Mink River: A Novel

by Doyle, Brian

Yes.

  What if we get hit with weather?

  What if you do?

  He could drown.

  Yes.

  Oh.

  Yes.

  Well, hell, says Declan.

  He told me he’s never actually been on the ocean, says the doctor.

  Well, hell, says Declan. I got room, I guess. Might as well. Poor bastard.

  He’d like that.

  What the hell, says Declan. I could use the company.

  Yes.

  What the hey.

  Yes.

  Poor bastard.

  Yes.

  13.

  Me and a guy in a fecking wheelchair, says Declan to the doctor, staring at the guy sitting in the freckled light of the bonfire. What a crew. Never a dull moment at sea. See what I mean? Nothing ever happens the same way twice. Up is down and down is up. Whatever you think will happen will never happen and what you never dreamed of will happen for sure. It’s the craziest thing. I stopped trying to understand it a long time ago. Now I just go out and come in. Gracie watches the birds and all but I just try to get some fish and not get killed. I’m a simple guy. I remember one time a reporter guy was at the dock when we came in, he wanted to do an article on the heroes of the salt sea and all, the decline of the fishery, the end of a way of life and all, all this literary poetical crap, and I had to laugh. I mean, really. The poor dope. None of us would do it if we could do something else, that’s the funny thing about meat fishing. Guys who fish do it because that’s what they do. Guys who hit the big day generally quit the life. They start fishing for tuna and swordfish and such, specialty fish for the Jap market. Or run charters for tourists. That’s easier. You get paid even if there are no fish. Or like the guy in Depoe Bay who takes people out to see whales. Now there’s a fecking gig—watching whales! You don’t have to catch a thing except a sight of a whale. There’s a gig for sure. He says it’s the fecking future but I don’t know. People need to eat. The thing is I like being my own boss and all but there’s no romantic crap in it. Man, we laughed that morning at that newspaper guy. We laughed fit to choke. Fishing is heroic and romantical for about an hour. By the end of your first day you were never so sore and tired before in your whole life, and your hands are all bloody, too. Then you add up your profit and you realize you lost fecking money on the day. Right then you either quit or laugh. What else can you do? There was an old guy in Newport I remember that was the name of his boat, the Quit ’r Laugh. He drowned, of course. Went down laughing I bet. A huge storm got him out by Rogue Canyon. He must have laughed when he knew it was the end. What other end is there for a fisherman? What else can you do? It’s quit or laugh. No truer words ever spoken. Or painted on a boat at the bottom of the sea.

  14.

  Maple Head, relishing the last of the salmonberries on their table as the bats flicker past like afterthoughts, quietly tells No Horses that she has decided to make a journey on foot to the source of the Mink River starting tomorrow at dawn, for two reasons.

  One: to find the prime seep or spring from which the river begins its trip to the sea, such a primary spring being, in every culture on every continent, a place of healing and restoration, and it would be a very good thing for me to find such a place, for all sorts of reasons. Imagine how we could quietly bring people to the spring to be restored, Nora. The good we could do! Billy and Cedar talk about public works all the time, but what a public work that would be!

  Two: to discover if the ocean surf can indeed be seen from the hill where the source is found, which would corroborate Sisaxai’s first story of the town’s birth, the one in which Asayahal, the south wind, falls in love with Xilgo, the wild woman of the winter surf, whom he could see from his hill, tossing her long white hair in a most alluring fashion. One of my theories is that you and I are related to Xilgo—all the women in our family, you know, for as far back as anyone remembers, had long rich curling hair like the surf. I mean, look at Daniel. That boy has hair most women can only dream about. Red black brown.

  Plus kid, I need to stretch my legs, and get all those sweet wild voices out of my hair, and get away from the school for a while, and get out of town, and anyway your father and Cedar are off to the mountain on their own journey tomorrow, and the doctor says he’d like Daniel to stay with him for a few days more, so there’s a clear stretch of days here for both of us, and the weather’s fine, and it’s high time for a trip. Will you come with me, Nora? I’d be very honored if you would. Just you and me and the river. We’ll bring a little food. We’ll pick berries. We’ll tell stories. We’ll rest. We’ll walk and walk. Please say yes. It would be wonderful to just walk quietly in the woods by the river, you and me. We haven’t done that in ages. Remember all the walking we did when you were young? In the woods and by the sea. You would hold my finger when you were little. I loved those times, Nora. Especially the woods in late spring, when everything is opening and everything has hope in it for a while. We would walk and walk, do you remember? Will you come with me?

