The Western Light (27 page)

HALF AN HOUR LATER, JOHN stops the scoot and takes an oil drum from the storage department. While Little Louie and I watch, he fills up the tank, looking apprehensively out the door of the cabin. He can see the engine and giant propeller. He can't see much else, however, because large flakes of wet snow have started falling around us. It's one of those freak snowstorms that happens in late March when the weather is changing. The damp wind blowing through the door is making me shiver and I well up, thinking of Sal making hot cocoa for me in the safety of our kitchen and warning me about the cold: “You have to stay dry, bundle up, keep warm, stamp those feet of yours, get the circulation going.” Well, Sal can't help me now.

Soon we can't see the mainland or the scoots, which grow tinier and tinier before they vanish altogether behind the falling snow. They're there, though. They have to be, and I consider throwing myself over the side and striking off in their direction, but I'm wearing my brace and I wouldn't survive in a blizzard if they missed me, so I just stand there shaking and wondering how I feel about being stuck in a predicament with John and Little Louie. To be honest, it couldn't be worse since now I have to see up close how much he loves her and how little he cares for me.

“What are you making that face for, Mary?” he asks in a soft voice.

“I want to go home,” I whisper, surprising myself, and he nods as if I have said something sensible and important.

“I wish you could, but it's too late to change horses now.” He points at the distance. “We can't see them, but they're there, eh? When the wind blows the sound our way, I can hear their engines. Go sit beside Louisa. She'll keep you warm.”

I do what he says, although I don't want to. My aunt smiles and puts her arm around my shoulders. I allow her to pull me close. I hold myself as stiff and straight as a board. It doesn't take me long to notice that she is shaking worse than me, and then I remember how much she hates the open water so her shaking has to be from fear. I don't say anything to make her feel better. I don't even try.

ABOUT FORTY MINUTES LATER, JOHN has to fill the tank again. He grumbles about a leak. Then he realizes he's scared us, and he gives us one of his dimpled grins and says there is lots of oil so we don't have to worry, even with a leak. He gets out the second oil drum, while Little Louie and I sit huddled together. She has her head down between her legs, and she's shivering worse than before, because it's colder in the scoot now. The floor is vibrating crazily under our feet. At least I'm in my winter snowsuit and not a coat you'd wear to church. Then, in the distance, there's a noise like a jet plane. At first, I think I'm hearing things. Little Louie jumps up, peers out through the cabin door and I do too. The noise grows louder and louder until a round dot trailed by a feathery spray of snow slowly emerges out of the solid white curtain. It's alone. The other scoots aren't following behind it. Whistling softly, John studies the scoot through a pair of binoculars and hands them to Louisa. Louisa looks through the glasses. Finally, it's my turn. I must be seeing things. Morley's dove-grey fedora and broad shoulders are visible behind the windshield. I'm shocked at how vulnerable he appears in the flimsy scoot, engine exposed to the open air. It doesn't have a cabin, just a windshield, and a wedged bow that curls up off the ice like a rounded pie cutter. The propeller blades, slapping the air like giant paddles, could slice your head off if you stood too close. I have seen these kinds of scoots before; they're used to jump over snow mounds at winter carnivals and their design emphasizes speed, not comfort. Only a northerner like my father would drive such a quixotic contraption.

Morley's come after you
, I tell myself.
You, M.B. Bradford, who ran away from home
. Shame burns through me. And other feelings that have been so deeply buried they seem like part of my muscles and bones: first, shock over the way I have underestimated my father. And a sense of wonder because he loves me more than I thought; me, of all people, who has just done something undeserving of love. And now more strongly, the conviction that I have been at fault, as I always am, for not doing a better job of things, and most of all, for running away without thinking of the pain I would cause. I feel physical sensations too: the freezing cold, and the pulse in my throat and the pins and needles in my fingers, which means I'll get frostbite if I don't watch it.

My father's large, anguished eyes rake our deck. Suddenly, he spots me. He waves. The propellers of his scoot churn the air as he comes in close enough for us to hear him. “Are you all right, Mary?” Morley calls. I wave my hand with its freezing fingers and he shouts: “John. Give me Mary. I'll let you go!”

John pulls out the shotgun from under his seat. He looks over at Little Louie. She says in a whispery voice: “Oh, John, no.”

