by Nadia Bozak
Dave gone. A car went past, going my way. Tried to flag it down. Hated myself for being a dumb girl like Dave had said and thinking about my hurt heart instead of what mattered most, and that was Pickles and New York City. And now too it was Dave Bashed-up-Boat.
Kept on, limping with regret. The rain went away. Came back, then cleared. Gravel in boots, fucked in the heart, I kept on. And when the sky was getting less black, I saw a light flickering just ahead. It was the interior light of an automobile. Then it went off again, and I broke out running.
My mitts on the glass, Dave was in the passenger seat, just sitting.
He leaned across and unlocked the door and I got in. Tossed my pack into the back.
“You drive,” he said. “I want to sleep.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. You know where you’re going.”
Took the boots from me and hung them from the rearview mirror, and then Dave stepped out of the car, stretched, and got into the back seat.
* * *
From emptiness to outposts, hunting grounds to small towns, Dave took the wheel before we hit the freeways circling around Montreal.
“Border’s getting closer, kid,” he said. “Just you wait.”
All washed over with light and going faster than we wanted, we were trying to find a place to get off, someplace close to downtown. Missed all the exits and kept on going in the Hidatsa, the boat tied down like a dead dog. Fuck it, we said, let’s try our luck and go on further while we got this here car. Can’t speak French anyway, we said. Rather try out our American.
Out the window was water, and I asked Dave what kind and he said the Saint Larry or something, said that it goes to the ocean, out to the same place as the Hudson, and that means we’re really east now. Almost too wide to be called a river. The water was up and choppy, and I thought that it looked almost as good as the ocean, the power of its flow, churning and almost thrashing, and it was so cold, even just to look at. Was scared shitless of the water down there. Dave said he’d had enough of the water and the north and the bush, and the whole idea of ever going back up there made him want to die.
“You are one odd Indian.”
“That’s because I ain’t Indian, kid. Why do I have to keep saying it?”
“‘Dave I’m-Not-Indian,’” I said. “That’s the kind of Indian you are.”
There was silence and I thought Dave was really mad.
“What about ‘Dave the Brave’? That’s what I get mostly.”
“That’s good, but ‘Brave Dave’ is better.”
“I won’t say anything about your name, kid. Because I know you know the possibilities are endless.”
“Same goes for you, ‘Dave Bashed-up-Boat.’”
But I knew Dave really did want to get back on the water and get Pickles’s boots to New York by means of that canoe. Only so he could feel what it was like to end a trip like ours by burning the goddamn thing on the bank of the Hudson River, standing back and watching the smoke of it blow off into the north.
Got on the Trans-Canada and headed east away from the city. Crossed the Saint Larry by bridge and drove on into the night. In Beloeil we stopped by a convenience store, and Dave went in and spent the last of his money on tobacco pouches, another bottle of booze, jugs of water, a loaf of white bread, and a jar of peanut butter. We had no music. All quiet like and highway like that, and I got calm and tired out and fell asleep. When I woke up, the car was pulled over along the side of the road. Beside me Dave was wincing into the rearview mirror, fighting to see through this haze of white glare. Someone had his high beams on.
“What the fuck? Dave?”
Behind me I saw there was a car pulled over on the shoulder, exhaust spilling out like guts from a ghost.
Dave, his brow wrinkled up tight, his eyes narrowed and deadly, said, “That car’s been riding our ass for the past hour. So I pull over to let the fucker pass and he pulls over too.”
“Cops? You think?”
“No. It’s him.”
“So let’s go get back on the water.”
His dad’s headlights burning out his eyes, Dave stared into the white blaze of the rearview mirror.
It was late and there were no other cars. Dave told me to get into the back seat and gather our shit together, to pack up all clothes and tapes and food and the rest. Looked close at Dave then I did what he told me. He pulled back on the road and started going really fast. The car behind sped up too. When he switched up so we were doing only twenty kilometres an hour, the bastard behind us did the same, always keeping three or four car lengths behind. Finished packing up then and I crawled back into the front.
