Swains Lock Read online

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw Randy pawing at a root. For a Saturday afternoon, this stretch of the C&O Canal was surprisingly quiet, given that it was only fifteen miles from the Maryland-D.C. line. He focused on the path ahead and ran on.

  Rounding a lazy bend, he saw the whitewashed stone lockhouse at Swains emerge in the distance. He jogged backward and whistled for Randy while scanning the terrain. An apron of brush and trees eased down from the towpath toward the broad Potomac River, hints of which he saw glinting in the sunlight through the trees. The towpath itself was a flat dirt ribbon, eight feet across. Low vegetation and vines sloped down a few feet from the towpath to the canal, which was forty feet wide. The wooded bank across the water rose steadily away from the canal.

  Randy burst up onto the towpath from behind a tree and jogged toward Vin, tongue hanging. Medium-sized, with a short coat and silky ears, Randy looked to most people like a skinny chocolate lab. But Vin had realized years ago that there must be something else mixed in – maybe Doberman. Nicky said pit bull. Randy was panting hard when he reached Vin, who clipped the retractable leash he was carrying onto the dog’s collar. He turned downstream and they ran together for the last quarter-mile to Swains.

  Like many of the old lock sites along the C&O Canal, Swains Lock provided recreational access to the towpath and the river. A small gravel parking lot was connected to the towpath by a wooden footbridge over the stone lock. Between the lot and the footbridge, a stand sold soft drinks and rented canoes during the warm months of the year. The whitewashed locktender’s house stood empty and shuttered, set back from the lock by trampled grass.

  Slowing to a walk, Vin examined the parking lot as he approached the footbridge. Nicky’s wasn’t among the handful of cars, so maybe she’d been delayed at the Clinic. He hoped not, since she needed a break and they’d planned an afternoon outing together. He drew his leg up onto the railing of the footbridge to stretch his hamstring and let the leash extend so Randy could sniff the grass beside the towpath. A man and his son wheeled their bikes across the footbridge, and then two older women walked past with their dogs. Vin glanced back at Randy, who was gazing across the thinly-wooded apron toward the river.

  Vin turned back to his stretching and saw a woman crossing the parking lot toward him, holding a slack leash clipped to a large dog – probably some kind of Akita-shepherd mix. The dog bobbed its head eagerly from side to side, but the woman looked straight ahead and seemed to glide forward like a cat. She wore faded jeans and a simple sweater under a purple vest, with her hair pulled back in a short ponytail. Her hiking boots were scuffed and streaked with dirt. Vin glanced up as she passed and saw a thin, faded scar descending from her left temple to the top of her cheekbone. He guessed she might be forty, maybe a little older.

  A second later the towpath behind him erupted in a cacophony of canine aggression. A woman yelled “Allie – let go!” as Vin whirled to see a snarling tangle of fur and fangs where Randy had been. “Randy, no!” he yelled, sprinting back to the towpath. He retracted the leash to yank Randy back from the other dog, pulled it tight over Randy’s head, and put a foot on his hindquarters to push him into a sitting position. Randy was panting, his face and neck streaked with saliva from the other dog’s jaws. Vin angrily held his open palm directly in front of Randy’s eyes, then looked up at the woman and her dog.

  “I’m really sorry. Are you OK?” His hair had fallen across his forehead and he brushed it back along with pinpricks of sweat. The woman had placed her dog into a sitting position and was stroking its withers. She looked up at Vin.

  “She must have lost her mind. That’s not like her at all.”

  Vin caught a trace of bemusement in her voice. “What happened?”

  “Your dog came over to sniff as we walked by,” the woman said, still stroking her dog’s neck. “Allie growled and showed her fangs, but your dog kept coming. Then Allie decided she’d seen enough and jumped your dog.” Standing up, she took her hand from the dog and looked at Vin. Her eyes were grayish-green and for a moment they seemed to flit left and right as she met his gaze.

  Vin approached Allie slowly and extended a hand toward the dog, fingers down. “That’s OK,” he said soothingly. “Good girl, Allie.” He let her sniff his hand, then lightly ran his fingers along the thick fur on the dog’s neck.

