The Back of the Turtle (31 page)

SONNY SITS IN THE SAND BY HIS PILE OF BONES AND SHELLS
and stones, and he sings as he strings each piece on the copper wire.

Turtle bone, clamshell, clamshell, clamshell.

Turtle bone, clamshell, clamshell, stone.

Sonny hammers the lengths of rebar into the sand and wraps the wire around the iron. Around and around. Sonny can’t remember when he’s enjoyed himself so much.

He presses the bones and the shells and the stones together so that there is no space in between. The wire glows in the sunlight, the bones and the shells burn bright. The darker stones anchor the pattern with grace and solemnity.

Turtle bone, clamshell, clamshell, clamshell.

Turtle bone, clamshell, clamshell, stone.

Up and up it goes, until the tower is above Sonny’s head, and he has to reach to anchor the last layer. Then, he sets the harrow disc on top and loads the bowl with wood.

Sonny stands back and looks at his creation. Beautiful. The shells and bones sparkle, and the copper wire flashes in the evening light. The tower leans a little to the right, but if Sonny leans a little to the left, the tower looks straight.

Now all Sonny has to do is light the beacon and wait.

Just not yet. Sonny wants to wait for the right moment. He doesn’t want to waste fuel.

Waste not, Sonny tells himself, want not.

Sonny takes out his handkerchief and polishes the copper wire, and when he does, he notices something moving down a sand dune behind the tower. A large something. At first, Sonny doesn’t believe his eyes. He rubs them. He rubs them again.

Rub, rub, rub.

Wham-wham!

A turtle!

Wham-wham, hammer-hammer!

It’s a sea turtle, just like the turtles who used to arrive on Sonny’s beach during tourist season. A ragged turtle with worn flippers and a wide indentation in its shell, as though it has been carrying a heavy weight for a long time. At first, it appears that this turtle has cut its head, but when Sonny looks more closely, he can see that it’s just a colourful marking.

Big Red. That’s what Sonny will call this turtle. Big Red.

Sonny tears some seagrass out of the sand and holds it out, in case Big Red is hungry.

Come on, Big Red. Come on, Big Red.

Sonny can see that Big Red wants to get to the ocean, so he quickly gets behind the turtle and sights the water over her shell. There are several large sticks in Big Red’s way and Sonny removes them. There is a log in her path, and Sonny piles sand on both sides so Big Red can slide over.

Come on, Big Red, Sonny yells. Come on, Big Red.

The ocean is still two hundred yards away, and Big Red
begins to tire. She stops for a moment and raises her head to find the smell of the sea. And then, slowly, she continues on.

Sonny dances around her. He wants to pick her up and carry her to the surf line, but Big Red is much too large for that. And Sonny knows that she has to make the journey on her own. Sonny remembers telling the tourists to leave the turtles alone.

Don’t touch, he used to tell the tourists who came to the beach to watch the turtles. Don’t touch.

So Sonny doesn’t. But there’s nothing wrong with encouragement. There’s nothing wrong with singing. There’s nothing wrong with dancing. There’s nothing wrong with telling jokes. These are entertainments that might encourage Big Red and help her along her way.

Two bears go into a bar.

A duck walks into a pharmacy.

Sonny gets down on his belly and uses his elbows to pull himself through the sand. Come on, Sonny whispers to Big Red. Let’s have a race. You and me. A race to the sea. Bet you can’t beat me. Bet you can’t get there before me.

Go, Big Red!

Up and down the sand dunes they go. Sonny and Big Red. Out onto the flats to where the sand turns wet.

Come on, Big Red. Sonny is winning.

As soon as the turtle feels the wet beneath her shell, she revives and pulls herself along with powerful strokes of her flippers. Sonny’s elbows are beginning to hurt. He lifts one up and he can see that it’s beginning to bleed. When the race is over, he’ll have to get Band-Aids for his injuries.

But that’s okay. Dad has mentioned sacrifice more than once, and Sonny isn’t going to stop because of a little blood.

And then the surf breaks over Big Red’s shell, and the surf breaks over Sonny’s back, and the race is over.

Big Red is the winner!

Sonny leaps out of the surf and dances in the rapid water.

Big Red wins!

Sonny’s whole body is vibrating. His elbows sting. There is sand in his shirt and his pants. And Sonny is happy. Big Red has made it back to the ocean. Big Red has come home.

