I turned to T.R., a big grin on my face. I thought he’d feel happy like I did. Instead, there were tears in his eyes.
“What’s the matter? The bird can fly again.”
“You once asked me what my job was. I used to be a pilot.” He laughed, but it didn’t sound like a laugh. “I used to fly.” He swung his wheelchair around and sped up the ramp into his house so fast that he nearly ran over me.
4
The hyperactive Chamber of Commerce was planning a Fourth of July sale kicked off by a parade with floats. Our hardware store was supposed to have a float, but Mom was busy. She said she’d leave the float to Laura and me. Laura knew how to do papier-mâché, so I had the idea of making snake heads for a lot of the store’s garden hoses. On the floor of the float we put down a square of fake grass from the store. Then we twined the snake hoses all over it. We used our software from the store computer to make banners that read, CRAWL TO STAR HARDWARE. YOU’LL BE SERPENT OF FINDING WHAT YOU WANT. ADDER UP YOUR SAVINGS. WE’LL VIPER AWAY YOUR PROBLEMS. Charlie said, “I think I’ll leave town. I wouldn’t want people to think I had anything to do with that.”
Mom thought it was pretty funny and even squeezed in enough time to help us make costumes. Laura was a snake charmer, and I was a cobra. I hunched down in a basket and then sort of rose up swaying. The float won second prize. The bank got first prize for a float that was all covered with gold spray paint. The people on the float were dressed like money bags and gave out fake dollar bills. Overdone. Right?
I had told T.R. about the float. Lately he seemed a little more cheerful. At least he showed a little interest when I told him what I was seeing on the land, but I still couldn’t get him very far out of the house. So I was surprised when he came to watch the parade. Charlie was working the evening shift, so Mom invited T.R. to have dinner with us. There was a bad couple of minutes when he saw the narrow flight of stairs he would have to get up. At first I thought he was just going to roll back to his van and take off. Instead he said, “Lily, you can take my chair up,” and he bumped up the stairs, pushing with his arms.
I guess he saw the look on my face as I watched him, because he said in a sort of testy voice, “I’m just coping, Lily. It’s what we all do one way or another.”
But T.R. really enjoyed Mom’s dinner. He ate just about everything but the tablecloth. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a meal like this,” he said.
Mom had gone all out, serving trout the way Dad always liked them, broiled with bacon, and making a chocolate angel-food cake for dessert. I think she appreciated T.R.’s appetite as much as he appreciated her food. Usually Mom doesn’t have time for cooking. When it’s just the two of us, we have a lot of tacos and frozen lasagna.
I cleared the table, Mom washed dishes, and T.R. dried. Something seemed funny, and then I realized it was the first time since Dad died that there had been a man helping out in the house. It made me go quiet, which even T.R. realized was unusual, so he tried to cheer me up. “Lily, since you know the land so well, come and show me around this week. To tell you the truth, I’m getting a little sick of staying indoors all the time. I suppose it’s time I learned the difference between poison ivy and poinsettias.”
“Well, for starters you won’t find either one on the property.” I still couldn’t say your property.
After T.R. left, Mom said, “I’m glad T.R. is starting to get out of that cabin. I think he’s lonely. It’s hard living alone.”
There was something about the way she said it that made me ask, “Do you get lonely?”
“If you mean do I miss your dad, yes, all the time. If you mean lonely like T.R., no. I have you, Lily.” She grinned and put her arms around me. “It keeps me occupied just figuring out what you’re going to do next.” Mom usually turns serious stuff into a joke.
I was feeling kind of closed in, so I wandered onto the tiny porch that sticks out over the back entrance to the hardware store. Beyond the town the pine trees were changing from green to black and disappearing into the night sky. In the distance I could see a ground fog rising from the river. For the thousandth time I wished we were still living in our cabin.
