The Survival Game (18 page)

“Yes.” Then Burl remembered something the Maestro had said about it being his
Messiah
.

“So it is big,” she said. “For chorus and soloists and a full orchestra.”

“He said when it got performed, there wouldn't be a fiddle player out of work in all of Canada.”

Reggie was delighted. “And you say it's mostly complete?”

Burl nodded. Caught up in her enthusiasm, he found himself recalling bits and pieces of what the Maestro had said. About the beginning being called Patmospheres, and it sounding like an island under a blazing sun with buzzing insects, even a goat.

Reggie hung on every word, sometimes squeezing his hands in hers. He found himself searching for more and more things to say so that she would not let go of him.

She would interrupt with some remembrance of Nog, so that Burl felt they were talking about a mutual friend about whom he had some news. Finally, when he had racked his brains and there was nothing left to remember, she leaned back to examine his face. “You could almost be his son,” she said. “Almost. I can see this scared little boy looking out at me from your eyes. I used to see that in his eyes sometimes.”

She turned away, leaned forward and picked up crumbs from the glass table. “I don't want you to be angry with me,” she said. “But while I was in my office, I phoned Noggy's lawyer.”

She glanced over at Burl. He sat very still.

“Colin knew Gow had been going up north a lot over the last year or so, but he knew nothing about the cabin. He was very interested. When I told him about you, he was even more interested. But he suggested I inform you about DNA testing. Do you know what that is?”

Burl was staring straight ahead. He wasn't sure what DNA testing might be, but he could guess. The fairy tale was well and truly over.

“Apparently scientists can tell just from a sample of blood – from a fingernail, even – whether you share Gow's genetic make-up. Amazing, isn't it?”

Burl nodded, but he didn't look at her.

“You think you'd want to go through that kind of thing?”

Burl shook his head violently.

“It's okay,” she said soothingly. She patted him on the leg. “Burl, look at me, please.”

He did. She didn't look angry. “Burl. I can't speak for the estate. But if you can lay your hands on the Revelation, a lot of people are going to be very, very pleased with you. And they're going to have to find some wonderful way of thanking you.”

Reggie took Burl to the bus station. She wanted to come with him, but business commitments made the trip impossible until the following week, and she was determined that the score be rescued as soon as possible.

“Mice!” she said. She remembered going to the cottage as a kid and finding mice had made nests of Kleenex and newspaper and any other paper they could sink their teeth into. Her eyes filled with horror at the thought of the Revelation becoming a bed, a birth clinic!

She became almost panicky. Couldn't his friend Bea Clifford fly him in? Reggie would put up the money herself. Burl was reluctant to get back in touch with Bea, but he couldn't explain this to himself, let alone to Reggie. So, with her breathing down his neck, he phoned Skookum and got Palmateer. He was just about to take a party up to Kapuskasing, a long trip, and he was planning on staying overnight due to a storm warning in the area. Bea had driven off in her spook 'em clothes to Nipissing University in North Bay to give a talk of some kind. He wasn't sure when she'd be back, but not until late. Burl wasn't sure if Palmateer knew anything about where he was or what he was up to. He left no message for Bea.

But there was a bus leaving Toronto at five that day, arriving in Sudbury at about eleven. He already had a ticket. So, reluctantly, Reggie settled for that. He told her about the Budd car, how he could get up there in the next day or two. Bea would pick him up at the bus terminal, he told her. He gave her the phone number for Skookum Airways.

Finally he was on board, and Reggie was waving to him as the bus pulled out. He liked her, all right, but he was glad she couldn't come. He needed to do this thing alone. Anyway, the cabin at Ghost Lake had never been meant for sharing. The Maestro had built it to get away from everyone, even his friends.

Burl leaned his head against the cold glass and watched the five o'clock tide of traffic carry the bus as slowly as a waterlogged tree through the inner-city dusk. The Shadow. This was what Gow had been escaping. How hard it must have been for him to have Burl crash in on his solitude. Burl had driven him off. Perhaps now he could make some small amends for that.

