Authors: Geoff North
I’m no ghost. Ghosts don’t puke their
guts out. I’m not in hell either. Hell could never feel this bad.
Hugh was the last one up. He looked about groggily
as the light of day glowed through the thin plastic of the green tent.
And I was worried about Bob?
He started to chuckle, but stopped
instantly when he felt how sore his stomach was. His mouth was as dry as
sandpaper and tasted of wieners and bile. He gagged at the thought, shifted
carefully onto his side. Breathe nice and easy, he thought. Slow, deep breaths
until it passes. That’s what he’d learned as a grownup. Never much of a
drinker, but he had learned a trick or two. His head pounded so hard he could imagine
blood leaking from his ears to relieve the pressure. How had he got back into
the tent?
After ten minutes he felt his stomach was
strong enough to manage sitting up. He was wrong. He dry heaved twice and swore
he would never,
ever
drink again.
“You okay in there?” It was Billy from
somewhere outside.
“Just need a few seconds.”
Bob poked his head inside the tent flap and
Hugh winced at the brightness. Surely his head had just split down the middle.
Or had that been the sound of the tent zipper? “You’re lucky I had to take a
piss a few hours back, or you would’ve likely frozen to death.”
“Probably should’ve left me out there.
Death would be welcome right about now.” Hugh sat back up slowly. He crawled
out of the tent and stood on legs that felt like rubber. He took a few,
tentative steps forward.
“Careful where you walk,” Billy warned from
across a newly built fire. “I don’t think you wanna step in that.”
Hugh looked at the deposit he’d made onto
the grass during the night.
Don’t look at that, turn away, turn
away, don’t look. Never again.
He rubbed his flat stomach, surprised to
feel hungry. Young bodies were so forgiving. If he’d tried drinking that much
in his forties, he would be laid up for days. The other two had obviously
eaten, judging from the sun’s high position in the southeast. A wave of panic
washed over him, taking with it his hunger and any lingering sickness left inside
his gut. “What time is it?” He asked, checking his own watch at the same time.
It read 2:18. The entire morning and a good chunk of the afternoon had already
been lost. “Jesus, we gotta get moving!”
Bob was sitting back down on his log. “What’s
your hurry? Your dad’s not picking us up until this evening. We got all day.”
“No, you don’t understand, we really have
to get going.” Hugh started to kick dirt onto the fire.
“Calm down and get something into your
stomach first,” Billy said, offering him a plastic plate topped with cold scrambled
eggs and fried ham. “We saved you some.”
What if they were too late, Hugh wondered?
How would he feel if they discovered Hubert McDonald’s broken body on the rocky
shore of the Assiniboine? Could he ever forgive himself?
It’s the only reason we came out here
in the first place.
He took the plate of food from his friend
and began to eat chunks of egg with his bare hands. “I want to climb to the top
of the bridge before noon. Which one of you pansies thinks they can beat me
there?”
Billy remained quiet; an uncomfortable look
spread across his face and furrowed his pimply brow. Bob jumped up and helped
kick more dirt onto the fire. “You’re on!”
They packed up the tent and left it with
their belongings before setting out less than fifteen minutes later. Hugh took
a long drink of warm water from Billy’s monstrously large thermos as they
walked. He looked ahead to the steel structure off in the distance. It appeared
even blacker, more ominous with the bright sun shining directly behind it.
Hopefully they weren’t too late.
There was no broken body at the bottom. The
boys carefully picked their way along the rocks next to the river until they
reached one of the massive support columns. Perhaps the deed had already been
done, and the man’s body had floated down the current of the Assiniboine. Hugh
craned his head up to see the top. It made him dizzy.
Maybe I should mind my own business…take
these guys home where they belong.
Bob pushed him aside and pulled himself up
to the top of the cement base six feet above the ground. “Last one to the top
is a smelly fart!” He started climbing up the rusty service ladder.
“You’re already a smelly fart,” Billy
called after him in a shaky voice.
Bob started to make clucking noises, flapped
his elbows up and down as he continued his ascent. “What about you, Nance?
Where are those big balls you were bragging about before?”
Hugh shook his head without cracking a
smile. He’d lived a long enough life not to succumb to teen age peer pressure.
Go ahead, jerk.
As long as he could yell loud enough to
warn McDonald when and if the time came, there was no good reason to climb the
bridge.
“Fuck it,” Billy Parton said. “You only
live once.”
Hugh stepped back in shock as his skinny
friend hoisted himself up and started in on the ladder. “Please tell me you’re
joking.”
“I can’t be a chicken-shit my whole life,
besides, it’s a nice day…no wind. I’ll be okay. What could go wrong? As long as
I keep my eyes on the ladder and don’t look down, everything will be
hunky-dory.”
“Don’t, Billy. Get back down here.”
He was already twenty feet above the cement
block. “You once told me I could do whatever I wanted to if I put my mind to
it. I can do this.”
Did I tell him that?
Bob had stopped at forty feet to watch the
other boy. “Way to go Billy! I knew you had it in you. More than ol’
Fancy-Nancy boy there.”
Bob’s taunting wouldn’t work. Nothing would
make Hugh start climbing. He would stay put on the ground where it was nice and
safe. He watched their progress for a few more minutes until they reached the
halfway point. He backed up a dozen steps to get a better view. He remembered
the binoculars strung around his neck and focused in on them. He cursed
silently. They were moving a lot slower now, their legs undoubtedly burning
from the workout, that, and the gravity of their situation was likely slowing
them down even more.
