This River Awakens (54 page)

Thompson’s face was white. His hand, where it pressed Jennifer’s back, was hot and wet. ‘Pack up, George,’ the principal said, ‘you’re out.’

‘This is going to come out,’ Lyle said. ‘Everything. You thought the last scandal was bad. I think your head will roll this time.’

Mrs Reynolds cleared her throat and Thompson looked at her. She said, ‘I think we should let everything calm down. Emotions are a little high right now. A thirteen-year-old boy – one of our students – has just been killed. It seems we’re quickly losing track of what’s important here. Everyone’s in shock, given the circumstance of Roland’s death. We need to sit back and let things settle.’

Thompson drew a deep breath, removing his hand and leaving a palm-sized sweat stain on Jennifer’s shirt. ‘Wise counsel, Jill.’ He turned to Lyle. ‘I was hasty, George. Two of Joanne’s students just left the school. We’re responsible for them, and I don’t know where the hell they’ve gone. It’s a goddamned nightmare.’

‘I can go look,’ Lyle said. ‘I’m sure Joanne could use your presence in the class beside hers. All the kids could.’

‘Good idea.’ He held out his hand.

Lyle shook it then turned to Jennifer. ‘Can you promise not to cause a scene in class, Jennifer? It’s important, no matter what Lynk might say to you, that you show restraint. It’s important not just for Miss Rhide and the other students, but for you, as well. I think you can manage.’ He smiled. ‘I’m not convinced about Lynk, but that’s Miss Rhide’s concern—’

‘He’s a liar and a fake,’ Jennifer said.

Lyle nodded. ‘His “blossoming” is a little suspect, but that’s neither here nor there, is it? Can you handle this?’

Jennifer shrugged. ‘Sure. I guess.’

‘I knew you could.’

‘All right,’ Thompson said to her. ‘Let’s head back.’

Mrs Reynolds said, ‘She’d better see the nurse first – those scratches on her neck need tending to.’

III

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Sten kept saying, motionless on the sofa.

Elouise poured tea for herself, Sten and Dr Roulston, then sat down beside her husband. She noted the doctor raised his eyebrows at that.

Sten looked up. ‘You see, Doctor, they hated me. They had to. Nothing else makes sense.’

‘It’s a remarkable story,’ Roulston said. ‘But not unique. There’s clearly a powerful bond between you and your dogs, and there’s precedent all through history for that kind of relationship.’

‘The oldest partnership of all,’ Sten said, nodding.

‘You’re probably right—’

‘Of course I am. Unless you count fleas, but they’re notoriously fickle.’

Roulston smiled. ‘Has this changed you, Sten? Or am I witness to more games here?’

‘You tell me. I’m sober. I’ve been sober for weeks. Even the dry drunks are gone.’

‘Do you trust yourself?’

‘Hell, no,’ he said.

‘And you, Elouise?’ the doctor asked. ‘How do you feel? Do you trust that your husband’s on the road to recovery?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I want to, of course. But, well, hope’s a little slower to arrive these days. There’s a group, meeting at the church. It’s for people with alcoholics in their family. I’m thinking I might go. Maybe I can get Jennifer to come, too.’

Sten scowled. ‘Why? I’m cured. I did it myself.’

‘There’s no cure,’ Roulston said. ‘Don’t fool yourself. The sickness doesn’t go away.’

‘I don’t want to drink any more,’ Sten said.

‘That’s a start, Mr Louper. That’s all it is.’

Roulston began talking about AA, and Sten seemed to be listening. Elouise closed her eyes and sipped tea.
It’s almost time. The thaw’s come so quickly. I’ll have to get to work. All the weeding, digging air into the earth.
She’d need to buy fertiliser – they had no compost this year, but what had rotted in the garden would help. She’d have to rake up the old crab-apples as well, and check on last summer’s growth. Some cutting back might be needed, something she should’ve done in the fall. It’d be like starting all over again, in her garden.
The thaw’s come so quickly. So unexpected. May be a long growing season ahead. We’ll see, I suppose.

IV

I ran across the highway, my only thought being to get away, to escape. Old Man Fisk killed him. Lynk freed the mink – it had to be him, so that made him responsible.
He’s won, like he said. He’s won.

I reached the road, then heard footsteps behind me. I wheeled, expecting to see Jennifer, but it was Carl. He stopped, ten feet back, his runners sinking into the mud of the shoulder. ‘What do you want?’ I demanded.

