Raft of Stars

by Andrew J. Graff

  Fish looked out at the bending river grass. He didn’t need to cut cedar branches for beds tonight. The wilderness was soft enough. They could cut down some push poles tomorrow before shoving off. Tomorrow would be perfect. Just like everything else. Just like the sunset. Like the river. Just like the raft and the crickets. Fish closed his eyes. Bending down and down, he thought, like river grass. Like cattails.

  “Boys!”

  Fish spilled his bean tin from his lap with a clatter. He looked out at the river. The far bank stood quiet with its reeds and brush. The shadows sat still. The air didn’t stir. He spun where he sat to look back at the interior of the island. Bread slept soundly. Had Fish dreamed the voice?

  “Boys!”

  He heard it this time. It was a man’s voice, off to his right, not very distant. Fish crouched and clawed through the river grass to where he could get a good view of the opposing shoreline. The first thing he saw was a riderless horse standing on the riverbank, eating grass. And then he saw a black and white dog sniffing along the mud. Fish crouched behind a windfallen tree, peeking over the stump. He didn’t see the sheriff until the man moved. The man appeared like a deer appears, seemingly from nowhere despite its lack of camouflage. The sheriff moved through chest-high grass. Fish’s hands felt numb. The sheriff looked right at him.

  The two locked eyes for what seemed to be minutes. Fish couldn’t tell if the sheriff could see him or not, but it sure felt like he did. Fish felt the same way when he stumbled across a wild animal in the woods. He could remember it happening only a handful of times, but when he’d come upon a fox or a deer, it made him feel like a creature too, the surprise of it, not knowing at all what to do and certainly unwilling to make a move to find out.

  The sheriff moved first, and Fish let out a rattling breath. The sheriff looked up and down the length of the island. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. He slapped his hat against his leg. He now stood in the exact place where the boys had crossed, where they jumped in like cannonballs and swam. How did that already seem so long ago, tramping in there with their packs and bikes, cutting down trees with pocketknives, like children. Fish didn’t feel like a child anymore. The raft was finished, and that made him feel capable. But that was all in danger now. Fish remembered the bikes—Bread had left them behind. The sheriff had to have found them. The dog sniffed for tracks, whined at the river.

  “No,” Fish whispered under his breath, willing the man with his words. “Do not come across. We are not here.” And then he tried it like his mom would do it, except she would raise her voice and her hands when she spoke, as if gathering electricity. “In the name of Jesus Christ,” whispered Fish, “I forbid you to cross.”

  Fish heard the sheriff saying something, but it came over the water as a mumble. The sheriff was talking to the horse. He pointed his hat at the ground on the riverbank and then pointed it across the river. The dog paced back and forth, its nose to the ground. The sheriff spoke to the horse once more. It looked to Fish like he was trying to convince it of something.

  “You shall not cross,” whispered Fish, and the sheriff looked right at his hiding place again, dropped his hat, and started to unbutton his shirt.

  Fish’s heart beat faster. The sheriff removed his jacket and shirt, then his boot and socks and pants. He left them in a pile and waded into the water. The dog joined him, its bushy tail floating on the surface.

  “He is coming across,” Fish said, openmouthed, and watched the sheriff lower himself into the water and begin to swim.

  There was no time for stealth. Fish sprang from his hiding place and bolted through the grass toward the raft.

  “Hey!” yelled the sheriff. He’d spotted him. Fish broke branches as he ran between cedars. “Hey!” the sheriff yelled again. The voice seemed farther away now, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long.

  “Bread!” Fish shouted as he burst into the campsite. Bread shot awake and tossed his bean tin in the air.

  Fish started pushing the raft toward the water with Bread still sitting on it. He rammed his shoulder into one of the A-frame posts and dug his shoes into the gravel.

  “Bread! The sheriff!”

  Bread was on his feet, a confused look in his eyes.

  “The sheriff’s swimmin’ at us!”

  Bread crouched where he stood. He’d been sleeping soundly.

  “Bread, push the dang raft!”

