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THE FISH WAS done cooking by the time I got back to my dad. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so hungry. Which was good, because just plain fish without even salt to season it isn’t the tastiest thing I’ve ever had. But it filled my belly, and by the time we were done eating, Dad and I weren’t quite as prickly toward each other.
What he’d wanted to show me over here, it turned out, was a berry patch. There weren’t any berries—they’d peaked early this season. But he said next year we could come down and pick pounds and pounds of it, and make jam and preserves to last us all winter.
“Of course, we have to make sure to get to them before Rolly does,” he said.
“Who?”
“Rolly. She’s a bear,” he said cheerfully. “Just a little one, and as long as you don’t bother her babies she won’t bother you, but she’ll eat your berries and your fish and your breakfast out of your hand if you let her, which is definitely not a habit you should encourage. What you really have to worry about is moose.”
“Moose? Really?” I said, skeptical. “Aren’t they vegetarians?”
“Huge, angry vegetarians. You hear a moose coming for you, get up a tree,” Dad said, nodding. “Don’t go for the water, ’cause Mr. Moose can swim a whole lot faster than you can. But he can’t climb. And you sit up in that tree as long as you need to for him to leave, and then sit up there a little while longer.”
“What about a porcupine?” I asked. “What do you do about a porcupine?”
He laughed. “Don’t step on ’em,” he said. “Porcupine’s about the easiest meat you can get out here. They’re slow and dumb. You can pin ’em with a stick and hit ’em with a rock, and then you flip ’em over to get at that soft belly and finish them off. Of course, we’ve got no need, but if you’re starving and you can find one...”
I must have been making a face at him, because he trailed off. I didn’t want to hit anything with a rock. Okay, I thought I could manage catching and gutting fish. But a porcupine? I didn’t want to try getting the guts out of that. And what if I stuck myself with the quills? I’d been a vegetarian before Mom died. I gave it up at the Wilkersons because otherwise I’d have gone hungry, but I didn’t want to kill an animal myself.
Dad showed me a little stream next, which he said I shouldn’t drink, but that would do for rinsing off our hands. He said there was good sweet water down by the south of the lake, a little waterfall, and that he usually went fishing and trapping down that way because for whatever reason, the fish and the “varmints” liked it better on the south side. Which was maybe why when he checked the traps he’d set around here, all of them were empty. He cussed a bit and re-baited them.
“I’ll show you how to set these another time,” he said, but that sounded even worse to me than killing a porcupine. An animal might be alive and suffering for hours and hours before you ever came to check on it.
We paddled back across the water, leaving Bo to run the lakeshore again. On our way up to the cabin we fetched water from the lake. I didn’t carry much, just one half-gallon jug while Dad loaded up with five gallons in each hand. You had to do a lot of hauling to get much water, but Dad said it was sweeter than anything out of a tap.
“Winter’s easier in a way, because you can just melt snow,” he said, and I pictured myself wading through snow with my bad leg. I had to get out of here before winter. When was Griff coming back? Tomorrow seemed like too late.
“So, Griff’s coming back...” I prompted.
“Sure is, but you can never really tell when. Depends on the weather and what he’s up to. Sometimes he visits a lady friend, and sometimes he gets melancholy for a few weeks, but eventually he always pours himself out of his bottle and comes back.” Dad nodded as he talked. “Things don’t run on a schedule the way they do in the city,” he said. “Things happen when they’re going to happen, and there’s always more to do than you have time for. It’s about priorities, not hours of the day.”
My heart sank. It could be weeks, then. It could be winter.
No, it would be before that. Dad wouldn’t want to build in the winter, right? He’d want the extension done before it snowed, so Griff would have to come back soon with supplies.
“Jess?” Dad said. He sounded hesitant, a question to my name; that was new. “You remember what Griff’s plane looks like, right? The yellow one.”
“Of course,” I said, confused. Did he think I had memory problems? Was he going to start treating me like a baby, the way some people did? I’m pretty sure even if I did have brain damage, I wouldn’t want people talking to me like I was a toddler.
“You see any other plane, come find me,” Dad said.
“Why?” I asked, more confused than alarmed.
“It’s just that... some of my friends, they’re not as personable as I am,” Dad said. “People this far out tend to be a little rough around the edges.”
“Griff’s rough around the edges.”
“Griff would start a rehabilitation and rescue center for injured flies if he could get the funding,” Dad said with a laugh. “The only thing you’ve got to worry about with Griff is making sure he doesn’t swipe your beer. He’s a good person. One of the best.”
“But you’ve got friends who aren’t good people?”
Dad rubbed his thumb along the side of his mouth. “Griff aside, I don’t know that I believe people are good or bad all at once,” he said. “We’re all a collection of our choices. Good choices, bad choices, choices that don’t look one way or another when you’re making them. Anyway. Point stands. You see anyone but Griff coming, and you make sure to find me. How’s that leg?” Dad asked suddenly.
I blinked at the sudden change of topic, putting my hand to my leg automatically, kneading the meat of my thigh. “It’s okay,” I said. “A bit sore.”
“You should rest, then,” Dad said. He scratched at his neck, where stubble was bristling already. I wondered if he’d shaved for my arrival.
