The Devil Delivered and Other Tales (35 page)

“You two’ll do jus fine!” Grandma Matchie said, then chackled, dancing a little jig.

It was then I noticed that she’d tied straps to her boots, with brass buckles. And all of a sudden Grandma Matchie jumped clear off the dock and landed right on those lamp rays. She bent down and strappered her feet to their backs, while they wraggled fumeously. “Climber on my shoulders, Tyke! There’s only one beast on Earth that knows the way t’Westhawk Lake—at least my Westhawk Lake—and that’s a lamp ray!”

So I climbered over her backpack and onto her shoulders and she grabbed my legs and yelled: “Here we go!”

Those lamp rays surgled forward and carveled deep grooves in the water, throaming white foam everywhere. The wind made my eyes tear and I leaned forward and stuck out my arms like you do in your Dad’s Bronco when he’s going a million thousand eighty-nine miles an hour and you got the windows rolled down.

“
YA-HOO
!” Me and Grandma Matchie hollered both at the same time. And again: “
YA-HOOO
!!” So it was just like the old timers at the lake always grumped about—these days the whole lake was filled with bluddy Ya-hoos. Old timers know everything, and they know what’s true and what isn’t, and the Bigness of Things doesn’t scare them one bit.

Course, Grandma Matchie’s the oldest timer of all. “I was here when this lake couldn even lick your boots! An the whole world was jus swamp!” she’d say. “But them dinosaurs knew enough not t’mess with Grandma Matchie!” And she’d dance around like the Indians must’ve done when they tied string between all the trees and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

And boy did those lamp rays swim. Lakes whizzled by and when we came to the shore we just leapt high in the air and when we landed again it was in another lake. And then we crossed a big red line painted on the surface of the water and we were in Manitoba, which didn’t look much different from Ontario except for all the buffalo swimming around. Course, they got out of our way! Hah!

And then, just as the sun was coming up in front of us, we stopped.

“This is Hunt Lake, Tyke,” Grandma Matchie said as she unstrappled her boots. “An right over there on th’other side a those trees is Westhawk Lake. The deepest lake on Earth!”

“Are we gonna sneak up on it from here?”

“Yep. We gotta. There’s demon fish spyin round all over th’ place!” Off we jumped, hitting the water with huge spalashes and going straight down to the muddy bottom. Then we started tuddling, the water around us getting lighter and lighter and the bottom getting weedier and weedier as we crelpt toward shore. But all of a sudden a big black hole loombered in front of us and we planged into darkness.

“A secret cave!” I exclaimed.

Grandma Matchie paused to light a torch, since the lamp rays had gone home, and the fire made the water swirl with burbbles and the walls of the cave spackle as if they were full of gold.

We tuddled a long ways when Grandma Matchie stopped suddenly and crouched. “There’s somebuddy skulkin up ahead!” she hisspered, and we began edging forward.

We could see a light coming from around a corner further up the path, and Grandma Matchie put out her torch and ever so snuckily we came to the corner and peepered around it.

Grandma Matchie shouted and jumped forward and I followed, because there sat the Major, boiling tea over a fire right in the middle of a giant cavern. His eyes poppled out and he leapt off his camp stool.

“Gads! It’s Grandma Matchie!”

“So there you are, eh? Jus as I figured—skulkin ’bout like the good-fur-nothin Major you are!” Grimmerly, she stalked toward him and he shrank back for a second then puffed up his chest and stood his ground. Grandma Matchie kept coming until their noses jambled together, the point of hers pludging into the red bulb of his. “Good-fur-nothin Major!”

“Hah! And what ’bout you, hah? Spiteful ole witch!”

“Spiteful? Ain’t I got reason t’be?”

“What ho? Reason? Whenever d’you need a bleedin reason?”

Uh oh, thinks I. “Hey!” I shouted. Their heads turned at the same time and you could hear the Major’s nose pop back out. Glaring at them with my hands on my hips, I said in my lowest, meanest voice: “Tea’s ready.”

And it was, and we all sat down round the fire and poured ourselves a cup. After a time Grandma Matchie sniggered, “So, you’re goin after er again, eh? Well, if you’re one thing, Major, it’s stubbern!” And she tilted her head back and shouted: “Stubbern as a loaf of Ester’s bread in a bear’s belly! Hah!”

The Major glommered and his face got redder than the fire between them. “Cripes! It’s none o’ yer bizness! None!”

“Oh, an ain’t it, now? Ain’t it? Well, somethin’s saying t’me we’re agoin after the same thin in the end. An jus like all th’other times you’re agoin t’get in the way, afoulin thins up for alla us!”

