Lion's Head Revisited Read online

  The sunset was in tatters, orange and red bands threaded through with purple. It clung from one end of the horizon to the other, lending a sense of impending desolation to the view. A mistake, really, especially if you wanted to avoid thinking of things you’d rather forget. Like life, like loss.

  He watched the colours changing as he drove. The sky seemed vast, almost too wide and open due to the peninsula’s flatness. It felt as though he was perched on the edge of the universe. If he let go of the steering wheel, he might just float off in the distance.

  The motel entrance lay just up ahead. He signalled and turned in, though there was no one behind or in front of him as far as he could see. Just empty roads.

  Yes, he could have done without the sunset.

  Back inside his room he turned on the television, texting a belated I love you too to Nick.

  EIGHT

  Into the Lion’s Den

  DAN WOKE EARLY, while it was still dark out. He stretched and discovered he’d slept well. Far better, in fact, than he slept at home most nights. There were no messages on his phone, nothing from Janice saying that the kidnapper had called again. He showered and shaved then stepped outside for a walk. By the time he returned the sun had risen; the sky looked far bluer than it did in the city.

  Back in the room his phone showed a text from Nick in response to his uncharacteristic, late-night love note. Who is this!!! Do I know you? it read. Cheeky bastard, Dan shot back. You get to say I love you all the time. For me it’s not that easy.

  When he looked out the window, the old woman was still riding her bicycle. Or more likely she had resumed her riding from the previous evening. She held herself erect as she sailed past his room and headed along the asphalt strip, turning neatly just before reaching the end.

  “Your mother enjoys her bicycle,” Dan told Sonny when he dropped his key off at the office.

  “No — wife. She lonely. Speak only Chinese. No one talk to her.”

  Dan tried to imagine how it would feel to be the only non-English speaker in a sparsely populated land. You would probably want to ride your bicycle all day long.

  He got in his car and headed up the highway. Twenty minutes later he came to a junction where three wind turbines rose on the right just before Cemetery Road, exactly as Janice had described. A pine forest edged the horizon. Somewhere out there his childhood memories had been formed. He recalled them so vividly it was as if they had been flitting around in the woods all that time, just waiting for him to return.

  His phone signal died right before the entrance to the McLean farm. He turned down a long dirt road where a smartly outfitted farmhouse sat like a welcoming beacon at the far end. Red and green, with gingerbread trim. He half expected to see fairy lights lined up along the drive.

  Instead he saw a bull, probably the one Janice had just managed to avoid. Fat, sleek, and reddish-brown, it stood in a field all by itself. It turned its huge head to eye him.

  A heavily bearded Santa Claus came out to watch Dan’s approach, scratching his head in surprise at seeing a visitor. As he came down the stairs, Dan noticed his strange walk, as though he had to propel his legs forward one at a time. A frantic barking came from inside.

  They were seated next to the kitchen window. A vase crammed full of daisies sat on a linen tablecloth. White lace and promises. A rifle leaned up against a wall.

  “Horace — call me Horace,” the man said.

  An idyllic setting in the middle of nowhere. Apart from the gun. A moment earlier, three small dogs had been hounding the visitor. Now they lay curled on a brown sofa, licking one another’s faces.

  “Thank you, Horace. Please call me Dan.”

  “Dan … Daniel. Meaning ‘God is my judge.’ Your lineage is well proclaimed. Firm in your adherence to the law despite being surrounded by enemies.” He gave Dan a sly look. “Is that you?”

  “Some would say so.”

  Horace nodded. “The lord saved Daniel in the den of lions, sending an angel to close their jaws, finding no fault in the man. Feast day, July 27.” He looked off to the window then back to Dan. “You’ve got the lions on your side. I like you, young man.”

  “Thank you, sir.” It had been a long time since anyone had called him young.