  “I hope this is a friendly pow-wow!” called a familiar voice. He turned to see Nicky crossing the footbridge.

  “It is now,” he said as she joined them. He turned back toward the woman. “By the way,” he said, extending his hand, “my name is Vin and this is Nicky.”

  The woman hesitated for a second and her eyes darted quickly from Vin to Nicky and back. They steadied and she smiled. “I’m Kelsey,” she said.

  “And it looks like our dogs have already introduced themselves,” Nicky said. Randy was still breathing rapidly, with his tongue hanging and flecks of saliva drying on his neck. “Did they go at it?” she asked Vin, kneeling down in front of Randy and pushing up her sleeves.

  “For a few seconds. It sounded worse than it actually was.”

  “It usually does.” Nicky pressed her fingers against one side of Randy’s neck and worked them around toward the other. Wrapping her arm around his head, she tilted it back gently, pulled his lower jaw down, and quickly inspected his teeth.

  “He’s fine,” she said to Vin, “but I see a little blood on his gums.” She turned toward Kelsey. “Do you mind if I take a quick look at your dog? I’m a vet.”

  Kelsey gave her assent, retreating a step while Nicky kneeled in front of Allie. The dog looked back toward its owner for reassurance. The source of the blood was a small cut on Allie’s ear. Nicky bent the ear toward Kelsey and pointed it out.

  “Maybe that will teach you not to pick on chocolate Labs,” Kelsey chided.

  “It wasn’t entirely her fault,” Vin said, remembering the last dog-fight he’d broken up. “Randy’s not as innocent as he looks.”

  “It’s a superficial cut, so I don’t think she’ll need stitches,” Nicky said, standing up and pulling down her sleeves. “You can just clean it with soap and warm water when you get home. We live off River Road by Pennyfield Lock. If you want to swing by tomorrow, I can give you some gentamicin spray. It’s a topical antibiotic. You should be OK just treating her with that for a week or so and monitoring her ear as it heals.”

  Kelsey asked for the address as she fished into her vest pocket for a pen. Vin gave her the number on Ridge Line Court and told her it was the driveway at the end of the cul de sac. “My name is on the mailbox. Illick.”

  “Illick,” Kelsey echoed, writing the address on her wrist. She said she’d stop by early tomorrow afternoon and Nicky said to look for the medicine in the mailbox if they weren’t home. Vin watched Kelsey flick the leash lightly against Allie’s ribs, then glide away downstream on the towpath with her dog.

  Nicky poked him in the ribs and smiled. “I brought your stuff. Still up for a paddle?”

  “Absolutely.” He took the keys and jogged to her station wagon to retrieve a daypack with picnic supplies and their custom-made wooden canoe paddles. They didn’t own a canoe, but he’d bought the paddles this spring to celebrate Nicky’s passing grade on the veterinary licensing exam. There was no one in line at the rental counter and within minutes they were paddling up the canal in an aluminum canoe, Nicky from the bow seat and Vin from the stern. Randy sat between the thwarts, eyes and nose trained on the wooded bank to their right.

  Vin watched Nicky’s shoulder blade swell when her paddle caught the water with each stroke. She had grown up canoeing during summers in New Hampshire, so her strokes were long and even. She and Vin had canoed on a lake in Maine while visiting his parents in June. After a few seconds, he matched her rhythm and their paddles hit the water together. At the end of each stroke, their blades released and sliced toward the bow, shedding teardrops as the canoe glided forward. With their strokes synchronized, he hardly had to steer to keep th
e canoe heading straight.

  Nicky held her paddle against the gunwale and pointed to the bank ahead, where Vin saw the olive-black shells of a string of turtles sunning themselves on a fallen tree arm that leaned into the canal. Nose to tail, they extended up the branch from the water, the biggest turtle the size of his daypack and the smallest the size of his hand. Vin had read that this stretch of the canal was maintained by the Park Service, and any trees attempting to take root between the towpath and the canal were quickly culled. But generations of trees had grown up on the bank opposite the towpath – the berm – since the canal’s commercial demise. Many of these trees shed branches into the water or died and eventually collapsed into the canal. Large fallen trunks were cut away, but branches that didn’t block the entire canal were left in place. The rotting limbs allowed the turtles to crawl out of the water into sunlight, remaining safe from predators while warming their antediluvian blood.

