NORTHERN LIGHTS
© all rights reserved

"We could be riding there on a cloud."
Floating through the fog, they were all just voices in the dark.
"Flying clouds," she said. "Into the light, mysterious light."
"The big light," said Tom.
They could see the lights in the north, flashing and streaking across the sky.
"I can't see," said Youngster, sitting up in his seat. "The dark . . . ."
Jack paddled to keep them straight. The river was warm and still as glass, reflecting the stars in the breaks of fog.
In the far canoe, Logan watched the lights and said nothing.
"Oh, I see 'em now," barked Youngster, touching off a round of soft laughter. Youngster had the genuine northern voice, smoke-husky and loud. "I see the light," he said.
Laura leaned back and looked straight into the cold light of the stars. She only started working in July, but Jack knew about her before then. She was a summer girl from downstate. She lived in a cottage upriver and sometimes she rode her boat down to the store. He finally figured out something to say to her, but he didn't figure on all the rest. In the night that looked faintly blue, there were thousands of stars blinking separately in space.
“It’s the end,” his brother said, “that one-way ride into the light, the end.”
Jack wished he would stop. There was no use talking about it. There was no use talking about a lot of things.
"What do you think, Jack?" he said, getting himself another beer. "You're awful quiet tonight."
Logan struck a match in the far canoe. The flame burst round and full, then died in a hiss on the river.
"Wouldn't it be nice," she said, in a voice sweet as a meadowlark. “Wouldn’t it be nice to fly?”
It was all over, summer was gone. It was the end of another season. No more car shuttles down to the mouth, no more hauling canoes back to the store. It was the time of year when the nights grew cold, when fog crept across the river into the woods. They were all together for the annual midnight canoe trip down the river. They were together for the last time of summer, floating along in the dark with the northern lights burning up the sky, streaking across the night to light up the sky.
"Look, there's the sand hill," said Youngster. "Remember, we stay dry this summer."
"That's right," said Tom, putting down his beer. "Everybody stays dry."
They did it the same way every year.
"Youngster, why don't you give Logan a hand getting in?" said Jack.
Youngster hopped into the waist-high water and waded toward the far canoe.
"That's okay," said the young storeowner. "I can see my way clear."
"No," said Jack, jumping in. "It has to be this way."
He waded around the back as Youngster approached from the front. The warm water made the air feel even colder. They would get Logan first, then Laura and Tom.
"It really is most kind," Logan said. "But we can see ourselves in."
"I insist," said Jack.
"You're too kind."
But before they could dump him, Logan stood up in the canoe and dove into the dark river. That was the way with him. He always went one further. Jack had come to know this about his friend and never passed up the chance to see him do it again, to see how far he would go. They all wanted to see just how far he'd go, but especially Jack.
Tom rolled his canoe alone while Jack gently tipped Laura. Paddles and cushions bobbed in the river current. All of it floated toward the oxbow bend where the sand hill came down to the river. In the reflection of stars shining on the water, Jack found the sealed tin holding the matches.