  “She was lucky, that girl,” Horace continued. “Old Dobbins” — he nodded to the bull outside — “don’t take too kindly to strangers.” He laughed a deep, hearty laugh. “Hell, he don’t take too kindly to me half the time either! ‘For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.’ Hebrews 10:4.”

  He turned his gaze back to the table. Dan had at first declined his offer of food, but he was glad when the old farmer insisted, sliding a plate of eggs and bacon in front of him. The yolks were bright yellow, the bacon crisp and crinkled tidily on the plate. He was starving.

  “Best eggs you’ll ever taste,” Horace told him.

  Dan nodded after a single bite. “You’re right.”

  “Most excitement we’ve had up here for a long time,” the farmer continued. His gaze was far off as he recalled the emergency vehicles and police cars that arrived after he found Janice passed out on his farm. “She all right, that girl?”

  “For the most part, yes.”

  “The boy?”

  “Still missing.”

  “Local talk says now it was a kidnapping.” He stared intently at Dan, as though daring him to say different.

  “Yes, it looks like it.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me, I suppose.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Too many crazy people in the world,” Horace concluded, as though a simpler outlook would solve all the world’s problems. That and a plate of farm-fresh eggs. And who was to say he wasn’t right?

  Dan folded the eggs over onto his toast, the yellow oozing out from the centre. Definitely the best eggs he’d had in a very long time.

  “More coffee?”

  “Please.”

  Dan watched as Horace poured a long, black thread into the cup.

  “That’s why I’m up here,” Horace said.

  For a moment, Dan thought he meant for the coffee.

  “Used to live in the city,” Horace explained.

  “In Toronto?”

  Horace gave him a scornful look. “Not Toronto. The Sound. Nasty place.”

  He had that faraway look in his eyes again, as though he were looking past him to the sin and wickedness that lay at the core of all human beings. Dan was beginning to regret having driven three hours to meet a full-on eccentric. He’d be giving Nick his assessment when he returned: A regular, routine sort of recluse, my ass.

  “‘I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.’” Horace sighed. “So I moved up here when my doctor told me it was this or pushing up daisies.”

  “Happier?” Dan asked.

  Horace snorted and shrugged his big shoulders. “Nope. Everywhere I go, there I am. Still the same me. But now I got daisies far as I can see.”

  Daisies for crazies. Dan resisted the temptation to laugh. He took a moment to savour his coffee then set the cup down.

  “Can you tell me what happened when Janice Bentham arrived on your property?”

  “Sure!” He scratched his head and smiled. “It was a little strange, to say the least. People normally don’t just end up here by chance. Hard to find. No Wi-Fi, eh?”

  Dan thought of his dead phone signal.

  Horace continued. “The dogs were making a fuss and I looked out the window. I saw Old Dobbins was getting a little restive.” He patted his hip. “Takes a bit of effort to get around, so I don’t hurry. Accident with a tractor a few years back. I waited, but the dogs didn’t stop, so I thought for a moment there might be a wolf hanging around. We get them sometimes. That’s why I keep a gun.” He nodded to the shotgun. “Don’t like killing, but I wouldn’t hesitate to use it. So when I looked out and saw that
little girl stumbling alongside the fence, I knew I had to get her out of there before Dobbins decided to take matters into his own hands, so to speak. I called her Rachel then. That was before I knew, of course.”

  “Knew what?”

  “How the child was begotten of another. It just made sense in my head, so I went with it. But there it was, true all along.”

  Dan took a moment to follow his logic. “She told you her son was a surrogate baby?”

  “Nah, she didn’t tell me. Couldn’t talk, could she? Had the breath knocked out of her good. Didn’t even know about the boy then. I heard it all later. Anyway, she was passed out when I found her. I waved Old Dobbins off then made sure she was safe and come back to call 911. I tell people there’s no phone, but I got a land line. Can’t remember the number half the time though.” He winked. “So that’s about it. Then that other girl came along about ten minutes later. First I took her for an angel. Then I thought to myself, what would an angel be doing up here? I called her Leah.”

