Raft of Stars

by Andrew J. Graff

  But then it all changed. Channel 13 brought news from overseas that began to absorb the adults, and the armory started calling on the phone more often. Not long after, Fish heard words at home that he couldn’t piece together, other than that they made his mom cry quietly and his father’s smile seem strange. Kuwait and oil fields. Iraq. Jordan. Saudi.

  Dad’s first deployment took him away for part of the winter. Fish watched the news on TV when his mom allowed it. Scud missiles. Naval rockets. And Republican Guard tanks, retreating. When his dad came home from the war one month early, the town of Ironsford had a parade, and Fish got to eat an entire bag of cotton candy and sit on his dad’s shoulders, straddling the man’s sunburned neck. That summer, the neighborhood boys played war amid creeks and leaf piles, arguing over who got to be General Powell, President Bush, or better yet, Schwarzkopf. Fish always used the name Bear. In late fall, when the trees were naked and the leaf piles gone, Fish’s dad deployed again, to the peacekeeping force in Saudi.

  The floors seemed colder that winter. At night the wind blew through the frozen tines of the maple outside Fish’s window, and Fish would close his eyes and picture his dad walking across some desert dune, leaning into the wind and shielding his eyes, looking always homeward. In Fish’s mind, the desert was frozen too, and he often wanted to go there, bring a blanket, offer his father warmth, wipe the sand from the corners of his eyes. When his dad came home this time, there was no parade. It was as if the town and the boys had tired of it all, forgotten about it all. The war was over, and yet Fish’s father still deployed. Fish’s dad didn’t take him to the armory anymore, though he seemed to spend more time there. The house stayed quiet even when the Ford was in the driveway. Fish would sit at the table and watch his father chew his food. The man looked older, unfamiliar somehow, a foreign visitor. Dad would sometimes turn the TV on during supper, pause midbite, look at the fork in his hand, and get up from the table and go outside. Mom would point her fork at Fish’s plate. “Eat, please,” she’d say, and then she’d make her way out to the kitchen and stand by the screen door.

  On a school night in spring, when the buds on the maple hadn’t opened yet, the phone rang late and Fish heard his father answer in the kitchen. Fish was in bed. His mom walked softly downstairs. There was talking and then silence, and then Fish heard his mom say, “Tell them you won’t go.”

  His father uttered a muffled response.

  Fish heard nothing for a time.

  “We can’t do this again. Tell them you won’t go back.”

  His father’s voice became louder.

  “Fischer and I are alone!” yelled his mother.

  “I said,” his father bellowed, giving every syllable its own breath, “this is not my choice!”

  Mom started crying. Fish stopped breathing. His father boomed. His mom moaned. A glass shattered. The whole house stood still on its bones. Crickets went quiet. This was wrong. This was dead wrong. Fish’s parents didn’t fight. They didn’t yell. Fish’s dad was a smiling, Ford-driving tanker. He worked at Bryce Machine Tool. His mom packed his father sandwiches for lunch, and made Fish sandwiches too, and washed Fish’s hair in the sink before school. Their house had never known this. Fish felt a gap of great danger open beneath the home. Fear seeped up through it. He bit his blanket.

  “Don’t leave,” cried his mother. “Don’t go.”

  The door opened and shut. Mom wept. Fish sat up on his elbow and listened as his dad’s truck started, and then he watched out the window as it pulled out of the driveway beneath the maple tree. It paused there with its glaring brake lights, and Fish willed it to stay, but it turned onto the road and was gone.

  Taillights hovering in tree limbs—that is the image that sticks in Fish’s mind whenever he thinks of his father. It wasn’t for keeps that night. Fish’s dad would be in and out for the two weeks before he deployed again. He fixed a gutter on the house. He bought flowers for Mom. But that night did mark the beginning of the end, the crack that widened until it swallowed life. Fish often imagined a braver version of himself, a version that bolted from bed rather than stared out the window, that sprinted barefoot down the stairs and across the cold gravel to beat on the door of the truck. Don’t you leave, Dad, said that braver version of himself. Don’t go.

