here than in Detroit—cool enough for a jacket in the evenings—and there was a clean sharp smell of fresh water from the lake. The mere act of inhaling sliced the soft spot out of my brain caused by four hours of driving.
I stepped through an airlock into a shallow lobby with a rubber runner ending at the reservation desk. A six-foot-square tapestry covered the wall to the right, showing a wading fisherman in rubber pants fighting a piscatorial Moby Dick breaching at the end of his line. Opposite it was a display of mounted fish with lacquered scales and brass plates identifying their vanquishers. Tourist brochures shingled a rack to one side of the desk and there was an array of lures, flies, spools, and multiple-bladed knives for sale on the wall behind it.
There was no one behind the desk. An afternoon soap confrontation was taking place on a TV set beyond an open door to the left. I leaned over the desk, found a small tin file box on a shelf underneath the top, and was reaching for it when the TV suddenly went silent. Springs sighed and I straightened up just as a thickset old woman about five feet high came waddling out in a white canvas vest over plaid flannels and a bucket hat with hooks stuck in it. Orange curls boiled out from under the brim all around like Harpo Marx’s. She had small sharp birdlike eyes without apparent need of correction, red lipstick, and round patches of scarlet painted high on her cheeks.
“Reservation for Amos Walker,” I said when the sharp little eyes met mine. She lifted the tin box to the desk, found my card, and slapped it down on the desk with a plastic pen.
She watched me fill in the blanks. I was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a polo shirt; nothing so suspicious as a coat and tie or riot gear. “Fishing? I can sell you a license.” It was the twitter from the telephone.
“Not yet. I’m planning on coming up later in the season. Thought I’d take a look around, pick my spot.”
“You don’t pick your spot. It picks you. That will be thirty-five dollars for the night.”
I gave it to her. She put the cash in a drawer, took back the card, read what I’d written, and returned it to the box. I hoped she’d leave it there while she went to get the key, but she put it back down on the shelf, scooped a square brass key attached to a wooden tag out of the drawer, and tossed it on the desk. It skidded off the edge but I caught it.
“You’re in Two. Actually it’s One, but the old One burned down and we didn’t change the numbers on the others. It’s on the end. Sure you don’t want a new cabin? It’s got cable.”
“I’m nostalgic. Guess I’m not the only one.” I smiled. She stared. She was in no hurry to get back to her soap. I went out. A zinc bin with ICE painted on the hinged latch in big white letters stood outside the airlock on the side nearest the two new cabins. That was handy.
The windows of Cabins Three and Four were shaded when I drove past to park in front of Two. If the man I was looking for was in one of them he’d walked there, as no more cars had turned in while I was in the office. I took my overnight bag from the back seat and let myself into a clean, cedar-smelling space with a buffalo-plaid comforter on an iron bed, a cheap yellow dresser with a plate-glass top, and a club chair of a vintage to match the cabin. Whoever had re-covered the chair last had selected a tough fabric with embroidered fishes on it. Fish hooks were printed on the curtains and a muddy lithograph of William Sidney Mount’s
Eel Spearing at Setauket
hung on the wall above the bed in a glass frame that had cost more than the print. More fish swam about on the shower curtains in the little bathroom. For a brief moment I was sorry I hadn’t brought tackle.
I had a view through the window of a piece of the lake framed between towering pines and a public landing ending in a redwood dock. The reeds were bright green and just above ankle height. By late summer they would be
I stepped through an airlock into a shallow lobby with a rubber runner ending at the reservation desk. A six-foot-square tapestry covered the wall to the right, showing a wading fisherman in rubber pants fighting a piscatorial Moby Dick breaching at the end of his line. Opposite it was a display of mounted fish with lacquered scales and brass plates identifying their vanquishers. Tourist brochures shingled a rack to one side of the desk and there was an array of lures, flies, spools, and multiple-bladed knives for sale on the wall behind it.
There was no one behind the desk. An afternoon soap confrontation was taking place on a TV set beyond an open door to the left. I leaned over the desk, found a small tin file box on a shelf underneath the top, and was reaching for it when the TV suddenly went silent. Springs sighed and I straightened up just as a thickset old woman about five feet high came waddling out in a white canvas vest over plaid flannels and a bucket hat with hooks stuck in it. Orange curls boiled out from under the brim all around like Harpo Marx’s. She had small sharp birdlike eyes without apparent need of correction, red lipstick, and round patches of scarlet painted high on her cheeks.
“Reservation for Amos Walker,” I said when the sharp little eyes met mine. She lifted the tin box to the desk, found my card, and slapped it down on the desk with a plastic pen.
She watched me fill in the blanks. I was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a polo shirt; nothing so suspicious as a coat and tie or riot gear. “Fishing? I can sell you a license.” It was the twitter from the telephone.
“Not yet. I’m planning on coming up later in the season. Thought I’d take a look around, pick my spot.”
“You don’t pick your spot. It picks you. That will be thirty-five dollars for the night.”
I gave it to her. She put the cash in a drawer, took back the card, read what I’d written, and returned it to the box. I hoped she’d leave it there while she went to get the key, but she put it back down on the shelf, scooped a square brass key attached to a wooden tag out of the drawer, and tossed it on the desk. It skidded off the edge but I caught it.
“You’re in Two. Actually it’s One, but the old One burned down and we didn’t change the numbers on the others. It’s on the end. Sure you don’t want a new cabin? It’s got cable.”
“I’m nostalgic. Guess I’m not the only one.” I smiled. She stared. She was in no hurry to get back to her soap. I went out. A zinc bin with ICE painted on the hinged latch in big white letters stood outside the airlock on the side nearest the two new cabins. That was handy.
The windows of Cabins Three and Four were shaded when I drove past to park in front of Two. If the man I was looking for was in one of them he’d walked there, as no more cars had turned in while I was in the office. I took my overnight bag from the back seat and let myself into a clean, cedar-smelling space with a buffalo-plaid comforter on an iron bed, a cheap yellow dresser with a plate-glass top, and a club chair of a vintage to match the cabin. Whoever had re-covered the chair last had selected a tough fabric with embroidered fishes on it. Fish hooks were printed on the curtains and a muddy lithograph of William Sidney Mount’s
Eel Spearing at Setauket
hung on the wall above the bed in a glass frame that had cost more than the print. More fish swam about on the shower curtains in the little bathroom. For a brief moment I was sorry I hadn’t brought tackle.
I had a view through the window of a piece of the lake framed between towering pines and a public landing ending in a redwood dock. The reeds were bright green and just above ankle height. By late summer they would be
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