Ally Oop Through the Ulysses Trees

by Lenny Everson

  How much difference it made, Clyde couldn't figure out. The soldier holding him down took the time to toss Clyde's rifle well out into the bay. Then he searched the canvas bag Clyde had brought, found the cattle prod, and tested it on Clyde. Several times. It was much like Clyde expected it would be, unfortunately for him. He was still gasping for breath as the Seas the Day cut its engines and slid to shore.

  ***

  The Griffon was just coming back over the bay as Cope and the pilot saw the canoe swamp and the American boat turn towards High Bluff Island. "Now we do have a rescue to do," Cope said, pointing at the man floundering in the water. Only the tip of the canoe was visible above the water line, the motor apparently holding the back end down.

  "I'll call for a rescue," the pilot said, reaching for the microphone switch.

  Cope looked back behind him. "I can do the rescue. I've used a similar rig before."

  "Like where, and when?"

  "Afghanistan. Took a wounded guy out off a hilltop a bit north of Kandahar."

  The pilot called in that there was a man in the water in Popham Bay and they were going to try a rescue. Then he looked at Cope. "You'll probably drown, but I figure anybody that shoots at helicopters deserves to drown. Go for it."

  Cope put himself into the harness and grabbed the remote control for the winch. He let himself down well below the helicopter, then called the pilot. The pilot must have been good, because Cope managed to get a harness around Jim in a couple of minutes, after Cope had been dunked a couple of times on both sides. Strapped together, the pilot took them over to the beach and put them onto the sand until Cope could get both of them out of the harness. The helicopter lifted away and set down on the sand not far away. The pilot shut off the engine, then turned to reeling in the rescue cable.

  "Thanks," Jim said. He looked at Cope. "Aren't you a bit old for this?"

  "That's for sure." Cope and Jim were both shivering.

  "Are you okay? Do you want to go to the hospital?" Cope asked. Cope looked at the man carefully; he seemed fine, other than wet. The pilot walked over. "You guys ready for a trip to the hospital or back to the base?

  Jim shook the pilot's hand, then shook Cope's hand. "My brother's on the island there. I'd like to go see him, if I can."

  "And, since your boat's floating in the bay, how do you hope to get back to land? That other boat over at the island isn't yours, is it?"

  "Don't know it," Jim said. "My brother, by the way, broke his arm. Could you, er, get my brother and drop us off on the beach, here?"

  "Tell you what," the pilot said. "I'll take you and your brother off the island and back to the base, so a medic can look at you." He turned to Cope. "You going to come back, too, I presume. There's something going on in the middle of the bay. Don't know what, but you might want to have a look at it."

  Cope smiled. "Gotta get my car. I can give these guys a lift if they need one."

  "Let's go. I better call in that canoe out in the bay so people don't run into it." The pilot walked back to the Griffon without looking back.

  ***

  Jag wasn't sure what was going on. He'd located a set of binoculars in the Daniels cabin, but they weren't nearly good enough. He heard the faint noise of the shots, and saw the one American boat run for the island. But by that time, Laura and Tom were already well out in the bay in the aluminum boat and she wasn't answering her phone. Jag cursed a bit.

  That's when Jag took the handcuffs and chains off Lester. They found some hats and three lawn chairs and went down to the beach to watch, putting their feet up on the trunk of a half-buried tree. A moment later Shaman Shaman came galloping from the Daniels' cottage with a bottle and three plastic cups. "Bourbon," said Shaman, huffing a bit from the running. "It's got some herb stuffed in the bottle," he said. He tasted it, "It'll do."

  The three passed the whiskey and binoculars back and forth, watching the events in the bay. They saw the rescue of the guy in the swamped motor canoe. "I'd swear that's Oscar Copeman on the end of the line," said Jag.

  Lester took a look. "Bald enough to be Copeman. The other guy might be one of the Daniels, but I don't know for sure."

  "You know Cope?"

  "Gassed him just like I did to you. Took him to Toronto in the trunk. He escaped somehow." Lester wasn't one long on detail.

  Jag nodded. "That's before Shaman here beat you with an iron bar."

  Lester looked over. "Just doing his duty, I guess. Protecting the secret and rescuing secret agents. I might be getting a little old for this."