  Fish learned of fragility during those last two weeks. Even his grandfather’s. When his mom begged Fish’s grandpa to talk to her husband, to persuade him to give up the war and stay home, Fish watched his grandpa’s face spark heat, and he took his green cap from his head and wrung it in his hands, and then he waved his hands in the air to wash himself of it all as he retreated across the gravel driveway. His grandpa took the Lord’s name in vain, slammed shut the door of his truck, while Fish’s mom bit her lip on the porch and closed her eyes. Fish knew nobody was supposed to take the Lord’s name in vain. His mom told him as much. But there was something about the way his grandpa spat the words that made them seem not in vain. It was as if he was invoking the Lord’s name, calling upon it, actually asking God to damn some thing, some act or thought, something buried and about to tear loose.

  LANTERN ROCK ROSE UP IN THE STARLIGHT. THE MILKY WAY PROVIDED enough light for them to reach the riverbank, hide their bikes in a patch of ferns, and hunker down in the crevasse. The air was cool, but the large split in the boulder held heat.

  Fish sat on his heels and leaned against the smooth rock, letting the warmth seep into his back. He looked up at the sky, the way the cedar tree rose into it like a black spire, and how above it the bright smear of the Milky Way looked like sunlight spilling through a very old blanket hung to dry. The stars seemed so near, as if Fish could reach up with a hand and stir them. He knew it was an illusion, a trick. He used to feel so safe in the world, peace felt so permanent. He thought of Bread, how only hours ago he was busy releasing turtles into marsh water. Now everything felt like darkness in the woods feels. A person just can’t see.

  Fish heard a crinkling sound and turned to find Bread rummaging through a pocket on his backpack. His hand came out with a Slim Jim. The boy peeled the wrapper, bit the beef stick in its middle, and handed half to Fish while he chewed.

  “I figure we might eat supper,” whispered Bread.

  Fish took it, and his eyes welled up. He wanted so badly to go home, and not only to his grandpa’s but to his mom’s. He wanted to sit down, have supper with her, and listen to her talk. He wanted his dad back. Fish knew if he tried to speak right now his voice would crack, so he just nodded and took a bite of the Slim Jim.

  The two boys sat on their heels and chewed their dinner. They knew each other well enough to know when the other was about to cry. Bread was good enough to not ask him questions.

  “Pretty good Slim Jim,” he said, and pulled his knees up inside his arms.

  Fish nodded.

  “We’re going to make it, Fish.” Fish knew Bread was trying to cheer him. Bread took an exaggerated bite of his beef stick. “Yes sir,” he said, his mouth full, “we’re going to make it, and we’re going to follow this river, and we’re going to build a raft too, and we ain’t gonna get caught.” Bread paused and looked out at the river, then at the cedar towering overhead. “Fish, how big a raft you think we need to carry us and our bikes?”

  Fish didn’t answer.

  “I bet we need at least five or six cedars, and then we need to find some vine or something to bind ’em together like the Indians did.” He gave Fish a poke with his elbow. “I bet you I’m going to use cedar bark for rope. You think that’d make a good rope, Fish? Fishy? Fish Face? Fischer?”

  “You can’t make good rope out of cedar bark,” said Fish.

  “Says who?”

  “You gotta make rope out of roots. That’s the way the Indians did it.”

  Bread nodded.

  “So which one of us is gonna dig roots, and which one of us is gonna chop trees?”

  Fish hadn’t thought about making a raft, but it was a good idea. The river pushed right up through
all that forest, right toward Ironsford. And he liked the thought of building it. It made the sky seem more ordered. Just keep busy, the stars seemed to say. We know.

  “You figure we could sleep on the raft too?” Fish asked. “Anchor it somehow?”

  Bread grinned in the starlight, nodding. “We’re gonna make beds from cedar branches,” he said. “And we’re going to be cocaptains, equal pay and duties.” He patted the trunk of the cedar tree. “I’m gonna cut this one down first thing tomorrow.”

  The two boys looked up at the cedar tree, at the warm blanket of stars. They’d never built a raft before. Not like this one. Fish allowed himself the beginnings of a smile. Something sparked to life in his gut. They didn’t have fathers. But they had each other. They had a plan. Fish tried to put his finger on the spark rising inside him.

  “Can we name our raft Hope?” said Fish, and the stars shone.

  “That’s a good name for a raft,” said Bread.

