To Cross The Bay

"I wouldn't try a crossing in weather like this," warned the old man. "It's a bad time of year, what with the wind and all. Worse still, the lake water is lethal by November. That means if you capsize it will be the chill that does you in."

The old man stopped short, conscious of the look of defiance in the youth's eyes. Young fool biting the nose to spite his face, he thought.

The marina was closed for the season, but the island's residents made contact with the mainland one way or the other. Until mid-winter there was a ferry service, but that assumed a fair bit of discipline from a resident. He had to go and come when the province obliged. Young bloods off to escape the monotony of Wolfe Island were only marginally willing to conform their Saturday festivities with an arbitrary ruling. No, it was too easy to keep a boat in tow at a friend's landing. Keep a bottle to ward off the night's chill. A bottle for tonic against the elements and a buttress against authority. The old man knew if he did not avail this one a boat - a safe one at that - he would put his hands on a craft of some sort. Accountability, he thought. They mustn't care about their own lives. Still, there was a living to be made and it was a marina, albeit a closed one. He would still get a boat one way or the other, he mused again as he watched the light fade in the evening sky. He pulled his collar sharply. Yellow leaves were beginning to form a mat on the wooden stairs leading to the shed. He could just make out land's end against a funnel gray sky. Better to advise the young man of the dangers, suggest a daytime crossing. Perhaps even try a little reverse psychology.

The boy, if he could be called that, was growing impatient.

"I'll be all right with a life-jacket. The boat won't be overloaded. Just the three of us. My cousin and her kid are going with me."

The old man's eyes stirred from the damp reverie of the previous moment.

"I can't let you take a child out into that. The water's choppy at best. You know next to nothing about handling a craft if she takes on water or if it becomes turbulent. Why are you in such an all-fired hurry to get across anyhow?"

"Let's just say it's my business. My uncle supplies you with business during the summer months. He has a boat in tow here now. I'm responsible. It's still normal weather for this time of year. Now step aside and stop your glib patronizing and palming yourself off as an expert on the sea."

"I can't stop you, son. I can only suggest, well that you await next morning and only take two across at one time. Many a person has received a cruel surprise out there. Why this area's full of tales dating back to the earliest times concerning drownings. Why from the time of the Loyalists up through my earliest childhood - all the time in between that - my family has run the marina and it seems someone is claimed yearly by this lake. The French didn't call it an inland ocean for nothing. Some even claim there's tides - real swells that will take a boat and . . . ."

"The French, the Loyalists. I'm not here to listen to a travelog. What do I care if a long list of idiots blundered to their doom. I'm now and intend to keep on living. What should I care about the past!"

"That may very well be, son, but nobody sets out to drown. Even on the calmest days a sudden storm whips up and . . . I remember my daddy telling of a group of early settlers up from the Bay of Quinte area crossing to attend a church service - full seven of them drowned after a heavy wind whipped . . . ."

"Church," snorted the other. "Well, I'm not going to any church that's for sure." He broke into a snicker, his dark eyes flashing above a set of stained teeth.

"Yes, I guess you're not. Your type will . . . ."

"My type, is it? My type is not so gutless as you, that's a fact. A little natural obstacle doesn't send me shivering to the nearest root cellar. This is near winter. You have to bloody well expect a little discomfort at this time."

He had unnotched the first of several ropes securing the craft. The boat, a little three seater, sturdy, but otherwise quite frail was bobbing up then down as each successive dark wave hobnolled it against the current. It looked for all the world like a large, red currant fleshy against the wind. The young man checked the fuel, began to rev the motor before glancing toward the distant shore. A package of cigarettes emerged from his coat pocket. Blue gray puffs, sentinel like, climbed the air about his person. He spat into the water and proceeded to throw the match after it. Both whirled in the spray, then disappeared from sight. The old man sensed his growing uneasiness but that resilient pride checked any apparition of modesty.

"Put the fare on my uncle's account. I'll return the boat tomorrow morning."

Little lights some ten miles distant were fingering the early darkness. Something near the water's edge bobbed cork-like in the growing dusk. Always the worst time of day, the old man pondered, a process of diminishing returns. Not quite dark, sure as hell not light - an in between shudder world, a limbo of gray.

"When will the girl and her baby be along?", the old man queried.

"I'll see to that. You never mind. Go back inside, pop, where it's warm. You'll feel better. Entering the number and registration just about does it. I'll keep you posted," he laughed a growing laugh that tore soft wind from his mouth. He spat again, returned to his car and was soon out of sight.

The old man looked wearily at the ground. He was recalling more and more of that early story his dad passed down from his dad concerning the overcrowded boat up Adolphustown way so many years ago. If God allowed decent churchgoers to be snuffed from sight in the act of attending His worship, think of what must await young fools who defy His natural laws. To be drowned outright was bad enough. To meet death on a fool's errand with a woman and child in tow for some vaguely evil purpose was scant courtesy to their lives. He recalled seeing the plaque near the church outside Adolphustown and wondering as a child why, how, they could have met death that Sunday morning when crossing the bay in so devout a fashion. He had never tried to anticipate God's will or ponder events anymore than passing suggestion might receive. The little white pioneer church near a knoll on a rising hill framed the growing memory in his mind. A dirt road snaked up to its door with the bay clearly visible from every pew completed the stucco walls that dotted the heavy distance. A pretty enough place, especially in mid summer with the smell of sweet hay in the nostrils or a full breakfast under the belt with a pleasant drive out to smell the country air. Yes, that little church made a lasting impression on any who might see it. Certainly more for its serene presence than any link with that dark episode in its past. At least this was the way he was thinking. Yet he always wondered where the graves of those seven drowned might be. They were pioneer graves, a mite shy of 200 years but they must exist. A cold wind with the not too distant splash of some object brought his thoughts back to the present. Wonder what happens to those drowning today, he felt himself saying almost aloud. Do they really resemble the element they've been cast from? I mean, are their lips really blue or did fear choke all colour from their countenances? He thought of the baby and its mother he had not met. Wondered if the next light he saw midway out into the channel would be the same skiff he had registered and had at least ostensibly given the O.K. to make the perilous crossing. Many thoughts like these passed through his mind as he swathed a scarf more fully around his neck.

"Must be cold, so cold down into that channel," he thought turning to the stove door on his shanty. "I'll put a few extra logs on the fire," as he poked some tattered newspapers by the edge of the stove. He lit his pipe and watched the smoke fade toward horizon's line where a skiff disappeared from view. Half absentmindedly, he thought he measured a headline describing a craft missing since, since ... No, he mused, just my preoccupation, he thought settling down for a quiet smoke.