Navigating Early (19 page)

Gunnar let out a slow laugh. “I am only fooling with you. I am what they call an
outfitter
. I have the gear you need for the hunting, fishing, trapping, and the like.”

“What about tracking?” Early asked, without mentioning the Great Bear.

“Well, now”—Gunnar pursed his lips together—“that can be dangerous. You never know when what you are tracking might be tracking you.”

“Will you outfit us?” Early asked. “We can pay you.” He reached into his nearly empty backpack, most of our provisions having already been eaten or lost to the pirates. But somewhere in a zippered pocket that Olson had overlooked was Early’s bean tin with his wad of money.

“Oh, Lord. You two are greener than a couple of cucumbers. You make a big mistake just now, waving money around like that for anyone to steal. And what business do you have wandering around up here in these woods?” He squinted at us.

I was afraid Early might say too much. “We’re just on a nature hike,” I said.

“Oh, sure.” Gunnar peered over his glasses at me. “Well, I suppose it would be better that you are prepared, or you might end up, how shall we say—floating up Runamuck River without the paddle. Too many folks roaming around looking for the wrong thing, that’s what I think.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “If someone’s going to come out here, maybe even spend a lot of money on equipment,
seems like they’d be pretty sure what they’re looking for.”

“And that is where you would be wrong. The ones who are most consumed with their hunt—desperate, you might say—for what they think they are after, it is often a far cry from what they are really after. It is a fact, too, that sometime, they not really looking for anything at all but are running
away
from something instead.” His voice was clear and full, as if it came from the vast glacial waters where the great whales roam.

“Like dogs?” Early asked in his off-the-wall way.

“Maybe.” Gunnar breathed in deeply, so deeply that I wondered if he had a blowhole in the top of his head and could hold his breath for long periods of time. But eventually he let the air out in a slow, measured breath.

“Maybe,” he repeated. “But sometime, what they run from, it just follow them until there is no place left to run.” Then, as if wanting to change the subject, he turned his back to us to stamp out the smoldering embers in the fireplace. That’s when I saw that Gunnar himself had run from something. And that
something
had followed him, leaving him restless and unsettled. I had seen it first in his dark, somber eyes. I had read it in his letter to Emmaline. And just then, as he stamped out the embers, I saw it most clearly in the thick, angry scars that marred his back. He had run from something, but it clung to him and would not let loose.

21
 

G
unnar must have heard my little gasp behind him, because his shoulders stiffened, and he quickly reached for the white shirt beside the fireplace, pulling it on over his scars. Early had seen it just as I had. I was sure he would ask where Gunnar’s scars had come from. Early
always
asked. He always said whatever was on his mind. But this time, for some reason, Early said nothing. He just reached out, slipping his small, pale hand into Gunnar’s great, weathered one.

I felt strangely on the outside looking in, but eventually, Gunnar said, “Come. The stew will not keep you full for long, and it is time for your first lesson in survival skills. The Lord say,
Put out into the deep and lower your nets for a catch
.” Gunnar reached beside the cabin door for a long, slender rod. “But that is only because the Lord, He never been fly-fishing!”

It was afternoon as we made our way down to the river, accompanied by a running commentary by Early about whether or not the Lord had actually been fly-fishing.

“Jesus did have lots of friends who were fishermen,” said Early. “Maybe after Peter fell into the Sea of Galilee, he decided to give up deep-sea fishing and take up fly-fishing in the river Jordan. Jesus and Peter were friends, so they might have gone together. And besides, Jesus wouldn’t have even needed waders, because he could walk on water.…”

By the time we reached the river and Early had exhausted all his reasons for why fly-fishing might have been a New Testament pastime, the sun was high, casting warmth and shimmering light across the river. Gunnar had his waders on and gave Early and me each a pair, insisting we join him.

“Fly-fishing is the sport of the thinkers and the dreamers,” Gunnar said. “It is the contemplative man’s recreation.”

If that was so, I thought Jesus a likely candidate for fly-fishing, but—not wanting to reignite the discussion—I took up my waders and kept quiet.

The rods were longer than regular rods and had a lot more give to them. The line hung loose, with a bit of colored feather on the end. Gunnar waded into the water and began a long, slow motion with the rod, sending the string and the colored lure gliding through the air and glancing off the water.

“You see, it is a fluid motion,” Gunnar said. “No herkyjerky
of the rod and the reel. The line—it is an extension of yourself. Come,” he said, his arms spread out wide in a gesture of invitation.

I held the big rubber pants in front of me and felt a tremor of fear as I eyeballed the coursing river.
Put your big-boy pants on
, my mom would say when I was reluctant or afraid to try something new. The waders reached clear to my chest. These were definitely big-boy pants.
I’d better get them on so Early won’t be afraid to do the same. Poor kid has probably never been chest-deep in a river, and he’ll be swallowed up in the waders
. I sat down on a rock and pushed and pulled, trying to get the rubbery bottoms on.

“It’s okay, Early,” I called over my shoulder. “You can stay in the shallow part right by the side. See there—” I grunted, struggling to stand up, only to topple over sideways onto the pebbly bank. I rolled to the left and then to the right, trying to gather enough momentum to hoist myself up. Another couple of tries and I’d be standing.

“Hang on, Early. I’ll help you as soon as—” I turned to face the river, and there was Early, in full gear, already out in the middle of the stream, casting his lure with the ease and grace of a ballerina. My mouth fell open.

“Come on in, Jackie,” Early called. Gunnar must have given him a smaller pair of waders, as they seemed to be an appropriate size for Early’s height.

“What—how—” I sputtered, finally getting to my feet and taking baby steps to make my way into the current.

“Very good, Mr. Early. You have a fine cast,” called Gunnar.

“I know. My brother taught me before he went to the
war.” Early swished his line back and forth. The motion seemed to take him away somewhere.

