The fisherman continued on with his sled, his ice crampons allowing him a full and crunching stride, while John and Ethan slipped and skidded out onto the lake halfway to the thin black line of open water before they found the nine precise holes made by the fisherman’s power auger. Together, they counted off until they reached number five, and there they set down their buckets and gear. The holes had already begun to fill in, but John had acquired that skimmer, with which he quickly scooped out the slush to reveal the surprisingly mysterious black surface of the deep water.
He put out a bucket for Ethan to sit on, round and red as an apple in his puffy snowsuit, while his father fiddled with the tip-up rig until he understood how to bend the springy wire with the tiny flag into its notch and lowered the line adorned with a sparkling green jig and baited with a twisting night crawler. It seemed he was unspooling line forever before he reached bottom. He spread the braces across the span of hole and arranged the wire and flag that would spring up when they had a bite. Inverting his white bucket, he sat down opposite Ethan and waited with his hands stuffed up opposing sleeves.
“How long will this take?” asked Ethan.
“I wish I knew, Ethan.”
“Is fishing always like this?”
“I guess you could say it’s different every time.”
Ethan thought for moment. “I wish fishing would hurry up.”
“Are you warm enough in that thing?”
“It’s boiling in here.”
“How about your feet.”
“They’re boiling, too.”
John, who could have used another layer of clothes himself, stood from time to time to bounce on the balls of his feet and clap his mittens together, at which sight Ethan nearly laughed himself off his pail. When John sat down again, he gazed around the shore, off toward the mountains; every now and then the light caught a car on the road to Helena, a quick flash, but otherwise the lake and its surroundings seemed completely desolate.
“What do you call Lucius?”
“I don’t know.”
You could call him Lucifer, thought John. Lucius, as John saw it, had tempted away his lively but somewhat flakey wife and turned her into a career woman fit to stand beside him at the Consumer Electronics Association. They hadn’t come out as a couple for a whole week before she was talking about the glass ceiling. Lucius was fifteen years older than Linda, who, though contented with the relationship, had shown no interest in becoming his fourth wife, something Lucius expected to happen sooner or later, as indeed it did. Lucius would tell his friends that the wedding was to be small and intimate; he wouldn’t be inviting them this time. They’d slap him on the back and offer to come to the next one. This, with Linda on his arm. She seemed to take it in stride. Her eyes had by now opened to a much-larger world, if weekly trips through airport security were a gateway to such a thing. She must have thought so, because in an unguarded moment after she’d remarried, she called John a bump on a log. He felt betrayed. He’d always thought he’d been doing fine right up until his paper was restructured. But greater than his hurt was his worry about what place there would be for Ethan in Linda’s new life.
The small red flag popped up, and Ethan was so startled he tumbled from his pail. John was able to lift him to his feet by a handful of snowsuit at his back. He set the tip-up to one side and felt the tautness on the line slowly traveling from the spool. He gave the line to Ethan who grasped it in both hands and smiled in amazement to feel the life in it. At John’s direction he pulled fist over fist, the loose line falling behind him until with a heave the fish flew out of the hole into the air then bounced around on the ice. John held the fish, a yellow perch, close to Ethan who stared at its keen eye. “Throw him back?”
“Yes, please, back in the hole,” said Ethan. John unhooked the perch and slipped it back in. Ethan leaned close and peered into the blackness. “He’s gone.”
John reset the tip-up and noticed that Ethan was more concentrated on its operation now that he had seen it work. He asked a few questions after he thought about the fish and its friends and what there was to eat down there. Then he said his feet were cold.
“Mine, too. Let’s jump up and down.” The two hopped around the fishing hole, and then Ethan fell on his back laughing until John picked him up by the front of his red one-piece like a suitcase. “Put your mittens on.”
“Okay.”
“And tell me if you get too cold.”
“Oh-oh-kay.”
“Are you cold now?”
“Okay.”
“Ethan, be serious, are you cold?”
“No-kay. What is that?”
“What is what?”
“That black thing.”
To the northwest, a storm cloud was climbing fast, dark and full of turbulence. John glanced at their fishing rig hoping the flag would pop up soon; he could see Ethan was eager for another fish. But then the wind was upon them, picking up with startling speed, sweeping shards of ice toward the seam of open water with an unremitting tinkle.
“Ethan, I think we should reel this thing up. This weather is — I don’t know what this weather is doing.”
John bent over the hole in the ice and was carefully spooling in the line, when he saw the little flag flutter in the corner of his eye. Just then a fish grabbed the bait and began pulling the line again. “Uh-oh, Ethan, we’ve got another one,” he said as the wind rose to a screech. “I’m going to have to break it off. I hope that’s okay—” No answer. “Okay, Ethan? Ethan, okay if we just let it go?”
John looked up and saw the boy forty feet away, tumbling like a leaf in the wind. He dropped the fishing line and stood, barely able to keep his own balance. Ice particles chimed in the air accompanying Ethan’s jubilant laughter. John made for him, the wind pushing him forward, and each time Ethan got to his feet, crouching arms held apart for balance, he tumbled forward and skidded some more. John hurried but Ethan kept sliding faster. The black cloud roared like an engine overhead bringing a whirl of heavier snow that made Ethan harder to see as he slid yelling joyfully toward the open water. Trying to overtake him, John fell again and again, now with only the sound of laughter to guide him. He no longer knew where the water was, whether it was even in the general direction in which he was stumbling. He fell and crawled until he became aware of the stickiness of blood on his hands. Certain he had lost his way he stopped to listen, straining to distinguish any sound in the din of the storm. He had no idea which way he should go. Every impulse to move was canceled as soon as it arose.
The cloud passed overhead to the south and the Missouri River valley. The wind died, as the remaining snow was sifted onto the ice slowly unveiling a blue sky. Some forty feet away Ethan was clear as day in his red snowsuit. He was sitting crossed-legged next to the open water. “Daddy! Let’s fish here!” As they crossed the ice toward the car, John saw his son look back toward the black line of water, and he knew he was troubled.
Linda met them at the door. Lucius was out. Ethan jumped into her arms, and John handed her the bundled snowsuit. “Mom, we had so much fun! We caught a fish and went sliding, with Daddy trying to catch me!” But looking back at his father in confusion, he seemed about to cry.
Linda asked, “Where was this?”
“Over toward Helena.”
“A pond?”
“Not really.”
“Oh, well, never mind. It sounds like a great place.”
“I’ll take you sometime.”