  “The Hope of Lantern Rock,” said Fish.

  “That’s even better,” said Bread.

  The boys exhaled and watched the sky awhile. It was stunning, the way it hung and spun.

  “Thank you, Bread,” said Fish.

  “For what?”

  Fish didn’t answer. He was already twisting root ropes in his mind, already diving from their raft into the deep black river, drying himself in sunlight, eating catfish caught with cane poles. He was no longer afraid, the terror of the night washed away in river sounds.

  “Well,” said Bread, making himself comfortable against his backpack, “I got more Slim Jims, if you want another one.”

  Five

  SHERIFF CAL PULLED HIMSELF INTO HIS TRUCK. HIS DOG, JACKS, moved over on the bench seat, circled, and settled onto his haunches, panting and grinning. Jacks was a young blue heeler Cal picked up from a barn litter for thirty-five dollars. Thirty dollars is how much the worm shots cost me, said the old woman, wiping her hands on her apron as Cal lifted the puppy up by its armpits to examine him more closely. The pup had one blue eye and one brown, a white patch of fur on his belly. Cal asked if the puppy had a name, and also why the extra five dollars. That one’s name is Jacks, and he’s been a pain in my ass, that’s why—he escapes—and you ain’t from here, are you, I can tell from how you talk. She said it all without pause, which made Cal smile and the puppy squirm. Cal decided to rescue the dog—he imagined the woman cussing after it with a broom—paid the woman, and placed the puppy in his truck on top of an old sweatshirt. Where you from, the woman asked him. Texas, Cal told her, I’m the new sheriff, pleasure to meet you. The woman widened her eyes at him, shook his hand like a man does. Uh-huh is all she said. On the drive home, the puppy chewed through a seat belt and put teeth marks in the armrest but didn’t try to escape. He seemed pleased to be sitting somewhere other than that woman’s garage. Cal never could train Jacks to do very much, and frankly, he didn’t want to. Jacks had an independent mind, considered himself an equal. Cal didn’t argue.

  “All right, Jacks,” said Cal, sliding his key into the ignition.

  The dog panted and swallowed.

  “We’re in it now,” said Cal. “We are in it.”

  The truck’s motor came to life and the heater fans blew cold air into the cab. The digital clock said it was a quarter past three in the morning. Teddy and Cal planned to leave at first light. Cal closed his eyes a moment, rubbed his face with his hands, and put the truck in gear. He needed to get to the station, pack up some gear and two or three days’ worth of food. He needed a place for Jacks to stay too, and he needed sleep but knew there wasn’t time. The boys hadn’t shown up at Teddy’s like Cal hoped, or at least not in the way he had hoped. They had been there all right. They just didn’t stay. Cal and Teddy had spent a good two hours turning the farm upside down—the machine sheds and barn, the silos, the ditches by the pasture—and then they met back in Teddy’s kitchen. Cal unfolded a plat of the county on the table. Teddy worked on making a pot of black coffee, then phoned his daughter.

  “Miranda,” he said in a quiet voice, “you ain’t heard from Fischer, have you?” It was prayerful, the way Teddy seemed to speak those words. There was fear and hope in his voice. Cal had always known Teddy as a capable man, quiet, who kept to himself. But he had fire in him too, beneath the surface. Teddy once helped Cal pull a farmer’s body out of a tiller. The man had fallen backward while dragging a field, and the tractor raked up its driver and found its way into a marsh, stuck on its oil pan with its tires churning the mud like a riverboat. Cal was no farmer, never drove a tractor in his life, and ended up flagging down Teddy from the road to help him shut down the machine. Cal played it cool like a sheriff should but was amazed at the way Ted gathered up the pieces as calmly as if he were lifting sacks of grain. That’s all of him, Ted said, stooping to wash his hands in the marsh water. And then something seemed to rise in him, an anger so instant and shaking and hot it was more surprising than frightening. Cal had no time to react. Ted stood from the marsh and poked a trembling finger into Cal’s chest, told him to do his own work from then on, called him something awful, cursed the fields and the morning and drove away. The next day Ted called Cal’s office and apologized, cool as could be. It was a mystery, the thing that ignited him so. It wasn’t just the sight of the body. Something seemed to scare Teddy out there. Something in himself after partaking of the recovery.