Sonny stands on the beach and watches the turtle disappear into the waves. Then he walks back up the beach to the tower, singing as he goes.

And in the weakening light at the edge of the world, Sonny lights the beacon fire.

EVERYONE SAT IN A LOOSE CIRCLE AND PASSED THE FOOD
around. Mara handed Gabriel a deep bowl. Inside were round balls.

“This is Mei-ling,” Mara said. “She’s the one you pulled out of the water.”

“I pulled them all out of the water.”

“She says she was the first.”

Gabriel picked up one of the balls. He sniffed it but couldn’t place the flavour. Mara nudged him.

“Just eat it.”

“What is it?”

Mara looked at Mei-ling. “
Yu wang?
”

Mei-ling nodded.

“Fish balls,” said Mara. “They’re very good. And they’re fresh. The Chins have found a beach north of here that has fish.”

“What’s that?”

“
Tsa bi hoon,
” said Mei-ling. “You would call it … spaghetti?”

“Vermicelli.”

“Yes, vermicelli. With pig.”

Gabriel brought the noodles to his mouth. “This is pork?”

“Very sorry,” said Mei-ling. “No pork. We use fish.”

Gabriel took a mouthful. “It’s good.”

“Good?” boomed Crisp. “This is a feast for any man, and more than most could hope for. Ye must try the
jiao zi.
Is that pronounced correctly?”

“Yes,” said Mei-ling. “Very perfect.”

“Dumplings,” said Crisp. “Melt in your mouth.”

“Two families,” said Mara. “The Chins and the Huangs. That’s Mei-ling’s father, Chi-ming, and her cousins, Jia-hao, Guan-ting, and Jun-jie. They’re Taiwanese.”

Mara went around the room, introducing everyone. “Mei-ling speaks good English. Her cousins do okay. The rest of the families not so much.”

“I spies a good story on the horizon,” said Crisp. “But perhaps we should postpone the telling, so as not to confuse the tale with the tucker.”

GABRIEL
searched each face and tried to remember the order of the rescue, but it was hopeless. He had shared a bleak rock in a savage sea with these people. He knew them no better than he had known his own sister, and yet here he was, having dinner with the lot as though they were family.

“We work on ship,” Mei-ling began. “Chin family, Huang family. But the ship is old. Nothing works well. My father fix this, and my cousins fix that, and then everything is good.”

“But a fox can only chase so many rabbits,” said Crisp.

Mei-ling stopped. “Fox?”

“What he means,” said Mara, “is that more things broke than you could fix.”

“Yes,” said Mei-ling. “We try very hard, but things break, and then more things break. Soon we can no longer fix the things that are broken.”

One of the younger men said something to Mei-ling in Taiwanese.

“Jun-jie asks that I tell you about the storm.”

“A storm?” growled Crisp. “Splendid.”

“Don’t mind Mr. Crisp,” said Mara. “He gets excited easily.”

“Indeed, I do,” said Crisp, flinging his voice about the room, “for I’m a pirate’s dog with a bone, when it come to a good story.”

Mei-ling’s father began moving his hand up and down. The other men nodded their agreement.

“My father reminds me of the size of the waves,” said Mei-ling, “for they were … formidable. Is that correct? Formidable?”

“Formidable,” roared Crisp. “Yes, yes, it’s a fine word. Yet all manner of mercy and mayhem may come out of a storm.”

Mei-ling paused a moment to let Crisp’s words fly by. Then she continued.

“The storm was very bad. Water was everywhere. And when it passed, the ship was broken. Neither my father nor my cousins could fix it. At first we thought someone would come, but no one did.”

Gabriel’s butt still stung from having tried to sit on the orange chair. “You had no means of communication. No radio?”

“No,” said Mei-ling. “No radio. No steering for the ship. There was computer for navigation, but it would not work properly.”

“They were trapped on board,” said Mara. “Can you imagine?”

“Yes,” said Mei-ling. “Trapped.”

Mei-ling’s father reached out and patted the floor.

“Then we see land and think we are safe.” Mei-ling’s eyes filled with tears. “But the land disappears.”

“A woeful tale, indeed,” said Crisp, his voice wavering. “For to see salvation and have salvation denied is a great sorrow.”

