“Normally, being hard-hearted isn’t a problem for me, but I must be a sucker for big brown eyes.” I hold out another piece of toast and the dog takes it delicately with his teeth, careful not to graze my fingers. “Nice table manners, too.”
“You don’t look so hard-hearted to me.” He smiles. “Is that some of your bread?”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to beg now?”
He really does have a nice laugh. “No, I’ll go buy some. What kind is that?”
“It’s Tyler’s Indian Maiden Bread.”
“Tyler’s what?”
“It’s like squaw bread, only more politically correct. Would you like to try a piece?”
“Will I ever live it down?”
“Probably. Sit down, I’ll be right back.” I go inside and pop two more pieces in the toaster. I hear water running in the bathroom. When the toast is done, I put butter and honey on both pieces and take them outside, give one to Josh. He lounges against the porch rail, the dog slumped across his feet.
“This is great,” he says after a bite. He eats the rest in silence, holding one hand up to shade his eyes from the sun.
I stretch luxuriously. “It’s so nice this morning.”
“Yeah, this has always been my favorite….” His voice dies, his gaze frozen on the doorway. I turn around. Tyler stands on the threshold, hands on hips, propping the door open with her foot, looking grim. She’s totally bald.
Josh recovers first. “Hi, Tyler. Like your hair.”
She gives him a cold stare. “I’m in deep mourning.” She lets the door swing shut, sits down next to me. “Can I have a bite of toast?”
I find my voice. “You want me to make some more?”
“I just want a bite.” I hand her my toast.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. I can tell he thinks it might be a joke, but he doesn’t want to push his luck.
“The Santee Sioux cut their hair as a sign of mourning,” she says. “The more they loved someone, the more hair they cut off.” Turbo waddles over to check out the new food supply. She ignores him. “My best friend died.” She finishes my toast, licks her fingers. Josh looks from her to me. “The moron OD’d on heroin.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” He frowns.
“Wouldn’t you think he’d have more sense than that?” The dog gazes up at her, considering her words. “Even Turbo’s smarter than that, aren’t you, Turb?” She rubs the top of his head. “Unless, of course, he did it on purpose, which is what I think.”
I look at her sharply. “Why do you say that?”
Now her chin trembles and her eyes are darting everywhere, as if that might stop the tears. “One—he never did heroin. Just pot, and once in a while a quaalude. Two—he got tested.” She licks her lips. “For HIV. I saw the envelope from the clinic. He never said a thing about it. I never asked him.” Two drops fall on her arm and Turbo’s long tongue slurps them off. She looks down at him. “I was his goddamn best friend. Wouldn’t you tell your goddamn best friend?”
Her face crumples. The dog lays his head on her lap, heedless of the tears dripping on him and her clutching at him. I put my arm around her, but she’s oblivious. She just holds Turbo, rocks back and forth, cries.
sixteen
Mac
June is spring, July is summer, August is fall. The rest of the year is winter. That’s how Chris explains the four seasons of the north. Now it’s August.
Mac rests his elbows on the bar and looks through the front window and onto the quiet street. He’s pretty sure Pearl May will have to lay him off by the end of the month. It was a busy summer, but there just aren’t that many customers now. In fact, the only person on the sidewalk at the moment is Foster, looking forlorn in his ratty beaver costume, not a camera-toting visitor in sight.
Daylight still stretches out for thirteen hours, give or take. The sun still feels warm on his back when he walks to work. But the signs of change are unmistakable. In the surrounding hills, the leaves of aspens and birch flash like new pennies, spiked by the brilliant red of wild blueberry bushes. Ragged formations of ducks and geese cut across the pure blue sky, and the air is smoky from distant forest fires.
Options. The Elky will be good to go by the end of the week. Or he could take the money Ian offered him for it, buy a plane ticket to Seattle. It feels as if he’s waiting, but he’s not sure for what. The other option, the one he hasn’t even admitted considering yet, is to stay the winter.
He eases down on the plastic bench that’s supposed to look like wrought iron.
He’s watched from the front window of the saloon as this park has gone from the tail end of winter, through spring, summer, and now fall over the last three months. Birch trees leafed out seemingly overnight, bulbs came up, and annuals sprouted from planters and pots. Sweet, green grass grew almost as he looked, just like in one of those films of time-lapse photography.
Families wandered the boardwalks, posing with Foster, peering in windows, women carrying shopping bags, men laden with camera equipment, children running and laughing, bear-shaped backpacks bouncing against their backs.
Suddenly it’s all gone. The people, the flowers. Now the color comes from the golden leaves, the browning grass. The sun warms him to the point of drowsiness.
He pulls out his sandwich, but before he can unwrap it, a motion in his peripheral vision makes him look up. Bernie. Her hair is loose, falling around her face. She’s wearing a man’s windbreaker with sleeves so long that her hands are invisible, and dirty jeans, frayed at the cuffs. She sits down next to him, sighing loudly, looking straight ahead.
“Am I incredibly rude?”
