Raft of Stars

by Andrew J. Graff

  “Scarecrow,” said Bread, pushing some coals nearer to the cooking pot. “Fish, this island. It’s some kind of abandoned camp. I think it was a poachers’ camp. There’s some old stuff around, pans and such, a lot of rope. I found three cans of beans.”

  “A scarecrow?” Fish closed his eyes. He was so thirsty. His throat seemed to catch on his words. Why was there a scarecrow in the forest?

  “Did its job, too. Fish, you hit the deck so hard I thought you died. I couldn’t wake you up, but I heard you breathing, so I swam the river and fetched our stuff. I figure whoever abandoned this camp was poaching deer. Just wait till you see all the skulls! But guess what else, Fish.”

  “Do you have water?”

  Bread handed Fish a mess tin. “It’s river water,” he said.

  Fish drank it greedily. It tasted like silt.

  “Fish, guess what else I found?”

  “Did you swim our bikes across too? I don’t see our bikes.”

  Bread took the mess tin away from Fish. “Fish,” he said, and his eyes lit up. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. We don’t need bikes anymore.”

  Fish wanted more water.

  “Fish, we found our raft.”

  Bread motioned past the fire, deep into the shadows. There looked to be a large boulder hulking in the darkness, but it was far too square to be natural rock. Fish stared at it for a moment. It was a small cabin, the roof caved in and the whole thing leaning into the dirt.

  “We found the makings of our raft, anyway,” said Bread. “That old cabin is a pile of cedar.” He lifted the lid of the pot away, inhaled deeply through his nose. Fish’s stomach growled, and he forgot all about rafts and dreams and scarecrows.

  “Mm-mm,” said Bread. “Beans.”

  “WE KNEE MARE ROWF,” SAID BREAD. HIS WORDS WERE MUFFLED BY the manila rope he held in his mouth. Bread needed both hands to straddle and muscle the log in place. Fish hurried over to the long coil of rope Bread had found in the cabin, and used his barlow to slice through another length of it. The rope was dry and coarse, the kind that burns your hands if it slips. When he returned to the build site, Fish took the other rope from Bread’s mouth and tied the two together with a double fisherman’s knot his grandpa taught him.

  The boys had a plan again. This was progress.

  The project moved quickly now that they didn’t need to cut their own trees and dig their own rope. The abandoned cabin made a perfect lumberyard. It was a twelve-by-twelve-foot structure that once stood about six feet tall before the roof and doorway collapsed. The logs were big cedars about as thick as Fish’s waist, and only the very bottom row showed any sign of rot. The rest were dry and gray and solid as bones. The boys knocked away mud chinking using river rocks for hammers.

  “Got it?” Fish asked.

  “Go ahead,” said Bread.

  Fish wrapped the rope around the end of a log Bread held in place. This had been their pattern of labor for the majority of the morning, setting the logs together with tight S-curves of rope, lashing the logs to ridgepoles in a continuous weave.

  The boys stepped back to admire their work. Only feet from the water’s edge lay a nearly finished platform of a raft. At twelve feet wide by twelve feet long, the raft would prove stable enough. The sun was high in the sky again, and the weather warm. A stiff breeze kept the bugs at bay, and overall this day in the forest was shaping up to be much better than the first. Fish’s jaw still ached, but he couldn’t help smiling at the job being done. Bread had a big smear of sweat and dirt across his forehead. He smiled back.

  “How many more, you figure?” asked Fish.

  “I’d say the ridgepoles can fit two more logs,” said Bread.

  Fish nodded.

  The boys weren’t sure how the raft would handle in the water, or which way to point it once they got it floating—with the length of the logs running with or across the current. Either way, they were certain it would float. Cedar this dry was as buoyant as cork, and it wouldn’t become waterlogged either. Fish’s grandpa shingled his porch in cedar. The stuff shed water like a duck.

  It was Bread’s idea to construct the raft on top of roller logs. When they first started binding the logs in place on the gravel shore, Bread stopped them. We’re not going to be able to move this once we finish it, Fish, he said. For a moment the two boys stared at it and the lapping riverbank. Fish gave a fruitless shrug. Then Bread remembered a picture book he’d read where the ancient Egyptians used logs as wheels to move huge stones for the pyramids. The boys placed two of the roundest logs near shore. It was a good thing Bread realized the problem when he did. Even with only three poles lashed together, the boys could hardly lift the raft onto the pair of rollers.

