Little Cedar is wide eyed. “Would she have died?”
Night Cloud shakes his head. “No. She would have adapted to their world. She would not be dead, but not alive either.”
“But how could she breathe underwater?”
“She would learn to breathe as the water creatures do.”
“But what about the cold? She would be so cold.”
Standing Bird looks up from his flame, which is now flicking like a snake’s tongue. “They can’t feel hot or cold, Little-Know-Nothing.”
Grey Rabbit lets out a long sigh, and both of her sons turn to look at her. She smiles faintly and looks at her hands. She wishes Bullhead had not told that story. Things can happen so easily. Little Cedar would have reached for the watergirl’s hand.
They’ve packed most of their belongings and buried the others, leaving only the bent skeleton of their wigwam standing in the morning light. Grey Rabbit steadies the canoe, neatly loaded with rolls and bundles and everyone in their place. Never has she been so happy to move on.
Tobacco falls from Night Cloud’s hand in offering and floats over the water’s surface. He nods. Grey Rabbit shoves off and climbs in as the boat glides away from shore. No one speaks as they start their journey, each getting used to the feel of the shifting water, an unsteadying sensation after a long season on land. It’s quiet except for the chop of the waves and the sound of Bullhead humming softly beneath her breath.
Grey Rabbit dips her paddle into the clear water, feels its resistance against her stroke, watches the drops fall in a long arc as she lifts the paddle forward again. There are icicles hanging in the mouths of rock caves, where the water thunks with a hollow sound, and a place along shore where the lake has piled ice, one sheet into the next, like giant fish scales in the sun.
Grey Rabbit looks back at their wake as the water closes over the disturbance of their passing. It is possible for things to return to calm. On the cliff near her offering place, the oldest pine stands taller than the rest, its windswept arms, its guardian spirit, bathed in the yellow light of morning.
1902
Gunnar rows away from land, feeling the extra weight—John, the anchor rocks, the buoys, and all the rope—force him low in the water. The water has a blue-black chop, but it’s calm enough to get the boulders overboard. He points up the shore with his oar. “It’s a new spot, further out. See the cliff face near the double hump? About a mile, a mile and a half.”
John lets out a long breath, conscious of the offering he’d made before getting into the boat. He’s never been comfortable on the big water, and this time he feels worse than ever. He hasn’t seen Gunnar since Swing Dingle, and now, on top of the unpredictable water spirits, he has thoughts of Gunnar’s drowned man to contend with. Still, the day of work is worth the salt fish to him, and he trusts Gunnar, and Gunnar trusts the boat. It’s a good design, pointed at both ends, and constructed with strong cedar ribs. Not an improvement on the canoe, though it has its similarities. The land slides by—the slanting rock shore and the shaded forest floor where the snow is still holding.
Gunnar angles them toward the horizon, and John feels the growing distance from land like a low vibration throughout his body. It’s as clear looking down at the boulders underwater as it is looking up through the air, causing him to feel slightly disoriented about the relative size of things, his place in the world, and which element he is part of.
When the lake bottom drops away, there’s only the dark reflection of his head. He rests his feet on the enormous coil of rope. It holds the smell of deep water.
Gunnar appears to not notice whether they’re in forty feet of water, or three hundred. But of course he’s aware; he’s completely alert. John follows his gaze up to the ridge, where rounded cloud shadows darken patches of land. It’s admirable, how the oars seem to elongate Gunnar’s arms, and the boat becomes an extension of his torso. The man becomes more water strider than human.
“You best not put your feet there,” Gunnar warns, looking up at the ridge again.
John takes his feet off the coil of rope. “What’s up there?” he finally asks.
“Weather,” says Gunnar, noting John’s discomfort. “Only keeping watch,” he adds. John’s used to Gunnar watching the sky, it’s just that he seems more vigilant than usual. John shades his eyes and scans the horizon, but reading the sky from so far out in the water is not the same as reading it on land.
“I was hunting last fall when that big storm hit. It felt like the waves could’ve snatched me from the woods.”
“Yeah. That was a big force, for sure. It came bearing down from there,” he points with his oar. “But the thing with northeasters is I can see them coming. And even if they blow up faster than I can row, at least they blow me in. It’s more likely north-westers this time of year.” Gunnar tilts his head toward the ridge. “They give me no notice and blow me out. I could row for hours, giving all of my arms, and not make a bit of headway toward shore.”
“Has it happened?”
Gunnar nods and then shrugs.
John listens to the rhythmic work of the oars and waits for him to tell the story.
“I tied myself to the boat. Tied the boat to the nets.” He rows without saying anything more.
John watches the water drip from Gunnar’s oars. He turns back toward the landscape and the places he knows well, but the animal paths and needle beds, the rivers, ravines, and outcroppings of stone, have all been reduced to vague patches of color. They’re far enough out to see the wide, bare notches along the ridge, where the loggers have begun to clear the trees.
“It wasn’t too bad,” Gunnar starts up, “six, maybe seven hours bailing. No real damage, except to the fish. I couldn’t get back out to my nets again before the fish went soft.”
“Another storm?”
“Yah, no. I needed some tending. I froze myself right to the boat.”
Berit has the fish house warmed up, the barrel stove keeping off the chill that seems to come every year with the thaw, finding its way though the smallest of holes, even the tiny openings in the weave of her sweater. She leans forward in her chair, dips a cedar float in linseed, and then, with a piece of a dress beyond wearing, rubs the oil into the wood. It’s a strong smell, slightly rancid, and it mixes with the other smells of the fish house—trailings, preserving salt, sweat, wet wool, and the dense watery smell of the nets in the loft.
She rubs the oil vigorously into the float, repeating to herself once again that it would be good for Gunnar to have a partner. Not only could they work more nets, they could run hook lines for trout in the spring. And, of course, he would be that much safer. She certainly doesn’t see a problem with that.
