Running Wild

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

  “He agreed to that?”

  Amelia’s parents exchange that look again.

  “Here’s the deal,” Constance says. “Amelia told us you tried to call your aunt, so the number is on my phone. I went ahead and called her again. She’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Aunt Frances?” I whisper. “She’s coming? Here?”

  “Yes,” Constance says.

  “We have lots to talk about,” Stanley says. “We thought you could come to our house for the night. When your aunt gets here tomorrow, we can talk with her and your father.”

  “Dad’s really good at problem-solving,” Amelia puts in. Then she repeats, “He’s on the Tribal Council.”

  “I want to see Dad,” Keith says.

  “I understand,” Stanley says. “But it’d be better to wait until tomorrow. Let’s go. We can put your pup in the backyard.”

  “You won’t shoot him?” Seth asks.

  “Shoot him!” Amelia cries out. “My dad would never do something like that!”

  “He’s a wolf,” Stanley says. “He’s not meant to live with people. But I can promise you I won’t shoot him. Or let him go, either. He’s probably too tame now to get by on his own.”

  “I’m sorry I told,” Amelia says again, twirling her ponytail with her fingers. “I know I promised not to.”

  “It’s not good to break promises,” Constance says. “But it’s also not good for children to be on their own. You made the right decision, Amelia.”

  “We’re fine on our own,” Keith says. “We have all the skills we need.”

  “I can see that,” Stanley says. “You are very able children.”

  “Come on back to the house and get warmed up and have something to eat,” Constance says, getting to her feet with a grunt. She holds out her hands. “Willa. Seth. Keith. Come with us?”

  They know our names.

  “You really talked to Aunt Frances?” I ask.

  “I did. She’s so worried about you kids, but Amelia told us you’re doing fine, so we told her that. She can’t wait to see you.”

  We shoulder our packs, but Keith hangs back as we walk through the woods to Amelia’s family’s cabin. I keep expecting him to take off at a run to look for Dad. But I guess the prospect of food does its trick because he stays with us.

  The Johnsons’ place is a small blue house surrounded by a big yard with scruffy grass and patches of mud and snow. Stanley puts Zhòh in the fenced backyard, promising Seth that he’ll be safe, and then heads back to the store. Constance hands out clean, fluffy towels and we take baths. Amelia gives me a tub of coconut-lime hand cream. She says it’s her favorite scent and that I can keep the whole tub. I rub a big glob into my chapped hands. She also gives me clean leggings, a T-shirt, and a fleece zip-up. Her little brothers—Eddie, Carl, and Zachary—are only three, five, and seven, so the Johnsons don’t have any clean clothes big enough for Keith and Seth. Constance runs our clothes and sleeping bags through the washer and dryer while the boys sit wrapped in blankets. It feels like a miracle that I don’t have to scrub their jeans with stones in icy creek water.

  At dinnertime, all nine of us squeeze around the table and have big hot bowls of moose, carrot, and potato stew in a rich gravy. After that, we have apples baked with cinnamon and honey, dolloped with vanilla ice cream. The boys don’t remember ice cream at all, and their eyes practically roll to the backs of their heads in bliss. All through dinner, the three little Johnson boys ask us question after question about our journey. My brothers exaggerate the details in telling about the bear, the big river’s strong current, and Keith’s plunge to guide the raft to shore, as well as Zhòh’s acts of valor on our behalf, but they aren’t lies, just elaborations. The twins are thrilled to have an audience.

  Before bed, Stanley reads us two stories from a book of folktales. Amelia makes faces at me, as if we’re too old for stories. But I love listening to Stanley read. I can’t believe we’re warm, that our bellies are full, that we have a roof over our heads, that Aunt Frances is coming.

  Constance puts my clean sleeping bag on a foam pad on the floor in Amelia’s room. She spreads Keith’s sleeping bag, plus one of theirs, on the couches in the front room. My brothers haven’t slept in a room by themselves for five years, and both boys look scared. I gather them in a rough hug and whisper, “I’m right here, just on the other side of that door.” I nod toward Amelia’s room. Keith wiggles out of the hug, but Seth stays for a second or two longer.

