Blackstrap Hawco (90 page)

When he reaches the fork in the road, he knows it's not much further. Take the road branching right. Only a few minutes more.

The cabin comes into sight like he expected, ten feet in off the road, the log side of it facing him, the front door set away from the road, toward the trees.

He pulls in on the grass, avoiding a few rusted tin cans on the ground. Parking the pickup, he gets out, the sound of the brook reaching him, the sound of birds. Summer heat stillness nothing like the air inside the truck. The land with its own dry, living sound. The sun muted entirely now, only the throb of it off somewhere. He knows the sound of this place. It puts him at ease. The absence of everything other than its uncomplicated self.

He gets the key from under a nearby rock and fits it into the padlock. He goes back to the truck to take the supplies into the cabin. Junior stands outside looking at the brook, then squats to pick up a rock and plunk it in. The surface changing.

‘Mine,' he says to Blackstrap. ‘Junior's B'ook.'

Junior's Brook. That's what they named it.

When Blackstrap used to come to the cabin as a boy, he'd wake in the mornings in the top bunk and listen, looking up at the log rafters or facing the log wall. Moss stuffed in to seal the gaps. The sound of rain pouring down outside. Every morning the same sound of rain. Disappointment at the thought of a day stuck inside.

But when he'd open the door, the sun would be hot and blinding.

What he thought to be rain was only the brook running so close, tricking him.

He lays the supplies on the single shelf by the door. Turning, he sees the two sets of bunks. The wooden table between them. Many a card game played there over the years. The uneven roar of conversation and laughter in the haze of cigarette smoke. The men who sat at that table
from the time he was a boy. Some of them dead now. The small window above the table that was pure black at night. The woodstove to his right. The 410 shotgun for hunting rabbits stood up behind the stove, the barrel aimed at the ceiling. The same shotgun he almost shot his father with when he was a boy. Ten years old. The first time he used the 410. His father tossing cans up in the air, straight up above his own head, and Blackstrap aiming as they came down, waiting and following and waiting and then pulling the trigger. The shot scattering inches above his father's head. The memory of it still unsteadies him. The same feeling as when he shot at seals far out on the harbour ice in Bareneed. He was eleven, and not having learned his lesson. Shooting and walking ahead and shooting more and walking out further on the ice, hoping to see the seals stilled, until he saw the dark forms gain in size and keep moving. People as shadows, maybe facing him. He ran home on weak legs with the scare chasing straight after him inside.

Pulling on his long green rubbers, he takes up the older trouting poles from the corner, the ones with the cork bobbers he forgot were always there. He fits Junior with a vest too big for him, just in case it gets chilly, although he doubts it. They cross the road in the airless heat, the dust from the road almost rising, down over the low incline through the dry bog with its humps and watery patches and bog trees and tangles of burgundy bushes not yet dotted with blueberries. He can see the flat surface of the pond ahead, shimmering in a flash of the sun freed from a cloud. The heat gaining with the mere hint of the sun uncovered. Nearing water like that, needing to squint, he looks back to see Junior taking his time walking through the rough terrain, the boy's eyes on the ground. A sight to see, so small in the wide-open land. So small as to be almost lost.

‘How ya doing?' Blackstrap calls out, a fly buzzing near him, then darting off. He smacks a black fly on the back of his hand, smears the blood in his jeans, blows another away from his lips.

‘Where's da fis'?'

‘There.' He points his trouting pole high toward the pond.

They keep moving.

Junior watches the ground, then has to stop. The boy worn out until Blackstrap goes back and lifts him, carries him like a sack of potatoes
over his shoulder. Junior giggles with the wind jerking out of him, making a noise like blunt rhythm.

After ten minutes, there is the sound of water moving. They edge around a line of trees and the sound clarifies, becomes fuller, wetter, fresher. The wide river spotted with rocks making a sound as it runs into the pond. Blackstrap sets Junior down and looks around. Years of trouting here alone with the men back at the cabin drinking beer. The river he has stood in, balancing on two rocks. A big rock steady and flat enough to put both of Junior's feet on.

‘Watch yer step.'

