The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

by David Wroblewski

  Stop it, he signed. You’re going to get us in trouble.

  When they’d left Henry’s little valley, the sun was shining between sparse white clouds, but as they approached Lake Superior the clouds merged into the solid blue mass of a storm front. By the time Henry arrived at the turnout and killed the engine, the sun had been eclipsed by the advancing storm.

  Henry climbed out of the car. Edgar sat in the back seat, looking up and down the road for traffic.

  “Relax,” Henry said, knocking on the side window. “Don’t you want to see the lake? Look around. No one’s here.”

  Henry was right, but the thought of standing in the open with all three dogs made him edgy. He’d spent whatever luck he had. On the other hand, the weather was turning ugly, so there was little chance they’d linger. And it would be harder to let the dogs out in the rain.

  “See,” Henry said. “Nobody for miles. You’ll like this. Follow me.”

  He led them through stands of scrub pine and maple on a faint trail. The trees were slick with green moss and the ground slippery, and made all the more treacherous by the storm gusts that had begun lashing the underbrush. The air was filled with the scent of the lake. Even before Edgar glimpsed water he heard the smashing of waves against the shore.

  They emerged near a secluded cove, not much bigger than Henry’s yard. At the back stood a sheer rock wall, twenty or thirty feet high, forming an irregular curve covered with gray ledges and pocked with erosion holes, some so big they looked like caves. A colony of water birds squawked and flapped near the top, where a shag of turf and tree roots overhung the rock.

  Edgar saw at once why Henry liked the spot. On a sunny day, it would have felt cozy and secluded—a place where Edgar could have relaxed and watched the flat, watery horizon without fear of being spotted. Up and down the coastline all he could see were trees on rocky cliffs. No houses, no roads, not even boats on the water.

  As Edgar and Henry picked their way down the last few feet of trail the dogs bounded onto the driftwood-strewn beach. Out on the lake, the water beneath the storm had turned black and choppy. A thread of lightning flickered between the sky and the water.

  When Tinder paused to lift his leg against one of the larger chunks of driftwood, Henry gave Edgar one of his significant looks. The dog was only scent marking, but Henry took it as vindication that the dogs indeed needed a break.

  “I told you. Don’t feel bad. You just have to know how to read them,” he said, modestly. “If you were staying around longer, I could teach you how I know these things. People think it takes some special talent, but I tell them—”

  Then his mouth dropped open and he lifted his hand to point. Something was happening out on the lake. In the time it had taken them to walk onto the beach, the storm front had lowered, blackened, begun to roll over itself. What looked like a puff of steam jumped off the water, disappeared, then formed again.

  “Tornado,” Henry said. “Waterspout, I mean. Oh, Jesus Christ, look at that.”

  Edgar turned and was instantly riveted at the sight. As the funnel drew water up from the lake, it resolved, bottom to top, translucent at first, then white, then gray. Two more funnels appeared behind the first, wooly tubes dropping from the clouds. A chest-rattling thrum reached them. The dogs looked up, hackles raised.

  “This is not good,” Henry said. “I don’t like this.”

  Somehow the three funnels gave the impression of standing still and hurtling forward at the same time. Edgar felt no impulse to run or hide or do anything but watch. The most distant of the three was nothing more than a sinuous thread coiling over the water. The one nearest to shore, maybe a mile away, had thickened into a sturdy vortex that narrowed to a point at the water’s surface. All three were heading east, across the lake; if they kept going, they would pass in front of the cove, though not by much. He stood wondering if the storm that had corkscrewed the boards on their barn roof had birthed funnels like these.

  Henry shared no part of Edgar’s fascination. He turned to the steep trail leading into the woods, trotted a few feet, slipped, stood, and turned around.

  “Uh, no. We ought to find cover. We don’t want to be in a car if they come this way,” he said. “They say to find a culvert, if you can.” He surveyed their surroundings and the rock wall curving behind them. “Let’s get into one of those caves,” he said. “There’s no time for anything else.”

  The center funnel lifted off the lake. It was close enough that it seemed to slam against the water when it came down again. Just moments earlier, it had looked broad and sluggish. Now it was more compact, as though drawing itself inward, spinning faster, and the noise of it was suddenly very loud.

