Eye Lake by Tristan Hughes Page A

many women visitors. And we got even fewer who wore silk and lipstick. Your father must’ve thought she was just about the finest lady who’d ever set foot in his hotel.’ ‘Why were they even here?’ Virgil asked.
    â€˜Well,’ Jim said, ‘when Clarence finally got around to asking, the man replied they needed a bear – for their circus. The old one had died and they needed a cub, a living cub, to get trained and take its place. “So how might a man go about getting himself one of those in these parts?” the man asked, loudly enough for the whole room to hear.
    â€˜â€œHow much you willing to pay for it?” one of the railroad men at the long table asked.
    â€˜â€œFifty American dollars,” he said.
    â€˜â€œYou best come to the picnic tomorrow, then,” the man told him.’
    â€˜The next morning they set off, most of the township, on the narrow track that led to Red Rock Lake. Clarence led the way, with the circus man and his sister on either side of him. Then there was the Rooney family and Mr. Scheider, who owned the store; and Jake’s mom and dad and Joe Gordon, who was a trapper too; and then … ’ (Here, Jim would go through a bunch of names, some of them that were still used in town and some that weren’t, nodding to himself as he went along, as if by remembering them he was putting the whole long-gone day of the picnic and that world back together, piece by piece, person by person. And even though he never said nothing about anyone going in any particular order, I knew from the pictures and stuff in the museum they were going Crooked River 1, 2, 3, 4 … )
    â€˜I was lingering right at the back,’ Jim chuckled. ‘The wolf man had tagged along in his suit and Jake and some of the Indian boys were sneaking through the bush on either side of track, calling out to him like wolves. He must’ve thought them woods was just full of them.
    â€˜When they got to the beach the women started digging out the firepits and some of the men set out in canoes to catch lake trout and walleyes, while the others went off to shoot partridge and whatever else they could find. Meanwhile, two of the railroad men, Jake’s father, the wolf man, and two of the Indian boys stayed behind on the beach with Clarence and the circus man. His sister had sat herself down beneath an umbrella – a parasol she called it – and begun wrapping herself and her silk shirt in a plain cotton sheet. “These flies,” she kept saying. “These damn flies.”
    â€˜â€œSo what next?’” asked the circus man.
    â€˜â€œWe’re heading out to the blueberry patch,” Jake’s dad said.
    â€˜â€œWhat for?”
    â€˜â€œFor your bear.”
    â€˜And so off they went – all of them except Clarence – towards the western shore where the best blueberry spots were.’
    â€˜And why not Clarence as well?’ Virgil asked.
    â€˜With all due respect to you and your mother, Virgil, I think he had other things than bears on his mind,’ Jim winked.
    â€˜When the others got to the blueberry patch it didn’t take them long to find a she-bear and her cub. Now you stay back here, they told the circus man and the wolf man, and if she comes at you, you hotfoot it up one of these trees. Then the men crept closer and hid behind some bushes while the two Indian boys tracked around in the opposite direction, until they were on the other side of the bear and her cub. At a signal, the men and the Indian boys stood up suddenly and started hollering and beating the bushes with sticks. The bear and her cub ran this way and that in panic and the men and boys circled them, hollering and beating the bushes, until at last the she-bear would make a run at them and they’d split up and scatter into the woods. Soon enough she and her cub were separated, and then the Indian boys started calling out in the voice of