The Wild Shore: Three Californias

1

It wouldn’t really be grave-robbing, Nicolin was explaining. Just dig up a coffin and take the silver off the outside of it. Never open it up at all. Bury it again nice and proper—now what could be wrong with that? Those silver coffin handles are going to waste in the ground anyway.

The five of us considered it. Near sunset the cliffs at the mouth of our valley glow amber, and on the wide beach below tangles of driftwood cast shadows all the way to the sandstone boulders at the foot of the cliff. Each clump of wave-worn wood could have been a gravemarker, swamped and washed on its side, and I imagined digging under one to find what lay beneath it.

Gabby Mendez tossed a pebble out at a gliding seagull. Just exactly how is that not graverobbing? he demanded of Nicolin.

It takes desecration of the body to make it graverobbing. Nicolin winked at me; I was his partner in these sorts of things. We aren’t going to do any such thing. No searching for cuff links or belt buckles, no pulling off rings or dental work, nothing of the sort!

Ick, said Kristen Mariani.

We were on the point of the cliff above the rivermouth—Steve Nicolin and Gabby, Kristen and Mando Costa, Del Simpson and me—all old friends, grown up together, out on our point as we so often were at the end of a day, arguing and talking and making wild plans … that last being the specialty of Nicolin and me. Below us in the first bend of the river were the fishing boats, pulled up onto the tidal flats. It felt good to sit on the warm sand in the cool wind with my friends, watching the sun leak into the whitecaps, knowing my work for the day was done.

Why, with that much silver we would be kings of the swap meet, Nicolin went on. And queens, he said to Kristen. We’d be able to buy anything there twice. Or travel up the coast if we wanted. Or across the country. Just generally do what we pleased.

And not what your father tells you to, I thought to myself. But I felt the pull of what he said, I admit it.

How are you going to make sure that the coffin you take the trouble to dig up has got silver on it? Gab asked, looking doubtful.

You’ve heard the old man talk about funerals in the old time, Nicolin scolded. Henry, you tell him.

They were scared of death in an unnatural way back then, I said, like I was an authority. "So they made these huge funeral displays to distract themselves from what was really happening. Tom says a funeral might cost upward of five thousand dollars."

Steve nodded at me approvingly. He says every coffin put down was crusted with silver.

He says men walked on the moon, too, Gabby replied. That don’t mean I’m going to go there looking for footprints. But I had almost convinced him; he knew that Tom Barnard, who had taught us to read and write (taught Steve and Mando and me, anyway), would describe the wealth of the old time, in detail, as quick as you might say, Tell us—

So we just go up the freeway into the ruins, Nicolin went on, and find us a rich-looking tombstone in a cemetery, and there we have it.

Tom says we shouldn’t go up there, Kristen reminded us.

Nicolin tilted his head back and laughed. That’s because he’s scared of it. He looked more serious. Of course that’s understandable, given what he’s been through. But there’s no one up there but the wreckrats, and they won’t be out at night.

He had no way to be sure of that, as we had never been up there day or night; but before Gabby could call him on it, Mando squeaked, "At night?"

Sure! Nicolin cried.

I hear the scavengers will eat you if they can, Kristen said.

Is your pa going to let you leave doctoring and farming during the day? Nicolin asked Mando. Well, it’s the same with all of us, only more so. This gang has got to do its business at night. He lowered his voice: That’s the only time to be graverobbing in a cemetery, anyway, laughing at the look on Mando’s face.

Graverobbing at the beach you can do any time of day, I said, half to myself.

I could get the shovels, Del said.

