Footprints (10 page)

They'd stayed silent for a few seconds before Isora asked,
“So why do it?”

Lully said quietly, “What do you do when your enemy has you pinned to the ground with a knife at your throat? Do you give in and let him finish you off? Or do you spit in his eye, although you know it won't do any good?”

“You spit in his eye,” said Drumgold cooly.

“Goddamn right you do. It's your final, desperate act. It's that – or capitulate, which is not an option, not if you've got any belief in the rightness of your fight. It won't do any good, but it's better than just giving in.” He'd looked around at them as he warned again, “It's not somewhere you want to go.”

Isora had heard such strange bleakness in his voice she wanted to hug him, to comfort him, except that his speech seemed to make him, at that moment, unreachable.

Drumgold's hand on her arm, slowing her, pulls her back to the present. They've rounded a bend in the road and the cottage gates are in front of them. The plan is for Drumgold and Harper to hold the envelope while Isora ties it to the gate. The night before, when they'd made the plan, Harper had objected that it would be awkward, the three of them together fixing the ultimatum to the gate, but Drumgold had insisted they should all be involved because it symbolized the unity of the Front.

“Ready?” says Drumgold.

“Shouldn't we make sure no-one's around?” says Harper, but Drumgold and Isora are already moving forward and he has to scramble to catch up.

They march toward the gates and the road suddenly floods with light. They dive into the undergrowth beside the wall that abuts the entrance.

“Who put the lights on?” Harper whispers.

“They're motion-sensored,” says Drumgold confidently. “We should have guessed. They'll go out in a few minutes.”

“And then come on again as soon as we get near the gates,” says Harper. “Maybe we better come up with another plan.”

“If we stay close to the wall the sensors might not detect movement,” says Drumgold.

“
Might
not,” Harper mutters.

“And then if we keep low when we get to the gates, we still might not set them off.”

“Someone'll come out to check why the lights are on,” says Harper.

“They might,” says Drumgold. “But I bet they come on all the time. Like every time a deer walks down the road.”

The lights snap off. The darkness seems thicker than before. With Drumgold in front, they make their way to the entrance, crawling and staying close to the wall. The lights stay off. Isora eyes the ironwork of the gates. There are only three horizontal rungs, one low to the ground, one halfway up, and one at the top.

“We'll have to tie the envelope to the middle rung,” Isora whispers. “We can't reach the top one, and the bottom one's no good because the envelope will be on the ground so either no-one's going to see it or it'll get ripped as soon as the gates open. We'll have to at least kneel, maybe even stand, to reach the middle one.”

“We may as well stand then,” says Drumgold. “Either way the lights are going to come on.”

Still pressed close to the wall, they ease themselves slowly up until they're standing. Still, the lights stay off. Drumgold and Harper grasp the envelope. Isora holds the ribbon.

Drumgold mouths, “Ready?”

Isora and Harper nod.

“Now!”

They run from the shelter of the wall. The lights snap on, floodlighting the road in front of the gates and the yard inside. Isora threads the ribbon through the middle rung. She leans against the gates to steady herself as she ties it. An alarm blats from the cottage. Isora says, “Fuck,” reeling backwards as if an electric charge is running through the gates. They fling themselves back into the shadow beside the gates and run alongside the wall until they're beyond the pool of light. Then they move into the road, still running.

The members of BARF are crouched in the woods opposite the cottage gates. It's June the second. They'd agreed to give Anderson a day past the deadline to make a start on dismantling the fence around the beach. They see no sign of their ultimatum being obeyed.

“Bastard,” mutters Isora.

“He deserves everything he's going to get,” says Drumgold.

“He could at least have answered us instead of ignoring us.”

“He might not have got the letter,” Harper points out. “It
could have blown off the gates and got lost, or Droopy or Diamond Head could have found it and just thrown it away. And anyway, we didn't give him our names or anything. He wouldn't know who to talk to even if he wanted to.”

“He had the chance to talk to us when we went to his goddamn office,” Drumgold growls.

“But he doesn't know what that was about, because we didn't say anything about the beach. And for all we know, that Marcia didn't even give him our names. She probably didn't even tell him we were there.”

