Washika (30 page)

The door opened and the sound of the engine changed. Alphonse fastened the door open with a hook and eyelet.

“Okay Henri, I'll take her,” he said.

Henri returned to the wooden box where he had been sitting, where he could feel the cool breeze rushing by the open doorway. He cupped his hands around the lighter and lit a cigarette.

“Alphonse,” he said. “How old were you when you first met your wife”

“Too old. There were no women in the camps and we didn't go down often. When you reached a certain age, it was time.”

“What do you mean, too old?”

“All my friends were married. I was an uncle to all of their little ones. When my woman came along, well, I was too old to say no. It was time to be serious and give up my wild ways.”

Henri looked at him. It was difficult to imagine Alphonse Ouimet being wild. Henri could see him only as he was now, his deeply tanned face with the white hard hat tilted sideways and the thick, brown moustache and the piercing brown eyes squinting across the glaring water ahead.

“But you married her. You must have loved her?”

“Love? Well, yes. That came too, later on.”

“Was she the first girl you ever went out with, Alphonse?”

Alphonse laughed. “She was the first I married,” he said. Alphonse let go of the wheel and leaned out of the open doorway and glanced astern.

“There's Gérard,” he said, stepping back into the cabin.

Henri stood and leaned out through the open doorway. Less than a quarter mile back, he could see the
Sophie
, riding the water with her bow high and her squat cabin appearing even smaller than it was. The
Sophie
was one of those two-cylinder tugboats, Russels, that were often used for rounding up logs within a corral of boom timbers.

“Is he coming to work with us?” Henri said.

“We might need him at Pàgwàshka. Besides, they had no work for him today.”

Henri looked out through the windows, beyond the anchor, to the approaching shoreline.

“I met a girl on the weekend,” Henri said quickly.

As the shoreline approached so it seemed that his time for such talk was quickly coming to an end. And he wanted so much to share this event, his becoming a
‘
have,' leaving the world of the ‘have-nots' finally. He wanted to share this with Alphonse. It felt strange to Henri but it was as if he needed Alphonse's approval.

“Good, good!” Alphonse said, smiling. “Now Henri, I want you to go stand at the bow. Watch carefully, and steer me through where there's deep water.”

The
Madeleine
's engine slowed and Henri went forward. Holding onto the anchor, he looked down into the clear water and the sandy bottom. From astern he could hear the guys talking and then, he heard the chug, chug, chugging of the
Sophie
as she came alongside. Henri lay down, flat on his stomach. The wood of the deck was warm on his chest and he stared straight down. The bottom seemed to move swiftly by even under the
Madeleine
's slowest speed. Henri kept his eyes on the bottom and concentrated as best he could at his task because he knew that Alphonse and the
Madeleine
were depending on him.

T
he bottom seemed so far away. With his hands cupped around his eyes, Henri stared down through the water, still very deep, and he watched it moving past, sand mostly, like on the beach, a huge boulder once and several waterlogged timbers sticking up out of the sand at an angle. But it was all far away, down deep enough not to be of any threat to the
Madeleine
. Henri watched a school of minnows swimming beneath the
Madeleine
. That should have been his warning clue. The little minnows were hardly ever seen in deep water. The grainy sand became more distinct. There was a sudden jolt that pushed him forward on the deck. They were aground.

Henri looked back at Alphonse. He could not see his face. The sun glared down on the cabin windows making everything black inside. He heard Alphonse shifting into reverse and the engine revving, and then shifting again and the engine revving once again. Then, it was quiet. The boys leaned over the sides and spoke softly among themselves. Alphonse came out of the cabin, a fresh cigarette dangling from beneath his thick moustache.

“It happened so fast,” Henri called from the bow. “I'm telling you, Alphonse. It was deep and then, all of a sudden, it was only two feet.”

“That's the way here,” Alphonse replied. “It's nothing, Henri. We'll get her.”

