With a little nod, he said, “Call us anytime. Our number is posted on the wall beside the phone.”
He walked slowly back to the truck. He heaved himself into the passenger’s side. Heavily closed the door.
Lonny lifted an arm over the seat and, looking over his shoulder, backed up the truck with a careless grace that took her breath away. Then he stopped and slowly moved ahead, bumping up the long trail back to the prairie road. For a while, she could hear him shifting gears. The engine’s slightly asthmatic whine. And then she was alone.
4
The truck jouncing back up the trail. A thin bead of sunlight breaking through the poplars, shining in his eyes. Pop giving him the third degree. Why was he “so rude to her”? And “Why every time you have to go into that property do you act that way?”
“What way?”
“You know.” Pop looked hurt. He rubbed his hand over his chin. Let that big hand fall helplessly onto his lap and then drummed his knee with his fingers.
“No. I don’t know.”
But of course he knew. And then they didn’t speak to each other the rest of the way. And when they got there, he offered to go to town and pick up the mail and whatever else they needed. Maybe go and see Deena at the deli, pick up some hamburgers and her thick crispy french fries. He’d buy a can of creamed corn, Pop’s favorite.
Pop just took off his cap, slapped it against his trouser leg, and put it on again. He squinted forlornly at a gray cloud.
“Dammit, Pop, say something.”
Didn’t say anything. Shook his head and wandered off in the direction of the workshop. So now he’d be in there until all hours, tinkering with stuff. Fixing things that didn’t need to be fixed.
The way she sank down in the grass at Earl’s place, he thought maybe he was wrong. Maybe she did see it. It, whatever it was. The way she hung her head, sickly, over her knees. That little bone at the back of her neck sticking up. Something was happening, that was for sure. And it was scaring the shit out of him, attracted to this girl who conjured up his childhood terrors as easily as breathing.
5
Athin trail of her father’s life was scattered throughout the cabin. But it was nothing out of the ordinary. In the bathroom, the shower head leaked and drizzled rust-colored water. So she unscrewed it and fixed it. Of course that then led to the floors, which she scrubbed with the rusty water and the only soap she could find, a half-used bottle of dandruff shampoo. But the rest of the place still smelled of old grease. Did he fry everything? And there were little dried-up pools, everywhere, of candle wax.
Before she changed it, the calendar on the wall by the phone still said January. On a hook behind the bedroom door, she found a bent-up cowboy hat hanging over a well-worn brown leather jacket with a fur collar, and under that a pair of misshapen brown corduroy pants and a green wool cardigan sweater with two pockets. She picked everything up and carefully went through every pocket. Made a small inventory of what she found: a paper clip, five dusty acorns, a smooth white stone with maroon markings, four toothpicks, a small red-handled jackknife.
She piled the clothing beside the living-room door. A door that opened onto nothing. No landing. No steps. Straight down, three feet, onto wild prairie grass.
Her father and, she supposed, the LaFrenières before him had simply allowed all that green and mauve and amber grass, strewn with little white wild-flowers, to roll away, down the sloping embankment onto the rocky shores of the lake. She sat there, gazing out over the ruffled water until the breeze died and the mosquitoes started to urge themselves into the cabin.
Then she tried calling home. Remembered that Mom, whom she should have called earlier, was going shopping with Auntie Francine and then to dinner and a late movie, so that they wouldn’t worry about her, which they probably were doing anyway. So she left a message on the machine: “Hi, Mom. Hi, Auntie Francine. It’s me. It’s Alex. I’m here. I didn’t get lost. I’m fine. Mom, I’ll call you later. Or I’ll call tomorrow. Or something.”
She got off the phone and called Peter. His little brother, Dougy, answered with a bored voice and didn’t want to talk to her, and in the background she could hear the TV turned way up and some girl who was with him singing in a weird voice like she was part duck.
“So will you give him the message?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Dougy, did you even write down the number? Read it back to me.”
“I’ve got it! Bye.”
