“HEY! CHRISTOPHER!” I yell. “CHRISTOPHER!!!”
Nothing.
“Let’s go to the end of the portage.” I say. “Maybe he’s waiting for us.”
“What about the canoe?”
“We can come back for it. Let’s find Leech first,” I say.
We turn onto the path. We stay on the path. It climbs up a hill. So do we. We both keep shouting for Christopher. I am starting to get less hungry, possibly because I am starting to get seriously tired. I’m too tired to be hungry. It doesn’t take long to get to the lake at the end of the portage. After only a few minutes, the trail swoops around a clump of pine trees and down a sloping rocky shelf to the edge of the lake.
Success? Not quite. Lots of sun, lots of rock, lots of lake, and a total lack of Christopher Leech. No packs, no note, nothing to indicate that he’s ever been here. Which means either that we’re in the wrong place, or that he never made it to the end of the portage.
What’ll we do now? It might make sense to go back to the other end of the portage. Christopher would have gone back along the trail to look for us.
I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to move. “How about we stay here?” I say. “And wait for Leech.”
“I don’t know,” says Victor. “What if this is the wrong place to be?”
“We followed the portage trail, didn’t we? Blazes, and all that. This is the right place. Leech’ll be along soon.”
“I’m worried,” Victor says. “What if he doesn’t come? What if no one comes?”
I’m not worried. I’m too tired. I lean against a piece of rock. Nice soft rock. Makes a good pillow. I settle myself on my back, and yawn wide enough to swallow a football.
“Then we’ll die,” I say.
He makes that noise with his tongue against his teeth. Tsk tsk.
I close my eyes. “Night, Victor.”
I don’t sleep for long because of the high-pitched whistling noise. It comes and goes, and comes again. A hissing noise. It’s coming from near me.
“Norbert, are you snoring?” I ask.
No answer. The noise goes on. I turn myself over. The sound stops, then starts again.
“Alan. Alan!”
Victor’s worried about something. I’m too tired to wonder what.
“Don’t turn your head, Alan! Don’t move a muscle!” he says. “There’s a snake right beside you.”
I relax. I don’t bother to open my eyes. I like snakes. I really cannot understand why so many people are afraid of them. Yes, they’re long and thin. So what, so’s string. So’s spaghetti. So’s my friend Henry, in school. I’ve never heard of anyone being petrified of spaghetti. There’s the whistling sound again. Right near my ear. Hiss. Soothing sound.
“It’s big,” says Victor. “And it has these…patterns on it.”
“Uh-huh,” I say. “Don’t worry. I’m tired.”
The sun is hot. I lie flat out on the rock. I feel the energy flow out of me, like butter melting in the bottom of a pan.
“The snake seems…angry.”
That’ll be the hissing. Sounds like air leaking out of a soccer ball. “You’re probably making too much noise, Victor. Shhh.”
“What if it’s poisonous?”
“It isn’t. This is Ontario, not Africa.”
He keeps talking. “They told us about it at my camp,” he goes on. “If you get bit by a venomous snake and you don’t have a snakebite kit, you’re supposed to sterilize a knife blade in a flame, and then cut two crosses over the snake’s teeth marks and suck out the poison. Sounds gross, doesn’t it! The farther away the bite is from your heart, the longer you have to live. If you were bit on the toe, for instance, you’d have hours and hours. What are you smiling at?”
“Nothing.” I’m thinking of him cutting crosses in me with a safety pin.
– Hey, Dingwall, what’s wrong with your heating system? I’m too tired to talk to Norbert.
– It’s getting hot in here, Where’s the air-conditioning?
I’d tell him to shut up, but it wouldn’t do any good. Telling Norbert not to talk is like telling the sun not to rise, or the peanut butter not to stick to the roof of your mouth.
– And what’s with the shiver beside you? Sounds like a leaky hose. Last time I saw that pattern, it was on a pair of cowboy boots. Someone at one of k.d. lang’s parties. He sang a song, I really liked it, I sang it in the shower for a while. Let’s see if I can still remember it. Ahem, Ahem…
“Alan, what are you doing? Why are you squeaking? The snake might get upset.”
