No Good Brother

by Tyler Keevil

  ‘Let’s just see here …’

  He punched at the keys, using two fingers, and then fiddled around with his mouse.

  ‘The Western Lady – August twenty-first.’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  He seemed pleased that he’d found the record – possibly pleased to show me that they had that information, and that they were way ahead of any trick I might try to pull.

  ‘How many crew members, this time?’

  ‘Just two, until we pick up Albert’s family. Just me and my sister Sandra.’

  I handed over the passports, both covers marked with gold-embossed maple leaves. I was worried Sandy’s looked too new, and unused, but the guy studied them both and added some of our details to his form. He yawned as he did this, and then snapped the passports shut and stood up. He took them and the papers around the side of his desk and walked over to the window. For a second, I thought that was it: he’d decided to come down to check the boat. And quite possibly that’s what he was considering. But the bad weather might have helped. And the distance to the dock. It wouldn’t have been a particularly pleasant walk.

  ‘Nasty out there,’ he said, handing the passports and documents back to me. ‘Your friend’s wife did good, avoiding the strait in this weather. You know what they call it?’

  ‘Juan de Puke-a,’ I said. Albert had told me.

  ‘That’s right. Safe journey out there, and good luck.’

  ‘Reckon we’ll need it.’

  I thanked him and reached for my jacket. I tried to pretend I wasn’t in a hurry. Once I had it buttoned up, and the hood pulled over my head, I turned to head for the door and he called out to me.

  ‘One thing,’ was what he said.

  It felt like that ominous moment: the perfect getaway about to be ruined.

  ‘Yes sir?’

  ‘Your sister’s passport is due for renewal, soon.’

  ‘She said something about that.’

  ‘Just letting you know.’

  I thanked him for that, probably a little too enthusiastically, and left.

  Later, when it all came to light, he got in a mite of trouble, that guy. Americans said: ‘What kind of border security do we got, if some yahoos can smuggle a horse across, of all things? How hard could it be to do the same with drugs, or people, or a shipment of arms, or what have you?’ But the guy, he just said, ‘Timothy Harding didn’t strike me as the criminal type.’

  I appreciated that.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I knew where to find the Roche Harbor Company Store, since I’d been before and had walked right by it on the way up: where the dock ended at the memorial garden. I went straight there rather than return to the boat first. I had made a list of things we needed, for us and the horse, and figured it would be best to get it all in one go.

  On our previous trip Tracy and I had gone food shopping, and the place looked exactly the same as it had then, and possibly exactly the same as it had a hundred years ago: with oak flooring and wooden shelves and chalkboard signs hanging above the aisles. I got myself a trolley and wheeled that around, grabbing some basic camp food for us: beans and hot dogs and tinned soup and bread and milk. They sold booze, too – like most US grocery stores – and I picked us up a flat of Olympia, for luck, and three bottles of Old Crow.

  Shenzao’s food was more of a problem. Jake had told me to get carrots as a treat, and oats: the two things a regular store might have that would be okay for a horse’s diet. But in the cereals section they only had three bags of rolled porridge oats. I left my cart there and went up to the front.

  The girl at the till had her arms folded on the counter, and stood gazing mournfully out the window, glazed over with rainwater. I asked her about the porridge, and if they had any more of it. She straightened and blinked at me blearily. She must have only been about fifteen, and looked as if she was suffering from a hangover, or heartache, or a bit of both.

  She said, ‘You check the cereal aisle?’

  ‘There’s a few bags, but I need more.’

  ‘We might have more in the back.’

  She slid away from the till, leaving me there. She shuffle-walked to the door that opened onto the stock room, went on through, and called to me from inside: ‘We got a load back here. How much you need?’

  ‘Like a lot. Like ten bags, maybe.’

  ‘I can’t carry all that.’

  I went to help her. The oats came in boxes of a dozen, so I said we’d take a full box. We hefted that into my trolley, which bowed under the weight. As we pushed it back toward her till, she looked at me like I was loony.

  ‘You really like oats, huh?’ she said.

  ‘That’s all I eat is oats. I’m crazy about the stuff.’