She knew that Peter wouldn’t get her message. She put down the phone. The LaFrenières’ phone number was right there in her father’s familiar scrawly hand. She stroked her fingers over it, feeling the ridges and hollows the pressure of his pen had made. 555-3651, Tom and Lonny LaF.
The sun was just slanting, late-day gold grazing the top of the big hill behind the cabin. She hadn’t eaten since late morning, two doughnuts before she drove onto their property, just before they brought her here. The clock over the fridge had stopped working who knows how long ago, at seven minutes to three. Besides the clock, the kitchen contained a woodstove, a table, one chair, and the refrigerator. A sofa, a little table, and a circular braided rug were in the living room. A bed and an empty bureau in the bedroom. That was it. No pictures. No ornaments. No really personal traces other than the clothing.
Oh, and in the kitchen, a few pots, dishes, utensils. And in one kitchen drawer, wrapped carefully in dark pink tissue paper, she found seven fat white candles and a perfect round, low candleholder. Green, green stone. Dark and smooth. Beautiful. She cradled the candleholder in the palm of her hand and went and lay down on the bed. She sprawled on her back. She placed the green stone on her abdomen, breathing deeply, feeling its weight. Letting it gently rise and fall, rise and fall. She tried to relax. She tried to sleep. Then she stared at the ceiling and tried to feel at home.
6
After the sun, a great fiery ball, started to edge the rim of the prairies, he went out and watched a hawk fly with ponderous dignity off a fence post, walked over the sagging wires and silvery wolf willow onto what was now Jacob Wiebe’s pastureland.
He came to a circle of white rocks and looked down at a dried cow pie. Prairie grass grew right up through it, and it crumbled under a light kick. He thought about how many buffalo had once grazed here. How many of their bones were scattered or crumbled or buried. How many generations of pasture sage had grown up from this very earth they had walked on, from their bones and dust and blood and hearts.
All these thoughts became jumbled with images of the dark-eyed girl over at Earl’s place. The white sleeve of her T-shirt resting against her smooth arm. Her lofty nose. The smell of her, sitting between him and Pop, as they drove over there in the truck. Damn, she smelled good. Like clover or something. How did she get that smell? It didn’t come from a perfume bottle. It came from her. It drove him nuts, the memory of that sweet smell.
The sky was turning a pale smoky blue when he got back. He hadn’t bothered with eating, hadn’t been hungry. Hollow as old bones, and light-headed, he stood by the refrigerator door, slowly drinking cold town water out of a plastic juice jug.
Earlier, he’d watched Pop eat two of Deena’s burgers, two bags of fries, a side order of onion rings, and a bowl of creamed corn speckled with Cajun pepper, his eyes lowered the whole time over his food. And now he was back in the workshop. Lonny could see his light from the kitchen window.
The telephone rang, and it was Robert. Dunderhead had run off again. “Damn him,” said Robert. “You can never count on that stupid dog staying in one spot for ten minutes. Have you seen him?” Lonny said that he hadn’t, and then Robert stayed on the line for several minutes more talking about Tammy, who always had her nose in the air now that she was going out with Richard Dobson, whom everybody knew would end up a lawyer just like his father.
Lonny interrupted his friend in midsentence, midstream. “Robert, go out and find yourself somebody else.”
Silence. And, “You think?” And then, just like th
at, he’s talking about going up to northern Ontario on a fishing trip with his dad and Uncle Daryl. “Crops are in, and it’s a good time to go. Huge friggin’ muskies, Daryl says. Real fighters, too. You should come with us, Lon. It’d be great.”
That day, coming back from the mound after Robert has pedaled furiously home, he comes into the kitchen. His mother is there with her back to him. At the sink, snapping green beans. Snap, in half. Accusingly, into the waiting bowl.
She says, not turning around, “You see dragonflies up there all the time. They move around like little angels. How many did you see today, my babe?”
‘I didn’t see any.” A sick wave of heat rises up his body.
A west wind whispers against the moth-white kitchen curtains, blows them in, sighs through her hair.
I’ve really got to go now, he told Robert, who had moved on to talking about the ball game he was pitching over at Poplar Bluff tomorrow night. I’ll be there, Lonny said, even though he had no intention of going. And after that, Robert finally got off the phone.
