Unraveled Sleeve

by Monica Ferris

  They went back to the mouth of the Brule, skied alongside it for a while, then edged gingerly onto the snow-covered ice. Up here were the tracks of several skiers who had done likewise, avoiding the thin ice near the lake. By the time they were as far as the highway, they were in a head-high rock canyon. The river narrowed as they went up it, but on the other side of the bridge it was still over twenty feet across.

  “This is some of the oldest rock in the world,” said Jill, nodding toward the rusty brown and black bluffs on either side of them. “Older than the dinosaurs. Parker can say it’s not granite, but it’s as hard as granite, so it took a long time for the river to carve this deep.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Betsy, a little breathlessly, picking herself up. Again. The surface of the river was uneven, and the drape of the snow didn’t always tell the truth about what was under it.

  Out of sight of the highway, the canyon deepened to over thirty feet. “The riverbed is full of big rocks,” said Jill conversationally, stopping yet again so Betsy could both regain her feet and catch her breath. “The water flows over the rocks and freezes unevenly. But down underneath, it’s still flowing. If you listen you can hear it.”

  And standing in the deep silence of a forest in winter, Betsy listened. Sure enough, there was a faint gurgle underfoot. “Are you sure the ice is thick enough to hold us?” she asked, shifting her weight back onto her skis instead of leaning so much on the points of her poles.

  “Oh, yes. But if you do go through, try to grab hold of the downstream edge of the ice with your arms so you don’t get swept under. The current’s pretty swift here, but it’s a long way down to the lake. I don’t know if you could hold your breath that long.”

  Betsy stared at Jill, who didn’t seem to be kidding. She looked around. The snow-covered surface would give no hint of a crack. Despite the evidence that others had safely come before them, Betsy wondered if maybe they should walk along the shore—except that wasn’t possible. The dark canyon walls rose vertically on either side. Here and there a bush or small evergreen clung, but too few and far apart to be much aid to a person trying to climb to the top. They had to continue on the river.

  “Don’t worry, it’s never given way to me or anyone else that I know of.” Jill started off again, pushing hard on her poles. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”

  Betsy trailed behind awkwardly, legs and arms complaining at the unaccustomed exercise. Jill went into the long, graceful movements of the experienced cross-country skier. Betsy tried to emulate her, but soon she was breathless again. This was worse than the cross country trip Jill had taken her on back in December. She realized that going upstream meant they were going uphill. There wasn’t any level place to just glide along, or any downhill place to slide.

  The further they went, the steeper the incline became. As she tired, there seemed to be ever more lumps and dips where the water had apparently frozen in the act of moving over boulders. Jill seemed to find dodging among the bumps no problem, but Betsy found that between her own awkwardness and the more difficult terrain she had to stop more and more often to rest. The river was distinctly narrower here, but the slope of the canyon was less vertical, and there were more trees and bushes. In fact, just up there was an opening to a slope that was barely a slope at all, set with mature trees—and beyond it, on more steeply rising ground: What was that?

  Jill, probably missing Betsy’s sonorous breathing, looked around, turned, and came back. She looked where Betsy was staring. “Oh, the stairs? They built them to keep hikers from breaking branches and young trees getting down to the riverbank—The falls are just ahead and they’re pretty to look at from below, too.”

  Betsy remembered talk about the wooden stairs, and had expected to see them. But over there, in the middle of a wilderness, was a twisting wooden staircase twenty or more landings high, much higher than the really tall trees growing near the riverbank. Almost as amazing, there were footprints in the snow that lay on the steps.

  “People actually use those?” she said.

  “In the summer mostly,” said Jill. “If they walk the trail to see the falls, they have to come down them. They come out over there to see the foot of the falls, and then climb a steep hill beyond those trees to see the top. I guess it’s lack of oxygen or something because most summertime hikers just trundle down the stairs—forgetting that the only way home is back up again. In the winter sensible people come up the river, though you can see by the footprints some people don’t have good sense.”

