Cataract City

by Craig Davidson

  Dunk spied an overhang to our left, carved into the base of a steep cliff that spilled into an alluvial floodplain. There was room under the rocky shelf for both of us.

  We gathered wood from the deadfall and kindled a fire with the last drops of gasoline, sitting on the stony wash as night rolled in. Dunk’s face had a loose, distant quality born of physical exhaustion and mental fatigue. I’m sure my face looked much the same.

  “A village once sat at the high side of the Falls,” I said, beginning the story I’d been thinking about all day. “Did you know that?”

  Duncan smiled wanly. “I did not.”

  “Centuries ago, okay? An unknown plague struck the village. At night, the graveyard was dug up and the bodies devoured—no, not devoured but sucked dry. The villagefolk—”

  “Villagefolk,” Duncan said dreamily, rolling the word around in his mouth like hard candy. “I like that.”

  “Yeah, so they believed something evil must live in the caves under the Falls. It must creep up the cliffs while they slept to feed on the dead. So they loaded up a canoe with succulent fruits and sailed it over the Falls. But the next night the graves were cracked open again, bones strewn across the ground. The village elders decided to send a virgin over the Falls.”

  “Those elders always figure a virgin will do the trick, don’t they?”

  “So they grab this poor girl and plunk her in a canoe. But once she’s sailed over the Falls the elders get a bit of buyer’s remorse. They go to the best warrior in the village and say, ‘Hey man, will you go down and get her?’ And he gives them a long look and says, ‘Nah, fuck it.’”

  “Really?” Duncan said. “Nah, fuck it?”

  “I’m paraphrasing, but yeah, that’s the gist. But the youngest warrior, he’s always had a crush on the sacrificial maiden. He volunteers to go. The elders shrug and say, ‘Fill your boots, kid.’ So he clambers down the cliffs and finds a seam in the rock leading behind the Falls. It’s dark in there. He hears the trickle of water on rock. And just underneath that trickle is another sound, soft—a whimper.

  “The young warrior creeps into a honeycombed cave under the Falls and he sees … it. His heart quivers. It’s huge. It’s revolting. It’s … a spider. The virgin is cradled in its eight furry legs, each as big as a fence post. Its fangs are dark elephant tusks. Its eyes are black boiled eggs, hundreds of them crammed into the nightmare of its face.”

  “Oh, jeez. That’s so gross.”

  “What could the young warrior do? A buffalo he could handle. A bear, even a moose. But this? He has to out-think it. So he backtracks out of the cave. He sees the spider’s tracks going up the Falls—strands of gossamer as thick around as ropes swung from the rock face. He notices the spider’s path scrupulously avoided the water. Is it scared of water?”

  “Then why’s it living under the Falls?”

  “Maybe,” I said, fixing Duncan with a sidelong look, “the spider was born there. Maybe it doesn’t know any better. Or maybe it was rent-controlled and he was a penny-pinching, miser spider. Fact is, this particular spider didn’t care for water.”

  “Ah.”

  “The warrior gathers strands of sticky gossamer and lashes them to an outcropping above the spider’s exit hole, high enough that he’d have to jump to reach them. The rocks around the exit he coats with bear grease to make them slippery … except he leaves a few patches dry. Then he creeps back into the cave and yells, ‘Hey, bug!’”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is so. Spiders hate being called bugs seeing as, technically, they are not. The spider flings the maiden aside and pursues the warrior. They scramble up the cave, the warrior a mere half-step ahead. Venom drips from the spider’s fangs. A drop strikes the warrior’s skin and burns painfully.

  “He races out of the cave, steps nimbly on the ungreased rocks and leaps, grabbing a gossamer rope. The spider races out over the cliff, slips and falls. It hits the bottom of the Falls with a splash. The young warrior returns to the cave and finds the maiden. They marry—such was the custom at the time—and have many children.”

  “What happened to the spider? Did it drown or what?”

  “Probably. Let’s assume so.”

  “What do you mean, probably?”

  “You’re never satisfied, are you? Every ‘i’ needs to be dotted.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Fine … know what? The spider was fine. It floated down the river and found another village and sucked everybody dry as a bone. Then it laid eggs in their mummified skulls, which hatched into a brood of huge pissed-off super-spiders who laid siege to the land. Many, many innocents were senselessly slaughtered. An epic bloodbath.”

