Raft of Stars Andrew Graff (free biff chip and kipper ebooks txt) 📖

its bow, if it could be called that, lay a coil of about forty feet of spare rope. Two muddy push poles lay in the sand beside it.

“Well, it needs a name again,” said Fish.

“The Poachers’ Hope of Lantern Rock is still a good name,” said Bread.

“Needs more now,” said Fish. He looked downriver. They couldn’t be that far from Ironsford now. This was their final stretch, and then, who knows? The river was so wide here, and the sandbars so numerous, it hardly looked like a river at all. But because of the debris marking the nearly imperceptible flow, all they’d have to do to make their way through is choose the channel where the leaves and logs flowed fastest. The realization made Fish feel like crying again. Here was this river rooting for them, saying in a voice so much quieter than the storm—Come this way. There is more. Fish felt the same odd comfort he felt when his mom prayed, a warmth within the cold. He didn’t want to trust it. But maybe that storm wasn’t God after all. Maybe God was in this whisper. Maybe God was in the river. It was a miracle they still had a raft and a place to take it.

Bread broke the silence. He held up his hands as he spoke, as if offering a blessing to the boat and a challenge to the sky. “Here floats,” he said, and then spoke slowly, “The Last Stand of the Poachers’ Hope of Lantern Rock.”

“You’re getting good at that,” said Fish.

Bread smiled. “It’s good, right?”

“It is.”

“Beaver warriors,” said Bread.

Fish nodded. “Beaver warriors,” he said.

The boys basked in the rain until they heard something in the air. At first it reminded Fish of the storm, and a lump formed in his throat. He didn’t know if he could bear another. But when he listened more closely, and assured himself that the wind hadn’t stirred, he thought it sounded more like a whine, a hum, a moaning from upriver.

“Boat!” shouted Bread, ducking and pointing as he said it. Fish saw it at once. Several hundred yards distant, a boat crossed a channel between sandbars and cattails. Bread and Fish bolted toward the shoreline and crouched in the reeds. The boat disappeared behind an island, then reappeared, its motor grating and popping and leaving a blue trail of smoke on the black water.

“I don’t like this,” said Bread. “Who is that?”

“He won’t see us,” said Fish. The boat was in the channel along the opposite shore. It disappeared and reappeared, moving quickly. “From where he is, our raft’s just gonna look like a log. There’s lots of logs.”

“I don’t like it is all. I don’t like someone being out here.” Bread drew a sharp breath, blew it back out between his lips.

Fish studied the boat as it crossed an open section of water. It was a flat-bottomed duckboat, the same kind everyone else used on this river, the same kind Fish’s grandpa had, and Bread’s dad. Fish didn’t know of any major boat landings, but there were plenty of backwoods paths that led into the river at various places. A person had to drag his boat in through muck and briars. Duck hunters came out here. Muskrat trappers. Fish squinted. The boatman rode with a rain hood pulled over his eyes. The hood stayed facing forward, and then it turned, slowly, and that dark mask seemed to stare right at him. Fish couldn’t explain why, but the dream he had of the antlered man, the scarecrow on the poachers’ island, came back to him as he stared into that black hood. It sent a shiver up his spine and he found himself holding his breath. Slowly, the hood turned back downstream, and the motor sputtered on, and soon all that was left of the boat was a disturbed wake of water and smoke. The boatman hadn’t spotted them. The dread of Fish’s dream hung in the cattails.

“I think it’s a trapper,” said Fish. “Ironsford must be closer than we think.”

Bread trembled. “I can’t breathe,” he said. His back twitched like a horse’s hide.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just got”—he tried to smile—“really cold, you know? Got cold all of a sudden.” Bread tried to shrug, but the movement was muted by his shaking. A memory came to Fish’s mind of a time the two boys hid in the garage rafters while Bread’s dad tore through it, stone drunk, tripping over tool chests and smashing bottles.

“It’s all right, Bread. The boat’s gone. He’s gone.”

Bread folded his arms more tightly around his chest. He nodded. Swallowed.

“I think we shouldn’t wait to shove off,” said Fish. “It’s getting dark out.”

Bread nodded.

“Beaver warriors,” Fish reminded him.

Bread nodded again, cow-eyed, sitting in the cattails.

AFTER TIFFANY EMERGED FROM THE CEDAR FOREST AND BAILED THE remainder of rain and river from their canoe, she tightened the ropes on their gear. Miranda sat silently near the riverbank, her arms hugging her knees. Tiffany asked if she was ready to go and saw in Miranda’s eyes the weight of shame and condemnation, a flash of spite too: Go where? they seemed to say. But Miranda just swallowed, nodded nearly imperceptibly, looked out at the rain-pocked water, and stepped into the bow lightly and silently, giving Tiffany’s arm the weakest squeeze as she passed.

Paddling through the aftermath of the storm made Tiffany grow quiet as well, out of awe and fear amid the greenish calm. Thunder still pealed in the distance, and the rain fell, but there was no more breeze, and Tiffany soon became lost in the spell of paddle strokes and undulating river grass. The air felt cooler than the river, and the river carried a thick litter of leaves and branches. The world seemed somehow both broken and refreshed. Tiffany filled her lungs. Looked downstream. She felt hope. The air felt hopeful. The canoe still floated. They were underway, her paddle clunking against the gunwale with each brace stroke like a slowly beaten drum.

They crossed the