The Devil Delivered and Other Tales Page 25

  Once Mom started she couldn’t stop, and pretty soon the loaves of bread began showing up everywhere. Sloggy and swobllen on the beach, with groaming crows lying in piles all around them. Made into nests by squirrels, all hollowed out with flowery drapes in the windows. Hanging from tree branches with bees brazzling all around them trying to figure a way to get inside. And after a few days you could easily make bread igloos out of them. But this time she’d really gone overboard. Groaming softly, I closed the door and snucched back to Grandma Matchie’s side.

  “She done it again, huh?”

  “Worse than ever!”

  Grandma Matchie sighed, wrivilled her steaming boots. “Ever drank crayfish wine, Tyke? I got vats of it down in the lodge. Canada’s Finest, it says on the labels. Bottled it myself. Course, you’re not old ’nough fur crayfish wine, anyway.”

  “Soon?”

  “Maybe. But I’ll tell you somethin. You want hair on your chest like your Dad?” I thought about it and was about to answer but she went on, “Well, drink some of Canada’s Finest and I guarantee it, you’ll never freeze in winter again.”

  Frowning, I said, “Maybe that’s why the Major goes fishin and trobblin for you every day. He wants your crayfish wine.”

  Grandma Matchie chackled. “Not likely, though it does kinda get im a hankerin, ’times.”

  “Every day he’s out there! Rowin back and forth and trobblin bait past your windows!”

  “Lubber don’t know a thin about baitin,” she muthered distantly.

  I looked up at her and I saw her eyes glowing like the coals in the fireplace. Before I knew it, my face scrinched up. “Grandma Matchie! Snap out of it!”

  Turning, she gave me a blank look. “Snap out of what, Tyke?”

  I sighed, feeling my face unscrinching. Whew! I’d almost lost her there! In the dull light I peeked out of the corner of my eye at Grandma Matchie’s arm to confirm my belief. Yes, it looked too skinny to be punched. It’d break for sure. Right then and there I vowed to protect Grandma Matchie, no matter what.

  Laugh if you want! You’ll see I was right!

  The next morning Sis was gone no one knew where. Mom sifted the piles of flour in the kitchen; Dad checked his fish basket; and I searched through all her clothes and stuff just in case anything interesting came up. But Grandma Matchie sniffered the air and then went straight over to the crayfish pot. Lifting the lid she peered inside and after a moment cried out, “Aha! I knew it!” She slammed the lid down and whirvelled to us, her face grim. “She’s been kidnapped! And I know who!”

  “The Major?” I asked.

  Even more grimly she shook her head. “He’s small fry. Nope, this is bad, real bad. Cause it means he’s back, an if he’s back there’ll be trouble for us all!” Suddenly she threw back her shoulders and roared a defiant laugh, then began barking orders: “Ester! Get the canoe outa the boathouse! Jock, get me my spurs and saddle! Jock Junior! Pack us a lunch! An alla you—be quick ’bout it!” Hands on her hips, Grandma Matchie glowered at us until we all started scrambling.

  Passing by the crayfish pot I paused to lift the lid and peek inside. They were all there, bright red and tasty looking. “But Grandma Matchie—”

  “Aye, an look at em, Tyke. Look at em real good, now.”

  And then I saw that each of them was missing a claw. “Someone’s stolen half the claws!”

  “An you know what that means?” Grandma Matchie’s face was grim and serious. “It means he’s back, and he was right here! An he stole Sis.” Fury smolgered in her eyes. “He stole Sis!”

  “Who?” Mom asked from the doorway, where the prow of the cedar-strip canoe had jammed in the frame and she was tugging frantically.

  Grandma Matchie stared at Mom and said sandily, “Ester, why are you bringin the canoe inta the cabin?”

  “WHO?” Mom shracked, wrenching at the prow.

  “One Armed Trapper, that’s who.”

  Mom shracked again, tearing at her hair.

  The horror of He-Who-Stole-Sis:

  The canoe had a big hole in it, but Grandma Matchie said, Never mind, that way we’ll be able to see the lake bottom. That’s important, she said. “He’ll leave tracks, he will. We gotta follow em, we do.”

  After dravelling the canoe down to the little gravel beach beside the dock and loading it up with food and Grandma Matchie’s silver spurs and range saddle, we all gathered at the dock.

