In Too Deep

by Andreas Oertel

  She was getting tired too. With each pull, it took her longer to reposition her hands for the next stroke. It had to be close now. I thought I could even see the glow of Eric’s dive light.

  Without warning, Rachel’s leg slipped out from under her on the wet grass. She teetered for a split second on the edge of the fairway, a metre above the muddy bank. And then everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

  She spun around to stop herself from falling and grabbed onto my arm. That threw me off balance and I fell backwards, kicking her other leg from beneath her. She held onto me, and together we careened off the grass and toppled down to the mud.

  Splat!

  The fall knocked the wind out of me. I didn’t pass out, but it took me a second to catch my breath. Rachel was on top of me, her face almost touching mine. Bits of mud peppered her sweaty face, but she still looked prettier than any other girl in school.

  “Sorry, Cody. I slipped,” she said, smiling—her breath tickling my cheek. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No. I’m fine.” She didn’t look convinced, so I added, “Honestly, I’m fine.”

  “What the heck are you guys doing?” That was Eric. He was standing in the water beside us.

  “We slipped,” Rachel said.

  Eric laughed and shook his head. “Ironman’s right behind me, and the path is clear the rest of the way.”

  Embarrassed, we both awkwardly got up and climbed onto the grass. Five minutes later, we had the statue up on the mud next to the lake. Then with Rachel and me pulling on the rope and Eric pushing, we hauled the statue up and onto the fairway, next to the sled.

  Rachel dropped to her knees and examined the face. “I don’t believe it,” she said, wiping mud from the statue’s eyes. She leaned in for a closer look. “I think it’s a Native person—an Indigenous man.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  I CROUCHED BESIDE Rachel and studied the mud-smeared bronze. The entire surface was splattered with clay, weeds, and grass, but there was no mistaking the features. Looking up at us was a sixty- or seventy-year-old Indigenous man.

  “What a great face!” Rachel whispered in awe.

  She wasn’t kidding. There was something astonishing about it, and I was pleased we’d decided to go back for it.

  The face had those lines around the eyes that people get when they’re happy all the time, or when they’re always outside squinting at the sun. I think they’re called “laugh lines” or “crow’s feet.”

  Rachel gently ran her fingers down the nose and across the mouth, like a blind person getting to know a stranger. The nose was big, with a slight hook, and it suited the face perfectly. Rachel flicked a weed from the lips. The mouth was set firm—neither smiling nor frowning. And the jaw was raised and tilted to one side. He looked like a warrior, or an adventurer—a guy daring you to cross his bridge.

  “Let’s just get him out of here,” Eric said. “We can check him out later.”

  Eric and I quickly stripped off our wetsuits and placed them on the bottom of the sled. Then all three of us rocked and twisted the statue on top of the wetsuits. The wooden planks groaned under the weight but held together. The bronze didn’t wobble at all, so there was no point in strapping it down. The weight seemed to keep it in place.

  We grabbed the rope and muscled our way across the fairway and back to the wagon. My fingers, already raw from pulling the statue through the water, now felt like they were wrapped around broken glass. At the fence, I scurried ahead of Eric and Rachel and pulled up on the lowest strand of barbed wire. A rusty staple popped off the nearest post with a zing, allowing me to yank the wire up to my chest.

  Rachel scurried under the wire and Eric tossed her the rope. “Got it!” she announced. “Push!”

  She leaned back on the rope while Eric dug his heels in and pushed. The sled jerked twice and slipped under the fence. I let go of the wire, and it rattled back into place.

  As I crawled between the two top wires, something caught my eye. I twisted my head and looked back at the grass.

  Oh, no! Not again!

  There was a deep scratch in the grass, running from the lake to the fence. Under the night sky, it looked like someone had stretched a thick cable across the fairway.

  “What the heck did that?” Eric asked. He was leaning on a fence post, following my stare.

  “Look!” Rachel said, pointing at the statue.

  I shuffled over to look at the bronze. At first I couldn’t tell what she was pointing at, but then I saw it. The right arm of the statue was bent, and the elbow was resting just below the level of the sled’s bottom. The elbow had scratched a groove in the grass all the way from Smoke Lake. No wonder it had been so hard to pull.

