What Dies in Summer

  The bear’s head swung from side to side, her muzzle lifting as she tested the air, watching Don with a nearsighted expression.

  “One-two-three,” Don said softly, and swung over into the boat as I pushed as hard as I could against the gravelly bottom with the other oar. We scraped off the beach and glided silently away from the shore. Don dug his oar into the water on the other side of the boat to straighten us out and gain some more distance, then looked back at the bear, which whuffed again and turned to waddle away toward the fallen tree. The cubs clung to opposite sides of the trunk they’d climbed, one a little above the other about twenty feet up, watching everything.

  Diana peeked up over the bow, then looked back over her shoulder at me. Her eyes were huge and her knuckles were white as she gripped the gunnels. “Bears!” she squeaked. She turned to Don. “The bears almost got us, Daddy!” She took a shaky breath and swallowed.

  Don was still trying to get his own breathing under control. He rubbed his hand over his nose and mouth. “Got caught a little out of position there, I guess,” he said. He turned to look at me. “Scare you, Jimbo?”

  “Naw,” I said, noticing that even my feet and toes seemed to be trembling.

  “Scared me,” said Diana, nodding to herself.

  “Really ought to go heeled out here this time of year,” said Don. “Should’ve brought my weapon.” He yanked on the Evinrude to start it and we backed out of the cove.

  “I know what,” said Diana. “Let’s eat lunch in the boat.”

  5 | Casts

  AFTER THE BEARS Diana had no more interest in fishing, and Don decided he wanted to get the charcoal going for tonight, so I was on my own.

  “How about if I go back out by myself?” I asked Don. “I wanted to try that rocky point next to that last little creek we saw.”

  “For muskie?” He grabbed the bag of charcoal.

  “Yes sir.”

  He thought about it as he slit open the top of the bag with his pocketknife. “Might work, at that,” he said. “Think you can run the boat okay?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Then you got a deal,” he said. “Just don’t put in anywhere along that south shore, and get back by dark.”

  I anchored thirty yards off the point where the creek drained into the lake between the high dark firs and spruces. Across the creek mouth was a wide flat with a few big rocks and stickups in the water.

  I tied on an eighteen-inch steel leader and a red and white muskie lure, and cast as hard as I could, watching the huge plug carry up and out a surprising distance before splashing down onto the water. I slowly retrieved it and cast again, then again and again, with no results. I kept casting, becoming so engrossed that several times I forgot to worry about L.A. and Gram back in Dallas. I even forgot to ask myself why I was still worried.

  Then something stopped me. I looked around at the water and the trees on the shore and up at the sky, but nothing had changed. I thought about bears, and dug the blue stone out of my pocket. I sat looking at it for a minute, wondering if it had been born in the earth or had fallen from the sky, and then, taking a deep breath, I threw it as far as I could out toward the center of the lake. It plinked into the water, and in a couple of seconds the ripples disappeared.

  I cast again, and was about to start the retrieve when I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Out to my right beyond the creek channel a table-sized region of the surface swirled into a fast-moving arrow of water driving across the open flat, straight for the lure, leaving a wake like a submarine. A dome of water boiled up under the lure, and an unbelievably huge fish reared its long-jawed head clear of the water, shook once with the lure in its mouth and then blasted a white wall of spray into the air as it slammed back down through the surface and disappeared.

  The fish went for the center of the channel cut where the water was deepest, taking line from the drag without effort, the rod bent almost double as the line sliced through the water. I planted my feet on the gunnel and leaned back against the pull, feeling the boat come around to the end of the anchor line as it tried to follow the fish’s run.

  But I knew better than to think I was going to turn this fish. Nothing was going to do that.