  The canal curved gently and Swains Lock disappeared behind them. The woods along the berm grew steeper, in places turning to rock faces that had been blasted or cut away during the canal’s construction over a century and a half before. Vin surveyed the stretch of towpath he’d just finished running. Most of the leaves had yet to fall, so the wide brown river beyond the towpath and the woods was more sensed than seen.

  From the berm he heard a rush of air, like the sound a sail makes when it suddenly fills with wind, and from the corner of his eye he saw a tilting of blue-gray shapes. Randy put his front paws on the gunwale, growling and barking as the great blue heron extended its wings, leaned forward, and with two powerful flaps was airborne over the water, long legs splaying behind. It flew upstream over the canal, ascending slowly as its legs came together to form a rudder.

  “That’s amazing,” Nicky said, turning toward the heron’s abandoned perch. “I was looking right at it and didn’t even see it! They’re like statues. They blend right in with the terrain.”

  “I didn’t notice him either,” Vin said. “They’re so skinny that when they look straight at you, their beak, eyes, and head almost converge to a single point. Imagine if you were a fish. The beak could be just above the surface and you’d never see it.”

  “I’m glad I’m not a fish.”

  “Plus they can stand dead still for a half-hour, then strike in a heartbeat.” He looked straight at Nicky, expressionless and silent for a second, then jabbed his extended fingers toward her as she yelped in surprise.

  “I’m really glad I’m not a fish.”

  “I’m glad you’re not a fish, too. Though I do like fish.”

  She smiled and they paddled quietly until Vin steered toward the bank beneath the towpath and proclaimed their arrival. The grade from the towpath down to the river here had been cleared of trees. They carried the canoe up to the edge of the towpath, then waded through meadow grass down to the river as Randy raced ahead. At the downstream edge of the meadow, they sat on a fallen tree trunk and stretched their legs toward the water. Randy zig-zagged along the opposite edge sniffing clumps of grass, periodically sighting Vin and Nicky to confirm their presence. Vin spread the contents of the day-pack out on the log.

  Watkins Island and its smaller kin severed this stretch of the Potomac like ragged stitches, but here its trees had been felled for a buried gas pipeline, so Vin and Nicky had a clear view across to Virginia. The river sparkled in the late afternoon sun, with whirls and ripples lacing its surface where the current poured over rocks hiding just below the waterline.

  Vin tore a baguette into small hunks and sliced off pieces of cheese as Nicky bit into an apple. “So it’s been a while since Randy’s last dog-fight,” she said between bites.

  “Yep,” Vin said. “But this wasn’t really a fight.”

  “Tell that to the dog who got bit.”

  “Yeah, I know. It couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds and he still managed to draw blood.” He exhaled and swept his hand back through his hair. “I didn’t see it coming, because two other dogs had just walked past us and nothing happened.”

  “Maybe Randy wanted you to meet the dog’s owner,” Nicky said, narrowing her eyes in a suspicious squint. “Kelsey, wasn’t it? She looked like your type. Slim, outdoorsy, blondish.”

  “And older!” Vin protested. “And she said her dog provoked it!”

  He put his hand on her thigh and confided, “You’re right that I trained Randy to meet women, but I was training him to meet you!” It always surprised him when Nicky speculated about his attraction to other women, since, physically and mentally, she really was his type. Part of the attraction was that Nicky seemed to know what she wanted in life and where she wanted to go. A clear direction, tempered by occasional flashes of self-doubt. Opposites attract – on both fronts! – he thought with a resigned sigh. He grabbed her shoulders in a wrestling clench and squeezed her, then nibbled on her ear without relaxing his grip. Her short brown hair smelled like lilacs, and he felt her twinge and giggle as his nose rubbed her ear.

  A fanfare of barking broke out and Vin released Nicky to scout the upstream side of the meadow, where Randy stood looking intently at the river. Nicky rolled her eyes.

  “What’s he barking at now?”

