“Jenny doesn’t use it anymore,” Bernice said.
“Still?”
“You’re giving me and Harry a chance to go back to a place we haven’t seen in years,” she insisted. “You deserve an opportunity to enjoy the trip, too. It wouldn’t be fair for you to spend the whole time with us two ancients and not get in some own-time.”
So, despite his doubts, they slipped Jenny’s kayak into the Looner Module’s galley, along with the paddles and a life jacket they’d found in the Sanderson’s shed, then shut the door and took off. Destination? Nixon Creek.
“The last time we took the Looner Module to Nixon was…” Bernice’s voice trailed off. He glanced at her face in the rear-view mirror. She looked lost, head tilted, eyes shut, as if listening to a sound in a forest. “Well, I can’t remember the exact date,” she sighed. “But it was the last time we used the camper.
“I think you’ll really like it there, Buddy.”
“Let him concentrate, hon,” Harry advised from the front passenger seat. “This thing handles like a wheelbarrow full of bricks, and Buddy’s a complete novice.”
Buddy appreciated Harry’s gruff humour. The truck and camper lumbered down Maple, then lurched right onto Oak Street. It felt as if the whole rig was going to tip over at every turn and that it couldn’t possibly fit on the same stretch of pavement as the parked and passing cars.
“Don’t look down at the road,” Harry coached. “Pick a point as far ahead as you can, and drive toward it. Your brain will figure out what’s in between.”
“Ever think of becoming a life coach?”
“What’s that?” Harry snorted. “Some kinda shrink or something?
“Sort of.”
“Oh, don’t pretend to be so dumb, Harry,” Bernice scolded.
And so they meandered from Old Town up to Highway One, then on to Highway 19, and west from there into Lake Cowichan. “Pretty well the end of civilization,” Harry said as they passed through, then around the lake to the end of pavement beyond Honeymoon Bay. The Looner Module juddered and rocked along the South Side logging road.
“Trick is to keep up enough speed so’s you don’t drop into every pothole,” Harry advised, “but not so fast that you end up in the ditch.”
“What ditch?” Buddy glanced down the steep side slope.
“The BIG ditch,” Harry chortled. “Don’t worry. You’re doing fine.”
From Honeymoon Bay to Nixon Creek is about 20 kilometres. The whole time, Buddy was focused and tense. But he learned not to grip the steering wheel too tight, to nudge the Looner Module in the right direction, letting it sort of float over patches of washboard.
“You could’a made a pretty good truck logger,” Harry joked.
Buddy smiled appreciatively. Wondered what it must have been like to bull your way up the surrounding mountainsides in a gigantic rig, then coast back down to sea level, the immense momentum of a full load stacked behind you. To do it again, and again, for more than forty years. To watch the landscape change and people’s attitudes harden against your livelihood.
“It’s a strange feeling, hauling downhill,” Harry said. “You have to stay focused cause you don’t know exactly what you might run into around the next bend. Even with your CB yakking, you never know for sure what’s coming. But, at the same time, you’re all alone, and you can’t help thinking about this and that.”
“You must have thought about a lot of this and that in your time, Harry!”
“Oh yeah! This, that, and the other thing for sure,” the old man smiled.
“Hey! Keep your eyes on the road!”