"I wouldn't try a crossing in weather like this," warned the old man.
"It's a bad time of year, what with the wind and all. Worse still, the
lake water is lethal by November. That means if you capsize it will be
the chill that does you in."
The old man stopped short, conscious of the look of defiance in the
youth's eyes. Young fool biting the nose to spite his face, he thought.
The marina was closed for the season, but the island's residents made
contact with the mainland one way or the other. Until mid-winter there
was a ferry service, but that assumed a fair bit of discipline from a
resident. He had to go and come when the province obliged. Young bloods
off to escape the monotony of Wolfe Island were only marginally willing
to conform their Saturday festivities with an arbitrary ruling. No, it
was too easy to keep a boat in tow at a friend's landing. Keep a bottle
to ward off the night's chill. A bottle for tonic against the elements
and a buttress against authority. The old man knew if he did not avail
this one a boat--a safe one at that--he would put his hands on a craft
of some sort. Accountability, he thought. They mustn't care about their
own lives. Still, there was a living to be made and it was a marina,
albeit a closed one. He would still get a boat one way or the other, he
mused again as he watched the light fade in the evening sky. He pulled
his collar sharply. Yellow leaves were beginning to form a mat on the
wooden stairs leading to the shed. He could just make out land's end
against a funnel gray sky. Better to advise the young man of the
dangers, suggest a daytime crossing. Perhaps even try a little reverse
psychology.
The boy, if he could be called that, was growing impatient.
"I'll be all right with a life-jacket. The boat won't be overloaded.
Just the three of us. My cousin and her kid are going with me."
The old man's eyes stirred from the damp reverie of the previous moment.
"I can't let you take a child out into that. The water's choppy at
best. You know next to nothing about handling a craft if she takes on
water or if it becomes turbulent. Why are you in such an all-fired
hurry to get across anyhow?"
"Let's just say it's my business. My uncle supplies you with business
during the summer months. He has a boat in tow here now. I'm
responsible. It's still normal weather for this time of year. Now step
aside and stop your glib patronizing and palming yourself off as an
expert on the sea."
"I can't stop you, son. I can only suggest, well that you await next
morning and only take two across at one time. Many a person has
received a cruel surprise out there. Why this area's full of tales
dating back to the earliest times concerning drownings. Why from the
time of the Loyalists up through my earliest childhood--all the time in
between that--my family has run the marina and it seems someone is
claimed yearly by this lake. The French didn't call it an inland ocean
for nothing. Some even claim there's tides--real swells that will take
a boat and . . . ."
"The French, the Loyalists. I'm not here to listen to a travelog. What
do I care if a long list of idiots blundered to their doom. I'm now and
intend to keep on living. What should I care about the past!"
"That may very well be, son, but nobody sets out to drown. Even on the
calmest days a sudden storm whips up and . . . I remember my daddy
telling of a group of early settlers up from the Bay of Quinte area
crossing to attend a church service--full seven of them drowned after a
heavy wind whipped . . . ."
"Church," snorted the other. "Well, I'm not going to any church that's
for sure." He broke into a snicker, his dark eyes flashing above a set
of stained teeth.
"Yes, I guess you're not. Your type will . . . ."
"My type, is it? My type is not so gutless as you, that's a fact. A
little natural obstacle doesn't send me shivering to the nearest root
cellar. This is near winter. You have to bloody well expect a little
discomfort at this time."
He had unnotched the first of several ropes securing the craft. The
boat, a little three seater, sturdy, but otherwise quite frail was
bobbing up then down as each successive dark wave hobnolled it against
the current. It looked for all the world like a large, red currant
fleshy against the wind. The young man checked the fuel, began to rev
the motor before glancing toward the distant shore. A package of
cigarettes emerged from his coat pocket. Blue gray puffs, sentinel
like, climbed the air about his person. He spat into the water and
proceeded to throw the match after it. Both whirled in the spray, then
disappeared from sight. The old man sensed his growing uneasiness but
that resilient pride checked any apparition of modesty.
"Put the fare on my uncle's account. I'll return the boat tomorrow
morning."
Little lights some ten miles distant were fingering the early darkness.
Something near the water's edge bobbed cork-like in the growing dusk.
Always the worst time of day, the old man pondered, a process of
diminishing returns. Not quite dark, sure as hell not light--an in
between shudder world, a limbo of gray.
"When will the girl and her baby be along?", the old man queried.
"I'll see to that. You never mind. Go back inside, pop, where it's
warm. You'll feel better. Entering the number and registration just
about does it. I'll keep you posted," he laughed a growing laugh that
tore soft wind from his mouth. He spat again, returned to his car and
was soon out of sight.
The old man looked wearily at the ground. He was recalling more and
more of that early story his dad passed down from his dad concerning
the overcrowded boat up Adolphustown way so many years ago. If God
allowed decent churchgoers to be snuffed from sight in the act of
attending His worship, think of what must await young fools who defy
His natural laws. To be drowned outright was bad enough. To meet death
on a fool's errand with a woman and child in tow for some vaguely evil
purpose was scant courtesy to their lives. He recalled seeing the
plaque near the church outside Adolphustown and wondering as a child
why, how, they could have met death that Sunday morning when crossing
the bay in so devout a fashion. He had never tried to anticipate God's
will or ponder events anymore than passing suggestion might receive.
The little white pioneer church near a knoll on a rising hill framed
the growing memory in his mind. A dirt road snaked up to its door with
the bay clearly visible from every pew completed the stucco walls that
dotted the heavy distance. A pretty enough place, especially in mid
summer with the smell of sweet hay in the nostrils or a full breakfast
under the belt with a pleasant drive out to smell the country air. Yes,
that little church made a lasting impression on any who might see it.
Certainly more for its serene presence than any link with that dark
episode in its past. At least this was the way he was thinking. Yet he
always wondered where the graves of those seven drowned might be. They
were pioneer graves, a mite shy of 200 years but they must exist. A
cold wind with the not too distant splash of some object brought his
thoughts back to the present. Wonder what happens to those drowning
today, he felt himself saying almost aloud. Do they really resemble the
element they've been cast from? I mean, are their lips really blue or
did fear choke all colour from their countenances? He thought of the
baby and its mother he had not met. Wondered if the next light he saw
midway out into the channel would be the same skiff he had registered
and had at least ostensibly given the O.K. to make the perilous
crossing. Many thoughts like these passed through his mind as he
swathed a scarf more fully around his neck.
"Must be cold, so cold down into that channel," he thought turning to
the stove door on his shanty. "I'll put a few extra logs on the fire,"
as he poked some tattered newspapers by the edge of the stove. He lit
his pipe and watched the smoke fade toward horizon's line where a skiff
disappeared from view. Half absentmindedly, he thought he measured a
headline describing a craft missing since, since ... No, he mused, just
my preoccupation, he thought settling down for a quiet smoke.