The Back of the Turtle

by Thomas King

  “What are you doing?”

  “Retrieving a lost soul.” Crisp jammed the shovel under the box. “Grab the neck and give a wiggle, for we’ll not johnny-bolt this clam from its hole but will needs coax it with rough harmony and leverage.”

  “You want me to pull on it?”

  “She’s a grip, she is,” said Crisp, “and not about to smile on us any time soon.”

  “Okay.”

  “And ye must sing as ye pulls, for no good can come from silence and brute strength.”

  Crisp repositioned the shovel, began the song anew, and Gabriel followed as best he could.

  “Again,” cried Crisp. “Put your back into the chorus.”

  It took another twenty minutes to work the trunk free.

  “Aye,” said Crisp, “but ain’t she a beauty. Have ye ever seen such a box?”

  The trunk was made out of several kinds of wood, with slats at the seams for strength. The lid was hinged, and the hasp secured with a bent iron rod. All along one side was a series of marks and designs.

  “Kanji,” said Crisp. “Asian pictographs what tells a story, reveals the contents, or names the owner.”

  “It’s a trunk.”

  “Scratch the wood.” Crisp ran a fingernail along one of the slats. “Can ye smell the history it contains?”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Exactly,” said Crisp, “for rescue’s the easy matter, ain’t it. And in that rescue lies the burden, for now we be responsible for its well-being.”

  “I suppose we should look inside.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” said Gabriel. “Curiosity?”

  “Ah,” said Crisp, shaking the sand from his beard. “Curiosity indeed. It don’t just kill cats, ye know.”

  GABRIEL had expected that the Pacific would resemble a large lake. It didn’t. It didn’t look like a lake. It didn’t sound like a lake. It didn’t smell like a lake.

  “You have to see the sea lions.”

  They spent much of that day walking the beach, wandering the boardwalk, and talking.

  Floyd was from Roseville, a small railroad town at the eastern edge of California’s Central Valley. “You believe it,” he said. “I was born and raised a couple hundred miles from the coast and never got out here before Stanford.”

  “Where’d you do your undergraduate work?”

  “Utah,” said Floyd. “But I escaped.”

  Gabriel’s favourite moment was standing at the end of the pier and looking at the horizon. In all directions, as far as he could see and beyond that, there was nothing but water.

  “Stinks a bit,” said Floyd, “but it’s one hell of a view.”

  That evening, as they drove back to Stanford, the two impressions that stayed with Gabriel were that the ocean was vast, and that it was alive.

  “SPEAKING of curiosity and cats,” said Gabriel, as he stood by the edge of the hole, “have you seen Soldier?”

  Crisp turned away from the trunk. “The dog’s gone?”

  “He ran off last night.”

  Crisp’s voice dropped, and his face darkened. “Not like a messenger to desert his post. He must have had serious business what required his attendance.”

  “Soldier?”

  “Aye,” said Crisp. “Dogs are the messengers of the universe. Did ye not know that?”

  The last time Gabriel had seen the dog, Soldier had been lying on his back with his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

  “He’s a messenger?”

  “He is.” Crisp pointed his chin at the mountains. “On the morning of The Ruin, it were Master Dog what set the alarm, barking and howling for all the good it did. On that day, the Smoke ran green and sparkling down to the sea. On that day, everything died.”

  The clouds in the distance were moving towards shore. The fog would be back before dark.

  “He’ll come home,” said Crisp, “for his employment ain’t done.”

  Gabriel smiled. “Employment?”

  “Stories to tell, wrongs to right, worlds to save.” Crisp cocked his head. “Do ye know the story ‘The Woman Who Fell from the Sky’? I imagined ye might, what with the records ye be keeping on the deck.”

  “I should stop doing that.”

  “No, no,” cried Crisp, “for it’s well and proper to write what must be seen and to speak what must be heard.”

  “It’s a hobby.”

  “Tonight,” said Crisp, in softer tones, “ye must not miss the party. And if the stars are still in the sky, we’ll have Mara tell the story, for she’s a gentler hand with words than myself.”

