Glen liked being able to make Claude laugh like that. He hadn’t quite realized what a funny story it made, but Claude had really given himself over to mirth, and Glen found it impossible not to laugh along with him. When Claude finally wiped his eyes, he ordered another round and they clanked their glasses.
“To Page.”
“To Pop.”
“What ever happened to those ducks?”
“I don’t remember,” Glen confessed. “They never could fly again. I think Pop gave them to a farmer down by Prentice.”
They watched the game for a bit longer and then Glen bought a six-pack to go and they headed for the shop. Claude followed in his Impala. Glen walked up to the dark side door and pulled out of a set of keys, drunkenly trying one after another. Inside, he flipped a switch and a bank of unearthly fluorescents flickered into service overhead. The pharmacy was nothing more than a neatly organized closet beside his pop’s office. Glen unlocked it, swung the door open, and stepped back.
“What were you looking for?”
Claude stepped inside and carefully examined the shelves of bottles and vials, pausing two or three times to look at labels more closely, almost as if window-shopping rather than just looking for the penicillin. When he had finished his detailed scrutiny of the pharmacy’s contents, he pulled three containers from the rack. “This,” he said, handing one across to Glen. “This. And this.” He stepped out and let Glen shut the door. “If you know where the sales slips are, I’ll write these up,” he said.
“Take ’em. It’d cost more to tell the lawyer than to just give them to you.”
“Well, thanks,” Claude said. “Maybe I can find a way to make it up to you.”
“No need,” he said, waving a broad hand at Claude. “Forget it.”
They walked outside and locked up and walked to the cars. Glen reached into the back seat and pulled out two beers and they stood looking into the night sky. Then the silence turned clumsy. Glen knew Claude had more on his mind than just medication. The fact was, Glen had been in touch with Claude and Trudy quite a lot over the last two months. The night his father had died, Edgar had run off with a couple of the dogs. It was more than the kid could take, seeing two men die in the same room. At first they thought he was hiding in the woods. Then they expected to spot him hitchhiking. That’s what happened to most kids who ran off. Each morning, the Highway Patrol broadcast a list of runaways picked up, but there was never a match. Of course, Glen had worked the grapevine around Mellen: Walt Graves, who delivered RFD mail, made a point to talk to everyone on his route; at the telephone office, Glen had hinted that the switchboard operators might place an anonymous call if they heard something interesting on a party line. The Forest Service had briefly run a search plane. But in the end, Edgar was just another runaway, and there wasn’t much to do except wait for him to turn up, then ship him home.
And so, without being asked, Glen said, “You know I’d call right off if something came through.”
Claude sipped his beer in silence and looked thoughtful.
“Most runaways—the ones that aren’t trying to get away from some sort of bad situation, at least—come home on their own before it gets cold. He’ll either get picked up or show up.”
“Yup,” Claude said. And then, after a while, “Just between you and me, though, I’m not sure that would be such a good thing. Maybe he’s better off run away. You can’t imagine the torment that boy has put Trudy through in the last nine months. He’s got something in him…well, he’s wild.”
“He’s getting to be that age. Plus, he must have been awfully shook up about Gar. When I talked with him, he couldn’t remember much of what happened.”
That got Claude’s attention. “Trudy mentioned that, too,” he said. “How did that work, anyway? Did he recall anything about the day at all? Or was it just a pure blank?”
“Oh, sure. Lots of stuff. What he was doing with the dogs, what he ate for breakfast. But the closer we got to the moment he found Gar, the sketchier things got.”
“Uh-huh,” Claude said. Now he was peering at Glen intently. “I always thought that was strange, the way he just…found him. I haven’t wanted to ask Trudy about it, stir up bad feelings. But are you telling me he didn’t hear anything? Gar calling for help, the dogs barking, anything like that?”
“Not when we talked. That was the next day. Technically, I should have talked with him right away, but Pop got a little mad when I suggested it. He was sure it could wait, and I could see for myself the kid was a wreck.” Glen shrugged and took another swallow of beer. “Could be different now, though. People remember things after a while.”
