When Is a Man

by Aaron Shepard

  He began following the Immitoin upstream with the fish scope, a little smug that he was getting into the secret stretches of river reserved for people like Jory. Dixon’s Gold said that nearly every tributary of the Immitoin had been prospected. He searched for old things—pans and tins, a knife, the sole of a boot. History gave context to the wildness, mapped and defined it somewhat. He was someone who needed scale, limits. The early stories of settlement were all tipped lanterns and lightning strikes, avalanches and mudslides.

  In the hills are the charred or buried remains of villages that had believed, for brief, shining years, that they would become prosperous cities, hubs of culture and wealth. They imported pianos and established health spas on the mineral spring that some prospector had stumbled upon. They became expendable when the railroads changed the face of the frontier. Towns died before their names could be put on a proper map. They were reclaimed by the forest and forgotten.

  One day he wandered up a small stream, its banks lush with false hellebore, arnica, and foamflower. The water tasted floral, alpine. He saw nothing of interest, other than a few rainbow trout and sculpins, and returned to the Immitoin. A shadowy cluster of large fish dashed into a trough that ran along the opposite bank. Water buffeted his knees and hips as he squatted in the gravel to peer through the scope. The riverbed, beautifully illuminated for most of its width, dropped away into indigo darkness as it met the trough.

  As he manoeuvred to get a broader look, he stepped deeper into the current and, forgetting himself, crouched too low. Water poured into his waders, the loose substrate slid away beneath him, and the torrent yanked him underneath, slamming his face into the riverbed. A high-pitched note sang in his ears as he began to slide downstream. He planted his arms and thrust his eyes and nose above the surface—he needed to cough water out, but the river battered his lips, seeking entry. His body seized with the shock of frigid water, his hands numb, the swamped waders a heavy sack he would drown in.

  He managed to wrench himself sideways and turn over so that he looked downstream, the current buffeting his shoulders as he coughed and sucked in air. Then the bottom dropped out again and he tumbled forward and beneath. The water was silver and disordered, flecks of light within bubbles that gathered and attacked. His feet hit the shallows, and he managed to take another quick gulp of air. The river hauled him over rocks and tumbled him this way and that, as if he were wood. He flailed his arms trying to stay upright, and he choked and sobbed between breaths.

  He twisted toward the shore and clawed at the ground. His fingers were stiff and nearly useless, but his momentum slowed enough to let him wrap his arms around a boulder at the edge of the bank. It shifted, slid a few inches, then held. He kicked and squirmed until he pulled free of the waterlogged waders and hauled himself onto ground. Retching up water, weeping, he reached back for the waders and tugged them to shore. He wiped the water and mucus from between his nose and upper lip and saw that his numb and trembling fingers were scraped and cut. He wiped blood from small gashes on his cheeks and dabbed the raw mess of his forehead. His ribs and shoulders throbbed with every movement. He rose unsteadily, legs threatening to cramp and buckle, and staggered through the willow whips and cottonwood saplings. On his way back to camp, he found the scope precariously lodged in a cluster of driftwood and debris along the bank.

  In the trailer, he piled blankets and sleeping bags on top of himself and passed out for the rest of the afternoon. He woke up in the dimming light, exhausted and battered, and troubled by a feeling that he’d been watched while he slept, exposed to a strange witness.

  Last winter, he’d felt this same fear and loneliness. His body’s quiet betrayal had been not unlike the babbling menace of the Immitoin. Here, animals passed by at night, snapping twigs and snuffling outside the trailer while he rolled onto his stomach trying to ignore his bladder. At home, it had been the walks down the dark hallway to the bathroom six or seven times after midnight. Dribbling into the bowl, frightened by jolts of pain. Then waiting for the doctor’s word. No comfort, no refuge: not in other people, not in one’s own body.

  He was hot under the blankets, feverish. He held one arm tight across his sore ribs, hand in his armpit. With his other hand, he reflexively pawed and cupped his groin. No pleasure in it. His cock and balls lay warm, soft, and limp in his fingers, and after another light, testing squeeze, he brought his hand up under his other armpit and settled deeper in his blankets.

