Baltimore's Mansion

by Wayne Johnston

  “No one,” he said. “There’s no one here but you and me.”

  “What happened on the beach?” I said.

  “What do you mean? Whatever I said, I said it in my sleep.”

  “You weren’t asleep,” I said, but he said nothing.

  “I heard you and Harold once. At the Come Home Year party.”

  “I don’t know what you think you heard. Just two men who had too much to drink, that’s all. Go back to sleep now. No more questions.”

  I nodded off to the sound of him gulping from the glass. When I woke up in the morning he was still there in the chair, eyes closed, his head to one side and thrown back against the cushion, the glass, and the whisky and the ginger-ale bottles all scattered on the floor about his chair, all empty. He stayed that way until I woke him when we pulled into the station at St. John’s.

  One night, a few weeks later, presumably to wrench myself from a dream, though I remembered none of it, I threw myself right out of bed, out of the top bunk, and in the darkness struck my head on the bedpost of the other top bunk, cutting myself above the eye. I let out such a shriek that my parents heard me. They came running and, turning on the light, found me lying on the floor, blood streaming down one side of my face, my three terrified brothers sitting up with their backs against the wall as if I had attacked them in their sleep.

  MARCH 12, 1947

  They cut ice on Sundays for themselves and for the few people in town who can afford to hire help. There are some fridges in Ferryland, but most people, even most of those with money, still use what his father calls “real ice.” His father speaks with scorn of the fridges he has seen, with their little freezers that can barely hold ten pounds of food.

  They go far in behind the Gaze to where they know for certain that the ice is good, above the highest point of the old branch line and the runoff from the houses. They are known to cut a good crop of ice. His father estimates that the first fifty feet of the pond is frozen to the bottom. He says he bets there are trout trapped in the ice.

  He laughs. Although this is a possibility his father firmly believes in, no one he knows has ever found a trout on the floor of their ice house in the fall.

  This ice is opaque with frost, which has made its way from top to bottom through the airholes. This is the best sort of ice, compacted, compressed, dense white ice that even if it were not packed in sawdust would take months to melt. Ice drawn dripping from the water does not last half as long.

  With axes, they chop through the rim ice that overlaps the shore until the exposed wedge is two feet thick. Then they switch to the two-handled ice saw that his father made in the forge.

  He saws on his knees, from the shore, his father on the ice, half-kneeling, half-lying down, his hobnailed boots dug in. The saw is at an oblique angle, and ice dust flies up between them. It is awkward work but safer than sawing ice that might give way. There is no sound like that of ice being sawn, a rasping screech even higher pitched than the sound a hacksaw makes in metal.

  They saw two parallel lines four feet apart, then use their augers to hack the block free. They push the jagged block of ice up the rim, then saw it even on both ends. They work for hours, moving out from shore until water bubbles up around the blade.

  On its underside, the ice is encrusted with gravel and weeds where the floor of the pond has adhered to it. With the scrapers that they use to keep the runners free of snow, they scour the blocks like pelts until they gleam.

  They work until it’s getting dark, cutting more ice than the horses can pull, so they cover with boughs what they cannot take and will come back for it tomorrow. They light the lanterns and hang them on the rear uprights. He loves the journey back, ice piled block on block beneath a tarp and lashed onto the sled with ropes and chains. There is snow on the ground but none on the trees because it rained two days ago. He looks at the sky that, at twilight, changes colour every minute, looks at the bare black spruce along the shore, the two horses, the alternate bobbing of their heads and their behinds.

  On the flats the horses pull the heavy sled with ease. When they reach the upward slope, he and his father walk beside the sled, push it where the slope is icy or the snow gives way. On the downgrades, they stand on the back runners, leaning into the turns to keep from swerving. At an especially steep downgrade they jump off and, each still holding an upright, are dragged along as though on skis, both leaning back, digging the heels of their boots in when they can to keep the sled from gathering so much momentum that it overtakes the horses.

  They approach a stretch where the ground falls off sharply on the right. He and his father lean to their extreme left. Connie, because she is stronger, is on the sloped side of the path. Just for a moment, her right hoofs lose their purchase on the snow and the sled swerves wildly, almost in a semicircle. It has just begun to recoil, to right itself as they expect it to, when the traces snap loudly, both at once. His father shouts something.

  As he tumbles, he hears the ice blocks clattering against each other. The sound is all around him, under him, above him, as if he is borne up by some of the blocks and some of them by him. Something he thinks might be the auger slams him in the back and he wonders if the saw will hit him next, if it is in there with him among the ice blocks, whirling lethally around. For the first time he hits the ground, hip and shoulder first, the best way to land, he just has time to think, before what must be alders lash his face. His knees come up hard against something, a rock he thinks, until he feels it give slightly, just enough to keep his legs from breaking. One of the ice blocks, it must be.

  “Art!”

  The shout comes from far above him, so far that he can barely hear it.

  “Down here,” he says.

  “Are you all right?”

  He moves his legs, his arms, rises slowly to his feet.

  “I think so. Are you?”

  “I’m all right. Is Gail down there? I got Connie.”

