After The Fires Went Out: Coyote atfwo-1 Read online

  I don’t have a problem with him other than the fact that he seems to have a problem with me. I say live and let live, come sit down and have a beer with me. But there was some kind of horrible farming accident when Graham was a kid on his parent’s goat farm down in Jesusland, and that metal rod must have gotten shoved so far up his ass that surgery was never an option. It’s too bad, because I hear he used to play football or baseball or one of those lame-ass sports that isn’t hockey.

  But this isn’t about Graham, it’s about Lisa, although there have been a few awkward moments when I’ve got my fap on with Lisa doing her thing inside my head, and then she invites Graham in to say hello…I just tell that fantasy-blocking motherfucker to keep his hands to himself and to never look me directly in the eye.

  Lisa is definitely a tasty treat; she has kind of short black hair and smoldering brown eyes and probably the tightest ass in the entire Cree nation. She’s from up in Moose Factory, right off James Bay, and she told me once that she shot and killed a rampaging polar bear. I know that’s bullshit since those poor bears are almost extinct, but I’ve seen her work a shotgun so I know that she’d probably be able to take out a rampaging Polar Bear Express train if she wanted to.

  Have I mentioned how hot that is?

  Today is Monday, December 10th.

  After breakfast Lisa got back to work on installing the new solar power system and I actually decided to help for once, while Graham went down to the Tremblays’ to troubleshoot their water heater. I was a little worried about him being so close to Suzanne Tremblay and her apparent love of trouble, but it’s not like I wanted to take his place. I’m older and I may be a little bit wiser, but I’m not really any better at resisting temptation; Suzanne Tremblay could have me within ten minutes if she wanted. Hell, the same could be said for pretty much any woman at McCartney Lake.

  So I decided to stick to digging the line for the solar setup. Graham can be the one who digs a grave for himself.

  It took less than five minutes for Matt to realize we’d started without him, and much to my disappointment he rushed out to join us.

  I wish there was a way to get him to have a life-threatening affair with Suzanne Tremblay.

  If things go well and we find a way to keep Matt from fucking it all up, we could generate enough electricity to dump propane for good and get started on being self-sufficient; we wouldn’t have to bother bringing home every half-empty propane tank we find attached to backyard BBQs. We’ve got a good number of batteries now and we’ve already collected enough spools of cable to hook them up. It feels like we’re close now.

  We have passive panels on the roof of the cottage, and even a couple strips on the barn; from those we’re able to charge up the basement battery bank enough that we don’t even worry about things like our tablets or the toaster or the constant hum of hairdryers between the hours of 7 and 9 AM. But it’s not enough power to replace all the propane or enough for us to charge up the two electric ATVs that have sat in a corner of the barn for over three months; it’d be nice to have ATVs that weren’t using up that diesel we haven’t found a solid way of replacing. And if we consider what we’d need in the spring for planting…let’s just say we won’t get far if we can’t at least quadruple our current supply of electricity.

  Back in July Graham and I stumbled on some crates inside one of the salt domes at the maintenance depot in Cochrane. I guess no other scavengers noticed them because they figured the dome would still be filled with salt; the rest of the maintenance depot was picked over pretty well.

  Ant told me once that he and some of the guys from his work had been the first ones to raid the depot, and that he’d found more than his share of his favourites, basically whatever could be used to blow something up.

  We were pretty surprised when we found the crates, but even more surprised to find that the crates contained all of the components needed for a concentrated solar installation, something like a miniature version of the one they had at Darlington North. I watched over the dome while Ant and Graham made several trips carting the crates over to McCartney Lake.

  Graham and Lisa wired up some of the new batteries yesterday while I was out daytripping, and now we’ve put together a bank in the last two empty stalls in the barn, one that’s six times the size of what we have in the cottage basement.

  Installing the plant itself wasn’t going to be easy since it’s based on mirror fields spread out over half an acre, deflecting the heat into the thermal receiver. It took over two months of sporadic work to clear and level off the ground, and we didn’t have the thermal tower mounted and the turbine and condenser and the shed to hold them completed until early October. Then like everything else, the project was put on hold while we worried about our new arrivals, moving the Porters and Tremblays into their new homes and scavenging (and hoarding) any extra supplies we’d need to keep them going through the winter.

  If we hadn’t wasted time on that, Ant could have helped us big time and we could have had the system set up over a month ago. Now we’ll have to do it without him. Graham and Ant complemented each other when it came to building, and while I know Kayla wishes she could take over for Ant, we won’t be able to make up for what we’ve lost.

  We have a week if we’re lucky before it’s too cold to run the wiring underground from the solar field to the battery bank in the barn. We’ve learnt from some of Ant and Matt’s previous sprinkler experiments in the garden that anything above ground will be chewed on by the local wildlife.

  The ground’s already started to freeze during the nights and staying somewhat frozen during the day, but with shovels, a little elbow grease, some trash bags and a pick axe, we’ve been able to dig over three quarters of the trench out so far.

  I wanted it finished today.

  So I got back to work on the hole, with Matt hovering around me with a shovel; every few minutes he’d give digging another chance before making a grunting noise and telling me yet again that the ground’s just too cold to dig.

