Caribou Island (9 page)

Irene lay awake panicking. The pain had become untouchable, and this meant no more thought, no more sleep, no more reason. She had to get up, couldn’t just lie here.

She wanted to pop another Tramadol, but she’d already had four in less than an hour and was afraid she’d overdose. She wandered the house, pacing back and forth in the small kitchen, over to the fireplace, into the bedroom, back to the kitchen, holding her head with both hands, squeezing at it, begging for this to stop. She wasn’t religious but found herself in something close to prayer.
Please
, she begged.

She walked outside, into the cold, the night sky clear. Wearing only her pajamas and a pair of boots. She hoped the cold might muffle the pain somehow, walked down their driveway to the road, her boots crunching gravel. Quiet tonight, without wind. She was shivering.

The trees all around seemed almost an audience, standing there waiting, watching her. Sentinels in the shadows, hidden away on a moonless night. She had never grown accustomed to this place, never felt it was home. The forest itself felt malevolent, even though she knew it well, the name of every tree and bush and flower. That worked during the day, naming, but at night the forest became a presence again, animate and unified, without name.

Irene turned and hurried back home, the crunching of her own boots seeming to come closer as she gained speed, and she saw the quick shadow of an owl cross her path ahead, the low swoop, silent. An omen, but one she didn’t know how to read. Disappeared into the trees. No call.

She hurried inside, shut the door, and made her way slowly in the dark to the couch by the fireplace, lay down, exhausted. Wanted desperately to sleep, her eyes heavy, but the pain wouldn’t allow rest. She had to get up again, had to move. Being still let the pain gather.

Carl lay awake. Monique’s breathing too even and deep, not at all like how she slept. He was careful to keep his own breathing even, and he knew she wouldn’t know the difference. She had never noticed him the way he noticed her. And he wondered why she would lie to him now, why she would pretend. Why bother? It was more considerate, in a way, than what she normally did.

She pretended for a long time, and when she finally eased the covers back and left the bed, she stood there a few minutes without moving, listening to see whether he’d stir. He kept his breathing even, and finally she tiptoed away, turned the handle of the door quietly, opened and closed it with almost no sound.

Carl waited. He heard nothing else. Looked at his watch, almost quarter after one. He waited another fifteen minutes, then sat up carefully at the edge of the bed, walked to the door and listened, opened it quietly and now could hear them faintly, their breathing, and see a glow from the living room, a flickering. They had lit a candle. He came around the corner quietly and now he could see her outline, her shape as she sat up and rode Jim, facing away. Carl could see only her dark cutout against the candlelight.

What surprised him was how much this hurt, an actual pain in the left side of his chest. The heart only a metaphor, he had thought, and he had thought he was through with Monique, basically, over her, tired of her meanness, but she had gotten him now, something hard and unforgivable. Watching her have sex with this old man, watching her curl her shoulders in pleasure, putting on her show in the candlelight, this was something that would stay with Carl, he knew, something he would never be able to forget. Her final gift to him, one more in a long series of mean gifts but more than all the others.

Carl returned to bed and wanted badly to fall asleep, tried to count his exhales, tried to fade out and go away, but he was still wide awake when she returned, so quiet with the door handle, silent across the floor, then easing carefully back under the covers. He kept his breathing even, knew she was listening, then finally heard the shorter breaths, the stop and start of her real sleep.

Terrible to have her so close beside him, only a few feet away. He looked at his watch, two thirty, and decided he would try to get on the boat to go fishing. He needed to get away from her. It would be cold on the dock, so he lay waiting another half hour until three, then rose quietly and dressed, walked into the night and set off down the road toward the river.

It felt better to be moving, to be outside and no longer trying to be quiet. Crunch of his boots on gravel, the fog of his breath. He swung his arms around a bit, rolled his shoulders, and tried to shake her off. Heard his voice. Shaking off the heebie-jeebies. Almost like a shiver. She could fuck all the old men she wanted. He was going to move on, finally.

The cold worked its way in, despite his walking, so he jogged for a while in his boots, heavy clumps. The only soul on that road, stars and no moon. Alaska a great stillness that extended a thousand miles in every direction. An open space, an opportunity to forget about something as small as heartache. Carl wanted to ingest the air, the sky, those distances.

Farther along, though, when he was walking again, he felt lost and slipped into the trees to hide himself, started to cry, tried to hold it back but ended up sobbing like a little boy. Monique, he said, because she was his first love. He would have done anything to make her love him.

