The Sky Fisherman

by Craig Lesley

  "I'm not taking that goose," Billyum said. "More buckshot than bird." Taking out his pocketknife, he cut a notch in his own bird's wing. His cold hands fumbled with the blade. "Just so Jake doesn't try pulling an old switcheroo." He looked at me—eye level. "I thought you knew all about your dad's drowning."

  "Pretty much," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I just always thought Jake was in the boat. That's all."

  "Jake dresses up a story from time to time, but he gets the main parts right." Billyum chuckled. "By the time we hit town, he will have shot that goose seventy yards overhead, clean as a whistle. Like I say, he tells the main parts right. Probably he wishes he was in the boat. I know how bad he feels, even now. Sometimes I think maybe he'll talk about it during our sweats, but he never says a word. That's how I know."

  Jake and Gab floundered back toward the blind. At this distance my uncle seemed small and clumsy as he picked his way across the saddle.

  When they were about halfway back, Billyum yelled, "Get down! Geese!"

  They both hunkered and I did, too, even though I hadn't heard the geese calling. After thirty seconds Billyum yelled, "Sorry, fellas, false alarm. I guess it was one of those Russian satellites. Looked kind of like a goose though."

  "Smart-ass," Gab said when they were back. "Hit my knee on a rock. Scratched my gunstock falling down, too."

  "The practice did you good. You seemed a little stiff getting up though."

  "Twisted my ankle going after that damn goose."

  "Let me see your goose," Jake said to Billyum. "I think this one's a little bigger."

  "Bullshit," Billyum said. "Yours is heavier because you shot it six or eight times. Mine's practically a virgin. I notched the wing, too, so don't try to pull an old switcheroo."

  Grumbling, Gab and Jake climbed back into their pit. It was almost too dark to shoot; we were past the legal hours.

  "Getting late," Gab said. "Fifteen more minutes. My balls are blue."

  "This is the time they come again," Billyum told me. "Don't go firing at the whole flock. Choose one target and keep shooting. Sometimes they're hard to bring down. Get one that's off a little ways. They fly so close, the shot pattern's too tight."

  Another raft of geese lifted off the river, and we could hear them calling as they winged toward us.

  "Last chance, ladies," Billyum said.

  This time I stood and fired, selecting a big goose off to the left, giving it a solid lead. With my first shot it flinched midair, and with the second crumpled, falling to the ground with that terrible thud.

  Billyum got another goose, too. Jake and Gab argued over which gun had knocked down the third. "You weren't even shooting out this side of the pit," Gab complained.

  "I tried," Jake said, "but when I swung that direction, my gun jabbed your fat ass. That's the only goose you got all day."

  "I thought that jab was your other thing," Gab said, "since I could barely feel it."

  "I suppose I have to let you keep it," Jake said. "This being your place and all. It's not like you can't go hunting every damn day, if you want."

  Snow continued falling as we headed back toward the rigs in the dark. Everyone carried a goose; Billyum packed two. I stayed quiet, unwilling to join their joshing about poor shooting and bloodshot geese. Jake claimed he was going to have to confiscate Billyum's birds because he didn't have a waterfowl stamp.

  "Anyway, you shot those on the white side," Jake said.

  "Hell, this is all Indian country," Billyum said. "Now we want it back."

  Tripping on hidden rocks, I fell down twice. The second time I lay still a moment while the men walked ahead. Seeing I wasn't with them, Jake paused and called back, "Hurry up, nephew. What are you doing? Making snow angels?"

  For a moment, I flapped my arms and legs in exaggerated fashion. They laughed and moved on. I lay still, snow falling onto my face from a dark sky.

  By the time we reached the house, I was shivering with cold and anger at Jake. "You've taken a bad chill," Gab said. "Your teeth are chattering." He took me inside while Jake and Billyum headed for the garage to clean the geese.

  "I'm sticking with Jake," Billyum said. "Can't trust him with my goose or Culver's. I've seen him notch every goose's wing, Try eating his goose, you'll be a victim of lead poisoning or die of the dentist bill."

  On the back porch, I shucked my wet clothes and Gab offered me an oversized sweatshirt. "Put your wet pants on the heater to dry," he said. "It's okay to be around Priscilla in long johns. We raised a boy."