  And then it stopped. I couldn’t feel anything now but the thing’s massive weight, so immovable that I wondered for a second if I had snagged a rock or stump. But then the fish gave three slow shakes of its mighty head and came directly at the boat, and before I could take back the slack line it drifted up alongside, a yard under the surface—tremendous jaws jagged with teeth and a soulless yellow eye the size of a clock face looking through my own eyes and brain and into the exact center of my soul, then the gray-green armored gills and the fish’s barred side passing like a slow train in the fog. The creature looked as long as the boat, and when it was gone the water suddenly seemed as empty as space.

  In the next instant the fish hit the end of the slack, emptied the reel in one straight run out the channel, and the line snapped. The surface gradually settled back to stillness.

  I sat and breathed for a while, waiting for my heart to stop banging in my throat, feeling the small rocking motion of the boat and hearing the light lapping of the water against its side. The sun was dropping lower in the sky, looking bigger and redder and softer. Finally I pulled up the anchor, stowed the rod inside the gunnel and started the motor.

  As I brought the boat around I saw something floating on the water out near the spot where I’d thrown the stone. I eased the boat alongside it and leaned down to pick it up. It was the lure, or what was left of it, the steel leader and a short length of line hanging from the front eye hook. The plug was made of cedar, thick as a shovel handle, but the back half was gone, treble hooks and all, the wood marked by the fish’s teeth where they had sheared through it.

  Looking at it, I could feel that something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t figure out what. I stared at the ruined plug a while longer, then dropped it into the tackle box and snapped the lid down. Bringing the boat’s bow around, I gradually opened the throttle and headed back toward the cabin.

  6 | Magic Moments

  I NEVER TOLD anyone the whole story of the muskie, just said I hooked one but lost him when my lure came apart. It was probably selfishness on my part, and I don’t really know if I was afraid of making what happened smaller by talking about it or if there was some other reason, but I ended up keeping most of it for myself, like a miser hoarding his coins.

  In the morning Don let Diana and me take the boat out again for a picnic. Marge looked worried, and for a second I was uneasy over how much she knew about my thoughts.

  “Are these two going to be all right, Don?” she said.

  Don was busy at the end of the dock shaking ashes out of the grill into the water. “Long as they leave the bears alone,” he said without looking up.

  “Bears,” said Diana, swallowing. Reconsidering, maybe.

  “Islands only, Jimbo,” Don said, shooting me a look for emphasis. “It’s a really bad time of year, with the cubs as young as they are.”

  I nodded and pushed the boat away from the dock with an oar, thinking there might be a lot of things for Don to worry about, but us messing with any more bears wasn’t one of them. I pulled on the starter rope a couple of times and the motor growled and blubbed smokily in the water. I eased the boat backward out into open water and brought the bow around to head us out toward the far end of the lake.

  We cruised along like old people, with Diana leaning over to trail her hand in the water, until we were out of sight behind the point, then I gradually opened the throttle to get us up to speed. Diana took off her sweatshirt, and I saw she had on a light green swimsuit under it. She threw back her head and held her arms out wide, her hair flying in the wind. The sun was already warm on my face.

  When we got to the little island where we had caught the walleyes I cut the motor and we coasted in to the beach side. The island was partly covered with trees and had a long tail of bea
ch on one side and some kind of dark green grass growing here and there in the water around it. When Diana jumped ashore with the bowline, half a dozen goldfinches spilled away from the high branches of a poplar at the water’s edge and scattered across the sky above us like chips of sun. She tied us up to a limb on a big piece of driftwood as I tilted the motor up out of the water, and we carried our stuff up to a dry flat spot under a couple of pine trees. I set the cooler down as she spread the two big blue and white towels on the pine needles.

  Diana took off her sandals and slipped out of her blue jeans, then got out two small bottles and poured mosquito repellent and sun lotion into her hand, rubbed her palms together and started spreading the oily stuff over her skin. I stripped down to my own trunks and picked up the fishing rod. I opened the tackle box, pushing aside the damaged muskie lure and finding a perch-colored River-Runt. I tied it on, then walked over to the other shore to cast into the deeper water on that side. I cast a few times, got a backlash, picked it out and cast again. Then, realizing I didn’t care whether I caught anything or not, I carried the rod back to where Diana was sitting on one of the beach towels.