  Lisa was in the barn running the insulated wire along the inside wall, and I can’t say I wasn’t jealous of how much quieter it was in there.

  After three hours or so the trench was finished up to the door of the barn, and I helped Lisa with the wiring, bringing it out the barn and along the trench to the generator shed at the edge of the field.

  Once the generator was connected, we brought the hose over and filled the inlet for the exhaust pipe. Nothing so far has felt as strange to me as using a garden hose to kickstart a solar power plant. With the water in place, assuming we had put enough in but not too much, we pulled the tarps off of both mirror fields and powered on the tracking system with the propane generator. The three of us stood back and watched.

  “What should we see?” Matt asked.

  “You can see it now with the heliostats,” I said, pointing at the hundreds of tiny bristles on the mirror sheets as they spun around to meet the sun. “They follow the sunlight.”

  “I know that. But what about the turbine? Should we see some steam coming out somewhere?”

  “Tell me, Matt,” Lisa said, “if the steam came out of the turbine, what would happen to all of the water?”

  Matt looked to be thinking that over for a moment. “Shit,” he said. “Just ignore me.”

  “Wish I could,” I said with a smirk.

  Now that we knew the heliostats were moving into place, we went into the shed to check the displays.

  “I don’t know what any of this means,” I said as I stared at the numbers on the various displays.

  “It’s working,” Lisa said. “We can check the batteries for charge. That will give us numbers we’re used to.”

  We continued on to the barn, where we could see from the large and friendly LCD panel that the battery bank was charging, a large three percent taking up half the screen, above more numbers and letters that I didn’t fully understand. I find there’s something a little mind-bending about kilowatt hours.

  �
��Three percent?” Matt said. “That sucker is charging up pretty quick.”

  “Up from around 2.7,” Lisa said. “Usually batteries don’t drain completely.”

  “Either way,” I said, “it looks like we’ve got it working.”

  I offered my hand to Lisa, who gave it a brief and over-hard shake. Matt stuck his out, too, and Lisa and I both took it in turn.

  “Great work, guys,” Matt said. “I think Ant would be proud.”

  “We’ll have to smoke a joint for him,” Lisa said.

  I grinned. “I’ll bet ghost Ant is probably haunting his stash.”

  Lisa shook her head. “Not your best joke, Baptiste.”

  “Yeah…you’re just not that funny,” Matt said.

  “And you’re not that smart,” I said. “But I don’t hold it against you.”

  From what I could tell he thought I was kidding; that was probably for the best.

  “Don’t worry, Matt,” Lisa said. “It’s your good looks I hold against you. The stupid kind of makes up for that.”

  Matt flashed an insincere smile and skulked away. If I’d known it was that easy to lose him I would’ve started the day off with a few choice insults.

  “I don’t know what we’ll do if something goes wrong with this thing,” I said. “Once we start relying on it…”

  “Graham knows his stuff,” Lisa said. “And for everything he’s not sure about we can fake it ‘til we make it. And switch back if things go to shit.”

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  Lisa gave me a smile, or as close to one of those as she ever gives. “Shit comes weekly around here,” she said. She gave me a quick pat on the shoulder and left the barn.

  It’s fleeting moments like that that make me think Lisa might actually think of me as a friend and not just someone she’s stuck with. That’s assuming, of course, that Lisa believes in having friends; I doubt even she knows for sure.

  Tonight I stumbled onto people having sex.

  I’d noticed that the door to the side veranda was open slightly even though we’d already closed it off for the winter. I walked over to close it and I saw two naked bodies on the old lounge chair with the white and yellow flowers. Fiona’s stained-glass loon dangled just above, and I’m sure she wouldn’t have been pleased by what that little bird was seeing.

  I wasn’t trying to look but I’m sure I was staring. The whole world has seen Kayla naked before, but Lisa was new to me.

  “What the hell?” Lisa said when she saw me, pulling a ratty quilt over her breasts. “You’re a fucking pervert!”

  “Don’t you have bedrooms for this kind of thing?” I said, pretending I was annoyed and not at all turned on. “It’s a little cold in here to be naked, isn’t it?”

  “There’s no privacy upstairs,” Kayla said, standing up from the lounge chair and making no attempt to cover herself. She’s one of those girls who’s athletic without being too bony, always soft despite the tone. I’d seen her dance once, before the fires and before anyone knew who I was; I almost got up the nerve to talk to her…almost.

  I talk to her every day now. I still can’t help but want her.

  “You should have knocked,” Lisa said. She already sounded less pissed.

  “It’s called ‘sock on the door’,” I said.

  Kayla laughed. “I’ll remember that. Can you give us a little privacy now, please?”

  “You’re not going to tell…” Lisa said. She’d moved on to being more worried than angry, and I almost felt bad for her.

  “I’m not getting involved,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  I nodded and turned away, closing the door. I made sure to lock it, too, using the little hook up top just in case one of the girls remembered to bring their key.

  Then I gave them their privacy.