  Ashley, Dan thought.

  Horace nodded as though all was clear. “Rachel was jealous of her sister, you see. That was Leah. Couldn’t stand that her sister had babies and she didn’t. Especially after Leah stole her husband on their wedding night. So she made the servant girl bear children for her.” His expression darkened. “When I heard the boy was missing, I was worried. There’s bears out there. And wolves that would tear you apart.” He shook his head. “Shame. A real shame. I hope they find him.”

  Dan took another bite of egg and considered Horace’s words. “If someone were to kidnap a child, where would they take him, do you think?”

  “Up here?” Horace scratched his beard. “If it were me, I’d put him on a boat and take him somewhere far from here.”

  Dan considered. “Where exactly?”

  “From here you could sail up and be away to the northern shores of Superior. Head up to Nunavut, if you wanted. Or if you went west and south, you’d end up in the States. For all the talk about border patrols, it’d be an easy thing to sneak over in a sailboat. At night, say. Take the boy out and hide him away somewhere.” A thought occurred to him. “Or caves. If I didn’t have a boat, I’d hide him in one of the caves till the coast was clear then head out late at night when no one could see.”

  Dan finished his meal then let the older man show him around the farm briefly. He had no interest in the livestock, but Horace seemed to want his company.

  “What are your people?” Horace asked as they stood outside the door to the barn.

  It took Dan a moment to understand the question. “Calvinist,” he said.

  Horace nodded. A weighty reply that took some consideration. “That’s predetermination,” he said at long last. “Who gets saved and who doesn’t. You believe in that, Daniel?”

  “I believe in the law.”

  Horace laughed long and hard. “Oh, that’s good. Yes sir, that’s good! ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.’”

  Dan slowed to let the older man keep pace with him, propelling himself forward with each step.

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place then.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Lion’s Head. That’s where you’re headed, young Daniel.”

  Afterward, as Dan got back in his car and turned back down the long drive, he looked in the mirror to see Horace waving.

  “Caves,” the old man called after him. “It’s the caves you want. Watch out for the lions, though.”

  He laughed a high, snorty laugh.

  NINE

  Caves

  DAN HEADED AWAY FROM Horace’s farm, along the coast, till he came to a sign reading Caves: next three kilometres. They lay somewhere up ahead in the shadow of the formidable limestone outcrop that gave the peninsula its name, towering over the water like some mythical protector from the Iliad. He pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the car engine, then got out to stretch, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his shoulders and back.

  He stowed his belongings in the trunk with a city boy’s wariness of leaving anything exposed through car windows, prepared for a long walk over difficult terrain. A winding, mossy trail led him to the first cave in less than twenty minutes. There wasn’t a lot to it, just a forbidding-looking entrance opening onto a shadowy space bounded by damp rock on all sides. That the human race had evolved from cave-dwelling ancestors seemed almost beyond comprehension. Then again, he reasoned, everyone had to start somewhere.

  He emerged from the shadowy indentation and followed the path again, stopping to peer into several shallow depressions others might have accepted for caves, but which were of no interest to him as they would have been impossible to hide or take shelter in, even if you were a four-year-old boy.

  As the path descended Dan heard a low rumbling ahead, a sound as old and amorphous as the trees and rocks surrounding him. He skidded down an incline, clutching at cedar branches until he came out suddenly onto a beach, its pebbles caught in a restless eddy.

  He stood looking out where the waves crested white before tumbling over themselves to reach the shore. Seagulls glided along, waiting to catch a glint of fin and scale. He felt something formidable and uncompromising here. It ran through his veins, a force as strong as love or the protective urges he felt when he thought of his son. It seemed to come from deep in the earth and rise up all around him.

  He knelt and trailed a fist in the water, iron-cold despite the air’s warmth. The last time he’d been here, just up the coast, had been four years after his mother’s death. By then he was living with his Aunt Marge, a large woman with a big heart, and his cousin Leyla, who was like a sister to him.

