Caribou Island (3 page)

On his way back to the office after lunch, Jim swung by the Coffee Bus for a sticky bun. Brown sugar, honey, and nuts, and it meant supporting Rhoda’s brother, too, who might be in need of that kind of thing. Loiterers out front, as usual, but this time, one of them was so beautiful he didn’t realize he was staring until too late, which made him feel like an ass, of course, which then pissed him off. Probably little more than half his age, but her gaze made him feel like his willie was standing out in the breeze for everyone to look at.

Jim gave his customary grunt and half-smile in her direction. This was rarely loud enough for anyone to hear, and many in Soldotna who didn’t know him well considered him a misanthrope because of it, he knew, but this amazed him. To him, this muffled greeting sounded like a full and cheery, if soft-spoken and not overly aggressive, hello.

The woman, leaning against the side of the bus, nodded to him in return, pulled her old down coat tighter, and Jim walked stiff-legged and awkward up the wooden steps to the window, trying not to look at her. She was only a few feet away now, and he was embarrassed. Desperate, also. Desperation reached like a cold hand through his genitals into his lower back.

Hey Jim, said Karen. Sticky bun?

That would be the item.

Mark came to the window and stuck his hand out.

Jim shook it. How are you?

Meet a friend of mine, Mark said. Jim, this is Monique. Monique, this is Jim. Jim’s a dentist, fastest drill in the west. Monique’s a visitor to our fair state, come to see the wild lands.

Monique put a hand out, and Jim reached down to shake it.

Hi, Jim said. Having a good trip?

I am, she said. Mark and Karen are taking good care of me. Then she waited as he stared. She seemed, to Jim, not just to have time but to be the one behind it. Like the Wizard of Oz, maybe, in his little booth.

Maybe you could tell me, Monique said. You’re a dentist. I have a tooth that feels cold sometimes and hurts a little if I’ve been in the cold. It hurts today, for instance. She rocked her jaw a bit, feeling it. Is that a cavity, or just something else?

Could be, Jim said. I’d have to take a look to know for sure. Jim checked his watch. One thirty-five. Actually, I could take a quick look now before two if you’re free.

Huh, Monique said. Then she shrugged. Okay.

So Jim drove her to the office. No one else back from lunch yet. He flipped on the lights and took her to one of the chairs in the back. Oh, maybe I should have given you a tour first.

That’s all right, Monique said, sitting back in the chair. Lovely ducks on your ceiling. Jim had glued the undersides of rubber ducks up there, webbed orange feet paddling around midair as if the office were underwater.

For the kids, Jim said.

For the hunters.

Yeah, maybe so, Jim said, trying to chuckle lightly, not sure whether or not she was throwing him in with the hunters here.

Jim turned the light on then, asked her to open her mouth wide, and probed around her teeth and gums for a while.

Just the small beginnings of one, he said. We should take a couple films, and if we need to, we can do a quick job on it, preventative mostly.

Uh, she said, and he pulled his fingers out so she could talk.

I’m concerned about cost.

It’s on me, Jim said. And he waited until the others arrived, had the X rays done, and put a small filling in right then, though it shot his afternoon schedule all to hell.

Don’t tell anyone, he said after he had finished and was bringing up the chair. She was taking off her bib. He leaned in close over her and smiled a little as he said this, trying to imply, and feel, all kinds of secrets between them. He had heard a man say once, Now she’s a breeder, and as ugly and psycho as this line was, and distasteful to him, it occurred to him now that this was nonetheless true. Here was the woman he wanted to make babies with. He couldn’t imagine her changing diapers or even being pregnant, but he could see his strong, tall, beautiful children in a portrait some day, all devoid of any type of insecurity or struggle. She managed to eliminate the possibility of any other woman and seemed to imply wealth, also, though she was dressed like a hippie and probably couldn’t have afforded this filling if he had asked her to pay.

I won’t, she said.

He looked at her blankly. He had no idea what she was saying.

I won’t tell anyone, she said.

