Washika (16 page)

“We're going straight through today,” Alphonse began.

“Through all that?” Lavigne pointed to the thick mass of black, fallen trees and burned shrubs.

“Yes sir!” Alphonse smiled at the crew. “What's the matter my little ducks? Afraid to get your boots dirty, eh?”

“
Sacrament
, he's serious,” a voice said.

“I never would have believed it,” another voice added.

“No, it's not that,” Lavigne explained. “It just doesn't seem worth while going in there. I mean, we haven't seen any smoke for almost two days now.”

“Well Gaston, maybe we'll see some today.”

Alphonse went over to where Fred and Henri were preparing to leave. They had a hand pump in the boat, two shovels and an axe. There was a metal gas tank on the floor of the boat, with a black rubber hose going along the floor and over a seat to the outboard. The old man sat forward, at the bow. He had just finished filling his pipe and was puffing loudly. He held a match over the bowl and pushed the tobacco down with his finger as he puffed. At the stern, where he sat by the outboard, Henri could smell the sweet aroma of pipe tobacco as the smoke drifted his way.

“We'll meet back here around noon.” Alphonse said. “Watch out for sand bars. No need to go too close.”

“Don't worry,” Fred said. “With me up here and my little engineer at the controls, there's no danger. No danger at all.
Calis
, you worry for nothing.”

Alphonse laughed. Perhaps he was being a bit of a mother hen at that. It was not as he had planned. He had counted on Fred handling the boat. Still, it was perhaps better that way. The old man had much better eyes for spotting sand bars.

“It's all right, Alphonse?” Henri said.

“Yes, yes,” Alphonse replied. “I forgot how good you are on the
Madeleine
. Just follow Fred's directions. Everything should be fine.”

Alphonse smiled at the old man. “No problem, Fred. Henri's all right.”

“That's what I said,” Fred snapped. The old man twisted his face sideways, jutting his chin over his left shoulder. “Engineer!” he barked. “Come on,
sacrament
. Let's go!”

Henri started the engine and, as they backed away from shore, the old man waved to Alphonse with his pipe.

Alphonse watched them as they headed east and disappeared around a point on the island; the old man at the bow puffed on his pipe and barked orders at Henri, his little engineer. Never once did he take his eyes off the water in front of him.

Alphonse returned to where the students were waiting.

“And now,” he said. “Let's go in there and see if we can't stir up a little smoke, eh?”

O
n the east side of the island, the sun was burning through the fog and the fog itself had lifted so that Henri could see the flat, brown water and the sand and boulders on the shore of the island.

Fred Garneau knew about boats. In just a few sentences he had explained the general mechanics of the outboard, the right speed to be using, what to do if the prop should hit a log or some rocks, and where the sheer pins were kept in a little box taped to the motor. He showed Henri the rubber bulb and how to get the gas flowing from the tank on the floor up to the outboard. “Now, all you have to do is keep us going straight, and slow down when I tell you.”

“What happens if we hit one?” Henri said.

“Nothing. That's because we won't. The sand bars are as big as trees. Bigger. And even if we did, nothing. We might get stuck. And then you'd have to get out and push. What do you think of that, eh? Ha! Ha! Ha!”

By ten o'clock the fog had lifted completely. They could see the island now and the burned trees, and the black, forest floor. Seen from the river, it looked different. Henri guided the boat along the contours of the island. Gripping the helm, he could feel the vibrations of the engine and the numbness in his hand.

“Not too close,” Fred yelled over the whine of the outboard.

Henri veered to port and then straightened out.

“How's that?”

“Good. Now slow down a little.”

The old man stood up and motioned to Henri with downward motions of his open hand. “Easy now,” he said. Holding on to the gunwales, Fred looked over the starboard side.

“Slow down!” he yelled back. “Left Henri. Left!”

Henri pushed hard to the left. It had only taken a second. In that second his hand had pivoted clockwise and the boat had run aground at full throttle.

Henri looked forward. The old man was on his hands and knees in the bottom of the boat. Henri shut down the engine.