  Lying in the dark, Amelia tells me her favorite color is orange and that she’s going to be an astrophysicist. I’ve read the encyclopedia articles about stars, so I know that starlight comes from stars that are already burned out, that red giants are old stars, and that a supernova is the explosion of a star. I tell her that I might be an astrophysicist, too. Amelia says that we can have an observatory together.

  I take a deep breath and say, “I think I’m sick.”

  “Oh no. Are you going to throw up?”

  “No. It’s…I mean…blood.”

  “You’re bleeding? Where? Should I get a Band-Aid? I’ll call Mom.”

  “No! Um. Not like that. It stopped. But it was in my…” I’m too embarrassed to say more.

  “Wait. You mean you got your period?”

  I don’t know what she’s talking about.

  “Was the blood in your underpants?”

  I nod but realize she can’t see me in the dark, so I say, “Yes,” the word coming out a squeak.

  “Oh, Willa. That’s probably just your period. I started six months ago. It’s kind of obnoxious, all that blood every month, but oh well, that’s life, right?”

  “Um…”

  “You know what your period is, right?” When I don’t answer, she says, “Oh, wow, I mean, I know you don’t have a mom. I’m really sorry. That’s probably why you don’t know. She would have told you. Every girl gets her period. The blood comes once a month. It’s part of having babies.”

  “I’m having a baby?” The words strangle my voice.

  “No! The bleeding, your period, means you can have a baby. It’s just biology.”

  “I thought…I thought I had some disease.”

  “No way! It’s normal.” She explains everything to me and I feel so relieved I cry a little bit. She says, “Some of the words make me laugh. Uterus. Fallopian tubes. They sound like the names of planets.” Before long, I’m laughing, too.

  Next she tells me what her mother has told her about sex. We start laughing so loud we snort.

  “Girls!” Constance shouts from another room. “Sleep! Now!” Which makes us laugh even harder.

  NINETEEN

  I WAKE SOME time in the night to the sound of my brothers whispering. For a second I think I’m in our cabin up on Sweet Creek. Then I remember. I’m on the floor in Amelia’s bedroom in the Johnsons’ house in Fort Yukon. I hear Seth say, “Keith, no!”

  Footsteps clunk across the front room floor—booted steps, not barefoot ones—and the door opens and closes. Dressing as quietly as possible, I shoot out of Amelia’s bedroom to see what’s going on.

  “Keith left!” Seth says. “He says he’s going to find Dad!”

  “Stay here. I’ll get him.”

  Out on the Johnsons’ porch, I catch my breath. Overhead the northern lights swirl in brilliant shades of lime green and magenta. Like genies, the colors burst and expand, swoop and jiggle. All at once, they become bars of light, with purples and blues joining the pinks and greens in a dance across the entire sky. I know the dazzling light show is caused by collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun. The northern lights are my favorite thing in the Arctic, and whenever I see them, I feel as if my own body is filled with the bright billowing colors. They feel like a celebration.

  I don’t want to chase Keith. I want to go back to sleep, to talk w
ith Amelia in the morning, to eat more good meals and take more hot baths. Maybe Keith just needs to run.

  “Willa,” Stanley says, coming out the door behind me, “where’s your brother going?”

  “Seth says to find Dad.”

  Stanley sprints after him. I expect him to tackle my brother, drag him back by the scruff of his parka. Instead he trots alongside Keith. They slow to a walk. Stanley doesn’t touch Keith, but I can hear his voice, talking, talking, talking. They stop. Turn. They start walking back this way.

  I don’t know what Stanley has said to Keith, but it must be true that he’s a good problem-solver, because he has managed to turn the problem of Keith around.

  Back inside, Seth is already asleep again in his sleeping bag on the couch. Constance has set a pot of hot tea on the table, alongside plates of pilot bread, butter, and smoked salmon strips. Keith sits right down and helps himself.

  “Middle-of-the-night snacks are my favorite kind,” Constance says, putting a mug of tea in front of him.

