This River Awakens (15 page)

‘Think Old Man Gribbs will be around?’ I asked Roland.

He shrugged. ‘Could be.’

‘Might be getting ready to start launching the boats,’ Lynk added.

Roland shook his head. ‘Not yet. The water’s still too high.’

I frowned. ‘What difference would that make?’

‘The docks are still under water,’ Roland explained. ‘Nowhere to tie up.’

‘So you figure the place will be empty, eh?’

‘Yeah.’

We entered the shadowed, winding driveway that led into the Yacht Club. Staying to the left, we edged along the treeline, the driveway’s loop and the old white clubhouse off to our right. There were few cars in the parking lot – a good sign. Mostly, the members were rich people who liked to come out here to drink in the bar. Not all of them, Lynk had explained to me, even owned boats, and the ones that did hardly used them at all.

But since all the members came from the city, and so had I, I wasn’t very impressed with those few that I’d seen walking around. That there were people with whom we shared the four acres – the Yacht Club’s tree-hidden world – was at best a challenge to our skills in secrecy, at worst an inconvenient reminder of the ever-watchful eyes of adults. What made the club so interesting was its land – the trees and the hangars, scaffolds, and grease-laden rail tracks leading down to the water, the perpetual smoulder of the garbage dump, the twisted wire cables and the yachts. In the Yacht Club there were a thousand places to hide from the rest of the world. I had no idea what the rich people did when they came here, and I really didn’t care.

‘Look.’ Lynk pointed at Gribbs’s shack. ‘There’s smoke coming from the chimney.’

Roland grunted. ‘Good. That means he’s probably making tea, which means he doesn’t plan on coming out for hours.’

I glanced at him. ‘How do you know all that?’

‘My dad knows Gribbs, from the war.’

‘World War Two?’

Lynk snorted. ‘What else, dummy?’

‘Well, Lynk, there’s the Korean War, and Canadians fought in it. You should watch who you’re calling a dummy, next time.’

‘World War Two,’ Roland answered, a frown on his face. ‘How come you know so much about the Korean War?’

‘I don’t know much. My dad’s brother was killed there, though.’

‘Your uncle, huh?’

‘Well, I don’t know – I mean, I wasn’t born yet, right? I suppose I could call him my dead uncle, eh?’

Roland nodded solemnly.

We came to the edge of the boat yards, paused beneath a large oak. ‘So your dad fought with Gribbs, then?’

‘Not really. He met him over in England. They were both volunteers. My dad went in under-age, in the infantry. Gribbs was in the Navy. The way Dad talks about him he was old even back then.’

My gaze on the keeper’s small shack, I said, ‘Does he ever come out of there?’

‘Not much,’ Roland replied, his voice low. ‘But Gribbs is good with engines and stuff. Sometimes Dad goes to him to get something fixed.’

We entered the yards cautiously, but all was silent and there was nobody in sight. On the other side waited
Mistress Flight,
tucked in between the treeline and another boat. We hurried towards it.

II

Walter poured his tea then leaned back. It was coming, whatever it was, it was coming. And all he could do was wait. There was no questioning his certainty; in his dreams he had heard the chains snap. A maelstrom had come into his sea of thoughts, a storm unlike the witch’s familiar brew – this one couldn’t be talked to. It was mindless, dark and old and full of ancient fury. Walter could hear its approaching roar, and he knew that this was one storm he wouldn’t ride out.

And yet he no longer felt any fear: the dreams had become visions of the future that were clear and simple and final. So he sat back in the easy chair and sipped steaming tea. He heard the four boys enter the yards, their mutterings indistinct but audible. Smiling, he added a small amount of honey to his tea.

Ah yes, the old lady’s found little hands to smooth her wrinkled hide.
Gentle, innocent hands, tentative yet eager – as if touching a new and fragile present.
Dear
Mistress Flight
will return to the living this summer.
The thought brought a grin to Walter’s lips.

He’d checked her hull about five years ago, before the sight of the yard’s continual decay had finally broken his heart, and he knew she was sound. There were some dry-rot patches near the screws, but they weren’t deep – glass or even putty would do them right. She was well built, mahogany and maple, with solid brass fittings and keel. And the old Sea Horse – well, it was a Sea Horse, wasn’t it? Those damn things would run with half their parts seized up.

It was better to think about stuff like that, he mused, than to brood over the coming darkness. Better to listen to the kids working on
Mistress Flight
than to follow the rumblings of destruction. Fire and ice, ice and fire – the recurring themes in his dreams.

