The Maestro

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  Burl looked at her. “He knew he was going to die?” “That’s what I figure.”

  “Then why would he want to pay you for the trip?”

  Bea shrugged. “I thought maybe you’d be able to help me with that one.”

  Burl pushed his hair out of his eyes. It was almost two months long. His mind was racing. “For supplies, I guess.”

  Bea sniffed in a matter-of-fact kind of way. “Give me a little help here, Burl.” She didn’t snap at him, but the words were peppery. “I have no instructions. One round trip, all paid for. That’s all I know. Do I have to spell this out for you?”

  Burl cleared his throat. “I don’t want out,” he said. “I mean…thanks, but I have to stay.”

  Bea crossed her arms, didn’t move. She looked out over the lake. “You got money for the Budd then?”

  He didn’t answer. She seemed to know the truth of his situation.

  Bea licked her finger and held it up. “Oo-ee, that nor-wester is freshening for sure. Nice enough now, but I’d be willing to bet that’s winter coming.”

  Burl glanced at her through his bangs.

  “You’re not a city kid, are you?”

  Burl knew he had to say something. She wasn’t going to leave him alone. He shook his head.

  “You didn’t come up with him,” she said.

  “No.”

  “So he found you here? You were squattin’ in the cabin?” Burl shook his head. “I knew he was here. I was looking for him.”

  Burl could feel her eyes on him. “And he was lookin’ for you?”

  Burl nodded. “Yeah, he was looking for me. He was kind of expecting me.”

  He glanced at her. When he said no more, she frowned. Then she looked at her watch.

  “Well, if you’re from around these parts, you know something about winter. And I know first-hand what supplies you’ve got.”

  Burl hung his head.

  “What do you say, Burl? Was he coming up himself? Was he taking you back down south with him? Or did he have some plans to winterize this place?”

  There was a lump in Burl’s throat. It was as if she was rooting around in his dreams. Suddenly, for the first time in a month, he was very lonely.

  Her face softened a bit. “Burl. It’s none of my bee’s wax, but I’d suggest you get back to what folks you’ve got.”

  “ There’s no one else.”

  Bea leaned her foot on the cleat of the pontoon. The water lapped and slapped at the sand. Some gulls shrieked.

  “Looks like you’ve been doing some cleaning up around here.”

  Burl followed her eyes. There had been enough stain left to slap another coat on the deck. He was surprised she had noticed.

  “Burl,” she said. “You seem like a resourceful kid. But you know as well as I do that you can’t live through the winter in an un-insulated cabin. I was the one brought in that Delco generator. A fine machine, but unless you’ve found your own little cache of diesel fuel, you’re toast, kiddo. Yesterday’s toast.”

  Burl felt a frantic wave rising in him. “I was supposed to be staying here,” he said. “I can’t just leave.”

  “Well, I’ve got a few minutes…”

  “No!” He looked back towards the cabin longingly. His cabin. “The piano,” he said. “It can’t take the cold. I can’t just leave it.”

  Bea raised her eyebrows. “Well, if you can find some way to fold it up small…” But she wasn’t in a joking mood. “Burl, let’s get real. You can come back here. Right? But for now, you don’t have a lot of choices.”

  He could come back. Burl grabbed onto that idea tightly. “I can’t go without shutting the place down proper.”

  “Okay,” said Bea, rubbing her hands together. “Now you’re talking sense.”

  Burl looked at her. “There’s fitted shutters for the windows. I found them under the cabin. Bear protection.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ve got to clean the place up. I’ve got to leave it just right. I’ve got to pack and clean and—”

  “Burl!” She raised her voice, cutting him off. “It’s time to fish or cut bait. You know what I mean?”

  Burl was shaking. The whole beautiful thing was collapsing in on him.

  “Wake up, kiddo,” she said. Her voice was firm. “This must be pretty scary, losing him like this. But you’ve gotta make some decisions, here and now.”

  He looked at her straight on.

  “I’ve got as long as you need. But my schedule is way too full for emotional breakdowns. I failed nurse-maid school. And I can’t come flying in here to see how you’re doing. I’ve got a business to run.”