Oh, he said. Hey, could I make you dinner sometime? I have a view of the sunset over the Cook Inlet. I could fix salmon or halibut or whatever you like, just to give you a taste of Alaska while you’re here. This had come out surprisingly well, with a nice little tag at the end, even. He hadn’t stiffened or looked suddenly frightened.

She looked at him, considering. He felt his spine collapsing, his shoulder blades folding down into his stomach.

Okay, she said.

Monique spent the rest of the afternoon and evening reading at the confluence of two rivers, looking up occasionally to watch Carl not catch any red salmon. He was lined up with hundreds of other tourist fishermen, men and women, from all over the world. The river not that large, fifty yards across, but these fishermen stood at five-foot intervals along both its banks for half a mile. The best fishing was reputedly on the far side of this particular bend, where the water ran deeper and faster along a steep gravel bank.

Carl was on the shallow, near side, however, out twenty feet or so from shore in hip waders, using a fly, yanking it along the bottom, where red salmon were swimming peacefully in place against the current. Monique could see them as shadows in the dappled light, imagined their mouths opening and closing, taking in water, contemplating with a wary eye the rows of evenly spaced green boots growing in pairs and the large red flies cruising around everywhere.

The fishermen were all so earnest. To Monique, the best part about this place was the scenery: the high, lush mountains close along either side of the river, the short valleys dotted with wildflowers, the swampy areas dense with skunk cabbage, ferns, mosquitoes, and moose. But not one of the fishermen looked up from the water, ever, even for a moment. The mood along the riverbanks was like the mood in a casino.

Monique was reading a book of short stories by T. Coraghessan Boyle. They were funny, and she often laughed out loud. In one, Lassie goes after a coyote, forbidden love. This appealed to her especially. She had always hated Lassie.

Monique was lucky enough to look up in time to see Carl huck his pole into the river. This stopped a few fishermen. Their lines stalled for a moment along the bottom, so then several were whipping their poles back and forth trying to free snags.

Carl came splashing through the water in his waders, slipping a bit on the smooth stones and fish entrails and whatever else was down there. He came right up to Monique, who closed her book.

Fishing not good? she asked.

Carl grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her hard. God, I feel better, he said.

Monique smiled and grabbed him for another kiss. This was one of the things she liked about Carl. Given enough time, he could recognize shit. And unlike most men, he didn’t persist in stupidity just because someone was watching.

Rhoda came home to find Jim with a drink on the coffee table beside him. Facing the windows, drinking and looking out to sea. Very strange, since Jim almost never drank at all, and certainly never alone. Rhoda began noticing the random things she noticed during tragedies: the refrigerator clicked on only briefly then clicked back off; sunlight reflected off the dark wood of the coffee table but wasn’t hitting his drink; the house seemed unusually warm, also, almost humid, claustrophobic. She set down the grocery bags and walked over to him.

What’s wrong? she asked in a voice that sounded to her like fear. She touched his shoulder lightly as she said this.

Hey, he said, perhaps a bit flushed as he turned to her, but not drunk, his speech fine. How was your day?

What is this? Why are you sitting here drinking?

Just having a little sherry, Jim said, and he picked up his glass and swirled the ice around. Enjoying the view.

Something’s up. I thought someone had died or something. Why the sudden change in behavior?

Can’t a man have a drink? Jesus, you’d think I was burning down the house or writing on the walls with crayons or something. But I’m forty-one years old, a dentist, I’m in my own house, and I’m having a glass of Harveys after work.

Okay, okay.

Lighten up.

Okay, Rhoda said. I’m sorry, all right? I picked up some chicken. I was thinking maybe we’d have lemon chicken.

Sounds good. Which reminds me, by the way. I may have found a new partner for the practice. A dentist out of Juneau, named Jacobsen, and I was thinking I’d have him over for dinner tomorrow to talk about specifics. So I’m wondering whether you’d be willing to make other plans for just a few hours in the evening. Would that be okay?

Sure. That’s fine. I’ll have dinner with my parents. I’ll call Mark tonight to let Mom know.

Great, Jim said. Thanks. Then he looked out to the inlet again and the mountains beyond, the snow on Mount Redoubt, and he thought how clever he was, and how deserving.