  “Nat?” Henry said. “Nat? Are you paying attention? We need to get out of the open. Now.”

  Reluctantly, Edgar tore his gaze away from the water. He clapped and recalled the dogs as the first real blast of wind caught him flat against his back. He stumbled and almost pitched forward. By the time he’d gotten the dogs together, Henry stood waiting at the rock wall.

  “Here and here,” Henry said, pointing and shouting above the roar. “We have to split up. Nothing’s big enough for all of us.”

  Henry had located two recesses, each a few feet off the ground—alcoves scooped from the rock by thousands of years of waves. Neither was very deep, four or four five feet at most. There were other, deeper, nooks in the wall, but they were either too small or too high to reach without an arduous climb.

  Edgar nodded at Henry and trotted forward, Baboo following at his heels, Essay and Tinder hanging back. The alcoves were separated by forty feet or more; the leftmost was larger, but also higher and more difficult to reach. Edgar chose that one for himself and two of the dogs.

  He signed Tinder over toward Henry, then turned to Baboo.

  Up.

  The dog looked at him, trying to make certain what Edgar wanted.

  Yes, he signed. Up!

  Then Baboo crouched and sprang to the ledge. As soon as the dog landed, Edgar turned to Essay, who was back-pedaling toward the water.

  Come, he signed to her. Up.

  Essay shook off and retreated again and Edgar ran to her.

  No games now, he signed. Come on.

  He put his hands under her belly and wheelbarrowed her forward. She twisted and mouthed his arms, then broke free and leapt to the ledge beside Baboo and the two dogs stood side by side looking at him. Behind them, the roof of the alcove was soot-blackened—someone had once built a fire inside. The floor, eye level for Edgar, had been swept clean by wind and water. He backed away, holding the dogs’ gaze, then looked over at Henry and Tinder, who were standing together in the sand.

  “He won’t let me lift him,” Henry said. “He won’t jump, and there’s no other way up.”

  Edgar looked at the vacant hole in the rock. It was just big enough to fit a man and a dog. And Henry was right; beneath the opening was a ledgeless rock face. There was no way Tinder could climb it.

  Edgar walked to Tinder and took the dog’s head in his hand.

  You’re going to have to try.

  Henry scrambled onto the ledge while Edgar led Tinder back a few paces. Then Edgar ran forward and slapped his hand against the rock.

  “Come on, Tinder!” Henry cried. “Try not to get us all killed.”

  At first, Tinder just stood there, panting and looking over his shoulder at the funnels roaring on the lake. The sound came from every direction now as the rock wall gathered it and echoed it back over the water. Twice, urged by Edgar and Henry and the barks of the other dogs, Tinder hobbled forward, but each time he drew up short and lowered his ears and looked at Edgar.

  Then Essay and Baboo leapt down from their ledge and came running across the sand; Edgar caught Essay two-handed as she passed, but Baboo kept running. When he reached Tinder they touched noses and then without delay Baboo wheeled and ran to the rock wall. Tinder didn’t move. Baboo backtracked, barked, and nosed him. And this time they ran forwa
rd together, Tinder limping badly.

  When they reached the rock wall, Tinder launched himself awkwardly into the air, yelping as he left the ground, his feet pedaling. He landed hard, back leg nearly off the ledge and kicking loose sand into the air, but Henry had him by his front legs, pulling him forward. Baboo had sailed through the air beside him, but there was barely room for the three of them on the tiny ledge and he jumped down at once.

  The roar from the lake penetrated every part of Edgar’s body. He prodded Essay and Baboo toward the other alcove and they sprang up without hesitation. Edgar scrambled after them.

  “Nat?” came Henry’s shout. Edgar looked across the rock wall. Henry knelt on the other ledge, hands cupped around his mouth. “There’s going to be a lake swell. Stay in the cave.” Then there was nothing more to say and nothing Edgar could have heard over the wind. He turned back to the dogs.

