At Yellow Lake

by Jane Mcloughlin

  At first they’d both thought it was a trick of the light, or a bizarre shared hallucination. But slowly, through their dope-addled haze they realised what they were seeing – aurora borealis, Northern Lights. Traces of light like sheer green and white ribbon shimmered across the sky as gracefully as dancers. It was over in seconds, but the display seemed to last for days, a transforming vision that Jonah knew would never leave him and that he thought would bind him to the pretty girl forever.

  It didn’t, of course. He saw her again the next night, and night after night during the summer vacation. But every time she ignored him, pretended they had never touched, had never kissed, had never seen the image of a colourful god, vibrating in the sky.

  Jonah blinked, and the harsh light burned.

  He closed his eyes, forcing himself to stop thinking about then, about there. He focused on the words of the hymn he’d been hearing in his head, and squeezed his eyes tighter until the twirling stars appeared again. This was what he had been praying for. This vision, not the memory of a world that had treated him so badly, had left him abandoned by his friends, his family, his past, his culture.

  Slowly, the stars stopped swimming. The sky he gazed at was still dark, but another image appeared, huge and glowing like an enormous golden moon. It was his grandfather as a young man, his braids glistening black, his skin smooth and unmarked. He was dressed in gold buckskin that was decorated with intricate embroidered designs. His headdress glowed, as if the beads and feathers were electrified. Jonah didn’t really remember his grandfather, had never even seen a picture of him. But he recognised him instantly, and when the face smiled down at him like a kindly god, Jonah smiled back.

  He had prayed hard enough, he had sung long enough.

  He had seen his vision. Now he would wait for guidance to come.

  ETTA

  One. Two. Three. . . Four!

  I counted the bashes on the bedroom door. How long would the saggy mattress barricade hold them back? A minute, if we were lucky. And then—

  ‘Etta?’

  Peter held me by the shoulders. He was calmer now. The breathing must have worked – it had stopped the shakes, anyway.

  ‘You were right,’ he said. ‘We should’ve run.’ He glanced at the tiny bathroom window. ‘Come on.’

  He opened the hook and pushed out the shutter. The soft sunlight shone through – I’d forgotten it was still daytime. The air from outside was warm and inviting. The forest’s edge was only a few feet away.

  ‘Hurry, Peter!’

  We heard the bedroom door come crashing down and an army of footsteps stomp across the wooden floor. I could feel myself panicking as the sounds got closer. I wanted to put my hands up to my mouth and scream my head off like they do in the movies.

  But Peter stayed cool. He loosened the inner screen’s hooks and banged on the wooden frame. Nothing. Stuck tight. He pushed and punched the rusted mesh. The metal scraped into his skin, bloodying his knuckles.

  He pushed even harder, tearing his skin, swearing under his breath, a long stream of words that came out like Jonah’s weird song.

  Finally! The swearing must have done it! He tore a wide hole in the metal, ripping his skin.

  ‘Go!’ he whispered.

  I shook my head and pointed at Jonah, who was swaying now, dancing to a song that only he could hear. ‘We’ve got to get him out first.’

  In the bedroom it got quiet. No footsteps, no pounding on the bathroom door. What was going on out there? I tried to listen for clues – breathing, whispers – but Jonah’s mumbled song made it impossible.

  ‘I’ll get Jonah out,’ Peter hissed. ‘You’ve got to go now.’

  Footsteps shuffled on the other side of the door. Something went click. Kyle’s gun, I thought – maybe he was loading up his rifle, standing back a few feet, taking aim, getting ready to shoot us all, right through the thin plywood panels.

  No, I thought. He’d never. . .

  But Peter must have been thinking that too. His eyes were wide, like mine. He stared at the door, frozen with terror.

  The footsteps creaked again. Somebody cleared his throat. We needed time – to wake Jonah up, to get through that window – but there wasn’t any.

  Unless. . .

  I turned to the door.

  You have to do this, I thought. There’s no other way.

  I took a deep breath.

  Just say it.

  ‘Kyle?’

  I waited. No answer.

  ‘Kyle. It’s me, Etta.’

