The Moose Jaw (29 page)

My glasses were nothing more than two power magnifiers I used for reading and tying flies.  Through the lenses I could see clearly every detail of the fly.  It truly was beautifully made.  The head was wrapped and whip-finished expertly, the wings fanned out fully, and the ends of all the hairs were perfectly aligned, all except one – the red one.  ‘A red deer hair?’  I examined it more closely.  It was curly.

“Hmmmm.”  I kept the fly held aloft and gave Morgan a sidelong glance.

“What do you see?” she asked, still with that impish smile.

I resumed my examination.  There was no doubt about it; I recognized that hair.  It wasn’t from a deer.  It was one of Morgan’s, and it hadn’t come from her head.  It was, indeed, a very special fly.

She was becoming impatient.  She slapped my knee.  “I know you see it,” she said.  “Tell me what you think it is.”

“I see it,” I said slowly.  “And I believe I recognize it, but I’m trying to figure out how it got there.  Did you tie these flies in your lap?”

She pushed at my leg and said, “Oh, you knew all along.”

“No.  Honestly, I didn’t.  But, I must say, I like the idea.  I tie a lot of flies, you know.  Will you let me harvest some for my own personal use?”

She gave me her shy, sidelong look and batted her eyelashes.

“Maybe, if you’re good.”

I promised to be good.

***

It was time I went back up to the lodge and had one last go at looking for Jason.  She must have read my thoughts, and indicated the flies she’d made.

“You should try one, just to see how they work.  The fish have been rolling all afternoon.”

I knew I should be going if I were to make it up to the lodge and back before dark.  But I was also reluctant to leave, and I didn’t want to disappoint her.

“O.K.,” I said.  “If you’ll fetch my rod and tie on one of your Specials, I’ll see what the grayling think about them.”

She smiled and jumped to her feet and disappeared inside the cabin.  Almost immediately she came back out.  My rod was already rigged.

“All set!”  Her smile was radiant.  “I tied three; the third one’s already on your tippet!”

I laughed and took the rod from her hand.  Her excitement and happiness were contagious.  I felt good all over as I walked down to the creek, despite my bumps and bruises and bandaged hand.  Morgan sat back down on the porch step and watched me.  I turned to look up at her when I reached the water’s edge.  She waved – God, what a lovely sight.

I stripped off some line and tugged at the fly to test her knot; it was strong and tight.  Then I waded a few steps into the water and flipped the fly upstream.  It settled on the surface and started down the current - WHAM.  I jerked my rod tip skyward - SNAP.  My fly line floated back through the air and coiled at my feet. 

“Damn it!” I said, retreating up the bank to the cabin.  “Got a strike on the first cast and set the hook too hard.  I snapped off your Special.”

She was laughing and clapping her hands in delight.  “Try again!”

   When I plunked down on the step next to her she took the end of my fly-line, popped open the box, picked out another fly, and expertly tied it on.

“There,” she said.

I strode purposefully back down to the creek and waded in.  I cast upstream, the fly lit, then twisted in the current before starting its downstream run – WHAM!  Another strike!  I hooked this one.  It was a fair sized grayling.  I played it for a minute, then guided it into the shallow water, took hold of the line just above its mouth and lifted it clear of the water so Morgan could see it.

She clapped her hands.  “Bravo!”

I lowered the fish back into the water, took a grip on the fly, and gave it a shake.  The grayling rolled off the hook, hesitated momentarily, and then darted out into deeper water.   I secured my fly to the hook keeper on the butt of the rod, and went back up to join Morgan.

She came down to meet me halfway.  When I reached her she put an arm through mine and walked me back to the porch.

“You see,” she said.  “They really work.”

I had to admit – they really did.

***

I looked at the sun.  It would be setting in a little over an hour.  It was time to go.  I told her so.  She nodded sadly and said she knew.  She insisted I take the canoe this time.  If I got in trouble up there I wouldn’t have to get back under my own power; the current would bring me home.  I agreed.

