Sea Change (2 page)

My mouth is still full and I'm making another sandwich when I hear footsteps on the porch. The door swings open and Sumi is standing in her socks, holding a plastic pail. She takes off her heavy rain jacket and hangs it on a hook by the door. The sleeves of the jacket are rolled up, like it's too big for her. She's still wearing the cap, but without the safety glasses she looks way more like a girl—a nice-looking girl.

She takes in my sandwich, the empty tuna can, my shoes and the spilled tuna. I try hard to swallow the lump of sandwich. She steps around me and sets the pail on the table.

I shouldn't have looked. The bottom of the pail is filled with a smooth red liver.

“Is that from the deer?”

She looks at me like I'm an idiot. “Where else would I get it?”

I can't help but think of a female Hannibal Lecter.

She opens the wood stove and jams in some sticks of wood. She blows on the embers and the wood catches. The fire crackles, and she adds a couple of split logs and then closes the door. On top of the stove she puts a heavy skillet.

“We're going to eat it?”

Another look. Sumi reaches into the bucket and grabs the liver. It slumps over her hand. She plops it onto a plate and pulls a knife from her side pocket. Holding the liver with one hand, she slices it into quivering pieces. The bite of sandwich I've only just managed to swallow threatens to come back up.

I say, “I'm actually not that hungry.”

She looks at me, then at the empty tuna can. “I guess not.” She pries the lid from the Crisco and uses a fork to gather a big blob. The tines of the fork leave marks in the yellow fat. The whole tub has fork marks. She flicks the fat into the hot pan and it starts to sizzle. From a big plastic jar she cups a handful of flour and coats the slices of liver. She drops the liver into the pan and then grabs a rag and wipes her hands. There's no sink and no running water, just a plastic dishpan. Maybe this counts as washing her hands.

Sumi rummages in one of the cardboard boxes and comes back to the stove with an onion. Using the same knife, she peels the onion in one big piece and then cuts it into rough chunks right in her hand. She puts the onion in with the liver and then plunks down in a chair.

I say, “So, this is your cabin?”

“I use it. In the winter I take care of the place.” She has nice eyes, almond-shaped and golden brown.

“You don't go to school?”

“I'm done, graduated in June.”

So she's older. But maybe not that much older. I turn eighteen in a couple of months. Maybe we're less than a year apart.

She says, “Your dad take off?”

Her question brings me back and I nod. “He had to see someone.”

“That would be Deirdre.” She smiles like she knows something. “She's my aunt. She and her kids live with my grandmother and me.”

I feel like I've been transplanted into my father's other life. I look at Sumi, trying to imagine what her aunt looks like. I say, “Your grandmother's place, is it far?”

“No, a couple of hours.”

“That seems far to me. He said he might not be back until tomorrow.”

Sumi grins. “He won't be.” Her front teeth look very white. “He usually brings her here. Maybe he's staying at our place because of you.” She gets up and turns the meat in the pan.

Nice, having this time together, me and Dad—except that he's two hours away with his girlfriend.

It's already getting dark, and Sumi lights a Coleman lantern. She says, “He won't be on the water in the dark, not with the weather changing.”

“Maybe we should phone him.” Maybe, if he leaves right now, he can make it back and we can forget, again, why he left.

“No satellite phone in the off-season.” Sumi shakes the pan and hot fat spits onto the stove. “And we're out of radio range.”

There's no cell service either. My mom used to say it was convenient for Dad that she couldn't reach him.

“Anyway, he knows to check the weather.” Sumi tips the liver and onions onto the same plate she used to prepare it. She forks a piece into her mouth and shoves the plate toward me. The liver is nicely browned and crusty. It actually smells pretty good. Still, I wave it away. Sumi seems glad. She digs in like she hasn't eaten for days.

I let her eat for a while, then make an attempt at conversation. “My dad seemed pretty pissed about you killing the deer.”

Sumi shrugs.

“You sniped it, really. Assassinated it.”

She stops chewing, looks at me, picks a hunk out of her teeth and starts chewing again. She says, “It died happy.”

I snort.

