Maccloud falls, p.40
macCLOUD FALLS, page 40
It seemed so small, so tiny to them then, but only a few days before it had been alive with characters, complicated histories, tales to tell.
‘We could just drive through,’ he said.
So they did, slowly. She took the wheel so he could look around, taking in the details one last time, drove across the old bridge and down along the CPR rail tracks where a line of trucks waited for Ken to make sure the two ends talked to each other. Past the inn where the tree-planters trucks were absent, the community hall with its silhouettes of times gone by, and on by the graveyard where Antko’s stone marked the very edge of the settlement.
On the far side of the river, behind the new highway bridge that bypassed the town, the waterfall that had once been ‘MacLeod Falls’ and was now just ‘Cloud Falls’ emerged from the rock face, and he asked her to stop for a while. It was nothing like as tall as Helmcken, not nearly so impressive. The name seemed too grand, inappropriate – just wrong, somehow. And behind that again was the track that he had followed in the hope of finding the mysterious cabin, where he’d been so close to being lost.
She was walking Hero, a clouded expression on her face, and he asked what the matter was. She glanced up at him. ‘Wish I’d gone to see that healer.’
‘Ah well, maybe next time?’
‘You think there will be one?’
‘Who knows?’ he answered, a little sadly. ‘Anyway, let’s go.’ He got back into the car. So she pulled out onto the highway south, and they left it behind them, this strange oasis where fruit once famed throughout the Empire had grown. The canyon, though, went on as steep and wild as at any point, more so still when they reached the gorge known as Hell’s Gate.
‘I couldn’t live up here,’ she said, as she piloted the VW through the narrows. ‘This place really freaks me out.’
The drive to Hope would take another hour and a half – down, always down and further down. She seemed to withdraw as she drove, her gaze fixed on the yellow line ahead, and she put on the KD Lang CD she’d played on the way north. Neither of them sang this time so the miles passed in silence, while he studied the talking-stick and looked out at the passing towns, checking them off one by one on the map. When the CD ended, there was no sound at all except that of the engine as it ground out the miles.
After a while, he turned to Hero, who was sleeping on the back seat and said, ‘It’s all so quiet, isn’t it?’
‘Hero says you’re the one with the talking stick,’ she answered. ‘Why don’t you tell us a story or something?’
He thought for a moment, then held up the talking stick, just as the signpost for Spuzzum flashed by. ‘Once upon a time,’ he began, ‘not far from Spuzzum, the wind ran wild through the canyon, blowing down people’s houses and creating havoc. Finally one brave young fellow announced to his family that he was fed up with the wind and he was going to go out and catch it. They told him he was crazy, that the wind was invisible, but he said he had an idea of what to do. So he went to the narrowest part of the whole canyon and there he set a great snare, because he knew the wind must pass through that place. That night the wind howled and when he went out in morning the snare was empty. He thought that maybe he’d made it too big and that the wind had just run through it. So the next night he made it smaller, and waited while the wind howled and when he went out in the morning the snare was empty. So that night he made it smaller again, and waited, and around the middle of the night the wind stopped howling and in the morning, when he went to the narrow place, there it was in the snare…’
‘What was it like?’ she asked, enchanted. But held the stick up and said he was the one who was telling the story.
‘The wind was very small and invisible but he knew it was there because the snare was moving, so he took his blanket and wrapped it around the snare, then tied it up. The wind must have been frightened because it stopped struggling and lay very still while he carried it home. When he went into the house he laid the blanket on the ground and announced to everybody that he had caught the wind. They laughed at him, of course, so to prove he was telling the truth he undid a corner of the blanket and suddenly a breeze blew through the house and almost put the fire out.’
‘And…?’
‘That’s it I think.’
She laughed quietly. ‘Nice. Did you just make that up?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘That’s a N’laka’pamux story, sort of. Classic appropriation. I’m not sure I told it properly. Lyle wrote it down in his book, and you know, when I read it, I thought if you just changed ‘canyon’ to ‘glen’ and ‘blanket’ to ‘plaid’, it could easily be a Scottish folktale.’
‘I wonder if Antko told him that one? Anyway, I think you told it well,’ she said. ‘That stick must have magic powers. Tell me another.’
He thought for a bit. That was the only story from Lyle that had really stuck in his mind. But then he did remember another, and held up the talking stick again. ‘There was once a wolf that was causing the people great trouble, taking their animals and even their children, so they asked the best hunter they knew to go and kill it. So the hunter took his two sons and off they went, tracking the wolf, until they came to a cave where it had its lair. The mouth of the cave was narrow, but the hunter could hear the sound of cubs inside, so he looked in and in the darkness he could just make out the eyes of five youngsters. There was no sign of the mother anywhere, and he knew he should kill her young while he had a chance. But the mouth of the cave was too small for him to get inside, so he told his two sons to climb in with their knives and make sure the cubs were all dead. The boys did as they were ordered and so from inside the cave came the terrible howling of the young as they died. The mother wolf was some distance away, but when she heard the noise she came bounding back to her lair as quickly as she could. She leapt straight past the hunter, trying to get inside to protect her young, but as she passed him, the hunter grabbed a hold of her tail and held on tight. So the wolf was stuck in the mouth of that cave, and the hunter heard one of his boys shout out to him, asking what it was that was blocking the light, and he shouted back that if the tail came off, they would soon find out. But the tail held, and the hunter was able to get his knife from his belt and kill the she-wolf.’
