The Sea Runners - Ivan Doig [78]
In the surf's froth, very white beside the rock shelf, Karlsson and Wennberg scanned frantically for other color. Occasionally they glimpsed it, as you might see a bright-headed dancer a quick moment across a crowded room. The straw yellow of Braaf's hair, all but concealed in the tumult of the water and being banged north along the jagged rock shore.
SIX
Two now. But why that. God's bones, why, why? Why one slip and Braaf's gone from life? That how it'll happen, each by each of us? This coast snare us each like that? But Braaf. Braaf, oh Christ, Brant I'd give half my life to have it not happen, what did. Gone, though. Taken water for a wife, (die schooner met! say of it. Why. And pair of us now, we're not much better off than him. You were the tip weight of us, Braaf, kept us level. Turn on me, Wennberg had you to worry about. Go for you, there'd he me sharp on him. Hut now ... Wennberg'll he trouble's trumpet now. Can hear him over there, what must be whispering in that head of his. "Oil Christ—the doom on us—the fish-fuckers shot Melander, Braaf tumbles in a millrace—now just the pair of us and I can't trust this Smålander any farther than I can fart—not after the maps—not after this—" Need to tamp him. Someway, Else we're dead men too, Waiting to fall. Not the way of it, this shouldn't be. We've done the work of the world, since New Archangel. Done Melander's plan this far, every hair of it. Ought he enough, lint always more, Wennberg, he's the first work now. Working slow. Braaf told of that. Braaf, Braaf, Swimming the air with Melander, I hope to Christ you are. And now I go over to that bull and work slow, ...
"I should've. Oh, I should've done you the other night. Slit you loose from life. Braaf and I'd kept on somehow, we'd've managed. But you, you're black luck if there ever was. The maps, and then those Kolosh whale hounds, now this—"
"You do me, Wennberg, and you've done yourself. Fed yourself to ocean or Koloshes, choose your devil."
They were either side of the canoe, the afternoon graying away, the coast gone somber. Tide was still high, covering the point where Braaf had been lost—and the seal as well, slosh up to the knees of Wennberg arid Karlsson when they struggled toward the animal, before they saw a retreating wave swash the gray form back into the ocean. Then the wrangle, on and on—"fucking squaw rider you, if you'd had the maps none of this"—"maps are wish, Wennberg, miles arc what we need, so just"—until every word seemed to be out of t)ie both of them. They were weary, groggy, lame in the head. Being deprived of Melander had been like the stiffening of an arm or leg, they somehow learned to function in spite of it, gimped their way onward as they had to. This loss of Braaf was more a warp of the balance within the ear. Nothing stood quite whore it had before. And when the lurch of argument and temblors of predicament at last shook the two men silent, Karlsson knew he needed to begin his true labor. And so did.
"Can't paddle in daylight, you say yesterday," Wennberg had responded somewhere between bafflement and fury. Beware the goat from the front, the horse from the rear, and man from all sides, ran a saying of the New Archangel Russians. Everything of Wennberg recited this caution into Karlsson now. Yet Wennberg had to be worked back to the journey, into the canoe, brought around from Braaf's ... "Now it's can't paddle at night. Tell me this one thing, Karlsson. This one goddamned sideways thing. Where're you going to find us hours that aren't one or other, day or night? Whistle up your ass for them, arc you?"
"Dusk." Karlsson had repeated it carefully, "Dusk, Wennberg, We need make a short run of it, until we figure we're clear of any Koloshes along here. Just the two of us paddling now, we've got to learn about that, too. So we need do it. Steal enough twilight to paddle an hour, maybe two, we can. Whatever we make is gain toward Astoria,"
Now, the day stepping down toward dark, Wennberg sighed dismally, squinted to the ocean,