Surfacing

I steer us along the mainland shore. A blue heron lifts from a bay where it's been fishing and flaps overhead, neck and beak craning forward and long legs stretched back, winged snake. It notes us with a rasping pterodactyl croak and rises higher, heading southeast, there was a colony of them, it must still be there. But now I have to pay more attention to David. The copper line slants down, cutting the water, vibrating slightly.

"Any action?" I ask.

"It's just sort of jigging."

"That's the spoon turning," I say. "Keep the tip down; if you feel a nibble wait a second and then give it a sharp tug, okay?"

"Right," he says.

My arms are tired. Behind me I can hear the tick tock of the frog hopping up and hitting its muzzle against the jar lid.

When we're getting near the sheer cliff I tell him to reel in, we'll still-fish and he can use his own rod.

"Lie down, A

A

He chuckles at her and reels and the line comes in, the water slipping off it; the pale gleam of the spoon wavers up out of the lake. When it skips over the surface towards us I can see the worm is gone. On one hook is a shred of worm skin; I used to wonder how the lures with their crude African-idol eyes could deceive the fish, but perhaps they've learned.

We're opposite the cliff, grey slab of rock straight as a monument, overhanging slightly, ledge like a step halfway up, brown rock-lichen growing in the fissures. I put a lead sinker and a different spoon and a fresh worm on David's line and toss it over; the worm drops, pink, pink-brown, till it disappears in the shadow of the cliff. The dark torpedo shapes of the fish are seeing it, sniffing at it, prodding it with their noses. I believe in them the way other people believe in God: I can't see them but I know they are there.

"Keep right still," I say to A

Light fading, silence; back in the forest, liquid spiral thrush voice, they call at sunset. David's arm moves up and down.

When nothing happens I tell him to reel in; the worm is gone again. I take out the little frog, the ultimate solution, and hook it on securely while it squeaks. Other people always did that for me.

"God you're cold-blooded," A

Everyone concentrates, even A

Our father who art in heaven

Please let the fish be caught.

Later when I knew that wouldn't work, just _Please be caught,_ invocation or hypnosis. He got more fish but I could pretend mine were willing, they had chosen to die and forgiven me in advance.

I begin to think the frog has failed. But it's still magic, the rod bends like a diviner's and A

I say "Keep the line tight," but David is oblivious, he's reeling like a mixmaster and saying "Wow, wow" to himself and it's up to the surface, it jumps clear and hangs in the air like a framed photo over a bar only moving. It dives and pulls, the line slackens, it's doubling back trying to shake loose; but when it jumps again David jerks the rod with his whole body and it sails across and flops into the canoe, a dumb move, he could've lost it, on top of A

"Here," I say, "hit it back of the eyes." I reach him the sheathed knife, I'd rather not kill it myself.

David swipes at it, misses; A

"What is it?" David asks, amazed by what he's caught but proud too. They are all laughing, joyful with victory and relief, like the newsreels of parades at the end of the war, and that makes me glad. Their voices bounce off the cliff.

"Walleye," I say, "Pickerel. We'll have it for breakfast."

It's a good size. I pick it up, fingers hooked under the gills and holding firmly, they can bite and jerk loose even when they're dead. I put it on the bracken fronds and rinse my hand and the knife. One of its eyes is bulging out and I feel a little sick, it's because I've killed something, made it dead; but I know that's irrational, killing certain things is all right, food and enemies, fish and mosquitoes; and wasps, when there are too many of them you pour boiling water down their tu

"Neat eh?" David says to the others; he's excited, he wants praise. "Ugh," says A

David wants to try for another; it's like gambling, you only stop if you lose. I don't remind him I have no more magic frogs; I get out a worm for him and let him hook it on himself.

He fishes for a while but he's having no luck. Just as A

"Getting any?" one of the Americans yells, teeth bared, friendly as a shark.

I say "No" and nudge David with my foot. He'd want to tell, if only to spite them.

The other American throws his cigar butt over the side. "This don't look like much of a place," he says to Claude.

"Used to be," Claude says.

"Next year I'm goin' to Florida," the first American says.

"Reel in," I say to David. There's no sense in staying here now. If they catch one they'll be here all night, if they don't get anything in fifteen minutes they'll blast off and scream around the lake in their souped-up boat, deafening the fish. They're the kind who catch more than they can eat and they'd do it with dynamite if they could get away with it.

We used to think they were harmless and fu

On the way back we hug the shore, avoiding the open lake in case the Americans take it into their heads to zoom past us as close as possible, they sometimes do that for fun, their wake could tip us. But before we're half the distance they whoosh away into nowhere like Martians in a late movie, and I relax.