“Fast water!” The old man was leaning to one side of the boat, leaning on his good side, trailing the cup in the water like a kid with a stick. He was grinning, too. “My mother read Pete and me The Wind in the Willows. Remember when Rat took Mole out for the first time in a boat and they had an upset? I remember that as if it had happened to me. I like stories.”
“I’ve too much work to do.”
“That’s what my mother used to say.”
“Ernie, can’t you see what we’re doing here?”
“We’re going down the river, just like Rat and Mole. Telling stories will pass the time.”
“One of my favourites was Winnie-the-Pooh.” Jess pulled her mind away from the fear and tried to think about a story for Ernie, wished she was a kid again, a little kid curled up on her mother’s lap, listening. “I like all of the stories. But my favourite is the one where Pooh got stuck in Rabbit’s front door after eating all of Rabbit’s honey. He asked Christopher Robin to read him a book because he was a bear in great tightness.”
“We’re in great tightness, right?” Ernie sighed. He started to bail. “ ‘When you walk through a storm’ – I wish I could remember the rest of it. Songs help.”
Jess felt a bump as the boat slid across a high rock. She clutched the sides in sheer panic as a log hurtled past. They were being swept along in the current and Jess had very little control over the boat. It went where it willed. She scanned the empty river, the silent sky, the deserted banks, and cried out.
“Ernie, I’m afraid.”
Chapter 24 – Brian Leads the Way
When Brian and his dad burst into the Landis Leader office, Mark and Holly stood over the table with the ordinance map spread out in front of them. Pins and tags marked where search and rescue teams were located. Two camera operators and a newswoman were helping themselves to coffee. The TV truck was parked out front. Holly paced the floor.
“The teams have covered the lakes and searched all the small cabins, summer homes, back roads. There is no sign of the camper or Jess and Ernie. I don’t understand it,” Holly sighed, gesturing with her arms spread wide. “We’ve had crazy phone calls from Revelstoke, British Columbia, Billings, Montana, and Swift Current, Saskatchewan, with sightings. I’m amazed how many people care about this. It’s like everyone wants to help.” She shook her head in surprise. “The RCMP are stumped. So are we. Without more clues we’re searching for a needle in a haystack. Even Mark is getting worried…”
“That’s why we’re here,” Brian interrupted. “It’s a clue.”
“We’re going back to the pioneer school,” Sonny Dille said. “Brian thinks that’s Jess’s sports bag is hanging on a piece of driftwood in the middle of the river. They could have gone over a cliff, they could be hurt, or worse still, they may have drowned in the river.”
“Grandma Ruth and Naomi are waiting in the car. We haven’t told them about the bag. They’ve got enough fears of their own.” Brian ran his hand through his curly hair. So do I, he thought, so do I.
“I’m going for my dad’s jet boat.” Holly nearly knocked the table over dashing for the door.
The TV crew glanced up at the raised voices. The newswoman ran over.
“What’s up? I thought we were going to the pioneer school, Mark.”
“We are. We’re going to follow these guys. Unless you want to go in the jet boat. Brian saw something…” The TV people clustered around Mark.
Brian didn’t wait to hear. He had to get back to the school, and fast.
He and his dad clambered into the four-by-four with Ruth and Naomi. Just past the bridge close to the golf course, Brian spotted a funny looking surveyor’s ribbon. “That’s not a surveyor’s marker. That’s Jess’s other gym sock.”
“So,” Naomi said slowly, “Jess left these socks as markers. She must have thrown this one out as they passed this way. Then the one at the old schoolhouse. But where did they go from there?” Sonny stopped beside the willow trees and Brian ran over and rescued the sock. He handed it to Naomi. It was soggy from all the rain. She put it into the plastic bag she had the other sock in.
“If anything has happened to Jess, I’ll never forgive myself!” Ruth peered out the window as the truck spat gravel, rushing down the side road. “I should have kept a closer watch on Ernie.” Brian glanced back at Ruth. Her usually cheerful face looked thin and drawn. She seemed to have aged in the last two days.
