by Nadia Bozak
Gripping Dave’s slick paddle in his hands, he ran his eyes from shaft to blade. “Nice work, this one is.” He laid it back down on the shore. “No, you’re the first strangers I’ve seen in some days.”
Called for Dave to come out then. Took two tries before he showed his face.
Dave and the Indian eyed each other. Greetings were quick head nods. Dave stood with his boots apart, head back, hands deep in his pants’ pockets. Damp Master of Puppets T-shirt plainly visible through unzipped jacket. Knew this stance pretty well by now, having been on its receiving end a few times before.
To fill the silence, I asked the Indian if there was a town nearby.
“Lyle,” he said. “And there’s a reserve fifteen kilometres out. I’m just across the lake—Back-Ax, it’s called.”
“Lyle?” I said.
“Yeah, Lyle,” said the Indian.
“I know it,” said Dave. “Called Lysol too.”
“Problems there are bad is how come. Got those goddamn O’Rights bringing up truckloads of drink.”
Dave nodded at that, and I just looked at my boots.
He paused. “Ought to be arrested for the damage they do. Bastards should go back to wherever it is they come from.”
“Back to Black Dew Seat. Isn’t that right, kid?” Dave said to me. The grin on him was mean of spirit.
“That’s what they say,” I said back.
The Indian sniffed. Looked around. He said to Dave, “Where are you from? You sure don’t talk like an Indian.”
“’Cause I’m not one,” Dave said, leaning back on his heels.
“You look Cree to me. Around here, though, are Ojibway.”
Dave said, “I’m Pelado, my friend, from goddamn Mexico.”
He looked at me, then back at Dave. He didn’t know what to say, Dave being such a jerk. “Just a joke we got,” I said. “You know the movie Wig of Blood? Well, Dave here looks like the Mexican in it. That’s all.”
“A joke,” Dave said. “Just like our piece of shit boat.” Then he turned real quick and disappeared into the bush.
“Sorry,” I said to the Indian when Dave was gone. “Just we’re hungry and tired. And our shit is wet and we got far to go.”
He shook his head, brow scrunched up at what Dave had said. “I brought you folks some food.” He knelt on the shore and fished around in the canoe, pulling out a plastic grocery bag. Taking it from him, I glanced inside and saw dried fruit and jerky, a tin of salt beef.
Put out my mitt and we shook.
“Be careful,” the Indian told me. His voice low, he leaned over close so he gripped me by the eyes. “That guy’s bad luck. I’d be wondering what he wants with you.”
“He’s all right. We just thought you were someone else when you came paddling in. Fucked us up a bit.”
Asked him for matches and he gave up what he had. Half a box of Eddies. Then he got back in his canoe.
“Watch for bear,” he said pulling away. “Saw two already this morning. They’re hungrier than you right about now.”
“Sure,” I said.
“And you especially, being a girl. You know what they say.”
Held up my hand as the Indian paddled away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Muskellunge (muskie), found in the Gananoque and the 1,000 Islands, Canada.
HEAD ON. EYES UP. HEART SWITCHED OFF, FOR NOW AT LEAST. JUST UNTIL WE CROSS THE BORDER AND ARE OFFICIALLY SOUTH. RIDING THE 401 straight into Kingston, and then there are cross-backs over the border and into the States, toward Syracuse, New York. The kid’s still sick, frail, sleeps a lot. Has yet to cry, so it’s quiet in the truck.
Should have left it back there, the stranger thinks. Back in the trailer, back at the reserve. Got no business with a sick little kid.
Stops at a gas station. Starts for the ladies’ room and then goes into the men’s instead. Tries to change the diaper that is alive with stink. How could it have dirtied itself so bad? It’s had so little to eat. Kid is laid out on the restroom floor, a piece of paper towel beneath it for protection. Fluorescent light falls through thin white skin, showing off the shivering blue veins, just barely beneath. The diaper is unfastened and tossed into the toilet. The kid is wiped up with wetted toilet paper, and a new diaper is taped in place. On the way back to the truck, the stranger looks around for a woman, a girl, a wise old man, someone to ask about what baby shit should look and smell like. But apart from a bored boy occupying the attendant’s booth, there is no one.
