Sharing Spaces

by Nadia Nichols

  “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.”

  SENNA HELPED JACK 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 fo
ur 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.”

  Senna took the cup he extended toward her. “My father used to say that,” she said, remembering a long-ago time.

  “Maybe that’s where I picked up the expression.” He tossed another stick of firewood into the woodstove.

  Senna drew a sharp breath. “My father’s been dead for five years. He was killed in a plane crash. There’s no way you could have known him.”

  “Your father was my commanding officer.”

  Senna felt another jolt of surprise. “You were in the Navy?”

  “That’s how I met your grandfather. The three of us went on a fishing trip together.”

  “To Labrador,” Senna guessed, her thoughts all awhirl with this sudden overload of information.

  “When I was in college, a friend of mine told me about this place,” Jack explained. “Said it was the best fishing ever. So, being as I liked to fish, it seemed natural for us to plan a trip. We ended up spending the entire summer working at a fly-in lodge near the mouth of the Eagle River. I started out washing dishes and progressed to being a chore boy, then a maintenance man. Came back the next summer to work at the same lodge, and did some guiding. Anyhow, when I found out your father liked to fly-fish, I told him about Labrador. He asked me to plan a trip for him and his father, so I did. Then he asked me to come along, so I did. The rest is history.”

  Senna paced to the kitchen window and stared out at the lake, which was hidden beneath a blanket of fog. Wraiths of smoke lifted from the surface and caught fire in the sun’s first rays. She felt a sudden, aching sense of loss. “You knew them both better than I did,” she said. “My father and my grandfather belonged to the military. We only knew them as men in uniform who were always gone.” She drew a painful breath. “Strangers in uniforms.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way. The military can be a demanding lifestyle….”

  “Tell me about it,” Senna said, spinning around, her stomach churning with bitter resentment. “Tell my mother about the demands of raising three kids while her husband was flying fighters off a boat cruising an ocean halfway around the world. Tell me about all the lonely nights spent wondering and worrying. Tell me about how my mother coped when her own parents died, and my father couldn’t make it to either funeral because the fleet was on some kind of high alert.”

  Jack’s expression was solemn. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.” Senna glared at him, then turned away as the heat of her anger swept up into her cheeks. “Military men should never marry.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  At that moment Charlie came into the kitchen, blinking sleep from his eyes. The small, black fox-like dog skirted about his heels. She was a pretty thing. Fine-boned, almost dainty, with a sharp, intelligent expression. Both were looking, no doubt, for something to eat. But to Senna’s surprise, Charlie made a beeline for the kitchen table and picked up the book she had laid there earlier. The boy read the title aloud, then looked at Jack. It was hard to read his expression.

  “For me?”

  Jack nodded. “For you to read later. Right now we’re flying out to show Senna the lodge. I’ll go prep the plane, and then we’re out of here. Leave Ula in the shed. Put some water and kibble down for her. We’ll be gone for half the day, at least.”

  Charlie nodded, reluctantly put the book on the table and turned toward the door. The little black dog followed.

  “Can’t Ula come with us?” Senna said. “She won’t take up much space in the plane.”

  Charlie paused, hand on the door knob, and glanced back hopefully. “No,” Jack said. “Go on, now, and meet us at the plane.” After the boy had gone, Jack dampered down the woodstove and moved to the door. “Don’t look so huffy,” he said to Senna before heading out to ready the plane. “If that crackie ran off after some wild beast while we’re at the lodge, we might have to spend the rest of the summer searching for her. She’s safer here.”

  Senna’s stomach growled loud enough to perk up Chilkat’s ears. “Maybe so,” she admitted, “but I was kind of hoping she could hunt us up some breakfast.”

  “What’s the matter, don’t you like brook trout?” Jack said.

  “I don’t like fish, period.”

  THE FLIGHT TO WOLF RIVER LODGE took longer than Senna thought it would. She hadn’t seen a map until she climbed into the plane and looked over Jack’s air charts. He traced out their route with his forefinger while Senna strapped herself into the copilot’s seat and Charlie settled into the seat directly behind her.

  “The Wolf’s about a hundred miles north-northeast of us. She empties into White Bear Bay and she’s about the best salmon river in Labrador. Everyone thinks that distinction belongs to the Eagle River, and that’s fine by me. Let ’em stay down there and crowd the shores. Our lodge is the only human habitation on the Wolf. There’s a little settlement at White Bear Bay—four houses, all fishermen. The mail boat stops there once a week.” Jack glanced into the back. “You all buckled up, Charlie?”

  Jack ran through his preflight checklist and then started t
he engines. Senna knew nothing of airplanes, but the motor sounded strong and smooth and the propeller spun, and if the man piloting the plane had served under her father, then he was no doubt a competent enough aviator. They were taxiing away from the dock and just starting to pick up speed when suddenly Jack throttled the plane down with a heated curse. “Dammitall, Charlie,” he yelled over the rumble of the engine. “I thought I told you to lock that dog of yours in the shed!”

  Senna followed his line of sight and spied a V-shaped ripple of movement in the water just off shore and to the right of the dock. Hard to see, but that movement was the little black dog, swimming swiftly toward the plane.

  “I did,” Charlie said, staring out his window.

  Jack idled the plane and shook his head in disgust, watching the dog’s approach. “Well, what are you waiting for? Open the door and drag her in here.”

  The boy scrambled to unbuckle his seat belt. By the time he got the side door open, Ula had nearly reached the plane. Charlie climbed out onto the pontoon, lifted her out of the water by her collar and deposited her in the cabin, where she shook off a great shower of spray that drenched the interior along with the pilot. Senna couldn’t help but laugh in spite of Jack’s dark expression. She was glad the crackie was aboard and reunited with Charlie.

  Five minutes later they were airborne, heading for the Wolf River and the lodge her grandfather had dreamt into life. Senna watched the landscape unroll beneath the plane. Landscape? More like a waterscape. Endless streams, rivers, ponds, lakes. Water everywhere. In fact, from the air, what little land there was seemed to be dividing one body of water from another. No habitations anywhere. No roads. Just endless and untracked wilderness. Senna found herself entranced by the beauty of it, and searched the open spaces and eskers for signs of wolves.