“I’ll be alright,” Cobb said after a moment. “But I really want the firelight. If that’s alright with you.”
“That’s fine with me. Just come get me if you think you hear or see anything at all. Don’t be afraid to bang on my door to wake me up, even if it’s just the wind.”
“Okay. Good night, Torvo.”
“Good night, Cobb. Sleep good.” As his teacher left the room, turning off the overhead light, Cobb snuggled in. Warm beneath the pile of covers, Cobb tried to read more detective stories for a while, trying to stay awake. But the flickering firelight was eventually his undoing. As he drifted into sleep, he began to dream of firelight, of flickering flames in a different place, where the light goes around and around and around—
Cobb started awake. No time had passed as far as he could tell. The fire was still the same height and the wind was still wailing outside. Getting up, he took a tour through the house, fire poker in hand, investigating every nook and cranny. He made sure every door on their floor was locked and shut. Satisfied, he stopped at Torvo’s room and listened to him breathing inside. Not breathing like he was asleep, but breathing like he was awake listening to Cobb pace around the place.
Cobb sighed and went back to his nest. Placing the fire poker on the rug within reach of his makeshift bed, he nestled back in with the magic pouch secure around his neck. He closed his eyes, trying to will himself to sleep. Within a few minutes the flickering flames had him again, especially the way they writhed and popped and danced on the bookshelves, then scurried up and down the stone walls of the cave where Torvo was lost.
Moving this way and that through the caverns, he didn’t call out but kept on moving, following the dim light he could see from up ahead, as if somebody were moving through the stone corridors ahead of him with a lantern. When he turned a corner, he found himself in a cave with a high ceiling and a giant marble fountain of river water bobbing with firewood.
“Torvo?” he called out finally, his voice echoing weirdly in the space. “Torvo, is that you?”
Somebody shook him, a cold hand on his forearm.
“Torvo?” he said again, but got no answer.
“Cobb,” said a little girl’s voice. Cobb opened his eyes and saw a human girl standing between him and the coals of the nearly burned-down fire, plain as day. She was dressed in white deerskin clothes with beaded fringe, and had blue eyes the color of the Alaskan sky. But her skin was the color of gray-pallor snow, as if she had just crawled from the grave.
“He has him,” she told him insistently, pointing toward Torvo’s room with her other hand. “The crow caught you dreaming. He has him RIGHT NOW!”
Torvo tried to croak something in response—but his throat seized up and his skin suddenly spidered with scrambling gooseflesh. He looked toward Torvo’s door, then looked back—and Clara was gone.
Bursting through Torvo’s door seconds later, Cobb turned on the light beside his bed, taking two tries to flick on the lamp switch. At first glance the old man seemed to be fine, covered up under the blankets sound asleep.
“Torvo?” Cobb asked, but he didn’t stir.
“Torvo!” he said insistently, hoping that he would wake.
“TORVO!” Cobb yelled at the top of his lungs and leaped onto the bed, shaking the old man forcefully. But his teacher still wouldn’t wake up. Cobb shouted his name again but got no reply. Torvo was breathing and his eyes were moving behind the lids, but he wasn’t coming to.
“Clara!” he shouted, turning to look behind him in the room. “Clara, where are you? You have to help me!” But she didn’t reappear. He sensed she was gone, that he was alone. He took the pouch off his own neck and put it around Torvo’s, hoping it would break the spell. But after a few seconds, he knew it hadn’t worked.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Cobb whispered to himself as he banged his way over to the radio, where the orange light beckoned safety and sanity. Sitting down in the half-pulled-out chair, he picked up the handle that people spoke into, praying that the thing was on. “Hello? Hello? Hawna, can you hear me?” By instinct his finger clicked down over the button and he knew it was time to talk. “Hawna! Hawna! By light and day, can you hear me?”
“Cobb?” came Hawna’s voice a few seconds later, crackling with static from the storm. “Cobb, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Torvo. He won’t wake up. The spirits have him. He’s breathing but he won’t wake up!”
