Last Night in Twisted River (71 page)

“Is Ketchum with you?” the writer asked her, but Danny already knew that Ketchum would have come in the front door—no matter how the old woodsman was dressed.

“Don’t get me started, Danny—not here, and not till I’ve had somethin’ to eat and drink,” Six-Pack said. “Shit, I was drivin’ all day with that fartin’ dog—we only stopped to pee and gas up the truck. Ketchum said I should have the lamb chops.”

That’s what Six-Pack had. They ate together at Danny’s usual table by the window. Pam ate the lamb chops, holding them in her fingers, with her napkin tucked into the open neck of one of Ketchum’s flannel shirts; when she was done eating, she wiped her hands on her jeans. Six-Pack drank a couple of Steam Whistles on tap, and a bottle of red wine; she ordered the cheese plate in lieu of dessert.

Ketchum had given her very detailed directions to Danny’s house, warning her that if she arrived near dinnertime, she would probably find Danny at Kiss of the Wolf. The logger had also provided Six-Pack with directions to the restaurant. But when she looked inside Kiss of the Wolf—Six-Pack was tall enough to peer over the frosted-glass part of the large window facing Yonge Street—some of those overdressed types among the restaurant’s Rosedale clientele must have discouraged her from just walking in. She’d gone searching for a rear entrance instead. (That Rosedale crowd can be snooty-looking.)

“I put Hero’s dog bed in the kitchen—he’s used to sleepin’ in kitchens,” Pam said. “Ketchum told me to let myself in, ’cause you never lock the place. Nice house. I put my stuff in the bedroom farthest away from yours—the one with all them pictures of that pretty lady. That way, if I have one of my nightmares, I might not wake you up.”

“Hero’s here?” Danny asked her.

“Ketchum said you should have a dog, but I ain’t givin’ you one of mine,” Six-Pack said. “Hero ain’t the friendliest critter to other dogs—my dogs sure as shit won’t miss him.”

“You drove all this way to bring me Hero?” Danny asked. (Of course the writer understood that there was probably more purpose to Six-Pack’s visit than bringing him the bear hound.)

“Ketchum said I was to see you in person. No phone call, not a letter or a fax—none of that chickenshit stuff,” Six-Pack told him. “Ketchum musta meant it seriously, ’cause he put everythin’ in
writin’
. Besides, there’s other crap he wanted you to have—it was all in his truck.”

“You brought Ketchum’s truck?” Danny asked her.

“The truck ain’t for you—I’m drivin’ it back,” Pam said. “You wouldn’t want it for city drivin’, Danny—you wouldn’t want it anyway, ’cause it still smells like a bear took a shit in it.”

“Where’s Ketchum? What happened?” the writer asked her.

“We should go walk the dog, or somethin’,” Six-Pack suggested.

“Someplace more private, you mean?” Danny asked.

“Christ, Danny, there’s people here with their noses
born
outta joint!” Six-Pack said.

Kiss of the Wolf was crowded that night; since the name change, and Patrice’s back-to-bistro renovation, the restaurant was packed most nights. Some nights, Danny thought the tables were too close together. As the writer and Six-Pack Pam were leaving, Pam appeared to be favoring her bad hip, but Danny soon realized that she’d meant to lean on the adjacent table, where a couple had been staring at them throughout their dinner. Because he was famous, Danny was used to—almost oblivious to—people staring at him, but Pam (apparently) hadn’t taken kindly to it. She upset the wineglasses and water on the couple’s table; suddenly seeming to catch her balance, Six-Pack struck the seated gentleman in his face with her forearm. To the surprised woman at the wrecked table, Six-Pack said: “That’s ’cause he was gawkin’ at me—as if my tits were showin’, or somethin’.”

Both a waiter and a busboy rushed to the ruined table to make amends, while Patrice smoothly glided up to Danny, embracing the writer at the door.
“Another
memorable evening—most memorable, Daniel!” Patrice whispered in Danny’s ear.

“I’m just a back-door kinda person,” Six-Pack said humbly to Kiss of the Wolf’s owner and maître d’.

Once they were out on Yonge Street, and while they were waiting for the crossing light to change, Danny said to Six-Pack: “Just tell me, for Christ’s sake! Tell me
everything
. Spare me no detail.”

“Let’s see how Hero’s doin’, Danny,” Six-Pack said. “I’m still rehearsin’ what I gotta say. As you might imagine, Ketchum left me with a shitload of instructions.” As it had turned out, Ketchum put several pages of “instructions” in an envelope in the glove compartment of his truck. The door to the glove compartment had been left open purposely, so that Pam couldn’t miss seeing the envelope, which was pinned under Ketchum’s handgun. (“A better paperweight bein’ unavailable at that time,” as Six-Pack said.)

