by Leif Enger
“I guess I’d want to know what day, Mr. Waltzer.”
He searched my eyes, straightened, and blew out hard through his nostrils, like a horse. “Come in and eat.”
The cabin was a clean ruin. I have since seen photos of its ancestors, which were the slave and sharecropper shacks strung beside dirt fields in southern states. It hadn’t stud walls but was built up of chinked vertical boards held by stringers top and bottom—four warped walls laced together to approximate a box. It had a sooty tin roof and a floor of boards over earth, except where some had been removed for a barrel stove. The dirt under the stove was baked black. Yet for its poverty the place was livable. The stove flung heat nobly and was topped by a coffeepot and a Dutch oven that smelled of brown sugar. The Dutch oven had a lipped cover holding several fist-sized stones as if to keep in some rebellious meal. There was a tin drum of water with PERFECTION OIL, ALL ITS NAME IMPLIES painted on it. A corner of the cabin had been enclosed by means of strung ropes, from which sheets hung like laundry to the floor.
Waltzer took a stool at the table under the single window. “Sit down.”
I didn’t want to—not without Davy there. I angled against the wall and worked at my overshoes.
“He’ll be in forthwith,” Waltzer said. “A horse isn’t a car. Come sit down.”
I hung my coat on a peg and sat. He leaned forward on an elbow, looking at me. “So you found the errant brother,” he said. “Good for you, uh?”
“I guess so.”
“Davy doesn’t tell me about his family. You’re a surprise.”
“I’m sorry.”
His eyes were bright as a badger’s. “Sorry doesn’t matter. We should be honest with each other. I have some questions for you, and you’ve a few for me. Go ahead.”
He was so direct I could only doubt his meaning. He wanted me to grill him? Right now? And then he was going to grill me?
He looked at me with pity and impatience—certainly he’d expected better of Davy’s brother. “Well? What do you want to know?”
“Why you live here,” I said. It was the only thing I could think of.
His eyebrows went way up—with pleasure, I noted, to my relief. “Sara,” he called, “come meet Reuben, pour him some coffee.” Before the sentence ended a sheet was pulled back and she moved across to the stove, a redhead girl about fourteen in pants and a man’s flannel shirt. Green plaid flannel. When she brought the coffeepot I saw she had green eyes too, though she didn’t aim them at me particularly.
“Davy’s brother Reuben,” Waltzer said, as she set down three enameled cups and poured. “This is Sara. Thank you, daughter.”
She nodded to him and retired behind the sheets without revealing her voice. I’d have liked to hear it.
“I live here because it is a cheap safe place to wait for the world to change,” Waltzer declared. “Sit straight there, Reuben. Carriage matters.”
I sat straight. “Is it changing the way you like, Mr. Waltzer?” He’d spoken, after all, of crumbling hills and rising seas; it might be a pretty long wait.
“Yes,” he said. “I go out from time to time and have a look. It’s coming around, Reuben. I take encouragement.”
Well, I didn’t know what to think. It gave me a picture of Waltzer kneeling streamside taking soundings with string and lead. Yet here we sat in the frozen core of winter. Entirely beyond my depth, I asked next how he knew Davy.
“Here is what happened. I went into Amidon for breakfast. It isn’t far and there’s a not-bad cafe there. The owner is Williams. I sat at a front table and ordered the steak and eggs and sat looking out the window. Have you been to Amidon?”
“No, Mr. Waltzer.”
“The last town I know of with hitching posts. No one uses them.”
“Don’t you?”
He leaned forward. “Do I look like an eccentric to you?”
You should’ve seen his brows—they were pointing right at me! I shook no.
“Nor to proprietor Williams nor anyone else,” he said. “My eccentricity can be our secret; mine, yours, and Davy’s.”
I nodded with ardor.
“The telephone rang in the cafe; Williams answered. He’s a good fry cook but an unpleasant man. I heard the word Studebaker. Williams hung up and approached my table. There was a car parked out front, and he asked was that my car. No sir, it is not. Then he went back and I heard him on the phone again.
“Not long and my breakfast arrived. It’s hard to do better than steak and eggs. When I looked out again a county deputy was parked down the block. Reuben,” Waltzer said confidentially, “are you amused by trouble?”
I must’ve looked blank.
“You’re in school, correct?”
“Not now.”
“When you were in school,” he said, lowering his voice patiently, “how did a person most often get in trouble?”
“Talking in class.”
“Talking in class. Reuben, were boys ever sent to the principal’s office for a paddling when they were caught, once too often, talking in class?”
Actually, in Roofing they got sent to the superintendent, Mr. Holgren, whose paddle hung on a wall under his diplomas. Varnished to a high gloss, it had the golden demeanor of prized decor.
“Yes sir.”
“Did you ever see them sent away thus?”
I nodded.
“How did you think of it, as it was happening?”
I had no answer for him.
He said, “You were glad it was happening to that other boy. Not to you.”
I did recognize some truth here.
