The Retreat (3 page)

“Run,” Raymond said. He stepped backwards and turned. Waited for Alice to follow.

She moved towards him and then looked back and said, her voice uncertain, “Uncle Earl?” She pulled away from Raymond and stepped towards the police car.

Hart moved around the front of the car, his hip brushing the grill. “Got a call from Leona,” he said. He nodded back at the hotel. “You okay?” He reached out and touched Alice, as if laying some sort of claim on her. He didn’t look at Raymond.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Cold maybe.” Her voice trembled.

Raymond was two steps away, hands in his pockets. He looked down and saw that the sidewalk had a thin layer of wet snow.

Hart opened the passenger door and told Alice to get in. She looked back at Raymond with her sorry face, and then climbed in. Hart opened the cruiser’s rear door and motioned at Raymond, who said that he didn’t need a ride.

“Nobody’s asking.” Hart held the door and waited. The shoulders of Alice’s coat, her too-small head. The heat of the interior. Raymond climbed in and the door shut.

“Hey, I’m sorry.” Alice didn’t turn to look at him, she just talked to the windshield. “At least it’s a ride home.” Raymond didn’t answer. He was on the other side of a wire grating, looking at the back of her. The radio talked. Someone talked back. Hart climbed in and drove in silence. Alice didn’t say anything more to Raymond, and when they pulled up to her house she climbed from the cruiser and she didn’t look at him, just followed her uncle up the sidewalk, hips moving back and forth. Tiptoeing, like she was trying to creep back into the place she should never have left.

The house was large, with many windows, and some of the windows had lights on, and in Alice’s room on the second floor, there was an orange lamp hanging in the window. And then Alice’s mother was standing behind the lamp and she looked out at the driveway. She reached up and a curtain was drawn across the window. Last June Raymond had been in that room. He had walked Alice home from school and they had gone inside the empty house and he had removed his shoes at the entrance and followed Alice up the stairs and then down the soft carpet of the hallway that led to her room. On that day after school, when they were alone in her house, she had lain down on her bed and she had invited him to lie down with her. Somewhere, in the house, the air conditioning had clicked on. Alice had gasped, a sharp, short intake of breath as he entered her, and she had cried out, “Yes, go,” and on he had gone, deep into her, and her head was sideways
against the yellow slip of her pillow, her eyes closed, and he had finished quickly. She slid out from under him and walked to the bathroom adjoining her room and he watched as she sat naked on the toilet and grinned sleepily at him through the open door.

The curtain was drawn now, and on the roof there were two chimneys, and smoke rose from one. In the driveway was a brand new car. A dark brown Cutlass. Alice’s father was a pilot. He flew rich Americans into remote fishing camps around the Lake of the Woods in his twin-engine float plane. It was from hearing about him that Raymond learned how luck fell down on certain people. Someone like Alice smelled of luck and when Raymond was with her she gave him the confidence that he might have some of that luck.

Alice’s father stepped outside. He lit a cigarette and stood talking to Hart under the protection of the front porch. He never once looked over at the cruiser. He dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his shoe, patted Hart on the back, and went inside.

Hart came slowly down the walk and climbed into the car and backed out of the driveway. It was midnight. Nothing was said for a long time. Hart drove east past the prison and then a right turn up towards Bare Point. When they passed Raymond’s grandmother’s house on the right, the light in the main room was on and Raymond imagined that his grandmother would be watching TV. Hart drove on, past Isaac Badboy’s house, and into the darkness. Snow dove at the headlights and then fell upwards. Hart spoke. “You like fishing, Raymond?” He looked in the rear-view mirror. “Sure you do.
I can see that. You like fishing for white girls.” He paused. Then he said, “You catch ’em, reel ’em in, fuck ’em, and then throw ’em back. No harm done.” His voice was easy, as if he was talking to a close friend, or as if he was leaning forward to whisper a special secret. He turned in order for Raymond to hear him better. “And after me telling you to stay away.

“You’ve got a boat up at Bare Point. That right? What I hear, you go out on the lake by yourself and fish. Sometimes you stay away all night, sleep in the boat, or park on an island so as to not waste time.” He nodded. “Good to know.

