Soon enough our daily costumes lay in an unseemly ruined pile at our feet. My chapter scattered beneath the clothes and chair legs, forgotten. He hadn’t looked at even one sentence, never would. I knew I would have to forgive him. So I did it right then and there: I forgave him.
The King moved to the door. We stood in our bare feet, wobbling slightly, goose-pimpled, still breathing out clouds of expectation like frost-breath.
“That’s all?” Clea said.
“That’s all, you ask? Yes, that’s all. That’s more than enough.”
“You’re leaving us here.”
“I am.”
He closed the door carefully, not slamming it. Clea and I waited an appropriate interval, then turned and clung to each other in a kind of rapture. Understanding, abruptly and at last, just what it takes to be King. How much, in the end, it actually costs.
Traveler Home
1.
Traveler waking. Journey begins. No dreams this night. Bags packed before sunset, sink emptied, alarm rings, Traveler hits snooze, thinks snooze-lose, lies awake instead, lingering for second alarm. Quandary of toothbrush solved, laid on briefcase for ease of notforgetting. Haunted angle in morning light, toothbrush a sundial suggesting. New direction in morning light. No path more ideal than any other given. Night’s snow fallen, obliterated traces. Shovel itself buried. Car in plowed mound, couldn’t specify where. Drive to resume in spring’s melting. Needs speak with Plowman, demand Plowman present a bill. Snowball’s chance. Confrontation delayed, striding up path hopeless. Arrive baked items in hand if possible. Hardly so. Plowman’s house itself irretrievable. Cars tumbled in clotted curb’s-cake, ridged ice walls visible from space, satellite’s eye. Path glimpsed no more lately. Plowman growing hydroponic greenhouse food, relying solely on Plowman’s powers, plow’s battery and headlamps undying. Plowman homeschooling Plowman’s beautiful daughters. Seven dark-haired, order of height. Out of sight, in mind. Traveler alone. Traveler pining. Traveler waking, turns out dreaming. Lost tickets. Automatic coffee. Toothbrush unfound. Angle of daylight. Snows grows. Snows lose. Missing shoes. Mossy rooted path. Bridge fallen. Asteroid shower. Traveler waking. Double dreaming. Dream shakes off, a second skin, dog’s wet fur. Alarm furious, astounded interval between first waking and five-minute snoozed. Traveler showering. Toothbrush foamed. Thermos brimful. Journey under way.
2.
Traveler sits watching television alone. Not alone, with Terrier. Huddled on sofa with Terrier in dark house, furnace beneath floorboards rumbling, outside snow falling again. Remote on couch handy. Traveler’s flatscreen plasma television, hulking presence, only glow in warm-dark house in white-dark night. Terrier watching too, head cocked at motion, throaty growl at anything remotely ratlike, shadows skulking to edges of screen. Terrier who has never caught any actual rat. Satellite dish provides Traveler with five hundred channels, at least in name, though dozens are fallow, wastes of pay-per-view, cooking, sports, cartoons. Still, forty or fifty channels of films, only a handful of those with commercials. Traveler tonight watches Insomnia, tale of weary detective, unsleeping, trudging through barren noon-lit landscapes in killer’s pursuit. Traveler feels déjà vu, has perhaps seen this film or another like it, remake or sequel. Nonetheless trudges as detective trudges through story, camaraderie of sleepless. Night long-fallen everywhere, windows less-frequently lit by passing headlamps, now only yellow siren-flashing glow of Plowman passing. In this, his smalltown country life, Traveler has learned his few scattered neighbors keep a newborn’s hours, asleep at first dark, six, seven o’clock, rising at five, even four. Traveler long accustomed now to keeping his city hours, habit impossible of breaking, possibly the sole waking presence in a hundred-mile radius. Traveler and Plowman, on a night like this. Plowman scraping road, high in steaming plow’s cab, watching funnels of volcanic white swirl in headlamps through widescreen of windshield. Traveler shudders.