Not as upset as I am. “Shut up, Norbert!” I say, but I’m so tired the words lose their shape as they dribble out of my mouth.
I’m a lonesome cowpoke, breathing campfire smoke,
Nothing to live on but whiskey and beans.
My stomach ain’t healthy, my daddy ain’t wealthy,
And I’ve got a hole in my new blue jeans.
I’m feeling so strange, not at home on the range.
Owoooooo! Owoooooo! Owoooooo!
It’s ludicrous. I just want them to leave me alone. Does Norbert think he sounds like a coyote? He doesn’t. More like a bagpipe, or like the music you hear from the guy sitting cross-legged in front of a basket, blowing into the –
“Hey!” whispers Victor. “Hey, Alan!”
That must be it. Norbert probably thinks he’s being a snake charmer. I turn over and try to shut out the noise.
Yep, my cows lost their horns, and my spurs are all rusted,
Toes covered in corns, and my saddle is busted.
My ten-gallon hat wouldn’t hold half of that,
And underneath it – I’m bald!
My Colt 44 won’t fire anymore
And my dogies don’t come when they’re called!
My pinto has mange, and I’m feeling so strange
’Cause I’m out – not at home – on the range!
Owoooooo!
Feeling downright strange, not at home on the range.
Owoooooo! Owoooooo! Owoooooo!
The sound seems to go through my ears and right into my brain. I can feel the Owoooooo! vibrating inside my head. Really eerie. Reminds me of the alarm clock my mother got me a couple of birthdays ago. I hardly ever use it.
– Owoooooo! Owoooooo!
“Come on, Alan! Get up!” Someone is grabbing me by the shoulders. I try to open my eyes. My eyelids feel as if there are weights on them, pulling them down.
“Yes, Mom,” I mutter.
“Alan! It’s me, Victor! Stop singing and get up!”
– Owoooooo!
I get slowly to my feet. My head is ringing. It’s hard to concentrate. I look down and – there’s a snake all right. A big one. It’s all coiled up with its head raised, ready to strike. What kind is it? Not a garter snake, with that oblong pattern on its back. The head sways back and forth as Norbert is singing.
Yes, I need me a change, I’m completely deranged,
;Nowhere near home on the range!
Owoooooooooooooo!!
Norbert stops singing. The snake falls to the ground in a messy tangle. After a moment it unravels itself and pours away.
Victor stares after it. “That was pretty weird,” he says.
I can’t help but notice the rattle on the end of the snake’s tail. The bite from a full-grown diamondback rattlesnake can kill you. This snake – as long as I am tall – was coiled beside me. I feel faint.
“What’s the matter, Alan?”
“Huh? Nothing. Nothing at all.”
The snake disappears into a hole in the rocks.
I clap Victor on the back. “Thanks, Vic,” I say. “Thanks a lot.”
– Ahem. Ahem.
“Oh, yes. Thank you too, Norbert.”
A chipmunk runs across the rock near my feet. A brown streak, on his way to his burrow under a dead tree. I stare, not the way I do at home, but with the added interest that comes from hunger. If worst comes to worst, we might have to eat chipmunks. I try to picture
the little guy turning on a spit over a low fire. It’s easy.
Of course, in order to eat the chipmunk, we’re going to have to catch it. That’ll be harder.
“What are we going to do about lunch?” I ask Victor.
“When I was at my summer camp, we learned how to live off the land. They taught us to make a soup out of birch-bark.”
“I thought you made canoes out of birch-bark,” I say.
– On Jupiter, I had a pet birch tree, says Norbert.
“What?”
– When it was hungry, it used to bark.
Victor is hunting through his pockets. “First we have to start a fire.”
“With what?” I ask.
“With matches.”
Of course he doesn’t have any matches in his pockets. What he’s got – all he’s got – is –
“No way to start a fire with a safety pin, I guess?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Maybe we won’t be able to make birch-bark soup. You need fire to make fried moss too.”
“You ate fried moss?”
“Uh-huh. It’s full of vitamins.”
“Good for it.” I resolve never – never – to go to summer camp.