“I wouldn’t say incredibly. Just rude. Why?”
“Pearl says I am.”
“Do you care what she says?” He offers her half of the tuna sandwich, and she takes it, but doesn’t eat, just sits silently.
“Not really,” she says at last, still staring at the sandwich.
He takes a bite, then a swallow of water. He offers her the bottle, but she shakes her head.
“If you’re so miserable here, why don’t you leave?”
She nibbles at the tuna, carefully avoiding the bread. She chews slowly, as if it’s painful, swallows, and turns to him. Tears brim in her eyes, but don’t fall, held by some invisible effort of will.
“Right.” Her voice is a cracked whisper. “Where would I go?”
“Anywhere.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have a six-year-old—”
“I guess it is easy for me to say. It would be difficult. But people have done it. It just depends on how badly you want out.”
Another long silence.
“My mother named me Seentahna,” she says.
“What does it mean?”
She shrugs. “I don’t remember any of the words. Her family was from the Koyukon River people.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“She didn’t die. Pearl killed her.”
A large chunk of sandwich goes down unchewed. “What are you talking about?”
“She killed my mother. Not with a knife or a gun or anything. She just took away her reason to live.”
“I thought she—”
“Pearl hated my mother because she wasn’t white. She wasn’t good enough for her son to marry. She didn’t want the Austen family to have mixed blood.” She takes a bigger bite of the sandwich, chewing slowly. She sets it down on her thigh. “When my father got killed, my mother started drinking. You can see why she would. Her husband dies, she’s got this four-year-old kid, no way to make a living—”
“Couldn’t she go back to her family?”
She gives him a withering look. “The village was a nightmare by then. Everybody drunk or old. Everyone dirt poor, all the young people gone. It was a slum. She wanted to stay here where there was at least a chance at a better life. For me.” She picks up the sandwich again, shifting her fingers on the bread as if she were fingering piano keys.
“So she went away?”
“She killed herself. The way the old people did when they knew they had to die. When they couldn’t contribute anymore and the village couldn’t support them. She walked out on the river ice during a storm, with the wind at her back. She walked till she was exhausted. Then she turned around and walked into the wind till she fell down.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugs and takes another bite of the sandwich, pushing it into the side of her mouth, talking around it. “Everybody thinks Pearl is so wonderful, how she raised me, sent me to school. She’s just a selfish, evil old woman.”
“Which brings us back to why you don’t leave.”
Her head whips around. “Because my son, my Emmett, is all she’s got. He’s going to get all her money someday. She’d like for me to do the same thing my mother did. Just go away and let her have the kid. Well, I’m not my mother, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Mac, when are you leaving us?” He looks up from the remains of his dinner to see Pearl standing in the open door. “May I come in? Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt your meal.”
“I’m through. Would you like some tea?”
“Thank you, no. We’ve just finished supper, as well.”
He gets up and holds out a chair for her. There’s a barely discernible wince as she lowers herself into it, smoothing her long skirt. “These bones of mine are the best weather predictors in the Yukon Territory.” She smiles. “I say we’ll have rain by tomorrow afternoon.”
“So I should take my umbrella to work?” He sits down across from her.
“Actually, work is what I’ve come about. The season has come and gone for another year, I’m afraid. And I won’t be needing your services at the bar much past the end of the week.”
He smiles. “You haven’t really needed them this week, but thanks for letting me stay.”
She flicks her hand, as if to swat a fly. “I like to keep things even. End of the month, you know. Makes accounting so much easier.”
“Right.”
“You’re a good boy, Mac. I’m going to miss having you around.”
“Does that mean you’re booting me out of the bunkhouse, too?”
“Good heavens, no! I just assumed you’d be heading back. Or on to Alaska or whatever.”
“Well…I think my timing’s off for Alaska. And I’m not sure I’m ready to head back to Seattle. I haven’t quite finished what I came to do.”
She folds her hands sedately and looks up at him. “Does that mean you’re thinking about overwintering?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
Her lovely eyes twinkle. “It’s an experience. Just think, you’ll be a real sourdough.”
“I will?”
“Oh, yes. The definition of a sourdough is someone who’s seen the river ice up in the fall and break up in the spring. Also, in the old days they used to say you’d have to sleep with a squaw and shoot a bear—or vice versa. But we tend not to enforce those last provisions anymore.”
He grins. “That’s a relief. I guess what I was wanting to know is what you’d charge me to stay here in the bunkhouse.”
“I really hadn’t thought about it. Are you sure you want to stay here? Nobody’s spent the winter here in years. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. And what will you do with yourself all day?”
“I’ve got plenty to do. I’m working on a book. I like this place because it’s quiet and private. As far as being comfortable, I think that stove could just about heat the whole town.”
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Her gaze rests fondly on the black hulk. She turns back to him. “Let’s just say we’ll work it out—”
“No, let’s figure out a price, or you’ll end up doing that brush-off thing that you do. I have the money I was going to spend in Alaska, so it’s not like you’re taking food out of my mouth.”
