The Survival Game (10 page)

The Bible lay on the table. He flipped it open, flipped it to the end of the New Testament. There it was: The Book of Revelation.

He made the bed, pulled the sheets tight, smoothed out the blankets. Then he stripped and lay down naked between the covers, listening to the silence. He blew out the candle and tried to sleep, but his mind was too full. After a moment he got up and dug through his pockets for the key to the shed. He found a flashlight and, naked, he stepped outside onto the deck. It was cold but still. He listened. Nothing grunted, nothing crashed through the brush. So he made his way through the woods to the shed. He opened the door and turned on the generator.

Back in the cabin, shivering, he curled up in bed, switched on the bedside lamp and opened the Bible to the last book. Until then he had never really thought of the Bible having an end. It seemed so large. But here it was: a crazy vision of the ending of everything. It wasn't long but he found it hard to read and skipped chunks of it, depending on the titles and sub-titles to get the gist of the story. There were footnotes, but they didn't help a lot. He might read them later, though. Suddenly there seemed time to do that.

The lamb was a pretty strange creature with seven horns and seven eyes. There was a scroll with seven seals on it and no one could open it to see what God had written there. No one except the lamb. He tried to imagine a lamb opening a letter. It was the kind of thing that could only happen in a dream.

After the silence in heaven was when things really started to happen. Fire and blood and more fire. And every terrible thing that happened started with a trumpet sounding. There were seven trumpets all together. Everything was seven in the Book of Revelation.

He thought about that a bit – the Bible heavy on his lap, his head growing heavier on his pillow. The wind picked up outside. He heard the water lapping against the posts of the deck. He plumped the book down on the floor, switched off the light and fell way down into the kindest sleep he had ever known.

It rained that night. The rain unlocked him.

The De Havilland Beaver seemed to tumble out of the sky, skimming down the hills behind the cabin and landing on the lake off the north shore. Burl watched it from the beach, saw it turn its orange nose towards him and motor in. It was late in the afternoon. He had been bathing in the lake and had changed into one of the shirts the Maestro had left behind, a white dress shirt. The tails were out; the large shirt billowed in the wind. He had the sleeves rolled up high.

He had heard the floatplane coming, seen it circle the lake flying low, then disappear out of sight behind the ridge and out of hearing only to reappear moments later, making an approach into the onshore wind. Burl had been in the cabin for four days, and this was his first sign of civilization.

Shielding his eyes from the sun, he could see there was only the pilot on board. He tried to imagine his father crouching in the hold, ready to leap out once the plane reached the shore. This fantasy somehow failed to arouse any real sense of panic.

The provincial police operated planes; there was no other way of getting around in the north in a hurry. But there were no police markings on this plane. And, as it drew nearer to shore, Burl realized he wasn't going to run, whoever it was.

The racket of the engine drowned out the bird songs. Then, just off shore, the engine was cut, and the plane drifted in until its pontoons nosed up onto the beach. The pilot switched off the noise and climbed out of the cockpit, down the ladder to the pontoon. A woman.

She gave Burl a business-like nod, took off her mirror shades and twisted to get a kink out of her back.

“Rabbits and hares,” she said loudly, as if the motor was still running.

She jumped ashore. Got a soaker but didn't seem to mind. “You Burl?” she asked. He nodded. “Bea Clifford,” she said. “Skookum Airways.” She shook his hand.

Seeing he was bare-footed, she directed him to a cleat at the rear end of the pontoon. He waded out, grabbed a hold of it and helped swing the plane around so that the tail was facing the beach. The pontoons were tapered towards the back, and together he and Bea dragged the plane up the shore a bit. Bea had a long rope that she tied in a clove-hitch to the cleat. She tethered the plane to a large driftwood log.

“Onshore breeze,” she said. “Plane's not going anywhere fast.”

When Burl still did not reply, she pretended to knock on his forehead. Anybody home? Burl backed off.

“It's September first, kid. You always got to say ‘rabbits and hares' the first of the month. Not that I'm superstitious.”

She put her hands on her hips, gave Burl a quick but intense once-over. Then she surveyed the spot. “Great camp, eh?”

