The Wild Girl

The Albertan summer air was hot and dry. The chinook which had been blowing for three days just stirred the thick air around. A boy was lying on his back in a straw barn. His red T-shirt and jeans were ragged and faded. One bare foot swung slowly over the edge of a bale. Joe was thinking. Logan Wilson at Douglas Creek garage had got another motorbike in. Only it wasn’t just another motorbike; it was a Yamaha Offroad 2010 WR250F with a 250cc 4-stroke engine. It wasn’t new but it was in great condition and Dave had priced it at $300. Joe had to buy it. He had to. That was why he was thinking – how to get the money? A look of deep concentration was fixed on his sunburnt face and the hand thrown behind his head was clenched into a fist. The other gently pulled at the ears of a scruffy black dog whose tongue hung out between grinning teeth. Joe suddenly rolled onto his stomach and the dog’s ears pricked up.

“I gotta get that money, Flick, somehow. I wish I had a job.” He pounded the straw with his fist. Footsteps approached the barn and Joe rapidly and without hesitation flung himself over the back side of the bale. Flick descended almost on top of him. A woman appeared in the doorway.

“Joe? Joe? I’m sure I heard that boy.” At that moment, Joe was disappearing through a hole in the back wall of the barn. He pulled on a pair of runners and vanished into the fir trees which bordered the yard, with Flick at his heels.

 

It had been nine years since Joe’s mother had died. He had been four years old. Joe still had vague memories of the day that she had been killed in a logging accident. For three years his father had been stricken with grief and the well-oiled machine that had been his logging business had started to fall apart. Then he met a farmer’s daughter, Denise, and he had got married and set his life back on its feet. Now his timber company was very succesful. Joe was happy for his dad and would never say that he didn’t want Denise there, seeing how she had helped his father to live again, but he could never accept her as a new mother and had as little to do with her as he could. Part of his conscience knew that he was being rude and stubborn as Denise was always very nice to him, but he guiltily ignored it.

 

He walked on a carpet of old needles under the big firs. The forest was paradise for a boy and Joe always felt lucky that he had grown up with a natural playground on his doorstep. Joe headed for the wire fence which bordered the plantation and passed close to the west side of the house. He scraped at the base of one section and the wire came up from the ground. He and Flick slipped through and then carefully pushed the fence back into the soil. Now they were outside the plantation, the wood was more varied. Huge giants mixed with saplings and deciduous trees were sprinkled amongst the ubiquitous Douglas fir. The River Douglas – which ran down from the Rockies, made its way into the River Churchill and from there into Hudson Bay – was popular with fishermen in the salmon season and with the few lumber companies who still used the river for floating their timber to the saw mill. Joe loved it and often went there in his spare time. He was going there now.

 

Joe came out onto the bank and looked at the clear, fast-moving water. Stripping to his underpants, he plunged in. Despite being summer, it was very cold and Joe had to move quickly to keep warm. He was a strong swimmer and enjoyed battling upstream and then letting the current carry him back down. Joe saw a small log floating towards him, an escapee from the timber yards upriver, and he clambered astride it, riding the flow. Gripping the bark tightly, he barrel-rolled – there was a moment when dark cold water buffeted his head then he spun back up into the dappled sunshine with droplets streaming from his hair. Flick plunged in and out of the water, splashing around and swimming valiantly against the current like his ancestors on the shores of Newfoundland.

 

Eventually, they emerged from the river on the opposite bank and turned their steps westward, towards a backwater where there was a fair-sized waterfall. Once, a couple of years ago, Joe had surprised a beaver there, busy building its lodge. There were no beavers this time. The water poured smoothly over the falls and splashed into the pool at the bottom. The river level had dropped considerably that summer – owing to the lack of rain – and the tops of large stones rose above the surface at the top of the fall. Joe couldn’t resist trying to cross. Halfway across, either the stone moved, or was slippery, or Joe simply overbalanced, but he suddenly fell over the drop and plunged into the cold water at the bottom. He felt something strike his stomach, his arm, the water pounded him, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t do anything…

 

Joe couldn’t understand the dream. There was a boy lying on a stone floor in some kind of cave. The boy’s eyelids flickered and he moaned something unintelligible. He was naked, an old blanket thrown over him. Joe wondered who the boy was. There was something familiar about his face. Suddenly he realised. He opened his eyes. He was on his back, staring up at a rocky ceiling. There was a candle wavering on the other side of the room. A shadow moved and somebody bent over him. He felt the neck of a bottle between his lips and drank – it was water. Hair brushed his face and he tried to say something but the room was darkening again and he couldn’t find the strength to open his mouth.

 

Joe sat up. The back of his head felt very sore. He looked around; he was in some kind of cave. Three walls were stone and the third was a shimmering, splashing silver curtain. He was behind the waterfall. There was a beat-up chest and a wooden crate against the far wall. A gas stove sat on the crate. He was lying on a mouldy mattress, covered in a tatty grey blanket. The only other piece of furniture was a broken stool, which was occupied. A girl, about his age, was regarding him with serious brown eyes. She was wearing a green, short-sleeved polo shirt, faded jeans and leather ankle boots.

“You’re alive. I thought that you were going to die at one point. You’ve beat up your head pretty bad.” She had a quiet voice and Joe could barely hear her over the noise of the water.

“Er, thanks for helping me.” he said, rather hesitantly.

“Well I wasn’t going to let you die, was I.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Er, yeah. Th-thanks anyway. I’m Joe, by the way.”

“I’m Sam.” There was a silence. Joe was dying to ask all sorts of questions but he kept quiet. Finally, he had to break the tension in the air so he burst out:

“Do you live here?”

“Kinda.”

“In a cave?”

“Yeah. Does it bother you?” Another silence, then Sam sighed. “My ma lives at Splinter Reach and my dad left her when I was eight. I’ve been living pretty wild since then. Ma’s too drunk to care.” She looked angry.

“Oh. I’m… sorry. My mum died when I was four. I live with my Dad and stepmum. She’s OK but I don’t really like her.” Joe told her. Sam’s expression softened almost imperceptably. Joe tried again. “Where do you go to school? I haven’t seen you at Douglas Creek.”

“You think I go to school? You must be kidding.” There was a hard expression in her eyes.

“Yeah, er thanks. I’d better get home or my stepmum’ll be worried. Maybe I’ll see you again?”

“Perhaps.” Sam had closed up again.

“Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it.” What was the matter with him? He sounded like one of his Dad’s clients. He slid out through the side of the waterfall. Flick was on the bank. He went absolutely mad when Joe appeared, overjoyed to see him. Joe headed home, his head full of thoughts.

 

Joe was very quiet as he ate his dinner that evening. Before he got into bed, he looked out of the slatted shutters at the night sky. The moon was just rising and the stars were spread across the sky, like pinpricks in a black sheet over a window. A cicada smacked into the window frame beside him and fell down out of sight. He wondered whether he would see Sam again.

The cave was empty. The trees stood still as statues. There was a slight movement in the top of an old Douglas fir and a figure appeared in the crown. The moon shone down on the house, the boy, the tree and the girl, and smiled to itself.