  She had a big pot of chili on the stove and I could smell corn bread, too. On the way to the bathroom for a hot shower, I smelled something else, the fragrant scent of flowers. After showering and warming up, I found a good-size workroom filled with dried flowers, wreaths, and sachets.

  Priscilla came into the room and I felt a little embarrassed in my long johns, even though she didn't appear to notice. "Feeling better? Gabby said you had a chill."

  "Froze to death out there," I said. "Better now, thanks." Nodding toward the flowers, I added, "These smell terrific."

  "I grow almost half an acre of flowers," she said, "then combine them with wildflowers. Domestics can be too sweet, even dried, and the wild are a little faint, so I like the mix." She paused. "I've got to do something way out here. Gabby's away so much. I go from one hobby to the next, what with the kids grown. Stewart was the last. Left three years ago."

  She went down the hall a little farther. "Come here. I want to show you something. Opening a door, she revealed a young man's bedroom with pictures of sports figures, trucks, and cars. But what got my attention were all the trophies—elk, deer, antelope, even a moose.

  "This is Stewart's room," she said. "He's away at the University of Montana. I wanted him to go to Minnesota, my alma mater, but he insisted the hunting was better in Montana." She laughed a little. "Just look at these. I swear, I don't know when he finds time to study."

  "What's he studying?" I asked.

  "Journalism," she said. "Gabby figures he can find him a spot. Maybe Boise or Denver. Of course, Stewart imagines he's going to do stories on big trophy hunts to Kenya, that sort of thing."

  She had adorned the trophies' antlers with colorful flower wreaths. Some wreaths decorated their necks as well, and they reminded me of those surprised tourists arriving in Hawaii to have leis put around their necks by grass-skirted girls.

  "I like hanging the wreaths in here and admiring them a little before selling them," Priscilla said. "The gift shops in Central and the flower shops seem to do pretty well with them."

  "She's being too darned modest," Gab said. "She can't make them fast enough."

  Gab had taken off his boots, so I hadn't heard him in the hallway. He was wearing his long johns, too, and that made me feel a little more comfortable. A bloodstain covered one of his knees, and I realized he had hurt himself falling.

  "Gabby, you're hurt," she said. "We'll have to soak that knee with Epsom salts."

  "Later. Right now, I'm hungry enough to eat a horse."

  "Just a minute." She removed one of the dried wreaths from the elk's antlers and handed it to me. "Do you think your mother would like this?"

  "Yes, thanks."

  "I'll send along some sachets, too. They'll keep her house smelling fresh during winter. Gateway gets pretty bleak by February."

  "Thanks." The smell of the room reminded me a little of my mother's room, with its perfumes and soaps. The trophies seemed odd among all the flowers. But it was good being in the house after freezing outside in the hard pits.

  His parents were obviously proud of Stewart, and I wondered what it must be like to have a complete family. Until that afternoon, I felt that if anything happened to my mother, I at least had Jake. But Billyum's words had left me confused. I didn't understand why things couldn't be easier.

  Gab and I sat at the table in the warm kitchen while Priscilla started ladling big bowls of chili. "Do you want to wait for Jake and Billyum?" she asked.
/>
  "We'll wait like pigs at a trough." Gab thumped the table. "Let's eat."

  When my mother had time to cook, she made her potato soup, Riley's favorite. She fried bacon to put in the soup so the entire house took on that delicious aroma. Both Riley and I tried sneaking pieces of bacon when her back was turned, and she had to fry twice the amount she expected to put in the soup.

  Now, sitting in Priscilla's warm kitchen, I enjoyed the chili, the sweet butter she spread on the corn bread. Temporarily, 1 forgot my anger and anxiety.

  Cold air gripped my back and neck when Jake and Billyum burst through the door. I felt the harsh draft collapse my reverie and smelled the pungent odor of dead geese on their hands and clothes.

  "For its size, you guys got the heaviest damn goose I ever saw," Billyum said to Gab. "Eat that thing and you'll sink like a stone if you try and go swimming." Turning to Priscilla, he added, "Things sure smell great."

  "I'm starving," Jake said. "My stomach thinks my throat's been cut."