Astern, the
Sophie
bobbed listlessly while her captain, Gérard Laporte, leaned against the low cabin of the tugboat, rolling a cigarette and looking very pleased.

“Problem, Alphonse?” he called towards the
Madeleine
.

“I suppose you could say that,” Alphonse said. “Shouldn't be too bad.”

“Want me to snub?”

Gérard hooked onto the
Madeleine
's port gunwale with a pike pole and pulled the
Sophie
alongside.

“If you want,” Alphonse said. “With this gang though, we should be able to rock her enough.”

“I'll snub just the same.” Gérard looked up at the students leaning over the port side. “Looks like you guys are going to get a little wet for a change, eh.”

“Oh, they're real little ducks, these guys,” Alphonse said. He turned to Henri and the boys behind him. “Get all the peaveys we have, Henri.”

Alphonse went astern. He untied the drive boats and set them adrift. From a hook on the cabin wall he took down a coil of thick, yellow rope and made it fast to stern. As the
Sophie
approached the
Madeleine
, stern first, Alphonse swung the remaining yellow rope onto the deck of the little tugboat. Gérard came out of the cabin and fastened the rope to the metal tow post to stern. He returned to the cabin and, with frothy sounds coming from its exhaust pipe, the tugboat began to move forward.

Everyone was astern except Alphonse. The fellows watched the rope curving like a snake in the water and then straightening and, finally, lifting out of the water, taut, as the small tugboat no longer moved forward. Gérard revved her two pistons and her stern sank leaving her gunwales only inches above water. Both engines screamed: the
Sophie
going forward and the
Madeleine
in reverse. Nothing. Gérard shifted into reverse and approached to within three yards of the
Madeleine. He
shifted again and shot forward as quickly as a two-cylinder tugboat could shoot. Nothing.

Alphonse came out of the cabin. “Just keep her tight Gérard,” he shouted over the sounds of both engines idling. He turned to the fellows standing behind him.

“Okay, my little ducks. Time to show your stuff!”

Henri handed out the peaveys. The rest of the fellows grabbed pike poles from the rack on the cabin roof.

“Okay now,” Alphonse spoke to the fellows. “The idea is not to lift her. You couldn't do it anyway. Just rock her. Get a good hold in the sand and rock her from side to side. Okay, let's go!”

The boys jumped overboard, ten to starboard and ten over the port side. Alphonse went back inside. The two engines rumbled softly, sending up a foamy froth between them and, above water, the yellow rope strained between the tow posts sticking up through the decks to stern. Alphonse stuck his head out of the cabin doorway.

“Ready?” he called to the guys below.

“Give her hell!” a voice yelled back from somewhere in the water.

The
Madeleine
's engine revved, louder than the
Sophie
's but they could see the froth the smaller tugboat made with its exhaust and they could tell that Gérard was pushing her for all she was worth. And sometimes, when she slacked off a bit, her stern would rise up and they could see the metal cage around her screw propeller. The water was three feet deep where they stood, and the boys drove the points of their peaveys and pike poles into the sandy bottom and, leaning them against her hull, pushed hard on the
Madeleine
. They groaned, leaning into their poles and, gradually, the tugboat began to rock from side to side and her momentum increased as the groans grew louder with each roll of her squat grey hull.

And then it was over. The
Madeleine
slipped backwards as easily as she had slid up onto the sand. The fellows cheered and the two men shut down the engines. Alphonse stuck his head out of the cabin.

“Break!” he hollered.

The young men laughed and staggered through the water to shore. Along the shore, the two drive boats bobbed up and down in the waves the tugboats had made. And then there was only the wind whistling through the evergreen branches and the soft murmuring of the students already on shore, sitting on the warm sand with their backs against the smooth grey
chicots
, their eyes closed against the bright noon sun.

T
he
Madeleine
was anchored offshore and the sun warmed her dull grey paint, and the red-orange of the drive boats pulled up onto shore. It was midday and the students had settled into a normal after lunch routine: a short nap on the sand beneath jack pine branches, with the smell of the ever-present sweet fern, and the feeling of the sun and the wind on their faces. It had been paradise, almost.