  “Unbelievable,” said Betsy. “Whew!” she added, feeling her knees trembling, and taking a few steps to relieve the tension in them.

  Jill said, “Let’s take a real rest before the final push.”

  She led the way to a half-fallen tree that leaned obligingly out over the water. Betsy draped herself gratefully over it for a minute, then brushed snow off and jumped up to sit on it with a heartfelt sigh.

  “How much further?” she asked.

  “Not far at all. If you listen, you can hear the waterfall.”

  Betsy cocked an ear and began to realize that not all the noise in the neighborhood was her harsh breathing. There was also the deep rush of a good-sized waterfall.

  After too short a rest, Jill said, “Let’s go. We don’t want to start getting cold. I think we should travel along the riverbank now. The rocks along here are bigger, and the water’s still excited from going over the falls, so the ice may be thinner.”

  The skiers who had come before them had also left the river at this point or a little beyond. Jill went to the left bank, where she took off her skis and stood them upright in the snow. Betsy followed suit, and they began to move both up and forward. It wasn’t easy, the bank was steep, and her legs were still complaining about the skiing. Also, the deep snow was difficult to walk in, and what appeared to be drifts were sometimes low-growing bushes with surprising resistance in their branches. Snow leveled little hollows in the ground that ambushed their feet. Trying to keep up, Betsy brushed by spruce that sent a tumble of snow down her neck. Jill, a few yards ahead of Betsy, turned to see what the holdup was now and her feet went out from under her. She whooped in amusement as she fell. But instead of regaining her feet with her usual athletic ease, she started a half slide, half tumble backward that nearly knocked Betsy down as she came by. Betsy grabbed futilely at her, but then Jill reached and caught hold of the trunk of the snow-dumping spruce, brought herself to a halt, and stood up laughing.

  “Are you all right?” called Betsy, nevertheless alarmed.

  “You bet.” Still chuckling, Jill dusted snow and pine needles off herself, climbed back up past Betsy, and they went on.

  Soon after, Betsy felt her knees give way. She sat down in the snow. “Are we almost there?” she pleaded.

  Jill did not answer. She was up and ahead of Betsy, looking downward, motionless. Betsy staggered to her feet to climb that last distance, then she, too, stood and stared.

  The falls were even more impressive than Betsy expected, broader and thicker, set among huge boulders. The water was mostly white, and it split into two streams as it poured down the first step, divided by a thrusting thumb of rock. At the base, half the water swirled forward to cascade down again; the other half poured into an immense black rock split open on its flat top. The rock with its opening was half hidden under a thick coating of ice.

  But the water was not flowing smoothly into the opening, as she expected. Instead the hole was throwing water outward and back up into the face of the waterfall, spurting like a full bottle held under a running faucet. Then even as they looked, the spurting stopped and water poured smoothly into the rock—only to suddenly start fountaining upward again, splashing onto the trees and rocks on the nearer shore. Everything within reach of the spatter was thickly coated with ice, the tree branches hanging heavy all around.

  Betsy said, “Gosh, that’s even more amazing than what you described!”

  Jill said, “It’s not supposed to be acting lik
e this. Normally, the water just pours into that opening and vanishes. I’ve never seen it jump up and spill over like that.” Jill started moving forward again. “Maybe a big rock broke loose and went in there, partly blocking it up somehow.”

  Betsy said, “No, no, Jill! Stop!”

  “What’s wrong?” Jill asked, pausing to look around.

  “We’re not the first ones here,” Betsy said, pointing to numerous footprints near the falls, some of them ice-coated, too.

  “Well, I told you, people come back here all the time.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I don’t think it’s a rock blocking the inside of that kettle. Let’s not go any nearer and spoil the footprints. Let’s go report this right away.”

  10

  The trip back down the river was difficult. Betsy was frightened, tired, and in a hurry, an inefficient combination that slowed progress and produced lots of tumbles.

  “Go on, go ahead, tell them!” gasped Betsy at last, no longer struggling to rise.