“He could do something,” Drumgold mutters. “He could put a sign on the gate:
Let's talk, BARF!
But he ignores us.”

Isora puts her hand on his arm and a finger to her lips as she points across the road. Droopy is at the gates, peering through the railings. He stands back as the gates swing open. AA1 noses through on to the Old Beach Road, Anderson at the wheel. The car surges forward, spurting gravel. The gates swing shut and Droopy wanders out of sight.

Drumgold looks after AA1 for a few seconds, then says, “Let's firebomb his car.”

“We don't have a firebomb,” says Harper. “We don't even know what a firebomb is.” He looks at Drumgold and Isora. “We don't...do we?” He goes on quickly, “Anyway, I don't think we should get too...serious. Not right away. We could start with something small, like Dex said. We could just play a trick on Anderson. We could telephone and leave a message saying we're the sex line he's been calling and his account is overdue, or...or...”

“Get real,” says Drumgold.

“Harper's right,” says Isora.

Harper looks at her gratefully.

“We don't want to start with anything too drastic,” Isora
goes on. “That way Anderson at least has a chance to start taking down the fence, and if he doesn't, we can do something more serious. Let's start with something that'll be just annoying or inconveniencing.”

“Or intimidating,” Drumgold adds.

“That's for later, perhaps,” says Isora.

“Got it!” says Harper. “We'll get a load of salmon fertilizer delivered to the cottage. Dad got some for the garden and it's rank. We can have it dumped right in front of the gates.”

“They'll know it's kids ordering it,” says Drumgold. “They'll guess it's some kind of joke.”

“Not if it's an adult who calls,” says Isora. “Dex will do it for us.”

They look across the road at the cottage gates.

Drumgold laughs. “Imagine Anderson arriving in his fancy car and finding his way blocked by a load of stinking fertilizer.”

Camera Woman, who is on Special Assignment to the Back River RCMP detachment, looks up from inspecting the contents of the red envelope Mr. Anderson has delivered to Sgt. Chase. “This is the work of kids.”

She's squat and blocky, with grey eyes and burnished silver hair like a helmet, dense and unmoving. When, soon after she arrived in his office, Sgt. Chase asked how long she had until retirement, she told him he was being insensitive and sexist. He's decided she's not as old as she looks, maybe only in her late
forties, although she looks ten years older. He thinks she looks – and acts – like a robot.

“I know it's the work of kids,” says Sgt. Chase. “And I think I know which kids.”

“It could be related to the attacks in Saint-Leonard,” says Camera Woman.

“Oh, come on.”

“It's directed at Mr. Anderson, like the attacks.”

“It's not an attack. It's a few kids protesting the fact that they can't play on a beach that people in Back River, me included, have been going to all their lives. That's all.”

Sgt. Chase wonders how little he can get away with doing about the ultimatum. He grew up in Back River, where his father had worked all his life at the mill, and after doing most of his policing in the city, he'd returned to his hometown to put in the required number of years before he retired, a year from now, and not to harass old friends like Doug Meating because their kids were doing what kids had been doing forever, namely, thumbing their noses at authority. Damnit, it was what kids were supposed to do. It was what he'd done when he was a kid; he didn't like to think how many years ago.

He doesn't want to upset Mr. Anderson, but he's got more important things to do right now than deal with the high spirits and natural rebellion of a few kids. He knows they mean no harm. The Meating kid was about as dangerous as a golden retriever; the Drumgold kid may be a little disturbed and unpredictable, but who wouldn't be, with a father like his? He didn't know the boy well, but he knew the mother, a sweet young thing who worked hard to make a go of it, bringing up a difficult youngster on her own. They'd both had a hard time of it, the woman and the boy, with the threat of the heavy hand of her former man hanging over them. He remembered the
frantic 911 calls from Mrs. Drumgold – and the boy – when the father came calling, and he wasn't about to add to the problems of that little family. Then there was the girl, Isora Lee. She was always hanging around with the Drumgold and Meating boys, and he was sure she was the third member of the trio that had allegedly assaulted Mr. Anderson's security guards and that had undoubtedly hung the red envelope on the cottage gates. He'd seen the three of them behind the post office a week or two ago, up to some mischief around the dumpster. A girl who looked like she did was no threat to anyone. He'd have a quiet word with their folks when he had the chance. Not a special visit; he'd catch them at the grocery store or the curling club. All in good time.

