The Lost Skiff

by Donald Wetzel

  “I see,” my uncle said. “I suppose you light the cigars and wave them around until the insects are all repelled? Or is it necessary actually to smoke the cigars?”

  “What you do,” said Jack, “you light the cigar and suck in the smoke and blow it out, as much of it as you can stand yourself. It is painful, but is the only satisfactory way that I know of to do it.”

  “And you do not consider that smoking a cigar?”

  “Well,” Jack said, “there is no pleasure in it, for sure.”

  My uncle nodded, and then he said, “I trust your innocence, young man, if not your logic, but I fear you will have to battle the insect world through other means, at least at my expense. I will substitute instead of six cheap cigars a large bottle of insect repellent.”

  “I will use it if we have to,” Jack said, “but if the yellow flies is still around I know for a fact they will come to us in swarms, drawn by the smell of it, like gnats to fresh blood. Cigars is best.”

  For a moment I thought my uncle had almost smiled, and then he said, “Cigars, Jack, I am sorry to say, is out.” Then he discussed our other preparations with us until he seemed satisfied that we had seen to our safety as well as to our hunger, and then he left us to go on with our preparations by ourselves.

  It turned out to be a job that took us most of the rest of the day, mostly because when Jack thought he knew right where something was, he didn’t, like the old tarp for the back of the pickup, which Jack believed was stored in the back of the pump house but which we finally found after about an hour of looking under a bench in the tool shed. Still it kept us busy and used up time and kept me from thinking too much about other things. I managed not to go into the Haywoods’ house at all, and not once until evening did I happen to see Ellen.

  Jack and I were out at the side of his house putting the last of our stuff in the back of the pickup, along with all the stuff they had brought back from town for our trip, when Ellen came down from the porch and came around and stood there watching us for a time. Then Jack remembered he had forgot his tackle box, and he went into the house to get it while I started spreading the tarp out over the whole mess, just in case it should rain during the night. I was having trouble with it, which Ellen soon noticed. “Give me a hand to get up in back with you,” she said, “and I will give you a hand with that tarp.” So I gave her a hand and she swung up into the truck and we were face to face again for the first time since the night before.

  The sun was coming in slanting down the road behind us, lightening it all up with evening light, but we were out of it, and in the shade of the house and the shadowy light of evening around us her face stood out sort of pale and clear, and it seemed that her eyes were darker than I had ever noticed before. I guess I just stood there still holding her hand and staring down at her for a time, and then she gave my hand an unmistakable squeeze, although soft as could be. “I will miss you, Rodney, while you’re away,” she said.

  “Well,” I said, “I would like to stay awhile longer, but the sooner we get looking for that skiff the sooner we will be apt to find it.” And then with my confusion even worse than before, we went to work getting the tarp spread out and fastened down all around and soon had it done. Then we sat on opposite sides of the edges of the truck talking and waiting for Jack to come back with his tackle box. Ellen noticed that we were leaving well supplied at least, and with a good plan, it seemed, to have been worked up on such quick notice. And I almost came out and asked her about that, but I thought better of it, because if for some reason she had wanted me gone for the next few days there seemed no point in making her either deny it or come right out and say so. So I said nothing except that I sure did hope we would find her father’s skiff.

  “Whether you find it or not,” Ellen said, “it should be an adventure. That is a long river, and except for Jack you will be alone.”

  We were quiet for a while and then I noticed the last of the sunlight was gone from the road, and finally I said, “I don’t mean anything against Jack at all, but in a way, I wish I was going just by myself. Just to prove I could do it.”

  “I am sure you could do it,” Ellen said, “no matter what.”