I sat down and drew my legs up and wrapped my arms around my knees to keep warm. Mom came out with Dad’s book on astronomy. Together we picked out the constellations. The Pleiades, the seven daughters of Atlas, though you could see only six of them. They were hidden among the stars so that they wouldn’t be captured by Orion. Ursa Major and Canis Major, the bear and the dog. Cassiopeia, whose daughter was rescued from a great sea monster. Mom remembered how Dad used to tell me the stories of the stars. I always liked the feeling that some of the things in that huge dark space above me were familiar, things I could put a name to. I thought pilots like T.R. had once been were brave to fly around in something so enormous.
Even though Mom and I stayed up late naming the stars, it was still hard to fall asleep. I missed the sound of the river. When we lived on the river, I liked to sleep with my window open. The river went chattering away, splashing over rocks, singing to me. I hoped T.R. was listening to the same sound so he could sleep.
The next day I went up to T.R.’s place, stopping on the way to give Fleabit some dog biscuits. The Bad Hads had left a sign up in front of their house. It said: NO TRASPASING THIS MEANS YOU TRASPASERS WILL BE SHOT. Apart from correcting the spelling on the sign, I didn’t pay any attention to it.
T.R. actually seemed glad to see me, although he greeted me in his usual gruff voice. “It took you long enough to get here. Let’s go.”
There were two-track roads on the land left over from lumbering days, so the wheelchair wasn’t too much of a problem. T.R. had started using a chair without a motor. “How come?” I asked. “Wouldn’t your electric wheelchair be easier?”
“Easier, but I like the feeling of moving on my own.” When I started to push aside the branches that might be in the wheelchair’s way, T.R. snapped, “I can do that myself, Lily.”
I got the message, but it was hard knowing what would make T.R. cross. With T.R. you had to change the subject a lot.
“When Mom and I were looking at the stars last night,” I said, “the sky looked so huge. When you were flying, didn’t you worry about getting lost?”
“The sky was as familiar to me as the river is to you.” He didn’t like that subject, either. “Now what are you going to show me?” he demanded.
“We’ll start with the pond.”
“Didn’t know I had one.”
“You don’t know anything about this land. There it is.” We rounded a bend, and the two-track led right to the pond. Deer went there to drink or to hunker down in the water if the black flies were bothering them.
A heron rose into the air, its great wings pumping in slow motion. T.R. looked startled. “What’s that?”
“Great blue heron. It was hunting frogs and crayfish.”
“Interesting the way it folds its neck in and trails its long legs. Think of the power in those wings.” I knew he was thinking of how he used to fly. He was quiet for a minute; then he asked, “What’s that pile of sticks in the middle of the pond?”
“A beaver lodge.” I picked up some pinecones and aimed for the lodge. In a couple of minutes an angry beaver turned up. They’re night animals, and it was cross at having its sleep spoiled. The beaver kept circling the pond, slamming down its tail on the water each time it passed us. The whacks boomed out like thunderclaps. At first T.R. jumped. But when he got used to the noise, he started laughing. It was kind of a stiff laugh, like it hadn’t been used much.
“How come you don’t know this stuff?” I asked.
“It’s the sky I know, not the land.”
“Mom said you were a test pilot.” I wasn’t sure if T.R. wanted to talk about this stuff, but I was curious. “What do test pilots do?”
He hesitated, and then he said, “When a company makes a new plane, they need a pilot to take the prototype up and try it out.”
“To see if it can fly?”
“A lot more than that. To see if it can fly after dropping 20,000 feet at a thousand feet per second. To see if it can fly coming out of a stall or a spin or on one engine.”
“That sounds dangerous. Weren’t you afraid?”
“I knew test pilots who had been in trouble, but I never thought anything would happen to me. I flew all the time. You have to if you want to be a good pilot. I thought the sky was my friend. I thought we understood one another. I guess I thought I owned it. When my plane crashed, I felt the sky had tricked me. I was through with it.”
As angry as I was with the river, I couldn’t imagine what life would be like without it. “Won’t you ever be able to fly again?”
“What’s the point? Who would hire someone like me to test a plane?”
“Why did you move up here and build the fence?”
“Everyone I knew — even my friends — stopped really seeing me. All they saw was this wheelchair. They wanted to do everything for me. I felt as though I was getting smaller and smaller. It was like some crazy magician’s trick. I was afraid I’d disappear altogether. I guess I wanted to prove I didn’t need anyone.