And I could bring a lantern, Mando said quickly, to show he wasn’t scared. And suddenly we were talking a plan. I perked up and paid more attention, a bit surprised. Nicolin and I had outlined a number of schemes before: trapping a tiger in the back country, diving for sunken treasure on the concrete reef, extracting the silver contained in old railroad tracks by melting them. But most of these proposals had certain practical difficulties to them that became apparent at some time or other in the discussion, and we let them slide. They were just talk. With this particular plan, however, all we had to do was sneak up into the ruins—something we always swore we really wanted to do—and dig. So we talked about which night the scavengers were least likely to be out and about (full moon, Nicolin assured Mando, when the ghosts were visible), who we might ask to come along, who it would have to be kept secret from, how we could chop the silver handles into tradeable discs, and so forth.

Then the ocean was lapping at the red rim of the sun, and it got a good deal colder. Gabby stood up and kneaded his butt, talking about the venison supper he was going to have that night. The rest of us got up too.

We’re really going to do this one, Nicolin said intently. And by God, I’m ready for it.

As we walked up from the point I took myself off from the rest, and followed the cliff’s edge. Out on the wide beach the tidal puddles streaking the sand were a dark silver, banded with red—little models of the vast ocean surging beyond them. On the other side of me was the valley, our valley, winding up into the hills that crowded the sea. The trees of the forest blanketing the hills all waved their branches in the sunset onshore wind, and their late spring greens were tinted pollen color by the drowning sun. For miles up and down the curving reach of the coast the forest tossed, fir and spruce and pine like the hair of a living creature, and as I walked I felt the wind toss my hair too. On the ravine-creased hillsides not one sign of man could be seen (though they were there), it was nothing but trees, tall and short, redwood and torrey pine and eucalyptus, dark green hills cascading into the sea, and as I walked the amber cliff’s edge I was happy. I didn’t have the slightest notion that my friends and I were starting a summer that would … change us. As I write this account of those months, deep in the harshest winter I have ever known, I have the advantage of time passed, and I can see that this excursion in search of silver was the start of it—not so much because of what happened, understand, but because of what didn’t happen, because of the ways in which we were deceived. Because of what it gave us a taste for. I was hungry, you see; not just for food (that was a constant), but for a life that was more than fishing, and hoeing weeds, and checking snares. And Nicolin was hungrier than I.

But I’m getting ahead of my story. As I strolled the steep sandstone border between forest and sea, I had no premonition of what was to come, nor any heed for the warnings of the old man. I was just excited by the thought of an adventure. As I turned up the south path towards the little cabin that my pa and I shared, the smells of pine and sea salt raked the insides of my nose and made me drunk with hunger, and happily I imagined chips of silver the size of a dozen dimes. It occurred to me that my friends and I were for the very first time in our lives actually going to do what we had so often boastfully planned to do—and at the thought I felt a thrilling shiver of anticipation, I leaped from root to root in the trail: we were invading the territory of the scavengers, venturing north into the ruins of Orange County.

*   *   *

The night we picked to do it, fog was smoking up off the ocean and gusting onshore, under a quarter moon that gave all the white mist patches a faint glow. I waited just inside the door of our cabin, ignoring Pa’s snores. I had read him to sleep an hour before, and now he lay heavily on his side, calloused fingers resting on the crease in the side of his head. Pa is lame, and simple, on account of tangling with a horse when I was young. My ma always used to read him to sleep, and when she died Pa sent me up to Tom’s to carry on with my learning, saying in his slow way that it would be good for both of us. Right he was, I suppose.

I warmed my hands now and then over the gray coals of the stove fire, as I had the cabin door partway open, and it was cold. Outside, the big eucalyptus down the path blew in and out of visibility. Once I thought I saw figures standing under it; then a clammy puff of fog drifted onto the house, smelling like the rivermouth flats, and when it cleared away the tree stood alone. Except for Pa’s snoring there was no sound but the quiet patter of fog dew, sliding off leaves onto our roof.

W-whooo, w-whooo. Nicolin’s call startled me from a doze. It was a pretty good imitation of the big canyon owls, although the owls only called out once a year or so, so it didn’t make much sense as a secret call in my opinion. It did beat a leopard’s cough, however, which had been Nicolin’s first choice, and which might have gotten him shot.

