It’s only when I’m wrapped inside my sleeping bag that the images from Tarksalik’s accident come back: her body flying up in the air, the red pickup truck taking off, her blood on the snow-covered road.
I’m amazed that I didn’t think about the accident all day. I was too busy fighting the cold, helping with the dogs and the fishing net. We worked into the dark, and now I hardly have the energy to turn over. Winter camping’s even harder work than I expected.
Just fall asleep, I tell myself. I can hear Tom snoring lightly on the mattress next to mine. He even sleeps in squatting position—his legs folded under him, his chest and head stretched out in front of him so that his forehead touches the mattress. Lenny sleeps on his side, southern-style. The two of them conked right out. If only that would happen to me too.
I wish I could talk to my dad. Steve has a satellite phone—a clunky thing that must weigh three pounds—but it’s only for emergencies, so I haven’t had the heart to ask whether I could use it to call Dad and see how Tarksalik is doing. Besides, I can imagine the look Lenny would give me if he hears I’m still worried about the dog.
If I talked to my dad, maybe I’d also say something about that night he slept on the rock ledge. Maybe I’d ask why he never told me that story and why he told the kids in George River more about himself than he ever told me. But who am I kidding? I’d never say any of that to my dad. I’d ask about Tarksalik and then maybe we’d talk about the weather or how many assignments he’s got left to mark.
My triceps ache. It must be from helping Steve cut holes in the ice so we could set the net. He said nighttime is best for catching fish, since the fish don’t see the net. I’m starting to understand that surviving in the North means finding ways to outsmart nature.
We used a tuuk, a long wooden stick with a sharp metal end, to cut through the ice. It’s harder than it sounds, since the ice is, like, three feet deep. “You think this is thick,” Tom told me when I complained. “It’s nothing compared to how thick the ice was when my dad first took me fishing. Back then, the ice was at least five feet deep this time of year. You can thank global warming that we don’t have to dig so deep anymore.”
Lenny, who was about to take his turn, scowled. “Global warming,” he muttered under his breath. “The rest of the world screws up and we pay the price. It’s not right.”
I passed Lenny the tuuk. “You blaming me for global warming?” I felt my ears grow hot. That always happens to me when I’m angry.
“I didn’t say nothing about you,” Lenny said, but when he started cutting really hard with the tuuk, I got the feeling he did hold me personally responsible.
When Lenny hit water, he leaned back and shouted, “Yes!” His face looked different—relaxed. Then he started chipping away at the ice, his arm moving like a jackhammer. “We need to make a hole that’s about two feet wide,” he said. “Get the clicker.”
“What’s a clicker?”
“It’s a nulujiutik,” Tom said.
“Thanks a lot,” I told him. “That really helps.”
Tom grinned. “Here,” he said, “it’s this.” He showed me a bright orange wooden plank about four feet long and six inches wide.
“That thing’s so bright it hurts my eyes,” I told him.
“The color makes it easier to spot under the ice.”
Tom turned the plank over. Underneath was a green wooden arm that swung up and down. “This clicker is one of our greatest inventions,” Tom said. “When the plank floats underneath the ice, all you got to do is pull on this rope here.” He pointed to a long length of rope attached to the green arm. “That brings the arm flush against the plank and pushes forward this little metal claw. The claw grabs the ice and propels the whole thing away from you.”
Tom tapped his hand against a metal plate fastened to the underside of the plank. “The tapping on this metal plate makes the clicking sound,” he explained.
“And you use that to set the fishing net?”
Tom raised his eyebrows. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “You’ve got to see how it works.”
I helped Tom tie a long line of rope onto the metal ring at the end of the clicker. Once Lenny’s hole was big enough, we slid the clicker and the rope under the ice. Then we knotted the other end of the rope. It was tricky, but with three of us working together, it went okay.
“I’m gonna hold onto this end of the rope. You head out onto the ice and listen for the clicker,” Tom told me. “It’ll move under the ice as I pull the rope. With every pull, it’ll go a little farther.”
“Okay,” I said, though I didn’t really know what he meant. How was I supposed to hear something under all that ice?
I squatted on the ice, Inuit-style. Except for my own breathing and the whoosh of the wind, I couldn’t hear a thing. Man, I thought, is it ever quiet up here!
I looked toward Tom and shrugged. He pointed to his ear. “Listen!” he said.
“I am listening!” I shouted back.
“You have to be patient,” said Steve, who’d joined me on the ice. Patience has never been one of my better qualities.
Steve squatted next to me and lowered his head so his ear nearly brushed the ice. “Pull harder!” he shouted at Tom.
Steve raised one finger to his lips and gestured for me to lower my head to the ice too. When he raised his eyebrows, I knew he wanted to know whether I could hear the clicker.
I shook off the hood of my parka so I could hear better. The side of my head nearly grazed the ice, but I still couldn’t hear any clicking. I turned to Steve and shook my head. “I’ve gotta go check on the dogs,” he said. “Keep listening. Move around a little if you have to. It’ll help you stay warm. This part can take a while.”
By then, the sky was as black as Geraldine’s braid. I shifted a little to the left, listening some more. Now I heard something, but it wasn’t coming from underneath the ice. It sounded like “whoo! whoo!” and it was coming from the dark sky. Then something huge and white flapped its wings over my head. “Wow!” I said out loud, covering my mouth. If only my mom could have been there.
“What are you so excited about?” Lenny shouted once the bird was out of sight. “Never seen a snowy owl before?”
I couldn’t tell him that for me, seeing that snowy owl and hearing his hoot felt almost like a sign, a message that I needed to be a little more patient. Maybe I didn’t always take enough time to look or listen carefully enough.
I thought about that as I crawled along the ice, my head only a few inches from its surface. And then I heard it, a distant click click of metal under the ice. “I hear it!” I shouted. “Now what?”
That cracked Lenny and Tom up. “Now what?” Tom called out. “You keep listening! You’re only about fifteen feet from the first hole, Noah. You’ve got a ways to go. The net’s one-hundred-and-fifty freakin’ feet long!”
We were out on the lake for another two hours. That’s how long it took for me to follow the clicker and for the three of us to cut a second hole in the ice and pull the rope and the clicker up through it. It wasn’t easy to hear the clicker, and we even started cutting out a hole that turned out to be in the wrong place. But once we had both ends of the rope, all we had to do was attach the net to one end and pull it out the other.
But at least the net is set. We are catching fish right now, while everyone except me is asleep. I have to admit that even with all that work, it’s a good plan.