirt who thinks he’s Napoleon. If you get my meaning?”

“Fucking right I do. Thank your lucky stars I’m not there in that room with you.”

“Well, you aren’t. And I don’t know which locomotive is pulling me. Do I?”