Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

       By Winkler’s Only African American

When Marionette and Elena got tired that first day of biking they decided they’d had enough of physical exercise and would turn south and go to the cabin on the Bayou instead. The Bayou was a swampy extension of Cross Lake near Grand Rapids, Manitoba. When the hydro company had flooded this lake in the fifties some new bays had formed that were almost inaccessible by boat because of all the fallen and submerged timber. The Schleppsteins called it the Bayou and they had once upon a time camped there twice a summer but in the last five years no one had done that and as far as the family knew the interest in hunting moose and fishing for big Jacks in the watery underbrush there had disappeared the way it had come.

       A ski trail had been cut to the cabin by some unemployed and persistent cousin and though he had only ever taken it in winter, Marionette got the bright idea that they could use this ski trail to get there now in summer.

       “We’ll swim, cook, lay in the hammock and just soak up the rays. Really, who wants to bike the last week before classes?” she said to Elena, picking up speed and showing all the signs of renewed interest. The girls had been on the road for just that morning and had travelled as far as Buffalo Lake, a distance of twenty miles. Elena nodded. It was too hot. She thought yes, it would be much better to rest than travel. Five miles further on they turned down a cut-line under some hydro towers and a half mile down that they angled right on a path marked with a red ribbon on a Jack pine.

       The way proved difficult at first with roots and branches everywhere. Cousin had not done a good job of the clearing, Marionette said, swearing. After a while the path got wider and cleaner of obstacles and they made good time. Toward evening they saw a shimmer of lake and in half an hour, just after sunset, the outline of the little cabin.

       “Yay!” they yelled and clapped each other on the back. Tired, they lit a candle, opened a bottle of wine from the case in the corner, and rested on the front step while they listened to the near cry of a loon and the distant call of a wolf. How lovely this evening felt to them. The fading light fell on the blue ribbons in Marionette’s braids. Her hair was the color of polished oxfords in the sun of day. Elena put her head on Marionette’s shoulder and said, “I love you, Marionette!” The eyes of her friend showed the girl that the feelings were mutual. They drank most of the bottle before they blew out the candle and fell asleep on cots that they drew close together because they did feel some apprehension so far from nowhere alone in the bush, which here gets as dense and wild as it does anywhere in the world.

       They woke up in the morning hung over and curious about the African American sleeping between them. “Good God, what’s he doing here,” whispered Elena over his head to Marionette who had herself just hauled her mind out of sleep. Both girls rested on their elbows facing each other. Between them, snoring occasionally, slept a figure whose face was covered with a blanket, whose gray curls showed above it and whose arm, stuck out and under his pillow was the color of an ebony statue.

       “I don’t know,” Marionette shrieked in silence, mouthing the words. Marionette carefully lowered her legs over the side of her cot and tiptoed round to Elena’s side and got in behind her. She rested her hand on Elena’s side and looked over her shoulder. The two girls watched the stranger sleeping there. When he didn’t awake they began to prod him a little, expecting to arouse him momentarily. He lay there impervious.

       “What the hell?” Marionette spoke into Elena’s ear. Elena called out, “Hey!” in a small voice as loudly as you might speak to someone you recognized in a library a desk or two away. No response.

       “Hey!” they said together, Marionette hugging Elena, shivering. Nothing. Marionette reached over Elena and gave him a quick push. He groaned and moved and stretched and then turned to face them, still asleep. They could see his face now. He looked rather old, about sixty, and happy as if in the middle of an excellent dream. They both reached out and pushed him and then shook him until he opened his eyes.

       “Oh,” he said, staring at them, drawing the blanket up about his neck. “Sorry, I slept in, and there wasn’t any other bed last night when I got here. I hope I didn’t wake you. I tried to get under the covers as quietly as possible!” He looked from one set of wide eyes to the other, his own also big and full of wonder.

       “No,” said Elena, looking back at Marionette, “we never noticed you get into bed.”

       “I’ll get you some breakfast,” he said. He looked slim and handsome despite his age. The two girls could tell watching him dress. His stomach had a bulge, true, but it was small and there were signs that this was a hard-working man. His muscles rippled across his chest and his legs and thighs were as taut as any young man they had thought of taking to bed. He put on his undershorts and pants and went naked from the waist up to the cupboards a few steps away and soon bacon and eggs were frying. Coffee had never tasted so good. The girls sat about outside after eating and said little. When the sun came up high enough to clear the tops of the Jack pines and throw its ferocious heat at them against the cabin wall, they decided to tan by the water. Elena lay on the dock and Marionette put down a blanket on the sand.

       “Let’s get an all-over tan, Elena,” Marionette said and Elena nodded. They removed items of clothing and threw them helter-skelter on the edge of the dock and soon the sun warmed them from head to toe. Leander came down the path afterward and walked over with lemonade and ice. From where he got the ice the girls marveled at but didn’t ask. He talked to them. He came out with drinks, some dainty snacks such as pickled eggs and later smoked cold whitefish pieces on crackers with a mustard sauce to dip into. Wine came too, clear and cold as the ice itself. After a while when the girls had filled themselves they declined his offerings and fell silent in the drowsiness of enough to eat and drink. He lay down on the dock, too, with his head in the opposite direction to Elena’s. Was he tanning or just enjoying the sun, the girls asked him and they all laughed.

       The three spent the rest of the week there like that eating, tanning and drinking, sleeping in the two cots shoved together. The girls both dreaded going back to school and said so to each other almost hourly. Grade twelve will be no better than grade eleven they lamented. Who wants to study maths? Yuck! The week did end, though, and before long they found themselves back on their bikes on the trail and then at their school in Winnipeg, just off Pembina highway. To their surprise, already from the first day back in classes they found themselves thoroughly enjoying their studies.