Now Danny saw that Ketchum’s truck was parked in the driveway of the Cluny Drive house, as if the former riverman had changed his mind about coming for Christmas. Appearing to guard his dog bed, Hero growled at them—a surly greeting. Pam had already put the sheath for Ketchum’s foot-long Browning knife in the bear hound’s bed; maybe it served as a pacifier, the writer considered. He’d spotted the long Browning knife on the kitchen countertop, and had quickly looked away from the big blade. The dog’s farting had filled the kitchen—possibly, the entire downstairs of the house. “God, what’s wrong with Hero’s
eye?”
Danny asked Pam.

“No eyelid. I’ll tell ya later. Just try not to make him feel self-conscious about it,” Six-Pack said.

Danny saw that she’d put Ketchum’s favorite chainsaw in the gym. “What am I going to do with a chainsaw?” the writer asked her.

“Ketchum said you should have it,” Six-Pack told him. Perhaps to change the subject, she said: “If I had to guess, Hero has to take a crap.”

They walked Hero in the park. Christmas lights twinkled in the neighborhood surrounding them. They brought the dog back to the kitchen, where Danny and Six-Pack sat at the kitchen table; the bear hound sat at what seemed a purposeful distance, just watching them. Pam had poured herself some whiskey in a shot glass.

“I know you know what I’m gonna tell ya, Danny—you just don’t know the
how
of it,” she began. “I see the story startin’ with your mother—all because Ketchum was fuckin’ your mom instead of learn-in’ ta read, ain’t that right?” Six-Pack said. “So, anyway—here’s the endin’.”

LATER, WHEN THEY UNLOADED THE TRUCK TOGETHER
, Danny was grateful that Six-Pack had postponed telling him the story. She’d given him time to prepare himself for it, and while he’d been waiting to hear what had happened to Ketchum, Danny had already imagined a few of the details—the way writers do.

Danny knew that Ketchum would have wanted to see the moose dancing one last time, and that this time the old woodsman
wouldn’t
have invited Six-Pack to come with him. As it had snowed that day, and the snow had stopped—quite a cold night, well below freezing, was expected—Ketchum had said to Six-Pack that he knew her hip wasn’t up to camping out at the cookhouse site, but that maybe she would like to join him there for an outdoor breakfast the next morning.

“Kind of a cold spot for breakfast, ain’t it?” she’d asked him.

After all, it was past mid-December—coming up on the longest night of the year. Twisted River rarely froze over until January, but what was Ketchum thinking? Yet (as Pam explained to Danny) they’d had breakfast together at the cookhouse site before. Ketchum always enjoyed making a fire. He would set some coals aside, and brew the coffee the way he liked it—in the roasting pan, with the coffee grounds and eggshells in the snow he melted for the water. He would grill a couple of venison steaks and poach three or four eggs on the fire. Six-Pack had agreed to meet him there for breakfast.

But the plan didn’t add up, and Pam knew it. Six-Pack had taken a look in Ketchum’s pickup; there was no tent and no sleeping bag. If the veteran river driver was camping out, he must have been planning on freezing to death—or else he was intending to sleep in the cab of his truck with the motor running. Furthermore, Ketchum had left Hero with Pam. “I think the cold kind of gets to Hero’s hip, too,” he’d told her.

“First I heard of it,” as Six-Pack said to Danny.

And when she’d shown up at the cookhouse site the next morning, Six-Pack knew right away that there was no outdoor breakfast in Ketchum’s plan. The coffee wasn’t brewing; nothing was cooking. There was no fire. She spotted Ketchum sitting with his back against the remains of the crumbled brick chimney, as if the logger might have imagined that the cookhouse was still standing—the burned-to-the-ground building somehow warm and cozy, all around him.

Hero had run to his master, but the dog stopped short of where Ketchum sat on the snow-covered ground; Pam saw that the bear hound’s hackles were up, and the dog suddenly walked stiff-legged, circling the old logger. “Ketchum!” Six-Pack had called, but there’d been no response from the woodsman; only Hero had turned his head to look at her.

“I couldn’t walk over to him—not for the longest time,” Six-Pack told Danny. “I could tell he was a fuckin’ goner.”

Because it had snowed the previous day, and the snow had stopped before nightfall, it was easy for Pam to see how he’d done it. There was a trail of blood in the fresh snow. Six-Pack followed the blood down the hill to the riverbank; there were some big stumps above the bank, and she saw where Ketchum had wiped the snow off one of them. The warm blood had seeped into the stump, and Ketchum’s ax was stuck so firmly in the stump that Pam couldn’t pull it out. There was no left hand to be found; obviously, Ketchum had thrown it in the river.

