The only remnant of the old days was the huge white lettering painted on the red boards: Sweet Clover, and beneath it, Gallen Family Farms. For the millionth time in his life he wondered why an Irish farmer would paint a three-leaf clover. Gallen’s grandfather must have been the one and only Irish-American not to paint a four-leaf clover on his barn.
Taking his mug of coffee to the boot room, he dressed in a red blanket-coat and workboots and headed for Winter in the yards. It was 6.52 am; a line of blue and yellow had formed on the eastern horizon and frozen dirt clattered under his cold feet. ‘Nice morning,’ said Gallen, taking a seat on the platform beside the main gate to the round pen, where Winter was working with Peaches.
‘Nice enough,’ said Winter, vapour escaping his mouth.
Sipping at his coffee, Gallen smoked and watched the Canadian do his thing with the horse, leading her in simple circles around the pen. After a few minutes Winter walked back to the centre of the fifty-foot pen and kept the horse walking on the end of long lunging reins. Using voice commands, he made the horse lope — off either leg — and then rise to the trot, before backing her off again. The horse was obviously well worked but good trainers built them up from the basics, asserting their dominance and making the animal confident about commands.
‘She’s a good mare, this one,’ said Winter. ‘Nice ‘n’ easy.’
Gallen ducked into the barn and carried the saddle to the sand arena for Winter, who’d already constructed some basic rail jumps. Gallen leaned on the fence, threw out the cold coffee and lit another smoke.
‘We were going to talk about the shit, weren’t we?’ said Gallen.
‘Got one of them for me?’ asked Winter, bringing Peaches around and reaching down for a cigarette.
‘Ever thought about going back?’
‘To Maple Creek?’ said Winter, sticking the smoke in his teeth and stripping off his gloves, which he shoved in his jacket pocket.
‘No, to soldiering.’ Gallen squinted as the sun came over the trees.
‘Just as well,’ said Winter. ‘Saskatchewan’s a big place, but maybe not big enough for me.’
‘Well?’ said Gallen, after they’d spent a few moments smoking and looking into the distance.
‘Think about it every day,’ said Winter. ‘Don’t know how you wouldn’t.’
The mare snorted and shook herself, the tack ringing like a box of nails.
‘Could be something for us,’ said Gallen.
‘What? ‘ said Winter, eyes focused.
‘Bodyguard. PSD. Protecting an oil executive.’
‘Protecting from what?’
Gallen sucked on the smoke. ‘From hisself.’
‘Sounds easy.’
‘Easier than an intel briefing,’ said Gallen.
‘Ha!’ Winter shook his head with genuine amusement. ‘All looks easy on a board.’
They chuckled in the morning light. Anyone who’d seen action in special forces knew how brave an intel staffer could be when he was scribbling his lines and crossing his targets on a whiteboard in a briefing room.
‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’ said Winter.
‘Would you go back?’
‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Who for, and why,’ said Winter.
‘For me, Kenny.’ Gallen eyeballed him. ‘You work for me and you do it for two thousand a week, full medical, death and disability.’
‘I see.’
They smoked in silence until Gallen mashed his cigarette in the sand of the arena. ‘Guess the first step is knowing if you can work for me.’
‘Am right now, ain’t I?’
‘Roy hired you,’ said Gallen. ‘This is different — this is back to the life, chain of command.’
Winter exhaled smoke and flicked his butt end over end into the sand. ‘I can work for you, Gerry.’
‘Big dog say, little dog do?’
Winter spat, looked away. ‘You say two thou?’
‘That’s what I can pay.’
‘The fuck we doing here then?’
Arnell Boniface smiled as the administration woman carried in the Sweet Clover file and handed it to him.
‘Okay, so what have we here?’ said Boniface, a chrome-dome bank manager who hid his distaste for farmers with a chirpy tone.
‘I should be on there,’ said Gallen, his hair still wet, his left foot pinching in the brogues he wore three times a year. ‘Dad had me signed onto the trust when I was twenty-one.’
‘Here it is,’ said Boniface. ‘Gerard Roy Gallen, Sweet Clover farm on the Line Draw road. There’s your signature, you’re authorised.’
‘How’re we placed?’ said Gallen. ‘What does the bank need?’
Boniface said ‘Well…’ like a man who was about to lie. ‘There’s three months’ mortgage in arrears, so we’d like to have that settled. Then there’s another payment due on the fourteenth.’
‘Let’s call it four,’ said Gallen. ‘And then?’
‘We could discuss the line of credit.’
‘Can we shut it down? It’s just eating away at that property.’
‘I’ve suggested that to Mr Gallen — Roy, that is,’ said the banker, ‘and he doesn’t like the idea.’
‘Can we take the cheque book away from him?’
Boniface laughed. ‘You try that. Tell me how you go.’
‘What about you dishonour every Sweet Clover cheque?’
‘It’ll work for a while, then Roy’ll be in here yelling at my staff.’ Boniface leaned forward. ‘And if it’s after lunch he’ll be excitable, if you see what I mean.’
‘I want to bring the mortgage back to square,’ said Gallen. ‘But there’s no point if the money keeps leaking out.’
‘You could start with these payments to the beauty shop,’ said Boniface, his finger tapping on the latest statement. ‘I know Roy and Leanne have a friendship, but that’s the main cash flow problem I can see.’
‘Can we freeze that chequing account? Just for a month?’
Boniface spoke into the intercom, asked for the assistant to come through with a bank form. ‘We’ll try it your way, Gerard, but when Roy comes in here I want your John Hancock all over this.’
‘That’s fair. By the way, that letter of foreclosure I seen in Roy’s study,’ said Gallen, closing his eyes slowly, ‘that’s not the first, right?’
‘He’s had warning letters, but that’s the first foreclosure document.’
‘Gimme two days,’ said Gallen, as the forms arrived for Boniface to fill in and Gallen to sign. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
The beauty parlour smelled of hairspray and bad perfume — the ones that said If you like Joy, you’ll love Glory. The disco phase of Tom Jones played on the sound system and Gallen pushed back his thin dark hair with his fingers as he waited at the desk.
‘Hi, Leanne,’ he said, as the woman walked around a Chinese silk screen to the counter. ‘Long time.’
‘Well, well,’ said Leanne Tindall, wrong side of fifty and still wearing a Wonderbra. ‘If it’s not our war hero. What can I do you for, Gerry?’
‘Could we talk? ‘
‘Sure,’ Leanne gestured around her, ‘but I’m busy. Got a bridal party in right now.’
‘Need to talk about these payments,’ said Gallen.
‘Payments?’ Leanne averted her eyes, big acrylic nails resting on her hip, accentuating the swell of her ass in the black leggings.