by E A Lake
Violet took a long swig from the canteen and held it out for me. Taking it, I noticed her tired face and knew something was on her mind.
“What’s up?” I asked, not caring if she talked continuously until I fell asleep. She’d been mighty quiet since our earlier encounter.
“Do you think we’re going to find more trouble on the road ahead?” she asked, leaning forward and resting her chin on her knees.
I smiled and leaned back on a log. “Lettie and Wilson both warned us there’d be trouble.”
That didn’t seem to make her any more relieved. “It just wastes so much time,” she moaned.
A long silence followed and I noticed her staring at me. “Do you ever think about dying?” she whispered.
So that’s what this was all about. “All the time,” I admitted.
She looked back at the fire. Her dirty face barely reflected the warm orange glow.
“I didn’t at first,” she said, rubbing the end of her nose with her palm. “But after that attack on Lettie’s, I think about it all the time.” She gave me a serious look. “I don’t want to die. And I don’t want anything bad to happen to Hope. I don’t want you to die, either.”
“Are you scared?”
She shook her head slightly, just enough to sway her hair. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” She kept staring at me. “Do you think Daisy was scared?”
That was something I had never pondered. I knew I feared for her safety, as did Violet, and Lettie, and everyone else. But Daisy? She didn’t seem like the type that was easily frightened.
“You know her, Violet. She faced everything head on with a positive attitude.” I paused seeing Violet’s expression soften. “She probably sees it as another adventure.”
“She was scared for you when you were gone,” Violet whispered.
I nodded, not answering the obvious.
“I was never so scared in my life when you didn’t come back after four days,” Violet added. “All I kept thinking about was you being shot up somewhere, dying alone.”
I continued to nod, watching the flame lick the ends of a large log.
“But Daisy came out of her funk by then. She told me you’d be okay. That everything would be okay.”
“That sounds like her,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“But it’s not okay, is it, Bob? Here we are, out on the road, sleeping hidden back in some strange woods searching for her,” she paused and I glanced at her. “This isn’t okay. We both know it.”
I sighed before I could respond. “But it’s what we have to do, isn’t it?”
Violet rose and grabbed the two blankets from the bottom of my pack. The first she laid on the ground for our bottom sheet. She signaled me to join her. When I laid next to her, she spread the second blanket over us, tucking the end around our feet and the sides under our bodies.
She kissed my forehead and laid with her back to me. Her hands rose and met her lips, no doubt to tug away her problems.
“I’m scared, Bob,” she admitted. “I’m scared we’re both going to die out here and Daisy will never know we even tried to find her.”
I wrapped my arm around the shaking young woman and kissed the back of her head.
“Try to get some sleep,” I offered. “We may make it to Ironwood tomorrow. We’ll need our strength.”
Day 1,154
Late the following day, the temperature dropped significantly even though the afternoon sun still baked the road. We had to be getting close to the lake, I figured. And if Wilson’s directions were anywhere near correct, we had to be even closer to the Ironwood Fish Camp.
Violet had kept mostly quiet, her mood and expression somber. I wondered what was bothering her: the prospect of death or something else?
Most of the time she walked next to me, looking up now and then. Otherwise, she watched her feet shuffle forward, one step followed by another followed by thousands more. Except for occasionally reaching to take my hand, I hardly even noticed she was there.
A while back, more than a week but less than a month, Wilson had given me some advice about finding a fish camp. Mostly what he said was I’d know when I was close. There was no way to miss it.
He never said much more than that. I always wondered if he knew something I didn’t. Well, he knew a lot more than me. But about fish camps? I didn’t know if he’d ever set foot in one.
Another half a mile and the temperature dropped another few degrees. Although the north wind wasn’t very strong, it seemed to have no difficulty moving the cool air covering Lake Superior inland.
Something else happened then, something that made me smile. Something that made me think of old man Wilson.
Violet stopped, covering her nose with the crook of her arm. “What is that?” she moaned, her eyes rapidly searching for the source.
I pulled her bandana over her nose and did the same with mine. Whatever the odor was, wherever it was coming from, it was strong…and desperately rancid.
“Fish camp,” I replied, taking her hand and tugging her forward. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
She continued to use her arm and bandana to filter the stench, and she followed me slowly. “My God, now I’m not so sure I want to go there.”
I laughed to myself. Yeah, it was a pretty strong odor, but it meant that Daisy might be nearby.
It took a long time before we actually arrived at the camp. The sun sat as a large orange ball on the western horizon before I spoke with another living soul.
A pair of men blocked the road leading into the tent city facility. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a permanent structure anywhere inside the compound that was surrounded by a snow fence. I was more than slightly impressed by the sheer size of the community. It almost made me forget about the smell.
The two men carrying shotguns noticed as Violet and I approached and rose from their stools. Sauntering towards us, their smiles put me at ease.
“Welcome to Ironwood Fish Camp,” the apparent man in charge said in a casual way. It was only then I noticed the other man was actually a woman. “State your business, please.”
“We’re here looking for someone,” I replied, lowering my pack to the ground and helping Violet with hers. “Who would we talk to about your roster?”
