The big bear stood on his back legs, sniffed, and seemed to stare towards the boys.
Travis’s heart stopped. He’s twice as tall as I am!
But the bear must not have seen them. He half-flicked a paw at a bag and, again, the garbage flew. He buried his head in the trash, grunting and pushing with his nose.
The three spectators backed away through the low cedar.
“Great footage!” Nish kept saying. “Great footage!”
But Travis wasn’t thinking about movies. They still had one more stop to make on this journey.
13
Travis had known there was a house out here in the deep bush – several times his family had driven this far out River Road to picnic at a nearby widening of the river that everyone in town called “The Lake” – but he had always believed the old place to be abandoned. The entrance was badly overgrown and the old black wood-frame building was barely visible from the gravel road.
There was, however, a mailbox. “B. D. Fo tai e,” it read. Both the n‘s were missing, but Travis had no trouble recognizing the name. Where, he wondered, did they get “Zeke” from?
There was also a sign, worn and fading:”BEWARE OF DOG.”
“You’re on your own, pal,” Nish said as he brought his bike to a gravel-spewing stop. “No way I’m goin’ in there.”
“I went to see the bears with you,” Travis answered. “You can come here with me.”
Reluctantly, Nish dismounted. “Personally,” he muttered, “I’d rather take my chances with the bears.”
They pushed their bikes up the long, overgrown laneway, the grass in the middle so high it was a wonder anyone could drive through. Travis listened for the first bark of the dog, but there was no sound.
He looked around for a car, or a half-ton truck, but could find none. Perhaps he was out. More likely, however, he had no car and Muck was picking him up and dropping him off. That would be just like Muck.
There were orange irises growing on one side of the laneway, but they had never been tended to – or at least not for years. They weren’t at all like the irises in Travis’s grandmother’s garden, and yet in their own way they were spectacular, almost as if their survival here gave them a doubled beauty. A few of the irises had recently been cut, the stems sliced off as neatly as if a razor blade had swept through them.
All around were rusted metal bars, old bedsprings, tires, car engines, a fishing boat with the bottom rotted clean through and, surprisingly, an old homemade lacrosse net made out of galvanized steel plumbing pipes and covered with burlap instead of netting. The burlap was rotting off. The net hadn’t been used for years.
Travis edged his way up to the rickety porch that hung off the main building. It looked like it was held in place by old Scotch tape rather than nails. The boards were soft and gave. He wondered if he might fall through.
“I’m outta here!” hissed Nish.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Travis whispered quickly.
Nish was sweating as heavily as if he were in full goal-tender’s equipment and playing the third period of a lacrosse game. His face was beet-red and twisted in a grimace. Travis would have expected nothing less.
Travis arrived at the door. It was open a crack. There were flies – bluebottles, mosquitoes, horseflies, deerflies – all around the opening, but it was impossible to tell whether they were trying to get in or out. From what little Travis could make out in the dark, he wouldn’t blame them for trying to escape. The floor was filthy and littered with junk. It was dark and it smelled of greasy cooking and kerosene and something else, something familiar.
Travis took one look back at his sweating pal and realized what the odour was: stale human sweat, worse than a lacrosse dressing room.
His heart pounding, Travis swallowed, took one deep breath, and knocked.
The boys waited. No movement. No barking. Nothing.
Travis knocked again, this time rapping his knuckles a little harder on the old door, which swung open slightly. He jumped back, afraid he’d be accused of just walking in.
But there was nothing.
“Thank God,” breathed Nish. “He’s not home.”
Travis stepped back. “I guess not,” he said. He didn’t know if he was disappointed or not. He didn’t like the idea of having to come out here again.
“But he specifically said this afternoon,” Travis said.
“I guess he forgot,” Nish said, seeming greatly relieved. “Let’s go.”
“Let’s just check around back first,” Travis suggested.
He caught Nish’s look. It was as if he’d suggested they both do a little extra math homework or stay after school to help. A look of absolute, disbelieving disgust. But Travis knew Nish would be too afraid – both of Mr. Fontaine and the bears – to strike out on his own for home. He would have to wait for Travis, no matter what.