  “Wanta go swimming?” she said.

  I was a little doubtful. The water seemed pretty cold, but then I couldn’t afford to show cowardice either.

  “Okay,” I said. “You go first. If you survive, I’ll come in too.”

  “You are my hero,” she said. She walked to the edge of the water and stood looking across the sparkling lake for a few seconds. She tested the water with her toe and instantly jerked it back out. She considered for a while. “I’ll have to wash my hair again, but I don’t care,” she said, and ran splashing out into the lake until she was deep enough to dive in. When she came back up she shook her head and said, “It’s not too bad once you’re in. But there’s a few weeds under the water. Feels like feathers.”

  Having no alternative now, I charged out and dove in too, surprised by how bearable the water turned out to be. I swam out along the spit a little way and then back to where Diana was putting her face under the water trying to see fish. She raised her head and said, “There’s not anything down there that bites, is there?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, remembering the muskie and the lost fish from our stringer. I was semi-sure whatever was in the lake didn’t attack people. Except possibly little kids. And dogs. I looked at Diana standing waist-deep in the water in her wet bathing suit. The small valley of her navel showed through the fabric just at the waterline, and all my thoughts about water monsters melted away to nothing.

  Diana bent down to look under the surface again, but almost instantly jerked her head up and screamed. She ran splashing back up to the beach, slapping at her legs. I caught up to her, mental images of dog- and walleye-eating muskies coming back to me in a blood-freezing rush.

  “It’s got me!” she yelled, yanking at a slippery black leech that was attached to the inside of her thigh. “Help me, Biscuit!”

  I pulled at the rubbery leech, but it was stuck tight. Diana’s teeth chattered with fear and cold. I said, “Come on over here, maybe we can get it off.” I remembered Don saying something about leeches in the lake but I hadn’t realized how tough they could be. While I went over to the tackle box, Diana sat on her towel, still trying to get a grip on the leech with her fingers. In the bottom of the box I found the metal tube filled with waterproof matches next to a little jar of red salmon eggs. I grabbed it and came back to kneel beside her. She lay back with her eyes shut and her arms at her sides, looking like a pagan sacrifice. Her teeth were clenched and she had goose bumps on her arms and legs. I struck a match and stretched the leech out from her skin. When I held the flame under it, it let go, and I tossed it away into the grass. Then I sat back and looked at Diana until she opened her eyes.

  “Is it off?” she asked, shivering.

  I nodded. I couldn’t stop staring at her. I saw that her nipples were pushing up under the fabric of her suit. Her legs were smooth and tanned except for the small pink circle where the leech had been. There were sparkling drops of water all over her. I was beginning to get a strangled feeling in my chest. I bent down and kissed her, tasting the lake on her lips. She held my shoulders and kissed me back, groaning under her breath, then pulled me against her, and I felt her whole body tremble. I moved to lie beside her and we kissed again, longer this time, the world seeming to stop its turning as we held each other. After a while I pulled back and lay on my side looking at her, at her wet hair and the way her swimsuit followed the shape of her body.

  Diana watched me for a minute, just breathing. She said, “What are you thinking, Bis?”

  I could barely speak. “All I can think about is how much I wish I could see you without your bathing suit,” I said.

  She looked at me without saying anything or showing any expression for so long I thought maybe she hadn’t heard me, or I hadn’t really said it out loud. Or maybe she was just deciding whether to smack me or not. I couldn’t believe what I’d said, myself. I heard the air moving through the trees above us and birds calling somewhere.

  Finally she said, “You can.”

  She didn’t ask me to turn around or anything, just stood up, unhooked the top straps and worked the swimsuit down until she could step out of it, then lay down again on the towel. She was white where the suit had covered her, and the hair between her legs was almost exactly the same sandy color as the hair on her head. The sun caught the golden fuzz on her arms and stomach and the perfect curves of her breasts.