He sat down on the forest floor and hugged his knees, buried his face in his shoulder. Waited for the crying to stop, then waited some more until he felt strong enough, stood up and hiked back onto the road, toward the river and the boat. He would lose himself in fishing, helping Mark. He remembered that aft deck filled with all of them gasping for air. Something magnificent in those fish, brought up out of nothing, something he wanted to be closer to.

When he made it to the pier, it was after three thirty and no one about, though he could see lights coming on in several of the boats in the channel. He waited by the ladder thinking of that Indian-American woman from last time, wondering whether he’d see her again, but it was a man in his thirties who finally came walking out of one of the buildings.

Mornin, Carl said.

Mornin.

Could I get a lift out to the
Slippery Jay
?

Sure.

And so Carl was on the river again, the roar of the outboard and fast white curve of the wake, the wind cold in his ears. He was over the side in no time, standing on deck, and made his way up to the pilothouse to wait.

Something right about a boat, sitting outside above the water, rocking in the waves. A different kind of home. A better home. Nothing stagnant. Maybe this was what he needed to do. Get a boat and live on it, maybe a sailboat and take off around the world. He knew why he was thinking this, though. Some grand gesture, something to show Monique who he really was. And that was an impossible game, one he could never win.

The seat was cold, and though Carl huddled and put his face down in his jacket, he couldn’t get warm. He had to just wait, goose-bumped and shivering, until Mark finally appeared.

Cabron, Mark said. Que paso?

Was thinking about catching some fish, Carl said.

You’ve come to the right place. Scoot over.

Carl scooted, the new section of seat frozen, and Mark pushed the glow plugs for twenty seconds, then turned the key for the engine. A bit rough at first, Mark said. But then she’s a kitten.

The owner came up the ladder. I’ll take over, she said. Hey Carl.

Hey Dora.

You look cold, she said. Go below and warm up. Grab a sleeping bag.

So he went down the ladder, in through the galley and forward to the fo’c’sle. Dark in there, but he could feel around for sleeping bags, still warm, and a pillow, and he made a nice nest. He could hear Mark walking on deck above him, letting off the bow line, and then felt the engine lock into gear and they were moving. Leaving earlier than last time. Carl without sleep, exhausted, the light rocking and warm sleeping bags a comfort, and he faded quickly.

In his dreams, Carl was swimming underwater. A wide, deep river, sunny, and the salmon all much larger than him, watching. Their enormous eyes like moons, all of them in silent communication. They had received a message about him, something urgent.

Carl woke to small waves hitting the hull. From down here, you could feel how the entire boat flexed, nothing solid. Just a skin. The engine louder now, more revs, powering through. He didn’t want to seem lazy, but he was so tired. So he closed his eyes again.

He woke to the outrageous rolling that meant they had stopped in place. He hurried to get his boots on, tossed back and forth, dizzy, then stumbled through the galley to the aft deck in time to see Mark throw an orange buoy over the stern, the beginning of the net.

Need help? he yelled.

Stay out of the way, Mark yelled back, so Carl held on to the doorjamb and watched. Sun glaring off the water, Mark letting the net unwind as Dora drove forward. The net an improbable thing, a vast nylon curtain with small white buoys on top and a leaded skirt on the bottom.

The reel becoming slimmer, green nylon feeding out until finally the entire net was in the water. Then Dora shifted into neutral and Mark attached the main line to a stern cleat. Dora put the engine into gear again and tugged carefully at the net to straighten. A curtain nine hundred feet long, arcing out behind the boat, a long line of white buoys with the orange buoy at the far end, far away.

The rolling extreme at slow speed, and Carl had to hold on. Mark came over, walking across that rolling deck with no problem. Watch the net, he told Carl. You can see ’em when they hit. You’ll see a splash.

Carl looked but saw nothing. Hundreds of salmon could be out there, but this seemed impossible. Land was miles away, a fringe in the distance, and all this open water. It couldn’t be that every small patch of water was so populated. Fishing seemed to him a great act of faith, or desperation.

The line of white buoys very tight, rising out of the water as the trough of a big wave rolled through.

We’re at the edge of a rip, Mark said, and he pointed. See the logs?

Carl could see several logs and smaller rafts of wood, the water darker on the other side, divided by a thin line of foam. I see them, he said.

The fish hang out along the rip. We can’t be right in it, or we’d foul our gear with all the wood, but we try to stay close to an edge.

Let’s go to the other end, Dora said from the helm.

She shifted into neutral and then slow reverse as Mark went to the stern. He untied another orange buoy from the rail, swapped the lines, and they were clear.

Dora shifted into forward and turned to run along the net.

