An Early Winter (6 page)

Maybe he and his grandfather don't even need to stay on to camp and live off the land the way they've been talking about. Once they have caught a few fish, their point will be made, and then they can head back home. Mom and Grandma are probably worried enough by now. When he and Granddad walk in, they'll be ready to do some serious listening.

For now, though, there is nothing to do but to enjoy being here with Granddad. Enjoy being here and catch some fish.

Tim gazes at the trees probing the sky, at their dark reflections stretching into that other sky floating on the surface of the lake. A
V
of Canada geese fly over, calling and calling. "Are you there?" the call asks. "I'm here. I'm here," comes the answer.

"They always put me in mind of donkeys braying," Granddad says.

"I think they sound more like squeaky doors," Tim replies.

Granddad pulls the oars and lifts them, pulls and lifts. And Tim is content. How can he be anything else? He is home. No one will ever take him away from his grandfather again.

If Mom and Paul won't move back to Sheldon, then they'll have to understand that he must stay. He'll miss them both, especially his mother, and he knows they will miss him, but they can come back to visit often.

When the raft approaches the windward side of the spit, at a nod from his grandfather, Tim drops the anchor. When he hands over the pole, Granddad examines the way it is rigged, then gives another nod, clearly satisfied. Tim's chest swells with pride.

Granddad selects a particularly active minnow, slips his hook through behind the spine and drops his line in. Tim does the same. They each let the weight settle to the bottom, then reel about a foot of line back in. That way the minnow can swim freely.

All this has been done in silence, but they never fish in complete silence. Some fishermen say that any conversation at all will scare the fish away, but Tim and his grandfather have always talked when they are sitting with poles in their hands, and it's rare that they don't get fish. It's the talk Tim loves, perhaps even more than the fishing. He waits to see what the topic will be.

"Did you know," Granddad says finally, his voice a familiar low melody, "that fish have a sense we don't?"

Tim smiles, shakes his head. No, he didn't know. That's one his grandfather hasn't told him. But even if he had heard it before, he would be glad to hear it again.

"They have dots running down the sides of their bodies—it's called a lateral line system—and those dots help them sense what's around them in the water." Granddad settles back against the side of the raft. He looks relaxed, happy. "Sometimes two male fish will swim side by side, flapping their tails. They're trying to control their territory, shouting at each other's lateral line systems."

All Tim's life his grandfather has dropped bits of information like this on him, mostly about the natural world. That bats hunt with high cries we cannot hear. That bees see ultraviolet, invisible to us. That we humans have nine muscles to move our ears, and that those muscles usually don't work. That dogs have seventeen that work just fine.

"Did you know," Tim replies, because he's been gathering facts of his own to carry back to his grandfather, "that one of an owl's ear holes is higher than the other? That makes it so an owl can tell the height of a mouse by the sound it makes."

Granddad holds up a thumb to make an "all right" sign. They grin at each other.

A great blue heron standing near the shore thrusts its elegantly long beak into the water and comes up with a flapping fish. "Good work there, Blue," Granddad calls softly. Then they both turn back to study their lines as though concentration can help the minnows in their work below.

Tim reels in his line, checks his minnow—still active, still good—and drops it in again. A couple of minutes later, Granddad does the same.

There are other topics Tim wants to talk about, though, topics that have nothing to do with animals. For instance, why did Granddad quit his practice? He had been the best veterinarian in three counties. Everybody said that. The farmers used to call him from miles around to come care for their animals. People drove long distances to bring their pets to the clinic, too.

No one knew why, in the midst of prepping for surgery one day, Granddad had walked out of the clinic, gone home, marched in the front door and, without saying a word to anyone, sat down and started to read the newspaper. When Grandma asked him what he was doing home at that time of day, he'd said, "I'm reading the newspaper. Can't you see?" And he's never given any more of an explanation than that. As far as Tim knows, no one has ever dared to ask again. Not even his grandmother.

Tim studies the point where his line disappears into the water, gazes so intently that the shimmer of light on the surface begins to dazzle his eyes. He speaks without looking away or even blinking. "Why did you quit?" he asks. "Being a veterinarian, I mean."

