Jess and the Runaway Grandpa

by Mary Woodbury

  “Hello! Is there anyone there?” Jess shouted. “Help! We need help!” No sounds came back. Jess felt more alone than a polar bear on an ice floe.

  Sitting on the wet ground with the sea of green plants surrounding her, the melodies of invisible songbirds above, the creaking of dead branches and strange muffled sounds of unrecognizable things across the river, made Jess shiver. She was dizzy, light-headed, like when you wake up from a dream. She didn’t know what frightened her most – being lost, being alone, being afraid of what she couldn’t see, or being stupid and scaring her mom. A flood of bad thoughts tumbled in her head like the muddy Athabasca racing over rocks in the river.

  “Okay, sergeant, it’s up to you to get us out of this fix.” Jess heard Ernie’s voice in her mind as if he was right beside her giving her instructions in one of their games, not lying there in his sleeping bag snoring. “Keep a cool head in an emergency. Follow the rules and keep busy, so you don’t have time to stew and panic. Fear is a killer. Panic is fear’s brother.”

  Jess stood up, placing the precious supply of tea and sugar on a wide flat rock beside her survival kit, threw her shoulders back and struggled up the hill towards the camper. First she had to set up camp, make sure they had shelter, food, and water. She had work to do.

  Chapter 12 – Ernie Forgets

  “Help! Help me, someone,” Ernie called. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and stared wildly about, his right hand reaching out, the knobby knuckles of his fingers shaking. “Please don’t leave me.”

  A young woman came clattering and banging her way into the clearing where he sat. “Did everyone get out alive? Were there any casualties?” he tugged at the sweater as the girl leaned down and tried to tuck him into his sleeping bag.

  “That’s Ruth’s sweater. It’s pure wool. Where’s Ruth? What have you done with Ruth?” he cried. “I don’t know where I am.”

  Ernie watched the girl work. She cleared a patch of earth, brought rocks to ring a fire pit, broke fallen branches, made a tepee of twigs and birch bark. Whoever had taught her how to build a fire had done a good job.

  “I’m glad you know bush craft, princess.” He tilted his head slightly. “Do I know you? Are we all right?” His voice grated. His throat hurt. His whole body ached.

  “I’m Jess, your next-door neighbour. We’re fine, Ernie. We had fruit strips and juice for a snack earlier. It’s like a picnic. You and I have gone on lots of picnics. We used to fish together when I was young. Brian Dille came with us. You remember him, don’t you? You remember me. So we’ll just pretend this is a camping trip. We’ll have to wait for someone to find us, that’s all. Don’t worry.”

  “Are you a nurse?”

  “I’m Jess. I live next door.”

  “Of course, you told me.”

  She bent to tie up her sneaker.

  “You’re awfully young to be a nurse.” Ernie tried to speak clearly in spite of his sore throat. “I don’t like hospitals. I don’t want to go to hospital.”

  “I know.”

  Ernie raised his eyes. His vision was cloudy and he shivered with cold. The dampness seeped through his clothes, even through the sleeping bag he’d bought at Camper’s Village.

  He could feel tears gathering again. He’s had an accident with the van. He knew that much. It was embarrassing having this young woman looking after him. He should be looking after her. Chivalry was dead, with the last of the Knights of the Round Table. He sighed, wiped his eyes with his left arm, wiped the tears away. Why wouldn’t his body cooperate?

  “You won’t leave me here alone, will you?”

  “I have to find more wood, Ernie. I’ll be back before the kettle boils.” She balanced the blue enamel camp kettle on a rock beside the hottest part of the fire. The lid rattled and flames scorched the side black. A giant raven cawed loudly overhead, scolding them for intruding. An echo came from across the river.

  Ernie stared up into the treetops. “‘Consider the birds of the air, they toil not neither do they spin, but God takes care of them.’ That’s in the gospel of Luke, you know.” So many people don’t know the Bible these days, Ernie thought. Where did they get their comfort?

  Ernie loved the aspen woods. He felt like he was in church. The trees were a cathedral, tall and stately, clinging to the hillside, shading the bushes, the flowering saskatoons, the wild roses, gooseberries, raspberries, the young willow. If it weren’t for the troubles he was having with his body, with his brain, he’d feel at home.

