Sharing Spaces (7 page)

 

S
ENNA OVERCOOKED THE CARIBOU
and the baked potatoes were equally dry, but the canned corn was heated to perfection. Conversation at the table was limited to such requests as “please pass the salt, the pepper or the butter.” Cutlery scraped on ironstone. Chewing was conducted with matching scowls of intense concentration. Chilkat appeared to be the only attendee enjoying the supper from his hiding place beneath the kitchen table, where, believing he was unobserved, Jack would slip him the toughest pieces of meat. Senna finished what
she could and then laid her silverware across her plate. “I'm sorry about the meal.”

“It was great,” Jack said, as if he really meant it. At least he had the good manners to pretend.

Senna dabbed her mouth with a paper towel and cleared her throat. “There is another option for us to consider as far as this partnership goes.” She crumpled the paper towel in her hand and met his wary gaze. “We could have the entire business appraised right down to its individual components. Airplane, fishing lodge, this house, the trucks, the dogs and gear, the workshop. Then we'd divvy it up in such a way that's fair. That way nothing will be shared jointly, I'll be able to sell my half much faster and easier, and you'll own your portion outright. No partner for you to have to deal with. I'll even give you my half of the plane.”

His response was a firm and immediate “No.”

“You might at least consider it.”

Jack leaned back in his chair with a shake of his head. “Not a happening thing. This place stays just the way the admiral wanted it to be. It doesn't get hacked to pieces just because you want to run back to Maine with a quick chunk of change. I warned you I wouldn't make this easy for you, and I won't. A man's lifelong dream isn't just something you try to dispose of in two weeks, even if he is dead. And you might at least consider seeing what he created before you decide you want to get rid of your half.”

“I could petition for partition and force you to divide the property or agree to sell it in its entirety and split the money,” she challenged. “The courts would rule in my favor, especially if they could see the mess you made of this place.”

“The
mess
you stumbled into was a result of the wake we just held,” he said, rocking forward in his chair and leaning toward her. “And as far as bringing this to court, I'll fight you tooth and nail. I might not win. Hell, I probably won't, but I'll fight you to the bitter end.”

Senna felt her cheeks flush. “Mr. Hanson, I'm not trying to be heartless or greedy. I'm sorry the admiral's dead, and I'm sorry the two of you didn't get a chance to run the lodge together after all the work you put into it, but that's not my fault. I'm just trying to make this as easy as possible for the both of us. Besides, you have no idea what kind of person might buy my half of the business. Maybe you wouldn't get along. What could be worse than running a fishing lodge you love with someone you hate?” Senna could tell by the look on his face that he wouldn't be swayed. She heaved a sigh of frustration. “What time are you thinking of leaving tomorrow morning?”

He gave her another wary look. “Leaving?”

“Flying me to see this lodge you plan to turn into a gold mine.”

His expression cleared. “Sun-up.”

“What time does that happen at this latitude?”

“When the sun comes over the eastern end of the lake.” His grin was so unexpected and contagious that in spite of her disgruntled mood Senna very nearly returned it. “You'll love the place when you see it, guaranteed. You won't want to sell out, and you won't want to leave. Better pack your overnight bag.”

“I'll be ready at sun-up,” she said, rising to her feet and gathering up her plate. “But please understand that I have no intentions of spending the night there, or going
into business with you on anything more than an extremely temporary basis.”

Jack's expression became stony as he matched her cool stare with his own. “I guess I shouldn't have expected anything different from a wedding planner,” he replied with a dismissive shrug. He pushed out of his chair and left the kitchen before Senna could hurl the plate at him, which was nothing less than his rude and insulting behavior deserved, but if he had been intending to leave the lake house, his escape was cut off by another arrival.

The front door opened even as he was reaching for the door knob and Senna was startled to see a young and somewhat bedraggled-looking boy in his early teens with black, shoulder-length hair standing in the darkened doorway. He wore clothing that looked as if were made of old canvas, and there was a faded red bandana wrapped around his head.

“Good to see you, Charlie,” Jack said. “C'mon in and meet Senna McCallum, the admiral's granddaughter. You know. The wedding planner. Senna, this is Charlie Blake. I forgot to tell you that Charlie almost always eats supper here. He helps out around the place when he can. Likes working with the huskies.”

“Hello, Charlie,” Senna said, still holding her plate and struggling to control her temper.