I slipped out the door and hurried down the path to the eucalyptus. Nicolin had Del’s two shovels over his shoulders; Del and Gabby stood behind him.

We’ve got to get Mando, I said.

Del and Gabby looked at each other. Costa? Nicolin said.

I stared at him. He’ll be waiting for us. Mando and I were younger than the other three—me by one year, Mando by three—and I sometimes felt obliged to stick up for him.

His house is on the way anyway, Nicolin told the others. We took the river path to the bridge, crossed and hiked up the hill path leading to the Costas’.

Doc Costa’s weird oildrum house looked like a little black castle out of one of Tom’s books—squat as a toad, and darker than anything natural in the fog. Nicolin made his call, and pretty soon Mando came out and hustled down to us.

You still going to do it tonight? he asked, peering around at the mist.

Sure, I said quickly, before the others seized on his hesitation as an excuse to leave him. You got the lantern?

I forgot. He went back inside and got it. When he returned we walked back down to the old freeway and headed north.

We walked fast to warm up. The freeway was two pale ribbons in the mist, heavily cracked underfoot, black weeds in every crack. Quickly we crossed the ridge marking the north end of our valley, and narrow San Mateo Valley immediately to the north of the ridge. After that, we were walking up and down the steep hills of San Clemente. We held close together, and didn’t say much. On each side of us ruins sat in the forest: walls of cement blocks, roofs held up by skeletal foundations, tangles of wire looping from tree to tree—all of it dark and still. But we knew the scavengers lived up here somewhere, and we hurried along as silently as the ghosts Del and Gab had been joking about, a mile back where they’d felt more comfy. A wet tongue of fog licked over us as the freeway dropped into a broad canyon, and we couldn’t see a thing but the broken surface of the road. Creaks emerged from the dark wet silence around us, as well as an occasional flurry of dripping, as if something had brushed against leaves.

Nicolin stopped to examine an offramp curving down to the right. This is it, he hissed. Cemetery’s at the top of this valley.

How do you know? Gab said in his ordinary voice, which sounded awfully loud.

I came up here and found it, Nicolin said. How do you think I knew?

We followed him off the highway, pretty impressed that he had come up here alone. Even I hadn’t heard about that one. Down in the forest there were more buildings than trees, almost, and they were big buildings. They were falling down every way possible; windows and doors knocked out like teeth, with shrubs and ferns growing in every hole; walls slumped; roofs piled on the ground like barrows. The fog followed us up this street, rustling things so they sounded like thousands of scurrying feet. Wires looped over poles that sometimes tilted right down to the road; we had to step over them, and none of us touched the wires.

A coyote’s bark chopped the drippy silence and we all froze. Was that a coyote or a scavenger? But nothing followed it, and we took off again, more nervous than ever. The street made some awkward switchbacks at the head of the valley, and once we got up those, we were on the canyon-cut plateau that once made up the top of San Clemente. Up here were houses, big ones, all set in rows like fish out to dry, as if there had been so many people that there wasn’t room to give each family a decent garden. A lot of the houses were busted and overgrown, and some were gone entirely—just floors, with pipes sticking out of them like arms sticking up out of a grave. Scavengers had lived here, and had used the houses one by one for firewood, moving on when their nest was burned; it was a practice I had heard about, but I’d never before seen the results first hand, the destruction and waste.

Nicolin stopped at a street crossing filled with a bonfire pit. Up this one here.

We followed him north, along a street on the plateau’s edge. Below us the fog was like another ocean, putting us on the beach again so to speak, with occasional white waves running up over us. The houses lining the street stopped, and a fence began, metal rails connecting stone piles. Beyond the fence the rippling plateau was studded with squared stones, sticking out of tall grass: the cemetery. We all stopped and looked. In the mist it was impossible to see where it ended. Finally we stepped over a break in the fence and walked into the thick grass.