While the others waited in the river, he and Logan built a fire on top of the hill. Jack knew right where to find the dry dune grass and deadfall. He came here often to swim and hike in the dunes.
"Be sure to stop by the store tomorrow," Logan said. "I left a little something for you."
The fire caught fast as a whirl of sparks lifted off the grass and spiraled for the stars.
"A bonus," he said. "We got a lot done this year. It was a good year."
It might have been the play of firelight but it seemed something flashed in his eyes, the way ash goes dark when the wind blows. Logan had this way of changing suddenly to deadly serious. Sometimes it happened so fast Jack couldn't tell one from the other. Roni said it was from the six months he spent in a Vietnam hospital and not to worry about it. But it never escaped Jack. He saw it in terms of good and bad, that for every good thing there's a bad one, and as far as you go in one direction you can be sure to go in the other.
"I mean it, Jack. It means a lot . . ."
"Logan, you don't have to."
". . . to us, with the new baby on the way now. Thanks for what you've done."
"Logan . . . ."
But Jack couldn't say it. He never could. He was never good at that sort of thing, and now whatever it was that he didn't know to say got stuck in his throat. It was the kind of thing he thought was best to forget anyway.
But it wasn't that way with Logan, and he knew it. They came in the spring, Roni and Logan, two years earlier. He was just a kid then but he told Logan what he knew about running canoes, about the shuttles and repairs. He told him about the fishing skiffs, the outboards and maintenance, the bait shop, and all that went with the marina--the parts and tools, the lower-unit grease, the plugs and hoses and points. He told him about the salesmen and the drunks and highwaymen, careful to look at him when he said it. Logan listened but Jack couldn't help feeling that he knew about it already, knew about it in fact long ago. Maybe not the particulars of running a canoe business, but everything else.
He remembered the rainy day Logan sent him to Crystal Lake to pick up a boat. The road was flooded out with rainwater and every time he plowed the truck through one of those long puddles a little more moisture worked its way under the distributor cap, so when it came time to haul out the boat he cranked the truck over and over again, swearing he'd get it back to the store without Logan or anyone else to help him. And then a week later when the new starter was delivered, he was down by the river getting everything ready for the midday rush. Logan called him up and together they put the starter in. At the busiest time of day, while Tom and Youngster ran ragged around the yard with canoes, Logan and he tore into the engine in the shade of the truck--hands greasy and sand working its way under his shirt and all he could think was why, if for no other reason, why was Logan doing this for him?
And now all he could do was plow some sand with his foot and say he was going for more wood. There would be another time. There was always another time. Logan didn't need to hear it from him anyway. Hell, he had a Purple Heart.
"That fire hot enough?"
Youngster walked up and dragged a pine limb over the flames.
"There," he said. "See how that does."
The flames cracked and hissed at the new log.
"And who's got you all fired up tonight?"
As the flames reached higher, the others came up and sat close around the fire.
"How many beers have you had, anyway?" Jack continued.
"I'm allowed," said Youngster, the ire rising in his pale blue eyes.
"I think he had two," Tom said.
"I can!"
The firelight made it hard to see and Jack moved away until he saw the stars and dunes again and the darkness over the bay. From down on the beach, he heard the quiet sigh of the surf.
"Salmon ought to be here by now," said Tom.
"Another week or two," Youngster replied. "And then they'll be ready."
The waves were down tonight, the lake was calm.
"They gather together, don't they?" asked Laura. "For the day when they all run together?"
On the other side of the hill, the river fog snaked through the woods into the distance.
"What makes them do that?" she asked. "Gather all together like that then one day just take off upriver?"
"They just know is all," said Youngster. "What makes anything do what it does?"
"But what makes them always come back to the same place, to die?"
"They just know," he said again. "What makes you stare into the stars? What makes Logan do all his crazy things? What makes Jack think he's always got to fight everything clear through to the other side, just to see what's there?"
An ember popped in the fire, scattering sparks around their feet.
"Same thing that makes you a cuss," Jack said.
"See what I mean?"
Logan laughed, Laura came closer, and it was all right like this. The fire was hot with a nice bed of coals and a good light. They were all together. They were all together and as long as they were there, it was all right.

The sand on the trail felt cool between his toes. There was nothing on this side of the river but the wild dune country rolling down to the lake--the hills and bowls patchworked with juniper, dune grass, and sand cherry. This was the country Jack loved more than all the rest, more than the deep woods and river though he loved those too. There was something about standing high atop a dune and seeing all that blue water out there, the islands and two bluffs across the bay. Sometimes at night the lake looked like a black space that went on forever. It made him think of all the shipwrecks and lost souls he knew to be at the bottom, but even that seemed as it should be now. He could see another bonfire flickering up the coast. There might be a half dozen bonfires on a night like this, each rising out of darkness to burn and fall again to the night. He wanted them to see his fire. He wanted them all to see his fire like he now saw theirs.
He saw Laura coming down the trail, walking through the dunes in the blue light of darkness.
"I was looking for you," she said.
Her hair was blond like many summer girls. As she looked up, a lock of it blew across her face and it seemed then that there was all the time in the world.
"Aren't they wonderful?"
Jack turned and looked again at the strange lights in the north.
"You're leaving soon," he said.
"Tomorrow," said Laura. "Will you come see me?"
"Sure," he said.
"Before it snows?"
"Sure."
"Jack, what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Why don't you tell me?"
"There's nothing to tell."
"Then why are you like this?"
A tern cried over the lake.
"Stay with me tonight," she said. "Out here on the dunes."
As she came closer he heard the lone tern again in the darkness over the lake.
"You and me together, Jack," she said. "One last time."
Up the coast, the bonfires flickered one by one. There was a fire at the end of the lake road and he wondered who was there. Maybe some of his friends from Honor, drinking and telling stories. Maybe someone like Laura who would give him that feeling the first time he saw her. Maybe she would feel it too, and they could walk down the beach and talk and see how it all matched up.

The Wild Upriver and other stories
written by James McVey
ISBN 0-9766104-0-X