The boy gave Senna a brief, inscrutable stare, then held out a book he was carrying. “Finished,” he said.

“Good,” Jack said, retrieving it. “How'd you like it?”

“I liked the part when Captain Ahab got tangled up, and the great white whale dragged him down,” the boy said, solemn-faced.

“Best part of
Moby Dick,
” Jack agreed.

“It's nice to meet you, Charlie,” Senna managed after this brief interchange. “Sit down and I'll get you some supper.”

She began cleaning up the kitchen while Charlie ate and carried on a sporadic conversation with Jack. He began with the book he'd just read, continued with one-sentence subjects she couldn't quite grasp, and peppered his conversation with words she'd never heard before. By the time she'd finished wiping down the counters, Charlie was getting ready to sack out on the couch. This was apparently also the norm, as he knew exactly where to find two blankets and a pillow stashed inside an old sea chest which also served as the coffee table. A small, black fox-like dog had appeared out of the blue arctic twilight to settle down with him, behaving as though it had been born and raised in that very living room.

Senna hung the dishrag and towel behind the wood stove to dry and took Jack aside before heading upstairs for the night. “Just out of curiosity, is there anyone else who might show up to spend the night?”

“Nope. Just Charlie. But unless you want Chilkat on your bed, better keep your door closed. That damn dog takes up most of the mattress. You'd better go up now. I don't know what time morning comes in Maine, but in Labrador it comes really, really early.”

“Don't worry,” Senna said, turning her back on him and starting up the stairs. “I'm an early riser. You won't be needing to roust
me
out of bed.”

“Too bad. That might be kinda fun,” he called after her. Senna ignored his parting shot and took asylum in her grandfather's room, closing the door behind her. She leaned against it for a moment, pondering the wis
dom of sleeping under the same roof as that brash and arrogant man. His bedroom was just across the hall, and her door didn't have a lock. Well, if he tried anything with her, he'd be sorry. Those three years of karate classes she'd taken in college would come in handy.

As long as the day had been, and as tired as she was, Senna wasn't ready for sleep. She stood in the middle of her grandfather's room, surrounded by his personal belongings, and tried to feel some sort of connection. Strangely, none of his things reflected his lifelong naval career. There were several pieces of vintage carved scrimshaw atop his bureau, a stack of old books, including several regional histories of arctic exploration and the Hudson's Bay Company, a harmonica that looked well used, a beautiful meerschaum pipe, several old buttons that appeared to have been carved out of bone in a pewter salt, a rifle propped behind the door, a box of excellent wildlife photographs, mostly of wolves and caribou, and a pair of well-worn mitts and matching mukluks made out of some kind of fur and hide and decorated with elaborate beadwork. Being surrounded by her grandfather's things was like being in a museum.

She touched each item, pondering the life of a man she hadn't known at all, full of questions that could never be answered, and most of all, full of regrets. She was disappointed that she hadn't yet stumbled across his journal. When she did, she hoped she would learn more about the enigma who was her grandfather, and why he had named her as his executor. At length she went to the window and looked out at the lake, its silken black waters reflecting the pale sliver of a new moon in a sky that wouldn't know true darkness again until the far side of summer. The cove was as still as a mirror. She leaned
her elbows on the windowsill and contemplated the vastness of the wilderness beyond the panes of glass, feeling a sudden pang of nostalgia for the two brief years she'd spent in the field as a wildlife biologist, fresh out of college and full of enthusiasm, truly believing she could make a difference.

A day didn't go by that she didn't miss tramping through the Maine woods with a pair of binoculars and a notebook. She'd particularly enjoyed the time spent checking on the radio-collared female bears in their winter dens, gathering data and counting cubs. Bears and coyotes had become her favorite animals to observe, and ravens her favorite birds. The difference she had hoped to make in educating the public about the coyotes' place in the ecosystem never came to pass. The deer-hunters' hatred for that little brother of the wolf was far too deep-seated. If wolves kill a moose in Alaska, or coyotes kill a deer in Maine, these were sins committed by predators that humans had little tolerance for. They shot the wolves from airplanes and wanted to snare the coyotes. That these predators helped the moose and deer population remain healthy by culling out the weak, old and the sick was a foreign and unwelcome concept. The only difference Senna had made in the department was purely statistical. For a brief period of time, she was their token woman field biologist.

