Cold Dish wl-1

by Craig Johnson

  There were shadows too, but these were different from the ones I had seen before. These shadows moved in and out of the snow-covered trees with a different purpose, one that seemed more complicated than that of the ones before. Where the others had moved in a single line along with me, these seemed to enjoy the infinite patterns of the wind, the snow, the trees, and maybe other things that I could not see.

  I lay there with my loose hand ready to close the small aperture of the seat-cover hood like a small child afraid to look yet afraid to look away. It was hard to see because my eyelids were trying to freeze shut; my fingers no longer moved individually so I rubbed the butt of my hand across my eyes and blinked to clear my sight. The swirling was right in front of my face now, and it carried the rhythm of many. The patterns swooped in close to the ground and then snapped back quickly as if teasing the ground to follow. I reached my hand out to touch one of the strands, but it slipped through my fingers with the snowflakes. I reached out farther but, every time I got close, the white tendrils whirled away. I placed my arm under me, pushed myself up on one elbow, and looked through my tunnel of snow-coated cloth. They were small, cone-shaped bells that chimed lightly as they moved in tiny rows across well-rounded cloth, which draped from opulent forms. The bells continued to ring even when the wind-fringe swept them away.

  I pulled myself over to one side of the walking trench and sat there for a moment, listening to the voices, to the bells as they ascended into the treetops. These voices were in a higher register than the ones that had accompanied me on my way down, and they comforted and stimulated at the same time. I pulled the makeshift hood back and felt my head loll sideways onto my left shoulder. The long fringed fingers traced fire trails across the length of my shoulders, but when I turned they snapped into the retreating snow. I felt another set cross the small of my back, but when I straightened, they too continued up the trail. I pulled a leg under me, toppled into a crouch, and then stood. It was difficult to walk at first, but the rhythm of the tiny bells and the way the tassels and cloth stretched across languid muscles drew me forward.

  Voices were speaking into my exposed ear, whispering in tongues that I didn’t understand. I could never hear the beginnings or the ends of the sentences, only the smoldering playfulness that fueled them. The words simultaneously tickled and burned. Some were lugubrious and extended; others were short and sharp like surprised snatches of breath. I listened to the words and the melody and staggered upward, the hillside rising to meet my feet as they sank into the receptive snow. It was much deeper now, and the wind flattened the hanging cloth of the seat cover to the back of my legs and froze it there, pulling at the top of my head whenever a hind step lingered an instant too long.

  I didn’t pay any attention to the path any longer. I just followed the tinkling silver bells and the swirling deerskin as they continued in their circular pattern up the hill. Their mouths didn’t smile, but their eyes did. The same glittering obsidian as before, but with a great deal more promise, with promises of everything under arched eyebrows and thick lashes.

  The ground grew flatter for a while and then steepened in the opposite direction as my heels began striking the muffling snow before my toes. The momentum carried me forward, and I only slowed as the other voices joined in, the voices from before. They provided a strong bass counterpoint to the ascension of the bells and harmonized with the wavering beauty of the voices that had gone before me up the hill. Then, on the path ahead, I could see them standing in a group, looking down at something on the ground. They all smiled the close-mouthed smile and looked back to me. I trudged on and stood there among them, looking around and smiling, too. But there was something at the middle of the group, something that didn’t move, and I rested my chin on my chest to look at it. It was large and it looked heavy, but they seemed to prize it in some way, so I leaned down and brushed some of the snow away. When I finished brushing the majority of the snow off it, I stood back with the others and listened to a new song, one that sounded much closer, with words that I remembered. I could hear all of this song, the beginning, middle, and end. It was a very forceful melody, and it was coming from the thing in the path.

  We listened to it for a while, all of us smiling, and then they began breaking away. But before each one of them began their swirling and swooping and snapping, they motioned for me to take the thing in the trail as a gift. I stepped back as they offered it to me. Two of them each took one of my hands and placed them on the object before us. It sang louder as I touched it, and I reached around and pulled it from the ground, as the remaining snow sloughed off. It was heavy and cumbersome to carry, but it seemed ungracious not to take it. Its song became strained as I loaded it onto my back.

  The snow seemed to part as I moved forward in time with the bodies in the shadows to my left and right. There were small flashes in the darkness ahead, as if they were clearing a path for me, muted flashes of crimson and cobalt within the smothering white. My legs began to shake with the weight of the gift, but dropping it in the face of such hospitality would be unendurable, so I kept walking. Soon the flat gave way to a gentle downward slope, and the images tilted the world in my favor, allowing me longer strides and easier breathing through the cotton cloth that was now frozen to my face. I didn’t feel the cold anymore and noticed a jaunty quality accompanied my step as I matched it with the music of the small jingle bells and with the pace of the darting figures all around me.

  The best part of the song emanated from the gift I carried. It caught all the complex rhythms and melodies of the group and conveyed it in a singular fashion so that it was easier to understand. Its voice was right behind my head, and its strength reverberated through me and into the ground with each step. But, after a while, the song changed and became more maudlin and extended. I shook the weight on my back to get it to switch back to the melody from before, but that didn’t work. It was harder to get my stride back with the new song since the patterns were not even and my steps wouldn’t match. I was beginning to wonder what was so great about the gift they had given me when I passed the spot where I had taken the little nap on the way up.