They had lined up the graves as straight as their houses. Suddenly Nicolin faced the sky and yowled his coyote yowl, yip yip yoo-ee-oo-ee-oo-eeee, yodeling as crazily as any bush dog.

Stop that, Gabby said, disgusted. That’s all we need is dogs howling at us.

Or scavengers, Mando added fearfully.

Nicolin laughed. Boys, we’re standing in a silver mine, that’s all. He crouched down to read a gravestone; too dark; he hopped over to another. Look how big this one is. He put his face next to it and with the help of his fingers read it. "Here we got a Mister John Appleby. 1904–1984. Nice big stone, died the right time—living in one of them big houses down the road—rich for sure, right?"

There should be a lot written on the stone, I said. That’s proof he was rich.

There is a lot, Nicolin said. Be-loved father, I think … some other stuff. Want to give him a try?

For a while no one answered. Then Gab said, Good as any other.

Better, Nicolin replied. He put down one shovel and hefted the other. Let’s get this grass out of the way. He started stabbing the shovel into the ground, making a line cut. Gabby and Del and Mando and I just stood and stared at him. He looked up and saw us watching. Well? he demanded quickly. "You want some of this silver?

So I walked over and started cutting; I had wanted to before, but it made me nervous. When we had the grass pulled away so the dirt was exposed, we started digging in earnest. When we were in up to our knees we gave the shovels to Gabby and Del, panting some. I was sweating easily in the fog, and I cooled off fast. Clods of the wet clay squashed under my feet. Pretty soon Gabby said, It’s getting dark down here; better light the lantern. Mando got out his spark rasp and set to lighting the wick.

The lantern put out a ghastly yellow glare, dazzling me and making more shadows than anything else. I walked away from it to keep my night sight. My arms were spotted with dirt, and I felt more nervous than ever. From a distance the lantern’s flame was larger and fainter, and my companions were black silhouettes, the ones with the shovels waist-deep in the earth. I came across a grave that had been dug up and left open, and I jumped and hustled back down to the glow of the lantern, breathing hard.

Gabby looked up at me, his head just over the level of the dirt pile we were making. They buried them deep, he said in an odd voice. He tossed up more dirt.

Maybe this one’s already dug up, Del suggested, looking into the hole at Mando, who was getting up a handful of dirt with every shovel toss.

Sure, Nicolin scoffed. Or maybe they buried him alive and he crawled out by himself.

My hand hurts, Mando said. His shovel stock was a branch, and his hands weren’t very tough.

‘My hand hurts’, Nicolin whined. Well get out of there, then.

Mando climbed out, and Steve hopped into the hole to replace him, attacking the floor of the hole until the dirt flew into the mist.

I looked for the stars, but there wasn’t a one out. It felt late. I was cold, and ravenous. The fog was thickening; the area wrapped around us looked clear, but quickly the mist became more visible, until several yards away it was all we could see—blank white. We were in a bubble of white, and at the edges of the bubble were shapes: long arms, heads with winking eyes, quick sets of legs …

Thunk. One of Nicolin’s stabs had hit something. He stood with both hands on the stock, looking down. He jabbed tentatively, tunk tunk tunk. Got it, he said, and began to scrape dirt up again. After a bit he said, Move the lantern down to this end. Mando picked it up and held it over the grave. By its light I saw the faces of my companions, sweaty and streaked with dirt, the whites of their eyes large.

Nicolin started to curse. Our hole, a good five feet long by three feet wide, had just nicked the end of the coffin. "The damn thing’s buried under the headstone!" It was still solidly stuck in the clay.

We argued a while about what to do, and the final plan—Nicolin’s—was to scrape dirt away from the top and sides of the coffin, and haul it out into the hole we had made. After we had scraped away to the full reach of our arms, Nicolin said, Henry, you’ve done the least digging so far, and you’re long and skinny, so crawl down there and start pushing the dirt back to us.