“But it comes a second time. The land. Closer now, and my father says we must try to reach the shore.”

“A wise man,” said Crisp. “A most wise man.”

“We get into a small boat. Enough room for all of us, but when we are near the shore …”

Crisp ran a hand across his head. “The waves put the boat upon the rocks.”

“Yes,” said Mei-ling. “We are in the water, and we are dying, until the singing man pulls us out of the sea. Until the singing man saves us.”

Mara smiled and touched Gabriel’s hand. “His name is Gabriel,” she said. “Gab-ri-el.”

Mei-ling quickly translated and the faces of her family and relations brightened.

“Gab-ri-el,” they all said in bits and pieces.

Mara turned to Gabriel. “The singing man,” she said. “I like that.”

MEI-LING
told about coming ashore, how the families lived in the woods and out of sight, fearful that they might be arrested, how they had found the reserve and the empty homes.

“We are sorry,” Mei-ling said, “but we are cold and hungry.”

“Yet welcome, nonetheless,” said Crisp.

Mei-ling hung her head. “In the town. My cousins took things that did not belong to us.”

“Nothing that wouldn’t have been shared had the need been known.” Crisp’s beard danced on his face. “I’ll settle all matters with the folks and leaves ye with free passes to the hot springs, where ye can throw off the trials of your old life and warm yourselves in the new.”

“That is most kind.”

“Not at all,” said Crisp, “for good company’s a rare thing and everyone else in this kingdom has heard my stories at least once. Tell me, do ye like stories?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mei-ling, “we like stories very much.”

“Excellent,” said Crisp.

“And we have dessert,” said Mei-ling. “Jun-jie has made
feng li su.
”

“Dessert!” Crisp gave his belly a great whack and threw an arm around Gabriel. “What say ye?” he bellowed. “Can we find the room?”

“I should be getting back,” said Gabriel.

Crisp leaned against Gabriel and whispered in his ear. “Look around,” he said. “This is the back to which ye needs be getting. Look around. Ye are already here.”

DORIAN SAT AT HIS DESK, FIGHTING THE NAUSEA THAT HAD
decided to make a return engagement. Winter and the woman from Public Relations sat on the sofa.

“Who wants to go first?”

“It might actually work to our benefit,” said Lustig.

“Having Kali Creek and GreenSweep splashed all over the national news might work to our benefit?” Dorian paused to let the concept hang in the room. “That’s PR’s spin on this?”

“Not spin,” said Lustig. “Strategy.”

“I’m waiting.”

“We’re expecting the situation in Alberta to worsen in the next few days. There have been several communities along the Athabasca adversely affected by the spill.”

“And by ‘adversely affected,’ you mean …”

“A higher than expected mortality rate.”

“People are dying.”

“Fortunately,” said Lustig, “most of these are Native communities where the mortality rate is already higher than the norm.”

“Higher than the mortality rate in … white communities.”

“Making it difficult to determine whether the additional deaths are the result of the spill or lifestyle.”

“We’re talking about poverty.”

“Along with alcoholism, drug use, and irresponsible behaviour.”

The nausea was threatening to turn into diarrhea. Dorian could feel his gut twisting around itself.

“Kali Creek and the threat of a rogue scientist might give us some breathing room,” said Lustig. “Properly managed, it could take the edge off the Athabasca.”

“Dr. Quinn is hardly a ‘rogue scientist.’ I’m not sure we want to suggest that he’s deranged.”

Lustig’s smile was just short of patronizing. “He writes on walls.”

“That makes him eccentric.” Dorian drew in a deep breath and tried to force the pain out of his abdomen. “What I want to know is how Manisha Khan knew about Kali Creek, how she knew about GreenSweep. Just how did that happen?”

“I’m afraid that at this point we’d only be guessing.”

Dorian could have gone straight from the studio to the condo and just called it a night. There was nothing he could do about the interview, and a good night’s sleep might have been the better course of action. Instead, he had called Winter and Lustig, summoned them to his office after hours. It was a small pleasure, something that the CEO of Domidion could do.

And he had.

“Guess away.”

Lustig took the lead. “According to Security, the documents found at Dr. Quinn’s house were all copies. It’s possible that Dr. Quinn sent the originals to
En Garde.
”

“To what purpose?”

