John Langan - The Fisherman

Helen shrugs. “That is his concern.”

“The consequence—”

“Does not matter to me.”

“How much work is left him?”

“Not much.”

“He has woven the ropes?”

“From the hairs of ten thousand dead men.”

“He has forged the hooks?”

“From the swords of a hundred dead kings.”

“He has set the lines?”

“Why do you continue with these questions?”

“Has he set the lines?”

“If you run home, you will have time to kiss your wife farewell.”

“Has he set the lines?”

“The near ones,” Helen says.

Rainer turns to the others, something like relief written on his face. He says, “We must leave, now.”

“What about her?” Italo asks.

Without looking at Helen, Rainer motions with his left hand, what might be a throwaway gesture except that his fingers bend, rise and fall as if he were playing a complicated tune on a trumpet. Helen’s form dims, then dissolves in a fall of water whose slap on the floor makes the men shout and jump back. For an instant, Jacob sees her shadow still in place, twisting like a thing in agony. He can hear a scream coming from somewhere, and it’s as if it’s that sound that carries him through the front door. Outside, he’s a little surprised to discover that the scream isn’t his, it’s Andrea’s. The man stands with his hands at his side, his eyes bulging, his mouth in an O from which a shrill noise rises into the evening air. Jacob thinks he should go to Andrea, try to calm him, but he’s too busy inhaling huge gasps of that same air into his lungs. It’s as if a boulder has been rolled off his chest. He sways, half-staggers as the oxygen washes through him. Never has it occurred to Jacob that breathing might be such a pleasurable, such a satisfying act. It’s left to Rainer to take Andrea by the shoulders and say something to him that calms his screaming.

A small crowd has gathered near the cabin. Several of the men carry hefty sticks, improvised clubs, while a number of the women have repurposed items from their kitchens — pans, knives — as weapons. Rainer walks towards them. As he does, they close ranks, raise their makeshift arms. He halts a safe distance from them and addresses one of the men, a tall Swede named Gunnar. He says, “She is gone.”

Gunnar nods. “For good?”

“For good.”

The crowd releases its collective breath. Their weapons dip. Inclining his head to Jacob and the others, Rainer says, “These men and I are going to see to the one who is responsible for this. It would be wise to gather your families and stay inside, tonight. I would not answer the door, no matter who seems to be knocking on it.”

“What about this place?” Gunnar says, pointing to Helen and George’s cabin.

“This is not a fit place for anyone, anymore,” Rainer says. “If it is burned to the ground, it will not be a bad thing. In the morning, though,” he adds. “Tonight, leave it be.”

Shortly after dawn the next morning, Helen and George’s former home bursts into flames. The camp has its own fire brigade, which is usually the model of efficiency, but on this morning, they take their time showing up, and when at last they do arrive, they’re noticeably short of the proper equipment. In fact, all they bring are sledge hammers to knock down any timbers left standing, buckets of sand for the embers, and shovels to spread the sand. For the length of time it takes the blaze to devour the house, the firemen stand with the group of people who have come to watch the conflagration. The smoke that pours off the fire is heavy, almost viscous. Several observers are sickened by its smell, and one boy who stands too close to the plume will be deathly ill by sunset, his skin riddled with what look like toadstools pushing their way out of it. He’s the last fatality of this whole strange affair.

It’s doubtful any of the company who embarked from the house the night before hears about the boy’s death, or the fire that led to it, for another day or two. Around the time the flames have fully enveloped the house, Rainer, Italo, Jacob, and Andrea are stumbling into their homes, offering mumbled words of reassurance to their wives or bunkmates, and falling into their beds, from which they will not rise again for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Their boots and clothes are sodden, streaked with reddish mud whose color and consistency no one recognized, as no one could identify the dark green leaves whose serrated edges had caught in the men’s clothing. To a one, they moaned and cried out in their sleep, but none of their wives or bunkmates could rouse them. Those wives and bunkmates made excuses for the four to their bosses, despite which, Andrea loses his job. Once they’ve climbed out of their slumbers, the men offer little in the way of explanation, answering most questions with at best a shake of the head. Rainer and Italo both reassure their wives that the worst is over, the danger past, and Clara and Regina set about spreading the word. Free to depart the camp whenever he wishes, Andrea wastes no time in so doing: he packs his bags and leaves right away. If he has a destination in mind, he doesn’t share it with anyone.

As for Angelo, the story that circulates is that he’s run off, taken a handful of axes and lit out for parts unknown. It’s an explanation that’s so patently false, even the folks who know next to nothing about what’s been going on suspect it. Which is not to say that any of them challenges it, makes an effort to ascertain the man’s actual fate. Now that the camp has returned to something like normal, there’s no one in a hurry to disturb that.

What those folks would say if they heard what really became of Angelo, I don’t know. Most likely, they wouldn’t believe it. They’d refuse to believe it. Maybe they’d treat it as an elaborate joke, the shaggiest of shaggy-dog stories. Maybe they’d grow angry, the way people do, sometimes, when they’re confronted with the marvelous, the fantastic, as if they’re upset at the universe for springing this on them.

With the exception of Rainer, I don’t imagine any of the men who set out from the camp anticipates what lies ahead of them. Maybe Italo has an inkling of what they’re headed towards, but there’s nothing in Jacob’s experience to prepare him for the night’s imminent events, and I expect the same holds true for Angelo and Andrea. Nor, for the first part of their journey, is there any hint of anything out of the ordinary. It’s a warm night, the air around them beginning to fill with mosquitoes on the hunt for a meal, the air above flapping with bats doing the same with those mosquitoes. The moon’s on the wane, but gives enough light for them to follow the road to the Station, and the Dort house. To either side of them, the Esopus valley is a study in systematic destruction. While the five of them have been at work on the dam and weir, other parts of the project have been moving ahead, as well. Every piece of ground that’s to be flooded has to be cleared of anything that might contaminate the water. That means houses, barns, shops, schools, churches, all have to go, either taken down and relocated, if someone can afford it, or burned to ash and carted away. Same thing with vegetation, from the tallest tree to the smallest weed, it has to be cleared and, in the case of the trees, the roots have to be dug up, as well. Every last grave must be opened, and its occupant removed, repackaged in a new pine coffin, and reburied somewhere else. The only thing that’s allowed to stay is rock, the foundations of some of the houses. I don’t know if you’ve seen photos of the First World War, those battlefields in France and Belgium, but that’s what it reminds me of, that same, almost lunar terrain. If there’s a difference, it’s that the devastation in the war pictures is more chaotic: in the midst of a cratered field, there’ll be a single, untouched apple tree, its branches drooping with fruit. What happens in the valley is methodical, relentless.