What Tomorrow May Bring

by Tony Bertauski

  Russell walks very slowly down to the canoe and leans into the water. I watch him nervously as I carry the tent and the food sack. I put everything down and help him raise the canoe and tip it. The rain fights us both but we finally get it done. The thing is floating again, taking on water again. I throw the bags and the tent in, the neon bucket. But then, just as we’re about to push off, and I think Russell has regained some of his strength, he sits down, his butt right in the mud, his feet nearly in the water, and puts his head into his hands. He starts crying, really quietly, and then he starts to laugh a little. I sit down next to him and he looks at me. He turns away and the crying starts over. I ask him what’s wrong. He doesn’t tell me, but he keeps crying, and he’s doing it like it’s using up the last of his energy. Then he admits to me what it is. We are committing suicide, pushing out like this. But it’s our only choice. He mentions something about Frank Worsley and an open boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island. He says they made it through just like we are going to do, and that they went 800 miles, and through Drake’s Passage, the roughest sea in the world. He says he’s worried because they had stars. And we don’t have stars. We won’t know where we’re going. It doesn’t matter anyway, because even with them, we’re in a canoe. And we couldn’t make it that far in such a small boat. With a crack. And the rain. But we have no other choice. We had to come this way. There was only rising water, empty pantries, and the face eaters in Rapid City. One nearly took you, he reminds me.

  I remember it. Russell killed it, bludgeoned its head with a pipe, and we ran away. And the rest of its pack followed us. All down to that last three. And even they’re gone now, claimed by the sea.

  But we can’t go back, I tell him. We can only head off this last step, into the long canvas of rain, and hope that Poseidon grants us mercy somehow. That’s what it’s come down to.

  He can’t bring himself to do it—to finally leave the last piece of land. But there’s no wood here, no fire, no warmth, and nothing dry. And I don’t want to stay either, because he’s getting sicker.

  We can make it, I say, trying to stop his sobs. It does nothing. I lean into him, press against him, wrap my arms around him, and try to get him to look at me but he doesn’t. I force his jaw around so that he’s looking into my eyes. His hair is running down past his eyebrows, clear across his face. “We’re getting in the fucking boat,” I tell him. I ask if he understands. His eyes seem to start to clear up and he eventually comes back to life. We have to do it—there’s nothing else anyway. We’re not going out without a fight, I tell him. I’m giving him everything I have, because that’s what he’s done for me.

  He stops crying. I ask him if he remembers what he told me. His ignores me and says that it’s all his fault, that we shouldn’t have moved so fast to the West. But he’s second-guessing because he’s forgotten that we did what we had to do. I remind him of that but he ignores it. I ask him again—do you remember what you told me? He stands up and looks down at me. He’s quieted, ready to push out on one last quest for the veneer. I remind him about what he told me.

  “We’d be together. Always,” I say. “You remember that?” He wobbles like he might fall back down and he coughs violently. But then he nods. He remembers.

  “Well, I’m getting in this god damned boat. And I’m leaving. So if you stay here, without a tent, and without anything, then you broke the promise, didn’t you?” I turn around before I see if I get any reaction out of him. I check my pockets to make sure I still have my knife, and then I leap into the canoe, steadying it as it rocks after I land. I turn back and see him untying the nylon rope on the bank. He carefully brings it down and gets in the boat. “Bail,” I tell him, letting him shuffle past me to the stern bench. I slice one of the oars into the water, through to the firm earth beneath us. I push with everything I have and tell Russell to get me something out of the bag for us to eat. I hear water splashing behind me. Thank god he’s bailing. Alive. Still with me. We drift south, leaving the islands. As the smear of the sun wears across the sky, everything leaves us behind but the rain and the gray and the flat brown water.

  I say a prayer to Poseidon that we don’t get any waves. I think that maybe we’ll pick up a current, and get there before we even know it.

  An hour passes and I think we’ve already gone twenty miles, but I really have no idea. Everything looks the same. But the sound is different. Suddenly, I realize what has changed. The bailing has stopped. I turn around. Russell’s leaning back, asleep sitting up, and his hands loose, the bucket floating around in the accumulating water in the bottom of the canoe. He won’t say anything when I instruct him to keep bailing. And the pale of his face is gone. Instead, it’s bright red.

