“God-damn.” Bill’s chest was pulsing with exertion; from under his heavy rubber waders squeaked the sour tang of sweat. He turned toward shore and held out the fish in triumph. “Hey, Pete, get a load of this!”
Pete, standing where I’d left him, had opened another beer. He raised the can in a listless toast. “Nice fish.”
“What are you talking about?” Bill snarled happily. “This is a great fish. This is Moby goddamn Dick. Haven’t I taught you anything, junior?”
“What do you want me to say? I think I saw one just like it at the A &P.”
Bill shook his head and muttered, “Jesus, that guy.” But I could see how incurably happy he was, holding this fish. “What do you think?” he asked me, wagging his eyebrows conspiratorially. “Let’s keep this one.”
“It’s your license. State says you can keep three per day.”
He made a face of disbelief. “Don’t go soft on me now, Joe. Who cares what the state says? Let’s you and me eat this bad boy up.”
“I’m not much for salmon, to tell you the truth. But you want me to clean it up for you, I’d be glad to. Lucy can cook it for your supper if you like.”
At just this moment, while we watched, the flesh beneath the fish’s tail opened like a hatch and a rush of milky fluid roared out, splashing over Bill’s hands and down the front of his vest. His whole body jerked like he’d been hit with an electric current as he thrust the fish away from his body.
“Christ! What the fuck is that?”
It took me a moment to realize what we’d seen. “He’s a she,” I explained. “Those are her eggs.”
“No fucking way. That’s disgusting.”
“Hey, Bill!” Pete yelled from shore. I could hear the beer and whiskey boiling in his voice. “Looks like she digs you!”
“Will you shut the hell up?” Bill’s face had gone a mild green. Still clutching the fish like a piece of firewood, he gazed down with horror at the front of his vest. The fluid had left behind pinkish clots that stuck like glue to the fabric. “God, this crap’s all over me.”
“It’s no big deal,” I said. “It happens sometimes.”
He wiped his cheek with the knob of his shoulder. “Jesus.”
The fish’s mouth was snapping at the air in frantic little puffs, revealing gleaming fencerows of tiny, diamond-bright teeth. Much longer and the question of letting it go would be moot. Without the strength to fight the current, she’d be smashed to atoms against the rocks, or simply float downstream and drown.
“Aw, the hell with it,” Bill said finally. He lifted the fish so they were nose to nose, and spoke into its face. “Okay, missy, I guess today’s your lucky day.” At that he stepped out a few feet into deeper water, wobbling a little on the rocks; with a splash the fish was gone.
I watched him watch it go. It was just past four, a tricky hour: the sun had slid behind us, dipping the stream in shadow, while above us the dam’s sloping wall seemed to swell with captured light. The mist from the outlets washed over us in breeze-fed bursts, the air sun-warmed one minute and ice-cold the next, like a drafty old house in winter. All that water, all that stone. Around us, a thousand square miles of empty forest, a whole forgotten world of it and enough silence to let you hear the planet spin, or make you mad, if you thought too long about it. I sniffed my hand where I had touched the fish: clean, and a little salty, like blood. And then I saw I was bleeding. The hook or maybe a lucky snap of the fish’s jaw I hadn’t felt: I made a fist and a bullet of blood bubbled from the ball of flesh between my thumb and forefinger, a perfect little orb that made me think of a time, long ago, when somebody had brought a telescope up to the camp and showed me Mars.
Bill had returned to where I was standing in the moist silt at the edge of the streambed. “You cut yourself, Joe?”
I shrugged and licked it away. Just a drop, but it filled my mouth, all my senses curling around the metallic taste of blood.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “A scratch.”
Dear Joe, Lucy wrote:
I hope you’re all right, and don’t mind hearing from me like this. I wanted to tell you that your father is well. It’s a long story, and I hope that sometime I have the chance to tell you all of it. His situation at the Rogues’ was pretty bad, and I’m glad you wrote to tell me where he was. I only wish I’d gotten up there sooner. But he’s home now and finally on the mend, after a bout with pneumonia and what turned out to be a kidney infection that gave us all a scare. Please don’t worry, as I am looking after him, and Paul Kagan comes out once a week to tell him to do whatever I say and take his pills and do his best to eat.
I’ve decided to stay on at the camp through the summer, and here’s the big news-we actually managed to open! After all that’s happened, it seems almost a miracle. I’d like to take the credit, but I can’t. A few days after we got here, people just started showing up-turns out your father never canceled any of the advance reservations-and it was either open for the season or turn them away. The truth is, I was all set just to lock the gate and forget the whole thing, but here’s surprise number two: the first person to show up was none other than Harry Wainwright! (I still remember that night on the porch by cabin nine-what a shock we gave him! I still swear I told you cabin six. How long ago that all seems now.) It was Harry’s idea to open, and now the two of us are more or less running the place, or trying to. It seems a little strange, a man like Harry running around with fresh towels and handing out picnic lunches and hauling out the kitchen trash, but Harry says he doesn’t mind, far from it, and he’s even taught me a little bit about how to do the books. We’re badly in the red, by the way. According to Harry, your father pretty much ran his finances out of an old coffee can, and hasn’t paid a cent of tax to the county since about the time you left. Harry has spent most evenings the last two weeks just trying to put it all in some kind of order we can get a handle on. The general word is that with a few more bookings we may be okay by the end of the season, as long as we can get by with only a couple of part-time guides and one girl in the kitchen. Harry also has a scheme to poach a few tourists from the Lakeland Inn with a kind of daylong outing to look for moose. I can’t see that this will make much difference, but Harry says it could bring in some nice extra money.
In a way it’s a lucky turn for Harry too. I’m sure you remember that his wife was very sick, and she passed away last spring. Harry didn’t tell me this right away, but I could tell something had happened-I more or less guessed what it was-and when he finally came out with it, a lot of things suddenly fell into place in my mind. He seems very grateful to have something to do, and for now, the camp is keeping both of us plenty busy.
Well, Joe. Should I say that I miss you? I do, maybe more than ever. It’s very strange to be here without you, like I’m still feeling a part of my body that’s just not there anymore. I thought I’d gotten used to it, but I guess I really haven’t. I’m sorry about everything, especially that I disappeared the way I did. But I think it was the best thing for both of us. My parents are still furious, will barely say a word to me, though when I see my mother she always hugs me very hard, which makes me feel just terrible.
We are all glued to the television over the election, and wondering what it will mean for you. I don’t know if you know this, but the other big news down here is that eighteen-year-olds can vote. I hardly remember being eighteen. But I know I would have voted against that asshole Nixon (pardon my French!), so maybe there’s hope. Your father says McGovern’s a saint, and saints never stand a chance. Oh, well. What he means is, we all want you home. Me, too.