I get up again and go to the closet. Open it to find a suit of Dad’s hanging there. A blue suit but no white shirt to go with it. There’s another hanger with a work shirt but no work clothes to go with it. I stand there looking. Some underwear and stuff, socks on an upper shelf.
Dad probably is wearing the white shirt because it’s dirty, anyway. And he’s got on the work clothes. I bet he had on his warm leather jacket and his hat because they aren’t in the closet or anywhere else in the room. I close up the closet and go back to the bed.
So. It’ll be dark soon. I could go on off to sleep and wait for him like that. I look again at those two nails with the lines coming down. No matter where I look, and there’s not a whole lot of places to look in a small room, I come back to the nails and those lines. Staring at them for a long time.
And it dawns. Slowly, but it dawns. Runners! I am so stupid.
“So that’s where.” Even saying it out loud — nobody can hear me. Makes me feel so much better to talk out loud. “Why didn’t Mom mention it? Maybe she didn’t think of it.”
I grab my overnight case and get out my wool gloves and scarf. Have them on in a second. I never did take off my jacket and all of a sudden I’m burning overheated. “Get out of here and on over there before it’s dark.”
Do you know the way? Maybe. Sure. I’ll find it.
I leave the room not much different than when I found it.
I leave and go down the two flights of stairs. At the desk I give the key to Luze Montana. The other woman is nowhere to be seen; neither is her adding machine.
“Hi there,” Luze says, still lighthearted.
I have to smile. “I know where my dad is — do they still whomp on down the hill?”
“Sure. Everybody,” she says. “Guess that’s where he’s at, but I didn’t see him leave.”
“’S okay,” I tell her, and I’m gone.
Outside, it’s snowing again. Just those big old snowflakes that make you think you’re hearing sleighbells. Just a snow shower that won’t last long. I cut across Third Street and through some side streets. It sure is a town like any other little dinky place. But I know this one. I know how to go. So to follow this street, which is called McCowles, until it is just a rural route out of town. Pull this scarf I wear up over my mouth.
You get out a ways — still in town, though, and some people pass me, and kids with sleds. Littler Amerind kids. How can you tell? You just know. Then there’s the last intersection where all these men line the buildings. It’s not even lunchtime. Oh. They don’t work, and nothing to do.
With the town behind me, I’m out in what is like country, skirting some hills where there are ramshackle houses along the creases. The hills are some smaller than I recall them. Along the road that loses its tar mix and becomes just a flat, gravelly roadbed with snow making it smooth and easy to walk. Out where the light is dim — it gets dark so early. But snow is bright; the air is, too, and nothing can scare me along this road.
And on out until houses along the creases are to the side of me, and only one house is ahead of me. I slow down. Coming on the house by the road as quiet as I can. I stop a minute, since it was my house.
It is sure something to come back and see things. I guess we are pretty strange people, Mom and me, never to’ve come back. Maybe Dad and Sun are the normal ones, and me and Mom are different. Because I lived in that house and it wasn’t so bad, as I remember. Oh, you wouldn’t want to have your Birthday in it, I guess. Because it’s so small, with just a front room and a kitchen as you come in the door, and two bedrooms.
The house is painted the nicest brown — who ever thought it would look good that color? There is a new, small garage with this Volkswagen car in it. The field is still fenced in. But there’s a chicken coop, which we never had, and some banty chickens. A new little shed and a cow, looking brown-velvety and old. But something is more different than even that. It takes a minute to discover it. They had to cut down a tree in front to make a driveway up to the garage. That’s it. There used to be a tree where they always told me I would swing when I was real little. I don’t remember swinging, but I sure do recall a tree there when we moved out.
I go on and it’s not far now where the road is about to end. And it’s the oddest feeling to go by a house that was yours once and have it not bother you particularly. And you would think I’d at least long to see that little old room I had. I was just so jealous of Sun about that. I remember, before we left I’d get so angry because he had the whole front room and the studio couch to sleep on while I had that awful small room. I was dumb, for sure. Because it had to be awful for him to sleep like that, without a door you could shut if you wanted to.