Gérard had run the
Sophie
ashore purposely: with her engine running at a slow speed, it created the backwater they needed for moving the wood out towards open water. There were plenty of
chicots
lying flat on the water with their roots lodged in the sandy bottom. The boys waded in among the
chicots
in the shallow water and hooked out the four-foot logs that had been trapped there. The water was not deep where they worked, two and a half feet at the most, and with the constant breeze and the sun on their backs, the fellows worked steadily and well.

André Guy was the first to see it. At first, he said nothing. He stood crouched in the water with his hook raised, leaning one way and then the other with his arms outstretched. Suddenly, he slashed at the water with his hook. It came up, point first, behind him. He had missed.

“
Brochet
!” André shouted. He ran through the water, lifting his knees high. “
Brochet
! Come on!”

The boys left the bundles of pulpwood floating among the
chicots
and joined André near a rotting stump jutting out of the sand. On both sides of the stump were fallen
chicots
forming a grey matrix in the shallow water. André pointed to the base of the stump, where the sand dipped and the water changed to a brownish-black as it disappeared beneath the stump.

“There!” he said. “See it?”

They shaded their eyes with their hands and peered down into the water. At first, it did not move, but then they saw the gills waving, and the tail, and as they moved in closer the fish backed away. Suddenly, the fish made its move, and the boys attacked with pike poles and hooks and some tried to catch it with their bare hands.

“
Sacrament
!” André swore.

“What's the matter?” someone yelled.

“Look at that,” André said. He looked away from the others, from where the big northern pike lay still in the water, keeping a watchful eye on his assailants. “Some people, they have everything.”

A snow-white skiff approached the
Madeleine
. Her wake caused waves to slap up on shore. The boys stood in the water, staring up at the craft with her white hull and tan canvas convertible cabin roof, and the swivel chairs and racks for the rods, and buckets of ice for the bait and cold beer. No one was thinking about the pike lying somewhere in the brackish water.

“Hi ya,” the man at the wheel said.

“Yes sir,” Alphonse replied.

“Beautiful day ain't it?” the man said. He was wearing a baseball cap and a white T-shirt with an angry bass jumping across his chest. The other man sat astern, fat and comfortable in the swivel chair. He wore wide-legged shorts and a white T-shirt and his legs were burned red, like his arms.

“How long ya been out here?” the driver said to Alphonse. “We been fishing ‘round here all mornin' and we ain't seen nobody ‘till you fellas com ‘long. How's the fishin' in these parts anyhow?”

Alphonse glanced sideways. Gérard smiled back. He did not speak English well but he understood enough.

“Not too bad here,” Alphonse looked across to the driver. “Pike. About twenty, twenty-five pounds.”

“Didn't I tell ya Charlie?” the driver spoke to the fat man. “Northern pike fer chris' sake! Twenty-five, thirty pounds!”

“Ask ‘m, Al,” the fat man stood up in the skiff. “Ask ‘m ‘bout lures. An' he must know the spots. Ask ‘m ‘bout the spots, Al.”

The driver lit a cigarette. He held the pack out towards Alphonse.

“Smoke?”

Alphonse nodded, yes, and the man tossed the pack to him.

“Keep ‘em,” the man said. “We got plenty.”

Alphonse tapped out a cigarette as he had seen the driver do and then he stuffed the rectangular shaped pack into his other shirt pocket, his left pocket already filled with his tobacco and papers. He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, feeling the smoke filling his lungs and smelling that strange, pungent smell of blended tobacco.

“So, ya got big ones up this ways, uh?” the driver said. “Mostly pike, right?”

“Yes, that's right,” Alphonse replied.

“Any special place?” the man winked at Alphonse. “Must be pretty good right ‘round here, uh?”

“Yes,” Alphonse said. “That's right.”

“Ya must know where all a them big ones are hidin', right? What ya doin' here anyways?”