“We barely have enough as it is,” he’d said. “Where would he live? Your work would double.” He’d shot back words before giving her ideas time.
“He could live in the net loft until he builds his own place.” She had thought it through. Her idea was feasible.
Berit sets the float on the drying rack and dips another into the oil, the light cedar wood turning darker on contact.
“Where would we store the nets?”
“Build a temporary shed.”
The exchange felt more like a children’s game than a real conversation. And then Gunnar stopped talking all together, and turned his back to her in the bed. Come dawn he acted like nothing had ever happened, just launched in, telling her about his dream. The thought of it gets her blood moving. She slaps the float down in her lap. He thinks that because he won’t discuss something, it somehow ceases to exist.
The cat is rubbing against her leg, back and forth, her tail up and twitchy. “Go on, Katt-Katt.” She nudges her away, but the cat only moves to her other leg. “Go on now, you’re as stubborn as he is.”
Berit stands at the window. The lake is dark under bulbous white clouds. She can’t see the boat, but then she didn’t expect to.
She twirls her arms, stiff from splitting wood, and settles back in her chair with a raw float. Soon, she’s back at the window again. The dark blue lake. The clouds in the sky. Time barely moves when he’s out setting anchors.
2000
“You’re sure you’re going to be okay?” Nora asks a second time from the threshold of her living room. Rose, sitting in the easy chair, nods without taking her eyes from the TV. She’d been planted in that chair for almost three weeks now, watching science shows or the History Channel. The blouse she’d borrowed hangs across her small shoulders, her body looking lost inside. She reaches to the windowsill where the sun is shining through the amber glass ashtray and taps off her ash without taking her eyes from the program.
Nora runs over her purchases in her mind. She’d bought bourbon, bitters, and sweet vermouth; oatmeal, pancake mix, and the “real maple syrup” Rose had asked for; pickled herring, hot dogs, and toast. The only fruit Rose wanted were bananas and the maraschinos. It’s all on the cupboard’s bottom shelf, so Rose won’t have to climb a chair.
“Well, you’re well stocked.”
“I know. Thanks.”
“The number is on the refrigerator. And don’t forget, Willard is coming by.”
Nora’s suitcase, a bulky hard box, clunks along the stairwell. Joannie always rolls her eyes when it slides down the carousel at the airport, but it’s in good shape, hardly used, and Nora likes how easy it is to spot.
She steps into the bright morning. It’s just as well to leave town. She had wanted to stay and see Rose’s reaction to the Casio piano she’d bought for her, but it had to be ordered in. Stay or go, she couldn’t decide. And then, after another harangue with the insurance company, her urge to leave won out over waiting.
Nora slides her suitcase onto the backseat of the car, situates her notebook on the passenger seat, and closes the long creaky door. From the curb, her window in the old brick fourplex reflects the blue sky and the new green buds of the elm on the boulevard.
“Forget something?” Rose asks on a stream of smoke.
“No. Saying good-bye is all. Say, there’s a bird on the sidewalk by the stairs. I almost clobbered it with my suitcase. It didn’t even move. It might have flown into the windowpane.”
Rose nods.
“Well, I’m not sure how long I’ll stay, but you know where you can reach me.”
Rose fixes her with her watery eyes, points the remote at the TV, and the room goes still. Smoke curls up from the ashtray. The shadow of a gull glides over the carpet. “Nora, listen to me. You’re going to be just fine.”
The glass float looks like a bottle green baseball, hanging in its netting from the rearview mirror. It swings as Nora rounds the curve off of the bridge, her car now heading through Duluth. It always strikes her the way the lake dominates Duluth, with its hills that angle down to the shore, when in flat Superior all you see of the lake is the shipyards, and the sheltered water of the harbor.
The wooden paddle marked
SS Arnold.
Nora flips her notebook open to the page headed “Pool Area,” and, with one eye on the road, adds the paddle to the list. It kills her that she can’t remember. At what point had she stopped seeing her surroundings? It’s crucial that she get it all written down, to preserve the memory, or at least to know what was lost.
Nora lights a cigarette and cracks the window, tries to settle in to the drive. One good thing about driving—it answers the question of what she should be doing with her time. And Nikki was excited on the phone. “You can sleep in my bed again,” she said. “I’ve already got my sleeping bag rolled out on the floor.” Hopefully things will go smoothly with Janelle. Often they are nothing but oil and vinegar. Frankly, she’s still miffed at her for not coming down when the bar burned. The Schooner had been a big part of Janelle’s growing up, and not all bad the way you’d think to hear her talk. Nora holds her cigarette to the edge of the window, letting the wind take the ash. A little support would have been nice. Of course single parenting is demanding, but still, Janelle should have made the trip.
London Road, with its parade of big houses, is slow going as usual, but the traffic lightens up after the Lester River. Nora turns onto the scenic two-lane instead of the faster highway, so she can buy Janelle the smoked fish she loves. The lake, a stone’s throw from her car window, is dark blue swells close to shore, but in the distance it settles to a flat light blue. There’s a freighter out there like a long dark shoebox. Strange how graceful they look from far away, when up close they are all steel and grind.
She has only been able to remember a few of the boats in Ralph’s framed photographs of sunken ships. Nora pages through her notebook to find the right heading. The
Benjamin Noble, Algoma, Aurania, S. R. Kirby
, the
Mataafa, Bannockburn,
the lumber hooker
C. F. Curtis
—a mere handful of what was hanging on the wall. He had an obsession for the ships gone missing. Never heard from again. Never found. The ore freighter moves along the horizon. There’s a crack in the lake where boats disappear. That’s what some people say. A crack in the lake. It’s ridiculous. Still, the thought makes her skin crawl.