Footprints

by Robert Rayner

  Harper takes a step forward and his cheek seems to implode. He puts his hand to it, expecting to find a hole there, at the same time as he feels another implosion on the side of his nose. He realizes the blows have come from Curtis. He can’t understand how he can move so fast. Curtis seizes him around the neck with his arm, flings him to the ground, and grinds his face against the gravel of the parking lot. Harper hears Isora scream. He rolls his head to one side and sees Curtis’ boots, inches from his face.

  Then he sees another pair of feet and hears, “Leave him alone.”

  Drumgold.

  Curtis laughs. “Now we’ve got the whole fucking kindergarten class here.” He swings at Drumgold, who steps back, easily avoiding the punch.

  “Come on then,” says Curtis, breathing heavily.

  Suddenly Drumgold has a knife in his hand, the blade open.

  Curtis laughs and says, “You’re not going to use that.”

  Drumgold says quietly, “You want to find out?”

  Harper, pushing himself to his knees and seeing the knife, mutters, “Jesus, Drumgold.”

  Curtis sneers, “You’re not worth it,” and backs away. He crosses the car park and stands beside a red half-ton. He looks back at Isora and snarls, “Cunt-happy whore.” He climbs in and speeds away, fishtailing and screeching his tires.

  Drumgold and Isora help Harper to his feet. Drumgold takes one of Harper’s arms and hauls it around his neck. He puts his other arm round Harper’s waist. Isora slips her arm round Harper’s shoulders. She’s crying. She puts her face against his. He feels her tears trickling down his cheek and catches them with his tongue.

  They return to the café, Harper stumbling between Drumgold and Isora.

  The server, who’d been watching from the back door, shakes her head and says, “That Curtis – he can be a mean one.” She brings them coffee and says, “On the house.”

  Isora sits close to Harper, stroking his head. He’s trembling. He can’t understand why he’s not in pain. All he feels is a rawness on his face. He dribbles gravel from his mouth and catches it in a napkin. He’s sorry to lose the taste of Isora’s tears.

  Drumgold sits on the other side of the table.

  Harper mutters, “Where did you come from?”

  “I wanted to make sure Is was safe.” He looks at Isora. “And to say sorry.”

  Isora scoffs, “A bit late for sorry, isn’t it?”

  Harper says, “Where d’you get the knife?”

  Drumgold shrugs. “I always carry it in my camera bag, for doing repairs and stuff. Thought I’d bring it along. Just in case.”

  Isora starts to cry again. Harper puts his arm around her. Drumgold reaches across the table and takes her hand. She pulls it away. He takes it again and she lets it stay in his.

  She whispers, “I feel dirty.”

  Harper says, “No.”

  “You heard what he called me.”

  “He was just sounding off,” says Drumgold. “You can’t mind what someone like him calls you.”

  “But what he said about me being a...a...dirtbag and a slut. It’s sort of true, isn’t it? Because I said I’d go out with him if he showed me the cottage, and I knew what he...what he thought he was going to get. And I used that to get what I wanted.” She puts her face in her hands on the table, sobbing. “I’m just what he said.”

  Harper says, “No!”

  “It doesn’t mean anything, Is,” says Drumgold. “We all used him.” He folds his hands around hers. She raises her head and lets it fall back so that it rests on them.

  Harper takes his arm from her shoulders. Suddenly he feels out of place and his ties to his friends slipping away, his adoration of Isora and his admiration for Drumgold undiminished, but his relationship with them a tenuous, unflattering thing in the light of his ineffectual and humiliating attempt at gallantry. He feels somehow left behind by them. He realizes he could never match their resolve. He wouldn’t risk his safety in pursuit of something, like Isora did to get the code, nor would he – could he – pull a knife on someone, like Drumgold, even in defence of a friend. They’ve moved beyond him, leaving him in his dull, safe world. He’s content there, at the same time as he envies and admires the obduracy of their will that leads them to court danger. Better to call it quits now and to relinquish their hold on him, before something even more serious happens.