After putting a postcard in the mail, the truck continues down the road.
Drinking Cokes to stay awake, and smoking most of the time. A window is kept partly open on account of the baby. There’s something missing from the ride, the drive, the feel of the reel of the road. Rooting through the king-sized cavern of a glove compartment, the stranger finds a cassette tape labelled with handwriting the stranger recognizes as belonging to the baby’s dad.
“Strange to think your old dad might be dead, but believe me, this country is better off if he is.”
The stranger rewinds the tape back to the beginning. “Listen up, kid,” the stranger says. “This song’ll surely cure you. ‘Silver Rocket,’ it’s called.”
They go on all the way down the 401, following the signs that take them to the border crossing. When they get close, the stranger pulls off the road and empties the depths of the glove compartment of maps and markers, wrenches and rags and windshield de-icers, condom wrappers, rolls of duct tape and a pair of sweat socks rolled into a ball, a copy of Hustler, the trucker’s registration, books of road rules and regulations. And then there are the cassette tapes, with labels and without, a few store-bought, but most homemade, each bearing a burn, a bite mark, or some drip of stickiness, plus a role of duct tape. Teeth tear off strips of tape with which the stranger binds the kid’s hands and feet. Another strip is pressed over its mouth before its body is gently placed into the compartment. The space is oversized, the kid undersized. It’s a fit.
Nervous, mostly on account of the gun that’s hidden under the seat. But also there’s the stolen baby, the borrowed id, a history of crimes committed, north of the border and south of it too. And then there’s the supply truck, stolen as well, and strangely empty, the reason for crossing yet to be invented. So the stranger smokes. Thinks. Moves the truck forward. Uses spit to wipe away any trace of blood or dirt from hands or face.
“You keep quiet.”
The truck moves ahead. Back of the line, then middle, front, next. The guard in the booth asks to see the stranger’s driver’s licence.
“This was issued in Washington state.”
“That’s where I’m from.”
“Where you heading?”
“Columbus,” the stranger says. Voice held deep and calm, determined. “Going to pick up my things and drive back through to Minnesota where I just got a job.”
Voice is kept low, made gruff, edged with cigarette smoke.
“Ontario plates?”
“That’s right. Bought there. Still have a month to change them over.”
The guard looks hard at the licence before giving it back. He waves the truck on through into New York state.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Easy we went the rest of Back-Ax. Broke through that Indian territory and the next day we took a trail and a spring stream and a long portage and then we came to a blue-eyed lake. Fertile hunting ground, Dave told me. “Besides moose and deer, there’s wolves here, and bear.”
“I got bear spray,” I told him.
“That shit don’t work, though.”
“How do you know? You ever use it?”
“No. Close enough to spray a bear means you’re already in for it. Besides,” Dave said, “it’s the hunters I’m more worried about.”
Went on and on and then when we could go on no more, we pulled over and fell onto
our knotted, clotted boned-up knees. Back in the bush, just in the treeline, the earth was soft and smelled like fungus. There were only a few kilometres left before we’d get dumped into the great yawn of Ox Head, legendary in the north for its butting headwinds and shit-smelling breath. We’d make that lake tomorrow if we could make it through the night.
Hunting land now. Not Indians, but White guys, the kind with bristled beards, yellow teeth, and eyes as red as their thick leather necks. Though the season was early, they came out to shoot the spring bears, illegally, catching them when they’re both weak and vicious. Dave said about the worst breed of man on earth is the northern Ontario hunter. Not just his dad, he knew all kinds of them back where he was from, kids and boys and men. Taste of game and wild meat made him throw up, he said, on account of his dad forcing him to hunt. He’d had to shoot a twelve-point buck once, then gutted, cleaned, and ate it, his old man supervising the whole time.
“Raw?” I asked.
Dave shook his head.
“Its heart then? Its wild spiritual heart?”
