Winnipeg, Manitoba 1951 

“Run!” 

If anyone wondered what flows through the veins of crime bosses, Danny would say it was ice water. But the fluid oozing around his father’s head where he lay sprawled on the floor wasn’t water. Danny squinted with one eye closed. Curiously, the newly installed asbestos tile shining through the blood turned from green to black. Good thing it never happened at home, on the priceless Persian carpet. Danny imagined blood spattered on the Cézanne and let out a manic high-pitched snicker.  

“Now!” Luke’s rough shoulder punch knocked him off balance, jolting him into reality. “Go, Danny.” 

The room swam into focus, and this time, Danny gagged at the sight of Conor Jackson’s limp form and the meat cleaver beside him. Realizing he still held the baseball bat, Danny shook it free from his hand as if it were an evil thing, wincing when it clattered on the tile floor. With a will of their own, his legs backed him up against the wall. He slid to the floor and wrapped both arms around his head. “Oh God, oh God. I hit him. I had to. What he’ll do...” 

“—is kill you this time.” Lips twisting in pain, Luke swore loud and long, finishing with, “Dammit, Danny, stop fooling around and get your head together. You have to run.”

“Run where?” The idea of leaving stirred him into a new panic. Shuddering, his eyes slid past Luke’s set face and his father’s prone body as if the answer were blazed across a wall somewhere.

“God, you’re dense.” Luke’s face warped in a mixture of anger, impatience, and pain. “What you’ve done, he won’t tolerate.” Cradling the blood-soaked handkerchief wrapped around his hand, a pressure on his finger, he took two steps forwards and aimed a vicious kick at Danny’s shin. He sucked his breath between his teeth at the pain, fighting a flash of resentment.

The meat cleaver. Danny relived the memory of it raised against him again. How could he have forgotten so soon? “But you need a hospital . . .”

“The sooner you’re gone, the sooner I get one.” Luke used his good hand to grip Danny’s shoulder as if he could raise his little brother up with one hand. God, his iron grip was as solid as Gentleman Conor’s. Was his strength the reason Luke was favoured? Remembering who the favourite was made Danny’s innards quiver again. Having hit the wrong Jackson with the cleaver would propel the old bastard’s rage to new manic proportions.

“I’ll stall him.” Luke left, disappearing into the hallway. “But eventually he’ll send the boys out looking,” he called out behind him.

Danny forced himself to his feet, barely hearing his older brother over the blood rushing through his ears so fast he thought his head might burst at any moment.

“Here.” Luke stood in front of him again. “Take this. I took it from Dad’s safe.” He shoved a crumpled wad of cash into his chest. “Remember, don’t ask anyone for help. He’ll find out.”

Their father stirred and gave a weak moan. The brothers looked at each other, misery conveying all the unspoken words their upbringing would never allow them to say. Clutching the loose bills to his chest, Danny stepped over his father and towards the door.

“Danny.”

He turned only halfway. Something about the way Luke said his name made him queasy.

“Don’t come back. Forget you even have a family.”

So Danny pedalled his bike into the late afternoon. Away from the rooms behind the pool hall.

Better for him to go to Union Station on Main Street. The CPR Station was closer but would be the first place his father’s muscle monkeys, Louis and Dewey, would search.

He ditched the bike in front of a butcher shop and ran the remaining two blocks, slowing to a stop near the ticket window, breath ragged. Which way? East to Toronto? West for Calgary? Gang contacts in both cities would find him in no time at all. Danny took a deep breath, fighting rising panic and poor decisions, and inspected the big departures board hoping for inspiration. Not finding anything useful, he backed out of line and weaved amongst a crush of men milling about at the far end of the waiting room, using them as concealment. He headed for the nearest bench for a break, with the nagging thought that Luke could not stall for long.

The familiar smell of old varnish and regular activity calmed him somewhat. He picked up a brochure lying on the bench beside him, gripping it with shaking hands and raising it as a shield against his face. There in bold print: ‘Your country needs you.’

Danny peered over the top, more interested in making sure nobody was pushing through the crowd and heading for him. He saw men discussing a wall-sized poster displaying a montage of soldiers guiding rafts across rivers, climbing barricades, and rappelling up cliffs. Two soldiers in crisp uniforms handed out more brochures alongside another poster crying for recruits in the war between the United Nations and Korea. Enthusiastic tones made army life seem like a picnic.

Danny’s thoughts zeroed in with the finest inspiration he’d had all day. His eyes rapidly moved between the poster and the brochure. It only took a moment before he rose and pushed to the front of the line.

His open relief didn’t fool the sergeant manning the desk, whose sigh of enforced patience confirmed the sharp and knowing eyes beneath his cap. “How old are you, son?” Behind him, a corporal holding a clipboard inspected Danny with interest, then cemented the sergeant’s opinion with a grin.

Danny pointed to the calendar behind his desk. “Eighteen yesterday, sir. May fourteenth.”