“Hurry it up, then,” Nish hissed. “I haven’t got all day. I’m a busy man.”
Travis led the way around the side, shaking his head. What on earth could Nish mean, “I’m a busy man”? Was his cellphone ringing? Did he have to take a private jet to Hollywood? This movie stuff had gone to his head – and all they had was a little footage of three bears fighting over a garbage bag.
“It won’t take long,” Travis said in a whisper over his shoulder. He was still listening for the dog, once again wishing that instead of the lacrosse ball he had thought to stash a rock in his pocket, just in case. But still there was nothing. Not a sound anywhere but for the buzzing flies.
They turned around the side of the building, following a well-worn track. There were sheds out here, machine sheds and hay sheds and what must once have been animal sheds. He could still, faintly, smell the distinct odour of chicken and horse manure. But it seemed old. Very old. Decades old, for all Travis knew.
He checked each shed, but found no one. He dipped his head into what was obviously the tool shed and noticed a lamp burning – a coal-oil lamp, its wick flickering in the slight breeze that slipped in through the door. Travis knew that Mr. Fontaine must be around, or must have been around not long ago.
He turned to tell Nish that the shed was empty, that they could go home now. But Nish, moments ago as red as the bell on his mountain bike, was now as white as a sheet. His mouth seemed frozen open. He was pointing off into the bushes.
There, in the distance, someone was kneeling beneath a tall hemlock. Travis could tell from the man’s back, the long grey-white hair, the thick eyeglasses, the old grey shirt, that it was Zeke Fontaine. He seemed to be picking at something on the ground. He was flicking off pebbles and small branches, carefully arranging something on the earth. Something orange.
Irises!
Travis quickly looked at Nish again. His friend was still white, but his mouth had become unfrozen, and he was carefully mouthing something to him.
A grave!
Zeke Fontaine was arranging flowers over a grave. The ground had been cleared under the hemlock and carefully swept. A rough rectangle of earth rose slightly above the surrounding ground, the space not quite as large as a plot at the local cemetery. But big enough for a boy.
Liam Fontaine’s grave?
Travis shuddered. Was this the secret burial place of little Liam Fontaine? Was this what the father had done with the body after he had murdered his own son?
Travis and Nish exchanged a look of terror. It was time to get out of there. Travis turned quickly, and stepped onto a dry, dead twig.
SNAP!
“We’re dead meat!” Nish hissed.
Travis felt what little blood there was left in his face drain to his feet. He nearly went down with it, instantly dizzy, in full panic.
“Hey!” a voice called out. “Just stay right where you are!”
14
The yell from under the high hemlock froze both boys in their path. Neither dared move. Travis could almost hear the rifle go off, feel the bullet finally quiet his heart, smell the earth as it was shovelled i
n on him as he and Nish joined Liam in the shallow grave, feel the weight of the irises crushing down on his shattered, bleeding chest.
“Hey!” the voice called again. “That you, Travis?”
Zeke Fontaine was up and walking towards them, moving surprisingly quickly for an old man. He wasn’t going to shoot them, he would strangle them!
“Travis?” the old man called.
“Y-y-yes,” Travis answered.
“I don’t see too well no more,” the old man said as he neared them. “But I could pick out your buddy at a hundred paces – goalie equipment or no goalie equipment.”
“H-hi M-Mister F-F-Fontaine,” stammered Nish.
“Glad you came,” Mr. Fontaine said, clipping both boys lightly on the shoulder. “I was just out fixing up the grave.”
Travis and Nish exchanged the quickest of glances, but Zeke Fontaine’s eyesight was not so poor that he didn’t catch them. “Dog died two weeks ago,” he explained. “He was seventeen years old. You know how old that is in our years, Nishikawa?”
“N-no sir.”
“One hundred and nineteen, that’s what. Seventeen years old and blind as a bat and even fewer teeth than me.”