“Maybe you smirked a little. Happy the principal was going to thump someone else, though you had whispered in class many times yourself. Don’t be offended. I can stand your unwholesomeness because in this way we are blood relatives. I sat in Williams’s cafe, looking out at the deputy parked waiting for whoever owned the Studebaker. I was pleased enough to smirk, Reuben, although I didn’t. A smirk looks terrible on the adult of the species. Yet I was pleased because someone was in trouble and it was not me. Don’t mistake this for regret; I have none. It pleased me to think the person in trouble didn’t know it yet. He was in the same cafe, having breakfast, not knowing his day was almost over. Daughter,” he called, “Davy will be in. See about our dinner.”
She emerged from her little room again. I heard tin plates, the kettle lid, other rattles. I’d have liked to help or at least watch her work, but Waltzer talked on.
“Most pleasing to me was that no matter the deputy’s charge that day, he was surely waiting for the wrong person. Do you understand that, Reuben?”
“No sir.”
“He should’ve been after the bearded fellow he could see through the front window eating steak and eggs,” Waltzer said gleefully. “But he looked straight past me, you see. He was quite blind. In sight of wolf, he was hunting squirrel!”
At this, praise be, the door whuffed open and Davy stepped in, knocking snow off his boots. He looked at Waltzer, then at me, as if to ensure I was still myself. He asked, “Sara, you need some help with that?”
It was hard to miss the smile she gave him.
Waltzer beamed. “Davy, my squirrel! Your brother’s curious how we met. I’m just to the moment you rose from your table at Williams’s. Come finish the story!”
Davy sat, sipped the coffee Sara had poured earlier. “I’ll just listen. You tell it, Jape.”
So he finished it out: how Davy’d gone up and paid his bill, how he’d stopped beside Waltzer’s table to observe the street, then returned to the counter and inquired of Williams the whereabouts of the rest room, Williams pointing to the rear of the cafe. Seeing this, Waltzer laid money beside his plate and left by the front door. He walked past the Studebaker, nodded to the deputy, rounded the corner and entered the alley where behind the cafe Davy stood hunched in calculations. Talk ensued during which Waltzer was stirred by the boy’s assurance under stress. Waltzer believed in invented destiny and invented so
me then and there. A quarter hour later the pair of them were riding an overladen Fry into the hills above Amidon. It was too bad about the Studebaker, but a recently burst gasket had it leaking oil all over the place; perhaps it was for the best.
During this summation Sara had laid in that shack a feast of medieval plenty. She removed the stones atop the Dutch oven, setting them on the earth under the stove. The oven she carried to the table and unlidded before us, stepping back from the steam to show a knoll of sweet potatoes glazed with brown sugar encircled by sausages. She did this entirely without production, as though expecting no praise. Sure enough Waltzer talked right along. She produced half a round of black-crust bread, baked no doubt in that same oven, and broke the bread in six pieces which she laid on a checked cloth. Through all this Waltzer talked animatedly. I wondered how long she’d lived out here. What could she think of such a father? Though he wasn’t without appeal—I looked at him, eyebrows rocketing now at the part where grumpy Fry carried both men into the hills—it was clear he was a difficult fellow to please. She refilled our cups and arranged our plates and tinware, receiving, I noticed, a long and thankful glance from Davy.
“Now, Reuben,” said Waltzer, reaching for the yams, “your story. Was Davy dropping bread crumbs behind him, that you followed so efficiently?”
I lowered my head in panic. Not for a moment had I believed my narrative would be required. Also, the lateness of the hour suddenly landed on my shoulders. It had to be two in the morning. I guess I shut my eyes a moment.
“Reuben, what are you doing?”
I looked at him through twisting steam from the Dutch oven. He’d frozen as if detecting betrayal.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Are you praying over this meal I’ve provided?”
“No, Mr. Waltzer.” I’d forgotten to pray, though you may believe I felt like doing so now.
“You are thanking God for the food,” he said, “when He did not give it to you. I gave it to you and did so freely. Thank me.”
I nodded. Call me craven—you weren’t there.
“Thank me then!”
I looked at Davy, who was watching his plate. I said, “Thank you, Mr. Waltzer. It looks like a good meal.”
“Absolutely it does,” Waltzer agreed. He leaned toward me, congenial again; two fingers, I noted, were missing from his left hand. “There’s no need to wet your pants, Reuben. I forgive your impolite habit. Tell us how you came here.”
“We just came,” I said. I wished he hadn’t said that, about wetting my pants. I never had a predisposition toward pants-wetting, but suddenly it seemed quite possible.
“A long trip?” he prompted, ladling yams.
“Oh, yes. Real long. We got a new Airstream trailer,” I said, thinking he might find that interesting.
“Been traveling awhile, then. Looking for Davy. Gone all over the place.”
Well—“No, we pretty much came straight here.”
He looked at Davy, who shrugged. “Straight to us, Reuben? Tell me how you happened to do that.”
I saw he suspected Davy—that he might’ve given them away. I said, “We didn’t even mean to stop here. Our car broke down and we got snowed in.”
