by David Giblin
“Here, Carol, I brought you a present.”
Carol was a kind and charitable soul. She helped the soaked, muddy, and bleeding Vop into the house and ran him a hot bath. Afterwards she bandaged his wounds and put him to bed on the couch.
“The next day,” said Vop, finishing the story, “we looked outside. You could see where I hit, lost my balance with all that toilet paper in my arms, and then rolled down the hill. That slope wasn’t as gentle, or the gravel as soft, as it looked from the edge. The toilet paper followed me down, unrolling as it went. It lay there like so many party streamers down the face of the gravel pit. The damn stuff stayed like that until a snowfall covered it up a few weeks later.
“If you don’t believe me, you can ask Carol about it. She’s coming to work here this summer.”
I knew Vop well enough by now not to question most of his stories. Besides, who would want to make up something like that?
I was curious to meet the fair Carol. After hearing Vop’s stories all winter and never having seen the Pacific Ocean, Carol had applied for a job at the Carringtons’ resort just next door to us. With her experience at the ski hills, getting hired was no problem.
twelve THE FRUIT DOESN’T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE
GARY WAS GETTING impatient with his father. He had been tinkering with the outboards for over an hour now and still couldn’t get them to work. He was being very stubborn about asking Nelson for help. Herbert had brought the boat and motors brand new in Campbell River the week before. Nelson had flown to town with them and driven the boat back. It was a twenty-foot Boston whaler, top of the line, the best one they had on hand at the dealership. It had a centre console, in shining chrome; highly polished wood trim; and an impressive array of antennae, aerials, and flagpoles with flags and pennants that flapped in the wind. The whaler had a huge outboard to run out to the fishing holes, which looked like a refrigerator clamped onto the back of the boat. Beside it was a smaller motor, used for fishing. At the moment neither one of them would start.
For the first week Herbert was seen everywhere. With the sun flashing off the new chrome and the flags, aerials, and antennae all erect, a company of mounted knights in full heraldic display could not have presented a more imposing sight. For that first week the boat had performed beautifully. It was a thing of wonder as it sliced effortlessly through the water from one fishing hole to the next.
Herbert and Gary waved to all the guides and yelled to them across the back eddies. They felt like a part of the scene. Their enthusiasm was dampened only a little by the fact that they hadn’t caught any salmon so far. Now, however, both motors refused to start, and the sleek whaler remained tied to the dock. Herbert squatted in the stern of the boat and fiddled.
Gary wandered off down the dock and stood at the end of the finger float. He watched an eagle in a tree. It was in a tall snag across from the resort, on the other side of Canoe Pass. The pass was barely wide enough for a guide boat to navigate and separated Mermaid Island from the mainland. Canoeists and kayakers used it to bypass the dangerous Dent Rapids. On big tides the water roared through, white and foaming. The guides would thread their way through it, dodging the rocks inches below the surface, throwing up sheets of spray. Gary fantasized about running it in the whaler one day, but for now he was content to watch the tide swirl past and the eagles hunched in the trees.
Two tiny specks rounded the point of Mermaid Island and headed for the pass. Gary could make out the rhythmic flash of the kayak paddles as they reflected the sun. They grew steadily larger, the efficient paddle strokes closing the distance with remarkable speed. Gary was so absorbed watching the paddlers that he didn’t notice me as I pulled into the dock ahead of them. As I tied the boat up they passed by the spot where he was standing. I heard him call over to them.
“Hey, where are you going?”
The kayaks looked well equipped for a long journey. They were obviously not just out for the day.
“Juneau,” one of the kayakers yelled back at him.
Gary looked puzzled.
