Page 21 of The Last Stars in the Sky
The man sighs, as if Daniel is being tedious, and then he shrugs his assent. “I’ll take the money. We can’t leave until dark. You can wait in the boathouse. I’ll get you when I’m ready.” And then he closes the door with a firm click, and Daniel is alone again.
He walks over to the boathouse; the door on the side is unlocked, and he steps inside. A wooden boat, looking very old, is up on trestles, and takes up almost the entire space. Daniel slides to the ground on the other side, his back against the wall, his elbows resting on his knees. He takes out his cell phone, but there is, of course, no signal, and he turns it off quickly, not wanting to waste the battery.
When he gets to the other side of the river, he will be in upstate New York, but still over one hundred miles from his son. He will have to walk or beg rides the whole way, but right now, for the first time, it actually feels as if it could be possible. Crossing the border, he tells himself, will be the hardest part, even though he can’t possibly know that for sure. But simply walking somewhere, even in winter, feels doable. If he walks four miles an hour, ten hours a day, he can be in Clarkson in three days. He has enough food for that long, if he’s careful. Of course, this doesn’t account for detours, for dangers, fatigue, illness, or any number of problems he could encounter. But he holds on to it all the same—three days. He will see Sam in three days.
For a few moments, he lets himself think about Sam. Not as he is now—trapped at college, away from his family—but as he was as a little boy. He remembers when Sam was about eight years old and had an obsession with Chinese checkers, would play a dozen games, winning almost all of them, constructing elaborate jumping routes for his marbles and shouting in glee when he completed a particularly intricate jump.
The memory of his son’s triumphant shout has Daniel laughing aloud, the sound bursting from him, surprising himself, before he slumps against the wall and closes his eyes.Sam.
His mind skates toward Mattie and Ruby, Alex. He wonders what they’re doing now. Making dinner? Building up the fire? Huddling together on the sofa? He trusts Alex will be okay; she’llprotect their girls. Maybe, he reflects with a faint smile, this will be the making of her. The making ofthem, as a family, except he isn’t even there.
By six o’clock the sun has completely set, the river lost in darkness, and the inside of the boathouse is absolutely frigid. Daniel has gotten up to walk around and restore feeling and warmth to his limbs; he aches with exhaustion, yet he feels almost unbearably alert, every nerve twanging with awareness. He hears the squeak and bang of the screen door, the crunch of boots on gravel. The man appears at the door of the boathouse; in the dusky light Daniel can’t make out his face.
“I have the money,” he says. He’s taken out the three hundred dollars and put it in the pocket of his coat, and his numb fingers are now clenched around it.
The man holds out his hand. Daniel gives him the folded bills and he pockets them with something like a sigh. “Don’t know how useful money will be,” he says, “but at least it’s something.”
“Thank you,” Daniel says, heartfelt, and the man just shrugs, without looking him in the eye. For the first time, Daniel realizes that he is with someone who might have information, more than he has. “It’s so quiet everywhere,” he says. “All the way here—one hundred and fifty miles—I didn’t see anyone around at all.”
The man shrugs. “The government told us to stay inside, so everyone’s staying inside.”
“I expected it to be different.”
He raises shaggy eyebrows. “Do you remember the pandemic?”
Daniel considers, realizes he has a point. For better or worse, people have become compliant. Scared. “Do you know what it’s like?” he asks. “In the States?”
“No. I take people across, that’s it.” He folds his arms across his chest. “I don’t want to know.” Daniel nods, chastened. “I’ll take you to Iroquois Point,” the man tells him. “We’ll have to gowithout a motor because the Border Force has been patrolling the river. Don’t speak, don’t make a sound, and whatever I tell you to do, do it.” His voice is low, almost menacing, and Daniel does not want to think what might happen if he disobeys. What this man might be capable of. “Got it?” he asks, and Daniel nods again, quickly, because it sounds like a threat.
Twenty minutes later, they are on the water, in a rowboat only a little bigger than the one he used to take Sam fishing in, back at Lost Lake; he remembers how proud Sam was of catching three little bass. Now the only sound is the creak of the oars, the gentle splash as they hit the water, the boat gliding smoothly along the bank of the river, through the darkness. The air is icy.
This part of the StLawrence River is dotted with islands, some like postage stamps, some a bit more substantial. Daniel remembers Alex once telling him that for an island to be counted as part of the Thousand Islands archipelago, it must be at least one foot square above water all year round and support a living tree. He sees several such islands that barely meet that requirement as they glide past them, shrouded in darkness, through the water.
The man keeps to the banks of each tiny island, crossing open water only when he must, the wind cutting and frigid when he does, making Daniel’s eyes water and his cheeks sting. He remembers some of the islands’ names from the map he and Alex looked at—Baby Tar, Little Grenadier, Cleopatra, Fancy Rock, Ball, Huguenot, Steamboat, Maple, Manhattan. They slide past each one in the dark, the night completely still. When the moon emerges from behind a bank of clouds, the water glints silver. He can see the opposite shore now, a long, low smudge in the darkness. He can’t believe it has been this easy.
Creak. Glide. Creak. He is holding his breath, straining, half of him wanting to leap out of the boat, wade through the water to shore, now only about twenty feet away. The water is utterly freezing; there are chunks of ice bobbing in it already. They are so close.
Then, in an instant, everything changes. Bright lights suddenly flood the river, making them both stiffen and squint, and a voice sounds on a megaphone.
“Stop where you are. This is the Canada Border Patrol. Stop immediately where you are, or we will shoot. I repeat, wewillshoot.”
The man immediately stills the oars. Daniel glances back at him, sees the resignation in his face, and realizes that, right when he is about to make it across, he is going to be thwarted. He will be arrested, shot, or sent back. Which would be worse? He glances down at the water; there is still twenty or so feet or more to shore, and it is swirling with ice. He won’t make it.
Then he feels a hand hard on the center of his back, pushing him over. He starts to lose his balance, and he realizes the man is pushing him into the river. Is it an act of mercy, he wonders as he feels himself fall, or ruthlessness?
He falls as if in slow motion, and then, for a second, the icy water closes over his head, and his mind goes blank, his body into shock as the freezing water penetrates his clothes, his very bones. Then he finds his feet—it’s shallow enough to stand, a little over chest deep—and he starts wading through the water. It is like walking through treacle, through tar, thick and impassable, and his body, strangely, feels as if it is burning.
“Stop where you are.Stop where you are!”
He keeps putting one foot in front of another, even though now the water feels like wet cement, turning everything heavy. Even only a few feet from the shore, it is almost impossible to move. His limbs are slow and clumsy; his brain is a swirl of fog.Everything is numb, his clothes sodden and already starting to freeze on his body. He can hear the steady chug of the border patrol’s motorboat, its lights sweeping the water in frightening arcs. He keeps moving—one foot, another.I can do this, he thinks.Imustdo this.
A gunshot cracks through the freezing air just as Daniel throws himself onto the bank. The patrol boat is coming closer, the chug of its motor reminding him of the savage pant of a wild animal. With what feels like the last of his strength, he clambers up onto the bank and then, stumbling at first, he starts running into the darkness.
NINE
I don’t recognize the woman walking down the road. She’s thirtyish, with a lean and wiry figure, wearing a puffy coat and leggings, cheap hiking boots. Her hair is dip-dyed hot pink and pulled back into a ponytail. Her expression is resolute.
“Do you not remember me?” she asks, a very slight sneer to the words, and I still, my mind racing.Remember her? I don’t remember anyone from up here.
