The Dock

Queenie O’Rourke wrapped her fleshy hands around a scalding mug of herbal tea and watched sheets of wind-thrashed rain sluice against the windows of her home on the river’s edge. A hum-dinger of a storm, she thought. Queenie imagined what a fuss the wind and waves would be kicking up out on the sprawling lake into which the river emptied a couple miles downstream. She sighed with relief that she and Moose had sold their place on that lake a while back and settled on a quieter spot, away from the pounding water that bashed the shoreline in stormy moments such as this.

She remembered not so fondly the last big storm they’d experienced there. When the wind blew hard from the west, it stacked the water up along their shoreline and the mercurial lake raged over its banks. In those moments it beat against their house and sent water sloshing between the homes and onto the road, swamping everything in its way. She recalled the time Moose had to don his fisherman’s hip-waders just to retrieve the mail from their roadside box. True to his name, Moose was a giant of a man, but even he had had to push with all of his strength against the wind that day. It had frightened them both and made them vow to find a kinder place to live.

Today Moose was away, off for an out-of-town RV show with the boys, and Queenie was alone to watch the furious weather. Free from the terrors of the lake, she actually enjoyed watching the storm from the comfort of her little home with the teal-blue vinyl siding and white shutters. She finished the tea and was about to return to housework.

Queenie was a stout woman but not the least bit soft. She had grown up on the water, daughter of a commercial fisherman. She grew up helping to haul and mend the nets, work on her father’s boat and deliver the fish to the cannery on the other side of Duck Cove. The healthy catches of pickerel and perch from two decades ago, when her father retired, had dwindled in the modern day, victim of the ever-rising quotas the government had granted the sports fishermen.

A slight pause in the gray swirl of rain allowed her a glimpse of the riverside dock, thirty yards from the house. Queenie peered through the murk, straightened her glasses, trying to comprehend what she thought she’d seen. She gasped. The dock, not much larger than a generously proportioned dining table and just big enough to allow their small outboard motor boat to be tied to it, had come partially unattached and was barely holding on against the roaring current.

“My gall, it’s gonna bust loose altogether,” she muttered.

Once that dock broke away from its last tentative tether, it was bound to careen downriver and, if it wasn’t smashed to smithereens on the rocks along the way, it would end up entering the lake and that would be the end of it. “Moose will have a shit-hemorrhage if he loses that dock,” she thought.

Queenie knew she had to act quickly if she was going to save the dock and save Moose a nasty shit-hemorrhage. She recalled the heavy rope her husband kept in the storage shed. If she could loop it around the post from which the dock had come loose, then finagle it through two or three of the dock’s

planks, it should be enough to hold the small structure in place until the weather calmed and Moose could make more permanent repairs. Queenie was a determined woman and savvy to the ways of country living, but carpentry was Moose’s long suit, not hers.

Donning her yellow rain slicker and black gumboots, Queenie opened the riverside door, slipped through and ran to the nearby shed. She grasped the shed’s door handle, pulled up the latch and held on for dear life as the wind clawed it from her grasp. One gust pretty near lifted her off her feet – a powerful trick, Queenie opined – but she held on and set the door back against the shed’s wall while she grabbed the length of heavy sailor’s rope. She set it down outside while she seized the door in both hands, pushed it closed and dropped the latch back into place.

Hanging onto her slicker hood with one hand and carrying the rope in the other, Queenie galloped and sloshed her way across the squishy lawn toward the dock which hung on precariously against the rising river’s rush. Once she stepped into a depression in the lawn and thought for a moment the earth, which had turned to a quagmire, was going to suck her boot clear off. Fighting the sheering rain and nearly losing her breath to the howling gale, finally she reached the dock.

Through her rain-covered spectacles, she confirmed the moorings had been bashed and pulverized, leaving the dock attached at an increasingly precarious single spot. Queenie knew that if she didn’t do something quickly, the dock would break loose. Luckily, Moose had hauled their boat up to the shed, or it would be threatening to depart alongside the dock. He’d actually asked if she wanted him to leave it out for her in case she wanted to take a ride or pay a visit to her friend, Emma, who lived in a little place along the lakeshore. She’d said no, he’d better not leave it in case the weather turned mean. Now, the weather was meaner than mean.

Queenie fed the rope around the post it had broken away from, and drew it into a nice bowline knot. She was no rope expert, but she knew from watching Moose that if she did it right, that knot was never going to slip. She wasn’t going to be able to reach the flailing end of the dock from the muddy bank, so she reluctantly stepped onto the dock with the rope in hand. All she needed to do now was fit the rope around a few solid planks and see if she could haul herself, and the dock, back to where it should be attached at the shore. Seemed simple.