  “Jesus, Owe!”

  “Next time don’t ask.”

  “How smooth is the language of the whites,” a new voice said, “when they can make right look like wrong and wrong like right.”

  We reached for our weapons.

  A guttural, mocking laugh creased the air. “I could’ve shot you both if that had been my aim.”

  A sickle of light bloomed on the far side of the deadfall. Drinkwater’s face hovered in a flashlight’s beam. Stubble glittered in the sunken pockets of his cheeks and dark matter was caked around his mouth. His eyes were deep holes in his face.

  I said, “Why follow us?”

  “Why not? You’ve been following me. Turnabout is fair play.”

  “You tried to kill us.”

  “When?” Drinkwater said, confused.

  “The trap.”

  “The what?”

  “The fox trap. Remember?”

  Drinkwater waved his hand. “Kill? You were hunting me like a dog. Dogs bite when they’re pursued, don’t they? Nothing evil to that.”

  Duncan came around the fire until he was facing Drinkwater.

  “You have a gun?”

  Drinkwater nodded. “You, too?”

  Duncan nodded. “Are you cold?”

  The flashlight beam shifted, providing a momentary glimpse of Drinkwater’s eyes. Bloodshot, jittery. Those eyes painted a picture of a man barely holding on to his life and sanity.

  “My butane torch ran out,” he said, “and the dark … the dark is hungry.”

  Duncan pulled a burning stick from the fire. I watched, not saying anything, as he handed it through the deadfall. Drinkwater’s face registered pathetic gratefulness. He lit a small fire. Soon there arose the smell of cooking meat.

  “Want any?” Drinkwater asked.

  “No,” we said in unison, thinking about the skunk.

  We listened as Drinkwater tore into leathery meat. Almost immediately afterwards came the sound of agonized heaving, followed by the stink of bile.

  “Can’t keep it down,” Drinkwater said. “Full of worms. First the meat, now me.”

  All three of us sat in silence for a while, laying our grievances aside for tonight.

  Finally Drinkwater said, “I have a story. A traditional tale my father used to tell.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Dunk said.

  “Once there were two brothers. Wolf, the elder, and Horse, the younger. Wolf was married to an evil woman. A real bitch! She lusted for Horse and wanted to see the younger brother ruined. She made seductive advances towards Horse, who always told her to bugger off out of love for his brother.

  “One day Wolf came home and found his wife’s clothing ripped and her hair in a tangle. The salmon-jawed witch told him Horse tried to have his way with her. Wolf was livid and sickened to hear it. But Wolf was also a snake—he resolved to kill his brother by stealth.” Drinkwater paused. “You two ever fight over a woman?”

  Duncan hesitated before saying, “No.”

  “Huh. You sure?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “No reason. Anyway, every summer the waterfowl would moult. They left feathers on the surface of the lake Wolf lived beside. The two brothers got into a buffalo-hide boat and paddled to an island in the middle of the lake to collect feathers
to fashion fletching for their arrows. That summer, while Horse gathered feathers, Wolf paddled away, leaving his brother to die alone on the island.

  “The lake was deep, prone to sudden storms. Flight from the island was impossible. Deeply hurt, Horse looked into the water and began to cry. He prayed to the nature spirits for help. He called on the Moon and Planets to vindicate him. Along came a friendly Beaver. Beaver said, ‘Why the long face?’ Hah!” Drinkwater slapped his knee. “Get it? When Horse told Beaver his sad tale, Beaver was outraged. He invited Horse to live in his dam. They lived happily together through the winter and spring.

  “In the summer Wolf returned, expecting to find his brother’s bones. While Wolf was looking around, Horse crept down the shore, stole his boat and paddled off. Wolf grovelled, ‘Come back, bro! A misunderstanding!’ But Horse smelled his brother’s bullshit a mile away. When Wolf’s wife saw the boat returning with Horse in it she fled into the forest, never to be seen again. The end.”

  Duncan said, “Kind of anticlimactic, Lem.”

  “A traditional Native tale,” Drinkwater said stiffly. “We don’t give a fuck about your Hollywood endings.”

  After a while I said, “You know we’re going to take you in, Drinkwater. You may have killed a man.”