“One day I got in my van and headed north. When the cities ended and I got into the country, I started looking around for some property. I wanted a place where I could be by myself. But I’m not sure I did the right thing. Just sitting around alone all day doesn’t prove very much. I guess I realized that yesterday. I really enjoyed the parade, and by the way, your Mom’s a great cook.”
I don’t know why but I lied. Me, Lily, who can’t tell a lie. “Oh, we eat like that all the time. She just loves to cook.” I was talking up my mom to T.R. Why?
It wasn’t long before T.R. started losing interest in the stuff I was pointing out. So I stopped playing tour guide and just paddled us back to the cabin. I knew how T.R. felt. It’s hard to figure out things that are bothering you when you have to make conversation.
I had left my bike propped outside the gate. When I went to get it, I found two flat tires. I guess I should have been suspicious. One tire could have been a leak, but two tires was strange. I thought I must have ridden over some glass or tacks. I started toward town, still thinking it was things that had done it, not people, when the Bad Hads passed me in their truck. You can always tell their truck. It’s plastered with bumper stickers, mean “down with something” stickers.
I was minding my own business when the two Hads stuck their heads out of the truck and grinned at my bike. They slowed down, and I thought they were going to put the bike in the bed of the truck and give me a ride into town. But when I got near the truck, Hadley shouted, “You tell that friend of yours he better take down that fence before deer huntin’! And you keep away from our place.” Then they laid a little rubber on the road and took off, leaving me with dust on my face and sand in my hair. So I knew the flat tires were no accident.
Luckily Sheriff Bronson came along. He put the bike in his trunk and drove me into town, so I got to listen to his police radio on the way. But there weren’t any robberies in the county or anything else interesting.
5
Every July the Chamber of Commerce organizes canoe races on the Sandy River. It’s part of the annual Heritage Day celebration. In the afternoon there’s a canoe race for kids, and in the evening a big race for adults that goes all night. My dad had won a whole lot of those races. Now that I was twelve, I was eligible for the kid’s race, which only lasts an hour. Mom said she’d give me the time off to practice, but I needed a partner. I thought I had lucked out when Mr. Bennett came into the store for some paint and told me that his son Andy, who was in my class, had fallen rollerblading and broken his arm. Of course I was sorry for Andy, who is not entirely awful and has a great collection of rocks. What it meant, though, was that Justin Ruffner had lost his partner for the race.
I hiked over to the Pizza Shop, where Justin hangs out. Justin was sitting by himself. I got a Coke from the counter and slid into Justin’s booth. Justin’s dad raises ostriches. He’s got three of them, and each one cost several thousand dollars. Our class got to make a field trip to see them. Mr. Ruffner showed us one of their eggs, which could make an omelet big enough for a dozen people. The thing is, Justin has to take care of the ostriches and he hates them. They’re mean and can hit you with their legs. Justin spends a lot of time hiding out at the Pizza Shop. Also, he won’t eat eggs.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You look down.”
“Andy fell and broke his arm. That leaves me with no partner for the race.” He was shredding the paper slipcover from a straw.
“I heard. I could be your partner.”
Justin dropped the bits of paper and looked at me. What his face registered was shock. “You’ve got to be kidding. Race with some girl. No thanks.”
“I’m not ‘some girl.’ I’m me, and I can handle a canoe as well as you can. I know the river, too. Every inch of it. Better than you know it.”
For just a minute I thought he was going to say yes. I held my breath. Then he shrugged. “So what? I’m not turning up at the starting line with a girl.”
“You’re a pig, Justin.”
“Oh, come off it, Lily. Your dad won the race when he was in high school. Can you see him paddling with some girl?”
“Yes, I can. He taught me plenty of tricks paddling. I could probably beat you.”
“Go ahead. Anyone can enter. Find yourself a partner, but it won’t be me.” I guess he saw the disappointment on my face. “Hey, nothing personal. That’s just the way it is. Let me buy you another Coke.”