He shrugged. ‘I’m going with you,’ he said.

‘Where?’

‘Where you’re going.’

‘Where the hell’s that?’ I had no place in mind, nowhere I wanted to go. Just away. But Carl obviously thought otherwise.

‘He says it never existed,’ Carl said. ‘He’s lying.’

My laugh sounded harsh. ‘What? The body? Who the fuck cares? Roland’s dead, and Lynk and Jennifer—’ I stopped.

‘He lied,’ Carl said.

‘No he didn’t.’ I turned away. ‘I saw it in her face.’

He came up beside me. ‘It’s all, uh, all about the body, Owen.’

‘What is?’

‘Everything. Don’t you see?’

I grunted. ‘No.’

‘For Lynk it is.’

I continued walking, not wanting him beside me, wanting to be alone.

But Carl wouldn’t leave, and he wouldn’t shut up. ‘He’s been weird, nuts. Ever since we found it. He was always an asshole, but not like this—’

‘That’s because of me,’ I said. ‘I was the only one who didn’t kiss his ass. Me and Roland. He could push you around all he wanted to. He still can, and you just take it. What’s your problem, anyway?’

He shrugged, looking down at the ground, his hands in the pockets of those ugly navy blue corduroy pants.

We came opposite the overgrown lot. There was a new
FOR SALE
sign on it, and a placard reading
SOLD
had been pasted across it.
There’ll be a house there. Soon. It’s all disappearing. Lynk won.

‘Lynk,’ Carl said, ‘he’s the same as Rhide. And Thompson, and all the others. You were different. So was Roland. But you’re not the same any more. All you care about is Jennifer, and not being noticed in school. Remember Pussy Galore? When you said that, Rhide looked completely fucked. Do you remember?’

‘Stop talking about me. You don’t know shit about me.’

He fell silent.

I wanted him to leave. ‘I’m not going,’ I said.

‘Yes you are. But you don’t want me to come.’

‘Fine. So get lost.’

‘No. I was there, too. It’s not just yours.’

‘All you did was bawl your eyes out. Me and Roland, we looked.’

‘It’s mine, too. It’s more mine than—’ He shut up, looking away.

‘What the fuck does that mean?’

‘Nothing. It’s mine, too.’

‘I’m not going there!’

He said nothing, but there was a stubborn set to his mouth.

Why’d you let him do it, Jennifer? You hated him. Why did you do that to me?

We came to the bend in the road. To our left was the track leading into the Yacht Club. To the right, thirty paces along the bottom road, was my driveway. I stopped, glaring at Carl. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, but I could see he was about to cry.

‘You have to,’ he said.

‘Why?’ I demanded, exasperated and confused. The possibility had long since occurred to me. The lodge had grown. Maybe the body didn’t have to have moved to disappear.

I didn’t want to go. It didn’t make any difference. Roland was dead. Jennifer had betrayed me and we were over with. Everything had fallen apart. ‘Why the fuck do I have to?’

‘Because of Lynk, that’s why. We got to show him – and everyone else.’

I stared at him. All the Carls of this world, in every class. Roland asked me to protect him. I didn’t want to.
I still don’t.
There were too many Carls. Way too many. They live, they grow up, they disappear, not even shadows in people’s memories. Just … gone. Like the body. Like how Lynk wanted it.

I’m a Carl. I was. I might be again. Rhide wants me like that. She wants a world full of Carls – lost, silent, needing to be cared for, spoken for, explained away and described and defined until no one asks anything, no one does anything. No one counts. Like the body, faceless, unknown, no longer the beast, the giant living inside me – inside all of us. Gone, vanished, forgotten.

I thought I understood something then. About Carl, about all of us, but about him the most. The man who’d drowned – no one came looking for him. No one cared. He was a nothing, in life and in death. He was the boy standing in front of me.

‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘Not about you.’

He seemed to collapse inside.

‘For Roland,’ I said, watching the hope creep back into his eyes as I continued, ‘and because of Lynk – and everyone else – what you said about them. Come on, then.’

We went in silence, cutting across the Yacht Club grounds, heading into the snow-patched wood lining the river. I tried to think of Carl as only a witness, of no more value to me than that. I wasn’t responsible for him. I didn’t want a pet.

