Raft of Stars
Page 26
Fish drew his knees under himself and rose to his feet. His hip hurt, and he felt as if he had a cut on his face, but everything was too wet to tell if it was bleeding very badly. He took his bearings. Whitewater charged down either side of the island. This part of the island was low in the water, sloping downward until tucking itself back into the current. Upstream, Fish saw where the two main channels of the falls converged, the smaller cutting into the larger before colliding with the island.
The island had the footprint of a large house. Fish followed its shoreline. Near its center rose the island’s highest point, a fifteen-foot ledge of rock. The face of the ledge revealed rounded-out hollows and bends where the river had carved it long ago. Some looked large enough to provide shelter, and Fish took a step toward them. He stumbled. He held his hip and rubbed it with his hands. As he rubbed his leg he was surprised to find the revolver still tucked in his belt. The sight of it startled him. Fish had forgotten about Bread’s dad. He frowned at the thought of that man’s eye, the way it stared into him as he dropped down the falls, the way it seemed to plead with him. Fish looked around the island. From what he could tell, he was alone. He looked up, beyond the island, and in the distance could see the sheet of the falls plummeting down. He could make out the black ribbon of the gap formed by the outcropping. Bread was up there somewhere. Fish could only attend to himself now. He took a few more hobbling steps toward the craggy face of the rock wall. The air smelled musty here, like river bottom. The hollows in the ledge seemed deeply cut, and Fish hoped they would be dry. But any sort of roof was welcome. It would be important to try to stay warm. Fish felt waves of exhaustion. He knew as soon as he hit the hollows of that ledge, he would curl up in a ball and sleep.
And then Fish stopped walking.
Something caught his eye, a sort of glistening amid the whitewater. He didn’t step toward it immediately. He didn’t even want to look directly at it. He knew in his gut what it was. Near the shore, an old pine was pinned against the ledge, its branches polished smooth by the water. Caught in the branches was a work boot, sole up, with a leg in it. The boot belonged to Bread’s dad. The rest of his body dangled beneath the whitewater.
Fish stumbled toward the edge and got down on his hands and knees. He reached out for the boot. His instinct was to save the man, but a deeper instinct told him it was already too late. The boot moved ever so slightly, like the rocking of a tied-up boat. The man was dead and Fish knew it.
“Why did you do this?” Fish whispered to the dead man. His voice didn’t sound like his own. It sounded younger, higher. He felt afraid. His body shivered in the cold. Whatever dark spirits lived in this wild had gathered here, in this one man, but now they were gone and there was only a shell. The man was gone, but Fish didn’t want to let him dangle like that. He reached out to the boot again. It was just beyond his reach. Fish tested the log with his foot, to see if he might shimmy out. His foot slipped and he clung to the rock. He shivered. Stared at the boot. He stared and he waited. He couldn’t leave his friend’s father like this, no matter how bad he was, but Fish knew he was too weak to get him. Minutes passed. Fish listened to the river whisper and hiss, to the rain fall on his back, until his body started to shiver less. He began to feel the cold a little less. Some part deep in his mind felt already home in his bed, his mom praying over him the way she prays. Another part of him, a more frantic part, knew he needed to get into the shelter of the island’s ledge if he was to survive the night. He remembered one of his grandfather’s lessons: If you’re cold enough to stop shivering, you’re in a bad way. The thoughts wrestled in his mind, in the river mist, his eyes opening and closing. A lightning bolt crawled very slowly across the sky, and Fish became certain he could sleep in the cold rain, if only for a few moments.
And then he felt a warmth that came from outside himself. He heard it, too, a warm breath exhaled on his back and neck. His eyes opened wide as a giant shadow stepped over the top of him. Fish’s heart pounded in his neck. He lay perfectly still. It was a bear. A bear stood over the top of him.
The bear blocked the rain, and Fish could feel the heat of the animal’s stomach, like a humid tent. This bear was much larger than the sow they’d seen save her cub. This was a male, a bruin. Fish watched the animal reach its muzzle out toward the log that trapped Bread’s dad. The bear sniffed, and then huffed, and then it bellowed.
The sound was like a giant drum. Fish’s body shook. The rock he lay on shook. And Fish took the opportunity to scramble out from under the bear. He rose to his feet and ran toward the ledge. His legs gave way and he fell.
