Orphan Love

by Nadia Bozak

  “It’s not me alone paddling this fucked-up piece of shit,” I finally got the guts to say back. And after I said it, Dave turned around, and then we pried and pivoted and turned southeast again.

  Paddled with the sun behind our backs, paddled against the wind ripping out from the west, and had to stay low and pry long to keep old 37 on a southern course. Went on like that until the sun began to blush, turning the lake to a bloodbath and the shores were smoked to black. Me and Dave pulled up along the eastern shore. A small red fox darted out of the bush, dashed down the rock straight toward us, bearing down on us, a messenger sent to warn us away, and then it veered off, disappeared back into the woods again. The thighs on me were all jelly from the strain of kneeling in the stern, and my arms were ripped from sweeping the paddle. The right side of my face, the side that was already scraped up from the day before, was chapped and raw. Tasted the tangy flavour of blood from a split bottom lip, and it reminded me about how long it had been since I’d eaten. Greedily did I savour that hot salt, just like Bellyache had taught me. Gather strength from humiliation and despair, fortify cells with pure white hate.

  The sun’s reflection turned the water into something like a red-painted blanket. We carried the canoe stretcher-style, into the bushes. Going back for the gear, I stopped and looked out across the lake as the last of the sun went down. Dave headed off into the bushes to gather firewood, walking into the glow, his flashlight cast along the stone shore.

  We ate by the fire and then smoked, drinking weak coffee, both of us hunched up for warmth. A blunt cold had set in. And it was damp, and the pitch of dark was nothing less than suffocating. Quiet and still. That I was alive, that this was still the world, it was getting harder for me to believe. Sat on our tarps with sleeping bags around the shoulders, sniffling snot, spitting into the fire, and listening to a wolf cry, maybe lost somewhere, calling out from the darkest deep in the forest. Spine was sore from the paddling, and the shivers running up and down were almost soothing. A light snow came on and the world hushed up even worse.

  “Better than more goddamn rain,” I said, pulling my tarp over my head so I wore it like a cloak. Dave did the same. And we both started and choked when there came from the bush behind us the snap of twigs and a furious rush and swish as an animal went charging through the night. Looked at each other across the fire.

  “Saw its eyes,” Dave said. “Did you?”

  Shook my head. “A wolf, you think?”

  Dave shrugged. His face against the backdrop of night was like a hung skull, the inset eyes, scared and shifting, were sharp black diamonds. Around Black Dew Seat there were lots of Indians, but as far as I could tell, Dave Bashed-up-Boat was not like any I’d ever seen. Apart from Pickles, I never had an Indian for a friend. There were some in town, but most lived in hidden outposts, and the really stubborn or crazy lived alone in the bush, trapping, hunting, fishing, and with no one to know if they were alive or dead, even if they had yet been born. More and more they were coming into Black Dew Seat where the winters were more forgiving, and also there was Kate’s tavern.

  Went off into the dark for a piss, and when I got back I could hear Dave’s Walkman from a good ten paces away, letting his guard down to lick up and suck down the riffs of his heavy goddamn metal. The suitcase was partly open at his boots, glimpsed the tapes inside. Asked what he was listening to and Dave told me Ride the Lightning.

  “Yeah, I know that record. It’s pretty decent.”

  Dave unplugged his ears and shoved the Walkman inside his jacket. “That album, it’s my life. Tells the story of myself better than I ever could.”

  Dave was smoking but I could still make out that he’d had some pot while I was gone. Not that I cared much, that stuff being for longhairs anyway. There was always lots of it in Black Dew Seat, but more than that there was hash. That’s what I took to, that BDS hashish, coming in big old chunks wrapped up in silver foil and smoked in all kinds of ways—beer-bottle pipes and Coke-can bongs, hot knives on the stove, like Slava O’Right had taught me. To kids in town I’d sell the stuff Slava gave me for cheap. The profits kept me in smokes and drinks, the food that Bellyache would never buy on account of his rotten gut. Without that hash to sell, I’d likely have been a goddamn scurvy case.

  Dave glanced over. “You hear anything?”

