The Skeleton Tree

by Iain Lawrence

  But Frank shakes his head. “I didn’t even know for three days. Then I heard his name on the TV news. ‘No charges laid,’ or something. I had to wake up my mom to tell her. She was so drunk she didn’t understand.”

  He kicks at a stick that’s poking out from the fire. Embers explode, showering sparks. “Then Jack shows up—just one day before the funeral—and he’s all, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get there.’ So he sends a taxi. But we get there late and everyone’s gone, except the guys who fill the graves. ‘Oh, I guess I mixed up the times,’ he says. Yeah, right. He just didn’t want people meeting each other, a big scene at the cemetery. Good old Jack.”

  I don’t say anything about our cars passing. I should have guessed Uncle Jack was behind it all, arranging people’s lives in a way that was meant to be helpful. As always, he tried his best to please everybody, but only made a mess of things.

  Across the sky in front of us, a redness glows and deepens. Frank sighs. “You still think we’re going to be saved?”

  “I know it,” I tell him.

  “But—”

  “Today’s the day!” I shout it at Frank, not wanting to hear his doubts. “This is the day we’ll be saved.”

  We sit quietly, staring at the sky and the sea, as though watching an enormous television. The sun touches the horizon and begins to spread across the water. There are only a few minutes left for a helicopter to arrive. They don’t fly after dark. When the colors of the sunset fade to purple and black, and there is still no throbbing of rotors in the sky, I decide it must be a ship that is coming to save us. There are still three hours to go until midnight, still lots of time for a ship to appear.

  I put more wood on the fire.

  At ten o’clock I know that Frank has stopped believing. I can see it in his posture; I can feel it in the air. I get up and dance around the wooden saint.

  I start chanting, louder and louder. “This is the day. Today is the day. This is the day we’ll be saved.”

  “Come on!” I tell Frank. I try to pull him from the chair, but he won’t move. I whirl away from him and reel across the rocks, twirling past the fire. The flames bend toward me, reaching out as though to stroke my legs.

  “This is the day. Today is the day. This is the day we’ll be saved.”

  The minutes go by. The hands of my watch swing toward eleven. In a little more than an hour the day will be finished. It’s our last chance.

  “Frank, please,” I tell him.

  With fifty-five minutes to go, he gets up. He joins in the chant; he circles the saint, keeping pace to stay on the opposite side of my circle.

  Like a pair of moons going around a planet, we sing and dance, my brother and I.

  “This is the day we’ll be saved.”

  Wave after wave bursts on the rocks below us. The hands on my watch keep moving. The second hand ticks from number to number, and the minute hand crawls toward twelve.

  To everything around us, midnight means nothing. The waves will keep rolling toward shore; the stars will keep shining. There will be nothing to mark the hour except one more tick of the watch. For all I know, it’s five minutes fast or five minutes slow.

  But according to the watch it’s midnight…now!

  I look out over the sea, certain I’ll see a ship appear, or a searchlight turning, or an airplane’s dazzling beam suddenly switching on.

  But nobody comes to save us. Today is not, after all, the day we’ll be rescued. Our dreams were only dreams.

  We let another hour pass, sitting together beside the fire. Nearly a full day has gone by since I woke Frank by shaking his shoulder and shouting his name. In some ways, it’s been the worst day of all, and I see now that we’re in terrible trouble. Winter has nearly arrived. Frank wanted enough fish to last until spring, but we don’t even have one for breakfast. We have no matches. If our banked fire dies one night, so will we.

  I feel like crying as I get up to go back to the cabin. Frank seems angry, but that’s his way. He slams his shoulder against the saint as he passes by. It topples slowly, then crashes onto the rocks and goes tumbling down into the sea. Then Frank turns back and kicks the fire into huge flurries of sparks, scattering the last pieces of wood. Some fly like meteors through the darkness and plunge hissing into the black water. For a moment I think that this will be our saving, that a passing ship will see the sudden flash of fire. I watch for the sizzling trail of a signal flare. But the sparks just fade away, and everything is black and empty.

