Trouble (24 page)

"I don't have any wise American sayings," said Henry.

A warm breeze picked up behind Henry's back. He could feel it on his neck and then mussing up his hair. Black Dog snorted in its wake.

The boat drifted under the cold stars.

"You know what it is to lose someone," said Chay. "But you do not know what it is to be lost. So lost that you want to burn down your family's business. So lost you get in a pickup and head north—anywhere."

"So lost you swim out into a lake?"

No answer.

"You're not lost, Chay."

Chay laughed. It was hard to tell, in the dark, what he meant by it.

"If your brother brought home a Cambodian girl and told your parents he loved her, what would they say?" Chay asked.

"What's that got to do with—"

"What would they say?"

"They would say 'Great.'"

"Would they?"

Henry considered. "It would take some getting used to."

"If I brought home an American girl, my family would not get used to it. They'd say American girls are immoral. They'd say an American girl would disgrace the family. They'd say they could never go back to Cambodia with honor and respect."

"What would they say when you told them you loved her anyway?"

The warm breeze again, pushing them toward shore, and turning them a little until it soothed Henry against his cheek like a caress.

"They would say ... they would say that they had known all along that no good would come from me, because of where I came from. And then I'd say, 'Where did I come from?' and my mother would start to cry. My father would look at me like he hated me. Then he'd send my little brother away, and he'd tell me what soldiers do to pretty girls like my mother when they come into refugee camps. He would say that he was not my father.
My
father was the man who raped his wife. He would say that my birth was a curse to him. Every time he looked at me, he was ashamed that he did nothing to stop the soldiers. And he'd say I disgrace them. I should go somewhere far away so that his eyes do not burn because of who I am. And then I'd ask why I never heard any of this before, and my father—who isn't my father anymore—would tell me to go away and not. ... He'd tell me to not come back."

If you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you.

That is what Henry's father had said.

It had been true for so long. Trouble could never really find them.

But Henry knew that the world his father wanted to live in—the world that he had wanted to give him and Franklin and Louisa—could never be real when there was the swelling of the ground over his brother and the brooding stone—
—and a lost Chay Chouan, swimming out into a dark lake.

"Chay," said Henry quietly, "who was the girl?" But he already knew.

Somewhere behind them, far, far out on the lake, the loon called again—so sad, so lonely, so impossible to console. Like a sea turtle who'd lost her eggs. Like a Canterbury pilgrim who'd lost the way.

But Black Dog knew just what to do. She held up a single paw, lightly—a single paw out to Chay. And when he saw it in the gloom, he drew Black Dog even closer to him, and he held her even more tightly, this dog who had braved the water to come to him. He held her face close to his, and she licked and licked, and her tail thumped in the bottom of the canoe, and Chay wept. He stroked her fur, and he wept.

Henry put the stupid rowboat oar into the water again, set the warm wind at his back, and began to paddle. They were close in now, but Henry had to turn and follow the shore, passing cottages where the lights were warmly lit as the cool air of the evening began to make herself known. Some kids still squealed at the water's edge under the bright lights of a dock, jumping in and climbing out and shivering and jumping in again. They waved happily to the canoe, and Henry waved back. They passed by some tall pines, darker than the night, hanging out over the water and covering the shore rocks with thick tendrils of roots. And then, finally, by a weak orange light, they came back to the Rustic Lake Resort Cottages, where Sanborn was sitting on the shore, waiting for them and swatting at the mosquitoes attracted to his fresh cologne.

Mr. Florida Bright Shirt was waiting, too.

Henry paddled hard for the last few strokes and ran the canoe up onto the shore. He wished it hadn't grated so much on the rocks, especially when the resort owner yelled "Careful!" and held up the cut clothesline. "You've already got this cable to pay for, you know."

Chay stood, a little unstable. Then he turned and hefted Black Dog up into his arms—because she showed pretty plainly that she had already gone into the water once that night and she wasn't going to go in again. He carried her to shore and set her down. Then Chay went to the stump, gathered up his clothes, threw Franklin's rugby shirt over his back, and walked to the cottage. He paused under the weak porch light, waved with one hand, and went in.

Black Dog shook herself, sniffed at the stump, sniffed at the resort owner, and then meandered to Sanborn to have her ears scratched—which she had to wait for since Sanborn was holding the canoe steady while Henry got out.

"Is this what you call taking care of someone else's property?" said Mr. Florida Bright Shirt.

Henry took the clothesline from his hand and tied up the canoe. He stowed the oar inside it.

"And that fella shouldn't be walking around in his birthday suit," said Mr. Florida Bright Shirt. "This isn't some hippy commune, you know."

"It's beginning," said Sanborn.

Henry turned to him.

"What's beginning?"

Sanborn pointed high over the lake.

Henry looked up, and he gasped.

One by one, the stars were falling out of the sky, streaking to their fiery ends.

The loon sounded once again—and then was silent under the fire fall.

T
HEY DID NOT CRASH
the top bunk onto the bottom bunk that night. They did not pull the lamps off the walls, or tear the shower curtain down, or soak the whole deluxe carpet—which looked and smelled as if it had been soaked more than once anyway. When they got up in the morning and went over to the resort office for the Full Continental Breakfast that Sanborn's father's credit card paid for—a frozen muffin, a bowl of corn flakes, plastic cups of warm orange juice stacked on the stained counter—they left Cottage 4 pretty much as they had found it, and left Black Dog to watch over it for them.

But she was not in Cottage 4 when they finished their Full Continental Breakfast.

She was waiting for them outside the resort office.