“OK, kid, when the moon goes back behind a cloud and it gets dark again, you just hold on and make sure you got your belt on.”
Went on a piece, maybe five or six kilometres, before the clouds moved in thick. And when the moon got blacked out, so did the night. Dave turned off the headlights, and he went tearing down the highway.
Me, I clutched the door handle and bit my tongue, doing all I could not to let loose and scream for Dave to stop this shit and just give the old man back his goddamn tooth. Grabbed Dave’s arm, tense and hard, board-straight as he held the wheel. Leaning back in his seat, he floored the gas. Then he jerked the wheel right and drove off the road, down into and up out of the ditch, pushing on into the bush, the car fighting off the strangle of branches, the switch and swish of fresh new leaves. Was rough going and my tongue got chomped. Dave stopped the car. My grip released his arm. Then I undid my belt.
“You all right?” he whispered.
Nodded I was. “That was as stupid as it was smart.”
“I think it worked,” he said back.
Got out of the car. Kept low. Through the bush we heard his dad driving on down the road, going so slow. Its headlights were blinking on and off really fast to show that we had made him angry. Untied the canoe in that strobbing light. Lifted it down. The car stopped up on the road, maybe a hundred metres from where we were. Must have seen all the damage we’d done breaking through that roadside brush. Door slammed. Boots came treading real slow through the gravel of the road’s shoulder.
In the dark and silence Dave and me went like hell to get our stuff from inside the car and into the canoe. We grabbed the boat and carried it underhand through the brush, wet with dew, ripe smelling. Could hear the water. Felt its cool. My spurs were going a-jingle-jangle, and that made Dave hiss at me and curse those useless things I insisted on wearing. He made me stop, pushed me down by the shoulder. On my knees I unbuckled the spurs and tossed them into the canoe. Went through bushes until we were at the water of the Richelieu and there was moon enough we could almost see. Also on our backs we could feel the sick yellow shadow of headlights leaking through the brush and trees behind us.
We were about to put the boat to water when it hit me right in the heart.
“Dave!” I hissed. “The boots, Dave. Pickles’s boots. They’re hanging in the car. I forgot to pack ’em up.”
“Fuck, kid,” Dave said. “He’ll be there by now.”
Me, I just turned and headed back into the bushes. Started running. Dave was on me in a second, an arm around my throat, a boot in my back, and I was tripped up, on the ground, tasting dirt, winded so I couldn’t breathe and I surely couldn’t move. Above my head Dave’s bootsteps disappeared into the dark of the bush and into the silence of the night.
My wind was gone, but not my guts. Shoved the boat back into the bushes, and I bounded up and after Dave, following him in the direction of the headlights burning up ahead. Kept low, back bent like a soldier in war, shoulders up to the ears, fingertips brushing the earth. Saw one shadow to the left, then another to the right, between them was the hulk of the Hidatsa. Its light not quite enough to see by, the car up on the road was idling, making so much exhaust the stuff was spilling in like mist.
The shadow on the right was crouched in the dark of an overhung tree. It waited and watched while the other shadow paced around the Hidatsa, inspecting the roof where the boat had been tied, bending down to look for the couple of kids that might be hiding underneath.
“D-a-a-a-vid.” His whisper was low, and it crawled through the air and then hung there. Chilly, cooling my skin, the sound went on forever.
“D-a-a-a-vid.” The man called out again.
Then a pause. A lit match, and in that bit of light I saw the sharp profile of the ball cap and also a stubbled chin. Prayed that he thought we were back on the water and long gone now. Driving without headlights and losing him had bought us a good ten minutes of getaway time until the boots got in the way.
