Tales From The Loon Town Cafe

by Dennis Frahmann

  Each spring thousands of fish swarm into this run to mate. The walleye pike and its smaller cousin the northern pike are normally solitary fish. And then there’s the big brother–the muskie. They prefer to cruise the lake waters hunting for food. Voracious eaters with thin bodies and long jaws lined with rows of fierce looking teeth, they are ready to eat whatever meat falls within their reach: other fish, frogs, snakes, even the occasional young duck or muskrat. Muskie occasionally grow as long as six feet, the height of an adult man. Even when that long, they are seldom more than twenty pounds, but twenty pounds of fight. The muskie is the supreme trophy for any fisherman in northern Wisconsin. It is for this reason that Thread treasures the abundance of muskie, walleye and northern in the Sapphire Lakes. These fish and no other are what lure the ardent fishermen up from the big cities to the south.

  But during the spring, in the Sapphire Run, the pike are exposed. Their urge to mate overcomes their solitary nature and caution. The shallow run takes on the appearance of a koi pond in which someone dropped a bag of corn one week after the last feeding, erupting into a frenzy of motion with giant fish seeking to reproduce.

  Everyone from the smallest child to the oldest adult knows how easy it would be to simply sit over the stream with a flashlight and spear a fish while the light catches its attention. One could probably pick the fish out of the water with one’s hand.

  Black bear, newly awakened from winter hibernation may do this with walleye along secluded streams in other parts of the northwoods. But here in the heart of a town that thrives on fishermen, neither Thread nor the state has ever allowed fishing during spawning. Until today.

  The four of us stood still at the window, watching the police cars that had responded to Bromley’s request. But the cards were turned on him when the governor ordered the state police to uphold the state court’s ruling. The Lattigo would be allowed to fish if they wanted. Bromley, Red and others were stewing at the Northern Nights, meeting with a lawyer from Timberton. But an injunction was only a remote possibility. Another four police cars drove in the square to make a total of eight.

  “My Dad says there will be trouble tonight,” Danny confided. “He says the people in this town are too pigheaded to admit they’ve lost. He thinks if they just ignored the whole thing, the Lattigo would spear a few fish and go home. But I don’t think that will happen.”

  “Are you going?” asked Cynthia.

  “Josh thinks it could make for a movie of the week, and maybe he could sell the idea if he sees it first hand, so I’m going with him. He’s thinking of going back to Los Angeles.” Danny gave a disappointed half smile.

  “You two listen to me,” Thelma said. “Stay away from the run tonight. Nothing good can come of it. I don’t know why Bromley has this bee in his bonnet, but it would be better if he just let sleeping dogs lie.”

  We didn’t listen to Thelma’s advice.

  The night was cold, nearly moonless. We closed the restaurant early since no one had shown up for dinner. We walked toward Homestead Park and caught the path that ran parallel to the run. As we crossed over the square, we soon escaped the streetlights. The stars began to pop out of the sky. I pointed out Orion and Pisces to Danny and Cynthia.

  Ahead we could see torchlights burning brightly along the water. There were two encampments, one on each side of the river. Between them but on the firmer side of the Run’s shore stood a line of Wisconsin state police in full uniform. On the same side milled the Lattigo. They were carrying high-powered flashlights that they shined into the river. Each was dressed in ceremonial garb. Each carried a spear. Even from the distance we could see some brief ceremony took place and then first one person, then another jabbed a spear into the river, and frequently they would pull it back up with both hands. They would push the spear up into the sky hoisting aloft an enormous fish, flopping to and fro as it died, its spawning incomplete.

  As each fish was raised, from the other shore, the townsmen would break into boos and jeers. It seemed as though half the town was present. There were many that I did not recognize. Where had they come from? Timberton? Emerson? They weren’t locals. As we got closer, I spied Officer Campbell in the crowd. He saw me and averted his eyes. It was the first time I had ever seen him out of his uniform.

  Cynthia shivered, “Maybe, it’s not a good idea to be here.”

