by Donna Milner
A movement on the edge of her vision forces her to right herself in the water. She is further out than she thought. Treading water again, she turns toward the illuminated shore. There in the small bay to her right, silhouetted by the light from the tenant’s cabin, is a dark figure swaying, moving in liquid rhythm with the music. Julie quickly sinks lower into the water. Unless their tenant has company, it can only be Virgil Blue, standing out on the end of his dock playing the violin.
13
In the morning Julie struggles to keep the shroud of slumber wrapped around her. The harder she tries to hang on to it, the more it eludes her. It lifts, as weightless as mist, taking with it the sensation of holding a delicious secret in her fragile grasp. Reluctantly she opens her eyes and reality sweeps in with the daylight. The pleasant feelings evaporate, replaced by the now familiar hollowness, and the scratching hair-shirt accusations. How could you forget, how could you feel anything but pain when Darla is dead? As if on cue, a headache blooms inside her skull.
Turning over slowly she squints at the clock. Nine thirty. Why hasn’t Ian called her? He must be wondering why she’s slept so late. She forces herself to sit up. She needs a drink of water. Her mouth tastes like fuzzy mold. Then she remembers the wine. Sudden fragmented visions of last night fill her aching head. The incredible night sky. A swim in the lake? The figure on the dock? Flopping back down on her pillow she massages her aching temples. Exactly how much was real and how much a dream? Or a result of all that wine? She runs a hand through her damp hair and groans. It’s true. She was in the lake last night—drunk. She wonders if their tenant saw her.
Well, so what if he did? Isn’t she allowed to swim in her own lake, in the middle of the night, naked, if she wants to?
Rising slowly she plods into the washroom, wondering if it really had been Virgil playing the violin. It just doesn’t seem to fit the image she has of their tenant somehow. But then she knows very little about Virgil Blue—an arrangement that suits them both, she is certain. Yet, she finds herself curious. Whoever it was out on the dock last night, not only plays, but plays well—if her water- and wine-logged ears were any judge. It will remain a mystery though—there is no one she could ask, least of all Ian. The topic of their tenant is probably another off-limits subject.
She changes and goes downstairs to find the house empty. Then she remembers that it is the last Friday of the month. No wonder Ian hadn’t bothered to wake her. He’s gone to town; he won’t be home until late tonight.
His twice-monthly trips to the office in town are strictly for the benefit of his clients. He never stays overnight. Even though the office has a small suite upstairs, he returns home no matter how late he works. His way of proving his fidelity? It isn’t necessary. Julie isn’t even certain if Valerie Ladner is still one of his clients. She won’t ask. He won’t say.
After fortifying herself with aspirin and coffee, she goes out to the front patio to clean up the evidence of her solitary drinking.
The morning air is crisp, fall creeping in on slow baby steps. The lake’s motionless surface reflects a perfect image of the bordering trees and an unbroken blue sky. She glances to her left, to the pastures at the end of the lake. She has often spotted deer in the stubbled fields since haying season. They show up in herds to graze on the new shoots of grass. Sometimes, from the kitchen window she watches the bolder ones who, twitching their white tails, come right into the yard to munch on the front lawn.
A movement in the marshes at the mouth of the creek catches her eye. She squints into the light until a hulking brown form standing knee deep among the reeds, lifts a heavily antlered head. Water streaming from his bearded jaw, the moose chews unconcerned while staring in her direction. Julie remains unmoving as they keep a mutual eye on each other. The massive animal offers no threat at this distance, yet she feels her heartbeat quicken, the blood pounding in her ears.
Out of nowhere, last night’s dangerous thoughts surface in her mind. Had she really tempted death out on the lake? Although she’s not religious in the conventional terms, Julie has always held the belief that taking your own life is a cop-out, a selfish option. She has always believed that everyone has an obligation to life itself, to see it through, no matter what. After Darla’s accident, the doctor had given Julie sleeping pills. But regardless of how sleep eluded her, since that fateful night when she had not woken to Darla’s call, she has been unable to swallow one. Only now does she ask herself, why then, is she still hanging on to those pills?
