Lines on the Water (21 page)

I stopped speaking and had a spit and Peter looked at me.

“Now he didn’t get into the camp until a week went by, for he was a walking boss who had to go from camp to camp. And he decided to visit his cousins. For his cousins were hard pressed to get out of the woods, having to cut pulp every day. And when he went to the camp—well, you know how it looked.”

“No,” Peter said.

“Well, it looked as if it had disappeared. It was the strangest sight. In fact, you could stare right through the camp and not see a camp at all, except for one opened window, with the glass broken.

“There was a huge pile where the camp used to be. A door, a shingle, a beam—here and there a dish towel and a cup. Even the outhouse had been turned on its side, and the contents searched.

“And the cousins? Well they were a sorrowful sight. And they didn’t even notice him. And they were all still fighting amongst themselves, and blaming each other, with black eyes and pulled hair, and suspiciously searching each other, and rolling about in the dirt, and the canoe had a hole in it.

“None of them could find that rum. And even until late in life they believed it was there.

“You could say that they had gone right down to their backing trying to find it. There was a big hole in the earth, where that camp had been—oh, they had dug about eight feet.

“Well, my friend, the great Mr. Simms got the fish he wanted, for soon, fighting amongst themselves, they left him in peace, and he rebuilt the camp, and except for a few angles it was exactly the way it had been, and he toasted them all with a drink of rum that he had gone to the liquor store to buy.”

“I see,” Peter said.

“And that’s how it is when you are fishers of men,” I said, remembering Mr. Simms and his twin brother and smiling.

“David.”

“What?”

“Don’t let anyone else hear you talking like that. I can take it—because I know you.”

“Well,” I said, finishing my tea, “tomorrow is another day—”

“Tomorrow we’ll get fish,” Peter said, “I guarantee it. Remember that small pool—when we came in to the South Branch from the other side—walked up from the Narrows Pool and—”

And then all sounds became unified with the river, and the fire, and the fly dope kept the bugs away.

David Adams Richards is an award-winning author of both fiction and non-fiction. His novel
Mercy Among the Children
won the 2000 Giller Prize. He gained widespread recognition for his Miramichi trilogy:
Nights Below Station Street
(1988), winner of the Governor General’s Award;
Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace
(1990), winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award; and
For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down
(1993). Richards’ novel
The Bay of Love and Sorrows
, published in 1998 received widespread critical acclaim. He lives with his family in Toronto.