Footprints (8 page)

“Sounds like a moose. Or a deer.”

There's more thrashing of foliage. Droopy and Diamond Head move towards it. Harper eases himself forwards and cautiously raises his head. The guards have moved away and are peering into the woods.

Diamond Head raises his gun, then lowers it and says, “It's getting too dark to see.”

The sound stops.

“Best get back to the cottage anyway,” says Droopy.

Isora whispers, “Time to go.”

She turns and squirms back to the camp, still holding and muzzling George. Harper follows. With a glance behind, they stand. Isora releases George and they set off jogging on the deer trail.

Drumgold says, “What did you find?”

“Nothing,” says Harper.

“What d'you mean...nothing?”

“They've gone. Someone's taken them down.”

The boys are at Al's, waiting for Isora, who is working at the daycare. Harper has been surreptitiously checking the petitions they've put up around town, while Drumgold was at the town office helping his mother, who works for the Happy Helpers Janitorial Agency. The friends have decided to display
the petitions for a week before announcing the march.

“Did you check them all?” says Drumgold.

Harper counts them off on his fingers. “Post office – gone. Convenience store – gone. Drugstore – gone. Legion – gone. Baptist church and Anglican church – gone. The only one left is the one we put up here.”

Harper nods towards the petition they'd taped on the wall at Al's a week ago, between a notice advertising a supper at the Presbyterian church and a darts meet at the legion. The only signatures on it are those of Al and Ed. Al said she signed not because she was opposed to the LNG plant, but because she was friends with the organizers of the petition.

“That sucks,” Drumgold complains.

“What sucks?” asks Al, emerging from the kitchen and leaning on the counter.

“Someone's taken all our petitions down,” says Harper.

“What did you expect?” says Al. “People are nervous about any kind of protest or challenge to authority. It's the age we live in. I call it the Age of Fear.”

“But there's no need for people to be nervous here,” says Harper. “I mean...this is Back River, not Toronto or New York.”

“People are getting mighty nervous in Saint-Leonard right now, and that's pretty close to home,” says Al. She adds, “And with good reason.”

“What's going on in Saint-Leonard?” says Drumgold.

“It was on the news just now,” Al explains. “Some maniac hijacked a truck, drove it into the front of the Eastern Oil building, jumped out, and disappeared. The truck's still there while the police wait for the bomb disposal experts, because they're afraid it's full of explosives that didn't go off. The whole downtown is blocked off, and traffic is backed up right through the city.”

“That's exactly where we were the other day,” says Harper. “The truck would have ploughed right through us. Why would someone do that?”

“Because of the LNG plant, dummy,” says Drumgold. “People are pretty steamed up about it. You saw that at the meeting.”

“People are steamed up on both sides,” Al puts in. “There's plenty of folks want to see it happen. And I'm one of them. It'd be good for the town, because it'd bring in a few jobs. It might even keep me out of the poorhouse for another year or two.”

“Yeah, but...hijacking a truck and driving it into a building,” says Harper. “That's pretty extreme. Who'd do something like that?”

Drumgold shrugs. “That guy at the meeting – that Garrett Needle – he was pretty wound up, talking about raining fire and destruction and stuff. It could be someone like him.”

“He's just nuts,” says Harper.

“You'd have to be nuts to try and blow up a building,” says Al.

The door jangles open, revealing Isora and Lully.

Isora announces, “Look who I found. He just got back.”

“Where were you this time, Dex?” Al asks.

“Counselling a young offender up north. I've seen him before. He's up for stealing – again. The poor kid's been in trouble all his life.”

“What do you say to a kid like that?” says Al.

“Not much. Just let him know someone's listening to him, and trying to help.”

Al, shaking her head and muttering, “Kids today,” retreats to the kitchen.

Lully says, “So, what have you guys been up to?”

They tell him about their failed attempt to see Anderson
and the formation of BARF, at which Lully smiles and says, “Cool,” and the plans for the march and the petitions being taken down.