  Luckily they had most of their clothes with them, so they didn’t look all that chilled as they ran out and around to the front door of the cottage, barefoot in the December frost.

  Today is Tuesday, December 11th.

  Matt and I spent the afternoon in New Post helping to build a house. We call it helping but I think we sometimes get in the way, since the people we’re working with have years of experience with that kind of thing. But they seem to appreciate the help, and I want to build up our relationship; it’s not good to have neighbours you don’t feel you can trust.

  I asked around about how things were going, hoping that someone would mention something about that boy we’d found on the other side of the river. But I couldn’t just ask outright, so I didn’t get an answer. All I knew was that everyone there looked worried. That doesn’t really tell me anything.

  I know they’re probably running low on food these days considering how many mouths they’ve got to feed.

  Matt’s like a movie star to the young women at New Post, and I’ve noticed that more of them are on the job site on the days I bring him with me. I’m pretty sure he could take his pick of the girls there if he wanted to, but for whatever reason he hasn’t made his move. I think that he’s so used to Kayla’s take-no-prisoners flirting that he doesn’t even realize when other girls like him; if a girl’s not grabbing his ass or calling him her “sexy boy toy” he thinks she’s frigid.

  He’s just as clueless about Fiona, who I’m sure would claim him in a minute if she thought she could.

  Fuck, that pisses me off.

  To be honest, I don’t get it. I understand that he’s young and good looking, that he’s a whole lot younger and better looking than me. But it’s still hard to believe that his looks make up for how goddamn stupid he is. Every day he does something that amazes me based on the level of total idiocy.

  Today his moment of stupid came as we were hammering in the joist hangers for the main floor. Both he and I were doing it, Matt because he’s a moron who can’t be trusted to do anything else, and me because it’s my full-time job to make sure Matt doesn’t accidentally nail his tongue to a 2x6.

  So we were nailing the metal hangers while the rest of the crew was down in the basement doing everything else. Obviously they were wearing their hard hats and safety glasses, but I’m pretty sure they still didn’t want to have anything dropped on top of them.

  I think you know where this is heading…

  “These nails are a bitch,” Matt whined, as he worked on his first joist hanger. I was on my third, since I’m a normal human being with at least basic handyman skills.

  “Just take your time,” I said.

  “Do we really need to fill all the holes?” He managed to drop a nail down into the basement as he spoke.

  “All the holes.”

  “So like a Russian gangbang,” Matt said, laughing.

  “Focus on what you’re doing.”

  “Jeezus, Baptiste…calm down.”

  I stopped hammering for a moment and turned to him. “Don’t tell me to calm down. I’ll calm down when you start taking the work seriously.”

  He sighed and took another swing at his hanger. “Shit!” he said.

  I heard a yell from down below to match. I looked down and saw one of the workers grabbing her right arm.

  “What the hell, guys?” she said. “I just got hit with a hammer. Do you even know what you’re doing up there?”

  “Sorry about that,” Matt said. He looked over to me. “I guess I should have yelled ‘fore’.”

  “That’s it,” I said. “That’s enough. You’re done here, Matt, alright? You’re no good to this crew…that’s for damned sure.”

  I expected him to say something back, maybe some weak excuse, but Matt just stared at me with a confused look on his face.

  “Just find something to entertain yourself,” I said. “We’ll head home when I’m done. Don’t be riding back on your own.”

  “Sorry,” he said quietly.

  He walked off the site and I lost track of him for the rest of the afternoon. It made the rest of my time there that much nicer. I think I even made some kind of contr
ibution once I no longer had to babysit.

  Once the crew had stopped for the day, I walked back toward our ATVs with Gerald Archibald, the head councilor. He’s not much younger than me, but with a full head of hair and a slight Cree accent.

  “I guess you guys don’t need any more housing,” he said.

  “Not enough baby making,” I said. “There are probably three more cottages that we could make use of if we needed to.”

  “Probably won’t have those cottages staying livable for much longer. You guys aren’t doing any maintenance on them, eh?”

  “We can’t afford to. It’s just not a priority for us.”

  “I’m not arguing with that…you guys have a lot to do.”

  “I’m sure you’re busy, too. We haven’t seen you in Cochrane lately.”

  Gerald sighed. “We don’t go to Cochrane much anymore…not if we can avoid it. We actually had a close call on Friday…some retard with a rifle was shooting at everything that moves.”

  That sounded familiar. “A rifle? I think we ran into the same idiot.”

  “He actually took a shot at you, Baptiste? That takes a lot of balls.” He gave out a little whistle.

  “I didn’t expect it…that’s for sure.” I didn’t want to tell him anything more.

  “No doubt, eh? You guys are probably the only ones around here who don’t have to worry about being attacked.”

  “We have to worry,” I said. “At least since Ant.”

  “What do you mean? What happened to Ant?”

  I was surprised that Gerald didn’t seem to know. I often forget just how separate the people of New Post are from the rest of us.

  I guess the Walkers hadn’t bothered sharing the news with them.

  “Ant was murdered just over a week ago,” I said. “The guys who did it called themselves The Mushkegowuk Spirit Animals. I’m not sure it was Stems.”