“Where did you go to school?” Brian studied the man’s face.
“Here.”
“Here in Landis?”
“Well, not exactly. I started out in a little country school northeast of town. My parents had a farm, you know. Immigrant farmers they were, from the Ukraine.”
“Is that where you met Ernie?”
“I said so, didn’t I, kid? He was my teacher.”
“I wondered where the school was. Ernie has a hard time knowing what year it is. He might go looking for the old school.”
“I don’t even know if it’s still there. My folks are gone, that’s for sure. None of us wanted to keep the farm, you know. I went into the restaurant business, married a real Italian girl from Rome. That’s why I make good pizza, you know. Between my mother’s recipes and my wife’s, I can’t fail.”
“Don’t forget to tell the young reporter all this, eh?” Brian said.
“What young reporter?”
“Mark, the young guy at the Landis Leader.”
“Oh, you mean Jack’s nephew?”
“He and Holly are writing articles about the whole thing.”
“Holly too? I didn’t know she was working at the paper. She’s a real go-getter, that girl. Has a temper like her daddy though. Well, I’ll be. These young people today are really somethin’, you know.”
“Brian, what are you doing?” His dad popped his head back in the door. “I thought you were right behind me.”
“Speakin’ of kids today, who are you? What’s Ernie to you?”
Brian shoved open the door and hurried to the jeep. By the time he got there his dad was drumming his fingers on the dashboard. “We need to get some sleep.”
“I know, I know. But I found out that guy knew Ernie years ago. We got talking.” Yeah, thought Brian, the old guy was right. What was Ernie to him? Why was he up here looking for Ernie and Jess? The closer he came to the whole situation the worse he felt.
Chapter 18 – Ernie Awake at Night
“Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.” Ernie scanned the night sky. His young friend had gone to sleep. He listened to the crackling fire, the whispering trees, the murmuring river, and he worried.
He had come out here to do something about the growing confusion, the painful moments when his memory failed him. But this kid with him – was it someone from school or was it his own? He couldn’t remember. This kid had other plans. Maybe he should trust her. She didn’t seem as sad as he was. Angry sometimes, but not sad. He needed her.
He was cold, ached all over, especially his left leg and wrist, and his throat was sore. He didn’t want a cold. If Ruth was here, she’d take care of him. He didn’t want to go to a hospital. He didn’t want to be cooped up with a bunch of old people who didn’t know who they were. But he didn’t want to hurt his family.
He prayed again. Rehearsing the comfortable old words chased away the nattering worries, stopped his head from whirling.
Ernie focused on the stars. He forgot the dampness, the night sounds, the hiss of the damp log in the fire, the gentle breathing of the young girl curled up in her sleeping bag.
He reached out his frail right hand towards the firelight, the twinkling star. The heat from the flames warmed his fingers. He felt that warmth ripple over his cold flesh, heading towards his steadily beating heart.
God was with him. He was not alone. He did not have to face this journey by himself. He lay down and slept.
Chapter 19 – Night Fright
Crash! Jess woke with a start. She blinked fiercely, trying to wake her brain, figure out where she was, what had wakened her, why she was so cold and stiff. Hard ground, thin foam cushion, sleeping bag, blanket, glowing embers, and river sounds. She turned her head to see Ernie sleeping, his mouth hanging open.
Bang! Crunch! Tins and glass clashing. Jess grabbed the birch staff she had peeled to poke the fire with, and leaped to her feet. It was pitch black and only a bed of coals glowed in the fire pit. She tossed a handful of kindling and a couple of branches on the embers. Sparks flew. Flames sprang to life. Her heart raced. Her muscles tightened around her bones to ward off attack. The growing light revealed dark shapes around the campfire – willow and rotting stump, dogwood and wild rosebush, and above through the trees, the bent and battered side of the camper van with its back door missing. (She was sure it had been closed when she went to bed.) And someone leaning into the passenger side.
Jess gulped, froze. Her legs trembled. Something or someone was pulling stuff out of the van, something dark and broad. Big. Snuffling.
“Bear!”