“We’d better forget about feeding ourselves, and look for Mr. Leech.”
I don’t want to walk anymore. “Maybe one of us should stay here, and –”
“No.” Victor is firm on that point. “We stay together.”
“But I’m so tired.”
“He has the food pack with him.”
Good point.
For the next hour we walk up and down the portage trail, calling Christopher’s name until we’re hoarse. About halfway along, the trail splits in two. “This must be the switchback Mr. Leech was talking about,” says Victor. “We missed it, coming the other way. We went down the wrong path when we were carrying the canoe.”
On the far side of the switchback, the underbrush is beaten down. There’s a blaze on a nearby tree. “This is where we came out,” I say. “Somewhere back there is the canoe.”
“Look here!” Victor goes down on his knees to examine a bright yellow scrap of paper, lying near the trail. “It’s a health bar wrapper on top of one of our muddy footprints.”
Health bar. The very mention of it brings water to my mouth. Oatmeal and nuts and raisins, maybe bits of chocolate or marshmallow.
“A wrapper,” I say. “Is there any health bar inside it?”
“On top of our footprints,” he repeats. “It fell after we were here.”
“Let me see,” I say. “Are you sure there isn’t any health bar inside?”
“Someone was here not too long ago.”
I check the wrapper. Check the ground. “Those aren’t our footprints,” I say. “They’re way too big.” I put my foot inside one of the prints.
“Must be Mr. Leech’s then,” says Victor. “There are health bars in our emergency pack.”
“I don’t know.” I mean, the footprints are huge. Bigfoot, maybe. Or someone in snowshoes.
“Whoever he is, he may have more health bars,” says Victor.
“Let’s look around,” I say.
“We have to be careful not to lose our way back to the portage trail,” says Victor.
I’m not worried about getting lost. We left quite a track, last time we came through. A highway of broken branches. We search carefully, but don’t find anything except trees.
What is going on? Where’s Bigfoot? Where’s Christopher? Where’s the canoe? Hard to hide a canoe.
Victor circles wider and wider. No canoe. No Christopher. I call. No answer.
And then, under a bush off to the left, I spot it. Not the canoe – another yellow wrapper. With a health bar inside it. I pounce on it with a cry of triumph. I hold it aloft. I rip it open.
“Hey!” says Victor.
I divide the bar in two. He complains that my half is bigger than his half. How can that be? Halves are equal. My bite – and that’s all it is – tastes more wonderful than anything I have ever eaten in my life. I lick the inside of the wrapper. That tastes pretty good too.
Victor moves further to the left. He’s on his knees, reaching for something. “What’s that?” I cry. “Hey, share it!”
He’s found another health bar. “I’ll divide this one,” he says. You won’t believe this. His half is way bigger than mine. I complain. “Fair’s fair,” he says.
My bite of health bar is gone. I look around for more. “Careful!” calls Victor, with a full mouth. I peer around. Wait a bit. What is that yellow flash, away ahead in the bushes? I push forward. “Hey, Alan. Watch where you’re going. I can’t see you!”
Is it? Is it? Is it?
Yes, it is. Another health bar, peeking shyly from underneath a bush. The bars must have dropped out of the emergency pack as Christopher went this way. I grab it and pull the wrapper open with my teeth.
“Alan! Alan? Alan, where are you?”
I have the wrapper off the health food bar. I lick my lips.
– Yoo-hoo! We’re over here! calls Norbert.
“Hey!” I whisper. “Shhh.”
– We’ve found another health bar! Would you like some? “Shut up, Norbert!”
– I thought we were sharing them. On Jupiter, we always share.
Victor comes crashing through the bush. “Give me some!” he cries. He chews with wild eyes – well, he doesn’t of course; he chews with his teeth, but his eyes are wild. He stares all around, and then bounds away into the bush. “Ha-ha! Another health bar – no, no, two bars!”
“I get one!” I say, bounding after him.
A whole bar to myself. I savor the entire experience. I feel life flowing through my veins. What an invention the bar is. How can I properly express my feelings towards it? I decide that if I ever become a rock star, I will change my name from Alan to Health Bar. Health Bar Dingwall. It has a ring to it.