  She let this sink in. “Now, I’ve got some camps of my own,” she said. “So I sure appreciate what you’re saying about shutting the place up all ship-shape and Bristol fashion.”

  Burl was looking at the cabin. He knew how little food he had left. His only alternative to flying out with Bea was to walk out. Along the tracks it was twenty-nine miles to Presqueville. And that walk took him through Pharaoh.

  “Burl,” said Bea. “It’s either now or Dak Jim.”

  Burl chose now. Bea helped. Though the church-like windows were high and there were four shutters per window, there was a twenty-foot aluminum ladder and the work went fast enough.

  The faulty generator needed shutting down, the last of the garbage gathered, perishables boxed up.

  The cabin was as clean as a whistle. There was next to nothing to pack. He had come with nothing, and he would leave that way. Almost. He packed the few clothes the Maestro had left behind in a brown paper bag. His own clothes hardly fit him any more.

  When Bea wasn’t looking, when she had gone back down to start up the plane, he played the opening chords of the Silence in Heaven one last time, quietly as could be.

  “I’ll be back,” he whispered to the piano, though he had no idea when or how. Then Bea called his name. She sounded as if she was losing her patience. Quickly, Burl took all the sheets and blankets off the bed and some fishing line, and wrapped up the piano as snugly as he could.

  Then he found himself climbing into a bush plane for the first time in his life. He felt like someone evacuated from a place under siege, a village in the path of a forest fire.

  Lift off. Burl looked down and took in the shape of Ghost Lake. He committed the shape to memory. He would find it again through any wilderness; out of any sky he would pick it out from all the million other lakes.

  The Beaver shook and rattled in the cross winds; climbed and levelled off and dropped again as it beat a course south. Burl was swept away by the thrill of the ride.

  “Dak Jim,” he said, shouting above the engine’s roar.

  “What is that?”

  “Korean stew,” yelled Bea. “I flew in a war over there, sonny. Lied about my age. Lied about my sex. Lied my way right into a war.”

  Suddenly the plane fell again and Burl gasped. The wind thumped them down the hard blue steps of the sky.

  Bea laughed, pulled up her wing tips. “Hell’s bells, kid. I’ve flown through worse crap than this.”

  She looked steadily at him and when he returned her gaze, all he could see was himself two-faced—mirrored in her glasses.

  “Who are you, Burl?”

  He knew what he wanted to tell her. What she expected him to say. What she’d been trying to pry out of him from the start.

  “I’m his son,” he said.

  PART TWO

  16

  Natalie Agnew

  NATALIE AGNEW STOOPED TO PICK UP A DIScarded pop can. The empty was frosty cold with dew. There was another one down by the water’s edge. She slid down the bank to recover it and then squatted there to watch the river.

  The Skat was far from picturesque. Not brown, really, she thought, but rust-coloured, like so much else about this part of the world: the rocks, the cars and pick-ups. From this angle she could see where the sunlight filtered down through the ties on the railway bridge overhead, laying bands of go
ld on the river. Like a xylophone, she thought.

  She and David had driven up to Pharaoh from Presqueville early that morning. He was a social planner, a consultant to the native council at the Leather Belt Reservation. He had a meeting and she had come along for the ride to see the fall colours, to get out of Presqueville, to be with him. But there wasn’t really much in the way of fall colour—no maples, at least. She got that hungry feeling for the Eastern Townships where she had grown up. She could almost taste the maple syrup.

  She had walked through what there was of Pharaoh and was now at the end of the road that served the town as main street, though she had seen no sign to suggest it had a name. David had said, “It would take some inspiration to actually name a street.” David wasn’t keen on Pharaoh.

  “Yes, but somebody named the place Pharaoh,” she had said. “And that took a lot of imagination.”

  The road ended abruptly, petered out to a sandy path, then bush and litter. She was thinking of going back to the car to see if there was a garbage bag in the trunk. She thought of David laughing at her—Natalie the garbage crusader. That convinced her it was worth the walk. It was good to hear his big healthy laugh. But she would wait a minute, sit on a rock and watch the xylophone shifting tunelessly with every breeze.