  “Should we try and fix the grass?” Eric asked.

  Rachel shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. We’ll just make more of a mess. Let’s get out of here.”

  We slid the toboggan—with the statue still on it—onto the wagon, packed our gear on top of the bronze, and covered everything with three beach towels. The springs on the wagon were totally squished from all the weight, but we were pretty sure the tires could handle the load. If we were stopped or spotted by anyone, they’d see the towels, but there was no way they’d see the statue. Not that it mattered; I had a feeling that we wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret for long. We had made such a mess of the grass that even a dummy could see something was up at Smoke Lake.

  Eric tied his bike to the wagon, and with a push from Rachel and me to get him going, he headed for Sultana. Rachel and I hopped on our bikes and followed. Eric barely made it across the highway and into the woods before he had to stop for a break.

  “This . . .” Eric gasped, “this is going to take . . . forever.”

  Rachel said, “There’s no way we can get the statue all the way to Sultana tonight.”

  I looked down at my blistered hand. “Yeah,” I said. “We’re going to have to hide it along the trail somewhere, then come back for it later.”

  “I knew it would be hard work,” Eric mumbled, “but not this hard. It’s going to take days to haul it home.”

  “Unless,” Rachel said, “we hooked up the wagon to an all-terrain vehicle—a quad.”

  “That’s it, Rach!” Eric said. “If we could borrow an ATV, we could tie it to the wagon and have him home in an hour.” He pointed at the statue.

  “Mr. Jelfs?” I said.

  “Mr. Jelfs,” Rachel echoed.

  “That’s right,” Eric said. “He has two of those ATV things—an old beater and a brand new one.”

  “He might let us use the old one,” Rachel said, “if we had a good reason for needing it.”

  “I’ve seen him haul firewood with it,” Eric said. “Maybe we could say we want to get more firewood.”

  “That could work,” Rachel said. “I’m sure he’s seen us messing around by the fire pit, burning all that brush. It makes sense that we’d run out and need some real wood.”

  “That’s it!” Eric said.

  “We’ll ask if we can use his four-wheeler to get some proper firewood,” I said. “There’s that old logging area between here and Sultana. I’m sure we could find leftover logs there.”

  “Right,” Eric said. “We could pack them on top of the wagon as we drag the statue to Sultana.”

  “Okay, that settles it,” Rachel said. “Let’s roll him off the trail somewhere and get back to town.”

  Eric and I nodded. But doing that was a lot harder than it sounded. The spruce trees in the area were all mature, with few branches near the bottom, so they didn’t hide the wagon at all. This forced us to struggle and roll the heavy cart far off the trail. The wheels on the wagon sank deep in the soft forest floor, which made going twenty metres take forever.

  When we were finally satisfied that our prize couldn’t be seen by anyone on the trail, we all collapsed on our backs and tried to catch our breath. I ignored the pine needles and twigs poking my exposed skin, and I stared up at the su
mmer sky with my friends. High above us, a gap in the dark trees revealed the Milky Way and its billions of twinkling stars. And just when I thought the night couldn’t get any more amazing, a shooting star suddenly streaked across the sky. It was so bright that it looked like someone was trying to open the galaxy with a giant zipper.

  “Wow!” Eric whispered. “Did you guys see that?”

  I heard Rachel move beside me. “Look!” she said.

  I propped myself on my elbow and looked at the statue, where she was pointing. The bronze head was exposed and appeared to be staring straight up at the sky too.

  “I think he’s happy to finally be out of the water,” Rachel said.

  “Imagine how happy he’ll be when we get him home,” I said. “Wherever that is.”

  Eric slowly got up. “And imagine how happy I’ll be when I’m in my sleeping bag again.”

  “Okay, Rachel,” I whispered, “good luck sneaking back into the house.”

  “Yeah, don’t get caught,” Eric added.

  “Don’t you guys have any faith in me?” she said with a grin.