  “No, no, we’re staying together,” said Jill, coming back to pull Betsy to her feet by one arm.

  After what seemed hours of effort, they arrived back at the lodge, unfastened their skis, and knocked the worst of the snow off themselves before hurrying in.

  James was not in the lobby. Leaning on the counter to peel off her coat, Betsy said to Jill, “Will you call Sheriff Goodman? I’m too tired to make sense. Tell him to hurry.”

  She went into the dining room to drape her coat, hat, and mittens over the back of a chair and sit on one of the couches in front of the fire. She held out numb fingers to the flames.

  He just has to believe us now, she thought. How dreadful to put her in that kettle thing! Whoever did that thought she’d vanish forever, like a dead bug washed down the drain. Instead she’s stuck inside the rock somehow, clogging it. And the water is beating down on her . . . They must come, someone has to get her out of there. He just has to believe Jill. After a while there was the sound of china on china, and she looked up to see Frank Owen standing in front of her with a steaming cup on a saucer. As he bent to present it to her, the scent was of cocoa, not coffee.

  “You looked like you could use this,” he said.

  “Oh . . .” Betsy’s words stuck in her throat. “Th—thank you,” she managed, and took it from him.

  He sat down across from her. “You look cold. Did you stay out too long?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I mean, yes, I suppose so.” She realized she was trembling, which he had taken for shivering. Though she was probably shivering, too. Here perhaps was the person who had put Sharon in that place, yet he was showing a casual compassion to the person who had found her. Or was he? Not very long ago, someone else tried to give her some arsenic-flavored nourishment. She took a tiny sip of the hot cocoa and said, “Ow, it’s too hot.”

  “Sorry!” he said, and took the drink from her. “I didn’t realize,” he apologized.

  “That’s all right. Where did you get it? There’s only coffee out, I thought.”

  “I asked the kitchen staff. You were looking very miserable, and I know how bad it can be to get really chilled. They always take good care of their guests here at Naniboujou.” He pinched the cup between thumb and forefinger, testing its temperature. “I don’t think it’s all that hot, it’s just that you’re so cold. Come on, try it again. You need something to warm your inside.”

  “No, thank you,” she said. “I—I’m not really cold.”

  “No? Then what’s the matter?”

  “I think we did too much. I’m . . . tired.”

  He sat back. “Where all did you go?”

  He was uncomfortable asking that casual question, Betsy could tell. From their first meeting she realized he was probably like Jill, a careful guardian of his real thoughts and feelings, and therefore unwilling to pry into another’s. But apparently genuine concern overrode his reticence.

  Or a need to know.

  Watching him closely, she said, “We went out to see the woodpile—I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much firewood in one place before.”

  “Yes, they buy logs all summer, cut and split it themselves to the right size. Is that all you did? Walk around the woodpile?”

  “No, then we walked along the shore, where we saw an eagle flying.”

  “Oh, that’s The Old Codger. He’s kind of a fixture around here. He doesn’t fly south but stays here year-round. His favorite perch is on top of that broken birch down near the beach.”

  “Yes, I saw him land on it yesterday. He kind of vanishes into it, it’s easy not to realize he’s there. The Old Codger—has he been around for years, then?”

  “Actually no. James says he turned up here three summers ago. Some guest took a photograph of him that he sold to a calendar company. It was labeled THE OLD CODGER. How far did you walk along the shore?”

  Betsy said, watching for a reaction, “Not far, but then we skied up the river to the Devil’s Kettle.”

  “Ah, that’s why you’re tired. Is it frozen over? A frozen waterfall is attractive, though attractiveness isn’t the attraction of the Devil’s Kettle.” He smiled under the thick mustache. “If you know what I mean.”

  Either the man had nerves of steel or he knew nothing. Betsy replied, “Yes, it’s the fact that half the water goes down to no one knows where. And no, it isn’t frozen over.”

  “Any theories as to where the water goes?” he asked, again holding out the cocoa. “Are you sure you don’t want this? I think it’s cooled down enough to drink now.”