  “At the hot springs?”

  “It’s my birthday, Master Gabriel. Will ye help me celebrate it?”

  “Sure.”

  Crisp picked the trunk up with one hand, as though it were of no weight whatsoever, and set it on his shoulder like a perched parrot. “Heed the hound,” he called out as he strode off through the beach grass. “He’s a wise soul. Don’t be letting his looks fool ye.”

  FLOYD took him to the airport.

  “You know what you’re going to decide?” Floyd had asked, as the two of them stood in line at the check-in counter.

  “I’ll probably take the offer.”

  “Did you notice,” said Floyd, as they walked to the security gates, “all the campus washrooms have three-ply toilet paper.”

  GABRIEL waited until Crisp disappeared into the dunes. Then he stepped into the hole and squatted down.

  Now he could see the ocean as the beach saw it.

  He wedged his shoulders against the walls and drew his legs up to his chest. Intriguing. Too deep for a bed. Too shallow for a grave. Still, the space was surprisingly comfortable.

  The tide was a slow roll, and the shoreline was edged in sea-foam, soft white meringues and frothy creams that made Gabriel think of pies and coffees. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and listened to the desolate sound of the surf as it spread out across the sand, searching the beach for friends and strangers alike.

  24

  WHEN SONNY GETS UP THE NEXT MORNING, THE DOG IS GONE. But what a wonderful time the two of them had.

  Wham-wham.

  When Sonny first saw the dog standing on the patio by the pool, he was concerned, for Dad has spoken of dogs on numerous occasions.

  Don’t throw food to dogs.

  Dogs vomit a lot.

  Dogs have mighty appetites.

  Sonny tries to remember if Dad has had anything good to say about dogs. He’s sure that if Dad met this dog, he would feel differently.

  First, this dog is a good listener. Sonny told him all about the motel and the town and the turtles and the tourists who don’t come to Samaritan Bay anymore, and the dog did not interrupt once.

  Second, this dog is a good swimmer. Sonny and the dog braved the cold water, jumped in the pool, and swam laps, and Sonny won five out of seven times. Sonny the winner!

  Wham-wham, hammer-hammer.

  Third, this dog knows stories that Sonny has never heard, strange stories about women who fall out of the sky, about creatures similar to dogs who can change their shape, about birds who steal fire, and hero twins who fight monsters.

  Some of these stories sound like the stories that Dad tells, but most of them don’t.

  After they got out of the pool and dried themselves, Sonny showed the dog the nails that were popping out of the siding on the motel and how fast he could hammer them flush with the wood.

  Wham-wham.

  Watch Sonny, he would tell the dog, and then Sonny would snatch the hammer from his tool belt, line the nail up, and sink it with one swing.

  Watch Sonny again.

  Sonny could tell that the dog was impressed with Sonny’s strong stroke.

  Snatch, line, swing. Snatch, line, swing. Until all the nails had been driven home.

  Wham-wham, hammer-hammer.

  And, when he ran out of nails, Sonny showed the dog how easy it was to hammer other things. Afterwards,
he lay on the lounge chair with the dog curled up at his feet. They watched the stars together, and, for the first time in a long time, Sonny did not feel lonely.

  BUT now it is morning and the dog is gone. Sonny is sad. He liked having a friend, and if the dog were still here, Sonny would suggest that they go to the beach. They could run up and down the shoreline, chasing each other, searching for salvage, doing the things that Sonny has seen good friends do on television.

  But when Sonny stands up and looks around, he sees the problems that can come from high times. Hasn’t Dad told him that virtue is more important than fun, and that only fools think simply of having a good time?

  More than once.

  Wham-wham.

  The EverFresh vending machine doesn’t look so good. The plastic face of the machine has been cracked in several places, and a number of the dispenser doors have been broken.

  Was Sonny too energetic with his hammering? Was he trying too hard to impress the dog? Is this what happens when Sonny runs out of nails to hit?