  Yes, mama, says No Horses, lifting her head from her mother’s shoulder. Yes, I will. Yes.

  15.

  Cedar and Worried Man start clearing off tables. People are starting to drift home. The wind rattles the lanterns. Cedar organizes what remains of the wrestling team for cleanup duty. Teenagers in cars peel out of the school parking lot in squeals and screeches of rubber on asphalt. Raccoons slip onto the field and quietly snare meat and berries from sopping unattended paper plates and slip back overjoyed into the ragged fringe of the woods. All the hornets leave and the wasps think about leaving. Nicholas sits quietly at a table with his father and the priest and the two young women who teach second grade. A young screech owl wakes in an old spruce and shakes and shivers and stretches and steps out of its hole and gapes in amazement at the wild lights where usually she can cruise silently along the crewcut grass scaring mice and voles into motion and so to their sudden and piercing deaths. Owen reminds Worried Man and Cedar that he will be at the Department of Public Works building in his truck at dawn to take them to the mountain. The young owl thinks her jumbled and furious thoughts. Rachel tells Timmy that she has decided to quit the factory and go to college in the fall. A coyote approaching the field upwind suddenly smells Michael the cop standing in the shadow of the shaggy hemlock. Two yellowjacket wasps linger by the grill where shreds of meat adhere until Cedar says something quietly to them in their language and they rise quietly into the air and go home. The wind dies down to a whisper. The first stars appear and Maple Head whispers them to her daughter as she has done a thousand times over the years: Dubhe and Merak, the brother stars who point to Polaris, the north star, and red Antares to the southeast, and yellow Arcturus overhead, and blue Spica to the south; and across the table Anna Christie the singer listens in silence and then suddenly stands up on the bench and opens her mouth and fills the field with her enormous voice, singing a river song.

  16.

  Michael the cop is now only a shadow in the shadow of the shaggy tree. He wants a cigarette something fierce and he has to pee like a horse and his knees hurt but he doesn’t move a muscle. He breathes slowly and carefully. He watches the coat. Once a boy comes by and picks it up and Michael tenses but it’s not the kid’s coat and he puts it back and runs on and Michael breathes again. Wait. Another time a man puts his hand on it but it turns out he’s old and he’s only leaning on the chair for support and he walks on and Michael breathes again. Slow. Easy. Wait.

  Then the guy picks it up.

  That’s the guy

  He doesn’t put the coat on.

  That’s him

  He looks around carefully.

  Don’t breathe

  He walks toward Michael.

  Don’t breathe

  Ducks beneath the shaggy arm of the hemlock.

  Don’t even think

  Brushes past Michael by maybe two inches.

  O

  And walks off briskly through the woods on a trail kids use to get
to the beach.

  He knows the trail!

  Michael counts to ten slowly and considers whether to nail him right here right now but it’s too dangerous with people around he could be armed so he detaches himself from the shadow of the hemlock and eases down the trail after the guy one shadow in the vortex of another shadow their shadows moving through the shadows of the trees the ferns the bushes the whispering trees the watchful trees the murmuring trees. Below their twinned yoked moving shadows the hungry patient ocean.

  17.

  Grace goes to the pub after the picnic and downs a shot and then another and another and another and another and another and then picks out a guy and takes him out to his car and she tears open her shirt and he gropes her greedily but when the guy tries to kiss her she spits on him and kicks open the car door and stomps back into the bar and has another shot and then goes to pee. Some guy says something leering at her on the way to the bathroom and she tips his table over in his lap so there’s wet broken glass everywhere. The backup bartender jumps out from behind the bar and grabs her by the shoulders and marches her out the back door saying c’mon now easy now c’mon now. She tries to spit on him too but instead she throws up. He dances out of the way cursing. The vomit splashes on the patio and chairs. He stalks back inside and slams the yellow door. She’s on her hands and knees on the patio throwing up. Overhead owls, nighthawks, stars. She can’t stop throwing up. Then someone is kneeling next to her holding her shaking shoulders. Fuck off, she says, choking. Easy now, Grace, says Nicholas. Easy now.