  “Don’t you worry,” Grandma Matchie said to Mom. “Me and Tyke’ll bring er back. Rest easy now.”

  Wringing her hands, Mom moamed. “If only I wasn’t halfway through my baking! You know how I hate to not finish things!”

  “An I got all those flies to tie up,” Dad groamed. “Can’t let em get away, y’know.”

  “Don’t you worry neither of you. We’ll hunt him down even if it takes us t’the deepest lake on Earth!” Grandma Matchie glowered. “I gotta score t’settle with One Armed Trapper, I do.”

  Then we were off, pushing out from the shore and drifting sideways. Sitting in the stern, I looked around and suddenized we had no paddles. But Grandma Matchie stood at the bow and spread her arms wide. Her red dress fanned out and filled with wind, and the canoe began slurping forward and soon was slickering through the water, the waves batralping against the canoe’s sides.

  I looked around. “Grandma Matchie, I don’t feel no wind.”

  “Course not!” she surplied over her shoulder. “It’s cosmic wind, the kind y’can’t feel, but it’s always there.”

  “Where’s it come from?”

  “The center of the universe, that’s where.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “In my lodge, where else?”

  “Which room?”

  “Never you mind.”

  I scowlered. “The kitchen?”

  The back of her head shook, no.

  “The den? The livin room? The dinin room?”

  “Never you mind.”

  “Your bedroom?”

  I heard her chackle. “You can’t feel the wind yet, so don’t you go talkin ’bout what y’don’t know.” She shifted slightly and we rounded the edge of the bay. The Major’s island went by off to our left and I could see him standing on his dock, shaking both fists at us, but Grandma Matchie just ignored him. What with his gnazzling garumphing and endless ormbling around and around his island’s beach, and his Blarny Boat all borlupping with leaks, and all his meening away at night when he’s drunk too much crayfish wine and sprouts purbling poems that drift moonily across the water, well, the Major’s small fry.

  Moving forward on my knees I looked down into the hole in the canoe. The water slid by as clear as glass and I could see down a million hundred fifty-one feet to the bottom.

  “See his footprints, Tyke?”

  Squimping, I concentrated real hard like she always told me to do, and then I saw them, crossing the mud bottom. “Steady as she goes!” I shouted.

  Boy, those sure were giant footprints.

  The afternoon passed, as we followed the shoreline until we came to the river mouth, and then up the windering river we went, the forest going by on both sides in a blurthy blur. And below us the tracks of One Armed Trapper continued. When it got dark we kept going and Grandma Matchie, soaking up all that cosmic wind, started glowing in the darkness, and the footprints glowed too. The river narrowed and grew twimpy, with thick wild rice choking the channel and all the spiderwebs between the reedy stalks all shinnily and gothic in the moonlight.

  I watched those footprints the whole night through and never even got tired. It was the cosmic wind, Grandma Matchie explained. “No one ever gets tired with Cosmic Wind,” she said.

  At dawn the river widened and currents swirvelled around us, making the water muddy. “Winnipeg River!” Grandma Matchie shouted triumphantly. “I know where he’s gone to! He can’t hide from me! Hah!” And the canoe raced through the churbling water. “Eaglenest Lake, that’s where! Hah!”

  The river widened eve
n more and I could see bays and inlets on both sides through the morning mist, which disappeared as the sun rose higher and higher. Staring down into the hole once again, I gasped. “His tracks are gone! Grandma Matchie!”

  The canoe stopped suddenly and she turned to me with a frown. “Gone? Then that means he took a detour, don’t it?” She held up her hands. “Not a word, Tyke. Grandma Matchie has t’think.” And with that she closed her eyes and lowered her head.

  Everything had gone quiet and I looked around. The river’s current had stopped and the swirbles stayed in half-swirb, and the ebbies waited in half-eb, and over the trees flying birds were frozen in mid-flathap, and low over the water bazzling insects hung in mid-bazz. The world stopped when Grandma Matchie closed her eyes and thought. Suddenly I heard a tree crash deep in the woods a long way off and then Grandma Matchie’s head snapped up.

  “There’s only one thing that could make One Armed Trapper take a detour.” Her face glowed pink and her eyes glimbered. “Only one thing! I bin hopin for this!”

  “What?”