  How is he going to explain this to Dad? How could he have been so imprudent?

  “Hello, Sonny.”

  Sonny doesn’t think that this voice belongs to a tourist come to rent a room. He doesn’t think this voice belongs to the naked guy on the beach. He doesn’t think this voice belongs to the Indian woman in the yellow house.

  He knows this voice.

  “Business still adrift in the latitudes, I see.”

  Sonny spins around, snatches the hammer from the belt, and looks for a nail to hit.

  Wham!

  “Peace, lad, for I’ve not come to run ye aground,” says Crisp, and he hoists the trunk off his shoulder. “I’ve brought ye a gift, a bit of salvage what washed up and buried itself deep in the shore.”

  Sonny glances at the Lava Java machine. It has hammer marks on it as well.

  “It’s your beach, of course, and I’m only about a small service in bringing it to you along with an invitation.”

  Sonny holds his hammer at the ready and tries to look calm and fierce.

  “As ye know,” says Crisp, “tonight’s my birthday, and I’m to celebrate it with a small gathering of friends at the springs.” He pauses and waits. “I’m hoping that ye might slip your anchor and join us, for there’s nothing so fine in the known world as firm friends and warm water.”

  Sonny looks at Room Number One, and he hopes that Dad will hear the commotion and come out to see what’s wrong. Dad will know how to deal with this predicament. Dad will know what to say. Dad will know what to do.

  Dad will have extra nails.

  “All right, then. I must be off.” Crisp takes one step back into the shadows. “Think on the offer, lad, for I’d like us to be the friends we once were.”

  Sonny waits until he is sure that the predicament has left. That was close. That was very close. However the trunk is still here. The predicament didn’t take the trunk with him, and when Sonny looks at the chest closely, he recognizes it.

  This is the trunk he had found. The trunk with the martial-arts writing on it. The trunk that was stuck in the sand on his beach.

  This is his trunk.

  Sonny carries the trunk to the pool. He puts it on the table with the pop-up umbrella, carefully removes the bent rod from the weathered hasp, and takes a deep breath.

  Then he opens the lid.

  25

  MARA HAD GOTTEN UP BEFORE FIRST LIGHT AND SET THE water to boil. The sun was shining, but she knew this wouldn’t last. These were the days when the fog came and went as it pleased. She debated packing a lunch, in case she stayed on the reserve longer than expected. Not that she could afford an extended visit. She needed to get back and finish the portrait.

  Tomorrow she would start the underpainting for the others.

  MARA had always dreamed of going to Paris to study art. The Samaritan Bay library had had several books on the city, and she had devoured them. The galleries, the cafés, the parks, the monuments. Everywhere she had looked, history had looked back.

  One of the books had a fold-out map. She and Lilly had followed the streets past La Conciergerie, where the Revolutionary Tribunal had sent thousands to the guillotine during the French Revolution, and had traced out the borders of the Place de la Concorde, where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had been beheaded. There had been a picture of the Arc de Triomphe, the monument that Napoleon commissioned to commemorate French soldiers fresh from their victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, and another of the Seine as it flowed under Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in the city.

  Mara had been mesmerized by the images of the Crypte archéologique, the third-century Roman ruins that lay beneath Notre Dame, and she had promised Lilly that, when she got to Paris, she would send her a photograph of the Pont des Arts with the thousands of locks that desperate lovers had fastened on the wire fencing to celebrate their grand romance.

  “They leave locks on a fence?”

  Mara had opened the book to the page. “It’s about love.”

  Lilly had spent several minutes looking at the photograph.

  “So, what do you think?”

  “Dead bodies? Love locks?” Lilly had rolled her eyes. “If you ask me, Paris looks kinda creepy.”

  THE school bus was still parked in front of the entrance to the reserve. Mara didn’t know why someone hadn’t driven off with the vehicle. So far as she knew, it was operational. Surely the authorities hadn’t pulled the motor out and left a yellow shell to guard the entrance to the townsite.

