her mouth to speak, but dramatically folded her arms instead when Caitlin continued with another quick question to the stranger.
“Say, mister, what was the reason you said for canoeing, fishing, and smoking your whole life?” Caitlin cocked her head to one side with real beaglelike puzzlement.
The stranger surveyed the girls, the campsite, and the emerging glimmer of light for several moments in silence. The pipe slowly worked its way along his white teeth once again before being removed with great care. His expressive eyes belied his placid expression as he searched for words. “Never did say what the reason was. Hardly know how to start. Best to come to the point.” And then he curled his lip slightly and revealed a hint of a smile. “Never been good at painting pictures with words.”
“Huh?” both girls said.
The crease of a smile disappeared, and the stranger drew a deep breath from the vaporous mist. “My name is Tom Thomson. I have canoed, fished, and smoked my pipe on this lake since I was murdered on July 8, 1917. And if you help me prove my murder to the world once and for all, I’ll make you a warm fire and cook breakfast with these fine fellows.”
The stranger, or Tom Thomson, held up a chain with two big fish hanging from it. With their dead eyes and large mouths grotesquely open, the fish resembled, only a little, the girls who stood agape and wide-eyed in front of them.
6 Breakfast of champions
A warm, inviting fire crackled as brilliant early sunlight burned mist from the still lake. The girls, dressed in dry clothes, ate fresh lake trout with voracious appetites. The stranger—or Tom Thomson, which was even stranger—watched the girls devour the fish he had caught and cooked, his pipe playing along his teeth and a warm smile dancing at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Even though the circumstances of their togetherness felt odd, a comfortable mood had settled among the threesome as they nestled beside the fire in full view of the lake and the splendour of the awakening day.
As she finished smacking an enormous mouthful of fish, Dani noted that the expression on the stranger’s face had changed from solemn to smiling. She thought the situation was perhaps too calm for comfort. “Mister, that was the best fish I ever ate!”
Caitlin smiled with satisfaction and smacked her own lips. The stranger made a slight courteous bow.
Tom’s old grey hat sat at the back of his head, hardly noticed since he had pinned on one of his homemade fishing lures more than eighty years ago. Tom’s decrepit pants were the colour of charred wood, far removed from their original beige. His elbow showed through his flannel shirt, a dulled plaid of washed-out red and indistinguishable white.
They look like they’re a hundred years old, Caitlin thought, which was pretty close to the truth.
Hope I can make my overalls last that long, Dani mused hopefully.
With her plate now clean, Dani was ready to become serious again. She grabbed the straps of her clean, dry overalls to show earnest intent and to wipe her sticky fingers. Her chest heaved as she formulated the question for her interrogation but, caught between comfort and confusion, she hesitated. Finally she simply asked, “What the heck are you smiling at, mister?”
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