  “God will take care of us too.” Ernie’s voice filled with confidence. He began reciting comforting phrases. “‘The Lord is my shepherd, I’ll not want.’” He leaned against the tree, staring at the girl. Suddenly he knew who she was. He remembered a game they played together. “Bert, is that you?”

  Jess dropped the wood she had been collecting, raced over and gave Ernie a hug. Elm seeds cascaded from his white hair. The woods were alive with spring growth. A brilliant yellow marsh buttercup gleamed in a patch of sunlight, brighter by far than the flames from their small fire. “It’s so good to have you with me.”

  “How did we get here?”

  “You were going fishing, Ernie. You drove off the road.”

  “Ruth will come. Ruth will come for us.” He tried to raise his arms, but they ached so much he gave up. His left arm didn’t work at all. That frightened him. His eyes on Jess’s clouded with tears. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”

  He watched her through a veil of tears. She was working around the fire. She wrapped the long sleeve of the sweater around her hand and plucked the bubbling kettle from the edge of the fire pit. She struggled with the lid. It was very hot. Ernie’s hand stung in sympathy. She dumped in two tea bags and stirred the pot with a twig. She pulled a package of cookies out of her sports bag, ripped the cellophane wrapper off with her teeth, and handed him three chocolate sandwiches and a plastic mug of tea with sugar stirred into it.

  “Thank you very much. I like milk in my tea, don’t I?”

  “The milk carton burst when the camper smashed. The jam bottle broke on a rock. We’ve got buns and fish bait. I can’t find the margarine or the honey.”

  “ ‘Behold, I will deliver to you a land of milk and honey.’ ” Ernie used his Scripture-quoting voice. Jess shook her head.

  “I don’t think this is what God had in mind, Ernie.” The girl laughed and blew on her tea, dunked her cookie in the hot liquid. It reminded Ernie of his brother Pete. Pete dunked his cookies, his doughnuts, even his bread crusts. Was he dead?

  He wished he had his files. He had written things in there to remember. But now he couldn’t find the drawer. He wouldn’t be able to read with his eyes so foggy. Besides he had come out here to do something about this sickness. What was it he meant to do?

  Chapter 13 – The Hunt Begins

  Brian and his dad pulled into Landis about three o’clock Friday afternoon. They parked on the main street beside the bank. Brian turned off the Beatles tape he and his dad had been listening to.

  “Place seems awfully quiet,” Brian’s dad said.

  The cellphone rang. Brian jumped, surprised at hearing the low hum. His dad picked up the receiver.

  “Sonny Dille here.” He drummed his fingers on the dashboard as he listened to whoever was calling. Brian fished through the glove compartment for some change to buy a soft drink.

  “I’m afraid not, Charlie. I’m out in the bush with my kid. The neighbour has gone and got lost. Taken the kid next door. So we’re out here in the middle of nowhere….”

  The voice on the other end interrupted the flow of words.

  “No, it wasn’t anything like that. The poor guy’s losing it, you know. He doesn’t even recognize his wife some days. The office was slow today, you know, holiday weekend and all. I came because Brian wanted to help. We all used to be friends. The girl’s father did a bunk. Turned out he was a loser, drank like a fish. Somehow Marie and I never kept up with Naomi and Jess. Now the kid is out here somewher
e with the old guy.”

  More talk. Brian’s dad listened and polished the dashboard of his late model black four-by-four with his white handkerchief.

  “Look, if the situation gets ugly here, I’ll come back fast, believe me. Give Art my apologies okay?” He hung up.

  “I forgot, it’s Art’s stag tonight. He’s getting remarried on Monday.”

  Brian sighed, bent and did up his shoe laces.

  His dad shook his head and toured the streets of Landis looking for the newspaper office. “Pretty dinky town. It makes me nervous, Brian, but I don’t know enough about the bush. This isn’t my country.”

  “It’s mine though. It’s just farms and lakes and the big river, Dad.”

  “Villages in Trinidad are different. I didn’t bring the right clothes.”