  I was thinking about taking another one, but others had joined in with the song on my back, and the whole thing took on the feeling of a processional. I didn’t want to be the first to break step, so I just kept going. After a while, I became aware of a large shape up and off to my right. I remembered it as being something important, but I couldn’t remember why or what it was. There was a sharper drop off as I made my way around that shape, and I almost lost my footing as I skirted it. I had a vague recollection of it having hurt me in the past, but it seemed benign enough now. I stood at a flat spot and struggled to stay upright. I remembered that there was something waiting for me just a little ways ahead, so I started off once more, but the voices lingered in the shadows behind me. They had elected to stay in the forest, and I would have turned to look back at them, but it would have taken more energy than I had. I felt bad about not saying good-bye. The song on my back continued, although the quality of its tone had weakened. I had to get where I was going before the song on my back stopped. I wasn’t sure how I knew this, but I did.

  I started forward again and, as I came across an area where the snow was shallower, I remembered a promise that had been made to me. It was something important, too. It was a promise about leaving. All the important promises are about leaving or not leaving. I thought about turning around to see what it was that I was leaving, but if you did that enough, you didn’t leave, and then what were all the promises about? I kept walking. I could barely hear the song on my back now, so I shook it to try and get it going. It stopped. I shook it some more, trying to get it going again, but it still wouldn’t start. I thought about dropping it since it didn’t work anymore, but they might be watching from the trees.

  I guess they figured I needed some help, because the flashes were back, crimson and cobalt flares that lit up the snow in a rhythm of their own, but the spirits must have
been getting tired too, because the lights seemed to have lost their individuality and were blinking in a monotonous and irritating fashion. The music was gone, the bells and the drums and the voices had drifted off with the wind. I listened, but there was only an ugly squawking. I shook the song on my back, but it remained obstinate. I figured it was probably the cold, that some part of it must have frozen. I would have to see if I could fix it once I got to where I was going. I tried to remember where it was I was going, but all I could think of was that it was warmer there. I was about ready to set the song down and take a rest, but the shadows were there again. Some of them stepped out from the snow clouds to my right, and I was just starting to see the ones to my left when I noticed that, unlike the others, they were coming straight at me. The only thing I could figure was that they wanted the song back.

  Indian givers.

  I stopped and stood up straight. I was a lot bigger than they were, now that we were on level ground. They stopped as well, but their arms reached out to the song; I whirled around a half step to let them know that they couldn’t have it. I tried to speak, but it was as if my vocal chords were frozen, so I just roared and took a few quick breaths to get ready for the fight.

  The smallest one was directly ahead of me; it was the one that had backed off the least. I focused on that shadow and leaned in to smash it. It still didn’t move, but just stood there, hipshot and kind of crooked, like most of its weight was resting on one side with a hand on its hip. You had to be careful, because the little ones might be just as powerful as the big ones. It didn’t really matter how big they were, or how many of them there were though, I wasn’t giving up the song. The little one still didn’t move, and I was just getting ready to crush it when it spoke in a sharp and unpleasant yet strangely familiar voice. “Nice fuckin’ outfit.”

  Later, when I rolled my head over and found Henry looking at me through barely open eyes, as the EMT van slowly made its way through the drifts that had accumulated throughout the evening and on into the night, I asked him if he thought it had been wise to be singing all that time with the internal injuries he’d sustained.

  Groggily, all he said was, “What singing?”

  13

  “What do you mean, you released yourself on your own recognizance?”

  “I rang the bell a bunch of times, but nobody came around.” I was trying to look reputable, but it was difficult with the clothes I was wearing.

  “So you just left?” We stood there for a moment, looking at each other. “They’re on the phone, and they want to know where you are!”

  Ruby had a point, and in hindsight it did seem a little irresponsible. I straightened some of my papers and tried to look busy. “Well, tell them I’m here.”

  “You tell them. Explain to the doctor why it is he can’t find you anywhere in his hospital.”

  I stared down at the blinking red light; I had to get a different color. It was still early, and the sky was getting a little bruised yellow to the east. The tail end of the storm was tapering off to the Powder River country, but the skies still stayed mostly gray. They said it was over, but I felt like it might be stalking me. I remained there for a while, not allowing the pain in my fingers and ear to get the best of me. I could hear Lucian chuckling to himself in the hallway. Changing of the guard. I had timed it poorly; if I had arrived earlier, I could have gotten things going and hit the road before Ruby had shown up for duty.

  I woke up very early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I lay there and thought about Henry. I rang the little bell for the night nurse and waited about five minutes. Then I rang it again and again. A half an hour went by, and I decided to go look for the Bear myself. The IVs were the biggest pain in the ass, but they came out pretty easily, and the tape covered the holes so that the bleeding stopped. I had dismissed the idea of dragging them along with me, as they would cut down on this particular mission’s stealthy quality. The nurse had hidden my personal belongings, but I found them in a locker near her station, which was, I had learned, the safest place to avoid her. There was a little cardboard sign on the desk that said, IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, CONTINUE TO THE CLINIC OR RING BELL. I’m cagey that way, so I didn’t ring the bell or go to the clinic.