Across the way, the bull moose turns and climbs up the creek bank. Sure-footed in his lumbering grace he crosses the meadow to clear the far fence without effort and disappears into the woods.
Julie goes inside to the kitchen and, still lost in thought, pours herself another cup of coffee. Staring out the window, she decides that, like the moose, there really was no danger last night; it was just the wine, that was all. She will have to be careful, though.
She forces her mind away from there, imagines herself telling Ian about the moose, which she had found strangely beautiful and ugly at the same time. She suddenly wishes she’d had a camera to capture that image.
When she was selling real estate, she had always been proud of her listing photographs. “You have an eye,” she was told more than once. A spark of something close to excitement ignites somewhere inside her. She is spending so much time outside now she might as well make use of it, capture some of these images. She could send them to Jessie and the girls. And to her mother, let her see that things are not completely bleak out here. An involuntary chuckle rises to the back of her throat at the idea of sending her a mother a photograph of a bull moose so close to her door.
She makes her way upstairs to the spare room, the room where her former life is stored. A room she has avoided. Ian refuses to go in there at all. When he had caught her packing up Darla’s possessions for the move, he had accused her of hanging onto them as if she believes their daughter will return. But she can’t let go of the dolls, the clothes, even the bedding that still carries the smell of Darla. And yet, after they moved in, Julie found herself unable to open any of the boxes, in fear of losing that scent, or losing herself to it.
Steeling herself, she avoids Darla’s neatly stacked boxes on one side of the room, and checks the labels of the others until she finds the one from her real estate career. She roots through it and pulls out a leather camera case. Inside, firmly strapped against the plush red lining, her old 35mm and accessories wait as orderly as she had left them. Film canisters line the mesh side pockets. She removes the camera, and checks the film and batteries. They’re still fine. The old Pentax is out-of-date technology, but she has always liked the quality of the photographs it produced. It feels like an old friend in her hands and she surprises herself with a smile as she snaps the lens cover back on. Just the idea of having a plan, having something creative to do, feels good somehow. She imagines Darla saying it’s about time, but knows it’s only her own inner voice trying too hard.
Hanging the camera strap over her shoulder, she goes back downstairs and pulls on her hiking boots. Outside, she avoids the pastures at this end of the lake, in case the moose is still hanging around, and heads to the north road. She will start by taking shots of the ranch house from the far end of the lake. She hasn’t hiked this way since meeting their tenant in the garden last month. Today the fear of the moose outweighs her fear of running into Virgil Blue. The Clydesdales are no longer in the corral, so he’s probably out working on his woodlot anyway.
Nearing the turnoff to his cabin she slows her pace. She peers down his driveway, but can make out nothing more than the fir and mountain ash trees encroaching on either side of the narrow road. Confused by a pang of disappointment she wonders what it was she expected to see? Or hear? The woods are quiet; no strains of violin music seep through the trees. Feeling a little ridiculous she resumes her speed walking. After a while her laboured breathing and the blood pounding in her ears gives way to the everyday hu
m and buzz of the forest: the staccato chattering of a squirrel scurrying down a tree trunk; the familiar cry of chickadees; the hollow thumping of grouse wings in the distance; and the raspy cries of crows winging through the branches above.
Crows. It seems to Julie that wherever she goes lately, there are crows.
Were they always there, or had she only begun to take notice of them on the day of Darla’s funeral as she stood staring out of their family-room window while hushed voices droned on behind her?
I’m so sorry.
Is there anything I can do?
I’ll just put this platter of egg salad sandwiches on the coffee table here.
Oh, please don’t let me intrude.
I’m so, so, sorry.
Unless it was her sister speaking, she pretended not to hear.
Wishing everyone silenced, gone, she had concentrated on the ebony bird sitting like a lone sentry on the back porch railing. No cocking of his head back and forth, no fluffing of feathers, his bottomless black eyes stared into the window as if trying to connect with her soul.