  Something about the way I said it – the outright obviousness of the lie – got us both laughing, and as she scanned my goods we joked about all the different ways I could eat my oats: in sandwiches, with steak, and even sprinkled on ice cream. That went on until I’d paid up and was ready to go: at which point I realized just how much stock I had. I peered at my trolley in utter perplexity, trying to reckon on how I was going to lug all that down to the dock.

  It must have showed, since the girl said, ‘We got wheelbarrows, if you want.’

  They kept them outside, on the porch: big green wheelbarrows. She came to help me transfer my goods into one. It was still drizzling and she had no jacket but didn’t pay it any mind. When we were done she squinted through the mist, towards the marina and our boat. Jake stood on deck in his slicker, and it looked as if he’d got the water hose going.

  ‘You need a deckhand?’ she said.

  ‘Next season, maybe.’

  ‘One of these days I’m gonna get my own boat.’

  ‘A seiner?’

  ‘Pleasure cruiser. Take the tourists out, catch a few lingcod and salmon.’

  ‘Sounds like a winner.’

  She stayed on the porch, leaning against the doorframe, as I hefted the wheelbarrow by the handles and trundled away towards the dock. The front wheel squeaked as it went around, and around, and around.

  Down at the Lady, things were quiet. As I came up I heard voices in the galley. Or a voice: Jake’s. I eased the wheelbarrow down and stood on the dock outside the galley window, my head level with the gunnel. He was talking to the horse in low tones and apologizing for the way we’d treated her. I’m sorry for kidnapping you, was what he said. Then he corrected himself: or horsenapping you. I lingered out there and listened to that, smiling a little. He used to talk to our family dog like that – and after she’d died he had a good long chat with her in the garden, before he and Sandy and I carried her body into the woods across from our house, and buried her. Sandy had said a few words. Not religious words. Just her own.

  Eventually I called out, ‘Ahoy the ship,’ and picked up the wheelbarrow and put it down more loudly, as if I’d just arrived.

  Jake poked his head out, and looked at me. I nodded.

  ‘They ain’t coming down,’ I said. ‘And I got supplies.’

  He clenched his fist close to his body (a signature gesture, and his way of discreetly expressing triumph) and joined me on deck to help unload my wheelbarrow. I passed up the bag of food, and the box of porridge. When it came to the flat of Olympia he let out a whoop.

  ‘Hell,’ he said, ‘I didn’t think they still brewed this stuff.’

  ‘Seemed like good luck, seeing as we’re going there.’

  ‘Luck enough for my taste.’

  He cracked one open straight away.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘This is a dry boat, sailor.’

  He paused, the can hovering halfway to his mouth. ‘Says who?’

  ‘Albert’s rules.’

  ‘Hell – you’re the captain now.’ He tossed one to me. ‘Make your own rules.’

  I cracked it and the act was distinctly satisfying. Albert would have been apoplectic. We drank as we finished unloading and when that was all done I checked the water tank.
It was halfways full, and while we waited for the levels to rise a bit further we perched on the gunnel, our legs hanging over the side, sipping at our brews. I got out Sandy’s passport and opened it to the photo page, holding it as reverently as a psalm book.

  ‘Sandra Jane Harding,’ I read.

  ‘Sounds funny, don’t it?’

  She’d always been Sandy, to us.

  ‘I been carrying it around for so long,’ he said.

  ‘Lucky for us you did.’

  ‘Big sis. Still looking after us.’

  I tucked it in my pocket. When I looked up, I saw somebody coming down the dock towards us. That girl from the store.

  ‘Damn,’ I said.

  She waved. She’d seen us, all right. There was no point sending Jake back inside. I’d just have to hope the customs official didn’t find out from her that my sister was actually my brother. I hopped down from the gunnel, to intercept her and greet her as she came up.

  ‘Thought I’d spare you running the barrow back,’ she said.

  ‘That’s real kind of you.’

  But she didn’t look in any hurry to pick it up. She glanced at our cans of beer, and past me at Jake, and smiled. He smiled back. She put a palm on the hull of the boat, and asked, ‘Where are you all going, anyways?’