Spluttering, the Major surgled to his feet. “
ME
!” He began waving his fists around, making swirmbling currents so big even the fire pafted and wavered. “I got ere first! I did! I did!”

“It don’t matter one bit!” Grandma Matchie was on her feet now too, and the fire shrank between them. “Yer daughter ain’t got er broom stolen, did she? You ain’t even got a daughter!”

“I do too! I do too!”

All of a sudden Grandma Matchie sat down, looking shocked. Then she got a hold of herself and glared at him. “So he finally admits it at last, eh? Well, isn’t this a pretty picture! A father, aren’t ya? Afta all these years! Now you’re a father!”

“An whenever di’you lemme be one, hah? Hah?”

I didn’t know what in blazes they were talking about, so I stood up. “Hey! Tell me some stories! Tell me some stories! You said we gotta wait till mornin, anyway! I wanta hear some stories!” And I put on my best little poor boy face and made my eyes real wide and pleading like.

Course it worked! It always does!

“The Major ain’t gotta story in his hat worth picken!” Grandma Matchie sneerved.

“Hah! Is that right, is it? Is it? Well, I done thins that’ll make yer stories look like they came from a Grade Fur Reader!”

“Iz that right?” Grandma Matchie leaned back and crossed her arms. “Okay, Major,” she said in a low dangerous voice. “Let’s hear yer story! Come on, give it yer best! Hah!”

Pulling out a pipe, the Major settled himself in his stool and gave me a wink. And all at once his voice changed, getting all gravelly like Long John Silver’s: “Well, it wuz afore yer time, there, lad. Afore alla yer times—” Grandma Matchie snarted but the Major kept going. “—in th’ Nort Sea, aye, an ya ain’t seen waves as high o’ those back then! An there I be, out fishin like a lad did in those days. An I was abaitin and ahookin an me boat wuz agettin lower’n lower wi’ all the fish I wuz catchin. An in I throws the line, one last time, y’see, cause the waves wuz gettin a little big e’en fer the likes o’ me—pullin down stars they were, makin em hiss and sputter in all kinds of steam!”

He was rocking back and forth on his stool and I could feel those waves making my stomach gasp like it was drowning.

“An then me line wen tight an started arunnin through me hands till smoke came out frum atwixt me fingers!” And he put his hand over his pipe and puffed crazily to show me what it must’ve looked like. “Aye, I’d ahooked the biggest thin that lives in the sea. She’s gotta thousand names, that sea snake, an ev’ry man, woman, and child o’ the sea shakes when they ’ear em! Aye, so big she wen right round the whole world, akeepin all that water from aspillin out! So big she has t’bite er own tail so she knows where it is!” And he blew smoke rings that got bigger and bigger as they floated to the roof of the cave.

“No wonder the sea’s astormin, thinks I,” the Major went on, leaning forward so his face glowed in the fire. “I bin afishin er own backyard! Deprivin er a er own food! But I wuz a fisherman then jus like I am now! An I started apullin on that line wi’ all the strength in me young bones. An sure ’nough, up she comes, slow’n ’eavy, though still I cain’t see er.

“Thirty-one days and thirty-two nights I’m adraggin up that line, eatin the fish in m’boat wi’ one hand an apullin wi’ t’other! Drinkin me own sweat when I got t’ thirstin! An nineteen times ’roun the world she pulls me in that time, aye, an I seen sights the likes o’ which no one’s ev’ry seen afore!

“An so there I wuz, on th’thirty-third day and comin fer the twentieth time ’roun the world—an I finally sees er! Right there! Right there unner me boat!” And he points his pipe down and I look, but all I can see is the floor of the cave. “Aye,” the Major chuckled. “That’s all I seen too! Er body’s hard as rock an as fer across as the Kalahari Sea!”

“But the Kalahari’s a desert in Africa!”

“Only after we apasst through it,” replied the Major, his eyes gleaming. “She threw up so much water it plumb emptied the bowl! But where wuz I? Oh, aye, I seen er, an all at onct I drop that line and dive inta the sea!”

I jumped to my feet. “Did you get her?”

The Major nodded grimly. “Aye, that I did.” He spread his arms wide. “I grabbed er like this, apulled er cross me boat’s thwarts. An she asquirmed and aslithered! But I held tight! An I heered er cryin and a’whimperin, an I realize’t right then an there that I gotta let er go.” He bowed his head. “I gotta let er go.” After a minute he looked up, and his eyes were full of tears. “Y’know why, lad?”

I shook my head.

“I coulda took er, right then an there, but I realize’t alla sudden that if I did, the seas’d empty an all th’water’d drain away! So I letter go and I cut me line, right then an there!”