– You know, this reminds me of a story I read once, says Norbert. Two children lost in a wood, following a trail of food. What was it called now? Heckle and Jeckle?
“Quiet, Norbert,” I say.
– No, not Heckle and Jeckle. Davy and Goliath? No. Hatchet?
“Quiet, Alan,” says Victor.
We forge ahead through the bush, Victor and I, shoulder to shoulder, eyes searching the ground for any more telltale yellow wrappers.
He sniffs the air. “Smoke,” he says. I smell it too. I shout for Christopher. No answer.
The next two wrappers we find don’t have any health bars inside them. So disappointing. Anticipation turns to resentment. Sometimes hope is harder than no hope.
Whoever opened the health bars was even hungrier than we are. The wrappers are in shreds. The ground is getting hilly. Rock underneath a layer of dead leaves and dirt. The slope is up to the left, or down to the right. We go right. Easier to walk downhill.
Victor’s ahead of me. He throws up his hand dramatically. I stop. “Listen!” he whispers. I hear a rustling.
“Could be dangerous.”
“Could be Leech,” I say.
Victor puts his finger to his lips. Then he points ahead, and makes a walking gesture with his fingers. Then he gets down on his hands and knees. Who does he think he is, a commando?
I give him the thumbs-up gesture. “Roger that,” I whisper, as loud as I can. “Delta Winnebago Enchilada out!”
“Shhh.”
We creep forward. Victor stops behind a thick bush, and parts some of the lower branches to peer through it. This GI Joe side of him is unexpected. I peer around the bush.
In a small clearing sits a baby black bear. Cute little thing, with that earnest expression you see on young children who are concentrating really hard. Think of a kindergarten kid tying her shoes. In this case, the bear is opening a health bar.
Mystery solved. Well, one mystery. I know who – apart from us – is eating them. I still don’t know who’s leaving them behind, or why. I stand up, start across the clearing.
V
ictor pulls me back. “Stay away!” he whispers. “That bear’s dangerous!”
What’s he getting at? The thing is the size of a hamster. All right, not quite that small. What I’m getting at is that it is not a fearsome spectacle. It comes towards us, holding the health bar in its mouth. I go down on one knee and hold out my hand, the way you do to a kitten. “Hey, there, little guy,” I say.
“Alan! Stop!”
“What?”
“Do you have a death wish? Get away from that cub!”
“Why?” The bear is rubbing its head against my hand. I like it. I’ve never had a pet, except for a turtle when I was small. It crawled under the sofa and died.
“Don’t you know anything, Alan? Bear cubs are always near their moms,” he says. “Moms who hate people messing with their cubs. Moms who weigh as much as a car, who have claws as long and as sharp as steak knives.”
“Steak knives?” For some reason I see those commercials on TV, where the poor woman is trying to cut a tin can with her steak knife, and getting nowhere. Then the new steak knife from Japan comes along.
I can’t take him seriously. Bears are not a cause for fear and alarm. Bears talk, and eat honey and picnic baskets. Winnie the Pooh, Smokey, Yogi – these are not scary pictures.
“Hey, there,” I say. “What’s your name?”
It yawns. The health bar is a gooey mess, lying on the ground. I peel away the shredded wrapper, and give the end of the health bar to the bear cub. It eats eagerly.
“Careful, Alan!” calls Victor.
– His name is Carlo, says Norbert.
“How do you know?”
– I just do.
“Well…hi, Carlo,” I say. The bear licks its mouth and peers around the clearing.
“He’s looking for his mother,” says Victor anxiously.
“No, he isn’t. He’s looking for another health bar. Where is it, Carlo? Where’s the bar? Can you find one? Come on, boy!”
The bear pads across the clearing and stops. I stop too. He moves forward, slowly, and scrabbles under a bush. I hold the bottom branch out of the way, and – there’s a treasure trove. Two bars. I take them.
The bear looks up at me and whines. “Okay, Carlo,” I say. “You found them.” I open one bar and give half to the bear. He eats it in one gulp. I eat my half in one gulp too.
Noses Are Red Page 4