  They were in a low, shallow scoop that narrowed rapidly into an egg-shaped cavity. Edgar had hoped to block the entrance with his body, but he saw at once that was impossible; at best, he might shield half the opening. He scuttled back, scraping his head on the sooty ceiling, and turned to face the lake. He signed Baboo down across one leg and scissored him with the other. Then he downed Essay—who, to his amazement, complied—and he wrapped both arms around her. That was the best he could do. If they panicked, he could keep them in place, for a while at least, maybe long enough to calm them down.

  And then, backed into that cramped hole, they waited and looked out over the lake. Two of the waterspouts were close now, their sound a blast of every octave and pitch as they ground their way through the atmosphere. The closest stood a quarter of a mile out, like a cable dropped from the clouds into a ball of water vapor at the lake’s surface. A fragment of cloud revolved along its shaft and vanished. Gobs of water splatted against the rocks, gulped out of Lake Superior and thrown landward.

  It made Edgar think of how his father stood in the doorway of the barn during thunderstorms, looking up at the sky. Even as he tried to pull the dogs farther back into the cave, Edgar wondered if his father would be doing the same thing now.

  As Henry predicted, the water began to rise; the spot where they first sighted the funnels was already submerged by the waves crashing ashore. The wind entered Edgar’s nostrils and mouth, puffed out his cheeks, tried to lift the lids of his eyes. Sand and pebbles pelted them. He thought the sound and the wind might cow the dogs, but it didn’t—the dogs permitted his hold on them but never rolled back against him for reassurance. A gray chunk of driftwood began to roll end over end along the beach, come alive now and fleeing for its life; the dogs turned their muzzles to track it.

  Then the smallest of the funnels slid by, its bloom of water skimming the lake’s surface like an upended rose. A jagged thread of light snaked down, drawn to a tree near the shoreline. The sound that followed was more like an explosion than thunder, but it was instantly swept away by the howling wind. When Edgar looked back at the lake, only the larger funnel remained, so squat and black it looked as if the thing were drawing earth and sky together.

  What happened next took maybe ten seconds. The ropy funnel that had just passed out of view reappeared, skipping and twisting across the water like a tentacle, moving back along its line of travel. Then the sinuous gray thread of its body was pulled toward the large funnel. They separated for a moment, then twined, the smaller of the two spiraling around the larger before it was consumed. Or nearly so. A whirling streamer peeled away and flailed over the lake, dipping halfway to the water before evaporating. At the same time, the larger funnel changed from ashen to ghostly white, towering palely over the cove, lunging and retreating.

  Unbelievable, Edgar thought, as the wind buffeted them. What he was seeing was unbelievable.

  Yet he had seen unbelievable things before, came the answer. And he had run from them.

  That was the moment Essay decided to bolt. One instant Edgar’s arms were wrapped tightly around her chest, the next she’d slipped away as effortlessly as if greased. She dashed across the cove, her bounds foreshortened by the wind. Baboo barked and scrabbled his hind feet against the bare rock, but Edgar doubled over and threw his arms around the dog, clamping one hand over his muzzle to stop his thrashing. Almost at once he understood that Baboo didn’t intend to follow Essay—he wasn’t drawn by her vision, her compulsion, whatever had made her race to meet the pillar that roared at them from out on the water. He was only trying to call Essay back.

  The white funnel lurched toward shore, two hundred yards away now, maybe less, the distance from the Sawtelles’ house to the middle of the lower field, and there it came to a standstill, swaying over the lake. Essay faced it, barking and snarling, tail dropped like a scimitar. When she turned sideways, the force of the wind blew her hind feet out from under her and she rolled, twice, barrel-wise, before scrambling up and facing the wind squarely again, this time carefully holding her ground.

  Something crashed to the beach in front of the rocks and a spray of blood pinked the air—an enormous fish of some kind, guts burst and streaming across the pebbled cove.

  Now Essay tried to advance. Each time she lifted a foot from the sand her body wobbled precariously in the gale. Finally, it drove her to the ground. She lay there, ears flattened against her skull, muzzle wrinkled, legs extended like a hieroglyph of a dog, stripped by the roar of the wind, it seemed to Edgar, to her essence, insane and true all at the same time. When the wind abated for an instant, her hackles stood. Then it hit again, harder than ever. The trees along the shore whirled and bent and righted themselves, the breaking of their limbs like rifle cracks.