“You’re at the winter house?”
“Yes!”
“Then stay put. Keep him safe. I’ll call for help. They should be there in twenty, twenty-five minutes tops. If my father has had a stroke every minute counts. You’re going to have to meet the paramedics when they arrive.”
“Alright,” Cobb said frantically. He didn’t know what paramedics were, but he knew what doctors were and how they helped in times like this. He had a vague memory of flashing red lights when his own parents died in the car wreck, when the truck on the interstate—
He’d been nine. Cobb had been nine years old when he lost his family. The realization of that struck him like a wall of dark water, drowning him from the inside out. Then he realized that Hawna was talking to him, had been trying to talk to him.
“Cobb. I have to go. I have to make the call,” Hawna said.
“Please don’t leave me!” Cobb begged into the microphone.
“Cobb,” Hawna said in her father’s firmest, most authoritative voice. “I have to go make the call for the paramedics. It’s too far for me to drive. I’ll meet Torvo at the hospital.”
“What do you want me to do?” Cobb said, getting something of a grip. The red flashing lights were going away now, but he suspected they would never be far away again.
“Stay there. I can’t explain you right now. After the paramedics come, you stay there at the house. I’ll call you on the radio and tell you everything I know. Am I clear?”
“Yes.”
“Repeat it.”
“Every minute counts. When the paramedics come, I will stay here while they take Torvo to the hospital. I will not leave.”
“Good. Goodbye, Cobb.”
“Goodbye, Hawna,” Cobb said, feeling too many emotions start to surge up through him, through walls that now had chinks and cracks that could further break and shatter apart.
“Warm clothes,” Cobb said, focusing on the task, wiping everything else out of his mind. “In case something happens, take care of me first.” He went into his room and put on more clothes, a new sweater and boots and his hat. Because his boots were set up by the foot of his bed, the left on the left, the right on the right, it took him only one try to get them on. But soon he had everything he needed. Wiping his nose, he then went into Torvo’s room and tried to figure out how to get clothes on him. He knew that time was running out. The paramedics would be here soon. He had to be ready.
He managed to put two pairs of socks on Torvo’s unresponsive feet and managed to get a warm jacket on over his pajama top. Crying now at the helplessness he was feeling, he zipped up the heavy coat and then crammed a blue ski hat on Torvo’s head, one that he had found in the closet. For pants he had no suggestions. Torvo would just have to wear his pajama bottoms to the hospital, where the doctors would wake him up and save his life.
Running down the hallway, he banged his way into the kitchen and threw open the door to the storm. Checking the stairs, they looked powdered with at least two inches of snow—but he was sure he could make his way down them easier with Torvo in his arms than he could down the interior cellar stairs. Outside was a dark wailing hell, just icy wind and blowing snow and darkness in between. The lights from the kitchen would give him some illumination, but he would soon lose his way if he moved too far away from the house.
Running back to Torvo’s bedside, he checked him again. The old man was breathing shallowly, but was showing no signs of discomfort. With great effort Cobb picked him up out of bed, nearly falling over under the weight. But he righted himself and started
making his way down the hallway, then through the living room, then through the kitchen, carrying Torvo through the kitchen door where snow was blowing in across the linoleum. He made his way down the steps carefully, taking his time so he wouldn’t slip and fall.
Out in the snow he could hardly breathe, but he didn’t dare put Torvo down in the cold. He looked toward the road through the trees, toward where help was coming from. But he couldn’t see or hear anything or anyone coming. “Please,” he called out, begged to the wind and the world. “Just get here. Just save my friend.”
The storm answered him with a violent gust that nearly made him stumble and fall.
A minute went by. Then another minute. Cobb wondered if they weren’t coming. He wondered whether he should just go back inside. Torvo was getting heavier and harder to hold, but Cobb pulled on his inner strength and kept him up off the ground, blinking away the tears and the snow that kept trying to stick in his lashes.