  The next morning he woke to a light rain hitting the camper roof. The air smelled sweet when he opened the door. A raven called, a single note, tock, like a pebble being dropped into water. The sounds were muffled, as though the air had turned to loam. He stepped outside and saw that the hills had disappeared under clouds and the trees shone with rain. His waders, which he’d turned inside out to dry, were still saturated and cold. They’d been torture during last night’s count. He pulled them on and shuddered. The huckleberry bushes and rhododendrons drooped across the path, their leaves soaking the shoulders and arms of his fleece pullover. The rain and overcast sky conspired with the creek to hide the fish beneath the grey mirror of the surface. His world had become increasingly and unpleasantly aquatic.

  Last night the traps had taken four hours to empty. Stiff muscles and a chill made him inefficient and slow: whenever he thought he’d processed his last trout, five more would swim into the upstream trap. The spawning run hadn’t quite hit its peak, and would only get worse over the next week or so. He needed to rest and then dig in for the long haul.

  Nine days had passed since he had last gone to town, seven since he’d driven Jory to the Flumes. Food was running low, and a trip to Shellycoat loomed on the horizon. Dr. Tamba’s e-mail still nagged at him, surfacing now and then with an uncomfortable sharpness: procrastination induced its own particular nausea. If he went to town, he would feel obliged to reply, which required a plan for the future, and he had none. He thought about life back on the coast. The fieldwork and writing he would have to continue in order to maintain his income, all the lost momentum he would have to regain. A desperate, strung-out sort of restlessness gripped him over breakfast. Bad weather would end the wandering that distracted him from his thoughts. He wasn’t ready to be trapped inside the trailer yet.

  The tree-planting camp appeared in a shallow valley clear-cut on both hillsides. Clouds in the treetops and mist along the ground framed the scene, dreamlike. Among the burnt stumps, the dry streambeds, thistles and fireweed, bloomed a colourful collection of tents, trucks, rusted GMC vans, and Volkswagens. Two long industrial trailers, the ones he’d seen drive by Basket Creek, formed the hub of the camp along with a pair of large, dirty canvas tents. Off to one side of the camp, near a small copse of ash and rhododendron, stood three porta-potties spaced a few metres apart. The camp looked like a post-apocalyptic shantytown. He stopped for a long time at the crest of a hill where the skid road descended to the camp, and might have turned around then if someone hadn’t stepped out from inside one of the trailers and given him a wave. He tapped the gas lightly and rolled down to her.

  “So you finally come visit, right on the last day,” Gina said. Flour clumped and clung to her hands and wrists and sauce stains covered her apron. Beneath, she wore shorts and a grey, long-sleeved shirt. She let the rain soak her hair, the early grey strands damp and shining.

  He stared at her as he stepped outside. “Last day?”

  “Every contract ends with lousy weather. I don’t know why.” She brushed off her hands. “Lunch?”

  He followed her into one of the trailers, knocking the mud from his hiking boots on the edge of the steps. A rich smell of broth, onions, and baking bread greeted him. Rows of cupboards and long countertops stocked with fruit, vegetables, and tins lined the counters on both sides of the trailer, except for a space near the back where a small table and two chairs rested against the wall. A pair of fridges and a large grill, a four-burner propane stove and oven, and a double sink completed the kitchen. A shotgun was
mounted on a rack above the back door.

  “A bear comes by every now and then,” she said, following his glance. “He scares easy, so far. Coffee?”

  The smoky, nutty smell of it, set against the damp cold outside, was impossible to refuse. He edged his way into a chair. “Where’s your boy—Shane?”

  “Just started kindergarten,” she said. “He’s back in town. With his dad.” Her tone was a bit too neutral, but he said nothing. She poured coffee from a French press into a chipped yellow mug and set it in front of him. It was perfectly brewed, strong and earthy, not bitter. He closed his eyes a moment.

  “So, are you going bush yet?” she asked.