  "What secret would that be?" Jag took the bottle for another sip. He wondered if the Daniels had more in their cottage. There was a pause in the action, then the Canadian helicopter landed on High Bluff Island, near the lighthouse.

  "No idea. We got orders from a bigwig – retired like I should be – to see if the Canadians were nosing about something in the bay. Didn't tell us what." He held out his glass for another drink. "So what was the secret?"

  "Don't know either, Jag said. "I think that someone in Ottawa heard the Americans might be interested in the bay for reasons unknown, and sent Cope to check it out. He's not popular in some circles there."

  Lester sighed. "You think they'd lie to us? Tell us ten percent of what we need to know?"

  "We're lucky to get five percent here, and most of that's made up."

  "Politics!" Jag said, and the others grunted.

  A silence while they contemplated. The sky clouded over. The Cobra went over once, and disappeared towards Trenton. Cope, still wet from his dunking, pointed and handed the binoculars around. That big sailboat's got a bunch of people on board. The little sailboat's heading on an intercept for the big sailboat. They're all going to meet Laura and Tom in the middle, close to where the canoe went down."

  "Don't see any movement from Serenity," Lester noted.

  "Sammy on there?"

  Lester nodded. "Probably confused. All alone with nothing but a paintball gun and a few empty bottles of beer to throw at the enemy."

  "Who's the enemy?" Shaman spoke up.

  "Well, seeing as you and your fucking iron bar aren't out there, I doubt that he's got a clue. He was one of Karzai's bodyguards for a while, but he was too trigger-happy even for Afghanistan."

  "Unarmed?"

  "The people I work with seemed concerned that we didn't shoot any Canadians. Got the paintball guns and that special ammo, but that's all." He shook his head, winced, then added. "Politics. Like we grunts every get told the truth about anything."

  Shaman pointed and passed the binoculars. "Serenity's moving. Looks like Sammy's going to head off the big sailboat."

  Jag took the binoculars, but he focused on Laura and Tom instead. "Why do you call yourself 'Shaman Shaman', and do the Bob Marley thing?" Jag asked the guy with the blond dreadlocks.

  Shaman laughed. "Especially since I'm white, haven't ever been to Jamaica, and have never been seen to do a shamanistic ritual of any cultural sort?"

  "Well, yeah."

  "I pin myself to confusion and chaos to hold my wife in check."

  Lester leaned over. "What?"

  "I have a doctorate in geological chemistry," Shaman said. "Gina, my wife, has a very good management job here in Brighton at the Ministry of Agriculture." He let that sink in, then added, "There are no good jobs for me within commuting distance."

  "And you can't just pack up and go somewhere else?" Lester asked.

  "Gina's happy with her job, and she makes really good money here. We're really fond of each other, so I stay here, too. The only jobs here are minimum wage with odd hours."

  "And you don't need the money," Jog said.

  "So I wander a lot, and write poems, or at least think about it."

  "That still doesn't explain the rest." Jag watched Laura's boat bounce on the waves.

  "Chaos and confusion," Shaman said. "I try to leave a trail of confusion, to emulate the universal rule of chaos."

  "Got me confused," Lester admitted. He p
oured everybody another drink.

  "My wife respects my choices, but never really feels right about them. She'd probably be happier if I stayed home and baked bread and did handicrafts in the basement and took night courses in gardening."

  The other two men grunted.

  "My son's in college. Maybe someday he'll understand. My in-laws think I'm a loser going around like this." Shaman shook his dreadlocks.

  "But your wife's happy with it."

  "Drives her nuts, but she loves me, so what can she do? If I become a househubby, she'll lose respect for me without knowing it. Out here, I'm a wild man, and in chaos is my freedom."

  "I can see why you hit me so hard," Lester muttered, then added. "Women don't care much for chaos."

  "They live with chaos in them," Shaman said. "Chaos and order, like a yin yang of the brain. It terrifies and fascinated them."

  "You know a lot about women?" Jag closed his eyes and took another sip of bourbon.

  "I'm up to the ten percent understanding level already," Shaman said. "How much of Laura do you understand?"

  Way less than that."

  "Women!" Lester said, and the others grunted.

