At Yellow Lake

by Jane Mcloughlin

  He took in a deep breath of the sweet mouldy river. He looked up at the night sky, at the stars twinkling, a half moon hiding behind a bank of clouds. He closed his eyes and saw Mum again, looking down, only this time she was looking away from her telescope and rolling her eyes at his pathetic idea.

  She was right. Leaving now would only lead to worry, to questions, to phone calls home. He’d have to be patient, as hard as that was. He’d have to stay cooped up in the condo until Ken dropped him off at the bus station on his way to work.

  He went back into the living room and sat on the sofa. He picked up the holdall from the floor and rummaged through his pants and socks, digging until he found the satin bag that held the bit of Mum’s hair.

  When he looked at the thin piece of cloth, he felt even more of an idiot. Mum was probably up on that cloud, laughing her head off with one of her angel mates.

  ‘Doesn’t he realise that it was a joke?’ she’d guffaw. ‘What does he think that’s going to achieve?’

  Peter put the bag back in its hiding place. He zipped up the holdall, gave it a pat.

  No, he thought. Mum hadn’t been joking. She wouldn’t laugh.

  He lay down on the sofa and pulled the covers over his head. As long as the phone didn’t ring, he’d be OK. As long as the doorbell didn’t go, as long as there were no police cars pulling up outside the condo, they’d get to Yellow Lake.

  Just the two of them, as he’d promised.

  JONAH

  The moon was full and from the opening of the wigwam Jonah could just make out the cabin. It no longer tormented him with the promise of comfort and warmth, of beds and blankets. Since he’d finished the wigwam, he had no need for it.

  He closed his eyes. The night sounds were like music. The lapping of the lake water against the shore, the hum of insects, the whooshing sway of trees, the sharp cry of a bird, the crunch and shuffle of nocturnal creatures. This was what heaven sounded like. There weren’t any trumpets, or brassy choirs or clanging cymbals. Heaven sounded like nature, heaven sounded like earth.

  Yawning, bone-tired after another day’s hard work, Jonah lowered the sheet that was his front door and lay down on the mat that he’d managed to weave for himself. He covered his aching body with the blanket he’d brought from home and drifted blissfully into sleep.

  Then – how long had he been sleeping? – he was awake again. What woke him up? A light filtered into the wigwam, but it wasn’t the sunrise. Not yet.

  Headlights.

  On. Then off, so there was darkness again. On again.

  A car door slammed. Voices were raised – louder, until they became shouts. It was men – angry or drunk. Maybe both.

  Somebody’s found me, Jonah thought.

  It would be like being at school again – a hard wall, tile over concrete, his skull seeming soft and pliable, easily re-shaped into another form.

  ‘Hey!’

  Slow down, he willed his thoughts. Nobody knows you’re here. Slow down. Be quiet.

  ‘Hey, you son of a bitch.’

  Hush. He forced his lungs to stop pushing out the air so loudly, commanded his heart to stop its dangerous hammering. Listen.

  ‘I’m talking to you, asshole.’

  A laugh. A deeper voice. ‘Who you calling asshole, asshole?’

  Whoever it was out there, they weren’t talking to him. Jonah heard a loud belch, then someone gagging and retching.

  ‘Hey, dude. Kyle ain’t gonna like it that you puked on his car.’

  Who were these people? They must all be drunk or high on something. They sounded young too, as if their voices hadn’t completely changed. The sound they made together was like a gaggle of low-flying geese.

  Suddenly, the voices stopped. Although he couldn’t hear the men, he could feel their presence like a huge shadow inching towards the wigwam, a silently spreading black stain. This was it, he told himself. This was the end. There was no way he could fight off four of them, even if they were stoned out of their minds. He inched his body towards the back of the wigwam, shielded himself with his blanket and mat.

  Wait! This was stupid. Fear was making him weak. He dug into the ground and found a cord that was keeping the sides of the wigwam pegged to the ground. He could take out two of the supporting stakes and lift up a section of soft bark. He could slide underneath on his stomach, crawl into the woods and hide out till morning. They’d be gone by then.