Meanwhile he was under pressure to keep poor old Garrett Needle and a few other characters “known to police” under surveillance and to make regular checks on all government buildings and to liaise with the security guards there and to maintain what his bosses described as a High Profile Presence throughout his district at all times in order to send the message to the community that the force was on top of the security situation.

Yeah...right.

And like he had the staff to do it.

“So, what d'you think?” Isora asks.

“I think it's a great idea,” says Lully. “I'll be happy to help.”

He's laughing, partly at the plan itself, mostly from relief that his young friends aren't planning anything more serious than a prank at Mr. Anderson's expense. He wishes he'd never got drawn into the discussion with them about de la Cruz's third wave, still less that he'd spoken of it as intently as he feared he had. He couldn't help himself. It was the way he always got when he talked about protest and dissent.

Isora and Harper are sitting with Lully at his picnic table, drinking herbal tea. Drumgold is lying on his stomach, taking pictures of the wildflowers at the edge of the woods.

Lully says, “I'll do it now.”

As he takes out his cellphone, Drumgold rolls over and sights the camera on him.

Lully holds his hand in front of his face and says sharply, “No!”

Drumgold lowers the camera and mutters, “Sorry.”

“Don't mind him,” Isora tells Lully. “He's always taking pictures.”

“I look awful in photographs,” Lully protests. “Really – please – no.”

With one finger to his lips, he enters the number that Harper found on the invoice on his father's desk and orders a truckload of salmon fertilizer to be delivered to the Beach Cottage, Old Beach Road, Back River. “That's right,” he says. “Mr. Andrew Anderson.” Then: “No. This is Charles Foran, his executive assistant, speaking, and you can put the invoice in my name. You are to leave the load in front of the main gates, please – yes, in front of them – because I don't want Mr. and Mrs. Anderson disturbed by the delivery, and that way the gardeners can truck it into the grounds at Mr. and Mrs. Anderson's convenience. Thank you so much. I'll make sure Mr. Anderson is aware of your efficiency and co-operation.” Lully shuts off the phone and says, “It'll be there tomorrow morning.”

“Smooth,” says Drumgold. “Where d'you learn to lie like that?”

Lully smiles.

They're hiding in the woods again, watching the cottage. They want to witness the fertilizer being dumped in front of the gates, but there's no sign of the delivery truck.

Harper says, “I've got to get to math class. Last time I was there Mr. Browning asked me if I understood quadratic equations, and when I said I didn't know what they were he went nuts.”

Drumgold mutters, “Fuck school.”

Isora says, “We better go. Your mom's going to be upset if she gets another call from Mr. Matheson.”

They're about to leave when they hear the rumble of a heavy vehicle. They look at one another, grinning, and peer down the Old Beach Road, but nothing comes into view.

Drumgold says, “It's coming from inside the grounds.”

At the same time the gates open and an Eastern Oil truck noses out and stops. Diamond Head follows it through the gates and calls to the driver, “Going to the club tonight?”

The driver says, “Yeah, and I'll beat you at darts again if you like.” Diamond Head laughs and waves. The driver raises his hand as the truck moves slowly forwards.

Drumgold looks at Isora. “You know who that is. It's that Curtis, who tried to hit on you last summer. Jerk.”

Isora remembers. They were at a Young Teen dance put on by the Legion and she was on her way back from the washroom when Curtis, sallow-faced and heavy-set and obviously too old to be there, stepped in front of her, stopping her. She thought it was accidental and said, “Excuse me,” and tried to pass him but he moved with her, grinning. He said, “Want to dance?” and she shook her head. He pressed, “Got a boyfriend, eh?” and she shook her head again. She was with Drumgold, but he wasn't her boyfriend. He was just...Drumgold. She could see him moving towards her and pushed past Curtis before he could intervene.