“No thanks. I’ve got to be getting back to the store.”
That left Laura. The thing about Laura is that she’s really agreeable. She would say yes even to something she didn’t want to do. So I had to be honest about everything when I asked her. What I said was this: “For the next two weeks how would you like to get up at six o’clock in the morning and spend the day in the hot sun breaking your back paddling the same stretch of the river over and over?”
“Sure,” she said. That’s Laura.
“Are you absolutely, positively certain?”
“Sure. Maybe we could paint flowers on the canoe.” I talked her out of that.
Laura really surprises me sometimes. It happened on our first day of practice. She hadn’t done a lot of canoeing, so I was telling her all this stuff about the river. We were on a stretch dotted with cedar trees that grew like small islands in the middle of the river. I was calling out directions. “Left, keep to your left there, then a quick right.” She was paddling sort of daintily, as if she were dressed in a long white dress and a big hat with flowers. Of course she wasn’t. She had on cutoffs and a Chamber of Commerce Rivertown T-shirt.
Behind us we heard the noise of paddles cutting through water. A canoe with Justin Ruffner and Steve Blanken rounded a bend and started gaining on us. Justin had recruited Steve. Steve had gotten into trouble once in fifth grade for starting a rumor on the Internet that gold had been discovered in the Sandy River. For a couple days there were license plates in town from as far away as Minnesota. His family didn’t mind, though. Steve’s father is president of the Chamber of Commerce.
“Hey, Lily,” Justin called out. “I see you got another girl to race with you. Why don’t you tell her what the paddle’s for.”
Laura didn’t say anything. She just started paddling like we were going in the opposite direction of Niagara Falls with no time to spare. I could hardly match her stroke. Laura is really nice, but she expects other people to be nice, too. If they aren’t, watch out. If Laura had only been listening to me when I tried to warn her about which way to go around the island, we would have beaten them instead of ending up stuck on logs lying on the river bottom.
It was Laura who had the idea of talking to Wayne Sloger. Wayne had won the adult race three years running. He works at his dad’s gravel pit. Laura knows him because he’s married to her aunt’s sister-in-law.
He was trundling wheelbarrows full of gravel back and forth while he was talking with us. We sort of trotted along behind him. I was trying not to stare at a tattoo on his right biceps. It was a picture of an accordion that kept squeezing open and shut while he worked.
“You got to start the race with heavy paddles,” he told us. “Bull your way down the river. When you’ve gone about a third of the way, you change to light graphite paddles. When you make the change, it’s like taking pounds off your shoulders.” Laura was writing down what he said in a little notebook. He put the wheelbarrow down and looked at us. “Tell you what. You meet me at the Dogtown landing at six tonight, and I’ll give you some pointers.”
What with Wayne’s pointers and practicing about twelve hours a day and the map Laura made for herself of every inch of the river and something else that was a big secret, we actually thought we had a chance.
The day of the race, Rivertown’s streets were crowded with cars. Banners hung from wires strung across the main street. The Heritage Day celebration was underway. A few women were in old-fashioned costumes, their long, full skirts and bonnets sort of weird-looking in the the middle of the traffic. There was an annual contest for the longest beard, and you could hardly recognize the men behind their scraggly whiskers. Charlie usually won because he had a head start. The supermarket, our hardware store, and May’s Country Cupboard all had sidewalk sales. On one of the street corners, Pastor Kuhlman, dressed up like a clown, was making balloon animals for the kids. Students from the high school were driving up and down, hanging out of car windows, shouting to one another. The main event didn’t start until nine that night.
Laura and I were the only girls in the kids’ race. There were six canoes entered, but Justin and Steve were the ones we had to worry about. The other racers didn’t really know the river. They were in it for the fun. At the sound of the starter gun, each team grabbed their canoe and made a dash for the river. I could hear Laura’s parents, the Schwans, and Charlie and Mom and my third-grade teacher, Miss Bellfer, who was always talking about our personal best, cheering for us. Mr. Blanken and the whole Chamber of Commerce were cheering for Justin and Steve.
Forgive the River, Forgive the Sky Page 3