Eye Lake

by Tristan Hughes

  Billy was standing in the back yard of number two O’Callaghan Street hitting the back of his truck with a wrench. There didn’t seem to be nothing wrong with it but he was hitting it and saying, ‘Fucking useless old piece of shit,’ even though it was almost brand new. Billy lived in a place Buddy had built right behind his place and called ‘the annex.’ It was just another house really, not as big as number two but still a house. Buddy had built it for Billy to live in when he was just twenty. ‘Keeping the Three Bs a unit,’ he’d said when he was building it.

  Buddy was standing in the back door of number two and he must’ve said something because Billy stopped banging the truck for a second and turned around and shouted, ‘I don’t give a shit about that. Just tell her. She can whistle Dixie for all I care. She can live in the street! And don’t tell me what’s right or wrong. I know what’s frigging right and wrong and what she’s doing sure as hell isn’t right. This fucking truck … ’

  I ducked my head down below the fence before Billy or Buddy saw me. As I was heading out the garden I spotted Brenda staring out the upstairs window. She wasn’t smiling.

  On Main there was nobody about. There were bits of leftover cake and hot dogs and corncobs from the birthday party lying around on the sidewalk. A warm breeze was blowing from the west, covering them in a thin red dust. When I reached the tracks I looked at the prairie flowers that’d come from the west as well, and thought about Sarah’s hand. It seemed like I could still feel it against my own hand, as if her skin had left a kind of dust behind too – soft and invisible. Back at the Poplars Bobby was fishing for minnows off the dock.

  ‘Any luck?’ I asked.

  ‘I got two,’ he said, pointing to the bucket beside him without lifting his head up from where he was staring into the water at his line. ‘Shiners.’ At the bottom of the bucket I saw a quick flash of silver.

  ‘I brought you your candy,’ I said, pulling the bags out of my pockets. He didn’t seem that interested in it. He was more interested in the minnows.

  ‘We had to leave in a hurry because of my dad,’ he said, still not taking his eyes off his line.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘My mom’s worried about him.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She thinks he wants to take me away to live with him at Grampa’s place.’

  I couldn’t think what to say for a while after that.

  ‘How’d you like to go proper fishing?’ I asked.

  When we went to look for Sarah to ask if Bobby could go we found her in the office on the telephone. She was listening real carefully to what was being said. Her eyes looked as black and mad as the eyes of the mother of the baby owl I’d found on my way into town. When we asked her if it was okay she nodded quickly and waved us away.

  There was an old wooden rowboat behind the Hematite Conference Room that I used for fishing sometimes, when I was going to spots that weren’t too far.

  I dragged the boat down to the beach and let Bobby carry one of the oars. There was still a bit of a breeze blowing but it only ruffled the water and made it dance and shine in the sunlight. We set off, keeping close to the eastern shore and weaving our way between the bare slippery trunks of the trees that stuck up out of the surface. Sometimes the oars brushed against their branches under the water. After a while Bobby said he wanted to try rowing so I showed him how and let him have a go. At first we just went from side to side, and then in circles, but he got the hang of it real quick and soon we were going slowly forwards again. Now and again I couldn’t help looking down over the side of the boat, through the dancing, shining surface, to where you could see branches swaying under the water over the dark edges of drop-offs.

  Pretty soon we’d gone around the first point and I told Bobby to take us in closer to the shore, into the little bay behind it. We swapped places and I put a spinner – a Ruby Eye – on the rod I’d given him and trolled us back and forth a few times, around a reef I knew was there; but we didn’t have any luck so I rowed us further on towards the point at the other side of the bay, almost opposite the second island. At the side of the point I stopped the boat and tied it to a tree trunk sticking out of the water and got some jigs out of my tackle box. I put a white-and-red one on for Bobby, and I used Virgil’s homemade one that looked like a South Seas idol. ‘You let it go right down to the bottom,’ I told him. ‘Then reel in the slack and keep jerking it up a bit and letting it fall back down so it touches the bottom.’

  ‘How will I know if I got one?’

  ‘You’ll feel a little tug.’

  ‘What do I do then?’

  ‘You set it.’

  ‘What’s setting?’

  ‘It’s when you give it a real hard jerk – to get the hook stuck in the fish’s mouth. The same as with the minnows.’

  ‘But I can’t see my bait.’

  ‘You don’t need to see it. You’ll know when to set it when you feel the tug.’

  Bobby was so excited he kept setting his line every time he felt his jig touch the bottom.

  ‘But I felt something,’ he said every time.

  ‘That’s just the bottom,’ I kept telling him.

  ‘But how’ll I know when it’s a fish?’

  ‘You’ll know.’

  The breeze died down as we jigged and soon the water was totally calm and flat. There was an eagle perched on a tree by the point, waiting for fish guts. It was so still it was like everything was waiting: the trees and the water and sky – everything. This is one of my favourite things about fishing, this waiting: the hush and the stillness of it, like everything has come to a stop and is holding its breath.

  Bobby wasn’t quite as happy with the waiting. ‘When will I know if I got one?’ he kept asking.

  ‘You’ll know,’ I kept telling him.