  The state police forced the townspeople to stay on the marshier side with its thicket of cattails. People moved about from bullock to bullock trying to keep their feet dry. Some had thought ahead and were outfitted in hip waders. They were ready to rush at any moment across the shallow creek, but the police were there with guns clearly visible in their holsters.

  The Indians had built a huge bonfire. Its flames leaped in the sky like a madman’s war dance. The crackling of the dry wood as it popped and spurted kept up an irregular rhythm that set us all on edge.

  Danny, Cynthia and I stood on the Lattigo side. Across the narrow water, Chip, looking slim and strong in his beaded loincloth, saw Cynthia and smiled at her. She did not smile back. On that same side of the stream, we saw Josh stumbling through from the rear of the crowd. He was dressed in a flamboyant red windbreaker. He caught the eye of Danny and smiled. Danny smiled back.

  Some townspeople were holding crudely written signs:

  Spear Indians, not fish.

  It’s our land now. Get out.

  Then someone started chanting:

  Fuck the timber niggers

  As the obscene words were loudly pounded into the heads of the Lattigo, they began to spear into the water with incredible abandon. What at first seemed ritualistic now became frenzied. The fish came flopping out of the water and were tossed in a pile with such careless disregard that it was clear no one cared what happened to the fish.

  Someone on the town side cried out, “They’re going to kill them all.”

  Another shouted, “Stop ’em!”

  Madness broke out. The townspeople surged across the Run and broke through the thin line of troopers. The Lattigo stepped back from their fishing, then repositioned their spears to use as prods to push their attackers back into the cold spring water. Screams and curses filled the air.

  One Lattigo looked around and saw us. Thinking we were an attack from the rear, he released an enormous cry and came running at us. His spear was pointed directly at Danny.

  Frozen Bear lurched from the melee to stop the spearsman. At the same time Josh jumped up from the creek bank to lunge at the feet of the rushing man. Josh was the more successful. But in tackling the Lattigo man, he sent the spear flinging through the air. Its length caught both Danny and me across our stomachs, knocking the breath out of me and sending us both to the ground.

  Groggily, after a few moments, I sat back up. Near me, Josh was tenderly kneeling over Danny, wiping a trickle of blood away from Danny’s nose. Frozen Bear had his arm around a crying Cynthia and was shouting at the others in his group to stop.

  A policeman shot his gun into the air.

  “Holy shit, look at that!” I heard Sam, the bartender from the Northern Nights bar, say reverentially. “What the fuck is it?”

  He was pointing several yards away. A long shadow was moving beneath the water’s surface, traveling from the direction of Big Sapphire Lake, heading northeast toward Little Sapphire Lake. It stopped and its body shook as though it were spreading milt. Then it continued moving.

  By now, all of us were quiet and watching this shape move toward the melee. It was the largest muskie any of us had ever seen. As it neared the crowd, it moved beneath a Lattigo spear floating in the water. The fish seemed at least an impossible nine feet in length.

  “They can’t grow that long,” Red said in awe.

  One of the Lattigo said quietly, “It’s a fish of the Great Spirit.”

  The muskie stopped directly below us. From the light of the bonfire and the torches, we could clearly see the enormity of it. It floated just below the surface nearly grazing the bottom of the sand
y floor of the creek.

  It stayed there for a moment or two. Its bulging fish eyes seemed to look into each of us. Then it flickered its dorsal fins and with a wave of its tail, it was back in motion. Moments later, it had swum into the safety of Little Sapphire Lake, hidden in the darkness of deeper water.

  It was the giant muskie. I felt elated. I did not imagine that enormous shadow in the water glimpsed so many months before. The children had not been making up a story. It knew us, and it had saved us from ourselves.

  One of the Lattigo spoke. “Gather up the fish we’ve already caught. We’re going home.”

  I looked at the townsmen standing in the marsh and in the water. They seemed somehow chastened. Red and Bromley both stood there, soaking wet, having fallen in the stream during the melee. They clambered up onto shore.

