A Northern Light (33 page)

"It's the calm before the storm," Fran said. "Cook told me we've got a hundred and five coming for dinner. And ninety for supper."

Ada and I groaned.

Fran gave us a wicked smile. "Who's going to wait on table six today?" she asked. "Me!" I said.

"No, I want to!" Ada said.

"Let's race for it," Fran said. "First one to the back steps!"

Ada won the race, but she didn't get to serve table six. After we'd changed and come back downstairs, Cook told us that one of the guests, a Mr. Maxwell, had had some sort of mishap in the woods and was so upset by it that he'd retired to his room for the evening with a hot-water bottle and a rum toddy. She said Mrs. Morrison would be seating a family of four at his table—table six.

It was all I could do to hold the giggles in as she told us. Ada, too. I glanced at her and saw that she was biting her lip.

Not Fran, though. She was as cool as a cucumber. "He must've been quite upset, Mrs. Hennessey," she said.

"Yes, he was," Cook said. "I asked him would he at least come down for dinner—I thought he should eat something—but he wouldn't hear of it. I just don't understand it. I've got fried chicken on the menu and he's very partial to it. Why, I even fixed his favorite dessert, but when I told him I had, he went all green around the gills."

"Really? What is it?" Fran asked.

"Chocolate pudding. I made it with extra eggs and nice fresh milk and ... and ... Fran? Frances Hill, you stop that right now! What the devil's got into you? Ada, you should be ashamed! Braying like a mule, you are! And you, Mattie Gokey ... would you like to tell me what could
possibly be
so funny?"

Our happy state of mind persisted for two whole days, then disappeared instantly, as birds will right before it rains, when my father came into the Glenmore at the end of the dinner service on a beautiful afternoon to tell us that Weaver's mamma's house had burned down.

Weaver raced out of the hotel right then and there. Cook made the rest of us—myself, Ada, Fran, and Mike—wait until dinner was over and the dining room readied for supper, and then John Denio drove us down in his buckboard.

During the ride, I thought about my words and their meanings, as I do when I'm anxious or scared, as a way of taking my mind off things. My word of the day was
doughnut,
a silly word at the best of times. I decided
dolor,
a word I'd seen as I'd paged back from
doughnut,
would be a better choice, given what had happened. It means grief, distress, or anguish. There was a piece of it in
doleful
and
condolence,
too.

We'd talked amongst ourselves on the way down the hill, never doubting that the fire was an accident. We figured an oil lamp had tipped over. Or maybe sparks from the wash-pot fire had flown up and landed on the roof, though Weaver's mamma is always careful to build her fire a good ways from the house. But as soon as we saw Lincoln, the hinny, lying in the road with blood soaked into the dust all around him, and dead chickens everywhere, and the pigsty smashed apart, we knew different.

My father was standing by the smoking ruins with Mr. Loomis and Mr. Pulling. Mr. Sperry, Mr. Higby, and a handful of neighbors from Fourth Lake were there, too. I ran up to them. "Pa, what happened?" I asked.

"Mattie, what are you doing here? This ain't for you to see."

"I had to come, Pa. I had to see Weaver's mamma. Is she all right?"

"She's across the road at the Hubbards'."

I started to run toward Emmie's.

"Mattie, wait..."

"What, Pa?"

"You know anything about those men who beat Weaver?"

"Only that they were trappers. And that Mr. Higby put them in jail. Why?"

"They must've just got out. Weaver's mamma says they're the ones did this. Killed the hinny and most every chicken she owned. Pig got away, at least. Ran off across the field into the woods. Got the Loomis boys out after her."

I couldn't believe what he was telling me. "Pa, no," I said.

"She says they were mad as blazes about the jail time. She says they set fire to the house, then took off into the woods, heading north. At least that's what I think she said. She ain't making much sense right now. She's bad off, Mattie. She fought with them. One broke her arm."

I pressed my palms to my cheeks and shook my head.

"You listen to me now, Matt. No one knows for sure where those men got to. I don't want you outside the hotel after dark. Not till they're found. You keep Weaver in, too. You hear?"

I nodded, then bolted off to Emmie's.