  "I'm publishing some online books about the dead trees in the old dunes in the park," Shaman said. "Dragons of the Park and Spirit of the Park. The dead trees have character, you know."

  "Do much ganja?" Lester asked. "Plan to actually go to Jamaica? Going to set up a sweat lodge and do some shaman work?"

  Shaman shook his head. "Then I'd be what I look like. It would be the ultimate capitulation and all my chaos would become comedy. So no smoke. Not much drink."

  "Want another?" Jag asked.

  "Damn right. Any idea what the hell's out in the bay? Harvey the invisible rabbit?"

  'Well," Jag said, "I've been given to understand that there's an interstellar spaceship on the bottom." He smiled.

  Lester nodded. "Makes as much sense as any other theory. Do you think there are any weird creatures running around trying to get to it before us Earth people do?"

  "If there are, we probably wouldn't understand them any better than we understand women. Or politics, I imagine."

  "Women!" Shaman said.

  "Politics!" Lester added.

  "Space aliens!" Jag tossed in. The three men had a toast and passed the binoculars around.

  ***

  Laura shouted to Tom, over the noise of the 15-horse Honda outboard, "Do you know where you're going?'

  Tom smiled and nodded. Then he stopped the engine, stood up, and dropped his pants. The boat swayed a little. Tom said, in a high voice, "On behalf of us hgkpphtitrw refugees from out there, may I thank you for your help. There's some diamonds in the ice-cube tray for you." Tom took the "rock" from his pocket, and dropped it into the water. The boat, swaying a bit from the growing swell in the bay, tipped further as Tom positioned his back end over the side. Laura watched in shock as a silvery thing, as long as her forearm and glowing a bit, slipped from Tom's butt and disappeared into the clear water. She could follow it only for a few minutes before the diamonds of sunlight on the water obscured it.

  Tom pulled up his pants, his face red. "Glad to get rid of that thing," he said, sitting down before a sudden wave could slop into the boat. "To the shore?"

  "To the shore. For sure, to the shore. Let's get Clyde."

  ***

  Damon Conch watched the bay clear a bit. One American boat was near High Bluff Island. The motorized canoe had gone down and its occupant rescued by a helicopter. The motorboat with two people in it had turned for the north shore of the island. As far as he could tell, two guys in parachutes and that American boat had invaded High Bluff Island to take down somebody who was shooting. None of it made much sense.

  That left only two other boats on the bay, a small sailboat coming his way and the other American boat, with the name Serenity on it. Damon snorted in derision. That was just about the most common name for boats in North America. Had no one any imagination any more?

  He watched as Serenity stared up and turned to get between Malifactor and the centre of the bay, where the canoe had gone over. Kristof and a redheaded woman came back. Neither were quite used to the slanted deck of a sailboat tacking into the wind, but they got to the back without falling over.

  "That boat is trying to stop us!" Kristoff said. The woman burst into tears.

  Damon frowned; there was no way Americans, by boat or by sky, should be invading a Canadian island and stopping Canadian boats in Canadian waters. He turned the boat until it was facing into the wind. Forward motion soon stopped and Malifactor was rolling gently in the swells. "Who are you?" he asked the woman.

  More sobbing. "Katherine Szczedziwoj. My friends call me Casey."

  "Well, Casey, you are about to take part in a naval battle. Watch this." Damon opened a wooden locker and rolled out a small cannon. He stuffed three little bags into the mouth of the cannon, then pushed them to the back with a ramrod. Then he removed the cover from the air vent and inserted a fuse. "Ready to fire," he said. He looked around. Anybody got anything I can put into this puppy?"

  He was still trying to think of something suitable as Serenity slowed, just upwind.

  "You need a cannon ball?" Kristoff asked.

  "A bag of stones or gravel would be better. It's more like a shotgun, and I don't think we'll get time for more than one shot. Maybe we can use our loose change." He could see a figure on the other boat come onto the deck holding what looked like a paintball gun with a long barrel. The sailboat was drifting downwind faster than the motorboat, so the distance was closing slowly. Damon ran below as Kristoff had the passengers open their bags and suitcases on the deck.

  When Damon came up with nothing better than some dried peas, Kristoff handed him a little bag. "What's this," Damon asked.