Naomi sat with her knees tight together, her hands clasped in her lap, her knuckles white. The two women swayed with the bumps in the speeding four-by-four.
“I can’t believe I missed seeing that marker the first time. I must have been blind.” Brian set his face grimly to the front, watching for the cemetery, the grove of trees, and the old school. He had to take another look at what was clinging to the driftwood. He hoped it was not Jess’s ugly overstuffed “survival kit.”
As they turned into the grassy lane that led to the schoolhouse, Brian let out a moan. A huge branch had fallen, smashing the roof of the school. Splinters of glass and shutters lay everywhere. The car edged past the building and wound its way down towards the steep track. An impassable stretch of driftwood blocked their way. The four of them jumped out, climbed over the driftwood, and raced down the slope towards the water’s edge. The stones were slippery. Ruth and Naomi held each other’s hands and made their way to the shore.
“This is where Ernie used to fish when he taught in that school.” Ruth asked, “Could he have come back here? After all this time?”
Naomi was clutching the plastic bag with the orange socks in her hand, as if they could give her more answers. She was scanning the beach, the opposite shoreline, the woods to the north. “We should be able to spot a campfire.”
“Not after the last storm.” Brian said.
Brian and his dad stared across at the island, hands shielding their eyes. The shape of the island had changed. A huge raft of logs had come unstuck from the back of the island and was moving downstream.
“It’s gone.” Brian waded out into the rushing current, let the cold silty water push against his legs. He shivered as the force of the current, the chill from the glacial stream, attacked him. He felt defeated, scared. “It’s gone.”
“Come back, son!” Brian’s dad yelled. “Those logs look pretty dangerous.”
Naomi’s voice rose in panic. “What are you looking for?”
Sonny Dille stumbled back up the beach to where Naomi and Ruth stood. “Brian thought he saw Jess’s sports bag hanging on a piece of driftwood out on the island when we were out here earlier. Whatever was there is gone.” Sonny wiped his hands with his bright red handkerchief. “I’m pretty confident. We’ve got both of Jess’s socks. She’s one smart young woman. Ernie and she can’t be far from here.”
“But not in the river. Please, not in the river,” Naomi cried into the wind.
Brian climbed onto a rock at the end of the spit that stretched into the current, held his dad’s binoculars to his eyes, and searched the tossing, roaring, silver-and-brown river for signs of life. He wished he could see around the bend.
Chapter 25 – Ernie in the Boat
“My feet are wet.” Ernie was pouting. “I think we should go home now.” His head hurt and his throat was sore and he was confused. Why was he out in a boat? He didn’t remember this lake. A lake is a body of water, but this could not be a lake, because it was running somewhere. There was a fast current. Lakes don’t have currents in them. The ocean has currents. He must teach his class about the Labrador current and the Gulf Stream. But where was his class? Ever since Ruth’s cousin, the young Olnichuk boy had drowned, he hadn’t been able to talk about the world and its water systems. Let alone go fishing.
Where was Ruth? Why was he with this girl? He didn’t like this boat much. It wasn’t safe. Not like a canoe.
Ernie lifted the tin cup out of the water, touched its cold rim to his lip. He put the cup down on his lap and stuck his right hand under his left armpit
to warm it, but his body did not feel warm. It felt nothing. His clothes were damp and the fabric stiff with dirt. Ruth should wash these things. Where was she? Why wasn’t she here with him? She wouldn’t fit in the boat with this kid in it.
“Is this a field trip? Where are the rest of the kids?”
The girl pushed her blond hair away from her eyes, tilted her head to the left, and smiled at him.
He wished he remembered her name. One of the brochures about his disease said that names were one of the first things to go. He’d had to give up on names. Call people something else, sweetie or dear or fella or princess. Ernie let a small smile creep across his face. He was remembering a list of names to call people. It was a small victory. Maybe they wouldn’t guess his secret. Maybe he could hide the truth.
