Tootsies

by Sarah Black

  He got rid of the cheap furniture from his apartment by dragging it to the curb and putting a sign out that said FREE TO A GOOD HOME. He packed a set of flannel sheets and a down quilt and a couple of Pendleton blankets, the pots and pans, cardboard boxes full of clothes suitable for the woods. He felt like he was walking a couple of inches above the ground, strangely free and happy to have been semifired in a quasi sex scandal, ready to go live his mountain-man dreams. He would be strong and tough, chopping wood for the woodstove, the air cold and piney smelling, the logs defenseless under the sharp edge of his ax. He would develop some self-respect, some muscles, learn the ways of solitude and self-reliance. Maybe one of those little hydroponics deals to grow lettuce, and he could lay in the essentials for the winter. At night he would write—the old-fashioned way, with a pen, on paper—his journals open on the battered old pine table. He would use a candle for light, or maybe an oil lamp. Maybe Quanah Parker would be roaming the woods, looking for white settlers to take hostage.

  He decided to take a trip to the cabin before he made a final run by Sam’s Club. He was finding holes in his memory. For instance, he could remember how the air smelled along the Salmon River in late October, but he couldn’t remember if the cabin had electricity. He wondered how the stovepipe from the old woodstove was holding up, and the old woodstove itself. Stovepipe was critical to his picture of himself warm and cozy and writing poetry. If there was a problem with the stove, he needed to get it fixed before the first big snow fell. He drove out from Boise into the mountains and never looked back in the rearview mirror.

  He took the mountain road through Idaho City, twisted and climbed among the pines and through the tall Sitka spruce that lined the narrow roads, and the ragged, sharp edges of the Sawtooths came into view in front of him, the tops already dusted with snow. He climbed out of his truck next to the post office in Stanley three hours later, stretched, and took a deep breath of air that was twenty degrees cooler than it had been in Boise.

  Inside he asked for a post office box, and the woman behind the counter asked him why.

  “So I can get mail?”

  “Son, do you live here? How long are you planning to stay?”

  “I’m David Miller,” he said. “My grandpa had a place down on the Salmon.”

  “Oh, I remember now,” the woman said, looking him over carefully. “You came at Christmas, right? And the summers when you were a little boy? What are you doing back after all this time?”

  “I’m going to spend the winter in the cabin. I’m a writer. A poet.”

  She stared at him blankly. “You’re going to stay the winter?”

  He nodded. She kept looking at him, her mouth trying to frame the words. “Son, you know how many people actually make it through the winter in Stanley every year?”

  David thought about this. The sign had said the population of Stanley was one hundred. “Fifty?”

  “Maybe thirty. And they’re squirrelly as all get-out by April. Why don’t you just give it a try first? A couple of weeks, then see how you feel.”

  He shook his head and pushed the application for a post office box across the counter to her. “It’s a done deal. I’ve given up my place in Boise. Oh, I need a change-of-address form.”

  She shook her head slowly. “You’re going to need a lot more than that.”

  He remembered the turnoff to the cabin and was happy to see the road was mowed and in good repair. It looked like someone had kept it bladed. He thought there was only his grandpa’s cabin and the Running Bears’ cabin along this road. Maybe the county was doing maintenance. He pulled in behind the cabin, his heart pounding loudly with excitement.

  When he climbed out of the pickup, the wind was blowing up the banks from the river, and he recognized the smell—fresh cold water, frost in the air, pine needles. Home. It smelled like home. He turned to the cabin. It was tiny, of course, smaller than he remembered, and someone had shut it up for the winter, nailed plywood over the windows as rough storm windows. He walked around it, studying the roof and the foundation—both looked sturdy and in good shape. He thought the old logs could use chinking, but they remained solid and massive, a weathered gray. A pile of leaves and pine needles had blown up against the cabin door. He brushed them away with his foot, squirted graphite into the old lock, and fitted the key into the keyhole. With a very little wiggling back and forth, the lock turned, and he was able to push the door open.