“Fishing for white girls is dangerous,” he said. “’Cause sometimes you catch something that’s so big it threatens to pull you in with it. That’s what’s happening here, Raymond.” He sighed. His radio crackled and he reached to turn it off. “Don’t need company,” he said. Then he said that he’d heard a story once about a man who was fishing off a wharf. “Just sitting on the dock, enjoying the day, probably sunny, warm, feeling a little sleepy, and all of a sudden,
bang
, a big motherfucker takes the hook and the rod goes skittering along the dock and the man jumps for it and hangs on. Only the fish is a monster, and when the line is all wrung out, the rod along with the man are pulled right into the lake and down under the water. That big. Only the man won’t let go. He’s hooked this fish and damned if he’s going to lose it. He should let go but he can’t because the line is caught around his wrist and the fact is the line is cutting his wrist down to the bone and if he could he would cut himself free but he can’t, you see, because he got greedy and thought he could pull the fish in. And then the line snaps and the man ascends, up through the dark
water, and when he breaks the surface he is far out into the lake with no fish and his hand bloodied and he bobs out there thinking that he almost gave up his life for some impossible thing, something he would never touch or see.”

Hart paused and then said that it was pretty obvious to anybody with a brain what a man should not do, but it never failed to astonish him how there was always one more ignorant man out there in the world, and sometimes these men were boys, who jumped foolishly into a place that was not for them. “You see what I’m getting at? I think I’m being pretty obvious here. You shouldn’t have touched what wasn’t yours. Uh-uh. Even if she asked you to touch. She’s a bit of a simpleton, giving her father lots of grief. She can have anything she wants and she spreads her legs for what? Here we are.”

The cruiser came to a stop before a marina with two jetties. Hart got out and opened the rear door. Raymond followed the constable’s back down to the south jetty. Hart was pointing in the dark, his arm stretched out like half a scarecrow. “Which one’s yours?” he asked, and he halted and turned, his face shadowed and dark.

Raymond nodded to the left, pointing with his nose. His hands were shaking. His legs.

“Good stuff. You got gas, I imagine.” Hart hopped down into the stern of the boat, lifted the gas tank, and grunted. “Get in. Loose the rope.” He gestured at the bow and then released the stern rope. Looked up at Raymond, who hadn’t moved. “You can run,” he said, “but you won’t get far.” He motioned again at the bow and watched as Raymond climbed in. Hart pulled the starter, one, two, three times, and then
manoeuvred the choke and pulled again. The engine fired and started, a loud whine that gathered and howled until Hart pushed the choke back in. He backed out and then, once clear of the jetty, slipped the engine into forward and pointed the boat at the middle of the lake. He didn’t speak. The snow was still falling. It hit Raymond’s face, and it fell against the bottom of the boat and melted and collected in small pools. Raymond was wearing a thin shirt and a jacket of nylon that protected him from the wind slightly, but it was cold enough to make his ears ache. There was nothing to see and the prow of the boat banged against the larger waves and the water came up over the gunnels and splashed Raymond’s back and neck. He ducked. The hull vibrated against the soles of his runners and up into his shins.

Hart knew the lake and he was clear about this journey. The darkness was no impediment. It was as if he were charging into an obscurity out of which only he could discern the escape. He angled the boat to the left, bulling into the blackness at full throttle, and then he eased off, standing and leaning forward, as if sniffing the wind that would lead him to land. And it did. The island appeared as a wall and then, as the boat entered the leeward shore, trees took shape and the softness of a sandy bay accepted the bow of the boat. Hart cut the engine and leaped from the boat and waded onto shore.

“Get out,” he yelled, and Raymond obeyed. He obeyed in the same manner as when he had climbed into the police car and then climbed out again and stood waiting by the boat. Like a dumb animal, he followed the beck of the policeman.

His feet hit the icy water and he wallowed up towards the dark trees. The boat shifted in the waves and hit his thigh, banging him sideways. Hart had him sit on a log. He looked down at Raymond and said that there was only one story to tell. “Understand? You were out fishing and you lost your way and ended up here. Your boat was taken by the waves. That’s the story. You’re lucky to be alive. What a salvation. Marooned in the Lake of the Woods. Someone’ll find you. If not, you’re a fucking Indian. Do your thing.”

