Under This Unbroken Sky (16 page)

Teodor throws his leather jacket back on, his body retreats from the cold skin. “C’mon, Myron, let’s go.”

Stefan rubs the horse’s nose too hard. It tries to bite him. He grabs the bridle and yanks it down, hard. “Remember whose barn you’re staying in.”

Teodor takes the rein, catching the strain of the bridle. “He doesn’t like his nose touched.”

Stefan releases his hold. “We all have our weaknesses.” He eyes the grain. “How much d’you think we’ll get?”

Teodor checks the tie-down in the front corner. He snaps too brusquely at Myron, “You’ve got too much at this end, pull it back.” He unties the knot and readjusts the sheet.

Stefan sidles up close to Teodor, he slips his fingers into the seed. “Maybe I should come with you. I’m a pretty good negotiator.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Stefan measures the weight of the seed in his hand. “Maybe I should come and protect my investment.”

Teodor glares at him. “What investment?”

Stefan glances at the grain and shrugs. “My land, my granary, my wheat.”

Teodor answers in measured words. “I did the work.” He feels the back of his neck flush hot, feels his body tighten. Eyes to the ground. Eyes to the ground.

“I know, I know.” Stefan feigns sympathy. “But the claims office only looks at the papers.” He brushes the seed from his hands. “If I remember, you can’t own land…” He chooses his words carefully. “…After that incident.”

Myron looks up from his task and sees his father’s cheek twitch. Teodor knots the sheet and pulls it tight. “Anna and I made an arrangement.”

“Did you?” Stefan smiles cordially, but his eyes glint. “Have you paid her yet? You don’t want to get to town and be mistaken for a thief.”

Teodor grips the side of the cart. His back to Stefan. It is a stance he knows. Hands on the wall. Feet planted. Ten swipes of the belt. His stomach constricts.

“I’m not a thief.”

Stefan leans in close. “That’s not what the papers said.” His lips curl, baring his teeth into a smile.

Teodor grabs him by the collar. If he twists the fabric it will tighten like a noose.

The smile is still on Stefan’s face. His eyes are mocking. “Think about what you’re doing, Teodor.”

Petro, who is rolling a snowball on the ground, rounds the cart. He stops, startled by the closeness of his father and uncle.

Teodor speaks low and hard. “You’re not in the old country now, Stefan. You don’t have an army backing you up here. You’re nobody here.”

Stefan leans into Teodor’s grip. “I’m the nobody who married your sister. So I’m the nobody who owns this land.” He almost growls the words. “What’s that make you, Teodor? My farmhand?”

Teodor’s grip tightens.

“What are you going to do?” Stefan challenges. “Kill his father?”

Teodor looks to the small boy with the oversized mittens. His skinny arms, covered in goose bumps, shiver. Teodor releases Stefan with a sharp push.

“You’ll get your goddamned money.”

“I know I will.” Stefan adjusts his collar. “Family looks after family.”

“You want to help your family?” Teodor snarls. “Split the wood, fix the ax, milk the cow, put clothes on your children’s backs!” Petro runs to his father’s side.

Teodor grabs the leads. “Get on the shaft and weigh down the load.” Myron immediately obeys. Teodor slaps the horse’s flank too hard. The cart lurches ahead. Teodor keeps pace beside it.

Stefan hollers after them: “If anybody asks you where you got the grain, Myron, you tell them your uncle gave you permission to bring it in. Say my name—everybody knows me in town.” Myron looks back at Stefan. “Never take the first offer, boy.”

Petro doesn’t understand why his father is grinning like he’s just won a game.

Stefan cuffs him on the ear. “Stop gawking and get some wood.” He saunters back into the house.

Petro grabs a mittful of snow and throws it as hard as he can at the retreating cart.

THEY ONLY STOP TWICE TO KNOCK THE STICKY SNOW from the wheels. Once they get onto the main road, the ride is smooth. They don’t talk, they just let the prairies roll past. They give themselves over to the
clip-clop
of the horse’s hooves and its occasional snort. Myron wiggles his toes every few miles as the cold seeps through the thin leather. He is grateful for the extra sweater. For the first few miles, he steals sidelong glances at his father, hoping to catch a glimpse of what he is thinking or maybe to tell him in a man’s way,
I’m here if you want to talk
.

But Teodor doesn’t accept the invitation. He stares at the horse’s hooves, his hands loose on the reins, his face frozen in its imperviousness. After a while, Myron looks for magpies, rabbits, and deer instead—any other sign of life. He sees only fence posts.