  “You getting hungry?” Bread asked.

  Fish nodded, brushed the fine gravel and cedar chaff from the front of his shirt. Fish’s muscles trembled with fatigue, but this progress was irresistible. “I’d finish the base of the raft first,” he said. “If you’re up for it.”

  Bread nodded and wiped his forehead and smeared the dirt to his ear. Adding the final logs went quickly, and when they were finished the boys sat in the shade and leaned against tree trunks while they ate and gazed at their creation. They both pretended not to be too proud.

  “It’s a little crooked on that far end,” said Bread. His comment was the pure false modesty of a true craftsman. Fish was proud as punch of the thing, and he knew Bread was too.

  “It’ll do,” said Fish, nodding severely. “The Hope of Lantern Rock.”

  “I been thinking about that name,” said Bread. “We ain’t on Lantern Rock anymore. We should name it something about the island, or beavers maybe.”

  Fish thought about this. It was a good idea. After all, the beaver freedom and the island were what gave them the boat.

  “How about Beaver’s Hope of Lantern Rock.”

  Bread wrinkled his brow. “I’m not sure that has the right ring to it. Not dangerous enough.”

  Fish agreed. There was something a bit too soft about their patron animal. He and Bread were warriors too, after all, braving rivers and hunting with spears and raiding poaching camps as they pleased. After breakfast, Bread had given Fish the grand tour of the poachers’ camp he had explored while Fish had slept through the night. There was the cabin and its half-buried pots and pans, a chest filled with rope. Outside the cabin were some old saws and kettles and a stack of deer skulls. Bread figured the kettles were used to boil the fat off the skulls before selling them to bankers and judges and other city people who wanted to put some horns on their walls. Except for the scarecrow head, the other skulls left behind didn’t have antlers. And there were hundreds of them, some on the ground and chewed up by mice, some tacked to tree trunks with rusted nails, others hung on old wire strung through their nose and eye sockets. Interspersed were a few coyote skulls, with canine teeth protruding from their weathered snouts. Fish touched one of the teeth with the tip of his finger. It was dull and pointed like the tip of a rifle round. The poachers must have sold hides too. How Bread could have explored this place at night, alone in the dark and shadows, was beyond Fish. Fish was glad he’d passed out. It was Bread who faced down the scarecrow while his friend lay collapsed in the spruce trees. Bread swam the river and collected the gear. Bread took the lead on the construction of the raft, ordering Fish back and forth for rope, coming up with the good ideas.

  “You should name it,” Fish told him. “What do you think it should be named?”

  Bread popped the last of his Slim Jim in his mouth, squinted out at the raft and the water.

  “Poachers’ Hope of Lantern Rock.”

  Fish liked it immediately.

  “I was thinking we could dress it out with some skulls before we push off,” said Bread. “Make it fearsome, you know?”

  Fish liked the idea even more.

  “Only thing, though,” Bread added, “is that we ain’t really poachers. Not really.”

  Fish felt the disappo
intment, but then nodded at the empty Slim Jim wrapper in Bread’s hand. “You got any more of those?” he asked.

  Bread shook his head.

  “Me neither. And we only got one can of beans, Bread.”

  Bread looked at his friend. “Tuna’s gone too.”

  “So starting tomorrow,” Fish explained, “we gotta kill what we eat, or we don’t eat.”

  A light dawned in Bread’s eyes.

  “So tomorrow we’ll be poachers,” he said.

  “Tomorrow we’ll be poachers.”

  “Come on,” said Bread, standing and wiping his hands on his jeans. “Let me show you what I was thinking with them skulls.”

