by David Vann
They ate their chili out on the porch, their booted feet dangling. There was no railing around the porch. They watched the calm inlet and an occasional Dolly Varden leaping. There were no salmon leaping yet, but that would come later in the summer.
When’s salmon season again?
July and August mostly, depending on the type. We might get the first run of pinks in June.
They stayed on the porch after they were done and didn’t say anything more. The sun didn’t set but sat low on the horizon for a long time. A few small birds came in and out of the bushes around them, then a bald eagle came down from behind, the sun golden on its white head, its feathers a chalky brown. It flew to the end of the point and landed in the top of a spruce tree.
You don’t see that everywhere, his father said.
No.
Finally the sun started dipping down and they went inside to arrange their sleeping bags on backpacking pads on the floor of the main room. Roy could see red in the sky outside their narrow window as he and his father undressed in darkness. Then they lay in their bags, neither one of them sleeping. The ceiling vaulted out from Roy and the floor hardened beneath him and his mind wallowed until finally he drifted off, then came back because he realized he was hearing his father weeping quietly, the sounds sucked in and hidden. The room so small and Roy didn’t know if he could pretend not to be hearing, but he pretended anyway and lay there awake another hour it seemed and his father still hadn’t stopped but finally Roy was too tired. He stopped hearing his father and slept.
In the morning his father was grilling pancakes and singing softly, “King of the Road.” He heard Roy wake, looked down at him grinning. He lifted his eyebrows up and down. Hotcakes and cream-of-mushroom? he asked.
Yeah, Roy said. That sounds great. It was like they were just camping.
His father handed down a big plate of hotcakes with cream-of-mushroom soup on top and a fork and Roy set it aside for a moment, pulled on his jeans, boots, and jacket, and they went out onto the porch together to eat.
It was late morning, a breeze already coming up the inlet and forming small ripples in the water. The surface was opaque.
Did you sleep well? his father asked.
Roy didn’t look at him. It seemed his father was asking whether he’d heard him weeping, but his father had asked as if it were a regular question. And Roy had pretended just to be sleeping, so he answered, Yeah, I slept all right.
First night in our new home, his father said.
Yeah.
Do you miss your mother and Tracy?
Yeah.
Well, you will for a while probably, until we get settled in here.
Roy didn’t believe he could get settled to the point of not missing his mother and sister. And they were going to get away periodically. That had been another of his father’s promises. They would come out every two or three months or so for a visit, two weeks at Christmas. And there was the ham radio. They could pass along messages with that if they needed to, and messages could be passed to them.
They ate in silence for a while. The pancakes were a little burned and one of them doughy inside from being too thick, but the cream-of-mushroom on them was good. The air was cool but the sun was getting stronger. This was like Little House on the Prairie or something, sitting out on a porch with no railing and their boots dangling and no one else around for miles. Or maybe not like that, maybe like gold miners. It could be a different century.
I like this, Roy said. I’d like it to stay sunny and warm like this all year.
His father grinned. Two or three months anyway. But you’re right. This is the life.
Are we gonna start fishing?
I was just thinking about that. We should start this evening, after we work on the lean-to for the wood. And we’ll build a little smoker back there, too.
They put the dishes in the small sink, and then Roy went to the outhouse. He held the door open with one foot and inspected all around the seat as best as he could, but finally he just had to use it and trust that nothing was going to take a bite out of him.
When he returned, his father grabbed the ax and saw and they went looking for board trees. As they walked through the forest, they looked at trunks, but mostly it was just hemlock in here, no thicker than four or five inches. Farther up the draw the trees shrank even more, so they turned around and went down along the shore to the point, where a larger stand of spruce grew. His father began chopping at the base of one that was farther in and partway around the point.
Don’t want to wreck our own view, he said. It occurred to Roy that maybe chopping down trees here wasn’t even legal, because it was some kind of National Forest, but he didn’t say anything. His father had been known on occasion to ignore the law when it came to hunting, fishing, and camping. He had taken Roy hunting once in suburban Santa Rosa, California, for instance. They had only the pellet gun and were going for dove or quail on some land they found beside a road that was fairly out of the way. When the owner walked down, he didn’t say anything but just watched them as they got back into the car and drove away.
Roy took over with the ax, feeling the thud each time through his arms and studying how white the chips of wood were that flung out loosely around the base.
Careful how it falls, his father said. Think about where the balance is.
Roy stopped and studied the tree, then moved halfway around it and gave the last two blows and it fell away from them, ripping down through branches and leaves, other trunks quivering under the shock and looking like a crowd of bystanders at some horrific scene, all of them trembling and thrown and an odd silence afterward.
Well, his father said, that should be good for a few boards at least.
They stripped the branches and put them in a pile to go through later for kindling and, Roy thought to himself, a possible bow and arrows. They got at each end then to carry it back to the cabin, but it was much heavier than either of them had expected, so they sawed it into sections then and there, most at about two feet but two longer sections for longer boards, for the sides of the smoker especially. Then they carried the pieces to the back of the cabin and stood around afterward looking at them.