I protested, but the others agreed I was the man for the job, so pretty soon I found myself lying on top of that coffin, with dripping clay an inch over my back and butt, tearing at the dirt with my fingers and slinging it out behind me. Only continuous cursing kept my mind off what was lying underneath the wood I was on, exactly parallel to my own body. The others yelled in encouragements, like Well, we’re going home now, or Oh, who’s that coming? or Did you feel the coffin shake just then? Finally I got my fingers over the far edge of the box, and I shimmied back out the hole, brushing the mud off me and muttering with disgust and fear. Henry, I can always count on you, Steve said as he leaped into the grave. Then it was his and Del’s turn to crawl around down there, tugging and grunting; and with a final jerk the coffin burst back into our hole, while Steve and Del fell down beside it.

It was made of black wood, with a greenish film on it that gleamed like peacock feathers in the lantern light. Gabby knocked the dirt off the handles, and then cleaned the gunk off the stripping around the coffin’s lid: silver, all of it.

Look at those handles, Del said reverently. There were six of them, three to a side, as bright and shiny as if they’d been buried the day before, instead of sixty years. I noticed the gash in the wood where Nicolin had first struck.

Man, said Mando. Will you look at all that silver.

We did look at it. I thought of us at the next swap meet, decked out like scavengers in fur coats and boots and feather hats, walking around with our pants almost falling off from the weight of all those big chips of silver. We shouted and yipped and yowled, and pounded each other on the back. Gabby rubbed a handle with his thumb; his nose wrinkled.

Hey, he said. Uh… He grabbed the shovel leaning against the side of the hole, and poked the handle. Thud, it went. Not like metal on metal. And the blow left a gash in the handle. Gabby looked at Del and Steve, and crouched down to look close. He hit the handle again. Thud thud thud. He ran his hand over it.

This ain’t silver, he said. "It’s cut. It’s some kind of … some kind of plastic, I guess."

God damn, said Nicolin. He jumped in the hole and grabbed the shovel, jabbed the stripping on the coffin lid, and cut it right in half.

Well, we stared at that box again, but nobody did any shouting this time.

God damn that old liar, Nicolin said. He threw the shovel down. He told us that every single one of those funerals cost a fortune. He said— He paused; we all knew what the old man had said. He told us there’d be silver.

He and Gabby and Del stood in the grave. Mando took the lantern to the headstone and put it down. Should call this headstone a kneestone, he said, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

Nicolin heard him and scowled. Should we go for his ring?

No! Mando cried, and we all laughed at him.

Go for his ring and belt buckle and dental work? Nicolin said harshly, slipping a glance at Gabby. Mando shook his head furiously, looking like he was about to cry. Del and I laughed; Gabby climbed out of the hole, looking disgusted. Nicolin tilted his head back and laughed, short and sharp. Let’s bury this guy and then go bury the old man.

We shoveled dirt back in. The first clods hit the coffin with an awful hollow sound, bonk bonk bonk. It didn’t take long to fill the hole. Mando and I put the grass back in place as best we could. When we were done it looked terrible. Appears he’s been bucking around down there, Gabby said.

We killed the lantern flame and took off. Fog flowed through the empty streets like water up a steambed, with us under the surface, down among drowned ruins and black seaweed. Back on the freeway it felt less submerged, but the fog swept hard across the road, and it was colder. We hiked south as fast as we could walk, none of us saying a word. When we warmed up we slowed down a little, and Nicolin began to talk. You know, since they had those plastic handles colored silver, it must mean that some time before that people were buried with real silver handles—richer people, or people buried before 1984, or whatever. We all understood this as a roundabout way of proposing another dig, and so no one agreed, although it appeared to make sense. Steve took offense at our silence and gained ground on us till he was just a mark in the mist. We were almost out of San Clemente.

Some sort of God damned plastic, Gabby was saying to Del. He started to laugh, harder and harder, until he was leaning an elbow on Del’s shoulder. Whoo, hoo hoo hoo … we just spent all night digging up five pounds of plastic. Plastic!