“
Monsieur
Garneau?” Henri called. “
Monsieur
Garneau, are you all right?”

“
Saint sacrament
,” the old man mumbled to himself. He held on to the gunwales and lifted himself up and sat down on the seat. He leaned over and picked up his pipe at the bow. He aligned bowl with stem and put the pipe in his shirt pocket. He brought his hand up to his forehead. Henri could see that his hand was trembling.

“
Calis
!” the old man swore.

“You all right,
Monsieur
Garneau?”

“Fred! Fred! …” the old man spun around on the seat. “How many times I have to tell you. Yes, yes I'm all right.”

There was blood flowing from a cut above the man's left eye. He dipped his hand into the water and scooped some up to his eye. The blood smeared over his forehead and dripped down the side of his nose. He took a wrinkled handkerchief from out of his back pocket and held it over the wound.

“I say left Henri, and you go right. I say, slow down, you go full speed ahead.” The old man looked up at Henri. “How come, Henri? Eh?”

Henri realized by this time what had happened but he did not want to try to explain it. Explaining would only make it worse. He had acted badly. It was his fault and that was that.

“I don't know, Fred,” Henri said. “I guess I got a little excited. Maybe I'd better sit up front.”

“Na, Na!” the old man shook his head. “If we're going to crack up I'd like to know, at least, what I'm hitting. Anyway, it's nothing. See? The bleeding's stopped already.”

“Then you want me to keep on here?”

“Yes, yes. But first, let's see how we're fixed here.” The old man looked over the side. Holding on to both gunwales, he rocked the boat from side to side. “See if you can back her off.”

Henri started the engine. He slid the engine into reverse and rotated the throttle for more speed. As the engine whined and made white water at the stern, Fred continued his rocking maneuvers. Slowly, inches at a time, the boat seemed to be moving backwards, off the sand bar. It was difficult to tell with Fred rocking it from side to side like that.

“There,” he said. “We've got it. Give her hell, Henri.”

Henri opened up, full throttle, and the boat backed off of the sand bar in a lurch. The old man was seated and he held on tightly to the gunwales.

“Good, good,” he said. “Now, take her slow. When you get past the bend there, we'll shut her down for a minute.”

There was no mistaking the bend. There was only the one up ahead. Henri fondled the helm nervously. He was nervous and felt badly about the sand bar and the cut above
Monsieur
Garneau's left eye. He thought about how Alphonse had praised him and how
Monsieur
Garneau had called him his “little engineer.” Some engineer. He watched the old man vigilantly; at any moment a hand might rise, telling him to slow down, or turn. Now, the old man sat staring forward, one hand gripping a gunwale and the other on his forehead holding the handkerchief against the wound.

The river was not very wide where they were. It was less than fifty feet across from the island to the opposite shore. Henri could easily make out the raccoon tracks alongside the small mound of clamshells on the muddy shore. There, the shoreline was different from that of the island. All along the shoreline across from the island, the shore was a muddy grey soil descending at a steep angle, with alders sloping out over the water. Beyond the alders the land rose suddenly and was covered in jack pine, white birch, and occasionally, spruce and balsam fir.

“Looks different from here, eh?”

“Yes. All right, Henri, shut her down here.”

Henri shut off the engine. The boat coasted along at their original speed and then, slowly and silently, drifted with the current.

“There,” the man said. “We'll rest our ears a little.”

He stood up and, holding on to the gunwales with both hands, he lifted first one leg and then the other over the seat. Being as tall as he was did not make it easy and he grimaced as he forced his back forward and down in order to turn himself around on the seat. At last, he sat down, facing Henri. He took out his pipe and tobacco pouch from his shirt pocket. The bleeding had stopped and now there was only a smear of dried blood over his left eye.

“Want a fill?” he said.

Henri held up his tobacco and papers.

“Yes sir,” the man said. He puffed at his pipe and looked at the forest beyond the alders.

“Nice and quiet here,” Henri said.

