Windigo fire, p.4
Windigo Fire, page 4
The lodge was on fire.
There’s no time left. No time.
The ropy strands of the last bag were stuck to the floor. He jerked it free. Beneath it, a sticky river of dried black fluid bore a detritus of shattered electronics, metal and glass. A shiny watch face glinted from the ooze: Morty’s Rolex. He remembered Morty stripping it off and dumping it on the dining table while he, Danny, poured out the hunters’ shots. Morty had raised his glass and declared that time didn’t matter on the island.
Not any more.
“Do you see Anderson’s gun?” Ricky again.
“No!” Danny flung the remains of the ragged bag across the floor.
A flash of copper metal nearly hidden under the rustic sofa. He groped through the dark and seized a black plastic receiver. Bright wires sprouted from one end.
“Found it,” he shouted. He felt under the sofa and pulled out a dented metal box. An electronic circuit board poked through one shattered side. He grabbed Hendrix’s pack and dumped the box and receiver inside. He’d fit everything back together, get the radio working.
A dull thump overhead.
Fire had broken in upstairs. I have to get out of here.
Danny went to stand up, and banged his head on the underside of the table. Man, that hurt. Even in the dim light he could see that dark matter had soiled his hands.
A chunk of plaster from the ceiling crashed down onto the table right over his head. Thank God, the table held. Smoke poured through the naked lathes like blood from a wound. He could feel the heat of the fire, radiating down from the ceiling.
“I need that gun,” Ricky shouted. “What are you waiting for?” He had to get out. Now. He grabbed the pack by the straps.
There, poking out from under the sofa, he spotted Anderson’s gun. He reached to grab it.
A rushing sound. A sigh like snow shifting. An avalanche of plaster, wood and charred furniture broke through a tear in the ceiling.
And buried the table and sofa in a mountain of construction waste.
7
Logan moved through the room like a dark wind. He grabbed a stray chair, screeched it over to a stained plywood table and thudded down the bottle. He collapsed on the chair. The outside trees cast shadows through the speckled windows of the ruined cafeteria like silhouettes on waxed paper.
His mouth moved, no words came out.
Who is he talking to? Rachel dared not breathe.
Logan rubbed his eyes, banged his forehead with the heel of one hand, rocking rhythmically. Cold crept into Rachel’s chest: she shouldn’t be seeing this.
Down the phone line trickled a recorded voice nagging at her to hang up. Shut up, shut up, Phone Lady. She hauled on the slippery phone cord to catch the dangling receiver.
Logan’s body grew rigid. He leapt up, a scarecrow come to life. Rushed at her, so fast. He wrenched the receiver out of her hand and slammed it back into place.
Rachel gasped. “Mr. Logan …”
He seized her shoulders, watery blue eyes unseeing, and banged her spine hard against the crumbling plaster next to the phone. “Mr. Logan, you’re scaring me. Stop!” He blinked, confused. “Mr. Logan?”
He shuddered and released her. “Bloody hell, Kid, don’t sneak up on people like that.” He stumbled back to his chair, sat down and tossed his crumpled stetson on the table. “Shouldn’t you be at camp?”
“I’m looking for Danny.”
“Naturally.” He freed a shiny brown bottle from the paper bag and unscrewed the top. “Sorry, Kid, haven’t seen him since the last time you two misfits went AWOL from Barry’s plantation.”
“I … I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Scare me? Not a chance.”
“I’m sorry I used your phone without asking. I’ll pay you back when I get some money.”
“Forget it. Ma Bell doesn’t know I rewired the sucker.” He smiled, showing surprisingly white teeth. “Hell, she can afford it.” He gestured at the kitchen cupboards behind them. “Don’t stand there, gaping. Go on, get me a glass.”
Relieved that he was back to normal, Rachel ran over to the counter, climbed up and swung open the cupboard door. One tumbler, milky with grease, rested on the middle shelf. She grabbed it, jumped down, and set it down on the table in front of him.
He grunted his thanks and poured out a dollop of tawny liquid. She wrinkled her nose at the sharp smell of alcohol. Canadian whisky, the label said.