It’s a queer feeling for certain as I leave the house behind. Like I’m holding things back, whatever it is I could feel if I just wanted to. But it’s gone, isn’t it, whatever it is, so why feel it?
The road ends in a bank of trees, pretty tall. There are all these footprints in the snow, going and coming. It is really so still out here in nowhere. Guess all the kids have made it on home with their sleds, to get warm out of freezing and to take some soup or something. I would love some soup right now, better even than a hamburger. Wonder if Dad will think to take me for some food?
And on through the trees, following the sled lines as kids pull them and following footprints. I feel I am speeding up inside. Whether it’s because of Dad, I don’t know. But I get so excited walking in all this country white. The trees full of new snow I wish would look like that for eternity. I know they won’t, but it’s so nice to think that every winter they will. Somehow it makes me sad the way new snow will melt and things will have to get brown and muddy before they can bloom into beauty. Makes me real thoughtful about growing and dying. And on to the next thought, which is that everything is in a big circle. Wouldn’t know where I got that, but I’ve always been able to think about it. That I’ll grow up and die, just like Mom and Dad will. But it’s okay because each of us in our turn, including my brother, will grow again and make even trees with snow and even the mud some richer. It’s sad, though. Awful sad, sometimes.
You break out of the trees right … now. For sure! You walk some six or seven yards straight up the side of what looks like an ordinary rise of land. And you are right … here!
Was there ever a hill so grand! Other hills may look smaller to me, but this one has got to be the best ever and just the way I remember it. And so hidden the way it is because, by the time you leave the road, you are climbing on a rise you can’t even notice. And keep climbing to stand here at last.
To look down there and going down in your mind on the most wonderful ride you could ever want. I see the fence at the bottom; and beyond, where there is heavy mist today. I don’t have the time to think what’s out there. For the sled is resting on the fence. With his back to me, looking a way out there, is Dad. Knew he would be, too. Man, it’s so great to be here.
“Hey, Dad!” And slipping and sliding, half killing myself down the hill. Laughing, screaming, “Dad, it’s me! I made it all by myself! Hi!”
“Arilla? Well, for — I don’t believe it!”
“Truth! It’s me!” I come busting into that fence hard enough to shake it. Laughing. And look on out there. “Ooooh!” Mist rising from it and looking down into the deep gorge below. But only a minute. Dad grabs me and hugs me.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t in my room! How’d you find me?”
“I remembered. And I saw the sled marks on the wall!”
He had to laugh at that. “You don’t miss a thing! Did you meet my friend Luze?”
“Sure. She was nice to me.”
“Luze is nice to everybody like that. And you come all this way.”
“On the bus,” I tell him. “It was fun, too.”
Then I don’t know what to say. I know what I should say, but I’d better wait awhile. I brush some dirt off the sled. My eyes meet Dad’s.
He has to smile. “You want to?”
/> “Huh?”
“To take a ride, to sled on down?”
“To whomp on down? Yeah!”
“Then let’s go!”
And laughing from pure happiness. Slipping and sliding to reach that dirty path over to the side, where kids have worn it into a trail going up and down. Dad just holds me up, using the sled to support himself.
“I think I’m going to be scared,” I tell him. “Never have sledded in a long time. What ever did happen to my sled?”
“Oh, we must’ve given it away before we left. You had outgrown it.”
“Shoot.” Giving him a kidding glance, “I see you never did give away yours.”
And he has to laugh. “You want to be in front?” he asks me.
“Ummm. No, I’ll stick to the back so’s I can jump off if it gets real terrible.”
“You jump off with my weight making us fly, and you’ll hurt yourself.”
“Well, I’ll get on in back, anyway. I don’t want to see!”
