The Survival Game (11 page)

Burl walked around the little cabin again and again, marvelling at its orderliness. Outside there was a neat stack of firewood with a sheet of plywood over it held down by rocks to keep it dry. Within half an hour of arriving at this spot, a person could have it cleaned up and a pot of tea bubbling on the stove.

On the south side of the building there was a bare and rocky outcropping from which Ghost Lake, almost the whole expanse of it, could be seen – all but the beach directly below where the pyramid stood.

Burl could not believe his luck. This is where he would stay when the Maestro came back. He didn't need much. He could stay out of the Maestro's way when he was composing or when he was in one of his moods. He would come down to cook meals and fix stuff that needed fixing. He would earn his keep. It was all so perfect.

Burl closed up the cabin carefully. On the way back down the hill, he freshened up the blazes on the trees and added a couple of new ones. He would clear some of this trail. It would be something to do with his time. He had lots of time.

He was far too busy for loneliness to enter his mind. It was September and he could not remember a September when he wasn't at school. He thought about Mrs. Agnew. He imagined showing her around the cabin, making her supper there.

He thought about her finding the book she had given him, in his old desk. He hoped she wouldn't think he hadn't wanted it. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.

A month passed. A month and a bit. Burl measured the days in groceries. His boxes emptied slowly but steadily.

Fall set in hard. It rained in cold grey sheets, and when it wasn't raining there was invariably a cloud cover that hung like a badly strung and leaky tarp over Ghost Lake. On bad days Burl stayed in and fought his way through the Revelation.

Flickering lights didn't make it easy. There was something wrong with the generator: a dirty filter, contaminated fuel – he wasn't sure what. He wasn't sure which he'd run out of first: food or electricity.

It was hunting season. Flights in and out of the bush increased until there were planes coming Burl's way almost daily, but none of them touched down on his lake. Each distant buzzing brought on a low-level pain in Burl's head, like a tooth that needed attending.

He couldn't be sure the Maestro would allow him to stay. He was not a boy who had grown up with any guarantees about anything, but this – this he wanted so much. He imagined scene upon scene with Nathaniel Orlando Gow. He prepared himself for every kind of take two.

Nothing, however, quite prepared him for what was to happen.

Indian summer rolled in. And so it was on a rare sunny day that Bea returned. Burl was out on his raft fishing for pickerel in deep water off the cliff from which he had first spied Ghost Lake. Despite the sun, a metallic, wintry-tasting cold came up from the bottom of the lake. His feet were frozen up to the ankles; buoyancy was not his craft's best quality. Then came the drone and the speck in the wide sky getting closer.

He recognized the orange floatplane with the black stripe down the side. He waved. Bea tipped her wing at him. She did not need to circle upland to make her approach, for even on a fine day now the wind blew nearly always out of the north.

He rowed hard, but with a piece of one-by-three whittled into a very rough paddle, his progress was slow. Bea reached the beach before he did. He looked to shore expectantly. She didn't seem to have a cargo or a passenger this time around. She stood on the beach kicking at the sand with her toe, her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

Burl straightened up. He stopped rowing. Something about her stance made him want to just let the offshore breeze blow him away down the lake.

She gazed out at him. She still had her shades on but she held him in her vision as surely as if he were a runway on a stormy day. So he paddled again, despite the wind and despite the churning in his stomach. She was reeling him in.

Bea gave him a hand to haul his raft onto the shore. When he looked up to thank her, the words stuck in his throat. The set of her jaw was grim.

“I got some bad news,” she said.

Once upon a time, Burl's mother told Cal to show the boy a little love. So Cal had written the letters L O V E with a ballpoint pen on the knuckles of his fist and asked Burl how much love he wanted. Nothing bad ever really came as a surprise to Burl.

“It's your Mr. Gow,” said Bea, clearing her throat a bit. “There isn't any easy way to say this. He's gone. He died.”

Burl took a couple of deep breaths, as if he was going to dive for something a long way down.

“It was a coupla days back. I got up here as soon as I could.”