Her mind raced as fast as her heartbeat. Black bears are not dangerous unless they are injured, unless they are renegade, unless they are mothers with young cubs. They like camper’s food. Don’t go near them. Two campers were mauled in the Whitecourt forest. One boy died in Grande Prairie, attacked while he slept in his tent. Jess glanced down at Ernie, sleeping like a baby. She would not wake him. The bear had not seen her or Ernie. The bear had gone right to the van. How had he gotten the door open? Should she lie down again and roll up in her sleeping bag? Maybe he would just eat everything in sight and go away. Then they would starve. But someone was bound to find them tomorrow. Or was it already today? Was it nearly morning or the middle of the night?
The bear was turning. He was holding her sports bag in one paw, eating fruit strips, wrapper and all. He was glaring at her. The wind, dancing around the clearing had blown the smell of her in his direction, and then the smell of him to her.
“Yuk! You stink! Put that down, you turkey!” Jess grabbed her birch staff and the cooking pot. She walloped the side of the pot with the stick and shouted. “Go away! Go away!” The crashing reverberated in the river valley, the sounds echoed and bellowed like bulls.
The bear stood higher on his back feet, his free paw beating the air. Ernie sat bolt upright in his sleeping bag, his white hair standing out like a bush, orange in the firelight. “We’re under attack, sergeant. Where’s my gun?” The old man tried to pull himself up, struggled out of the lean-to, tripped over his sleeping bag, and collapsed by the fire.
Jess beat the stick on the pot and danced around the fire screaming.
The bear stood staring at the flames and Jess, and the old man, with his bedding wrapped around him, stared up at the bear. The burly animal shifted his weight and sniffed the air. The breeze blew the smell of tea, cookies, damp clothes, fire, and cold wet bodies towards the bear. He reared and snuffled.
“Don’t even think it, bozo!” Jess screamed at the top of her lungs. She reached down and grabbed a rock from the edge of the fire pit. Ouch, it was hot. She hurled the rock and it fell ten feet away from the bear and bounced.
Ernie stood slowly and joined in the barrage of shouts. He tossed a rock that banged the van close to where the bear stood.
“Out of there. Out of there!”
The young bear squinted. He dropped to all fours and began ambling down the path towards the fire, towards their campsite. He had moved the sports bag from his paw to his mouth. He seemed determined to hang onto it. Jess didn’t have time to do more than glimpse the ridiculous picture of a burly black bear galumphing through the trees grasping the handles of a nylon black-and-fluorescent green sports bag between his strong jaws. Jess ran away, up the hill, pulling Ernie with her.
Jess clasped Ernie’s waist firmly. “If we follow the route the van took, we should be able to get away.” Jess struggled to keep her footing on the damp, mossy slope, tugging Ernie beside her. Her body ached as if she’d slept under a rock. Ernie wasn’t a big man, but it was hard work. She knew she couldn’t go far, half-carrying a hurt old man.
She didn’t look back. She could hear thrashing in the woods and didn’t know whether it was themselves she was hearing or the bear in pursuit. Jess tripped over a fallen log and Ernie tumbled beside her. They gasped for air. The darkness surrounded them. Jess looke
d behind, back down towards the fire and the river. The bear was sitting by the campfire, licking his paw. He had juice boxes and gum wrappers littering the ground around him. He was busy pulling stuff out of her sports bag. He had forgotten all about them. The two humans shivered and wrapped their arms around each other. They didn’t speak, but sat shaking, watching, catching their breath.
A fish jumped in the river. The bear cocked his head like an eager pup. He raised himself up. He looked about six feet tall and broad as a double door. With the sports bag grasped in his teeth he ambled down, disappearing over the last ridge above the river. A series of splashes followed as he made his way along the rocky shore. He was gone.
Jess’s teeth chattered. She looked over at Ernie. He was sucking on his bottom lip and the whites of his eyes looked large in the moonlight.
“It’s all right now.” Jess sounded more sure of herself than she felt. The two of them struggled back down the path to the warmth of the fire. Jess tucked the shivering Ernie in, checked that all the food scraps and wrappers were in the fire, tossed a couple of big hunks of driftwood on for warmth and light, and rolled up in her sleeping bag again.