  She said it in a longing way, a real lonesome way. I glanced at the galley, but there was no sign of anything untoward that I could see.

  ‘Ask Cap, here,’ Jake said. ‘He’s the boss.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, and stopped. ‘South.’

  ‘Long journey?’

  ‘Sure. All the way to Shangri-la.’

  We chuckled at that, a little too loudly, and for a little too long.

  ‘Wish I could come with you.’

  ‘We’ll pick you up on the way back,’ Jake said.

  She reached for the handles of the wheelbarrow, hefted it, and that’s when Shenzao whinnied. The girl stopped, and lowered the wheelbarrow back down.

  ‘Was that a horse?’ she said.

  I had no answer. I was absolutely dumbstruck, to the point of numbness, by the sudden shift in fortune: from sitting pretty, having made it through, to being caught out by our own stupidity and arrogance. Me and my goddamn Olympia.

  Jake said, ‘That’s right.’

  She looked at him. I looked at him.

  ‘Me and my brother,’ he said. ‘We stole a racehorse. We stole it from some guys who want to kill us, and if we don’t get it down to the States, they will. They’ll kill us and the horse too. That’s why we stole her. To save her from a life of captivity.’

  The girl’s jaw actually dropped – her mouth agape like a goldfish.

  ‘So now you know,’ Jake went on. ‘You’re the only one who does. Our lives are in your hands. And the horse’s life, too. Can you keep it secret? Can you keep it to yourself?’

  Her mouth closed. She swallowed.

  ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘I mean, I will.’

  ‘Good.’ Jake stood up, and offered her a can of Olympia. ‘Take that for the road. I’m Lefty, and he’s Poncho. We’re the good guys, okay? You’re on our side, now.’

  She nodded, real vigorously. And when we got ready to cast off, she ran up and down the dock, untying our lines for us. She tossed them to Jake, and reeled in the water hose. I went up top to fire up the engine. When it roared, the horse roared with it. Jake whooped – yee-haw – and the girl, she whooped back. It was the damnedest thing.

  And I guess that was how it really started, this whole thing about us being outlaws and activists: in that moment with Jake and the girl. And it just sort of spiralled from there.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Looking back, I suppose we should have been more worried about that girl than we actually were. It was very possible and even likely that she’d renege on her promise. If we’d been thinking in terms of chances, then our chances of getting caught had just risen substantially.

  But it didn’t feel that way. The sun emerged, setting off little flicker-flares in the waves, and those beers bubbled pleasantly in our brains and we were still on our way to Olympia. Jake had done what he did best: fast-talked his way out of a tight spot. In addition, even if we had wanted to worry about what the girl might say, we had no control over it. All we could do was carry on, so as soon as we left Roche Harbor, I threw the throttle into neutral and hopped down to lower the Q flag, which I replaced with the Stars and Stripes to show we had officially cleared customs. Then we had to feed our girl. We got out Evelyn’s big, copper-bottomed pasta pot and dumped in a bag of the oats. Jake added water from the busted tap (it still sprayed like a geyser) and half a cup of vegetable oil, then used a fork to stir that together. Oat mash, Jake called it. Basically a cold porridge, as far as I could tell.

  Jake set that down next to her water dish, and she sniffed at it, looking only mildly interested. While she nibbled, Jake pulled two more cans from the flat and held them up.

  ‘Shotgun for the road, Poncho?’

  ‘Let’s lay off,’ I said.

  He went ahead anyway, which I could have foretold. I waited until he took a good long glug and slapped him on the back, unduly hard, making him splutter brew.

  ‘Haul in them bumpers, will you Lefty?’

  He coughed and saluted like Popeye. ‘Aye-aye, Captain.’

  I clambered up to the wheelhouse and leaned hard on the throttle and from there we ploughed south through Haro Strait, down the western coast of San Juan Island. Along the shoreline, shaggy Douglas fir trees formed a solid wall of trunks and greenery. Every few hundred yards the treeline gave way, revealing a waterfront lot and cabin: mostly one-storey bungalows or A-frames. They looked to be summer homes, all empty at this time of year. We didn’t see many other vessels, aside from a little aluminium fishing skiff, manned by an old-timer, reeling in crab traps.