  In the distance, along the shore, I saw Chip Frozen Bear walking with Cynthia, his arm protectively across her shoulders. They were walking in the direction of her home. They did not seem concerned if Red should happen to see them.

  And back on the grass where Danny still lay against the dry reeds of last summer, I saw Josh lean over and give Danny a quick kiss on the lips. They too seemed unconcerned if anyone should glance their way.

  The smell of spring was in the air.

  Behind the bonfire, I saw someone I had not noticed before. It was Kip Van Elkind. He did not see me. His eyes were totally focused on the disappearing Cynthia and Frozen Bear. The glare of the fire danced across Kip’s sullen face. He was too lost in his thoughts to notice if anyone watched him hunger after Cynthia.

  I felt some winter still linger in this spring.

  * * *

  Thelma was indignant. “What fool notion moved you to go and buy all of this damn fish?”

  “It was an opportunity too good to miss,” I said in my defense. The walleye pike has delicious white flesh. Because they are relatively difficult to catch and thus rare, you can’t buy them commercially. Yet I knew out-of-towners would pay top dollar for a good piece of fried pike. When Chip Frozen Bear approached me on the night of the Lattigo riot about purchasing the fish they had speared, what could I do but say “yes?”

  “Sometimes I swear you just want to plunge yourself into trouble,” continued Thelma. “Don’t you think Bromley and Red are going to scream to high heaven when they find out you have a freezer full of protected fish?”

  “They were caught legally. Lattigo have the right to spear fish.”

  “In your eyes maybe. But not in the eyes of this town. There ain’t a person in town who would order that fish. They ain’t going to be traitors to Thread.” Thelma was thumping the bread dough across the floured table.

  I was alone in the kitchen with Thelma. Danny and Cynthia were in the dining room serving a few members of an early lunch crowd. Over the past two days, any time spent alone with Thelma had quickly evolved into an argument over fish.

  “If I hadn’t bought the fish, they would have spoiled. The Lattigo had no way to transport them anywhere for processing. And the Lattigo didn’t want the fish. They had just planned to spear a few to make their point.”

  “Well they shouldn’t have been spearing any.” Thelma was not about to concede.

  I shrugged my shoulders, which only infuriated Thelma more. “And another thing. I didn’t appreciate getting called up ten o’clock at night to bustle down here and help you gut a tub of slimy fish.”

  “I couldn’t fillet them all by myself,” I said in defense.

  “Then why did you buy them? You knew I was waiting for Gilbert that night. And because of you I missed him, having to be here, scaling fish that no one’s going to eat.”

  I was having none of her pessimism. “Just wait. Memorial Day, I’m going to put fried walleye on the menu. Tourists will be lined up around the block. No one’s going to care or remember where I bought the fish.”

  “Another thing,” Thelma was flinging the dough into separate bread pans for its final rising before baking. “I think the whole town was taking drugs that night. What were you all fighting for anyway? And seeing a giant muskie. Next thing you know, you’ll be inviting Claire’s little men to dinner.”

  As far as I was concerned, Thelma was talking to herself. I had others things to concern me. I had two dozen fish in my freezer. Thelma would really scalp me if she found out how much I had paid for them. On the other hand, maybe she was right – I must have been on drugs that night. On yet another hand, there was no need to wait until the end of May to use the fish. “I’m going to place some of that fish on the menu tonight. Disguise it a little. You know what I’ll do. I’ll make quenelles of pike served with kasha dumplings.”

  “Quenelles? Ain’t you learned your lesson the last time you tried that?” Thelma had put the bread pans in the top shelf of the oven to get out of way and to rise in a protected place. “No one’s going to order something they can’t pronounce.”

  “They make quenelles all the time in France from pike. They’re nothing more than fish mousse shaped like little dumplings. It’s perfect. I won’t have to worry about anyone choking on the little bones in the fish. People will love them . . . if we can just get them to give the things a try.”

