by Leif Enger
One day we walked in from a blistering wind and there was a ruined guitar propped in a corner like a dead plant. Though scaly and fretworn, its top had a courtly arch like a violin’s, with S-shaped holes each side of the strings. The old man asked was Dad a musician. No. The old man picked up the guitar in his blemished hands and turned it on its axis. He pointed out a wide crack running the length of the back, also a place where the binding at back and side had pulled apart. Dad admired the instrument, repeating he was no musician. The old man informed us the guitar had been made by a revered Spaniard late in the previous century. The top was carved from a piece of clear cedar. Rotating it again he displayed yet another crack, a hairline fault high on the neck. He’d been playing songs for his wife, the two of them picnicking the summer of 1922 on a broad rock in the middle of a stream—there’d been drought but no one knew the term dust bowl then or had any notion what was coming—and he’d stooped for a bottle of soda and smacked the guitar headfirst on the rock. Fearing the neck would break off entirely he’d unstrung the instrument and not played it since. A timid decision, the old man said. He regretted it. He flexed the guitar in his two hands. The neck seemed strong. Fix the back and side, he told Dad, and the guitar would play.
Dad replied for the third time that he was no musician, though now his face was alight, and he held the guitar carefully and looked at the old man as though he were some gruff uncle who couldn’t be bothered to look back.
Boy Ready
NOT TO LINGER ON IT, BUT I WAS GETTING WORSE, A FACT THAT SEEPED IN the night Swede volunteered to wash dishes without me. “Go up to bed,” she said, taking my plate and glass out of my hands. “That wheeze is awful.”
“Thanks.”
“You want me to boil some water?”
“Sure.”
“You want Dad?”
I did, but he’d disappeared suddenly—I was too tired to wonder where.
“You want me to pound your back?”
Not right then I didn’t.
“Go on up,” she said, reaching down the vinegar.
But I didn’t want to go upstairs alone. I wanted to sit on the bottom step where I could see Swede. I wanted to listen to her talk. Upstairs there’d be nothing to hear but my own gaspy noises. Also, the stairs looked steep.
“Tell me about Sunny”—I took a breath—“up in the secret valley.”
But she turned on me, not to be fooled with. I went. I recall the climb as tougher than my ascent to the hills that first time seeking Davy. Tougher by far. I leaned in the dark stairwell to rest. Down in the kitchen Swede banged and rinsed. I climbed a few stairs. Of course I’d had times like this before. Of course I expected to bounce back. But four days had passed, and I knew it was bad to still be waiting. For the bounce, I mean. The stairwell now began to turn slowly as if dangling. I sat on the steps and dozed against the wall.
“Reuben?”
That was Swede’s frightened whisper—there in the cold dark I had just entered a dream about freezing in the west bedroom at August Shultz’s.
“Can you hear me, Rube?”
Smelling brine I opened my eyes. She was halfway up the steps, holding a steaming pan and looking at me in alarm.
“Oh,” I said.
“Are you okay?”
“Sure.”
“My gosh, Reuben—couldn’t you even make it upstairs?”
I got to my feet, embarrassed and scared. “Sure—I just got tired—see?” With Swede behind me I held to the railing and went up briskly enough the rest of the way.
“I brought you some steam; here’s a towel,” she said, stuffing pillows behind me on the bed. Steam was the last thing I wanted, being already muzzy with fever, but unless I gained more air I was afraid of falling asleep again and right in front of Swede, who was pulling up a chair.
“Should I read to you now?” she asked.
She stayed a long time, reading Psalms against fear and twice rising to reboil the brine. But my lungs wouldn’t loosen. I remember the room veering slowly and my eyesight tilting spotstruck around it. Swede pounded my back without result. I asked where Dad was and she said, Gone off with Roxanna she didn’t know where. I wished he’d come sit by me and pray. The muscles in my legs and chest needled. Dr. Nokes had described to me how oxygen is shipped round the body by arteries and capillaries, and it seemed to me these vessels were docking empty.
Meantime Dad was gone off courting Roxanna.
At this a dread realization occurred: Since arriving at this house, we’d had no miracles whatever.
I shut my eyes and went back: We’d slipped through the claws of the state patrol. We’d driven hours on an empty tank. We’d taken rooms here—and then what?
You’ll rightly point out plenty of subsequent wonders: Davy being encamped practically outside Roxanna’s door. The alighting of Roxanna herself inside our motherless lives. But in that dark hour I thought only that it had been a long time since Dad charged me in the name of God to draw my first breath. Since he walked by grace above the earth or touched a torn saddle and healed it clean.
And I thought, Without a miracle, exactly what chance do I have?
I decided then to tell Swede about Davy. I opened my eyes and she was still there reading aloud, crouched forward into a verse.
“I know where he is,” I said.
“In the mountainous Eden unseen,” she replied patiently. The phrase sounded familiar, and should have—she’d only just read it.
“I have a little more, if you’d like,” she said, and I realized she was risking some new Sundown on me. My lungs eased a quarter inch and I nodded to her to continue.