  It takes Grace a while to quit throwing up but after a while she does and she sits down heavily with her back against the wall.

  What do you want from me, Nicholas?

  Nothing.

  Then why are you here?

  Heard you barking.

  Everybody wants something, Nicholas.

  I guess.

  So what do you want from me?

  Nothing.

  Bullshit.

  Why do you fight everybody, Grace?

  I don’t fight everybody.

  Yeh you do.

  Piss off.

  You don’t trust anybody.

  Piss off twice.

  You could trust me.

  I don’t know you from a hole in the ground.

  Pause.

  Why don’t you try trusting me? See how it feels.

  Why don’t you go piss off?

  I’m serious.

  So am I.

  Pause.

  So you don’t want any friends, that what you want?

  Pause.

  I asked you a question, Grace.

  Piss off.

  You got to throw up some more? I’ll get out of the way.

  Grace starts to say piss off again but instead she cries. Nicholas doesn’t say anything. Overhead owls, nighthawks, stars. Grace stops crying after a while and she doesn’t say anything and Nicholas doesn’t say anything. After a while Nicholas unfolds himself from kneeling and sits down against the wall next to Grace. He doesn’t say anything and she doesn’t say anything and they just sit there for a while looking out to sea their legs pointing out to sea.

  18.

  The O Donnell brothers Peadar and Niall are sixteen and fourteen years old respectively and they are sick and tired of being the youngest brothers of a snarling older sister and a testy older brother. They disliked their dad as much as Grace and Declan did though without, as Peadar says snickering, Declan’s whole oedipal battling the king thing and Gracie’s rage that dad made mom leave or mom left because of dad or whatever.

  Plus Red Hugh is Dead Hugh now anyway, says Niall.

  Dead as a doornail, says Peadar.

  They are sitting on the beach in the starlight drinking beer. They have had a lot of beer since the picnic ended.

  Let’s go surfing, says Peadar.

  In the dark?

  What the hell.

  What the hell hey.

  They fall down laughing.

  We don’t actually hey have boards, says Niall.

  There’s boards in the surf shack, says Peadar.

  Shurf sack, says Niall and they fall down laughing.

  They take two longboards from the safety shed where all that stuff is stored: ropes, life preservers, first-aid kits.

  Shore stuff stored, says Peadar.

  Hey hey, says Niall. It’s awful dark. And cold.

  Chickenshit.

  And we are no good at shurfing.

  What the hey hey.

  They take good long swigs of beer and then madly dash out through the surf shouting. The water is so cold their balls shrivel and each boy immediately wants to sprint right back out of the water but that would be chickenshit hey. Peadar mills his long arms and zooms out through the brooding black walls and catches a swell and jumps up on his board and instantly falls off backwards which sends Niall into hysterics but then a wave dumps Niall too and he gets rolled good, sand in his nose and eyes and everything. As he surfaces desperate for air Peadar’s board flies by his head like a ten-foot arrow and misses him by maybe two inches. Niall doesn’t see it. He staggers up to the beach and sits down heavily, feeling sick. Peadar retrieves Niall’s board and heads out again. As he waits for a wave he searches for Niall whom he sees huddled pale on the beach. Chickenshit. Then Peadar notices someone walking fast dark against the dark dune line at the very back of the beach. Then he turns to check the wave which is coming fast and then he turns back to see who that was at the back of the beach but as he does so he sees the water beneath him go pale as ice as a huge white shape slides by endlessly inches away from his face.

  19.

  It’s a shark and Peadar is scared shitless. He grabs his board so hard his fingers go as white as the shark. He forgets the wave coming. The wave hits and he gets rolled. He holds onto the board as hard as he can he even wraps his legs around the end of it desperately. He tries to yell shark to Niall but it’s too late he’s underwater and he gags. He tries to keep his eyes open but there’s sand and kelp in his eyes and his mouth and he gags. The wave smashes him against the bottom and his shoulder drags against the rocks and shells. He is gagging and choking. He rolls and rolls in the rocks. Sand in his mouth. Can’t breathe. O god o god. The board smashes against his head o god can’t brea where’s th suddenly his head is above water and his lungs drag air in savagely along with sand and he chokes and a wave hits him in the face and knocks him underwater again he loses his board o god o god his foot touches bottom and he scrabbles desperately to get purchase and then his left arm is almost pulled off and he screams with terror o god! o god! and yanks his arm back as hard as he can but he is yanked right out of the water onto the beach screaming and kicking and punching and Niall is screaming and waves are crashing everywhere but Michael the cop has a relentless grip on Peadar’s arm and he hauls the boy out of the hungry ocean yelling hey hey it’s okay you’re okay I got you I got you it’s okay and then Peadar is choking and vomiting on the beach and Niall is crying and Michael is saying breathe breathe breathe all right there we go all right okay it’s okay it’s all right just breathe just breathe okay all right I gotta go I gotta go.

