| | Pub sound. |
| NARRATOR: | It's six years now since Lucifer Charfish died riding the Mountain Race. He was some cowboy. Won a lot of rodeos... and two races down that killer mountain. Was getting ready for his third win-and the gold buckle. They always start talking about Lucifer at stampede time in the laketown. Biggest rodeo in the province, with Lucifer Charfish the best damn rider who ever came out of that Chilcotin country. They're making a legend out of him... the natives, the cowhands, the ranchers... Well, it's easy to make history over a couple of beer. Even new visitors to the stampede go home with stories of Lucifer's last ride in the saddle. The day, six summers ago, when they put the gold buckle on his lifeless body... |
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Pub sound fades. Lights come up on an old woman, sitting slumped over and poking at a camp fire. |
| NOKI: | That's what they're talking now. |
| | She straightens her back with an effort and with defiance in her old voice. |
| And they're all wonderin' when will be the next mountain race. They're askin' why the stampede committee don't get on its horse and have another. |
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Her old body sinks back into its cage of 80 years. |
| Because it's murder is why. It's murder. |
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She shakes her head sadly and goes on muttering in cayoose English interspersed with a few Chilcotin words. |
| A rider's death don't mean much to those lookers-on. Only your family and the other riders really care. Hundred dollars for breaking your neck. Hundred dollars sure don't last long. Not even in those days. It helped a bit to bury you is about all. |
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She takes a deep breath, and utters a sigh. |
| The young bucks they gone to town now, Lucifer. They get beered up and talk a lot. And they drink some more and make you a hero. And they start getting noisy and sometimes it gets rough in the streets and the cops come and cool 'em off in the pokey the night. Until the pockey's full and then they only keep the bad 'uns. Is sure lonely, Lucifer. Maybe I've been thinking too much. The men, they just talk. Don't know why I always come back every year. It's a long way from the reserve when you're old. No good for my bones getting humped around that old wagon anymore. But they always say, Noki, come along to the stampede. You can look after the young 'uns. It's lonely back at the cabin, Lucifer. Here it's okay, I guess. It's quiet tonight, but it's okay. The young bucks they still come to ride at the stampede. You do some horse tradin', you get a new saddle and show it off at the reserve. You sell a few buckskin jackets to the white folks. You get pregnant. Everybody's going home happy. Well, happier than six years ago. |
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She throws a log on the fire, shakes the dust out of her blankets. A baby's cry is heard. NOKI begins to croon softly -- a restrained wail that rises and falls like a spring chinook across a lonely plateau, a meandering of sounds that had put babies to steep through generations long forgotten. Every now and then Lucifer's name is heard as if she was making a chant for him. When the crying stops NOKI gets up, leaves the light of the fire and hobbles around the tent to look in on the babies and the horses. |
| WOMAN'S VOICE: | Hi you, Noki! Don't worry about the horses. You come over and smoke a cigarette? |
| NOKI: | I smoke it here. I'll see you tomorrow. |
| WOMAN'S VOICE: | That dapple grey of yours, she gettin' old, eh? |
| NOKI: | We're all getting old. |
| WOMAN'S VOICE: | It's a long way for her to walk behind the wagon. |
| NOKI: | Star is fine. Besides she's Josh's horse now. |
| WOMAN'S VOICE: | She'll drop dead from the heat some day. |
| NOKI: | I'll tell Josh. |
| WOMAN'S VOICE: | He's still chasing ghost, eh? |
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NOKI returns to the fire, throws two more chunks of wood in the firebed. Then she settles on a nearby log, pulls a blanket across the bony shoulders and continues her crooning. JOSH, a boy of about 11, steps out of the tent and puts his hand on NOKI's shoulder -- not demanding -- waiting. After a moment she stops her crooning. Her voice is quiet and not surprised. |
| Josh? |
| JOSH: | I can't sleep. |
| NOKI: | Then sit down. |
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JOSH climbs over the log and moves in closely to his grandmother. She pulls her blanket around his body and looks down at the thatch of black hair now sticking up like bunch grass from under her arm. The dark, solemn eyes below gaze unwavering into the flames. For a long time they sit in silence -- two people warming each other, body and soul -- thinking of Lucifer. |
| JOSH: | (Whispering.) Tell me about the mountain race. |
| NOKI: | There's nothin' to tell. (Silence.) It was nothin'. He was a good rider, that's all. He wasn't much older than you when he first won in the chariot race. Then he won the barebacks... |
| JOSH: | Tell me like you did last year when we were here. |
| NOKI: | About the mountain race? |
| JOSH: | Yes. |
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NOKI thrusts a hand into the sagging pocket of her sweater and draws out a bent cigarette. With her moccasined foot she reaches forward and pulls a coal out of thefire, picks it up in her hand, draws deeply on her cigarette and without flinching tosses the coal back into the flames. She coughs with the first two breaths of smoke, a cough as harsh and dry as that of a crow on a day in August. She spits swiftly aside of the fire. |