  Outside an empty beer can rattled on a solid surface. They were near the cabin, on the narrow pavement near the door or on the side patio.

  Jonah heard drunken whispers, stifled laughter. The sounds of shuffling and shoving, of muffled instructions, grew louder until he could make out garbled words.

  ‘Harder.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘Do it again.’

  They were breaking in. They weren’t on the lookout for an Indian kid they’d seen in town buying twine and canvas at Hardware Hank. They weren’t racist goons, or right wing militia members, ready to teach a trespassing Indian a lesson, white-boy style. They were just stupid local kids using the cabin as a place to party.

  Jonah heard a crash, as the cabin’s door was finally broken down. He crept away from the corner, pulled back the door sheet and peered out. Maybe he should try to stop them. No. He’d be outnumbered. What about the phone? He could sneak inside, call the police, report a break-in. But what if the cops searched the whole area? What if they found the wigwam, found him?

  Jonah laid the mat flat again, stretched out, pulled the blanket over his head. The cabin wasn’t his responsibility. Some white man built a house that he wasn’t even prepared to live in, while all over the world, the poor and homeless festered in slums and shanty towns.

  If trespassers wrecked the place, then the owner got what he deserved.

  From outside, another light darted across the back of the wigwam. Another car door opened and closed. Jonah was nearly asleep again, not sure if what he was hearing was real or part of a jumbled-up dream. Something else had arrived, someone bigger, older, stronger, with footsteps that shook the ground.

  It sounded like the Windigo, Jonah thought, the starving giant who preyed on the young, and devoured their flesh to satisfy his eternal hunger. He struggled to stay awake, in case the Windigo attacked.

  No, stupid. The Windigo wasn’t real. He was just an Ojibwe legend, a symbol for evil, a story his mother told him once to scare him, to make him behave. There was no such thing as the Windigo, no such thing as. . .

  He yawned.

  The sounds outside the wigwam faded away. Real or fantasy, awake or dreaming – it didn’t matter any more. It was too late. He was too tired. Jonah curled over onto his side and fell back to sleep.

  Chapter Six

  ETTA

  Mom and I were on the road by 9.30. It was as if last night had never happened.

  The fall was still a long way off, but the tops of the trees we were driving past were changing colour, like they’d been dusted with red and gold frosting. Maybe it was just the sun’s reflection, but it seemed like a sign – this was going to be one of those days when everything would go right. The car wouldn’t break down on the way to the mall. We’d find what we wanted in the stores, in just the right size, and all on sale – fifty per cent off. The cashier would accept Mom’s credit card, smile and say, ‘Thank you for shopping with us, ladies.’

  I was almost woozy with excitement. It reminded me of when I was little, when there was no boyfriend around to take her away from me. We’d be like sisters, laughing and giggling, and she’d be acting silly, just for fun, not to get the attention of some man.

  She glanced over at me, and smiled. ‘We should get you some lipstick today. You’ve got such pretty lips.’ She took her right hand off the steering wheel for a second just to touch my mouth. ‘You got them from your dad, you know? He didn’t have much going for him, but he had really pretty lips. Nice eyes, too.’

  I looked in the mirror. I did have pretty lips. My
cheekbones seemed to be getting higher, too, and it looked like my nose was getting shorter. Was that possible? Did these kinds of things happen right before you turned fifteen?

  Like I said, things just seemed perfect. I loved it when she talked about my dad. He was no better than any of the other ‘regulars’, I knew that. He was probably no better even than Kyle, but, well, he was my father and that was important to me. I tried to think of some way to keep on the subject – she never told me anything about him, except that his name was Jack and he spent some time in jail right after I was born, and that he was always stealing our stuff to sell so he could buy cocaine. That was why there weren’t any baby pictures of me anywhere, except the studio ones that Grandpa must have paid for. Whenever Mom got hold of a camera, my dad would steal it or some dealer would break in and just snatch it away. That was also why my only memories of watching TV were from when I was at Grandpa and the Duchess’s house. Anything we had, we didn’t have for long.

