Edgar blinked.
“I’m going to leave the house unlocked. You can stay if you want, give your dog’s foot time to heal.”
Edgar nodded his head. They sat on the edge of the stoop and looked at the sunflowers. It was very early in the morning, and the sun was just preparing to slip over the horizon, but already their enormous dished heads were tipped eastward.
“I don’t suppose you’re planning to rob me blind.”
Edgar shook his head.
“Well, what else could you say? But if I kick you out and lock the door, you could just put a rock through the window, so what good would that do? I’ve got to either trust you or call the police and take most of the day off to deal with that.”
He pushed himself to his feet with a grunt and walked to his car.
“Could be, I’m stupid. Just in case, I’ll tell you right now there’s hardly any money in there, and nothing much valuable you could carry on foot—no jewelry, nothing like that. No guns. Kitchen’s stocked up, though. I just went shopping yesterday. Eat anything you like—you look like you’re starving. Stay out of my bedroom. Don’t mess with this car”—he gestured to the wreck on blocks—“and the TV’s busted. Anything else you want to know?”
No.
Henry backed his sedan around. As he pulled up to the house, he leaned over and rolled down the passenger-side window. “If you do leave,” he said, “lock the door. But don’t, otherwise, unless you want to wait outside until I come back—the only other set of keys is in my desk at work.”
He idled down the driveway and then there was the sound of tires on blacktop, fading in the direction of Lute.
EDGAR STAYED ON THE STOOP, sipping Henry Lamb’s noxious coffee. The house sat in a pocket of morning shadow behind the sunflower field; the cloudless sky was shot with white rays, as if someone had thrown powdered sugar into the air. A faint turpentine odor drifted off the sunflowers.
Essay and Baboo were snooping along the perimeter of the barn. When Tinder whined, Edgar signed a release and the dog hopped forward. He stopped and solemnly nosed his bandaged foot, then persevered until he reached the other dogs, tapping his foot lightly on the ground as he hitched along. The dogs sniffed one another. Then Tinder limped back to the stoop and lay down, sighing.
Watching the dog move told Edgar it would be two weeks—two, three, even—before they could travel, assuming Tinder’s paw didn’t get infected, and he hadn’t cut a tendon or ligament so vital he would (as Henry had so delicately suggested) be crippled. The irony was that if any of the dogs was going to hurt himself through foolish exploration, it should have been Essay, not Tinder. Tinder had just been unlucky—and hunting frogs, no less, always harmless in the past.
So did they have any choice but to accept Henry’s offer? The man didn’t seem to know the first thing about dogs. Edgar doubted Henry had any idea how long Tinder’s convalescence would last, or what it took to feed three hundred pounds of hungry dog every day. Edgar had no money to pay for food. Without a lake nearby, and no cabins to pilfer, fishing and burglary weren’t options.
Plus, to top it all off, Henry was such a strange character. His warning about not being trustworthy—people didn’t say things like that. At the same time, Henry clearly liked them. He’d even glimpsed the man smiling after the morning’s ruckus. Or maybe that had just been his reaction to the sight of Edgar toppling to the floor. But even if Henry had been sincere in his offer, on his drive to work (wherever that was) he could decide he’d made a mistake—what was he doing, turning his house over to a stranger? The next thing Edgar would know, a squad car would be pulling into the yard. After weeks in Chequamegon woods, Edgar felt sure that, able-bodied, they could evade any single pursuer. But with Tinder lame, and so many open fields around, there would be no ducking anyone. Not unless they had a long, long head start.
Of course, that was an option. They could leave, right that moment. Tinder’s wound would slow them down, but it wouldn’t stop them. He’d carried Tinder a mile the night before—true, his back was still aching like the blazes, but he could do it again if he had to. So what if they could go only a mile a day? A mile up the track from Henry’s house was as good as the next county, for all anyone knew, and once they got to a lake, they could lay up for a long time. Until now, they’d depended on no one. It was the one plan he knew worked.
He clapped Essay and Baboo back and led them all into the house. He started the water running in the shower and stripped. As the small mirror over the sink fogged, he looked at himself: hawk-thin, face dotted with mosquito bites, hair bleached brown and hanging over his blue eyes. The weeks they’d spent fending for themselves had burned away the softness in him, and he looked like a sight hound, edgy and strung up tight.
