Downhill Chance (45 page)

She listened as he talked, her eyes closed, feeling the softness of his mouth as he grazed her cheek, her brow, her throat, drinking deeply of her mouth till she became all soft and moved with him as his hands searched out her nakedness.

“Clair,” he said, after they lay quietly and he had covered her with his shirt, “I’ve come to learn that it’ll always be the same song, no matter the river. And strange as it is, I’ve still to hear every ditty of Chouse’s, despite the years I’ve spent listening. I think, lovey (as he had taken to calling her), that it’s himself a man has to learn about, and hard enough to do that in the noise of his own quiet—much less everybody else’s. But perhaps you hear it differently—perhaps you need to be out there, somewhere—have something more—”

“A house,” she replied instantly. “I want a house.” She said no more, but his face wore the question she was not ready to answer right then, for who can tell how much of a life is to be taken with the re-creating of another? And if such a thing could be completed, should the river finally end its song, what could she know today of tomorrow’s accord?

As if he had already known and was frightened of its coming, he pulled her tight against him, running his hands through the darkness of her hair, whispering fervently, “Someday I’ll take you back to Cat Arm. For that’s another thing Chouse has taught me; our pining for another time or place is a squandering of life because Eden’s a place in your mind, lovey; it’s a place in your mind.”

Would that she had heeded his words. For unbeknownst to herself was that her father had been the crucible of her Eden. And upon approaching the cabin once they’d come ashore in Cat Arm, and she stared in dismay at the curtains, colourless and frayed to ribbons by the rain and sun, blowing lifelessly through broken panes, and the roof collapsed at places, its debris embedded into the floor with a green moss creeping over it, she felt the same coldness of death that her mother had lain upon the night her father died.

“It’s dead,” she whispered. “Like Mommy’s flower patch.” Despite the sun, she shivered as she took a step towards the rotting-down cabin and pushed aside the door half hanging on a hinge. It was shadowed and damp inside, and smelled like rot. The top bunk that had been hers and Missy’s had given way and was imbedded into her parents’. Sheltered by the two walls cornering it and the roof intact overhead was the wooden table they had sat around, Missy slurping back strips of onion and whining over her father’s making fun of her, and her mother chiding her father, and she, Clair, giggling into her cup and kicking her father’s leg under the table as he rolled his eyes towards her in astonishment that he should be accused of such a thing as lying and teasing. And resting in a cupboard to the side of it, its door a partial protection to the weather, was the Bible her mother used to read from, its pages merged as one, the colours long since swept from the angels in the tunnel of light arcing down from the heavens.

“She used to read to us,” she said softly, sensing Luke behind her. “I hardly ever heard her, so wanting was I of a doll. It sounds silly but I used to think God took Daddy because I prayed for a doll instead of listening to my prayers—” She raised her eyes to Luke, her face pale.

“That’s what we all do, lovey—think about things according to ourselves,” said Luke, checking to see the bench would hold up, then laying his hands on her shoulders, seating her. “Especially when everything gets changed overnight,” he added, sitting besides her. “I never looked up the beach the same agin after Gid shot hisself. That’s why I goes the other way—down Chouse and Salt Water Pond—because everything still feels the same down there. But that’s not right, either. I thought about that—the first time I took you to Chouse—when right off you said you wanted the house built. I knowed right then and there you can’t pretend everything is the same when you’ve been to hell and back. And I been watching you ever since fighting to get back everything that was took from you.”

“You think I’m a schemer—like Uncle Sim?”

“Urchin is what I thought you were. A scared urchin— with no place to grieve. I thought if I built you a house, you’d find that place. Only you never. You keeps wanting more—and there’s nothing wrong with wanting a big house and a good education, or a store to help get things. Only you can’t know peace, lovey, when you’ve known war. And you can’t get back peace till you lays it all down, because it’s all part of the same thing, somehow. And I don’t mean to make big of myself, Clair, for I’m no more than your father, carrying around a piece of hell as though it were separate from the other. But I’ve not lost sight of it, lovey, like your father did. He lost sight of his good and became caught in the other. And that’s what killed him. I’ve not done that. For reasons I’ve yet to figure, hell resides in a man’s heart right next to Eden. And one’s as potent as the other for bringing about good. It must be. Why else would a baby robin peck its brothers to death?