  The canoe looks like it’s filling up faster all of the sudden, and Russell is out cold. I move over to him, walking through several inches of water, carefully placing the oars down in the center of the boat. I feel his cheeks. They’re hot. And then his forehead. It’s hot. He’s closed his eyes and he isn’t responding to me. I tell him I can’t keep rowing if he doesn’t bail. I glance over at the crack and see that it’s the same size as before. But all around us now is open water, a flat lifeless stretch of dropping rain bursts. And I have no idea what direction we’re heading. The smear of the sun is almost directly overhead, maybe even starting to fall westward, I can’t be sure. I want to cry because Russell won’t talk to me, and his breathing sounds really shallow. I move back to the oars, leaving him asleep, and sit down. I just sit and don’t do anything. No rowing, no bailing. Just watch the rain rise up on the floor of the canoe. I wonder if this is it. I don’t see a way out. But maybe if I can get Russell better.

  I go to the food sack and open it underneath my plastic shirt to keep the rain out. I dig around inside and find the antibiotics Russell thinks have gone bad. But I have no other option. I take one out and put it into the neon bucket. I push my thumb into it, then harder because nothing happens, and finally it smashes into a fine powder. I do another pill. Then a third. I don’t know what kind of antibiotic it’s supposed to be, but I remember we spent four cans of beans on these pills. They better be good. I scoop some water into the bucket and swish it around as best I can, mixing the powder in, then move over to Russell. I look at him. He looks sad. A pathetic shadow of his former self. I push his head back and slip my fingers into his lips. His mouth is warm. I pry his mouth apart and start to pour the water down. It causes him to gag and he wakes up. You’ve got to drink something, you’re dehydrated, I tell him. I don’t say it nice. I mean business and he’s too sick to argue. He opens his mouth and I let him take a couple sips, but I keep going until it’s all gone. He makes a sour face like the water tastes awful but he drinks it anyway. I check the waterline at my feet—there’s maybe three inches of rain in the boat now. At least the crack’s not getting any bigger. I look out at the gray. Uniform death is everywhere. I look up to the sky, hoping some miracle break will show me blue.

  In my life, I remember seeing blue sky one time. It was in Pittsburg. We were out camping on the ridge of Mount Washington. Hunting for food back when there was food to hunt. It was a long miraculous sliver that rolled across the sky in one single finger, saying goodbye to me. It was like the rain could have stopped right then. We talked for a long time after that about what was happening directly beneath that blue slit in the gray. Whether or not it was raining underneath it. If the sky was dry where it moved across the horizon.

  I pick up the neon bucket now that Russell has drunk everything he can from it. He closes his eyes again, his expression unchanged. I try one more time to talk to him but get nothing. I think about looking at his leg, peeling back the plastic and the cloth to see what it looks like. If it’s infected again. But I don’t have the nerve. I dip the neon plastic into the canoe’s water and start to bail. I’ll have to rotate between bailing and rowing myself. I don’t know how I’ll sleep, or what will happen when I can’t stay awake anymore. But I don’t want to think about tha
t. That’s the end. Right now, we’re still going. Heading to Leadville. Although to which direction we’re really heading, or the canoe is drifting, I can’t say.

  After about twenty minutes I’ve got the water line down as low I can get it. I’m way ahead of the rain. But it’s as if Poseidon didn’t like that I made progress, and he throws a swell at the boat. We rock up and then down, very gently, but enough of a rise and fall to freeze me and start the vicious cycle of panic. I scan the sky and start to question the darkness behind us. In that direction, the sky looks darker than in front of the boat. I convince myself it’s just night time, and that we’ve shifted directions because I haven’t been rowing. That’s the East, and the sun is setting in the West. Nothing ominous. But I can’t be sure, and I grab the oars with blind panic, as if there’s somewhere I can get us safely ashore tonight if I row really hard. But as I start to furiously row I know there’s no safe harbor anywhere. And there’s no navigation. This was the long shot Russell hadn’t wanted to talk about since Rapid City. There is nowhere to go. Nowhere to stay. And no way to navigate the enormous stretch of sea all the way to Colorado. We can only float on.