Zeke Fontaine peeled back his lips so the boys could see his teeth. The three or four that still stood were dark from cavities, his gums red and sore-looking. Travis had to look away.
“Wh-what about the sign?” Nish asked.
“The sign? Oh, yes, ‘Beware of dog.’ I put that up to inspire him. Sparky wouldn’t have hurt a fly, which may explain why there are so many of the damn things around here.”
Sparky, thought Travis. Sparky, not Liam. An old dog, not a boy. An old dog with fresh-cut irises on his carefully tended grave.
How could he have been so wrong?
They stayed more than an hour at Zeke Fontaine’s. He went into the house and returned with chocolate bars and glasses – remarkably clean glasses – and as they ate their chocolate he took them over to the well. He lowered the bucket and drew up water so cold and fresh and delicious that Travis thought if they could ever bottle it and sell it they would make millions.
“Glad you came along,” Mr. Fontaine said to Nish. “I’ve been thinking about teaching you boys the ‘Muck Munro.’”
“The ‘Muck Munro’?” they said at once.
“He’s never told you about it?
“Both boys shook their heads.
“He’d perfected it just before the championship, you know. Never got a chance to show it.”
Travis nodded, afraid to say anything. What, after all, could he say? Oh yes, never got to play in the championship because you murdered your son and it was all called off.
“Muck and my boy …,” Mr. Fontaine began.
Travis and Nish both flinched. They hadn’t expected the old man to mention Liam.
“Muck and my boy worked on this play until they could do it in their sleep. You want me to show it to you?”
“Yeah!” Nish said enthusiastically.
“You got your sticks here?” the old man asked.
“They’re on our bikes,” said Travis.
“Well, go get ’em. I’ll get mine.”
Travis and Nish hurried back to where they had laid down their bikes.
“He’s not such a bad old guy,” Nish offered.
“No,” said Travis, a bit ashamed of the surprise in his voice.
Mr. Fontaine was walking back from the house with his old Logan stick in his hand. Travis was getting used to the sight of the wooden stick now, and in fact had decided it was beautiful compared to his own with its plastic head.
“You remember that bounce play I taught you?” Zeke Fontaine said to Travis.
“Sure,” Travis said. “Use it all the time.”
“Well, Muck Munro had that one mastered, too. My God, but he was a fine young player – one of the two best I ever saw.”
Travis bit his tongue, hoping that Nish wouldn’t dare ask who the other great prospect was. They both knew the answer: Liam Fontaine.
“Muck would use the bounce play a few times a game. Then I taught him this little trick we used to call the ‘Muck Munro.’ ”
Mr. Fontaine was already wrestling the old net out of the mess of rusting metal scrap in the yard. He placed it in front of the tool shed, where the ground was trampled smooth and hard, nearly as hard as a concrete floor.
“You’re our goaltender,” Mr. Fontaine said to Nish. “So get in here.
“Now, Travis,” he continued, “you’re last man back and I’m coming in. Give me that ball.”
Travis threw the ball, and the old man plucked it out of the air like a cat playing with a floating milkweed seed. It made absolutely no sound, but when the stick ceased to spin, there was the ball, nestled in the pocket as neatly as if it had been placed there by hand. It was something Travis never tired of seeing.
The old man felt the heft of the ball, threw a few fakes, and ran out in a short loop before coming in on Travis. He feinted once, then forced Travis’s feet apart with the shoulder fake and bounced the ball clean between Travis’s legs, floating effortlessly around him to catch it coming up, fake a backhand, and then slip a slow underhand behind the sprawling Nish.
“Nice goal!” Nish shouted.
“But I wouldn’t be able to do it all the time,” the old man said, twirling the ball out of the net and back into his old Logan. He came up and stood side by side with Travis, acting as if both were defenders on the same play. “You’d learn to expect it. You’d fall for it once or twice, maybe three times, and next time you’d keep your feet together and block the bounce, wouldn’t you?”
“I guess I would,” said Travis.