  We don’t have a torch to light our way. But as we pass under the skeleton tree our eyes adjust to the dark, and we see the northern lights. They’re blue and shimmery, spreading like a thin veil over nearly half the sky. They soar above us as we make our way to the cabin. At the door, I ask Frank, “You want the bed?”

  “No, go ahead.” He sort of laughs. “I doubt I’ll sleep much anyway.”

  He banks up the fire in the circle of stones to keep it safe through the night. Then I settle down on the foam mattress with my poncho for a blanket. We hear the eerie sound of wolves in the forest. They’re closer than ever.

  Frightened and sad and lonely, I fall asleep thinking of my father.

  But it’s Uncle Jack I dream about. I see him again at Puff’s big steering wheel, and he still can’t hear me. For once I wake early, to a terrible crash as the boat plows into that thing in the water. Frank screams.

  Something clamps around my ankle and drags me from the bed. I grab on to the table, but it falls over with a clatter, as everything on its top tumbles to the floor.

  “The bear!” shrieks Frank.

  Its teeth are digging into my ankle. It grunts in the darkness as it drags me across the cabin. I pull the table with me, through the circle of stones, through the pile of ashes. Embers come alive, glowing red in the darkness. Then flames appear, leaping pale and yellow like little spirits.

  Their light glows on the face of the grizzly bear, gleaming in its eyes. Its great hump quivers as it pulls me through the door.

  I grab the chair; I grab the bed. But I can’t hold on; I can’t save myself. “Help!” I shout.

  There’s Frank. I see him now. He’s pressed into the corner, drawn up so tightly that he looks like a child. I cry to him, “Help me, Frank!” But he seems paralyzed.

  Then I’m out of the cabin, sliding down the dark tunnel of salal. The bear is hauling me into the forest.

  It moves faster. The bright flickering of the northern lights falls through the trees, as though blue fire burns in the forest. Wolves begin howling, and their voices rise to a barking clamor.

  The bear drags me around the turn in the trail. I snatch at branches, at bushes, and they all tear away in my hands. I roll over, and back again, every move sending pain shooting up my leg. I’m afraid the bear will snap my foot off.

  A black shadow flashes across the shifting shapes. Others appear behind it.

  The wolves are running. They’re bounding along the beach, splashing through the surf. Amid their frantic howling is another sound, the raucous cries of a raven.

  The bear pulls me down the canyon of salal, into the ancient forest. There is no glint of starlight, no gleam of blue aurora below the towering trees. There in the darkness, the bear lets go of my ankle. I try to squirm away, but it plants its massive paws on my chest, pinning me to the ground. I feel myself sinking into the moss as its nose comes snuffling up along my legs.

  There’s a smell of fur, of awful breath, of fetid wounds and blood.

  In the darkness I can’t see Thursday swooping down. But I hear the whistle of his wings, the piercing cackle of his voice. He flashes past the grizzly’s head and weaves away among the trees. The bear raises its head and bellows, and suddenly the wolves come crashing out of the salal. With snarls and grunts, they leap at the bear.

  I squirm away on my back, slithering helter-skelter over the moss. I roll onto my knees and scurry away like an animal, dragging myself through the forest as the animals roar and scream b
ehind me. They snarl, they growl. They gnash their teeth.

  Thursday dives again and again, screaming as he plunges through the darkness. His cries drive the wolves to a frenzy.

  Among the trees around me, a flame appears. And here is Frank, running down the trail with two bright torches. He is shouting my name.

  “Chris!”

  I call back to him, and a moment later he’s bending over me. The light of the torches flares through the salal, and I see the bear in the darkness, turning to run. I see a wolf clinging to its back, another biting its heels. And I see my raven, poor Thursday, lying on the ground.

  I crawl toward him and pick him up. His neck seems to have no bones, and his head flops over, onto my fingers. His eyes are open, but they’re gray and glassy. His heart makes such a tiny flutter that I can hardly feel it.

  “Oh, Thursday,” I say.

  Frank plants a torch into the earth and makes me lie down. He eases me back onto the green moss and moves the other torch above me, looking for wounds and bites.

