The Shipping News by Annie Proulx Read Free Book Online Page A

in combat. Car Disintegrates on Remote Goatpath. Dusk washed in, the car struggled up a grade. They were on the edge of cliffs. Below, Capsize Cove, the abandoned houses askew. Fading light. Ahead, the main track swallowed in distance.
    Quoyle pulled onto the shoulder, wondered if anybody had ever gone over the edge, metal jouncing on rocks. The side track down to the ruined cove steep, strewn with boulders. More gully than road.
    [39] “Well, we’re not going to make the Point tonight,” he said. “This is as far as I think we should drive until we can get a look at the road in daylight.”
    “You don’t want to go back out to the highway, do you?” cried the aunt in her hot voice. So close to the beginning of everything.
    “Yeah,” said Bunny. “I want to go to a motel with TV and hamburgers and chips that you can eat in bed. And lights that go down, down, down when you turn the knob. And you can turn the television off and on with that thing without getting out of bed.”
    “I want fried chicken in the bed,” said Sunshine.
    “No,” said Quoyle. “We’re going to stick it out right here. We’ve got a tent in the back and I’m going to set it up beside the car and sleep in it. That’s the plan.” He looked at the aunt. It had been her idea. But she bent over her purse, rummaging for something private. Her old hair flattened and crushed.
    “We’ve got air mattresses, we’ve got sleeping bags. We blow up the air mattresses and fold down the backseat and spread them out, put the sleeping bags on them and there you are, two nice comfortable beds. Aunt will have one and you two girls can share the other. I don’t need an air mattress. I’ll put my sleeping bag on the tent floor.” He seemed to be asking questions.
    “But I’m so starved,” moaned Bunny. “I hate you, Dad! You’re dumb!” She leaned forward and hit Quoyle on the back of the head.
    “ HERE NOW! ” The outraged aunt roared at Bunny. “Take your seat, Miss, and don’t ever let me hear you speak to your father like that again or I’ll blister your bottom for you.” The aunt let the blood boil up around her heart.
    Bunny’s face contorted into a tragic mask. “Petal says Dad is dumb.” She hated them all.
    “Everybody is dumb about some things,” said Quoyle mildly. He reached back between the seats, his red hand offered to Bunny. To console her for the aunt’s shouting. The dog licked his fingers. There was the familiar feeling that things were going wrong.

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    [40] “Well, I’m not doing that again,” said the aunt, rotating her head, tipping her chin up. “Sleeping in the car. Feel like my neck is welded. And Bunny sleeps as quiet as an eggbeater.”
    They walked around in the roky damp, in a silence. The car glazed with salt. Quoyle squinted at the road. It curved, angled away from shoreline and into fog. What he could see of it looked good. Better than yesterday.
    The aunt slapped mosquitoes, knotted a kerchief under her chin. Quoyle longed for bitter coffee or a clear view. Whatever he hoped for never happened. He rolled the damp tent.
    Bunny’s eyes opened as he threw in the tent and sleeping bag, but she sank back to sleep when the car started. Seeing blue beads that fell and fell from a string although she held both ends tightly.
    The interior of the station wagon smelled of human hair. An arc showed in the fog, beyond it a second arc of faint prismatic colors.
    “Fogbow,” said the aunt. How loud the station wagon engine sounded.
    Suddenly they were on a good gravel road.
    “Look at this,” said Quoyle. “This is nice.” It curled away. They crossed a concrete bridge over a stream the color of beer.
    “For pity’s sake,” said the aunt. “It’s a wonderful road. But for what?”
    “I don’t know,” said Quoyle, bringing his speed up.
    “Got to be some reason. Maybe people come across from Killick-Claw to Capsize Cove by ferry, and then drive out to Quoyle’s Point this way? God knows why.