Northern Lights (34 page)

He was part of a thaw. The morning glowed and water came dripping from a tall evergreen.

For a while the country rolled as it always had. Then it straightened. Perry heard a high voice calling. The road wound through pines and into a stand of birch, through the birch and into more pine, and then into a clearing where a young child was pulling a sled.

Although her back was to him and she was trudging away, Perry knew the child was female. He was skiing in the slim tracks of her sled. All morning he’d followed the tracks, knowing it was a child and even knowing it was a young girl. She called out again, a high commanding voice, but she did not appear to notice him and he had to hurry to catch her.

Then the child must have heard him coming, for she stopped and turned and watched him without surprise but with clear disappointment, as though she’d been expecting someone else. She wore a stocking cap and snowsuit and blue mittens. When he got close, she turned again and began walking with no effort to conceal her indifference. Perry fell in alongside her. They went together, the child first, then Perry, then the sled. They followed the road through a grove of sugar maples and then through small pines, over an iron bridge, past another picnic area with the upside-down table and yellow litter bin, and neither of them spoke. Now and then the child called out in a high fierce voice that showed both command and desperation, a single syllable that he did not try to understand, and he simply followed her. She asked no questions and he asked none. Except for her slow trudging pace, it made no difference to him that he’d found a child at the end of the road.

“I ain’t lost,” she said at last, shaking her head and refusing to
look at him. A while later, crossing the bridge, she stopped and examined the snow, and Perry obediently stopped and waited until she was through with whatever she had to do. When they started off again she demanded his name.

“Paul,” he said and said no more, though there were many things he wanted to say. The child knew precisely where she was and what she was doing.

“You comin’ to see my ma? Pa ain’t home, you know. He ain’t home till tonight, Ma said. Then Ma said he can start lookin’, too. What’s that thing on your back for?”

“A rucksack. A pack to carry things in.”

“What’s in it then?”

“Nothing,” he said.

She nodded as if the answer were known before spoken.

The child kept on steadily, stopping only to call out the deafening syllable, waiting for whatever was supposed to follow, then continuing down the road with Perry and her sled.

“I bet my ma’s lookin’, too,” she said when they passed through the picnic area. “She said she wasn’t gonna look but I bet anything she’s lookin’ same as me. She said she wasn’t gonna look no more, ’cause it was my fault and I’d have to look and not her anymore, ’cause I did it and not her. But I’ll bet she’s lookin’. Pa ain’t lookin’ ’cause he ain’t here, but Ma said he’d help look when he got back, and he’s comin’ back tonight or tomorrow.”

She stopped again and screamed: “Muggs!” She listened then. “Shit!” she said.

“I been lookin’ and I’ll find him,” she said in a hard high voice, jerking the sled and starting off again. “And I bet Ma’s lookin’, too, even if she said it was my fault and I got to look an’ not her. Since yesterday. You bet I had him tied up good. Ma said it’s my fault but it ain’t ’cause you should’ve seen how I had him tied up, right to the tree an’ I went out an’ he wasn’t there, just the rope. Was
Pa’s fault, not my fault. It was Pa’s rope and it was this rotten rope, that’s what, an’ I told Ma and she said Pa’d have to look then if it was his fault. I had him tied up good. Ma said Pa’d go lookin’ when he gets home tonight or tomorrow, and I’ll bet Pa finds him fast. Ma says he’s prob’bly got hisself caught in a trap, so I got my sled out and everything in case, but I don’t think he’d get hisself caught in no trap, ’cause he’s smart and knows all the traps anyhow.”

She stopped again and Perry stopped. “Muggs!” she screamed. He shivered and felt sick and waited for her, “Muggs!” she screamed fiercely. Then she continued walking.

“Anyhow,” she said, “he ain’t the first dog ever run away. Pa says it don’t matter what kinda dog it is, they all run away, an’ Ma says he wouldn’a run away this time if I’d got him tied right, an’ I says to her I did tie him tight, an’I did all right. The rope broke, an’ Ma says I should’ve used some other rope, an’ I says it was the only rope I had an’ Pa gave it to me, anyhow, an’ she says she’s got other stuff to do except look for a dog, an’ I says, well, I’ll do it, an’ just in case he’s in some trap I got my sled out. You ever seen a lost dog? You try to catch him an’ he just don’t want to be caught at all, like he thinks he’s not even lost an’ doesn’t know it.”