  The waves picked up, but the current stayed with us and we made good time, doing about nine knots. From my perch in the wheelhouse I could see Jake sitting on deck in the sun with his back against the seine winch. He’d opened a fresh can of Olympia, and every so often he took a casual sip, as if he was lounging in a sunchair at a Club Med resort. All told, he looked a little too comfortable for my liking. I leaned out the window of the wheelhouse and hollered down to him.

  ‘Go on and stand at the bow,’ I told him. ‘I need you to check something.’

  ‘What’s the bow?’ he asked.

  ‘The front, greenhorn.’

  He went up there, walking a little shakily on the listing deck. He didn’t have his sea-legs yet, and probably never would. When he stabilized, gripping the gunnel with one hand (he was still holding his beer with the other), I steered towards starboard, into the waves. The next big one exploded across the prow like a depth charge, geysering over the foredeck and raining down on Jake – absolutely drenching him. Albert had done the same to me, on my first voyage.

  Jake looked back and flipped me the finger, but instead of backing down he took another pull of beer and stayed where he was, ready to ride it out. The next wave came at him and he leaned into the spray, and the next, and after each crash and cymbal-smash he took a slug of his beer and made a circular motion with his hand: one more. The sun caught the spray, making it sparkle and giving it substance, and each time it looked like a cascade of shattered glass raining down on him.

  The weather began to change: not all at once, but in the slow and inevitable way it does at times, from fair to foul. We lost the sun again, behind a billowy nimbus cloud, and the wind began to shift. It had been blowing from the north all day, at our backs, but now it slowly swung around to the west, catching us broadside, so that the waves (which had swelled to five-footers) hit the starboard hull, rocking us left and right, back and forth, like babies in a cradle. I adjusted course to accommodate for this and that helped some, but not much.

  Jake – who’d been lounging in the recliner, nursing his beer – drained it and said he needed to go downstairs to check on Shenzao. I
took that at face value, but when he didn’t come back up, I reached for the intercom and hailed him. The boat has a system for talking from the galley to the wheelhouse. I’d shown him how to work it but he’d either not paid attention or forgotten: it took him a minute or two to answer. When he finally did I asked what he was doing. He told me that the horse hadn’t eaten that mash he’d whipped up.

  ‘She hasn’t eaten any?’

  ‘A bite or two.’

  I said, ‘Maybe you didn’t make it right.’

  ‘It ain’t rocket science.’

  I let the intercom crackle a bit, before thumbing the talk button again.

  I said, ‘Maybe she don’t like oats.’

  ‘Maybe you ought to leave the horse-tending to me.’

  There was an edge to his voice that I recognized.

  ‘You drinking down there?’

  ‘I’m just sitting with her.’

  ‘You’re sitting and drinking.’

  More crackling. An explosion of static, bursting between us.

  ‘What’s your beef, Poncho?’

  ‘Just try to stay sober, okay? At least until we cross the strait.’

  ‘I’m sober as a jaybird.’

  ‘Or drunk as a jailbird.’

  Neither of us signed off. We just hung up on each other.

  The southern tip of San Juan is marked by what they call the Cattle Point Lighthouse. As we approached I could see it winking dimly under the darkened sky. The beacon jutted up from a squat white structure that looked like an old church. Beyond it and to the south loomed the Olympic Mountain range: this impressive mass of snow and granite, half-cloaked in clouds.

  About a mile offshore I dropped down into neutral.

  Beyond the point, Haro Strait emptied into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We had to cross over to Port Townsend, on the US mainland, before continuing our journey south. From our position, the crossing would be about twenty nautical miles. The customs guy had joked about the strait being called Juan de Puke-a but it was no joke, that crossing. Every summer you heard about cruisers and sail boats, piloted by novices, that got into trouble out there, capsized by big waves or run aground in the shallows near Smith Island. The strait had fast tidal flows and major shoal areas on the sea bed, making for unpredictable currents. The year Albert and Tracy and I had come down, we’d intended to cross but decided against it when the forecast turned nasty. And Albert wasn’t one to shy away from a bit of bad weather.