  We were back in Eric and Rachel’s backyard again, standing beside the tent. The trip back to Sultana had been uneventful and took only an hour. Too tired to talk, we’d saved our energy for pedalling home down the dark trails.

  Rachel slipped inside our tent and came out a minute later wearing her nightgown. “Now,” she said, “if I get caught, I’ll just say I couldn’t sleep and that I wanted to get a glass of milk.”

  “That’s not going to explain your sweaty, mud-splattered face, though,” Eric said. “Make sure you clean up downstairs.”

  She said goodnight to us and padded across the grass to the kitchen door. Eric and I crawled into the dome tent and collapsed from exhaustion onto our sleeping bags—for the second night in a row.

  CHAPTER

  7

  “GET UP!”

  “Go away!” Eric said.

  “Get up!” Rachel said again. “Mr. Jelfs said ‘Yes.’”

  “We’re still sleeping,” Eric griped. “And I don’t care.”

  But I did care. I sat up and said, “The ATV? He’ll let us use it?”

  Rachel looked showered and well rested. She nodded. “Yeah, Code. I asked him myself fifteen minutes ago. I told him what you said—that we want to fetch some wood in our wagon for the fire pit.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “So . . . so when can we get it?”

  Rachel laughed. “Are you guys deaf? I have it here now! It’s right there.” She pointed somewhere beside the tent. “Didn’t you guys hear me pull up?”

  That got Eric’s attention, and he sat up too. “That means we can get the statue today.”

  “Yeah,” Rachel said, “we can go right now, if you guys want.”

  Eric and I looked at each other.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess I’m ready,” I said.

  “So am I,” Eric said. “But I still want to eat a few bowls of cereal first. You know, for energy.”

  Eric and I quickly washed the sleep and sweat and dirt from our faces at the outside tap. Then we went inside and wolfed down cereal and glasses of chocolate milk while Rachel watched.

  “Is it hard to drive?” I asked her between mouthfuls of Cheerios.

  “No, it’s simple,” she said. “Mr. Jelfs only had to show me once. He said it works the same as any motorcycle or car that has gears. You just have to get used to letting the clutch lever out slowly when you first take off. If you don’t, it’s kind of jerky. I’ll show you guys when we get out of town. Then we can practise and take turns driving. It’s fun.”

  “Cool!” Eric mumbled. “I can’t wait.”

  Rachel seemed excited to get going too, so I resisted the urge to have a third bowl of cereal.

  Outside again, Rachel quickly explained how to start the motor. “It has a battery, just like a car,” she said. “So all you have to do is turn this key and press that green button.” She turned the key and pressed the green button. The engine rumbled to life immediately.

  Eric whooped and laughed. “Awesome, Rach!” He slapped her on the back and yelled, “Let’s go!”

  “We have to put those on first,” she said, pointing at the three helmets sitting on the picnic table. “I promised Mr. Jelfs we’d wear them.”

  Before Eric could object to wearing a musty old helmet, I ran over to the picnic table and brought them all back. “Pick one,” I said, giving Eric first choice.

  He grabbed the metallic blue helmet with a white visor attached to the forehead. Rachel took the purple helmet. And I squeezed my head into the remaining white helmet.

  Rachel hopped on the seat and slid as close to the handlebars as she could. I climbed on next, tucking myself in behind her. Eric jumped on last, claiming the rest of the seat. Rachel looked over her shoulder, making sure we were all settled. She nodded her purple head, popped the machine into first gear, let out the clutch, and we were off.

  Rachel made a wide turn on the lawn, drove across the street, and headed for the trails that would take us back to the statue. She was a quick learner, and it didn’t take her long to get comfortable driving the off-road vehicle. And I was glad she was driving too. Knowing Eric, he would have raced the ATV all the way—and with three of us on the seat, that would have been a bone-jarring, helmet-bumping ride.

  Thirty minutes later, we found the spot where we’d stashed the wagon. Not seeing anyone in the area, Eric and I jumped off the quad, making it easier for Rachel to back up into the bush. When she got as close as she dared, she turned off the motor. I helped Eric manoeuvre the wagon to the hitch, and then we tied everything together as best we could.