  “No. Seems we’re alone out here tonight.”

  Dave nodded. “Maybe we are,” he said.

  Couldn’t decide if Dave was crazy paranoid or just trying to scare me, the way he was always saying stuff like that, sniffing around and watching the horizon and climbing the tops of high trees to scout around behind us. Watching out from where we’d come, getting me to size up where we were heading.

  Boiled up cubes of beef broth. Watched him as he drank it down. Dave Bashed-up-Boat had little for supplies. Less than me even. No pot or fork even. Just the canoe and the stuff he needed to mend it, a compass, and a pair of paddles. Tarp, rope, and sleeping bag. His axe. Razor and soap, comb in his pocket. What was in his pack was nothing more than metal tees and socks, meat, either smoked or dried, instant coffee, alcohol, and pouched tobacco. There was also the Walkman, and of course the souped-up cassette carrier in the disguise of a suitcase. Of everything Dave had, the only things not ripped up, fucked up, or abused were the pair of paddles, slick and new looking with nicely grooved handles, shafts oiled dark, their blades narrow and sharp.

  “So you’re going to New York City,” Dave said finally.

  “Yeah,” I said. “And what’s for you at Muskrat River?”

  “Nothing except where I get rid of you. Was thinking I’d go to LA.”

  “In this shitty boat?”

  “I’ll ditch it when I get out of this bush.”

  “You’re going out of your way, you know. You want to check my map?”

  Dave’s eyes spat some bit of impatience at me. “I already know this route, down east, see. It’s better than going around goddamn Superior.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Heard that.”

  “Soon as I hit civilization, I’m going to hitchhike, find my way west.” Dave sat up straight. Serious suddenly, “You ever see any of the Wig of Blood movies?”

  Shook my head.

  “Well, the first one is my favourite, right. And the main hero, Pelado, I look a lot like him, see. People always say so.”

  “An Indian?”

  “Mexican,” Dave said. “He hitches out to LA, except he crosses the border from the other side. And when I get there, I’m going to go in for acting.” Now he was livelier, lighter than I’d ever seen him. “Figure I can pass as Mexican and get roles playing the bad guy or the scalped guy, like Pelado. Plus, the last Pelado quit, see, so they’re looking for a replacement for the next instalment, Wig of Blood IV.”

  “So you won’t be Indian no more, but a Mexican? Maybe that’s even worse. In LA, I mean.”

  “Can’t be any fucking worse than an Indian in my shitty town.”

  “Sure, I know.”

  “No, you don’t know.” Dave spat into the fire.

  “Well, if it sucks to be Mexican, I guess you can just go back to being Indian.”

  “Yeah,” Dave said. “I have options anyway.”

  The life was gone from him now. He hunched up again, pulled eyelids low, blinding me to him, him to me.

  The moon was above us, and almost full of face. Snow was lighter now. Inky sky hung low with a spill of Milky Way. Pointed out Jupiter and Venus, and when Dave looked up, there was a shooting star, then another. Jets through the universe.

  Breaths came out like ghosts.

  “You think you’ll get followed all the way there?”

  Went through my pack and pulled out a big bottle of brown booze that I’d stolen off Bellyache. Drank from it and passed it across the fire to Dave Bashed-up-Boat, who looked up from the cigarette he was rolling.


  “Don’t know what you’re talking about. Like you said, out here’s the loneliest land on earth.”

  “But you said we weren’t alone.”

  Dave licked his cigarette shut before reaching across the fire. “No, I didn’t say that.” He swigged, then passed his sleeve over his lips and stood up and returned the bottle. Saw the big old boots that I’d pulled out when I’d gone for the bottle in my pack. Dave asked what they were and I said they were nothing, just boots.

  “Just boots,” said Dave. “Just breaking your back carrying around a pair of huge old man boots that I can smell all the way over here.”

  “Something like that. You got that goddamn suitcase full of tapes and I got these.”

  Dave shrugged. He had a stick on fire and was using it to light his smoke. Sat in silence, listening to the lake lapping, watching the flames. With his fingers Dave was setting sticks of kindling alight and then throwing them in the fire when they got out of control.

