Athabasca

by Harry Kleinhuis

  “Hold still, boy. You’ll be all right. That arm will heal. But we need to get it immobilized.”

  With his arm resting on his lap, Jack could feel its pain absorb the warmth of the afternoon sun. He looked up to respond to his dad, to say that he was all right, that he would manage once he’d rested. But his dad was gone.

  Jack turned to look, but the pain brought him back to facing the river as before. He looked down at his arm again and wondered what had happened. He felt like he had disappeared. Then he noticed the cup beside him, full of tea, and almost white with the sweet milk. He wondered how, or why, or what had happened to make things go blank and the world disappear.

  Malcolm was back before Jack had finished the tea. He was carrying a scroll of birch bark.

  “We’ll wrap this around your arm to keep it immobile,” he said. “Like a splint.”

  Jack wondered if he might disappear into the pain again, as his dad began to work. But he was surprised at how firm and gentle the man could be, as he first padded his arm with a patch of blanket, and then fashioned the birch bark around it like a tube. All of his left arm, right down to the fingertips, he tied with strips he tore from the oilcloth.

  Jack hoped his dad hadn’t seen him looking at him, as he knelt beside him and worked on his arm in silence. It was not something he had ever dared to do before, that he could remember. Not up that close.

  “We’ll need to be here for some time,” Malcolm said as he stood up at last. It sounded more like a prescription than one of his orders. “Maybe a week, or until you can move it without too much pain. Moving the canoes won’t be easy. And the hardest part will come first.” As he said that, he was looking toward the island and what was visible of the Gooseneck rapids.

  Jack nodded. He understood. They would be going back. He wished his arm would heal so he could think for himself.

  Jack also imagined that his arm was already beginning to heal. He was willing it to do that. He also knew it would be a few days before he would know if he had any options, or what his next steps might really be.

  “Thanks,” Jack offered quietly. But, even as he looked up, Malcolm had already set about organizing a better campsite, up on a flat shelf above the gravel bar of the river’s shore.

  13

  By late afternoon, Jack had gotten up to walk. He needed to walk. He walked slowly. Each shuffling step felt like a jarring leap that threatened to sever his broken arm completely.

  There was no rush anymore. Jack knew they were stuck in place. As Malcolm had said, they’d be there for at least a few days. He’d set up a campsite where there was still enough breeze to blow the flies away, but where the things they might need were close at hand. The canoes were up at the campsite, as shelters for the two of them, with spruce boughs topped with cedar for bedding.

  The sun was about an hour above the western horizon when Malcolm came back to the camp with three fish. They were already gutted and cleaned. A task done at the river’s edge so any mess could be tossed into the river and not tempt any animals to come into their camp.

  Jack wasn’t sure what he should do, or what his dad might expect him to do. This was a new situation for both of them. Cyril had run away once a few years ago and tried to hide in the bush up from the house. He’d given up and walked home when he got hungry. That homecoming had involved Malcolm’s broad leather belt. Cyril had slept on his stomach that night, Jack remembered. But this was different. He was older. Old enough to make real decisions. He’d wondered about the young eagles making their decisions to finally jump out of the nest and try their wings.

  Malcolm set the fish aside and got the fire going. Jack took the big tin to get water for tea. He pretended not to notice the throbbing arm inside its birch splint, but moved delicately because of it, nonetheless. When Jack returned and set the tea tin in the coals opposite, the splayed fish were roasting in the radiant heat coming from the base of the fire. A large driftwood tree trunk embedded in the sand and gravel served as a place to sit. Jack assumed things had been located close to the big log for that reason.

  Jack was slowly picking his way through one of the broiled goldeye his dad had handed him when he finally spoke. “I didn’t run away. I left.”

  Malcolm nodded, waited, and then said, “People say goodbye when they leave.”

  “I left a note. And I told Cyril.”

  Another nod, and the offer of another half of fish. But Jack waved it aside. He’d had enough with one. Good flaky flesh. The bones and skin had gone into the fire.

  Jack wanted to say, “You were young when you left,” but thought better of it. He wasn’t sure where he stood with his father, or how Malcolm might react. Finally he asked, “Why did you come after me? Was it the canoe?”

  “I don’t know,” Malcolm said at last. He avoided further conversation by pouring some tea for them both. He didn’t add sweetener this time.

  They both drank their tea in silence, spat out the leaves that came with it, and felt the warmth of the fire, while their backs got colder in the sharp night air below the foothills of the Rockies. They had already talked longer, and more, than either of them could remember. Before, at the house, there had been routines and responsibilities that everyone understood and accepted. This was not routine. Jack knew he would have to pick his way carefully through the next few days of his healing.

  Before it got completely dark, Jack shuffled his way slowly over to the small canoe, lay down carefully and painfully on the aromatic evergreen boughs, and pulled his small blanket around him. He listened to the rhythm of his heart through the steady throbbing of his left arm and looked toward the fire. He saw the dark hunched outline of his dad. Their conversation had ended. Their thoughts had not.