  Brian studied his dad’s face. “I’ve been out here plenty – with Ernie and Jess. I feel really safe out here. I don’t get it.”

  His dad was clutching the wheel with both hands, driving slowly down the second side street. Two guys in pickups passed. They stared at the four-by-four and at Brian and his dad.

  “Look, there’s the newspaper office. They’ll know where searchers are supposed to go.” Brian pointed down the road to a dingy storefront office with a blue-and-white sign, “The Landis Leader – First with the news in the county.”

  When they walked in, a young guy that Brian figured was Mark Saunders was talking on the phone. His wide reddish face shone in the fluorescent light, glistening with sweat. Dark wavy hair hung nearly to his shoulders. He motioned to two chairs facing a cluttered table at the end of the room.

  A slim teenage girl with long black hair, dark eyes, and a smooth make-up-free face approached them. “Hi, I’m Holly. Mark has been expecting you. I’m working on this story with him. Coffee?”

  After introductions, Brian and his dad sat down at the table covered with topographical maps. Holly brought a mug of coffee for Brian’s dad and a carton of apple juice for Brian. A flip chart on an easel stood at the end of the table with a list of possible actions. Brian gulped the juice.

  “This must be the most excitement the Landis Leader has had in years,” Holly said. “Mark and I want to get the youth angle on this story. You know Jess well, Brian. Why do you think she went with Ernie? He wasn’t a relative. I don’t think most kids would do what she’s doing. What’s the story?”

  Brian described how responsible Jess was, how lately she’d been really worried about Ernie. He even told her how he and Jess had been at odds, how he thought she should let Ernie go, how she seemed extra mad at him at school lately and he didn’t know why. Holly took notes on a clipboard with a pad of lined yellow paper. Her hair danced as she listened and wrote. Mark sipped a can of root beer.

  Brian stopped talking suddenly, chewing his bottom lip, his hands shuffling papers on the table in front of him. He had probably said too much. He didn’t want to look dumb. He was torn between saying more – trying to explain things – and being cool. He blinked.

  “None of that personal stuff is for publication, Brian, don’t worry,” Mark said. “It’s really helpful for us to fill in the background though.”

  Brian looked from Mark to Holly and down at the papers stacked in front of him. He put a paper clip on the corner to hold them together. “If I hadn’t been being such an idiot, rolling on the lawn, I would have seen them. If Jess had been able to talk to me, she wouldn’t have gone and done something so stupid and scary.”

  Holly put her clipboard down suddenly, reached out a hand and patted Brian’s shoulder. “Losing touch with your friend is real hard, isn’t it?”

  A lump in Brian’s throat threatened to burst. He stood quickly, nearly knocking over the chair, grabbed a doughnut and shoved it in his mouth, walked over to the window and stared briefly at the busy, unconscious, life-is-normal street. Then he turned to face the office.

  “I should have stopped them.”

  “I told Brian it wasn’t his fault,” Sonny Dille said. “He’s some upset, man.”

  The phone rang. Holly answered it, cradling the receiver between her ear and her shoulder while she took notes.

  “Ernie’s wife Ruth and Naomi, Jess’s mother, are on their way up here with a police escort. Ruth wouldn’t leave until someone arrived to ‘keep the home fires burning,’ whatever that means,” Holly said. “Ruth is an Olnichuk. My parents know them. Dad went to school with her brother. He has the family farm out the Landis Trail road.”

  “That sounds like Ruth. She’d be convinced that Ernie would come home. At least up here she’ll have her brother’s family to keep her company. What about Naomi, though? How must she feel? Jess has been missing for most of the day.” Brian studied his dad’s face. His father was going through something here, but he couldn’t figure out what. Maybe his dad was an awfulizer too. Sonny Dille poured himself another cup of coffee from the pot in the corner. Stacks of last week’s newspaper leaned precariously by the door. Stale odors of cigarettes, newsprint, and ink permeated the room.

  Holly fastened four detailed maps together on the wall behind the table.

  She put red tacks on the places where Ernie and Jess had been spotted.

  “Several drivers phoned to complain about an old guy driving erratically. He preferred the middle of the road. We haven’t heard anything more since noon.” The small flags were dotted along Highway Two all the way to Landis. There were none after.