“How am I supposed to know,” he yelled back indignantly, “I’m the one that’s asking you.”
thirteen YULE TIDE
I STOPPED BY Nelson’s place to check the mail and do some business. I also knew things were quiet enough for a short visit. I wanted to catch up on the events of the previous winter at Stuart Island. It was more than just idle curiosity. There were thirty-five or forty hardy souls that spent the winters at the island. Some were caretakers, others were the owners and managers that ran the resorts, as well as their families. It was a small social circle. The isolation threw people together in ways that created strong bonds, both of friendship and intense hatred. It helped me, as an independent guide working for all of them, to find out who was still talking to whom. I needed to know who got drunk at the Christmas party and made a pass at someone else’s wife. Some feuds still simmered after years. If I was to keep peace between myself and the people I was to work for this summer, it was important not to mention the wrong person at the wrong moment.
As I passed I said hello to Herbert as he poked about inside his brand new outboard. He looked like someone staring into a refrigerator and trying to decide lunch. He could only grunt in reply.
Nelson was making a fresh pot of coffee when I entered the lodge kitchen. We sat down at the kitchen table with a steaming mug apiece. We chatted idly about the winters’ events and the latest convolutions in local politics. Nelson kept to himself as much as possible. He tried not to take one side or the other. However, this winter he had taken on a higher profile in the community, or at least a wider one. He had played Santa Claus at the Christmas party.
“So what’s this I hear about you almost buying it in the rapids after the party?” I asked him.
“Oh yeah, that was way too close. Who told you about it?”
“Troutbreath.”
“Old Troutbreath does have a tendency to exaggerate. I’d better tell you how it really happened.”
Nelson had the resort all to himself over Christmas. His wife had gone to visit relatives while he stayed behind to look after the property; it was the perfect opportunity to fulfill one of his dreams and play Santa Claus for the kids. The Community Association rented the costume and on the night of the party, suitably padded and dressed, he used his guide boat as a sleigh to deliver the presents. His Santa was a big hit. He was much more effusive than the dryly reserved Mr. Carrington, the Santa of the previous three years. The kids loved Nelson and, after they had gone to bed, the adults made sure he was rewarded with plenty of the Christmas spirit. The party went late into the night. It was past two in the morning when Santa swayed down the last dock and left for home.
It was a pitch-black night, and on the water Nelson could hardly see his hand in front of his face. He had made the trip at night dozens of times; he could find his way by the outlines of the mountains and the position of the stars. Once he got through the rapids and past the small group of islands in mid-channel, he would be able to see the lights he had left on at the resort. He had timed his trip home near slack tide so that he wouldn’t need to worry about whirlpools. When he left Big Bay the tide was still flowing slowly on the flood. Nelson kept his eyes on the dim shapes of the mountains so he wouldn’t get pushed off course. He was close to the mid-channel islands when it happened.
Someone was towing a house through the rapids on a log raft. There were no lights on the towboat or on the house itself. In the pitch-black, Nelson had no chance to see it. His boat hit the raft a glancing blow and pitched over onto its side, flipping Nelson into the freezing water. The towboat and house kept on going. The people on board probably didn’t even know a boat had hit them. Nelson, suddenly sober, found himself alone in the rapids, treading water in a Santa suit.
The absurdity of the situation was not lost on him. It was absurd, yet very desperate. There was no one at the resort to come looking for him if he didn’t arrive on time. No one at the party could know
what had happened. It was the middle of winter. There was no hope of rescue.
He tried to relax and think clearly about what he could do to help himself. The tide was turning to the ebb. Perhaps the current would carry him to one of the small islands nearby. He bobbed along, trying to conserve energy. The Santa suit was bulky enough to help keep him afloat and it warmed him slightly. He felt he could last until he reached the shore.
However, it soon became apparent that he’d drifted past the nearest land. Cruelly, he could make out the lights of his resort. He might just as well try swimming toward the stars above him. He struck out swimming anyway; it was better than drifting helplessly. If he was going to drown he was not going to give in without a struggle. He started giggling, it was so ridiculous, and he didn’t want to drown dressed as Santa Claus. What would the people that came looking for his body think? Would they see the humour in the situation? He doubted it.