  He mutters, “I’m out of my depth. I don’t belong, not with stuff like this going on.”

  Drumgold says, “Come on, Harp.”

  Isora takes his hand. “Stay, Harp.”

  “No. Nothing’s worth this kind of crap. I’m out of here.”

  He eases himself gently away from Isora and leaves the café.

  27

  Harper is on his way to the daycare in the late afternoon. He plans to hide somewhere across the street and watch for Isora when it closes. He hasn’t seen her for two weeks, not since he walked out on her and Drumgold at the Riverside Café. Usually the little intimacies his special friendship with her, through Drumgold, allow – the casual touches, the glimpses of innocent dishabille – are enough to satisfy him and to feed his fantasies. But now – absurdly, he tells himself – he can’t remember what she looks like. He puts it down to trying too hard to conjure her image, and knows he should wait for it to arrive, unbidden, but is impatient. He thinks just a glimpse of her will be enough to sustain him during another two, or more, weeks of separation. He tells himself he’s pathetic, needing this glimpse of her, but he can’t help himself.

  He doesn’t know what his status with Isora and Drumgold is now. Although he’d rejected them, and had meant it, still, the first few days after the incident at the café, he thought they might come looking for him. After all, he’d gone there to try and help Isora. Then he thinks bleakly, perhaps they were glad of the opportunity to be rid of him. Heaven knows he’s often felt like some kind of hanger on – some kind of voyeur – when he was with them. The thought that the split might be permanent, although that was what he’d intended, gnaws at him.

  He positions himself behind a delivery truck and peers around it at the daycare. He realizes it’s closed. He must have been cutting lawns for longer than he thought.

  He walks on.

  Two police cars speed down Main Street, lights flashing and sirens wailing. Harper recognizes Sgt. Chase and Camera Woman in the first, but doesn’t know the police in the second. He guesses it’s something to do with what his father was talking about when he came home for lunch. He said the talk at the mill was of security guards at Eastern Oil in Saint-Leonard spotting a terrorist hanging around near the doors.

  “How did they know it was a terrorist?” Harper had asked.

  “He was wearing a heavy jacket although it was warm, and it looked like he had something under it, like a bomb, because it stuck out. He was wearing sunglasses and a low hat, too, like for a disguise.”

  “Probably someone overweight who doesn’t like the sun,” said Harper.

  “Maybe,” said Mr. Meating. “But you know how it is these days. The police are jumpy. They’ve taken poor old Garrett Needle in for questioning again, the guys at the mill say.”

  Harper finds himself at the end of the old logging road. He decides to go for a walk in the woods. When he comes to the trail to the camp, he marches deliberately past it. He keeps going for five minutes, gradually slowing his steps. He returns. He tells himself even if he is no longer friends with Drumgold and Isora, there’s no reason he shouldn’t walk the trail. It’s on crown land and he has every right to walk there if he wants. But when he comes to the fence around the cottage grounds, he hesitates. The loss of friendship doesn’t preclude his entering forbidden territory – it’s Mr. Anderson’s land, not Drumgold’s, anyway – but does, he feels, negate his right to enter the camp itself. Drumgold and Isora had made it years ago, when they were little kids, long before his friendship with them. He decides he’ll just look at it, without entering. He squirms under the fence and plods across the
marsh. He slows as he nears the camp, peering ahead through the trees.

  Drumgold is sitting on the chest, gazing down at Isora, who is stretched out on the rug, languid, one hand holding George on his leash, the other twirling her hair and letting it fall across her face.

  Without looking up, Drumgold says, “We knew you’d come, Harp.”

  Harper shambles forward a few steps. He stops as Drumgold looks up at him, coolly.

  Isora scrambles to her feet and hugs Harper. She says, “Poor old Harp. We missed you.”

  Harper can only nod.

  Drumgold starts talking as if the split had never occurred. “Is and I have been discussing BARF, and getting Anderson to open the beach, and the plan to set fire to the stuff in the barn.”