Burl held onto his breath, wouldn't let it escape.

“It was in all the papers,” said Bea. “Front page in the Toronto
Star
.” She seemed surprised that Gow demanded so much attention. “Even the Sudbury
Star
. I got them here. Thought you might like to see.”

She didn't wait for an answer. She brought him the papers from the cockpit. There was a picture of an intense young man hunched over the keyboard of a piano. Burl's eyes scanned the story: “One of the world's great pianists…massive stroke…eccentric genius…recluse…the music world mourns…”

He looked up. Bea was staring at him expectantly. He wondered if she was waiting for him to cry. He became aware of how cold his feet were. He sat on a rock and took off his shoes, his soaking socks.

She showed him the other paper. The face of the pianist here was older, more haggard.

“He booked a flight for the middle of this month,” said Bea, stowing her shades away in her pocket. “Not for him,” she said. “Wild horses wouldn't get him up in a plane.” She laughed a little at this, as if nothing could be quite so incomprehensible to her as someone with a fear of flying. “You okay, kid?”

“Pardon?”

“He say anything to you about his plans?”

Burl swallowed hard. “Just that he was coming.”

“So what happens now?” she said.

Burl stared at his feet. Couldn't speak.

“He paid for the trip already. Normally, folks pay the day they fly, but he was pretty determined.”

Burl took another couple of deep breaths. Whatever he was diving for was buried way deep in the lake, in the mud somewhere a long way down. It was cold down there.

“He was firm about payin' for the flight in advance.” Bea seemed uncomfortable. “I tried to tell him there was no need, but he wouldn't listen. When I heard he died, I found myself thinkin', maybe he had a premonition. Know what I mean?”

Burl looked at her. “He knew he was going to die?”

“That's what I figure.”

“Then why would he want to pay you for the trip?”

Bea shrugged. “I thought maybe you'd be able to help me with that one.”

Burl pushed his hair out of his eyes. It was almost two months long. His mind was racing. “For supplies, I guess.”

Bea sniffed in a matter-of-fact kind of way. “Give me a little help here, Burl.” She didn't snap at him, but the words were peppery. “I have no instructions. One round trip, all paid for. That's all I know. Do I have to spell this out for you?”

Burl cleared his throat. “I don't want out,” he said. “I mean…thanks, but I have to stay.”

Bea crossed her arms, didn't move. She looked out over the lake. “You got money for the Budd then?”

He didn't answer. She seemed to know the truth of his situation.

Bea licked her finger and held it up. “Oo-ee, that nor'wester is freshening for sure. Nice enough now, but I'd be willing to bet that's winter coming.”

Burl glanced at her through his bangs.

“You're not a city kid, are you?”

Burl knew he had to say something. She wasn't going to leave him alone. He shook his head.

“You didn't come up with him,” she said.

“No.”

“So he found you here? You were squattin' in the cabin?”

Burl shook his head. “I knew he was here. I was looking for him.”

Burl could feel her eyes on him. “And he was lookin' for you?”

Burl nodded. “Yeah, he was looking for me. He was kind of expecting me.”

He glanced at her. When he said no more, she frowned. Then she looked at her watch.

“Well, if you're from around these parts, you know something about winter. And I know first-hand what supplies you've got.”

Burl hung his head.

“What do you say, Burl? Was he coming up himself? Was he taking you back down south with him? Or did he have some plans to winterize this place?”

There was a lump in Burl's throat. It was as if she was rooting around in his dreams. Suddenly, for the first time in a month, he was very lonely.

Her face softened a bit. “Burl. It's none of my bee's wax, but I'd suggest you get back to what folks you've got.”

“There's no one else.”

Bea leaned her foot on the cleat of the pontoon. The water lapped and slapped at the sand. Some gulls shrieked.

“Looks like you've been doing some cleaning up
around here.”

Burl followed her eyes. There had been enough stain left to slap another coat on the deck. He was surprised she had noticed.