  He looks around but in the darkness can see nothing, not even the lanterns on the sled. “Gail!” he shouts over and over. In between, he listens for her. Surely, even if she were badly hurt, she would make some sound.

  “She must be up there somewhere.”

  “All right. Come up.”

  He feels foolish. Here he is, gone flailing down a hill with a day’s worth of ice while his father has not only not gone over with him but has somehow managed to keep hold of one of the horses.

  Frantically he begins to climb the hill as if the sooner he meets his father at the top the less foolish he will seem to him. He feels what he would call a stitch or a cramp if it were in his side and not deep in his stomach. He climbs more slowly. The slope is steep, the snow a solid crust and for every three feet he climbs he slides back two. His father talks him up, saying “Here” every few seconds as if otherwise he would lose his way.

  “I know where you are,” he says, and after that his father says nothing.

  It takes him more than an hour to get to the top and frequently he stops to rest. He looks back. If Gail was down there, he would hear her. But even if she were, what could he do? It must have been a frozen bog that he brought up on. There was ice but also tufts of sod beneath his feet. What a sight if he could see it. The sled overturned, the blocks of ice spread out like silver coffins on the bog.

  A match flares up when he is almost at the top. “Can’t waste more than one,” his father says.

  He sees the state of things. His father is holding Connie by the bridle. A splintered wooden shaft hangs from her collar. Everything else, rope reins, traces, even her bridle bit, are gone. There is blood on her mouth from where the bit tore loose. He can tell by her ears and eyes that if her father lets her go she will bolt. They have only had her for a week, and she does not trust them not to lead her straight back into trouble. It took forever that morning just to hitch her to the sled.

  “No sign of Gail?” he says.

  His father shakes his head. “She must have gone over with you,” he says. />
  “Maybe she ran off.”

  “She wouldn’t run off.”

  “I should have looked around for her.”

  “You were right not to,” his father says. “Too dark.”

  “We should wait. She might be down there. Knocked out or something.”

  “We can’t afford to wait. She’ll come up if she can and find her own way home.”

  They will have to walk. If they still had Gail she might let them ride her. But Connie has never been ridden and will certainly bolt if they try to ride her now. They can’t take the chance, for they will not make it home without her. There is no path to speak of, and without the lanterns they cannot see the tracks they made that morning. She will have to lead them home, following what little of her scent is left after more than half a day.

  “We’ll have to walk all night,” he says, hoping his father will contradict him. His father says nothing. “It’s going to snow,” he says. He has known it for some time. He had calculated that it would start shortly before they got home, had been looking forward to the last leg of the trip, the two of them with their haul of ice standing on the back of their horse-drawn sled as it coasted downhill through the snow, a pair of lanterns glowing on the uprights. It’s not a storm that’s coming, just a fall of snow, but more than enough to mask the scent.

  “Take the other side,” his father says. “We’ll have to go nice and slow. She’ll be skittish for a while.”

  All he can see are the shapes of treetops, which are a faint shade darker than the sky. He is grateful that, somehow, in his fall, his hat stayed on. Something he is afraid to taste in case it might be blood runs down his face. Not blood, he decides. Too cold for blood. Not salty. If there was a moon, if the sky were not so overcast, if not for that faint breeze rising from the east portending snow —

  “Friggin’ stupid,” his father says. To be here like this, he means, in country they are unfamiliar with, not to have taken more food with them than they could eat for lunch, not to have brought two pairs of boots, not to have dressed more warmly, to be so sure of themselves that they set out knowing that a fall of snow was on its way.

  They have been walking for an hour and Connie is still fretful, still suspicious of them. His father walks with both hands on her bridle, but he can only manage one.

  He stoops and picks up some snow.

  “Don’t eat that,” his father says. He knows you’re not supposed to, not even if you hold it in your mouth and let it melt before you swallow it, not even if you hold it there so long that it gets warm. “The heat that makes it warm comes from you,” his father told him once. “Remember that. Lost heat that you might need.” He knows this. He throws the snow aside. It takes longer to die of thirst than it takes to freeze to death. A lot longer. How many times has he heard that? And yet, if not for his father, he would have eaten it.

  “We’ll build a fire if we have to,” his father says. If we can’t go on, he means — if we have no choice but to try to keep it lit at night while snow that might as well be rain comes down. There is no way they will stop to start a fire.

  After a while his arm is so tired that he cannot hold the bridle. He tells his father.

  “We’ll switch sides,” his father says. “I’ll switch first. Don’t let go. Hold on with both hands until I tell you.” His father ducks under Connie’s neck. “Okay,” he says.

  He lets go of the bridle and falls to his knees. “I’m not that tired,” he says, laughing, genuinely surprised, as if something other than exhaustion pulled him down. Connie tosses her head. His father says something soothing, rubs her neck with the palm of his hand. She knows now that they are relying on her. He has given it away. Or perhaps she has known it since the sled went down the slope, or since they set out without Gail.