  She grinned. “Get me my spurs, Tyke, I’m goin for a swim.”

  The world started moving again but our canoe stayed where it was, the water purbling against the sides, as Grandma Matchie stepped to the center and bent down and picked up her saddle and leaned it up against the prow. Then she took the silver spurs and clipped them on to her boots. Jampling, she walked forward and sat down in the saddle. Then she leaned over the bow and yabbled, “Gronomo!” and plunged into the water, vanishing beneath the brown swirbling currents.

  I pulled a loaf of bread from the picnic basket in front of me, tied a rope to it, and heaved it over the side as an anchor. Then, peering down through the hole, I watched Grandma Matchie swarmle down and down until she disappeared in the muddy gloomb.

  Minutes passed. A miscreant frog floated by in the water blinking snoozily and I thought about throwing things in Sis’s hair. Never again, I vowed, would I throw a dead frog in her hair. No, I’d throw something bigger and better, like a giant dead tarantula. Sis hated spiders. I grinned as I imagined it coming back to life.

  The water around me suddenly began to boil, steam rising up in wild sprouts. The canoe tossled and span crazily and I gripped the sides. And through the hole I saw Grandma Matchie coming up, crouched in her saddle with her bony knees up around her shoulders. The spurs glimmerined like fishing lures as she rose up into the sunlipped water. And then I saw what she was riding. The biggest snapping turtle I’ve seen. Bigger than Dad’s Bronco, bigger even than the cabin, about as big as Dad’s Bronco sitting on the cabin, but maybe even bigger. I gawped and stared as its beak opened wide and its long neck stretched upward as if it was going to swabble me and the canoe in one gulp. But then, with a kick from Grandma Matchie, it swirjerked to one side and broke the surface beside me.

  “Ya-hoo! Jump aboard, Tyke! Afore you get capsized!”

  The giant horny shell looked stlippery, all covered with slime and muddy seaweed, but I jumped anyway, landing beside Grandma Matchie who grabbed me before I could stlip and set me down in the saddle behind her.

  “Yeahh!” she yelled, kicking her spurs until sparks flew from the turtle’s shell. With a thrashle of its thick pebbly skinned legs, the snapper surgled forward, clawing through the water so fast that steam burst out behind us. “Tyke! Meet Leap Year! The biggest, meanest Grandma of em all!”

  Eyes rolling, Leap Year nodded her huge head. Looking down, I could see that her shell was covered with carvings. Hearts and initials and arrows and stuff. B.D. LOVES O.A.T., G.L.H. AND O.A.T., O.A.T. LUVS L.L. Thousands of carvings, thousands of initials loving O.A.T. and being loved by O.A.T.

  “He’s had it now!” Grandma Matchie screaked. “We’re all gonna get im! Hah! A thousand million ten fifty years I’ve waited fur this!” The water went by in a blurthy unplosion of foam and steam as Leap Year plommelled forward, smoke hissing from her upturned nose, fires spigging sparks from her enraged eyes, her lipstick-stained beak open and her tongue writhing like an inside-out backwards snake.

  Then, with a nudge of her spurs, Grandma Matchie swung Leap Year shoreward, and I held on tight and let out a yabble as we hit land. Thunder shook the earth and Leap Year’s front claws skraked gouges in the bedrock as we left the river. Then trees crashed down all around us and birds screaked and squirrels flew through the air until they caught hold of vines and swung away in shreeming flight.

  Suddenly, the crashing stopped, and we perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking a lake. Leap Year snortered and stretched out her neck to turn and look at us.

  Grandma Matchie nodded. “He’s down there, all right. I can feel it!”

  The lake was round, and the trees and bushes grew in a tight ring all around its shore, making it look like a giant nest full of water. “He lives down there?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  “It looks like a big bird nest.”

  “Course, it’s called Eaglenest Lake, ain’t it?”

  “It musta been the biggest eagle in the whole world,” I said, and Grandma Matchie nodded again. I went on, “It musta laid the biggest eggs too.”

  “Yep.”

  “Bigger even than Adam’s Egg?”

  Grandma Matchie rubbled her jaw. “Don’t think so, Tyke, but you never know.”

  I squimped my eyes and studied the shore. “I don’t see him.”