“Muggs!” she screamed. “
Goddamn
dog!”

In a while, Perry sat the girl on her sled. He slipped the rope around his chest and skied down the road, which slowly curved left and crossed another road, this one plowed clean, and, the girl told him to turn on to the new road, and he turned and pulled the sled down into the ditch, and in a half hour they came to a white house with a stone chimney and an old Ford station wagon standing bumper-deep in snow.

“I guess you just have to stay or else go on,” said the woman who looked too young to be a mother. “Arild’ll be back either
tonight or tomorrow dependin’ on the weather. The car don’t start, like I said, and Arild’s got the pickup in town so I’m stuck and that means pretty much you’re stuck, too. I told him, well, I said to him we oughta get the station wagon started ’cause sometime I’d be needing it, an’ sure enough, now I need it and I ain’t got it. I feel awful bad, ’cause I know you’re wanting to get out of here, but that damn station wagon ain’t had a good thing for it all winter. Don’t know what I’d do if somethin’ happened and we had to get into town or somethin’—somebody gets sick or somethin’—and I don’t know what I’d do, like now. And then that damn
dog
. I been goin’ crazy tryin’ to keep up with that dog of hers, and Arild he ain’t been any help at all. Now you got maybe five miles into town, or six I guess, in there somewhere, an’ you come this far so I guess you ain’t gonna have any trouble the rest of the way, just rest up some first, I guess. What you oughta have is a bath.”

The young brown-haired woman put on her coat and went to the car and got a map and showed Perry where he was.

“Now, you see here? You got a choice. You can go into either Lutsen or back up towards Carl Larson’s place, except Larson’s don’t have no phone neither, but they got a car. Or I guess you can go into Tofte, too. It don’t make no difference. They’re all about the same distance, I guess, except maybe Tofte is a mile closer. Up to you, though. What you ought to do is get in there and take a good bath, that’s what I’d say. I ain’t one to say, though, ’cause I got the same problem tryin’ to get Arild into the tub after work. He always says it can wait till after he gets something to eat and I tell him it’ll taste a sight better if he smells it instead of himself, but it don’t matter none to me. Now you can walk if you want over to Larson’s place, it don’t take long and I go in the summers an’ it takes me, oh, half an hour, forty minutes, but that’s in summer. Or sometimes I just get on the school bus
an’ ride it into Lutsen and then do my shopping an’ either take the school bus back in the afternoon or catch a ride. When Arild’s here he’ll take me an’ drop me off, but that way I gotta hurry ’cause he’s forever in a hurry. I don’t know. I reckon you’re about ready for this supper, though. It’ll wait till then. Arild’ll maybe be back tonight an’ he can just drive you in and that’ll save you some work, all right, but if you’re in a hurry then I guess you can just go, and if he comes I’ll just tell him to go out an’ get you and drive you the rest of the way, but it don’t make no difference one way or ’nother. That damn dog’ll drive you bananas, though. He was here then gone, just like that. Altogether, I spent half the winter lookin’ for him and the other half feedin’ him and the other half tellin’ Carla to tie him up good, an’ what’s the use? Can’t keep no dog like that tied up, but if he ain’t tied up you see what happens, just gets hisself lost. You chase him, chasing that bell, an’ you think you got him good an’ he’s gone again, just like that. You can just count yourself lucky not to be out there still chasin’ that scoundrel of a dog. Carla! You just sit down till Mr. Perry gets through eatin’. And yesterday I told her she wasn’t goin’ to get me out lookin’ for that scoundrel dog, not no more. Anyhow, it’s gettin’ to be night an’ if I was you I’d just count myself lucky enough and stay here till Arild gets in, or wait till morning and then you can go if you got to, but you’re awful sick lookin’ to me, and I know how that is, believe you me, I know what it feels like, I had it this winter, too.”

The little girl climbed back on the table and the woman shushed her away and stacked Perry’s dishes in the sink. The food held him fast to his chair.

