Indians needed for winter use, MacIsaac saying that the bay fairly boiled with fish in the fall, returning to the various feeder creeks to spawn. Declan finished his coffee and went on his way, having assured the couple he’d bring back their mail. He felt calmed by his visit with them. Their affection for one another and their home was a balm, scented with apple blossom on a warm spring day.
Out onto the bay again, the skiff slicing through the water easily. Declan had never seen forests like these that grew right down to the sea’s edge, although the old stories told of Irish forests full of elk and wolves. In the poems about the the wild man of the woods, Suibhne, the speaker sang of oaks and hazels, blackthorns, yews draped with ivy, and brown stags belling from the mountains. In his youth, Declan had walked in planted forests, and to be sure there were wooded glens, like those in the Erriff Valley, but he’d never seen trees like these. Sometimes, rowing past these wild headlands to the fishing grounds, he had seen deer walking across the sand. And the trees were extraordinary: cedars with their palmate fronds, the giant they called a Douglas fir, pines, prickly spruce. Often there’d be no trees at all near the shore but stumps so wide your mind had a hard time imagining the tree that had been taken down. Ledges were cut into the sides of the stumps, like stairs to the heavens, where springboards had rested so loggers could stand with their gut-fiddles, felling the trees to the ground like gods.
The store was perched on pilings that walked out into the bay like a long-legged shore bird, one of them bent at the elbow and braced with a splint of cedar. Men were always gathered on the verandah, smoking, their gear piled up around them, or boxes of eggs, or brown jugs that Declan knew held the local spirits. On a mail day, more than the usual number clustered here, waiting for the steamship to announce itself around the headland. When it appeared, most of the men descended to the wharf steps to help with the lines. Declan did not join them but entered the store. There was a smell, always, of wax used on the wide floor boards, strong cheese, smoked fish, blood (if it was a day the storekeeper hung a new side of beef on the hooks suspended from the ceiling joists), cabbages, and an acrid burnt odour that Declan eventually understood to be coffee in a scorched pot which steamed and frothed on the back of the woodstove. He could not imagine drinking it, but the storekeeper was never without a cup.
He had his list—a bucket of lard, a sack of onions, tea, hardtack for his fishing days (as he found his own soda bread did not travel well but grew mould in its wrapping before he could eat it), a few oranges, a bag of turnips.
“If you can wait awhile, O’Malley, I’ll sort through the mail bag once it’s come up from the boat and see what’s there for you. Certainly you can take the MacIsaacs’ mail too. And some beef for stew, you say? It won’t be a minute.” The storekeeper used a huge knife to hack off a chunk of meat, which he then diced, weighed, and wrapped in brown paper that he tied with cord hanging from a spool.
While his order was being filled, Declan wandered the aisles of the store, pausing to look at the tins of hair pomade, big bars of Sunlight soap, boxes of fishing tackle, bins of dusty vegetables, and the grey woolen overshirts the fishermen in the area all favoured. He settled with the storekeeper, packed his groceries and the packet of letters, and returned to his skiff, keeping wide of the steamship, which had docked with a host of volunteers securing its lines; they were now watching a horse, its eyes covered with a blindfold, being lowered to the wharf in a canvas sling.
Coming back with a good wind behind him, Declan eased on the rowing to watch a pair of geese guarding a nest on one of the rocky islets at the mouth of his bay. He had heard they mated for life, and there was a story told of a goose who followed his wounded mate, patient in the sky, while she walked with her broken wing. How did the story end? He couldn’t remember. But these geese watched him, alert to his movements, ready to challenge him should he enter their nursery. He called to them that they had nothing to fear from him and chuckled as they hissed and gabbled back.
At the MacIsaac farm, he was offered a dram for his trouble. “It was no trouble at all, I assure ye,” he told them, handing their letters over and accepting a glass with a generous measure of whiskey. The men raised their glasses to toast, in Gaelic, each to the other’s surprise. Despite differences in accent and emphasis, they could understand each other, though MacIsaac confessed he had forgotten more of his parents’ language than he’d retained.
“I have enough yet for toasts and cursing and the occasional song,” he said cheerfully, downing his dram. It was redolent of peat and oak, a distillation of weather, sweet water, and barley malt. “I mind to share a whiskey now and then with someone who knows the old language. Come again!”
As they approached World’s End, Argos began to whimper and moan. Her hackles rose, and Declan heard growls coming from her throat, not yet articulated in her mouth. He followed her looking as best he could and was startled to see a dark shape reaching for his herring rake. By now Argos was barking, her voice full and fearsome. The shape turned to see what made such a noise, and Declan recognized the bear. He used his oars to steady the boat, to push against the movement of the tide so that they remained the short distance from the shore. The bear abandoned its attentions to the rake, raising its head to the air, shaking it from side to side, sniffing for them on the wind. Argos barked and scrambled for a foothold on the gunwales in order to jump from the boat, but Declan ordered her to sit. He had never seen a bear so close. He wanted to look at it as long as possible, memorize the heavy head and small eyes, the glossy coat hanging from the body like a cloak several sizes too large. The bear made a noise, as though clacking its teeth together, then turned and ambled away, rake abandoned. Declan waited for it to disappear into the woods before bringing the boat into shore.
The rake still leaned against the cabin. What had been the attraction, he wondered. He brought the tines close to his face and sniffed them. Fish. Of course. Fish had brought the bear. Although he always cleaned his fishing gear when he returned from the water, the smell of the herring impaled on the rake for bait would remain. But surely a bear would not return for the smell if there was no actual fish for it eat? Judging from the scats he found near the creek, the bear was feeding on grasses anyway. Great dark piles of scat, threaded through with long strands of undigested grass, weighted with seedy heads. The Neils told him that there would be many bears on the estuary in the fall when the salmon were running. That made sense, an animal the size of the one he had just seen feeding on salmon. But he marvelled at the thought of such a large beast sustaining itself on grass. Idly he pulled on the ripe head of a tall stalk of grass growing near the rake. The stem came free from its sheath and he chewed on the tender end of it contemplatively. It tasted mild and sweet. He chewed a little further up. It was coarser, more fibrous. But the tender part? He could see making a simple meal of those, maybe finishing up with a handful or two of ripe berries. He laughed out loud to think he shared such a thing in common with a bear.
The girl was standing by his open door. He’d looked up from his books to ease out a kink in his neck and had seen her there, looking in. On her face was an expression of intense curiosity, a palpable yearning. He followed her eyes to the pile of books on his table.
“Rose! Have ye been there long? I’m sorry to have been so absorbed that I did not notice ye until now.”
She told him not long, she’d not been there long, but had come to ask if the bedding had been enough. Her mother could provide more blankets if he needed them.
“Indeed what I have is grand. Yer mother has been very kind to think of my comfort as she has, with all her tasks for the doing. Now, can I give ye a cup of tea?”
She came in, moving in her shy way to one of the stumps which served as chairs. Declan found the extra mug and poured from the pot of tea stewing on the woodstove. At her nod, he poured in a little milk. He followed her eyes to the small stack of books on the table, his pen and bottle of ink to one side.
“It’s