That’s when he heard it, or more likely, felt it. Something was coming through the night, making a noise that he couldn’t hear but could feel, could feel rattling inside his chest and in the ground beneath his boots. It was a consistent noise, thrumming and repeating over and over again, coming from behind him, from somewhere down the river.
Turning around, Cobb saw that there were lights coming from downriver, a vague glow through the whiteout. He started to walk toward the dock, even though it was outside of the safety of the circle of light cast by the house. Stumbling over a tuft of icy grass, he managed to keep his feet and kept going, knowing the river was only a few dozen yards ahead.
The noise was louder now, joined by stabbing columns of light in the darkness—then the sound grew more intense, banging off his body like a stick hitting a drum over and over again, faster than he could count or breathe. Terror started to rise in him as he realized that whatever it was, it was coming not from the water’s edge—but from above the water, somewhere higher than the tree line!
That’s when the lights swept across him and the monster’s thunderous roar poured down from above, buffeting him with blasts of blown wind and snow. As the twin shining eyes turned and focused down upon him, Cobb realized that he was screaming against the wind, on the verge of dropping Torvo and running for his life, running away from the great sky-thing that was going to tear him apart and chew his bones.
But he stayed up. He stayed vigilant and held his friend safe and strong. Cobb didn’t run even though every fiber of his being demanded he take flight. Even as the thing came down, its lights blinding him, its roar drowning him in fear, he stepped—forward. And then made another step forward as it came down toward the grass like a screaming hurricane. He stepped forward again, teeth clenched, eyes squinting against the glare. He knew that this had to be the thing that Hawna sent to save her father’s life and kept moving forward toward it, into its maw out of the sheltering dark. The fierce wind from its wings threatened to consume him, to drown him, to rip away his words and his tongue.
But he kept going. Step by step, he kept going right up to the terrifying machine, facing right into the heart of the maelstrom with Torvo’s limp body in his hands. When he got as close as he dared, he stopped and fearfully raised Torvo in his arms up toward the light, offering his teacher up to the god of wind and fury.
It accepted his offering, honored his brave request. He could see it more clearly now as the monster touched down and bounced once on the grass, that there were people inside and all sorts of metal struts and shiny pieces glinting everywhere. As the blades began to slow, two men in thick red jackets opened up the sliding door at the side of the helicopter. Both hopped down onto the snow with kits in hand, with a long footless bench between them.
“Please,” Cobb begged as they came over to him. “Please save my friend. It’s Torvo. He’s very sick.”
Nodding, the first man carefully lifted Torvo from his arms as the second man took Torvo’s feet and helped lay him down on the bench. As Cobb watched they strapped down his unmoving body, so they could lift him up into the vehicle more easily.
“How long has he been like this?” the first man shouted to Cobb as they lifted Torvo up through the open door.
“At least twenty minutes,” Cobb shouted back. “Maybe thirty. We were asleep, and the little girl came and told me—”
“Come on,” the second man yelled, waving for Cobb to get in the vehicle. “You can tell us on the way.”
“I can’t go!” Cobb shouted back. “I’m supposed to stay here. But his daughter Hawna will be there soon. At the hospital.”
“If that’s the way you want it,” the first man said. “Now get back. When we lift off, we’re going to blow a lot of snow.”
“Make Torvo well!” Cobb made him promise as he stumbled back. “You have to bring him back. I need him. My people need him.”
“We’ll do everything we can,” the man promised him, waving him to move back farther still. When Cobb was halfway to the house, stumbling along in the blinding light of the machine’s front lights, the pilot waved and took off, raising the helicopter up off the ground with a terrifying roar. Bodily knocked down by the force of the wind, Cobb resisted the urge to crawl away through the snow, to hide in the trees until the danger passed. But instead he watched bravely as the vehicle hovered up over the river, turned in a great arc, then headed south in the snow, its running lights quickly devoured by the darkness of the storm.
Cobb sat there, panting, wiping the falling snow off his face again and again until he couldn’t feel the thrum-thrum of the rotors anymore. Then it was night-quiet, and he was sitting in the dark just a few dozen steps from the empty house.