  "You asked for gravel, we got gravel for you." Into Damon's puzzled look, he added, "Some of us were hanging on to this in case we needed it."

  "Thanks!" Damon squeezed the bag into an appropriate shape and used the ramrod to push it home. He adjusted the angle and elevation as best he could, then took out his lighter. He looked up to see the guy in the other boat watching him through binoculars. The guy fired off one round from the paintball gun, then ran for the cabin. His shot passed between Damon and Kristoff. Damon shouted, "Up yours, Oliver Hazard Perry," and lit the fuse. When he cupped his hands over his ears, most of his passengers did the same.

  The smoke cleared fairly quickly in the breeze. Damon leaned forward; it looked like his shot had taken out every window in Serenity. He began cleaning out the cannon. "You have another shot?" Katherine asked.

  "Nope. But that guy doesn't know that. Prepare to fake!"

  With a kick of her motor, Serenity moved well away from Malifactor. Well out of paintball range, Damon estimated. Something bothered him; he turned to Kristoff. "Tell me that was just gravel. Souvenirs, or something like that."

  Kristoff laughed. "You are a hero; you saved us with your little cannon." Damon said nothing, so eventually Kristoff added, "Diamonds. We used them on Earth to get currency.

  Damon noted, "You could have given me a lot more diamonds in Toronto. Just saying."

  "But then you might not have come back to the boat for us. We didn't know you were going to be a hero, then."

  "And where did you guys get all these diamonds?"

  "We've often told people they're common in space. But actually, we just make them on the ship. Got a gizmo sort of like a 3-D printer."

  "I could use one of those printers. Or a large bottle of rum."

  "Your technology is very close to printing diamonds. Don't put your future in diamond stocks. Just saying."

  Damon sighed a long, long sigh. "Now where to."

  "A bit that way." Kristoff pointed.

  "Downwind? My pleasure."

  Five minutes later, with the two boats keeping parallel, Kristoff said,, "This'll do. So long and thanks for all the cilantro." Damon had no idea what that meant, but
he hauled the sailboat into the "safety position" and waited. He figured the passengers must be a cult who wanted to commit suicide in Popham Bay. Instead, the passengers began dropping their pants, and pointing their butts over the rail at the American boat. A few dropped items into the water. Then Damon watched nine silver things slide from nine bare butts, fall into the water, and disappear under the surface of the bay. "Holy crap," he said.

  "Didn't Jimmy Buffet have a line for that?" a voice said. Damon looked around as the Poem pulled alongside. John Height was reaching up. Damon hauled him aboard, just as the boats touched.

  "Welcome aboard, John."

  John waved goodbye to the guy who owned the Poem. He was already drifting away, his feet tangled in the main sheet, and the boom swinging to clip him again on the head. John inspected the other nine people on the Malifactor. "A little overcrowded on this boat. Think we can get around Presqu'ile Point and into Gosport?"

  Damon turned the tiller. “Shells sink; dreams float. Life's good on our boat."

  ***

  Over on the Trantor, the crew turned off their sonar, broke out another case of beer and some cans of Red Bull, and sat on the deck to see what would happen next. "You gotta love this job," someone commented. Then they picked up a sonar signal again from the Americans.

  ***

  Tom and Laura were most of the way back to the shore when the motorboat rose up on a large swell, and a large dark object, trailing bubbles, passed under them. She nodded to Tom. "They're leaving."

  ***

  As the Griffon landed on High Bluff Island, the American boat pushed off from the shore. A couple of guys in yachting clothes waved from the deck. Jack and Clyde walked up to meet Jim, who got off to meet them.

  "Hello, brother," Jim said.

  "Thought you were gonna drown out there," Jack said. He looked at his brother. "Free," he said. "Twenty three years and four months, and we're free."

  "We can go home."

  "We can try. But if I get nightmares, we're selling the damn place and moving to Kingston."

  ***

  In the Pentagon, five people watched a satellite view of dark object leaving Popham Bay and disappearing into the deep waters of Lake Ontario.

  They subsequently agreed that, just in case, it might be appropriate to, have a few specialized military planes in the air over the American half of the lake for observational purposes. Just for observation and future analysis.