  “Just one? Can’t you let me off with a warning?”

  “It’s all over, Lem.”

  Drinkwater’s laughter held a wavering edge of spite. “Okay, mistuh officer. Whateva you say, mistuh officer.”

  Duncan said, “Good night, Lem.”

  Drinkwater spoke no more. We tended our fires, sleeping a little but none very well.

  I rose with the drowsy half-light of dawn. The sun hummed against the horizon while the moon hung in its western altar like the last melancholy guest at a dinner party, too lonely to leave.

  Varied parts of my body cracked, popped or crunched as I shuffled past the fire’s embers. My skin was rubbed raw around my waist, which had shrunk significantly over the past two days. The ultimate diet plan, I thought grimly.

  Drinkwater lay on the other side of the deadfall, curled in fetal position. The heel was broken off one of his cowboy boots, his coat was torn and bloodstained, his hair crowned his head in a messy bird’s nest. I caught a smell, rank and rotten, and figured it was him—though who knew? Could have been me. All three of us were filthy and sick.

  I walked a little way into the bush and unzipped. The morning was warm, even springlike. I squinted across the clearing as I unburdened my bladder, a small pleasure. The purple stole out of the sky as noiselessly as it had set in the night before. As my urine splashed the snow I scanned to my right and saw a deer standing fifteen yards away.

  A doe. Her head was cocked at an inquisitive angle, her expression one of two that deer always wore: blithe or shit-scared. She seemed supremely unconcerned—why shouldn’t she be, facing this human shipwreck in a tattered parka? Yet I felt the weight of my pistol in its holster and realized: I was dangerous.

  Its eyes were the colour of a wet branch, its ears pricked up to the breeze stirring through the trees. Suddenly, the doe’s ears pinned back. Her hind end went down and she sprang across the clearing with gangling pogo-stick strides.

  The wolf passed by so close that I smelled the adrenal stink of it and saw the dark tufts of fur on its pistoning shoulders. It was the biggest one, the male. It dropped into a running stance that reminded me for a moment of Dolly. But the wolf ran with predatory zeal, covering the snow in reckless lunges that lacked a greyhound’s grace.

  There were flashes of movement in the trees on either side of the clearing. The other two wolves had appeared soundlessly, as hunters do. They were closing in from both sides: a classic scissoring move, a tactic as old as predator and prey.

  The deer sprang forward, head darting from side to side, sensing the threat but not seeing it yet. The big male closed in, hackles bristling in the deer’s blind side, ropes of saliva whipping back from his open jaws.

  I drew my pistol. I’d fire into the air, scatter the hunting party. Thwarting the natural laws of nature? Sure, but I couldn’t bear to witness it. I raised the pistol and—

  The sound came from behind me: a whistling gasp, like the final breath of a dying dog. I slanted my chin over my shoulder, not wanting to take my eyes off the deer. Drinkwater was on top of Duncan, knees pinned to his hips. I caught the blade in Drinkwater’s hand: the same bone-handled knife he always carried. Duncan’s arms were up, forearms crossed in front of his face: that intuitive defensive posture a person takes just before a car hits them.

  The knife slashed. Blood leapt into the still morning air. I lowered the pistol and fired. The bullet whined off the rocky outcropping. Drinkwater rolled off Duncan and fled into the brush before I could squeeze off another round. My gaze flashed briefly to the deer. The big male had his jaws locked round her shoulder, bearing her down under his weight.

  I rushed to Duncan, who’d rolled onto his knees. Blood spilled between his tightly clenched fingers, shockingly red.

  “Must’ve crawled through the deadfall,” he said. “Suddenly he was on me.”

  He pulled his hand away from the wound. The slash went up his forearm, connecting his elbow to his wrist. It was near-surgical—layers of severed flesh, each with their own distinct banding like age rings in a tree.

  “God damn that man,” Duncan said. “God damn him.” He stood. Blood flowed down his hand, split into four streams and dripped off each finger. “I’m going to kill him,” he said simply.

  Next he was running—fast—through the glittery dawn world, the air cool and fresh. I realized this was all Duncan had been waiting for: an overt display of aggression. Drinkwater had finally assaulted him directly—with a knife, tried to slit his throat. Thank God! Duncan must’ve figured. Now I can kill him. He’d let his rage and pain carry him over. It’d be as easy as breathing.