The low sun bounces off the white fields and both men squint through its blindness. Miles ahead, the grain elevator rises on the horizon, proclaiming the town in bold blue letters:
UNITED GRAIN GROWERS
—
WILLOW CREEK
.
The road veers right and cozies up to the train track leading straight to the elevator on the edge of town. Their little cart passes through the long shadows of the boxcars. Each one loaded with tons of wheat waiting to be shipped to countries Myron never expects to see.

They arrive half an hour before closing. “Stay with the horse,” Teodor tells Myron.

Inside, the grain elevator smells of wood and dust. Two men sit close to a potbellied stove, playing cards on a crate. One is large; his stomach hangs over his pants. His eyes are close together, sunken in the fleshy folds of his cheeks. The other is thin and hard. His coveralls and hands are black with grease. A home-rolled cigarette
hangs from his lip. They don’t look up when the cowbell tinkles Teodor’s arrival. They finish out their play. Full house beats two of a kind.

“Goddamn.” The skinny man pulls another cigarette from behind his ear and tosses it on the table.

The fat man gathers up the cards and shuffles again.

Teodor clears his throat. “I have wheat.”

The fat man looks at the clock. It’s twenty-five to four. “It’s almost closing. Come back tomorrow.” He deals out the cards.

“I have wheat. Today.”

The man checks his hand. Nothing. He looks at the thin man, whose eyes betray the two aces in his hand. The fat man folds his cards and heavily gets up. He looks out the flyspecked window at the paltry load.

“Shit. Why do they even bother?”

“Sell wheat.”

“Yeah, yeah, bring it around the side.” The man waddles away, his knees stiff from carrying the extra weight. He points and speaks louder. “The side door.”

Teodor heads back out. The fat man puffs, “They otta make ’em have to learn English before they let ’em in.”

“They shouldn’t let ’em in,” the thin man counters.

Teodor leads the horse and wagon to the side entrance, up the low plank ramp and into the cavernous belly of the elevator. Myron ducks as the cart rolls through the doorway. The wheels rattle over the iron grid that covers the hopper below. The fat man rolls the heavy door shut behind them. It groans across the rusted rollers.

“Shovel it off and make it quick. I ain’t stayin’ past four.”

Myron jumps off and starts untying the bedsheet knots. The fat man grabs his clipboard. Teodor doesn’t hurry.

“What’s your name? Name.”

“Teodor Mykolayenko.”

“Christ, how do you spell that?” Teodor looks at him blankly. “Spell, do you understand?”

Myron answers, “M-y-k-o-l-a-y-e-n-k-o.”

“What kind of name is that? Communist?”

“Ukrainian,” Myron answers calmly.

“What quarter-section?”

Teodor nods his permission for Myron to continue. “Northwest Section 2, Township 64, Range 6, West of 4 Meridian.” He struggles to free the knot his father tied.

Teodor pulls back the bedsheet and hops up into the back of the cart. He rights a bag and, balancing it on the edge of the cart, cuts the binder twine to open the sack. He proceeds to the next bag.

The fat man goes to his land-claim maps and checks the lot numbers. Myron pulls on the knot with his teeth. It tastes like mildew and sawdust. He tries to pry it apart with his fingernails.

“We gotta problem, bud. I don’t see your name here. Are you sure you gave me the right numbers?”

“It’s my land,” Teodor replies.

“Here it says it’s registered to Anna Sev-Shev-chik.”

“Shevchuk, my sister.”

“You got any documentation, a permission letter, something giving you rights to bring in this grain?” Teodor cuts open another bag. “Does he understand what I’m saying?”

Myron looks to his father.

“My grain,” Teodor answers.

“I can’t take this if it ain’t yours. Get it out of here.” The fat man slams the clipboard shut.

“You buy.” Teodor stands knee-deep in his wheat.

“I told you—
no
buy. No!”

“You buy.”

The fat man yanks on the door. It rumbles open. “Get him out of here.”

Myron looks to his father. Teodor holds his ground. “You buy.”

The fat man plants his feet and picks up a bat he keeps near the door for emphasis. “You want to argue with me?”

Myron sees his father’s eyes empty and his hand tighten around the knife. He steps between the man and Teodor. “My father didn’t understand what you were asking. We have permission. My uncle said to tell you he gives his permission. He said you’d know him. He said everyone in town knows him. His name is Stefan. Stefan Shevchuk. He’s my uncle, we’re bringing in the wheat from his land. He said you would treat us fair. He said you were a fair man.”