  After a while he said to me, “Where is it you come from?”

  “Black goddamn Dew Seat.”

  He eyed me, impressed by that. “O’Right territory. Tough up there.”

  Drank some more. Rolled a cigarette and lit it with a dry twig. From it I took these deep, heartfelt drags that I then exhaled in the direction of the moon.

  When he asked me for a look at the map, I handed it over. He turned on his flashlight.

  “Northeast of Timmins,” I said, thinking he was looking for the place I had come from.

  Skimmed the surface with his eyes, glanced at the legend, the big black X near Ottawa. Then he folded it up and gave it back.

  “Map’s nearly useless,” Dave said.

  “Well, you take what you can get sometimes.”

  “No. No, you don’t gotta do that. What’s that X there for?” Dave asked. “Some buried treasure?”

  “Somebody I intend to look up. One of the O’Rights.”

  “You’re mixed up with that bunch?”

  “Just got some bit of business to settle with Slava, that’s all. Thought about stopping in on him, since he’s on the way.”

  Dave looked over. “Those guys are trouble, kid. I advise you to forget whatever business you got and just keep on your merry way.”

  “Sure, by the time I finally break this bush, he might be packed up and gone anyway.”

  “Hard going on foot,” Dave said. “I tried it once before.”

  “You really think I’ll get a ride around Muskrat?” I asked him.

  “Sure, because you’re a girl. Tomorrow at Muskrat, the land’ll change, you’ll see. All kinds of hunters around—they’re shooting birds now. Good fishing there too.”

  “So we’ll split up there.”

  “Looks so. I got to go solo. I mean, look at the boat I got.”

  “‘You’ll go your way and I’ll go mine,’” I said, reciting some words to a song Pickles once spoke, snoring away on my bedroom floor.

  Dave got up and went back into the bushes where the canoe was. Came out again to cache the bags up in a tree. Grabbed the case that always went under the boat with him.

  “If you hear anything—” Dave started to say. “Well, I guess you got that knife and all. And you know where I am.”

  “Sure, I got a knife, and I’ll keep watch for you, so you can sleep nights. Plus the two of us’ll make that boat go so much faster.”

  Dave shook his head. “Better on my own.” Then he went away again. His flashlight came on for a minute, then went out, and I was alone.

  Mitts off, I got out the knife and I set to work on the fingernails. Just the light of the moon, the flick of the stars, the glow of the campfire that was almost smokeless for the night was a clear one, now that the snow was almost gone. After a while, paring down the dirty fingernails and them still as dirty as they’d always be, I gave up and laid out my tarp on the cold earth, got into my sleeping bag, and curled up by the fire. Mitted fists gripping hunting knife. Stared straight. Trying not to blink, eyes soon enough got dry, and they closed and I fell into some kind of sleep.

  Awake or still sleeping, boots were scraping around by the fire pit. Boots not Dave’s. These were small, like a woman’s and with shiny round toes, not scuffed-up and mud-spattered. A figure then crouched down, its back to me, and loaded more wood on the embers, their glow showing off a profile when it turned to reach for another log. A man, squat, muscled, a ball cap on his head. In a few minutes the fire was going again, and I could feel its warmth on my face. He stood up and I shut my eyes real quick, afraid he’d see them shining in the dark. And though I didn’t hear him go away again, I opened my eyes and he was gone.

  In the morning it was Dave Bashed-up-Boat who was kicking around in the fire pit.

  “You up late?” he asked me. “Kept the fire up?”

  “No,” I said. Sat up. Struggling out of the sleeping bag. “Someone else was here. I saw him.”

  “That so?” Dave, his face fell. Eyes got tight. Shoulders stiffened.

  “He was going over to your canoe, but I stopped him.”

  “How stopped him?”

  “With my knife. Gave him a little poke. See?” Held out the blade for Dave to see, all stained in blood from my nails. “He would have ambushed you.”

  Thought he’d see right through that dumb goddamn fib. But when I saw Dave swallow and shoot a glance at the knife, I knew I had him. “Poked him and then what?”

