Until listlessness, stemming from age-old boredom arising from a lack of competition, cast a pall over his spirit, Shannon Callaghan had been acknowledged as the luckiest fisherman ever to have bored through the winter-still waters of Lake Couchiching. As the waning sun was sinking behind the tallest poplar trees that fringed the lake, a single glint sparked off the flask that Sam Spadina held patiently aloft until he had fairly captured everyone’s attention.
“To the luckiest fisherman that Couchiching ever bore witness to.”
“To Lucky Call.”
“About time,” Call said interrupting dribbles of praise that was slow in dying away. “About time, you young whippersnappers learned to fish. Luck, my arse!”
“We’re learning,” said a fellow fisher who had been collecting his OAP for more than a decade. “But we’ll never have your luck.”
“Oh yes, you will, young fella,” said Call. “Sooner than you think.”
On the eastern shore, the lights of Rama began to wink on in the gathering dusk. Two burly younger men stoked the bonfire with a couple of short fat logs that landed with a thud resulting in a shower of sparks that drove the revelers back to the edge of the gathering gloom. Wind whistling through warm-up huts strewn carelessly across the ice fanned the flames that momentarily flared like the fires of Hades.
As abruptly as it had begun, the wind died down. Gigantic snowflakes, odd in the January cold, spiraled carelessly upon glowing coals and perished. The sky thickened. In the gathering storm, the lights of Rama, a Mecca for snowmobilers crawling drunkenly across the ferociously rough ice, began to wink out. Darkness soon engulfed a constrained circle of good cheer.
“Rum weather indeed,” someone was heard to mutter. “Suits me fine.”
“ A final Morgan before you go,” Sam suggested.
“Not on your life,” Call’s daughter, Miranda, insisted.
“You’ve got an hour’s wait at least,” Sam said petulantly. “This storm will take that long to blow through.”
“I brought the 4-Runner today,” Miranda answered. “Dad isn’t up to the snowmobile anymore.”
“We don’t want him catching his death of cold,” Sam said.
“Most certainly not.”
“I’ll look after his catch. It’s going to the widow on Pickering Road.”
“Mighty kind of you,” Miranda said ushering her father into the Toyota.
“I didn’t know you had a 4-Runner,” Sam said. “Great looking vehicle.”
“It’s not new. I scooped it up in Penatanguishene off the GM lot. Dad knows a guy there, Michael somebody or other. He likes to move the imports off his lot as quickly as possible. Some old duffer traded his 4-Runner in on a brand new Envoy.”
“A hell of a deal,” Call said.
“It’ll get you home safe and sound and that’s the main thing,” Sam said. “Stoneleigh Motors, I know it well.”
“Thanks for throwing this little shindig for Dad,” she said. “Good night, Sam.”
“Goodnight Miranda.”
As luck would have it, Lucky Call had the biggest catch of the day. Then again that was not unexpected. For Call, it would be the only way to go out, showing them what he’s made of. Of course, few, if any of us, are as lucky as Call. In addition, most of us do have the courage that Call possesses. When he wins, it's incidental. When he doesn’t, nary a soul hears for he speaks nary a word. Call is not one to complain. No matter how bitter the pill, he swallows it in silence.”