  Harper thinks, It was talk like this that led to that night at the Riverside Café and me walking out on Drumgold and Isora, and I told them it wasn’t worth the trouble it led to, and they know I think it’s getting too heavy, but it’s like to Drumgold, it never happened.

  Harper wonders if he has the courage to walk out again. He doesn’t think so, not with Isora still hugging him.

  Drumgold goes on, “What we’re thinking is: We might as well give it all up and go back to how we were before, sneaking on the beach and swimming, when we can, and having a laugh at Droopy and Diamond Head. Things were okay like that. We just have to make sure we keep clear of Anderson and his goons and then everything will be like it was last summer.”

  Relief is sluicing through Harper. He nods and smiles.

  “We’re not getting anywhere with the campaign, anyway,” says Isora. “We’re just making ourselves look stupid, with our tricks and stuff, which aren’t even doing any good.”

  Harper nods again. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

  Drumgold pokes him in the back and says, “We wondered how long you’d hold out before we saw you.”

  Harper grins sheepishly.

  Still hugging Harper, Isora gathers Drumgold into her arms, too. She lays her head on Harper’s chest and turns her face up to Drumgold.

  Harper always remembers the next few seconds as stillness, with everything perfect. He’s reunited with his friends, and they are at the camp, and it’s a warm summer day, and shafts of sunlight glint through the trees, and the beach is nearby, and their days of direct action are over.

  Isora murmurs, “Where’s George?”

  “You were holding him – on his leash,” says Harper.

  “I must have let him go when you arrived.”

  Harper says, “Sorry.”

  “He’ll be on the beach,” says Drumgold.

  At the same time as Drumgold speaks, there’s a shot, followed by a yelp and a whine.

  Isora is running for the beach, Drumgold following.

  Harper is standing, still savouring the scent and warmth of Isora. He plunges through the trees after his friends.

  Isora, breaking from the trees on to the beach, calls over her shoulder, “He’s all right.”

  George is running in circles. Isora kneels in the sand and claps and calls, “George.” He runs to her. He’s panting, his tongue lolling out and saliva flecking his jaws. Isora gathers him up and hugs him to her. She lowers him and says, “You mustn’t run off like that.” There’s blood and saliva and something else on her tee-shirt.

  Drumgold, emerging from the trees, says, “You bastards.”

  Isora looks up. Diamond Head and Droopy are standing halfway between the woods and the sea. Diamond Head holds a rifle low in one hand.

  He says, “I warned you not to let that dog run on the beach.”

  “Crapping and pissing all over the sand,” says Droopy, beside him. “You think we’ve got nothing better to do than clean up dog shit all day?”

  Diamond Head is walking away, heading for the distant cottage.

  Droopy, still watching Isora as she cradles George, says, softer, “We warned you.”

  Isora looks round at the boys. She holds George towards them, like an offering. Harper takes him. He’s lying still now. The panting seems to have stopped. Harper sees a glaze on the dachshund’s eyes and hopes Isora hasn’t noticed. She’s marching towards Droopy.

  He says, softly again, “Sorry, but...”

  She punches him in the face. He nods once, turns away, and follows Diamond Head.

  George is lying limp and still in Harper’s arms.

  Isora peers at him and says, “I think he’s in shock.”

  Drumgold puts his arm round her shoulders and shakes his head slowly.

  Isora says, “What shall I tell Dex?”

  They wrap George in one of the blankets from the chest in the camp and take turns carrying him back to the trailer park. They find Lully’s door open. He’s in the kitchen, his backpack lying just inside the door. He’s watching the news on the little television on the counter. His eyes are fixed on the screen, and he doesn’t notice their arrival. They pause on the threshhold, his fierce concentration stopping them. They recognize Anderson’s voice and watch with Lully from the doorway.

  Anderson is telling the interviewer, “The police have informed me that they have several persons of interest they want to talk to, and they are closing in on one particular suspect and are confident of making an arrest within a few days.” Anderson turns from the interviewer and talks directly to the camera. “Meanwhile, whoever you, or they, are – personally I think it’s the work of one sad, misguided individual – you would do well to understand that Eastern Oil’s plans for the LNG terminal, having gone through all the exhaustive planning and environmental reviews required by the government, will go ahead, regardless of reckless and irresponsible acts like the one today, in which you attempted to–”

  The interviewer interrupts Anderson’s tirade. “How do you feel about these terrorist acts?”

