VI

That night after the boys had gone to bed Thomas Hudson and Roger Davis sat up in the big room talking. It had been too rough to do much goggle-fishing and after supper the boys had gone off with Joseph to go snapper fishing. They had come back tired and happy and said good night and gone to bed. The men had heard them talking for a while and then they were asleep.

Andrew was afraid of the dark and the other boys knew it but they never teased him about it.

“Why do you think he’s afraid of the dark?” Roger asked.

“I don’t know,” Thomas Hudson said. “Weren’t you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I was,” Thomas Hudson said. “Is it supposed to mean anything?”

“I don’t know,” Roger said. “I was afraid of dying and that something would happen to my brother.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother. Where is he?”

“Dead,” Roger said.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be. It was when we were kids.”

“Was he older than you?”

“A year younger.”

“What was it?”

“A canoe turned over with us.”

“How old were you?”

“About twelve.”

“Don’t talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I’m not sure it did me a lot of good,” Roger said. “Didn’t you know about it really?”

“Never.”

“For a long time I thought everybody in the world knew about it. It’s strange when you are a boy. The water was too cold and he let go. But what it added up to was that I came back and he didn’t.”

“Poor bloody Roger.”

“No,” said Roger. “But it was early to learn about that stuff. And then I loved him very much and I’d always been afraid something would happen to him. The water was cold for me too. But I couldn’t say that.”

“Where was it?”

“Up in Maine. I don’t think my father ever forgave me although he tried to understand it. I’ve wished it was me every day since. But that’s hardly a career.”

“What was your brother’s name?”

“Dave.”

“Hell. Was that why you wouldn’t go goggle-fishing today?”

“I guess so. But I’m going every other day. You never work those things out, though.”

“You’re grown up enough not to talk that way.”

“I tried to go down after him. But I couldn’t find him,” Roger said. “It was too deep and it was really cold.”

“David Davis,” Thomas Hudson said.

“Yes. In our family the first one is called Roger and the second one David.”

“Roge, you did get over it, though.”

“No,” Roger said. “You never get over it and sooner or later I have to tell it. I’m ashamed of that the way I’m ashamed of the fight on the dock.”

“You had nothing to be ashamed of there.”

“Yes, I did. I told you once. Let’s not go into that.”

“All right.”

“I’m not going to have any more fights. Ever. You never fight and you can fight as well as I can.”

“I can’t fight as well as you. But I just made up my mind I wouldn’t fight.”

“I’m not going to fight and I’m going to be some good and quit writing junk.”

“That’s the best thing I’ve heard you say,” Thomas Hudson said.

“Do you think I could write something that would be worth a damn?”

“You could try. What did you quit painting for?”

“Because I couldn’t kid myself any longer. I can’t kid myself any longer on the writing either.”

“What are you going to do, practically?”

“Go some place and write a good straight novel as well as I can write it.”

“Why don’t you stay here and write? You can stay on here after the boys are gone. It’s too hot to write in your place.”

“I wouldn’t bother you too much?”

“No, Roge. I get lonely, too, you know. You can’t just run away from everything all the time. This sounds like a speech. I’ll cut it out.”

“No. Go on. I need it.”

“If you are going to start to work, start here.”

“You don’t think out West would be better?”

“Any place is good. The thing is not to run from it.”

“No. Any place isn’t good,” Roger objected. “I know that. They’re good and then they go bad.”

“Sure. But this is a good place now. Maybe it won’t always be. But it’s fine now. You’d have company when you quit work and so would I. We wouldn’t interfere with each other and you could really bite on the nail.”

“Do you truly think I could write a novel that would be any good?”

“You never will if you don’t try. You told me a hell of a good novel tonight if you wanted to write it. Just start with the canoe.”

“And end it how?”

“Make it up after the canoe.”

“Hell,” Roger said. “I’m so corrupted that if I put in a canoe it would have a beautiful Indian girl in it that young Jones, who is on his way to warn the settlers that Cecil B. de Mille is coming, would drop into, hanging by one hand to a tangle of vines that covers the river while he holds his trusty flintlock, ‘Old Betsy,’ in the other hand, and the beautiful Indian girl says, ‘Jones, it ees you. Now we can make love as our frail craft moves toward the falls that some day weel be Niagara.’ ”

“No,” said Thomas Hudson. “You could just make the canoe and the cold lake and your kid brother—”

“David Davis. Eleven.”

“And afterwards. And then make up from there to the end.”

“I don’t like the end,” Roger said.

“I don’t think any of us do, really,” Thomas Hudson said. “But there’s always an end.”

“Maybe we better knock off talking,” Roger said. “I’m liable to start thinking about the novel. Tommy, why is it fun to paint well and hell to write well? I never painted well. But it was fun even the way I painted.”

“I don’t know,” Thomas Hudson said. “Maybe in painting the tradition and the line are clearer and there are more people helping you. Even when you break from the straight line of great painting, it is always there to help you.”

“I think another thing is that better people do it,” Roger said. “If I were a good enough guy maybe I could have been a good painter. Maybe I’m just enough of a son of a bitch to be a good writer.”

“That’s the worst oversimplification I’ve ever heard.”

“I always oversimplify,” Roger maintained. “That’s one reason I’m no damn good.”

“Let’s go to bed.”

“I’ll stay up and read a while,” Roger said.

They slept well and Thomas Hudson did not wake when Roger came out to the sleeping porch late in the night. After breakfast the wind was light and there were no clouds in the sky and they organized for a day of underwater fishing.

“You’re coming, aren’t you, Mr. Davis?” Andrew asked.

“I most certainly am.”

“That’s good,” said Andrew. “I’m glad.”

“How do you feel, Andy?” Thomas Hudson asked.

“Scared,” said Andrew. “Like always. But I’m not so scared with Mr. Davis going.”

“Never be scared, Andy,” Roger said. “It’s worthless. Your father told me.”

“They tell you,” Andrew said. “They always tell you. But David’s the only young boy I ever knew with any brains that isn’t scared.”

“Shut up,” David said. “You’re just a creature of your imagination.”

“Mr. Davis and I are always scared,” Andrew said. “It’s possibly our superior intelligence.”

“You’re going to be careful, Davy, aren’t you?” Thomas Hudson said.

“Naturally.”

Andrew looked at Roger and shrugged his shoulders.