  It took until dusk for the boys to finish and outfit the raft. It was what Fish’s grandpa used to call rough work, as opposed to fine—more like sinking fence posts or slapping boards onto a chicken coop than carefully squaring a window or trimming a door with oak. It was the kind of work that needed little precision, so it went quickly and was deeply satisfying. Carry the log, lash the log, carry the skull, lash the skull. The boys were craftsmen, creators. They even had enough poles to lash together an A-frame they could throw the tarp over when the weather turned sour. They exhumed from the camp a box of old nails and a black-powder rifle with rye grass growing out of its barrel. They used the nails and river rocks to tack a railing of branches in place around the bow end of the boat, and they wove deer and coyote skulls onto it so any would-be boarders would see the gaping snouts and eye sockets as they approached. The bow end would be the galley and storehouse. They brought the old rifle on board to use as an anchor pike they could pound into sandbars. They lashed their bags to the posts of the A-frame to keep them high and dry, and hung three cast-iron pots from nails. Fish imagined drifting through the sunshine a few days from now, miles away, the pots clanging lazily with the breeze and the rocking of the ship. Maybe they could just keep going, rivers to lakes, lakes to oceans, the tropics, the desert. Fish thought of sand dunes, but decided to back up and think again about tropics instead.

  At the stern they made loops of rope to hold their fish poles, so they could let out line and drift for pike and catfish in the daytime and walleye at night. They brought aboard five flat pieces of limestone from the riverbed to make a fireproof base in the galley. The poachers’ old boiling kettle would sit on top. They could boil crayfish and pike without leaving ship. The finishing touch was the antlered skull of the scarecrow.

  Bread straddled the top pole of the A-frame. The sun was still large but beginning to set. The first streaks of orange and red shot across the horizon. Fish shielded his eyes and watched the silhouette of his friend lash the antlered skull to the pole. It reminded him of a picture he’d seen in school of American soldiers hoisting a flag after winning some hill. The antlers reached up like the fingers of a strong hand, grabbing a fistful of sky. There were no limits out here. Fish had never been prouder.

  Bread wiggled the antlers to make sure they’d hold, then dangled his legs and dropped to the floor of the raft. He stomped his foot against the deck for good measure.

  “Pretty sturdy,” he said.

  Fish couldn’t feign indifference any longer. “It’s perfect!” he exclaimed, and Bread beamed.

  The boys planned to spend the night on the raft on dry land, to try it out before setting sail. They figured they could make beds from green cedar branches stacked a few inches thick. They could make one bed on either side of the river rock and kettle, under the tarp in the galley. The railings would keep them from snoring off into the river, and they’d keep coals in the kettle at night for warmth.

  Bread exhaled through pursed lips. He looked at his hands and winced as he picked at a blister. “Let’s eat some supper,” he said. “I am about to keel over I’m so hungry.”

  Fish got the can of beans from the galley while Bread waded into the river and washed the spoons and mess tins. They decided to eat them cold. The two boys sat on the edge of their raft and watched the sun set on the river, ate beans in the quiet. A grasshopper clicked and fell in the river. Currents carried it downstream. A fish rose and snatched it under. The whole world was hungry, and the whole world was fed. Fish’s back ached from the work. The hand that held his spoon had a blister on it the size of a nickel. Rough work was rough, but it was good. Fish used to love putting in fence posts with his grandpa. He loved most how that sort of work ended, letting his sweat dry and his muscles stiffen up while he ate a meal, drank water from a jug. It was the most serene thing to look out across several acres of land with fresh fence stakes pounded into the dirt, the swallows picking off bugs in the field. The summer after his father died in the desert, Fish’s grandpa decided it was time to fence in an additional forty acres. Another fence didn’t seem necessary to Fish, but he remembered how, as work progressed and days passed, the world became more stable and ordered again. It’s what man was meant to do, his grandpa told him when he commented on how he enjoyed the work. Build something. Then look at it. It makes food taste better.

  Viewed from where Fish sat, the river ran straight and then disappeared around a bend about a quarter mile distant. Poachers Island was the final island in the group, and the river converged once more downstream of it, creating a void filled with confused eddy water, which lapped at stones near the raft. The sky above the eddy had turned a vivid red, and the water caught and played with the light in its peaks and troughs. Soon Bread and Fish would leave the eddy. They’d point downstream and go.

  Fish thought of his grandfather, who was out in this forest someplace, looking for him, looking at the same sky perhaps. He wished he could send his grandpa a message. Let him know he was okay. Fish felt more in command of things now that they had built the raft. Maybe that’s why adults sought busyness. Busyness solved fear and silence and hurt. Maybe that’s why his grandpa always waved his hands in the air and got back to work.