His tea had gone tepid, and the smoke was making his eyes water.
Damn wood stove.
Anyway, it was time for lunch. Setting the cup down, he rose to his feet. The kids had been working on the lady the last three weekends running; he reminded himself that he’d have to check on their progress soon. Maybe tomorrow.

III

‘My dad’s in real estate,’ Lynk said as he lounged on the aft deck. ‘We own two cars, and I’m getting a minibike for my birthday.’

‘They also got a Ski-doo racer,’ Carl added.

‘And I can drive it.’ Lynk’s gaze narrowed on me. ‘You know how to drive a Ski-doo?’

‘Yeah, we use them all the time in the city,’ I said, rolling my eyes at Roland, who grinned.

‘What kind of bike you got?’ Lynk pressed. ‘I got a three-speed.’

‘Didn’t know you could count that high, Lynk.’

‘What kind of bike you got?’

‘A Mustang.’

‘Does it got a banana seat?’

I nodded.

‘Can you pull wheelies?’

Again I nodded.

‘For how far?’

I stopped my polishing of the tachometer and turned to him. ‘Farther than you, that’s for sure.’

Lynk barked a laugh. ‘Prove it.’

‘I will.’ I hesitated. ‘As soon as it gets fixed.’

Lynk leaned forward. ‘It’s busted? Hah, must be a piece of crap!’

‘Has it got a flat or something?’ Roland asked from where he was cleaning the starboard ports.

I shook my head. ‘My dad said he was going to do something to it. Fix it up. He took it to the gas station.’

Roland smiled. ‘What’s he going to do to it?’

‘I don’t know. Make it faster, or something, I guess.’

‘I got a slick on mine,’ Lynk said. ‘I can peel out better than you.’

‘How d’you know?’ I retorted hotly. ‘You ever see me peel out?’

Lacing his fingers behind his head, Lynk sneered, but said nothing.

Roland sat down and glanced up at me. ‘You find out what kind of parts you’ll need for the engine?’

‘Just gaskets, mostly. I’m gonna bring some solvent to get rid of most of the guck. And the battery needs charging.’

‘This is stupid,’ Lynk pronounced suddenly. ‘What’s the point? It’s a good enough clubhouse as it is. Christ, I don’t want to fuckin’ have to work here. You’re fuckin’ nutso, Owen.’

I felt my face turn red. ‘I may be nutso, you prick, but I’m not sitting around picking my ass like you’re doing. You can jerk off all you want, but you’re still useless.’

‘Fuck off, you motherfucker!’

I laughed, turned away.

Through the port I could see branches full of buds, and small brown birds flitting around them. A matte of grey and brown filled the background, seeming to have knitted the world tight – there were so many shadows that the sun would never reach. And we lived in those shadows. Sighing, I turned and stepped out on to the aft deck. ‘Let’s go. There’s nothing else we can do here, today.’

‘Yeah.’ Roland came to stand beside me. The forest held an impenetrable wall up before us, and we stared at it in silence.

After a minute Roland said, ‘Ever seen a bear?’

‘Only at the zoo,’ I replied. Somehow, when I confessed my ignorance to Roland, it was all right, though I didn’t know why. Roland didn’t get my back up like Lynk did. It was a nice feeling, and talking to the tall farmboy with the grave eyes was easy. ‘Have you?’

Roland nodded. ‘Yeah. They come down from the north in the spring and fall, when they’re hungriest. My dad took me with him when he went out to shoot one, last year.’

I glanced at him. ‘Did you get him?’

He shook his head. ‘We chased it across the highway and then down to the river. It was a big male. He crossed the ice floes. We watched him jumping from one to the next. He didn’t even get wet.’

I grinned, trying to picture the scene in my mind. Then I frowned. ‘But your dad could’ve shot him out on the ice, couldn’t he?’

‘Sure, it would’ve been easy. He just didn’t want to.’

‘How come?’

Roland shrugged, a strange look on his face. ‘I don’t know. He never told me. He just didn’t.’

I gazed at the trees. ‘I’d sure like to see a bear, someday.’

‘Maybe today, eh?’ Smiling, Roland nudged me, then turned to where Lynk and Carl sat. ‘Let’s head over to the beaver lodge.’

‘Fuckin’ right, man.’ Lynk climbed to his feet, Carl following suit.

I smiled at Roland. ‘Bear-hunting, eh?’

He smiled back.