“It wouldn’t do for Prude to hear such a thing, Luke,” said Clair, laying her head against his chest, “but perhaps that’s what religion is for, the faint of heart. And shame it is I’ve looked no further, either.” Warming her cheek to his throat, she whispered, “Missy’s right, I’ve always kept Daddy here—the way he used to be. I never tried to understand him. Or Missy, either.” She pulled back, looking to him.

“I’ve not been right, have I?” she whispered hoarsely. Shaking her head as he was about to soothe her, she rose, pulling him alongside her. “It’s time to go,” she urged, leading him to the door. “I’ve got to see her. I’ve got to see her now, Luke.”

She looked past him as he shoved them from shore, at the tree-coated hills towering green above the cove; the slope they used to slide down during those wintry evenings; their cabin as it still half stood, nestled from the wind amongst the evergreens.

“Tell me again what Joey said in his letters,” she pleaded as Luke leaned over the engine house, easing back on the throttle, cutting their speed as the boat began to rise and fall with the growing swells.

“He said your father was a saint amongst men, lovey,” said Luke, settling back besides her, steering around the breakers cresting white in front of them, “and that he’d squat with them who was scared in the hell they were caught in, and he’d coax them into talking about their small corners. And after a while of talking about it, he’d say ‘Put it in your hearts, lads, and feed on it, for it’s a blessed path your walking, no matter the hell it’s taking you through.’”

“He believed it, didn’t he?”

“And he made Joey—and others, too—believe it.”

“Luke,” she whispered, “he killed your brother.”

“No, lovey. The war killed him. It killed them both.”

“You don’t hate him?”

He shook his head, his cheek gentle against hers. “I thinks of the guilt he carried—I loves him more. Nothing can hinder a man more than guilt and shame, and they’re useless, them feelings are; useless. And you’ll do well not to carry it for long, lovey, for it’s a crippling weight.” He paused, then rose, a heaviness settling around his shoulders as he stared off into the fog that was beginning to gather around them.

She wanted to reach out, to take his hand, bid him to sit with her again, but the same weight of mood that had taken him was now pinning her as she heard again her own voice singing out, “He stole from us, Daddy; he stole from us.” How foolish it all seemed now; her bowed head the night she had looked down upon her father’s; her belief that it was her and the uncle’s doing that had rendered him so—that a mere act of thievery could’ve lowered the head of a man whose world had been bombed and strewn around him like the entrails of a gutted moose. A pebble on a growing rock slide is what her and the uncle’s deeds had been. And had she but kept her shame—bowed in deference to it as her father had done his—she might’ve more easily have slipped her neck from its yoke once her father’s self-crucifixion was made known to her. But so hidden had it become within her hatred of the uncle that it now kicked and squirmed, its roots withering from being unearthed, and the harsh light of day blinding the soul burrowing within.

“Luke!” she cried out, but the wind took her voice and she sat up farther, a little unnerved by a wave breaking over the bow. “Luke, can we go see Missy?” she cried out again as he leaned over the engine house, cutting back on the throttle.

“Not with this wind,” he replied over his shoulder, spreading his legs for balance as the boat lurched and rocked beneath them. “We’ll veer with the lop and slew around in Brown’s Cove if we overshoots. Is that a boat?” he asked, cocking an ear to the faint putt-putt of a motor, straining to see through the ever-whitening fog. “Dammit, lovey, she’s rough; but we’ll soon be home—come, sit in the middle agin. Not scared, are you?”

She shook her head, a little pale, holding tight to his hand as he guided her past the engine house, the wind buffeting her back. Sitting midship end, she huddled deeper inside her coat from the dampness of the fog, and clung tightly to the seat that rocked and buckled beneath her. But Missy kept drawing her attention. It was Missy she was wanting to be with right now. And perhaps she might, she thought, as Luke steered them closer to shore and the black line of the beach appeared. The hills loomed a wall more black than green, its trees swaying to the wind as one. Soon they were bobbing like a cork up over the slate grey ground swells, and dipping quickly down their other side, chorused on all sides by the breakers peaking into foam and splashing white across their paths. “Always worse close to shore,” said Luke. “See the houses—there’s the houses. A little bit farther—”

No doubt the sea was rough as they put ashore, but the fog was thin and there were a few hours yet before dark. Summer squalls were as likely to blow themselves out in an hour as well as an evening, and as young Roddy called to them from shore to “run her aground, Luke,” Clair was already planning on feeding and bathing Brother and Hannah as soon as she got ashore in preparation for the earliest possible leaving. Thus when Roddy had helped her out of the boat and up on the bank, and Beth ran out in greeting, informing her of Missy’s disappearance, Clair, with a cry of fear, immediately tried to climb back in.