Irene was sick and miserable the day after the storm, but the following morning she woke with something much worse, an awful headache that started at her eye socket and spiraled across her forehead. If she closed her eyes, she could see red tracery of the pain. A new pattern with each blink or pulse, a dark limitless sky. Coming from behind her right brow, so she pressed all around the eye, and if she pressed with her thumb at the top inside corner of the socket, this helped briefly.

She couldn’t breathe through her nose. Her throat sore, perhaps from breathing all night with her mouth open. She swallowed, and that felt raw and painful.

Gary, she managed to croak out, but no answer. She curled on her side, not wanting to leave the warmth of the comforter and blanket, but now she could feel the draining from her sinuses into the back of her throat, drowning. She sat up and grabbed a tissue, blew her nose, but it was all locked in, rock solid. Blowing only pressurized her ears. It didn’t relieve anything.

Gary, she called again, more desperate this time, but still no answer. She looked at the clock and saw she had slept late, after 9:00 a.m. She lay back down and moaned. The pain in her head unlike any she’d experienced before, so focused, so insistent.

She got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. Needed to pee, and then needed painkiller. Took two Advil, and then two more, and walked back to bed. It hurt to walk. She could feel the impact of her footsteps in her head. The back of her eye a new zone she had never even noticed before.

She slipped under the covers, moving carefully, and tried to blow her nose again, then tried to just fall asleep. She didn’t want to be awake for this.

Gary was at the boat, working on the bent bow ramp. A solid break in the rain, finally, and he was taking advantage of it, though he felt like hell, some kind of flu and fever, his stomach weak. He’d spent much of the day before in bed. Irene even worse off.

With several big clamps and a rubber mallet, he was making progress, swinging hard with both hands, the mallet bouncing but also gradually bending the plate back into place.

You’d think they would have made this bow a bit stronger. It was a ramp, after all. It should have been strong enough to drive on, the boat big enough to carry a small car. But whoever had designed it hadn’t put enough reinforcement across the center. Gary was an aluminum welder and boat builder himself and had thought about just building a boat with a ramp, but Irene hadn’t wanted that. Too many problems with his cost estimates for earlier boats. A lack of faith. So they wasted a lot of money on this one.

No other boats two days ago in the storm, but today there was constant traffic on the ramp beside him, five or ten small boats launched. The fishermen looked him over, and several came by to inspect.

Got a bend there, a man said. He was wearing hip waders with straps over his shoulders, a great way to drown.

You go in with those, Gary said, the waders become an enormous bucket.

The man looked down at the bib of his waders. You could be right.

Yeah, Gary said, and went back to hammering. The man left, which was good.

Maybe it was just that he’d been feeling sick for two days, his stomach weak, but Gary was feeling self-critical as well. Thinking he didn’t have a good friend up here, after so many years. No one offering to help on the cabin. A few friends, but no one he could call up, no real friendship. And he wondered why that was. He’d always had good friends before, in California, still had a couple of them, though he saw them only every few years. Irene hadn’t helped things, not very social—she was shy, somehow, and rarely wanted to leave home—but still he didn’t know why he didn’t have better friends here.

The bow plate wasn’t going to get any straighter. He loosened the clamps and could see the fit at the latches still wasn’t a perfect seal. He’d have some water intrusion. But this was good enough.

Gary picked up his tools and looked at the lake. Small waves, some wind, not like two days ago. No rain. He’d get Irene and they’d take another load out. It was almost eleven, a late start, but they could accomplish something.

Back at the house, Irene was still in bed.

The weather’s better, he said. We could take a load out.

Turn off the light, she said, and rolled over to face the other way.

What’s wrong? Not feeling well?

I have a terrible headache. Worst I’ve ever felt.

Irene, he said, Reney-Rene. And he switched off the light and sat on the bed, put an arm over her. Fairly dark in here, the thick curtains closed, light coming in from the door only. His eyes weren’t adjusted yet, so he couldn’t see her well. Want some aspirin or Advil?

I tried that. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t do anything. She sounded exhausted.

I’m sorry, Irene. Maybe I should take you in to a doctor.

Just let me sleep.