  It was dusty inside, and dark, so David propped the door open and let the cold autumn air blow through the cabin. The floor was unglazed Mexican tile, and the same ratty-looking sheepskins were lying next to the bed and the couch as when he was a kid. The mattress was stripped of bedding and covered in plastic, and the couch had an old sheet draped across the leather cushions. The table was still there, as thick and battered as he remembered, along with a couple of handmade chairs. The kitchen was an old fridge with a rounded top, a sink, and some shelves bolted to the wall to hold dishes. There was a pot-bellied iron stove that functioned for both cooking and heating. He studied the stovepipe carefully, noted rust in a couple of places. He looked around the cabin for electrical plugs. None. Under the sink there was an oil lamp and a bucket.

  He brought a couple of boxes in from the truck, found his toolbox, and started pulling the plywood off the windows. Light flooded in; dust floated lazily in the quiet air. Out back he found a propane tank and what appeared to be an ancient generator. The woodpile was less than half a cord. The door to the outhouse was sticky, but he could get it open and closed, and he was pleased to note that the outhouse was so old the contents had turned into sweet-smelling compost. He had read about putting sawdust or peat moss into outhouses and thought he might try it.

  David pulled a bottle of water from his cooler and surveyed the cabin. What to do first? He still had that floaty feeling, like his feet weren’t quite touching the ground. It felt like happiness, like the first day of Christmas vacation. What to do? Water. He remembered the old hand pump in the side yard, but there was also water to the kitchen sink. He went inside and turned the handle. Nothing. He went to the hand pump.

  Twenty minutes later, he was covered in sweat, water gushing out onto the toes of his boots, and he gave a whoop of victory. He filled up one of the clean buckets he’d brought and carried it into the cabin. He could feel the pleasant strain of muscles between his shoulder blades. Between the water pump and the wood, he would be a hard body before winter hit!

  Next the windows. He got each one opened and moving, then cleaned them all. The bright afternoon light was softening by the time he was done, so he finished carrying the boxes in and unpacked the candles. He pulled the mattress cover off, made up the bed with the clean sheets, and spread the down quilt over the top. Then he pulled the sheet off the old leather couch and set the Pendleton blankets on the end. There. Done. Oh, wood. Back to the woodpile and a couple of armloads of ancient cut timber, and he hunted for the matches as the light fell quickly into autumn dusk.

  He got a tiny fire going in the woodstove, and the stovepipe held. He walked outside to watch the smoke curl up from his chimney. He lit a candle and put it next to his bed, got a book of poetry to read, fell back into sheets that were sweet-smelling and warm, and slid under a down quilt that was as soft as a lover’s touch on his cheek. He fell asleep with Quanah Parker’s buckskin bag between his fingers.

  In the morning, the little cabin was icy, and he stayed under the quilt, staring up into rafters made from hand-peeled lodgepole pine. It was all going to work out fine. He would do a couple of things to get the cabin up to speed, and he needed to figure out where to access the electricity he needed to teach online poetry classes, but he knew this morning that living in the old cabin for the winter was a challenge he was up to.

  He filled a pot with water and set it on the stove, then built up the fire. It was warm enough for a bath in minutes, and David stripped down and scrubbed over his arms and legs with a rough washcloth. He had heard about cedar
hot tubs that had some sort of underwater wood-fired heater with a snorkel that came out the top. He should investigate. A wood-fired hot tub would be a luxury beyond luxuries when the snow started to fall. He pulled on some work clothes, then hunted around for a coffeepot. David pulled out a small notebook and started a list. Coffeepot. What kind? He had seen some camping coffeepots that were designed to plug into the cigarette lighter in the truck, but that was no kind of long-term solution. What about one of those speckled enamel percolators that went on top of the stove? That would work. Okay, coffeepot. That propane tank outside—what was that for? It looked like there was a gas pipe that was plugged off along the kitchen wall. What about the fridge? He looked between the cabin wall and the back of the fridge. Okay, that’s what the propane was for. He better get some in the tank. He opened the fridge door gingerly, but the inside was cleaned out. It looked like the knob was turned to On, so maybe it would work with some propane in the tank. And if that didn’t work, he would haul the fridge outside and let Mother Nature turn it into a frozen food storage.

