TOM LAKE by Frank Westcott  Copyright by Frank Westcott, 1978. All Rights Reserved. First published in Dandelion Wine, 1997.

... dedicated to the memory of Brock, a faithful, loyal, trustworthy companion. One of the few who have walked this earth, with me, this trek.

Tall, blonde haired, fourteen year old Eric Tremaine was afraid. To his right was the lake. From the gravel drive in front of the ridge where he stood looking through the birches down the slope, he could see the mother loon with her two offspring trailing behind, making little streams in back of their tails as they paddled forward. A fourteen foot fibre-glass outboard whined out of Brandon's Bay towards the lake's centre. The mother loon's tapered black beak clapped rapidly together like a pointed carbon steel trap, EEERH-EEERH.

She dipped her back like a giant spoon beneath the surface and scooped up her young, then slid across the water to the shore brush. A kingfisher, crowned and blue and white collared, dropped from a bare and peeling birch limb extending over the water beside Tom Lake's dock.

Two handmade benches were on the dock. Tied to the east side was Tom's green cedar-strip canoe with the redback hawk painted on the bow tip. A martin's brown head bobbed above the water, then disappeared. Two paddles leaned against Tom's rusted, sand-filled ash can. Tom's pipe hung upside down from the can's lip. Ahead, Eric saw the south wall of Tom's cabin. The window facing him had to be the kitchen.

Every day for the past week, Eric had started towards Tom Lake's cabin. On the first day, he barely made it past his own drive. The second day, he rowed across from his aunt's Peterson's Point chalet. He had lingered thirty, forty feet from Tom's canoe, looking up the hill into the front, white-trimmed bay windows, daring himself to pull up, climb the hill, and knock on the door.

The next day, walking aimlessly around and around the perimeter, Eric had not ventured beyond his own property. The day following, Eric had at least hiked around the lake to Tom's tree covered gravel drive set under a thick arbor of green spoon-shaped birch leaves and read the hand painted sign, T. Lake, on the gatepost with the redback hawk painted up the side. He was closer. So much closer, and yet, he dared not go on, his heart hammering like a lead mallet inside his ribcage. It's rhythm in time with his thoughts and drumming out TOM LAKE  TOM LAKE  TOM LAKE.

Daily's boat droned steadily cutting back across the bay in front of Eric. In the back he saw Marion, raven-haired, sleek and lithe like a panther stretched across the backseat, laughing as Mr. Daily circled, bouncing the boat across its own wake. Then there was silence. The steady clacking from inside the cabin stopped. A door slammed. Head down, Tom Lake was walking directly towards Eric. Tom Lake himself, his left arm bent up at a crazy angle and the hand hanging limp from the wrist. The injury suffered when his jeep rolled over pinning his arm against a rock while the hawk tethered to his wrist clawed away at his tendons. Tom's right arm, thick and powerful, was swinging at his other side.

Eric froze. Tom Lake had not seen him, and yet steadily, as if he knew exactly where he was going, Tom Lake walked towards Eric. Eric could hear loose gravel kicking up at Tom's feet. He saw gray stubble on Tom's face and the deep creases across the leathery, weather-browned face and the jutting, square chin hanging from his mouth. Tom stopped. He paused, looked at the lake and listened, then raised his eyes to Eric's. "You lost, boy?"

Tom Lake continued moving forward and did not stop until he was so close Eric could smell the tobacco on Tom's clothing. Eric tried not to look at Tom's limp, ugly hand. Instead, trying to remain calm, he concentrated on Tom's face. He'd heard stories of the hawk. The stories about how the hawk had been called out to dive at intruders, going for their eyes. And how Tom could control the hawk by sounds he made with his lips and tongue.

Then Eric felt the hammering inside slowing, slowing, slowing and he thought of the loon. The missing loon. He had watched them all summer. The mother and the father swimming off Tom's dock, diving for spawn, and surfacing and feeding their young, and circling frantically whenever a boat approached and dipping their tails spoon-like beneath the water's surface, scooping one young on each of their backs and gliding to safety in the shore brush. He had listened to their eerie, EEERH-EEERH, as the moon reached its high point over the lake. Now there was only one. The male disappeared five days ago. The rumor on the lake was that Tom Lake had killed it. Smashed it with an oar. Mr. Daily and the laughing Marion had seen Tom late the night the loon disappeared, out in his canoe, smashing an oar into the water, sending white spray ten feet into the air, they said. The next day, Eric hurried over to the loon sight. There was just the mother and two young. The male was gone.

"Where's the loon, Mr. Lake? What did you do to it?"

Tom stepped back and made a clacking sound with his teeth, then three, high EYIE-EYIE. Almost silently, a huge redback hawk landed in the branch overhead. "Come with me." Tom said.

In too deep now, Eric followed. As they approached Tom's cabin, Eric saw the hawk cage twenty feet high and twenty feet long affixed to the north wall. A dead, spreading poplar was rooted in the centre so its branches caught in the chicken wire sides and helped support the tree. At the front was a gray, unpainted hutch. A long-handled axe leaned lazily against the bare tree trunk.

Tom opened the one-by-two frame door leading into the cage, reached inside, and scooped up a bloody piece of meat. He held the meat so the blood dripped away from his feet. Click. Click. EYIE-EYIE. The meat was flung thirty feet in the air. From nowhere, the redback dropped feet first

from overhead, caught the meat in his talons, and flew off over the ridge behind Tom's back drive. "There's your loon, kid."

The hammering began again inside Eric's chest. He saw only bloodied meat dripping from Tom's hand. Eric vomited. Two arms, one gnarled and twisted supporting Eric's head. He kicked out trying to trip the man behind. He jabbed back with his elbows catching the man in the soft belly flesh and heard a rasping expulsion of air bringing with it the putrid smell of burnt tobacco. Eric hooked his right foot around Tom's ankle and yanked it hard. They fell backwards, Tom sprawling in the bile. Eric rolled and spun on top holding Tom's head down with his knee. He saw hawk droppings on the dirt floor and pressed his knee harder into Tom's neck.

At the far end of the cage, he saw the hutch, its door facing the lake away from Eric. He leapt from Tom's back and grabbed the axe leaning against the dead

poplar and hoisted it overhead. He would destroy this cage, the tree and the wire, and the hutch. It would be sweet. His only way to avenge. The axehead crashed down on top of the hutch and caught. Eric shifted to the front to gain leverage to pull the axe away. A torn, dry, black and white tipped wing protruded from the front opening. Eric's eyes followed the mangled wing inside. Two fresh splints were taped to the wing. Huddled in the back was the loon, head resting on a water tray, beak rapping silently, ready to strike. Stretched on the chicken wire beside the hutch was a brown martin skin, the skull crushed.

Eric turned to face Tom. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

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