The man pointed a stub of a thumb behind him. Must have been a cleaning accident, I assumed. “Man’s name is Potter. He’s in charge of all personnel. You’ll find him in the small tent on the west end of the camp; downwind mostly.”
Good, no messing around like I had assumed we might run into.
“We could use a meal, too,” Violet announced, summoning her most pathetic look. “Haven’t had much all day.”
The man in charge studied her, then me. Removing his hat, he checked out Violet again.
“Any experience filleting lake trout?” he asked. I noticed his eyes narrow, as if he already knew we had no experience.
“Nah,” I admitted, rubbing my chin. “I mostly clean and scale the sunfish I catch. Violet here cooks them up real nice, though.”
The two guards shared a good chuckle as if they’d heard that tale before. “Well, we got a certain amount of gutting that gets done as well. Gutting and scaling.”
“You,” he pointed at me, “can do some gutting. A half-day of work will get you two full meals. And your missus there can join the scaling line. That’s mostly women there, and a few fellows that ain’t so manly.”
“When can we talk to this Potter man?” I asked. While eating and eventually sleeping were on my list of things to get done in the next 24 hours, Daisy was foremost in my mind.
The man, grubby as he was, offered a kind smile. “Sweetie here,” he pointed at his equally grungy female companion, “can take you over there right now. Then she'll store your gear and you can get to work. Unless you need sleep first. Then you can grab a cot in the couples’ quarters and someone will wake you at first light.”
I stared at the camp beyond the pair. That’s what was different
about this place. It was illuminated. Not like daylight, but enough to see the swarm of humanity working away at their chores.
“Kerosene lamps?” I asked, pointing at the newest opened tent.
“That and some old fuel oil,” the man replied, nodding as he spoke. “We got some in stock and we get fresh supplies almost every other shipment or so. We send fish, they send supplies. Works pretty well.”
“I think I can work for a while yet,” I answered, peeking back at Violet. “You too?” She nodded after a few seconds. Good. We’d finally have food and a bed and information.
“Let’s go see this Potter fellow,” I said, following the woman.
Day 1,154 - continued
He checked his list carefully, page after page after page. It was the second time through. If nothing else, this short, bald man named Potter was thorough.
“No one here going by the name of Daisy Vaughn,” he sighed, smiling apologetically. “I know we got plenty of slight blonde gals. A couple have come in the past few weeks. But no one in chains.”
The chains part bothered me. And it was the third or fourth reference he’d made to it.
“What makes you think she’d be bound?” I asked from the most uncomfortable folding chair I’d ever sat on. Violet had already begun her usual pacing. Her boney butt found the seats too hard to endure.
“When someone owes a debt,” he began in a professorial tone, “and they bring us someone more or less against their will, they typically get chained for the first few weeks. I know it sounds cruel, but it ensures that our end of the deal gets fulfilled.”
“How do they work if their hands are chained?” I looked up as Violet spoke. Good question.
He smiled, setting his papers aside. “They're chained around the waist, young lady. And usually to another more reliable worker. A small woman like you’ve described could have been chained to just about anyone. They work together, eat together, even sleep together. It’s really for the best.”
Violet glanced at me, tight-lipped. Shaking her head slightly, she went back to pacing.
“I would recommend you have one of the foremen help you look in the daylight for your friend,” Potter continued. “That way you can be sure. Now, if you’d like to get started on your jobs—”
“Are we going to be chained?” I knew Violet would ask the question. But she could have toned back the sarcasm a little.
Potter stood and led us from his small tent. “All you’ve received is information so far. No food, no bed. Information is free, young lady. If you prefer to leave now, we’re square.”
I stopped when I felt Violet tug on my arm. “We need to look around, in the daylight. Right?”
I nodded in agreement, focused more on the camp itself. In the dark, even lit by many lanterns, it appeared to go on for miles. Finding Daisy was going to be a daunting task, but Ironwood Fish Camp certainly seemed like a logical start.
I watched as the large man demonstrated again. The speed and proficiency with which he performed his job was fascinating. I wondered the whole time just how fast this man could clean a deer.
“Up the belly, grab the guts, off with the head,” he repeated. “Guts go in the bucket on my right, your left, heads get pushed to the middle. You see that, Chicago?” I laughed. He preferred to call me that, which was fine.
“Guts get emptied every hour or so and dumped outside of camp. Heads…” he paused, and I noticed his eyes wander from end to end of the at least 50-foot table. “Well, they grind them up for something. Maybe they make pancakes out of them.”
I’m sure the shock on my face was noticeable. And I knew for certain I’d be careful when it came to breakfast at this place.
He studied me for a moment before breaking into a broad grin. “I’m just shitting ya,” he laughed, poking my ribs with his gigantic elbow. “They make chicken feed with them...I think. Any questions, Chicago?”
Yeah, I had a few. First and foremost, what was the largest man I’d ever met doing in a place like this? And a black man at that. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with any race. Hell, I grew up in the Windy City; I’d seen it all. But here? At a fish camp in northern Michigan? Come on.