All of a sudden a noise pierced the air—a howl, a singing screech that started low and got ever higher and louder. No living creature was behind that sound. It reached a peak of height and loudness, and wavered there between two tones, rising and falling, oooooo-eeeeee-oooooo-eeeeee-oooooo, on and on and on, like the scream of the ghosts of every dead person ever buried in Orange County, or the final shrieks of all those killed by the bombs.

We all unstuck ourselves from our tracks and took off running. The noise continued, and appeared to follow us.

What is it? Mando cried.

Scavengers! Nicolin hissed. And the sound cranked up and down, closer to us than before. Run faster! Nicolin called over it. The breaks in the road surface gave us no trouble at all; we flew over them. Rocks began clattering off the concrete behind us, and over the embankment that the freeway ran on. Keep the shovels, I heard Del exclaim. I picked up a good-sized rock by the road, relieved in a way that it was only scavengers after us. Nothing but fog behind me, fog and the howl, but rocks came out of the whiteness at a good rate. I threw my rock at a dark shape and ran after the others, chased by some howls that were at least animal, and could have been human. But over them was the blast, rising and falling and rising. Henry! Steve shouted. The others were down the embankment with him. I jumped down and traversed through weeds, behind the rest. Get rocks, Nicolin ordered. We picked up rocks, then turned and threw them onto the freeway behind us all at once. We got screams for a reply. We got one! Nicolin said. But there was no way of knowing. We rolled onto the freeway and ran again. The screech lost ground on us, and eventually we were into San Mateo Valley, and on the way to Basilone Ridge, above our own valley. Behind us the noise continued, fainter with distance and the muffling fog.

That must be a siren, Nicolin said. What they call a siren. Noise machine. We’ll have to ask Rafael. We threw the rocks we had left in the general direction of the sound, and jogged over the ridge into Onofre.

Those dirty scavengers, Nicolin said, when we were onto the river path, and had caught our breath. I wonder how they found us.

Maybe they were out wandering, and stumbled across us, I suggested.

Doesn’t seem likely.

No. But I couldn’t think of a likelier explanation, and I didn’t hear Steve offering one.

I’m going home, Mando said, a touch of relief in his voice. He sounded odd somehow—scared maybe—and I felt a chill run down me.

Okay, you do that. We’ll get those wreckrats another time.

Five minutes later we were at the bridge. Gabby and Del went upriver. Steve and I stood in the fork of the path. He started to discuss the night, cursing the scavengers, the old man, and John Appleby alike, and it was clear his blood was high. He was ready to talk till dawn, but I was tired. I didn’t have his stamina, and I was still shaken by that noise. Siren or no, it had sounded deadly inhuman. So I said goodnight to Steve and slipped in the door of my cabin. Pa’s snoring broke rhythm, resumed. I tore a piece of bread from the next day’s loaf and stuffed it down, tasting dirt. I dipped my hands in the wash bucket and wiped them off, but they still felt grimy, and they stank of the grave. I gave up and lay on my bed, feeling gritty, and was asleep before I even warmed up.

2

I was dreaming of the moment when we had started to fill in the open grave. Dirt clods were hitting the coffin with that terrible sound, bonk bonk bonk; but in the dream the sound was a knocking from inside the coffin, getting louder and more desperate the faster we filled in the hole.

Pa woke me in the middle of this nightmare: They found a dead man washed up on the beach this morning.

Huh? I cried, and jumped out of bed all confused. Pa backed off, startled. I leaned over the wash bucket and splashed my face. What’s this you say?

I say, they found one of those Chinamen. You’re all covered with dirt. What’s with you? You out again last night?

I nodded. We’re building a hideout.

Pa shook his head, baffled and disapproving.

I’m hungry, I added, going for the loaf of bread. I took a cup from the shelf and dipped it in the water bucket.

We don’t have anything but bread left.