  Must be, he figured. The mere texture of good coffee in his mouth had him swooning, emotional. He knew he looked terrible, his forehead and cheeks scabbed and bruised, yellows and purples in the folds of skin beneath his eyes, a dark scruff of a beard harbouring bits of food and twigs. He probably smelled—his nostrils were perpetually clogged with clove oil and fish slime, so how could he tell anymore? “Do I look the part?” he asked.

  “A little rough, yeah.” She grinned. “Should I ask about your face? Some guys don’t like being asked. Pissed off they got hurt in the first place.” She scooped a ladle of soup into a bowl. He stirred the vegetables in their yellowish broth and lifted some to his lips, tasting cracked black pepper and turmeric.

  “Thank you,” he said. Soup dribbled off his lip into his beard. He took another sip of coffee, the beginnings of a giddy euphoria rising from his chest.

  “You’re the first person I’ve talked to in days that isn’t a trout,” he said. “Except for this young guy—Jory. Gave me a fish scope, and I almost drowned. That’s why the cuts and all that.” He pointed to his forehead as he spooned more soup. “I’m sorry I’m babbling like this.”

  She nodded, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

  “I was feeling a little pinned down with all this rain,” he continued. “Thought I should get out now, before the roads get worse.”

  “I don’t mind the rain much,” she said. “Prefer it, in a way. At this time of year, sunshine feels like a cheap lie. Summer’s come and gone, and I worked every damned minute of it.”

  “Yes,” said Paul. He leaned forward, half aware that he was stirring his coffee in manic circles. “But when the weather turns, you know winter’s on its way, and you have to know what you’re going to do next. And, me, I don’t have a clue.”

  She’d gone back to the oven, pulling out trays of buns and dinner rolls. He set his coffee aside, trying to slow himself down. He rested his hand on his tender brow and breathed in the warm, buttery smell of fresh bread. A moment later, a bun appeared on a plate before him. Gina sat across from him, and they angled their chairs to face the window, to the rain and mist in the trees outside. The bread yielded softly to his fingers as he dipped it in his soup.

  “Won’t you go back to the coast?” she asked.

  “Probably not.” He laughed a little wildly, surprised at his own answer. “I guess I don’t really like anything waiting for me there.”

  She turned from the window and smiled sadly. “That used to be the best part of bush work—the winters off. I used to go to Mexico with my friends, live on the beach. Dreamt about buying a little house down there. But now that Shane’s in school, I’ll be sticking around. I don’t ski or snowboard, so there’s fuck all to do. My ex and I . . . disagree over child support and visitation. And other things. I’d work through the winter if I could.”

  “I hate the thought of going into Shellycoat, checking my e-mail, watching people do their real-life things,” he said. “But I’m running out of food. I like being at camp, getting to know what’s around me. I like the history of the place, the little I’ve read. Sinking into that.”

  He told her he could barely keep pace with the spawning run, and that at his rate he’d soon be working all through the night, or close to it. “When I try to speed up, I forget to record my numbers or I stab a fish with a tag.”

  Her brow suddenly furrowed. “No one’s helping you during the peak?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve seen the camp operate other years. I’d swear there were always two people there.”

  “That’s what Jory said. It was probably Beth.” He shrugged. “Tanner’s just lucky enough to have a partner, I guess.”

  “Or too cheap to hire you one,” she said, more to herself than him.

  She stood up and grabbed an empty cardboard box from the counter and began filling it with food from the shelves—a box of crackers, a dozen apples and a few bananas, tins of olives, tuna and black beans, a small jar of salsa, and a bag of coffee. Then she took another box and piled in stuff from one of the fridges: cucumbers, spinach, beets and carrots, plastic-wrapped ham and turkey slices, a dozen eggs. Two Tupperware containers filled with leftovers: penne with bacon, peas and Manchego cheese, and a chicken curry.

  “Think that’ll hold you over for a while?” she asked.

  He leaned back in his chair. “But—how much would I owe you?”

  She snorted. “Nothing, obviously. They’re just leftovers. Company’s already paid for it.”

  “Well.” He reached out with his hand, about to shake hers—then quickly brought his hand back, clasped his fingers and stared at the table, a lump in his throat. God, he was so not ready for people.

  “It’s nothing.” She took off her apron. “Gotta run to the outhouse. Back in a few. Help yourself to coffee.”