Working for her aunt at the inn gave her an income far higher than that of her entry-level biologist's wage at the state, but it didn't come close to fulfilling her passion for wildlife and wild places. Here in Labrador she was sensing ever more acutely everything that she'd missed for the past five years.

Senna heard a faint rustling sound outside her door
and opened it to see Chilkat waiting there expectantly. He stood and nosed his way into the room. Senna hesitated for a moment, listening to the murmur of voices from below. She closed her door again, quietly, then braced the chair beneath the door knob, just in case Hanson got any funny ideas in the middle of the night.

Meanwhile, the big husky leapt onto the bed with the grace of an athlete, curled up dead center, heaved a big sigh of contentment, and closed his eyes.

“Very well, then,” Senna relented with a sigh of her own, opening her bag and rummaging within for her pajamas, “but you're going to have to share.”

E
ARLY MORNING
,
AND THE KITCHEN
was cold enough to warrant kindling a fire in the woodstove. Jack wished there were bacon. He had a hankering to slice it into the frying pan, smell the fragrant hickory smoke and hear the fat sizzle. He searched the refrigerator twice before giving up. Yawning, he emptied the last of the stale coffee from the can into the pot and thought about all the mornings when the admiral had come down the stairs into the kitchen tamping tobacco into his pipe, reaching for his chipped mug and filling it to the rim. “Lots to do today,” he'd growl. “Long row to hoe.”

The admiral was used to being first man up. The fact that Jack had him beat every morning had been a bone of contention at first, but eventually the old man had come to enjoy the luxury of coming down to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Always said the same thing. “Lots to do today. Long row to hoe.” Then he'd drink his coffee and smoke his pipe and plan the day.

Jack missed the old man. He wondered if anyone would miss him half as much if he dropped dead. Doubted it. Well, maybe Charlie, and the huskies out in the dog yard. For a little while, anyway. Time was a river that washed a person away. Memories faded, became dilute. The day would come when he wouldn't be able to
picture the admiral's face or the way he'd smoked his pipe or paddled a canoe. Made him wonder about Senna. Why had the two of them been at such odds? Damn shame. They could've shared a lot, but it was too late now.

The coffee smelled good. Boiling now, perking along smartly and picking up speed. Let 'er rip. Charlie snored softly on the couch, the crackie stretched out alongside him, awake and watching. Always watching, that dog was. Her eyes never closed. Jack shut off the propane burner under the coffeepot and poured himself a cup, carrying it with him out onto the porch. He stood in his stocking feet, breath pluming into the frigid air. June, and the thermometer stood at thirty-two degrees. Not exactly gardening weather, but crisp and wonderful and completely free of mosquitoes. He stood in silence, watching smoke rise from the surface of the lake, watching the sky pale to the east and the stars slowly fade as he drank his first cup of the morning. He heard a noise behind him and turned, seeing movement through the open door.

Senna was coming down the stairs. She was barefoot, clad in a white knee-length nightshirt with a green cardigan pulled over for warmth. Her slender, pretty legs flashed pale in the gloaming. She rounded the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, not seeing him on the porch, and went into the kitchen, where the fresh coffee waited and the woodstove gave off a strong, welcome warmth. She was pouring herself a cup when he entered the room, and she regarded him steadily as she blew over the top to cool the scalding brew.

“Morning,” she said.

Jack stared appreciatively. It had been a long time
since he'd had the chance to admire such feminine beauty this early in the morning. “Guess I didn't have to roust you after all,” he said.

“Nope. I've been awake most of the night. I heard you get up and then I smelled the coffee.” She nodded to a book she'd apparently set on the kitchen table. “I found some books in my grandfather's room. I thought maybe Charlie would like that one. I sure did, back when I was in grade school.”

Jack glanced at the title.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
“Charlie will, too. Don't think he's read that one yet. The admiral must've been building him up to it. He's read a slew of others. One by one the admiral doled them out, and one by one Charlie read them. Then they'd have their book discussion, usually over supper.”

“Does Charlie live here full-time?”

“He showed up one day while we were building the place. He was just one in a crowd of curious locals wanting to know what we were up to, but he kept coming back and doing little things, like picking up the nails we'd dropped, cleaning up our work sites, handing things to us when we were up on ladders. One night he didn't leave. Just slept under the porch with that damn crackie. The admiral told him his parents would worry, and that's when he told us he didn't have any, and his uncle couldn't afford to feed him anymore. That was two years ago. He was just ten years old.” Jack took another swallow of coffee and then crossed the room to feed another stick of firewood into the stove and damper it down.