Earl’s daughter was waiting for the jug of drinking water that had been promised to her, and he couldn’t leave it any longer. He filled up a big blue container, threw it into the truck, and then quickly left, wheels grinding over gravel, spinning out their bad-luck song.
But three minutes down the road, in the ten-o’clock twilight, here came Robert’s big black Lab, Dunderhead, loping toward him, a red moon rising at his back. He had a sideways gait and a look of purposeful attention.
Lonny slowed the truck to a stop, reached over, and opened the cab door. Dunderhead, panting, pink tongue lolling, a string of drool whipped over and around his long black nose, gave him a happy look of recognition and began to scramble up into the cab. Lonny had to help him by grabbing the scruff of his neck and giving him an extra boost.
As Lonny closed the door, Dunder licked his face. Then he settled down just like any other passenger going for a ride, eyes facing out the front window.
“Where have you been, Dunder?” said Lonny, pulling back onto the road. “Have you been out chasing tail again?” He put his arm around the dog, who continued to pant and drip drool on the seat.
“Guess I’d better drive you on home then.”
Robert’s farm was a ten-minute drive in the opposite direction of the LaFrenière homestead. The dog had actually been heading home, but who knows what else might grab his attention and veer him off on a new adventure before he got there.
He remembered back to the year Robert got Dunder, bringing the puppy over in that old blue Snugli that had been used for his little cousin, Daryl Junior. He drove into their yard on his bike, that puppy bouncing against his chest.
Lonny’s mom pulled Dunder out of the Snugli and held him and arched her neck back at Pop and said, “We should have one of these.”
“I’ll get you a dozen, if you like,” Pop told her, smiling.
That was the summer she died. They never got a dog. But Dunder had somehow always felt like his own.
“So here’s the deal, buddy,” Lonny said to the dog’s silky ear. “I’ve got a mess going on in my life. You believe in spirits? I sure as hell do. Something’s after me, you know that? Well, you’re a dog. Do dogs ever have a guilty conscience? Do you sleep well at night, boy?”
Dunder stumbled around in three circles on the seat and finally lay down with his head on Lonny’s leg.
“I’ve got some memories,” said Lonny, stroking him, “that won’t leave me alone. Chase me around in circles. I’m going to tell you something, buddy, that I’ve never told another living soul. The day that Robert and I dug up the mound, that very night, Mom came into my room. And she sat on the edge of my bed. And she looked at me for a while. Anyway, I’m lying there staring up at the ceiling, not knowing what to do. I felt so terrible. And then Mom says, like she’s just guessed or maybe she’s known it all day, ‘Don’t ever tell your pop what you did. It would kill him. That land and that sacred mound mean the world to him. Better he just simply doesn’t know. Did you clean it up?’
“I look into her eyes and I tell her yes, and honest to God, Dunder, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a look from her, a look for me, for her son. I’ll never, ever forget that look.”
The yard light at Robert’s farm shone out in the rose and blue nightfall shadows. Robert came out of the house to greet them.
“Found him on the road,” said Lonny.
“Didn’t have to bring him around, but thanks anyway,” said Robert, opening the passenger’s door.
“I was on my way somewhere,” said Lonny as Dunder hopped down and rushed toward the house, wagging his tail.
“Come on in for a while anyway. Uncle Daryl’s friend Joe Dakotah just stopped by. He’s into all kinds of old-time Indian stuff. Uncle Daryl was at a sweat lodge he runs. Last weekend. He’s cleaned up his act, Lon, he really has.”
He said all this while kicking at the ground with his shoe. Robert’s uncle had spent time in jail for growing a crop that wasn’t exactly legal, right in the middle of his sunflower field. Everybody in the valley knew about Daryl Lang. They started calling Daryl’s field the Drugstore. And when he’d finished serving time, he’d come back, smiling his big piano-keyboard smile. That was over two years ago. Except for the drinking, he had mostly behaved himself ever since. But people had a long memory for things like that.