“No. Just had to cut it out.”
“That’s pretty heavy-metal of you, Dave. If you think about it.”
* * *
On the river’s edge Dave and me rolled over onto our backs and went to sleep, just fell away from the world. Out of gas. Mouths stank of dried-out dirt. Eyes were warm and wet with the yellow muck of infection. So hard to go on, hungry and thirsty, and always so calloused and cold. Even sweating we were cold, teeth jarred with clacking, fingers burned white and blue. Our bones were frozen, our hearts all tangled.
Woke up and saw Dave Bashed-up-Boat sleeping there beside me. The sun was setting, the sky was orange. Body raw, stomach too. So hungry that it felt sore inside. Thighs ached and were stiff from kneeling and paddling hard for days on end. There was also this flavour in the mouth, a real unfriendly one, and it made me have to spit. Had to piss too, so I left Dave lying there, his arm flung over his eyes and his black hair splaying out around his head like he was swimming under water.
The forest was already hung with shadows, the still air was decaying like old, wet shit. Walked some minutes, then stopped, unzipped my fly, and pulled down my jeans. Saw black bruises on white thighs, inner and outer, front and back. All the way down, saw scratches and rashes and bug bites, and I thought how ugly I was and how unlike a girl. Then I saw that besides the dirt of the bush, the sweat of the ride, there was blood all over my underwear. Now I’d have to tell Dave I was bear bait. Grabbed up a handful of leaves and just started wiping away at the blood between the legs, thinking here I am with legs looking worse than any boy’s and I start the rag. Fuck. Especially because I didn’t get a period all the time, not regular like other girls, and especially not out there with the body in shock from all the canoeing and fasting and not sleeping either. It was from being around a boy. And not just any boy, but Dave. A rocker and so often an asshole, and I’d left my poor old heart out for him to lick and it felt darker and deeper than anything Slava O’Right had done to me. Didn’t know what was worse—getting soft on a runaway rocker Indian or having a starving spring bear sniff me down and devour me for my skinny meat. Frantic now, and those dirty leaves were getting in all the sticky blood and I was making a mess of myself when I was supposed to be getting clean.
Then Dave himself came through the bushes. Saw his shadow. The mess I was, all dirt and blood, raw ripeness, naked legs. Dave stopped there, looking at me, whiteness against the dark forest. Was sickening there like that. He’d hardly seen me with my jacket off, then he saw my bare ass and dirty red cunt all out in the open air.
Pulled up my underwear. “Dave, I’m fucking bear bait.”
Dave spat. Coughed. Flicked his hair to the side. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, shit, that sucks for us both.” And then he said, “You should wash your legs off or something. I gotta piss.”
When Dave left, I used my own piss to wet my hands and to wipe the thighs, and then I pulled up my jeans and went back to the water.
Dave had a fire going on the shore. When he saw me, he stood up from where he’d been stoking the flames. Came toward me, handing me the end of the rope that normally was tied to the bow deck, keeping the other end for himself.
“Go on,” said Dave. He nodded at the river. “I got a hold on you. Go and wash.”
Dave turned and crouched down by the fire. Behind him, I kicked off my boots, took off my leather jacket, jeans, socks, sweaters, the homemade rock tee. The bra I had on was stained yellow like nicotine, underwear filthy with blood and black stuff from the dirty leaves. Dave looked back at me. Maybe he was the first to see me like that. Nothing but plain old Bozak and a bit of dusky moonlight. And I held his eye and Dave, he held mine, and then I turned my back to him and got my body in the water. Said how I was freezing my balls off.
“You need soap?” Dave called out to me. “You got soap?”
And when I said no, that I had no soap, Dave said that I was real goddamn dirty for a girl. “Dirtiest girl I know.”
