Free Smoke River by Krista Foss Page A

unmistakable soft and inoffensive profile of Mitch Bain stooped by the shelf of single malts, reading bottle labels, he can’t resist the tug of his own history. In the 1980s, before Doreville could justify its own high school, most adolescents in the interlake basin were shipped to Central Pemcoe Secondary. It was a sprawling school filled with the sons and daughters of farmers, bankers, and merchants, all of whom made their money, one way or another, from tobacco. On the outer edge of the basin, the reserve had its own high school, a temporary building made of siding that was always in violation of the fire code or without sufficient teaching staff.
    Elijah Barton was one of the region’s three dozen non-status native kids forced to attend Central Pemcoe. He was neither tall nor short; he wore his hair cropped above the ears, long in the back, with a thin single braid that reached farther down his spine and was tied with an osprey feather he’d found in his backyard. Years later, former students would remember the boy with the thin braid, the pocked cheeks and flint-coloured eyes, but they would never connect this memory to who Barton became: a wealthy man with a collection of limited-edition Sedona watches and bespoke shirts, the man who ran the reserve’s most profitable business and was its only legal manufacturer of cigarettes.
    For Elijah, his two years at Central Pemcoe meant inhabiting all the spaces the squat, gregarious Mitch didn’t have to – under the stairwell, in the back of the cafeteria, and hours and hours in the smokers’ pit. Even here in the liquor store, three decades later, what Elijah sees is the sixteen-year-old Mitch, his chin a scrub of hair tufts and angry pimples, turning in his seat and accusing Elijah of copying answers from his grade ten general-level math exam.
Go ahead and cheat, fuckhole. You’re not even going to graduate. You’re going to be a loser all your life
.
    It turned out that the first part of what Mitch had predicted was true. Elijah did give up on high school before that semester ended. But he tucked Mitch Bain’s taunt like a shiv into his sock; he wasn’t going to let a milk-breathed, dough-faced boy predict his future. Especially one who was only taking general-level math himself.
    Elijah takes a route around New World Wines and approaches Mitch from the imported beer aisle. As adults they encounter each other at the biannual Chamber of Commerce general meetings. He had a meal – a memorably awful one – at the man’s house just this past September. Their respective business ventures make it into the pages of the
Interlake Post
. Elijah has yet to see a flicker that suggests the man remembers his own words from all those years earlier, or has the humility to take them back.
    He clears his throat. “Looking for a good Scotch? Can I make a recommendation?”
    Mitch turns, offers a quick grunt and weak smile. “Oh, hey, Elijah. Yeah, yeah, sure …”

    Mitch straightens and silently curses himself for not having done a more thorough reconnaissance. Elijah is going to be smug about the barricade; he won’t be able to stand it. He’ll have to divert him with another topic and keep him on it.
    “Can’t choose between the Dalwhinnie and Laphroaig.”
    “Laphroaig. No question.”
    That sureness, it feels almost arrogant
, thinks Mitch. But wasn’t it the same smirk, slightly wry, that drew him to Barton when they met at the Caledon Club a year ago? Mitch was taken aback that a native man could afford the fees. It soon became clear that Barton had more money than most of the members, certainlymany times more than the Bains. He racked his brains when Elijah said he’d attended Central Pemcoe, that they’d even been in classes together. He couldn’t remember him, nor any native kids for that matter. Still, Mitch thought it shrewd to cultivate such a business ally. He invited him to dinner.
    Barton stares at him.
He expects me to start talking about the