  When we were all seated on the ATV again, Eric said, “So now what?”

  “What?” I asked, startled. I’d been wondering if it was okay to put my arms on Rachel’s waist. Some spots on the trail were a bit bumpy, and a person could fall off. Seriously!

  Eric leaned sideways and looked at me. “So, we’re just going to haul him to town and slip him into the shed?” He indicated the statue with a flick of his head.

  “For now,” I said.

  Rachel’s purple helmet nodded. “Then we can clean him up and figure out what to do next.”

  “I think we only have three options, anyway,” I said. “We can keep it, we can sell it, or we can give it back to whoever lost it.”

  “Maybe no one lost it,” Eric said.

  “Someone has to own it,” Rachel said.

  “Yeah, but who?” Eric said, tugging the chinstrap on his helmet. “And what if they don’t want it back?”

  “That’s what we’ll have to find out,” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s what we’ll have to find out,” Rachel said.

  We decided not to take any chances with our cargo, and since Rachel was a careful driver, we let her drive back to the old logging area. We collected about ten two-metre-long logs and piled them on top of the bronze. It looked like the wagon was heaped with wood (which was great), when in fact there were just enough logs to conceal our metal friend. We tied down the logs down and slowly made our way home.

  In the backyard again, Rachel reversed the ATV and backed the wagon right into the shed.

  We untied the wood, stacked the logs next to the fire pit (we could saw them into pieces later), and slid the bronze onto the dirt floor of the shed.

  “It’s fantastic!” Rachel said, dropping to her knees beside the statue.

  “He looks taller than he did underwater,” Eric said.

  I was still standing in the opening of the shed, wondering if I should close the door. I was nervous that the statue might be seen from the road, but if we closed the door, we wouldn’t have enough light to really examine it.

  “Come check him out, Code,” Rachel said, inviting me closer.

  Oh, heck! I left the door open, sat down beside Rachel and studied our treasure.

  The statue was about two metres tall, but the bronze clothing made him se
em a lot bigger. He was wearing some type of leather pants, which were tucked into boots. The boots themselves weren’t like cowboy boots—they had more of a homemade look and came up almost to the knees. A winter likeness must have been intended, because he appeared to be wearing several layers of clothing, topped off with a jacket that went down to his thighs.

  Both arms were bent slightly. His left was resting lightly on his belt. And the right arm—the one that had carved up the fairway—was bent at the elbow with the palm half-open and facing up. The way he was standing, he looked like he should be holding a compass in his hand.

  The statue looked extremely cool: immense, powerful, intelligent, and maybe even friendly. I smiled. Bottom line, we now had the statue. And as they say in the movies, “possession is nine-tenths of the law”—or something like that, anyway.

  Gazing at the statue, I wondered how we could find out where it had come from. I mean, why would someone go to all that trouble to make a bronze statue and then dump it in a lake? It didn’t make sense.

  On the other hand, if someone went to the trouble to steal the statue, why didn’t they keep it or sell it? Why did they throw it away? Unless they found out they couldn’t sell it, I suppose.

  Rachel turned to me and said, “Let’s clean him up.”

  I looked at my watch and nodded.

  Eric looked at his watch too.

  “What?” Rachel said. “You guys got something better to do?”

  Eric said, “We’re supposed to be at Clearwater Lake at noon.”

  “What’s at Clearwater?” she asked, her fingers flicking mud from a groove around the statue’s neck.

  I explained that Mr. Provost, a cottager at the lake, had lost his wristwatch in the water at the end of his dock. He’d been messing around with the motor on his boat when the clasp snagged and broke. He’d complained to Dad about it a few days ago, and Dad mentioned that Eric and I had snorkel gear and might be able to help. Mr. Provost told my dad that he’d give us fifty dollars if we could find his watch—a fancy Rolex.

  “Why don’t you come with us, Rachel?” I suggested. “It shouldn’t take long, and we can all go for a swim after.” Sunset Beach was only a kilometre from Mr. Provost’s place.