“Truth is, the kid didn't have anywhere to go and nobody who wanted him, so he always landed here, on the
admiral's step. Liked working for the old man, being told what to do, given daily chores and little jobs that never quite ended, one chore running into the next, day after day until months passed, sometimes, before Charlie would remember that shack in North West River where his uncle's family lived. Then he'd go off for a day or two with his dog. We always wondered if he'd come back again, but he always did, and each time he stayed a bit longer.”

Senna took a small sip of coffee and made a face. “Mud,” she said.

“Cowboy coffee. Only kind worth drinking,” Jack said with a faint grin. “You can cut it with water if you want.” She wasn't wearing any makeup. Didn't need any. First thing in the morning after a night of little sleep, and she possessed the immortal beauty of a goddess.

“So Charlie liked being around my grandfather,” Senna marveled aloud as she added water to her cup at the kitchen tap. She had elegant, fine-boned hands, and the way they cradled the coffee mug was almost poetic.

“And your grandfather liked having Charlie around,” Jack said. “Spent a lot of time with the boy, mentoring him. Schoolteacher came by one day to lay down the law. Said Charlie was truant and had better start attending, or else. The admiral set her down in the kitchen, made her a cup of tea, and while she sat there sipping it, he had Charlie read aloud to her from Homer's
Odyssey.
He said, ‘Lady, the boy's ten years old, but he couldn't read one damn word when he came here. Why? Because you hadn't been able to teach him one damn thing in four years of trying. Now he can read Homer and understand it, and you're telling me he has to go
back to your school? Tell me, have your teaching skills improved so greatly that attending your institution would benefit this boy in any possible way?'

“Schoolteacher jumped up and left without finishing her tea, back stiff as a ramrod. The admiral half expected the Mounties to arrive on our doorstep by nightfall, but nothing ever came of it. That teacher never came back, either. We heard she left North West River to take a clerking job in Gander. New teacher was hired. Good one, too, so Charlie went back to school. He's smarter than most of the kids in his class.”

“But what about Charlie's uncle? Isn't he the boy's legal guardian? How does he fit into this picture?”

“Charlie's uncle inherited the boy when his parents went through the ice and drowned three years back. He was glad when Charlie took up with us. Has six kids of his own and didn't have to feed the boy anymore. When the admiral asked him a couple of months ago if Charlie could spend the summer as a chore boy at the lodge, the uncle asked if he'd get the boy's earnings. Admiral answered, ‘Only if he chooses to give them to you.' So uncle dug his heels in and tells the admiral his nephew can't go to the lodge unless he gets Charlie's pay. ‘Fine then, 'the admiral says to him as if he could give a damn, ‘go ahead and keep the boy for the summer. Charlie's in another growing spurt, and he's eating us out of house and home. 'Next day Charlie shows up with his dog and a note from uncle that says, ‘Charlie go to lodge for summer.'”

Jack poured another dollop of coffee into his mug and set the pot on the woodstove, nudging it to the side where it wouldn't boil up again. He glanced through the hall into the living room. The boy still slept, watched
over by his loyal dog. “The day the admiral died, Charlie vanished. He didn't go to the service, and I never saw him at the wake. I was damn glad he showed up here last night. The last thing I need to worry about right now is where that kid is, and if he's all right.”

Senna was watching him over the rim of her cup with all the wariness of a hunted deer. “What will become of him, now that the admiral is dead?”

Jack shrugged. “He's survived this long. The kid's tough. But don't worry, I won't let him starve. They can always hang with me, him and his dog.”

“That dog is a strange-looking animal, nothing like your huskies.”

“She's an old native breed they called a crackie. The Montagnais Indians of Quebec and the North Shore used 'em for hunting, way back when. They're smarter'n hell. Used to be that a good crackie cost top dollar, and could mean the difference between living good or starving to death come winter. Grocery stores and government welfare put the crackies out of business. They're a dying breed now, don't hardly see any around. Charlie rescued that one from the lake. She was just a four-, five-week-old pup, no bigger'n a minute, and somehow she'd crippled up a leg. The boy happened to be fishing nearby when the Montagnais tossed her overboard. Charlie fished her out of the water and kept her.”

