The Trapper -- a story (iii)

Then, slowly, the rabid humping abated. Convulsive jerks still roiled the water, but the bubbles rose smaller and less frequently. Adriaan Smid leaned hard on the stick, his hands nearly numb. Water had begun to seep into his right boot. The river flowed on, smooth and undisturbed. 

He leaned back slowly, still holding the stick in place, waiting for any sign of life beneath. Gradually he released pressure, gently pulling the fork upward. He could feel the suction of muck as the sharpened tips slipped from the river bed. The matted body of the muskrat surged to the surface and swung limp in the river, like a small, charred stump. He didn't change position. He removed his mit­ten from his right hand, grabbed the chain from the icy water, and lifted the animal and trap out of the current. 

The rat was wet and ugly black. Still trembling, he shook the muskrat like a recalcitrant child, then stopped, shocked, when he saw what the dawn had thrown against the grass bank to his side. It was to him a vile image, the shadow of someone too steeped in the natural brutality of the wilderness to remember who he was, what he had been. And the rat, his prize, was changed from a hideous mockery of his own indecisiveness to a compelling vision of peaceful and final escape. 

Gently, he leaned his weight on his right foot, flexed his knee and placed the trap on his lower thigh, holding the animal by a front foot with his left hand. He pressed on the steel spring with his right palm, and the big rat dropped, simply and cleanly, from the jaws of the trap. He lobbed the muskrat up on the bank and reset the trap with his hands against his thigh. He placed it back into the water, open and dangerous, in the middle of the wild oats, and pivoted away from the set, pulling his foot from the thick mud of the river bed as he climbed back to the bank. 

He'd done it right, but he knew the pistol would have been so much easier. Drowning the muskrat meant there were no scars in the water-blackened fur, only a pink ring around its right foot where it had tried to chew its way to freedom. Something buried too deep to be strong tugged at his lip when he saw the animal, river water coming from its mouth. But he turned away and looked back at Klassen's oat set, remembering the instructions clearly. He had done it well, at least. It was undisturbed, as good as Klassen himself. The clouds of muddied water had been carried away by the river that rushed along as if no one had been there. 

Two hours later, Adriaen Smid trudged slowly back along the river bank. A radiant autumn sun had thawed the frosted prairie grass into soggy clumps, and the longer he'd walked, the colder his toes became. His black overcoat flopped open in the warm morning air, his hat jammed carelessly in the left pocket. Aside from his feet, he was warm, hot almost, as much from the walk as from the heavy grain sack over his shoulder. 

Klassen would be pleased. The burlap sack held eight dead muskrats, not an extraordinary catch, but not one of them marred by gunshot, for all had been caught in water sets and killed by the drowning stick. He hadn't used the gun once, although he could have. This morning, like so many others, he had seen the fox running across the open fields, its tail pointed into a burning stream as it ran. 

"Shoot de kippedief," Klassen would have said, for every time the farmer could, he tried. But Smid had stopped, momentarily, only to watch the slight but agile animal flow like the river itself across the stubbled prairie. Klassen would have sworn then, for sure. But Klassen was in Pella. 

The burlap sack thumped against his back as he returned along the trapline. It was heavy with muskrats, bulky and thick like a clump of wet sod. So he had left Holland, against the wishes of his parents who saw their hopes vanish as he slung his few possessions over his shoulder and walked to the ship, one of many that arrived weekly at Amsterdam, only to leave again, full of ruddy-faced Hollanders. He hadn't much to take along, of course, since unlike many of his shipmates, he wasn't weighted down with the responsibilities of family. He was unmarried, free, able to resettle easily. It was then he wanted to leave, not years after when the move would be hard on a wife and children. 

Slowly, thoughtfully, he walked back toward the farm. Long stalks of wild oats rose from the river bank, marking the first set again, and there before him lay the first, now last, of his catch, dead, yet warmed by the morning sun. The rat was dry now, its fur glossy and thick, sparkling with the brush of sunlight. The black, beady eyes, the violence of the attack, the frantic, slashing bites were erased from his memory when he saw the smooth fur, thick on the almost round body. 

The shortened grass on the bank was wet and soggy, but the muskrat was dry and soft and so warm he wanted to hold it close to his cheek: He dropped the forked stick as if it were burning his hand, then stooped to his knees to pick up the animal, laying the burlap bag at his side. He could almost lose his fingers in the fur as he traced the sinewy muscles beneath. So warm, so soft. So peaceful now, the struggles long past. The river flowed on, just ten feet away, whispering, as he lifted the clump of fur to his knee. The sun warmed the air like an open fire. 

He opened the bag with his left hand and carefully placed the animal in with the others, as if he might injure them. Rising slowly to his feet, he gathered up the burlap around the open end and laid the bag over his shoulder, holding it firmly at his chest with both hands. The forked stick lay in the prairie grass where he had thrown it; he turned back to the homestead. 

That night, after the barn chores, he stropped the skin­ning knife until it was razor sharp. He spat on his left wrist, rubbed the tiny bubbles into his skin, and drew the blade slowly over the dampened area, once, twice, three times. Then he pointed the knife at the lantern on the wall and saw his own scraggly hair lining the blade. He licked his wrist and felt it smooth. The knife was sharp and ready. 

~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~

Adriaan has done it all right. He has no reason to fear Mr. Klassen. 

Few, if any Dutch immigrants to this country before the Civil War would have left from Amsterdam. I should have said Rotterdam. 

More tomorrow.