  And I didn’t know quite what to say to that, particularly the nice way Ellen had said it, not just as though it was something friendly to say, but as if she meant it. I couldn’t help wondering why she had first come out and then stayed, just to be with me, it seemed, if for some reason or other she had changed her mind about me after the night before, the way she had changed her mind about getting us off looking for the skiff in such a hurry. So finally I said, “Well, even with Jack along I expect it will be something of an adventure. There are always surprises in store for me, it seems.” I looked out at the road as though I was speaking more or less generally and then I looked across at Ellen and she had stopped smiling and looked as though she was waiting for me to say something more or to explain myself. “When I get back,” I said, “maybe we can talk about it some,” and then not altogether sure just what I was referring to myself, I said, “And if your kid brother cannot find that tackle box of his, maybe they will let me go on by myself at that.”

  “When you get back,” Ellen said, “I’ll be glad to find out about everything that happened. I guess you know, but a trip like that will hardly ever turn out just the way you planned. And I’ve told Jack and I will ask it of you, too; please, Rodney, if a lightning storm comes up, the way they do so often in the late afternoons this time of year, will you please not stay out in the middle of the river, a natural target. Try and find some shelter somewhere along the bank and be patient and wait for it to pass. I am scared to death of lightning.”

  “Don’t worry, Ellen,” I said. “I know nothing about nature, but when it comes to lightning I get the message plain enough. I am a great respecter of lightning myself.”

  “Ma will be pleased to hear that,” Ellen said. “Sometimes I think that Jack has not got the sense to be afraid of anything. Even lightning.”

  Then Jack came out with his tackle box in one hand and something long wrapped up in a blanket in the other hand; and the way he quick stuck them in under the tarp made me suspicious right away, and Ellen, too. “What is it wrapped up in the blanket that you are being so sneaky about, Jack Haywood?” Ellen said.

  Jack just looked at her for a while, and then he said, “Can’t you ever not notice something?”

  “What took you so long?” I said.

  Jack gave a sigh and flung up his hands. “What took me so long,” he said, “was waiting for Ellen to find something useful to do, so I could sneak my rifle out and put it in the truck.” He turned to Ellen. “For our safety and protection,” he said. “Now go ahead and scream for Ma.”

  So Ellen turned toward the house and let out a yell for her mother that startled me. “Ma,” she yelled, “you better come talk to Jack.”

  The next thing I knew both Mr. and Mrs. Haywood were at the truck, and finally even my Uncle Charles. Mr. Haywood was half for letting Jack take the rifle, arguing that it was only a twenty-two and might be useful against snakes, while Mrs. Haywood argued back that Jack would probably see nothing more harmful to shoot at than innocent songbirds, and shooting at them he could just as easy shoot me or himself, and that if that rifle went along with two mere boys all alone for five long days in the woods, then she went, too. Uncle Charles was not on either side, exactly, although he clearly had a suspicion that a gun could more likely mean some new trouble and expense rather than the lack of it. I left before they had worked it out, without saying good-by to Ellen or even seeing her again, as she had gone on into the house as soon as she had hollered for her mother.

  We left for The Landing before daybreak the next morning, Mr. Haywood and Jack and me. Without Mrs. Haywood and without Jack’s twenty-two rifle. I was just as satisfied. All I was hunting was Mr. Haywood’s skiff. I could see it was a setback to Jack though. “What if a water moccasin gets into the boat with us?” Jack said to no one in pa
rticular sometime after we had left. “Do we just jump overboard and swim for shore?”

  Mr. Haywood looked at Jack and then back at the road and seemed to be thinking about it awhile and then he said, also to no one in particular, “If a moccasin gets in a boat, and you have a rifle, the normal thing to do is to grab up your rifle and shoot at the snake until you have shot it dead, allowing for a number of misses and minor wounds. And when the snake is finally dead and your boat is sinking from being shot full of holes, then you swim for shore. That is the advantage of a gun.”

  It looked like Jack had finally brought Mr. Haywood altogether over onto Mrs. Haywood’s side.