  Tonight, Ted’s hands shook as he poured Cal a cup of coffee. Ted had had trouble finding matches to light the oven-top, and he couldn’t find his two coffee mugs either. Cal watched him turn on his heel several times, as if he didn’t know his way around his own kitchen, and then Teddy hastily dug out a half stack of paper cups from a lower cupboard. Teddy’s voice quavered now as he spoke on the phone.

  “Miranda,” he said. “No. Don’t come just yet. I know. I know it is.” Cal watched Ted’s fingers twist the cord in his free hand, squeeze it as if to break a bird’s neck, then loosen to decide against it. “I’ll call you soon as I know something. Okay? Stay put. The sheriff thinks the boys might call. Goodbye. I will.”

  There had been no initial sign of the boys in Claypot, but eventually Jacks sniffed out a pair of bike tracks and footprints that led through the soft dirt in the fields adjoining the Breadwin home. Jacks was a natural tracker, self-taught. It’s an interest he chose for himself. Cal could just say, “Find it, find ’em,” and his piebald dog would trot around with his nose to the dirt until he found something. Sometimes it was a skunk, sometimes a rabbit, this time the footprints of two ten-year-old boys. The boys’ tracks led across the plowed fields into marsh grass. They were headed in the general direction of Burt Akinson’s farm. The men backtracked, searched the fields with spotlights. There was nothing there. Not even coyotes. They got in their trucks and drove to Teddy’s.

  Ted hung up the phone and paced the kitchen while Cal tapped the antenna of his radio against the map.

  “Where,” Teddy asked himself, “did those mugs go?”

  The sheriff pretended to study the map, but really he was studying Teddy. Cal had noticed over the years the way calm people could break down when problems became personal. He knew a trauma nurse who couldn’t watch her son get stitches after a spill on his bike. Maybe Cal was wrong to involve Ted in all of this. Cal did have a deputy, after all, and maybe Bobby would have to do. Maybe Teddy needed to stay home.

  “And my matches,” Teddy said. “I swear I had a full book of matches in this jar right here.” He hefted the jar in his hand as if he wanted to smash it, then let it rattle to the counter. His face was red. “Something ain’t right.”

  Cal decided it—he was on his own. He’d bother Teddy for a cup of coffee and that would be it. Cal studied the map again. Claypot was backed up to the north by a massive swath of forest. The few towns large enough to have their own police force were all a forty-minute drive to the south, where the soil was better and the farming communities had a chance to grow. Only two primary tracks cut through the coun
ty’s northern territory, the river and the highway. Both wove through just under ten thousand square miles of forest. Cal knew a few of the unmarked logging roads that snaked through the place. They were often washed out and grown over and hardly roads at all. The closest town on the north side of the forest was Ironsford, a paper town with a Guard armory. It was just within Cal’s jurisdiction, so he made it up that way from time to time. The drive was a lonely one, about ninety miles of pine and poplar trees, the occasional trailer home with woodsmoke coming from it, a sheet of plywood nailed up over a window. Every now and then the highway ran parallel to the river for a quarter mile or so, just close enough for the water to sparkle through the trees. Hunting cabins stood along the river. As did methamphetamine operations. A few families lived lonely sorts of lives out there, at least that’s the way they looked to Cal—a woman hanging handkerchiefs on a line, a small boy chasing a dog around a rotted garden fence. If a person got off the river or the highway, he could walk for days through cedar swamps and poplar stands and black flies and bear tracks and never feel as if he’d moved ten feet. To Cal, the forest had only one look to it, only one way of being. It was impassable, except for that river and that road. Cal once had to track a group of poachers into that forest along with some game wardens. Jacks was by his side, and Cal was thankful for the company. Though he and the wardens never separated more than one hundred yards as they traversed the swamps, the way that forest closed in made Cal feel lost in the first twenty steps. It was a difficult thing to bear for a man raised in Houston’s suburbs. He liked the southern part of Marigamie County much better, with its neat rows of corn, its bigger towns and gas stations, sidewalks and people. When the wardens eventually called off that particular search, Cal found himself walking quickly through the brambles and pine branches as if racing the sunlight, whispering, Find it, Jacks, find the truck.