From a spire of stone Sunny watched for his own,
For his raven-haired intrepid bride.
For she’d sworn to seek his Arcadian peak,
Her life to spend by his side
Then a rider appeared on a day stale and seared
And approached through the undulate heat,
And her horse had the stride of a wearisome ride—
Of a horse too long on its feet.
But deep in the distance and churning up smoke,
Who are the riders come charging for broke?
Well, nuts, I knew who those riders were. They were some dirty posse been trying all this time to track Sunny down. Unable to do it honorably, they were now trailing his bride—his intrepid bride—to his hideout. And she so weary and faint.
“What’s the matter?” Swede said, for at this I felt such grief I’d taken the towel and made a tent of it over my head.
“Do you hate it?” she demanded.
I shook my head, but I guess in a way I did hate it. Normally I wouldn’t have—normally I’d have seen that posse as you no doubt see it, as a chance for Sunny to shine, and in front of his wife too. But my whole body mourned for air. I was hot and sick and wanted Dad to walk in.
“It’s just more trouble,” I said, a great knot in my throat. “Nothing ever goes right for Sunny. Can’t you make something turn out okay once?”
“But it’s going to turn out okay.” Swede paused, alarmed enough to bend principle. “Should I tell you what’s gonna happen? I haven’t written it yet, but listen, Reuben—I’ll tell you!” And she did, and as you’d expect Sunny rode down out of his mountain and swept his brave wife from her failing mount, and there was a wondrous gun-fight among the rocks, whittling down the posse quite a bit, and the two of them worked their way under relentless fire back up the mountainside, where, yes, the stick of dynamite came into play.
“And then the whole valley’s theirs for the rest of their lives, and apple trees and fish in the stream and good pasture for their animals,” Swede said. “You see?”
You know what, though, it was no relief. In fact it was worse; for as she spoke of this perfect valley all I could see was Davy and the rotten shack he lived in, with its windy chinks and its dark pig and its frightful nutcase awaiting the world’s destruction. Arcadian peak my eye. Again I was gripped with the need
to spill all to Swede. I had the conviction my lungs weren’t going to improve. That this time the bounce wasn’t coming. Heavy with fever and unconfessed sin I said, “Swede, will you not get mad if I tell you something?”
But she said, “That’s Dad—” hearing the door below us. Sure enough there was talk down there, a new voice, some bootstamping and up they came, Dad and a slumping fellow with a brown leather bag. He was Dr. Nickles and he looked to have wrestled lately with some grievous contagion, so blue was the skin that hung about his eyes.
“What do you do for his lungs?” the doctor inquired, taking a seat on my bed. He shook down a thermometer and jabbed it under my tongue.
“Steam—water and vinegar,” Dad replied. “Baking soda sometimes.”
“Doesn’t do any good,” said Dr. Nickles. “Doesn’t work. How long have you done it?” Now he was working a stethoscope’s icy cup against my chest.
“Since he was little.”
“It’s a worthless treatment.”
“It seems to have helped,” Dad said.
“Might as well have been crossing your fingers,” Dr. Nickles muttered, moving the stethoscope an inch and listening again.
“We’d be grateful for any alternative you might suggest,” Dad said.
Dr. Nickles moved the scope again. “Breathe.”
I did my best.
“You got a flock of sparrows in there, boy. You coughing anything up?”
“No.”
“Feel like you need to?”
I shook my head.
“Turn around.”
He rammed the scope between my shoulder blades. You’d think it would’ve warmed up.
“Well, no pneumonia. Not yet. Try not to get it, young man. You’re a full-blown asthmatic, has anyone told you that?”
“What would you advise, doctor?” Dad’s delivery was crisp; you’ll recall his laying Dr. Nokes out cold, the night I was born.
“I’d advise getting him to the hospital in Fairfax till his lungs loosen up—”
“All right,” Dad said.
“—except the hospital’s full of flu.” The doctor smiled, a ghastly expression. “Influenza, the worst in years. It’d finish your boy here, I think.” Dr. Nickles plucked the thermometer and read it. “Indeed, yes. Finish him.” He enjoyed talking this way; truly, it lit him right up. Snapping open the bag he produced a handkerchief, spread it on the bed, and laid forth a brown bottle, capped syringe, alcohol and cotton. Though anxious regarding shots, the sight of these makings cheered me. Evidently Dr. Nickles felt I might yet avoid being finished. He dipped up a cotton ball and asked for my arm.
“I’m going to give you a little adrenaline boost.”
“Okay.”
He had an awful time finding a vein, though—poor Nickles, when it came to poking the needle in he got shaky, his hand actually wobbled. I looked the other way, felt the point hit, then it was gone.
“Just a second,” he said.
Again the point. This time it felt hot. I looked round. He was moving it here and there under the skin.
“Don’t pull like that,” he told me. I wasn’t pulling but wanted to. Then he said “Oh!” like an exasperated aunt, and held up the syringe, which he’d broken off in my arm. So it was back to the bag for more makings. Also a tweezer. This time he took the other arm and hit it first try. I remember the solid hot-licorice feel of the adrenaline coming in.