  I want to hold on to Thursday. He has given his life for me, and I wish I knew the magic of the forest so that I could give it back to him. His eyes slowly close, and the warmth begins to leave his body.

  Frank runs his fingers down my ankle. “It’s not too bad,” he says. But there’s a throbbing pain in my foot, and I can’t tell from his voice what Frank really thinks. He helps me up, then leans forward so I can use his shoulder as a crutch. He pulls the torch up from the moss and leads me away with the light.

  I hold Thursday even tighter. His wings feel brittle and dry, like old, dead plants. I start trembling.

  “I’ll build up the fire,” says Frank. “You’ll be warm in a minute.” But I don’t want to go back to the cabin. Frank helps me all the way to the skeleton tree, and beyond it to the rocky point. There we wait for dawn. I cradle Thursday in my hands.

  It’s early morning when I carry him to the skeleton tree. Frank has offered to help, but I want to do this by myself, even though the bear’s teeth have left four punctures in my ankle, and my foot feels as though it’s on fire.

  With Thursday in the crook of my arm, I climb the heap of plastic that Frank gathered for a beacon. I work my way into the branches of the tree, climbing among the skeletons. I’m not sure the branches will hold me. I’m afraid of them breaking, afraid of falling to the ground, with the bones rattling down on top of me. I can’t put weight on my foot without crying out in pain.

  The raven feels empty, a hollow bundle of feathers. Along with the light in his eyes, he has lost whatever it was that made him a creature, a little character that could feel love and jealousy. I want to reward him the only way I can, by placing his body in the highest box, in the little coffin, where he can lie nearest to the sky, in the sun and the wind that he loved so much.

  I step up from branch to branch, wincing when my wounded ankle takes all of my weight. I climb past the coffins, and for the first time I look down and see the skeletons stretched out inside them. The bones are all separated, but still in order. One more step, and I’m near the top. I peer into the little coffin and see the skull of a child looking back at me. Behind it, in the shadowed corner of the wooden box, things have been tucked away.

  I think at first that they must be offerings to the child, maybe favorite toys or pretty shells. But I can’t make sense of their shapes. With Thursday in my arm, I have only one hand free to reach inside.

  I stare into the coffin, surprised by the things I discover.

  Here’s the little whistle that Thursday had found so appealing. Here’s the flare Frank and I could never find. Here’s a coin and a key that must have belonged to the cabin guy. And here’s the body of the other raven, the marks of the wire still pressed into its body. So this is where Thursday nested. Maybe the two of them together. Warm and dry under the little roof of the coffin lid, they had watched over the bones.

  I imagine Thursday had stashed the watch here as well. He hadn’t plucked it from the dead man’s hand to give to me. He’d chosen it just for me from all the little things he’d stolen from the cabin guy. I can see that man now, shouting with rage as his belongings disappeared one by one.

  I feel foolish and sad. So much for the mysterious shifting bones and the scratchings from the coffins. All along, it had been Thursday. This is where he’d come every night, to be the caretaker of the dead, the watchman of the skeletons.

  As I slide his body into this place where it belongs, I see one more thing in the box. I have to stretch to reach it.

  When I see what I’ve found, my hand begins to shake. Still sealed in a ziplock bag is a battery for the radio.

  Will it work? That seems almost too much to hope for. But I remember Frank with the child’s purse, his hope for a cell phone. “Those batteries can last forever if they’re charged.” Is this my last gift from Thursday?

  I place him gently in the coffin. I return all his things, keeping only the battery and the flare, and arrange the skull as I’d found it. I climb down the tree.

  In the deep shadows of the other coffins I see twigs and moss and bits of bark, all stowed away by Thursday. But I don’t reach in among the bones. I’m guarding the battery in my fist as though it’s made of crystal.

  Frank is in the cabin. He’s crouching on the floor, rearranging the stones in the fire circle. I reach over his shoulder and dangle the battery in front of his face.