He coughed so hard he nearly dropped the cup. He wiped his nose on his sleeve. He wished he was home. Why was he here?
This chill, this fever, all the aches and pains worried him. Would Ruth make him go to a hospital? If he went to a hospital, he mightn’t get out. He would become a prisoner. He had seen the locks on the doors in that place. Some place that he ran from. That’s how he had gotten here, to the river. He had been running away to the river. He had been planning a trip. Just him and God. Only now he was with a young girl with blond hair in her eyes and worry wrinkles on her brow.
Didn’t she know this boat wasn’t big enough, strong enough, for a trip down a raging river? He was already soaking wet from the spray. Wasn’t that a log floating past? Not a good idea, this trip. He should speak to her about it.
“Do I know you, princess?” he asked. “God’s waiting for me at the end of this road, you know. It’s really nice of you to take me for this ride down the river. But this boat. It isn’t safe.” And he let his hand trail in the water again, felt the cool smoothness of the water flowing over his stiff old fingers, felt the sun drying his hair, the light breeze flowing against his cheek. He let the stillness of the river valley reach inside to his heart. The old ticker had had to work mighty hard lately and he didn’t know how much more it could take. He felt the water flowing over his hand and loved the trees rushing by on the banks and the lone hawk circling ahead over the island. He wanted to touch the feathers of that solitary bird in flight. For a fleeting moment the fog in his head rolled back like a scudding cloud in a prairie sky and he knew that he could carry on. There was God and Ruth and this young princess who was rescuing him. He would lean on them, trust them with what remained of his life.
“The Gulf Stream flows all the way to England. Did you know that, princess?”
Chapter 26 – Jess Gives Her Best
Jess pulled with all her might, urging the boat through the waves. She didn’t answer Ernie. She didn’t know where his head was, and the Gulf Stream was not important when she was trying to row to safety on the Athabasca. She bowed her head, and pulled the wimpy plastic oars through the waves. The current was carrying them towards Landis, but she couldn’t steer. She had been trying to get closer to shore, over to the calmer water, the shallower side, in case of real troubles. Her shoulders, ankle, and knee ached. Her foot throbbed. She was shivering with cold.
“I shouldn’t have done this. I don’t think I can go on.” She rested on her oars for a minute, then put her head down on her crossed arms. That’s when she noticed how high the water inside the boat was getting.
“Ernie, you’ve got to bail. The boat is filling up with water.” Maybe there was a hole in the bottom, a hole that was letting the air out and the water in. The boat would sink. Then she would have to swim for it. She shuddered.
“Ernie, do you remember how to swim?”
“I can’t do up my life jacket, princess. You’ve have to do it.” He sat in the front of the boat staring at her, dipping water out of the boat slowly, too slowly.
“I can’t reach you from here. The boat would tip.” What a ridiculous conversation. They were about to drown and she was talking to Ernie as if he understood her. “Ernie, don’t stand up. Don’t.”
He flung his half-pulled-up body back into the boat. It tipped to the left side, letting in more water.
Jess leaned forward, grabbed the cup, and started bailing like mad.
She would have to keep the boat from going under.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, princess?”
Jess leaned into her task, tears of fear running down her cheeks mingling with sweat. “I don’t want to fall in the water. I don’t want to fall in the water.”
A giant tree root loomed ahead of the boat. Jess grabbed her oars and pulled towards the left, away from it, towards the bank. Ernie clutched the sides. He was silent.
Jess ducked as the boat rammed the trunk of the tree. The boat flung to the left. The root squealed as it rubbed against a large rock, dislodged, and disappeared in the current.
The boat righted itself, but it was listing. Several centimeters of cool water filled the bottom. The sides weren’t as solid as they had been when they started the journey. Air must be leaking out of the boat.
The river wasn’t deep here. Jess could see the boulders rocking in the current. With any kind of luck they’d be able to walk to shore. The water was cold but not icy. It was risky, but did she have an alternative?