She took my rod into the cabin while I got the paddles and a seat cushion out of the tent.  I always carried two paddles, even when I was alone.  There was always the chance of breaking one or losing one over the side.  I had just stowed them in the stern when Morgan came out of the cabin carrying my field jacket and shotgun.  She’d thought to bring the flashlight also.  She brought them down to the canoe and stood in the soft mud along the water’s edge; it squished up black between her white toes.  I took them from her arms and thanked her.  The jacket had dried well on its peg behind the stove, and the pockets were still full of shells.  The afternoon was warm so I laid it on the forward seat.  Then I checked the shotgun to make sure it held five shells.  Satisfied, I secured it in the canoe, its barrel resting against my jacket.  Before I pushed off I hugged her tight against me.

“I know,” I said into her hair.  “You think this is stupid.  You think I shouldn’t go.”

She shook her head sadly; her red hair swayed and glistened in the lowering sun.

“No,” she said softly.  “Sometimes we just don’t have any choice.  Some things are preordained.”

Then she kissed me on the lips and said, “Hurry back.  It’s our last night.”

Morgan stood on the shore as I pushed off and swung the bow upstream.  The paddle handle bit into the palm of my wounded left hand, but the dressing padded and protected it enough that I knew I’d be able to make it three miles.  I glanced back as I swung into the first bend.  Morgan stood there, watching me go.  She saw me looking back and raised a hand into the air.  A wind came up suddenly, and her hair and shirt stirred and billowed around her.  She reminded me of a painting I had once seen of a Celtic goddess, standing at the water’s edge with the wind and the sun playing in her flaming red hair.  My eyes remained fixed on her pagan, mystic and lovely form until my canoe slipped around the point, and she disappeared.

It was then I realized I hadn’t been paddling.  The wind had shifted and was pushing me upstream against the current.  A shiver ran down my spine.  It was an odd day.  I couldn’t recall the wind having ever come out of that quarter.  All summer long it had come down the streambed.  Destiny, I wondered, or just the shifting of the wind?

The sun was just above the treetops when I swung my bow into Deadman Creek.  The wind dropped off as soon as I left the Moose Jaw and the waters of the Deadman were glassy and serene.  I dipped my paddle slowly and carefully, making as little noise as I could.  I glided into shore downstream of the lodge, where the bank was soft and muddy.  I didn’t want to grate across a gravel bottom and announce my arrival.

The canoe’s bow nudged gently against the bank and its stern caught in the current and swung silently under a stout willow that overhung the water.  I quietly stowed my paddle and took hold of the willow to keep me in place while I waited and listened.  When I was certain my arrival had gone unnoticed, I tied off the bow to the willow, knowing the current would keep the stern pressed against the bank. 

I had made good time coming upstream with the wind behind me.  The sun was not yet down behind the hills so there was still too much light for me to approach the lodge.  I decided to just sit quietly in the canoe and wait for sunset.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but whatever plan I worked out, I wanted the cover of darkness.  As I sat there I got the sudden urge for a smoke.  That, of course, was out of the question but I slipped my pipe out of my pocket, and clamped the stem between my teeth.  Even not lit, its familiar, solid weight in my jaws was comforting.

A big trout broke the calm surface of the water out in midstream.  Then another, further up the creek.  I watched the ripples spread out from the feeding rings until their outer circles merged.  The sun was slipping behind the distant hills now, and I could see it through the trunks of the trees.  Its fading light lent a rosy glow to the sky.  The air began cooling quickly, and a mist began rising from the surface of the creek, as the water gave up its warmth to the coming night.  I laid my shotgun on the bank and slipped into my jacket.  Then I sat and watched with wonder as the sky grew darker and the mist thickened and twisted and metamorphosed into a graveyard fog.  It was damp and heavy on the water, and it crawled up the banks from the surface of the Deadman and silently spread its tendrils through the trunks of the trees, until it lay, like a shroud, upon the forest floor.

***

I tried to jump out of the canoe but slipped on the mud of the bank and came down hard on top of my shotgun.  One foot splashed into the water and my leg became, momentarily, wedged between the canoe and the bank.  I pulled it free and scrambled to my feet.  My shotgun lie pressed flat in the mud.

“Shit!” I hissed, as I snatched it up and quickly checked the barrel to make sure it was clear.

There was a little mud around the lip, but it didn’t appear plugged.  I made sure the safety was on, then plunged my little finger into the muzzle and wiped it clean.  It was a dangerous thing to do but there was no time for the usual precautions.