  He waited until she’d left before greedily pouring himself another cup, his hands shaking from the caffeine. At the end of one counter, newspapers were stacked in a small pile. He sorted through the papers until he found the most recent one, dated from five days ago. The Shellycoat Observer, mostly filled with advertisements, classifieds, and a calendar of community events. A few small articles in between half-page ads. Scores of a round-robin softball tournament, another round of layoffs at the mill. But nothing about the man who’d drowned. He skimmed some articles, and then stopped when he recognized the name and face of Hardy Wallace, his photo a small square above a large block of text. Not a police report, nor an obituary. No, the old man had written and paid for a full-page ad.

  To all Monashee Power Criminals:

  Wouldn’t you know it—another year gone by, another year wondering when the folks of Lambert, not least the owners of Lots 4205 and 4209 to 4313, will be fairly compensated—those of us that are still alive. Yes, it’s our anniversary again, forty years since Lambert vanished from the map. Can’t you tell by the wasteland of stumps that appear every fall on the northern shores of what you call the Lake? The fruit that must be imported from the Okanagan because our best farmland is under­water? The mill shutting down, “seasonally,” as it has ever since you drowned the forests and opened the valley to the foreign logging companies that buried all the little guys?

  You may treat me like some stranger, even after all these years, but you know me full well—you watched the valley, every house, go up in flames. Our past was nothing but ashes before we even arrived at our new home, exiled, shunned for being “north of Shellycoat.”

  So happy anniversary to us “Lambert locals.” Maybe I’ll spend the day remembering, now that our creeks and rivers are full of nothing but garbage fish and a handful of cutthroat, how the whole Immitoin once ran red with salmon. The pool below my exile’s house used to be filled with them, back in my father’s day. Now it gets sucker fish and the occasional dead fisherman—suckers of another kind, people who think they know the river.

  And the place where you folks sit with your boats and fill your coolers with mercury-poisoned fish—right in that very spot, some hundred feet below your keel, we once grew apples and pears, plums and cherries. Even watermelons, if you can believe. Try growing them now, with the best soil gone.

  Still waiting for justice. How long now? Forty years, more.

  10

  Several events marked his last two wee
ks on the Immitoin, the first being the rising of Basket Creek. On his way down from Gina’s camp, new streams had leaped the ditches and culverts and cut channels across the road. His wipers rubbed frantic arcs across his windshield but could not stop the valley from disappearing behind the spray of mud and rainwater. Back at camp, twigs and sticks had piled up against the mesh of the fence. He waded out to the middle of the creek, the turbid water battering his knees with an unfamiliar force. The makeshift pools where the fish recovered from the anesthetic had been absorbed into the current. The rest of the afternoon he kept watch beneath the tarp of the measuring station and waded back out when the fence took on too much debris. Before he went back to the trailer for a brief dinner, he gathered stones and rebuilt the pools. If a half-stunned trout was swept into this current, it would be battered to death against the rocks.

  The rain kept on for days. Despite the rising waters, the spawning run reached its peak, and the numbers of trout mounted. Perhaps it was a projection of his own exhaustion, but the fish appeared more haggard and worn. Dorsal and pectoral fins were torn, and scratches and small gouges appeared on their noses and flanks. Their gasps, as they lay on the scale, were more pronounced and desperate. The numbers in the downstream trap increased, as bull trout began to make their way back home to the lake. The females had worn their tail fins ragged digging their redds, and their bodies, emptied of eggs, lay wasted and hollow in his hands.

  There were other things he’d have liked to pursue, such as the meaning of Hardy’s letter and why the newspaper would print something so bizarre, even potentially libellous. He wondered about certain things the old man had mentioned: the lot numbers, the houses going up in flames. The orchards—he’d never noticed any on his drives between Shellycoat and Basket Creek. And the mysterious Lambert locals, the “us” and “we” of Hardy’s letter, which suggested there were other folks like Hardy in the valley, people who shared his history and maybe even his particular brand of rage. Now that was an fascinating possibility. People were Paul’s thing, even when they really weren’t.