Now her eyebrows lift. “I guess you don't hunt.”

“I guess I don't.”

“The deer, they're so used to the helicopters they don't even move. When the helicopter is close like that, the deer can't hear anything.”

She swallows, takes another bite. “Up here the deer are small but the bears are big, the biggest black bears you'll find. We see bears around the lodge sometimes, and usually they just wander through. This one time, though, the helicopter was coming in, full of guests, and the deer were out on the grass like always, and this bear showed up at the edge of the clearing. He waited until the chopper got close, and then he ran out and bagged a deer. The other deer didn't even know what happened. The bear dragged the deer into the woods and was eating it by the time we got the guests unloaded.”

“That would be something to see.”

She nods. “All the guests saw. One of them thought it was harsh, said we were endangering the deer.” She laughs. “She thought we should kill the bear, like it was a murderer.” She jams the last piece of liver into her mouth. “Or should I say an assassin?”

I say, “Okay, it was hunting for food. I get it.”

“It must have been watching the deer for a while to figure out the whole helicopter thing. They do that, bears. Sit and watch you. You won't even know they're there.” Sumi slides her plate into the frying pan, pours water in from a blue jerry can and covers the pan with a lid. She points to the top bunk. “You sleep there. Shitter's out back. Don't wake me up in the night.”

“Whoa, you're sleeping here too?” I know it's a stupid question, but I can't believe she'd stay in the same cabin as a guy.

She says, “I've got a tent if you don't want to sleep in here. I use it when Denny's here.”

“It's a nice tent,” Sumi says, and then she looks at me. “I'm sure the bear is long gone.”

Bear? “No, I mean, if it's okay with you, then I'm fine sleeping together.” My face gets red hot. “In the same cabin.”

She waves her hand as if to erase my stupid comment. “Whatever,” she says, and she turns toward her bunk.

So much for happy hour. I go outside but it is dark, pitch-black dark. Water and land and trees all look the same: pitch-black dark. There's no way I'm going looking for a shitter, not with a big bear around. I shiver. Inside, in the light of the lantern, I can see Sumi cleaning her teeth into the dishpan. Nice. I step off the porch and piss on the grass. Then I wait for a while, long enough that she might think I went to the outhouse, and then I go back in. She's already in bed.

I avoid looking at her as I climb into my bed. The sleeping bag feels a bit damp but it's warm. “Sumi?”

She grunts.

“So, my dad keeps the deer here for the guests? Like an attraction or something?”

I hear her roll over, and then she snuffs the lantern. “It's not like there's a fence. He plants grass. The deer eat the grass.”

“So the deer don't belong to him?”

“I didn't say that.”

“So they do belong to him?”

She lets out a huge sigh.

I know I should let it go, but I say, “He thinks they belong to him?”

There's a long pause, and then she says, “If you haven't figured out your father by now, Lucas, I'm not sure why you're trying.”

Chapter Three

As soon as I leave the sleeping bag, the coldness of the morning nails me. Wind rattles the windows. Sumi motions to a pot of coffee like I should help myself. I pour a mug, grateful for the warmth. She's eating Wonder bread and peanut butter, and she's left her knife stuck deep in the jar.

“Did my dad bring some food?” I'm thinking bacon and eggs, maybe some fried potatoes.

Sumi tongues a wad of bread and peanut butter from her front teeth. “If he did, he took it with him.”

Well, I hope he's having a nice breakfast. I smear peanut butter on bread and sit down at the table. “So, the coho are running?”

She nods. “Most are already in the streams, but there are some still out there. They're nice fish, fat from feeding all summer.” She looks out the window. The bay is covered with whitecaps, and rain slants hard against the glass. “I'm going hunting though. It snowed up on the ridge, so the game will be easy to track.”

“Sumi the Slayer strikes again.” I say it with a laugh, but she just shrugs.

“The deer I got yesterday has to hang for a week or so,” she says. “My grandmother might like a rabbit or something in the meantime.”

“I guess I knew that. Beef has to age too.”

“At home we've got a shed for game. Hopefully Denny will get back, and then I'll be able to take it home today.”