The bruin took another breath and bellowed at the dead man again. It seemed ecstatic, as if a fire was loosed inside of it. The bruin’s hide shivered as it screamed. Its hair stood along its back in tall, wet spikes. Fish waited for the river to burst into flame, and felt like throwing up. The river basin echoed when it stopped. Rain fell against the rock. The bear looked out at the water. It popped its big jaws. Snap, snap. It lowered its muzzle to the man’s boot, nudged it sharply, and the body of Bread’s dad snaked into the current. Gone.
The bear watched the river. Fish watched the bear. It seemed made of the stone it stood on. The animal’s majesty was terrifying. Fish knew there was nothing in the wilderness this bear feared. There was nothing in the night that could touch it. Fish had heard of black bears getting old and big. His grandfather told him they could sometimes live for twenty years, the rarest of the rare reaching a quarter ton. This bear was the size of a steer, higher somehow, thicker, a mass of rump and shoulder and jaw.
Fish hadn’t waited to pull the revolver. He tried to open the cylinder to see if he had a round ready, but the latch proved too heavy for his wet and trembling hands. He pulled the hammer back with both thumbs. Fish’s hands shook as he tried to get a better grip on the revolver. His whole body shook, and as it did, he inadvertently squeezed the trigger. The muzzle blast erupted at his feet, and Fish heard the buzzing zip of the bullet ricochet into the night. The bruin bayed and its body shook as it spun toward him. Without hesitation the bear lumbered toward Fish, who was trapped with his back to the rock ledge several yards behind him. The bruin licked its nose as it walked. It towered over Fish.
Fish took a step back. The bear swayed on its paws. Fish fumbled with the hot cylinder. He didn’t know if he had another round. He thought about leaping into the river, but he was too weak to leap. His hands shook so badly that he couldn’t cock the hammer. He tightened his grip on the gun and tried again. But then he stopped trying. The revolver seemed so small, so impotent. And Fish did too. But what surprised him most, staring into the wide, black and brown face of wildness itself, was the knowledge that he wouldn’t shoot the bear even if he could. He didn’t want to shoot it. The bear was close enough to smell now, its powerful odor of mud and musk, honey and heat. The bear alone was justified in being out here. There were spirits in this world, and the bruin was among their chiefs. Fish had no ability to change its course.
“Leave me alone!” Fish said, his voice rattling.
The bear licked its nose. Moaned a little.
“I said, leave me alone!”
The bear took a step forward.
Fish’s fear allowed him to cock the hammer, and so Fish aimed the revolver at the bear’s giant eye. But as he straightened his grip, he saw something about to erupt from that eye, and from the rest of that massive body. It came from its mouth, through its teeth, and across its piebald gums. The bear bellowed. Fish felt heat on his face.
The revolver clattered at Fish’s feet.
The bear stared at him. Fish stared back. The bear huffed, blew rain from its nose. Fish felt his lungs filling and emptying. The bear came face-to-face with him, and Fish could see the grain of hairs on its nose, the stippled texture of its black nostrils, the river gleaming in its marbled eyes. Fish had fought one too many times, and he couldn’t anymore. His body was numb with fear and exhaustion. He’d been wet and cold for far too long. He had
no food in his stomach. He felt dizzy. The world could have its way now. Tears came to Fish’s eyes, staring at that bear, the musk coming out of its nostrils. And Fish suddenly felt as if he was outside of himself, watching himself stare at the bear. Lightning flashed. The bear’s eyes flashed. Fish saw a boy weeping silently in the rain, his hands at his sides. Very hungry and alone. And tired too, he thought, so tired. It was okay that this was the end of things, because then he’d finally get to sleep. And after a long sleep, if it was true, the boy would wake in a field of light, and his dad would be there, smiling at his handsome son, scooping him up in his big arms. And for eternity, the boy would be six years old, and his dad would hug him to his shoulder, and carry him around, and show him beautiful things.
“Dad,” whispered Fish to the lonely darkness, to the face of the bear. “Dad.”
The bruin came so close that Fish could hear the rumble of its lungs. The sound wasn’t menacing. It rolled around like distant thunder, the sound of so massive a force moving and living, breathing. The bear dipped its head down and gave Fish a push in the belly with its massive snout. The bear’s head, from forehead to lower lip, was larger than Fish’s torso.