With the rope looped in her hand, Queenie jumped over to the dock at the attached point and landed heavily on the planking. She stepped across its width as the surging river bounced her crazily. “Gall, Queenie, don’t fall in,” she told herself, knowing if that happened she’d be in a pretty pickle.

At that moment, a vicious gust nearly blew Queenie over the side of the dock and she leaned back just in time, falling flat on her fanny in the process. “Argh!” she exclaimed, the wind knocked out of her. “Dang, that hurt! Gonna be black and blue fer sure.”

At the same instant, a violent rush of water from upstream caught the dock and wrenched it from its mooring, sending it shooting into the current, Queenie hanging on for dear life. Her glasses flew off in the confusion and fell to her side, threatening to fall into the swirling water. She looked down and scooped them up as they began to spiral across the planking, then squashed them back onto her face.

Before she realized it, the dock was river-borne, cascading downstream as three-foot waves collided and crashed around her. Understanding full well that rocks lurked just beneath the surface, and watching the rushing flow rise and crash around them, Queenie shuddered at what she knew could happen in this white-water hell. She had never been one to panic, but Queenie knew one misstep could be fatal. All it would take was one badly placed boulder to reduce the dock to kindling, and she would be thrown into the water and consigned to the annals of history.

As the dock bucked in the surging water, she cautiously lowered herself, sat gingerly on her injured bum and contemplated her predicament. Queenie had been in jams before – Moose was always chiding her for doing crazy things – but this was a new high.

As Queenie tried to keep calm in the face of disaster, it was at that very moment that Maybelle Schlinder glanced out her kitchen window at the raging river. Maybelle and Herb lived three doors down from Moose and Queenie in a cottage they’d converted for all-season use. “Whale of a storm, Herb,” she called to her husband in the adjacent living room as she watched the water churn and leap. She was about to turn back from the window when something caught her eye. A bright yellow form seemed to be surfing the waves. “Now what kind of a danged fool would be out there on a day like this?” she asked herself. “Herb,” she shouted, “get out them binoculars of yours. I gotta take a look at this.”

Herb came running with the binoculars. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked. “What da’ya see out there?”

“Damned if I know,” she replied. “Looks like someone’s surfin’. Danged fool.”

Maybelle peered through the binoculars just as Queenie succeeded in seating herself on the bucking dock. “Someone’s on a boat of some kind,” Maybelle said. “Looks like they’re in a pack of trouble. And they’re headed for the lake.”

“Maybe I ought’a call down ta the marina and let ‘em know,” Herb said. “If this fella’s headed fer the lake, he’s gonna need some help.” Herb phoned and got Blake Osychuk, the marina manager. “Dangdest thing, Blake,” said Herb. “I think someone’s gotta problem.”

Out on the river, Queenie held onto her slicker as the wind tore at it and the rain slashed in torrents. With the temperature dropping, the rain was turning to ice pellets that felt like shards of glass hitting her face. “My gall,” she exclaimed. “What next?” While she was never one to let a spot of trouble get her up in a tizzy, even Queenie had to admit that under the circumstances, things were looking bleak. She was closing in on the lake.

At the marina, Blake Osychuk figured if someone was in trouble on the river, they’d be in a real big mess if they ever made it to the big water. He’d have

to do something to prevent that from happening. Jumping into his pickup, he hauled ass straight down the lakeshore road to Billy Connelly’s place which was situated on a big pond that formed where the river enters the lake. Billy owned a small fishing tug, the Witchcraft, which was built for the open lake and too big to navigate the river under its normal shallow conditions. But Blake knew it could likely make it upriver a small distance with the storm water running so high.

Blake ran to the porch door and started hammering on it and Billy’s wife, Enid, came to the door to see what the fuss was about. Blake started talking before Enid even had a chance to say howdy.

“Gotta get your boat out into the pond. Now,” he said. “Someone’s in trouble comin’ down the river. Headed fer the lake.”

Maybe it was the fact that folks who live on the big lakes are familiar with trouble popping up when you least expect it. Whatever it was, without saying a word and asking no stupid questions, Enid ran for the keys and handed them to Blake, just about the same instant Billy heard the commotion and poked his head through the kitchen doorway. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Someone’s in trouble out on the river,” replied Enid and Blake in unison. Blake added: “We need to get out there in the Witchcraft before they hit the lake.”

“Okay, let’s go,” said Billy, grabbing his raincoat and leading the way to his fishing tug that was anchored at his wharf on the pond. The men climbed in and Billy turned the key, then revved the diesel engine and headed the squat vessel

upstream as close to the shoreline as he dared. The tug was built like a bulldog and had seen plenty of action in the lake squalls. Witchcraft bucked up and slammed down, its giant engine chugging, as it fought the waves and Billy kept a wary eye out for submerged rocks.