And Robert really loved Daryl, but no matter how much he tried to convince himself that his uncle had actually reformed, everybody knows how easy it is to fall back into old ways. And Daryl was one of those people who always sat at the edge of the law, even in his good times.
“So come on in,” said Robert, urging Lonny with a nod toward the house. “Come on and meet this guy.”
Lonny hesitated. “I promised somebody something.”
“Can’t it wait? I really think you should meet Joe. I really think you’d get a lot out of it.”
Robert seldom talked this way, so urgent and pleading. So what’ll it hurt? thought Lonny. It’s already late, and she’s probably given up on me by now anyway.
Dunder was waiting by the door, furiously wagging his tail, and nosed on through the second Robert started to open it. He dashed over to his water dish and drank thirstily, slopping water up over the sides.
Sitting around the kitchen table were Robert’s dad and mom and Uncle Daryl and his live-in girlfriend, Louise, and this strange-looking Indian guy, about sixty years old, with a pockmarked face and hair as long as Lonny’s all tied back with a black band.
The guy was so Native, so in-your-face, like he was announcing the fact. And it made Lonny feel uncomfortable.
Then the stranger raised his eyes, and for the second time since that morning, since Earl McKay’s daughter had stepped out of her car and looked through his soul with her chokecherry-colored eyes, Lonny felt as if his whole life had just been handed over for inspection. Only this guy made him feel like he was a fly on a map, pierced with a pin.
Just a moment was all it took, and then he went on talking as if Lonny hadn’t even entered the room. The guy in some strange way was holding court with Robert’s family; they were hanging on to his every word with rapt and respectful attention.
Robert’s mom stuck out her arm to Lonny, still not taking her eyes off their guest. She was always warm in a matter-of-fact kind of way. He walked over to her, and she pulled out a chair for him to join them.
The guy was talking about how there was a fire in each of us. About how it was sacred. It should never be fanned with alcohol, or it would burn out of control. He didn’t look at Robert’s uncle Daryl when he said this, but it was a remark that must really have hit home.
Daryl, however, looked soberly down at his hands, then smiled and lifted one hand to stroke Louise’s back. Hé seemed calm. Calmer, in fact, than Lonny could ever remember seeing him.
“Thanks, Joe,” Daryl said softly after a moment’s silence. “Thanks for stopping by.”
“Not a problem.�
�� The guy got up and pulled a set of car keys out of his pocket. They were on a metal ring with a buffalo head boldly etched in relief on the silver tag.
Lonny closed his eyes, and beads of perspiration began to break out on his forehead.
“We’re holding a doctoring sweat this Sunday afternoon. Two o’clock,” said Joe Dakotah.
“I’ll be there, Joe,” Lonny heard Daryl say, and those words spun out and hit him right in the center of his heart.
“Surprised, him showing up here just like that,” Robert’s dad said to Daryl after Joe Dakotah got into his car and drove off. He added, with a soft chuckle, “Didn’t know he made house calls.”
7
They sit side by side in a hot, dark womblike place. Stones as red-hot as lava have been brought in and set down in a pit at the center. A graceful woman in a red nightgown places a small piece of cedar on one stone. It leaves a black pattern, a fossil on fire.
Old Raven Man ladles water over the rocks. They hiss and sing. Heat blisters up.
“Hold your towel over your face,” instructs Grandpa.
She does and still smells fire and cedar and another, more acrid smell. Old Raven Man begins to chant and pray. In the scorching darkness she hears something, like little comets, whizzing around and around over their heads. And then something feathery graces her skin, brushing across her bare feet, her arms, her forehead.
Two headlights shone like moons, bouncing across the bedroom wall, flashing across her eyes, waking her up. She had fallen asleep on the hard bed. She had had many vivid, exhausting dreams. In one, she had chased after her father. She ran through the woods, reaching to touch arms and legs that disappeared into tree limbs, shoulders into mounds of moss, a curved back into the gnarled hardness of stone.
A light knock at the screen door pulled her from this deep place. Slipped her groggily through the mists of sleep and off the bed. She stumbled on bare feet and got to the kitchen.
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