“Burl,” she said. “You seem like a resourceful kid. But you know as well as I do that you can't live through the winter in an un-insulated cabin. I was the one brought in that Delco generator. A fine machine, but unless you've found your own little cache of diesel fuel, you're toast, kiddo. Yesterday's toast.”

Burl felt a frantic wave rising in him. “I was supposed to be staying here,” he said. “I can't just leave.”

“Well, I've got a few minutes…”

“No!” He looked back towards the cabin longingly. His cabin. “The piano,” he said. “It can't take the cold. I can't just leave it.”

Bea raised her eyebrows. “Well, if you can find some way to fold it up small…” But she wasn't in a joking mood. “Burl, let's get real. You can come back here. Right? But for now, you don't have a lot of choices.”

He could come back. Burl grabbed onto that idea tightly. “I can't go without shutting the place down proper.”

“Okay,” said Bea, rubbing her hands together. “Now you're talking sense.”

Burl looked at her. “There's fitted shutters for the windows. I found them under the cabin. Bear protection.”

She nodded.

“I've got to clean the place up. I've got to leave it just right. I've got to pack and clean and—”

“Burl!” She raised her voice, cutting him off. “It's time to fish or cut bait. You know what I mean?”

Burl was shaking. The whole beautiful thing was collapsing in on him.

“Wake up, kiddo,” she said. Her voice was firm. “This must be pretty scary, losing him like this. But you've gotta make some decisions, here and now.”

He looked at her straight on.

“I've got as long as you need. But my schedule is way too full for emotional breakdowns. I failed nursemaid school. And I can't come flying in here to see how you're doing. I've got a business to run.”

She let this sink in. “Now, I've got some camps of my own,” she said. “So I sure appreciate what you're saying about shutting the place up all ship-shape and Bristol fashion.”

Burl was looking at the cabin. He knew how little food he had left. His only alternative to flying out with Bea was to walk out. Along the tracks it was twenty-nine miles to Presqueville. And that walk took him through Pharaoh.

“Burl,” said Bea. “It's either now or Dak Jim.”

Burl chose now. Bea helped. Though the church-like windows were high and there were four shutters per window, there was a twenty-foot aluminium ladder and the work went fast enough.

The faulty generator needed shutting down, the last of the garbage gathered, perishables boxed up.

The cabin was as clean as a whistle. There was next to nothing to pack. He had come with nothing, and he would leave that way. Almost. He packed the few clothes the Maestro had left behind in a brown paper bag. His own clothes hardly fit him any more.

When Bea wasn't looking, when she had gone back down to start up the plane, he played the opening chords of the Silence in Heaven one last time, quietly as could be.

“I'll be back,” he whispered to the piano, though he had no idea when or how. Then Bea called his name. She sounded as if she was losing her patience. Quickly, Burl took all the sheets and blankets off the bed and some fishing line, and wrapped up the piano as snugly as he could.

Then he found himself climbing into a bush plane for the first time in his life. He felt like someone evacuated from a place under siege, a village in the path of a forest fire.

Lift off. Burl looked down and took in the shape of Ghost Lake. He committed the shape to memory. He would find it again through any wilderness; out of any sky he would pick it out from all the million other lakes.

The Beaver shook and rattled in the cross winds; climbed and levelled off and dropped again as it beat a course south. Burl was swept away by the thrill of the ride.

“Dak Jim,” he said, shouting above the engine's roar. “What is that?”

“Korean stew,” yelled Bea. “I flew in a war over there, sonny. Lied about my age. Lied about my sex. Lied my way right into a war.”

Suddenly the plane fell again and Burl gasped. The wind thumped them down the hard blue steps of the sky.

Bea laughed, pulled up her wing tips. “Hell's bells, kid. I've flown through worse crap than this.”

She looked steadily at him and when he returned her gaze, all he could see was himself two-faced – mirrored in her glasses.

“Who are you, Burl?”

He knew what he wanted to tell her. What she expected him to say. What she'd been trying to pry out of him from the start.

“I'm his son,” he said.