  28

  HALF AN HOUR AFTER LEAVING Gab's place, we were in the middle of a desolate flat and hadn't passed a farmhouse for miles. We rode along in silence, Jake's mouth tight as he concentrated on the road. I knew he was tired from the cold and hunt. Exhausted myself, I kept playing things over in my mind, the way you do when your body's fatigued but your mind refuses to shut down. One of the things I kept seeing was my father's clear signature on his license and the way my own had smeared after the near drowning in Combine Rapids. When I had placed the licenses side by side, the paper in mine had turned odd and brittle, the way it does after a soaking. More than anything else, I kept going over Billyum's account of the boat wreck.

  Jake took one hand off the steering wheel and rubbed his eyes. "Damn near snowblind. I keep imagining horses."

  "Nothing out there but snow," I said.

  "I thought maybe you were asleep with your eyes stuck open. I've seen it happen."

  "I keep thinking about things," I said.

  "What kind of things? You got girl troubles? Your mom would have a shitfit."

  "That's not it," I said.

  He went on. "You know how to use a rubber, don't you? If you don't have any, we'll get some from the druggist. Can't have any accidents."

  "I know how rubbers work," I said. "But I am thinking about an accident."

  He caught my drift. He blinked the way people do when smoke shifts their way. "Having nightmares about Seaweed again? That's blood under the bridge."

  I shook my head. "The accident I'm thinking about happened way back."

  His eyes cut to me. "So."

  I only knew what Billyum had said. "I know everything."

  Jake laughed a little, trying to stay light. "That's an old joke. All the important men in town get an anonymous letter that says, 'They know everything. Flee at once.' And the scared sons of bitches bolt like rabbits trying to outrun crooked business deals, cheated wives, illegitimate kids—"

  "I know everything about my father's accident." I watched Jake's face, but nothing registered at first.

  "We've been over that." His tone seemed too normal.

  "Sure, but Billyum was telling me about it, too. He said you weren't even in the boat."

  Jake kept his eyes straight ahead and it took him a moment to answer. "Billyum was drinking like hell in those days. Hate to say it, but he was pie-eyed. I doubt he remembers much of anything."

  Billyum's drinking was a possibility I hadn't considered. Even so, I didn't believe Jake. "Come on. Billyum's your friend. Don't go bad-mouthing him."

  Jake swallowed. "What's the point of picking that old scab?"

  "I don't want to be lied to," I said. "Especially about my father. For God's sake, can't you tell the truth about your own brother?"

  His face went rigid in the glow of the dashlights. He concentrated on the road, the swipe, swipe, swipe of the wipers clearing the snow. Ice built up in the corners of the windshield.

  "That vest you gave me never went down with the boat. My dad's signature on the license is as clear as the day he signed it. When I compared it to mine after I'd been in the Combine, I saw the difference plain as day. And that photo of him and Harold would be pulp, if it was on the river bottom like you said."

  "I just wanted you to have the vest, that's all."

  "Tell me, damn it. I've got to know the real story."

  "All right, but it shouldn't go any further. Understand?" He took a long time before saying anything else. "Billyum wasn't drinking—let's get that clear first—and I wasn't in the boat. Your dad tackled Bronco alone."

  "Why?"

  "Don't rush me, damn it." Jake concentrated on the road, but his stare seemed to go beyond. "We argued, a bad one, and your dad clipped me good. He had taken off his vest and dropped it on the ground so he could hit harder. I glanced away, didn't expect it. But he was spitting mad.

  "Worst punch I ever took. Made me groggy. I just lay there smelling weeds, and when my head cleared a little, the boat was in the river. 'Walk back, you son of a bitch!' Dave yelled.

  "The high rapids took the boat, and it was a millrace. I stumbled along the bank, still groggy, but yelling for him to bring the boat to shore. He kept going, made it through the worst part of the rapids. That second stretch is bad, too, though. The boneyard.

  "I kept running, scrambling up to the railroad tracks to make better time. He did everything right, kept to the best channel, approached the tongue right, but the boat hung on a submerged log. I was still a hundred yards away when it sank. He hung on as long as he could, but the current swept him out."

  "You had his life preserver?" I remembered what Billyum had said about the extra preserver.

