The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

by David Wroblewski

  Just come to the house.

  I don’t want him to know I was here.

  You said he already knows.

  Yes, but he doesn’t know I was out here. Not in the barn.

  Okay.

  Don’t cry. Take a breath.

  Okay.

  You can’t tell him. If you tell him, I’ll go away again. I swear it. I’ll never come back. You’ll never see me again.

  She shook her head and signed, No, no.

  You know I’ll do it.

  Yes.

  You’ll make sure he stays in the house after dark?

  I could say I wanted a night away. We could go into town.

  No. Keep him in the house.

  What if I can’t?

  You have to. Turn the porch light on if you can’t. Turn it on if I should stay away.

  All right.

  When this is done I’ll come back for good, I promise.

  Okay.

  Then there was the slam of the truck door and Claude’s footsteps along the kennel aisle. Edgar stepped into the nearest whelping pen and pressed up against the wall. The pups began to yip and leap.

  “Everything good in there?” Claude called.

  “You bet,” Trudy said, taking a breath and trying to sound breezy. “Just teaching these wild things to sit for a brushing.”

  “Need a hand?”

  “Nope. I’ll shout if I do.”

  “Okay. Done with the truck in twenty minutes,” he said. She heard Claude fetch something from the workshop and walk outside.

  Edgar slipped out of the whelping pen.

  I’ll be back after dark, he signed. Remember, if the porch light is on, I’ll stay away until tomorrow.

  Edgar. There’s something I need to tell you. Something bad.

  He looked back at her.

  I know. I was by the birches last night.

  I’m so sorry, Edgar.

  He shook his head and wiped his eyes roughly and pushed past her and looked down the barn aisle.

  I put Essay in with Pout and Finch.

  What?

  She’s in the run with Pout and Finch. Claude must have found her this morning when he fed them.

  No. He would have told me.

  He’s hoping I’ll leave again.

  Before she had a chance to ask Edgar anything else, he slipped past and trotted out the rear doors. Trudy followed and stood at the threshold and watched him cut across the field and disappear into the thicket without breaking his stride. When she came back in, she stopped at one of the runs and rapped on the wood frame of the door. Finch and Pout pushed through the passageway from outside. A moment later, Essay joined them. The dogs had been watching Edgar leave as well.

  Edgar

  WHEN HE REACHED THE CREEK, HE PEELED OFF HIS SHIRT and submerged it in the cool shallows and wiped the sweat and chaff from his skin. It was hot, very hot, and the air was sticky-wet and he stood waiting while the beads of water evaporated. Then he walked to the vast dying oak at the far corner of their land, hoping to find Forte there. The tree stood black and vacant of leaves on all but a few high limbs. The moment he settled himself against its gnarled roots, he understood why the place had once appealed to the stray: from where he sat, Edgar had a clear view down the trail both ways. Neither the creek nor the road was visible, but a person approaching from either direction would be, and the trunk of the oak was broad enough to hide behind. But he didn’t think he’d have to worry about that. Claude would have no reason to look for him in that spot over any other. He had never been along when Edgar and his father walked the fence line and he knew nothing of the tree’s significance.

  Edgar lay back and watched the mosaic of sky pass through the naked branches. In his mind the image of Doctor Papineau kept appearing, the old man twisted and dying at the bottom of the mow stairs. After all that had happened, it seemed far too much to wish that Doctor Papineau hadn’t fallen, hadn’t died, but Edgar thought how he would like to talk to Glen Papineau. He felt he couldn’t stay unless he did that, but neither could he think of how to put his feelings into words. Regret was too simple. Woe, perhaps, was the closest thing. But it was a woe mingled with anger, and he didn’t know what the word for that would be. And that wasn’t right, anyway.