Henry looked at Black Dog, then at Sanborn. Black Dog looked at Chay and wagged her tail. Chay looked at Henry, and then at Sanborn.

"She must have thought we were leaving her," said Henry.

Chay looked over at Cottage 4. "Oh, no," he said.

Henry was right: Black Dog must have thought they were leaving her—and she did not want to be left behind. And Chay was right, too. In her frenzy to get out, she tore down the curtains by the picture window. She scraped most of the paint off the front door. And when she climbed on top of the kitchenette counter, she pushed over the electric oven, whose shattered front window showed that it was done for.

Who knows what else she would have done if she hadn't found the vulnerable screen over the top bunk?

There wasn't much to say as they stood at the cottage doorway, still hungry, Black Dog eating the extra frozen muffin that Henry had carefully filched. And it was hard to blame her much, since she had been trapped in a strange place, and she was so very glad to see them, and the grin on her face as she ate the muffin was so endearing that no human being with a beating heart could help but forgive her—especially hearts that had fought their own fierce battles.

Chay rehung the curtains, which might hold if no one touched them and no breeze blew through the window. Henry used pages from the old
Field & Stream
to sweep up the glass from the electric oven window and the paint chips from the front door. Sanborn tried to piece the ripped screen together. And after they did as well as they could, Henry and Sanborn carried their packs out to the pickup. "You didn't bring much along, did you, Chay?" said Sanborn.

Chay shrugged.

Sanborn shrugged, too.

When they finished, they went back in and looked around the Cottage 4 one more time. It wasn't too bad. "He'll charge us for the electric oven and the scraped-up door," said Henry. "And the screen, too."

"He's got my father's credit-card number. He'll put it on that."

"And your father won't mind?"

"He won't even notice," said Sanborn. "He hands it over to his accountant, and everything gets paid without him worrying about it. Remember?"

They followed Chay to the pickup.

Henry looked over the lake before he climbed into the cab. The storm the afternoon before had wiped the sky so clean, he felt as if he could reach up and rub the blue pane with his fingers and it would feel like dry and cold glass. And on the other side of the pane there was nothing right up to the edge of the atmosphere, so the sunlight shone through it like Glory and fell happily onto the three of them, mixing with the green and pitchy scent of the pine needles above them and the smell of water—a smell, Henry suddenly realized, that has no word in the language to describe it. Somehow he was glad about that; sometimes, you just have to know without words.

He took a deep breath.

Black Dog was not glad to get in the back of the pickup again. She put her front paws on the gate and left her hindquarters on the ground for a long time, and no amount of coaxing by Henry could get her to jump. It took Chay's starting the engine to get her in—probably because she was still worried about being left behind—and when she did, it was pretty clear to Henry that she would rather be in the cab with them than out in the pickup's bed. He decided he wouldn't add the final humiliation of leashing her.

Mr. Florida Bright Shirt, who had not yet seen what Black Dog had done to Cottage 4, had told them how to get to Katahdin during the Full Continental Breakfast. They should've taken Route 1A out of Stockton Springs, he said, but lots of people make that mistake, and before you know it, you're heading east instead of north and looking for a place to stay overnight. His whole business depended on dumb tourists, he said—which didn't make Henry want to be his best friend. Anyway, since they'd come this far, they should go on to Ellsworth and then take the
other
Route 1A on up to Bangor. From there they'd see the signs for 95 and they could head straight north again and watch for the Millinocket exit. Or it might be called the Molunkus exit—he never could remember.

So they headed to Ellsworth, stopping at a diner to get another breakfast. When the waitress came with the bill, Sanborn whipped out his father's credit card. "No more splitting," he said. Afterward, they found Route 1A and headed north, the pines so scented that Henry leaned out of the truck to catch their smell on the breeze—which is what Black Dog was doing, too, which led Sanborn to remark that they looked like they were related, which led Henry to reach over and punch him, which led Sanborn to grab his arm and twist it until Henry hollered.

At Bangor they got on 95; it looked the same here as it did in Massachusetts and probably as it looked the whole way down to Florida—except for palm trees, of course. They got off at the Millinocket exit—which was the same as the Molunkus exit—and from there, everything changed.

Because in the distance, they saw the mountain.

It wasn't like any mountain that Henry had ever seen.

Katahdin was a bulk, huge even from this distance; it rose out of level lands and spread itself out leisurely in great swoops of slopes and peaks. Most of it looked bald—sheer living rock that lay under the sun for warmth and light, ready to slough off any birches or pines that might try to grab hold. The peak on the south rose highest and most pointed—if it could be called a peak. It was as if the mountain had stretched itself out beyond them toward the west and drawn the peak along with it. As soon as he saw it, Henry knew it was the Knife Edge.

To the north, the mountain took its time sweeping down in a long, slow line and dropping off into sharp walls. Farther to the north, the mountain rose again, not quite so high, angling to square itself against the horizon. At its very top, the mountain had rubbed itself raw against the sky until it was so scoured that it shone white—or maybe, Henry thought, he was seeing the last of the stubborn snows.

Chay slowed down, and then pulled over to the side of the road. They were astonishing, this run of peaks, carved so sharply against the bright sky, so bold in jutting out of the land and standing against snow and ice, winter after winter. Henry leaned forward, staring up at the mountain. Cloud shadows rippled across Katahdin's bold face.

Finally, reluctantly, Chay reached to put the pickup in gear—just as a policeman drove past them, slowing down a little to glance inside their pickup, and then going on toward Millinocket. Before he rounded a stony bend, they saw him look into his mirror, back at them.