  14

  Jack was still in the same position as the night before when the gray of morning and the first few rays of penetrating sunlight woke him. Pain, it seems, can sometimes be a powerful sedative. Pain also sharply reminded him of the events of the last few days, as he tried to move both arms to rub the sleep from his eyes. Suddenly the rest of his surroundings came into focus. He knew why he could already hear the crackling of a fire. He wondered what would happen next. He’d had no experience with just sitting idly, or waiting for a broken limb to heal.

  After a short detour into the bush, Jack joined his dad on the driftwood log that had probably been dragged to that spot by a stronger than usual spring run-off.

  The two acknowledged each other with a nod as Jack sat down.

  Jack knew tea would be their only breakfast. They weren’t working. The only formality was that of letting the one who had made it offer it to anyone else. That was the way of the bush and, in due time, Malcolm did just that, pulling the tea away from the fire, dipping the enamel cup into it, and offering it to Jack. What the fire did for them on the outside, the tea would do for the rest.

  Jack knew his dad wouldn’t ask about his arm, so after a while he said, “Maybe my arm is just bruised after all.”

  “No. People know when they break something. The bruising and the pain is just a part of it. Your fingers being numb was the proof of it.”

  During his second cup of tea, Jack asked, “Did you ever break anything?” He was thinking of the weeks at a time that his dad was up on his trap lines in the winter. A lot of things could have happened that would be long over and forgotten by the time he made it back to the house, if he ever thought to talk about it at all.

  “There were a lot of broken limbs during the war. A lot of other things as well.” And with that, to avoid any more questions, Malcolm took the tea tin down to the river for more water and set it among the coals. He didn’t sit down again but glanced around, as if looking for something to do.

  Jack sat and watched, as Malcolm sauntered down to the river and up to the backwater near the rapids. There was always fishing. It was practical, and often a necessity in the wilderness. And
now, necessary as a way to change the subject of their conversation. Or end it.

  Jack was called on to tend a new smoking fire that Malcolm had set up for the curing, drying, and smoking of the fish that he intended to catch. It was a simple arrangement of a leafy lean-to of branches and bush to hold the smoke and reflect the heat of that small fire, so that the cleaned and split fish could hang in front of it. One good arm was all Jack would need to keep the fires going with twigs that he could snap off driftwood, or from the dead lower branches of trees nearby.

  By midday, more than a dozen goldeye were draped over a green stick in front of the smoking lean-to. Two of the biggest, and among the last to be caught, were splayed and cooking in the heat beside the campfire. They were starting to sizzle in their own oils and juices, when Malcolm came up with the last of the day’s catch and handed them to Jack.

  “Hang these and smoke them, too. We’ll need them for food when we’re ready to travel. We’ll keep the fire going overnight.”

  Jack nodded. “The water’s on for tea.” He said it sort of like a question, wondering if his dad was ready to eat. His going down to wash the silvery scales off his hands seemed to be an affirmative response.

  They ate their fish in silence. Maybe because they were hungry. Maybe because the fish tasted good.

  Malcolm finally said, “Two or three days should be long enough to cure the fish we’ll need for the trip back.”

  That was the plan, apparently. Jack knew that his dad didn’t expect a response. Two or three days was his plan and his order. He was also suggesting that by then, Jack should be used to the pain in his arm, or at least know how to deal with it, so that he’d be able to help with the canoes.

  “Is that splint still tight enough to keep your arm immobile?” It was all Malcolm asked by way of a medical consultation.

  Jack nodded. “I can move my fingertips without it hurting.”

  The late afternoon of summer was getting hot and sultry. Malcolm pulled the tea tin back from the fire. “East wind,” he noted. “It will be raining up in the foothills and mountains somewhere.”

  That was the news and the conversation.

  With nothing else to do, they both lay under their canoes and let sleep come if it wanted to.

  15

  The east wind covered them with a gray, rainy sky the next morning. Malcolm built up the cooking fire not just to keep warm, but also to ward off some of the rain that fell, heavy at times and a steady drizzle for the rest. Jack tended to the fish-curing fire and kept it going, ranging farther and farther for the wood that he could manage with his good hand and arm.

  On the third morning, Jack was up first. He felt cold, needed to pee, and his left arm was aching. The sky was already dawning in the east, so he decided to start the fire. It didn’t take long to blow the coals back to life, with some of the tinder and kindling from under the canoe where he’d stored it. It was a habit, or trick, that was routine at any time, but especially during days of unpredictable weather. A fire was a necessity in the bush.

  Jack’s movement and the warmth of the fire brought life back to his left arm, with a pulsing that seemed less painful than the day before. He wanted to peel back the birch-bark splint to see what his forearm looked like, but thought better of it. He knew his dad was the one who would have to re-wrap it.

  The first rays of the sun were above the eastern horizon when Jack got up to fetch some water from the river for tea. It was then he noticed the other thing that may have prompted his early rising. The steady sound of the Gooseneck rapids, even though they were a long way off, was missing. And so, too, was the river itself! There was just a muddy, boulder-strewn shore and flat pools of water where the big Athabasca River had been flowing the evening before!

  “Dad! The river’s gone!” Jack didn’t know what else to say or do. It was a mystery to him. Or maybe a trick of nature he hadn’t seen before.