Gunnar’s expression registered what he knew, what we all knew, of the fate of so many of those brothers who went to war. He looked at me, asking the question he didn’t want to say out loud.
Did Early’s brother make it back?

I shook my head in answer. No, Fisher was dead.

Gunnar allowed the quiet to take over as Early moved farther out into the water and into his own thoughts.

Finally, Gunnar spoke, his voice so fluid and moving, it could have come from the river itself. “I once hear a poem about angling. It say when you send out your line, it is like you cast out your troubles to let the current carry them away. I keep casting.”

I liked the sound of that. The river pressed and nudged, each of us responding to it in different ways, allowing it to move us apart and into our own place within it.

We fished for a couple of hours, the fresh air and cold water easing my aches and pains. Gunnar and Early each had a catch. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon on several more lessons in survival skills and wilderness training: How to start a fire using a mirror and the sun. How to set a trap for an unsuspecting rabbit or squirrel. And, most important, how to track a bear.

Early and I were eager students and tried our best, but Gunnar frequently shook his head in dismay. Like when I burned a hole in my pants with my fire-starting mirror. Like when Early fell out of a tree in the “What to Do If a Bear Is Chasing You” lesson. And just when I was sure I’d found some bear droppings to track, Gunnar merely popped them
in his mouth and said they tasted strangely like blackberries.

Eventually, I got the feeling that Gunnar’s plan all along was to convince us that we were not ready for a true wilderness adventure. Unfortunately, he was probably right. He finally gave us a reprieve, and just as my stomach was beginning to growl, the stew a distant memory, two beautiful bass were simmering on a spit above the open fire along the river. We ate every bit of them, down to the last shred of meat, leaving barely more than bones and eyeballs.

Our bellies full, Gunnar, Early, and I sat by the fire as the first stars shone in the night sky.

“O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air,”
said Gunnar in a dreamy voice.

“Fire-folk?” I asked, looking around.

“Yes, have you not heard of the fire-folk? That is what a famous poet—Hopkins, it was—called the stars.
Look at the stars!
he says.
Look up at the skies! O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
” His accent was rich and full, lifting each word as if sending it off to float in the night sky.

I followed Gunnar’s gaze to the stars. “I can name them all. There are the Pleiades.” I pointed to a cluster of bluish stars. “And Orion, the Hunter, is over there. And those five stars that look like a
W
—that’s Cassiopeia.” I was showing off.

“How do you know those names?” asked Early.

“Learned them when I was a little kid. Just picked it up,
I guess. My mother wasn’t much into knowing the names of the stars and the constellations.”

Gunnar grunted, clearly unimpressed with my astronomical knowledge. “No one say anything about
knowing
the
names
of the stars. No, the sky, it is not a contest or an exam. The only question is, can you look up? Can you take it all in? As for names of constellations, they are not the be-all and the end-all. The stars, they are not bound one to another. They are meant to be gazed upon. Admired, enjoyed. It is like the fly-fishing. Fly-fishing is not about catching the fish. It is about enjoying the water, the breeze, the fish swimming all around. If you catch one, good. If you don’t … that is even better. That mean you come out and get to try all over again!”

If Gunnar hadn’t been a big, bald barrel of a man with a strange accent, I’d have thought it was my mother talking.

Early piped up. “You mean looking at the stars is like looking at clouds? You can come up with different constellations every night?”

“Ahh, yes. Look up at the skies. What do you see?” asked Gunnar.

Early scanned the sky. “I see something! Over there.” He pointed. “A boat! Just like the
Maine
.”

I followed his finger. There was a cluster of stars that, if you squinted, did look a little like a boat.

“Oh, sure. Now, let me see,” Gunnar said, rubbing his chin as he looked up. “I see a beaver just there … and a largemouth bass over there, with a very small mouth.” He grinned. “And there”—his voice grew soft and wistful—
“those two twinkling stars. I have seen them before. I call those Emmaline’s Eyes.”

I saw the stars he had pointed to, bright and shining. The sky seemed to draw me in, and I recalled the feeling of fly-fishing in the river earlier that day. The sounds, the pull of the current, the light sparkling on the water like—stars.

Gazing into Emmaline’s Eyes, I could imagine Gunnar casting his line. I thought of the letter to Emmaline and the scars on Gunnar’s back, visible now beneath his thin white undershirt. I was pretty sure that he had tried to cast his troubles into the river, but things were too jammed up inside and they couldn’t break free.

“And what do you see, Mr. Jack?”

I looked at the sky. Searching—for what, I wasn’t sure. Then I saw a cluster of stars in the shape of a circle. Like a ring. It twinkled and shimmered elusively. I pointed to it but couldn’t find it anymore. There one moment and gone the next. Just like my dad.

I looked harder, for something else. Wanting to see something other than scars and logjams and navigator rings. “I don’t see anything,” I said. But I felt as I had that day in the Nook, when I’d placed my hand on the
Maine
and been unable to come up with a real wish. Once again, I was left lost and adrift. The silence ended our little star game.

Early sat next to Gunnar, and without even glancing sideways, he reached over and touched Gunnar’s wide back. Gunnar caught his breath as if something had shocked him. It had probably been a long time since anyone had touched those scars.

“What happened, Gunnar?” asked Early.

As Gunnar breathed out, it was as if Early’s touch somehow caused that logjam inside him to shift, and the words began to flow.

“I was a fighter. A tough kid, sixteen years old, fresh from Norway. I work the docks in Portland, build up strong muscles, and could fell a grown man in three blows. Eventually, I get paid for it. Men make wagers on me. Mr. Benedict, he make me
his
fighter. He say he pay me good as long as I keep up the winning. That is how I grow up, the only life I know for years. Until I meet Emmaline.