“Yes, and in my day it was always like that. We wouldn't be patrolling around with a loud stinking motor like that.” Fred nodded towards the outboard motor. “No sir. Men knew how to paddle in those days.”

Henri watched as they drifted towards the island. There were places there where even the driftwood on the sand had burned. All of that part of the island that they could see from the boat was a solid mass of black, naked trees leaning against each other or lying on the ashes with their branches sticking up.

“
Et bien, calis
!” the old man swore. “Will you look at that?”

Henri looked towards the shore of the island, to where the old man's gaze was directed.

“Quite a mess, eh?”

“No, no. Look there. There, beside the big rock.”

Henri had not noticed the rock and the clump of bushes on the lee side that had escaped the fire and still had leaves that were green.

“Paddle over closer,” Fred whispered. “And don't make any noise.”

Henri grabbed the paddle at his feet. It was stuck under the pump and the shovels. He pulled hard and it came, suddenly, striking a gunwale. The noise echoed over the flat water of the river.

“
Sacrament
! Look at her go,” the old man pointed with his finger.

Henri turned and saw the large brown animal rushing inland through the blackness of the forest.

“A nice big one,” he said, looking at where the moose had lain on the sand. “I wonder what he was doing here?”

“She,” the old man snapped. “That was a cow. Probably tired, poor thing. Could be, she's been running since the fire started here.”

“But moose can swim,” Henri was not absolutely sure about that but it seemed he had read about it somewhere. And he had seen them standing in water before. “And besides, it's not far to cross.”

“Sure they can swim. And they can have little ones this time of year. Probably, the calf burned.”

Henri stared across the flat water and the island of burned trees but he could not see her. Given the direction she had fled in, Alphonse and the others might meet up with her. It was something, seeing one close like that. He would remember what he saw of her for a long, long time.

“Why does she stay, Fred? There's nothing left here.”

“Hope maybe. I don't know.”

S
ome time around noon, Henri and the old man came around the southwest side of the island. They could see the boats tied to shore, the smoke of the fire and the boys standing around it with cups in their hands. Alphonse grabbed the point of the bow and pulled the boat up onto shore as Henri cut the engine and let the boat drift in.

“Well?” Alphonse said.

“Nothing,” Fred replied. “There's nothing left here.”

“Your eye? What happened?”

“It's nothing. I drink too much tea. I'm all the time pissing.”

“Yes, but your eye, Fred?”

“Yes, yes. That's what happened. I went ashore and I was in such a rush, and my goddamn zipper stuck and me walking and trying to get it down. And that's how it happened. A branch sticking out about that long,” Fred held his hands out about three feet apart. “Caught me, paff, right in the face. You should have seen the blood.
Calis
! Anyway, it's nothing.”

Henri did not look at the man as he spoke. He had tilted the outboard motor forward. He knelt on the floor of the boat and turned off the fuel supply.

“We saw a moose, Alphonse,” he said. “A cow. Fred says she probably has a calf.”

“Yes,” Alphonse said. “We saw her.”

“You saw her, eh. I kind of thought you would, the direction she was going.”

“No, Henri. We didn't see the cow. It was the calf we found.” Alphonse turned to the old man. “The boys took it pretty bad.”

“It's dead, then?” Henri said.

“Yes.”

The old man stepped ashore and tied the boat to a tree trunk. When he had finished, he and Alphonse and Henri went over to where the fire was. The guys were standing around the fire, drinking tea.

Fred and Henri made sandwiches and took small chunks of cheese from the box, and biscuits. The old man dipped his cup into the tea pail and then set it aside to cool. Henri sipped at his tea. It was hot and burned his lips even when he slurped it like he had seen Fred do so often. He looked around at the guys. They were being very quiet. St-Jean stood next to him, staring fixedly at the fire.

“Maurice,” Henri said. “We saw a big cow moose this morning. I heard you found a young one.”

“Yeah.” St-Jean replied.

“Probably the smoke got it.” Henri continued. “It couldn't have burned alive.”