  The swells roll one after the other under the canoe for an hour, but they never get bigger, and they never get smaller. Two inches of water sloshes over my feet on the bottom of the boat as I row. The darkness hanging in the sky behind me is just the night time, not a storm coming. And I suddenly feel way too tired to go on. I turn to Russell, expecting him to feel revived. I’ve let him sleep all day after all. Let him break his most time-honored rule, to never waste the daylight. He especially shouldn’t be doing it now that his strength is really needed—when our combined strength is really needed. But he doesn’t even stir. It’s like he’s forgotten all about his rule. And the sleep hasn’t rejuvenated him one bit.

  I put the oars down and move over to him, kneeling in the water at the bottom of the canoe. I ask him if he’s hungry, but he doesn’t say anything. I shake him a little bit. The way he’s tilted his head, his plastic hood isn’t draining the water into the boat, but right down onto his chest. I realize some of it has been flowing underneath his plastic, right into his dirty cotton shirt, soaking it. I turn around so my butt is right in the water on the bottom of the boat. In front of me in the sky, the band of the sun is starting to fall, but the sky is so enormous that it looks like it will take a long time to get all the way down. I wonder if the whale will come visit us when it’s dark tonight, and I’ll miss it.

  I put my shoulders and my back in between Russell’s legs and lay back against him. He doesn’t move. I turn a little bit to look at him. I look up at him. He’s rolling with the swells now, like he’s going to topple over, but he doesn’t. I ask him if he’s okay, and surprisingly, he looks like he understands, but he doesn’t say a word. I stand back up and pull him down between the two canoe benches, into the center of the boat, so he’s secure and doesn’t fall right over the rail and into the water. You hungry? I ask again. He keeps his eyes shut and his only response is to just bob up and down with the swells. He’s sitting in the water in the center of the canoe now, and I sit back down between his legs, and lean back into him again. He’s sturdily against the edge of the seat now. I lay back, my back along his chest. Next to me is the canvas tarp for the tent. I pull it alongside us and unroll it, spreading it out like a blanket. I hoist it as high as I can, getting us both out of the rain. The rain grows louder, angry at the cover I’ve provided, and slams off the canvas and into the floor of the boat. 15 inches a day, I tell myself repeatedly. If that’s right, Russell’s old formula, then I can take a nap. There’s about three feet of canoe. I have a lot of time before I need to get up to bail. I already lost the right direction anyway. Or I never had it. Rowing is useless. It’s just drift and bail now. Keep us alive, keep us floating long enough to find something. Land. A motor boat. Anything.

  “We’re going to Leadville,” I say. “Russell, you hear me?”

  He’s the same as he has been all day. I say a prayer that the antibiotics start to work. That when I wake up, he’s up already again, like this morning, feeling better, ready to work together again. I tell him I love him. I think about giving him a kiss. I know he won’t mind right now. And I think there might be magic in it. I love you Russell, I tell him. I reach up, hoisting myself on the edge of the canoe seat, and lean into him, and kiss his hot forehead. Don’t die on me, please. Don’t break the promise. We’re in this together.

  I close my eyes and the gray turns to black. I try not to think about the fact that this might be my last night alive as I fall asleep to the sound of the rain hitting our tent blanket.

  Chapter 4

  I wake to the sight of a clear tube of water rising from the sea all the way up into a hanging cloud. It’s far away, a long spiral stretching into the sky, hundreds of feet high. A waterspout tornado. I pull the tent off of my face and sit up a little bit, moving between Russell’s legs to get a better look. It looks like it’s a mile away but I can’t be sure. Then I realize the water in the canoe is up to my waist. I look left and see the water line of the sea. I’m almost at eye level with it, like the canoe is sagging so low that we’re about to go under. A swell hits the boat and cold spray splashes my face. I see the neon bucket floating around in the pool I’m lying in. I grab it before it slips overboard. Once it’s in my hand, I turn around and see Russell. He’s still lying against the edge of the seat. His eyes are closed. I see his chest rising and falling. I pull the tent back over him to keep the rain from pelting his face.