I think of him trying to strangle Sib with a twisted-up bedsheet. “Are you going to shoot my father?” I ask, a tremor in my voice.

He snorts. “Not if I can help it, eh?” He fires a shot in the air and waits. Morley keeps on coming. John fires another shot and the bullet hits the ice near the bow of Morley's scoot. Immediately, my father slows down his machine and cups his hand around his ear.

“Sorry, Doc Bradford. No deal!” John avoids my eyes as he screws the lid back on the gas tank. For a moment, he hesitates as if he's having second thoughts; I wait, too, hoping he'll change his mind and do what my father asks. Instead, he turns the key and the scoot's engine splutters. “Bugger double bugger,” I swear under my breath. “Let it conk out.” No such luck. John fingers the choke, and the motor kicks over and we take off again, the noise of our engine and the whirling propeller creating a terrible racket. The sound of my father's scoot grows fainter. I cross both sets of fingers inside my mitts hoping Morley won't give up.

51

UP AHEAD THE SNOW IS FALLING SO FAST THAT I DON'T SEE THE dark stretch of water.

“Sit tight!” John shrieks. “We're going across!” He guns the engine, and the scoot makes a long skidding turn to get into position, then we fly across the open water, cold spray burning our faces.

I close my eyes. Will it sink? Of course not. It's built to go on water as well as ice. It sails across the open patch as easily as one, two, three. Now the icy sprays of water stop and we're on solid ice again. “Dad, Dad!” I wave frantically at his scoot. Behind us, it's swerving in a wide arc, getting ready to approach the open stretch.

“Hey, you're blocking my view!” John pulls my arm down. There's a loud splash, and Morley's scoot is submerged up to its gunnels. What happens next flashes by in an instant: Morley's scoot sails across the open water and its engine conks out as soon as it reaches the other side. Morley jumps off the scoot and drags it onto the ice, but the scoot is heavier than ours and its wooden bow cracks the ice near his feet. John pushes the gas pedal to the floor and Morley vanishes.

Just past the Île au Géant, John turns off the road of Christmas trees and onto the unmarked bay. He glances back to see if my father is following us. A thrill shoots through me. Once more a dark speck is visible in the distance. Once more John stomps on the accelerator and my father's scoot disappears. We're way out in the shipping channel now, miles and miles from shore. My hopes of Morley catching us begin to fade. I press myself against Little Louie, whimpering. She puts her arm around me and calls out to John.

“What's the matter?” he yells.

“Mary's leg hurts.”

Over the noise of the engine, he shouts that he will take off the brace at the Western Light. So that's where we're headed. Nobody else would be desperate enough to go out there when the ice is getting thin.

SOMETHING'S WRONG. SMOKE BLOWS INTO our faces; heavy and oily, like the smoke from a diesel engine. John makes Little Louie hold the steering wheel and goes out through the cabin door to see where the smoke is coming from. Morley's scoot is too far away for us to smell its fumes. There is nothing behind or in front of us except cold air and ice. Then we see what's causing the smell: the icebreaker steaming up the Bay from the east. Purposeful, it surges towards us, accompanied by an earsplitting ringing like the noise of a million drink glasses shattering. On its bow the words
St. Brébeuf
have been painted in white. Our scoots are directly in its path. I watch horrified as Morley's scoot zigzags helplessly back and forth ahead of it, trying to stay out of its way. High up in Wheelhouse, the captain won't expect to see scoots out here. “Holy shit!” John cries. He rushes back into the cabin and points our scoot west across the solid ice, heading away from the icebreaker.

It keeps on moving towards my father's scoot as if a magnetic force is drawing it forward. Now it's almost on top of Morley. My father's fedora sits on his head, as if fixed in place by the same magnetic force. And then, just as the icebreaker is about to run my father down, it makes a slow arc in the other direction and steams off. We watch, our mouths gaping, while Morley's scoot rides up a gigantic wave like a toy that has been tossed overboard and disappears behind a wall of lake water. I listen for its engine. The vast frozen stretch is silent; there isn't even the cry of a seagull. We are way out in the open, the most dangerous stretch of the Bay. Here there are no islands or peninsulas to act as buffers against the wind. A moment later the scoot floats back up again. Morley isn't at its wheel.

“My father's fallen overboard!” I cry.

John stops the scoot. He and Little Louie rush to the stern to look. When they come back, Little Louie's face is ashen. She shakes her head without meeting my gaze.

