When Is a Man (12 page)

The smoky, nutty smell of it, set against the damp cold outside, was impossible to refuse. He edged his way into a chair. “Where's your boy—Shane?”

“Just started kindergarten,” she said. “He's back in town. With his dad.” Her tone was a bit too neutral, but he said nothing. She poured coffee from a French press into a chipped yellow mug and set it in front of him. It was perfectly brewed, strong and earthy, not bitter. He closed his eyes a moment.

“So, are you going bush yet?” she asked.

Must be, he figured. The mere texture of good coffee in his mouth had him swooning, emotional. He knew he looked terrible, his forehead and cheeks scabbed and bruised, yellows and purples in the folds of skin beneath his eyes, a dark scruff of a beard harbouring bits of food and twigs. He probably smelled—his nostrils were perpetually clogged with clove oil and fish slime, so how could he tell anymore? “Do I look the part?” he asked.

“A little rough, yeah.” She grinned. “Should I ask about your face? Some guys don't like being asked. Pissed off they got hurt in the first place.” She scooped a ladle of soup into a bowl. He stirred the vegetables in their yellowish broth and lifted some to his lips, tasting cracked black pepper and turmeric.

“Thank you,” he said. Soup dribbled off his lip into his beard. He took another sip of coffee, the beginnings of a giddy euphoria rising from his chest.

“You're the first person I've talked to in days that isn't a trout,” he said. “Except for this young guy—Jory. Gave me a fish scope, and I almost drowned. That's why the cuts and all that.” He pointed to his forehead as he spooned more soup. “I'm sorry I'm babbling like this.”

She nodded, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

“I was feeling a little pinned down with all this rain,” he continued. “Thought I should get out now, before the roads get worse.”

“I don't mind the rain much,” she said. “Prefer it, in a way. At this time of year, sunshine feels like a cheap lie. Summer's come and gone, and I worked every damned minute of it.”

“Yes,” said Paul. He leaned forward, half aware that he was stirring his coffee in manic circles. “But when the weather turns, you know winter's on its way, and you have to know what you're going to do next. And, me, I don't have a clue.”

She'd gone back to the oven, pulling out trays of buns and dinner rolls. He set his coffee aside, trying to slow himself down. He rested his hand on his tender brow and breathed in the warm, buttery smell of fresh bread. A moment later, a bun appeared on a plate before him. Gina sat across from him, and they angled their chairs to face the window, to the rain and mist in the trees outside. The bread yielded softly to his fingers as he dipped it in his soup.

“Won't you go back to the coast?” she asked.

“Probably not.” He laughed a little wildly, surprised at his own answer. “I guess I don't really like anything waiting for me there.”

She turned from the window and smiled sadly. “That used to be the best part of bush work—the winters off. I used to go to Mexico with my friends, live on the beach. Dreamt about buying a little house down there. But now that Shane's in school, I'll be sticking around. I don't ski or snowboard, so there's fuck all to do. My ex and I . . . disagree over child support and visitation. And other things. I'd work through the winter if I could.”

“I hate the thought of going into Shellycoat, checking my e-mail, watching people do their real-life things,” he said. “But I'm running out of food. I like being at camp, getting to know what's around me. I like the history of the place, the little I've read. Sinking into that.”

He told her he could barely keep pace with the spawning run, and that at his rate he'd soon be working all through the night, or close to it. “When I try to speed up, I forget to record my numbers or I stab a fish with a tag.”

Her brow suddenly furrowed. “No one's helping you during the peak?”

“What do you mean?”

“I've seen the camp operate other years. I'd swear there were always two people there.”

“That's what Jory said. It was probably Beth.” He shrugged. “Tanner's just lucky enough to have a partner, I guess.”

“Or too cheap to hire you one,” she said, more to herself than him.

She stood up and grabbed an empty cardboard box from the counter and began filling it with food from the shelves—a box of crackers, a dozen apples and a few bananas, tins of olives, tuna and black beans, a small jar of salsa, and a bag of coffee. Then she took another box and piled in stuff from one of the fridges: cucumbers, spinach, beets and carrots, plastic-wrapped ham and turkey slices, a dozen eggs. Two Tupperware containers filled with leftovers: penne with bacon, peas and Manchego cheese, and a chicken curry.