“You’re the guy working Stefan’s land?” The fat man directs the question to Teodor, but Myron answers, “Yes.”

In Ukrainian, Myron pleads with his father: “You have to say yes, Tato. We need to sell it, right? It doesn’t matter what he says.”

Teodor looks at the mound burying his feet. He knows what he has to answer. He bows his head like he’s done a hundred times before to the guards.

In English, he answers, “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say that when you come in?” The fat man sets aside the bat. “We heard he had someone working up there.” He looks at Teodor, his head bowed, the ratty jacket with holes in the elbows, frayed cuffs, and tattered sheepskin collar. He almost feels sorry for the poor bastard. His stomach growls, reminding him he hasn’t eaten since noon. “Offload it.”

The fat man pulls a knife from his hip sheath and with one swipe slices off the stubborn knot. “You ain’t got all day.” Myron bundles up the bedsheet with the missing corner and wonders what his mother will say. He jumps up and joins his father.

With sausage-like fingers, the man sets the weights and counterbalances. From the bowels of the elevator the auger groans and churns, ready to carry the grain to the bins. Dust blooms through the grid. “Empty it!” the fat man shouts over the din. Myron picks up the first bag and prepares to spill its contents. Teodor stops him.

“How much?”

“What?” the fat man hollers.

“How much?” Teodor asks.

“Sixty-three cents.”

“No,” says Teodor. “Ninety-three.”

“What’d he say?” the fat man wheezes.

“He thinks it should be more.”

“Tell him that’s the price.”

Teodor pulls the crumpled newspaper from his pocket. He points to the market column. “Wheat Number One, ninety-three cents.”

“You think I’m cheating you?” The man puffs his chest.

Teodor points again at the paper. “Ninety-three cents.”

The fat man waves him away. “Those were last month’s prices. That’s for grade one. This is grade four. Sixty-three cents a bushel.”

Teodor grabs a handful of wheat. “Good grain. Number one.”

“That’s the price. Tell him he can take it to Bonnyville, what’s that—fifty miles away? But the price ain’t going to be any better. He’s lucky I’m offering this much. But if he thinks he can get a better deal…”

“Seventy cents,” Myron blurts. “He wants seventy cents.”

“No!” Teodor sputters in Ukrainian, “I want full price!”

Myron tries to reason: “He’s gonna give us nothing. We can’t take it back! You know we can’t.”

Teodor crouches down and picks up a handful of wheat. It’s good wheat. Grade one. “Tie up the bags,” he calmly tells Myron.

“Tato…”

“Do it.” Teodor twists a sack closed and wraps it with twine. Myron looks helplessly to the fat man.

“Crazy bohunk.” The fat man shakes his head. “Seventy cents.”

Teodor doesn’t look up. “Eighty.”

“Seventy-five and that’s it.” The fat man recalculates his profit. “Make up your mind, it’s almost dinnertime.”

“Seventy-five cents.” Teodor recalculates his losses. He pulls the string off and tips the bag. The wheat spills through the grid. Myron is surprised how quickly it is gone.

AFTER TEODOR LEAVES, MARIA FINDS THE SOURCE OF the mildew. Balled up and stuffed in the corner of the chest—her mother’s blanket. Its ivory-and-salmon flowers obscured by splotches of gray-green mold.

Months and months, hand spinning and dyeing the wool; over a year weaving the intricate patterns; all done by her mother’s arthritic hands.

Her mother said she wouldn’t leave her beloved Ukraïna, that she was too old to start again. But with her gnarled hands, she would have been denied entry. No defects allowed in Canada. They had agreed not to say good-bye. No tears, no chance to raise suspicions. Maria didn’t even tell her father they were leaving. He might have told. The night they were to run, her mother came to the door. She held up a warning finger—no words—and thrust a bundle into Maria’s arms. It was the blanket.

Maria opens another layer of the fabric, revealing the grass stains and red smears.

“What’s this?” escapes her lips.

It is Katya who chimes, “Raspberries.”

Sofia, who is rolling dough for the pyrohy, stops mid-roll. Her heart begins to pound, her mouth grows parched as she remem
bers that hot, sunny summer day picnicking at the lake. Katya rambles on about fish and bubbles and holding up her dress and catching a minnow in her hand…not once does she mention Sofia’s name. Not even when Maria asks through clenched teeth: “Who else was with you?”