Blackstrap stands with his feet on two rocks, setting up Junior's rod. He adjusts the bobber and lets the line drop into the water, where it's swept away. He clicks over the bar.

‘Leave it where it is.'

Junior holds the rod. ‘Where da fis', Dad?'

Blackstrap casts out into the water, avoiding the rocks and shallows, toward a deeper pool where he knows the trout gather. Stood there, he does not move, only slowly reels in, faster nearer the gush of water over the closer rocks, and tosses out again. Getting a bite, a nudge in the rod, the tip arcing, he tugs to set the hook and reels in against the steady pull of the river.

A flopping in the water here and there.

‘Fis',' says Junior.

Blackstrap keeps reeling until the fish is up out of the water, dangling on the near invisible line. Flicking. Straightening. Bending. Holding itself bent, like it's already dead and drying. A mud trout. Brown and black with spots and orange on its belly.

Sleek and beautiful.

The hook not set through the gill. Blackstrap flings the trout toward the riverbank, the grass and bushes and big trees. The fish flies off the line and Blackstrap steps in front of Junior, one boot in the water, to block the hook from snapping back. The line moves clear of them and he reels it in, goes for the trout, finds it wrapped in long dry strands of grass, jerking around. Armlessly, he thinks, watching it. Useless on the ground. He takes hold of the trout, the slime of it on his hands weakening his grip. He bends to smack the head against a rock, to make
certain it dies, even though it never does. It still moves in his wicker basket. A slow tangle in the moss on the bottom to keep the trout fresh.

‘Ya got'n, Dad.'

Blackstrap nods and winks, trying not to make too much of it.

‘Nice'n.'

He takes Junior's rod. The worm has been nibbled away, more black hook showing than anything. He pulls off the torn-up worm and tosses it in the water. The new worm is warm and squirms as it's curved into the hook, gushing out brown like shit. He lays the styrofoam container back on the ground and navigates the rocks to his spot next to Junior. Tossing Junior's line toward the deep pool, he holds the rod until he feels a bite, makes certain he has one on, then he points overhead at two geese flying against the grey but soon nearer to land.

Junior watches until they are gone over the far-off trees.

Blackstrap hands the rod back to Junior. Then he flicks his own line out and waits patiently, pretending to know nothing.

‘Check yer line,' he finally says in a way that admits to nothing. ‘Keep 'er tight.'

Junior reels in, the tip of the rod bending. ‘ 'S heavy.'

‘I think ya got one, buddy.'

Junior turns the reel, struggling, the rod arcing more.

‘Reel it in, b'y. Slow 'n easy.'

When the fish flops in the water, Junior screams and lets go the rod. It falls in the water, clattering off rocks. Blackstrap makes a grab for it, one boot going fully in. He almost slips on the slimy underwater rocks, but manages to catch hold of the cork handle. The rushing water cool despite the heat. A fury of water down that low. The pull of it with his arm in the flow. One leg still up on the rock, something in his back making a pain in his head. He sweats a little more and strains to give the rod back to Junior, shakes the warming water from his hand.

The trout up out of the water again.

Junior squeals with delight.

‘Hold it.' Blackstrap picks up Junior, the rod still in the boy's small hands. ‘Don't let go. Hold it, hold on.'

The trout jerking at the end of the line, swinging in mid-air, snapping to get off.

He lays Junior down on the bank.

A larger pain in his head now, in his legs, in his back and arms. He tries not to let it cut too deeply, to ruin the situation. But he has to wait a few seconds.

‘Take 'er off.' The trout already on the ground, the barb through the red jagged lines of gills.

Junior squats down to watch the fish flop around. He touches it. Jerks back. Frightened of its movements.

Blackstrap twists the hook from the gills, scrunching it free, doing damage. Holding tight so the trout won't flip back into the nearby water. He gives the trout to Junior. A two-pounder. The boy holds it across both his palms and stares down at it, wondering. The flap over the lines of gills opens and closes. Its tail shivering.

Then Blackstrap takes it and bashes its head against the rock. Blood sprays out, flickering across the back of his hand, one round eye loose from where it struck the rock. He puts the trout in the wicker basket. Two trout in there now, the first one not fully dead yet, its skin already beginning to dry, not fresh and slippery like the new one against it.