  I should go out there, Edgar thought. She’s going to be killed. But then Baboo will bolt.

  He had time to debate it in his mind, to weigh the loss of one against the other, and he saw there was no way to decide. She had made this choice, he thought—what his grandfather had always wanted, what he’d wished for time and again in his letters. So, in the end, Edgar lay on the floor of the cave as the wind fired stones at them like bullets. He redoubled his grip on Baboo and watched between his fingers as Essay was driven back to the tree line, crouching and retreating, her muzzle moving but no sound reaching them.

  And in that moment, he thought: it isn’t going to work. I’ll never get far enough away. I may as well never have left.

  Out on the lake, something changed. The funnel stalled, narrowed, whitened, whitened still more, then lifted off the water. The steam at its base dropped into the lake as if a spell had been broken. The stem of it writhed in the air above them like a snake suspended from the clouds. The wind lessened and the blast of sound abated. Essay’s bark came thinly to them and Baboo began to bark in response. From across the cove, Edgar heard Tinder doing the same.

  Overhead, the tube of wind slid sickeningly through the air, preparing to crash down again, this time directly onshore, but without pause it revolved up into the clouds and disappeared as if pursuing some tormentor there. A wash of foamy black water swept up from the lake almost to the rock wall, then carried back with it half the water flooding the little cove. The freight train sound vanished; the wind gusted and was still. There was the hiss and boom of waves breaking up and down along the shore.

  The moment Edgar loosened his grip, Baboo sprang from the ledge and ran to Essay, who was already trotting triumphantly before the retreating waves. Baboo accompanied her for a few yards then turned and bounded toward the rocks where Tinder and Henry huddled, and he paced there, waiting.

  Getting Tinder down was not easy. The rock was wet and slick and Tinder resisted being carried. Henry took him in his arms and slid down, managing just enough grace to maintain his hold and scraping his back across the rocks in the process. When Henry set Tinder down on the wet sand, the dog limped to the wind-thrown fish and sniffed it. Drops of rain—real rain, not flung lake water—began to fall. Out on the lake, a huge mass of driftwood floated in the water like the tangled bones of a sailing ship dredged from
the bottom.

  They found Henry’s car plastered with green leaves. The passenger-side window sported a long white crack. They hustled the dogs inside and sat for a long time breathing and listening to the patternless drum of rain on the roof.

  “There’s something wrong with that dog,” Henry said. “That wasn’t hardly a sensible thing to do.”

  Edgar nodded. But he thought, how can we know? He closed his eyes and the image of Ida Paine, bending toward him across her counter, filled his mind. If you go, she whispered, don’t you come back, not for nothing. It’s just wind, that’s all. Just wind. It don’t mean nothing.

  It don’t mean nothing. He tried saying that to himself.

  He took up the paper and pencil lying on the seat.

  Let’s turn around, he wrote.

  “Now that’s more like it,” Henry said. He keyed the ignition and wheeled the car onto the road facing the direction they had come. “At least one of you is thinking straight.”

  Edgar smiled, grimly, his face turned to watch the rain and the passing trees. If Henry knew the alternative, he thought, he’d like it even less.

  On the way back, Henry kept the radio off. He drove without comment, except for once, when, apropos of nothing in the moment, he shook his head and muttered, “Christ all Friday.”

  IT WAS STEAMING HOT that next August afternoon, as Henry’s car rolled along the forest road near Scotia Lake, where Edgar and the dogs had passed the Fourth of July in what now seemed to him a time of aimless wandering. The water was hidden by the trees and foliage. From the inside of the car, it all looked unfamiliar. They overshot the driveway before Edgar caught sight of the little red cottage, now boarded up for the season.

  Stop, he signed. That was it.

  “You sure?”

  Edgar looked again and nodded. He recognized the white trim and the front door and the window he had crawled through. He remembered the taste of the chocolate bar he had stolen there, how it had melted in his back pocket while he fed the dogs butter squeezed through his fingers.