It was snowing in Sudbury when he arrived. A freak storm had swept down from James Bay, blanketing the north in snow.

Burl took some of the money Bea had given him for the Y and found a cheap hotel near the bus depot. The proprietor grilled him about being under age. Burl told him his dad was supposed to drive down from Pharaoh to meet him at the bus but he couldn't get out on account of the storm. The man gave him a room. “But stay outa the bar,” he said. As Burl could see, the bar was already full of grown men who couldn't find their way home.

He didn't sleep much. A country-and-western band played well into the wee hours. So he lay on his bed thinking through the plans he had made on the bus, turning them over and over in his jangled brain like a chicken on a spit over a slow fire.

Reggie had insisted on giving him some money. When it finally occurred to her, there hadn't been time to get to a bank machine, but she had almost eighty dollars in her purse. He didn't want to take it but didn't know how to stop her. Now it looked like it might come in handy. He had shopping to do in the morning before he caught the train, essentials for his trip up to Mile 29. There were things he needed that he couldn't possibly afford but could lay his hands on, if he was willing to make a little side trip before going up to Ghost Lake. A little side trip to Pharaoh. That was the catch. He didn't like the idea, not one bit, but the more he thought about it, the more he needed those things.

At Pharaoh he could get his snowshoes, his sleeping bag, some warm clothes, a kerosene lamp, an axe and his Woods Number One Special pack, which was the only way he would be able to carry in all the provisions he needed even to stay just one night in an unheated cabin. The Woods Number One Special was big enough to carry the front quarter of a moose.

There was something else Burl wanted for Ghost Lake. A rifle. If he was to ever live there he would need that.

The Budd left Sudbury and passed through Presqueville and then Pharaoh before heading northwest. It only went north every other day, so he'd be stuck in Pharaoh for forty-eight hours. He didn't plan on staying there. There was a hotel in Presqueville. It wasn't much; mostly just a drinking place with a couple of rooms upstairs, but it would do. He could hitchhike down to Presqueville once he'd got his stuff from the house and hide out there until the train went north the following day.

If his old man still had his job, then going to the house would be a cinch. He wasn't sure what to do about Doloris.

The next morning, despite little sleep, Burl was up early. The storm had blown itself out, but the snow was knee-high. He bought a little single-burner propane stove, one cylinder of propane and a can of kerosene for the lamp. There wasn't time to mess around with the faulty generator. Not this trip. He would only be staying in the cabin for twenty-four hours – the train south would come the following day.

He bought some groceries before leaving Sudbury – simple stuff, cans. There was a grocery store in Presqueville, but he couldn't be sure he'd get there from Pharaoh before closing time.

With the roads and sidewalks clogged, he just made it to the train. Out of breath, he plumped down in his seat. He was only wearing shoes and they were soaked clear through, and his pants were wet up to the knee. He surveyed his purchases. It seemed so little. The whole time at Intervalle planning his glorious return to Ghost Lake, he had built up a stockpile in his mind. He had to keep reminding himself that this was only his first trip back and it had but one purpose, the Revelation. Reggie hadn't said so, but Burl was quite sure that if he failed this quest, he could kiss his dream place goodbye.

He tried to imagine the conversation, how to explain what he'd been up to.

Would she give him a hand with the packing, or treat him like a visitor? Would she throw stuff or would she be too drugged up to care? It's my stuff, he would argue. All I want is what's mine.

The car was gone. The path was snow-covered, with one set of big bootprints out.

The radio was on loud. Country music. He paused on the step shivering. She was singing along. He knocked.

At first he didn't recognize the woman who answered the door. He saw only that it wasn't his mother. She was short and busty in red jeans and a black sweatshirt. The sweatshirt read “Las Vegas, here I come!”. She had brown hair piled up every which way on her head. A cigarette hung out of her pointy little face. Same brand as Cal.

It was Tanya. The girl from the diner.

At first he wondered what she was doing visiting Doloris, but then the room behind her swam into focus, and he grasped the fact that it was different somehow. It was tidier or something. Things were shifted around. There were a couple of new chairs.

