"AW, muddle! "Gray muddle!" grouses a green parka-clad figure. "Aww, I'd better get back to the boat," Mad Jack grumbles. "Probably shouldn't have even left with the stuff that needs attendin.' Why did I come in here? This bunch of channels and islands is real swell until you want to get out of them." He swings the arm of the outboard to the right and swings his skiff into a new course. The low grass and lichened banks soften the guttural throb of the motor. Spires and columns of lava jut up out of the water at the shore line like ancient battlements. Every so often, a bald eagle glares down at him from its nest on a spire. "Why I ever got it into my head to go fishing for trout is more than I can figure. As if I don't get enough fish all day long. But then I haven't hauled enough fish to even go broke on this last week. Got to try and change my luck somehow. But hell, I even got sore luck with a few dolly varden's leapin' upstream. I should'a takin' up farmin.' "
The skiff motors along in a stillness that seems it may stretch back to the day life began.
And life might have begun last week. He turns up one corridor of black water that will surely lead him back to his fishing boat and the party.
"Oh yeah, this is the way, I remember now," the big man huffs. He opens the throttle all the way and zooms happily for thirty yards or so, when the bottom edge of the motor scrapes bottom. Mad Jack ignores it, but then thinks, "it shouldn't have done that." He cruises another ten yards. And hits another bump. "Hell, what's going on?" he glowers and looks over the side to see the bottom level up to shallows. It scrapes again and he reaches back to jerk the motor up. He cruises to a slow glide and sees the bottom rise even more. "Godammit, I took the wrong turn." Cursing again, he locks the motor upright and yanks out the paddles, splashing at the water irritably and rowing back. For a minute, the splashing water cheers, and Mad Jack stops to check his progress to deeper water. The silence flows over him like the mist. Never has he felt such a hush. Not a plane drones in the distance. Not a fly buzzes, nor a bird chirps. It is not dead silence, exactly, but a haunted one. "Kinda spooky, kinda pretty," he shrugs. "I guess this is why I came back in here. Don't need another fish, I guess. Place works on you if you let it." He yanks on the pull-rope and the motor sputters to its own life again. Together they cruise on.