We don’t have the right tools.
No, Roy said. We’ll have to just use the ax or saw or something. What do you usually use to make boards?
I don’t know. Some kind of tool we don’t have. I think we can stand them up on end and saw, though.
So they tried a piece like that, stood it on end and placed the saw across at about an inch from the edge and worked it through slowly, trying to keep straight.
The pieces are all going to be different sizes, Roy said.
Yep.
It turned out that it took a long time and didn’t work well and was more of a one-person job since they had only one saw, so Roy went in for the fishing gear and put their poles together on the porch. He tied a Pixie on each line, with a swivel about three feet above it, then walked around back. His father was still working on the first board.
His father didn’t look up but kept at his work. His breath was puffing out in the cold and his face looked gaunt like a bird’s—small sunken eyes, thin lips, a nose that looked almost hooked right now, and a light fringe of hair that seemed no more than a ruffle.
I have the poles ready, Roy said.
Catch us a big one, his father said and looked up for a moment. And then get your sawing hand ready. I see now this job is going to take us about the next four months.
Roy smiled. All right. I’ll be back.
The point was windier. Roy stood at the edge where the wind waves were up to two or three feet slapping into the shore and he could see whitecaps out there. He hadn’t realized how sheltered their little cove was. He walked up and down the shoreline for a few minutes, gazing at the white polished rocks and into the tree line behind that was up on a ruff of grass and dirt and root that skirted the beach everywhere and everywhere was exposed. He didn’t know how the dirt stayed th
ere, but when he studied it up close, he saw that it was mostly moss and root. He thought of bears and looked around and saw no sign but walked back to the point, within view of the cabin, and threw his lure out across the mouth of their cove to catch the salmon tumbling in or slipping out.
He couldn’t see his lure or any fish at all, but he remembered times in the coves around Ketchikan of standing on the bow of his father’s boat and seeing the fish everywhere beneath him. They would have that here in later months, but still he hoped today he might catch an early one.
When something did hit, it was a small Dolly Varden, a white flash and tug. He pulled it up easily onto the smooth rocks, where it gasped and bled and he removed the hook and smashed its head and it died. It had been a little while since he’d caught a fish, almost a year. He bent down to look at it and watch its colors fade.
You were spawned on rocks like these, and to these rocks dost thou return, he spoke and grinned. Thou hast becometh lunch.
He built up some rocks around it to keep the eagle away, and he thought of his last English class and the plays they had done and how he wouldn’t have any of that this year. He didn’t have his friends, either, and there were no girls here.
As he trundled his lure back across the mouth again and again, he was thinking of girls in school and then of a particular girl and kissing her on the way home. He got an erection thinking about it and looked toward the cabin, then pulled in his line and went back into the trees, where he leaned against one tree with his pants open and masturbated and imagined kissing her and came. He had figured out how to masturbate less than a year before and he did it usually three or four times a day, but he hadn’t been able to since he’d arrived because his father was always there.
He sat down by another tree and felt lonely and thought of all his missed opportunity.
Then, bored, he fished again, caught another the same size, and returned to his father. The afternoon was getting later by now, the light richer and the view of the mountain as he walked back very beautiful.
His father was still sawing when he came up.
There you are, his father said. Hey, looks like dinner. Dolly Varden, both of them?
Yeah.
Great. And he started singing what sounded like a sea chantey. Oh, the Dolly Varden came swimming, and up he grabbed his rod. And caught two or three and brought them back, and ate them with his grog.
His father smiled, pleased with himself. Better than radio?
Definitely, Roy said. This was an odd father he was seeing out here. I can cook them while you finish up. How’s it going?
His father pointed at his pile. Looks like ten or fifteen of the finest shingles anywhere, I’d say. And all very uniform. We know about quality control here on the ranch.
The ranch, Roy said. Looks like a pretty small spread.
The herds are farther back on the island.
Yeah, Roy said. I’ll fix some dinner. He cleaned the fish out front at the water’s edge and watched the guts just under the water, caught on the rocks and streaming back and forth with the small waves that came in. They looked like aliens. One had what looked like eyes.
He started the fire in the stove, then put the fish in a pan with butter and pepper and went back out to the porch feeling like a pioneer, feeling so good he walked around back to his father and watched him and talked until he figured the fire was hot enough and he went back in and rearranged the coals and fried up the fish.
They had the Varden out on the porch with sourdough bread and some lettuce and dressing.
Enjoy the lettuce, his father said. It won’t last more than a week, and then we’re down to canned veggies only.
Are we gonna grow anything?
We could, his father said. We’d need seeds, though. I didn’t think of that. We can have Tom bring some next time he flies in.
You’ll order by radio?
His father nodded. We should try it out, anyway. The evening’s the best time, so maybe we can set it up after dinner.