  Your mom wants you to learn Jesus was all his grandfather said when Fish asked why they needed to start going to church. So they put on clean clothes and Grandpa shaved his silver neck and they drove to sit quietly through the morning in wooden pews. Fish got the sense that all of the adults there didn’t know what to do with him. They knew his grandfather from when his grandmother was still alive. Fish had only fragments of memories of the woman on Sundays—an apron with flowers on it, a hand with blue veins, a jar of pickles spooned out on a rose-colored dish, a black Bible with writing in the margins. This was Fish’s first time visiting her old church. The adults folded their hands in the foyer and smiled at him, curiosity in their eyes. They’d say things like, Oh, and that’s a good young man you got there, Teddy, and they’d continue to glance at Fish and his grandfather while they pretended to talk to each other about the weather or farming. It went on this way for several Sundays. The pastor had a sheepdog who sat on the porch during services, and Fish usually looked around for the dog when the adults talked afterward, raked his fingers through the matted white hair. Once, when he was near enough to hear the conversation, a woman used the phrase that poor fatherless thing, and something rose up in Fish that made him leave the dog and turn toward the road so that no one would see him crying. Then he heard his grandpa take the Lord’s name in vain, call the woman a fool, and then felt his grandfather’s hand firmly clasp his shoulder and guide him to the truck.

  Fischer, his grandpa said, gripping the wheel when he got inside and shut the door. He stared through the windshield. Fish couldn’t be sure if his grandpa’s eyes were angry or just very tired. That woman back there, he said, gripping the wheel harder. Fischer, your dad loved you more than you could know. And if he’d have heard what that old bat—he clenched his jaw and struck the steering wheel, hard, with the butt of his hand. Fish began to cry again. He was unsure what had happened between the adults, or what this all meant for his grandpa, but he understood that some important line had been crossed and that what was said next would be important and grave and perilous. His grandpa breathed through his nose awhile. I know I d
on’t talk about it, Fischer, because I don’t know if I should or shouldn’t, said his grandpa. I’m just an old man. And I know that life is both good and cruel. He released his grip on the wheel a bit. And it’s been cruel to you, Fischer. But listen to me now, hear this—it also gave you your dad, and your dad was good. When you were real little your dad used to scoop you up and tell you he loved you from your heart to the sun. Fish couldn’t remember it, but he could see it somehow, and when he did, he saw sunlight. He’d point to your heart, and then he’d point at the sun, and you’d smile and laugh and make him say it again. And he always would, as many times as you asked him. Bread’s grandfather looked out at the road. He took his hands off the wheel and rubbed his palms on his jeans. Fish felt a tear roll down his cheek. And just because he’s not with us doesn’t mean you don’t have him. You have a father. Do you understand? Fish nodded. His grandpa wiped his eyes, and then he sighed. Minuscule particles of hay dust floated and sparkled inside the silent cab. I gotta go back inside. I have to apologize to that woman. I’ll be back. He started the motor so the heater would run, and after a few moments of profound absence, he drove Fischer home and made him pancakes. They did no work that afternoon. Fish’s grandpa slept upstairs the remainder of the day, his work boots unlaced in the kitchen. That was their last Sunday at church. From then on they stayed busy on Sundays instead.

  Bread snorted and startled himself awake. Fish hadn’t noticed his friend had nodded off. Without comment, Bread smacked his lips, took another bite of beans, and stared at his mess tin until his head slowly dropped again. Fish was tired too, tired of remembering. He was tired of thinking about his dad and grandfather, and what it meant to lie to his friend about his father’s life, ask him to run toward something that wasn’t there. He liked the beaver life better. Out here with the trees and rocks for fathers. But when he looked at Bread, he couldn’t help wondering if his dad ever told him he loved him, ever pointed at his heart. Fish felt again the awful weightlessness of raising the revolver, that shattering report that filled the room with smoke and deafness. Fish’s tired mind swam between visions of his father’s hand pointing from his heart to sunlight and of Bread’s father choking his son on a linoleum floor. Fish felt accusation rise in his heart, guilt, shame. He closed his eyes and opened them. Forget it, he told himself. At least for now. That’s something his mom used to tell him when he couldn’t sleep and worried about not sleeping. You have permission to forget it, she’d tell him. Just for a minute, just enjoy your pillow, just rest, let it go. Close your eyes and sail away from troubles on a raft made of stars. And then she’d pray and hum.