Having seen the spot in the river basin where Ketchum shot the apple-juice jar containing the cook’s ashes, Danny had no trouble imagining exactly where Ketchum had thrown his left hand. But it must have been hard work for the old woodsman to walk back up the hill to the site of the cookhouse; from all the blood Pam saw in the snow, she knew Ketchum must have been bleeding profusely.

“Once, when they was still drivin’ hardwoods on Phillips Brook,” Six-Pack told Danny, “I seen Ketchum stealin’ some firewood for himself. You know, he was just pickin’ some pulpwood outta the pile—them four-foot small-diameter logs didn’t amount to much. But I seen Ketchum turn half a cord of pulpwood into kindlin’ in less than half an hour! That way, no one would recognize the stuff—if they spotted the wood in his truck, sometime later. Ketchum just choked up on the handle of his ax—he held it in one hand, you know, like a hatchet—and he split them logs lengthwise, and then split ’em again, till they was skinny enough so he could chop them four-foot logs inta two-foot sticks of fuckin’
kindlin’!
I never seen him swing that ax. He was so strong, Danny, and so accurate—he just wielded that ax with one hand, like it was a fuckin’
hammer!
Those Paris Manufacturin’ Company clowns never knew why their pulpwood was
disappearin’
! Ketchum said the assholes were too busy makin’ toboggans in Maine—that’s where they were truckin’ most of their hardwoods. Them Paris peckerheads never noticed where their pulpwood was goin’.”

Yes, Ketchum could split a four-foot hardwood log one-handed; Danny had seen how the woodsman could wield an ax, both as an ax and as a hatchet. And after Ketchum had cut off his hand, the old river driver was still strong enough to walk up the hill, where he’d sat down to rest his back against all that was left of the cookhouse chimney. There’d been a bottle of whiskey beside him, Six-Pack said; she told Danny that Ketchum had managed to drink most of it.

“Anything else?” Danny asked Six-Pack. “I mean—on the ground, beside him.”

“Yeah—a big bottle of aspirin,” Pam told the writer. “There were still plenty of aspirin left in the bottle,” Six-Pack said. “Ketchum wasn’t much of a painkiller person, but I suppose he took some aspirin for the pain—he musta just washed ’em down with the whiskey.”

As Danny knew, the aspirin
hadn’t
been “for the pain;” knowing Ketchum, Danny believed that the old riverman had probably
relished
the pain. The whiskey wasn’t for the pain, either. Both the aspirin and the whiskey, the writer knew, were strictly to keep Ketchum bleeding; the logger had little forgiveness for anyone who had a job to do and did a piss-poor job of it. (Only Ketchum could kill Ketchum, right?)

“Ketchum couldn’t forgive himself for failin’ to keep Cookie alive,” Six-Pack told the writer. “And before that—after your boy died, Danny—Ketchum felt he was powerless to protect
you
. All he could do was
obsess
about your writin’.”

“Me, too,” the writer said to Six-Pack. “Me, too.”

SIX-PACK DIDN’T STAY
for Christmas. After they’d carried Ketchum’s guns up to Danny’s bedroom on the second floor—Pam insisted that
all
the guns be stowed under Danny’s bed, because this was what Ketchum had wanted—and once they’d lugged the boxes of Rosie’s books up to Danny’s third-floor writing room, Six-Pack warned the writer that she was an early riser.

“How early?” he asked her.

Ketchum’s truck and Six-Pack Pam were gone when Danny woke up in the morning; she’d made coffee for him and had left him a letter, which she’d written by hand on several pages of the typing paper he kept in the gym. Six-Pack’s handwriting was very familiar to Danny, from those years when she’d written Ketchum’s letters for the then-illiterate logger. But Danny had forgotten how well Pam wrote—far better than she spoke. Even her spelling was correct. (The writer wondered if this was the result of all the reading-aloud she’d once done to Ketchum.)

Naturally, Six-Pack’s letter included instructions for taking care of Hero, but most of her letter was more personal than Danny had expected. She was having the hip-replacement surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock hospital, as Ketchum had recommended. She’d made a few new friends at the Saw Dust Alley campground, that nice-looking trailer park on Route 26—the attacks of September 11 had served to introduce her to many of her neighbors. Henry, the old West Dummer sawyer with the missing thumb and index finger, would look after Pam’s dogs while she was having the surgery. (Henry had volunteered to look after the dogs while Six-Pack was driving Ketchum’s truck to Toronto and back, too.)