  Neither had Malcolm. But he had heard of such things in the lore of older folk. And those stories seldom had a happy ending.

  “Grab everything you can and put it in the small canoe!” Despite his startled awakening, there was purpose and urgency in Malcolm’s voice. He had already righted the small canoe and was looking for things lying around.

  “What happened?”

  “Something’s dammed the river upstream! Get moving! We have to get to higher ground!”

  Jack didn’t understand. At least, not the river and what was happening. But he did understand his dad. The urgency in his voice and those orders were not things to be questioned. He ran and looked for anything still lying about. He thought of the fish being cured. But his dad had already rolled them up in the small oilskin.

  “What about the big canoe?”

  “This one’s lighter and easier to move! Grab the stern!”

  Jack did as he was told. He noticed that his dad had put all their gear up close to the front.

  Malcolm ordered, “Come on!” And set the example by grabbing the bow breastplate and lifting it just enough to raise the canoe off the ground. “You lift the stern with your good arm. Let’s go!”

  There was no time for questions of any kind, nor for further explanation.

  There was no trail. This was not a portage. It was simply a matter of taking the shortest route to the highest ground—and doing it as quickly as possible. Malcolm veered one way or another to avoid the biggest trees and the densest brush. But, aside from that, it was a matter of smashing their way forward and upward, away from the river.

  Jack, too, put his head down and lifted and pushed through the underbrush. Several times the canoe slipped from his grasp. But his dad forged on, dragging the canoe until Jack could recover and lift his end again. They were both sweating and panting by the time they got to an even steeper incline—probably the embankment of an ancient river channel.

  Malcolm said, “Good, this is what we need!” by way of encouragement, as he scrabbled and clawed his way forward and upward on the steeper slope.

  Jack wondered if he was helping or hindering at this stage. He winced at times, as the birch-bark sheath around his broken arm banged into a sapling or branch. But he knew better than to yell out. He knew it would not slow his dad, anyway.

  Finally, they crested the embankment. It was like coming out of the bush and into the clearing back at their house. Now, because of the steepness and height of the slope, they could see over and through the treetops back down to the river itself. It was maybe two hundred yards away, and down, vertically, maybe fifty. Parts of the river bottom that they were able to see looked like a big, long, muddy ditch with long puddles in its deepest parts. And there was no sound.

  Jack was gasping as he leaned into a sturdy poplar. He would have asked questions. He really wanted to. But he also knew this was not the time. He just watched, while his dad tied the painter of the little canoe up high to the trunk of the biggest tree that he could reach. Then he looked up the valley and motioned for Jack to keep quiet.

  “We’ll try to bring up the other canoe.” But Malcolm explained no further as he headed back down the way they had come.

  Jack skidded after him, bracing himself and protecting his sore arm as best he could. Going down the slope was even more treacherous than coming up. And more dangerous for his injured limb.

  Malcolm listened intently at the base of the hill as they stood beside the big canoe. He was listening for any sound that the river upstream might be moving again. Just how far up it might have been blocked, however, was still a mystery.

  All Jack could think of, as he looked out at where the river had been, was the time he and Cyril had let loose an old beaver dam one spring day a few years ago. He remembered how they had cheered when the water surged through the breech they had made. He also remembered being amazed at how much water filled the channel below and how much debris it moved. He began to understand the urgency in his dad�
��s voice. But that was all he had time to do.

  “Let’s go!” Malcolm shouted, as he heaved at the big canoe and pointed the bow up the slope.

  Jack jumped into line at his position at the stern and did his best, as they slithered and lifted the canoe forward. It was a freighter. Well over twenty feet long and broad at the beam to match. Its cedar ribs and planking had soaked up a lot of water. It was certainly more than twice the weight of the smaller canoe.

  Even Malcolm had to stop and catch his breath at the base of the steeper slope. He was doubled over, with his hands resting on his knees, forcing the air in and out of his burning lungs.

  Jack wondered if it might not be easier to wait until the river filled again and then simply float the big canoe. He also knew better than to question his dad’s experience, or his orders.

  Finally, Malcolm was able to straighten again, and made as if to haul the canoe up the steeper slope. But even as he began, he motioned for Jack to keep quiet.

  Far off, Jack could hear the sound that brought back an ancient memory, of the roar of the transcontinental trains coming out of the tunnel near Brûlé. Back then, it had been the sound of the world, the sound of the biggest things that moved, the sound of a million tons of freight being dragged along an unending highway of steel.

  “Move!” Malcolm yelled, as he heaved on the canoe and began threading and dragging it up the steep slope.

  Jack moved and put all his strength against the stern of the big canoe, using his legs like levers to pry against its mass. For an eternity, they pulled and pried and heaved, not even wasting energy to yell out the curses their minds screamed. But on the steeper slope, and in the tangles of underbrush, that eternity only got them a couple of canoe lengths upward.

  “Dad!” Jack yelled, as he heard the first waves of the newborn river begin to thunder through the Gooseneck beyond the island.

  “Move!” Malcolm yelled. “No! You! Just you!” And he motioned with his hand. “Get up the hill on your own! Run!”