  Mom and I were listening to an oldies station on the radio. The reception wasn’t good because there were power lines next to the road, and the trees were too tall. We could only get three stations clear enough to really hear. One was country, one was some lunatic talk show, so we had to go with the oldies. Most of the songs that crackled through the speakers were from way before I was born – Prince, Janis Joplin, the Rolling Stones – but Mom knew the words to every one of them. When we got close to Duluth a Bob Dylan song came on. I couldn’t make out the lyrics because Mom was shrieking along, but I got the idea. It was all about having everything when you were young, and then being so poor and lonely when you grew up that you couldn’t even figure out how to get back home.

  ‘Story of my life,’ she said when the song was over. We rounded a sharp bend and the road dipped down into a narrow hollow. We lost the reception, so she turned the radio off. ‘I mean, that’s how my life used to be, when I was your age and I lived at home with Grandpa and the Duchess. I had anything I wanted – expensive clothes, a nice car. . .’

  I waited for her to say more, about her life, about growing up a rich cheerleader type and ending up in a trailer. I looked out at the copper-topped trees flying past, felt my stomach do a little flip when the road leapt suddenly up out of the hollow and onto the flat land again.

  Nothing. The conversation just stopped. I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. She hardly ever told me stories unless, like today, a song would come on that reminded her of something, and she’d let a little detail slip out by accident, like it was a dirty secret she was sworn not to tell.

  So we kept quiet the rest of the way. It should have been the perfect time to tell her that stuff about Kyle. I could’ve told her that a bunch of stoned kids were out driving his car last night. Maybe she’d know who they were. Maybe she’d have some explanation.

  But that old Dylan song brought us down to earth with a nasty bump, and pushed us back into our own separate worlds. And I knew what had happened the night before, when I just mentioned Kyle’s name.

  I didn’t want anything to ruin our day, especially not him.

  And nothing did spoil it. Everything was perfect. I even got that lipstick. Revlon, Frosted Pink Cherry in a glossy golden tube, $7.95.

  It was later, that night, when everything turned from shiny to black.

  PETER

  Peter stared out of the passenger window at the jammed traffic on the motorway. Miles of oversized cars were plodding down the highway like dinosaurs. Uncle Ken looked straight ahead at the queue in front of his SUV.

  ‘I shoulda gone to the funeral,’ he said. There was something tight in his voice, as if he were going to cry. ‘I regret that now. And I ain’t just saying that because you’re here.’

  On the opposite carriageway, Peter watched as a black diplodocus nearly collided with a shiny blue stegosaurus.

  ‘She was my only sister.’

  Uncle Ken wiped his nose with the palm of his hand sideways, to make it seem like the casual brushing away of some dust or a bug. ‘I shoulda gone.’

  Peter’s bus to Yellow Lake would be leaving in a few minutes. Ken had bought the ticket online – his treat, he said, because he felt so bad about not driving Peter there himself. The trip would take all day. He’d need to ride to Duluth, then cut back to Hayward, and over to some other little towns that had ‘Lake’ in the name. Once he got to Welmer, he’d be able to get a lift out to the cabin. Duane at the grocery store owed Ken a favour. All Peter had to do was ask.

  Ken turned off the cross-town freeway and drove down a quieter local road, lined with small wooden houses fronted with neatly-mown lawns and small flower beds.

  ‘Sure you can’t wait till next week? I got a couple days of leave owing. I could drive you up. Wouldn’t be any big deal.’

  Peter looked at Ken and sighed.

  ‘By then I’ll be back in England.’ He was getting good at this, making up rubbish on the spur of the moment. ‘Start of the school term. New beginnings. All that.’

  They got to the bus station, just as the Duluth bus pulled in.

  Uncle Ken took a map out of the glove compartment and showed him the route, tracing the bus ride with his finger. Highway sixty-one, then down onto thirty-five, then county roads named with letters, not numbers.

  ‘A couple years ago they changed our road from D to DD,’ Ken said. ‘Your mom thought that was real funny. Like the road was getting a boob job or something.’

  Ken’s voice got tight again. He sniffed a couple of times.

  ‘Now you got the keys, right?’ Ken wiped his nose, getting straight back to business.

  ‘I’ve got the keys.’

