Read Mink River: A Novel for Free Online

by who lives on them, and then down the beach stairs to the water. By now the sun’s nearly in the ocean and the tide’s mostly out and they brisk along stride for stride, silent, meditative. This is the real edge of the town, this strand of sand and seawrack, the shells of Dungeness crabs, a sneaker here and there from a wreck at sea, a fishing float occasionally, a shard of wood, bones, sticks, logs. Sometimes a dead seal or sea lion or shark. Once a doe that maybe fell from a cliff. Once a humpback whale. Sometimes very much alive sea lions, who are really big and bark like dogs and move much faster than you might imagine. Once a dead man.
    As they near the river they pass the keel of the Carmarthen Castle, which wrecked there more than half a century ago.
    Welsh, says the doctor, not slowing.
    Mm?
    Wheat and timber, sailing from California to Oregon.
    Why did it wreck?
    The captain who was roaring drunk on an unbelievably foggy night turned into the Mink thinking it was the mighty Columbia River and discovered he was wrong. The whole load of lumber slid into the Mink. Some was teak. Note that the O Donnell barn has a lovely teak door. The only fatality: a rooster that had three times been around Cape Horn.
    Worried Man stops suddenly.
    You feel it? says the doctor quietly.
    Mm.
    The doctor stands silently for a minute while Worried Man casts about for the pain in the air. He has tried to explain to the doctor, and to Cedar, and to his wife, that he doesn’t hear or smell or feel the aura of someone else’s pain—he, just, well, catches it, sort of. I just am apprised of its existence, sort of, he says.
    What does it feel like?
    Like electricity, in a way, says Worried Man. But there’s a sort of screaming or tearing in it. A chattering. It’s hard to explain.
    Where is it?
    Nearby. Up.
    Can you tell … ?
    A woman.
    The doctor, discreet, bows gently and heads back to his house. Worried Man, equally discreet, waits until the doctor turns the corner and then he heads uphill away from the ocean.
    The night falls thick, he thinks, I go upon my watch. Blake.
    17.
    Daniel arrives, panting for dramatic emphasis, with only five minutes to go before the last bell rings. His grandmother glares at him but he is smart enough not to smile and then the bell rings and the class flutters and rustles and sprints and bustles off and Maple Head crooks her finger at Daniel to come to the desk and as he shuffles to the front of class he looks closely at her eyes under her thunderstorm eyebrows but sees no green fish leaping so he smiles.
    I’m sorry, Gram.
    I’ll only be a half a minute, you said.
    Sorry.
    Hmf.
    You know what Dad’s shop is like, Gram.
    O alright. You missed geometry.
    I know it all. Test me.
    Just do the questions after Chapter Five tonight. How’s your dad?
    Stuffing a beaver.
    Sentence of the day. Where’d he get it?
    Grace.
    Walk home with me?
    Okay, Gram.
    He rides his bike slowly, standing up on the pedals, and she floats smoothly over the fresh-washed asphalt, her feet feathers and songs, the rising wind pours her hair into the air. Rained gently last night, just enough to wash the town clean, and then today a clean crisp fat spring day, the air redolent, the kind of green minty succulent air you’d bottle if you could and snort greedily on bleak wet January evenings when the streetlights hzzzzt on at four in the afternoon and all existence seems hopeless and sad.
    Daniel watches his grandmother’s hair stream behind her and he sees the brown fish leaping in the swirling silver river.
    How’d you meet Grampa?
    We met by the river.
    Did you love him right away?
    No.
    No?
    I was fascinated, though.
    Was he fascinated too?
    Yep.
    How could you tell?
    I could tell.
    How?
    I could tell. You’ll see someday.
    Was he in love?
    He was … fascinated.
    Is that the same as love?
    Better.
    Better than love?
    There is no real love without fascination.
    Is he still fascinated?
    I sure hope so.
    Are you?
    Yes