“So no one led you here,” he said.
Well, the question was dismaying. Of course we’d been led; why did everyone keep bringing this up? We’d had leading by the bushel! The breakdown and snowstorm had been leading, I could’ve told Waltzer; along with Mr. Lurvy, and August and Birdie, and a bunch of state troopers—in fact, I thought sourly, even the putrid fed had been part of the old rod and staff employed by the Lord to goose us along.
Yet there sat Waltzer awaiting my reply, a man who bridled at the idea of God getting credit for so much as a meal on a plate.
“What kind of leading do you mean, Mr. Waltzer?”
He looked at me with eyes from a dead photograph. “What kind did you receive, young Reuben?”
I understood then that he would believe me if I told him the truth. Strangely enough it was a scarier prospect than his disbelief. What would you have said? Would you have spoken up undaunted, like one of Foxe’s martyrs?
“I guess we had great luck,” I said—and immediately there came a loathsome squeal from behind the bedsheets, and a weighty tumbling, the sheets themselves jerking horribly about; then out sped some wild leathery being, screeching in torment, banging off walls! Waltzer roared, like the devil must at Christian cowardice! I remembered that other poor ratfink, the Apostle Peter—how he denied the Lord and heard that rooster bellowing—this squealing fiend was my rooster! Indeed it now came straight for me—I jerked my legs up to avoid it, feeling warmth just where you don’t want to in times of panic—it zipped under the table and leapt up into the lap of Jape Waltzer, where it became a small dark pig atremble with terror.
“Ha,” Waltzer said, holding the pig firmly. “Ha. Take a breath, little one. Ha-ha—calm, calm yourself, such nerves!” You could see him trying not to laugh, trying not to startle the animal. I was trembling some myself, but it was just a young pig that must’ve been behind the sheets where Sara lived. It had dark skin with milky pink saddlestripes and tufts of hair on its ears like a lynx, and it kept sniffing through its snotty nose while Waltzer soothed it. “Sweet pig. Good Emil. Yes, yes, a good-natured pig. Brave pig,” he said pleasantly. “A little bad dream? Something with big teeth and sharp claws? Yes, yes.” Without changing his tone he added, “Daughter?”
Out came Sara. Why in the world had she stayed in there—with a pig!—instead of joining us for supper?
“Please explain this disruption,” Waltzer said. His voice was patient in a way that made me afraid. He was running his hands down the limbs of the pig, who had calmed so much as to appear dazed.
“He was sleeping out of his box, sir,” Sara replied. “I must’ve stepped on his tail. I’m very sorry.”
Anyone could hear her voice was worn to the contours of apology. I looked at her meeting Waltzer’s gaze and it was easy to imagine her moments ago, in her dim little room, spying the vulnerable tail. I peeked down at her shoes. Boys’ boots.
“It wasn’t my tail you damaged,” Waltzer said, conversationally.
“You’re right, sir,” Sara replied, addressing this next to the animal. “I’m very sorry, Emil. It wasn’t intentional,” she added, at some risk to herself, it seemed.
Waltzer hung on to her eye a moment longer, then turned to me. I heard Sara step back and shut the curtains. Dreading to do so I looked at Waltzer, but his eyes were alive and forgiving.
“Reuben, what are your plans?” he asked.
“My plans?”
“Yes sir. What is it you want to do?”
“Tonight, Mr. Waltzer?”
He smiled, scratching Emil gently round the ears. “In your life,” he said.
But I was so tired. I tried to think of a reply large enough for Jape Waltzer. Nothing came. My lungs had gotten shallower all through the night; and moreover I’d gone and wet my pants after all, thanks to the pig, for my lap was soaking.
“I guess breathe,” I said.
No doubt he could’ve taken this for impertinence, but he didn’t. He spoke to the pig. “His aspiration is respiration, Emil. He might do well to strive harder—what, Emil, are you hungry? Here is a sausage, mmm, yes. Good pig, my little cannibal.”
Davy spoke up at last. “Jape, Reuben has some lung trouble—that’s what he means.” He looked at me kindly. “It’s just once in a while. Most of the time I can’t even keep up with him.”
Of course it was the sort of thing said to appease the inveterate sickly; I still would’ve appreciated it, except it rekindled Waltzer’s interest in me. He let the pig down off his lap. “Is that right. I’ve heard of this condition. Tell me, is it hard right now? To breathe?”
It sure was.
“Here. Do this.” He sat up straight and drew in the deepest breath he could, opening his eyes wide to encourage me likewise.
I straight
ened and inhaled. It sounded like a dozen slow leaks from an inner tube.
Waltzer leaned in. “No, no. Make the attempt. Make up your mind and breathe.” And he gave me another example of a man’s functioning lungs, a suck of immense force and duration. You almost expected him to explode.
I made another attempt. You have to understand this was old ground to me. More than one teacher back in Roofing had been convinced I was short of breath simply because I hadn’t learned to do it properly. Or because I didn’t want it enough. How many asthmatics have been told, in exasperated tones, Just breathe?