Also, he was filthy. The dirt on his sunburnt neck stopped somewhere around his shoulders. He fiddled with the temperature of the water, then stepped into the shower and pulled the white plastic curtain and lathered up. He let the steaming water course over his body. Despite his daily doses of Off!, every inch of his skin seemed to have been dinner for some horsefly, chigger, or mosquito. When the hot water was drained, he pushed back the curtain. Essay and Baboo stood peering quizzically through the doorway. He smiled and grabbed a towel and brandished it like a toreador.
After he’d dressed, he filled a bowl with Wheaties, milk, and honey and carried it with him as he looked around the house. The hallway was covered with pictures—an elderly couple posed before a studio backdrop, Henry’s parents, he guessed; some pajama’d children holding up toys beside a glittering Christmas tree; a younger Henry, in the lobby of a large building, next to his parents, a doubtful expression on his face. On the end table he noticed a portrait of a cherubic woman, signed in a loopy swirl, “Love, Belva.” The television remained dark when Edgar switched it on, but there was a record player in working order. On the bookshelves he found a stack of car repair manuals and some Bell System handbooks—it looked like Henry worked for the telephone company.
The bedroom door was closed. He considered opening it, but everything in the house was somehow of a piece, and he could easily imagine the plain bed, the linens rumpled but not too rumpled, the checkered bathrobe flung down. The dresser. The closet. More family pictures on the wall. Staying out of there was the only thing Henry had asked. He hadn’t even asked them not to rob him—which they had already done, gluttonously, and without a shred of remorse.
Edgar walked back to the kitchen and rummaged. He poured four cans of beef stew into one bowl for Essay and Baboo, and two cans of turkey and dumplings into another for Tinder, and set the bowls out. While they ate he peeled the Band-Aid off his thumb and inspected his wound. The cut was deep and ugly, but it was clean. He began rolling the sock off Tinder’s foot. His mind’s eye conjured the sight of Tinder thrashing on his back, spear of glass glinting both above and below. He hoped his imagination had made Tinder’s injury worse than it was—that it might look benign by the light of day.
It did not. A brown stain had formed on the dressings. Tinder licked and pulled at the bandage as Edgar unwound it. With difficulty, he rolled the dog onto his side and turned his foot upward. The pad had swollen to twice its normal size. He forced himself to part the wound and was rewarded with a spine-tingling view of pink and gray meat and a glimpse of a white cord contracting. Then he had to stop, partly because his head was swimming, and partly because Tinder yelped and yanked his foot away, licking it with long, slow swipes and looking reproachfully at Edgar.
The enamel wash pan sat on the counter. He filled it with warm water and metered out four drops of dish soap. Tinder threatened to revolt when Edgar set it on the floor. Edgar wrapped his hand around Tinder’s muzzle and looked him in the eye.
Get used to it, he signed. We’re going to do a lot of this.
FROM THEIR VANTAGE POINT in the field, Edgar watched Henry’s car stop beside the mailbox, then roll along the driveway. It was late afternoon, and he and the dogs had retreated to the spot where they’d slept aw
ay the previous afternoon, the best compromise he could think of between staying and going. Although Tinder couldn’t put the slightest weight on his foot, when Edgar had tried to carry him, he’d thrashed so mightily Edgar had set him down at once, afraid he might jump and compound his injury. Reluctantly, he’d let the dog pick his way along the fence line, taking half an hour to complete the journey. But once they were settled, Edgar felt much better. He’d taken a chance that morning and down-stayed the dogs in the house and run up the tracks to fetch the Zebco and the satchel from the railroad embankment. Now the fishing equipment was hidden amidst the sunflowers. In a few seconds they could all be hidden amidst the sunflowers, even Tinder.
Down below, Henry stepped out of his sedan, a bag of groceries under his arm and lunchbox in hand. He called out and opened the back door, then disappeared inside. They had left the house empty and unlocked, without even a note of thanks. It was rude, but he couldn’t leave evidence that he and the dogs had been there, in case Henry arrived accompanied by—well, who knew who might tag along, or follow a few minutes behind?