IV

‘Where’s your mother gone?’

Jennifer shrugged, not looking at her father. ‘Don’t know. She left before I got up.’

He stood there, his hands gripping the back of the chair, for a moment longer, then left the dining room, entering the kitchen. She heard him open the refrigerator door, heard him snap the beer bottle’s cap, heard the door shut, then the sound of his footsteps on the buckled linoleum floor, and a moment later the grate of the back door’s spring.

She reached across the table for her Player’s Filter cigarettes, wondering why she was bothering – she hated the damn things. But she lit one anyway, exhaled a stream of blue smoke towards the ceiling.

It was going to be a strange day. Last night had been another night in the city. And she and Mark had had a fight; even Dave, when he drove her home, had been cool towards her. They’d made her feel like a little kid, and it was all because of that new girl, the one that Mark and Dave took turns drooling over. The new girl – Debbie Brand. The one whose first words to Jennifer last night were: ‘You wear too much eye make-up. Makes you look like a hooker.’

Jennifer took a defiant drag on her cigarette. ‘The bitch.’ Still, she mused, it would’ve been worse had she taken Sandy and Barb with her – in a lot of ways those two were little kids. And worse yet, they would’ve witnessed her being made to look like a fool.

And, to top things off, she woke up this morning to find her bedsheets stained with sticky blood. Even her periods were coming in haphazard fashion. She thought those damn things were supposed to be predictable. ‘Christ,’ she muttered. ‘What a lousy way to start the weekend.’

Stubbing out the cigarette, she climbed to her feet and walked, her limbs feeling leaden, into the bathroom. It stank of beer and vomit and she felt a tremor of nausea rise up inside her. ‘Hah, sympathetic barfing.’

Well, one thing was for certain. She wasn’t about to spend her day in the house – not with
him
for company. And where had Mom gone, anyway? A wave of fear ran through her suddenly.
Maybe she’s taken off. Maybe she’s left me – here, alone with that madman–

Jennifer rushed from the bathroom, ran down the hall and then up the stairs. Breathing hard, she entered the master bedroom, hurried to the closet door and flung it open. All her mother’s clothes were there, and so were the suitcases. ‘Oh, thank you, thank you.’

No, Mother wouldn’t have run away. It was stupid to even think that.
Hell, if anyone’s going to run away it’ll be me. And I’ll tell her first. I’ll tell her. I’ll invite her, for Christ’s sake.

In any case, Jennifer wasn’t planning to stay in the house today. With Barb sick with the flu and Sandy visiting relatives in the city, she’d be on her own, and in a way that was good. It would give her time to think of what to do about the bitch – about Debbie Brand.

‘Jennifer?’

She whirled. Her father was standing on the bedroom’s threshold, his face flushed, his eyes red. She suddenly felt trapped.

He ran a hand through his greasy hair. ‘You sure Mom didn’t tell you where she was going?’

‘No.’ She stepped towards him. ‘I’m going out.’

He moved to one side. ‘Where you going?’

Pushing past him, she crossed the hallway and entered her room. Without turning around she replied, ‘Out,’ then slammed the door in her father’s face.

V

Somewhere above us crows laughed. We moved through the bracken like hunters, eyes hungry for movement, ears eager for sound. In our hands we gripped stout clubs of water-worn wood, and they made us feel like killers.

The afternoon had clouded over, bringing with it a chill, as if the old winter was reluctant to surrender. The shadows spread a cool blanket down on the world. In the gloom it seemed the forest breathed an awareness; unseen eyes followed us – every knot in every tree trunk was a dwarf’s gnarled glower; the humus seemed alive, as if churning with worms just beneath the surface. The cold, damp air brushed our faces, smelling of earthy sweat.

‘Maybe we should head back.’

The three of us stopped and turned to look at Carl. He was carrying a stick far too heavy for him, and it now lay on the mulched ground at his side. He drove his hands into his pockets, shrugged, then glanced at Roland. ‘Maybe we should go back,’ he said again.

‘What the fuck for?’ Lynk demanded.

‘Well, it might rain.’

‘So what?’ I retorted. ‘A little piss going to make you cry?’

Carl’s face flushed and he looked down at the ground. ‘No,’ he mumbled. Then, taking a deep breath, he raised his head and met my gaze. ‘It’s close to dinner-time. And I think we should go back.’

Suddenly, I realised that Carl was frightened. I smiled. ‘Okay, you go back, then. And if you run into that bear, just yell. Maybe we’ll come running.’