“I suppose,” Claude said. “But how would you know those memories are for real, you get them months later?”
Glen thought about Claude saying Edgar had something wild in him. He looked over at Claude.
“If I recall the rumors, you were pretty wild yourself once. Maybe it just runs in the family.”
Claude nodded. “I had my moments. Not so much at his age, but I know what you’re saying. I don’t fault him for wildness. But with Edgar, it’s different.”
Glen looked at him. “Different how?”
“Well, I got wild the way most boys get wild—I wanted to shake things up. I thought everything needed shaking up. I never set out to hurt anybody. With Edgar, though…I don’t know. He can’t always control his temper.”
Then Claude stopped. He looked like he was searching for words. He took a long swallow of beer.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said, “but on the other hand, I don’t like keeping secrets, either.”
“Tell me what?”
“About your pop.”
“What about him? I suppose you’re going to tell me that he was a hell-raiser, too?” Glen laughed at the idea. If his father hadn’t been a veterinarian, he would have been a school teacher—more likely a principal. He liked being an authority figure, the one who told people what was what.
“No, nothing like that,” Claude said. “You understand everything I’m going to tell you is secondhand—I wasn’t there when it happened, okay? I was in the house, and the first thing I really saw—with my own eyes—was when I walked into the barn and Page was lying there.”
And then, though it was a warm summer night, Glen felt a chill.
“Thing is, after Edgar ran off, I found out from Trudy that Page didn’t just trip. It sounds like he fell down those stairs because Edgar was coming after him.”
There was a long silence during which blood began to pound in Glen’s ears.
“Coming after him.”
“Yeah.”
“You mean, coming after him to hit him?”
“Yeah. That’s what I mean.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Well, that’s the part we don’t understand. After Gar died, he clammed up. And when Edgar wants to clam up, there isn’t a thing anyone can do about it. That night, we were talking to a breeder interested in operating a branch kennel. Had some interesting ideas about approaching the Carruthers catalog people. That really disturbed Edgar. He opened up that big mow door and dragged Trudy over to it and nearly pushed her out. Who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t stopped. Plus, he was none too happy about me spending so much time out there, which I suppose I can understand. Fact is, most nights he slept out in the mow. Like that was his place instead of in the house.”
“Claude,” Glen said. “For Christ’s sake.”
“I don’t know, Glen. Maybe Trudy got it wrong. It’s not my place to tell you this anyway. I’ve gone over it and over it in my mind, and no matter how you slice it, it was a freak accident. Pick up the Milwaukee Journal tomorrow and check the obituaries; I’d bet you fifty dollars you find someone who died in some sort of freak accident. Remember when Odin Kunkler fell out of his apple tree trying to shake a porcupine off a branch? He could have broke his neck instead of both arms. Who knows what made the difference? Even if Trudy had it
right, Edgar didn’t touch your pop. He just ran at him and Page fell.”
“That’s still manslaughter,” Glen said.
“Besides…”
“Besides, what?”
“Well, I didn’t know if you were all that close to your dad. Some people are glad when the old man is gone.”
“Aw, god. Aw, shit. Jesus fucking Christ, Claude! We had some words sometimes, who doesn’t? But he was my father.” Glen looked at Claude to see if he’d meant to provoke him, but Claude looked genuinely sincere. If anything, a little puzzled by the vehemence of Glen’s reaction.
“Aha. Well, it isn’t always that way. Between father and son, I mean. I wasn’t sure.”
“Well, now you know.”