  “Can you get up?” his father asks. He is so sure he can he doesn’t answer. But when he tries to, he winds up on all fours. Can it be that Connie is all that has been keeping him from falling? He tries again, rises slowly to his feet and feels his father’s hand grip his upper arm, pull him and turn him about. He takes the bridle, swears to himself he will not make things harder for Connie by hanging from it as he knows he must have been doing before he fell. Only a few hours have passed since they lost the sled. He should not be this tired.

  “I can’t see anything,” he says.

  “Even so, don’t close your eyes,” his father says.

  If he had the matches he would light one just to see something, some thing, some mundane thing, a bush, a rock, a clump of snow, a tree, some assurance that the world is as it always was and the night will pass.

  What if Connie has lost the way and, like them, is simply walking? Perhaps she thinks they are leading her.

  He knows the way home is not a straight line, but it seems to him that they are walking one. The boughs of spruce trees brush across his face, stinging his eyes. If he could, he would hold his free arm up to shield himself. The path, when they were coming in, was never so narrow that you had to duck beneath the branches. He wonders if they have strayed from it, kept going straight when they should have turned or turned when they should not have.

  He cannot stop thinking that if it snows, Connie will lose the scent. That is all she has to guide her, and there is no scent less reliable than one left on snow, for snow is always changing. Even if the wind came up, loose snow sheltered from the rain by trees might drift across the path. A few times he has heard it, a sifting sound along the forest floor.

  He tells himself he must not panic, that even if he only feels panic Connie will sense it and it will throw her off or she will bolt. Their task is simple. They must walk and go on walking, step after trusting step until she leads them home. There is nothing to wait for, nothing to decide. There is no suspense except about how fast the wind will rise and when the snow will start. She will do her part, so their survival is contingent on nothing but themselves.

  As if he has said so out loud his father tells him, “Say your prayers. Just to keep your mind from wandering, I mean.”

  He nearly laughs, not at the notion of praying but at his father, not wanting him to panic, not wanting him to think that things are hopeless, yet telling him to pray.

  He knows he ought to worry more about his father than himself. His father is in his mid-fifties. And yet he is breathing evenly and the few times that he speaks his voice is strong.

  Because his father will not leave him, both of their lives depend on him, the weaker of the two. This is always how it is. He has heard stories of two men dying because one was hurt and the other would not leave him or did so too late to save himself. They live in a place where a man could die if he spends the night outdoors. He has always known this, but it has never struck him as ridiculous before.

  He feels dizzy, thinks the world, if he could see it, would be spinning. The dizziness gives way to a kind of fatigue he has never known. He is surprised that this deep weariness has come on so suddenly. He always thought that if he were caught outdoors, he would get unbearably cold before he felt this way. But his body has gone straight to this beguiling enervation that tells him he must rest, that no harm and only good will come of it.

  He misses now the energy he used to keep pace with his father when they sawed the blocks of ice. He wishes he had climbed that slope more slowly. “I think I hurt myself,” he says, folding his free arm across his stomach. “When I fell, I must have hurt myself.”

  “I know,” his father says. “Don’t worry. It can’t be all that bad.”

  He has known it all along. He lit the match so he could look him over and saw something in his face he didn’t like. He has said nothing for fear of alarming him and making matters worse.

  He doesn’t know how long it’s been since they switched sides on the bridle when the pain in his right arm gets so bad he has to let the bridle go. He falls to his knees again and Connie’s flank butts him lightly as he hits the ground. She rears up, performs a clopping highstep, but no sound comes from her throat
. Perhaps she is past the point of bolting now. Perhaps she feels like him. He leans his head against her flank to rest, to warm himself, but a cold lather is encrusted there and as he pulls away she rears up on her hind legs.

  “I can’t let go of her,” his father says, and now his voice is not so strong. “Maybe I could use my belt and tie her to a tree.”

  Does he mean that if he lets go he too will fall? No. He means he cannot help him up. The wind is rising, still not blowing hard, but he can hear it in the trees. It does not sound too bad but it smells as if the snow is not far off.

  It occurs to him that if he does not stand this time he never will, not even with his father’s help. His arm is still upraised. He tried when he fell to let it drop, but when it came even with his shoulder something locked. He feels about for the bridle, puts his hand on Connie’s face and slides it down until his fingers close about the leather strap. Then he grabs the bridle with his other hand and with a wrench that leaves him breathless makes it to his feet.

  He is dying, but not from exposure. Somewhere inside he must be bleeding. That is why he is so thirsty. But how can he be dying if there is no pain, just this stitch that feels the same as it did when he first noticed it. He wonders if his father is so intent on keeping the horse calm that he cannot talk to him. He wants to talk. He wants to know how badly hurt his father thinks he is.

  “How far?” he says.

  “Not sure. Not too far.”

  “Too bad about Gail.”

  “Yes. She might turn up.”

  “All that ice.”

  “I put too much on the sled.”

  “No — I just meant all that work for nothing.”

  “Plenty more where that came from.”

  “I must have hurt myself.”

  “Try not to think about it. We’ll make it home all right.”

  Word will have spread that they have not come home. He remembers his mother putting a lantern in the back window of their house one night when she heard that three men who had gone out to cut some wood had not come home. All the windows that back onto the Gaze will be lit up by now.