“Dangerous to disturb a man’s drinking, Kiddo,” he said. “Your daddy should have taught you that.”
“My dad doesn’t drink.”
“Is that so? You’re making me nervous, Rachel Forest, hovering there all judgmental. Sit down for God’s sake. I’m OK now.”
Cautiously she righted a tipped-over chair and sat down, but not too close to him. She watched him take a deep gulp of the whisky. He had a wind-hollowed face beneath a stringy mass of yellowish grey hair. His jeans were frayed and slick with dirt and his worn black leather jacket had a large rip under the armpit. The edging at the neck of his faded T-shirt looked like it had been chewed by mice. So did the brim of his punched-down cowboy hat.
Probably the mice had chomped on them. She’d seen enough mice running around the place.
“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” he asked.
“I … I’m worried about Danny.”
“Oh?”
“He said he’d be back at camp on Monday, but Barry fired him.”
“Surprise, surprise. Well, you could see that coming ten miles away.”
“That’s not fair. Danny’s my best counsellor. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Danny’s a grown man, with a grown man’s problems. Let it go. How old are you, Kid? Ten? Eleven? Go on back to camp, there’s nothing for you here but a wrecked-up old vet and his addiction.” He poured himself another glassful.
“I’m never going back to camp. Barry made everyone go to
Santa’s Fish Camp. I hate that place. It stinks!”
Logan’s glass couldn’t hide his smile. “You got that right.”
She felt in the pocket of her jeans for her precious bottle of indigo paint. Danny was coming back, he had to. He cared about their art even more than she did.
She looked at the far side of the room where Logan’s battered red tool chest rested on rusting wheels: the hiding place for their art. Its drawers were wide and empty, perfect for storing her large blue-checked sheets that resembled old-fashioned graph paper. Danny maintained that Logan would never look inside it because he’d sold off his tools for drinking money ages ago.
She watched Logan down more alcohol. Maybe it wasn’t smart to show him where they’d stashed their art. Dad told her drunks tore their houses to pieces looking for booze when they ran out. What if Logan opened the drawers and the mice got in? Mice ate through anything and everything: wood, soap, paper … especially paper.
Still, she wanted to make sure their art was safe. She slid off her chair and crept over to the tool box, careful not to distract Logan. Taking hold of the rusty steel handle, she pulled open the top drawer.
Empty!
Fear ripped through her body. She pulled out the drawer underneath. And the next one. All empty, everything gone.
Rachel cried out, her pain a rushing tide. “Our book: it’s gone! All of it.”
“What the hell!” Logan banged down his glass. “Keep it down,
Kiddo.”
“My paintings, they’re gone!”
“What paintings? Stop hyperventilating. Let me think for a minute. Oh, yeah, right. The comic book.”
“It’s not a comic book, it’s a graphic novel.” She didn’t want to make him mad again, but … “Did you take it?”
“No, I don’t read. I’m not the cultured type.”
“You did read it. You said you liked our story.”
“Hey there, get a grip.” Logan held up a hand. “On my life, I swear I never touched your art.”
“Well, somebody did. Somebody stole it.”
“Use your head, Kid. Nobody comes here but you and Danny. Only one answer to your mystery, sorry to say.”
Rachel frowned so hard her forehead hurt. “Danny wouldn’t take our art without telling me.”
“Maybe he wants all the credit for your comic book.”
“Danny wouldn’t do that to me. We’re partners.”
Logan sighed and refreshed his drink. “I’ve known Danny since he was your age living with his grandmother. The boy means well, but he finds staying on the righteous path a slippery proposition. Lack of moral fibre, I suppose, not that I’m a shining example of virtue. Your Danny drifts through life and when things blow up in his face, as they usually do, he might, on a good day, take a second to think about it, and his insight won’t last much longer.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“OK, fine, my guess is Danny said ‘see ya Monday’ so he wouldn’t have to deal with you getting all emotional. And he took your art with him because Barry fired his ass.” He drained his glass. “Better get used to getting dumped if you want boyfriends.”
