No Signature by William Bell Page A

ignition. I started the van and fiddled with the knobs on the dash to get some heat going to drive away the dampness.
    I stalled half a dozen times just backing out of the campsite, jerking the van back and forth like a demented rocking horse. Luckily the old man was dead to the world or I’d have rattled his brains permanently.
    Once out on the road, I cranked the wheel, shoved down hard on the clutch pedal and tried to find first gear. The van shuddered and bucked but it moved in the right direction. I jammed it into second gear and left it there, steering carefully, not bothering to stop at the park gate for fear I’d look like an idiot trying to get going again. I had to come to a halt when I reached Highway 17, though. I waited until there wasn’t another vehicle in sight before I jerked and sputtered my way onto the pavement, crawling along like a bug as I slowly worked my way through the gears.
    After a little while I began to relax. I turned on the radio and classical music boomed out of the speakers.After a couple of shots at the seek button I found a rock station and settled back for the drive.
    The highway turned and dipped, coiled around hills and climbed over the ones it couldn’t avoid. It crossed rivers, went through small towns and Indian reserves. I began to enjoy the drive, and as I rolled along I did a little planning.
    I figured I’d take the old man at his word and take the bus the rest of the way to Thunder Bay. No matter how I looked at it, this trip wasn’t working out. At all.
    It was still a moody overcast day when I saw the signs saying we were almost to Sauk Ste. Marie, or the Soo as everybody calls it. I was driving along flat land, farms on my right stretching away to the mountains, the blue waters of Georgian Bay on my left. When the road widened to four lanes, signs promising junk-food joints appeared and I knew we were close. I pulled off at a picnic spot. I forgot to put in the clutch and when the van was almost stopped it bucked a few times before it shuddered to a halt. The engine died. I turned off the ignition and got out.
    I visited the outdoor toilet, then woke up the old man. It was like trying to push King Kong back up to the top of the Empire State Building. He groaned and rolled out of my reach, promised to get up, then flopped back and closed his eyes. Finally I turned the radio on and cranked up the volume. A Rush tune boomed out of the speakers loud enough to rip the top off the van. That did it.
    Once he was up, the old man was quiet and sheepish. He got himself dressed and slid behind the wheel.
    We drove into the Soo, passing shopping malls and motels on Wellington Street, then the old man wended his way through a residential neighbourhood. He pulled into a gravel drive in front of a small frame bungalow and parked beside a rusted-out Honda Civic.
    I got out and looked around. The house reminded me of our old bunaglow on 23rd Street—the one I grew up in. It was white, trimmed in dark green, with shrubs along the front under the windows on either side of the door. From out back came the wail of country-western music. I followed the old man around the side of the house.
    There was a shed there, with stove wood piled high along one side. A woman raised an axe high above her and brought it down on the birch log that stood atop a splitting block.
Whack!
The log split neatly in two and the halves wobbled briefly before toppling to the ground.
    “You never were any good at that,” the old man said.
    The woman turned and her face lit up. “Jack!” she exclaimed. “You’re here!”
    She leaned the axe against the chopping block, shut off a beat-up portable radio at her feet and walked quickly toward us. She and the old man wrapped themselves up in a big hug, kissed, and both talked at once for a second.
    She finally seemed to notice me. “You must be Steve,” she said, smiling. “Welcome to the Soo.”
    I had to hand it to the old man. She was pretty good-looking, with