“How does he manage to feed her?”

“When he's here with us, that dog eats good. Before he came to live here, he fished. He trapped. The crackie helped him hunt. She could probably survive on her own, but he divides everything with her. He loves that little dog. Calls her Ula. I think that means sister in Athapascan, but I'm not sure.”

Senna gazed into the living room at the blanketed form on the couch, guarded by the dog he'd rescued. Her expression softened. Pity? Sympathy? She looked back at him and the wariness returned. “What about you? Where will you go when the business is sold?”

“Unless I'm mistaken, you can only sell your half as long as I want to keep mine. I'm staying put.” He finished his first cup of coffee and set it on the counter. “C'mon, wedding planner. Get dressed, and wear your warmest, grubbiest clothes. We have some hungry sled dogs to feed before we fire up that ancient plane and see if she makes it to the Wolf River.”

“And if it doesn't?”

Jack retrieved his jacket from the back of a kitchen chair. “Then we might crash and you might never get to see your grandfather's lodge, and that'd be real shame because it's a beautiful place. But don't worry about that Cessna. She's not like a woman. She's never let me down, and she never will.”

 

S
ENNA HELPED
J
ACK CHOP
up chunks of frozen fish for the sled dogs' breakfast, hoping to hurry the process along so they could fly out to see the lodge. As she worked, she thought about the statement he'd made about a woman letting him down and wondered what had caused all that bitterness and cynicism.

She was using an ax for the first time in her life, kneeling as she worked because Jack had instructed her that a person kneeling would never cut themselves. She brought it down on the big stump, the way he'd showed her, chopping each fish into four parts. She tossed the parts into a bucket while he pumped water into two other five-gallon buckets and fussed about the feed shed
waiting for her to finish. It seemed to take a long time, and her arm was tired long before she was finished. “Wouldn't feeding kibble be easier?” she asked, setting the ax down and peeling off the leather gloves he'd loaned her.

“Sure. And having no sled dogs would be the easiest of all. C'mon. The dogs are waiting.”

He lugged the water, she lugged the fish, donning the gloves again in her own self-defense. This certainly was grubby work, but in an odd way she relished the physical exertion and the reconnection to the mystical circle of life. The Inuit dogs were whirling around at the ends of their tethers, eyes bright and teeth flashing. More than a few were actually foaming at the mouth. Senna was quite happy to let Jack be the one to dole out the fish, which he did with smooth rapidity, quickly making the rounds and emptying the bucket. He followed this routine by watering each dog, and then grabbed a shovel and cleaned the entire dog yard. In jig time he was finished, and Senna realized that she'd done very little except stand on the sidelines and watch.

“I'll feed them all by myself tonight,” she promised. “If I'm half owner, that's the least I can do. Now that they've eaten, I think it's time we did the same. I'll fix us some breakfast.”

“That's real nice of you to offer,” he said, picking up the empty buckets, “but there's nothing in the house to fix. I'll fly you out to the lodge, and after the grand tour we'll catch and fry up a mess of fish for lunch.”

“Lunch? But that's hours away. Aren't you hungry now?”

Jack was a big man, tall and broad of shoulder, and lean the way a man who worked hard physically was
lean. Surely he needed three square meals a day, and the supper she'd fixed the night before hardly qualified as a square meal. “Nah. Coffee'll hold me over just fine,” he said, heading back down the path to the house. “That's why I make it good and thick.”

“But…what about Charlie?” Senna protested, hurrying after him with her empty fish bucket. “He's a growing boy. He needs to eat.” And I'm
starving,
she pleaded silently. “Maybe we should drive into town for some groceries.”

“Nah,” he repeated over his shoulder. “Charlie's used to going for days without eating. C'mon, shake a leg. We've got a long row to hoe today.”

Senna bit her lower lip and followed after his big strides. She could eat a whole pound of bacon and a dozen eggs all by herself, but if he wasn't complaining about being hungry, neither would she. It felt good to get back into the warm kitchen, where she hovered over the wood stove, rubbing her chilled hands together. “There was ice in the dogs' water buckets,” she said.

“June in Labrador can be a little nippier than it is in Maine.” Jack poured them each another cup of coffee and ducked briefly into the living room. “Charlie? Time to get up. Rise and shine, boy. We're burning daylight.”