Burl forced himself to say yes.

“Shed's up that way, as I recall,” she said. Then she jumped back aboard the pontoon, opened the door. “Come on, fellah. I'm gonna need a little help with this.”

Burl waded out. “Mr. Gow isn't here any more,” he said.

Bea hefted a cardboard box out of the cab. She balanced it with her knee while she checked her watch. “I got a party wants out of Pogamasing at six, so put a little hustle into it, eh?”

The box was heavy with groceries.

“There must be some mistake,” he said.

“That might be true,” said Bea. “But it's not my mistake.”

Burl took the carton which he left on the shore. When he returned, she was reaching into the breast pocket of her flight jacket. She showed him an invoice. “North End Ghost Lake. Old Starlight Claim. Round Trip. Burl.”

“That's all I got written here,” she said. “Mr. Gow gave me the shopping list when he passed through a few days back, but what with people closing up summer lodges and resorts and such, I couldn't free up one of the boys until yesterday.”

She inspected him again. “You don't look like you've been suffering too much.”

In a bit of a daze, Burl lugged a second box of groceries to the shore. Five more boxes followed in rapid succession, heavy with cans and stacked high with packaged goods: noodles, rice, tea, coffee, cookies, bread and canned milk.

“Oo-ee,” said Bea. She had stopped to admire a line of fish Burl had secured to the underside of the deck so that they could swim in the shallows. He had caught them that morning – four bass and a couple of perch. The bass were a good size, plenty for supper and breakfast, too.

“Good fishin' here?” she asked. She stopped and took a good long gander at the lake. She breathed in deeply. “Very pretty. Very pretty.”

The next part of the load was heavy. A 45-gallon drum of diesel fuel. The two of them improvised a ramp of boards Burl hauled out from under the cabin. Once they had the drum on the beach, Bea was winded.

Burl headed to the house for something to drink. He brought her back a canned cola and one for himself. He had been saving them, he was down to three. Now, it seemed, he had another three dozen.

Bea took a good long pull on the can. “Caught you off guard,” she said. “Sure I did.” She laughed. What a laugh. Right from her boots. “Jeez,” she said, handing him back the empty cola can. “There's something else.” She clambered up into the cockpit and backed out of the plane carrying a rod and reel and a brown paper bag.

“Barry picked you up a coupla things: some line, sinkers, hooks and stuff. A coupla lures: a Hula Popper, a William's Wobbler – hell, I never caught anything but bottom with one of those. But then Barry doesn't know his butt from a turkey sandwich, most days.”

Burl pulled the plastic package from the bag. The Wobbler gleamed gold.

“Thanks,” he said. It seemed a lame thing to say. But then he hadn't spoken much lately. “Was the rod Mr. Gow's idea?”

She looked at him inquisitively, looked at the N.O.G. on his shirt. He felt his hand floating up to cover the monogram.

“Mr. Gow? Is that what you call him?”

Burl didn't quite like the look on her face. He didn't answer.

“Yeah. Yeah,” said Bea, good-natured again. “It was his idea.”

“Can I see that paper?” Burl asked. Bea handed him the invoice. Ghost Lake. He had not known this place had a name until then. The Old Starlight Claim. That must be the prospector the Maestro had mentioned. But these things did not claim his complete attention. “Burl”, it read. Not “Burl Crow”, as he had feared. By now there might be a search party out looking for him. That is if anybody had declared him missing.

He glanced at Bea. She was helping herself to a good long look at him. He wondered if she knew who he was.

“Anything wrong?” asked Bea.

“No,” said Burl. Then, with a shock, he noticed the price of the flight, over three hundred dollars. The invoice was stamped Paid.

Bea was busy unhitching the Beaver from its mooring.

There was one other thing on Burl's mind.

“What does it mean, ‘Round Trip'?”

Bea leaned on one of the wing struts. “Well, Burl. As pretty a spot as you got here, I hadn't planned on staying. So you see, it's a round trip you pay for.”

Burl made one last inspection of the invoice and then handed it back.

“You can send anything back you want. The trip's paid for. Anything up to twelve hundred pounds. Yourself included.”

There was nothing Burl wanted to send back.