  Anderson echoes, “How do I feel?”

  “How do you feel... personally?” the interviewer prompts. “Are you afraid?”

  Anderson laughs. “If our terrorist friend wants to try again to intimidate me and to thwart the honest efforts of Eastern Oil to bring prosperity to an area badly in need of it...” The camera closes in on Anderson, whose sneering face fills the screen. “I say: Bring it on, you sad little man.”

  Isora shuffles forward a step.

  Lully starts and looks up. He snaps the television off and says, “Sorry. I just got back and wanted to catch the news.” He sees Isora’s red-rimmed eyes. She starts to cry, and he says, “What’s up?”

  They push into the kitchen. Harper is carrying George.

  Isora says, “They shot George. Anderson’s men shot George.”

  28

  They bury George at the edge of the woods behind the trailer, still wrapped in the blanket from the camp.

  Lully says, “He liked it back here.”

  Afterwards, they sit at the picnic table, gazing into the trees.

  Isora says, “Sorry.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” says Lully. “If you want to blame anyone, blame me, for having to be away so much and expecting you to look after George, or blame Anderson for giving his men the licence to shoot on the beach.”

  Drumgold says, “We were going to stop the BARF campaign, but not now. We’re going to set fire to the barn beside the cottage. We decided on the way back from the camp.”

  Lully frowns. “You’ll have to get inside the grounds first, and then you’re likely to find the barn locked.”

  “Is got the code to open the gates, and we can get in the barn through a hole we found behind it, that time we got trapped in the grounds.”

  “But how do you plan to set fire to it?”

  “There’s all sorts of stuff in there that’ll burn,” says Isora. “Straw and cardboard and old cans and stuff.”

  Lully is shaking his head. “You mean cans – like oil drums?”

  Isora nods.

  “It’s too dangerous,” says Lully. “It’ll take too long to get a fire going, and who knows what Anderso
n’s got stored in there. It could be chemicals, in which case you’ll be in danger of getting overcome by fumes before you get out.”

  Drumgold starts, “But–”

  Lully holds up his hand and goes on, “Even if you get a fire going, Anderson’s men are around most of the time, aren’t they? They’ll have it under control in no time, and it’ll be just another minor inconvenience which Anderson probably won’t even be aware of, and it won’t help you free the beach.”

  Isora says, “This isn’t just about the beach now.”

  Lully looks at her, eyebrows raised. “What’s it about then?”

  “It’s about revenge.”

  Lully paces across the kitchen and stands with his back to the friends. “If you promise to be really careful and to do exactly as I say, I might be able to help you carry out your plan. I’m a bit of an amateur scientist, and I think I can rig up something to help you – a little incendiary device, with a timer. Then you won’t even have to go in the barn. All it’ll take is for one of you to drop it in the hole behind the barn, and you’ll have plenty of time to get clear.”

  “But the cardboard and stuff is at the front of the barn,” says Drumgold. “Will it set fire to it from way in the back?”

  Lully says, “Oh yes.”

  Harper is staring at the floor, and Lully says, “The plan bothers you, doesn’t it, Harper?”

  Drumgold says, “Why, Harp?”

  “It’s a bit...personal, isn’t it?” says Harper. “I mean – doing Mr. Anderson’s car, and the fertilizer, and shooting the windows out – that was aimed at his things. But the broken glass and setting fire to his barn, right beside his home – that’s like an attack on him, like a personal attack, and I thought – you said, Dex, remember? – I thought political action and protesting, weren’t meant to be personal.”

  Lully says, “You’re right. After the first wave, the political action you take isn’t personal. But when that doesn’t work – when you’re met with the usual intransigent lying and bullshit – then you make your protest personal. And if the people you’re up against still refuse to listen, then you make it very personal.”