I try to keep my voice level. “You don't have to wait for him. You don't have to keep me company.”

“Oh, I know that.” She looks out to the bay. “I'm not going anywhere in a boat, not until it clears.”

That probably means the old man isn't getting back either, which means I'm not going fishing.

She must see my expression because she says, “I wouldn't mind going fishing later.”

She's throwing me a bone and I'm not too proud to take it. I can't help but grin. Midmorning and Sumi's been gone a couple of hours. I've cleaned last night's frying pan and dishes, found my duffel bag and descummed myself, also found the outhouse, including a well-read stack of
Field and Stream
—what a surprise. My jacket isn't cutting it, so I put on Sumi's and unfold the sleeves. It fits pretty well, actually. In the pocket there's a cartridge. Must be for the rifle. I put it back in the pocket and head out to look around the grounds.

The wind has dropped and the rain too. At the edge of the forest, huge cedar trees drip rainwater. Seabirds drop and loop over the water. The guest cabins are nice. They cluster to one side of the main lodge, and each one looks out over the bay. Sumi's cabin and a few other buildings are behind the lodge. All the buildings except her cabin are shuttered for the winter, the doorways covered with poly. Farther back, pushed right out to the forest, is a slope-roofed metal building. It's boarded up too. There's a sign:
Generator
. Not that it's running, based on the total lack of electricity in Sumi's cabin. I wander around back and that's where I find the deer.

It's hanging upside down, by its back-legs, from a chain block and tackle on a log frame. It hasn't been skinned. I reach up and touch the fur along its neck. It feels smooth. Close like this, I can see a subtle pattern in the deer hair. When I touch it, the body rotates, the chain clunk-clunking in the block. Now I'm looking at the underside, and the body cavity is propped open with sticks and is totally empty, as if it was scraped clean. The deer's eyes are open and follow me as the body turns one way, then the other. It's not very big. I think about Sumi's bear story. A bear could drag this thing away, no problem. I glance around. It could drag me away too.

The forest seems quiet all of a sudden. I feel hairs lift on the back of my neck. Something's watching me, I can feel it. I spin and scan the forest. Nothing is moving. Nothing is making a sound. It's like there's no air.

How fast can a bear run? I eyeball the distance to Sumi's cabin. Too far. A small outbuilding is closer.

I sense it more than hear it, a long exhaled breath. All I can think of is the bear.

I run. I don't know how long it takes to reach the outbuilding, but in those endless seconds I decide I'm going full bore through the door. It's not that easy. My shoulder actually bounces on the plastic over the door. I take my boots to it and make some holes. Then I start ripping it with my hands and find the door handle. It's not locked, thank goodness, but it opens out, damn it. I am totally crazed. I yank on the door, using it like a giant pry bar. The heavy vinyl finally gives and I dive through the door. Then I scramble to get the door closed. Nothing works anymore. My hands feel like I'm wearing ball gloves, but I manage to yank it closed.

There's no light. I rip air into my lungs. My hands are shaking, so I make them into fists and jam them in my armpits.

Outside, something thumps on the stairs.

Can bears open doors?

I crab walk away from the door so fast that my head crashes into something, and what feels like every fishing rod known to man rains down on top of me. Still, I scrabble backward, and I feel rods snapping.

Then the door opens. In the sudden light, I see Sumi. She looks at the shredded plastic around the door. She looks at me, sitting on my ass and so relieved that it is her and not a bear that I'm actually giggling. She starts to laugh too, until she sees the pile of broken fishing rods. Then she starts to swear, every word I know and even some I don't, repeating a few choice ones for good measure.

Chapter Four

We're in the tackle room, apparently, and I've made a bit of a mess. Sumi shovels the worst of it off to the side of the room. Still swearing, she picks out a couple of rods that escaped damage and sets these by the door. From a rack she tosses me a set of overalls and a bright yellow floater jacket. Then she points to a line of rubber boots. “Think you can find some boots without totally trashing them too?” She grabs a pair of heavy wool socks from a bin and jams them in her pocket.