She noticed the dark visitors daily after that. Others joined it, perching in the trees behind Julie’s golf course home. In the morning she could hear the scratching of their feet on the shake roof, as if chiding her for lying in bed, nagging her to get up, get up and get on with life. They became her constant companions, even showing up out here. She began to think, to hope in a small secret place in her heart, that it was Darla trying to communicate with her. Then she remembered Darla telling her once that the crow was Levi’s totem, his spirit guide, and she recalled seeing him place his crow pendant around Darla’s neck that night.
Now, whenever she encounters the birds, she is overcome with aversion to them, can only think of them in their mythical role as harbingers of death. You’re too late, she thinks angrily as two swoop down from the sky. Their barking cries trail behind as they glide above her with liquid strokes and disappear around the bend. An unexpected shiver passes through her despite the warmth of the day. The road winds on, leading closer to the lakeshore, then wandering away again as it cuts through the forest. The crows’ raspy voices grow louder as she approaches a fork in the road. To her right a narrow logging trail leads up to the timbered hillside. She stays on the lower road, and on the next turn comes upon the reason for the cacophonous cries. A few yards ahead, on the side of the road is the limp body of a dead bird. She recalls reading somewhere that finding a dead crow is good luck. Good luck for whom, she thinks wryly. Certainly not the crow, or his companions who are gathered around their fallen brother. Except for in old black-and-white movies she has never seen so many gathered together in one place, hadn’t even realized that there were flocks this size in the area. Some hop about on the ground near the lifeless pile of ebony feathers. Others blacken the branches of the fir tree above, their raucous ‘caws’ filling the air as if they can will the dead bird to take wing. Julie approaches slowly. No elbow wing of feather lifts in threatened flight as she stands before them. Despite her aversion, something about the scene, the connection between these animals, their concern for their comrade, brings the pressure of tears to her eyes. She blinks them back, and slowly slides the strap from her shoulder. Picking up the camera she removes the leather cover with a gentle, soundless touch and lifts it, closing one eye to focus on the gathering of mourners. At the first shutter click, a few birds lift in flight. Julie’s finger continues pressing, click… click… click. The cries become more urgent, and a flurry of wings lift in unison. She continues to shoot as they rise up, capturing images of the black wave swimming into the blue sky.
As she lowers the camera, her refocusing eyes catch a movement in the shadows beyond the abandoned tree. At first her brain refuses to make sense of the hulking dark form. A wavering black stump? A large dog? Without thinking she raises the camera and zooms in on the apparition. The automatic focus turns the blur into the form of a black bear. Julie’s shaking finger involuntarily presses down. Click. The huge head lifts, then in one smooth movement the animal stands upright on its hind legs. Towering over the underbrush, its menacing clawed paws held up in front of its eerily human form, the bear sniffs the air.
Her heart pounding in her ears Julie takes a tentative step backwards. The animal turns toward the sound. Everything she has read scrambles in her head as she freezes in its stare. Is she supposed to meet his gaze, or avoid it? Unable to look away, she tries frantically to recall the instructions for a bear encounter. Back away slowly; wave your arms to identify yourself as human. Speak calmly.
She cannot find her voice. She lifts her suddenly heavy arms and takes a tentative step back, panic rising in her throat.
Bears want to avoid you as much as you want to avoid them. If a bear gets too close… The bear spray! The camera drops to the ground as she grabs blindly at her belt. Still standing upright the bear swings his head from side to side, and lets out a loud grunt. Julie’s fumbling fingers find the leather case, snap it open and free the can of bear spray. With trembling hands she raises it up, pointing it like a gun in front of her. The bear drops to all fours.
Activate spray if the animal comes to within fifteen feet.
She can’t possibly wait until he is within fifteen feet. She turns and bolts into the bush on the other side of the road. Dodging between the trees, branches snapping around her, she crashes through the undergrowth, stumbling as her foot slips on a moss-covered boulder. Unable to keep her balance she pitches forward, arms flailing. She hits the ground with such force that the wind is knocked out of her and the spray can flies from her grasp. Her crash landing is punctuated by what sounds like the blast of a horn. Deafened by a ringing in her ears she thrusts herself up on all fours, frantically trying to scramble away. Rose bush thorns and brambles claw at her clothes, holding her back and she steals a frantic glance over her shoulder. A few yards behind, in the flickering shadows, a dark blur is closing in on her.