  No. I would not let it happen.

  I pursued, losing ground. My boots were still covered in duct tape, making running difficult. Drinkwater appeared suddenly, dashing through the trees. Duncan clawed for Bruiser Mahoney’s old pistol, freeing it, digging his heels into the snow and accelerating.

  Drinkwater wheeled clumsily. His hand exploded with light. A slug drilled a tree five feet to Duncan’s left. Duncan raised his own gun, but didn’t fire. Was it jammed? I saw him stare at it, still running. Was the safety on? He fiddled with it, then fired. The pistol bucked in his hand, throwing his arm up. The bullet snapped a twig off a branch directly above Drinkwater’s head. A little lower and the slug would have put a permanent crease in his forehead.

  Drinkwater turned and fled again.

  I ran, too, but after a few minutes, Duncan was so far ahead that he’d become part of the woods. The trees peeled away abruptly, spitting me out onto a smooth expanse. My boots hit it and skidded. An unbending flatness, with enormous firs edging the northern shore. We had reached the river. We actually had looped around and hit it again, further downstream.

  I cocked my ear to the rush of the Falls … yes, yes, it was there. We only had to follow the river towards the sound, hug the shoreline, and soon we’d see signs of human industry: rolls of red-painted snow fencing, a slick strip of bare road, maybe a solitary truck ferrying a couple of ice-fishermen to their shack. We could hitch a ride. Might take a while to convince someone to pick us up, wrecked as we were, but the heart of Cataract City was huge. All we had to do was—

  A bullet chipped the ice ten yards ahead, throwing shards into the air. Squinting against the sunlight flooding the frozen river, I saw Drinkwater toss his pistol aside. He and Duncan were thirty yards from shore, staggering like men nearing the end of a death march.

  The shadow of a cloud slipped across the sun; in the fragmentary gloom I noted Drinkwater’s knife was unsheathed and he was beckoning Duncan forward with it. Blood lay bright on Drinkwater’s coat. Had Duncan winged him?

  “Don’t do it!”

  Duncan mustn’t have heard. He thre
w Bruiser Mahoney’s pistol aside, lowered his head and charged at Drinkwater.

  I saw it happening before it happened. It came as a premonition—something that, until then, I’d never believed possible. At the station, people showed up all the time who claimed to “know” they’d be involved in a car accident days or hours or minutes before it happened, or people who “knew” their loved one was missing because some harbinger, some dream, some dread instinct told them so.

  I’d never believed those people until I pictured the ice cracking before it actually did. I heard the fault line split the surface—the sound of an aluminum can tearing in half—before it appeared. And I saw Duncan vanish as the plates of ice snapped beneath him, dropping him into the river as neatly as a sprung trap door, all a split second before it happened.

  The next moments unfolded in brilliant slow motion, as if the world were a 78 rpm record played at a laid-back 33. I ran past the hole, steering wide, but the shatter lines radiated towards me, causing me to leap back with a yelp. Duncan was a spiderlike apparition under the ice—the white water ripcurled round his body, making it look as though he’d grown extra limbs.

  Hot wires of fear twisted in my guts as I followed Duncan upriver, passing Drinkwater, who sat slumped on the ice. How to get at Duncan? May as well reach through aquarium glass and catch a swimming fish. I imagined the river crawling into Duncan’s lungs with icy fingers, the familiar mineral taste of the Niagara filling him. The river flowed north from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, passing through low country strung with willows whose branches drank from its fast-running flow, over a dolestone bottom and through the hydroelectric plant, which conferred its steely alkaline tang. I had a flash of how Dunk and I used to jump off the old train trestle upriver and the water would shoot straight up our noses; we’d surface with throbbing sinuses, spitting the water out, laughing like hell and kicking for shore.

  A terrifying resonance carried across the frozen plate, the sound of a fist thumping a solid oak door. I believed it was Duncan, punching the ice. I had no real clue where he might pass—the Niagara’s currents were notoriously tricky. My only choice was to guess and then hope. Racing twenty yards ahead of Duncan’s shape, I pulled my revolver and shot a quartet of holes through the ice, which webbed as the bullets drilled through; gouts of freezing water spurted through dime-sized holes.