  After a while it seemed like the only things moving were the tips of our rods as we jigged and a thin strip of water to our left that rippled slightly even though there was no breeze at all. Bobby asked me why it was moving when the rest of the water was calm.

  ‘It’s the river,’ I told him.

  ‘What river?’

  ‘The Crooked River.’

  I explained to him how it flowed under the lake from the inlet where it came in, just around the point, and that even though it was mixing with the lake’s water it still kept a kind of course, and when it was calm like this you could sometimes see its current.

  ‘Where does it go?’ he asked.

  I told him it went over to Jackfish Bay, to the outlet, and then looped around on the detour until it joined its old course again through town. ‘But it used to go a different way,’ I said. ‘It used to go through where the dam was now and then through Red Rock Lake – when it was still a lake and Eye Lake wasn’t nothing but the river running through the woods.’

  ‘They told us about that in school,’ he said. ‘But they never said you could still see it.’

  ‘Water’s a bit like a dog,’I told him.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing. We’d drifted a few feet around the point and the tower of Clarence’s castle was sticking right out of the water.

  ‘That’s the castle my grandfather built,’ I told him. It felt good to be able to tell someone.

  ‘Why’s it … ’ he started asking. And then he set his line and it stayed set.

  ‘You got one,’ I said. ‘You better start reeling.’

  He reeled so fast he almost skinned his knuckles against the spool of his reel.

  *

  The whole way back Bobby couldn’t stop looking at his fish. He kept reaching down into the bottom of the boat to touch it, as if he was making sure it was still there and it was still a real fish. It was a good-sized walleye and the golden scales along its sides shone and glittered in the sunlight.

  ‘Why ar
e its eyes like that?’ he asked me, prodding one of them with his finger. They were black around the edges with a big, kind of milky circle filling most of the eye, reflecting back the light and colours like a huge pearl.

  ‘So it can see better in the dark,’ I told him. ‘Mostly they’re evening biters. You’re lucky to get one so early.’

  ‘And that’s why they call them walleyes?’

  ‘It sure is. Some people call them pickerel too.’ As if recognizing its name, the fish began flopping around on the bottom of the boat.

  ‘I don’t want to go there,’ Bobby suddenly said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To town. To live with Dad at Grampa Buddy’s place.’

  ‘Well, maybe you won’t have to.’

  ‘I don’t want to, Eli. Dad never wanted me there before, not ever. I won’t go there. I won’t.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure you won’t have to. Your dad’s a strange one like that. He mostly wants things when he thinks he can’t have them or someone else has them. It’s just his way. He’ll forget about the whole thing soon enough.’

  ‘I heard Mom say he wasn’t my dad.’

  ‘That’s not my business, Bobby.’

  ‘You won’t let him take me?’

  ‘It’s not my business, Bobby. I can’t do nothing. It’s not my business.’

  And then Bobby was staring down at his fish again and I could see the tears falling onto its golden scales.

  When we got back Sarah was waiting for us at the landing.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ she asked when Bobby and me got out of the boat.

  Bobby said nothing. He hadn’t said nothing for a while. He was cradling that walleye in his arms like it was a teddy bear.

  ‘We went fishing,’ I said.

  ‘You went fishing,’ she repeated. Her eyes were like the mother owl’s again. ‘You went fishing! You take my son out for the whole frigging afternoon and don’t bother to tell me. Do you know what I’ve been thinking? Do you know? I’ve been frantic. I’ve been running around looking for him like a headless fucking chicken. Do you know, Eli? Do you know?’

  I said I’d tried telling her when she was on the phone but she was so mad it was like she couldn’t hear me.

  ‘Come on, Bobby,’ she said, grabbing him by the arm. ‘We’re going.’

  Bobby kept hold of his fish and traipsed beside her. She was walking so fast he could hardly keep up and she kept stopping and pulling him along.

  The colour and brightness had gone out of the fish’s scales; I was going to show him how to clean it, I thought. Then I pulled the boat up on the shore and when I went to tie it to a tree I realized I was so miserable I could hardly concentrate enough to tie the knot.

  That evening I went to check on Clarence’s castle. Before I’d even reached the shore I could see through the spruce and pine branches that it was even further out of the water. The tower was plain in view, and most of the third floor too. The logs were a greeny-brown colour from the slime and a family of ducks were swimming in and out of the third-floor windows like they were the doors of their house.

  When I reached the shore I could see even more proof of just how far the water had dropped. The roots of trees were hanging out in the air and the tops of deadheads were poking out through the mud. I sat on a rock, waiting for the moment when the sun would drop down onto the horizon of the far shore and silhouette the second island and turn everything golden like the scales of Bobby’s walleye when it first came out of the water. I hoped everything would feel better in those soft moments of light.

  I didn’t even hear Sarah coming through the woods from the trail. The first thing I heard was her saying, ‘So this must be your special spot then, Eli.’

  She was standing right behind me.

  ‘I guess so,’ I said.

  ‘Do you come here often?’

  ‘I never used to,’ I said.

  ‘I saw you walking down the trail in this direction,’ she said. ‘I was hoping I’d find you.’