“I never want a boyfriend. Why are you being so mean? Danny visits you all the time. You act like you like him, but now you just sit there and drink and say bad things about him.”
“Rachel Forest, you are the essence of tact.” He reached again for the bottle.
Rachel clenched her fists. “I bet Barry fired Danny because he found out he was moonlighting …” The words stuck in Rachel’s throat like hard pebbles. She’d promised Danny she wouldn’t tell about his special job.
“Moonlighting where?” Logan asked.
“Nothing.”
“Cat got your tongue again, I see.”
She watched him drink another shot. How many drinks was that? Three? Four? He really was a useless drunk, just like Dad said.
Logan sighed and set down his glass. “Where did Danny say he was moonlighting? Don’t just stand there staring at me with those big yellow wolf’s eyes of yours. You want me to help find him, don’t you? Where was the job?”
“He … he said he couldn’t tell me. It was safer that way.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t want his grandmother to worry. Or me. He was acting weird.”
“Oh?”
“He was scared.” There – she’d said it.
“And you know what being scared looks like.” The mistiness in Logan’s eyes had vanished: he looked like a blue-eyed eagle.
“Sure. I’ve been scared lots of times.” Playing Ninja, looking in through Barry’s office window late at night.
Logan shook his head. “No, you don’t, Kid.” He screwed the top back on the whisky bottle and grabbed his hat. “OK, guess it’s time to fire up the VW. You coming?”
“I’m not going back to Camp Nirvana. Ever.”
“I heard you the first ten thousand times. I’m heading down to the Galaxy. Thought you’d be hungry.”
She did feel hungry. “I can’t go. I don’t have any money,” she said.
“Who says you’re paying?”
“You don’t have any money either. Danny said so.”
“Then Danny knows as much about me as the rest of the fools in Red Dog Lake.” He shoved his hat over his tangled hair. “We’re eating at the Galaxy because the only person who might know where Danny put your art works there.”
“I don’t want to talk to that fat lady Corazon. She’s mean.”
“Yes, the only thing stonier than the farmland around here is Corazon Sinclair’s heart.” He started toward the outside door. “Hurry up now. We need to catch Odile before she goes off her shift.”
“Who’s Odile?”
“She’s the closest thing to a saint in Red Dog Lake.” He held the screen door open to let Rachel out. “Thought Danny might have told you. Odile St. Pierre is his grandmother.”
8
Grit packed Danny’s mouth and nostrils. He coughed and spat, desperate to breathe, rubbed his eyes to clear them. Smoke and dust shrouded the great room.
He was still under the table. Somehow he’d survived. The pine dining table had held up to the collapse of the ceiling. Ugly stuff built to last, just like Morty said.
Hard metal poked his thigh. Instinctively he reached down. Felt the barrel of Anderson’s gun beside him. He curled his fingers round it and jerked the weapon free from a mound of plaster and broken wood.
I have to get out.
The end of the dining room table pointed toward the outside door. Though he couldn’t see anything through the smoke, if he crawled forward in that direction, he told himself he couldn’t miss it. He pulled up onto his hands and knees and fumbled for Hendrix’s pack with the radio phone. He managed to loop one arm through its straps. Dragging it and the gun, he started for the door.
Breathing the thick smoke was like inhaling a garbage bag full of Santa’s high-octane weed. Intense heat pressed down on him in a searing impenetrable wall, blistering his skin. He crawled forward through heaps of glass, ashes and rubble.
From sweat lodge ceremony he remembered that the air at ground level had less smoke and stayed cooler. He bellied down onto the planks, coughing violently. The air might be cooler next to the floor, but it still felt like it was melting his bones.
Twenty feet ahead, slightly to the left, a hazy glow: the door. He wormed his way toward it, squinting through the smoke.
Give it up, man. So easy. What have you got to live for? Crap job, no future.
The air felt cooler. Maybe he was kidding himself, but the light seemed brighter.
He reached out. Struck a raised piece of wood.
The threshold … the door!