“We may have to swim.” Jess stared towards the shore, looking for a likely place to land. They were coming around a bend in the river. Jess could see the TV tower a long way ahead. Please, let that be close to town, close to safety. “Do you remember how to swim, Ernie?”
“Hang onto the boat, Jess. Hang on.” Ernie shouted over the sounds of the river and the wind. “It’s one of our rules.”
Thank goodness, Ernie was back. Her Ernie was back. Jess let her body roll over the collapsing vinyl side and slide into the water, grabbed a hold of the part of the boat that was still inflated, clamped her mouth shut to block the roaring river from her lungs. She hung on for dear life as the cold hit her body, and she began half-swimming across the current, pulling the boat. In her dream her lungs had filled and she had gone down in the depths, and only waking saved her. But this was no dream.
“You all right up there?” Ernie called.
Glancing back, Jess could barely see his head and the scrawny body, now without a life jacket at all, bobbing. How could she keep Ernie safe without a life jacket? She tried to clear the water out of her eyes to see the shore. Some bright colors dancing on the shore. So far away. So impossible to reach. She was getting exhausted. Her arms ached.
Jess heard a roaring in her ears like Niagara Falls. She drew a big breath. She looked to the left, to the right. What was that noise? She hadn’t thought about rapids. Could there be rapids between here and Landis? But Pete and Ernie had paddled it.
“Are there rapids, Ernie?” But Ernie couldn’t hear her.
Small waves came at them from all sides. Emerging from behind an island came a jet boat, its motors roaring, someone leaning over the side, yelling.
As she strained to see ahead she caught a glimmer of green like her mother’s scarf and someone standing in the water to their waist. Whoever it was, was waving frantically. A little cluster of people gathered on the river bank. They were jumping up and down. Was that her family? Jess felt tears gather. She pulled frantically towards the shore with her free hand, but the current pulled the boat downriver. Where was the jet boat? The water was so, so cold. She couldn’t feel any pain in her legs, just numbness. Then the jet boat’s motors beat and thudded in her ears as it pulled past the struggling pair – for a moment Jess worried that they were going away – and then the sleek boat turned and came back, slowing to the speed of the current.
Ernie waved from his end of the half-submerged boat. “God has come to rescue me.” His face was suffused with light. “Help me, help me!”
Jess clutched the boat, screamed at the rescuers. “You’ll have to pull him in, his left side doesn’t work.”
As the jet boat came alongside, the waves buffeted the inflatable
. The smell of the gas and fumes filled Jess’s nose. She choked and sputtered. A hand reached down for her.
“Take Ernie first,” she shouted. “He’s lost his life jacket.”
Jess felt the drag of powerful motors, saw the turbulent waters, watched through water-filled eyes as burly arms reached down for Ernie, slipping a harness over his head, pulling him up away from the inflatable. She felt the sudden collapse of the ridiculous water-filled sinking boat, and she let go, let the damaged boat go, and gave her whole attention to battling the river. A long pole and arms reached down to her. She heard her name being screamed from the shore. She looked up into the rescuer’s eyes and shook her head, turned her weary soaked limbs towards the beach, and began to half-swim, half-clamber towards her family.
“What is Jess doing?” Holly cried.
“She’s heading for shore,” Mark hollered back.
Everyone on shore screamed and yelled.
Sonny Dille waded out to join his son in the whirling current closer to Jess. Brian reached out his hand to her as the current and the waves sent her hurtling downstream. Her body rose and fell in the waves. Her arms flailed.
Brian strained into the wind and the waves. His father gripped Brian’s right hand tightly as they made a human chain into the raging torrent. Naomi and Ruth joined them, allowing Brian to move further into the current.
Jess bobbed up and down. Her mouth was full of water. She coughed and spluttered. At the last moment as the current threatened to bear her away, her foot touched solid ground, her hand reached out, and she felt Brian Dille’s firm grip. He tugged her to shore, her body jarred by rocks and boulders.
Jess and the Runaway Grandpa Page 13