  “Where have they gone?” Mark asked. He was working at one of the word processors.

  “Probably to one of our fishing spots,” Brian said. “You better mark Calling Lake, Island Lake, Baptiste, and Lawrence. We fished off the bridge up by Smith on the Athabasca once because Ernie heard there were giant pickerel lurking there. But Jess didn’t like that. She’s afraid of rivers.”

  “I thought there was no public access to Island Lake. More’s the pity.” Holly shook her head. “Can you own a lake?”

  Brian looked at the teenager. “Ernie knew a bush pilot with a cottage. He let us park in his lane. We launched from his dock.”

  “Don’t mind Holly, she’s going through a cynical phase.” Mark moved to the flip chart, turned to a fresh sheet and wrote down the names of the lakes. “Okay, we know the who, the why, the how, and the when, we just have to narrow down the where. Say a little more about those lakes, Brian.”

  “The fishing is really good at Baptiste by the Narrows.” Brian walked over and pointed to the skinny part of Baptiste Lake. “That’s where I caught my first pickerel.” Watching Holly and Mark work at getting the story fascinated him. All the stuff the Language Arts teacher had said about good investigative reporting was true. He just hoped they wouldn’t find a tragedy at the end of the search.

  “There’s an all-points bulletin out. There’s search parties from the Forest Service, the Scouts and Venturers, and the RCMP.” Holly chomped a sugar coated doughnut. Sprinkles of white cascaded down her black t-shirt. “Hopefully we’ll hear something before sunset. We’ve got a very unsettled weather situation this weekend. Possible thunderstorms with hail. Frost warnings for low-lying areas.”

  “I want to try Baptiste,” Brian bounced up and down on his runners. “It’s got good access. Dad and I could start there.”

  “I don’t know about this, son,” Brian’s dad said. “These people seem to have things in hand. They’re used to this wilderness stuff. Bugs, bears, the whole bit. You’ve helped already, giving them the locations. Maybe we should call it a day, head back to the city.”

  “Oh, Dad, give me a break!” Brian shouted. “We just got here. We haven’t done anything yet. I’m staying until I find them.”

  “Hold it right there, kid.” Sonny sprang to his feet and grabbed Brian by the arm. “Boys don’t talk like that to their fathers. You’ve developed a big mouth, boy. That’s probably why Jess is having such a struggle with you. Who do you think you are, anyway?”

  Man and boy stood toe to toe, the man towering over the boy, his hand
clamped on Brian’s wrist, both frozen in the unfamiliar violent stance. Brian’s mind was whirring like a video game at high speed. He pulled his hand away.

  “We’re all pretty nervous and scared here,” said Mark quietly. “Why don’t you take some deep breaths and talk this through?”

  Brian gulped. “It’s just that no one else knows Ernie and Jess like I do, Dad. He and Jess and I had some great times together. I owe him for that. I owe him for lots of things. He’s been a real buddy, taught me all about living in the bush. I kind of forgot that for awhile after he got sick. I’m scared. He could be hurt or worse.” Brian could feel the awfulizer in him going berserk. They could be dead, it said. “He’s been closer to me than anyone.”

  His father pulled himself up to his full six feet, his broad shoulders back, his eyes dark and hidden. Something in his face looked sad, sadder than Jess at Midas’s funeral.

  Looking at his dad’s face, Brian realized how that last remark must have sounded. But it had been true. Ernie had been closer to him than anyone, including his father. He gulped and said, “I need you to help, you’ve got the great wheels and that new cellphone. You could keep in touch with the office and the RCMP by phone.”

  Brian’s dad turned and stared at him. Brian kept pushing. “We could check into the motel, buy some bug dope, maybe even buy you some serious camping clothes, and head out to the highway right away.”

  “It could get nasty, Brian. After typhoons and storms, I had to help clean up the beaches in Trinidad. I saw some pretty gruesome sights. I can’t understand you young kids, wanting to watch horror on television, read horror stories in books. When you’ve seen death and tragedy up close, that stuff pales. It hurts you to see real death, confront real pain. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I don’t want you getting hurt….”