  Water and coffee grounds were bubbling in a small saucepan on the stove, and David let the grounds settle to the bottom of the pot, then poured himself a cup. He ate a couple of bananas and drank the coffee, then looked around the cabin for his boots. He thought he’d left them next to the bed, but he found them parked neatly next to the door. He tucked his small notebook in his pocket and opened the door to a beautiful autumn day.

  David found places to put everything away. He sat on top of the old redwood picnic table that was in the yard. He studied the list. Coffeepot, propane tank filled. He looked over at the woodpile. In town the houses had wood stacked nearly up to their rooflines already. Chainsaw and ax. What about food? He needed to lay in provisions for…how many months? Six months. He shivered suddenly. He knew in a theoretical way that sometimes the roads were closed up to April or May. Not that they were closed every day, but much of the time. To be safe, he would need enough food for the winter.

  He had a sudden picture of himself in the supermarket in Boise, standing in front of rows and rows of bright, jewel-colored fruit. He was filling his basket without a thought with food that could be heated and eaten in five minutes. He thought about the two bananas he had just eaten for breakfast. How long would bananas last? He felt a sudden panicky urge to go to town and start buying supplies. What had the lady in the post office said? Squirrelly by March?

  At the Stanley General Store, he spotted an enameled camping coffeepot with blue speckles, then asked the man behind the counter where he could get propane.

  “For a camper? You mean those little tanks that come on an RV?”

  David shook his head. “I’m David Miller. I’m at my grandpa’s place—Caleb Miller? He has a propane tank out back, and I think it runs the fridge. I wondered about getting it filled up.”

  The man pushed the hat back on his head. He looked like an old cowboy—sweeping blond mustache that was turning gray, black leather vest over a snap-front western shirt, silver-belly Stetson. “It’s already the end of October. How long are you planning to stay? You might want to just wait until next summer.”

  “I’m staying the winter.”

  The man studied David’s coffeepot, then his pale, elegant poet’s hands. “You’re staying the winter. In your grandpa’s old cabin?”

  David nodded. The man let out a long sigh. He pointed to a rack against the back wall of the store. “You need to get you some decent gloves, boy. The ones with leather doubled in the palms. Nothing else will last till Christmas.”

  When David got back to the counter with the gloves, the old man studied him with eyes that were the wintery blue of a Stanley sky when snow was coming on. “You running from something? The law after you?”

  Mouth hanging open, David stared at him. “No! Good grief. I’m just… I’m sort of having a midlife crisis.”

  The old man laughed. “Aren’t you a little young for that?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “So what do you do, David Miller?”

  “I’m a poet.”

  That stopped the old man in his tracks. “You written any books of poetry?” David nodded. “You bring one into town for me the next time you’re here.”

  David smiled at him in surprise. “Okay.”

  “I knew your grandpa lots of years. People here remember him. And you’ll find that in Stanley, people have time to read once the snows fall.”

  Chapter Three

  He put off the trip to Sam’s Club when he realized he could get toilet paper and cornbread mix and cans of chili at the grocery store. The woman behind the counter warned him to stock up because she was closing the store for the season in a couple of weeks. He made a quick trip to the library, logged on to the computer, and recklessly ordered a wood-fired hot tub to be delivered, maxing out his lone credit card. It would be worth it, he thought, catching sight of himself in the glass window. His hair was a messy tangle of brown curls, and his chin was rough with unshaved whiskers. The thought of letting himself go, turning into a real mountain man, was strangely appealing. But he noticed that the other men in town were perfectly dressed and groomed and quite a bit cleaner than he was. Maybe that was part of not going squirrelly, to keep yourself up. But he’d grow a beard for sure.

  When he got back to the cabin, he put on the new gloves and went around to study the woodpile. Maybe three days’ worth of wood. Over at the chopping block, someone had dragged a big, downed tree, already cut into pieces with a chainsaw, and there was a long-handled ax stuck in the bark. The note attached to the handle said, “Welcome home. Do you have a chainsaw? Maybe you should start working on your woodpile.”