As if snow outside invading, Traveler’s screen begins defecting, digital freezing, slurry of staticky white pixels corrupting shots of insomniac detective. Traveler ignores until he can’t, as picture worsens, glitching story line irretrievably. Traveler sighs. Time’s come as he suspected. Satellite dish outside caked, icicles shredding signal, white stuff needs bumping off. Not the first time. Terrier needs decanting anyhow. This duty preeminent, regularly dragging Traveler outside cave of warmth, into snowfall, needs of Terrier for an earth patch to perfume. Traveler dons coat, knee boots, gloves. Terrier at door trepidatious understanding. Traveler gathers kitchen broom for knocking off accumulation from dish, freeing of signal, resumption of movie. No reason Traveler and Terrier can’t be back on couch in minutes. So, outside, into the howl. Traveler tucking Terrier under arm, a protected football. Practically impossible in this height of snowfall for Terrier to find a place to squat. Find an evergreen with snow-sheltered interior, bed of cones barely dusted, best hope. Preferable to carry dog seeking ideal spot. Otherwise Terrier’s low belly beads with icicles, Terrier runs discouraged frozen yelping for porch. Trial and error, Traveler now carries Terrier.
Satellite dish first. Traveler trudges hip-deep in drifts at the side of the house. Raises broom into swirl, rattles ice on heaped dish, scoops snow from concavity. Icicles clatter to shards deep in snowbank. Dish freed, adequate. Through own window like yeti peeper, Traveler spots lit screen, image rescued. Distant stratospheric signal unblocked from local occlusion of particles. Unfathomable mysteries of science best ignored. Sleepless detective restored oblivious to malfunctional interlude. Empty rooms equally oblivious, carrying on without. Now only remains the Terrier’s peeing, then inside, cleave to warmth, boots-puddle melting by vent. Traveler carries dog and broom across open margin of yard, high-fall of snow, into the woods, into the trees, where canopy offers Terrier possibilities.
Traveler had in warmer months begun carving path back into woods, labor of unfamiliar intimacy with saplings, wood saws, mammoth treetop clippers. Pushing through woods, foot by foot, toward rendezvous with path already established, deep in trees, running behind all their houses invisible. Known locally as “Drunkard’s Path,” ribald suggestion of shitfaced farmers sneaking home concealed from judgmental porch-views. No sense how much farther to reach this older path, Traveler had simply gone on clipping, chopping, making his own mark. Provides place for Terrier to defecate anyhow. Tonight path’s a white tunnel, trees large and small draped silent, cone of moonlit intensity. Traveler sets Terrier down in relative shallow, waits. Terrier alerts, snarls. Traveler looks. Ahead on path now, arrayed in woods, seven wolves. Teeth bared, snarling too, ready. The always feared. Traveler’s seen animals here, sure, mostly prey, deer, bunnies. Nobody from this place would call them bunnies but he can’t think of another word. Once a fox, harmlessly decorative. Eagles overhead sometimes turning, as if with Terrier in sights. Locals joke he’d best keep Terrier inside. Keep close, city dog. Now here they’ve come, the deeper locals. Patrolling for drunkards maybe, but they’ll take what they get. Traveler thinking always danger to Terrier never to himself. Is broom enough to fend them? Then sees basket.
Wolf now emerging from back of group, padding in white path, basket in jaws. Others part to allow this passing. Terrier still growling low in throat, wolves unimpressed. Traveler cranes to look in basket. A baby there, human animal faintly squalling. Tucked in bare blanket, lightly snow-clung. Wolf perhaps proposing a trade, baby for Terrier, as if claiming canine sovereignty here. Do they expect Traveler to eat baby? Why haven’t wolves eaten baby themselves? No way to ask. Traveler as by instinct turns broom to extend handle. Wolf permits. The basket is unexpectedly light. Traveler reels it in. Wolves turn on path, scatter, not demanding Terrier or anything else in return. Terrier, idiot, goes on growling at retreating forms, as if having routed them personally. Traveler gathers basket to his arms, letting broom sink in snow. Find it later. No arm free for Terrier either, so the dog’s left to hopping through snowbanks, vanishing below their height and encrusting entirely, thus
ly following Traveler and basket with baby onto porch, and indoors.