He kept on swimming. He hoped to catch the back eddy behind the islands—maybe that would drift him back to them again. He didn’t know now how he’d kept it up. His arms were getting tired lifting the sleeves of the sodden suit, but he didn’t want to take it off, it was warmer than nothing at all. The water was so cold he should already have passed out from hypothermia. He struggled on, but his arms ached. It would be so much easier to just drift and close his eyes.
Then his hand touched something.
His hand was numb from the cold and at first he thought it was a log, a piece of driftwood. If he could cling to it he could use it for a raft. He reached out with both hands. It was smooth and rose steeply above his head. The cold dulled his brain. It took him some time to realize what it was. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. It was his boat! He and his boat had drifted together. The reunion gave him a new rush of energy—all he needed to pull himself out of the water and into the boat. He was suddenly back in the seat he had left so abruptly.
Everything was still intact—the boat must have righted itself after he was thrown out. The motor had stalled and the boat had drifted with the tide.
Nelson started the outboard and went home.
He walked me down to the dock as I was leaving. He had noticed Herbert with his head in the outboards, and he was curious.
“I’d better go down there and check on him.”
Herbert rose and wiped his hands on a rag as we approached.
“Having a little engine trouble?”
Nelson tried to sound casual.
“Ummm . . . yeah, I can’t get either one of them to start. They were working perfectly the other day. I don’t understand it.”
Nelson stepped into the boat and tried the electric start on the big engine. The starter motor clicked into life and whined in protest. Nelson turned it off before he did any damage to it. He grabbed the starter cord on the small engine and tried to give it a pull. It wouldn’t budge. The cowling on the engine was off and he gave the flywheel a turn with both hands. It wouldn’t turn.
“Herbert, these engines are seized tight.”
“What do you mean?”
Herbert clearly had a slim grasp of outboard mechanics. Nelson tried to explain it to him as simply as possible.
“They’re stuck. The pistons won’t move in the cylinders. Herbert, your power head has fused into one piece of metal.”
“Is that bad?”
“Well, it couldn’t be much worse.”
“I don’t know how it could have happened.”
Nelson had to phrase the next question carefully.
“Herbert, you remember the conversation we had about two-cycle engines, about how you have to put oil in the gas?”
“Come on now, you must think I’m a complete idiot. Of course I’ve been putting oil in the gas.”
Herbert looked hurt.
“It’s okay, Herbert, I just had to ask. I just can’t think of anything else that would cause this to happen. Doesn’t seem to be anything blocking the water pump.”
Nelson regarded the two brand new but totally useless engines. He poked at the cowling lying on the floor with his toe. The signs were unmistakable; the engines were definitely fried. If it wasn’t the oil, it could only be the water pump, but that was unlikely on such new engines. It was a puzzle—then something occurred to him. He finally cleared his throat, “Uh, Herbert, exactly where have you been getting the oil from?”
We both gave Herbert our expectant attention. Herbert thought it over carefully, then brightened and said, “I’ve been getting it from that forty-five-gallon drum of oil up by the generator shed.”
Nelson shook his head in disbelief.
“Herbert, that stuff’s for the crankcase of the generator. It’s the same stuff you put in your car. You need a special two-stroke oil to mix with the gasoline. That oil won’t blend with gas. It sits on the bottom of the gas tank and never gets to the engine. You’ve been running on straight gasoline all this time. I’m surprised the engines lasted as long as they did.”
“Well,” said Herbert, “I made sure I shook the gas tank the way you told me.”
fourteen WORKERS ON GOVERNMENT SERVICE
I WAS HOME cleaning out my boat after a particularly messy morning catching fish. I was taking a break from scrubbing, leaning on the long-handled brush like a highway worker filling a pothole, when I saw the RCMP boat passing the mouth of Big Bay. It was on its way up north again.