  They got out of the car and Ken hoisted Peter’s holdall out of the boot

  ‘And you sure you don’t want to take my cell phone? Piss-poor reception up there, but still. . .’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘I know it’s a pretty tame place – you won’t have any trouble – but call me from the landline soon as you get to the cabin, OK?’

  They joined the huddle of passengers waiting for the bus driver to finish his cigarette. Ken patted Peter’s shoulders, and then gave him another lung-clearing hug.

  ‘Your mom loved that cabin. It always was more hers than mine.’

  The driver flicked his cigarette butt onto the tarmac and crushed it with his foot. He closed the door to the luggage hold, sold a ticket to a mother with two young children. Ken and Peter had time for a final hand-shake while the driver opened the door and started the engine.

  ‘Listen. I haven’t been to Yellow Lake for a while,’ Ken said. ‘Couple of years. I don’t really have the inclination to go any more. Duane checked up on it for me this summer, but, well, the cabin might be looking kinda run-down is all.’

  The driver revved the engine and Peter stepped onto the bus.

  ‘Just to warn you,’ Uncle Ken said.

  JONAH

  When Jonah woke up, it felt as though the wigwam had turned into a sweat lodge. The sun had been out for hours – what time was it? Why had he slept so long?

  Last night. It took a few seconds for the memory to kick in – the slamming car doors, the wasted kids. He sat up, pulling his blanket up to his chest. He rummaged around the wigwam floor for his discarded pair of jeans. He pulled them on – if anybody was still out there, at least he wouldn’t be confronting them naked.

  He crept outside, tiptoed to the edge of the woods.

  No cars. That was good.

  Maybe he’d imagined it. Had it had all been part of a bad dream – the shouting, the swearing, the breaking glass?

  No. In front of the cabin there were empty cans, broken pieces of wood. And there were tyre tracks on the lawn. The front door was wide open too. Somebody had broken in.

  Jonah stepped across the broken glass and the splintered planks. He crept through the smashed-up door and into the kitchen. The smells hit him first. A burning smell, but not fire. Rubber? Chemicals? Maybe some appliance had blown – had the f
ridge’s motor burned out?

  He went into the living room.

  What had happened? Chairs were turned over and mattresses were spread across the floor. The oak dining table had been used as a giant ashtray – at least, something had been burned on it. Crushed, empty cans and bits of broken glass were strewn over the furniture and on the floor, along with bits of tubing and empty metal containers – what on earth were they?

  And that smell – metallic, burning – was even stronger here.

  He opened the door to the lakeside porch and sat down on the steps. Everything seemed so peaceful from here. The lake was smooth as glass, not a ripple on the surface. The air was motionless, the trees were still, the animals were quiet.

  Inside the cabin, something crashed to the ground. Jonah jumped to his feet. Quick – what could he use as a weapon? There was a basket of damp firewood beside the porch. He picked up the longest piece he could find. He looked inside the living room – nothing had changed, nobody was there. He opened the screen door and moved toward the kitchen. His heart pounding, both hands clutching the wood like a club, he tiptoed around the pieces of glass, stepped over a yellow and frothy stain on the floor, peered through the doorway, ready to strike. . .

  Nothing – no invaders, no thieves. An empty glass jar had shattered on the floor, that was all.

  What an idiot I must look like, he thought. Brandishing a two-foot piece of rotting elm against gravity or the wind.

  He put down his makeshift club and picked some of the glass. Almost by instinct, as if his mother were there telling him what to do and how to do it, he found a mop and a broom, dug heavy-duty green garbage bags out of a kitchen drawer. He put furniture back into place, swept the floor, even mopped up some kid’s red-chunked puke. He made everything nice again, made everything clean.

  When he was finished, he fixed the lock and nailed a piece of plywood over the broken door. He spent hours on it, but all the time he was hammering and sawing, he couldn’t stop thinking that those boys would be back. And his pathetic repairs – what good would they be then? What good were planks and nails against small town kids with nothing better to do than get wasted and destroy things? What good were flimsy barriers against the cancer that these people spread? Drunken stupidity and drug-fuelled vandalism.