| NOKI: | Well, Josh, as I remember it, they led their horses up the mountain road to the top of the hill that morning. They didn't ride them. You see, the horses had to be fresh. Not all tired out. They were the riders and they walked their horses slow, stoppin' a lot, takin' their time. Cinches loose. Bits out. Everythin' real slow. Restin', movin', restin'. The mountain road was steep those days. Steeper than it is now. The ranchers have cut it down. |
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JOSH's stubby finger creeps out of the blanket and points beyond the flames as if there loomed something huge and alive. |
| JOSH: | That mountain? |
| NOKI: | That mountain. |
| NARRATOR: | Of course Josh knew which mountain. Together they'd huddled there before, as Noki had told him his favourite story, and she knew better than to ruin it for him now. In fact, Josh knew the mountain well. At every stampede he had studied it -- in the morning shadow, noon light, and evening sun -- almost as if he were making plans to some day challenge it himself. |
| JOSH: | What happened next, grandma? |
| NOKI: | When they got to the top they rested their horses. I guess they had a cigarette, maybe a drink. But not your father. He wouldn't ever drink until after a race. Then, I guess, they tightened their cinches as it got time to start. I guess some were pretty nervous, and some would try to cover up. They'd laugh and joke and finally get lined up right there on the edge. |
| JOSH: | How did they know when to start? |
| NOKI: | By the flag. A man with a white flag, he stood down at the bottom where they could all see him. They would have this figured out before stampede. Well, this man, he stood with his white flag straight up. Then he lowered it twice -- real slow, real slow. He had to give them time up there to steady their nags. Straight out from his hip he lowered it twice. Then on the third time, he dropped it. |
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Old NOKI's voice had grown with emphasis. Now softly again, she goes on. |
| There wasn't a sound from then on. Everyone who was watchin' down here stopped talking' and drinkin'. Some, they got excited. Some, they had bets on who would win. All anyone could see was clouds of dust when the horses dropped over the edge of the hill. You could hear the riders shoutin', though. They weren't quiet. They were all shoutin'. |
| JOSH: | What were they shouting? |
| NOKI: | Oh, gid-ap! and ho there! and yippee!... to excite their horses, you see. Straight down that bank they came. Not standin' up runnin', you know, but slidin' on their haunches and jumpin' and rearin' and makin' lots of dust. So much you couldn't see or tell who was winnin'. |
| JOSH: | Was it dangerous? |
| NOKI: | Oh, it was always dangerous, I guess. But it was dry that day. No dew. No rain. No reason for anythin' to happen. |
| JOSH: | What happened? |
| NOKI: | Who knows with all that dust, who knows? Maybe he rained Star away from another rider. Maybe Star flipped over in a sommersault. There was sod on the pommel at the end. All I saw was Star commin' in ahead of all the others without a rider. Your father was not in the saddle. I ran forward. I ran fast. I thought I would see him draggin' from a stirrup. That could be bad too. That's how riders get queer in the head, gettin' kicked. A horse goes kinda wild when she's draggin' her rider; she kicks and jumps around. Scared, I guess. |
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Her voice fades away. |
| But Lucifer -- your father -- he wasn't there. |
| JOSH: | Who found him? |
| NOKI: | (Her voice strengthening again.) The riders. As soon as they saw that empty saddle they went back up that mountain, faster than they had come down. They didn't even finish the race. They turned their horses and shouted and whipped them right back into that dust. It seemed like forever. Everyone was runnin' after them. Couldn't see nothin' but they ran anyway. Women cryin'. Men swearin'. It was awful. Then they packed him off the mountain over the back of a horse. Broke his neck, the doctor said. I guess he didn't know nothin'. |
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For a moment they sit in silence. Old Noki spits out the cigarette stub. |
| He got a gold buckle that year but he never knew it. Third time winnin' was a gold buckle. |
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Josh reaches over and rubs the gold buckle that Noki is wearing tight across her sinewy old stomach. |
| JOSH: | Why do you always wear it? |
| NOKI: | For you. It's pure gold. It would be a lot of beer for some people. It would bring a good horse for others. And when your stomach is big enough, you'll wear it. It's your buckle. |
| JOSH: | Some day, when they have the mountain race again, I'll ride Star in it. We'll win and then you'll have two gold buckles. |
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NOKI fishes around her pocket for another battered cigarette. She coughs even befor she finds it -- a cough you can feel as well as hear -- like a wagon going over a washboard road. |
| NOKI: | They'll be coming back from town soon. Maybe you had better go to your own blanket. |
| JOSH: | (Gets up.) I will ride that mountain race someday and you'll be proud of me. |
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JOSH rustles back into his tent. NOKI doesn't move but in the light of the flickering fire tears are seeping through the creases of her face. Then her old lips twist into something like a smile and her toothless mouth seems to move, but there is no sound. |
| NARRATOR: | It was as if old Noki was about to say something -- to the night or the mountain perhaps. But Noki didn't speak. Old age doesn't have to express triumph through words. She knew without the assurance of her own words that there would never be a gold buckle for Josh -- other than this one. No, there would never be another mountain race. |
| | Lights dim to black. |