  7

  Sometime while we were still going straight up the highway, I went to sleep. It was still dark at the time and I had not slept very sound even for the little sleep I had been able to get. The truth is that I had lain awake trying to puzzle out the whole crazy business with Ellen, with my mind going around in circles and getting nowhere, and when I finally did get to sleep it was still just one big hang-up that wouldn’t quit. So when I noticed Jack’s head kind of nodding as we drove along, and with no one having any new observations to make since Mr. Haywood’s observations about shooting snakes in boats, I finally got tired of staring out the window at nothing but a road and went to sleep.

  When I woke up it was just turning light and the pickup was stopped in front of a restaurant that was all lit up, and right in front of us was a big sign that said TRUCK STOP and under that EAT. I looked around and we were wedged in among more big trucks than I could count, mostly those enormous cross-country diesel jobs. It was like I had waked up and discovered I was a midget. Jack was sleeping away beside me. Mr. Haywood was gone. I shook Jack and finally he came awake and looked around and said, “Holy cow, we have come too far.”

  Then Mr. Haywood came up out of someplace and said, “All right, it’s time for breakfast, boys,” and we followed him into the restaurant and he ordered us both two eggs and ham and grits and toast, and coffee and milk as well, the coffee being a kind of treat. “Eat up and enjoy it while you can,” Mr. Haywood said. “I imagine you will remember this meal in the days to come.” All he had for himself was a cup of coffee.

  Then we were back in the pickup and ready to start back toward the turnoff to The Landing when Jack slapped his head and said, “Holy cow, I forgot to bring a toothbrush,” which struck me as odd, because we had agreed not to bother with anything along this line except one comb for me. “Wait, and I will run back in there and buy some chewing gum instead,” Jack said. So we waited and after a while he came back with several kinds of gum, and we started off for The Landing again, with Jack chewing on several sticks of gum and every now and then somehow making a smacking sound with it right in my ear in a way that was a nuisance.

  It was full daylight but still early and fairly cool yet when we finally got to The Landing and started to unload all our stuff. It made quite a pile, spread out on the ground in the clearing. When it was done, Mr. Haywood stood looking down at it shaking his head. “Maybe you better put all this into the big boat,” he said, “and tow it along behind the little one.” I could see he was joking and so could Jack, but it was a big enough pile to both of us so as to hardly seem much of a joke at that.

  We had planned to take the little red boat, but I could see that this would hardly be sensible, and Jack soon had it doped out this way, too. “It will slow us down and make it more work,” he said, “but it looks like we will have to use the big boat after all. We might make it with the little one, but it would sure crowd us up; and if some fool should go shooting by us in a decent-size motorboat, we could easily end up swamped and possibly sunk.”

  Mr. Haywood agreed. Then he helped us get the big boat into the water and tied to the pier. “Well,” he said, “I guess you’re all set. In case of snake bite, stay calm and use the kit just like the directions say. If anything goes wrong, get somebody to get to a phone and call me; and then just wait until I get there. If you get back before Saturday, go up to Mr. Matthews’ and he will send word in to me by young Matt, and I’ll come for you. I will expect you back here by noon next Saturday, whether you have found my lost skiff or not. Not a day later, Jack, or there will be trouble for you for sure.” He glanced over at the pile of stuff waiting to be loaded into the boat. “I would distribute that about some as you load it, if I were you,” he said. Then he turned to me. “Whether you find the skiff or not, Rodney, will not matter too much to me, as I know you will have done the best you could to find it. And that’s all a person can do.” Then he climbed in the pickup and gave us a wave and was gone, and Jack and I were left alone in the clearing.

  I wondered at the quiet around us and for a while we just stood there looking at each other and then I said, “I guess it’s just in my mind, but does it seem to you to have got unusually quiet all of a sudden?”

  Jack nodded. “I had noticed it myself. What it is, it is getting late in the morning and the birds have quit their racket. Listen and see if you hear one bird.”