  “That was enough. He just ran off.”

  “And you didn’t wake me up?”

  “Thought I’d let you sleep. Stayed up till I was sure the guy was good and fucked off.”

  “Good,” Dave said.

  “Must have been some fucked-up trapper. Me, I’m used to those types. Plus I got sharp ears, sleep light.”

  “I get the point, kid. Now let’s just fucking go.”

  Dave was spooked. He threw the end of his cigarette into the fire, then went back into the bushes where he’d slept. Hauled out the canoe, the paddles, pack, and cassette case. Dave heaved his pack onto his back, took up his tape case, and went on down to the water’s edge.

  Without breakfast we got back on the water. By noon we’d crossed over to the south side of the lake, and on its smooth granite shore we packed up for the next shitty portage.

  “What would you call this one?” I asked Dave. He was having a smoke and a bite of jerky, staring out at the dark grey water we’d just broken through.

  A shallow sludgy lake, Dave said, ought to be called Brackish. “Like in a song I heard.” The black of his eyes shining as he said it. Said OK to that, but only after Dave told me what that word even meant.

  “Because the water here is so thick.”

  “And hostile too.”

  “As good as salt water.”

  “The guy last night, what’d he look like?” Dave asked. “A White guy?”

  “Sure, I think so.” Told him about the small feet and the squat body, the ball cap. Dave’s tight jaw told me that what I said had matched whoever was hunting him down.

  “Was good of him to stoke the fire, though,” I said.

  Loaded up, we headed back into the bush and after maybe two kilometres, we heard water rushing. We’d reached the Muskrat. Was wide and the current ran fast. Trees were shorter now, and thick, not the spiny boreal kind I knew.

  “So this is the Muskrat River,” I said.

  Dave nodded. “Welcome to it.”

  While Dave overhauled the boat, I sat by the water, organized my duffel, had a smoke. How long before I got picked up? Likely I’d just rely on my boots and hoof it. Better that than to share the company of some goddamn hunter. Then Dave called me over and told me we’d better shove off.

  “But this here’s where I get out,” I said.

  Dave wouldn’t look at me. Instead he said, “You watch
my back and I’ll watch yours.”

  “OK. But I want to stay east, I’m not going west like you.”

  “That’s later. Let’s get down this river first.”

  Tossed my pack in the rickety sick old boat, then we set it to water, Dave holding it against the current while I got in.

  After Dave found his place in the bow we set off, going south against the muscle and whirl of the north-flowing water.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Casting off.

  Maw Maw River Park near Antlers, Ontario.

  WISH YOU WERE HERE IN GODDAMN “MAW MAW.”” That’s what the sign says. Same thing upside down as downside up. The supply truck comes barrelling down the road that cuts through the reservation’s village. Kids and dogs come racing after it, jumping up on the running boards, throwing stones, yelling. The stranger slows and drives around, looking for someplace where they might do business, and then finally pulls up at the general store, turns off the engine, grabs the kid, and goes in.

  Indians are gathered inside, being a café in there as well as a store. A boy smokes by a pinball machine in the corner, and because he’s wearing a chapped-up Iron Maiden metal tee, he is the one to talk to. Waits for the kid to finish his game.

  “The truck outside is the one you’re likely expecting.”

  The kid looks out the window, and nods. “Two weeks late almost.”

  “And the baby I got here is sick,” the stranger says. “See what you can do for it.”

  The metal kid speaks to a café waitress, and then some women come over to see what’s inside the stranger’s bundle. They look up, shake their heads, then carry the child away.

  Baby gone, the metal kid and some older men talk for a few minutes, take care of business. The truck’s cargo, cases of liquor and medicine, are exchanged for a roll of U.S. cash. There are no questions about the truck’s usual driver or anything else.

  In the café the stranger sits down at the counter. The metal kid comes over and orders them both Cokes. Takes a cigarette when the kid offers one. They sit and smoke, and to break up the silence, the stranger asks, “You know of this fella by the name of Pickles? Heard he passed through this way from time to time. Went between here and Black Dew Seat mostly.”