“Very well, then. Shall we say fifty a week?” She holds out her small white hand. “And I’ll bring you an eiderdown.”
“I think that’s more than fair.” He can feel the tiny, brittle bones of her fingers, but her grip is strong.
Chris invites him over to get outfitted for winter, but it’s Nora who opens the door.
“Mac! What a lovely surprise.” She offers her cheek. “Unfortunately Chris isn’t here. He’s gone hunting with Dirk.”
“He didn’t mention the clothes, I guess.”
“Clothes?”
“I told him I decided to stay for the winter, and he said I should come by and pick up an old parka—”
“Really? You’re staying for the winter? Why?” She shakes her head. “Sorry, come in. I’ll make us some tea.”
He follows her out to the kitchen and sits at the big wooden table while she puts the kettle on the stove.
“Where will you stay?”
“At the bunkhouse.”
Her dark eyebrows lift. “You’ll freeze your bum off, you silly man. Do you have any idea how cold it gets here in the winter? Twenty below isn’t uncommon.”
“I’ll be fine. I just thought Chris had a good point when he said the clothes I brought with me probably weren’t designed for this kind of winter.”
“One of his more astute observations, I’m sure. Well, at least he’s about your size, and he’s got plenty of jackets and gloves and such that aren’t terribly attractive, but they’re serviceable.” She gives him a side-long glance. “What’s Pearl May asking you to pay, if I may be so bold?”
He laughs. “You’re a pisser, Nora Moody.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s an East Coast expression. I don’t know if it translates. But it’s a compliment.”
She gets their cups and pours the boiling water into the pot. “Come on, then. How much?”
“Fifty dollars a week.”
“That’s outrageous—”
“It’s a steal.”
“It is not. The place doesn’t even have indoor plumbing. Just wait till you wake up in the middle of some minus-twenty night and have to use the privy.”
“She wouldn’t have charged me anything. I insisted.”
She looks indignant. “You could stay here for free.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I wouldn’t inflict my company on you two for the whole winter. Besides, I need to be alone so I can get some work done.”
“You Yanks really are crackers, you know that? Here’s your tea.”
He drops some sugar in the cup. “Pearl May said I’d be a real sourdough if I survive the winter.”
“She does love her local mythology.” Nora sniffs. “I suppose she told you her mother won the Beaver Tail in a poker game.”
He looks up quickly and she laughs. “Look at your face. God, you’re gullible. Just remember, a good story helps pass a winter’s night. Up here we’ve got plenty of those, so everyone has a ready supply of stories. Less than half of which are true.”
“What about Bernie’s mother?” he asks quietly.
Nora’s smile disappears. “What did she tell you—that her mother committed suicide?”
He nods.
She pushes a damp wisp of hair off her forehead. “Of course, all this happened before we came here, but that’s her story. Most of the old-timers say Alice got so drunk at the Beaver Tail that she got lost on the way home. They found her two days later when it stopped snowing.”
“The story had that sound—that sort of half-romance, half-excuse sound.”
“Strange, eh? I remember seeing a movie once. Rashomon. Do you know it?”
Mac nods. “Everybody had a different story. And they all seemed perfectly plausible. I can’t remember if you ever found out what the truth was.”
“No,
” she says. “Just like real life.” She drains her cup. “Very well, then, let’s get you outfitted.”
October.
All morning long the wind toys with the clouds, finally persuading them to release a torrent that muddies the creek behind the bunkhouse. In late afternoon the rain dissolves into fog. Wood smoke mingles with the metallic dampness and hangs in the air.
He stands on the porch for a long time, watching the mist rise from the creek and thread through the spruce and pine, listening to the rush of icy water and the breath of wind. Feeling the temperature drop.
Until today, he’s been able to tell himself that he could still change his mind. He could go down to Ian’s, gas up the Elky, and head south. But the bite of this wind means snow. Probably tonight, more likely tomorrow. He remembers driving Wyn to the hospital in the April Fool’s Day snowstorm last year. He’d pushed the Elky to its limits, and it had proved surprisingly surefooted on the slick streets. But that was in a big city where there was help available if you got stuck in a drift or ran off the road. Up here, you’d be on your own. So it would appear that, as of now, he’s committed to winter in Beaverton. To mark the occasion, he decides to try baking corn bread to go with the chili that’s been simmering on the range all afternoon. He mixes it according to the directions on the sack of cornmeal and pours the batter into the misshapen metal baking pan. When he opens the door to the tiny oven, he realizes it’s going to take more heat.
It was stupid not to check the firebox before mixing the batter, but there’s nothing to do except throw in another chunk of aspen wood. He waits ten minutes, watching the baking powder puff up the batter in the pan. Then he slides it into the oven and sits down at the table.
Dear Wyn,
You said a couple of times that you wished you could have known my family. So do I. What a collection we were. My dad was hardly ever there physically, and Suzanne was rarely on call emotionally. I don’t know that any of us knew much about each other. I think the closest thing to a real relationship was between Suzanne and Kevin.
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