For a while, she didn’t say anything, as if waiting for some coda. When none came, and he laid the talking stick on his knee, she said ‘That’s horrid. Hero was rooting for the wolf, weren’t you, lad?’ But Hero didn’t confirm. He was stretched out on the back seat, with one ear bent over, considering the question.
‘That one’s Scottish,’ he said. ‘I forget the hunter’s name, but it’s a true story about the last wolf to live there. Or one of them. A couple of hundred years ago now, if I remember rightly.’
‘Huh,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have guessed. I thought it was another local one.’
‘No, I know. Could just as easily be First Nations.’
‘Don’t you know any with happy endings?’
‘Let me think about that,’ he replied. But he didn’t come up with anything, except for the Margaret Atwood story of that name.
He asked if she knew it, and she laughed. ‘John and Mary died. John and Mary died. John and Mary died?’ she said.
‘That’s the one.’
When they finally reached Hope, she felt tired and worn out, so they stopped and changed places again. He asked if she’d like to take a break before he started up the engine, but she said no, she wanted to get back, to get home. When the big green signpost announced Vancouver, her mind was already there. The resolve that she’d felt when she switched her cell phone off that morning in Little Forks had gradually weakened. She knew there would be a signal now and the temptation to check for messages grew, but while she was sitting next to Gil in the car she felt she couldn’t. What kind of world was she returning to, what had happened since she drove this same highway in the other direction, filled with a sense of dread? It felt as if everything had changed. But had it, truly?
The flatland of the Fraser Valley began to open up as they sped along, though the steeps on either side continued. He felt a true sense of the scale of this territory, understood just what energy it was that had poured southwards from the highlands over the millennia, just why the alluvial soils were so rich and why the great farms were there – why, in fact, the whole conurbation around Vancouver was there, on the estuary plains that the great river had created.
The road was busy then. Traffic flowed constantly in both directions. Hero, who’d been asleep on the back seat ever since they left the Falls, stirred and scrambled into the space between them. She looked at him and smiled, ruffled his head and gave him a hug.
‘I think he needs a stop,’ she said. ‘See if you can get off the highway somewhere.’
He spotted a signpost leading them off to a place called Bridal Falls.
‘Here we are,’ she said, ‘Somewhere between Hope and Bridal Falls.’
‘That must be a train trip,’ he said, but she didn’t get it, or if she did she wasn’t amused. He drove along the side road looking for a place to stop, until he saw a hand-painted sign pointing up a track leading into the forest.
‘THE ROAD TO HAPPY EVER AFTER’, it announced, boldly.
‘Well well. Sounds just the place for us,’ he said, and she laughed a little. Once he’d found a place to pull off, she got out of the car and Hero jumped after her. She looked back in through the open door. ‘I’m just going to take him a walk.’ Her tone implied solitude. She was telling the driver to wait, so he got out and stretched his legs, while she disappeared off up the track. He noticed she’d taken her hand-bag with her and was reaching inside for something, as she moved out of sight. He guessed what it was.
The cell took a minute to power up as she waited impatiently. It sang its little start-up tune, before the home screen appeared. Hero found a good tree to pee on, and pulled on the leash until he had enough latitude. The phone pinged three times and the little envelope icon materialised three times. Clumsily, she tried to click on the app, but missed and instead it loaded something else. She closed that and tried again. The inbox opened. Three unread messages popped up as promised, but she saw immediately that none of them were from him. Another missed call from her mother. Some spam message, one from her network provider and one from her friend John asking if she wanted to watch the hockey.
‘Huh,’ she said, and put the phone back in her purse. When Hero was ready, she walked further on up the track, wondering what the lack of a message meant, and getting annoyed with herself for thinking there would be something. But step by step, she felt a growing sense of relief, somehow, a lightening of her mood, and then she saw another smaller sign, written on a blackboard that stood in an old wheelbarrow. The Road to Happy Ever After, it said in the same hand as the first, and it pointed further on. Intrigued, she followed it and came into a clearing with half a dozen small log cabins, identically built and perfectly finished, and she saw, up the slope a little further, a wooden chapel. She carried on up, peering about her. The grass was manicured, and bunting hung between the trees. There were flowers in standing pots, and everywhere little humorous touches. It was like some fairyland wedding place. She thought she’d just walk up and look at the chapel.
Gil waited a while, like a chauffeur attending, then got back in the car and did what he always did when things were quiet. He picked up ‘Ballad of a Stonepicker’ and began to read. It was a strange opening, a one-sided conversation, but the voice was strong, colloquial, and as he read he thought he could learn from it when it came to writing Canadian characters. It would be useful. Then he wondered where she’d gone. Had she got lost? Should he go after her? But he pictured her talking on her phone to the man, whoever he was, and thought better of it.