The sergeant’s eyes zeroed in on Danny’s shirt and the drops of blood. “You look like someone in a hurry. We aren’t a refuge if you’re running from the police.”

His heartbeat increased to a mad gallop. He forced out a chuckle. “Oh no, sir. I deliver . . . delivered for a butcher shop, and the packages always leak.” He rubbed the stain with a finger. “I’m not running from the police, sir. My job is going nowhere, and there’s no future here.” Danny quit talking. Luke said that when telling lies, not to overdo it and volunteer too much. He mentally crossed his fingers and focused on the sergeant’s cap badge. A deer. No, an African animal.

“Do you know what it is?” The sergeant asked, bringing Jack’s attention back to him.

“A Springbot.”

With a glint of surprise in his eyes, the sergeant half-smiled, then pulled a form towards him. “Name?”

He uncrossed his fingers. “Jackson . . .” Danny froze.

The sergeant raised his head, smiling with forced patience. “You sure you want to join, son?” His cold eyes sent a message that action, not tolerance, was a virtue in the army.

A snicker came from behind, and the corporal grinned again. Danny felt his face grow hot. His eyes fell back on the calendar over the sergeant’s shoulder. “Tuesday. My name is Jackson...Jack Tuesday.” The corporal raised a questioning eyebrow, then gazed at the sergeant as if knowing the verdict.

But the sergeant bent his head and wrote. “Mother and father’s name? Address?”

“Both parents are dead, sir.” It was half-true, anyway. “And until today, I lived in a room above the butcher shop. But since I quit my job...guess I don’t have an address, sir.”

The sergeant held his pencil, one end in each hand, his eyes boring into Danny’s. Danny gazed straight back with well-practiced neutrality. The sergeant bent his head to fill in the blanks on the form, turned it around, and pointed. “Sign here.”

Danny took the pen and signed his new name. It felt clumsy, like when forging his father’s signature for school forms.

“Welcome to the Royal Canadian Dragoons. Armoured Regiment, Private. You’re in the army now.”

“The Dragoons,” he repeated. “Yes, sir.”

“And don’t call me sir. I’m a sergeant.” He sorted out some papers on the desk, put them in an envelope, wrote Danny’s new name on the front, and handed it to him.

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Danny—Jack’s lungs took in a releasing breath. A smile spread over his face for the first time that day, and he nodded to the man who had just saved his life. “And I hope you get better soon.”

The sergeant’s fingers froze on the envelope. His other hand squeezed into a fist, then relaxed. The icy stare told Danny his remark was invasive and beyond army protocol.

“I meant . . . your arm, Sergeant.” His voice trailed off. Shit. I’m a wet rag. He’ll reject me now. Stupid, stupid.

Danny waited for the bad news, but the sergeant only let go of the envelope, and his brown khaki arm bearing three stripes pointed to the station side door. “A bus leaves at six o’clock. Check in at five o’clock. Sharp. You will get your kit at Osborne, then you’re headed to Petawawa.” He leaned back. “Say goodbye to your...friends. You won’t be seeing them for a while.” He beckoned over Danny’s shoulder to the next man in line.

Danny checked the big station clock. He’d stand out if he didn’t have a carryall filled with necessities. The Army and Navy store wasn’t far, so he could hide there and buy what he needed.

Wearing a cap and carrying his new belongings, Danny joined the line of men at the side door right on the dot of five. On board the bus, he watched as the corporal came down the aisle, checking off a list on his clipboard. When he got to Danny, he sat in the aisle seat. Danny’s heart sank. Had the goons found him? Would he be kicked off the bus? The sigh of pneumatics sounded as the door closed, followed by the squeal of brakes being released. The bus moved.

“Tuesday,” the corporal said. It sounded strange. “What you said...” He nodded his head towards the sergeant sitting behind the bus driver. “His injury. How did you know?”

Used to keeping his explanation simple, Danny rubbed his face. “I notice things...I shouldn’t have said anything. I forgot myself.”

The bus slowed at the exit road, then merged into the traffic leading from the station. Danny craned his neck towards the window, searching for Louis and Dewey.

“Tuesday.” The tone said don’t ignore me. “What things?”

“The sergeant’s left arm is stiff. He squeezes a ball to strengthen it and still squeezes his fingers in a reflex. There’s a white strip above a tan line on his forehead, meaning he used to wear his cap lower. Maybe he injured his head. His whole left side, I think.”

Danny felt the corporal’s eyes inspecting him as he talked. In the end, he asked coolly, “You got any more talents the army should know about?”

Not sure of what he was after, Danny shook his head. The corporal made a note on his clipboard and went to the front of the bus. Danny saw him exchange words with the sergeant before he sat in the seat across the aisle.

Familiar streets whipped past the window. Totally isolated now, a combination of loneliness, fear, and misery cramped his stomach. Where was Petawawa? Someplace his father couldn’t find him, he hoped. He thought of Luke’s last words.

“Don’t come back, Danny. Forget you even have a family.”