“You sure now?” she said.

“Nothing,” he said. “Thank you.”

She looked out at the lake again, my-my-mying quietly to herself. “You got yourself one honey of a retreat here.” There was a directness to the statement that annoyed Burl, though he couldn't say why. She was right.

“You known him long?” she asked.

Burl was on his guard.

“What did he say?”

“He said he had a young sentinel and custodian – those were the words he used – watching over things for him 'til he could get up again. Did he hire you?”

Again Burl didn't answer.

“No,” said Bea. “Somehow I didn't think so.” She gave him one more penetrating inspection, then put on her shades. “Well, we'll be seeing you again, Burl, I imagine.”

“Yes,” he said. “Thanks again for the stuff.”

“Don't thank me.”

She unhitched the plane and pushed it back into the water. The waves pushed at the Beaver, rocking it like a rocking horse. Bea climbed back on board. Burl retreated a little up the beach. Bea flipped down her window, waved.

“You take care now,” she said, her face up near the tiny opening.

Burl nodded. Then he waded out so he could see her just as she was closing the window.

“Tell Mr. Gow thank you, for me,” he said.

She smiled. “I'll be sure to send Mr. Gow your regards.”

Then the silence of Ghost Lake was shattered for the second time in less than an hour as the plane roared off.

Burdened with both gratitude and curiosity, Burl began to heft the groceries up to the cabin. There was easily a month's worth of supplies.

He ate, slept, fished, explored, flattened cans, played on the piano, counted shooting stars, tried reading the Bible, unearthed a flint arrowhead, conducted the Northern Lights, watched the poplars turn yellow, built a raft out of planks and plywood, wrote his name in frost on the railing of the deck, tried to remember what his father looked like, his mother, washed his clothes and hung them out to dry in the north wind, made roaring bonfires on the beach with fat pine, resinous and hot.

Alone, Burl found himself caught between anticipation and relief. But he got on in fine style with the business of living. The Maestro would return when he returned. And when he did, Burl was determined not to get in his way. To that end, he started work, making something of a sleeping quarter in the shed.

It was a challenge. There was all kinds of building material – rigid insulation, lengths of two-by-four, oddly shaped scraps of plywood – but after he'd made his raft, there was not enough of anything to actually wall off the diesel engine.

Then one day, while he was working in the shed, his mind wandered to what he had read on the invoice. The Old Starlight Claim. Burl stopped what he was doing. Maybe the prospector had never found gold or whatever he was looking for, but he might have made himself a cabin of some kind. He stepped outside the shed and was surprised that it had never occurred to him before to look. For right outside the door the path that led up from the beach continued right past the shed, if only he'd had eyes to see. It was well and truly overgrown.

There are paths in the woods. Tunnels. They still have walls if you can make your eyes adjust, see the signs. The hill climbed steeply. Branches brushed against Burl's face, closed in on him. He kept his eyes peeled. Finally he found a blaze in a tree trunk. He went on. Then he found another blaze, long healed but still a sign. He was high enough to catch glimpses of the lake through the poplars. Then he was on a rocky ridge. He came to a digging site – not a mine, but a man-made depression in the ground. And then, finally, he came upon what he had hoped for. A tiny perfect cabin not much bigger than the Maestro's shed.

The door bristled with sharp black spikes, business side out. The windows were shuttered in the same manner. This was bear-proofing at its gruesome best! For all that, the door was not locked. In fact, when the latch was opened, the spiked door swung out to reveal a plain wooden door behind it. Burl ventured inside.

There was an iron bedstead. A wide shelf under the window near the door with a large white enamelled bowl, a couple of tin saucepots, a black iron frying pan. On a narrow shelf above this counter, beside the window, sat a couple of plates, bowls, cups and a wooden box with a few pieces of cutlery in it neatly wrapped in a tea towel. There was a tin box with matches inside. In the corner sat a tiny old woodstove vented through the wall. A cast-iron teapot sat on the top. That was all. There was no closet – only three hooks on the wall. There was no chest of drawers but only a shelf behind the door, empty. There was a layer of dust on everything, several dead flies, mouse droppings. But otherwise the place was as neat as a pin.