girls detected the sweet smell of tobacco.
Dani was about to reach out and touch the bow of the canoe when she glimpsed the figure of a man seated at the stern. Just as the boat was about to drift into Dani, the dark figure gave a barely perceptible turn of the paddle and it veered away. As the girls attempted to collect their scattered wits and fend for themselves by screaming and running, the dark stranger uttered a single word: “Mornin’.”
The stranger placed the paddle he gripped in his right hand and the fishing rod he held in his left hand on the thwart of the canoe. Then he placed his elbows in his lap and calmly removed the pipe between his teeth. While the girls stared, he searched in his shirt for a box of matches and carefully relit his pipe. The girls waited anxiously for the stranger to speak. Instead he puffed on his pipe until he seemed satisfied it was well lit. With a blank expression on his face, he muttered, this time through clenched teeth, “Mornin’.”
Dani desperately wanted to tell this intrusive stranger how frightening he and his phantom canoe were to two twelve-years-olds out for a walk or swim during the Hour of the Dead on their first-ever camping trip all by themselves. Caitlin wanted to scream because it seemed the right thing to do somehow. But both girls were disarmed by the simple greeting from a stranger who hardly seemed to notice them at all. They wanted to take decisive action, but found themselves just saying “Morning.” The girls were even more confused as the stranger touched two fingers to the peak of his worn hat and slightly bowed his head.
Dani decided she’d had enough. “What the… who do you… why in the world?”
Caitlin decided to complement her friend’s effort. “We wondered.. .I mean, we thought.. .and it sure is early, don’t you think?”
The stranger’s pipe moved along clenched teeth from one side to the other. “You’re scarin’ the fish away.” No reproach or threat, just a statement of fact.
“We scared… we scared… we scared…” As Dani finished saying scared for the third time, the branch Caitlin was holding snapped and she fell, rather dramatically, into the water. After Caitlin’s splashing and screaming subsided, the stranger muttered, “Yup, that’ll scare ’em, all right.”
Caitlin finally steadied herself, placed her dripping hands on her dripping hips, and said, “If we scared the fish, mister, it’s ’cause you scared the living daylights—or nightlights—out of us, whoever you are.” Caitlin finished her sentence with a dripping snort.
For the first time the stranger seemed to look at the soaking, dishevelled mess the girls had become. The trace of a smile creased his lips through bared teeth as he slowly removed his pipe and said, “Name’s Tom. Tom Thomson.”
5 Something’s Fishy
Nikki expressed his feelings about not being part of all the commotion by bellowing into an otherwise calm Hour of the Dead. The stranger’s eyes lifted slowly to the shore. “Dog’s good for huntin’.”
Dani attempted to summon the courage to speak to the stranger claiming to be Tom Thomson. A number of reasonable arguments aimed at persuading the scary man in the canoe to leave worked their way through her methodical mind. She hooked a hand through each of her soaking overall straps in final preparation for speech. But as she opened her mouth, Caitlin answered the stranger.
“His name’s Nikki, and he’s never hunted before. He doesn’t know how, and we wouldn’t want him to learn, right, Dani? Say, what’s your real name, mister?” Then, looking back at her exasperated friend, Caitlin said, “Gosh, Dani, did you know your teeth are chattering?”
Dani’s teeth continued to chatter as her eyes rolled. She opened her mouth to speak a second time, but the stranger spoke instead.
“Catch a cold if you stay in the water, girls.”
Dani swiped at a wet strand of hair on her forehead and folded her arms. “And we could die of fright from strange men appearing at our campsite in the middle of the night.”
Dani’s protestation finished on a shrill, angry note. The stranger’s eyebrows moved together into a slight frown as his pipe played upon his ivory keyboard.
“I thought you said it was the Hour of the Dead, Dani,” Caitlin observed. “And look, there’s a bit of pink and yellow over where the sun’s gonna come up.”
Dani plunged her hands into overalls pockets that now had the consistency of used diapers. An inaudible “yuck” crossed her lips as she promptly removed both hands and held them unnaturally by her sides. A little giggle escaped Caitlin’s lips but not Dani’s attention. “Caitlin! This isn’t a laughing matter.”
“I know,” Caitlin said, giggling, “but it is kind of silly.”
Dani bared her teeth as if she held a pipe in her own mouth, then motioned her eyes toward the stranger. “Caitlin,” she whispered, “we have to keep our wits about us.”
“And apparently to ourselves,” Caitlin replied.
“Sorry, girls. Didn’t mean to scare ya. Didn’t hardly know how to approach. Thought this might be a good time.”
“’Cause it’s the Hour of the Dead,” Caitlin said, wide-eyed.
“Nope. ’Cause it’s the best time for fishin’.”
“Oh,” Caitlin said with obvious disappointment.
“Been fishin’ round here a long, long time.” The stranger’s eyes moved slightly in both directions as if to survey the lake. “Used to camp at this… at your campsite pretty often. Was my favourite.”
“But you don’t camp here anymore? Is there something wrong with this campsite, mister? Do you know of a better one?” Caitlin asked as she might question the librarian about the latest exciting kid’s novel.
“This here campsite’s the best,” the stranger said, motioning with his pipe in his mouth. “Don’t camp anymore. Can’t. Just travel in this old canoe.”
“You mean all day, everyday, you just paddle, fish, and smoke your pipe?”
The stranger nodded. “And all night.” Then, with a slight, ironic smile curled on his lips, he added, “Even during the Hour of the Dead.”
Caitlin shivered and shuddered. “But for heaven’s sake, why?”
During this exchange, and no doubt partly because of the soggy conditions, Dani fidgeted, fussed, and fumed. Now she asserted herself with big words and big splashes as she clambered up the clammy shore. “I’m sorry, mister, but the thing, is we’re terribly busy at our campsite, since we’re part of an outdoor-education program and we’re improving our self-improvement—”
“We are?” Caitlin’s question was greeted by an exasperated look from her friend. “Dani, are you okay? ’Cause you kinda sound like your dad.”
Dani enunciated her words in her best elder-sister, know-it-all voice. “Yes, we are Caitlin.” And then she said to the stranger, “We’re involved in an outdoor-education program with our school, and we expect our teachers, all twenty of them, here any minute, ’cause they’re going to evaluate our camping performance. So maybe you better just keep on fishing.”