  20.

  Michael runs up the beach after the man with the coat. Across the sand toward the dunes. Last I saw he was cutting along the dune line. He’d hit the river and have to turn east. I’ll cut through the bushes there and cut him off. He tries to run as quietly as he can but now he is cutting through salal and alder and fern and blackberry and salmonberry and the plants slap and grab at him. His knees hurt and his back hurts and the surge of adrenaline that rose when he hauled Peadar onto the beach away from the shark is ebbing. That was a huge shark. Have to remember that. Tell Cedar. Post signs. Huh huh huh he runs. Thinks of Sara and the girls. Don’t think. Do. Move. Where is he? Stay cool. Move smoothly. No sudden motion. At the riverbank Michael stops and melds himself into the shadows and listens for anything that isn’t river. Far away he hears the metallic clanking of the picnic tables be
ing folded up on the football field. Hears nighthawks overhead. Wind

  sighing through spruce. He makes himself breathe evenly and listen to each sound individually trying to pick up any dissonance. That’s the river. That’s the surf. That’s the wind. A rustling in the woods behind him. He tenses; and a raccoon waddles past toward the river. All right. Think. He’s on foot. He doesn’t know I saw him. Or does he? If he saw me with the boys on the beach. Shit. Shit. Okay. Think. He’s either in the woods here or he’s on the river path toward town. He has no reason to hide here if he didn’t see me on the beach. Therefore he’s on the path. Okay. Go slow. Quiet. Michael eases out of the shadows and walks along the path as quietly as he can possibly go which is pretty quiet. The river is loud. Where the path bends he slips into the woods for a moment to scout ahead. Still no moon. He tries to remember if there is a moonrise tonight or not. Suddenly a line from one of the books he reads to the girls at night pops into his mind: goodnight stars goodnight air goodnight noises everywhere and he smiles thinking how many hundreds of times he has said those words and then suddenly the icy barrel of a pistol is in his right ear and a calm voice is in his left ear: don’t move don’t make a sound don’t be a hero.

  21.

  Anna Christie humming walks home with her two daughters and Sara humming walks home with her three daughters one the size of a bird inside her and No Horses looks around for Owen but as she rises from the bench to find him George Christie the old logger opens his mouth and out comes his cheerful growl.

  Well, kid, here’s the thing. Here’s my idea. I’ll plop her down on the table and you can study her from every old angle whichaway. Here’s what I figger: we go into business together. I’ll get ya wood and you cut her. I know where the good wood is and you know what to do with it to make it all arty and stuff. You’re good at that. Everybody says so. I don’t know jack about art but I like your stuff. It’s not half bad. We can sell it to city people and stuff. Architects and retireds and that sort. They like fancy statues and art and stuff. We’ll go fifty fifty you and me. Your problem economic wise is that you can carve the stuff but you are no good at getting it and selling it. My problem is that alls I know is wood. I need the money is all. I don’t know art. I know wood. That I know. I know wood good. So whatya say, we partners? We’ll need a business name. You figger that. You’re smart. Hell, this’ll be fun. I know where there’s walnut twice as thick as you, and ironwood, and yellow cedar, and the biggest old hemlocks you ever saw. I know those trees. I known ’em fifty years or more. They’re good trees, most of ’em. Some are bad apples same as people. Some are rotten but not many. This one old cedar now, he’s the king of the woods, and could he talk he’d say hell, time for me to be some statues that’ll send them girls of yours to college, George. That’s what he’d say. I listen to the old buggers, you know. I ain’t religious but there’s a lotta stuff in the woods nobody knows hardly at all. So whatya say, we partners or what?