She lay awake, her heart beating fast. She needed time to let it slow down. She focused on thinking about how glad she was to be alive – thinking about warm summer days and whether she’d look good with long hair and whether she should be less of a tomboy. But she liked who she was and didn’t want to become a wimp and not be able to play soccer, and games with Ernie if he was well enough. How was she going to rescue him? And as she was going to sleep, she thought about the Big Bad Wolf coming for Bert and Ernie and how they ran away together. In the story Brian built his house of bricks and the two pigs ran until they came to Brian’s house, where they were safe.
Where was Brian tonight, fast asleep, safe in his bed or….? Jess wondered if she would ever feel really safe again. The rising sun lit the trees on the eastern bank of the mighty river as Jess dozed off.
Chapter 20 – Jess Goes Fishing
Jess cast the fishing line out from shore. She cast again, the line snaking over the river, as the humming reel let the line fly. A piece of fish would taste so good. Jess couldn’t remember a time when she’d ever been so hungry.
She had wakened with her stomach growling. Ernie had been sleeping beside her, his parchment skin looking damp, his forehead beaded with sweat. He did not look well. His cheeks and ears were red and hot to the touch. He had a fever. It worried her. She had slipped from the sleeping bag and headed to the river to fish. She had run a hand across the vinyl boat to see if it was still holding air. She shivered, thinking about the river, the boat, and the two of them. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
She felt a tug on her line, reeled it in, and then let it play out. She pulled the pickerel in fast, felt him snag on a rock. The next few seconds seemed to last forever as she walked into the river, slipped on the mossy rocks, fell in with the flopping fish on her lap. She had caught their breakfast, and drenched her one set of clothes.
She piled the last of the driftwood and a damp stump on the fire. She cleaned and filleted the fish with Ernie watching her, making comments about her skill. She scraped the fish guts in the fire, poached the fish in a bent camp fry pan. They ate the fish and two buns each – washed down with instant coffee with coffee creamer. She wished she still had her survival kit to give them a treat, but as it was, everything tasted extra good after all the work. The campsite smelled of heat, fish, and burning logs.
Jess sat close to the fire. From her pocket, she pulled out the little sewing kit from old Mabel Teasdale and picked away with a needle at a rose thorn in her thumb. She bit her lip as she worked. Her mom would deal with this so fast, Jess wouldn’t even have a chance to cry out. There, she’d pulled it out by herself. She blushed with success.
The flames danced and the heart of the fire glowed red, orange, and yellow. Even shades of blue, violet, and green appeared if Jess stared hard enough. Sparks flew into the air, the wind blew the smoke over the dark and continually moving waters. Jess draped one of the old army blankets around her. She sneezed. She’d have to dry her clothes when the sun came out and run around in underwear if the weather was warm enough. She’d tried drying Ernie’s socks over the fire and burnt the toe out of one.
She had heard one plane far away and several cars and trucks going by on the road across the river behind the trees. She had seen a mother deer and her baby drinking at the water’s edge. The fawn looked so fragile on its spindly legs, it had made Jess feel strong and clumsy and lucky. Lucky that she had spent so many nights camping with Ernie when he was all right, and with Brian before he turned into a clown.
“I’m glad you brought us camping with you so often, Ernie. If you hadn’t, I’d be scared in the wilderness. But I’m not scared, are you?” in spite of her words, she shuddered. She was surprised by how her moods changed. She’d felt so rotten, wet, and cold coming back to the campsite with the fish; now with her tummy full, the fire so bright and warm, she felt good.
“We’re safe.” Ernie was chewing a broken fingernail. “When you’re camping it’s the little things that make you unhappy – mosquitoes, wasps, cuts, bumps. My wife is a nurse, you know. She’d help. Why isn’t she here?” His thin face looked crumpled and sad. “I don’t feel very good. I feel sick. I don’t want to go to a hospital. I might not get out again.”
Jess didn’t say anything.