So he kissed her forehead, which didn’t feel hot, and went out, closing the door. Then he opened the door again. Do you want some lunch?

No. Just sleep.

Okay, and he closed it again.

Gary walked into the small kitchen, crammed with too much stuff, and grabbed smoked salmon from the fridge, capers and cornichons, crackers, sat at their dark wooden table. Like a mead hall, the dark table and benches near the hearth. A big stone fireplace, something he’d always wanted. But the space was too small, too cramped, the ceilings too low. It felt cheap, not real. Carpet on the floor, not wood. He’d always hated carpet. Irene wanted the carpet, said it was warmer. He wanted wood or even stone. Slabs of slate. He didn’t know yet what the cabin would have. Maybe just dirt. Dirt or wood.

They usually played two-handed pinochle together at lunch, so Gary didn’t know what to do. He leaned over to the bookshelf and grabbed his copy of
Beowulf
, set it on the table but didn’t open it.

Hwaet. We Gar-Dena
, he recited, and he went through the opening lines. A circus trick. He still knew the opening lines to
Beowulf
and “The Seafarer” in Old English, and Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales
in Middle English, and the
Aeneid
in Latin, but he couldn’t actually read the languages anymore. He could translate a few lines, struggling through with a dictionary and his notes from thirty years ago, but he couldn’t just read. He had lost that, and though he kept trying to get it back, every few years, his attempts never lasted more than a week or two, and then something always happened, something else needed his attention.

The salmon so good he closed his eyes. White king, the meat richer, a bit more fat, rare but he had caught one last summer, soft-smoked it and still had a couple vacuum-sealed bags left. He’d need to get out fishing again before the season ended, get a smoker going at the cabin.

Gary looked out the window at the lake through the trees, ate the salmon, knew he should feel lucky, but felt nothing except a mild, background terror of how he’d get through the day, how he’d fill the hours. He’d felt this all his adult life, especially in the evenings, especially when he was single. After the sun went down, the stretch of time until when he could sleep seemed an impossible expanse, something looming, a void that couldn’t be crossed. He’d never told anyone about it, not even Irene. It would sound like he was defective in some way. He doubted anyone would really understand.

Well, Gary said, and stood up. He needed to get moving. Irene wasn’t going to help him today, but he needed to be doing something. He’d have to get Mark or Rhoda to help him. So he washed his plate and fork, stepped outside, and walked the path to Mark’s house.

Well traveled by now, a winding route around alder thickets into spruce forest. He should have come in years ago with a machete, cleared a more direct path. But there was something he liked about the character of the twistings and turnings, saplings he’d seen grow into trees, the changing look of seasons, green now, lush, closed in, the trail ahead blocked from sight.

Hey bear, he called out. Hey bear, hey bear, as he came around a bend. Mosquitoes buzzing at his ears, going for his neck. The forest damp and rotting, smell of wood. Wind in the treetops, a reassuring sound, the rise of it, the way it always seemed far away, even in close.

New deadfall from the storm. He cleared branches as he went, tossed them aside. Twigs snapping underfoot.

He was curious to see the creek, and when he came upon it, finally, the water was high on the banks, but not discolored. The boards he’d set in for the footbridge remained above water, moss-covered edges a bright green. He stood there, the water rushing at him. Ferns all through here, devil’s club rising in horizontal planes, wide flat leaves.

He moved on, up a rise through spruce and cottonwood, onto Mark’s land, and could already see Mark’s house below in the trees, at the edge of the lake. A large garden to the side, and marijuana plants in the weeds farther back, in plastic tubs. Nearly everyone in town knew about them. Mark had bought the house and land two years before for $18,000, all of which came from cash advances on credit cards. That first winter, he struggled to meet the minimum payments and waited for summer, when he, along with the rest of Alaska, made his entire yearly income. And he did get lucky. The price for salmon was unusually high, the run good, and he made nearly $35,000 in less than two months, a new record for him, because he was getting an unheard-of 30 percent cut on a drift-netter. The woman who owned this boat had acquired it from a divorce settlement and had very little experience, so she needed someone good and was willing to pay. He was known by everyone, had been fishing out of Kenai since thirteen, with only a four-year break when he went to Brown.

