Page 42 of The Last Stars in the Sky
“This is amazing, Rubes,” I tell her, putting down the book to give her a hug; she clings to me, arms wrapped tightly around my waist. “You’re amazing for finding it.”
Mattie has picked up the book and is leafing carefully through it, making sure the pages don’t fall out. “So, is there a page about setting traps?” she asks, ever practical.
We spend the rest of the morning, with Darlene’s help, learning how to set a snare for a rabbit. It’s not a trap so much as some wire, tied in a loop with a slipknot. Simple enough that even Ruby can do it, and she does, silently, her forehead furrowed with concentration. Figuring out how to trap a rabbit—and then how to skin it and eat it—is, I fear, going to be much more challenging. But it’s a start, and I’m trying, and that knowledge strengthens me.
The beaver trap Darlene brought from her house is another matter entirely—a bulky thing made of iron, with a square frame, a strong spring, and a chain that reminds me of a manacle. It looks like something that belongs in the Yukon, or maybe a dungeon’s torture chamber.
“My dad used these,” Darlene tells us. Since she’s started to teach us some skills, she’s become more animated and energetic, although she still wheezes as she talks. “Remember, Kerry?” she asks her daughter, who nods. Kerry hasn’t said much since we started; she seems unusually pensive. She didn’t know how to set a snare either, but she learned pretty quickly, her lean fingers flying as she made the knot. “I’ve never used ’em myself,” Darlene continues. “I always liked beavers. Cute little critters.” At this remark, I glance at Ruby in apprehension, but she’s completely focused on the trap in Darlene’s hands. “Beaver meat is actually pretty darn tasty,” Darlene continues, as she picksup one of the clanking traps. “Red and rich and delicious—my father used to call it poor man’s beef.”
“Where do we set the beaver traps?” I ask Darlene, and she gives a knowing nod.
“That’s the tricky part. Easy enough to make a trap, harder to catch something in it!” She lets out a wheezy laugh. “Usually along the shoreline. What would you say, Ker?” She turns to her daughter, who frowns in thought. I wonder what experience she has of such things, and acknowledge that, whatever it is, it is more than mine. My dad never trapped a beaver on this lake; he liked to see them cutting placidly through the water. Plus, they kept the water level high. But things have changed now. Obviously.
“It has to be in the beaver’s travel path or dam crossover,” Kerry says, and now she really does sound like an expert. Darlene nods in agreement. “There’s a dam on the far side of the lake,” Kerry continues. “In that little inlet in the southeast corner. Maybe there.”
Mattie and I glance at each other, surprised by her air of knowledgeability. Kerry looks at me. “We’ll have to walk around. The ice isn’t thick enough to step on yet. Although you might want to work through all your turkey first before you try to trap a beaver.”
“Well, we can keep it outside to freeze,” I reply. “Or we have enough salt to preserve it.” Not that I even know how to preserve meat, but it’s in Ruby’s book.
I see a flicker of something almost like respect in Kerry’s eyes, and she nods. I feel a surge of triumph; I haven’t done much yet, hardly anything at all, and yet I’ve started. I can do this, I think. We can do this together. We already are.
FIFTEEN
We set seven rabbit snares and three beaver traps that afternoon; Kerry and I walked around the lake and then hunted in the reeds by the shoreline, looking for evidence of a beaver’s travel path.
“Do you even know what you’re looking for?” I ask dubiously, because until today Kerry hadn’t seemed as much of a backwoods woman as I’d thought she was.
“Yeah, because I’ve watchedLady and the Tramp.” I stare at her blankly, and she lets out a laugh. “Don’t you remember, the beaver who gnaws off Lady’s muzzle?”
“Oh…” I dimly recall that scene in the movie; I haven’t watched it with the girls in years. “Yeah.”
She shakes her head, still laughing. “Forget it. We’re looking for beaver tracks—webbed back feet and front feet like little handprints. Plus, sometimes, you’ll get the imprint of a tail in the mud. Other signs to look for are gnawed branches or felled trees. Kinda obvious, the last one.”
“Okay.”
“And I know all this,” Kerry continues, even though I haven’t asked the question, “because I used to date a guy who trapped.Kevin.” She bends down to inspect a branch. “He was into all this stuff.”
“You did?” I realize just how little I know about her life.
“Yeah, for a couple of years.” She sounds indifferent about it, but I wonder if that hides a deeper emotion.
“What happened?” I ask, and she sighs.
“Well, it didn’t work out. Obviously.” She clearly doesn’t want to tell me anything more.
“How old are you?” I ask, because I realize I don’t know.
She gives me another one of her humorous, but slightly sneering looks. “Thirty-six. Ten years younger than you.”
How does she know how old I am? Kerry answers as if I’ve spoken aloud. “You babysat me when you were sixteen and I was six. You’d just gotten your driver’s license, and you were pestering your dad, asking to borrow the truck.”
“Oh…” Vaguely, I remember driving my dad’s truck into Corville for poutine. It seems like not one but several lifetimes ago now. “Was I annoying?” I ask suddenly, and she lets out a little laugh.
“Not as much as I was.”
“I don’t really remember,” I tell her, like an apology.
She waves a hand in easy dismissal. “If I’d been sixteen, I wouldn’t have either. Okay, here we go.” She nods toward some tiny tracks frozen in the mud by the lake’s shoreline. “I don’t know how old these are, since the ground’s been frozen, but we might as well try.”