The silence in the raft stretches like a taut rubber band. And stretches and stretches. Just when Tim is sure something must snap, Granddad says, "Do you know how you can tell the age of a bear at a glance?"

Tim sighs. He knows. He doesn't mind being told something that he's heard before, but for a moment there, he had actually thought he was going to get an answer to his question. He puts a finger beneath his line and gives it a tug, though they aren't really set up for jigging. "No," he says. "How can you tell?"

"By the size of the ears." Granddad is triumphant the way he always is when he thinks he's come up with a fact Tim doesn't know. "Even after a bear is grown, its skull keeps growing. But the ears stay the same. So when you look at an old bear, the ears seem smaller than they are on a young one. They aren't really, of course. They're just small in comparison to the head."

Tim nods. He wishes he had another piece of information to offer in exchange, but he doesn't. He's going to have to go to the library when he gets back to Minneapolis. They've got dozens of books about animals there. But then he remembers—he's not going back to Minneapolis. Well, he'll see if the Sheldon library has anything new.

"A bear's penis keeps growing, too," Granddad says. "It's made of bone, and the older he gets, the bigger it is."

Tim can feel the blood rush to his face. He's never heard his grandfather talk dirty. But then maybe to a veterinarian talk about an animal's penis isn't dirty. Granddad has never said such a thing to him before, though.

Having nothing to contribute to the conversation about bears' penises, Tim searches for another topic. He is almost surprised at what comes tumbling out. "Tell me about my father."

"Your father?" Granddad repeats, almost as though he doesn't know who Tim is talking about. His gaze is steady on his line.

Tim can't help but feel impatient. "You know. Your son, Franklin. Tell me about him."

"Ah ... Franklin." Granddad's voice is so filled with love that Tim could almost warm his hands at it. "What do you want to know?"

Why did he go away?
Tim thinks, but remembering his grandfather's studied lack of response to his other "why" question, he chooses safer ground instead, "Did he like to fish? You said you used to bring him out here to Silver Lake."

Granddad reels his lure in, picks a tangle of lake weed off the minnow, and casts again to a slightly different spot. Just when Tim is certain he isn't going to answer this question either, he says, "I used to bring Franklin here sometimes. I don't know that he ever liked fishing all that much, though."

"He didn't like it?" How could anyone not like going fishing? Especially with Granddad!

"It required too much sitting for his taste. Now, if I could have given him a spear, sent him into the lake after the fish, I think he would have liked that just fine." Granddad smiles, but the smile seems sad.

Fishing with his grandfather has always been Tim's favorite thing in all the world to do. The thought that his father didn't like it seems to put a thousand miles of distance between them. How could he not have liked just being out here on the silken water with Leo Palmer, whether he cared about fishing or not?

For several moments Granddad says nothing more. Then, as though Tim has asked another question, he adds, "Franklin always wanted me to take him hunting instead. I should have done it, I suppose."

Hunting. Another thousand-mile distance. Many of Tim's friends in Sheldon hunt with their fathers. They come back boasting of their kills, of the blood and guts they saw. Jeff Kowalski even invited Tim to come along once, but Tim made up an excuse. The truth is he didn't want to go. He wouldn't mind getting a chance to shoot a gun. That would be fun. But he could never shoot at anything alive.

It took a long time before he'd been able to take a fish off a hook, cut off the head and scrape the silvery scales and gut it without almost turning inside out himself. Granddad says he's got a tender stomach. Mom says he's got a tender heart. Whichever part of him is tender, the idea of looking into a deer's liquid eyes and pulling a trigger, of killing frightened little rabbits or the geese that fly overhead, calling in those lonely voices, has never appealed to him one little bit.

But his father liked hunting, actually wanted to go. Would a man who liked hunting, who didn't want to sit still to fish, have liked him?

The tip of Granddad's pole trembles, then tugs toward the water. Once. Twice. They both go still, watching the pole intently. And then the tip draws down again and stays arched toward the water. Granddad flashes a triumphant look in Tim's direction and begins reeling in.