She slumps to the ground. Throwing her arms over the back of her head, she forces her body to remain still. If all else fails play dead.
The commotion behind her abruptly ends. After a silence that seems to last forever, she lifts an arm to peek back, and finds, standing behind her, their tenant Virgil Blue.
She rolls over onto her back, her heart still racing, and pushes herself up on her elbows. “The... bear?”
Virgil holds up a red-and-white can. An air horn. The kind she has seen at hockey games. An involuntary nervous laugh rises and she slumps back to the ground. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she studies her rescuer. Instead of a cowboy hat, a sweat-stained black cotton skullcap—the sort bikers wear under their helmets—covers his head. The slanted sunlight exposes his face and the calm concern there.
After a moment Julie sits up. Tugging away barbed twigs and branches from her clothes, she looks back up at him and says, “I’m fine, thank you.” Only after the words are out does it occur to her that he hasn’t asked. But the question is clear in his dark eyes, and in the arm he is holding out, offering her a hand up. The hand she had refused to accept last month. Swallowing her pride, and her shame, she grabs his forearm and lets him pull her to her feet, stumbling against him as she rises. His plaid flannel shirt smells of freshly cut wood, and horsehide. The warmth of his skin against hers, the shock of touching another person—when was the last time she had actually touched anyone?—leaves her unsettled, confused, and she steps back quickly.
She hurries to stay close behind him on the way back to the road, glancing around at every step for any sign of the bear. There is none, just the two massive Clydesdales standing on the road, their hides twitching beneath leather harnesses while they wait patiently for their driver.
“You were working,” Julie says kneeling down to retrieve her camera.
Without responding to her, Virgil lets out a long whistle. Seconds later, his dog, which Julie has only seen from a distance, comes streaking through the underbrush where the bear had stood. Close up, the grey-and-bla
ck dog is much larger than Julie had thought. If she had encountered him alone she might easily have mistaken him for a wolf. As it is, she’s relieved that Virgil is between them as the dog approaches. But then, belying his menacing appearance, he lopes over with his tongue lolling out and sits panting at his master’s side, happily accepting the rewarding scratches to the back of his ears.
As Julie stumbles to find the right words to thank him, Virgil nods curtly and turns away. Stunned at his rebuke she stands watching him walk back to his team of horses. Well, okay, I guess I deserved that. Returning her camera to its case she notices with a twinge of disappointment that the lens has shattered.
After stroking the horses’ necks and withers, Virgil reclaims the reins from where they lay on the ground behind the animals massive haunches. Their tails switching flies away, the Clydesdales swing their heads around to watch him.
“Wait, I, uh, I,” Julie hesitates then rushes forward. “Please. I need to talk with you.” Virgil holds up a hand to still her. As he does so she notices the odd angles of his left thumb and forefinger, and for a moment wonders how such a deformed hand could be responsible for such beautiful music.
While she watches from the side of the road, with the lightest of touch on the leather straps, Virgil signals the horses to alertness. Using only the language of a clicking tongue and pursing lips he manoeuvres them around on the narrow road. Julie hops out of the way until the team is facing the other direction.
Frustrated, she hurries to keep up as they head home. This man and his dog have just saved her life. She at least owes him a better attempt at making peace with him. “Mr Blue,” she says, when she reaches his side, “I’d like to apologize for my behaviour the other day.”
With no visible prompt, the horses stop in their tracks and stand motionless, each with one hind leg resting. Virgil turns to face Julie. Taking both reins in one hand he touches his lips with the other, a mime’s gesture, then tugging at the red bandanna on his neck he pulls it down to expose the laryngeal scar in the V hollow of his breast bone. It’s the same scar her father wore after his throat cancer surgery.
