The Falls (14 page)

“You ever watch that show on TV?” Timmy said. “I can't remember the name of it—but people bring in old crap and—”

“I know that show,” I said, cutting him off. “It's called the
Antiques Roadshow
.”

“Yeah, that's it. And these expert guys look at their junk—ugly, broken stuff that looks like the garbage man would refuse to take it away if it was out on the curb—and some of it's actually—”

“Worth a lot of money,” I said, cutting him off again.

“Exactly.”

“And you think that something in my basement could be worth a lot of money?”

“How should I know?” Timmy said with a shrug. “I ain't seen it . . . but you never can tell.”

I started thinking about it. Wouldn't that be amazing, if I found something in there that was worth a lot of money? Maybe my buried treasure fantasies weren't so stupid after all. And since my mother said that it all belonged to me, then any money I got for selling what I found would belong to me as well. That only made sense. Of course I'd give my mother some of the money to buy something for the house. Our fridge was on its last legs, and who couldn't use a big, flat-screen TV? Most of the money, though, would go to what I wanted—some wheels. I'd been thinking about it for a while. There was no way I could afford a car, but I figured I could buy an old motorcycle and fix it up and I could drive that. I wondered what my mother would think about me riding around on a motorcycle after what had happened to my father. But then again, I was getting a little ahead of myself.

“Come on.”

I went down the stairs and Timmy followed close behind. I'd left one light on when I'd rushed upstairs, but the rest of the basement was dark. Each of the light bulbs had to be flicked on individually. I hated walking into the darkness to reach each one. I hesitated for a split second, and Timmy bumped into me.

I knew Timmy didn't mind the basement. He wouldn't even think about things like monsters in the furnace or murderers hiding among the boxes. Timmy hardly noticed the
real
dangers in the world, so I knew he didn't have the imagination to
think up
things to worry about.

“Wow, you weren't kidding when you said there was tons of stuff,” Timmy said.

“Isn't your basement the same way?”

“Nope. We don't store anything. If it's broke we throw it out. If it's not broke my old man trades it in at the pawnshop. They must be great places to buy things, because they never give us much for anything we bring there.”

Both of the boxes my mother had looked in were still open, and some of the newspapers that had been used for packing were lying on the floor.

“Let's start with these boxes,” I said.

“And remember, one man's junk is another man's treasure,” Timmy said. “Can't you just see us on that TV show, and we show that dude with the funny accent some piece of garbage and he's so excited he practically takes a crap in his pants, and his voice gets higher and higher and he tells us what we've got.” Timmy pulled out a cup and held it up. “And he says something like,
This here cup was actually made by Leonardo da Vinci and
—”

“Timmy, the cup says ‘Visit Niagara Falls' on the side, so I don't think it was made by da Vinci.”

“Who's telling this story anyway?” he demanded.

Maybe he did have more imagination than I'd given him credit for.

“And it turns out this cup was made by
Ponce de Leons
—does that make you happy?—when he discovered Niagara Falls.”

“Ponce de Leon discovered the Fountain of Youth in Florida, not Niagara Falls,” I corrected.

“Anyway,” Timmy continued, “he says to us . . . he says . . .
So, boys, you are now millionaires!
And he hands us a cheque for a million dollars . . . no, better yet, he actually hands us a million dollars, all in small bills!”

“Like he'd be carrying around a million bucks,” I said.

“Why not? He's got a TV show, so he must be rich. Say, what happens if we do find something that's worth a fortune? Do we split it?”

“If we find anything worth a million dollars, I promise you that you'll get a cut.”

“Deal,” Timmy said as he reached out his hand, and we shook.

 

B
EFORE LONG, THE FLOOR
all around us was covered with the things we'd pulled out of the boxes and chests. But it was a safe bet that neither of us was going to be getting rich. What we'd uncovered was lots of stuff that might just as well have stayed buried: pots and pans and mugs—dozens and dozens of souvenir mugs—and books and old records, most of them broken or so warped there was no way they could play, even if we had
a record player . . . did anybody have a record player anymore?

After a while Timmy had sort of lost interest. He sat on a beat-up chair he'd pulled over from the corner while he flipped through the pages of one of the old books we'd pulled out. That was one of the few times I'd ever seen Timmy with a book.

I'd thought this was going to be difficult for me. Emotional. It was neither. The only difficult part was all the dust that floated into the air and up my nose. I was sneezing up a storm. I'd thought that because this stuff belonged to my father and his family, going through it would get me thinking, or make me feel sad or happy, or something. Instead, it was just like being at a flea market or somebody's garage sale.

“Wow,” Timmy said.

I stopped and looked up. “Wow, what?”

“This guy I'm reading about was amazing.”

“I'm just amazed you're reading,” I said.

“Me too, but it's not a regular book. It's a scrapbook and it's mostly pictures . . . black-and-white pictures. This guy was a riverman—that's what they called him, because he knew the river so well. It says here that he pulled over one hundred and thirty bodies out of the Niagara River.”

“Bodies?”

“Yeah, people who went over by accident, fell or slipped down the banks, and the guys that jumped in to off themselves.”

“I don't think many people fall in by accident anymore,” I said. “And they like to keep the suicides a secret, but I hear they happen all the time.”

“Yeah, all the time. He also saved a bunch of people. At least fifteen people got their lives saved by him, although it might have been better to have let them drown,” Timmy said.

“How do you figure that?”

“It says here that he got ten bucks for every body he recovered, but nothing for the people he saved. The guy could have waited awhile and got himself another hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Only you would think of that,” I said.

“Maybe. Anyway, so this guy lived right here in the Falls, his name is Jamison, and—”

I startled. “What did you say?”