  There was no signature. Was Quanah Parker Running Bear slinking around in the woods? It could be anyone, he supposed. News of his arrival seemed to have spread among the one hundred people who lived in Stanley, and like the old man had said at the store, they had all known his grandpa. He gingerly pulled the ax from the tree. The blade looked old and sharp. If he remembered correctly, the logs were cut into pieces off the length of the tree, then set up crosswise on the chopping block and split into several pieces lengthwise, the size to fit into the stove. He hauled a piece of the tree to the chopping block and got started.

  * * *

  There was a learning curve to this, he decided at lunchtime. He started a small campfire in a ring of rocks outside and settled a frying pan of chili down among the coals. He heated water in the new coffeepot and made himself a cup of tea, wondering if he should get the water checked or if it was okay to drink from the hand pump. To be safe, he would boil the drinking water at first. Just till he toughened up a bit.

  He pulled out his poetry notebook and took some time to record the images that were flooding his mind—the way the woods sounded, the smell of the air, the rocks with the river flowing over them. He made some notes about the old man at the store. He worked for an hour and felt better, grounded. This was something he knew how to do. He was good at it, writing poetry. Maybe his routine here would be to work until noon around the cabin, eat lunch and write, and then take a short nap. He cleaned the frying pan and carefully wiped off the blade of the ax, then settled down on the couch for an afternoon nap.

  It was quiet, and he let his mind drift back a couple of weeks to the man in the Top Hat. It had probably been a setup, some nasty, jealous little betrayal, but he couldn’t help thinking about the man.

  He’d been older, confident as he slid an arm around David’s shoulder and pulled him into his chest. “I’m Michael,” he’d said, his mouth warm against David’s ear. “You want to party?”

  David hadn’t been really sure what this meant, and he was afraid his lack of experience was obvious on his face. “Come on,” the man had said, his warm mouth working its way down David’s neck. “Drink up and let’s dance. I’ll show you everything you need to know. Okay? Trust me?”

  And David had nodded up into his face, let the man pull him by the hand out to the da
nce floor. He’d smelled musky, and David pressed his face into Michael’s damp neck—sweat and Brut. Hands wandered over his back, down to his waist, and Michael pulled him up close, held David’s body against him. “Hey, let’s cut out of here. You ready? Ready for someplace quiet?”

  David let Michael pull him by the hand from the dance floor, and they walked outside and climbed into the backseat of Michael’s car. Michael pulled him down, unzipped his own jeans, and pressed David’s face close between his legs. Whoa! What the heck? Things were going a little quicker than David had been expecting, but he wasn’t sure what to do. Was “You want to party?” secret gay code for I want a blowjob? It would be undeniably rude at this point to pull away like a squeamish girl, refuse, and run back inside. What to do?

  Michael had groaned, taken hold of David’s head with both hands, and pressed his cock up. The wet tip touched David’s cheek, and he’d turned his head, let Michael press into his mouth. It hadn’t taken him long to finish, and when they’d climbed out of the car, David hadn’t been surprised when Michael gave him a kiss and squeezed his ass, said it had been fun and to take care. David had walked home alone, a little queasy and sad, afraid he had drunk too much, wondering what he had done, what he had not done, and if that night was going to be the pattern for all the nights of his long life.

  Thinking about the man during his nap had been a mistake, and the rest of the afternoon, while David wrestled with the ax and the tree, gray memories of romantic and sexual failures dogged his mind. He didn’t seem to have the knack for easy intimacy. David suspected he just didn’t get it. The secret language of love and sex that people used was in some code he didn’t have the key for. Men wanted to sleep with him, but they didn’t want to fall in love with him. Didn’t want to talk to him, curl up in a shared blanket, whisper secrets into his willing ear. He didn’t know if he came off as too eager, too desperate, or too boring. He wasn’t good at love, and he wasn’t really good at sex, either. He could follow the leader, but he didn’t seem to have the knack for making original and memorable love.