Read Online The Journey Prize Stories 28 by Kate Cayley - Free Book Online

bees. Not surprisingly, there weren’t a lot of other people who wanted the job, so I got to stay.
    We watch an otter skim along the water, belly up. Something in his paws—looks like a plastic baby toy. He dips under, leaving his loot at the surface. Farther up the inlet it’s crab traps and prawn traps and fish nets. Then only water, shore, sky.
    Alouette Correctional Centre is on the South Alouette River in Maple Ridge. Lara tells me they just built a new maximum security wing, with little windows in each cell, above the bunks. The windows look out onto medium security, so the women can see how good their well-behaved cell sisters have it. If the maximum security inmates behave, they can join inon community projects: horticulture or doggie daycare or this one, salmon enhancement.
    As we approach the dock, Diane points to a tall First Nations woman smoking a cigarette on the shore. Just her and a grim-faced prison guard.
    â€œI’d expected more, but maybe it’s just as well,” Diane says. “This is the first time we’ve had a violent offender.”
Violent offender
gets finger quotes. The boat bumps against the dock as our wake catches up with us.
    â€œI’m sure it’s no biggie,” Lara says. “Right, Carmen?”
    â€œSure.” It’s annoying to be included in this conversation, like I know anything about violent offenders. I suspect Lara’s invited me on this trip as some kind of teachable moment—the ghost of Christmas future—and that’s not fair. It’s not like I was street hustling. And I stopped using on my own volition. A detox centre would have been cushier, but it might not have been punishment enough. Some mistakes have to be beaten out.
    Diane gives the guard the two-handed squeeze. “This is Lucy,” the guard says to us, nodding at her charge.
    â€œLucky,” the woman says, stomping out a cigarette. She’s wearing a numbered sweatsuit; powder-blue prison casual.
    Diane hands her a jar with some water in the bottom. “I’ll get you to keep your butts in there today, can’t have the fish eating them.” She turns back to us without waiting for an answer. “Let’s go, everyone.” Behind her, Lucky digs three butts out of the sand and drops them in the jar.
    Climb from the boat to the back of a fisheries pickup, and knock through the brush. Compared to the Coho, our trip upstream is efficient. After a lifetime in the ocean, they swimall the way back to the stream they were born in. I think about those nature shows with the bear in the river, gorging on fish that practically leap into his paws as they battle the current. Life’s a bitch. Lara says the hatcheries have a much higher success rate than the fish who fend for themselves. She talks percentages as Lucky grips the tailgate with one hand, smokes with the other.
    â€œThis your job?” she asks me.
    â€œVolunteer.”
    â€œI used to work downtown,” she offers. “They call me Lucky ’cause I got busted around the time all my girlfriends went to the pig farm.” Throws her head back and cackles. She’s referring to a local farmer who was convicted of killing six women. Newspapers with photographs of missing women from the Downtown Eastside set the number closer to fifty.
    â€œThat is lucky,” I say, wondering what’s so funny.
    She looks me over: black hair, pale skin. “You’re not an Indian.”
    â€œMétis.”
    â€œHalf-bloods,” she snorts. “You guys are the real nobodies.”
    I shrug—I’m not getting into this with a
violent offender
. Lara frowns. The truck slips through skunk-cabbage bogs, dark soil seasoned with pine needles. We duck to avoid the slap of low-hanging branches.
    It’s all wild rose and blackberry at the site, but no blooms this time of year. The last berries scavenged by bears. It doesn’t look like the day is going to overcome