They watched the sun getting lower. It was so slow they couldn’t see it dropping, but they could see the light changing on the water and on the trees, the shadow behind every leaf and ripple in the sideways light making the world three-dimensional, as if they were seeing trees through a viewfinder.
They put their plates in the sink and brought the radio gear into the main room, in the far corner. His father plugged it into two large batteries and then remembered the antenna.
We need to put this on the roof, he said. So they went out and looked and decided it was too big a project and decided to wait for the next day.
That night, late, his father wept again. He talked to himself in small whispers that sounded like whining as he cried and Roy couldn’t make out what he said or fathom what his father’s pain was or where it came from. The things his father said to himself only made him weep harder, as if he were driving himself on. He would grow quiet and then tell himself another thing and whine and sob again. Roy didn’t want to hear it. It frightened and disabled him and he had no way of acknowledging it, now or during the day. He couldn’t sleep until after his father had ceased and fallen away himself.
In the morning, Roy remembered the crying, and it seemed to him that this was exactly what he was not supposed to do. By some agreement he had never been witness to, he was supposed to hear it at night and then by day not only forget but somehow make it not have happened. He began to dread their nights together, though they had had only two.
His father was cheery again in the morning and cooking eggs and hash browns and bacon. Roy pretended to be sleepier than he was and having a harder time awakening because he wanted to think and he wasn’t ready yet to join in on the cheer and the forgetting.
The smell of the food cooking, though, got him up finally, and he asked, So are we doing the radio today?
Sure, and the wood shed and smoker and why don’t we build a little summer cottage?
Roy laughed. It’s true there are a lot of things.
More than eggs in a salmon.
They ate on the porch again, Roy thinking it would be a lot harder in bad weather, when they’d have to sit cramped in that little room inside. This morning was overcast as it was, though it was still warm enough for only a sweatshirt. He remembered it had been gray like this or drizzling most of the time in Ketchikan. He liked how it looked on the water, how the water became a molten gray, the sea heavier than anything and impossible to see into, and how the salmon and halibut rose up out of this.
After breakfast, they set about installing the antenna but could not find a way onto the roof. They didn’t have a ladder, and there was no lip at the edge, nothing to hold on to, no high rails or other walls to brace against. His father stepped away from the cabin and walked around it several times.
Well, he said, without a ladder, I guess we’re not going up there. And even then, I’m not sure how high a ladder is going to get us.
So they strung the antenna along the edge of the roof. It turned out that the antenna was only a long cord on a spool anyway, so the solution seemed fine. But when his father set up the radio and tried the reception, they couldn’t hear anything clearly. It was only static and ticking and odd warped sounds that reminded Roy of old science fiction, of black-and-white TV, Ultraman and Flash Gordon. And this was supposed to be their only contact with anyone else.
Are we going to be able to talk with anyone? Roy asked.
I’m working on it, his father said, impatient. Hold it down for a sec.
It doesn’t seem like it’s changing at all, Roy added after another few minutes of warping.
His father turned and looked at him tight-lipped. Go do something else for a little while, okay? You can work on sawing the shingles.
Roy went around back and looked at the shingles and started in on one, but he didn’t feel in the mood, so he found an elbow in one of the larger branches that came out at forty-five degrees. He sawed about eight inches from either end of the elbow and st
arted carving the piece down with his pocketknife to make a throwing stick. He wondered if there were any rabbits or squirrels up here. He couldn’t remember. He’d make a fish spear, too, and a bow and arrows and a rock hatchet.
He worked on the throwing stick, flattening the sides and rounding the ends, until his father came out, saying, I can’t get the damn thing to work, and then saw what Roy was doing and stopped. What’s that?
I’m making a throwing stick.
A throwing stick? His father turned away and then turned back. Okay. That’s fine. Never mind. You know, I’m losing it here already, and the whole point was to relax and find a different way of living, so fine. Let’s quit this project and just take a break.
He looked at Roy, who was wondering whether his father was really speaking to him.
Why don’t we go for a hike? he said. Get out your rifle and shells. We’re gonna take a look around today.
Roy didn’t say anything, because the whole arrangement felt too shaky. He wasn’t sure they wouldn’t have a different plan in a few more minutes. But his father went inside, and when Roy followed him, his father was in there taking his own rifle out of its case, so Roy went for his, too, and stuffed some shells in his pocket and grabbed his hat and jacket.
Better bring your canteen, too, his father said.
When they set off, it was still before noon. They entered the hemlock forest and followed a game trail up and down small hills until they came to spruce and cedar at the base of the mountain. The game trail they were on petered out and they were hiking then on blueberry and other low growth, trying to keep their footing in the scrub. The earth beneath was uneven, spongy and full of holes. They passed hemlocks again and rested to look out over the inlet. They were both winded, already at least five hundred feet above their cabin and the mountain above them so steep they couldn’t see its top but only the curve of its flank. The cabin below looked very small and difficult to believe.