We arrived. The pile of chewed sticks and saplings and mud was still encrusted with ice. The lodge looked huge, and of course the body was nowhere in sight – as gone as it had been the last time we’d come here. Vanished. I stared down at the mound, a helpless feeling sweeping over me. ‘We could dig, I guess.’

Carl shook his head. ‘No. He’s under, on this side.’ He pointed. ‘Right there.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I came back. I kept coming back. All summer. I saw him when he was just bones, and the beavers started building over him. He’s there, right there.’

I went closer and crouched down. There was a runway of slick mud, leading from this side of the lodge down to the water. Webbed tracks marked its grey-brown surface. I got down on my hands and knees and looked into the narrow tunnel leading inside. ‘Shit,’ I said. It was dark in there, and would be a tight squeeze.

Despite what Carl had said, I still didn’t think I’d find anything.
He kept coming back. Alone. Christ, he was right. It belongs more to him than to us. But I guess that’s how it should be.

I lay down on my stomach, trying to pierce the tunnel’s gloom. Would I meet a beaver in there? What would it do? Attack, if I cornered it.

Carl seemed to read my mind. ‘They have an escape route,’ he said. ‘Other side.’

Even so, I was scared. I hesitated a moment longer.
Having a witness is a pain in the ass.
Then I wormed my way into the tunnel.

The clay was cold, soft and slightly yielding under my hands. I could smell a musty presence – wet fur? – and the air was surprisingly chilly. I wished for some matches, a lighter, a flashlight. I couldn’t see a thing after a few feet, the tunnel narrowing, branches closing in on all sides. I felt a moment of panic but pushed it down. My feet were still clear, still visible to Carl. I had to keep going.

Something moved in the darkness ahead. I stared, made out two eyes level with mine. They moved away. A muskrat, or a baby beaver.

Faint splashes sounded outside. I heard Carl swear, then felt his hand on my ankle.

‘They’re gone!’ he said. ‘Into the river!’

I resumed crawling, snaking forward. When I’d gone twice my length, I saw, a few feet ahead, a widening of the tunnel. Faint light seeped down – my eyes had adjusted, and I found I could make out vague shapes. I twisted my head, looking around. But nothing – no bones anywhere. No proof.

Carl spoke again, his voice muffled and sounding far away. ‘In the clay,’ he said. ‘Check under you.’

I couldn’t push myself up – there were branches jabbing down into my back – so I moved forward, towards the cave-like space ahead. The smell was very strong now, acrid and almost overwhelming. I clambered into the cave and slowly worked my way around.
Under me. In the clay. Fuck, I’ve crawled right over him.
I ran my fingertips back along the tunnel. All smooth, except for the tracks. My fingers probed further. They found something long and straight. I clawed at it, and wood splintered under my nails.
This is useless.

Then my fingers brushed over a slight ridge, a ripple that felt harder than the surrounding clay. I followed it and found that it described a rough circle. There was another one right beside it, and an indentation in between and slightly below. I’d found the face.

I dug into the clay, scratching around the bone, working all sides, climbing closer in order to dig deeper. The clay was hard-packed, solid and ice-cold. My fingers went numb, but still I clawed.

‘Owen?’

‘I have it!’ I shouted, wincing as my voice came back at me from all sides. I reached a level of entwined sticks, most of them breaking when I twisted them. I realised I could’ve used one of the sticks all around me to dig and swore at my own stupidity. With one of the ones I’d broken off, I resumed digging.

The face, the skull, the upper teeth, but no lower jaw. Near by I found a long bone which had lain flat in the tunnel, and was worn smooth by the passage of oiled, furred bodies. I dug it free. I kept looking, but found nothing else. It was time to go.

I had to push the skull in front of me as I snaked along. Ahead there was light, and the sight of Carl’s muddy sneakers.

The day’s light and warm air felt wonderful. I clambered clear, the skull tucked in one arm, the long bone in my other hand, drawing in deep breaths of fresh, clean air. I sat down on a log, wiping the clay from my face.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘You got to promise something.’

‘What?’

‘We say we found just these bones, from the very beginning. And in the brush, not here. That’s all we say.’ I turned the skull in my hands. There were fillings in all the back teeth that were still in place. The skull was filled with hard-packed clay.

‘Okay,’ Carl said, sitting down beside me.

‘I don’t want them tearing up the beaver lodge,’ I explained.

He nodded.

‘Fuck,’ I sighed, looking out over the river. The ice had broken, piled up, and was jammed in place. Nothing moved, no sign of the water rolling past underneath.