“Scaredy cat!”
We get situated. I feel kind of silly. Guess maybe Dad does, too. He is grinning like an idiot. Shoot, it’s fun, why not?
“Get ready. Are you ready?” he says.
“Ready!” I get my arms around his back and hold tight on to his coat.
And, man, we are gone! We move, we are flying. We sail on down — fan-tastic!
“Whoopee!” Dad lets out a whoop that echoes all over the place.
“It’s so fast, oh, my goodness! I peek and see snow streaking by. And see the fence just when Dad turns the sled sideways. We hit the fence on the side hard enough to make it sound, whoooeeem. We let that old sled slip out from under.
We sprawl against the fence. “That is really something,” I tell him. “Remember how I would come out here after school and whomp on down till dark? Used to take a running leap and belly-flop on the sled. Wonder if I can still do it.”
“Try it,” Dad says. He leans against the fence, just sitting quiet and looking up at the hill.
“You think I’m scared.”
“For sure,” he says. “I bet you are.”
“Watch me, then. Here I go up.” I climb the trail, which is harder the second time because you’ve had some exertion. I try using the sled for support and that’s a big help. I get all the way up and stand there, trying to figure how to belly-whomp without hurting myself. “I’m not as small as I used to be!” I yell down.
“Truth!” he calls. “Figure it out.”
So I figure how I’m going to get my whole self flat-out on the sled. See, you hold the sled in your hands and run forward. Then fall on it with some kind of wallop. Only, I will sure bust open my stomach if I try that. So I get on my knees and ease down on the sled. Taking hold of the rope, twisting it around my hands, and then grab the steering.
“That’s the easy way!” Dad calls.
“You better believe it!” I push off. Oh, wow. “Oooooh!”
Down and down. Faster than a speeding bullet. Fantastic! For what seems the brightest blue snowlight flashing by, and the grandest feeling of half-scared and a sure kind of wonderful.
Whooeeem. Hitting the fence, and letting that sled slide out from under. I lie on my side, taking the rope from around my hands. And lie flat on my back to make a poor-looking angel in the hard-packed snow. Look up at the sky and feel snow drop in my face. Didn’t know it was falling again. And breathing hard. Peace. Sledding is, and so being thankful.
“You remember how we used to sled?” Dad says, so real gentle.
“I’d come on out practically every day in the winter,” I tell him.
“No. I mean when you were real little,” he says. “When you’d sneak away and come sledding with me in the nighttime.”
I lift my head up. I scoot on over next to him, with my back to the fence.
“Truth,” Dad says. “You were no bigger than a minute. And you would find your coat and boots and walk from the house clear in the dark to here. Where you’d make me take you for a sled ride.”
“You are kidding me! For real?”
“As sure as I sit here. I couldn’t get away from you for nothing.”
“You mean I’d walk out here … in the dark? And sled? Well, how old was I?”
“Maybe from the time you were five and a half or so. Until we started locking your door.”
“And I liked to sled even way back then? How’d I know you were out here?”
“You’d hear me going ‘Whoopee,’ I guess,” Dad says. “There’s something about sledding in the moontime. Makes you want to holler out.”
“That’s really something.”
“There wasn’t a fence here then, either,” Dad says.
“You are kidding me!” I get up to look down. We both stand to look over into the terrifying gorge.
Dad says, “Everybody would slide down here without a fence to stop us. Just craziness. Your mother never would allow you or Sun to come here in daylight.”
“Were there any accidents?”
“Oh, maybe a few. Seems I remember a child and an older man. And once you and I almost went over.”
Now, that stunned me. Dad is looking way out, into the mist. The night is gathering there in the wide angle of space above the gorge, as if to hide it.
“How do you mean, we almost went over!”
“You talked me into sledding on sheer ice, you wanted to sled so bad. So I went along and couldn’t stop the sled.”
“So what happened?”