“No offense intended, okay? I’m just telling you to be straight. I think a person needs to keep things aboveboard,” Claude said. “Look, if you wanted to, you could sue us. After all, your dad was on our property, he did fall down our stairs. Whether Edgar scared him into falling or not probably wouldn’t even come into it; the right lawyer would just argue that we didn’t do something we should have, like we didn’t have good enough handrails or whatnot. Though there is a handrail…”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Maybe, but the point is, I was always taught that, in a case like this, where nothing is black and white, we’d have to be the ones to decide what’s right. I’m not talking about courts; I mean, the people themselves decide. But if you want legal justice, there it is. You could shut down the kennel if you wanted. No more Sawtelle dogs, ever again. That’s got to be your decision, and that’s okay. I can’t speak for Trudy, of course. She’s awfully dependent on those dogs now, especially with Edgar run off. I have to argue with her to place every single one.”
“I don’t want that and you know it.”
“Don’t you? Wait and see. Maybe tomorrow you’ll wake up discouraged and depressed. That’s the way these things work. You won’t be angry, not then, just laid out, like all the wind’s been taken out of your sails. But the day after that, or the day after that you might wake up and before you have a chance to think about it, you’ll get dressed and head over to your pop’s place, out the door and down the street before you remember your pop is gone for good. And that’s when it’ll hit you. That’s when you’re going to get angry. It’ll be over some little thing that really doesn’t matter. So don’t tell me what sort of justice you want, Glen. That’s a promise you can’t keep.”
“Well, I can tell you this much: I’m not going to sue you and Trudy for something Edgar did.”
“Why the hell not?” Claude said. “He’s a minor. Trudy’s his mother and I’m his uncle. Trudy raised him. She must have done something wrong or he wouldn’t have come after Page.”
“No, no, it doesn’t work that way. Well, maybe it does. I don’t know. I mean, think about me—I was a mixed bag at best. But Pop, he did the best he could. There wasn’t one time he didn’t tell me just how to…why I should have…”
Then Glen realized he was crying. It was embarrassing, but it just came up out of him, and there was no way to stop it. And that was the moment he’d realized he wasn’t done mourning—in fact, maybe he’d hardly begun. A person who was done mourning didn’t cry into his beer.
“I was pretty much of a fuckup, if you recall,” Glen said, when he could talk without blubbering. “Maybe you don’t know what it feels like to know what the wrong thing to do is, and just watch yourself do it anyway. Like you don’t even control it. But I do. My pop stuck with me through a whole bunch of times when I thought I’d end up in juvie jail.”
Claude sipped his beer and nodded.
“Pretty ironic that I ended up as the cop here, don’t you think?”
“I think it fits you. I think you do a good job.”
“Thanks,” Glen said. “I try.” There was something else he wanted to say, some other point he’d been trying to make, but the beers had finally added up, and he couldn’t remember. His head would have been swimming even if he was sober, and Claude had a way of making things confusingly complex.
“Tell you what,” Claude said at last. Glen could see Claude was troubled by the whole thing, maybe more troubled than Glen himself. “You have the power here. You know it and I know it and there’s no point in pretending otherwise, or thinking that you know this minute what you want to do about it. That day when you get angry is coming. When it arrives, all I can think to offer is that you call me, and we’ll find a place to sit and drink some beers and talk about what to do. That’s the least I could do—hear you out.”
Glen looked at him. Claude seemed like he might be about to cry himself.
“Way back when, the old guys had all the answers,” Claude said. “Your dad. My dad.”
“Yup.”
“We’re the ones, now. We’ve got to have the answers.”
“They’re not all gone yet.”
“No. Mostly, though.”
“Ida Paine is still around.”
Claude shuddered. “Ida Paine has always been around,” he said. “Ida Paine will be around long after you and I are gone.”
“I was out to the store just last week. If anything, she’s gotten creepier.”
“Did she say it?” Claude asked, and Glen didn’t need him to explain what he meant by it. “Did she look at you through those Coke bottle glasses and say it?”
“Oh, yeah. ‘Is that all?’” Glen croaked, a fair imitation of Ida’s smoky voice. “‘Anything else?’”
It was funny, but neither of them laughed. You didn’t laugh at Ida Paine.
Claude pushed himself upright and walked to the Impala.
“Remember what I said.”