  Bread scurried around to the back side of the raft, put both hands on a post, and pushed. The raft didn’t move.

  “Fish,” he asked, “are you sure you seen the—”

  “Boys!” came the sheriff’s call through the trees. It sounded much closer now. The sheriff was nearly across the channel.

  Bread’s eyes grew wide with fear and he punched his shoulder into the raft and began driving his feet. The raft swayed, rolled an inch, and stopped again. The boys planned to launch it using their push poles as levers. But they hadn’t cut any poles. They’d fallen asleep.

  Fish’s feet slipped out from under him. Pain shot through his knee. He cussed and regained his footing. They only needed to push the raft a few feet to get it floating. Bread frantically pushed and winced in pain as his shoulder and neck pressed against the cedar log. His feet slipped on the gravel and bedrock beneath it. Fish’s hurt knee made him angry. Being chased like this made him angry.

  “Boys!” came the call again, which made Bread’s efforts become even more frantic and fruitless. Fish envisioned the sheriff pulling himself onto shore, winded, rising to his feet now.

  “Bread,” said Fish. The forest seemed to disappear as he spoke, as did the pain and panic. There was just the raft now, the river, and five feet to freedom.

  “Bread!” he said again.

  Bread stopped and stared at him. His face was pale and his cheeks were mottled. The sheriff’s voice made him shake.

  “Bread, we have to push together, at the same time and in the same way, or we’re not going to make it.”

  Bread took a rattling breath. Shook his head adamantly. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t.” Bread put his neck into the post again and beat against it until his feet slipped out from under him and he fell on his stomach. He lay there a moment, huffing in the dirt, blowing a tuft of grass with his mouth. “Fish, I can’t go back. I can’t. They’ll send me off. I—”

  Fish watched his friend, his open mouth, pleading, blowing grass. And then he remembered the half-buried rifle they’d found. He bolted to the galley of the raft. Bread stayed in the dirt, dread on his face.

  Fish came back with the old and long black-powder rifle. Bread’s face looked more desperate when he saw it, until he saw what Fish was doing with it. Fish held the rifle like a spear over his head and drove the muzzle into the gravel beneath the edge of the raft. He then pushed up against the lever with all his might. Even by himself, he moved the raft about six inches on its rollers.

  Bread was back on his feet.

  “Boys!” the sheriff called. A dog barked.

  “You push, I’ll lever,” Fish said. “Last chance!”

  Bread had his neck and shoulder down again, driving his feet with all he had. Fish levered, repositioned, and levered again. The raft was rolling. With each heave it moved about a foot, and Bread could keep the momentum going for another foot with his driving legs.

  “Push!” yelled Fish. The front of the raft gained water, nosing beneath the surface. “Push!” This time it kept moving. Slowly but certainly, the front of the raft began to rise back up out of the water, floating. Fish tossed the rifle aboard and put his shoulder into a post. The raft gained momentum. Fish felt water on his ankles, then his shins, his hips. The raft was free.

  “You boys stop right where you are!” There was anger in the sheriff’s voice, and it came from directly behind them.

  Bread and Fish jerked their heads around to see the sheriff standing atop the small rise above the riverbank. The dog growled and barked at his side. The sheriff was in his bo
xer shorts, soaking wet, his chest huffing. He began picking his way down, barefoot, through the pine needles and stones.

  “Keep pushing,” said Bread.

  Fish put his head down and pushed even harder. His foot slipped on algae-covered rocks, but he was in deep enough water that he didn’t fall. The raft was in the eddy now. The boys were chest-deep. Soon the current would catch it.

  “I said stop!”

  Fish glanced back. Ignoring the sharp stones, the sheriff sprinted into the water. A few steps in, he slipped on a rock and crashed beneath the surface. His dog swam in a circle and barked. The sheriff came up gasping and facing the wrong direction. He turned, wiped water from his face, and started staggering toward the boys.

  “Fish, get on!”