  “I’ll have some of that,” Stanley says, pulling out a chair and sitting on the far side of the table from Keith. He continues speaking to Constance as he says, “Keith wants to talk to his father, which is exactly the right response to the situation.” Turning to Keith, he says, “How about we stick with the plan and wait until tomorrow?”

  “Where is he?” Keith demands.

  “I don’t know where he’s camping,” Stanley says. “Somewhere in the woods.”

  “But you said you’ve talked to him,” I say. “Where did you see him?”

  No one answers me. Keith and I both stare at the adults, waiting. When they don’t speak, I say, “I saw a liquor store in town.”

  Constance nods.

  “He’d been sober for years,” I say, suddenly wanting to defend him.

  She nods again.

  Stanley sighs and says, “That makes sense with what we saw this summer. Your dad’s always been a loner. He’d come to town each year, get supplies, barely talk to anyone, and get right back up to your cabin. I guess he wanted to avoid the liquor store, avoid temptations. There isn’t a tavern in town, but a guy who has a cabin on the outskirts hosts parties that can last a few days.” Stanley makes air quotes around the word parties. “I was surprised when I heard this summer that your dad had joined that group. Anyway, I had a pretty good idea that’s where I’d find him yesterday.”

  “And you were right?” I ask, wanting him to be wrong.

  Stanley nods.

  Keith scowls, but grabs another smoked salmon strip and takes a big bite. He chugs back the rest of his tea.

  Watching Stanley and Constance with Keith, how good they are at getting him to do whatever they want him to do, I have a new thought. What if I don’t have to be in charge anymore? I go stand at the window and look out at the pulsating electric-blue and royal-purple, fireweed-pink and spring-green sky. Tonight’s northern lights display is the most magnificent I’ve ever seen.

  “Hey, you know what?” Stanley calls to my back. I listen without taking my eyes off the sky. “There’re lots of stories about the northern lights. My favorite one says that the lights are torches carried by spirits to guide nomadic travelers.”

  I swing around. “Really?”

  “Yep. Kind of cool, isn’t it?”

  I look back out at the northern lights, which have become subdued into washes of pale green, and consider letting them guide me now.

  TWENTY

  “SHE’S HERE!” AMELIA whoops. “Oh my goodness, look at her!”

  The boys are watching cartoons on the TV, transfixed by the pictures and voices and story. I’m standing in the middle of the living room, about ten feet back from Amelia, who’s at the window.

  “Come quick,” she says, beckoning me with big hand motions.

  It’s late afternoon but still light out. I can see her perfectly: Aunt Frances. She’s walking up to the Johnsons’ front door between Constance and Stanley. She’s plumper than I remember, but has the same long, curly brown hair. A sparkly clip holds it off her face. She wears a long black down parka with fake-fur trim and puffy boots, which look more like big slippers, and are already covered with mud. She tiptoes up the walkway, holding her hands in the air, as if she’s afraid that the wild environment will swallow her.

  Amelia elbows me and whispers, “Glamorous.”

  I can’t stop staring. The voluminous hair. The sparkles. Bright lipstick. It’s like she’s three people bursting out of one. She’s both beautiful and frightening.

  Amelia elbows me again and says, “I can’t wait to hear her talk. How do you think people in New York talk?”

  The boys tear their eyes away from the TV and get up from the couch to stand behind me, each one holding on to a handful of my T-shirt, both breathing loudly.

  “You should go greet her,” Amelia says.

  “Wolves greet by touching noses,” Seth says.

  “We’re not wolves,” I say.

  Amelia howls quietly, “Ah-ooooooo!” She pulls me by the hand toward the opening door. I tow the boys, who don’t let go of my T-shirt. Aunt Frances pushes right past Constance. She wraps her arms around me and bursts into tears. Being hugged by Aunt Frances feels like being squashed by pillows.

  “You’re so big!” she cries out. “And brave! And beautiful! You look just like Chloe at this age. Oh, oh, oh!”