He groped for the cool, smooth flagstones beyond the doorstep. Bracing his hands on them, he pushed himself up and heaved his body out the door.
He flopped onto his back, gasping like a spent fish, staring up through the burning treetops.
Thuds and groans as more logs collapsed into the flaming lodge. He had to get clear, get down to the lake.
He staggered to his feet, picked up Anderson’s gun and slung Hendrix’s pack over one shoulder. Through the shifting bands of smoke, the trail down to the lake beckoned like a beam of light.
Ricky had vanished. Left him to die.
Where the hell was he? Had he hauled the canoe down to the lake? Or had he decided to swim for it? He was a big guy with layers of fat like a marine mammal, probably a natural-born swimmer. He’d make it across to the mainland, no problem.
Danny limped dizzily down the trail. Smoke streamed through the trees like black mist. He was marooned on the island: what could he do to save himself? Get in the water and stay under, obviously. But would the fire boil up the water in the shallows and cook him like a chicken? When he surfaced to breathe, would the incandescent air char his lungs and skin? Would the flames eat up all the oxygen and suffocate him?
Water, he needed water. He thought of Anderson’s blue bottles of mineral water exploding back in the burning lodge. He could see them, taste the frothy metallic water inside.
A blue mirage shimmered in the air before him like a jewel. He was hallucinating, losing it for sure. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand.
The blue of the lake – that’s what he was seeing. Beyond the burning island, the sun streamed down on the sparkling waves of Fire Lake in a perfect August day.
Ricky was standing on the beach, bent over the canoe, his hunting boots tied by the laces and slung round his neck. The shale screeched against the aluminum bottom as he shoved it into the water.
Danny stumbled, willing his legs to move faster. By the time he emerged from the trail, Ricky had waded knee-deep into the water. He slung one bare foot into the canoe and leaned on it. The metal boat wobbled frantically, tipping on its side. Water sloshed in. Swearing, Ricky leaned over, grabbing both sides. He pushed down and tried to jump into the middle with both feet. The canoe flailed wildly and flung him into the water.
Ricky surfaced like a mad walrus. He seized the canoe, dragged it out of the water and banged it down on the rocks of the beach.
Furious, he picked it up and bashed it again.
“Stop!” Danny screamed.
He rushed at Ricky, swinging the pack.
Hitting the American’s massive shoulder was like running headlong into a side of beef. Danny crashed down on the black gravel of the beach, one arm tangled in the straps of the pack. Anderson’s gun flew out of his hand.
“You little jerk!” Ricky seized him by the shirt. He banged him painfully against the stones. “Don’t – you – ever – sneak – up – on– me.”
Danny swung at him, striking nothing but air.
“Ease up!”
“No, you left me to die!”
“Stop it or I’ll crack your skull open.”
Ricky had him by the throat, jamming the back of his head so hard against the stones that his ears hummed. He wanted to tear Ricky’s face off. It took all he had to force himself to lie still.
“Are you going to behave?” Ricky’s small eyes bored down on him.
“Yes, yes! Let me up.”
Ricky relaxed his grip. Danny rolled over on one elbow, coughing for air. Ricky snatched Anderson’s gun from where it had fallen onto the stones and tossed it into the canoe with a metallic clang. He’d already secured his precious bow to the underside of the middle seat.
“That gun’s mine,” Danny lurched to his feet.
“You snooze, you lose.”
“You left me to burn. Why didn’t you help me?”
“You never served your country, did you, you pathetic excuse for a man? A weak soldier guts the troop. In combat, he goes down to save the warriors. That’s survival.”
“You were never in the army. You’re a washed up rock star who gets off on playing Rambo. A mark who pays thirty-five thousand dollars to shoot a tame old bear who never hurt anybody. Really big man you are, Loser.”
Ricky came at him. Danny swung Hendrix’s pack like a shield, but Ricky tore it away.
Behind them a dozen more trees whooshed into flame.
“Time to go,” Ricky said. “Stay back or you’re dead.” He tossed Hendrix’s pack into the canoe.