He tipped his hat then, as if this were a cordial goodbye, and he said that when he got back to Bare Point, he would send the empty boat out full throttle into the lake. “Maybe’ll it come right back at you. Wouldn’t that be a surprise.” He turned and went to the boat and climbed in. The waves were large and they tossed the small craft. Hart spent a few good minutes trying to restart the motor. The boat floated away and then came back with the waves. Finally, the whine of the engine lifted into the sky and was picked up by the wind and the boat disappeared, both sight and sound.

Raymond remained on the log. The snow and sleet drove against his back and neck and slid down under his jacket and shirt. He had, in his pockets, his cigarettes and matches. His wallet, which held the cash from his last cheque. His ID, a driver’s licence. The keys to his pickup, but this had been incidental, because the pickup was back at his cabin, broken down. He’d hitchhiked to town from the golf club, a fact that Hart had made certain of. He stood and looked out into the darkness to gauge the island’s size. He walked away from the wind and came to a rock that descended towards the shore. At
the base of the rock was a gully of sorts, out of the wind, but with no protection from the sky. He sat in the dip and pulled his jacket over his head. The wind came down around him. He blew onto his hands and feeling the numbness in his feet he stood and stumbled up the rocks back into the driving wind. He eventually found a stand of spruce and poplar and in that place he dug a shallow hole and attempted to light a collection of small branches and bark. His matches burned briefly and then went out. The branches were wet, the bark would not catch. He scraped together some moss and laid it down in the hole, and then he curled up in the shallow dip and covered himself with more moss. He was shaking severely. He pressed his hands between his thighs and blew warm breath down the inside of his jacket. When dawn arrived the rain had halted but the air was colder. In the grey light he finally started a fire in the hollow that he had slept in, and he stoked the fire with dry moss and dead branches. He warmed his hands and feet and bent towards the flames like a requester who sees the possibility of salvation but is too abject to cry out.

He kept the fire going throughout the day, studying the lake for boats, but it was late fall and most of the boats had already been dry docked and there were no more houseboats or cabin-goers. The water was black and choppy and the shore of the mainland could only be imagined as a thin, dark line many miles away. He was all alone.

On the third day, hungry and weak, he lay on a rock at the edge of the water and studied the shallows for fish. Minnows appeared and disappeared and a crayfish scrabbled away from his grasping hand. He rose, empty-handed, his arms numb,
and he sat in the hollow by his fire and watched a chickadee come and go beneath a scrubby bush nearby. He gathered rocks and he waited for the bird to return. When it did, he took aim and threw a rock. The bird flew upwards and did not come back for a long time. When it did return, it sat on the moss of a rock and hopped slightly, again and again, as if there were a blueprint set out before it.

As a young boy, Raymond had hunted chickadees and benddowns with his cousins. Using slingshots and rocks, they would kill several birds and then carry them home where the girls would pluck the birds and boil up a soup and then the whole group would squat and eat. Back then, it had been a game to be played; with great ease and nothing to gain but the satisfaction of the unnecessary hunt. Now, all was necessary.

He killed the small bird in the early evening. The rock he threw was sharp and it caught the bird’s wing and the bird went up and then fell. The bird fluttered and called out and Raymond went to it and picked it up and broke its neck. He plucked the chickadee and then impaled it with a stick and roasted it over the fire. The smell of meat filled his head, but when he attempted to eat the bird, he discovered there was little substance. So he opened the bird up and sucked what he could from the carcass. The following day, in a small pool on the windward side of the island, he found three frogs in the mud at the bottom of the pool and he speared the frogs onto a stick in the same manner he had done the bird, and he roasted the frogs over the fire and ate them delicately, one at a time.

That evening, at dusk, a motorboat passed by the island and he ran towards the sound, calling out and waving his arms. As
he reached the shore his right foot caught in a small crevasse and he fell hard and his ankle popped. The sound of the motorboat disappeared. He sat up and examined his ankle. The foot sat at an odd angle, and when he tried to stand, his leg could not support him and the pain was severe and he fell sideways onto the rocks, cursing. He crawled back to his fire and spent a sleepless night struggling out into the bush for fuel and then back to the fire, dragging his bad leg and fallen branches behind him. At one point, he must have fainted from the pain and when he woke his back was against the rock. The heavens rose above him, pierced with pricks of light, and much later the moon appeared, fat and yellow on the horizon; it slid upwards into the sky and threw down its glow onto the island and onto Raymond and he held his hands out in order to see them in the brightness, in order to verify his own existence.