“I guess people don't care about the beach,” Harper concludes.

“Or they don't want to risk offending Mr. Anderson,” says Lully. “He's done a lot for the town, you know.”

“Whose side are you on?” says Drumgold.

“I'm not taking sides,” says Lully. “I'm talking facts. Your own school wouldn't have its computer lab or its basketball team without his support. So of course people don't want to upset him, especially when they're hoping he's going to go ahead with his plans for the mill.”

“It's like he's holding the town to ransom,” says Drumgold.

“The petitions were a waste of time,” Isora complains.

“That's the way it is with political action,” says Lully. “It's why you have to accept it's a slow process.”

Drumgold leans forward on the counter. “Why don't we get straight into the third wave now?”

“Give it a while,” Lully says quickly. “Direct action is your last resort, and even then – for young people like you – I'd advise against it.”

Drumgold bristles. “Why? Think we can't handle it?”

Lully reflects for a few seconds. “It's not that. But you have to remember that with direct action, innocent people can get hurt – unintentionally, of course. De la Cruz describes it as the lamentable but ineluctable collateral damage of dissent. Protesters resorting to the third wave have to be very sure their cause justifies it and that they can cope with the guilt they'll feel at causing innocent people grief.”

“It'd be like us getting ploughed by that maniac who drove into Eastern Oil,” says Harper. “We'd have been – what d'you
say? – lamentable but ineluctable collateral damage.”

Lully nods and goes on, “De la Cruz advises that before dissenters undertake direct action, they deliver an ultimatum to their opponent warning that if their demands aren't met by a certain time, they'll be forced, reluctantly, to take further action, and they won't be responsible for the consequences. So it's serious stuff. My advice – for what it's worth – is to stay with the second wave, with things like your demonstration and your petition.”

When Lully leaves, the friends sit in a corner of Al's to make a new set of posters for the demonstration, which they decide will be the following Saturday. By the time they finish the posters, it's dark and they put them around town on their way home, taking care not to be seen. The marchers are to meet with the members of BARF in front of the post office, from where they will parade down Main Street, along the highway, and on to the Old Beach Road. When they reach the Anderson cottage, BARF and the marchers will block the entrance by sitting in front of the gates for the rest of the afternoon.

“Or until we get arrested,” says Drumgold.

“Arrested?” says Harper.

“That's the whole point,” says Drumgold. “It draws attention to your cause.”

“Yes, but...
arrested
?” says Harper.

Early on Saturday morning Drumgold is making his placard for the demonstration. He finishes his message –
Free the Beach!
– and staples it to one of the frames he'd made the night before, with Isora and Harper, in Mr. Meating's new workshop, while Mr. Meating was out.

He couldn't believe the workshop. It was bigger than the whole of his mother's house, which had been a cabin on the Back River until the building of a dam upstream left several hundred metres of swamp and alders between it and the water. His own
room, where he's working now, is like a cell, with space for only a bed and a chair. His clothes lie in a heap on the floor in a corner. The walls are bare, except for two photographs taped beside his bed. One is of his mother, Marigold, taken when she was a teenager, just married, and – she'd once confided – pregnant with him. She's looking over her shoulder, smiling brilliantly. Drumgold thinks she looks like a movie star. The other is of Dave, who'd lived with Marigold until a year ago, when he left for Alberta to work in the oil fields, leaving a note saying he'd send for her and Drumgold when he was settled, and he hoped Marigold's nerves got better, because he didn't know what she wanted from him when she was low.