  The raft was in the current and pulling away. Bread was on board already, crouched and waving him up, reaching out his hand. Fish swam a few strokes, but the raft pulled away from him. He put his head down and kicked as hard as he could but couldn’t catch it. Behind him, he heard the sheriff swimming with powerful strokes.

  “Fish, rope!”

  Fish looked up to see a coil of rope unfold in the sky. It landed on top of him and Fish grabbed an armful of it. He was turned onto his back as Bread pulled the rope in, which gave him an upriver view of the approaching sheriff. The raft was moving fast now, but the sheriff was keeping up, gaining even. He swam even better than Bread. The dog trailed behind with wide eyes. Fish felt Bread’s hands grip his armpits, and he was dragged on board across the cedar. Panting and wet in the pile of rope, his hair dripping in his eyes, Fish watched helplessly as the sheriff came closer. He was in the current now too, and about twenty feet from the raft. He looked like a machine, like he had his own motor. The sheriff would catch them.

  “You,” Bread yelled, so loudly it startled Fish, “are not taking us in!”

  The sheriff kept swimming. Fish watched with wide eyes. He heard Bread behind him, rustling around in one of the packs. The sheriff was only fifteen feet away now. Fish could hear the man’s breathing. Then he saw Bread’s shoes appear next to the piled rope and looked up to see Bread holding the revolver into the orange and purple sky.

  Bread’s chest thumped with his breath. His jaw was tight. He had power in his eyes.

  “This is the Poachers’ Hope of Lantern Rock!” he shouted, so loudly that his voice cracked with the effort.

  Fish looked back at the sheriff and saw the man’s expression of surprise when he raised his face for a breath. He’d spotted the revolver.

  “And you will not,” yelled Bread, “take this ship!”

  Bread cocked the hammer of the giant revolver, squinted his eyes, and unleashed a thunderous blast overhead. The muzzle whipped backward, and Bread fell onto the deck.

  The sheriff stopped swimming, and his head rose higher as he treaded water. The shot echoed through the river valley, through the forest and sky. A flock of birds lifted from a tree. Bread cocked the revolver again, and the sheriff drifted. As the raft peeled slowly away, Fish locked eyes with the man. The sheriff glared at him from beneath plastered wet hair. His eyes looked as black as the river. Fish wasn’t sure what he saw there, but he had the distinct feeling he got when he knew he’d screwed up badly. It summoned in his mind the look his dad could give him when angered. It was a look that stopped the earth from spinning. And all Fish could do now was stare back into those eyes, as if he’d come across some animal in a forest. Fish heard Bread catch his breath on the deck behind him. Fish was still too winded to speak. His knee hurt. He held it, and let his head fall onto the wet pile of rope as the sheriff waded to shore with his dog, and then Fish closed his eyes.

  Eleven

  TIFFANY STAGGERED DOWNHILL, STRUGGLING TO HOLD HER HALF of the canoe and a flashlight at the same time. Her arms ached. The grass on the riverbank was slippery, wet with evening dew.

  “Okay,” said Miranda, nosing the front of the canoe into the water. “We made it.”

  Tiffany dropped the back end of the overloaded canoe onto the grass, and it landed with a muffled thump. She worried that she should have set it down gently, but Miranda didn’t seem to notice, and Tiffany was nearly too bug-bitten and winded to care. She wasn’t good at this sort of thing, carrying canoes, running from law enforcement, breaking into hospitals. Ever since she found herself relying on Miranda as a guide, her reservations about the woman grew. The more she trusted her, the more dangerous she seemed to become. Tiffany stretched her back and arms. Blood flowed back like needles into her forearms. The stars shone brightly across the full breadth of the sky. Tiffany recognized Ursa Major and Minor, the Great Bear and Little Bear, the mother and son circling each other in all that darkness and light. We’re on our way, she thought. She caught her breath and closed her eyes and rubbed the cramps from her hands.