“I told Arild, too, a hundred times, I said to him we oughta get the phone company to get a line out here. You know what? They won’t do it. It’s nothing to do with money for us if we got to call somebody and we can’t do it. You don’t look so good, Mr.
Perry. Carla! You either stop that or get into bed, you got your choice. You all right, Mr. Perry? You better get into the tub or lie down, one or the other. You all right?”

She held her wrist, standing well away from him. She was very young and slender. And she was always moving, touching things to be sure they were there, patting her brown hair, pulling her sweater over her hips, holding her wrists, first one then the other. “You really sure you’re all right?” she was saying from a fog by the sink. “You best rest awhile. You ask me, you got no sense going back out there tonight. If I was you, Mr. Perry, I’d just get myself a hot bath and start good’n fresh tomorrow, that’s what. And you’re looking awful white and scratchy. You always wear that there beard of yours?”

“Do they have a doctor in town?”

“Which town? Lutsen or Tofte?”

“Either one. Where’s the closest doctor?”

“Tofte, I reckon. I ain’t never been. Except to have Carla and then that was in Silver Bay. Don’t know his name, though, ’cause I haven’t ever been to him, but he’s there.”

“It’s not for me. Look—” Perry started to get up but the food had seemed to clot in his belly like cement. “Look, my brother’s still out there in the woods and he’s pretty sick.”

“Can’t be a sight sicker than you.”

“Worse. I’ve, we’ve got to get somebody out there for him.”

“You’re looking awful sick,” she said from far away. “Carla! How many times … There, now that’s better. Get some hot water going for Mr. Perry. Right now, Carla, and none of that back talk, we’ll get your dog for you. Mr. Perry? Get up now, you’ll be a lot better. Carla! Carla, you hear me in there? Get Mr. Perry’s shoes … There, you better now? You just get in the tub now. You’re just a might sick … Carla! You clean up that mess and stop your bawlin’ for that damn dog. Mr. Perry said he’d seen him, heard him back up the road a piece, clean up that mess
there, there’s some rags under the sink … There, you feel better now, Mr. Perry? We got some hot water in the tub. No, don’t worry about that mess. Mr. Perry? Hey now! Carla, get over here.………… Now get them socks an’ put them in the sink an’ run some hot water over them, you hear? Mr. Perry? There, now you’re looking a sight better, I should say. Awful sick there for a while, I should say so. Oughta told me you was feeling so bad. What you oughta been doin’ is lying down, you know that? There, it’s better now. Carla! You get some hot water back in the tub, it’s gotten all cold. There. You reckon you can take a good bath now? I should say. You hustle on in there now and take a good bath and we’ll see what’s what.”

Lying in the tub, he had the sensation of perfect detachment. Once he opened his eyes and saw the water was stale green. It was an old-fashioned enamel tub, so small he lay with his knees bent, his head resting against the tiled wall. The smell of the water embarrassed him. He pulled the plug, drained the tub and rinsed the scum out, then filled it again with fresh hot water and lay back. Vaguely, he heard the young woman and child talking in the next room. Then he slept. He awoke with the door banging. The water was room temperature. He got out, dried himself and put on a robe she’d left for him.

“Had me plenty scared for a minute,” she said. “Swear to God, you was in there I don’t know how long.”

“I fell asleep.”

“Well, I should hope so. I got some hot cocoa and whip cream out here.” She beckoned him by turning and going to the kitchen area. The dishes were washed and stacked. His socks were soaking in an enamel basin on the floor. Somewhere in the small house there was the smell of burning kerosene. The little girl was sleeping on the floor in a corner of the living room area, wrapped up in a thick quilt.

“Anyhow, I guess you need a warm bed tonight,” the young
woman was saying, “so I got clean sheets on it, and me and Carla will be sleepin’ over there, I guess we can take the floor for one night, an’ you just take the bed. Can’t really call it a bedroom, but Arild’s got a curtain up round it and you get a little privacy that way. Carla always sleeps with Arild and me, anyway. We only been here now about four months, no, five months, and so he says that when we get settled in and he saves up some money, then we’ll have a carpenter put up a wall over there and make it a real bedroom like we was going to do in the first place. And … There’s your cocoa. You just squirt your own whip cream on. I always let Carla do it herself, ’cause she gets a kick out of seeing it come out of the can. Anyhow, you can just sleep in the bed tonight an’ me’n Carla will take the floor.”