  It was Saturday. She would take the time to enjoy watching the dew melt as the October sun rose out of the bush. She wasn’t from these parts. She kept calling it the forest, but bit by bit the locals were convincing her that it was nothing so lofty. It was bush, plain and simple.

  She would sit and count what passed before her eyes down the Skat: an oak leaf redder even than the river, a spray of yellow poplar. Sure there were fall colours; you just had to look.

  Pharaoh. Burl Crow came from here. She stood and looked back down the road as if thinking of him might make him materialize. The road was still empty.

  The first day of term, Sherri Kelso had come up to her with The Red Fairy Book. She had found it tucked into the back of her desk. Somehow Natalie hadn’t been surprised. Boys that age were hard critters to figure out. Leaving her present behind could mean anything, or nothing at all.

  But she was a little sad, when she thought about it, that Burl hadn’t dropped around to visit. Mind you, how would he? He was a long way from Presqueville, and the bus from the high school in Vaillancourt probably took all of what was left of after-school. It had been unreasonable to expect to see him again.

  She turned her mind to Burl. He was intelligent, imaginative, but he held it in check. Not slyly, like an ace up the sleeve. More like he was carrying an egg through the playground at recess, never knowing where the next jolt might come from. She had noticed angry bruises on him. And a hunger in his eyes.

  He was full of promise, she thought. Absently Natalie made a circle out of stones on the riverbank. Full of promise. What a strange expression. As if life was a lie on the outside, but there was some other truth within. Was that Burl Crow?

  She plopped a pebble in the water, watched her golden xylophone break into pieces.

  She thought of Burl at Vaillancourt. How far some country kids had to go to get an education. No wonder so many of them gave up. It didn’t seem fair. But what was? She wondered which teachers had got Burl. She hoped someone would be able to chivvy him along without scaring him.

  She got to her feet, dusted off her hands. She had an idea. Why should she have expected Burl to reach her? She would reach him.

  Yes. She would phone the high school and see how Burl was doing. First thing Monday.

  17

  Skookum Airways

  IT WAS FORTY KILOMETRES AS THE CROW FLIES from Pharaoh to the town of Intervalle, where the Skat emptied through a series of rapids into Bearberry Lake. Burl took to walking up to the rapids on his time off, to squat by the rushing waters. As he hunkered down on the cold rock, his senses filling up with the noise and sulfurous smell, there was a quiet place inside him he could escape to.

  He didn’t get much time off, but then he didn’t really want it. He wanted money. Bea had hired him on part-time at Skookum. He was getting minimum wage, and he knew what he was going to do with every penny.

  Bea had seen him work up at the cabin that last day at Ghost Lake. She had noticed how tidy the camp was, inside and out. He was quick, steady on the ladder, fussy. Once the shutters were on he had gone around tightening the fasteners with an improvised screwdriver. And when they were ready to leave, he had gone back to the cabin for one last check. She liked that. She told him so when she offered him the work. He wasn’t in a position to say no. He had nowhere to go and no money. He had told Bea he was sixteen. He didn’t think she believed him, but she didn’t question it. He was paid under the table. There was no record of him working for Skookum. That suited his needs. It suited Bea’s needs, too.

  Duck-hunting season was in full swing and there was lots of work around. Skookum was flying hunting parties from all over the province and the northern states into the bush. The company ran two planes and a helicopter. Bea leased six campsites on lakes throughout the Sudbury district. This time of the year she kept them filled pretty well weekly.

  Burl helped load up. Everything had to be weighed: the packs and guns and cases of beer. There was a shack Bea called Pearson International North. It was head office, departure lounge and staff room combined. Burl kept it tidy and served passengers coffee. He raked the scrap of lawn out front and ran errands. Bea kept him busy.