Henry returned to the stoop, beer in hand. He looked around the yard. Edgar ducked, and when he raised his head again, Henry stood on the road, staring along the blacktop and shaking his head. Then he dragged a round-bellied barbeque grill from the barn to the stoop. He produced a bag of briquettes and a can of lighter fluid and soon flames jumped out of the black hemisphere and heat waves shimmered above.
In short order Henry carried out two kitchen chairs and a card table which he unfolded on the lawn. He set plates on each side of the table and populated the center with a bag of thick brown rolls, bottles of ketchup and mustard, and a dish of something that was either potato or macaroni salad. He used a drinking glass as a weight over a small sheaf of paper and he dropped a pair of yellow pencils into it. Then he unwrapped a package of what could only be fresh bratwurst and arranged them on the grill and opened a can of baked beans and let it heat beside the brats. When everything was cooking to his satisfaction, and a column of smoke rose off the grill, Henry sat in one of the chairs and unfolded a newspaper.
Watching it all made Edgar smile. If they had been spotted, Henry could have just shouted to them without going through this performance. Probably, though, Henry had no idea whether they were nearby, much less watching. It was an interesting act of faith from a man who declared himself reckless and unpredictable. If anything, Henry struck Edgar as wildly dependable—making dinner and acting out this invitation for guests he couldn’t even be sure existed.
And though he hated to admit it, Henry’s plan was working. After the previous day’s orgiastic meal, Edgar had thought he wouldn’t eat for a week, but now his mouth was watering. Every time he looked, something new had appeared on the table. Pickles. Root beer. Something wrapped in butcher paper. What looked like lemon meringue pie. Yet they couldn’t walk into that yard. Short of waiting, there was no way to be positive the man hadn’t told the sheriff’s department to stop by around, say, nine o’clock, when he could be sure the kid would be sitting in his house.
When the bratwurst finished cooking, Henry juggled the hot can of beans with an oven mitt and dumped them into a bowl. He stacked the sausages on a plate and set the plate on the card table and casually helped himself, scooping out a mound of potato salad and a dollop of baked beans. Then he quartered the newspaper in a flapping commotion and plucked a pencil from the empty glass across the table and began to work the crossword. Maybe it was Edgar’s imagination, but he thought he could smell the spicy aroma of cooked bratwurst all the way up in the field. Baboo certainly could. He sidled up to Edgar and panted anxiously in his ear. Edgar smoothed his hand absently along the dog’s topline.
A half-dark had fallen. A handful of stars had emerged in the clear azure sky. He stood and clapped quietly to bring Essay forward. When she didn’t appear at his side, he suddenly understood that Baboo hadn’t been panting over food. He whirled and clapped more loudly. When he turned back, Essay was already trotting into the circle of the porch light, her gait jaunty, her tail slashing prettily through the air, swinging her front legs in wide circles as she ran, as if greeting a long-lost friend. Henry set down his newspaper. Essay finished before him in a perfect sit, perhaps three inches away.
“Hello, you,” Henry said, leaning back. His voice carried up the slope in the still evening air. Even from that distance Edgar could see Essay giving Henry the moocher’s eye, sitting up straight, perking her ears, swishing her tail.
Baboo, standing beside Edgar, began to whine and stomp.
Sit, Edgar signed.
With a bitter groan Baboo sat, then sidled to his left for a better view. Then Tinder hobbled forward. The two of them sat scenting the air, heads bobbing and tilting like marionettes whenever Henry spoke.
There’s no use now, Edgar thought. He walked to Tinder and knelt. You’re not running down there on that foot, he signed. He got the dog up and put his arms underneath him and looked him in the eye. When they understood each other, he released Baboo, then put one arm under Tinder’s belly and the other under his chest and stood. Tinder was heavy, but his weight was becoming familiar, and Edgar took slow, careful steps down the hill.
Henry took a swallow of beer and watched them approach. In the last fifty feet, Baboo discarded any shred of reserve and bolted forward, skidding into a sit beside Essay. The two dogs looked back and forth between Edgar and Henry. Then Essay trotted back to meet Edgar and Tinder, oblivious to the look Edgar gave her and tossing her head as if escorting them to a fête, all of it her idea.
