How the mink had come to be there the boy did not know. Those whom he asked about it—casually, trying not to appear too inquisitive—laughed and told him condescendingly, There’s no mink in this country! Prob’ly just an old muskrat. They all had their reasons—Too far south. Too warm. Not enough fish. Wrong kinda trees. They stated them with so much certainty that he almost believed them. And yet, in spite of what they thought they knew, he knew they were wrong. There was a mink here, living somewhere near the bend in the river. He had seen it with his own eyes.
He had been fishing his favorite spot in the late afternoon and, as the dusk fell, he stopped for a few minutes between the two big cottonwoods where he sat and watched the night settle on the river. It was surprising what you could learn that way, not moving—or even thinking, really—just watching. The boy was a patient but undisciplined fisherman, and he often cast his line without much thought about where a fish might be. But cross-legged on the bank and immersed in the shadows, he could sometimes see the tiny riffle he had missed before, the casual rise of a fish intent on feeding, the deep, lumbering shadow of a moving monster. He was looking at just such a riffle when suddenly the mink was there, as brown and still and smooth as a river stone, so still that the boy could see the reflection of the moving current in the deep, sleek black glass of its eyes. It occurred to him that the mink was watching the river, too, just like him—learning the river’s same secrets, seeing the same riffle that he had seen. The boy did not move, and he watched the mink approach the very edge of the water, so slowly that it was difficult to see it moving at all, never taking its eyes off the spot where the slight, rhythmic dimpling of the water went unseen except by the two of them. And when it dimpled once more, with an amazing and startling swiftness, the mink took the fish, turned, and was gone as quickly as it had appeared. The boy stayed there by the river, pondering what he had seen, as the darkness deepened around him.
Later, in his room, the boy remembered how the mink had looked, and how it had seen the river as he saw it. What a mink pelt was worth he did not know, and he doubted he could find out easily. A lot, he figured—lots more than the muskrats and rabbits or the occasional raccoon that he sold to Mack Jano at the gas station. Lots more than a fox, even, and Mack had told him that he would maybe pay $5 for a fox. Mack would know about the mink, he thought, but I can’t talk to him. He’ll ask too many questions, and if I say anything, he’ll put two and two together, and pretty soon everybody will know there’s a mink out there.
One thing he felt sure of—the mink pelt would make it possible for him to get the rifle. It was a used Winchester .22 pump on display in the window of the station. Mack wanted $45 for it. “Probably worth a hundred, easy,” Mack told him.
The boy produced a cigar box from a special place, and from it he counted out two $5 bills, seven $1s, nine quarters, a dime and three nickels. At 15 cents a skin, 25 for the ’coons, it would take forever to earn enough. But he was sure that with his money and the mink pelt Mack would give him the rifle—if not even-up, then at least until he could pay the rest. When I show him the skin, he’ll be so excited he won’t even try to low-ball me, he thought. He’ll just blurt it right out.
The boy thought about the rifle nearly every day – how the oily walnut and blued steel looked and felt in his hands, and how it flew to his shoulder as though he had already owned it for a long time. He could not imagine anything better than owning the rifle, his rod and reel and his traps. He returned the cigar box to its hiding place and, lying on his bed in the darkness, he began to make his plans.
The school day was a tedious, endless drone, but finally the last bell signaled the end of the boredom and the beginning of his freedom. The boy hurried to the place he most felt he belonged by a far-flung route, designed to disguise his final destination. This part of the woods and the river usually were his alone, and he was not one who others held to readily, but now, with his special secret, he took no chances. He left his rod at home; on this mission he was a scout, an observer, looking at the land as he had looked at the water the day before, noting the previously unnoticed and heretofore unremarkable places, looking for anything he had missed—learning what could be learned.
Arriving at the spot where he had seen the mink, he took up his station among the trees. His keen eyes and mind soaked up the lay of the land: Where could you be and not be seen? Where would you be most vulnerable? Because he knew that he would have to think like this creature he wanted so much to own—to become it—to see this landscape through its eyes, the way he knew the mink had seen the river through his eyes. He studied well and learned more in two hours’ time than he had learned all day at the marred desk filled with dog-eared books, cheap pulp paper and tooth-marked pencils. He sat, learning, until his hunger drove him home to supper.
The boy went several days more to the river bend. Each day he saw the land as the mink saw it—the gravel and rocks of the river bottom, the muddy banks, the open spaces of grasses and boggy turf leading up from the water, the tangles of brush and wild berries surrounding the trunks of the nearby trees but running down here and there to the river’s edge. After a few days, he brought his traps. He had not seen the mink again, but he understood what he should do. He staked the traps in the places he had seen through the eyes of the mink–the places he knew the mink would walk, and drink and stand to watch the river as they had both done on that first day. He did not set the traps but placed on each some fish that he had brought with him. The next day, when he went to check the traps, the fish was still there, and on the second day and the third and the fourth. But on the fifth day the fish was gone. He put fish on the unset traps for three more days, and each day when he checked the traps were empty. The boy would return to the river tomorrow, and he knew that this time he would set the traps.
The wind came up hard in the night and as the boy lay in his bed, listening to its voice growl and hiss through the trees, he thought of the rifle, and for the first time in many nights he did not take the cigar box out of its hiding place and count the money inside. Sleep came late, and he tossed and turned and dreamed hard about the rifle and about the mink, and he could see the traps, baited and set, as though looking at them for the first time. He could smell fish and gun oil in his dreams.
He woke before sunrise, dressed quickly and, although he was hungry, he left the house without breakfast. He walked to the river and arrived in the half-light, moments before the first pink peek of dawn appeared over the eastern hills. He approached the first trap, and just as he saw that the fish was still there, he saw the mink, standing near one of the traps and looking at the river. The boy crouched quickly behind a nearby bush.
The mink was unmoving, watching the riffles and dimples very near the riverbank but not creeping down to the shore as it had done before. The boy saw the riffles and knew that the fish were greedy in the early morning, coming readily to the surface and easy prey for any fisherman. They watched together, silent and still. He thought of the rifle and of the clear shot he would have if only he had it with him. Suddenly the wind shifted, and the mink turned to look directly at him.
The mink was 20 yards away, but the boy felt he could see himself reflected in the unblinking eyes. The eyes became a panorama, and he could see the traps and the fish, the river and the shore, the bushes and the trees and all the way up to the hills. He wondered if the mink could see the same things in his own eyes; he was somehow sure that it could.
The mink turned to the trap, took the fish, looked back over its shoulder only once, and disappeared into the brush. The boy stayed in the bushes, waiting, but the mink did not come back. Finally, he went to the traps, picking them up one by one and wiping each one carefully with the oiled rag before placing it in the stained gunnysack. He left the remaining fish on the ground and turned for home.
After that he watched for the mink whenever he went to the river, but he knew he would not see it again; one night he dreamed they were watching the water together, and the next morning, when he looked at the river, he knew the mink was gone. He took his muskrat and rabbit and ’coon pelts to Mack Jano, once he found fox fur in one of his traps. He never told Mack or anyone else about the mink. He thought about the rifle sometimes, mostly when he sat between the two big cottonwoods, watching the night come.
Later that year an out of state car stopped at the station to ask directions, and the driver asked Mack about the rifle. Mack said it was a good gun—a Winchester, by God, and you can’t get a better gun than that. After they talked a while Mack told the man he would take $30. The driver slid a crisp $50 bill from his wallet, and Mack made change from the register. After the car drove away, Mack told the barber that was probably all he could ever have gotten for it around here, anyway.