Travelling Light by Peter Behrens

names on the walls. They write dates, and the names of places that now sound to me like prisons — Fort St. John, Grande Prairie, Fort McMurray, Alsask.
    Duane pulled open the screen door and stepped inside.
    â€œWhy don’t you take your boots off,” I said. “This place is bad enough.”
    He muttered something but he knew I wasn’t fooling around. I’d drop him in about three seconds if he didn’t come to heel. He kicked his boots into one corner and fell down on his bunk.
    â€œNext time leave them outside,” I said.
    He was a lowlife and I didn’t like the idea of sharing that damn ATCO with him for however long it took us to bring in the crop. For a moment I had the idea to just pick up my gear, sling it over my shoulder, and walk out of that trailer into the sunlight, across the shit-smelling yard and down the section road. Just get down to the highway and hitch a ride away from it all. I thought of my father’s house on Cape Breton, which was white and shining and perfectly clean, and of meadows that slant down to the sea. When I left there, I left the world of people who dwell in houses, and since then I have always lived in trailers or motels.
    â€œThat kid don’t know nothing about trucks,” Duane said.
    You can’t do anything about trash except ignore it. I want a ranch of my own, land I can afford, maybe in south Saskatchewan. I’ll get my brothers out from Cape Breton and we’ll raise horses.
    A woman’s voice was calling us for supper. Duane pulled on his boots and I got up from my bunk and we left the trailer and walked across to the house.
    It was clear to me Steve and his wife, Donna, did not trust Duane. They were afraid he couldn’t do the job and his mistakes would cost money.
    â€œThe thought of that boy operating a thirty-thousand-­dollar grainer is making my hair grey,” Donna said.
    The three of us were having coffee in the kitchen. Supper was over. Duane and Pete had gone back outside to work on Duane’s pickup.
    â€œIt’s hard to find hands,” Steve said. “We get crazy people from the city or boys like Duane without a brain between their ears. How the hell are we supposed to bring a crop in?”
    â€œGovernment does not think of the hard-working farmer these days,” said Donna.
    â€œThe men we used to have are all getting rich up on the rigs,” said Steve.
    â€œOr on unemployment insurance, hanging around the beer parlours in Calgary,” said Donna.
    â€œPipeline, tar sands,” said Steve. “That’s where the money is now. We’re stuck with the likes of him. He says he paid two thousand for that half-ton in Prince Albert. Whoever sold it to him ought to be arrested. The thing’s not safe to put on a road.”
    â€œWhere does he come from?” I asked.
    â€œHe says he was washing cars in P.A. He’s been a harvest hand before. I drove around with him in the Dodge and he knows how to split-shift, anyhow. He says he wants to go up on the rigs.”
    â€œThat’ll be the day.”
    â€œGod help us if he smashes into the combine,” said Donna.
    â€œPete’s going to ride around with him. Pete can help him out. They get along okay. Pete’s quite a mechanic — he’s got more tools than I do. Maybe Pete can even get his pickup running.”
    â€œI don’t want our son spending a lot of time with him,” Donna said. She stood up to get the coffee pot from the stove. “How old are you?” she asked me.
    â€œTwenty-five.”
    â€œYou look older.” She poured coffee for Steve, then me. “You look like one of the men we used to have around here. You look like a worker.”
    â€œWhy did you leave Nova Scotia?” Steve asked.
    â€œWhat is it you’re all after, coming out west?” Donna said.
    â€œJobs. Money.”
    I sipped coffee. I like kitchen coffee they make on the farms. I like old