“No, lovey; you’re not going,” Luke had said, pulling her back.

“I’m going,” she cried.

“No—I’m the one who’s going,” said Luke, beckoning Beth to take her, “and you’ll wait here till you hears something—I’ll not risk it,” he hollered over her cries of protests. “Enough we’ve Missy to worry about—not you along with her. Now you listen to me, Clair,” he ordered, “Missy’s fine. Hiding out somewhere, is all—you’ve said it yourself—she’s always going off these days, hiding out. We’ll find her. In a shack in the woods somewhere, most likely, enjoying the storm like I does myself a thousand times. Rod, climb aboard—Beth, take her in the house.” Beckoning Roddy aboard the boat, he shoved it back out to sea, hopping aboard, ignoring her protest.

“Come now, like Luke says,” coaxed Beth, catching up with her as she ran along the shoreline, calling after him. “He’ll handle the boat easier without you to worry about. And Missy’s shown she can look after herself. It’s you we’ve been worrying about. Come now, in the house for tea and we haves a sensible talk before Mother wakes up—she got in such a way when the wind struck and ye weren’t back yet, we had to put roots in her tea. And Hannah’s sitting at Nory’s rocking Brother—she’ll be happy to see you safe.”

Hannah. Her daughter’s name drew her in another direction. She’d not felt good about leaving her this morning; not after the wretchedness she’d seen on the beach the night before.

“Go make the tea, Beth,” she said to her sister-in-law. “I’ll have a word with Hannah, and be right over.” But Hannah wasn’t sitting in the rocker at Prude’s. Nor was she with Frannie at Nora’s—or at Beth’s. Her own house turned up empty—and aside from the box of winter’s clothes half dumped onto the floor, no trace of her having been home all day. A quick word with Lynn revealed that she’d been seen ducking up the shore playing some kind of game all by herself. Frannie had also spotted her coming out of her house with her jacket on and stuffing a pair of mitts into her pockets and ducking onto the beach.

“Hannah!” Clair sang out, peering inside the stagehead and then the woodhouse. “Hannah!” Somewhere between Prude’s garden and the woodpile her step faltered. Comes a moment—once providence strikes repeatedly—a heart ceases to pound from fright and prepares itself instead for this newest intruder into its already crowded chambers. She knew where Hannah had gone. Running out onto the beach, she stared up along the shore, at the dirty grey sea, foaming white up over the shore, and the fog settling damply upon the land.

“Lynn! Lynn!” she yelled at Willamena’s daughter who was cornering one of Prude’s chickens beneath her mother’s front stoop. “Go tell Nora I’m gone after Hannah. Go on, now,” she ordered, and without stalling a second more, she started running. She would find her daughter. And when she did, she would find Missy, too. She was dressed warm enough, and she took hope from knowing that Hannah, too, had taken time to wear her jacket and a pair of mitts. Perhaps she’d also worn a sweater—and stockings. Twenty minutes wasn’t a long time. If she wasted not a step, she’d overtake her—pray Nora would care for Brother till she got back. And that Luke might’ve spotted them both by now and was already putting ashore, bringing them to safety.

But no, the fog was too thick on the water to see anything on shore. Blissfully, she could see a good distance ahead, and the light was good. If she hurried, she’d overtake her before she got to Copy-Cat Cove. God forbid if she tried to scale around the inside of the cove. With the water this high—but no, she couldn’t think like that. Hannah wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and scale a cove that was flooded with water. She was a smart girl, her Hannah, and her heart cried out as fear once more assailed her, sending her near racing up the beach, her feet slipping on the pebbly rocks till finally she spotted the narrow footpath up by the treeline. And there, wasn’t that her child’s footprint embedded in the softened ground? Her heart quickened, and thankful for the wind buoying her forward, she ran harder, picking her step over the uneven ground, her eyes burning through the dampening grey, straining for a glimpse of the red-plaid jacket, zipped all the way up, she prayed, and with the hood tucked tight around her throat.