“You're his kid,” she said.

Burl didn't answer. He stepped inside, looked around. There was no chair by the window. Doloris's old chair was gone.

“Where's my mother?”

Tanya had stepped back when he entered. He was taller than she was. She looked confused.

“Whaddaya mean?” she said.

Burl's eye searched the room. He called out. “Mom?”

“She isn't here,” said Tanya. She turned to face Burl again and took a deep drag on her cigarette. “Whaddaya want? You can't just bust in here.”

He walked through the room looking at things, picking things up.

“Does Cal know you're here?” she said.

“No,” said Burl, turning on her. “Does he know
you're
here?”

She laughed and punched out her cigarette in an ashtray shaped like a purple poodle. “'Course,” she said. “Cal and me are—”

Burl cut her off. “I'm not blind. Just tell me where my mother is, okay?”

“Jeee-sus!” she said, stamping her little foot on the floor. “You are a mean little cusser, just like Cal said. What are you going on about? You know damn well where she is.”

Burl punched the wall with his fist. He left a knuckle-shaped crescent in the pressboard. It frightened him. It was the kind of thing he'd seen Cal do. “Refresh my memory.”

“She's at her mother's,” said Tanya, her voice trailing away. “Up in Dryden. Which is where you're supposed to be.” It was beginning to dawn on her that maybe this was not true. She looked scared, suddenly. Burl stared hard at her.

“Well, you tell Cal I came to collect a few things to take back to Dryden with me,” he said.

Tanya sat down at the table, crossed her legs. He turned to a drawer where there was usually a cache of disposable lighters. He was glad to see that some things hadn't changed. He took a couple, shoved them in his coat pocket.

“Hey!” she said.

“That's just the start,” he said, holding up his finger warningly. If she liked Cal so much then maybe she liked being treated rough. His anger was like a volcano inside him. The punch had only opened a crack to let the steam out. There was no doubt in his mind, suddenly, whose child he was.

He opened the door that led from the kitchen to the woodshed. On a high dirty shelf he found the kerosene lantern. Deeper in the shed he took a pair of snowshoes off nails on the wall. He tucked a crosscut saw and an axe under his arm. He piled these things on the kitchen table.

“What are you doin'!” Tanya yelled. “I just wiped that down.”

She went to move the lamp, but he grabbed her wrist and held it tight. She got a frightened look in her eye. That calmed him down. He controlled his voice.

“I won't be here long. I'm collecting some things. Don't touch them. You can wipe everything down again when I'm gone.”

She backed off. On the radio someone sang a hurtin' song. Tanya rubbed her wrist.

Burl headed down the hall that led to the two bedrooms. How low the ceiling seemed. He piled up some stuff on his bed, dug through his closet for his pack. He found a dirty sock encrusted in dust.

He stuffed his things in the backpack. He would fold them later; right now he just wanted out of there.

The master bedroom was all newly done up. There were flowered pillowcases and a pink comforter on the bed. There were pretty figurines along the windowsill.

“Get outa here!”

Tanya was at the door. She was carrying a long kitchen knife. “Just get the hell away from this room.”

Burl looked at the knife, saw it shaking. He looked at Tanya's face. He looked around the room. It had been painted and dressed up so much that there was nothing left of his mother in here. He felt, for the first time, as if he was truly intruding.

“I only want one thing in here,” he said quietly, not wanting to spook her, though he was pretty sure she wouldn't use the knife on him.

“What?”

“One of the rifles is mine. He keeps them in the closet.”

“They ain't there.” She nodded her head towards the hall. He followed her back to the kitchen.

“It was the first thing I moved when I got here,” she said, opening the broom-closet door for him. She said it as if she couldn't understand how any woman would sleep in the same room as a bunch of guns.

There was only one rifle in the closet, way in the back behind a new broom and mop. It was the old pump-action Remington .22 single shot. It wouldn't be much good against bears. Burl had hoped for the .30-.30.