  I could remember now that before there had been some birds singing away right along, and we stopped and listened and Jack was right. The clearing was quiet as a cave. “Well,” Jack said, “that is a certain sign that the heat of the day is well on its way, so we had better move along and get that boat loaded and get headed down the creek. The farther down you go the better chance there is that you will come upon a breeze now and then.”

  So we tied the boat up close at both ends to hold it sideways to the pier and went to work loading our stuff aboard. Jack said he had done it before, so I lugged the stuff down to the pier and Jack loaded it, shoving most of our canned stuff up in under the back seat until the space was packed solid. To keep it out of the heat of the sun, he said. Then he put our fishing poles and tackle boxes up at the front, along with a frying pan and a couple of cooking pots, all of which he hung along on either side by some pieces of wire he had brought along for that purpose, to keep things out from underfoot. Then he put some other little odds and ends up under the front seat, and then stuffed our blankets in on top of that, and the tarp in on top of the whole works. “It could rain a thunderstorm now,” Jack said, “and our blankets would not get wet a drop.”

  Loaded down the way it was, the boat was straining at the ropes, and I mentioned this to Jack. “We are in luck,” he said, “the tide has just started out, so let us get the last of the stuff in and take advantage of it. Just throw it in the back and I will sort it out later.” So I hurried and threw the last of the stuff on down to him, including an ax which landed behind him when his back was turned and gave him a scare, not just the bang it made but for what it might have done to the bottom of the boat. “That was stupid thing number one you have done,” Jack said, “and we are still tied up at The Landing.”

  Then everything was in the boat and I got in the front and untied the rope that held it there while Jack worked at the one in back, having trouble with it for a time, and then he got it loose; and like an elevator easing up to a stop my end of the boat lifted up out of the water and hung there, and I looked down and saw that the back of the boat was lower down in the water than looked right to me. Then Jack said, “Stay where you are,” and came crawling toward me over the seats, and by the time he reached me the boat was more or less level in the water again. We were starting to drift sideways on down away from The Landing, and Jack picked up an oar and worked the boat around so we were drifting backward, at least, and then he said, “Well, in the stupid department it seems like we have started off even, one for one. Like a fool I have went and overloaded us at the back. It was not the tide going out that had pulled the ropes so tight, but the weight. I should have had better sense.”

  So we drifted some more and I could tell by the way that Jack just sat there shaking his head at his own foolishness that there was no need for me to point it out to him, and finally I said, “Well, look at it this way, if my Uncle Charles had not been so stingy with our list, we could hav
e gone right to the bottom.” Then I laughed.

  Jack looked at me and shook his head. “When you get through laughing,” he said, “maybe we ought to distribute this stuff around from under the back seat. Like Pa said.” So being lighter than Jack by a good forty pounds, I eased down to the back of the boat and started working stuff out from under the seat and handing it up to Jack, and in a short time we had it distributed all over the boat, and our problem was solved. Then I took the oars and turned the boat around right and we started moving along down the creek. “Well,” Jack said, “you watch you don’t run us into the bank, and I will watch for the lost skiff.”

  Jack was sitting on the back seat and seemed to be enjoying himself again, staring down the creek and turning his head from side to side and making a big deal of it, as though his eyes were sharp as an eagle’s and it was all up to him. “We will both watch for the skiff,” I said. “You watch for it ahead and I will watch for it behind, where you might have missed it.”

  “Just row,” Jack said, “that is all you need to worry about.” So I rowed and after a bit Jack said, “The gnats back here are a nuisance. Makes it hard to see.” And then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a cigar that was all bent out of shape, and after a while he got it fairly straightened out and lit it up and blew out a big cloud of smoke. “These are not as cheap as I would have liked, because the cheaper they are the worse they stink, but they was the cheapest they had for sale back there at the truck stop.” Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out several more. “I’m afraid I have mashed them up some, but they will have to do.” Then he looked around and blew out another big cloud of smoke. “Well,” he said, “I hope you are satisfied. We are on our way at last.”