Running the gear, Mark yelled to Carl over the engine. You can do this to other fishermen’s nets, too, to see if any fish have been hitting.

Carl looked at the net passing beside them, and he didn’t see anything.

No luck yet today, Mark yelled.

At the other end of the net, Mark used a pole to grab the yellow buoy line out of the water. He pulled in fast, clipped the tow line onto the net, unclipped the buoy, and Dora shifted into gear again, pulled at the net slowly, straightening.

Carl clung to the doorjamb and thought of all the ways to lose a hand on this boat, caught in any of the lines under pressure, everything wet and slippery and moving, and today was a nice day, big rollers from a faraway storm but no wind. He couldn’t imagine doing this when it was rough, but he knew Mark and Dora went out regardless of the weather. Dora’s permit allowed only certain days for fishing, usually Mondays and Thursdays.

Dora pulled for another fifteen minutes at the net, then shifted into neutral and yelled for Mark to bring it in. Mark stood at the stern with his foot on a board that was tied to a hydraulic lever. A homemade contraption, something rigged to make the work faster. When he stepped on it, the reel pulled in, net and buoys coming over the aluminum stern guide, a rounded plate with two posts. Dora stood on the other side of the net, and the two of them pushed and pulled to guide it evenly onto the reel.

Carl watching for fish, feeling he could understand why someone would spend a life out here. It wasn’t the money, or despair. It was mystery. Wondering what was down there, what was in that net. They might have nothing or they might have hundreds of salmon. Or they could have anything else large that lives in the sea. You could believe in monsters if you had a big enough net. The ocean an immensity, but they were capturing a small part of it.

Mark kept his foot on the board, the drum pulling tight. Carl wondered whether the boat could buck from the pressure. The netting pulled free of the water, dripping, wrapping onto the reel. This seemed the point at which everything could break, the lines snapping or the drum crumpling. Carl stepped away from the door, grabbed onto what he could and got to the side of the boat. He didn’t want to be in a direct line if something snapped and whipped back. The worst pressure came when the stern of the boat was lifted on a wave. The strain then was incredible.

Feels light, Mark yelled to Dora, but to Carl it felt as if the boat was about to break, as if it had a spine that could curl and finally snap.

A single salmon came over the top with the net, and Mark let his foot off the board. He grabbed the fish fast, yanked it out of the net in one quick downward motion.

Then empty net again, long winds of the reel with nothing, only a few bits of seaweed, like small brown sea bouquets, and finally one more salmon, silvery and narrow-faced, dark back, thrown onto the deck in obvious disappointment.

Skunked, Mark said to Dora, and Carl realized everything rode on Mark. If there were no fish, it was his fault. A day spent on the water was money spent, on diesel and the license and the cost of the boat, and the net could be put out only so many times.

Mark wound the rest of the net, until the buoy came over the top and he unclipped. Dora climbed the flybridge and put the engine in gear again, heading out to other water.

Carl made his way back to the door. Sorry about that, he yelled to Mark. That sucks.

Mark didn’t respond. Still sorting on the aft deck, framed now by a white wake. He scooped a salmon by the gills, flicked his finger inside, which made a popping sound, then tossed the fish into a side bin. He did the same to the other salmon and grabbed a hose to wash down the deck. Then he came forward, and he didn’t look unhappy.

No worries, mate, he said to Carl. You feel like helping me find the fish?

Sure, Carl said. He had no idea what that meant.

Come up top, Mark said, and Carl climbed the ladder after him. Dora gave a mock salute and went below.

Carl took the wheel and Mark sat beside him on the bench seat, pointing the direction to steer. Toward the boats way over there, he said.

What was that popping sound? Carl asked.

What?

When you grabbed the gills, some popping sound.

Oh yeah, just popping the gills so the fish bleed out. Easiest way to kill them, and with all the blood gone, they go into the slush much cleaner. We get a higher price if we do that.

Then Mark was talking on the radio, just chatting with his friends out here, other fishermen, asking how they were doing, making plans to hang out, inviting to the sauna. He seemed relaxed and casual for someone who hadn’t caught any fish today. Occasionally he’d use the binoculars.

Steering the
Slippery Jay
was like steering a bicycle with loose handlebars. Carl would turn one direction and feel the boat still going the other way. Then it would come back too far. He was all over the place, embarrassing, but Mark didn’t seem annoyed. Still chatting with his friends.

Then Mark pointed to the left. He put down the mic for the radio. Over there, he said. Change of direction. The two white boats right there.

The ones in closer? Carl asked. He turned the wheel.

Yeah.

Is that where the fish are?

Yeah. They’re killing fish right there, right now.