It was Dave who'd taught Drumgold what he, Dave, described as self-sufficiency. The first few times he'd visited Marigold, Drumgold, who was just a kid then, had cowered from him. When Marigold explained that her husband's occasional, violent visits had made Drumgold wary of any man who entered the house, Dave waited patiently until Drumgold's fear had diminished enough for him to listen to him, and then had told him he needed to remember only two rules in order to be self-sufficient and to take care of himself: one – that it didn't matter what he did or what he used to defend himself and anyone he cared about; and two – that this was how to hurt someone, if you really had to, and he pointed to various parts of his body, saying, grab and squeeze here, poke your finger there, punch here, kick there. Then he let Drumgold practice on him. After that, Drumgold kept an old kitchen knife and a can of WD40 in his room, and the next time his father visited – Mrs. Drumgold was home, but not Dave – he met him at the door and sprayed oil in his face. As his father's hands flew to his eyes, Drumgold slashed at him with the knife. He lunged at Drumgold, threatening, “You little bastard. I'll–” Drumgold
thrust the knife at him again, slicing through his sleeve and into his arm, and stepped back. His father started towards him, blood seeping through his shirt and oil dripping from his face. His mother stood behind Drumgold, crying and begging, “Just let him come in.” Drumgold held his ground and glowered. His father said, “You'll get it when I come back.”

He never had returned, although Drumgold still kept the knife and the WD40 under his bed.

He stands, testing how best to hold the placard. It occurs to him that it would be a useful weapon. He wonders whether he should resist arrest if the police move in when the marchers block the entrance to the cottage or if it would be better to go limp. He's been reading about passive resistance and decides that going limp will be best. He knows if he resists, Harper will follow his example. He thinks Harper, if pushed into a confrontation, can take care of himself, but he worries about Isora, who will also follow suit, and whom he doesn't want the police, or anyone, grabbing hold of.

At eight o'clock, Drumgold meets Isora on Main Street Parallel, a narrow dirt road that runs between Main Street and the river. They both hold placards. Isora's reads:
Nobody Owns a Beach!
They walk to the end of the Parallel and cut between two empty buildings to Main Street. It's deserted, apart from the security guard in front of the post office. They wait until he goes inside and then run behind the post office and hide their placards in a dumpster.

Harper appears from the other direction, his placard under his arm and his coat over its message.

“Let's see,” says Drumgold.

Harper reveals it with a flourish. It reads:
BARF for the Beach!

Drumgold laughs and applauds.

Isora says, “Does it make sense?”

“It's the impact that counts,” says Harper.

He stashes his placard with the others and they stroll to Al's.

She's just opening and says, “Ready for the march?”

“It's a secret – us doing it,” says Isora.

“I know that,” says Al. “You know you can trust me.”

She makes them her Saturday Breakfast Special – fried egg and a sausage patty in a bun, with home fries – and they linger over it until nearly ten o'clock. By then, Al is busy preparing breakfast for three other customers. She winks at the friends as they leave and whispers, “Good luck.”

Outside, Drumgold looks towards the post office and says, “There's nobody there.”

“It's not ten yet,” Isora points out.

“You'd think at least Lully would come,” says Harper.

“He's away again,” says Isora. “I'm looking after George.”

Drumgold wonders what he really expected to see. As he worked at his placard, he'd imagined a crowd gathering for the demonstration, waving signs and chanting, “Free the Beach!” before parading triumphantly down Main Street and along the highway to the Old Beach Road, Sgt. Chase and Camera Woman watching uneasily. He'd imagined the marchers arriving at the cottage, milling around the gates, Droopy and Diamond Head watching anxiously from inside the grounds, the chanting growing louder, the sudden quiet as Sgt. Chase tries to move the marchers on and they follow Drumgold's example and sit in front of the gates, barring exit and entrance.

But of course no-one is there. He remonstrates bitterly with himself for his expectation that anyone would care enough to protest.

Isora says, “At least someone read our posters.”

She points. Sgt. Chase is pulling in beside the post office. He
drives around the back, past the dumpster, and pulls up in the loading bay on the other side of the building. Camera Woman is with him.

“Read them – and took them down, I bet,” says Drumgold.

“If no-one shows up except us, it'll be obvious we're the ones making a fuss about the beach,” says Harper. “Then we'll be the only ones who get in trouble.”