Tinder had been patient on the walk down, but now he began to wriggle in Edgar’s arms. Edgar lowered him to the ground. The dog nuzzled Essay then hopped across the grass. In a moment, Henry was ringed by dogs. Given all his preparations, Edgar expected Henry to issue a cheerful invitation, but he didn’t know Henry very well yet.
“I thought you’d run off,” Henry grunted, looking over the dogs’ heads at him. He gestured toward the food. “Have a brat. I burned them pretty bad, but I guess they’re better than nothing.”
AFTER EDGAR STUFFED A BRAT into a bun and scooped potato salad onto his plate, Henry gestured toward the white parcel on the table. Edgar unwrapped it to find three large soup bones with shreds of raw, red meat attached and plenty of marrow.
“Guy at the meat locker told me those were good ones for dogs,” he said.
Edgar nodded. He offered the package to Henry so that he could hand them out, but Henry shook his head. “Thanks anyway, but I was planning on using all my fingers tomorrow,” he said. By that time the dogs had scented the bones and were waiting when Edgar crouched beside his chair. They trotted off to grind their teeth against the shanks and imagine, with unfocused gazes, the animal from which the bones had come.
Then, as if Edgar’s arrival weren’t of the least interest, Henry returned to his crossword puzzle. Occasionally he sat back and tapped his pencil and looked into the dark, as lost in thought as the dogs.
Finally, he set the pencil down and opened a fresh beer. “Darn it,” he said. “I need a twelve-letter word meaning ‘butterfly-like.’ Starts with L.”
Edgar looked at Henry. He picked up a pencil and wrote, Lepidopteral, and pushed the paper across the table.
Henry turned back to the crossword. “Nice,” he said. “What can you get for a…let’s see…six-letter word for ‘echo.’ Ends with R-B.”
Edgar thought for a moment and, beneath his previous entry, wrote reverb.
“Yep. Yep. That works again,” Henry said. “Aha—lentil!” he cried, and filled in another row. “One left. Eight-letter word for ‘Formed of fire or light.’ Starts with E, ends with L.”
Edgar shook his head.
“All right, forget it. I got close. Thanks for the help.” He set the paper down, divided the pie into six slices, passed a plated slice to Edgar, then took one of his own. He pointed his fork at Tinder, who busily gnawed his soup bone. “How’s that guy’s foot?” he asked
.
Bad, Edgar wrote. Swollen.
“His main problem is going to be infection, you know that, right?”
Yes.
“You wash it out again today?”
He held up four fingers.
Henry nodded. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, am I?”
Edgar shrugged, not wanted to seem ungrateful.
Henry ate a forkful of pie and looked at him. “I don’t mean to pry,” he said, “but it would make things a little easier if you told me your name.”
Edgar sat mortified while Henry finished his pie. In all his thinking and planning throughout the day, this was one detail that hadn’t crossed his mind. He couldn’t simply write his real name down. After years of naming pups, he thought, it ought to be simple to come up with a name for himself. But he didn’t have days or weeks to think this over. He tried to cover his confusion by helping himself to a second slice of pie. He looked at the dogs. Then an idea came to him. He scribbled on the paper and pushed it over to Henry.
“Nathoo?” Henry said, doubtfully. “You don’t look much like a ‘Nathoo.’ Is that Indian or what?”
Call me Nat, Edgar wrote.
Henry looked at him.
“What do you call your dogs?”
The words Essay, Baboo, and Tinder appeared on the paper. Henry repeated them, pointing to each of the dogs in turn.
Yes.
Then, to get Henry off the subject of names, Edgar decided it was time to clean Tinder’s foot once more. He filled the enamel pan with soapy water and carried it out to Tinder.
“This going to take as long as it did last night?” Henry asked.
Edgar nodded.
“Then I’m turning in. Make yourself comfortable when you’re done.”
Henry gathered up the remains of dinner, as well as the card table and chairs. By the time Edgar rewrapped Tinder’s foot, Henry had retired to his bedroom. Edgar led the dogs inside and downed them on the rug in the living room.
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle Page 41