  “I told you before, I ain’t monkeying with it. If you want to offer this French nonsense, you can make it. Just don’t let anyone know where it came from.”

  I strolled back into the walk-in freezer and surveyed my kingdom of fish. They were all neatly cut into fillets and stacked like piles of frozen lumber. I picked up a few of the pieces and calculated the combined weight at about six pounds. That should be enough to make ten servings. There was no sense in making more than that, even though business had picked up a bit after the fracas down at Sapphire Run.

  The town was filled with unease. Rumors of strip mining continued to flourish. I knew at least four people who anxiously sold large plots of land at bargain prices. Fortunately, there hadn’t been any follow-on confrontations to add to the uncertainty. The Lattigo felt they had established their rights, backed by the state police, a governor’s order and a court decree. Bromley still puffed his way around town recounting the heroic stance he took to repulse the madmen from Lattigo.

  Occasionally, I saw Hank Van Elkind in town. Once we met on the street while he was walking with Priscilla Jouer and they jointly teased me with details of a new twist they proposed adding to the Winter theme area.

  “We’re thinking of having an adults-only section that plays off the wicked past of Timberton. Sort of a wild, wild north with an end-of-the-century motif,” Priscilla laughed. “I thought of the idea after Hank told me about the eighty houses of prostitution that once lined Silver Street. Such a naughty town.” She and Hank moved on down the street toward Amanda Manny’s studio. Priscilla maintained her elegance and grace even as her weight bore her stiletto heels into piercing the remaining hard icy patches on the square.

  “Wally, are you in there?” Danny poked his head into the freezer, and then walked all the way in. “Where did you get all this fish. This isn’t that fish, is it?” He wouldn’t even acknowledge the source by naming it aloud.

  In the last few weeks, Danny had seemed to flourish. Even Cynthia could see it. Instead of mooning over the boy, she had now taken to finding ways to ensure Josh and Danny spent time together. But they no longer needed the machinations of Cynthia for that. On nights Josh wasn’t working, the young man invariably showed up as the Loon Town Cafe closed to offer Danny a ride home.

  I didn’t know if Toivo had noticed what was going on with his son. Toivo now came to the cafe occasionally to order a light meal. I suspected that he appeared only after spending an hour or two at the cemetery. He would sit quietly in the cafe, normally ordering the least expensive item–the fish fry that I had added to the menu as a standard item. He ate slowly, never interacting with other customers, always preferring a small table to the counter. Sometimes, Danny would talk to him between bussing tables. But more often, Josh would have already arrived to
wait out until closing, and Danny would be entranced by the jokes of Josh’s. Toivo never sought to join them.

  I suspected Cynthia was also receiving nightly rides. But Chip Frozen Bear was more discreet. He never sat in the restaurant waiting for Cynthia. Although I never saw an idling car, somehow, I still knew he was a waiting presence

  “Is this the fish that the Lattigo caught?” Danny finally asked.

  I just looked at him and shrugged my shoulders. Let it remain a mystery. I stepped back into the restaurant and Danny followed.

  Outside, for a moment I caught glimpse of a robin. The first of the season. It was hopping in a bed of purple crocus that were blooming in the town square. There were still a few piles of hardened snow in the square, the last melting remnants of the piles left behind from the winter plowings. But beneath the hot sun of days like this one, that snow too would be gone within a few days

  In the woods, I knew the first wild flowers of the season were already breaking through the ground. In a matter of days or weeks, the white bloodroot would be everywhere. Yellow cowslips would crowd the small streams with their bright blooms. The wild plum and apple trees would break into blossoms. Bees that had stayed within their hives all winter, surviving on the honey they had made last summer, would venture out, busily flying from flowering branch to branch.

  I thought about Danny and spring. There was no doubt that he was infatuated with Josh. All he could do was talk about the things that Josh and he did together–the movies they saw in Timberton, the walks they took in Thread, the heart-to-heart talks that kept them awake to two or three in the morning. His eyes grew animated every time Josh walked into the cafe.