“Sun,” he says. “Your brother always did wake up before I’d finished out here. I guess that time he saw you were gone. He got his horse he used to have and his lasso. Your brother could use a rope almost by the time he could run good. He could ride like an expert from the time he was six. He got out here just in time. Threw the lasso and caught us.”
“Man! Sun did that?”
“Truth, I swear. But he couldn’t bring us back up the hill. It was too steep, or he didn’t know how to work the horse, something. So he starts yelling, screaming his head off.
“Pretty soon,” Dad says, “a lot of men were out there helping. And old James, too. He’d always be riding around half the night. Death was on his mind so much and I think he’d go looking for it. But you almost got frozen bad.”
“That’s something. I don’t remember it at all.”
“How could you? You were so little.”
“But you would think I’d —” I couldn’t finish it. It was all so stunning.
“Think what?” Dad says.
That I nearly died and never knew it. That my own brother saved me. My own brother who I thought for sure wanted me dead. Maybe … maybe he wanted to save his dad and I was just along for the ride. Stop it, that’s awful.
“It’s not fair,” I finally say, “not to remember things when you’re little.”
“I don’t think anybody would remember things that far back,” he says. And hugs me. I lean close, feeling so nice here with him, even if my hands are getting cold.
“Maybe that’s how we save ourselves from the bad memories,” Dad says. “You were frozen pretty good that night and you wouldn’t want to remember that.”
“Maybe that’s why my hands always get cold so quick,” I tell him.
“Do they? Are they cold now?”
“They sure are.”
“Then we’d better be going. But first —”
He did something I’d never seen or heard him do before. Or maybe I had and didn’t remember it. There sure is a lot I have no way of knowing or recalling.
Because what he did right then seemed right and not nearly so unusual or unfamiliar as you might think.
The sun was down. But we never saw it going beyond the gorge because of the clouds and all. The dark was already thick at the cliff end beyond the fence. Dad turned around, looking behind us. And I was startled to see it was for-real dark. All was darkness of trees and huge black lumps of small hills. There the moon was coming up over, so big and bright, like a g
iant marble in a gorgeous spotlight. The clouds were all above us and the moon was way out of them. You could see it just as clear. And snow falling on us — there was nothing falling in the area of the moon. Just snow showers over us; but to the east a clear path for that brilliant marble to rise.
Dad pointed at it. All of a sudden his hand looked like it was lit. He turned back to the fence and pointed at the vastness out there. And threw back his head. Threw it back in a kind of heave.
And howled.
The sound of a great wolf circling out far into the night. With yip-yips of little cubs. And sounds of gentle wolves and fierce half-grown wolves, so eager. All to end with the call of the great father wolf, who had the deepest chest. Who was most alone and stalking. And was Dad.
The sound colliding with echoes of itself all around; then vanishing on the moonlight of the night. Again and again. Howling.
I knew better than to say a word. It was a sound so deep of my dad, it was like being sacred. And me given a privilege to hear. I knew to keep my mouth closed.
For a long time we stood at the fence. I was freezing now, but I waited. Looking out into darkness you couldn’t see through. Looking, not a word, until Dad took hold of the sled and started up the trail.
Somewhere in that moonlit walk through trees of eternity and along the road we said a few things to each other. Me trudging sometimes behind Dad; able, almost, to feel all over my skin and in my bones when the temperature started dropping.
With him saying, telling, “Long ago it must’ve been given to me, although I have no sure memory: a boy goes alone to a high place, a cliff. He stays there alone, looking for a spirit guardian. For the spirit that will protect him the rest of his life.”
Walking past the little house that was ours. Windows lighted, making yellow patches on snow, mixing with moonglow.
Dad saying, “Back there, howling the wolf because I know the wolf is mine. No matter that I may not want it — I am not a believer — it is still mine.”
Walking the road side by side. The sled roped out to glide along in a steady scud. Feeling my legs move, but my feet are nearly numb.
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