The black and green poplar trees, the birch and the occasional pine were silhouetted against the blue sky; a crowd of towering trees, their branches whispering and waving, encircled the campfire. The knots on the green poplars look like giant eyes staring at Jess, asking her what she was doing there; after all it was their woods not hers. The sound of the water lapping against the shoreline, the lonely song of the hermit thrush, all familiar from other camping trips, made Jess relax.
She leaned against a fat black poplar stump. She hoped her mother and Ruth weren’t too worried. Surely they would know enough to trust her to take care of things. They always were after her for being super-responsible for her age. Her mother said it was because she was an only child. Ruth said she thought it was because she was someone who liked a lot of order in life. Ernie had said it was because of her gene pool, that her grandmother had probably been like that when she was a kid. He’d taught plenty of kids like her, he said. Kids who were serious and empathetic. Maybe that’s why she and Ernie had been such buddies all these years. She and Brian and Ernie had always talked to each other, sung old songs, and told crazy stories. Especially by campfires. She missed that Grandpa Ernie so much.
“Tell me a story?”
“It’s your turn, Bert.” The old man perked up and grinned.
“Once upon a time, there were three little pigs called Bert, Ernie, and Brian. Their mother sent them out into the world to make their own way, to become independent. Bert came to a wonderful wheat field and said goodbye to the other pigs. ‘I’m going to make my life right here in the sun and the wind and the beautiful prairie. I’ll build my house of straw, roll in the gumbo mud, and eat grain and berries.’
“Ernie and Brian shook their heads, said their goodbyes, and went on their way. Ernie came to a grove of beautiful trees by the river. He said goodbye to Brian. ‘I’m going to live here with the birds and the little furry creatures. I’ll build my house of twigs and eat berries, mushrooms, and wild carrots.’
“Brian shook his head and went on his way. He came to the edge of the city where they were building a new subdivision. He spotted a vacant lot with some discarded bricks and a ruined garden. ‘I will stay here. I’ll be able to go to the opera and the movies, live in a fine brick house, and grow good food in my garden.’
“Then the Big Bad Wolf came calling on the three little pigs. He huffed and puffed at Bert’s house and she escaped through the back door and ran lickety split to her brother Ernie’s house….”
“I know how the story ends. I remember. You don’t have
to finish it.” The sad look had gone from Ernie’s face.
She had to learn to love the new Ernie somehow. Remember the old one and love the changed one. Jess threw more wood on the fire, went over and gave Ernie a little kiss on his bald spot. His skin was hot.
“Nothing like a nap after a good dinner.” Ernie curled up.
“It was really Saturday morning breakfast, Ernie,” Jess said quietly, and sat with her back against a deadfall poplar; staring at the flames.
Chapter 21 – Jess Thinks Things Through
“Keep your dumb dog quiet!” Ernie shouted. A coyote howled in the distance. Jess sat up with a start, remembering where she was, rubbing her arms to get the circulation flowing. She shivered. A pale streak of light showed above the clouds in the east. It was late in the morning. Was it still Saturday?
She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and watched as Ernie pulled himself up and wandered off in the woods a few yards to pee. He was shivering and his hair was plastered to the right side of his head. He leaned towards his good side, grasping trees as he walked. Jess would have to make him a cane out of a small birch. She sighed.
“Ernie! Don’t wander off now. I’m going to build up the fire. I’ve got to see what the bear left us to eat. Someone will rescue us today, I’m sure of it. At least it’s not winter. We could die if it was winter. But it’s spring, nearly summer. We’ll be all right, as long as we stick together, Ernie.” While she spoke Jess was gathering dried twigs, a candy wrapper, dead grass, kneeling beside the fire pit on the cold damp ground, blowing on the glowing embers from her early morning fire, coaxing them. A small flame leapt from the bundles of twigs. She reached for broken branches and skinny sticks and fed the flame. The wonderful smell of wood smoke filled her lungs. The fire warmed her cheek. She put a couple of pieces of birch she had cut last night on either side of the fire, then laid some extra-dry deadfall poplar across the top. She stood up, brushed her sooty hands on the sides of her damp jeans, and moaned.
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