  Jake nodded. "He'd dropped that, too, I guess, so he could really paste me. I picked it up by instinct. Anyway, there's that long, deep pool below the rapids. I kicked off my boots and kept diving in. I never stopped until Billyum shot toward me. I didn't even know he was watching. I was just concentrating on finding Dave in all that water." He paused. "Things might have been better if Billyum plugged me."

  He didn't expect me to deny it and I wouldn't. "You lied to my mother?"

  Jake nodded. "Flora didn't need to know everything. She already lost a husband and had a young boy. Things were going to be tough enough."

  "What was the argument about?"

  Jake shook his head. "That's just between your dad and me."

  Neither of us spoke all the way back to town. Jake tried the radio and we got Patsy Cline and George Jones. The night announcer came on, warning everybody about the cold.

  "It'll hit ten below," he said. "A November record. Cozy up to your sweetie and keep your dog curled by your feet."

  Weary with fatigue, I closed my eyes and saw my father riding through the rapids. Standing high above him on a steep cutbank, I shouted a warning, but he kept rowing through the chute. When I tried running downstream, the earth gave way beneath me, and I plunged toward whitewater.

  My eyes flew open; and I realized we were fishtailing on the ice. I was thrown hard against the passenger door.

  As Jake straightened the rig, I slid toward him, but he elbowed me away. "That's always been a bad spot," Jake said.

  My teeth began to chatter.

  Jake fiddled with the heating control again, but it still seemed freezing in the cab. Glancing my way, he said, "You're shaking like a rat in a dog's mouth."

  ***

  I trudged through the snow carrying my shotgun, the goose, and the sack of flowers. All seemed incredibly heavy. I'd asked Jake to drop me off four blocks from home. I imagine neither of us wanted to face my mother that night, but I had no choice. Passing the illuminated windows of houses, I had the wild urge to load the shotgun and fire through the steamy panes at the curtains, shattering each family's outward tranquillity.

  Reluctant to go inside once I reached our place, I remained on the doorstep. Then I brushed some snow from the goose and gun case and pushed inside.

  "Goodness. You s
tartled me." Putting down an issue of Sunset, Mom rose from the love seat and gave me a quick hug. "Did you have a good time, sweetheart? I was so worried you might get frostbite." She spotted the goose.

  "Look at that! Did you shoot it yourself? I bought a turkey just in case you didn't have any luck, but we can freeze it for Christmas. A big holiday goose! I can't believe it. I selected a wonderful recipe out of a magazine."

  She was genuinely excited, even though she didn't like game coming in the front door. "Where's Franklin?" I asked.

  "Back at his place wrapping the pipes. He did that here already with some electrical tape. Wasn't that thoughtful of him? I'd hate to be without water for the holiday or have a big flood later on." Some snow was melting off the goose, and she stared at the water dripping from its feet. "Carry that right into the kitchen, please. And take off those wet clothes before you catch your death. Then sit down and tell me all about it."

  I threw the goose and flowers on the table and went into the bedroom. Taking the shotgun out of the case, I worked the pump several times, making certain no shells remained.

  She rapped on the door. "What's that racket? Have you taken off your boots yet, Culver? Honey, you've got to be more careful. You've dripped water all across the kitchen floor."

  After pausing for breath, she continued. "Where did you get those beautiful flowers? I couldn't resist taking a peek. Hope I didn't spoil your surprise."

  She moved away from the door and I heard her preparing tea. After a few minutes, I came out wearing dry long johns, wool socks, and my father's old robe. Keeping silent, I sat at the table. The flowers remained, but she had moved the goose to the sink.

  As she stirred around, she kept talking. "I honestly believe you men are crazy, going out in this freezing weather. Culver, put your feet right over the heat vent. I turned up the thermostat. Getting chilled the way you have, I anticipate you'll experience chilblains. Now where exactly did you get those flowers?"

  It was difficult to speak, but I managed to say "Priscilla."

  "Oh, Gab's wife. Well, I'll have to write her a thank-you note." She glanced out the window. "Absolutely crazy to wander off in this weather. It froze your brain. I know you weren't born in a barn, but you never plop a dead goose on the kitchen table, until it's cooked, of course. Next time, please put it directly in the sink."