I know. I pulled some chunks from the loaf. Kathryn’s bread was good even when a bit stale. I went to the door and opened it, and the gloom of our windowless cabin was split by a wedge of muted sunlight. I stuck my head out into the air: dull sun, trees along the river sopping wet. Inside the light fell on Pa’s sewing table, the old machine burnished by years of handling. Beside it was the stove, and over that, next to the stovepipe that punctured the roof, the utensil shelf. That, along with table, chairs, wardrobe and beds, made up the whole of our belongings—the simple possessions of a simpleton in a simple trade. Why, folks didn’t even really need to have Pa sew their clothes.…

You better get down to the boats, Pa said sternly. It’s late, they’ll be putting out.

Umph. Still swallowing bread, I put on shirt and shoes. Good luck! Pa called as I ran out the door.

Crossing the freeway I was stopped by Mando, coming the other way. Did you hear about the Chinaman washed up? he called.

Yeah! Did you see him?

Yes. Pa went down to look at him, and I tagged along.

Was he shot?

Oh yeah. Four bullet holes, right in the chest.

Man. A lot of them washed up like that. I wonder what they’re fighting about so hard out there.

Mando shrugged. In the potato patch across the road Rebel Simpson was chasing a dog with a spud in its mouth, yelling at it, her face red. Pa says there’s a coast guard offshore, keeping people out.

I know, I said. I just wonder if that’s it. Big ships ghosted up and down the long coast, usually out near the horizon, sometimes nearer; and bodies washed ashore from time to time, riddled with bullets. But that was the extent of what we could say for sure about the world offshore, in my opinion. When I thought about it my curiosity sometimes became so intense that it shaded into something like fury. Mando, on the other hand, was confident that his father (who was only echoing the old man) had the explanation. He accompanied me out to the cliff. Out to sea was a bar of white cloud, lying on the horizon: the fog bank, which would roll in later when the onshore wind got going. Down on the river flat they were loading nets onto the boats. I’ve got to get on board, I said to Mando. See you later.

By the time I had descended the cliff they were launching the boats. I joined Steve by the smallest of them, which was still on the sand. John Nicolin, Steve’s father, walked by and glared at me. You two take the rods today. You won’t be good for anything else. I kept my face wooden. He walked on to growl a command at the boat shoving off.

He knows we were out?

Yeah. Steve’s lip curled. I fell over a drying rack when I snuck in.

Did you get in trouble?

He turned his head to show me a bruise in front of his ear. What do you think? He was in no mood to talk, and I went to help the men hauling the next boat over the flat. The cold water sluicing over my feet woke me up good for the first time that day. Out to sea the quiet krrr, krrrrrr of breaking waves indicated a small swell. The little boat’s turn came and Steve and I hopped in as it was shoved into the channel. We rowed lazily, relying on the current, and got over the breakers at the rivermouth without any trouble.

Once all the boats were out around the buoy marking the main reef, it was business as usual. The three big boats started their circling, spreading the purse net; Steve and I rowed south, the other rod boats rowed north. At the south end of the valley there is a small inlet, nearly filled by a reef made of concrete. Between the concrete reef and the larger reef offshore is a channel, one used by faster fish when the nets are dropped; rod fishing usually gets results when the nets are being worked. Steve and I dropped our anchor onto the main reef, and let the swell carry us in over the channel, almost to the curved white segments of the concrete reef. Then it was out with the rods. I knotted the shiny metal bar that was my lure onto the line. Casket handle, I said to Steve, holding it up before I threw it over. He didn’t laugh. I let it sink to the bottom, then started the slow reel up.

We fished. Lure to the bottom, reel it back up; throw it in again. Occasionally the rods would arc down, and a few minutes of struggling ended with the gaff work. Then it was back to it. To the north the netters were pulling up nets silver with fish flopping after their lost freedom; the boats tilted in under the weight, until sometimes it seemed their keels would show and they would turn turtle. Inland the hills seemed to rise and fall, rise and fall. Under the cloud-filmed sun the forest was a rich green, the cliff and the bare hilltops dull and gray.