"You've got a good one!" Tim whispers the exclamation, though noise probably couldn't disrupt anything now, and begins immediately to reel his own line in to get it out of the way. He discards his minnow, which is beginning to look the worse for wear, secures the hook in one of the eyes of the pole, and locks the reel.

"The net," Granddad says.

Tim lays his pole down and looks around.

No net. Granddad forgot to put the net into the raft.
He
forgot as much as Granddad did, though Granddad has always taken care of such details before. What a stupid thing to do, to go out fishing without a net!

Granddad is reeling in steadily, and Tim looks around, trying to see something else that can help land the fish. There is nothing.

His grandfather has his catch close to the raft now, and his pole is bent almost double. The fish is swimming hard, this way and that. Swimming for its life. Tim can see the dark back, the spiny dorsal fin. It's a walleye, all right. A big one. Ten pounds. Maybe more. It's been a long time since they've seen a walleye this big.

"Old Marble Eyes," Granddad cries. "It's Old Marbles Eyes. Bring me that net!"

"Sorry," Tim says, moving toward his grandfather, his hands empty. "We forgot." He leans over the side for a better look. He can see the long greenish back. A prize fish for sure. The kind to stuff and mount and hang on the wall. If Grandma were the kind to allow stuffed fish to be hung on her walls. "We didn't bring the net."

"What?" Granddad's voice is sharp.

"I'm sorry," Tim repeats. He doesn't add, as he might,
I'm sorry you forgot to put it in the raft.

"Dammit, boy. Can't you do anything right?"

The words explode from Granddad's mouth, and Tim's head jerks up. His grandfather has never spoken to him this way before. Rarely even been angry with him. Certainly never sworn at him. Not in all his life.

"Everything," his grandfather is saying. "I have to do everything myself." His eyes are icy blue, fierce.

"It's not..." Tim starts, but he can't finish.
It's not my fault
is what he means to say.
You're the one who's supposed to be in charge.
But he looks at the dark color staining his grandfather's face, at the anger setting his mouth in deep parentheses, and he doesn't dare say it.

Granddad drops his pole and takes the line in his hand instead, moving in closer to the big walleye. "Not only can you not sit still long enough to catch a fish, but you can't manage to take any responsibility, either. Never known how. Never will." He spits the words as, with a single, strong pull, he lifts the walleye out of the water. The magnificent specimen rises straight up along the side of the raft. Tim sees what is going to happen. He sees and might have cried out a warning, but he does not.

The walleye hasn't swallowed the hook. The minnow is still there, a flash of silver in the big fish's mouth. And once Old Marble Eyes is half out of the water, he spits it. Just lets the minnow go and drops back into the lake. Slips into the water like someone sliding into bed. Without a farewell glance. Without even a splash.

For several long seconds, Tim's grandfather stares at the surface of the water. Stares at the ripple widening and widening. And then slowly he turns to face Tim again. Tim sees, as though from a great distance, that his grandfather's face is twisted with rage. "You're useless," he cries. "I don't know why I bother to bring you here. You're absolutely useless!" And he jerks the empty line out of the water.

Before Tim can gather any kind of response, he hears a new sound. One he has never heard before. Not out here in the raft, anyway. Nonetheless, he knows instantly what it is. He would have recognized that sound in his dreams.

A hissing. A fizzing. A sharp release of air. And he looks to see what has happened. When Old Marble Eyes spit the minnow, the minnow must have come free of the hook, too. Now the bare hook is caught in the side of the raft, puncturing the top chamber. The largest tube. The one that gives the raft its shape, its lift above the water. And around the penetrating hook, the air rushes out in a savage whisper.

See?
the hissing air says.
See? You're absolutely useless, Timothy Palmer!

Tim's grandfather kneels, studying the slowly collapsing side of the raft. He seems calm, almost mesmerized by the disaster overtaking them.

"Granddad!" Tim cries, lifting the dripping anchor out of the water and dropping it to the floor of the raft. "You've got to do something."