  “You too,” she said.

  I got out of my trunks, found my billfold and tore a condom from its package, remembering what Hubert had told me about how to put it on.

  Watching me, Diana said, “Doesn’t that tickle?”

  I shook my head and lay back down beside her. We kissed again and I cupped her small soft breast in my hand. The nipple felt firm and warm, exactly as I’d imagined it would. She spread her legs a little to let me touch her. It was all so much easier and so much better than my daydreams that I felt dizzy. She accepted me between her legs as I moved over her, her breath hot on my neck.

  When I entered her, she yelled, “Yikes!” sucking in her breath and grabbing the hair on the sides of my head, her eyes squinched shut. “Yikes!” she said again, this time her voice only a squeak.

  I’d never actually heard anyone say that before and had thought it was only a cartoon word. It scared me a little. “Should I stop?” I said.

  “No, dummy!” she hissed through her teeth. “Don’t stop. Never stop.”

  In a little while I began to feel as if I was drifting, slowly at first but then faster and faster, on a river of pleasure deeper and wider than the Amazon, toward a tremendous waterfall rumbling over the edge of the universe, with no control over anything and no awareness of anything but the irresistible river. There were colored spots in my eyes and everything sounded far off, like the time I got knocked out, and then I didn’t hear anything at all. Diana’s skin and hair smelled like the water and the pine needles and the lotion she’d put on, and her breath was sweet on my face and neck. She opened her mouth wide and wrapped her legs around mine. And then I did go over the edge of the world, because I couldn’t possibly stop myself, and I fell and fell and fell through soundless white thunder until I knew I’d never breathe again, never even want to breathe again—just keep on falling like this forever.

  And then it was over. For what seemed like a long time I just lay next to Diana and tried to catch my breath. The sounds of the birds and the light wind in the tops of the pines came back. I felt the sun on my skin. I couldn’t believe a feeling like that could happen, or, once it happened, that it could ever end.

  Diana lay with her arm over her eyes, breathing a little slower now. Finally she lowered her arm, looked at me for a minute and said, “Wow.” She halfway sat up and looked down at herself. “There’s just a little blood,” she said without sounding too concerned, as if maybe she’d expected this.


  “Does it hurt?” I said.

  “Not enough to worry about,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. That makes it sound like you did something bad. Or we did.” She looked at me and then down at herself again. “I’m not exactly sure what bad is, but I don’t think this is it.”

  “Okay,” I said, not completely convinced. It had never occurred to me until this moment that what we’d done might actually be dangerous, that it might involve bloodshed.

  She didn’t say anything for a while, both of us floating along on the feeling. Eventually I started wondering how long we could just lie out here naked as babies like this, nothing over us but the trees and the sky. Surely there had to be some kind of rule against it. On the other hand, I supposed we were in so deep on account of what we’d just done that there was no point in worrying about secondary misbehaviors like simple nudity.

  Then Diana said, “I don’t think Mom’ll be able to tell.” She drew in a deep breath. “But Harpo’s gonna know.”

  “How’s she going to know?”

  Diana just looked at me.

  I nodded miserably. In a way it was the story of my whole life—always saying something stupid before I thought, then hearing myself and realizing what an idiot I was. “You’re right, she’ll know,” I said unnecessarily, the dread possibilities inherent in this fact beginning to circle like vultures in my mind.

  Diana pulled the towel from under herself to use as a blanket, covering her body from her shoulders to her ankles. Thinking it over, calming down a little, I told myself Diana had it exactly right, we could probably keep our secret from the adults and most, or even with a little luck all, of the other kids except L.A. This limited the problem considerably, but I also understood that what we’d just done wasn’t over, couldn’t be over until all the consequences were in, and I had no idea yet what they were going to be or when they were coming. Sitting up, I took a long breath.

  “It feels like she already knows,” I said. “It feels like everybody knows.”