  “I don’t see anything,” Vin said, hopefully. “He’s just a little high-strung today.”

  Nicky shaded her eyes from the dissolving sun and pointed to a spot a stone’s throw offshore. A small triangular face was pushing downriver in their direction. It had slicked-back fur and rounded ears above dark eyes and a whiskered nose. Its upper back barely broke the surface. “It’s a beaver!”, she said, leaning forward for a better view.

  “Cute little guy,” Vin said, chewing a hunk of bread. “Nature’s engineer.”

  The beaver’s head made a tiny V-shaped wake as it was driven across the water by a submerged, undulating tail. As they watched, its head and upper back dove beneath the surface. A flat tail rose from the water and smacked down with a thwack that echoed against the nearby trees. The tail sank and the beaver disappeared before emerging further offshore, its nose plowing upriver now. The beaver curved shoreward and curled its head underwater again. Its tail flexed up and fell immediately with another echoing thwack. The beaver resurfaced to complete the top portion of a figure eight, then dove again. While finishing their apples and bread, they watched the beaver trace three full figure eights and slap the water a dozen times before swimming away downstream.

  “I love it when we get to see animals play in the wild,” Vin said. “When you consider what they have to do on a daily basis just to survive, it’s almost like an affirmation.”

  Nicky looked at him quizzically, her blue eyes darkening a shade. “That’s not an affirmation,” she said softly. “It’s a warning.”

  ***

  Sunset was imminent when Nicky pulled into the driveway on Ridge Line Court. Vin opened the back hatch for Randy, who hopped down and shook off a spray of canal water.

  “If you clean him off, I’ll set us up for a glass of wine on the back deck,” Nicky said.

  Vin grabbed an old towel from the back of the car and took Randy around to the backyard to hose him down. “Feels good, doesn’t it buddy?” He toweled the dog and circled to the unlocked sliding glass door on the lower level of the house.

  Crossing through his office, he felt momentarily depressed as he passed the books and papers on his desk. It was a consulting project from his old life and it already felt alien. He shuffled up the stairs and through the living room to the deck. Nicky was sitting in one of the chairs, and an unopened bottle stood on the patio table next to two champagne glasses and a plate holding crackers and red grapes.

  “Champagne?” he said, cocking an eyebrow and approaching the table. “Mais oui.”

  “Well it is Saturday,” Nicky said. “And tomorrow is your birthday…”

  “Does that mean you actually get the day off? You worked the last two Sundays.”

  “Yeah, I got stuck with Mondays off instead. It sucks
, but that’s how seniority works. Or I guess for me that would be juniority. But Abby said she thought Carlos could cover for me tomorrow, so as of now I’m just on call.”

  Vin twisted the cork out with a flourish, then filled the glasses and raised his for a toast. “To our new life in Maryland. And our first house together, even if it’s just a rental.”

  “To an eventful next year,” Nicky said, as they clinked glasses and sipped. She tipped her glass toward Vin and added, “and to the next stage of your career.”

  He sighed, propping his elbow on the arm of his chair and bracing his chin with his fingers as he looked at Nicky. “I’m thinking I could be a dog trainer.”

  She took the bait, as he knew she would; deadpan humor was one of Nicky’s endearing traits. “You’ve already got the ‘how-to-break-up-a-dog-fight’ thing down. How much more could there be to learn?” He nodded and they discussed the pluses and minuses of a business catering to the idiosyncrasies of dog owners. Nicky suggested that he might not be suited to chaperoning lapdogs wearing argyle sweaters, so they agreed that dog taxidermy might be a more promising career. If she could secure a supply of deceased canines from the clinic, maybe Vin could build some inventory and put together a catalog.

  “I need to give this some serious thought,” he said, refilling their glasses.

  “While you’re doing that, you can assemble one of your birthday presents,” Nicky said, reaching under the table and pulling a gift bag toward the base of her chair. She peered inside and extracted a bone-shaped piece of smooth wood, which she placed in the center of the table.

  “Is that… driftwood?” He walked around the table to share her perspective. The stick was a bit asymmetrical, with a knob at one end, but so smooth it could have been sanded.