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Dead Reckoning

by Garry McKevitt; co-published with Malecon

134 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #97-0003; ISBN 1-55212-079-1; US$14.50, C$19.95, EUR13.00, £9.00

A collection of stories placed in Canada's west and north dealing, primarily, with the themes of disorientation and loss. The title is a navigation term which describes what is sometimes the method of last resort for a navigator to find his way relying only on the fundamentals of heading, speed and distance. Such is the plight of the characters in these stories who have unexpectedly drifted off course, literally or figuratively and occasionally both, and must call upon basic instincts to find their way back to familiar territory.

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about the book     about the author     sample chapter     catalogue info    

About the Book

Every pilot knows the shock of waking from some private reverie part way through a cross-country flight to the unsettling realization that he no longer knows where he is. Even over the most familiar terrain, if he has not been diligent in his navigation, straying just a few miles off course can lead to complete disorientation. Nothing below him makes sense, standard landmarks: lakes, rivers, hills, towns, highways, no longer correspond to anything on the chart he is now frantically fingering on his lap. While he was not looking, the world beneath him shifted into the strange.

Such is the plight of the characters in this collection of stories: people who find, in one way or another, unexpectantly, their realities have shifted and they are 'flying by the seat of their pants.'

A fishing guide discovers the roles have been reversed on him when a customer leads him into a familiar world turned inside out; the mundane routine of a neighbourhood coffee shop takes on new dimensions of time and space; the long nights of a northern winter are the backdrop for redefining the meaning of 'alien' to a young airport worker; these stories and others seek to reveal how easily, and without warning, we can lose our way.

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About the Author

Garry McKevitt lives in Brentwood Bay on Canada's west coast. He graduated with a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria in 1978 where he stayed on for ten years directing and editing educational television programs for Continuing Education and the University of Victoria Television Productions. Previous to that he edited, for four years, Nesika, a monthly newspaper published by the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

McKevitt has published both short stories and poems in various publications, including The Malahat Review and Illusion, an anthology of fiction published by Aya Press in Toronto. At present, when he is not idling away time in coffee shops, playing bass guitar in the basement band, L.S. Crude, golfing, or, when it can no longer be avoided, writing, he can be found drifting over the constantly surprising and perpetually strange terrain of British Columbia in his Cessna 172, "HJM".

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Excerpt from the short story, "Northern Lights"

Mary's Coffee Shop was pretty steamy, the way it usually got when it was crowded. Water streamed down the dark windows and collected in the cracked enamel paint on the sills. It was warm enough but as usual, everybody kept their parkas on and just opened them in the front.

I had a big table to myself but it didn't stay that way too long. Ron Farley, the guy who had the aviation gas concession, sat down opposite.

"You okay for Saturday?" Ron said.

"Sure," I said. "All day?"

I filled in for Ron fueling airplanes in my spare time. Lloyd Burns came in after him kicking snow off his boots and sat down beside Ron. He and Ron owned the vending machines at the airport. Lloyd was waiting for the CP flight to come in. He ran a little freight operation on the side. Everybody had a little something on the side.

I was finishing up my coffee and getting ready to go when I caught a bit of conversation at the next table. It was Champ Williams, the White Aviation pilot. Champ was in the coffee shop a fair bit. White Aviation kept a plane in Fort Nelson to keep their license going, but they hardly ever did any business out of here so Champ didn't fly too much.

"I'm telling ya, it was there." Champ was talking to Larry Denmore the helicopter engineer. "Just an hour ago. Keith and I were just finishing cleaning the snow off the Beaver when he sort of yelped and pointed behind my back." Keith, who also did occasional work for the town, was Champ's sometime swamper.

"It was past sunset, almost dark. I looked where he pointed and there was this light sitting what looked to be about two miles out past the tower. I thought it was one of your machines with the searchlight on. But, all in a sudden, it shot straight sideways maybe a half-mile and then stood still again. Just like that." Champ snapped his fingers.

"There, it did it again! Keith goes. I said: What the hell is it? While we were watching it did it again, shot like a bullet back the way it had come."

Champ saw me watching him just then and I looked away. I didn't know him at all really though he was around the same places I was. He was a lot older than me, though, maybe in his early fifties, and when you're nineteen, anybody that age is unapproachable. I thought of him as a real loner: a wiry, self sufficient little guy made for this country. Putting a complete sentence together didn't come naturally for Champ, which was what was keeping me planted in my chair for I'd never seen him going on like this before.

He tried to keep his voice down but he didn't do a good job of it. I just stopped looking that way was all.

"So, I said to Keith, Hop in buddy, let's go take a look. I fired the motor up while he kept an eye on the light. I asked the Flight Service Station if they could see it but you know what those guys are like: 'I have no reported traffic in the area.' They must have been watching too, but they weren't admitting anything. Didn't want people to think they were seeing things. Looks bad in that job.

"Anyway, we took straight off but there was still some dusty snow on the runway from that fall this afternoon and Keith lost sight of the thing in the blow-by. And when we were in the air it wasn't where it should have been. We couldn't see it anywhere. So I just headed out to where we saw it before. It's real black out there right now, I'm telling ya. No moon, nothing.

"So we kind of just drifted around doing clearing turns when suddenly Keith yells: There it is! Back there! I kicked that old Beaver on its side and brought it around and sure enough there it was sitting still out the other side of the airport. I pushed the throttle to the firewall and made a bee-line straight for it."

Champ stopped talking for a moment and I could see out of the corner of my eye him looking over at me. I lit a cigarette and pretended I was interested in what Lloyd and Ron were saying.

Larry said: "So what happened?"

Champ turned back to him. "It didn't seem to be moving but on the other hand we didn't seem to be getting any closer. It just kind 'a hung there in front of us. A bright white light, like a searchlight. Finally, after maybe twenty minutes, I said to Keith: "I think it's trying to take us somewhere." I scared myself when I said that, out there, over the muskeg heading away fast from the only people in a couple of hundred miles. Keith said, "It doesn't want us to get too near, that's for sure."

"I'm going to turn around," I said. And I did.

"Keith kept craning his neck around trying to see it, but of course he couldn't with no back window. So after ten minutes or so I swung out a bit so we could see back. It was still there and now we had the feeling it was chasing us. This thing was beginning to spook me, I admit it. I headed back towards the airport giving her everything she's got. I'm telling ya, those runway lights never looked so good. I touched down hard, but I was glad to be back on mother earth. All the time we were taxiing back we were looking for it, but it was gone now and I didn't want to see it, you know. I was glad we didn't catch up."

I was making like I was getting ready to go. I could feel Champ's eyes on me. I picked up my coffee cup, dropped it off at the counter, and walked out the door.



I have an interest in flying saucers. I mean, not that I want to talk to little green men or anything. I don't know if I even believe in them, for that matter. But there's just got to be something out there. At night when I'm walking back to the hanger, everything silent except the crunch of the snow under my feet, I just know that I'm not as alone as all that black space all around seems to indicate.

Sometimes in the middle of the night when I can't sleep, I put on all my gear and walk out to the middle of the airport. The runway lights are turned off that time of night and if I look one way it's like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking an immense chasm, just perched there fearless and full of expectations. And when I turn back to look the other way, the hanger sits like a ship, a space ship in its pool of flood light. The window to my room on the second floor would be the only one lit and it doesn't take much imagination to think of it as the bridge. On nights like that I'm space walking and when I go back to my room I make a cup of hot tea, throw off my boots, sit back in the old chair near the heater and take comfort in the knowledge that the ship is on course.

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Catalogue Information

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