  Peter looked at me like I’d lost my mind. I made waving motions, pointed at the bathtub where Jonah was sitting up, swaying from side to side, lost in his own world. Why didn’t Peter understand what he needed to do – shake Jonah out of his stupor, or else haul him out the window by his arms or legs? Why didn’t he realise that he had to go with Jonah, through the window, right now?

  ‘Kyle, if you’re out there, well, I just wanted to say that none of us is going to say anything about this to anybody.’

  I held my breath, willing Kyle to answer.

  Nothing. Then a rattle of the door handle.

  ‘I mean, we ain’t exactly legal here, if you know what I mean.’

  Another rattle. A shove against the door.

  ‘I ‘spect I’m in a shit-load of trouble already, right? Huh, Kyle? Ain’t I?’

  What the hell was I doing? Talking like somebody on some talk show – who would that fool?

  The door moved, groaning at the hinges as Kyle pressed his weight against it.

  ‘The hell you doing here, girl?’

  ‘Nothing, Kyle. We ain’t doing nothing, like I said.’

  ‘Nothing, Kyle.’ His voice was mocking, sing-song. ‘We ain’t doing nothing.’

  I didn’t say any more. There was more creaking wood as Kyle pressed harder on the door. I motioned to Peter. Come on, get moving.

  ‘You might as well let us in,’ Kyle rasped. ‘You got nowhere to go.’

  Finally, Peter was on his feet. He poked Jonah’s arm, shook his shoulders – no reaction.

  ‘Right then,’ he muttered, leaning over the tub, twisting on all the taps.

  As soon as the cold water hit him, Jonah jumped up, yowling in shock. He slipped on the wet enamel and bashed his head on the corner of the sink, opening a two-inch gash across his forehead. He put his hands up to the wound and wiped away the blood. Two red stripes were painted down each cheek. Like an Indian, I thought. A real live Indian, ready for war.

  ‘Go!’ I shouted, as the door behind me rumbled and began to splinter.

  Peter climbed through first and pulled Jonah out with him. He dropped onto the soft sand and scrambled up again. Jonah had woken from his trance, his coma, whatever it was, and was moving away from the house. I clambered out after them, as the door came down. My foot caught the frame – the rusty screen cut a six inch slice across my ankle, and something twisted when I landed. Peter took my hand, helped me up, guided me back to the shelter of the forest.

  JONAH

  The water, the pain, the blood. What was going on? Jonah touched his stinging face and rubbed his eyes. Those crazy things he’d seen. Had he been dreaming or what?

  He was back on solid ground – the red, sandy earth beside the cabin – being dragged into the woods. Etta hobbled beside him, wincing in pain as blood poured out of a cut in her ankle. Peter was in the lead, pulling them both towards the cover of trees, his eyes wide, his breathing frantic.

  ‘Quick, run. . . I know where there’s a path. Follow me.’

  There were sounds inside the cabin – muffled shouts, crashing doors. The men. The fat guy with the shotgun, the bearded guy with the rifle – for a few blissful minutes, Jonah had forgotten about them.

  ‘Hurry, Jonah. Please.’

  Peter ducked to avoid the low branches and trudged into the undergrowth, Etta lagging behind him. She turned around and pleaded with Jonah, arms flailing.

  ‘You’ve got to come before it’s too late
.’

  They stood where his wigwam had been. Tramping the ground where he’d built his home. He looked into the woods – the cover of thick leaves, the impenetrable green lured him with promises of safety.

  From inside the house somebody shouted, ‘They’re gone.’

  Another voice. ‘Where?’

  ‘Don’t know. Just ain’t here.’

  ‘The woods. Go get ‘em.’

  The front door of the cabin groaned open and slammed shut.

  The men were back outside.

  ‘Jonah. Please.’ Etta was even more agitated now. The fear in her eyes burned him with shame – he’d seen that look before, in the wigwam, when he left her on her own.

  ‘We’ve got to find the path,’ Peter whispered.

  They’d never make it through the forest, Jonah thought, not with Etta’s hurt ankle. And Peter didn’t know these woods – not like the gun guys who’d probably been hunting here for years and knew every dangerous dip, every fallen tree. If they all tried to run for it, they’d never stand a chance.