  He thought, too, about what he’d said to his mother, and what he hadn’t said as well. She had to believe he would run again if she didn’t help, so he’d withheld what he knew she’d most wanted to hear—that he’d been so glad to see her; that touching her had nearly overwhelmed him. His memory of her had grown abstract while he’d been gone; the details of her face, the way she smelled, the vast, charismatic aura of her. He’d desperately wanted to tell her what he’d learned from living, working, running with the dogs day and night, about Henry Lamb and Tinder and Baboo, about the sunflowers, the fireworks, about the old man who had spoken from the back of Henry’s shed. The temptation to return to the house with her had been so powerful he’d finally had to run before his resolve collapsed under the weight of his loneliness.

  And loneliness was a big part of it: his proximity to the house and the knowledge that Almondine was gone had swept a desolation through him like he’d never known. He thought of the letters between Brooks and his grandfather, all those debates about the dogs and what they might become, how Brooks had said it would be better to imagine how men might become more suitable for dogs and not the other way around.

  After the last night, nearly sleepless in the heat, neither the afternoon sun nor the chatter of the squirrels could keep him awake long. He was thinking about Brooks and the dogs when exhaustion and sorrow combined to press him into unconsciousness. The August sun beat down. The cicadas paused their automaton scream when a cloud passed over the sun. Presently the sky cleared and they took it up again.

  He woke when he heard a loud rattle approaching in the underbrush along the creek. Before he had a chance to move, Essay burst into the clearing and ran up to him, panting and scenting him frenetically. Someone had collared her and, near the buckle, a span of the collar was crudely wound with gray duct tape.

  He sat Essay and removed the collar and peeled the tape away. There, folded in thirds, he found the photograph he had left on the kitchen table beside his note, the photograph of Claude holding Forte in his arms. Inside that, three one-hundred-dollar bills, a twenty, and a ten.

  And a key to the Impala.

  Glen Papineau

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN CLAUDE CALLED THE OFFICE, WHICH made Glen uneasy. Not good to be having such conversations at work, but he didn’t have time to object; Claude’s tone was so obviously rushed that Glen understood their conversation would last only a few seconds.

  “What happened last night?”

  “Nothing. There weren’t any cars parked around your place. The yard was empty. I walked your fence line a ways, but there wasn’t any point.”

  “He hasn’t shown up here.”

  “I bet he’s in that barn, Claude. Didn’t you say he’d been sleeping up in the mow before he ran off?”

  “Maybe he was there last night, but not now. It’s hot as hell up there during the day.”

  “Think he’ll come back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “To the barn or the house?”

  “I don’t know. I have a hunch he’s planning to take the Impala and run. I just discovered the spare key missing.”

  Glen thought about that for a second. That would make things easy. He could pursue in the squad car, say he recognized the vehicle but not the driver.

  “Okay. I’ll come out tonight.”

  “Wait until dark. I’ll make sure we stay in the house. I might even try to get Trudy away up to Ashland. Anyway, if you see a light in the barn, it’s Edgar.”

  “What if he comes to the house?”

  “Then I’ll put the porch light on. If you see the porch light, forget it. We’ll work something else out.”

  “Porch light on means he’s in the house?”

  “Yea
h. And if you think he’s in the barn, come up from the south field. Use the doors on that end. The dogs are less likely to see you.”

  And that had been the end of the conversation. When five o’clock rolled around, Glen went back to his house. The day had been blistering and the evening hadn’t cooled much. A guy Glen’s size had a job staying cool. He sat in his kitchen, drank a beer, and then another. He looked at the whiskey flask standing in the middle of his kitchen table. He’d dumped the ether from the night before onto the lawn when he’d gotten home—the stuff was highly flammable and you didn’t leave it standing around, particularly in a poorly sealed vessel. The spot where he’d dumped it was already marked by a kidney-shaped brown patch.

  When it was almost sunset he drove the cruiser to the shop. He took a tin of ether, just like the night before, but this time he didn’t bother opening it, just set it on the car seat and drove out to Town Line Road. He parked his car in the weeds on the far side of the hill from the Sawtelle place. Then he pocketed the rag and the flask and took the rest of his equipment—a church key and a six-pack with the tin of ether wedged in—and walked up the road. A natural embankment rose on the side opposite the Sawtelle property at the very crest of the hill. Glen scrambled heavily up the rocks and settled himself where he had a view of the house and the huge old barn.

