I'm twenty now, so people have been leaving me alone for about five years. I don't mind. I like being alone. I quit school when I was sixteen, headed out into the bush. I spent the winter in northern Manitoba, nearly froze my feet off. I learned to lay trap lines from this Ojibwa Indian. He didn't know a word of English, except 'nineteen seventy'. I tried to teach him 'nineteen eighty' because that was the year, but I don't think he ever got it. When I got back to Winnipeg I applied for and got a trapping licence and that's what I've been doing ever since, out in Whiteshell Park.
In summers the park is full of people, so I head to Grassy River where it's quieter. But in the winter the only people in the park are rangers and trappers and old people who don't like the city and stay in their cabins. I don't mind running into those people, because we usually look at things the same way, and they don't make fun of me or anything.
This winter I was working Redrock Lake and the Whiteshell River. I'd heard from one of the rangers that Charlie Clark was wintering for the first time up at his cottage on Jessica Lake, so I decided to pay him a visit. Ever since they'd retired, Charlie and his wife had been spending the summers out here. But his wife died last summer, so he was all alone. I knew he'd be glad for some company.
I use a tent, but most trappers got cabins, because the years just pull at you and pretty soon a tent or quincy's too cold. It gets hard checking the lines when all your bones ache. Charlie wasn't a trapper, but I knew he'd understand and put me up for a couple days so I could dry out and get toasty. I'm pretty tough but I don't mind some luxury when I can get it.
Getting to Jessica Lake was easy. The Whiteshell River connects most of the lakes in the park. I broke camp an hour before dawn and walked the river. Winter's the quietest season. You're the only thing moving, the only thing making any sound. You listen to your breath, to the backpack creaking in its straps, to the crunch of your snowshoes. You can sing songs to pass the time and your voice sounds beautiful. And you can think about things, taking all the time you want to, with nobody pushing you for answers. You can think as slow as you like, and the rest of the world, if it cares at all, just waits. No ticking clocks, just shadows all blue and soft and moving slower than you can see.
I reached the park highway by noon. They keep it ploughed for the cross-country skiers who come out from Winnipeg on warm weekends and for people like Charlie Clark.
I smelled wood smoke long before I saw his cottage. There'd been a cold snap the last couple weeks. No snow, no wind, just that rich silence under a sun-dogged sky. The smoke hung in the air like it had no place to go, smelling bittersweet because it was black spruce. It's not a good wood to burn, since it goes fast and doesn't give off much heat. I figured Charlie was getting low on his wood supply. A few minutes later the cottage came into view, its windows lit.
I gave a shout just to warn him, then turned into the driveway. At the porch I unstrapped my snowshoes. Charlie had come to the window and was now trying to open the frozen door. He had to shove it hard a couple times before it swung free of its frame.
'Goddammit, Daniel, it's good to see you! Get in here!'
'You running low on wood, Charlie?' I asked as I stepped inside and Charlie closed the door behind me.
'Just one pile's getting down,' Charlie said. 'I cleared some black spruce from out back last summer. Just using it up. How the hell have you been?'
'Good.' I took my backpack off, started stripping down some. 'Thick pelts this winter.'
Charlie shook his head, rubbing his brow. 'Animals. They always know when it's gonna be a cold one. They always know, don't they?'
'Sure do,' I said. We went into the den and sat down in front of the fireplace. The ranger had told me that Charlie had taken his wife's death pretty hard, and I could see that he didn't look too good. The skin of his face was pasty and yellow. And I saw that a shaking had come to his hands. 'How you been, Charlie?' I asked, stretching my feet towards the fire.
'Strange winter, eh?' Charlie looked down, rubbing his forehead again. 'I know this sounds funny, but I'm tasting metal these days.' He squinted at me. 'Can't really explain it, Daniel. But ever since the snows hit for real, I might as well be eating lead ten times a day, from the taste I'm tasting.'
I glanced at him, then looked away. He was giving me this real troubled look. I stared at the fire. 'Don't know,' I finally said. 'Maybe it's the lake water.'
'Hell no, it isn't like that.' He paused. 'Had a heart attack last summer, did you know that?'
I shook my head. 'Didn't hear anything about it. How bad was —»
'The doctor in the city — I forget his name, he took over when Bill retired, just a kid, really — he's been phoning me about once a week, asking me how I'm doing. So I tell him, but he says it's just psychological. He says there's no way somebody can taste a pacemaker. I suppose he knows what he's talking about.' Charlie looked up at me and smiled. 'But he was the one making the connection with the wind-up, not me, right? I just said to him, 'I keep tasting metal, Doc. How about that?''
'And what did he say to that?'
'Psychological, like I told you.'
'Oh yeah. Right.' I studied the flames, listened to the snapping wood. It was burning real fast, that black spruce. For some reason I wanted it to slow down. It was burning too fast, just eating itself up and hardly any warmth reaching my feet. The way the wood spit out sparks bothered me, too, like words coming so quick all you can do is nod, answering everything «yes» no matter what you hear.
'Young people,' Charlie said. 'The ones in the city, like that doc.' He looked at me. 'The city people — can you figure them, Daniel?'
I laughed. 'If I could maybe I wouldn't be here.'
'You can't figure them, then?'
I shrugged. 'They're just different, that's all. Like when things go quiet — they gotta make noise. So when they do something funny everybody laughs real loud, and it's not quiet anymore, and they get comfortable again. And winter, and the bush — well, they don't know what winter is, and they don't like the bush, the way it just swallows their noise. You couldn't laugh loud enough to keep that from happening, I bet.'
Charlie was nodding. 'Always questions, that's what I notice. Always 'why?' They ask 'why?' and then they answer themselves right away. 'Why? Because.' Just like that. Making everything seem so simple. Know what I mean? And they're always so suspicious, especially about complicated things, like when I say I'm tasting metal. 'Why?' 'Psychological.' Just like that. I was a teacher, did you know that, Daniel?'
'Sure.'
'Ten-year-old kids like that question. 'Why?' How old are you, Daniel?'
'Twenty,' I said, feeling uncomfortable for some reason, maybe about the way he kept using my name. He made it sound strange, like it wasn't my own. I thought about what I'd said, about city people, and I wondered at how angry I got saying it.
Charlie was talking. 'Me and Mary couldn't have kids, did you know that? It was a hard thing for her to accept. I didn't mind. I didn't mind at all. The Lord just didn't see fit, that's all.'
The room should have felt cozy, with the bear rug between us and all the knick-knacks crowding the shelves, the mounted jack and the antlers on the walls, the easy chair deep and comfortable. But it didn't feel cozy. I put more black spruce on the fire, then pulled my chair closer to it. 'Anybody else drop by?' I asked.
Charlie nodded. 'Yeah, the strangest winter. And it's not just the taste in my mouth, either. When it was snowing the ploughs used to come and clear the road a couple times a week. I'd go out and give them a wave, let them know I haven't run out of batteries or something.' He laughed. 'On the really cold days I flagged them down, gave them a thermos of hot chocolate. And you know, no matter if it was a different driver next week, I always got the thermos back. Sometimes we talked a bit. You know, just to keep the jaws greased. I told them about the buck, the one that comes across the lake every morning, right up to the cabin looking for food. And the very next week one of the drivers drops off two bales of hay. How about that?'
He'd been talking so fast I wondered if I'd missed something. 'Charlie, what buck?'
He looked surprised. 'I didn't tell you about the buck?'
'I don't think so.'
Charlie's gaze returned to the fire. 'Hasn't snowed in weeks. The ploughs stopped coming. Sometimes I swear I can hear them, way off down the road, so I go out, right? I go out and wait, figuring they're coming to