Fish stumbled back a step. He wept out of fear and acquiescence, and thought to lift his hands in defense, but then thought better of it. The bear came at him again, and there was no fighting it. It stepped forward and nosed him again. Fish stepped back again. Fish felt as if this back-and-forth went on for a very long time, the bear nosing him backward, but then Fish bumped his head on something hard. He turned to see that he’d run into the overhang of one of the hollows carved in the cliff face. The bear stood guard, lungs thumping. Fish had nowhere to go but in. The bear huffed, stepped closer. Fish backed up against the interior wall, crouched, and looked out from an opening not much larger than his body.
The bear stared at him a moment, then looked up at the rain and grumbled. It turned a half circle in front of the entrance, like a giant dog about to bed down, and then it lowered its generous body onto its haunches and foreleg, slumping across the entrance to the cave.
Fish crouched in absolute darkness. The sound of splattering rain and thunder became muffled. The air in the small space filled with the musk of bear and river rock. Fish listened. He could hear the sound of the bruin’s lungs. He remained perfectly still for what must have been minutes. When the bear grumbled, Fish sank to his knees, inches away from the bear’s wide back.
The ground beneath him sloped outward. It was dry. The stone was cold, but the bear gave off incredible warmth. Fish raised his hands tentatively to the bear’s back, touched the tips of the wet spikes of hair. The hide twitched, and Fish withdrew his fingers. He kneeled in silence, listening to his breath and the bear’s breath. Everything was dark and quiet and warm. Fish had never felt so great a need for warmth, nor had he ever been so tired. The bear breathed in and out, its giant lungs lulling the storm outside. Fish was sealed in. His head began to drop and nod, lower and lower, until he lay on the rock floor and curled his body. On the furthest edges of consciousness, Fish inched toward the warmth, closer and closer, until he felt his knees bury themselves in coarse, wet hair, his fingers and face entangled in it, rumbling breath and unspeakable quiet.
That night Fish dreamed of his mother on horseback, racing across frozen dunes, his father sitting atop one of them, smiling, whispers of tongues in the breathing sand.
Eighteen
CAL SAT IN THE MORNING SUNLIGHT WITH HIS ARMS FOLDED over his knees. The sun warmed his face and dried his clothing. He’d removed his boot, setting his one good sock out on the rock to dry. Before him stretched the open air of the gorge, the river rumbling below, and beyond the gorge and forest stretched the tilled plains of Ironsford, a blue horizon. The armory owned most of these woods, Cal knew, used the river and cliffs for training, but today the river was quiet, nothing in sight but the gorge and the sky. There was nothing to do but wait. The falls roared at Cal’s feet, fanning out to tumble to the river bottom. The spray that hung in the air was shot through with sparks of light. Gone were the rain and thunder. Gone was the drizzle that lasted the entire evening while Cal sat his vigil. Gone were the dark and damp. All was black rock and gold sun and green trees now. The sunlight lifted puddles from rocks. It dried the cedars, and the gorge became filled with the smell of rocks and trees. Below him in the gorge, a pack of hungry swallows swooped for bugs. Above the swallows, rainbows formed in the mist.
Cal heard stirring by his side. Tiffany lifted herself onto an elbow, then onto her hip. She discovered Cal’s jacket then, wrapped around her waist and still half draped over the sleeping boy. Bread slept with his head on his arm, his mouth open and huffing against the rock. The boy had huddled close to Tiffany during the night, and Cal had taken off his canvas coat and placed it over the pair of them. Tiffany pulled it off her waist now, tucked it back up to Bread’s chin. He didn’t stir.
Cal looked at her. Her eyes were puffy and her hair was tangled. Her jeans were muddied. Cal, too, was dirty and scraped up from head to foot. His face, he knew, was sunburned and bug-bitten. The two adventurers smiled sad smiles at each other. Tiffany moved to sit close to him.
“Hi,” he said.
She smiled and looked out at the gorge. “It’s pretty,” she said.
The sparrows charged down the river valley, swooping over and between islands, dipping defiantly close to the torrent of waves.
Cal looked at the boy. “He’s tired.”