“Bah!” Grandma Matchie scoffed. “You call that a story? I coulda done better in my sleep!”

But the Major just leaned back and chuckled, relighting his pipe.

“An I ain’t gotta go to no North Sea t’find my story, neither, cause it happened right here!” She leaned forward, her elbows on her bony gongly knees that peekered out from under her dress. “Ten thousand years ago, it was, when the buff’lo filled the lakes from shore t’shinin shore! Buff’lo so big they left mountains behind em, if y’know what I mean, Tyke.…”

I nodded, grinning snuckily.

“An if anyone ever asks you where the Rockies came from, you tell em ’bout the buff’lo an all the seaweed they et.”

I nodded again, thinking about how impressed Big Nose would be when I actually knew the right answer to one of her questions.

“Yessiree, Tyke, those were big buff’lo, an the Indians in these ere parts et their fill a them an made huts outa their skulls, an the buff’lo didn’t mind one bit!

“But then one day the Indians look up and see alla the buff’lo are gone, an there’s bones everywhere! Fillin the lakes so deep the bones at th’bottom turned right into stone, an if ever someone asks you where Tyndall stone comes from, you tell em ’bout the bones, Tyke, an they’ll know you fer a wise man. An so, the Indians they start gettin worried, cause someone’s et all the buff’lo, an this was way afore Buff’lo Bill’s time, way afore Chris C’lumbus even!

“Not knowin what else t’do, them Indians turned t’me for help, like they always did back then. Only this time it was more serious than e’er afore. An not only were the buff’lo gone but so was the beaver and the bear and the deer and the mastodons—all gone!” Grandma Matchie paused to smirk at the Major, who was puffing madly on his pipe and studying the walls. “Aye, so I start lookin fer signs, tracks, giant toothpicks with mammoth meat on em, an sure ’nough I pick up a mysterious trail, leadin north inta the backcountry. An I follows it fer days, till I come to this giant log cabin, tweeny stories tall, wi’ bones piled up alla round it and smoke comin from the chimney.”

“Who lived there?” I demanded.

“I’m gettin t’that! Some thins you jus can’t rush. So, up I go, right up t’that door and I starts poundin on it. ‘Whoever’s in there better come out if’n know what’s good fer ya!’ I scream. Then I heered these footsteps crossin the floor in there, louder’n all the thunder rolled up in one! An the door opens up—” Grandma Matchie paused to sip delicately at her tea.

“And? And?”

She smackled her lips. “An there he be, wi’ me towerin over im! Wasn’t no more’n five feet tall, but wearin the biggest boots I e’er seen!

“‘Who in hell are you?’ the little man screams. An I says, ‘I’m your doom, little man! Come on outa there, you puny runt!’ Well, he goes all white, then red, an out he stomps, shakin his fists. ‘I was sleepin, damn you!’ shrills the squirt, all indignant like. But I laugh in his face.”

“How brave!” the Major snickered.

Ignoring him, Grandma Matchie continued, “This? thinks I, this is the one who et all those buff’lo?”

“An all those beaver and bear and deer and mastodons too?” I cried uncredulously.

Grandma Matchie nodded. “Aye, them too? asks I. An I was gettin all ready t’give im the spankin of his life, when he jumps over to the biggest tree I e’er seen an pulls it up by the roots! An he starts swingin it like it was a twig! ‘Nobody wakes me up!’ he roars, an if I didn’t jump outa the way right then I wouldn’t be ere telling this tale t’day! He hit the ground wi that tree so hard it split it right open from horizon to horizon! An if anyone e’er asks you where the Winnipeg River came from, now you know.”

Boy, no more D’s in Geography for Jock Junior! Not after all this!

“‘So! It’s threats, is it?’ screams I. ‘I arm-wrassled Satan Himself t’the ground an I can do the same wi you!’ So we grab each other’s wrists and sit down right there an the runt yells: ‘
GO
!’ an the wrasslin started.” Grandma Matchie sipped more tea. “Tree hundred years we sat there, locked t’gether, neither a us givin an inch! An grass grew up alla round us an snow covered us an birds nested on our heads. An that little man’s cabin rotted away to nothin an all those bones turned to chalk dust and blew away—”

“An right into Big Nose’s classroom!” I shouted.

“An right inta Big Nose’s classroom, yep. An then trees growed up alla round us. An that little man couldn’t budge me, an that was jus the way I wanted it—”

“Hah!” barked the Major.

“Jus the way I wanted it,” Grandma Matchie repeated. “Cause by now all th’buff’lo had come back, an all th’beaver an bears an deer an mastodons too!”