  The scene before him was awfully pretty. He could see down into the yard and along the hills rolling to the west. Whoever decided to build a farmhouse there had made a smart decision, he thought, nestling it down in a valley like that, protected from the wind yet flanked by open field on two sides. Both the truck and the Impala were parked in the yard. The porch light was dark, meaning Edgar hadn’t gone into the house. It felt like a stakeout, Glen thought, sitting there. He’d never been on one of those—not much need for it around Mellen. The idea tickled him. He cracked a Leiney’s as the twilight drained down the western horizon and stars began to volunteer in the evening sky.

  For a long time, he watched the field and saw nothing but creation. He rehearsed in his mind how he would put his question to Edgar, how he wanted to emphasize that he was asking as Pop’s only child, not as an officer of the law. Behind him, enough of a moon had risen that he could see the leaves shiver on the long, thin stretch of maples that jutted into the field, a slim finger of woodland pointing to where they’d buried Gar, an island of birches in the middle of that shimmering lake of hay.

  He thought about what would happen. Once Edgar was groggy he would carry the boy to his car. He couldn’t weigh more than one-twenty. Glen could sprint across the field carrying that much. And when Edgar came awake again, they would be traveling down some back road.

  Faintly, he saw the gray silhouette of a figure wading through the hay, halfway between the road and the woods farther back. A dog accompanied the figure. They paused at the birches. Glen grabbed the tin of ether and scrambled down the embankment and crossed the road, keeping his gaze fixed on the two of them. There wasn’t really any doubt about who it was, but he had to be careful now. He waited to see whether a light would go on in the barn, or whether the Impala might suddenly roar to life. The figure disappeared into the darkness behind the barn. There came a brief volley of barks, then silence.

  It wasn’t until Glen reached around to get the whiskey flask out of his back pocket that he remembered he’d laid it aside at the top of the embankment. The ether tin was too squat to fit in his pocket. He looked at the beer bottle in his hand. He drained it in a gulp and punctured the little mushroom cap on the ether and tipped the vessels together. Vapor curled down the side of the bottle, spilling over his fingers in silvery waves before dissipating into the night air. When he was done he stuffed a corner of the rag into the bottle and waved the arrangement under his nose. His nostrils didn’t even tingle. And if a little ether leaked, he wasn’t worried. It took a lot of anything to affect Ox Papineau. Every once in a great while, his size worked in his favor.

  He tucked the beer bottle into his back pocket and checked his watch.

  If that porch light didn’t come on in the next five minutes, Glen told himself, Edgar Sawtelle was going for a ride.

  Edgar

  THEY CAME UP ALONG THE SOUTH FENCE AND CROSSED THE shallow swells of the field, with Essay, for once, content to stay near his side. The dry hay stroked his legs as he walked. A whippoorwill whistled from the woods. In the distance another sadly replied. They stopped at the birches and watched the yard. The truck was parked beside the milk house; the Impala, in the turnout by the porch. The yard light cast a yellow glow against the squat obelisk of the barn, leaving the back double doors in shadow. He saw no stripe of light glowing between or beneath the doors. Most important of all, the porch light was dark. Claude was in the house, then.

  When they reached the barn, he paused and turned the latch on the back door and eased it open. Inside was darkness and the musky scent of the dogs intensified by enclosure and heat. Two dogs bayed a greeting, but before they could continue, he and Essay stepped inside. He switched on the aisle lights and walked along the runs, quieting the dogs, and when he finished, he went to the run where Finch and Pout stood and opened the door and let Essay glide in. She nosed her littermates and turned back. Edgar squatted in front of the pen door.

  Last time, he signed. Just a little while longer.