Now five years before, when I was twelve and Pa had first hired me out to John Nicolin, fishing had been a big deal. I had been excited by everything about it—the fishing itself, the moods of the ocean, the teamwork of the men, the entrancing view of the land from the sea. But a lot of days on the water had passed since then, a lot of fish hauled over the gunwale: big fish and small, no fish or so many fish that we exhausted our arms and wore our hands ragged; over steep slow swells, or wind-blown chop, or on water flat as a plate; and under skies hot and clear, or in rain that made the hills a gray mirage, or when it was stormy, with clouds scudding overhead like horses … mostly days like this day, however, moderate swell, sun fighting high clouds, medium number of fish. There had been a thousand days like this one, it seemed, and the thrill was long gone. It was just work to me now.

In between catches I dozed, lulled by the swell, waking up when my rod jerked into my stomach. Then I reeled the fish in, gaffed it, pulled it over the side, smacked its head, got the lure out and tossed it over again, and went back to sleep.

Henry!

Yeah! I said, sitting up and checking my rod automatically.

We got quite a few fish here.

I glanced at the bonita and rock bass in the boat. About a dozen.

Good fishing. Maybe I’ll be able to get away this afternoon, Steve said wistfully.

I doubted it, but I didn’t say anything. The sun was obscured, and the water was gray; it was getting chill. The fog bank had started its roll in. Looks like we’ll spend it on shore, I said.

Yeah. We’ve got to go up and see Barnard; I want to beat the shit out of that old liar.

Sure.

Then we both hooked big ones, and we had a time of it keeping our lines clear. We were still working them when the blare of Rafael’s bugle floated over the water from the netters. We whooped and got our fish aboard without delay, slapped our oars into the oarlocks and beat it back to Rafael’s boat. They parceled some fish out to us, as some of the boats were about foundering under their load, and we rowed into the rivermouth.

With the help of the Nicolin family and the others on the beach, we pulled the boat up onto the sand and took our fish over to the cleaning tables. Gulls soused us repeatedly, screeching and flapping. When the boat was empty and pulled up to the cliff, Steve approached his father, who was shaking a finger at Rafael and lecturing him about some twists in the line.

Can I go now, Pa? Steve asked. Hanker and I need to do our lessons with Tom. Which was true.

Nope, old Nicolin said, bent over and still inspecting the net. You’re going to help us fix this net. And then you’re going to help your ma and sisters clean fish.

At first John had made Steve go to learn to read from the old man, because he figured it was a sign of family prosperity and distinction. Then when Steve got to liking it (which took a long time), his father took to keeping him from it. John straightened, looked at Steve; a bit shorter than his son, but a lot thicker; both of them with the same squarish jaw, brown shock of hair, light blue eyes, straight strong nose.… They glared at each other, John daring Steve to talk back to him with all the men wandering around. For a second I thought it was going to happen, that Steve was going to defy him and begin who knows what kind of bloody dispute. But Steve turned away and stalked over to the cleaning tables. After a short wait to allow his anger to lose its first bloom, I followed him.

I’ll go on up and tell the old man you’re coming later.

All right, Steve said, not looking at me. I’ll be there when I can.

Old Nicolin gave me three rock bass and I hauled them up the cliff in a net bag. A gang of kids splashed clothes in the water, and farther upstream several women stood around the ovens at the Marianis’.

I took the fish to Pa, who jumped up from his sewing machine hungrily. Oh good, good. I’ll get to work on these, one for tonight, dry the others. I told him I was going to the old man’s and he nodded, pulling rapidly at his long moustache. Eat this right after dark, okay?

Okay, I said, and was off.

The old man’s home is on the steep ridge marking the southern end of our valley, on a flat spot just bigger than his house, about halfway to the peak of the tallest hill around. There isn’t a better view from any home in Onofre. When I got up there the house, a four-roomed wooden box with a fine front window, was