  He leans back to see it more clearly. Then his hands shoot out to snatch it from me. “Where did you get this?” he asks. But already he’s getting to his feet. He grabs the radio from the shelf and fits the battery into place. His hands shake, and the pieces rattle, but he gets it all closed up. Then he turns it over in his hand, reaches for the dial and…

  And suddenly he’s just staring at me with a stunned expression.

  The knob is gone.

  Of course it is; we’d forgotten that. It flew off when Frank hurled the radio down in his first fit of temper. I’m afraid he’s going to do it again, he looks so frustrated.

  “Give it to me,” I say. My fingers are smaller than his. I’m sure I can turn the little stub that remains. Then I remember Thursday playing with bits of glass, bringing me the dial from under the bed. Where did I put it? I scan the cabin. The window!

  The dial is still stuck in the boards where I jammed it in place a month ago. I pull it away and jam it onto the stub. I switch the radio on.

  There’s a click. There’s a hum. Lights flash, glowing red and orange.

  I press the transmit button.

  “Mayday,” I say. “Mayday. Mayday.”

  Nothing happens.

  “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!” I shout.

  No sound from the radio. It’s ruined, I think. Frank broke more than just the knob when he threw the thing. I glare at him.

  “Let go of the button,” he says.

  You can’t talk and listen at the same time. I remember Uncle Jack telling me that. You can either transmit or receive, but you can’t do both.

  I take my thumb from the button. Right away, a woman’s voice leaps from the speaker. “Coast Guard radio, Anchorage. Over.”

  I grin at Franklin; he grins at me, and it’s just like our first day in the cabin. I press the button and babble into the radio, “We were on a sailboat and it sank, and now we’re in a cabin but I don’t know where we are. We need help. My name’s Chris. I’m here with my brother.”

  For many years I lived in Prince Rupert, a small city on the northern coast of British Columbia. From the hilltop house where I looked after a radio-transmitter station, I could see the mountains of Alaska in the distance, capped white all year with snow.

  I spent my summers sailing, with my wife, Kristin, and a little dog called Skipper. At three knots, or less than five miles an hour, we traveled through southern Alaska and northern BC.

  The coast was surprisingly wild. Within miles of the city, cell phone service disappeared. The VHF radio became useless in the high-sided fjords. We
went days without seeing another person. But animals were everywhere, and they had no fear of us. We watched wolves lope across meadows and roll on sandy beaches. We laughed at ravens playing with the wind at the tops of tall trees, and traded sounds back and forth as they mimicked the ringing clang of our metal cups. We saw killer whales hunting, and dolphins leaping, and sea otters floating hand in hand.

  That world of mine became the world of Chris and Frank. Like them, we drank from ice-cold streams, ate fish pulled straight from the sea and gathered grass and berries. It seemed idyllic in the daytime. But at night, when the sky filled with stars and the land disappeared, it could feel heartbreakingly lonesome.

  One day, all alone, I anchored off an island where a Wildman was said to live, a savage, hairy giant. I rowed a line to shore and tied it to a tree to keep the boat from swinging. Then I barbecued a salmon and sat to watch the sun go down. Until then, I hadn’t given a thought to the Wildman. But as shadows darkened around me, as the trees loomed closer in the darkness, I remembered the gruesome stories of people torn apart. When I heard things moving in the forest, I fled to the boat. From there I couldn’t see the land at all. The shoreline stretched away into blackness. But every time the boat lurched in the currents, every time it tugged at the line, I imagined the Wildman clutching that rope and pulling the boat hand over hand toward shore.

  It doesn’t matter if the things that come in the night are mostly in our minds. The ones we create on our own are maybe the most frightening of all.

  I was afraid of the bears.

  Skipper had a special sound she made when she sighted one. She was just a tiny lapdog, but the awful growl that came from deep inside her gave me gooseflesh. I would turn to look where she was looking, and I would see a bear plodding along the beach or stepping out from the forest edge.

  There was no real danger. We never had trouble with bears in all the years we spent in that part of the coast now known as the Great Bear Rainforest. The one time we ever met a grizzly, little Skipper chased it off.