by Karen Wolff
People trickled into the church, their voices hushed, and walked down the aisle to view Granddad in his casket. Olive began playing soft music on the piano. When the procession was over, I led Gram to her seat in the front pew where she sat stiff-backed, staring straight ahead. The church was completely filled; some folks stood in the entryway. I shouldn’t have been surprised. People from miles around knew Granddad. They traded with him, and he gave them easy credit. They danced to his fiddle music and knew good times with him. Even his beer-drinking friends were here, slicked up and serious for once. I saw Squint, who had hung a necktie on himself, but otherwise appeared no cleaner than usual.
Reverend Sayles stood up, looking as though he’d sucked on a lemon, unable to let go his disapproval of Granddad’s ways even as his body lay dead before him. He offered his condolences to the family and friends of the deceased, reminding us of the prospect of eternal life if we would but accept Jesus. He read Psalm 130. When he came to the line “If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, who should stand?” his fierce eyes fastened on me for a moment and sent a tremor through my body as I tried to remember any of my misdeeds he might know about. I was relieved to stand with everyone and sing “Nearer My God to Thee.”
I wondered if Granddad’s soul would go to hell. It didn’t seem like he deserved that, but I wasn’t too sure he’d get to heaven either. Reverend Sayles cleared his throat a couple of times and delivered himself of a long, cheerless homily reminding us that death was natural and would come to each of us someday. He must have gotten it from a book somewhere because it sure wasn’t about Granddad.
Arlo Fitch, who often performed solos in church, sang a grim piece I’d never heard before—“Dust to Dust, The Mortal Dies.” I looked down the row and saw that both Esther and Pauline were sniffling and wiping their eyes, but Gram remained stoic. When Arlo was finished, the congregation recited the Lord’s Prayer, and we sang one last hymn, “Blessed Assurance.” The preacher said another prayer, and that was it.
Mr. Westby crept on silent shoes to close the dark wood casket. We pallbearers rose on his signal and carried its heavy weight outdoors to the waiting hearse-wagon. Snow, falling in huge, fluffy flakes, was already piling a soft blanket over everything.
We walked to the cemetery next to the church, and I stood with Gram at the grave as Reverend Sayles commended Alphonse David Didier to his god as though Granddad’s god, if he had one, were different from everyone else’s, and then his body was lowered into the ground. Gram used her hanky finally and wiped her eyes before she turned to the line of folks who wanted to offer their sympathy, even as they stood in the snow.
I HAD A word with Sally McVay as we were leaving. “Is my father at your house?”
She looked up at me quickly. “Now, Harry. There won’t be more trouble, will there? Surely not today of all days.”
“No,” I said. “That’s a promise, but I want to see him.”
“He’s gone out to the Brule to check his muskrat traps,” she said. “He should be back pretty soon.”
“Dad’s taken up trapping?”
“Yes, he has, and he’s making pretty good money at it.”
“Well, that’s great,” I said, pleased about this development.
BACK AT THE house, Aunt Lida had taken charge and had a hot dinner ready for the crowd. All of us piled food onto our plates. We stood, or sat, wherever we could find space—in the kitchen, the living room, and even in Gram’s bedroom, right where Granddad died. For dessert we had funeral pies from Crazy Betty Sykes. She brought them to every funeral whether she knew the family or not. It was almost too rich after all the other food, but I did my duty and ate a big piece.
The household was noisy that afternoon with all the children and everyone talking at once. Reverend Sayles joined us briefly, and, without Granddad there, he was amiable enough, although I suspected it was because he needed to stay in the good graces of Aunt Lida and Gram.
Eddie and Gabe kept watching the weather, anxious to get started home before the driving got bad. They’d planned to see Dad but decided they’d better not wait any longer. After everyone left, Gram, who hadn’t said much all day, sat down with Aunt Lida and Uncle Carl and relaxed a little. They talked over the service, smiling a bit at the stiff-necked preacher and discussing all the people who came.
I made myself busy settling chairs back in place, turning on a lamp, picking up a dropped mitten, and when it seemed they had forgotten my presence, I slipped away to Sally McVay’s, eager to see my father, wondering if I could find the right words to say to him. He wasn’t back yet, so I went inside and chatted with Sally for a few minutes, but I was so restless, so ready to square things with Dad, I just couldn’t sit still.
“You say he’s out at the Brule?”
“Yes, he sets his traps in the slew just south of the pond.”
“I think I’ll go out there and catch up with him.”
She nodded. “Be good to him, Harry.”
“I will.”
I BUNDLED UP AND walked west on the road to the Brule. Snow was piling up, but there was no wind, and the temperature had come up a bit. It took me about thirty minutes to reach the slew. Muskrat homes built of reeds, snow-covered now, mounded above the surface of the water. I saw where someone, I supposed it was Dad, had left wet, mushy tracks. I called to him, but there was no answer. Perhaps he had traps farther down the creek.
Daylight on this wintry afternoon was already beginning to wane. I turned my collar up and pulled my cap down as I headed south, but saw no trace of anyone. I returned to the original tracks, trying to figure out where he’d gone. A little kernel of apprehension rose in me. Dad knew this country, and I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t met him coming back to town.