They’d made it less than a quarter mile when the men peered through the icy downpour and spotted someone in a yellow slicker onboard what they thought was maybe a raft, or, as Billy quickly opined, maybe even a dock. The slicker’s bright colour acted as a beacon that sliced through the rainy gloom. Luckily, the dock remained in one piece – Moose had built it well – and had been shoved out of the water’s main current and more toward shore, but it couldn’t withstand the pounding forever.

Out on the bucking dock, Queenie wiped her glasses and tried to see through the freezing rain. Was she seeing things, or was that a boat out there? A boat headed her way? She cautiously allowed her spirits to lift. She was a far cry from rescue, but it felt good to know at least she was not alone on this fearsome ride.

Billy eased the Witchcraft farther out from shore and kept her nose pointed against the current, then used her powerful engine to hold her against the rushing water. The bumm-bumm-bumm of the engine was nearly obliterated by the raging torrent. With the skill of a seasoned seaman, Billy anticipated the dock’s trajectory, then angled the tug so that it would act like a catcher’s mitt once it caught the dock.

He instructed Blake to hold the throttle as best he could, and lowered himself down into the fish hatch, then opened the tug’s portside door. With water

splashing dangerously into the boat through the opening, he hoped its big rubber tire bumpers protecting the hull would act as a catcher’s mitt for the floating dock to strike. He tossed a rope ladder over the side and waited for the dock, and its crew of one, to arrive alongside.

Queenie was helpless to manoeuvre her raft which stood as the tissue-thin barrier between her own life and death – and could merely watch as the water brought her closer to the Witchcraft. Her heart pounded. Images of her doom fought with her now rising hopes of rescue.

Up in the wheelhouse, Blake caught what he could of the action through the water-stained windows and did his best to follow Billy’s instructions. He held on to the wheel for support as the tug tossed and bounced. Below, Billy employed the skills he’d learned from forty years fishing on the unforgiving lake, barely needing to grab anything for support. He seemed to anticipate which way the waves would take the Witchcraft and braced himself by shifting his stance a moment before the latest wave struck.

From the wheelhouse, Blake watched the crazy makeshift craft approach Witchcraft’s portside and did his best to hold her steady. He smiled when he could see that Billy’s projections had been dead on, and watched as the dock nuzzled, almost gently, alongside the fishing boat and into the rubber tire bumper. Blake watched Billy scampering down the rope ladder and leaning out to help the wretched passenger scramble up into the fish hatch.

“Gosh, if it’s not Queenie O’Roarke,” exclaimed Billy when he got sight of the woman’s face, her hair pasted to her skin beneath the hood of her slicker. “What the hell are you doin’ out in this weather?” he shouted over the din. Queenie gasped for air and tried to convey her gratitude as she looked into Billy’s face. Words would not come.

Focusing as best she could through her rain-covered spectacles, she accepted his helping hand, then fell inside the boat. She tumbled in on her knees and rolled over on her left hip, exhausted by the ordeal. “Wait right here,” Billy instructed the winded woman.

With Queenie safe, Billy slammed shut the portside door, then scrambled back up to the wheelhouse and took control, guiding the tug back to the safety of its dock. This allowed Blake to head below and stay with the shaking Queenie who finally was able to sputter her first words. “Gall, thank Heaven for you two saviors. I thought I was gone fer sure.”

Back on land at Enid and Billy’s place, Enid hunted up some dry clothes Queenie could fit into, and held her hand as the poor woman shook uncontrollably. Billy brought her a mug of steaming tea, doused with a dram of whiskey for good measure, and Queenie gratefully accepted as she pondered her close call. While the three of them were eager to hear how Queenie had gotten herself into such a predicament, Blake, Billy and Enid waited respectfully for her to collect herself. The first words out of Queenie’s mouth were: “Moose is gonna have a shit-hemorrhage when he sees his dock’s gone,” and everyone laughed with a collective sense of relief.

When Moose arrived home, he was so excited about everything he had seen at the show that he didn’t notice how uncharacteristically quiet Queenie was. Moose spent a good forty-five minutes regaling his wife with stories from the show.

Finally, he said: “Oh, I heard you had quite a storm down here. Everything all right?”

“Dock’s gone, I’m afraid,” Queenie told him.

Moose raised an eyebrow. “Dang. How’d that happen?”

Queenie managed a smile. “Set yerself down, Moose,” she said, pouring him a cup of tea. “And maybe we oughta get you a little shot of somethin’ stronger to put in that. I got a story to tell ya.”

Queenie handed him a copy of the morning paper, folded to display a story down the side of the front page. He grabbed his specs and his mouth fell open as he read: “Woman describes terrifying river ride.”