“Torvo,” he cried out, lost and alone.
Ten
Cobb stayed up all night, listening to the storm outside. He had fires burning in both fireplaces, and had every electric light in the house turned on. Still wearing the boots and clothes he’d worn when the paramedics had come and gone, by the time the night turned to a snow-filled, heavy gray dawn, he sat in Torvo’s room with an uneaten bowl of oatmeal in front of him on the desk. He had spent the night waiting for Hawna to call over the radio but there had been nothing yet, no news.
Getting up, Cobb went into the kitchen and put the bowl into the sink, then let himself out onto the kitchen porch. He noted that the wind had calmed, but the snow was still coming down. There was at least a handspan more snow on the railing than there had been when he was out here a few hours ago. He stood and stared into the dark.
“Torvo,” he whispered for what seemed the thousandth time. Going back into the house, he closed the kitchen door and fumbled the cold dead bolt shut with fingers that felt thick and stupid. Shambling his way into the living room, Cobb saw that the fire was about to go out. That jarred him, woke him up from the stupor that had come sometime before dawn.
“Good morning, Torvo,” he said to himself, to the imaginary Torvo he could see getting up out of his cot back at the island camp. Taking off his boots and coat, Cobb knelt down in front of the fireplace and assembled a whole new stack of logs and kindling, then lit it with one of the matches from the can on the mantel. Within a few minutes he had a new fire burning brightly. The warmth helped him think, allowed him to warm his hands and to recover some of his thoughts from the blend of terror and helplessness that had devoured him last night.
He did the dishes, scraping the remnants of the plain oatmeal into the trash. He swept the kitchen floor, got some more bits of glass off the living room floor, then adjusted all of the picture frames so they at least hung mostly right. Gathering his blankets from the library, he made his own bed. Fighting back the tears, he made Torvo’s bed as well, hoping that he would come back one day. He then did his best to tidy up both bedrooms so things looked almost normal. The fireplace poker went back in the rack; the rifle was put back downstairs in the metal box.
The pistol he kept.
He brushed and shaved and took a short but blisteringly hot shower. From there he put
on fresh clothes and a clean pair of socks and made another attempt at breakfast, this time combining oatmeal with a can of pineapple he found under the sink. Not pleased with the sickly sour taste, he ate around the fruit in the end, putting up with the juice that had saturated the rest of the boiled grains.
He spent the morning sitting on the end of Torvo’s bed, waiting to hear from Hawna. He had the volume turned all the way up loud, so he could hear it from anywhere in the house. The static was lessening as the snowstorm abated, but by ten in the morning the radio was still silent. He read out loud to himself in the library, then drew some more pictures of the white, lumpy landscape as shown through the living room window. He waited as best he could, doing his best to stay awake, to make sure he would not miss Hawna’s call. A couple of times he used the mic to call out to her, to call out to the world, but got nothing but snaps and crackles in return.
For lunch he made sandwiches with far too much mayonnaise. But they were good, he decided, all three of them, and the water from the tap tasted rich with minerals and flavor. After lunch he went and got one of the rifles, and brought the pistol as well, then went out on the kitchen porch with a box of ammo for each. Leaving the kitchen door open, he listened for the radio between shots, reloading the weapons again and again until he could do it with his eyes closed. He shot the dead tree across the yard for over an hour, each blast smashing away a fraction of his grief. By the time he was done his shoulder and fingers hurt from the kick of the rifle, his ears ringing from the booming percussion from the pistol.
Early afternoon faded to late afternoon and Cobb’s reserves were starting to run out. He tried to stay awake by pacing the hallway between the living room and the library, but in the end he sat down in the hall, his back against the wall, eyes fluttering shut no matter how hard he tried to keep them open. The rifle was on the kitchen table and he held the loaded pistol in his hands, safety on, as he slept with his head on the carpet.
The Bitching Tree Page 19