I began to retrace my steps, paying more attention to where I was walking. It looked like something had been dragged through the snow. Climbing up the bank from the creek, I followed the path made by whatever it was until I came to the road. The path ended abruptly with a large, snow-covered lump at an intersection with a farm road that ran south. Snow was falling furiously, and I had to brush it away before I could see what it was. Underneath was a crude sledge fashioned from a wide board with a rope attached for a handle. Eight or ten dead muskrats were piled on it and tied with a cord. They had to be Dad’s, and he must have been hauling them home. But where was he?
I called out, but again there was no answer. Footprints, barely indentions in the heavy snow, left the sledge and led down the farm road to the south. I followed the track for quite a distance to the Snyder farm, but the tracks didn’t turn in. Puzzled, I continued down the road another quarter mile or so, until I came to the Blanchard’s. The house was dark, and no one seemed to be home. I remembered seeing them at the funeral. They must not have returned yet.
The footprints turned in, but instead of going to the house, they led to the chicken coop. How peculiar. Why would Dad go to their chicken coop? Then I saw the tracks continued on to the barn. I threw open the large door and called out. “Dad, are you in here?”
A figure rose up in the cavernous dark. I couldn’t make it out at first because my eyes weren’t adjusted.
“Who is it?”
I recognized the voice. “It’s me, Dad. Harry.” I walked up to him so I could see him better.
He looked at me warily. “Harry, what are you doing here?”
“I came to find you, Dad. I have to talk to you.”
“Talk to me. What about?” He turned away. “I don’t think I want to hear any of your talk. You shouldn’t have come out here.”
“No, Dad. You’ve got to listen to me. I made a terrible mistake, and I need to tell you. I was wrong. I was wrong about what I said to you. It wasn’t true, and I know that now.”
“What are you talking about?” His voice was filled with contempt.
“Listen to me, Dad. Squint Pickard told me everything that happened that night at the store. He told me you didn’t push Granddad down. He said you trie
d to save him.”
He stared at me a minute, then dropped down on a bale of hay, resting his good arm on his knee, the artificial arm hanging at his side. He lowered his head and closed his eyes.
I knelt in the straw in front of him. “Look at me, Dad. I’m so sorry I said all those terrible things. I don’t hate you. As soon as I heard Squint’s story, I knew I had to find you and make it right. You tried to do the right thing that night. I’m proud of what you did.”
He was silent for a few minutes, and I sat back on my haunches, wondering what he was thinking. He heaved a big sigh.
At last his voice came out low and slow. “Well, I’m not so proud of myself. Maybe I deserved what I got from you.”
“Why do you say that, Dad? You were the only decent one in that awful bunch.”
He looked up and spoke again, his voice raw and grating. “You don’t know it all, Harry. I don’t know how to tell you this.”
I waited for him to go on.
“I was a coward that night. A coward. Don’t you see? That Rufus Laycock told me what those fellows were going to do. I didn’t see how I could stop it, but, oh God, I wish I’d tried. Instead, I put on my robe and hid across from the store in some bushes. When they came after Alfie, I knew I had to do something. I tried to stop them, but I…” His voice broke, and he swallowed hard before he could go on.
“Alfie went down, and…oh Jesus. I’m so ashamed. I left. I just walked away. I never told anybody. I just went back to Sally’s house and sneaked in. I hung up that robe and went to bed.” He shuddered. “I’ve never understood. How could a man do that? How could I do that?”
So that was it. I felt sick to think of the pain and guilt he’d been carrying around ever since that night, and he’d never said a word. That’s why he didn’t try to fight me when I had cussed him out so long ago.
I sat down beside him and put my arm around his waist and laid my head on his shoulder. “It’s all right, Dad. You did what you could do.” We just stayed there for some time, me holding on, him not moving. After a bit, he touched my hair with his good hand, and then he began to stroke my head over and over. I felt a surge of love, his and mine, and I was swallowed up in it. I wanted it so much, had always wanted it.
LATER, AFTER WE had collected ourselves and stood up. I said, “What are you doing here, in Blanchard’s barn, Dad?”
He smiled a rueful smile. “See this?” He pointed to a box trap sitting on the floor that I hadn’t noticed. “Bob Blanchard’s been having trouble with a fox that’s been raiding his henhouse. He asked me to trap it for him.”
I bent over and looked inside. I could make out two bright eyes and a pointy nose. “You got him. I can see him in there. What are you gonna do with him?”
“I don’t know. I was just sitting here thinking about it when you came in. I should get rid of him, I know. But I’m havin’ trouble doing it.”
“Do you want me to do it for you?”
“No, no I don’t. I don’t want to see it killed.”
“Why not, Dad? He’ll just keep getting into their chickens.”
He stepped to the window, looked out, and spoke without turning around. “One time when I was in France, I was on guard duty. It was quiet where I was in a field near the woods. I saw a female fox come out on the grass to sun herself. Pretty soon about four of her kits showed up. They ran and played, chasing each other, having the best time. It pleased me to see them.”