  She dives at the boys and they both startle at first but then hold extra-still, like animals in a trap, while she hugs them. She keeps saying, “Oh, oh, oh!”

  She removes her gloves and tosses off her black coat, revealing a woolly red sweater and tight jeans with rhinestone designs on the pockets. Her fingernails are painted the color of raw salmon flesh.

  “Do you want to meet Zhòh?” Seth asks.

  Everyone stares at him, amazed. You just never know what Seth is going to do. Here he is being the one who talks first.

  Aunt Frances looks a little confused but says, “Of course I do.”

  “He’s in the backyard.” Seth heads to the door off the kitchen, and the rest of us follow.

  “Maybe just from the porch,” Constance says, but Seth charges out into the yard.

  “Come, Zhòh!” The pup scampers across the muddy weeds and leaps onto Seth, pawing his legs and whimpering with pleasure. Seth says to Aunt Frances, “You can pet him if you want.”

  Aunt Frances catches her breath. She looks at Constance, who shrugs, and then at Stanley, who lifts his hands as if to say, It’s your call. So she bites her lip and begins tiptoeing into the yard. Keeping a good distance away, she bends at the waist and extends a hand toward the wolf pup. Maybe it’s the long, salmon-colored fingernails, but Zhòh lets out a low growl and backs up a few steps.

  The rest of us crack up. Aunt Frances whirls around and laughs herself. “Well, gosh, we don’t have wolves where I come from.”

  Constance says, “Come on back inside. I’ll get dinner started while you kids talk with your aunt.”

  Stanley corrals the four Johnson kids to their bedrooms to give us some privacy, and then he leaves to help Susie close up the store for the day. Aunt Frances perches on the edge of the couch and the boys stand gaping.

  “Close your mouths,” I tell them.

  “Sit, kids. Let’s have a good long talk.”

  The boys don’t move but I sit on the far side of the couch. I’m still staring, amazed. I know telephones can call anywhere in the world and that airplanes go hundreds of miles an hour. Still, how did she get here? Mama’s sister. Right in front of me. All bursting and sparkly.

  “Tell me everything,” she says. “Start from the beginning.”

  I can’t imagine what would constitute the beginning. I study the four corners of the room, trying to figure it out, while Keith jumps right in. Soon he’s joined by Seth. The boys tell her the entire story
of our escape, from commandeering the raft to hiding in the spruce fort. She covers her eyes at the brown bear part and takes hold of my hand as they tell her about the hunters with the rifle.

  “Willa, your mother would be so proud of you.”

  I flush hot. “For what?”

  “For bravery. For taking care of your little brothers and knowing how to pluck ptarmigans and build fires and make forts to sleep in. For—”

  Keith interrupts her. “Everyone knows how to do those things.”

  “No,” Aunt Frances says. “They most certainly do not.”

  “Would our mother be proud of us, too?” Seth asks.

  “Oh, my, yes.”

  “For taking care of Willa,” Keith says.

  “That’s just the start of it,” Aunt Frances agrees.

  “I thought Dad was coming with you,” Seth says.

  “He’ll come a bit later.” Aunt Frances purses her lips.

  “Is he angry?” I ask.

  “Well…I’m not sure how to answer that question.”

  “He’s at some cabin drinking,” Keith tells Seth, who was asleep during last night’s conversation.

  “Like cocoa? Or lemonade?” Seth wants everything to be sweet.

  “Seth,” Keith says. “Why do you ask questions you know the answers to?”

  “No,” Aunt Frances says. “Like whiskey.”

  “How do you know?” Seth asks.

  “We stopped and visited with him,” Aunt Frances says. “On our way here from the airstrip.”

  I’m suddenly angry. White-hot angry. Dad keeps us to the strictest bare-bones existence, and yet he’s indulging himself. Hanging out with people. Drinking. He’s choosing whiskey over us.

  “Does he even care that we ran away?” I shout.

  “Oh, sweetie, yes. He rowed all day and night, not even stopping to sleep, to find you. But when he learned that you were safe, the stress was too much for him. He just let go.”