  Jonah put his hands up, covered his face, breathed in the fragrant traces of the herbs. He could take those men out. Only two of them were armed. The odds weren’t impossible. If he wanted it enough, he could.

  If he prayed really hard.

  What had happened after the fire on the beach today was real. He’d seen it, hadn’t he? All that golden light. The spirits were there, waiting, ready to help him.

  ‘Jesus, Jonah, come on.’ Etta’s cries were like a frightened animal’s.

  ‘Go,’ he said, turning away from her, from them.

  ‘The path,’ Peter hissed. ‘The path!’

  Slowly, Jonah walked toward the front of the house. He heard Peter’s shouts, Etta’s cries, but he didn’t listen.

  He kept moving away. He had a different path to find.

  ETTA

  I watched Jonah disappear around the corner of the cabin. What was he doing? He was wobbling like a drunk – away from us, toward the men, singing that weird song he’d been mumbling in the tub. Why?

  Peter couldn’t see what was going on. He was still hunched down on the edge of the forest, half hidden behind a cluster of birch trees, ready to run for it. I was the only one who could see what Jonah was doing. I needed to stop him. I needed to drag him back to the woods before it was too late.

  From the other side of the cabin one of the men shouted, ‘Hey, Kyle. That Indian’s still here.’

  Come back, Jonah, I thought. Just come back.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Peter stumble out of the woods towards me.

  ‘They’ll find us any second,’ he whispered. ‘You’ve got to get help.’

  He put his hands on my shoulders. His bright eyes gazed into mine, like he was trying to transfer some secret knowledge of the woods.

  ‘Hurry, Etta. You’ll make it to the Nussbaums’s. I know you will.’

  I looked down at the bleeding gash on my leg, felt the throbbing pain. There was no way I’d be able to plough through the thick undergrowth, not that far, anyway, and not that fast. Finally, I really was the injured girl in the movie who had to tell the others to go on without her. The only thing missing was the ripped prom dress.

  ‘I can’t run fast enough,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to go.’

  Peter looked deep into the woods, straining to glimpse the path. He turned to me, his face red and contorted.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m not leaving you, and that’s that.’

  ‘But you’re the only one who knows the way.’ I gave his feet a gentle nudge to dislodge them. ‘And I might be able to make Kyle see sense.’

  He pulled me towards the woods again, shaking his head. ‘If you’re going to stay behind, you’ve got to hide. Go down to the lake. Away from the cabin.’

  Out in the clearing, Jonah’s singing got quieter. Slower.

  We listened, holding our breath, until there was no sound except the cawing of a crow.

  ‘We can’t leave him,’ I said.

  ‘But promise me you’ll stay hidden. Till I get back.’

  I touched his arms, kissed his cheek. ‘I promise. Now go!’

  He thought for a second, then nodded in that funny, determined way he did when his mind was made up. And off he went, beating back branches with his bare arms, disappearing behind the thick green curtain that swayed in the wind.

  JONAH

  By the time he got to the front of the cabin, Jonah’s head had cleared completely and he realised what a dumb-ass thing he’d done. There were no spirits hovering around him, ready to intervene in the world of mortals. There were just some white guys in front of a car brandishing shovels and guns.

  Still, if they had to deal with him, they might leave Etta and Peter alone. It would buy them time. Stupid or not, maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea.

  ‘Hands up!’ Charlie, the fat guy, shouted.

  Jonah took a quick sniff of his palms, hoping he could conjure something with those herbs again. There was nothing mystical about his hands now, though. They were just filthy, smelling of sweat and ground-in dirt.

  ‘You heard me, Injun. Top of your head.’

  ‘OK.’ Jonah placed his hands on his head, weaved his open fingers through his hair. ‘I’m cool.’

  ‘No you ain’t, goddammit.’ It was the skinny chipmunk kid’s turn to talk. ‘You ain’t cool one bit. You’re trespassing, that’s what you are. This ain’t your goddamn property. It don’t belong to you.’

