Postcards. Annie Proulx
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knew how to lay a stalk of hay or bend a goldenrod stem so the fox would step over it every time, right into the trap. Snow sets? He’d put ’em near a tuft of grass stickin’ up out of the new ice along the river edge, see, the foxes go there to play on the new ice, or he’d make a trail set in the snow you couldn’t tell anybody been walkin’ there, or he’d lay a mound set near the edge of the woods where the ground’s heaved up the way it does, a real smart crust set when the snow was hard, maybe two dozen more kinds of lays. You got to know your fox and you got to know your terrain. You got to have the trappin’ instinct.’
‘O.k., I can see he was wicked smart about it, but it’s not impossible you or me to do some of them things pretty good and get some fur.’
‘Nope. Tell you why. End of the season Loyal’d pick up his traps, bring them in to his shack. What he done, and I only remember part of it, he’d build up a fire in the yard, boil some water, scrape off and clean up all his traps, then scrub them down in the hot water with a brush he never used for nothin’ else, and wearin’ waxed gloves. Rubber’s no good, even if you could get ’em. Then he takes a wire hook to pick up the traps and throws ’em in a big washboiler, never been used for anything else, dumps in lye and water and boils ’em for an hour. Takes the traps out’n the lye with his hook and throws ’em in the brook. Leaves ’em in the brook overnight.’ Dub held his hand up as Trimmer started to open his mouth. He drank from the pitcher, watching Myrtle twist and pin up her loosened hair.
‘Next morning, here’s old Loyal again, lookin’ around over his shoulder, make sure nobody’s spyin’ on him. ’Course I did every chance I get. When I was little. Goes in the shack, builds a fire in the stove. Gets down this big bucket he never uses for nothin’ else but this, fills it full of brook water upstream from where he’s got the traps. Sets the bucket on the stove and puts in a pound of pure beeswax never been touched by hand, he takes the honeycake himself from out’n Ronnie Nipple’s hives, puts it in the extractor, won’t let Ronnie touch the wax, keeps the wax in a canvas bag been boiled and brook-soaked like the traps. When the wax is melted and foams up in the pail, he gets a trap outa the brook with his hook, brings it in and in she goes, into the bucket of wax and water for a couple of minutes, then out again with the hook and he carries it out to a birch tree at the edge of the woods and hangs it up there. He does the same thing with every damn trap. When them traps is dry and aired out good, he lays them up according to how he’s goin’ to use them next season. For his field traps, which is what most fox traps is, he lines a big hollow log he’s got somewhere with pulled-up grass. Never touches that grass or log with his hands, he’s got another pair of special waxed gloves he keeps in a scent-free canvas roll, then he stuffs them traps up into the log on that grass and that’s where they stay until he sets ’em out next season. He does the same thing with the traps he’s gonna set in the woods, only he boils them in bark – and he’s particular about what kind of bark he uses – and he keeps ’em under some ledge in the woods until the season. Then he’s got all these scents and lures he makes himself, I don’t know any of that. Trimmer, we are skunked right out of the barrel, even if I wanted to run his trapline, because I don’t know where he hid his traps. And I don’t want to go rustlin’ through the woods jammin’ my arms into empty logs lookin’ for my brother’s traps. He could do it, he liked it, he liked the careful part and the study of the set. I’d rather know how to tune pianos, do the job, get paid when you finish.’
‘Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,’ said Trimmer. ‘I still think I could get enough pelts to make some money. You tell me how else you gonna get enough set by to do what you and Myrt want to do?’
Dub swallowed the last of the beer. Myrtle was staring at him in a way he understood very well. She was asking the same question without saying a word. Dub had an answer for both of them.
‘Way I see it, when a man don’t know how to do anything else, he traps.’ He looked at Myrt. ‘You ready to jump on that floor again?’
An hour later Dana Swett, Myrtle’s brother-in-law, came in, peering through the smoke until he saw her, then raising his right hand twice, ringers outstretched, showing ten minutes for him to have a beer, for Myrtle to finish up and get ready. She danced with Dub a last time, a slow one, sad, good-by War song, humming until the boy drummer began to pick up the beat, trying to jostle the old musicians into another hot flash, but they were cold, played out, ready to go out back and drink out of their flasks, smoke Luckies and yawn.
‘Don’t stay too late,’ she said. ‘Remember, you got to milk in the morning. And come down Monday afternoon to the office. I’ll put your name down so doctor knows you’re coming.’
‘For you, O Flower of the Meadow, anything your little heart desires.’ He swept a low bow, danced her into the coat hall and pressed her deep into the wool-smelling coats, kissing, tasting the bitter tobacco on her tongue, the musky gin.
When Dub left the Comet the air was burning cold. The hard snow squealed. Even with his glow on he knew the truck was frozen solid. The door groaned on stiff hinges. Frost covered the windshield, the steering wheel. The seat was like a piece of bent sheet metal. He stepped on the clutch, shifted the lever toward neutral. It was like shifting a spoon in a pot of mush. He twisted the key and a short weak groan oozed from the starter.
‘Son of a bitch, she won’t even turn over.’ Ronnie’d gone an hour ago. He’d have to get a jump start from Trimmer. He turned back to the Comet, now hating the thought of the smoke and liquor stink, the collapsing jukebox music, and noticed that the red of the neon sign blurred into the red of the sky. Flutes of red light, the watery red of ripe watermelon, pulsated over his head. He could see the stars through the redness. Long green rods fanned out from the dome of the sky, the high cold air wavering, stuttering with the electric storm. Mink always claimed he could hear the northern lights crackle or make a sound like a distant wind. Dub opened the door.
‘Hey, the northern lights is puttin’ on a show.’
‘Shut the damn door. It’s freezin’,’ Howard yelled. He’d started drinking around eleven. Trimmer was lying across three chairs, spittle glinting at the side of his mouth.
Dub shut the door, looked at the quivering air, the snow in the parking lot stained red, the trees and river shining in the lurid night. If Loyal came walking into the parking lot now, he thought suddenly, he would beat him until the bloody water streamed from his ears and blackened the red snow. A pent rage at being stuck with it all rose in his throat like caustic vomit. What the hell. Might as well walk home, burn off the liquor, cool down. He could do it in two hours.
LOYAL CROSSED the Minnesota state line near Taylor’s Falls, thinking he’d work his way up through the farm country toward the forests. He’d heard there was logging up in the Chippewa National Forest. The money might be poor but he had to get outdoors again. He couldn’t bring himself down to hire onto a farm, but he had to get in the open air. Work his way across, maybe end up in Alaska in the fall, work the fish canneries, anything but the machine shops again, the men pulling down more money than they’d ever made in their lives, their women, too, but not ever getting enough of it after the depression years without work. That little weasel, Taggy Ledbetter from North Carolina, with his deep-kneed walk that made the cluster of keys on his belt bounce against his groin, socking money away. He lagged slyly at the job during the day so he could put in for overtime. He picked up other men in his car and drove them to the plant, collecting a dollar a week and gas ration coupons from each, stole tools and parts, paper clips, pencils, burrs, calipers, drill bits, dipping them into his pockets, inside his green work pants, under his belt, in his humpbacked lunch box. He made his wife and kids save everything that could be turned in for money, patched bicycle tire tubes, tinfoil, paper bags, nails, used oil, scrap metal, torn envelopes, old tires. Sold a little black market gasoline, pork from his backyard pigs. And kept it out of the banks. He bought house lots. Had a little after-hours repair