  His father had convinced Marge to let Dan come with him for the weekend. Stuart Sharp had got it into his head that they should try to recapture something of the carefree time they’d had the summer before Dan’s mother died. Not that it had been carefree to Dan, but his father seemed to think it was. There had been talk that they might even live together again. If everything went well on the trip then they would see.

  Dan hadn’t felt comfortable being alone with his father. The one good memory he had was of stopping at a roadside diner for ice cream and eating it as quickly as he could before it melted down his fist in sticky rivulets. Not really much of a memory as these things went.

  He stood and headed back along the trail where it veered off right before it began to climb again. A weathered sign said Gun Point.

  He was conscious of having been alone for nearly half an hour before he spotted other people. He came upon them suddenly, a young couple walking slowly and talking quietly. The boy slid his arm lightly over his girlfriend’s shoulder. Dan watched as she reached around and gripped his back pocket, hanging on tight. Ownership, it said.

  He smiled and thought of Nick. They’d been lying in bed one morning, not long after they first met, all sexed out. When Nick tried to get up, Dan had held onto him.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  “Feeling insecure?” Nick asked.

  “I like this,” Dan said.

  “I like it too. But I’m just going to the bathroom.”

  When Nick returned, they’d had a serious discussion. To Dan’s surprise, they both voiced a desire for a monogamous relationship.

  “You mean just me and you?” Dan asked.

  “That’s usually what monogamy means,” Nick had replied. “I get the feeling you wouldn’t mind if I got possessive about you.”

  Dan thought about it. “Strangely, I feel as though I want to be owned by you. Like I need to belong to just you.”

  Nick laughed out loud. “That’s how I feel about you, which makes us pretty old-school in our thinking. Imagine, in this day and age: two monogamous cis males. We’re ancient history.”

  “Very ancient,” Dan agreed. “Did the dinosaurs have good sex lives?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  The relationship had grown from there. It seemed to obliterate the assumptions Dan h
ad harboured his entire life that all pleasures must eventually be paid for and all joys must end, if not in grief then in loss or disappointment. A lifetime of hard work did not necessarily lead to the promised rewards of sanctity and grace. Wheels turned and people got ground under. The only lessons were those of privation and regret, life’s sad souvenirs. His father would have agreed.

  He grasped a branch and pulled on it, suddenly finding himself at the top of the promontory with a long blue vista stretching before him. Up here everything was alive: rocks, wind, and clouds. Far below, waves scribbled a corrugated surface over the lake while all around him tree branches stretched blindly, restlessly searching. Then, for one solitary moment, there was no wind, only stillness and a silence that seemed to pour down from the sky before it all started up again.

  He walked carefully out to the edge where the ground fell away in a sheer drop to the water. Looking west, past the limestone cliffs, he saw the town with its cottages and colourful rows of sailboats bobbing in the wind. He’d last seen his dog, Sandy, out there somewhere. The last summer his mother was alive.

  It was a mistake to have gone back. Even at eight Dan knew that. His father had parked in the long gravel drive outside the cottage and just sat there. Dan waited, wondering what was going through his head. He seemed overwhelmed on seeing it again, unable to comprehend what it all meant till he faced it.

  The cottage had one long main room, with bedrooms and a kitchen partitioned off in back. The rafters were stuffed with life jackets and fishing rods and paddles. An oil lamp hung suspended from a hook over a wooden table. The pot-bellied stove still worked. Water was pumped via a long hose into the sink. The floorboards left splinters in your feet if you went barefoot. Dan remembered all of this. There had been an outhouse with a sun and crescent moon carved near the top of its door.

  The evening of their arrival was chilly. Dan sat wrapped in a blanket, the wool scratching his arms and the back of his neck. They’d been roasting marshmallows, watching the outer coats turn from white to brown then slowly start to blacken and blister. The trick was to remove them from the heat before they caught fire. Half of them slid off and landed in the flames with a sad plop before you could eat them.