“To embarrass the company,” said Lustig. “Or we may have an internal leak.”

“Zebras? At Domidion?”

“A possibility.”

“So, we don’t know anything.” Dorian was on his feet and moving around the room. “We have no idea who leaked the GreenSweep file. We don’t know where our genius scientist has gone. We don’t even know if there are any good movies on television tonight.”

Lustig frowned. “Pardon?”

“Something I haven’t seen more than once.” Dorian struck the desk with his hands. In the silence of the office, it sounded like a shot. “All right. Let’s release the hounds.”

“Yes, sir,” said Winter. “Release the hounds.”

“Who was responsible for spraying GreenSweep at Kali Creek?”

Winter tapped at the tablet. “Independent contractor out of Prince George.”

“What about the company responsible for the construction of the holding ponds at our tar-sands facility?”

“Somosi Construction.”

“One of our subsidiaries?”

“Yes.”

Dorian turned to Lustig. “Use PR’s usual sources to leak Domidion’s intention to sue the former for negligence and the latter for breach of contract, and I want you to start a serious conversation on the possibility of sabotage.”

“We can do that.”

Dorian turned to Winter. “Go back ten years. Don’t we have other misadventures besides Kali Creek and the Athabasca?”

“We do,” said Winter.

“Let’s lump everything together. All our sins. Accidents, disasters, gross negligence, major miscalculations. Work up some plausible conspiracies. Toss out the t-word if you have the chance. Park the mess on the doorstep of a couple of the more annoying environmental groups, and be sure to mention the Zebras as many times as possible.”

“That could work,” said Lustig.

Dorian enjoyed the warmth that spread across his face. “It doesn’t have to work,” he said. “‘If you can’t convince them, confuse them.’”

“Harry Truman,” said Winter.

“Yes.” Lustig’s face was suddenly animated. “The conspiracy theorists will run with it all on their own, and we can work with the talk shows to organize discussion forums on energy extraction and domestic terrorism.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Dorian. “Yellow, red, blue, green, purple, orange. You mix them all together and what do you get?”

Dorian waited to see which of the women wanted to step forward.

“Grey,” he said. “You get grey.”

Lustig was on her feet. “We better get mixing.”

WINTER
waited until Lustig had reached the elevators. “Your wife has phoned several times. She sounds upset.”

“Good.”

“And Dr. Toshi’s office rang. They sound annoyed.”

“Excellent.”

“And I looked into that other matter.”

Dorian wondered if Winter had a boyfriend or a lover. Not that it was any of his business. She could well be lesbian. Or celibate.

“Dr. Quinn’s notes were accurate. Before GreenSweep was cancelled, Domidion had produced 10,000 litres of concentrate.”

Not that Dorian was attracted to Winter, though he could see how she might be attracted to him.

“The concentrate couldn’t be incinerated. Too toxic. Landfills, impermeable clay caps, and injection wells were also out of the question.”

Perhaps after he and Olivia had taken care of their business, Dorian would ask Winter out to dinner. A business dinner, where the two of them could relax and talk about the corporation’s recent expansion into bottled water.

“So it was put into drums and shipped to our storage facility in Tadoussac.”

“Quebec?”

“Yes.”

“At least we know where it is.”

Olivia had been fish and Chardonnay. Dorian guessed that Winter would be meat and Merlot. Not that you could tell such a thing just by looking at someone.

“In fact,” said Winter, “we don’t. Shortly after the drums arrived in Tadoussac, they were loaded onto one of our barges for disposal at sea.”

“What?”

“There appears to have been a mix-up.”

“GreenSweep is on a barge?”

Winter always managed problems with a quiet competence. It was this ability, Dorian conceded, that made her good at her job. And attractive as well.

“The
Anguis
?”

“Yes, sir,” said Winter. “All of our stock of GreenSweep is on board the
Anguis.
”

Capable assistants were rare, Dorian reminded himself, while lovers and wives were easy enough to find. Always best to maintain the line between the two.

“Well,” he said, “then there’s not much to be done.”

“No, sir,” said Winter. “There’s not.”

Still, Dorian would have liked to have been able to ask Winter if she found power intoxicating, if she was aroused by authority. The question would have been completely inappropriate, of course, and easily misconstrued.

He was simply curious.