“A Ducati motorcycle passed me where I was set up with the radar near French Beach. He was doing 150 kmh. Sweet ride, though.” He kissed his long, tapered fingers and mimed a handlebar flourish. “Wish I could afford one. Dad would be fine with it, but I doubt Mom would agree.” Chipper lived at home with his parents over their small store in Langford, closer to Victoria. Speaking of coddled, his mother still starched and ironed his shirts and made his lunch.
“You caught him before he could exit the gene pool, taking someone along, no doubt. Good job. The next all-you-can-eat pizza buffet is on me.” The long and winding road to Port Renfrew attracted motorcycle runs every weekend, especially at the Gordon’s Beach strip, where the speed limit rose to 80 kmh. She didn’t look forward to scraping someone off the pavement on a hairpin turn where the highway had been patched one too many times. The latest cheap-fix method of smearing asphalt on the cracks not only crossed drivers’ eyes but left slippery spots for even experienced riders.
“Back atcha, Guv,” he said, suppressing a wink and knowing that she preferred it to Ma’am, which made her feel older than Ann.
Holly told him about the report on Bailey Bridge. Chipper nodded. “Reg told me that the place attracts in the summer. Last year they were pretty quiet, though. We had a cold, wet summer, so not many came out. This year, with the sunny days, they’re back in business. I’ve only stopped by once. An older guy runs the show. He called me over to take in a teenager sloshed to the eyeballs at noon. We had a bulletin on the kid, turns out. A runaway from Nanaimo. Lucky he barfed before he got into the backseat.” He steepled his hands in a prayer gesture.
“Guess we’d better schedule regular drive-bys,” Holly said, making a mental note.
Chipper stuck out his lower lip and shook his head confidently. “I know that creek. Another month, and it will be dry stones. Everyone will have to move on.”
“Problem solved, but I need to check it out. I’ll take the car,” Holly said. They were limited to an older Impala with a Sooke decal on top of the trunk for air identification, and an ancient Suburban for winter driving in the high hills where snow could lurk. Keeping it full of gas was like pouring water into a sand dune.
* * *
She drove east from the sheltered enclave of Fossil Bay. Still tenanted by many former loggers and fishermen, its grid of streets had attracted a new crowd. Spying lower prices west of Victoria, retired boomers from Ontario and points east bought its more modest houses and occasional doublewides. The old clapboard grade school from the turn of the century had been refurbished and took students from Otter Point. Shopping was marginal, only a gas station cum convenience store and Nan’s restaurant. Recently a few home businesses had opened, a hair salon, dog kennels, wood salvagers, or personal services like Marilyn’s.
Holly rolled past the unmarked town limits and headed to Bailey Bridge, only too aware of the hazards of gaping at the world-class scenery as a gravel truck rolled around the blind curve, taking the centre line under the laws of physics. She eased off the gas and felt her heart skip several beats.
At this time of year, Bailey Creek was one of the last still flowing in salmon country. It would be a different matter in spawning season. “The persistence of Nature,” said romantic philosophers, but nothing seemed more brutal than battered cohos pushing their way up their natal creeks, flopping shadows of their former iridescence. Short of an emperor penguin wintering five months without food on ice floes with a lone egg incubating between his feet, their ritual sacrifices were heroic.
“Please protect our resource,” the signs at each spawning creek asked. On one side was an entrance to a public beach accessible only at low tide, and on the other, Bailey Creek followed circuitous paths up into the hills. She left the Impala in the sandy lot and headed under the bridge. A generous hollow of concrete held an assortment of shelters on the alluvial plain. The campsite was self-limiting, as Chipper had indicated. But though the rains had ceased, the fruit was oncoming. The salmonberries were emerging, which would draw hungry bears, tired of their spring-grass feed and down for the summer roaming the temperate rainforest. Later would come thimbleberries and finally the hardy Himalayan blackberry with thumb-thick thorny branches.
A grizzled old man with a handsome carved walking stick bearing a fierce eagle on the handle levered his body from a tippy lawn chair and approached her. He wore cut-off jeans, a t-shirt and flip-flops. A healthy tan testified to days outdoors and a shiny metal peace sign hung around his neck, though his salt-and-pepper hair was cut military short. Aging draft dodger? His arms were lean and muscular, though he wore a knee brace. In one discordant note, his left eye, irritated and red, sported a purple bruise. “Morning, officer. Fine day, isn’t it?”
She held out a hand and introduced herself, tucking her cap under her arm. “And you are, sir?”
“Bill Gorse. Formerly of Gorse and Broome.”
This made her arch an eyebrow at mention of two of the island’s most tenacious plants. “Sounds like an old family company.” She wondered if he were joking, like the Dewey, Cheatham and Howe firm in the Click and Clack Tappet Brothers radio show across the pond in Washington State.
“Pshaw,” he added, emphasizing the “p” as her father had when he was in his Gay Nineties period. His sigh was palpable and self-effacing. “It’s a law firm. Still is, for those not partial to corporate ethics. My late father, the Major, and two brothers. I squandered my youth with the family compact, but my nose couldn’t take it. When they started chasing the dollar by representing goddamn mining polluters up north, I said adios. Wrecked Muse Lake with their diesel spills and got off with a paltry five-thousand-dollar fine.” He flicked at a midge, whirling in its vortex. “Couldn’t stomach it. Anyhow, now that we know each other, what can I do you for?”
A lawyer with principles. So much for the jokes sending them to the bottom of the sea to poison the sharks. Why didn’t he pursue the prosecutorial side? Perhaps he was a true maverick and regarded the law itself as an ass. “There was a report of panhandling here.”
He gave an unimpressed cackle then coughed into his hand. “Thought you were into something serious. This is yee-haw land, not the prissy streets of Victoria.” The local area was notoriously casual, the home of bearded Santas driving ancient Westphalias, llama and alpaca shepherds, and small organic farms. The elderly ladies in Sooke and Fossil Bay had mid-afternoon coffee at home instead of tiffin at the Empress Hotel with the blue-rinsed bluebloods. Unless they worked in the city, few people in the Western Communities went to Victoria without a shopping mission.
Holly gave an apologetic shrug. “It was reported, Mr. Gorse. I have to check it out. What’s the story?” So far he’d been the only person she’d seen, but the gear indicated signs of others. She tried for concerned, not intrusive.
He tapped his chest, a few curly grey pelt hairs peeking from his v-neck. “Listen. I’m the old fart boss around here. I try to make a few rules so’s we don’t get into each other’s faces too much. No stealing. Can the noise after ten. Pick up after yourself. Don’t shit where you live, in every sense of the word. Not much different from that guy’s book about kindergarten rules.”
Suppressing a smile at the candor, Holly saw a neat pile of crushed beer cans in a clear plastic bag. “What about drinking or drugs?”
“Hell, drinking’s legal last I heard.”
“Not on the street. We have open-container laws.”
He planted his feet and folded his arms. “We’re not bothering anybody, not about to take a piss against a building. This is where we live. And it’s public land, belongs to the people. Doesn’t say ‘no camping,’ does it? Be reasonable.”
Holly shifted her feet, feeling like a bully. She glanced at her watch. According to the schedule, she had this sunny afternoon off for a change.