Dad came back upstairs after Dr. Nickles left. I’d been sitting up in bed waiting to feel something, but except for a certain alertness there was no change.
“I’m sorry, Reuben,” Dad said.
“That’s okay—it’s just a little bruise.” I thought he was talking about the botched needle.
He sat on the bed looking slack and pale, hardly the handsome courting man of recent days. He said, “I would take your place, son.”
I knew he would.
“Reuben, the water and vinegar—does it help?”
“Most times.”
“You can feel things loosen up?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Well,” Dad said, “that’s the treatment Dr. Nokes believes in.”
“It helps—really.”
“How about now? The adrenaline.”
“Yes,” I told him. The truth was, while we talked I’d developed the sensation of standing up. That’s my best shot at describing it—when I looked down at my lap-folded hands they appeared midgety and remote.
“You should try and sleep,” Dad said.
But there’s little sleep for the adrenaline-charged. You mostly dream of this or that noisome ordeal. For me motors chugged unmuffled behind shut doors, obscuring shouted conversations. Tin pans rang. Trains hurled by. I was trying to ask Swede why a person never hears of asthmatic outlaws. Finger in one ear she replied they existed but rarely excelled. She told a story about one who in a spectacular lapse of judgment took up burglary and continually wheezed so loud he woke his intended victims. In the dream I was wrenching every muscle in the effort to breathe, and waking from it the work was no less hard. Lying there I thought of Dr. Nickles with his shaky hands, and how little good he’d done me, and it seemed a strange and heartbreaking come-down that Dad of all people had gone and fetched him here. And I thought too of Jape Waltzer and the way he’d removed his own mangled fingers, not one but two, and sewed up the places himself; and the idea occurred, if the great crowd of strangers were gathered who had in their ignorance told me Just breathe, that Waltzer would stand out as the most qualified to say it.
The bounce, and it was a good one, pulled in just before sunup. I went downstairs in the cool gloom and Dad was at the kitchen table drinking coffee with Martin Andreeson.
“Morning, Rube,” said the putrid fed. He was slouched comfortably in his chair, legs crossed, coat open. His fedora lay on the table next to Dad’s King James, which was turned, I recall, to Romans.
“Morning.”
“You’re improved,” Dad said, looking me over.
“A lot,” I said. I wanted to be suspicious of Andreeson, but he sat there so relaxed and unshaven and apparently appreciative of hospitality; there was an empty plate on the table and a spot of frosting at the corner of his mouth. Dad, too, seemed at ease—warm, in fact.
“I was sorry to hear about your lungs,” said Andreeson.
“I’m okay.”
He looked at Dad, who gave him a nod. “Listen, Rube, I hope you’ll think this is good news. I’ve been showing your brother’s picture around—finally found the right man. Over in Amidon. He said he’s seen Davy in town. Not just once, three or four times.”
Andreeson waited for me to answer. As if I knew what I wanted.
“Last time was day before yesterday,” Andreeson continued. “Actually, he gave your brother a ride—dropped him off out of town.”
I have to be honest: this was kindly and quietly spoken. Andreeson seemed a different fed from he who’d shouldered into our home that first day with his talk of nabbing. Still, his nearness to Davy raised goose-flesh. I stood barefoot before him on the freezing linoleum.
“Go on, Martin,” Dad said.
Andreeson opened his mouth, shut it again, shook his head. “I just want you folks to know we’re going to be careful. Stay near the phone, Jeremiah.” He got to his feet. “Reuben—we won’t hurt Davy. That’s a promise. From me to you.”
But I didn’t want anything from him to me. It was suddenly important that he know my allegiance hadn’t changed. “You can’t hurt what you can’t find,” I replied, not looking at Dad.
But Andreeson smiled as he rose and laid a hand on my shoulder, saying, “There you go.” He went out the door all business, setting the felt fedora on his head. My enemy.
That afternoon I went outside on every excuse. After such a scare they were all against it, but I was an exemplary weasel now and eased out the back in my coat and hood, breathing through a scarf to warm the air. I prayed, but the prayers were tangled and dissenting. I pr
ayed the Lord would sort them out and answer as needed. Above all that He would hurry. For Andreeson was closing in. He’d told Dad to wait by the phone. I walked up and down beside the house, attempting to pray as Dad did, trying to picture God listening to me, but He remained unseeable, just the usual lit cloud, and in minutes the walking wore me out. I went inside and was rebuked by Swede for taking chances. She had no idea. We ate some gingersnaps and repaired to the living room, where I stretched myself on the couch. The idea was to feign sleep until Swede went upstairs and then pop outside, but I dropped off for real and dreamed a river of horses flowing along between banks, manes rippling, backs streaming sun. I woke inside a strange calm recognizable as defeat. Light entered the house pink and orange. I straggled outside, leaned against the house and squinted at the backlit hills. The light was expiring; already it was like looking into deep tea-colored water. I didn’t, in fact, see Davy. But somewhere on the side of the darkening hill a horse lifted its voice to neigh. The sound had the clear distance of history.