Cook was already inside, trying to find some coffee or tea and muttering about the state of the place. Mrs. Burnap and Mrs. Crego were there. Dr. Wallace, too. And Weaver. Most of the Hubbard kids were huddled wide-eyed on a worn settee or sitting on the floor in front of it. Lucius was playing in a pile of dirty clothing.

"Come on, Mamma, you've got to let the doctor see to your arm," Weaver said.

Weaver's mamma shook her head no. She was sitting on Emmie's bed, cradling her right arm with her left and rocking back and forth. Emmie was sitting next to her, her arm around her, crooning to her, shushing her, telling her everything would be all right. Weaver's mamma didn't seem to hear her, though. She didn't hear anyone. Her head was bowed. She kept saying, "It's gone, it's all gone! Oh, Jesus, help me—it's gone!"

Weaver knelt down in front of her. "Mamma, please," he said.

"Mrs. Smith, I need to take a look at that arm," Dr. Wallace said.

Emmie shooed him away. "Leave her set and rock for a bit, she'll come round. I always do," she said.

"She's got a bad fracture. I can tell by the angle of it."

"Oh, it ain't goin' nowhere. You can see to it in a minute. Whyn't you set yourself down for a spell and stop worryin' everyone?"

Dr. Wallace gritted his teeth, but he sat. Weaver stood up and paced the small room.

"Sip of my bitter hops syrup will put her to rights," Mrs. Crego said, reaching into her basket.

"There's no need," Dr. Wallace said briskly. "It'll only interfere with the laudanum I'm going to give her."

Mrs. Crego glowered at him. He glowered back. Cook found some chicory in a tin. Lucius gurgled in the dirty clothes. Mrs. Burnap picked him up and made a face when she discovered his diaper was full. And all the while, Weaver's mamma kept rocking and keening.

I walked over to Weaver and took his hand. "What is it? Why is she doing that? Is it the house?"

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe it's the animals ... or her things. She had photographs and such. Or maybe it is the house—"

"The devil take the house!" Mrs. Smith suddenly cried. "You think I give a damn about an old shack?" She lifted her face. Her ancient eyes were bloodshot from tears and smoke. "They found your college money, Weaver," she said. "They took it all. Every last nickel. It's gone, it's gone. Lord Jesus, it's all gone."

"Where's Weaver? Where is he?" Cook asked me. "He's always trying to wheedle a slice of coconut cream pie out of me. Now I've got one for him and he's disappeared. Mattie, go find him, will you?"

It wasn't like Cook to save slices of pie for anyone, but she was concerned about Weaver. We all were. I had an idea where he might be and I soon found him. He was sitting on the dock. He had his trouser legs rolled up and his feet in the water.

"Why isn't real life like book life?" I asked, sitting down next to him. "Why aren't people plain and uncomplicated? Why don't they do what you expect them to do, like characters in a novel?" I took my shoes and stockings off" and dangled my feet in the water, too.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Bill Sikes is bad. So's Fagin. Just plain bad. Oliver and Mr. Brownlow are good. So's Pip. And Dorrit."

Weaver thought about this, then said, "Heathcliff is both. He's more than both. So's Rochester. You never know what they're going to do." He looked at me. "This is about Emmie, isn't it? You don't know what to make of her now."

"No, I don't."

Emmie Hubbard had us all puzzled. She had taken Weaver's mamma in and refused to even hear of her going to Mrs. Loomis's or Mrs. Burnap's or anywhere else. She'd tucked her up in her own bed and tended to her. She'd even had the presence of mind, on the day the Smiths' house burned, to make her kids pluck and clean all the chickens the trappers had killed, right away. She made stew out of a few, fried a few more, and sold the rest to the Eagle Bay Hotel before they went bad. She used the money she got from them to pay Dr. Wallace for setting Weaver's mamma's arm.

"I can't figure it out, Weaver," I said. "I saw my pa this morning when he was delivering. He said the Hubbard kids haven't been over for breakfast since the fire."

"Cook says she saw Emmie at the train station the other day. Selling pies and biscuits. She told Cook my mamma told her what to do, and she did it."

"I don't know. Maybe she likes being the strong one for a change. Maybe she never had a chance to be that," I said, kicking at the water. "Or maybe she just got tired of being the town fruitcake. Probably wears a body out after a while."

Weaver laughed, but it wasn't a real laugh. I could tell.