The shadow flicked the dead match into the bushes. Sulphur of cigarette licked at my nostrils. The strength of his smoke, the stink of exhaust, and us smelling just like the bush, he couldn’t sense us near him so his guard was down. Waited for Dave to pounce. The moment was dying for an ambush. Licked my lips for it. Stepped up with my knife if Dave should run into trouble. The shadow smoked, walked around the car. Walked off into the bushes, out to the water. Was gone for a handful of slow-motion minutes, and then he came back. He hadn’t seen the boat, hidden in the brush of the bank as it was. Then Dave’s dad got in the Hidatsa. Heard the keys jiggle and then the engine started with a rumble, so low and with such guts I felt my pant legs shiver. An even fresher exhaust rose in the headlights, their glow melted away the black night and laid bare the spot where Dave had just minutes before been crouching. The interior light was on from the open door, and from where I was I could see the back of a head, the tip of an ear and a turned-up collar. Saw Pickles’s boots there too, dangling dead where we’d left them. The man rifled through the glove compartment. Finding nothing, his shoulders fell and he sat back into the seat. His head turned when he noticed the boots. He unhooked them from the mirror. Christ, if he took those boots, then he’d have a hostage. Boots for the tooth. Dave would be thinking that too, hoping like I was that he’d forget what they meant to us and so leave them alone. Hand on knife. Teeth buried in tongue. Had lost all sense of where Dave was. In a tree, up above, waiting to drop down out of nowhere, landing with a plunk on the roof of the Hidatsa. He’d haul his dad into the headlight glare and take him down at long last.
Dave’s dad inspected the boots carefully, one at a time. He pulled from the right one what was hidden inside. The postcard of Central Park was held up to the light, flipped over, back to front, and then put back. Pickles’s boots, laces tied together, were thrown over his shoulder. He turned off the car. Door slammed. The bush went dark again. Licked my lips and fastened the knife deeper into my grip, but I stayed still, amputated by how crazy Dave’s dad was, but mostly I was waiting for Dave to save the boots from him. It was his dad, his job, and I was sure for those boots he’d come through. But he stayed hidden like I was, and together we lost the boots. A minute later and I heard the crunch of tires in gravel. The car pulled back onto the road and went away, taking its light with it.
Crept back down to the river, kicked around in the bush until I found the boat, pushed it toward the water, and then I waited there for Dave. A minute more and he came slipping back through the bush, so quiet I didn’t even hear him. Saw his figure was all, the silhouette of him.
“He took them,” I said to Dave. “Didn’t he?”
“Grabbed them and drove off. I didn’t have a chance.”
“So which way did the fucker go?”
We were whispering. Standing close.
“Our way. Downriver.”
“Why didn’t you just fight him? Get it over with?”
Dave shrugged.
“He took the postcard too, you know.”
“So?”
“Christ,” I went on. “Now he knows where we’re going, Dave. Kick his ass or else give the fucker his tooth back. Then we don’t go shitting our pants all the way to Central Park.”
“Look, it’s my boat and—”
“And it’s your paddles and your bright ideas, and so it’s your black eyes I’m wearing too.”
“You got a right to be pissed.”
“Sure I do. Fucked up my plans with Slava and now with Pickles too.”
“Told you I was bad luck, kid. Never hid that shit from you.”
Dave pushed the canoe out onto the water and got in. Anchored his paddle and held steady, but I kept standing where I was. Hands clenched tight, I pounded at my temples like I wanted to beat Dave in the head. Bit my tongue, then I took a breath. Eyes to the sky, I searched the stars there, the moon too, for a way out of the mess I had made by following on behind this goddamn Dave.
“And now we lost the boots, you have no reason to go to New York. You can make like your Pelado and fuck off for LA.”
“I’ll get them back.” Dave’s voice was calm and straight.
“Just drop me off at the border like we said, and I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“Want the boots, you got to stay with me. Lose me, lose them.”
Paused. Sniffed. The river rushed. Night grew darker, tighter.
“So we’ve got each other as hostage.”
“Seems that way.”
Got back in the boat then, and we paddled fast and angry, getting south down the river. Hot with adrenaline, cold with being scared. Sweating against the curse of nighttime, we rode the water as high and quick as it would go, but without the boots to spur us on or to guide us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Warm glare of morning forced me awake.