“Think that'll hold you over for a while?” she asked.

He leaned back in his chair. “But—how much would I owe you?”

She snorted. “Nothing, obviously. They're just leftovers. Company's already paid for it.”

“Well.” He reached out with his hand, about to shake hers—then quickly brought his hand back, clasped his fingers and stared at the table, a lump in his throat. God, he was so not ready for people.

“It's nothing.” She took off her apron. “Gotta run to the outhouse. Back in a few. Help yourself to coffee.”

He waited until she'd left before greedily pouring himself another cup, his hands shaking from the caffeine. At the end of one counter, newspapers were stacked in a small pile. He sorted through the papers until he found the most recent one, dated from five days ago.
The Shellycoat Observer
, mostly filled with advertisements, classifieds, and a calendar of community events. A few small articles in between half-page ads. Scores of a round-robin softball tournament, another round of layoffs at the mill. But nothing about the man who'd drowned. He skimmed some articles, and then stopped when he recognized the name and face of Hardy Wallace, his photo a small square above a large block of text. Not a police report, nor an obituary. No, the old man had written and paid for a full-page ad.

To all Monashee Power Criminals:

Wouldn't you know it—another year gone by, another year wondering when the folks of Lambert, not least the owners of Lots 4205 and 4209 to 4313, will be fairly compensated—those of us that are still alive. Yes, it's our anniversary again, forty years since Lambert vanished from the map. Can't you tell by the wasteland of stumps that appear every fall on the northern shores of what you call the Lake? The fruit that must be imported from the Okanagan because our best farmland is under­water? The mill shutting down, “seasonally,” as it has ever since you drowned the forests and opened the valley to the foreign logging companies that buried all the little guys?

You may treat me like some stranger, even after all these years, but you know me full well—you watched the valley, every house, go up in flames. Our past was nothing but ashes before we even arrived at our new home, exiled, shunned for being “north of Shellycoat.”

So happy anniversary to us “Lambert locals.” Maybe I'll spend the day remembering, now that our creeks and rivers are full of nothing but garbage fish and a handful of cutthroat, how the whole Immitoin once ran red with salmon. The pool below my exile's house used to be filled with them, back in my father's day. Now it gets sucker fish and the occasional dead fisherman—suckers of another kind, people who think they know the river.

And the place where you folks sit with your boats and fill your coolers with mercury-poisoned fish—right in that very spot, some hundred feet below your keel, we once grew apples and pears, plums and cherries. Even watermelons, if you can believe. Try growing them now, with the best soil gone.

Still waiting for justice. How long now? Forty years, more.

10

Several events marked his last two weeks on the Immitoin, the first being the rising of Basket Creek. On his way down from Gina's camp, new streams had leaped the ditches and culverts and cut channels across the road. His wipers rubbed frantic arcs across his windshield but could not stop the valley from disappearing behind the spray of mud and rainwater. Back at camp, twigs and sticks had piled up against the mesh of the fence. He waded out to the middle of the creek, the turbid water battering his knees with an unfamiliar force. The makeshift pools where the fish recovered from the anesthetic had been absorbed into the current. The rest of the afternoon he kept watch beneath the tarp of the measuring station and waded back out when the fence took on too much debris. Before he went back to the trailer for a brief dinner, he gathered stones and rebuilt the pools. If a half-stunned trout was swept into this current, it would be battered to death against the rocks.

The rain kept on for days. Despite the rising waters, the spawning run reached its peak, and the numbers of trout mounted. Perhaps it was a projection of his own exhaustion, but the fish appeared more haggard and worn. Dorsal and pectoral fins were torn, and scratches and small gouges appeared on their noses and flanks. Their gasps, as they lay on the scale, were more pronounced and desperate. The numbers in the downstream trap increased, as bull trout began to make their way back home to the lake. The females had worn their tail fins ragged digging their redds, and their bodies, emptied of eggs, lay wasted and hollow in his hands.