We used to see them stop in on a regular basis before they got their new boat. The government had replaced the aging cruiser they’d used for years with a new, advanced nautical system. The sleek and throbbing computerized craft was more spaceship than boat. They had given me a tour of it on one of their infrequent visits to the island. It was made of a special lightweight aluminum alloy. It had a revolutionary catamaran hull. The pontoons were capable of maintaining full speed in all but the most severe conditions, cleaving through the water like twin knives and giving a smooth and stable ride.
The wheelhouse had all the latest computerized navigational equipment. The pilot could track the exact location of the boat so precisely one could almost see it bobbing up and down on the display monitor. It received constant weather information, and a weather map was fed into the main computer display showing the conditions for five hundred miles around. There was a chart system on a CD-ROM that, as it was integrated into the radar, was capable of tracking the boat as it moved through the water. It showed the changing shoreline and all the navigational lights, channel markers, and marine hazards. They could travel at full speed even in fog or on the darkest night.
They couldn’t tell me the top speed of the vessel. That was classified information, available only to those with the proper clearance.
That’s where the problem began. While the top marine architects had designed the boat and the best minds in electronic engineering the electronics, the less glamorous day-to-day operations had been left to government bureaucracy. While everyone wanted to be associated with the high-tech sheen of the program, the task of managing the mundane service and supply had been considered beneath most people’s job description. Somewhere in the maze that was the government department responsible, an assistant to the junior deputy minister had been given the task of supplying the crew with the food, water, and diesel needed to run the boat every day. This assistant didn’t have the necessary clearance to know the top speed of the boat or its rate of fuel consumption. Not wanting to appear inept by asking his superiors (always the kiss of death in a bureaucracy), the assistant made up his own mind about the boat’s requirements, deciding that such an impressive machine would have an equally impressive rate of fuel consumption. He certainly didn’t want to experience the embarrassment of having the boat run out of gas—that wouldn’t do much for his prospects for promotion, after all. He didn’t know much about boats, but he knew how to order fuel, so he did. He ordered fuel suppliers up and down the coast to get ready by ordering a nearly endless supply.
The thing about the new boat was that the hull was unbelievabl
y efficient. Its turbocharged twin diesels barely sipped out of the tanks, even at full power. When the crew realized how much fuel they had been assigned, they realized a mistake had been made. They notified the appropriate superior and were told to fill out a 24B/18-A in triplicate. The completed forms were to be submitted to the office in charge of service and supply, where the notice must proceed through the proper channels.
In the meantime they had to use up the fuel. They knew if they didn’t there would be even more paperwork and their ability to obtain fuel in the future might be harmed. They began running the boat day and night, and at full speed whenever possible.
They would run the boat to the Alaska border, visit a remote First Nation reserve for a few hours, and then turn around and run all the way back to Vancouver. There they might ferry some VIP across the harbour for an hour and be off again.
I watched the boat flying past Big Bay and marvelled at the modern design. It cut through the waves with ease and efficiency. They always knew exactly where they were and where they were going, but, like a plague ship, they could never stop anywhere. They just kept driving on, flags waving gloriously in the wind, doing their duty by consuming the fuel the government, in its wisdom, had so generously given them.
fifteen TROUTBREATH
TROUTBREATH WAS THE dock boy for the Carringtons’ marina. He was in charge of the moorage, organizing the guiding, selling bait, and running the gas pumps. He did his clothes shopping at the same place Nelson did, where he had found several overalls donated by an oil company. He was wearing one with TOM in a big red circle over the right breast pocket. He had three more of these outfits. One said BRAD, another BILL, and the last one announced, in gold letters, that he was a QUALIFIED TECHNICIAN. Troutbreath found that, by changing his appearance slightly and wearing a different overall, he could become four different people.
This appealed to his sense of chaos and his liking for uncertainty. Tourists would walk up to him and say, “Hey, I was talking to Bill yesterday. He was going to find something out for me. Have you seen him around?”