  Tiffany felt she had to prove something to Miranda, though what that was, exactly, she didn’t know. The widowed woman was stoic and fiercely attached to her son, and these were admirable qualities. But why Tiffany felt so obliged to stand by her in all of this was a mystery. It wasn’t like her to attach herself to others. She’d been alone a long time, and her own troubles were plenty. But here she was, on the lam and about to push a canoe into a black river with a woman she’d known for a night and a day. Tiffany smiled in the darkness. Despite the reckless abandon of it all, or perhaps because of it, she felt more alive than she had in a very long time.

  Tiffany could hardly believe she’d taken part in their actions at the hospital. It seemed like a scene from someone else’s life, certainly not from hers. After sprinting across the parking lot and slamming herself shut in the cab of Teddy’s truck, she gathered the courage to peek over the dashboard. She spotted security guards running around inside the lit corridors of the hospital, black jackets whizzing past windows, through lobbies. Come on, Miranda, come on, she whispered. When she heard sirens coming from the streets behind her, she ducked to the floorboards. She closed her eyes as the red and blue lights passed, breathing as steadily as she could on the sandy floor mats. Did the police know which truck was theirs? They’d search the parking lot for sure. Tiffany swallowed. When the passenger door of the cab burst open, she couldn’t bear to look at her accusers. She just held her breath, waiting for a voice to command her to stay down, to move out of the cab, to read her her rights or whatever else it was police say when they arrest people. But it was Miranda’s voice that broke the silence. Tiffany, let’s go, Miranda hissed, slipping into the cab. Tiffany snapped back up into the driver’s seat, glanced at the empty cop cars blocking the hospital entrance, and then at Miranda, who was panting and untangling a small tuft of cedar needles from her hair. She had dirt on her face. Start the truck! All Tiffany could do was gape. Miranda stopped untangling her hair, placed a hand gently on Tiffany’s shoulder, spoke into her eyes. Tiffany, I did not just leap from a window to a pine tree to be arrested in the parking lot. In Jesus’ name, fly! The next part made Tiffany smile most, the way she turned the key and pumped the sloppy pedal all the way to the floor, the engine igniting and roaring to life. With her foot on both gas and brake, she yanked the truck in gear, popped the brake pedal, and fishtailed that big red pickup right across the median. She could still hear the squealing tires and see the empty cop cars in her rearview mirror, their turning lights drifting from sight.

  Tiffany grinned at the stars. Madness, she thought.

  “Okay,” said Miranda, “I think we’re ready.”

  Miranda stooped over the canoe, touching the various packs and pieces of gear, tugging straps. They’d spent the morning packing for the trip—bedrolls and pillows, lighters, batteries, saltine crackers and peanut butter, cans of tuna, a hunting knife, and a twelve-gauge pump gun from Teddy’s cabinet. Constable Bobby, thankfully, had run out of cookies and left the farm. They spent the afternoon and early evening dragging the loaded canoe through fields and forests, miles of pines and brambles and boulders. Miranda didn’t want to leave the truck parked at any boat la
ndings. If they hiked to the river, they could disappear. Tiffany cursed the branches and bugs. Miranda prayed out loud for a better path, and protection from mosquitoes. Then she took a shortcut, which proved to be even worse, dusk and mud and marsh, more bugs than before. But Tiffany was committed and irate by that point, and would have dragged the boat through a grass fire if it meant getting to the river any sooner.

  “Water. Food. Extra blankets.” Miranda stood up. “We’re ready. Are we ready?”

  “Just a sec,” said Tiffany. With all the gear in the canoe, there was only room left for two paddlers, bow and stern. It’d be a cramped ride, and no telling how long. They’d packed enough food and water for five days, but Tiffany drank four glasses of water to fully hydrate before leaving the farm. It made her nervous being away from amenities again. She ducked into the jack pines, found a place devoid of briars, and turned off her light as she squatted down in the grass. She became aware that now was her chance to turn back, but already knew she couldn’t. The thought of doing so seemed far worse than the bugs and mud and discomfort. She knew she’d stay with this woman, unreasonable as it seemed. When she returned to the riverbank, Miranda had set the paddles in place, bow and stern, and stood by the back of the canoe.

  “Do you mind letting me steer?” Miranda asked. “I never asked how much paddling experience you had.”