After he paid off the cards, Mark made a mobile out of them that he called Floating Credit and hung from the light over the kitchen table. The house was unfinished, though, lacking much of its drywall and insulation, cold in winter, and still without a toilet or running water. The bed of his pickup always filled now with large plastic barrels to haul water. The yard littered with several other vehicles as well. A Dodge van, rusted out, a dead VW bug, and a multicolored VW van that ran marginally.

Gary couldn’t say he approved of Mark’s life, but he also knew it didn’t matter whether he approved or not. And he could see Mark wasn’t home at the moment. Neither was his partner, Karen. Mark out fishing, no doubt, and Karen at the Coffee Bus. Gary had figured this would be the case, but he liked the walk, and he could use the phone here, too, to call Rhoda. He opened the front door, which was always unlocked, and went to the phone in the kitchen. A plate of chocolate-chip cookies on the counter, so he had one of those.

I’m working today, Dad, Rhoda said when he called. She was at Dr. Turin’s office, helping to sew up a black Lab. I can’t talk on my cell phone.

Sorry, honey. Lost track of the days. Come out and see us when you get a chance. Your mother’s sick.

What’s wrong? Rhoda sounded worried.

Her head hurts. A bad cold.

I’ll get someone to come out, Rhoda said, and I’ll bring some meds. That’s awful she’s feeling so bad.

No need to come out. I think she just needs to sleep.

I’m coming out anyway, Dad, for dinner tonight, remember?

Oh yeah. Sorry.

So that left Gary on his own for now, and he had a limited amount of time before dinner to get everything done. He returned on the path, backed his pickup to the pile of logs, and started loading. Not as easy with one person, but not all that difficult, either. Just drag a log to the tailgate, prop one end up, then grab the other end to walk it forward.

He drove the logs down to the boat, and this time he knew to push the boat out farther first. Everything went much more smoothly. Irene had seen the worst of it. Hardly any wind today, the waves very small, so unloading at the island wouldn’t be a problem, either.

It did occur to Gary that he could have waited. Instead of going out in that storm, both of them getting sick, they could have just waited, as Irene had wanted. That would have been better. But somehow it had not been possible.

Irene woke disoriented. She raised her head to see the time, after 2:00 p.m., and this movement somehow put pressure on her forehead, the pain a pulse.

Gary, she called, her throat raw. She was hungry, and thirsty, and wanted Gary to help her, to take care of her. This was not a time to be alone. The pain behind her eye so intense she had to get away from it, starting to feel panicked.

Gary, she called again, but no answer, no other sound in the house. He had left her here, gone out in the boat, no doubt, sticking to the project, the plan.

Gary, she yelled, enraged. Damn you.

She pressed at both eyes, at the sockets, pressed at her forehead, her neck. An animate pain, burrowed inside her head.

She pulled the blankets aside slowly, not wanting to move too abruptly, sat at the edge of the bed, feeling dizzy. Waited until she felt she wouldn’t fall, then walked slowly along the bed, down the hallway into the bathroom, grabbed the open bottle of Advil, took four more, then four aspirin, then NyQuil. She wanted to be knocked out. Wanted to feel nothing. She didn’t care what this would do to her in the long run. All that mattered was now.

She walked back to bed, curled on her side under the covers, and whimpered. Like a dog, she said aloud.

The medications kicked in, and though they couldn’t do anything to the pain, they did make her drowsy, and finally she slept.

Irene woke again after dreams of pressure and panic and called out again for Gary, but still no answer. The clock showed almost five thirty.

So she got up and walked slowly to the kitchen. Could breathe only through her mouth, and it hurt to swallow. But she was starving.

She went for the yogurt. That was fast and would be easy on the throat. Swallowed carefully, worked her way through a bowl of it, a smooth and cooling vanilla, then heard Rhoda’s clunker pulling up. Thank god, she said. She was ready to be cared for.

Rhoda came in fast, still wearing light blue scrubs from Dr. Turin’s. Oh, Mom, she said. You look awful. She straddled the bench seat and scooted closer to Irene, put her lips to Irene’s forehead. You don’t have a fever.