  Charlie turned and glanced nervously into the beaten-up white car. The tied up men were inside. They were blindfolded, but they moved a little – shoulders and heads – breathing, trembling. Jonah counted their shaded outlines – four. Four men plus me makes five, he thought. And there were only two guys standing in front of the car – the chipmunk kid and fat Charlie with the gun. Maybe he could rush them, catch them off guard, grab the gun before Charlie had time to shoot.

  ‘Hey, Charlie!’

  Too late. Kyle and the other kid, Weasel, came around the side of the cabin. Weasel was smoking a cigarette and Kyle balanced his rifle on his shoulder as if it were a cheap toy – a child’s popgun or a plastic bow and arrow.

  ‘Looks like you bagged yourself an Injun.’

  Kyle and the weasel strode over to Jonah, stood so close he nearly gagged at the harsh fumes from the weasel’s cheap smokes and the sour-smelling sweat patches on Kyle’s denim shirt.

  ‘Where’s the girl?’ Kyle barked.

  Jonah looked at the ground. ‘Dunno.’

  He kept his head down, looked at his bare feet. Shoes would be good now, in case he got the chance to run. That gravel on the driveway would slow him right down. He remembered pictures he’d seen of elders walking over hot coals. Maybe he could pray again. If only he remember those words. He closed his eyes, concentrated.

  He didn’t see the punch that knocked him to the ground, but he felt it – a battering ram to the stomach that doubled him over, squeezed the air out of his body. He caught his breath, blinked a couple of times, saw the butt end of Kyle’s rifle raised above him. He tried to roll away from it, but the rifle smashed down on his head like thunder. Things got dark for a second, but he fought to stay awake. He couldn’t see anything but he remembered where he was, who he was, what was happening.

  Get up, he told himself, as those prayers came back into his head.

  Get up. Run. Away from the woods. Lure them away from Etta and Peter.

  He struggled onto his knees. Kyle and the kid had their backs turned. Good. He could stand up now. He could run.

  He got into a crouch. Everything was spinning. His head throbbed, his vision came and went in bright flashes, as if he were being struck by lightning over and over again.

  On his feet. Walking. Moving. Praying. Another lightning crack. Another thunderous explosion.

  The blast hurled him backwards, and as he fell he saw the smoke from Kyle’s gun. A hot light burned through the flesh on his shoulder. He wanted to cry
out in pain, but before he could take another breath, the sky above him turned black. An eagle, huge and black, darkened the world with its massive shadow. It swooped down on Jonah and grabbed him in its claws. It flew off with him, far away, into a place of never-ending night.

  PETER

  He was nearly at the Nussbaum cabin when he heard the gunshot. Its thunder-crack chased him, the sound waves sent him sprawling out of the woods and tumbling onto the soft grass of the well-kept lawn.

  He had to get up. There’d be another shot, any second now.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Peter. Get up.’ His mother’s voice again, nagging him.

  His mother? What was she doing here? She was dead, buried, in a cemetery far away in England. Why would she be at the Nussbaums’s cabin telling a friend of hers that Peter was being childish again, being frightened again for no reason?

  He really was losing it now, going mad with the fear.

  Struggling to his feet, he stumbled onto the cabin’s new cedar deck. As he got to the door a thin, white-faced woman slammed it shut with terrified force.

  ‘I’ve already called the sheriff,’ she shouted hysterically, ‘so you better get the hell out of here, whoever you are.’

  Somewhere in the house a baby was crying, an older kid, too. The TV was on, full volume, playing a whiney, cheesy song from some obnoxious cartoon.

  ‘You hear me, buster – he’ll be here any minute, mister, and I ain’t kidding.’

  Peter banged on the door. ‘The next cabin over. Somebody’s been shot. Get an ambulance. Tell them to hurry.’

  He banged again. This woman wasn’t Mrs Nussbaum, the kindly old neighbour he remembered, but where else could he go?

  ‘Please? There are men with guns. Help us. Please.’

  He slumped down on the deck and leaned against a rustic planter filled with bright red geraniums and blindingly yellow daisies. Beyond the nice lawn and flowers, beyond the locked door’s green welcome mat with a picture of a black bear on it, beyond the thick, dark cloak of pines and birch and brush and oak, somebody was dying. He knew it.