Baby, unwrapped indoors, is a boy baby. White blanket unstained, though even as Traveler makes this observation baby arcs yellow to moisten the basket’s lining. Traveler finds towels, pats limbs dry, replaces blanket with towel, first lesson in baby’s consummately blunt demands. The other being to feed. Mouth pursing in silent expectation. No question of any task but find it satisfaction. Traveler has barely anything in the fridge, much less milk. Ill-prepared for self not to mention newcomer. Should have laid in groceries before storm, Traveler’s classic city-man error, now car waits for plowing, locked in driveway helpless. Plowman uncallable, ranging out in night’s campaign. Likely wouldn’t call if even could. Traveler’s got no notion how far down he dwells on Plowman’s list, but certainly low. Often plowed in dawn hours, wakes to find it done, silent reprimand of countryperson’s early rising. Plowman never billing, denying Traveler ground for complaint. The times he’s asked, Plowman laughs gruffly, as if Traveler’s plowing is comically negligible. Then offered a rural cipher: “I’ll bill when I’ve done enough to be worth billing.” Bastard. Hence no counting on when the way might open to groceries, milk, bottles with nipples, baby food in jars if this creature’s even ready for such. That mouth won’t be reasoned with, won’t wait, Traveler knows this much. Delves in fridge, finds one shred of dairy, a sliver of Brie. Terrier to one side watching, high whine in throat. Unhesitating on baby’s behalf, Traveler carves off the cheese’s white horny rind, thinking as he does how it resembles plowing the cheese like a snow-crushed road. But no time now for fruitless comparisons. Traveler frees gooey center from cheese’s interior, douses in bowl with waterdrops, mashes it to yogurt-like fluid with a spoon’s bottom. Dribbles mixture into waiting mouth. Baby feeds in eagerness too primal to give the name of gratitude. Naps for two hours then demands repeat. Traveler repeats. At third waking Terrier, finally bored with new rituals, pads off to curl in sleep. Baby naps, wakes, Traveler repeats. In this manner Traveler and baby manage through night’s dark. Waiting for light and a path to town, doctors, grocery shelves, diapers. Outside somewhere, Plowman working.
3.
She liked to rescue dogs flung from family station wagons, Plowman’s crazy eldest, whole town knows her this way, as simple as if missing a leg or with a birthmark on forehead, the crazy one. Summertime haunts the cursed bend in road where unfamiliar drivers never slow to curve’s necessity, blacktop layered with curving skids, items tossed from badly secured pickups, winter a black-ice trap, regular towing work for her dad Plowman. Scored her first catch here at age fifteen: collie leaning through open back window, jumping at centrifugal careening, path of least resistance, while the family oblivious, three or four kids in backseat fighting, voices raised over dad’s ballgame radio, nobody notices, poof, dog’s gone. Five hundred dollar pedigreed city dog, they never even turn back, or if they do Plowman’s crazy eldest has the sleek keening creature by then tied in Plowman’s barn deep off main road, not a chance in the world they’d persist to find it.
She turned this anomalous event into a precedent, began vulture-like prowling vigil at road’s bend in warmest weather, incredibly gathering another three dogs plopped from rolled windows in summer following, another collie to make a pair, a dachshund, comical waddler stranding in roadside ivy, and a bulldog, this last her boon companion, seen with her thenceforth everywhere, driving in cab of wretched pickup or on her infrequent town visits, in the post office or the general store, cutting across church or library lawn, defiant survivalist spinster and fist-like, oozing, snorting dog, Plowman’s wild, Plowman’s unfortunate, Plowman’s crazy eldest daughter.
From this roadside trapping spot the other six took their license, the eldest’s claim extending to her siblings. That deep-wooded bend in the road becoming a public thoroughfare in principle only, local knowledge granting the Plowman daughters’ common-law provenance, a franchise, not merely a right-of-way or right-to-pass but more a right-to-halt all others who might wish to pass. Whose woods these are I think I know. Who says this is the twentieth century. Who’s even asking. Where Traveler’s come to make his home older ways prevail. He’s learned his deference to these. On driving this road summer months Traveler’s been waved over time and again, one daughter or another, despite descending age and ascending beauty impossible to keep them wholly clear when glimpsed one at a time, for coercive donation to fund of volunteer fire squad, quite possibly an imaginary force or else the daughters themselves in fire helmets, perhaps with bulldog in pickup’s front seat hastening to scene, god help them all if anything ever catches fire. Or offerings of spontaneous roadside stand, equally coercive purchases of grotesque overgrown summer squash and zucchini, garden stuff that explodes in fecundity and nobody really wants to eat or knows what to do with. The local joke being lock your kitchen door in late August or the neighbors will drop off some squash. Traveler always pays, figures it’s his version of a local tax, a tollbooth payment. Sums in truth absurdly small, only humiliation’s payment to write off, this for Traveler easily enough accomplished.