He turned toward me, his sad face lit by the wan light from the window.
“Then the German artillery started up, and I had to duck down. Just as I did, a shell hit and I saw those little creatures and their mother fly up in the air, killed. I never forgot the look of her plumed tail in the air, so red and beautiful. It all seemed so stupid. So hideous.”
I nodded, touched by his story. “I see, Dad.” I paused. “But if we let it go, he’ll be right back in that henhouse. He’s a pest.”
“I know, but I just don’t want to kill it.”
I thought for a minute. “Okay,” I said. “I have an idea. Let’s carry it back home. We can put him in Gram’s shed overnight, and tomorrow we can take him somewhere far from here and let him loose.”
I picked up the box trap with the scrabbling animal inside, and we started the trek home, stopping on the way to pick up Dad’s muskrats. It struck me as curious that we didn’t mind drowning those creatures who hadn’t harmed anything, but neither one of us could have killed that fox that day for anything. I turned it over in my mind, but decided to keep still about it.
MORNING CAME WITH a clear blue sky and the sun casting its lemony winter rays over the foot and a half of snow that had fallen. Snow clung to every tree branch and post, to the well handle, to the weeds against the fence, even to the electrical wires. It hung over the eaves on the house and the store, and all together it created a scene that took my breath away.
My thoughts turned to Carol Ann. I was going to marry that girl, and I decided right then and there to make a down payment on an engagement ring the minute I got home. And dear Sam with our plans for the new store. I laughed aloud as I put on my coat and boots to go out to the shed. Snow fell from the roof down my neck when I opened the door. A powerful musky odor hit me in the face as I brought out the trap with the fox inside. “Oh, phew! You smell awful,” I said, hopeful that the fresh air would dilute his odor. “But it’s your lucky day,” I told him.
Dad met me on the road, and I said, “Good morning, Dad. Isn’t this a sight?”
“It is, indeed.”
We headed east toward River Sioux on the road. No travelers had broken its surface this early morning, and it was a wide, white expanse all the way to the trees that lined the river a mile away. Walking was a labor, and we didn’t talk. The only sound was the crunching of our boots and our breathing. I’d been a city boy long enough to have forgotten how still, how silent, the outdoors can be, and I treasured the quiet along with the beauty.
We came to the bridge across the Sioux River and crossed over to another state.
“I don’t think he’ll come back from Iowa, do you?”
Dad chuckled. “He better not.”
“How high shall we go?”
He pointed to the tallest bluff and said, “Let’s try that one.”
Climbing was tough. Every few steps, we slipped back, and then lurched upward again. I carried the awkward trap, but the little fox never made a sound. It took a good fifteen or twenty minutes before we came to the top, puffing and sweating even in the winter cold.
I set the box on the ground, and we looked around us. It was hard for me to imagine anything as stunning as the broad view to the west, the flattened prairie under its thick blanket. The snow was already beginning to drop from the trees below us as the sun rose higher, and we knew we’d been witness to a rare moment that wouldn’t last much longer.
We gazed our fill, then Dad said, “Well, are you ready?”
I nodded. He flicked open the door of the trap and jumped back. Nothing happened. I hoped the little critter hadn’t died on the hike up this bluff. We waited, and then I gave the box a light kick with my toe. The fox flew out like he’d been shot from a cannon. We watched as he ran nearly a quarter of a mile along the crest of the hill, the flowing plume of his tail a brilliant arc of copper and red across the whiteness. Then he was gone. We turned to look at each other, our faces so much alike, our eyes wet. Dad put his hand on my shoulder, and we stood on that shining hillside and smiled.
“That was the right thing,” he said.
One summer evening in the midst of writing this book, I sat on our back porch with my husband, two sons, and a grandson. Together we discussed, sketched, and laughed as we figured out how the boys in my story would hoist a baby buggy onto a church steeple. This was typical of the unwavering support I have had from my family throughout the writing of this book, and I am more grateful than I can say.
The completion of a novel is as much about persistence as anything else.
The wonderful friends I have found in my writer groups not only provided wise, incisive, and kind critiques of my labors, but they insisted that I carry on when my energy flagged. How could I have managed without them? To you—Eleanor Andrews, Kim Peters Fairley. Ellen Kuper Halter, Donnelly Hadden, Skipper Hammond, Raymond Juracek, Fartumo Kusow, Rachel Lash Maitra, Shelley Schanfield, Karen Simpson, Patricia Tompkins, and Dave Wanty—I owe huge debt of gratitude. I love you all.
I am also indebted to three longtime friends who read early versions of Harry’s story: Sondra Peters, Pat Solstad, and Phyllis Kaplan, and to Alice Peck who provided important editorial advice.
Karen Wolff wrote her debut novel, The Green Years, after a career as a music educator and university administrator. She has also written several short stories. Her novella, A Prairie Riff, is a fictionalized account of her grandmother’s early life. Her non-fiction articles and speeches have appeared in journals and trade magazines. She served as a presidential appointee on the National Council of the NEA for six years. Wolff lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she is at work on her next novel.