Hugh looked up at the remaining ladder
above them. He reached the top and moved the binoculars along both sides of the
track. Which way would Nelson and McDonald come, he wondered? He swung back to
the left, northeast, toward Braedon. It seemed the most likely choice. The two
men both lived in town, so that’s probably where they’d be coming from.
If they even come at all.
The idea of preventing a murder had appealed
to him just the day before. It didn’t seem like such a noble thing now. Bob was
now less than thirty feet below the underside of the track, Billy ten feet
below him. Hugh wanted to yell, warn them to be careful, but he didn’t want to
risk startling them.
A sudden movement from the bush caused him
to drop the binoculars. Something was crashing through the trees a few feet
from where he was standing.
Nelson! The old bastard’s brought his
victim here from the bottom of the bridge!
Hugh whirled around a few times, frantically
searching for a place to hide. The river was too wide and fast-running to swim
across. That left only one other option. He rushed behind the giant cement
foundation and pressed his back up against its cool, rough surface. As long as
they hadn’t seen him run there, he could move from one side to the other as
they passed by.
How had Nelson convinced the other man to
walk out here? Wouldn’t McDonald have some idea what was going on? Maybe Nelson
had a gun pointed into his back.
I’m going to end up getting us all
murdered.
Hugh closed his eyes and tried to control
his breathing. Maybe they had come down here for an afternoon of fishing.
Everyone around here loved to fish and hunt, it made sense. He heard the final
snap of bushes whipping back into place, followed by footsteps on the loose
gravel. Definitely more than one person, he realized.
What if McDonald plans on killing
Nelson?
He’d never considered the idea before this
very moment, but there was cause for
both
men to want the other dead.
Nelson could’ve wanted McDonald dead to get rid of a jealous husband, and
McDonald could’ve wanted Nelson dead for screwing around with his wife.
Hugh looked out into the open and saw where
he’d left the binoculars. The footsteps sounded as if they were headed straight
for them.
Shit!
He bent
down, his back rubbing against the cement. He felt along the ground, groping
for any object he could use as a weapon. A shadow fell across the binoculars;
he found an oblong shaped rock perfect for bludgeoning in someone’s skull.
The shadow stopped, frozen over the fallen
glasses.
What am I going to do? Which of them is
actually planning to murder the other?
He thought of his friends, two hundred feet
directly above him. He prayed they wouldn’t choose this particular moment to yell
out. A black nose appeared around the edge of the cement block before he had a
chance to move.
It was a deer.
Hugh stood there stupidly, the rock held
out to one side, his legs bent at the knees, his back hunched and ready to
pounce. He looked like a slack-jawed caveman. The deer heard him, exploded into
movement. It kicked loose gravel and sand up as it bolted back into the bushes.
Hugh fell to his rear-end, gasping for breath and laughing at the same time. He
got up after half a minute to retrieve the binoculars. The one lens was
cracked.
Great. How am I going to explain this?
He checked on the climbers. Through the
remaining lens he could see they’d reached the top. They stood side by side on
the last few rungs, their arms locked around either side of the ladder. Neither
boy looked prepared to hoist themselves up to the overhanging ledge and track
ten or twelve feet above their heads.
“Okay guys, you can come down any time now,”
Hugh said quietly. He never should’ve allowed anyone to climb up there. What
had he been thinking? What if Nelson came along? What good would the two of
them be to anyone dangling up there?
Hugh cupped his hands around his mouth and
shouted. “Get back down here!”
One of them yelled back. “Whhoooo-
hoooo
!”
It was Billy, waving his one arm wildly, and booting one foot out into the air.
He’d picked a fine time to get over his fear of heights. Hugh motioned for them
to start back down, but he knew there was no chance they could understand what
he meant.
Probably think I’m waving hello.
Billy’s going to die today. It won’t be
a farm accident when he’s fifteen, and it will be my fault.
A low rumble echoed through the valley
followed by a not too distant whistle. A train was headed their way. Hugh was
about to yell at the pair to hold on, but realized how stupid it would’ve
sounded, even if they were able to hear him. The train appeared after another
anxious half minute, and he watched as it barreled along the bridge. He
listened as their excited shouting blended in with the roar of the train’s
movement and the blare of its whistle. Hugh wanted to look away, didn’t want to
watch in case one of the boys was shaken off from the vibration. He couldn’t
look away, he couldn’t blink.
The train must have been a hundred miles in
length, Hugh thought, waiting for it to pass. Its engine must have been pulling
a few hundred thousand cars. Most were empty, flat beds of steel carrying no
freight at all. A few carried giant combines and swathing machines, others were
stacked with six foot wide metal drainage pipes. Over a dozen identical round
tankers roared past, all painted a pale grey and bearing the same deep green
letters, CNR. A few rusty dark brown box cars sped past after that, covered so
thickly in spray-painted graffiti that the original company names could no
longer be read. Finally the caboose came into view, and then it was gone. Its
mournful whistle faded in the distance, its low rumble echoed across the valley
like a receding thunderstorm.
Hugh’s heart started to settle and he
looked back up through the unbroken lens and saw Billy still swinging by one
arm, kicking and twirling his one leg.
Why the hell doesn’t Bob settle him
down?
The binoculars shook in his hands and his
field of vision jumped around. For a moment he thought he’d seen something
moving along the top of the track again. He steadied his grip and moved them
back up, slowly focusing along the track’s length to the southwest. It had to
be more deer.
“Holy shit,” his mouth dried up on the last
word. He could see two men walking along the track. Maybe it wasn’t them. Hugh
no longer had the desire to be a hero and save anyone’s life that day. They
were so far away it was hard telling who was who at first. The guy in the lead
was just a dark shape, jumping around unsteadily in Hugh’s limited field of
vision.