So Traveler’s only half surprised to turn the corner in snowy plowed curve of wood this morning to find himself confronted by roadblock of Plowman’s daughters. Traveler taking the road at an inching crawl, lessons all long since learned, ten miles an hour to keep tires’ grip on densed ice-gravel, slower still with baby in basket wedged for security behind the driver’s seat, baby slumbering, drunk on Brie, tucked safe deep in terry cloth, nose and mouth solely exposed for tiny breathing. Terrier left behind in house for once. All seven daughters, first time Traveler can recall viewing entire array. Strange to glimpse even one in snowy months, with strength of local custom to hide and hibernate in winter, so many deep in woods never seen. Yet today they’ve come to assert their road’s claim. Second-eldest daughter’s hand raised coplike. No doubt of braking, at such slowness he’d hardly try to elude them, strange that such fantasies arise, no matter what dread Traveler feels at the prospect of such an encounter here. Neighbors after all. Ways of doing things, Traveler always needs recall he’s the interloper by standards of five generations on same road and in same house.
Second eldest comes to driver’s window as Traveler rolls down just a margin, cold being the presumable excuse for this unfriendliness. Mittened hand now in greeting raised, Traveler answers in-kind, gloveless. Second eldest a mannish-ageless woman of the woods, quite possible credible as fireman or militia captain after all, Traveler now thinks. Bearing not a trace of eldest’s disarray. Other daughters hanging back, blocking road, impossible to distinguish through windshield’s crystal glint, except one now he spots with rifle upright, as if at a Soviet checkpoint. Country ways. Always Traveler defers.
“Morning.”
“Morning.”
“Quite a night.”
“Yes, and quite a day too.” Traveler gestures at the white-laden trees, the sculptured lace bestowed by windless blizzard’s passing.
“Did you by any chance hear howling in the woods last night?”
“In the woods?”
“On the Drunkard’s Path, more or less.”
“No howling, no.”
“Wolves is the word. You better watch that little dog of yours, keep it close.”
“That’s what I’m always hearing, heh, yeah.”
“Were you by any chance in the woods yourself for any reason?”
“Not so far in the woods as to hear any howling,” Traveler says, hearing himself verge on lying. “Just to the edge for a pee, I mean of course a dog’s pee. I pee in the house.”
“Sure you do. Mind if I look in the car?”
“You’re looking in now.”
“Mind if I look a little deeper, like I’d be able to do if I, say, opened up your rear door here?”
“Well, I guess not, go ahead,” Traveler saying feebly as she already had done so.
“He’s here,” Plowman’s second eldest says and all six others come now crowdi
ng. Four in fact carry rifles, Traveler counts. Plowman’s daughters in age descending, beauty ascending, the youngest the most beautiful by far Traveler helplessly confirms. If Plowman had an eighth her beauty might be dangerous, blinding, or fatal, just as well Plowman stopped at seven. This youngest now hands off her rifle, scoops baby from basket, still towel-swaddled, puts her cheek to baby’s nose, then widens gap of towel at baby’s mouth and thrusts baby inside her coat, where Traveler possibly glimpses bared breast before jostling of other daughters blocks any view.
Second eldest slams shut Traveler’s rear door, after claiming basket. “Move along now,” she says, not unkindly.
“Sure, but first can I ask is that baby known to you already?”
“We were waiting for that baby, yes.”
“So this was just a sort of wolf’s wrong delivery, in effect?”
“You could say that.”
“Well, I just want to do what’s responsible.”
“That’s what you’ve done and you should be assured we’re not in any way ungrateful. You’ll want to move your car along now, you never know when there could be more traffic coming and it’s hard to see very far up around that bend behind you and this is no weather for braking.”
Never mind that Plowman’s daughters demanded his own braking on said bend. Never mind that traffic’s a comical notion around here, he wonders if they’ve ever seen any, these country people, how it is that they even believe they get to use the word. Never mind questions Traveler finds unspoken, like seven wolves and seven daughters, what’s the story there? Questions with no way of being asked. Never mind the overnight with baby, the feeling grown between them, or at least in Traveler, hard to say what feeling baby had. Traveler wondering if baby could have stayed, grown in house, become another Traveler. Never mind, Traveler raises his hand again and rolls up the window, drives on, toward town. He needs to lay in some supplies for himself and the dog, anyway and at least.
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