  There was a guy who might have been part Crow mopping the hallway when I came back to my room to change into my clothes. He had the sickly look that everybody adopts after working nights for a while; I had had that look before. “How you doin’?” He stared at my gown and the clothes I clutched to my chest but didn’t say anything. He leaned on his mop and stared at me some more. “You know where they stuck Henry Standing Bear?” He motioned the mop handle toward the room across from mine: 62. We stood there for a moment longer. “Thanks.”

  He continued mopping, and I ducked into my room to get dressed. My hands were swollen and starting to blister, and it was only with a great deal of difficulty that I snapped my shirt. The rubber boots were the hardest part so I finally left them unlaced. My hat hadn’t been with the rest, and I paused for a moment to think about when I had seen it last. I thought it was on the mountain, but I couldn’t be sure. I fingered the glob of tape attached to the side of my head and felt the tenderness that must have been my ear. It hurt worse than anything else, but at least they hadn’t cut it off.

  By the time I opened the door and looked around, the guy with the mop had moved on to another hallway or had gone to fetch the elusive nurse. I quickly moved across the hall and into the room opposite, hoping it was the right one. I stood there in the dark, letting my eyes adjust. It was a mirror image of mine, with the exception that it did not look out on the parking lot. The breathing was heavy, regular, and familiar. I moved carefully to the bed and looked down. He seemed to be all there and, short of pulling down the sheet and examining the wound myself, I would have to go on the assumption that he was doing all right. He had a couple of IVs stuck in him too, but there weren’t any monitors attached and that gave me hope. I looked around for a clipboard at the foot of his bed that would tell me how he was, but there wasn’t one. Durant Memorial Hospital was doing little to live up to the expectations I had developed as a teenager watching Ben Casey.

  I wasn’t sure what else to do, and I wasn’t certain why I was here, other than to just make sure he was alive and well. They lie a lot in hospitals; it’s their job, to supercede the power of the Almighty with half-truths. Better to check things out for yourself. I was about halfway to the door when he spoke. “Thank you for the visit.”

  I stopped and crept back. “I left the Whitman Sampler on the nightstand.”

  “Very thoughtful.”

  I took a breath. “How do you feel?”

  “Doped.”

  “Must be nice; all I got was some Tylenol.”

  He rolled his head toward me a little, looking at my clothes. “Where are you going?”

  “To look for George Esper.”

  “You want to kill him before somebody else does?”

  I continued to look at him. “You aren’t that doped up.”

  “I was just thinking of calling and asking for some more.”

  “Good luck.” I patted his arm and started to back toward the door. “Get some rest.”

  “Walt?” I stopped. “Thanks.”

  When I got into the hallway there was still nobody there, so I quickly made my way around the corner. To my utter surprise, a nurse sat at the nurse’s station. She was looking at me so I marched straight over to her, crossed my arms, leaned on the chest-high partition, and draped my hands by my side where she couldn’t see them. There was nothing I could do about the ear. “Hi. I was just checking on a patient here, Henry Standing Bear. You’ve got him in room 62.” She had sandy hair, china-blue eyes, and looked like she was about fourteen.

  “Yes?”

  “He was complaining about some pain, and I was wondering if somebody could get him more medication?”

  She seemed a little distracted as she picked up a phone. “Certainly.” She looked at me a litt
le more closely. “Aren’t you in room 61, Uncle Walter?”

  I glanced around as if it were obvious. “No, I’m not.” I looked at her more carefully. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Janine Reynolds. I’m Ruby’s granddaughter.”

  The eyes started to look more familiar, so I smiled. “How you doin’, Janine?”

  She didn’t smile back. “What are you doing out of room 61?”

  I thought for a moment. “Official business.”

  The brat, she had called her grandmother and told her everything, especially the part where I didn’t know her from Adam. Maybe they had given me more than Tylenol; at least that’s what I told Ruby. I sat at my desk and watched as Lucian ambled in on his man-made leg and occupied the chair opposite mine. He was studying me with more scrutiny than I was comfortable with. “What?”

  “I bet’cha they take that ear.”

  I sighed. “Just because they’re always taking parts off of you.. ”

  “ ’At’s what they do best, take parts off.”

  “I’m pretty fond of this ear.”

  He scratched his stump. “Yeah, well I was pretty damn fond of my leg.”

  I waited. “Anybody got any idea where George might’ve gone?”

  He leaned back in the chair, hands spread onto his thighs with the fingers stretched. “Got an APB out, but them HPs are about as useless as tits on a boar hog.”

  “How did he get out before Vic and Ferg got in?”

  He shrugged. “Must ’a left right after you left him, in that little Jap piece of crap.” His head leaned to one side, and he was the perfect picture of disgruntled as he gazed at the floor. “Little shit bird.” He looked back up. “Stop playing with your ear.” I had been. “Yer gonna do more damage playin’ with it than you did freezin’ it.”