   I jumped to my feet and sprinted through the fog toward the lodge.  I thought I was on the path but I couldn’t tell; the trees were merely dark shapes that loomed suddenly out of the mist and then faded to nothingness.  The screams had stopped, but their silent echoes reverberated through the foggy woods.  I had no idea what the hell was going on in there or, for that matter, who had been screaming.  I couldn’t tell if it had been a man or a woman or a banshee.  It could have been Jason.  I hoped I hadn’t waited too long.

As I broke into the clearing the fog took on an amber glow.  There was movement, dark and fleeting, in the trees across the open ground.  I tucked and rolled and came up in a kneeling position, staring down my shotgun’s barrel into the glowing fog, but whatever I’d seen move was now gone.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the door to the lodge stood open, and the surreal light that illuminated the fogscape spilled out from the great hall, across the porch, and onto the black dirt of the clearing.

I hesitated for a moment.  I wasn’t certain the screams had come from inside the lodge.  They may have come from the trees.  I could check the lodge quickly; the woods would take longer – the lodge then.  I rose to my feet and started through the fog toward the rectangle of light, all the time watching the trees out of the corner of my eye.

I was ten feet from the porch when Roy McCaslin came flying out the door, a specter borne upon an ephemeral tide of light.  He was naked and covered with blood; his eyes glowed like the fires of hell!  Light glinted red on the steel blade of his knife as he launched himself at me.

I’d been carrying the shotgun low as I crossed the clearing, so I fired from the hip.  The blast blew him back against one of the posts that supported the porch roof.  He was still on his feet.  His eyes locked with mine as he clutched at his shredded testicles, blood dripped from between his fingers.  He sagged to his knees, his hate-filled eyes still burning into me.  He opened his mouth in a silent scream.  I could see the gap in the bottom row of his wolfish, yellow teeth.  The vision of a pink nipple encircled with blue bruises flashed across my mind.  Beautiful, helpless, Morgan.

I worked the pump on my shotgun and stepped closer.
  His eyes never left mine as I brought up the barrel, its muzzle now inches from his open mouth.  I slowly squeezed the trigger.  His offensive teeth disappeared in an explosion of blood and brains and bone fragments.  I ejected the spent shell into my hand and put it in my pocket.  Then I looked around until I found the first one I’d fired.  I pocketed that one also.  Evidence.  Mustn’t leave evidence.

I went back to Roy’s mutilated body and looked down at him.  He was, indeed, a horror to behold.  My first shot had hit him in the genitals.  I hadn’t aimed there.  I hadn’t aimed anywhere – I’d just pulled the trigger.  While studying the damage, I noticed an odd thing.  There was a string, or wire, or something, tied around what once had been his scrotum.  It trailed off into the dirt beside him.  It looked to be about four feet long.  His left hand still gripped it.  I nudged it with the tip of my shotgun barrel; it made a metallic sound.  It was a wire.  There was another lump of bloody meat attached to the other end.  I would never have recognized it as a sack of male organs taken out of the context of this horrible scene, but all the parts were there.  I swallowed my gorge, and knew I’d have to go in and look for the organ donor.

I stepped over Roy’s corpse and moved quietly across the porch.  Silly really, considering I’d just let off two shotgun blasts.  Did I think I was going to sneak up on someone?  I let the muzzle of my shotgun precede me through the door and into the lodge’s main hall, which was big and well lit.  It was also empty.  That is, there was no one in there.  Another door stood ajar across the room, in the back wall.  I crossed the room, opened it the rest of the way with my foot, and poked my head through the doorway.

The inhuman shape was grotesquely large and naked and covered, literally, covered with blood.  There was blood everywhere.  I didn’t go inside the room.  I didn’t want to leave my footprints in the blood on the floor.  Roy had left plenty of his own.  A candle burned on a table near the bed and I could see all I needed to see from where I stood.   Thank god it was Larry.  He was spread-eagled on the floor near the far wall, and there was a ragged, gaping hole where his crotch had been.  He had bloody holes all over his chest.  He looked like he’d been run over by a lawn aerator.  Roy had savagely butchered his brother.