He leaned back in the driver’s seat and thought he would just find a room when they got back to Vancouver. It was a big city, shouldn’t be a problem, even if it was late. Yes, she’d offered a couch, but he didn’t want to wake up there, in the way, when she had her life to get on with. As did he. He thought he’d just get a room somewhere for a night, and in the morning he’d see about a flight home. Maybe he’d stay a couple of days, visit the library again, see if he could get back on track with his research. He’d hardly done a thing since she turned up. But then everything he’d seen and done had its uses, he’d learned so much about BC, and when he got home, he’d have stories to tell. He could be Bookshop Bert again, but he’d have new things to share – funny thinking of himself as Bert again, he’d got acquainted with Gil, somehow. Maybe he wouldn’t even go back to the shop. He could sell up, cherry-pick the best editions, and just work online. He had his mother’s place to live in now. And he pictured himself in her garden, watching the planes come and go from Edinburgh airport as he’d done before he left, remembering this journey and working on his book, focused and free of manning the shop. But somehow it didn’t fill him with any great sense of enthusiasm. Had he fallen in love? So long had passed since he’d even considered love to be an actual thing, as opposed to some kind of illusion. Desire, yes, that existed, and when it was frustrated, it was unhealthy, dangerous even. He looked again at the talking-stick where it lay on the passenger seat. It was a beautiful gift, and he would remember her words whenever he picked it up, back home in Edinburgh. But no, not love – she had helped him, and he had helped her. They weren’t about to drift off into some romantic mist. They had shared something special, a brief yet essential period of transition, like a pivot or a hinge, between one life and another. But love – no.
He looked up the road she’d taken, the road to happy ever after. She’d gone up there without him, though he had taken her to its beginning. He wished her well. She was a remarkable woman, a special person, and he was glad they’d met. But it was time to go home, to get real as they say over here, once more. He leaned back in the driver’s seat and closed his eyes, tried to picture his new life at home. But all he could see were her brown eyes with those flecks of gold shining in the Interior sun, her flashing smile.
‘Gil!’ He woke with a start as the door opened. ‘Bring the car up,’ she said, getting back inside. ‘We’re staying the night here.’ She explained, as he drove tentatively up the track, that it was a wedding venue but it wasn’t properly open yet. She’d met the woman who owned it, who had said they’d just held their first wedding ceremony two days ago for a couple of friends of hers, they’d only put those signs up to guide the guests in, that there was one couple who couldn’t make it at the last minute so she happened to have one cabin all made up and ready if they wanted it. And it was such a darling place, she’d just said they did.
‘You’ll see,’ she added. Gil was surprised at her sudden change of mood, all smiles and chatty, but it made him happy too. So he said nothing, until the VW crept into the clearing and he saw it for himself.
‘Multiple wows,’ he breathed, looking around at flowers and bunting. ‘And traditional nuptial emus, I see.’ For there were emus, at least three of them, in an enclosure off to the side and Hero was lying in the grass staring up at them, as if completely flummoxed by these crazy creatures with their long legs, huge bodies and snake-like necks, as they stared back at him.
‘I know!’ she said. ‘Isn’t it weird? She has donkeys too.’
He parked the car and they got out.
‘I was just so tired of the drive,’ she said. ‘And it’s not as if we have to get back to Vancouver tonight.’
‘No,’ he said, surprised. ‘I certainly don’t.’
The owner came over and introduced herself as Kathy. She shook Gil’s hand and showed them to their cabin, all the while explaining how she and her partner had moved up from Vancouver the previous year, how she had always loved weddings and how this was a sort of dream for her, though her partner was the architect and builder, of course. And how well the wedding had gone, she’d been so nervous because it was their first, but everything went off wonderfully well, and everyone was so happy.
It was as if they had stumbled into the afterglow of the most fabulous party, which the hostess did not want to come to an end, which she wanted to tell the world about, and Gil realised then that Veronika’s mood shift had been wrought by exposure to this bubbling joy.
‘You know, you really remind me of somebody,’ she said at last to Veronika, who smiled at Gil.
‘Maybe we met in Vancouver. Where did you live?’
‘Kitsilano.’
‘So do I!’
‘Well, that must explain it. Where exactly are you?’ And they went on to compare notes on streets and shops, while Gil headed back to the car to pick up their bags, thinking to himself that this journey was endlessly surprising. It even had emus in it. When he got back, Veronika told him that they had gone to the same hairdresser, wasn’t that a coincidence?
The cabin had a little hand-carved sign on it which said ‘Bliss’ – each one had a name, Kathy said, all synonyms for ‘Paradise’. Though she would probably run out of ideas when they built the second phase the following year. Inside, everything was brand new and first class, and little wedding favours adorned the room – chocolates and flowers, still fresh, and in the fridge a bottle of champagne.
‘Just you help yourselves,’ Kathy said, handing them their keys. ‘And if you need anything, our house is just over the rise there. I’m so glad you turned up. This empty cabin was the one thing that didn’t go to plan, and now you’re like the guests who came late, to make it perfect.’