  “He lives right at the bottom. That’s where he went down fifty years ago. Carried a cast-iron stove like the one we got in the cabin, a thousand hundred ninety-six miles through the bush, with his one arm. Winter, it was, and here he had his cabin. But crossin the lake the stove fell through the ice and he wen down with it. An there he be, tendin the fire in his stove forever more.”

  “What fire?”

  “The fire o’ love, Tyke.”

  Sure enough, scranch went my face. “Yucchhh!”

  Leap Year snortled again, her gaze belliful, grim and serious as she glarmored down at the lake. Behind us her tail thrashelled the torn-up forest, knockering down trees and overturning big flat rocks and stuff.

  “An Sis is down there? What’s he want her for?”

  Grandma Matchie frowned. “That’s what I can’t figure out an it’s bin itchin me all over. He’s up t’somethin, mark my words.”

  And Leap Year nodded, shiftening nervously under us.

  “Mebee he jus wants er, is all,” Grandma Matchie musilled. “Mebee that’s all there is, mebee.” Then she raised her fist. “Like us all! Like us all!” she crackled. “He’ll steal em when he has to! Steal em and love em and leave em, that’s what he does! He done that t’them all! Up and left em! Even his b’trothed!” Then her mouth snappered shut and she went white.

  Grandma Matchie almost never goes white like that. So, remembering my vow to protect her, I said, “Don’t worry, we’ll get Sis back. Don’t you worry.”

  Leap Year whimed and shibbered under us, her eyes lorling in her head.

  Grandma Matchie drew a deep breath. “No matter! The time’s come an he’s had it now!” Then she drove her spurs into Leap Year’s hard shell. Suddenly we were in the air, sailing outward, then down toward the still blue water. And a head popped up below us, a bearded face with its mouth open in a silent scurm of terror, its eyes bugling out at us.

  The crash when we hit threw me from the saddle, sent me tumbering, limbs splayed, through the air and hitting the water with a painful sralap. Down I went, the blue snirling in front of my eyes. With a thump my bum struck bottom and I looked around. A faint reddish glow warmed the water and I could see something like a baby sun burning in the distance. Jampling to my feet I ran towards it in slow motion. A terrible clanging sound filled my ears, like bells, but I couldn’t see where it came from.

  The glow grew brighter and the spot of fire grew bigger, and I saw that it was a stove, sitting on a bump of rock. Through its grille fire raggled, and blue smoke stained the water until my eyes stung. As I approached Grandma Matchie crampled up b
eside the stove and glarened about. Seeing me, she waved and I skuggled over.

  “Where’s Leap Year?” I asked.

  “Dis’peared. I don’t like this, Tyke. Not one bit.” She continued looking around from her perch on the bump of rock. “One Armed Trapper’s hidin somewhere round here, mark my words.”

  “I saw him just before we hit the water, lookin scared to death!”

  “Aye, an that’s what’s bothering me, Tyke. One Armed Trapper’s never bin fright’ned of nothin in his whole life. Nosiree, he’s up t’somethin, he is.” She shook her head, placing her hands on her hips and glowening about.

  A faint scurm rode to us on the currents and we both turned in its direction. Far in the distance I saw Sis, being held by a small man wearing a tuxedo and the biggest shoes I’ve ever seen, as big as a sports car, though even flatter than the one Dad drove over in the Bronco in the parking lot.

  “One Armed Trapper!” Grandma Matchie hissped, crouching. “If I didn’t know better, I’d scry he was baitin us. Only he wouldn’t dare!” Then she scowlered grimly. “Lessen he’s got help!”

  “Who?”

  “Can’t be sure. Could be Satan Himself!”

  Sis screaked again and Grandma Matchie said, “Well, Tyke, let’s go get im! But keep yer eyes peeled, jus in case it’s a trap!” Then she crampled down and we began running toward them, jampling from rock to rock and pushing our way through seaweed. Fish scattered in all directions when they saw the glow in Grandma Matchie’s eyes and I didn’t blame them. It was something Awful to Behold. As we got closer to where they were struggling, the clangening of bells grew louder and louder.

  I could see One Armed Trapper’s bushy face, and he was grinning, his teeth glowing white like pearls. Sis fought in the grip of his single arm but it was wrapped around her like a vice. When we were only a hundred feet away he gave us a little dance and tuddled off down a rocky trail.