  “All right. Thank you.” Betsy took it. “There’s a geology grad student here studying it. He thinks there’s a big, slow-moving aquifer deep underground, and that someday a fisherman will be amazed to see dye that was poured into the waterfall years ago at long last coming out into the lake.”

  “I’d like to be the person who sees that,” said Frank, tickled at the idea. “But that aquifer must be down really deep; I understand we’re sitting on top of a thousand feet of solid granite left by ancient volcanoes.”

  Betsy didn’t want to get into a discussion of the difference between mafic rock and granite. She blew on the surface of the cocoa then took a cautious sip. It was rich and sweet, not at all too hot. “Well, the alternative theory is that the water goes down to hell, and I think I’d sooner believe in a deep aquifer than that hell is only a thousand feet down from here.”

  “If it were, you’d think the winters up here would be milder,” he said, surprising Betsy into a chuckle.

  He asked, “So if it’s not because you’re cold, and you weren’t disappointed at the waterfall, what is it that’s got you sitting here looking like a funeral?”

  Betsy was at first struck speechless at this close brush with the truth, but then got angry—was he playing with her?—so she asked bluntly, “Mr. Owen, where is your wife?”

  “Ex-wife,” he corrected gently. “And I told you, I have no idea.”

  “Why did you divorce her? Because she was sick all the time?”

  “I didn’t divorce her, she divorced me. Not that I wasn’t thinking about it. She wasn’t one of those women who turn sweet in adversity.”

  “Why did she divorce you?”

  “She said she found someone who was better at meeting her needs. His name was Eric Handel—”

  “Not Eddie?” interrupted Betsy.

  “No, Eric. Why?”

  “Because when I talked to her, she said something about going to get Eddie. Or meet Eddie.” It had been “get Eddie,” hadn’t it? That sounded more like a staff member than a boyfriend.

  Frank was talking. “. . . it’s possible the man presently meeting her needs is named Eddie. Eric was a long time ago, and they only stayed married a year.”

  “Was there someone else after Eric?”

  “Oh, yes, several. You want names? Let’s see if I can remember them all. She left Eric to come back to me, but she only stayed three months because I’d quit teaching chemi
stry to work in a chemistry lab, and I couldn’t get clean enough for her. After that there was a fellow named . . . Jack, I think. Jack Mallow? Merrow? Merrill? He lived in San Francisco. The kids really liked him, they spent a summer out there with him and Sharon. I thought that one would last, but he didn’t. Then there was Max, but after that . . . my memory fails me. There was another one or maybe two after Max, but I don’t remember their names. One may have been an Eddie. But the only one she married was Eric.”

  “Is she seeing anyone now?”

  “The last I heard, someone named Tony. She’s pretty serious about him, though she’s generally serious, and that can change at anytime.” He cocked his head sideways at Betsy. “Maybe she’s moved on to this Eddie—dammit, now you’ve got me believing you saw her. No, no, there’s no Eddie.”

  “Are Sharon and Tony living together?”

  “As I understand it, she would have moved in with him, but his condo association allows pets. He hasn’t got one, of course, but other condo owners do, and just walking down a hallway where a dog has been could put Sharon in the hospital.”

  “Her allergies are that serious?”

  “Oh, I’m afraid so. Used to be, we did a lot of challenging things, but now just walking outdoors in the spring is dangerous for Sharon. She built a house specially designed for the hyper-allergic, two kinds of air filters, sealed walls and floors, everything washed only with water, baking soda, and vinegar.”

  “What about your children? Do they have allergies, too?”

  “No, thank God. Elizabeth and Douglas are both out of school, they both have jobs, and there’s never been any sign of even hay fever.”

  Was he talking this openly to convince her of his innocence? Or because he still halfway believed her and was trying to talk himself out of it?

  Betsy asked, “That house Sharon built. That must have cost you something.”

  He shrugged. “Not me, it was built with her money. She can afford to build whatever kind of house she wants. She could build one like it on every continent if she wanted to.”