Free The High Road by Terry Fallis Page B

west. The audience just kept cheering wildly as if it were all planned. One look at Muriel would have told them it was not. She had one hand over her mouth while she gamely returned Angus’s wave with the other.
    I burst out the door, flew down the outside stairs to the ice, and took off after
Baddeck 1
. In the distance, I heard the engine abruptly change pitch and then stop. When I rounded the point, I found Angus, caked in snow, leaning into the engine compartment.
    “Damn Canada Post to hell and back!” he cried when I arrived on the scene. Angus seemed none the worse for his harrowing trip along the ice.
    “What’s Canada Post got to do with it?” I asked, looking around for a malevolent letter carrier.
    “I’ve been awaiting the arrival of a starter motor from Illinois, but in its infinite wisdom, Canada Post has seen fit to hold it at the border to make sure it’s not infested with anthrax or any number of other life-threatening substances.”
    “Right …” I prodded. I still didn’t get it. “Go on …”
    Angus looked impatient as if further explanation was unnecessary.
    “If the starter had arrived when it was supposed to, I’d not have been thrashed over the ice by my own creation. I could have started the engine from the comfort of the cockpit rather than standin’ astern to yank on the blasted pull cord.”
    “But why did it take off on its own?”
    “Well, I’m not guiltless in the affair, I suppose. I managed to flood the engine, so you of course know the remedy for that.”
    “Of course I do. Doesn’t everybody?” I paused thoughtfully. “Okay, no, I really don’t know.”
    “I figured not. You must fully open the throttle to dry out a flooded carburetor. So I opened her up and the damnable engine started right off the bat. The possessed craft took off and I had only time to snag the stern painter and hang on.”
    “What’s painting got to do with it?”
    “You don’t spend much time around boats, do you? The stern painter is the nautical term for the rope at the back,” Angus explained, ever the teacher.
    “Okay, I get that part now, but how did you stop it?”
    “I pulled myself up the rope, shoved my hand under her skirt, and managed to spill enough air from the plenum to make the beast settle on the ice and grind to a halt. Then I reached up and knocked one of the spark plug leads off the engine and the cursed thing died.”
    “We’d better get back. Muriel may have resorted to card tricks by now,” I suggested. “And if you ever tell this story during the campaign, please don’t repeat the phrase ‘I shoved my hand under her skirt.’”
    “Aye. Surely no good can come of that,” Angus agreed.
    On his signal, I pulled the starter cord while Angus stayed in the cockpit. Naturally, it started immediately. I climbed into the passenger seat without falling, and we hovered back to the community centre. The Panorama Room’s window hung over the iceand I could see many wrinkled foreheads pressed against the glass and many leathery hands clapping. Angus was still covered in snow from his ordeal so I grabbed a corn broom I’d found leaning near the back door and had Angus stand with his arms outstretched. It looked like he was being scanned with a metal detector by super-vigorous airport security as I swept the snow off him.
    I finally noticed André Fontaine standing on the outside steps with his camera in his hand and his index finger twitching. Uh-oh.
    “Don’t tell me, André. You were standing right there for whole show and now have half a dozen good shots of Angus and his unique approach to piloting a hovercraft,” I said.
    “Nope, you’re wrong. I actually got about twenty-five good ones. The shutter speed on this thing is great.”
    I didn’t feel I could call upon his generosity twice in one week. I just nodded in resignation.
    Two minutes later Angus was standing before the Cumberland-Prescott Liberal faithful.
    “Well, that was a wee bit of a drag,” he