  He fetched a bucket from the workshop and carried it down the aisle, working from the front doors to the back, upending it and boosting himself up and unscrewing the light bulbs, all but the one nearest the back door, licking his fingers against their quick heat. The act familiar from those nights when his mother was housebound with pneumonia and he’d slept on the makeshift bed of bales. As he worked his way down the aisle, he planned where to search. There was no point looking in the mow. Claude hadn’t thought the bottle was safe there; he wouldn’t have put it back. It could be in the workshop or the medicine room or behind some loose board. It could also be in the Impala, but he doubted that. Nothing important would be in the Impala, not after Essay had appeared with a key. Seeing Claude rub his hands together and don gloves before touching the bottle made him think it wouldn’t be in the house, either—he wouldn’t have it nearer himself than absolutely necessary. But Edgar felt equally certain Claude wouldn’t have thrown the bottle and its contents away. He could have done that months ago, but something in the way he’d handled it spoke of enthrallment as well as fear.

  Edgar began with the medicine room. Half a dozen enameled white cabinets hung on the far wall. Only two contained medicine; the others held stacks of towels and scales and odds and ends rarely used. He sorted through each cabinet, opening the doors and peering in and lifting out the contents and replacing them before moving on, forcing himself to go slowly and look twice, despite his impulse to rush. He didn’t want to doubt himself and have to check again. When he finished with the cabinets, he rifled the drawers beneath the counter, discovering as he went that he could run his hands through each drawer’s contents without removing things and yet be certain that nothing as big as the bottle had been missed.

  It wasn’t there. At least not in the obvious places. To search for nooks and loose boards, he needed a flashlight. He walked to the workshop. Then he realized the flashlight was still in the mow, where he’d left it. He mounted the steps and, working almost entirely by feel, climbed the bales. The filament of the flashlight glowed like an ember when he pushed the switch, then darkened. He located a fresh set of batteries in the many-drawered chest on the workshop’s far wall.

  He walked back to the medicine room, engrossed in the problem of how to reach the boards between the ceiling beams. He could tap each one to see if it was loose. He could get the stepladder from the milk house or maybe stand on the floor and use a rake handle. He noticed, absently, the dogs all standing by their doors, worked up again by his running around. But they stayed quiet, as he had asked. After all, it wasn’t so unusual for him to be working late at night in the barn. They would calm down soon enough.


  He turned the corner into the medicine room, still in reverie. There was just time to register a whiff of something aromatic. From the corner of his eye he saw a figure standing off to the side. Then the barn whirled around him. A hand as big and solid as a steak pressed a wet cloth over his face. Instantly, his eyes began to water. He choked and then, despite himself, inhaled. It was as if someone had immersed his face in rotting flowers.

  The odor was unmistakable.

  Prestone. Ether.

  The flashlight clattered to the floor. He dug the fingers of both his hands into the hand covering his face, but the wrist and arm holding it in place were thick and cable-muscled and he couldn’t budge them, not even a fraction of an inch. The owner of the hand didn’t attempt to move. He just stood and held the cloth against Edgar’s face while he flailed.

  “Just wait,” the man said. “This’ll only take a minute.”

  It was no surprise to hear Glen Papineau’s voice. Only Glen had hands that big. Edgar gave up trying to pull the cloth away from his face and began instead to swing his fists backward, to no avail. Glen simply wrapped another arm around Edgar’s chest and pinned his arms; in one of his hands he held a beer bottle with his thumb over the top.

  Edgar held his breath, counted the racing beats of his heart.

  “The longer you wait, the bigger your breath,” Glen said, and tightened the pressure over his face. He was right, of course. After a time—an impossibly short time—Edgar began to suffocate, and he drew another breath of the nauseating stuff. And then, because his lungs were still burning, he needed to do it again, and again.

  Everything grew quiet. They stood for a while and he heard only the huff of his own breath. He grew drowsy—just the way he’d imagined people might if they stared at the pocket watch he’d gotten for Christmas when he was little. Only the pocket watch hadn’t worked, and this did, and it was the rhythm of his breathing and not the swinging of the fob. A detachment came over him, even drowning, as he was, in flowers. He stopped struggling. He began to float some distance from his body, just an inch or two above himself at first. The smell of ether slowly diminished. After a certain point he didn’t float any farther away.