“Sure you would,” said Mr. Fontaine. “So you need to come up with a new trick. Keep your feet together this time and I’ll show you the ‘Muck Munro,’ okay?”
Again the old man set out in his easy loop. He turned, smiled once, and then came in on Travis.
Travis saw the shoulder fake, but refused to move his feet, watching for the bounce pass so he could block it.
But there was nothing, only a gentle whisper high over Travis’s head. As he looked up he caught sight of the old man, still smiling, nothing whatsoever in his hands, peeling by him on the outside.
Travis was so surprised, he lost his balance. He slipped on the hard earth and fell backwards, jarring his tailbone as he hit the ground. Behind him he could see, upside down, the old man reach up and catch his floating stick. He faked once, twice, then worked a gentle sidearm past Nish on the short side.
Nish was laughing so hard he couldn’t even try for it. He fell in a heap on the earth, howling and holding his sides.
Travis, too, began to laugh.
“Wh-what happened?” he asked.
“Nothing,” the old man said. “Just the ‘Muck Munro,’ that’s all.”
The old man had the ball back in his stick. He was smiling. “This time just watch,” he said.
Both boys took up their positions. The old man did his lazy loop again, and as he turned, Travis noticed how he took one hand off his stick and wedged the ball down hard into the pocket.
He came in, tried the shoulder fake, and then threw the stick high over Travis’s head so that it stayed upright, seeming to float through the air as he moved around Travis, reached up and grabbed the handle again.
The old man shook the stick hard, once, and the jammed ball popped free, ready for the fake and an easy goal.
Never had they imagined anything so magical, never had they seen anything quite so lovely as the upright stick, spinning through the air like a long, skinny top that didn’t even need a surface over which to dance.
Zeke Fontaine threw Travis the ball. “Your turn,” he commanded.
The old man took up Travis’s place on defence, Nish resumed his spot in the net, and Travis set out on his own lazy loop before turning.
Travis tried, discreetly, to jam the ball into the bottom of his pocket. But it wouldn’t stick
. He came in on the old man, faked, and then, when Mr. Fontaine went to block the bounce play, he tossed the stick high. The ball spun out the moment he let go of the stick.
Nish caught the lost ball.
The old man turned, his face puzzled.
“Let me see that,” the old man said, as Travis picked up his stick.
Travis was confused. “See what?”
“Your stick,” Mr. Fontaine said. “Let me have a look at it.”
Travis handed it over and the old man examined it carefully. He jammed the ball down into the pocket, then tossed the stick high with a spin. But the ball flew free. Travis felt a little better; at least it hadn’t been just him.
The old man took his own stick in one hand and Travis’s in the other and glanced back and forth between the two. Finally he dropped Travis’s Brine.
“Damn modern sticks,” the old man said. “Sorry, boys, didn’t mean to swear, but look at this.”
The two boys drew closer. Mr. Fontaine jammed the ball into his own stick. It pushed aside the catgut at the bottom and wedged tight to the wood. He spun the stick and the ball stayed locked in the pocket. Then he picked up Travis’s stick and tried the same thing. Since the head was entirely hard plastic there was no flexibility. He couldn’t wedge the ball into place.
“You got to have the catgut,” the old man said, as if confirming something he already knew. “You can’t do it with these plastic jobbies. You got to have the real thing – a Logan.”
He turned back to Travis. “Would you play with a Logan if you had one?”
Travis swallowed hard. “Yes, sir,” he said, “I would.”
For a moment Travis thought he was about to be given Mr. Fontaine’s own stick, but Mr. Fontaine clearly had something else in mind. “There’s a Logan in the house that’s practically brand new,” the old man said. “Used one summer only.” He paused, to correct himself. “Used part of one summer.”
Travis felt a tremor in his back. Used part of one summer? A Logan, practically new?
“Come in here a minute,” Mr. Fontaine said. He turned and headed towards the house, obviously expecting the boys to follow. Travis looked at Nish. Nish looked at Travis. Then both turned and followed him into the house, as they had been asked.
The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 4 Page 14