Then they go back to their rocks.

‘Fine job,' says Blackstrap, mussing up Junior's hair.

Junior back at it again, more anxious now to catch another, having done so well on the first.

 

In the cabin at night with the fire going, the heads are cut from the trout before their bellies are slit down the middle in a silky flutter. Sticky strings of red and purple guts pulled out, then the orange insides washed in a pan of water from the brook. Junior watches Blackstrap roll the trout in a bit of flour, and carefully place them in the sizzling butter in the frying pan. The skin going crispy before the butter goes black. The orange meat tender and hot.

‘Watch fer bones.'

They eat at the table with the darkness outside the small window, black like it always is beyond the lit propane lantern hissing low. The heat and wind of the day still in their faces. The pure darkness of the country surrounding them with nothing but faint clear sounds momentary and far away outside. Blackstrap tells Junior the story of
Patrick Hawco caught in the spray of the wicked sea while trying to save the Portuguese sailors, cast off in an open boat in a vicious storm, not able to save a single soul, his own body washing up on the shores of Bareneed five days later. A look on his face that was remembered by all until the sight of further death coupled it. The story of Ace Hawco facing the polar bear on the ice, a beast twice the size of any man, yet Ace able to drive it off with words of such a mad concentration that they became the final ones he ever spoke with no one within hearing distance. The story of Jacob Hawco on the trapline, the fox that befriended him then wrapped itself like a scarf around Jacob's face to keep him warm.

Junior listens without word, picking the thin bones from his trout, trying to get them off his fingers where they're stuck. Every now and then his eyes go to the trout heads on a plate on the counter, or shift up to watch the slow throb of shadows on the ceiling. Until Blackstrap rises from his chair and opens the cabin door to night. Tosses the trout heads far out into the trees.

‘Fer da fox,' he says.

Tired from the country air and the full warming comfort of the stove, they climb into their bunks early, the hiss of the lantern going down to utter darkness. Only those sounds beyond the walls, held special in blackness.

And in the morning when Junior wakes, he hears the rain pouring down outside, then rises from his covers to open the door and face the brilliance of land lit up by pure sunshine.

 

Jacob has his good days, but most are difficult. He does not recognize Blackstrap, keeps asking who he is, and asks for Emily. Junior and Ruth. ‘Where're me chil'ren?' he wails. Other times, he exists in his own private silence.

Occasionally, when Blackstrap comes into the room, he catches a putrid, stomach-turning smell. Jacob has shit himself. But Jacob knows enough to take care of it eventually. He still realizes it's him. If anyone tries to help him, he stares at them in dumb surprise.

Mrs. Shears comes by to look after him. Jacob watches Mrs. Shears' face, wondering or talking. A story or not. Other days, he sits there like himself, winking and speaking of a time that was, or watching the TV
and commenting on what's being shown. Patsy doesn't want the burden. She thinks Jacob should be put in a home. She wants her own house, if only across the yard.

They argue about putting Jacob away in the old age home in South River. Jacob in the next room, like he can't hear. Making Blackstrap so furious he has to leave the house before he smashes something. Junior in front of the TV, turning up the volume with the remote, his parents' arguments a distraction.

Blackstrap storms off into the woods, cuts trees down for lumber, wishes the chainsaw would rip his leg off, his arm off. The teeth tearing through his throat. Another piece of him gone. Not a story but an ending. His miserable unwanted life. Those men he saw drowning. Gone for good in a mess of something that can't be cleaned up. The Yanks giving orders. Not a fucking clue. A rig in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Not in Louisiana. Sitting in a bayou. Those men drowning. Those seas in dreams are real. He wakes to know this. The branches swaying around him when they fall. He works blindly, felling trees, until a spot is cleared where he stands with his heavy breath raging out of him, checking over the space, the stumps, the grass. He hauls the first load of trees to the pickup. Doesn't care about his back. The worse the better. He won't let it stop him, like a challenge against whoever, whatever. His cunt-ugly, fucking life. He jumps into the truck, drives to Norbert Peach's on Shearstown Line and unloads the trees for Norbert Peach to mill into two-by-fours.