Cape Breton Road

by D. R. MacDonald

  His face felt mashed when he woke, his eyes gritty, squinting at the long late sun as he stood outside the car to piss, wind shoving at his back. Maybe Starr had taken no tainted water yet, not run a tap at all during the day, if he’d gone to The Mines. There were good reasons why he wouldn’t have put any in his mouth yet, that tiny cloud of poison was still diffusing, slowly, invisibly into that long hill to the house, under the road, then diagonal through the front field, a long run of line, so much water coursing through it, backed up behind the taps. Kitchen. Bathroom. A spigot near the back door. And the toilet. How many flushes would …? Maybe it was all there, collected in one small space, and something as innocent as a piss would disperse it, that few pints or quarts or gallons of danger. Suppose Starr simply was not thirsty for water? There were three beers in the fridge. Distinctly. Three brown bottles of Moosehead Ten Penny Ale, Innis could describe if asked the design of the label, the logo, the color of gold, the styles of lettering, the name, the origin of the brewery, the percentage of alcohol, higher than beer in the States. Starr liked a beer sometimes first thing in the door. But the weather was not warm, he wouldn’t reach for a Moosehead today grumbling about the sticky, windless air, wind was everywhere and it carried autumn, chilling summer away. Autumn light. Warm, yet cold on your face.

  He tried to concentrate, he couldn’t be fooled anymore by roads that went nowhere. He’d been trying to get off that Cape Breton Road, hadn’t he, the one that ran from here to Boston and beyond and back again, a great circle of sentiment and memory, of love and anger and disappointment and hope, leading back to this Island, even to here?

  The prospect of darkness had focussed his mind, he found he was moving beyond the Barrens, the trees were coming taller, the road straighter but monotonous. Stacked pulpwood appeared at the roadside, this had to lead to a highway. He was daring to pick up speed, the muffler grumbling louder, when the headlights caught the dark brown hide of an enormous animal, like suddenly encountering a zoo creature, a runaway from a circus, its size seemed so out of place in front of his car, claiming the center of the road. Innis skidded to a halt, headlights freezing the moose as it wheeled its great head around, like a comical horse with its bristly dewlap, exaggerated snout. Innis expected it to flee like a deer but the horn, that smooth Cadillac horn, seemed only to arouse it, it lowered its immense rack of antlers, then, with a deep grunt, reared up impossibly high, all belly and legs, a mighty bull. Innis reversed hard but not before its hooves thumped heavily on the hood, he kept backing up until he felt the impact of the ditch, his head flew back, the Caddy suddenly askew, stopped, stalled. He could hear the moose crashing away through the trees. Holding his whiplashed neck, he turned the engine over and over until it started and then listened to what he was afraid of, wheels whining in the wet ditch, spitting out mud and stones until the car barely rocked. The moose had smashed one headlight, the other was angled upward, illuminating uselessly the high branches of a tree.

  Innis sat in the listing car, the thought of leaving it he could not handle, not yet. Bugs danced in the cockeyed light. Was that a wisp of fog or his own dust settling? He punched every button on the dash, the radio leapt from white noise to white noise, the aerial withdrew into the hood, the fan breathed cold air, he lowered all the windows, then raised them shut. Shit. A goddamn moose, and no Bullwinkle either, it must’ve been ten feet high, pissed off. Innis was sure he’d been on a road out, all he’d need have done is keep going. To a gas station, a house, a phone, anyone’s phone. Starr, don’t drink the water from the tap, just don’t, don’t ask me any questions, never mind where I am, goodbye. Goodbye.

  The darkness was unbelievable, even as his eyes adjusted to it he was straining to keep to the road. But oh God, the stars, they blinded him, they made him stumble, they were brighter than the night with Claire when he spun slowly in that midnight water, weightless, certain he would soon feel her against him. He looked behind him just once, the Caddy’s headlight like a carnival beam, barely visible in trees. Jesus, he was thirsty, he’d never been so thirsty, there had to be a brook along here, why not take the woods, didn’t he know them, weren’t these the same trees that grew on St. Aubin, everywhere here? A terror seemed to flame through him, furiously cold, like his hands in the spring water. He was going downhill, the woods were thicker than any back home, but a hill would lead him somewhere he needed to go if he could stay on his feet, where was his walking stick, lying in the upstairs hallway, he was afraid of tumbling headfirst, of sinking in a bog, he had no gas left, his legs could not match the obstacles, the dead-wood, the tangles of tough young trees, but he knew too that this momentum would drive him the rest of his days, to better or worse, he saw flowers, yellow, were they primroses, his mother wanted him to dig holes for roses, outside there by the back window, Innis, please, I can’t get a spade into that soil, it’s hard as cement, but his pal was waiting at the curb and Innis didn’t want to be seen putting rosebushes in the ground, they were blooming even, cream and red and yellow, petals dropping to the pavement, but he regretted it now, that he hadn’t done that little thing for her, that if nothing else, roses in the garden she could look at, and she had tried anyway to plant them herself but they turned to brittle sticks and thorns. He tripped on a tree root, his knees dug into dirt, his palms, the breath knocked out of him, but he was up again, wiping his eyes clear, that had to be a light he saw, it was, yes, and he pushed on toward it, crashing drunkenly, never taking his eyes from it, it had to be a house, a dog was barking sharply, or was it a fox, there would be a telephone there, and he could crank out those rings, crank them like a fire call, loud and long, and Starr would count them out without even thinking, four-ring-three, and he would get up from wherever he was, the big chair in the parlor, the kitchen table, maybe even his bed, what time was it anyway, and he would say hello, and Innis would say, It’s me. It’s me, Innis.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  D. R. MACDONALD was born on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. In 1969 he received a Stegner Fellowship in Fiction at Stanford University, where he now teaches. In 1983 he was awarded an NEA Grant in Literature for Eyestone, a collection of short stories. He has received two Pushcart Prizes, an Ingram Merrill Award, and an O. Henry Award.