  All of the tires were low. Two of them were completely flat, but anyone with a pump could fix that. Maybe the bus had just been forgotten.

  But having asked the question, Mara had to see for herself. She released the locks and raised the hood. Indeed, the motor was still there. So it could be driven. Now that would be a sight. The old bus with its panels covered with graffiti, proclamations, and warnings come floating down Station Street, looking for the world like a ghost ship out of a horror novel.

  The Bus.

  Mara pulled the doors open and stepped inside. It looked like the same bus that had taken her and Lilly to the school in town. The two of them had sat near the front, Lilly at the window, Mara guarding the aisle, fending off Eddie Bull and Leo Thom with their quick smiles and stupid jokes.

  Two of the bench seats were missing. The metal around the support bracket was shiny and raw, as though the theft had been recent. If anyone was going to drive off with the bus, they had better do it while it still had most of its parts.

  Mara eased herself into the driver’s seat and worked the wheel back and forth. She stepped on the clutch and tried to pull the shift into second. Yes, she thought. It would be fun to drive the bus into Samaritan Bay. She could paint her face in morbid colours and designs, hold a flashlight between her thighs so that the light caught her at a creepy angle, roll down all the windows, and shriek and shriek and shriek as she careened through town.

  Not that anyone would hear her. The Bay was almost as deserted as the reserve.

  Or she could drive the bus across the headlands and send it plunging over the cliffs into the ocean. That had appeal as well.

  Instead, she stepped off the bus and shut the doors. Another time. Another time for that.

  MARA’S mother and grandmother had been guarded about her plans to go to Paris.

  “You don’t speak French,” her mother had told her.

  “I’ll learn.”

  “If you want to marry a French guy,” her grandmother offered, “try Quebec. I hear the place is lousy with them.”

  “I don’t want to get married. I want to study at the École des Beaux-Arts.”

  “You should go to Vancouver and become a nurse.”

  “I don’t want to be a nurse.”

  “Your auntie Belle is a nurse in Victoria,” her grandmother told her. “You should talk to Belle.”

  “Who’s going to look after the river,” her mother had asked.

  “I’ll come back.�
��

  “That’s what everyone says,” said her grandmother.

  Lilly had been more supportive. “If you want to go to Paris, go to Paris.”

  “You said it looked creepy.”

  “It does,” Lilly had said, “but that’s no reason not to go.”

  Mara had stopped by the Blue Skies travel agency and asked Mr. Webster about the cost of airfare to Paris.

  “France?”

  “Yes,” Mara had said.

  “You’ll have to go to Toronto first.” Mr. Webster gave her several brochures. “From there you can fly to Paris.”

  “Okay.”

  Mr. Webster had written the airfare on a yellow sticky. Mara had taken it home and stuck it to the wall of her bedroom.

  That afternoon, Lilly had come by and they had sat together on Mara’s bed with the brochures spread out between them.

  “Course, you don’t need to go to Paris,” Lilly told her. “You’re already a good artist.”

  “I want to be better.”

  “That drawing you did of the weasel was really good.”

  “I don’t want to draw weasels the rest of my life.”

  “We got lots of turtles.” Lilly had pushed the brochures out of the way and flopped back on the bed. “Why don’t you draw turtles?”

  THE reserve was wrapped in fog. The water tower had vanished somewhere in the weather, but her grandmother’s house was waiting for her.

  In the first year after the spill, vandals had invaded the reserve and had taken anything they could carry, anything of value, anything that could be sold as macabre souvenirs to the sick and the wealthy. Her grandmother’s quilts, the cedar hope chest that her grandfather had finished just before he died. The family photographs that had sat on her mother’s dresser. The trash container from the kitchen.

  Who would steal a trash container?

  All gone.

  Except for the orange plastic chair with its bent leg and the thin crack in its seat. Mara’s grandmother and mother had reserved this chair for special guests, for government agents, school officials, and other people who came at them sideways. If you didn’t know about the chair and weren’t careful, you’d get a nasty pinch when you sat down.