“He lived in Niagara Falls.”

“No, his name. What was his name?”

“Jamison.”

“William Jamison?”

“No. It says . . . says . . . Harold Jamison.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. I rushed over.

“Course I'm sure. It says right—”

I grabbed the book and pulled it away from him. There was a newspaper article, and at the top was a picture, black and white and yellowed and faded and stained, of a man pulling somebody out of the river and through the rocks. Underneath the picture it said
“Harold Jamison pulling another one out of the river.”
I looked at the date. The paper was over seventy years old.

“Do you know what my father's last name is?” I asked Timmy.

“I'm gonna take a wild guess and say Jamison, but there's no way this guy is your father.”

“Not my father. William is my father. This Harold guy could be my grandfather, or my great-grandfather.”

“Or just somebody with the same name,” Timmy said.

“And somebody just decided to cut out newspaper articles about somebody who isn't related?” I demanded.

“Maybe he's a cousin. Who knows?” Timmy shrugged.

At that instant I heard the door open and my mother called out a greeting. Maybe there
was
somebody who knew.

 

 

 

 

I
RAN UP THE STAIRS
and into the kitchen with Timmy right on my heels.

“You two must be
really
hungry,” my mother said.

“I'm always hungry, and that chicken smells really—”

“I have to ask you something,” I said, cutting Timmy off. “I need you to look at something I found.”

“Actually,
I
found it,” Timmy pointed out.

“Whatever. Here, look at this.”

She put some bags and the bucket of chicken down on the counter and I handed her the scrapbook.

“Did this come from the basement?” she asked.

I nodded. “Timmy was helping me go through things.” I pointed down at the open page. “Is this guy related to me?”

She looked at the picture, then scanned the text. “Harold Jamison. Yeah, he is.”

“Is he my grandfather?” I asked, trying to put this together with what I knew about him.

“Not your grandfather. Your
father's
grandfather. Your
great
-grandfather.”

“Are you sure?”

“Judging by the age of the paper,” she said, pointing to the date at the top of the page, “and what I remember
hearing about him. My father used to tell me stories about rescues on the river. Your great-grandfather was one of the most famous rivermen of all time.”

“And you knew all about this and didn't tell me?”

“You didn't want to know anything about your father, so why would I tell you all about your great-grandfather?”

That made sense . . . but she should have told me anyway.

“The river has always been a dangerous place,” my mother said. “It's safer now than in the olden days, since they've put up walls and fences, but people used to slip in accidentally all the time. Your great-grandfather would get them out.”

“Dead or alive,” Timmy said, ghoulishly.

“He saved the ones he could and retrieved the bodies of the ones he couldn't. Either way, it was dangerous work. But he didn't fear the water, the rapids, the gorge, or the Falls,” my mother said.

“Sounds like you,” Timmy said, pointing at me. “Not that you've saved anybody, but the not being afraid part.”

“I think that runs in his father's family. Jay's father was like that as well,” my mother added.

I always felt uneasy when my mother started to talk about my father—especially when she was comparing him to me.

“Can you remember any of those stories you were told?” I asked my mother.

“Some of them. I guess the one that sticks in my mind the most is about your great-grandfather going over the Falls.”

“What?” I couldn't believe my ears.

“He went over the Falls—on purpose—and lived to tell about it.”

“Man, are you kidding?” Timmy asked.

“No. If this scrapbook is all about him, I'm sure that there has to be some mention of that in here somewhere.” She turned toward the back of the book, scanning quickly through the pages, and Timmy and I looked over her shoulders. Page by page, more yellowed clippings from different newspapers.

My mother paused at one page. There was a picture of him—my great-grandfather—holding this girl who was all wrapped up in a blanket. Her hair was plastered back and she looked scared—terrified. He looked big and strong. The story was about how she'd wandered away from her parents and slipped down the bank and into the lower rapids. Harold Jamison had gone down the bank and into the water to get her, saving her life. The story had quotes from her parents and people who had witnessed her fall and rescue. They described my great-grandfather as “brave” and “heroic” and “fearless.”

She turned the page. There was another story. This one was about the recovery of a body. Not as exciting, but just as dangerous. It described my great-grandfather going right up to the bottom of the Falls and pulling out a body that had been swirling around there, unable to break free. Apparently, it was a woman whose husband had left her, and she'd thrown herself into the Falls.

Page after page was filled with stories. More interviews, eyewitness accounts, people who were rescued, the families of those who had survived, or not survived, and lots of pictures. Harold Jamison always looked brave and
confident, and the people surrounding him looked up to him with admiration.

“He was quite the hero,” my mother said. “I remember thinking that it must have been hard for his son—your grandfather—to live up to that.”

I didn't know what would be so hard. It would have been nice to have a father that everybody looked up to. Heck, it would have been nice just to
have
a father.

“Here it is,” my mother said at last.

Two facing pages had a gigantic headline running across the top: “NIAGARA MAN CONQUERS FALLS.” Below the words there was a picture of him—my great-grandfather—and the rest of the space was filled with a story. I started reading.

The article said that Harold Jamison went into the water about half a mile above the Horseshoe Falls, and his barrel was swept over and bounced around in the rapids below for about ten minutes. He was pulled in by the tourist boat, the
Maid of the Mist
. It said he had a bump on his head, some bruises, and sore ribs. The rescuers wanted to take him to the hospital but he demanded to be taken to a pub, where he bought everybody a round of drinks. That
did
sound like my father's family.

“Let me see that,” Timmy said as he pulled the scrapbook out of my mother's hands. He started walking away with the book.

“What are you doing?” I called out.

Timmy didn't answer. He crossed the floor and headed down the basement steps.