Tiffany smiled at Bread. “He didn’t move all night. Did you sleep?”
Cal shook his head. “Not since we heard that shot. I keep waiting for him to poke his head up from some rock. I haven’t seen him.”
Bread told them what had happened, how Fish had gone over the falls, how they’d tried to save Bread’s dad, the mention of whom startled Cal into abject silence. He’d thought the man dead, remembered the man’s slick blood on his hands when he slipped in it. Cal remembered the way he tried to lift his hand to the man’s neck to feel for a pulse, and how his hand shook so badly he cursed it and pulled it back and went for the sink and the whiskey. He had no excuse. He was too embarrassed to speak. Bread finished recounting the night, and when tears welled up in his eyes, Tiffany beckoned him sit near to her. You look cold, she said. Bread sniffed and said, I ain’t cold. But Tiffany said, Yes you are, now come here, and pulled him in to her and wrapped him in her arms. It wasn’t more than two minutes before Bread’s head dropped and he nuzzled in, unconscious against her chest.
Tiffany looked at the gorge, the rapids, and the falls, and at Bread. All that beauty, she thought, all this light, and they still had to steel themselves to face the gravest kind of news.
“Tell me it’s possible,” she said.
Cal paused a moment.
“It has to be,” he said.
Tiffany leaned toward him, and Cal felt the slow sway of her breathing body.
“Do you think I should wake Dale?” she asked after a time. “We still need to get off this rock.”
“No,” Cal answered quietly. “Let him sleep.”
A voice from the island cut through the rush of the gorge. A dog barked.
“Cal!”
Cal knew it was Teddy’s voice before he even turned his head. On the low bank of the main island, Teddy stood with his hands cupped around his mouth. He was wet to the hips, and so was Miranda, who arrived beside him by stepping lightly down a stone ledge. The pair stood next to the buoy post. Miranda lifted her hand to her eyes and peered across the bright water. Jacks shook water from his neck and tail, stooped for a drink of river water.
Cal waved his hat. He and Tiffany stood.
“Do you have the boys?” Teddy called, and a bit of hope dropped from Cal’s heart. He had really hoped Ted would bear good news, say he had Fischer, and Cal could tell him he had Dale, and then everyone could rejoice.
Cal cupped his hands to his mouth. “We have Dale!”
“Where’s Fischer?” returned
the call.
Cal didn’t know how to respond, particularly with Miranda staring at him. He couldn’t very well yell out that Fish had gone over the falls, dragging with him Bread’s dad, who Teddy thought was dead back in Claypot. It was too much bad news to shout across a river. Teddy seemed to sense Cal’s hesitation.
“We found a boat!” Teddy yelled. “It’s got a motor! I’ll come out for you!”
Cal nodded in an exaggerated way, gave a thumbs-up, and watched Ted turn back toward the trees, Miranda speaking excitedly to him, Teddy patting her hand. Before they made the wood line, an older, heavyset man hobbled out of the brush, clearly winded. The crossing apparently went less smoothly for him. He was wet up to the shoulders of his blue coat. Spotting Ted and Miranda, the man stopped and panted, leaned over with his hand on a tree to catch his breath. Cal watched a brief exchange among the trio, the winded man pointing downstream. Miranda put her hand on her mouth and ran into the trees. Ted followed her. Cal heard the distant thrum of a helicopter. The armory, he thought. Thank God. And then the winded man stood up and peered out at the river. It took a moment for the man to locate Cal in all that brightness, but when he did, he waved furiously and happily.
Cal laughed quietly, then heard a boy’s voice behind him.
“Who’s that?” Bread sat up on the rock, squinting one eye in the bright sunlight, the wet jacket atop his lap.
“Fish’s grandpa and mom are here,” said Cal. “They’re coming out in a boat.”
“But who’s that?” Bread asked again. The man had stopped waving now, and leaned on his tree again, wiping his brow with a handkerchief.
Tiffany answered him this time, and Cal gave her a look, which she waved off. “That,” she said, “is Constable Bobby.”
FISH HEARD SINGING BIRDS, LILTING AND MELODIOUS, BEFORE HE opened his eyes. The rock felt gritty against his head. His mouth was dry. His body, when he began to move it, seemed incredibly stiff, so he lay still another moment, peering through scratchy eyelids.