Shivered there in the air that was getting colder the further night came on. Dave gave me his bar of soap and told me not to get it all bloody. Looking up at him, into his black old eyes, I really wished that Dave Bashed-up-Boat was as open to me as I was to him. Then I looked away and Dave held tight on the rope while I went down and swam into the river and washed pretty well my whole self except for all my ragged black and white hair. It only took a minute because that was all I could stand. Then I crouched on the shore, dressed only in my boots, sleeping bag over the shoulders, and I washed out underwear and socks and brought them back to the fire. Hung them to dry on the trivet next to where the pot of coffee was hung. Dave said for me not to get my filthy old things too close to that coffee. So I got mostly dressed, waiting for my washing to dry.
“Got nothing for a rag,” I told him.
“You really suck. You know that?” Dave said. He went into his bag and got out a pair of socks rolled into a ball and then he tossed them over.
Had weak coffee and a smoke and the rest of the dried fruit, half the granola bar Dave had stashed away. Then when my underwear was dry, I took Dave’s socks and stepped back into the shadows and I fixed one in place so it would catch the blood. Sniffed it first, just to make sure it smelled like boy, like woods, like Dave’s dirty rocker shirts. Down my pants and between my legs, the goddamn gym sock was a snug old fit.
“You really don’t care about me being bear bait?”
Dave said he didn’t. “I just won’t get between you and whatever it is wants to eat out your belly.”
“Nice of you,” I said. Held my fingers up to the fire. Warmed them, dried whatever scabs were left over from the big old scrubbing I just gave them.
Dave looked at the fingers on me. “You’re sick like that, cutting yourself.”
“You set fire to trees and I do this. We’re both of us just vandals.”
“Your pal Pickles was messed up, huh? When you found him, I mean.”
Dave, he was always asking about Pickles. The kind of guy he was and what kind of places he went, and I had to say I didn’t rightly know, his life being a mystery to me, though he was also closer to me than my own lousy goddamn uncle. Said to Dave about how back there in Black Dew Seat I’d found one of those boots on the road, and I picked it up and followed the trail of blood down into the ditch.
“Was morning and misty. There was no sound, not one. Just what came from my boots and my breath. And there was red blood. It looked so bright in the frost, and soon I found the other one of Pickles’s boots and his hunting knife too. Also the goddamn postcard of New York’s Central Park.”
From the boot where I kept it, I took out the postcard and showed it to Dave. “Central Park in Spring, 1969.” He didn’t take it from me, didn’t touch it. Just looked at what was pictured there.
“A lot of blood?”
Nodded there was. “More than you’d think. The truck hit him pretty good.”
“And then?”
“Then I got hold of that body with the split head and the arms all twisted and the one leg folded up and broken—spider legs, they were like—and I rolled Pickles into the bush. And for digging, I used only his knife and my own fingers. And so in the best grave I could dig, with the ground still thawing, I buried him.”
“Killed right away, you think?”
“No. He dragged himself off the road, into the ditch. But we’d thought he was a deer. Really, that’s how it was.”
“We?”
“Me and Slava.”
“You and Slava? But he was driving.”
“And I was riding and Slava O’Right, he’s long gone and doesn’t know shit about this.”
“Some boyfriend.”
“Not a boyfriend,” I said. “Was my only friend. And is my worst enemy now.”
“But you covered up for him. You could have just called the cops, said to them O’Right had killed Pickles driving his truck all drunk.”
“Sure,” I said. And I looked at him. “But I didn’t because I was in the truck with him too. Was scared they wouldn’t believe me. The O’Rights don’t go to jail for shit like that, see, like hitting an Indian on a dark, wet back road.”
Dave looked away then. “It’s way worse than I thought,” he said after a while. “You being out here, I mean. Christ, you make me feel almost lucky, kid.”
“Yeah, well. That’s just on account of where I just shoved your extra socks.”
Dave smiled, showing me his crooked, overbitten teeth. “Still, I think there’s more. Something else is growing under those fingernails.”
“You know they drill a hole in your nail when you slam it in a door or something?”
“Sure,” said Dave. “To let all the pressure out, so the nail won’t burst.”
“Sounds dumb, but I could use a drill for my fucking head. All that’s going on in there.”
“Me too,” Dave said.