His mamma had lost her house. And some had said it was his fault for going to the justice. They said none of it would have ever happened if he'd just stepped aside for those trappers in the first place and kept his big mouth shut.

Mr. Austin Klock, the undersheriff, came up from Herkimer to investigate the fire. By the time he left, those three men had a whole new list of charges against them in addition to the ones Weaver originally filed. No one really thought they'd ever be made to answer them. They hadn't been seen since the day Weaver's house burned. Mr. Klock himself said that it would be next to impossible to catch three trappers who knew every tree, rock, and hidey-hole in the North Woods. He said they were probably halfway to Canada already, fixing to have themselves a time with Weaver's college money.

Weaver had hardly eaten since the fire. Or spoken. Or smiled.

"Cook's got a piece of pie for you. Coconut cream. Your favorite," I told him. He didn't say anything.

"Did I tell you my word of the day? Its
leporine.
It means like a rabbit."

He toed the water.

"You could use it to describe someone with buck-teeth, maybe. Or a twitchy nose. It's an interesting word,
leporine.
"

No reply.

"I guess it's not so interesting."

"I'm staying on here, Matt," he finally said. "After Labor Day. I just talked to Mr. Morrison. He said he'd have work for me."

"How can you do that?" I asked. "You have to be in New York well before Labor Day. Don't your classes start the first week of September?"

"I'm not going."

"
What?
" wondered if I'd heard him right.

"I'm not going to Columbia. Not until my mamma's well. I can't leave her now. Not all by herself."

"She's not all by herself. She has Emmie looking after her."

"For how long? It's only another month or so before Emmie's land is auctioned. And besides, I don't have the money now for my room or train fare or books or any of it."

"What about your wages? Haven't you been saving them?"

"I'll need them to pay for a room for Mamma and me. My house burned down, remember?"

"But Weaver, what about your scholarship? Won't you lose it?"

"There's always next fall. I'm sure I could get them to hold it over for a year," he said, but I could hear in his voice that even he didn't believe it.

I did not cry when Miss Wilcox left. Or when Martha Miller said such mean things to me. I did not cry when Pa knocked me out of my chair, and I don't cry in my bed at night when I think about Barnard. But I cried then. Like a baby. I cried as if someone died.

Someone had.

I could see him in my mind's eye—a tall, proud black man in a suit and tie. He was dignified and fearsome. He was a man who could cut down a roomful of other men with only the brilliance of his words. I saw him walking down a city street, brisk and solemn, a briefcase under his arm. He glanced at me, walked up a flight of stone steps, and disappeared.

"Oh!" I sobbed. "Oh, Weaver, no!"

"Matt, what is it? What's wrong?" he asked.

I scrambled to my feet. I couldn't bear it. To think of him stuck here. Working in a dining room or a tannery or up at a lumber camp. Day after day. Year after year. Until he was old and used up and all his dreams were dead.

"Go, Weaver, just go!" I cried. "I'll look out for your mamma. Me and Royal and Minnie and Jim and Pa and Mrs. Loomis. All of us. We will. Just go! Before you're stuck here forever. Like an ant in pitch."

Like me.

It must be after four o'clock now. I haven't been able to go back to sleep. Not since Grace came to visit me. The sky outside my window is still dark, but I can hear the rustlings of night creatures seeking their beds and the first, questing chirrups of the birds.

I have read all of Grace's letters, all but the last one.

South Otselic
Julys, 1906
My Dear Chester,

I am curled up by the kitchen fire and you would shout if you could see me. Every one else is in bed. The girls came up and we shot the last firecrackers. Our lawn looks about as green as the Cortland House corner. I will tell all about my Fourth when I see you. I hope you had a nice time. This is the Last Utter I can write, dear. I feel as though you were not coming. Perhaps this is not right, I can't help feeling that I am never going to see you again. How I wish this was Monday. I am going down to stay with Maude next Sunday night, dear, and then go to DeRuyter the next morning and will get there
about
10
o'clock. If you take the 9:45 train from the Lehigh there you will get there about 11. I am sorry I could not go to Hamilton, dear. Papa and mamma did not want me to go and there are so many things I have had to work hard for in the last two weeks. They think I am just going out there to De Ruyter for a visit.