Sat up. Not grass or tree or water, the first thing I saw was the memory that I had let Pickles’s boots get away so easily.
The sound of a tractor was coming from the distance. Across the river there stretched in every direction the soft green flat of farmland. Green all the way up to the horizon, and the sun, hot and white. Saw fields, a little house. Was all too neat and clean and fresh to bear looking at. A breeze brought in the smell of cut grass and pollen. Somewhere in the distance when the buzzing of the tractor grew quiet, I thought I heard, for my very first time, what I knew must be a cow. This was a new country now. Smooth and fresh, and though I wanted the opposite to be the truth, the further south we got, the worse Dave and me looked and smelled and felt.
Being out in the light with everything so fresh, well, it made me get pretty nervous. Looked and saw Dave sitting beside me. His beat-up face. Eyes were blinking against the morning sun. Mouth was clamped shut, and I saw his jawline twitching. He felt even worse than I did. Didn’t have to look long at him to guess that.
“You didn’t get me up,” I said. “You been awake the whole time?”
“Most of it. Nodded off for a while.”
Dave was tense, tight as a trap, set to snap and ready to spring. He pulled out a cigarette, already rolled. Hands were shaking, matching the jaw. Lit it and smoked it down fast. From the deep gravel cough he let out and the piss-yellow stains on his smoking fingers, I saw he’d been smoking while I’d slept. He shivered. Was pale and looked ill.
“I been thinking,” I said. “You should just give back the tooth.”
“What?” Dave’s look bit into mine. Bruise to bruise. Red and pus to pus and red. The cut under Dave’s right eye was bleeding. Would leave a scar, I thought.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just thinking about the boots.”
“Shut up about him and the fucking tooth, and let’s just go.”
So I got sleeping bags and tarps rolled up, and then we stashed them inside the boat and heaved it onto our shoulders and carried it down to the river. Before getting in and pushing off, Dave and me knelt down and gave our faces a good washing. Dave took off his jacket, and he washed his arms up to the elbows and I did the same, using some of Dave’s soap when he gave it to me. He looked at my fingers. Where there should have been nail
was just open pulp.
“You’re fucking crazy,” he said, angry at me. “Sick.”
Me, I shrugged, kept quiet, washed up to the elbow like Dave had done, and then I passed him back his bar of soap, now blackened, stuck here and there with bits of scab and grit.
Looking across at the opposing bank, into the yawn of the river too, I said to Dave, “Should go back there, where he was on the bank. Maybe he ditched the boots.”
“Fuck, he’s taken them. Knows better than to throw that chance away.”
Then when we got in the canoe and had paddles poised ready to push off, Dave got all anxious and he looked around the bottom of the boat.
“Where’s the tape case? You got the case out of the car last night?”
He even grabbed onto me by the forearm, squeezing me for the information, so I called him an asshole and told him to look under that there tarp and he’d find his precious tapes. He let go of me and looked where I told him and found what I knew he would.
Paddled on. Farmland turned to towns, and then towns turned to strips of white beach, banked with wooden docks and boat launches. And it was sunny, and it was spring. People were out. We saw canoes on the water and Dave in the bow kept his head lifted high, his eyes all flat and black, trying maybe to act not like a renegade, runaway, rocker Indian caught like a criminal in the bright light of a perfect spring morning. Behind him in the stern, my cheeks were red and hot and my eyes squinted at the glare of the sun, baking the tops of our heads and making our hair shine, Dave’s as glossy as horsetail, and even my wig looked alive through all the bleach and black spray paint.
We went on. Stopped for me to throw up all my whisky and water over the side of the canoe.
“Sunstroke,” I said to Dave when he asked me what the fuck. Then I just rinsed out my mouth and we got on to paddling again. Water was easy, though the current flowed north, and we felt like it was such a luxury that there were no rapids, twists, dams, fallen trees to hack apart, portages to make. This here was the last of the north-going water. Canada’s last chance to fuck up our getaway and drag us on back into all that big boreal nowhere.