Second, and equally important, where the hell did all these fish come from? All around us were buckets, baskets and nets full of fish. If I had to guess, TJ — the only name he’d given thus far — and I had 1,000 fish surrounding us.
Lastly, and it’s just me being me, why the hell was everyone calling him Mr. President? Was it because he was in charge of the gutting tent? Was everyone afraid of him and he preferred that kind of respect? He was large enough to cause the average man to piss himself if he ever got angry. Or was it in reference to our 44th president? The esteemed former senator of my great state?
“No,” I answered, reaching for the knife set in front of my station, “I think I got this.”
Violet had been assigned to the scaling table several tents away. At first, she didn’t want to separate from my hip. But eventually, a sweet, kind, middle-aged woman talked her into going.
I ran into her several hours in our shift on my way to the bathroom, a dark spot in the woods just outside of camp. ‘Warning, be careful where you step,’ I was told.
“Well, this is a charming place,” she commented sarcastically in typical Violet fashion. “Men doing one job, women on another. I guess the Nineteenth Amendment never made it this far north.”
I laughed, walking next to her in the half-lit, half-dark section of the area. “You can come gut my fish if you want. It’s pretty nasty.”
“I met a couple nice gals already,” she added. “No one seems too bad here, so far. But no one has seen Daisy. Not our Daisy.”
Yeah, I was worried about that, given the sheer size of this operation. “I’ve only talked to TJ thus far. And I’m kinda scared to start poking round, if you know what I mean.”
I saw her eyes flare wide at the mention of his name. “He’s huge!” she whispered loudly. “I mean, he has to be seven feet tall. And his arms are so muscular and long. I don’t think I’d smart off to him if I were you.”
We turned to return to our own stations. “Well, it’s a good thing you aren’t working with him then. Not with your smart mouth and all.” I grinned, noting her laugh followed by her tongue sticking out my way.
Progress, I thought. Two months ago, she would have flipped me off. Maybe another week or two together and she’d actually laugh with me.
I gutted fish until my hands went numb. My eyes began to cross, either from exhaustion or monotony. And the smell disappeared sometime in the middle of the night. That was the strangest part of all.
Beside me, a monster of a man delicately sliced opened fish after fish.
“I used to be one of the best fillet people they ever had here,” TJ bragged, inspecting the string of guts he had pulled from his latest victim. “Then, one slip of a sharp knife, cut a tendon in my left hand, and boom — here I am. Best fish gutter in the known world.”
“Where you from again?” I asked, hoping he’d end his not-so-humble brag.
“Mississippi. Tupelo to be exact. Birthplace of Elvis,” he paused, rolling a line of fish intestines between his fingers. “Dumpy, skinny, little house. Of course they fixed it all up, him being Elvis and all. Made it into some damned shrine.”
Okay, he wasn’t an Elvis fan. “What’d you do before all of this?”
His frown turned to a grin. Back on TJ.
A slight man strolled up and stood between us. “I need a count, Mr. President.” He tapped a pencil on his paper-laden clipboard, waiting.
TJ scolded at the weasel. “Four-fifteen,” he replied in a voice that couldn’t be mistaken for happy. “And call me TJ, damn it.”
The man wrote down the number and turned to leave. “Thank you, Mr. President.”
Rubbing my beard, I stared at TJ. His glare moved from the man to me.
“Thomas Jefferson,” he shouted. “Yeah, my momma just loved her presi
dents. So she named me after a white slaveholder. Ain’t life a bitch?”
That was it. I knew I knew him. “You played football at Mississippi State!” I exclaimed, pointing at him. “You were All-American, drafted in the first round by the Packers.”
He went back to work, a grin growing as he did. “Pretty good for a Bears fan.”
That was it; that’s why a man of his size and color was in a fish camp in the far reaches of northern Michigan.
When the power went out in Green Bay, he reported, he heard that people were needed for fish camps. Since he’d been an avid fisherman all of his young life, he took the first wagon north and never looked back.
“A man’s gotta eat,” he stated, wiping his head on a filthy towel. “Let’s go grab some grub and then you and your woman can catch some sleep. Sun’s starting to come up, shift’s over. You done good, Chicago.”
I glanced at the eastern horizon, the first pinks of morning tinting the sky. I noticed Violet was already waiting for me, her tired silhouette leaning against a nearby tent post. We had done good. I was hungry and tired. Food and bed were next…after we washed our hands thoroughly.
Day 1,155
They served us pancakes for breakfast, along with some over-fried dried-out ham. Pancakes? After what TJ had joked about with me? I looked them over carefully before taking my first bite. Violet had scarfed two down by then.
Escorting us to the “couples’ tent” the woman in charge of quarters pointed at a double-wide cot. “Two blankets, two pillows and a bar of soap for the shower if you want one when you wake up,” she listed off in a military tone.
“Towels are at the shower house before you ask. Please limit yourself to one, sir.” She eyed Violet for a moment. “Given the length of your hair, ma’am, you’re entitled to two.”
We thanked her and jointly flopped on the cot.
“I’ve never been so tired in all my life,” Violet moaned as I already felt myself drifting off. “I don’t even care that that one guy is snoring in the far corner.”
