Mink River: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

tape.
    Tell me now?
    It’s a long story, son. Suitable for telling by the fire.
    But Mom will be there.
    Is that bad?
    You’ll look at her.
    And?
    You know what I mean—when she’s in the room your eyes go there.
    When she’s in the room the temperature rises, boyo.
    Dad. That’s gross.
    Good thing for you I love your mama and versa vice.
    I love her too, dad, but sometimes.
    Sometimes what?
    Sometimes you pay more attention to her than you do to me.
    I don’t.
    You do.
    You don’t mean that.
    It’s okay. I don’t mind. Sometimes I mind.
    Well, when you’re married …
    You pay too much attention to Mom.
    What?
    Does she pay that much attention to you?
    Sure she does. Sure now.
    15.
    Moses the crow barks once and Daniel looks up at the seven clocks mounted above the workbench and says gotta go dad and hustles out of the shop and sails back to school on his bike his braids flying red black brown; he wants to be back in class just before school ends. Owen keeps rebuilding the beaver but now his mind is all awash and awander with No Horses. We met on this beach. Salt and sea. We were walking each alone me north she south. In the afternoon. The way she walks leaning forward her hair pouring out behind her like a river a comet’s tail. O that hair as black as the back of midnight. An chuilfhionn , the maiden of the flowing locks. When we passed on the strand we paused and her eyes flashed and her hair whipped around her face mbeal-ath-na-gar ata an staid-bhean bhreagh mhodhamhail red ripening in her cheeks like a berry on a tree. Her graceful neck her lips like bruised fruit. I never saw anyone or anything like her ever. There was a zest in her eye. I wanted to say something courteous and memorable but out of my mouth to my utter surprise fell chailin dheas mo chroidhe , dear girl of my heart, because she had me all flustered there in the salty wind, and I was so surprised at myself I laughed, and she laughed, a sound like the peal of a silver bell, and she said what language is that? and I said O that’s the old Irish, walk with me and I’ll teach you a bit, I was surprised at my own boldness but do mharaigh tu m’intinn , she made my mind all feeble with her eyes.
    I will walk with you, she said, and we walked along trading words in our old languages, me in the Irish and her in the Salish, and soon we were trading stories in American, and soon after that we were trading salty kisses in our own language her long hair whirling around us like the salty arms of the salty sea.
    16.
    Worried Man notes the hour—golden russet slanting light, the hour when the angle of the sun heading toward the ocean illuminates everything seemingly from inside, so that plants glow greenly with their bright green souls naked to the naked joyous eye.
    Bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars. Blake.
    And he sets off on his rounds.
    Around the Department of Public Works building, one circumference, for luck and to check the mildewing southwest corner of the building where Cedar has his rain gauge.
    Then up Hawk Street to the doctor’s to collect the doctor.
    Then Lark to Heron to Murre to Cormorant to Warbler to Chickadee, which has only the one resident, Mrs. L, who hands him berries or pears depending, whose pain is in her wrists and knees. He can feel her grinding soreness as they turn into Chickadee. When they get to her gate she hands him a little soft paper box of salmonberries, which he hands to the doctor. As the doctor asks her about her pills and such, Worried Man rubs her wrists.
    His huge hands are beaver tails, maple leaves, baby halibut.
    He notices that the berry box is deftly made of yesterday’s newspapers.
    From Mrs. L’s they take the old sand quarry road, now half overgrown with young alder, to the other end of town, where the few houses huddle in a rough circle around a seasonal marsh, waist-deep in winter and dry in summer. Around the dell they go, on these streets that have no names, streets known