He fired off a drunken salute. “Okay. Ten-four. Roger. Over and out.”
Then Claude drove off, taillights dwindling as he topped the rise south of town. Glen didn’t feel like leaving just yet. He leaned on the trunk of his car, swaying in the moonlight, and considered the dark outline of his father’s shop. It was a fine summer night, the peepers all around making a melodious racket, the sky above a parade of stars and galaxies. When he was sure no one would see him do anything so maudlin, Glen Papineau raised his bottle of Leiney’s to the sky and let the tears come again.
“To you, Pop,” he whispered. “To you.”
Wind
ALL IT HAD TAKEN WAS ONE PARALYZING LOOK OUT THE REAR window of Henry’s sedan to realize their sojourn had ended. As soon as the train passed and the State Patrol cruiser diverted onto a side street, Edgar jumped into the back seat, and for the rest of the drive he’d held Tinder and Baboo in down-stays, ducking and hoping that Essay, up front with Henry, would look unremarkable. He should never have agreed to a joyride in broad daylight. If the State Patrol officer had looked at them a little longer, been a little less distracted, or had been reminded that morning of the curious bulletin outstanding for a runaway with three dogs, then the flashers atop his cruiser would have started to spin and that would have been the end of it.
By the time they pulled into the driveway, Edgar had resolved to leave at once. Henry stalled him and dug out a map and calculated the distance from Lute to Thunder Bay. It turned out to be over two hundred miles. Henry pointed out the impossibility of Tinder walking that far with a half-healed foot. “And that’s if you go straight through Superior. How did you plan to do that if you’re so worried about being spotted?”
I don’t know, Edgar wrote. We’ll figure out something.
“Look,” Henry said. “If you’re dead set on this, let me drive you as far as the border. I know the back roads around here. We can stay off the main highways. I can even get us around Superior. Then it’s a straight shot up the North Shore Highway.”
Let me see that map, Edgar signed.
He traced out the route for himself, but there was no real choice. Henry could jump them ahead by weeks in a single day. Once near the border they could choose a likely spot and continue on foot. After that, they both guessed five mo
re days walking to Thunder Bay, ten if he babied Tinder. In truth, accepting Henry’s offer looked like the only way Starchild was reachable.
Okay, Edgar signed. But we leave tomorrow.
HE WAITED UNTIL HENRY was asleep that night and walked to the shed and opened the doors. He squeezed his way along the fender of the Skyliner and hiked himself over the door and sat in the driver’s seat and rested his palms on the fluted ring of the steering wheel. In the dark, he could barely see his hands.
Are you there? he signed.
He waited. A long silence followed. After a time he decided it was no use and he started to go back to the house. Then he told himself it wouldn’t hurt to try anyway. He lifted his hands in the dark.
Did you see that thing in me? he signed. That rare thing?
IN THE MORNING EDGAR calmed the dogs by running exercises in the yard—fetches, come-fors, heels. They had stayed so long with Henry the dogs were lax about sticking near him, and now that they were heading out again they would need those skills. Henry called in sick to work, coughing weakly into the telephone receiver and grinning at Edgar. They left just after ten o’clock, when Henry guessed traffic would be lightest. Tinder sat up front, but Edgar stayed in back with Essay and Baboo and a set of blankets, trying to shake off his jitters. He downed the dogs and drew the blankets over them whenever a car came into view. Henry was quiet. He lay his arm across the front seat and rested a hand on Tinder’s shoulder.
After an hour they were west of Brule. Henry cut across Highway 2. He had a spot in mind, he said, where they could stop, give the dogs a break—a little cove he and Belva had discovered while exploring the coastline.
Keep going, Edgar signed. They don’t need it.
“Are you kidding?” Henry said. “These dogs are pee machines. I don’t want to find out what it’s like to wipe that out of the nooks and crannies of my fine vinyl seats.”
Essay seemed to sense an opportunity. She peered into Edgar’s face and breathed anxiously.
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle Page 46