There were other things he'd have liked to pursue, such as the meaning of Hardy's letter and why the newspaper would print something so bizarre, even potentially libellous. He wondered about certain things the old man had mentioned: the lot numbers, the houses going up in flames. The orchards—he'd never noticed any on his drives between Shellycoat and Basket Creek. And the mysterious Lambert locals, the “us” and “we” of Hardy's letter, which suggested there were other folks like Hardy in the valley, people who shared his history and maybe even his particular brand of rage. Now that was an fascinating possibility. People were Paul's thing, even when they really weren't.

But all this would have to wait. The creek, the rain in his eyes, rain hissing against the hot globe of the lantern, the dark eyes of the gaping trout, all these things were part of the same entity, appendages of a body composed of infinite water and the limits of his endurance.

On the fourth day of rain, Gina drove into the site pulling a camper behind her. The way she worked the truck back and forth at different angles until it was perfectly level, he knew she was staying. For a moment, he felt guarded and irritable, possessive of his isolation. He avoided meeting her gaze at first, trying to quell his annoyance. She wore a wide-brimmed oilskin hat that she'd pulled down low on her forehead to try to conceal a bruise on one side of her face near the eye and a swollen, discoloured cheek. She looked fierce and stubborn.

“I know you don't want anyone here. But I thought maybe you could use a hand,” she said, and Paul knew better than to ask why she wanted to help someone she'd only met twice.

“I was up until two last night,” he said. “Fingers got so numb, I couldn't record data. Had to repeat the numbers aloud while I warmed my hands against the lantern.”

She shuffled her feet, looking down and away.

“Honest,” he said. “I'm ready to fall down.”

“I even brought my own waders,” she said. A price tag hung from the strap.

One handled the fish, the other recorded the numbers, switching when the handler's fingers went numb. After a tentative first hour, they settled into a steady pace. The rhythm that had so often eluded Paul came easier with two people. The first night, he netted a massive trout that would only fit into the cooler at an angle, from corner to corner. He and Gina both hovered over the giant male and waited while the fish slammed its thick body against the sides of the cooler and splashed them with anesthetic. Its back was a map of scars and leathery skin, its kipe knotted like a piece of wood and bristling with thorny teeth. Gina wrestled the bull trout onto the table, unafraid when it suddenly bucked and flailed in her hands.

Each night after the count, they would sit at the table in his camper, and he would serve herbal tea and enter data while she watched. The small space smelled of fish, wet fleece and wool, and her damp hair. Rain pounded on the roof, the rattling veneer muffling the sound of the generator. Condensation blanketed and dripped down the windows.

“You've always cooked?” he asked once. They'd been laughing about his archaeological dig in Sweden, the sad lunches of potato cakes and cinnamon buns he'd packed each day.

She shook her head. Without her hat on, her bruised face shone and reflected its different dark colours under the fluorescent light, one eye half-closed like a wink, the freckles on her cheek hidden or distorted by purple skin, pooled blood. “I used to do the work, the planting, brushing, spacing. I'm pretty good with a chainsaw.”

She had to explain what all those things were, how brushers went in after the planters and cleared the competing vegetation from around each planted tree, and how spacers would, years later, thin out those plantations with saws. It paid per hectare, she said, so you were always pushing yourself harder to make more money. But you had time to daydream and think too, because the work was simple and repetitive.

“What made you stop?”

“Shane, partly. My body. Tree-planting beat up my knees and wrists, brushing did my shoulders in. Got tired of gas fumes and the noise, always dealing with a broken saw. Men love to dick around with their chainsaws. They have their rituals—eat the same breakfast, smoke their cigarettes, and sharpen their saws after dinner. I knew one guy, he'd crack his beer the exact second the truck started. He had the timing down.”

“I have beer, if you'd rather,” he said.

“You don't drink?” she asked.

He thought about it. “I could, I guess. There were antibiotics, painkillers before. I've had . . . health issues. It's easier if I don't.” His trailer was a bit of a disaster—he took a quick glance around, praying he'd stashed his incontinence pads.