  Skookum Airways was situated on a peninsula curving out like an apostrophe linking Intervalle Bay to the greater body of Bearberry Lake. There were no airstrips. The Beaver and the twin-engine Beechcraft took off from the lake; the chopper from a fenced helipad paved with asphalt, buckled by frost. Weeds grew through the cracks. There was a gravel parking lot, a Quonset hut machine shop and, a short way off through the trees at the curling tip of the apostrophe, Bea’s white clapboard bungalow.

  The chopper pilot was called Harvey. Burl never learned his last name, hardly ever saw him. It was his twin-rotor Sikorsky that had carried the Maestro’s grand piano into Ghost Lake.

  A man named Palmateer owned and flew the Beechcraft. Burl never learned his first name. There were two other boys, Barry and Dieter. They were older than Burl—he wasn’t sure how much. Dieter was training to fly. Harvey drove Dieter in every morning from town. Barry had some kind of mental problem. He shared the little house with Bea and Palmateer. Burl couldn’t figure out if the three of them were related—if Bea and Palmateer were married, maybe; if Barry was their son. They didn’t act like a family, but then Burl didn’t have much experience with how families worked.

  Dieter tended to be snooty with Barry. He teased him and invited Burl to join in on the fun. When Burl didn’t, Dieter started being snooty with him as well and bossy, too, but not when Palmateer was around. Dieter was getting his licence and then he was “outahere.” He said that so much the phrase had fused into one word.

  Burl saw more of Palmateer than of Bea. When he wasn’t flying, Palmateer was always around the yard, either in the shop fixing something or in the office having a coffee. When Bea wasn’t flying, she was often away, dressed up in heels and a suit, what Barry called her spook ‘em clothes.

  Palmateer and Harvey owned their own aircraft, but there was no question who ran Skookum Airways. It was Bea’s operation. She was the one who made the business decisions, the glue that held the place together.

  Burl slept in Pearson North. There was a couch there and, in the staff room, a hot plate, fridge and sink. He tagged along shopping with Palmateer and Barry and bought his own food and stuff in town.

  Living in the office, he had to be up early and tidy everything away. The couch sat under a stuffed moose head wearing a World War I air-ace helmet and goggles. Someone had draped the antlers with tinsel at a Christmas party sometime, and the decoration had become a fixture. There were maps and regulations on the walls and cartoons and bits and pieces of happy-customer memorabilia that made the place look
cosy or a mess, depending on your point of view. To Burl it was a mess. He cleaned it up the best he could.

  The couch was old and lumpy. Burl didn’t sleep well. The porch light was always on, and there was a yard light as well. The road that led to Intervalle passed nearby and, as small as the town was, there seemed to be traffic at the oddest hours. Burl wasn’t used to the noise. But worse than that was the fact of the road itself. He was reconnected with civilization. The Intervalle Road led out to Highway 17, the Trans-Canada, and fifty klicks west was the turn-off to Presqueville, from which a long dirt road led straight to Cal. Burl truly doubted that the Turd-mobile could get this far, but often he woke up sweating to the sound of a sputtering muffler and ran to the window expecting to see a ‘63 Plymouth rolling into the yard. Then he would return to his bed and lie there feeling every lump the ancient couch had to offer.

  The first snowfall came and went. It wouldn’t come for keeps for another month or so, but there would not likely be another warm spell. The second day Burl was there, Bea sent him off to Bélanger’s in Intervalle for some winter gear. She advanced him enough pay to buy some clothes. He bought a duffel bag to carry it all in. She made him buy a toothbrush and hairbrush as well. He had to look his best.

  Burl lay his head on his hands. He had been there over a week and he had no idea what he was going to do. Deer-hunting season in the Sudbury district would be coming up late in October this year, and there was going to be a big harvest. That meant lots of hunters and lots of work. And then in November it would be moose season. He could probably stay right through to Christmas. And then…

  Burl clambered out of bed and found his duffel bag. From one of the pockets he drew the only thing he had taken from the cabin, the letter to Nathaniel Gow—”Nog” —from Reggie Corngold. He returned to his makeshift bed and read it again. He lay there with the letter in his hands. Fell asleep like that.