Muriel Gray - The Trickster

Ernie braced himself for a hospital job, wondering how many fingers the guy would still be able to call his own after a minimum of two hours without gloves. He was already planning the detour to Silver’s RCMP station when the cab door opened.

A rush of cold air entered every part of Ernie Legat as the man held open the door and looked up at his driver.

‘Jesus Christ buddy, get in and shut the fuckin’ door will ya!’

A pale, thin face held two ice-blue eyes that looked straight into Ernie’s soul. The man’s age was hard to place. A line-free face crowned with white hair, and skin that was almost translucent, belied a look in his eyes that seemed a great deal older.

The only illumination, from the single weak cab-light, was not doing much to help this guy’s bid to get a bit part in a beach movie, but despite his pallor the hitcher’s smile was disarmingly warm and charming. Not the smile of a man who has just cheated death.

Ernie motioned to the man with a hand that was already losing feeling in the tips of its fingers, and as the stranger looked calmly around the cab like a man buying a secondhand car, the cold was becoming more than he could bear.

‘Silver?’

‘Sure,’ he replied impatiently. ‘Get in.’

Huge flakes of snow whirled into the cab, settling on the dumb kidney-shaped plaid cushion on the dashboard that Amy Legat had sewn for her husband, for use when his behind got numb after ten hours of non-stop.

The man climbed carefully into the passenger seat, closed the door, folded his hands on his lap and looked straight ahead.

The cab was colder than Hell and Ernie’s breath was coming out in fast, thick clouds. Fast, because for some reason he was a little breathless after the excitement of finding the guy way up here. Thick, because the temperature had dropped to something that would freeze the balls off a polar bear.

He groped for the heater. It was already on full. The cab would heat up again once they got going. Once they got going. God, why was he driving at two miles an hour? Get this thing moving.

The truck shifted a gear and picked up speed, but Ernie was driving without seeing. All he could think of was the guy in his peripheral vision, lit only by the instrument panel now, sitting silently three feet away.

No explanation seemed like it was going to be offered, but Ernie was damned if he wasn’t going to be repaid for the rule-breaking ride with at least an interesting tale. ‘So what the hell you doin’ out there, fella?’ Ernie settled back into his brown bead seat cover to enjoy whatever the hitcher had to offer.

‘Just working my way towards Silver. Thanks for the ride. Looked for a while like I was going to have to walk.’ The man beamed across at his saviour, and before Ernie could demand an expansion, the man continued in his soothing pleasant voice. ‘Do you know Silver well, Ernie?’

Ernie shot a surprised glance at him. ‘How do you know my name?’

The man leant over and tapped Ernie’s company ID, a plastic card hanging from a chain that also supported a tiny cowbell with Austria painted on it, that his daughter brought back for him from a school trip fifteen years ago. Ernie’s photo glared out from the ID like a man in pain, and the real Ernie glared over at his passenger, his face matching his picture. ‘It’s right here. Unless that’s not you.’ The man seemed pleased with himself. ‘Silver?’ He reminded Ernie, who remained locked in his frown.

‘Oh I know it well enough. Right now it’s choked with folks slidin’ around on the hills with wooden sticks stuck to their feet like damned fools, but in the summer it goes right back to bein’ the no-shit-happens, assholes in RVs, railroad town it always was. You got business there?’

The man smiled and looked out of his window, his face turned away from Ernie. ‘Yeah. I’ve got some business to take care of there.’ He turned back, beaming that smile again. ‘Thought I might pick up some work.’

Ernie saw a chance. ‘Well you sure would be plenty suited to skiing work, fella, being able to stand out there in minus God knows what without so much as a chilblain. How come you ain’t frostbitten, with no gloves or nothin’? And if you don’t mind me pryin’, how’d you get up there? Didn’t see no car.’

The man picked up Amy’s cushion, turning it over in his soft white hands, examining it as though it were made of porcelain. ‘Got dropped off from another ride a few hours ago. Didn’t expect it to be so cold, so I dug a snow-hole. Just off the road back there.’ He looked across at Ernie, studying the driver’s face closely. ‘An old Indian skill I picked up years ago. Outside, forty below. Inside warm as toast. Don’t even need a coat once you’ve sealed the entrance. Heard the truck coming and I just strolled on out to borrow the ride.’

Ernie mulled it over. ‘So the Indians dug snow-holes? Good to know the useless drunken bums could do somethin’.’

‘That’s a truth and no mistake,’ replied the man with a new tenor to his voice.

Ernie looked across at the man in his truck and his gaze was returned with an unfaltering stare that even in the dim light of the cab Ernie could read as a warning.

He changed the subject.

‘What kind of trucker would let you out there? It’s only ten more miles to Silver, and the road ain’t exactly goin’ no place else.’

The man’s face creased into a smile. ‘Did I say it was a trucker? It certainly was not, Ernie. Like you say, no knight of the road would make such an uncharitable drop. It was a goon in a four-by-four pick-up, and I guess he just got tired of my company. Driver’s prerogative. Still, mustn’t grumble. I’m going to get there anyhow.’ He grinned. Hugely. ‘Thanks to you, Ernie.’

Ernie grunted like an old dog in response.

The truck was already well into its descent, nosing down the other side of the pass, and Ernie turned his attention to making sure his baby wasn’t going to end up a forty-ton chrome and steel toboggan, heading for Silver the short way, straight down the cliff.

The heater was being a bitch. They’d been in the cab with the doors shut now for at least ten minutes, and Ernie could still see his breath. If this carried on he’d have to stop in Silver when he let his passenger out, get the thing fixed himself, or stop over until he could find someone who could.

He shifted down a gear, as he felt a slight give under the front wheels.

‘Are there many Indians in Silver?’

Ernie didn’t enjoy the last exchange about Indians. He wished he’d never brought the subject up. ‘Yeah. One or two.’

‘Assiniboine, Kinchuinick or Blackfoot?’

‘Kinchuinick mostly, I think. Hey, I don’t know, buddy. Do I look like Professor of Native North American Studies at Princeton?’

The road, which hadn’t seen a snowplough for hours, was having one last go at slowing up Ernie Legat and his seafood, boasting a drift of at least three feet across the last serious bend before the run out to town. Ernie could see the lights of Silver just starting to poke through the blizzard, and decided to ram the sucker. Without touching the brakes, he slammed the eighteen-wheeler into the snow bank and hoped it was only this high for a few feet.

Somewhere in one of the back axles, a set of wheels complained enough to shove the rig alarmingly to the left, but the truck held on and ten feet later they were clear. Silver twinkled ahead. Ernie knew his was the last thing on wheels that would get through that for a while. The ploughs wouldn’t even look at this until the storm calmed down and nothing he could see was hinting at that. He would drop his passenger and head for the truck stop at Maidston Creek, five miles down the valley. It looked like he’d have to sit out this tempest for a day or two.