  She sat beside me on the rock.

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry about flying off the handle before, Eli. I didn’t mean to, I promise. Bobby explained how you asked when I was on the phone but I must have been so preoccupied I didn’t register what you were saying. Things are all kind of going to shit at the moment and I’m a bit on edge.’ She gave a funny-sounding laugh then and said, ‘More than kind of and more than a bit.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Well, for starters, that was Buddy on the phone. He wants me and Bobby out of the Poplars. He sounded embarrassed and was pretty apologetic about it – and I know it’s just Billy being a vindictive prick – but the fact of the matter is we’re going to have to move out. And I don’t really know what the hell we’re going to do. There’s my parents’ place in Calgary, but I don’t want to take Bobby out of school here – he’s settled and he likes it.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to go,’ I said.

  ‘No, he doesn’t. Plus Billy’s got some nutty idea into his head about claiming custody. He thinks Bobby can go live with him and Buddy and Brenda in town. I swear to God, Eli, first he wants us out here and then he wants Bobby back in town and me out of the picture. It’s insane. It’s fucking insanity.’

  ‘Why did you tell him?’ I asked.

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘About Bobby not being his kid.’ She was quiet for a long time then. She was wearing sandals and started making a little hole in the dirt with her toe.

  ‘Look, I don’t expect you to understand this, Eli. I don’t expect anyone to understand this. But once upon a time I wanted Billy to be his father. I know it sounds stupid but I wanted Billy to be his father more than anything. And he was. To all purposes Billy was his dad. And then he lost all interest in being a dad, in being anything to either of us, so it just sort of clicked – why not tell him the truth, what the hell difference would it make? And how fucking typical of Billy. He decides he wants to be Bobby’s dad the moment he finds out he isn’t.’

  The sun was moving closer to the horizon of the far shore, turning it into a shadowy outline that sloped gently up and down with the tops of a few tall poplars sticking up out of it like cowlicks.

  ‘I’m sorry you got messed up in all this shit, Eli.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I reckon I understand.’

  ‘You know, you shouldn’t listen to Billy and all them. You’re not stupid, Eli. I’d say you’re a whole bunch smarter than a lot of them.’

  Then she took hold of my hand again and turned to look over towards the far shore the same as me.

  ‘What is that?’ she asked, pointing over at the tower.

  ‘That’s my grandfather Clarence’s castle,’ I said. It felt really good to tell her.

  ‘A castle?’ she said, looking back at me.

  ‘That’s what the old-timers used to call it, Clarence’s castle. It’s what he meant it to be. He built it all by himself.’

  ‘How much more of it is under there?’

  ‘That’s just the tower part,’ I said. ‘The big part is still under there … like an iceberg.’

  ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Why did he build it?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ I said.

  ‘A castle,’ she said, slowly shaking her head. ‘Jesus … this place!’

  The sun had come down low onto the horizon now and the green of the trees behind us was beginning to turn golden. It was so still and hushed we didn’t say anything for a while. After a bit, though, I wanted to tell Sarah more about the castle.

  ‘I didn’t know it was here until a few days back,’ I said. ‘I knew it was somewhere but I didn’t know exactly where. And then the water started dropping. I don’t know why it’s dropping so fast.’

  ‘You�
�ve not heard?’ she said.

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘Buddy told me on the phone – I guess he was trying to sweeten the pill a bit. There’s a breach in the dam. A hole. A big one. And they’re not going to bother fixing it. They’re just going to let the water follow its old course. Buddy said the whole of Eye Lake is going to turn into one big swamp in a while, after it drains. I guess he thought that’d kind of put me off staying on at the Poplars anyway.’

  ‘I didn’t hear that,’ I said.

  ‘Why was it under the water in the first place?’ she asked.

  ‘Why was what under the water?’

  ‘Your grandfather’s castle, Eli.’

  Going Under

  That was a long story too. We’d heard most of it in school as kids, in our Crooked River history – about how Buddy Bryce discovered the ore lodes under Red Rock Lake and how they drained it and detoured the river. You could read about it in the museum and look at the pictures: Buddy out on the ice drilling for samples; the rock cuts going through the bush; Buddy and the engineers and everyone else from town waiting for them to blow the final charge to open the diversion; the explosions; the dredgers on the bottom of Red Rock Lake; Buddy coming into town sitting on the first train car of ore. A True Northern Entrepreneur, it said under that picture. You could find out just about all of it almost.

  But there was one bit that wasn’t in the museum and was never in our school history lessons neither. That was the bit Jim told Virgil – about how he took a picture of the castle, especially for Clarence.

  Jim told Virgil it happened in June. The first week in June. He said Clarence had come up to him one night as he was having a drink in the hotel and asked if he’d ever used a camera before.

  ‘No,’ Jim said.

  ‘Well, how’d you like to try?’ Clarence said.

  The next morning they went up the river to the castle. Clarence didn’t say much of anything the whole trip. When they got there he just stood in front of the castle and asked Jim if he could fit him and it into the lens. Jim said he had to go right back to the edge of the river’s bank to get them both in.