“My God. I'm sorry,” John says.

I start sobbing. “Maybe he's still alive. Can we go back?”

“We'd only drown.”

“No, no! We have to rescue him!”

“Are you crazy, Mary? No way.”

“But we can't just leave him!” Little Louie says.

“Shut up both of you. For Christ's sake!”

My aunt starts sobbing, too. John's big black eyes soften. “Look, girls. I'm sorry. We have no choice. Tell me, Mary — is your leg still hurting from that thing?” He bends close, trying to make me look at him, but I avert my head, tears still trickling down my cheeks.

“It's all your fault!” I scream. “I hate you!”

“I guess I'd better take that darn thing off Mary,” he says, ignoring me, and he tells Little Louie to help me out of it. Silently, she and I undo the buckles and pull it off.

“Okay, you two, we have to keep moving,” he says. “It's getting dark.” He points at the sun sliding down under the clouds on the horizon. Little Louie and I stare miserably at each other, and she reaches over and takes my hand. This time I don't hold myself back because I'm stiff and cold. I bury my face in her chest and she puts her arms tight-tight around me. In the next second, our scoot takes off, leaving Morley behind.
Morley is gone
, I tell myself. He was your father and he came after you, Mouse Bradford. I think of how sorry I felt for myself in the morning, watching him eat his soft-boiled eggs and pretending I would never see him again. I hate myself for being such a baby. It was me and my dumb ideas that caused him to drown. He wouldn't have come after me if I hadn't run away. And now the worst has happened. Numb with misery, I don't react when John points at some snowbanks.

“See, girls! We're almost there.” Through my tears, I see he's right. Up ahead the tower of the Western Light rises out of the snowy twilight.

AFTER JOHN DRIVES US OVER the last stretch of ice to Double Rock, he helps Little Louie out of the scoot; then he lifts me over the gunnels and carries me across the shore ice. It shudders under his feet, spongy as meringue. Little Louie stumbles alongside, walking with difficulty in her fancy city boots, her head down against the wind.

“I want to find my father.”

Cupping the back of my head, he pushes my face into his chest. “Listen Mary. Don't go causing trouble, eh?” The roughness in his voice surprises me and suddenly I don't believe his story about his wife throwing the match. Fear rushes through me. Now anger. How could I have loved him? It was Morley, Morley, my father I loved. Heaving with sobs, I flail my arms trying to hit John's face. He sets me down, and together the three of us plod up the slippery wooden ramp to the house. It's hard for me to walk in my soggy wet snowsuit, so he picks me up and carries me again. This time, I don't fight back. I'm too exhausted. When we reach the lighthouse, he kicks open the door and lifts me across its threshold. Its shambling rooms look unchanged from the summer, except for the snowdrift beneath the living room window. On a shelf in the living room, the Snakes and Ladders game is still there along with the old guidebook,
How to Survive in the North
. He carries me into the kitchen and sets me down on a wooden chair by the Franklin stove. Little Louie follows us, looking around as if she can't believe what she sees.

“A good thing we made it, Annabel Lee.” He taps the windowpane as sheets of rain mixed with snow come shuddering towards us, leaving shimmering rivers on the glass. “It's not fit for man or beast out there.”

“Don't call me ‘Annabel Lee.' That's stupid.”

“Hey, you don't mean that, eh? I know you don't.”

“I hate you. And my name is M.B. Bradford.”

“Well, okay, M.B. Look — I'll have you girls fixed up in a jiffy.” The slight alteration in the way he's holding his head lets me know I've shocked him. He breaks up an old chair into kindling and fills the stove. Soon there's the crackle of burning wood, and its fierce warmth fills the kitchen. He pulls up a chair and tries to massage Hindrance. I pull my leg under the table where he can't reach it. When Little Louie glares at him, too, he jumps up.

“Oh, it's going to be like that, eh?” He sucks his teeth disapprovingly and retrieves a flashlight from his coat pocket. He aims it on a trap door in the floor. “There's always pork and beans in the root cellar. Wish me luck now.”

Neither Little Louie nor I say anything. He opens the trap door with another exasperated sigh and climbs down the stairs. I force myself to stand up and look out the window. It's raining more now and the wind has come up the way it sometimes does after sunset. A line of red light glows along the horizon. If Morley had hung on, the warmer temperature might have saved him.