  I realize I can’t feel either of my feet, they’ve gone entirely numb. But I can’t stop to think about it because we’re going to sink. I start to bail as fast as I can. It looks like the morning but I don’t stop to check for the smear of the sun. I call Russell’s name as I bail, just to see if he’s recovered at all. My heart sinks because he’s acting the same and doesn’t say a word. I see the crack of the canoe is dipping underwater with each cresting swell, and I can’t make progress with the bailing. One big roll and we’ll go down. I fixate on the giant waterspout, a monster on the water, far away enough that it doesn’t paralyze me with fear and I recognize how beautiful it is. I bail and stare at it to distract myself. My hands pump in and out, over and over, but I’m too tired to keep it up much longer, like I haven’t slept in a week. And I haven’t. I’ve just lived nightmares. But somehow we didn’t sink last night. If I’d slept another ten minutes, I’d have woken up in the sea, maybe with the canoe over my head. Russell’s in no condition to swim. I keep bailing, and my eyes turn to the food sack. It’s floating around at the other end of the canoe, knocking against the lip and bouncing back against the seat. It won’t go over unless a big swell hits us.

  The waterspout is the smoothest, most perfect thing in nature I’ve ever seen. It would chew this hunk of fiber glass up and spit it out, I know, and then send us spinning down to the bottom. It’s so beautiful though that I can’t stop looking at it as I bail.

  My body reminds me with pangs and numbness that I’m cold and hungry. And above the waterspout, even though all other signs point to it being early morning, it looks dark and gray—grayer than the surrounding gray, and darker than the foggy brown swells hitting us.

  I keep going like a machine fueled by the majesty of the spinning column in the horizon. Bailing. Waiting for Russell to snap into life. I yell at him to get me some hardtack to eat. Take a turn bailing. But he doesn’t do either. He just stays asleep, breathing softly. I remember the antibiotics. I gave them to him last night. But how long do they take to work?

  I remember waking from a nightmare last night. I had nearly forgotten it. The boat was sinking, water was rushing in. A storm had hit—swells the size of the islands. I woke up, bailed the canoe down in the middle of the night, half-conscious, and went right back to sleep. How had I woken up? And now again in the morning, just in time? Thank you Poseidon, if it’s you. Keep us alive just a little bit longer.

  I bail until the water
is nearly gone from the floor of the canoe. My arms are lead. Finally I drop the neon bucket and turn to the food sack. Russell’s still out cold. The waterspout is receding in the distance, and I can’t tell if the current is pulling us away from it, or if the thing itself is repelling everything in a wide arc. Either way, it slips away. Its beauty, and the terrible sight of the dark storm cloud it descends from. I stop worrying that a storm will spread out from it and swallow us up. Enough so that I rest against the seat and open the food sack. The rain runs down my hair and into my eyes and my mouth and I slurp it up. I carefully untie the food sack, move the nylon rope out of the way, and find the double-wrapped stack of hardtack. I open it and take a couple pieces out. As wet as everything around me is, the hardtack dries my mouth instantly. I eat more than I should, but I can’t help it. I feel like my bones and muscles are screaming. I scoop some rain water into the neon bucket and drink from it, washing down the last of the stale crackers. I look at Russell. He doesn’t look as red as he did yesterday—his face looks like it’s almost the regular shade of pale again, the color it has been since the Marie went down. Not the beat red color of fever and death. He hasn’t eaten in a long time, so I get out some more hardtack, close up the plastic sack, and move up to him and try to lift his head so I can slide in some food. His eyes move under his lids, and the very subtle hint that he’s alive reminds me to feel happy. It’s like the veneer is vanished completely now, even the love I feel for him, but his eyelids remind me for some reason of hope. I put my finger into his mouth and pry apart his lips. He groans a bit, opens his eyes, and stares at me. You need to eat something, I tell him. It’s cold, he says. I know, I say. I’m relieved to hear him talk. I want to squeeze him but I can’t. I just crumble up some of the hardtack and put it on his tongue. He tries to swallow and has a really hard time, so I lift the bucket to his lips and dump some rain in.